Rhetoric

RESTORE THE REAL ART OF RHETORIC!

For an alternative pedagogy of liberation

By Stephen Wilson

 

            "It is so boring"! "You just have to write a text on an author without a single error in  an essay on a writer", "You just give them what they want, " and "You can't express a view on a writer which varies from your teacher." Such are the litany of complaints you might hear when you make inquiries about how students experience some lessons in Russian literature and Russian. The same complaints can also be heard in relation to learning English as a Foreign Language. You can be forgiven for believing that learning a language has been reduced to simply learning the rules of grammar alone and nothing else. A manager from the Russian publisher 'Manager ' even told me that their textbooks on grammar sell more than anything else. Perhaps customers are simply responding to the old demands of the Russian Educational System.But not only are students deprived of joy but so are many teachers who are dissatisfied with the existing educational programs in many schools and institutions of Further Education.  How might teachers make their jobs more bearable for themselves as well as students ? Why not try to restore the lost art of rhetoric in teaching languages ? It might make learning a language less stifling !

 

Of course, we might meet several objections. The English language itself is full of sayings and proverbs cynical about rhetoric. Again and again you hear people say 'It's just rhetoric', 'It is empty rhetoric' and 'Action is louder than words'. It is as if the reputation of rhetoric has hit rock bottom.It has been abused by so many politicians,lawyers and bloggers that it is almost seen as synonymous with deception, lying and manipulation. Just witness demagogues such as President Trump attempting to arouse the most negative emotions in people. And Sir Winston Churchill, one of the greatest masters of rhetoric used his speeches in an attempt to bolster the British Empire itself. Surely the last thing a teacher must do is to teach people how to lie, manipulate and abuse people ! The abuse of rhetoric is hardly unprecedented. Just read the dialogues of Plato and you hear of charlatans charging excessive fees for learning the art of rhetoric with over the top claims that you could get rich quick by mastering the art. Aristotle may have partly written his work on Rhetoric to precisely restore the art. He was implacable in arguing that the art of rhetoric must  have good intentions. He warned that lawyers must not try to 'bend the rod before using it as a measure.'

 

However, it is imperative to radically redefine the art of rhetoric in a clear and concise way.Firstly, although rhetoric is often just narrowly defined as 'the art of persuasion' it is in fact much, much more. It is the art of using words well.{ars bene Loquendi} as opposed to the art of speaking correctly{ars recte loquendi}. This subtle distinction is important. The medieval curriculum makes the distinction between speaking well and correctly in the sense the latter suggests observing the rules of grammar. This is because language can't be reduced to grammar and there exists a huge discrepancy between the written word that observes all the rules and colloquial speech. In Russia you often hear the joke "A person knows all the rules of English grammar but can't speak it ". A Swedish student Christina ,who did a course of Russian at the university told me "It was the homeless who taught me how to speak Russian. At the university they just taught me grammar. "  

 

What do we mean by speaking words well? We don't just mean how to persuade people or doing market research! Such an impoverished definition of rhetoric represents an insult to human intelligence. On the contrary the art of rhetoric encompasses many wide skills such as how to recite a poem well, tell a story well, write a poem, make a speech and how to perform in a play. That was the very definition of rhetoric which existed in Elizabethan England of the 16th century. It was how rhetoric was defined and taught in that period where as many as 160 grammar schools were founded. Rhetoric also taught students to argue from both sides of a question and to listen attentively to your opponent. But it was based on right and not reckless reason.Emotional intelligence was implicit in this art. One had to learn to master rather than lose control of your emotions. So losing an argument might actually be a blessing in disguise as it helps you become more enlightened. A person you argued with was not an 'enemy' but a partner. Peter Ackroyd, in his biography of Shakespeare states 'What we called creative writing ,the Elizabethans called rhetoric. In the school room, Shakespeare was obliged to learn the elementary laws and rules of this now arcane subject. He read a smattering of Cicero and Quintilian. He learned the importance of inventio, and dispositio, elocutio and memoria, pronunciatio or action and delivery; he remembered the principles for the rest of his life. ......He also learned how to avoid hyperbole and false rhetoric; in his plays he gave them to his comic characters.' The latter point is significant because demagogues can count as belonging to those comic characters. Pupils at those grammar schools were taught to pronounce everything audibly, leisurely,distinctly and naturally; sounding out especially the last syllable, that each word may be understood'. They were also encouraged to perform a play every month or even a comedy scene each week. This form of rhetoric is excellent training for potential actors not to mention budding authors. Some historians argue that it is no accident that the great playwrights such as William Shakespeare and Christopher Marlowe received their education from those schools. There might well be a connection between the teaching of rhetoric in the Grammar schools and the flowering of the English renaissance.

 

Rhetoric also includes the ability to tell a story. However, the research of many development psychologists found that a lot of school students, when they become older, become poorer storytellers. Many even don't enjoy telling stories any longer. Susan Engel in her work 'The Stories Children Tell, ' speculated that the  educational system encourages pupils to tell a story which is wholly logical, and observes all the rules of speech. Stories have to be more sequential, logical and accurate. Children become good at telling a true testimony but poorer storytellers. They stop becoming adventurous with words. They learn to play safe when writing stories of events.

 

Teaching of rhetoric can only flourish where school students enjoy full academic freedom.That is there should not be just one acceptable interpretation of  a work of literature. When a student Maria told me that she got a poorer mark because a Russian teacher strongly disagreed with her view of one character in the Master and Margarita because it was in conflict with her Russian teacher's religious views then this is just authoritarian and absurd.

 

There are some people who argue that we should abandon the teaching of the Classics in Russia because pupils are not mature enough to appreciate the lessons. For instance, some have never experienced the life problems of people in Dostoyevsky's ' Crime and Punishment' because they have never been poor. The teacher of English Oksana Chebotareva disagrees saying "I have met many children who are interested and want to understand those life problems. May be they don't have experience but they do have imagination so I think they can understand some of those problems".

 

How might rhetoric be taught in relation to some of the Classics ? Well you could look at the short tale 'Wool over Eyes' by Andrei Platonov .The story is about a soldier who after being discharged , can tell stories in such a way that people believe the stories are actually  happening before them. So the soldier, by using magic, persuades an inn-keeper he is a bear and a tsar that he is a fish. While one person is deeply offended by the stories ,another man is overjoyed to hear a story as 'it is food for thought and joy to the soul'. You could not only ask students to brainstorm the different goals  of stories but explore the dark side of rhetoric. For instance, the soldier tricks an inn-keeper out of his wares.

 

The teaching of rhetoric must be issue related. One way of making literature more relevant and realistic to students is to ask them to define what is meant by love and how some characters love or fail to love their partners so well. You could take the Story 'The Return' about a soldier who fought in the Great Patriotic War and returns to a family which is now alien. On his way home he has a light affair with a fellow female soldier also returning home. When he gets home he finds that his 12 year old son Petya is wise and practical beyond his years and has become the head of the family. He also discovers his wife has had an affair with a woman and becomes angry. Petya tells him he is wrong to get hysterical because another soldier called Uncle Khariton also had a wife who saw another man but reacted in a different way. Instead of leaving, Uncle Khariton invents a cock and bull story about him seeing 4 different women. "He jokes "But I deceived my Anyuta - I hadn't had anyone . No Glashka, no Nyushka, no Aproska, and no Magdalinka into the bargain.A soldier's the son of the fatherland, he's got no time to fool around,his heart is levelled against the enemy. I just made that all up to give Anyuta a scare ". So the soldier Ivanov has to decide whether he should leave his wife and children and go to another woman, or stay behind. Students should be asked what they think Ivanov should do . Should he be like Uncle Khariton or not ? Or should he expect his wife to be as pure as the woman waiting in Konstantin Simonov's poem 'Wait for me' ? Why do they think Platonov's story 'The Return' was banned by Stalin in contrast to Simonov's poem 'Wait for me '? A study of literature should be relevant to  the actual life problems which students have faced or might face. By the way, when I told this story by PLatonov to a student Olga Stefanova she told me "I met a boy just like Petya while I was staying at a student hostel in Moscow. Although the boy was only 17 he had taken over the role of the father and was very self-sufficient and caring. His father had been killed in the war between Armenia and Azerbaijan.Despite the fact his sister was only a year younger he acted as if he was her father."

 

So rhetoric as taught in literature has to be brave . It must be relevant and issue -related. An example of an alternative way of teaching rhetoric in literacy is the rhetoric of Paulo Freire. His works are rhetoric in the best sense of the word because he encourages real dialogue between the students and teachers. Both teachers and students learn from each other.They learn to wholly respect and listen attentively to each other!