CSSR / SCÉR - oURspaceourspace.uregina.ca/bitstream/handle/10294/664/Rhetor_Vol_1_2004.pdf · CSSR / SCÉR George Frideric Händel's Musical Treatment of Textual Rhetoric in His

CSSR / SCÉR

JOURNAL of the Canadian Society

for the Study of Rhetoric

REVUE de la Société canadienne

pour l'étude de la rhétorique

ISSN 1712-2333

Volume I (2004)

TABLE OF CONTENTS TABLE DES MATIÈRES

Introduction: Rhetoric as Liminal Practice TRACY WHALEN [ PDF ]

Introduction: de la rhétorique considérée comme une praxis de la liminalité TRACY WHALEN [ PDF ]

La Rhétorique visuelle du thème de l'écorchée dans les autoportraits de Frida Kahlo: outils de thérapie ou d'accusation? MARIE-FRANÇOISE DELANEUVILLE-SHIDELER [ PDF ]

http://uregina.ca/~rheaults/rhetor/2004/index.html (1 of 3) [11/4/2008 4:30:04 PM]

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George Frideric Händel's Musical Treatment of Textual Rhetoric in His Oratorio, Susanna MICHAEL PURVES-SMITH [ PDF ]

The Prologues of the Tragédies Lyriques (Operas) of Philippe Quineault: "A Very Agreeable Propaganda" SHANNON PURVES-SMITH [ PDF ]

Rhétorique de la rupture dans les textes de poilus SYLVAIN RHEAULT [ PDF ]

Entre parole et image: le discours politique français et ses ressources classiques MIRELA SAIM [ PDF ]

In Praise of Kenneth Burke: His "The Rhetoric of Hitler's 'Battle'" Revisited JOSEF SCHMIDT [ PDF ]

Presenting the Self in Everyday Life: The Personalized License Plate as Rhetorical Phenomenon ROBERT M. SEILER and TAMARA P. SEILER [ PDF ]

Augustine, Ethos and the Integrative Nature of Christian Rhetoric CHRISTINE MASON SUTHERLAND [ PDF ]


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"As we are both deceived": Strategies of Status Repair in 19thC Hudson's Bay Company Correspondence KATHLEEN VENEMA [ PDF ]

The Development of Transitional Writers: The Role of Identification Strategies in Workplace Writing Competence DIANA WEGNER [ PDF ]


RHETOR – Volume I (2004) <cssr-scer.ca/rhetor> 1

Introduction: Rhetoric as Liminal Practice TRACY WHALEN University of Winnipeg

In liminal spaces we find ourselves on a threshold (or limen), caught between practices,

cultures, frames for knowing the world, and modes of communication — between, for instance,

the divine and secular, university and workplace, private and public, linguistic and non-

linguistic. This is an interstitial place, the place of in-between. Anthropologist Victor Turner

theorized liminality (borrowing it from Van Gennep’s Rites of Passage) in his work on festival

and communitas, liminality referring to those marginal social spaces outside of everyday

constraint that liberate participants from routine activity.1 Liminality comes out of social rupture

or discontinuity (pilgrimages, carnivals, religious conversions, life transitions, holidays, etc.)

and, while not always neat and tidy, the event is transformative and generative.

Equally generative is the theoretical concept of liminality, itself. Writers from many

disciplines have found Turner’s concept useful for understanding cultural identity, or gender

subjectivity, or lived space. Postcolonial theorist Homi Bhabha, for instance, in his collection

Nation and Narration, argues that national consciousness must happen in the “in-between spaces

through which the meanings of cultural and political authority are negotiated” 2 and that meaning

is to be considered in transnational spaces. Sociologist Rob Shields studies liminal spaces, too,

1Victor Turner, ed., Celebration: Studies in Festivity and Ritual (Washington: Smithsonian Institution P,

1982). 2 Homi Bhabha, ed., Nation and Narration (New York: Routledge, 1994) 4.


in the phenomenon of the nineteenth-century seaside resort; with its meeting of land and water,

private and public status, etc., this physical and social liminal zone contested previous notions of

territory and ownership.3 Judith Butler, arguing for a transgressive understanding of gender and

sexual identifications, contends that “identity categories tend to be instruments of regulatory

regimes, whether as the normalizing categories of oppressive structures or as the rallying points

for a liberatory contestation of that very oppression.”4

The concept of liminal space is useful, too, for understanding rhetoric as practice,

generally, and for reading this collection, the inaugural issue of Rhetor, in particular. Liminality

entails a position on the margins: on the edges of society, the coast of a continent, the borders of

one’s body, the end of one stage of life and the beginning of another, etc. Rhetoric, especially in

popular discourse, finds itself quite casually and habitually marginalized. Randy Harris puts it

succinctly and well: “When someone calls an utterance rhetorical, they mean — to use a few of

Roget's choicest synonyms — it is rant or bombast or twaddle. They mean, ‘it stinks’.”5 A bit of

a free-floating ion on the margins of the disciplinary schoolyard, rhetoric finds itself attaching to

different partners — composition, speech communication, and literary studies, to name a few.

The discipline of rhetoric in Canada, as many of us know, finds itself betwixt and

between, lacking a strong, clearly defined tradition or place in the university. According to

Maurice Charland, in his recent article, “The Constitution of Rhetoric’s Tradition,”6 rhetoric in

Canada and the U.S. finds itself “within or between several traditions.” This interstitial status, he

3 Rob Shields, Places on the Margin: Alternative Geographies of Modernity (New York: Routledge,

1991). 4 Butler, Judith, “Imitation and Gender Insubordination,” Inside/out: Lesbian

Theories/Gay Theories, ed. Diana Fuss. (New York: Routledge, 1991) 13-31. 5 Randy Harris, “Rhetoric of Science Notes,” IF Homepage 25 March 1997, 30 August 2004

<http://www.ece.uwaterloo.ca/~jgwilden/if/winter97/mar25/notes.html>. 6Charland, Maurice.,"The Constitution of Rhetoric's Tradition," Philosophy and Rhetoric

36.2 (2003): 119-34. I would like to thank Tania Smith of the University of Calgary for bringing this article (and this quotation in particular) to my attention.


maintains, allows for autonomy and diversity in one’s field, even if it also means rhetoricians

work without a traditional net:

To figure oneself as a rhetorician is an act of self-ascription that in the first

instance enables refusal. One may refuse reigning orthodoxies, be they Platonic or

post-structuralist. One may figure oneself as within or between several traditions.

In other words, what rhetoric is is up for grabs. "Rhetoric" thus can serve as alibi

for eccentricities, for interdisciplinarity and the violation of disciplinary

boundaries, and for the development of alternate intellectual strategies and rogue

practices, even as it also permits a return to — and refiguring of — classical

sources and humanist thought. As Hariman has observed, rhetoric's marginal

standing and consequent lack of coherence is a potential source of strength

(1986).7

The interdisciplinarity Charland points to is evident in recent book and journal titles, where

rhetoricians contemplate the relationship of rhetoric with other disciplines. Rhetoric has always

engaged with philosophy and social theory, but recent collections are studying in greater detail

the implications of new and developing unions. At the Intersection: Cultural Studies and

Rhetorical Studies, edited by Thomas Rosteck, explores how rhetoric and cultural studies might

be brought together in a dialogue that makes sense. Books like Glenn Stillar’s Analyzing

Everyday Texts: Discourse, Rhetoric and Social Perspectives put discourse analysis, social

theories, and rhetoric in the parlour together — and the conversation is rich and full. Online,

one finds scholarly journals like Kairos, which locates itself at the intersection of rhetoric,

technology and pedagogy and explores such fields as “technorhetoric,” or computer-mediated

7 Charland, Maurice, "The Constitution of Rhetoric's Tradition," Philosophy and Rhetoric

36.2 (2003): p. 121.


writing. At annual conferences like that of the Canadian Society for the Study of Rhetoric, one

meets classical rhetoricians, contemporary rhetoricians, professional writers, historians, musical

scholars, discourse analysts, composition professors, cultural analysts, literary theorists — the

list goes on.

It is this kind of eclectic, dynamic community that creates the kinds of energies,

intersections, and moments of rhetorical interrogation one encounters in this journal. All of the

papers here engage — even if implicitly and subtly — with the concept of liminality. And they

do much more besides.

Liminality Performed: The Papers of the Collection

Christine Mason Sutherland’s paper, “Augustine, Ethos and the Integrative Nature of

Christian Rhetoric,” in keeping with this liminal theme, convincingly demonstrates how

Augustine of Hippo’s rhetoric mingles the secular and the theological. According to Sutherland,

Augustine’s rhetoric is integrative, bringing together classical rhetoric with a more theologically

inspired Hebraic tradition. Critical of the sophistic models of rhetoric, where power and glory

lay with the orator and exchange was agonistic and competitive, Augustine, in On Christian

Doctrine and Confessions, complicates the familiar power relationships between rhetor and

audience. In his thinking, glory goes to God, not to the speaker; the individual members of the

audience, inhabited by the Holy Spirit and the final arbiters of what is right and true in the

discourse, are to be taught — not persuaded — and shown care as sanctified human beings — not

coerced.

Diana Wegner, in “The Development of Transitional Writers: The Role of Identification

Strategies in Workplace Writing Competence,” focuses on another liminal space: that of student


writers moving from university writing to workplace writing — and the accompanying demands

of a different community of practice. The liminal space between school and workplace, Wegner

points out, brings many challenges: students may not be fully immersed in the practices of the

workplace and its ineffable expectations or they may find themselves caught between different

genres and drawing on inappropriate ones. Working within the field of rhetorical genre studies,

Wegner concludes that the identification strategies student writers use in their workplace writing

depend, in large part, on their enculturation in that community of practice. Her discussion not

only describes the challenges of this rhetorical liminal zone, but also suggests ways we might

think about our writing pedagogies to respond to these spaces of the in-between.

Sylvain Rheault’s paper, “Rhétorique de la rupture dans les texts de poilus,” exemplifies

the theme of rupture central to understandings of liminality as discontinuity in history. Rheault

looks at the rhetoric of a different kind of liminal space: war, a space of violent and bloody

transition, rupture, and suspension — an interruption of the relatively mundane running of

everyday life. In his essay, Rheault argues that the First World War was so bloody and intense

that it created a rupture in history and in the literature surrounding it. This rupture operates on

the soldier in two ways: he experiences comradeship and community with his fellow fighters, but

feels increasingly alienated from the larger collectivity. Both attitudes permeate the soldierly

writing of the time. One kind of writing entails the literature of non-battle, of contemplative

waiting; another type is the writing of the soldier, who, feeling betrayed by and disgusted with

the perceived bourgeois conspiracy that put him in the trenches, experiences alienation from the

rest of society. Then there’s the writing of the non-champion, the soldier who sees himself as a

victim in a dirty war that encourages soldiers to save themselves by being cowardly. This latter


literature, Rheault maintains, explores the seemingly unlikely identification that occurs between

enemies who become non-enemies and countrymen who feel divided from each other.

Shannon Purves-Smith beautifully illustrates the concept of liminality in her study of the

17th century French prologues of Philippe Quinault and Jean-Baptiste Lully in their tragédies

lyriques, operas approved and paid for by Louis XIV. The opening prologue, or exordium, of

these operas, Purves-Smith tells us, has been compared to the vestibule of a building, or (to use

Gérard Genette’s term) a seuil or “threshold,” the quintessential image and etymological root of

the word liminal. The prologue constitutes a liminal position in the organization of the opera,

certainly; but its themes and figures enacted liminality, too, in the mingling of the sacred and the

divine (i.e. God and King). For the 17th century audience, the prologue, with its musical themes,

and “quasi-liturgical repetition of words,” recalled the Catholic mass in its praise of the monarch

and served as a kind of celebration rite for the audience. (The mingling of the ecclesiastical and

ideological is a topic taken up in Schmidt’s essay too.) Purves-Smith argues that the operatic

prologue was not merely a place for light arias and entertainment, but that the allegories, the

hyperbole, the poetic maxims, the sumptuous feast for the eyes, the numerous epideictic figures,

etc. served as “forms of proof” of the wealth, glory, power, and deific status of the monarch.

Josef Schmidt, in his essay, “In Praise of Kenneth Burke: His ‘The Rhetoric of Hitler’s

‘Battle’ Revisited,’” reconsiders Burke’s well-known piece, arguing that contemporary readings

bear out Burke’s claim that Hitler corrupted religious patterns for militaristic purposes.

Schmidt’s paper locates itself in the liminal zone between past reception and contemporary

understandings of Burke’s analysis of Hitler, and shows how many of Burke’s insights not only

held true, but had larger implications than even Burke might have realised at the time of writing.

The paper extends Burke’s observations about Hitler’s bastardization of religious symbolism,


documenting, for instance, how the fascist leader mimicked religious congregation spaces in the

architecture designed for mass rallies (including a lichtdom, or pseudo-religious light dome, that

was made of military search lights). The article concludes with a cautionary note concerning the

corruption of religious discourses in current-day, particularly American, politics.

Recalling Sylvain Rheault’s discussion of rupture, Mirela Saim’s paper looks at another

social and political discontinuity, this one a shift in the political discourse in Restoration France

and its relation to the newly created chair of rhetoric at the University of Paris, Sorbonne. Saim

studies the Demosthenian representation in this discourse, focussing on a little known memorial

text of Abel-Francois Villemain, who delivered a series of famous lectures on rhetoric in the

1820s. Examining the contextual elements of Villemain’s text, Saim’s article proposes a re-

evaluation of some current rhetorical theories of the political public space in the context of the

French “apprenticeship of democracy.” The paper is part of a larger project of research in the

comparative history of rhetoric in the Nineteenth century that aims at a recovery of the inner

dynamic of rhetoric and eloquence in Modernity.

Robert Seiler and Tamara Seiler explore liminality in at least two ways in their

contribution to this issue, “Presenting the Self in Everyday Life: Personalized License Plates as

Rhetorical Phenomenon.” First, their cultural approach articulates the link between rhetoric and

popular culture (along with social semiotics and pragmatics). Second, their rhetorical artefact

constitutes a liminal space in and of itself: the personalised license plate, which, as the paper

points out, is a site of “negotiations of highly constrained and overlapping spaces, public and

private, civic and commercial.” The authors study a sample of vanity plates they collected during

one year’s observations in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Interested in understanding the ways

motorists construct their ethos, Seiler and Seiler acknowledge the polysemic nature of these


texts, many of these plates reinforcing hegemonic ideologies in a society of conspicuous

consumption, while at the same time possibly — within the limitations of its compact form —

subverting or playing with these ideologies.

Of all the papers considered here under the theme of liminal space, Kathleen Venema’s

paper is arguably the most explicitly about space, both physical and discursive. “‘As we are both

deceived’: Strategies of Status Repair in 19thC Hudson’s Bay Company Correspondence,” part

of a larger project about masculinity and imperialism, shows to what extent the delicately

negotiated rhetoric of letters (what Venema nicely calls “epistolary energy”) made manifest the

fragmented and geographically far-flung workplace of this hugely successful commercial

empire. The paper examines the rhetoric of two HBC Officers — James Hargrave and

Alexander Fisher — both of whom saw their status threatened when rebuked by the powerful

Governor-in-Chief, Sir George Simpson. These two officers had to negotiate, within the

constraining and enabling structures of the letter, a balance between self-regard and self-

abnegation. Their textual enactments of solidarity, respect, explanation, and status repair in the

face of threat would have consequences for their success or failure in the rhetorically maintained

hierarchies of the Hudson’s Bay Company.

Then, of course, there are the wonderful rhetorical readings that dwell in the spaces

between different modes of discourse, whether the approaches of visual rhetoric, the rhetoric of

object placement, or the rhetorical study of music. Marie-Francoise Delaneuville-Shideler, in

“La rhétorique visuelle du theme de l’écorchée dans les autoportraits de Frida Kahlo: outil de

thérapie ou d’accusation?” discusses several pragmatic aspects of the aesthetic theme

“l'ecorchee” in Frida Kahlo's self-portraits: persuasive, therapeutic, forensic, etc. Delaneuville-

Shideler’s piece demonstrates how Kahlo's aesthetic decisions cut across international


boundaries and communication media and engages in an intense visual dialogue that defends

women by means of ethical, emotional, and logical appeals according to persuasive tenets. The

self-portraits aim to present a visual and coherent argument against abuse. They constitute

together an eloquent aesthetic collection which doubles as an effective tool or organon of justice.

According to Delaneuville-Shideler, the audience is invited to be judge and jury on several other

cognitive levels besides enjoying art for the sake of it.

In his article, “George Frideric Händel’s Musical Treatment of Textual Rhetoric in His

Oratorio, Susanna,” Michael Purves-Smith offers a fascinating study in the rhetoric of music,

showing the various means through which Händel incorporated classical rhetorical elements into

his musical discourse. Pointing to the fact that both music and language operate in time and in

sound, Purves-Smith traces Händel’s expression of rhetorical figures in selections of rhythm,

tone, use of pedal, and vocal arrangement. For instance, one character’s dilemma between two

unsatisfactory choices is represented, musically, in “ambiguously resolved harmonies.” In

another example, falsity in character is communicated through “slippery chromaticism,”

“ambiguous harmonies,” and “halting broken music.” Musical metonomy, metaphor,

hypotyposis, and synechdoche — all find expression, the article shows us, in Händel’s word-by-

word musical interpretation. If present-day musicians consider such things as the rhetorical

connection between text and music, Purves-Smith argues, their musical performance of a piece

will be more sensitive and detailed — and more in keeping with the composer’s ways of thinking

about his piece.

Clearly, the theme of liminality is a useful way of thinking about these ten papers and

their interpretative energies. This introduction is a liminal zone, too, acting as threshold for,

opening to, and intermingling of all the textual interpretations and rhetorical applications in this


first issue of Rhetor. I invite you to enjoy these pieces and the vibrant spaces that resonate

between them.


REFERENCES

Bhabha, Homi K., ed. Nation and Narration. New York: Routledge, 1994.

Butler, Judith. “Imitation and Gender Insubordination.” Inside/out: Lesbian

Theories/Gay Theories. Ed. Diana Fuss. New York: Routledge, 1991. 13-31.

Charland, Maurice. "The Constitution of Rhetoric's Tradition." Philosophy and Rhetoric

36.2 (2003): 119-34.

Harris, Randy. “Rhetoric of Science Notes.” IF Homepage. 25 March 1997. 30 August

2004. <http://www.ece.uwaterloo.ca/~jgwilkin/if/winter97/mar25/notes.html>.

Rosteck, Thomas, ed. At the Intersection: Cultural Studies and Rhetorical Studies. New

York: Guilford P, 1999.

Shields, Rob. Places on the Margin: Alternative Geographies of Modernity. New York:

Routledge, 1991.

Stillar, Glenn F. Analyzing Everyday Texts: Discourse, Rhetoric, and Social

Perspectives. London: Sage, 1998.

Turner, Victor, ed. Celebration: Studies in Festivity and Ritual. Washington:

Smithsonian Institution P, 1982.

RHETOR – Volume I (2004) <www.cssr-scer.ca/rhetor> 1

Introduction: De la Rhétorique Considérée comme une Praxis de la Liminalité1 TRACY WHALEN Université de Winnipeg

Dans les espaces situés en marge, liminaires dirons-nous (c'est-à-dire en bordure), on se

trouve au seuil (limen, en latin) pour ainsi dire, écartelé entre différentes praxis ou différentes

cultures, entre divers cadres de référence ou modes de communication; on est pris par exemple

entre le sacré et le profane, l’université et l’atelier, le privé et le public, ce qui est linguistique et

ce qui ne l’est pas. C’est le lieu de l’entre-deux, de l’intervalle. L’anthropologue Victor Turner a

élaboré une théorie de la liminalité (empruntant ici à Rites of Passage de Van Gennep) dans son

ouvrage sur le festival et la comunitas; la liminalité faisait référence aux espaces sociaux

marginaux, au-delà (trans) des contraintes de la vie courante, où les acteurs sont affranchis (ils

ont trans-gressé, c'est-à-dire franchi le seuil) de la routine habituelle.2 La liminalité est le résultat

d’une rupture sociale ou d’une discontinuité: tels sont par exemple les pèlerinages, les carnavals,

les conversions religieuses, les changements importants dans la vie d’une personne, les fêtes, etc.

Certes, ces événements ne sont pas toujours perçus nettement comme tels, mais ce sont toujours

des moments de transformation, de re-naissance.

1Traduction de Armand Daigneault, Austin, Qc.

2Victor Turner, éd., Celebration: Studies in Festivity and Ritual (Washington: Smithsonian Institution P, 1982).


Le concept de liminalité est, en lui-même, producteur. Des auteurs de tous horizons ont

trouvé utile le concept de Turner pour la compréhension de l’identité culturelle, de la subjectivité

reliée au genre, ou de l’espace habité. Le théoricien postcolonial Homi Bhabha fait valoir, par

exemple dans Nation and Narration, que la conscience nationale doit apparaître dans "ces

espaces 'entre-deux' où se négocient les significations rattachées à l’autorité culturelle et à

l’autorité politique."3 Il ajoute que ces significations doivent être prises en compte dans les

espaces transnationaux. Le sociologue Rob Shields s’intéresse lui aussi aux espaces liminaires

dans son analyse du phénomène des stations balnéaires au XIXe siècle. C’est un lieu où se

rencontrent la terre et l’eau, le privé et le public, etc.; cet espace liminaire, social autant que

physique, remet en question les notions usuelles de territoire et de propriété.4 Judith Butler,

partisane d’une compréhension transgressive des notions de genre et d’identité sexuelle, soutient

que "les catégories reçues de l’identité ont tendance à devenir des instruments aux mains des

régimes de réglementation; ce sont soit des catégories érigeant en normes les structures

d’oppression, soit des points de ralliement de la contestation libératrice de cette oppression."5

Le concept d’espace liminaire est utile également à la compréhension de la rhétorique

comme praxis, en général, et à la lecture, en particulier, du numéro inaugural de Rhetor. La

liminalité renvoie à tout ce qui est dans la marge, ou sur les bords de la société de la société, les

côtes d’un continent, les limites de son propre corps, ou à la fin d’une étape dans la vie et du

commencement d’une autre. La rhétorique, en particulier dans le langage habituel, se trouve,

machinalement et habituellement, marginalisée. Randy Harris l’a observé de manière succincte

et appropriée: "Quand on dit d’un énoncé qu’il est rhétorique, on veut dire (et on n’a que

3Homi Bhabha, éd., Nation and Narration (New York: Routledge, 1994) 4. 4Rob Shields, Places on the Margin: Alternative Geographies of Modernity (New York: Routledge, 1991). 5Butler, Judith, “Imitation and Gender Insubordination,” Inside/out: Lesbian Theories/Gay Theories, éd.

Diana Fuss (New York: Routledge, 1991) 13-31.


l’embarras du choix des synonymes) que c’est une élucubration, de la grandiloquence, une

fadaise. Tous ces mots veulent dire en somme que ça ‘pue l’artifice.’"6 Comme un électron libre

qui roderait en marge des disciplines, la rhétorique peut accompagner bien des partenaires: la

musique, la communication orale, les genres littéraires, pour n’en nommer que quelques-uns.

Au Canada, la rhétorique, et nous sommes nombreux à le savoir, se trouve dans une

position inconfortable: l’université ne lui reconnaît pas une place clairement définie, elle n’y a

pas de tradition. Selon un article récent de Maurice Charland, "The Constitution of Rhetoric’s

Tradition,"7 la rhétorique au Canada et aux États-Unis se situe "entre plusieurs traditions ou au

milieu d’elles." Un tel statut interstitiel, estime Charland, signifie plus d’autonomie et de

souplesse, même si cela signifie que les rhétoriciens doivent travailler sans le filet de sécurité de

la tradition.

Se prendre pour un rhétoricien est un acte d’auto-attribution qui permet, en

première instance, le refus. On peut refuser les orthodoxies à la mode, fussent-

elles de Platon ou du post-structuralisme. On peut évoluer soit au sein d’une

tradition soit entre quelques-unes. En d’autres termes, la rhétorique est ce qu’on

veut bien en faire. Elle peut servir de caution à bien des excentricités, elle peut

justifier l’interdisciplinarité ou la transgression des frontières d’une discipline;

elle peut favoriser le développement de stratégies intellectuelles de rechange ou

de praxis délinquantes, en même temps qu’elle peut permettre le retour aux

sources de la tradition classique et de la pensée humaniste, au besoin pour les

6 Randy Harris, “Rhetoric of Science Notes,” IF Homepage 25 March 1997, 30 August 2004 <http://www.

ece.uwaterloo.ca/~jgwilden/if/winter97/mar25/notes.html>. 7Charland, Maurice. "The Constitution of Rhetoric's Tradition," Philosophy and Rhetoric 36.2 (2003): 119-

34. Je désire remercier Tania Smith de l’Université de Calgary d’avoir porté à mon attention connaître cet article (et notamment ce passage).


reformuler. Hariman l’a souligné, le fait que la rhétorique soit en marge et qu’elle

manque ainsi de cohérence, peut constituer un atout (1986).8

L’interdisciplinarité que souligne Charland apparaît dans les titres des livres et des

articles de revue les plus récents dans lesquels les rhétoriciens s’intéressent aux relations existant

entre la rhétorique et les autres disciplines. Certes, la rhétorique a toujours eu à débattre avec la

philosophie et la sociologie, mais des ouvrages récents étudient de plus près les implications

d’unions nouvelles ou déjà embryonnaires. At the Intersection: Cultural Studies and Rhetorical

Studies, sous la direction de Thomas Rosteck, explore comment la rhétorique et les études sur la

culture peuvent entamer un dialogue profitable. Des livres comme celui de Glenn Stillar,

Analyzing Everyday Texts: Discourse, Rhetoric and Social Perspectives, provoquent de riches

échanges entre l’analyse du discours, les théories sociologiques et la rhétorique. Sur l’Internet,

on peut consulter des revues savantes comme Kairos qui, au carrefour de la rhétorique, de la

technologie et de la pédagogie, explore des champs de recherche comme la "technorhétorique,”

c'est-à-dire l’écriture assistée par ordinateur. Lors de conférences annuelles comme celle de la

Société canadienne pour l’étude de la rhétorique, on peut rencontrer des rhétoriciens d’obédience

classique, des rhétoriciens résolument modernes, des écrivains de métier, des historiens, des

musicologues, des analystes du discours, des professeurs de composition musicale, des analystes

culturels, des théoriciens littéraires. La liste est sans fin.

Cette communauté eclectique et dynamique est la source des énergies, carrefours et

méditations rhétoriques qu’on rencontre dans la revue. Tous les articles du présent numéro

abordent, fût-ce de façon implicite et discrète, le concept de liminalité. Mais, ils débordent

volontiers cette question.

8Charland 121.


Pleins feux sur la liminalité: les articles du présent numéro

L’article de Christine Mason Sutherland, intitulé “Augustine, Ethos and the Integrative

Nature of Christian Rhetoric,” est dans le droit fil de la liminalité: il nous montre comment la

rhétorique de l’évêque d’Hippone mêle le profane à la théologie. Selon Sutherland, la rhétorique

d’Augustin est intégrative, en ce sens qu’elle fait se rencontrer la rhétorique classique et une

tradition hébraïque d’inspiration plus théologique. Toujours critique à l’égard des modèles

rhétoriques hérités de la sophistique (le pouvoir et la gloire sont les récompenses de l’orateur, et

l’échange oratoire est une compétition et une agonie, c'est-à-dire un combat, qui se gagne de

haute lutte), Augustin, dans De la doctrine chrétienne et les Confessions, embrouille la relation

traditionnelle de pouvoir entre le rhéteur et son auditoire. Selon lui, c’est à Dieu que revient la

gloire, non à l’orateur; quant aux membres de l’auditoire, ils sont habités par le Saint-Esprit et ils

sont les ultimes arbitres de ce qui est vrai et juste dans le discours. Il ne faut chercher ni à les

persuader ni à les forcer à croire, mais à leur enseigner la vérité et à leur témoigner de la

sollicitude puisqu’ils sont des êtres humains sanctifiés par la grâce.

Dans "The Development of Transitional Writers: The Role of Identification Strategies in

Workplace Writing Competence,” Diana Wegner se penche sur un autre espace liminaire, celui

des étudiants universitaires qui, passant des exigences de l’écriture universitaire à celle de leur

milieu de travail, trouvent une praxis dont les exigences sont bien différentes de ce qu’ils ont

appris à l’université. L’espace qui sépare l’école du milieu de travail, fait remarquer Wegner, est

le lieu de bien des défis: il se peut que les étudiants ne soient pas totalement au fait des praxis de

leur milieu de travail et de ses attentes souvent tacites; il se peut aussi que, coincés entre

différents genres, ils fassent de mauvais choix. Évoluant elle-même dans les différents genres de


rhétoriques, Wegner conclut que les stratégies d’identification que les étudiants utilisent dans

leur pratique en milieu de travail dépendent, dans une large mesure, de leur acculturation à ce

milieu. L’auteure ne se contente pas seulement d’aborder les défis que présente cet espace

rhétorique liminaire, elle suggère également des pratiques pédagogiques susceptibles d’aider les

étudiants à franchir ces espaces situés dans l’"entre-deux."

Pour sa part, Sylvain Rheault dans "Rhétorique de la rupture dans les textes des poilus,”

apporte une illustration au thème de la rupture, élément central dans la définition de la liminalité

en tant que discontinuité dans le cours de l’histoire. Rheault s’intéresse à la rhétorique d’un

espace liminaire différent: celui de la guerre avec ses transitions violentes et sanglantes, ses

rupture et ses trèves, autrement dit une interruption de la quotidienneté relativement banale de la

vie. Selon lui, la Grande Guerre a été à ce point sanglante et violente qu’elle a marqué une

rupture dans le tissu de l’histoire et dans la littérature de son temps. Le poilu a fait l’expérience

de cette rupture de deux manières: en vivant l’esprit de camaraderie et de solidarité avec ses

frères d’armes, et en éprouvant chaque jour davantage combien il devenait étranger à la société

qui l’avait envoyé au front. Ces deux attitudes transpirent dans les écrits mêmes des soldats de

cette époque. Un type d’écrits implique l’attente contemplative, c’est la littérature de l’absence

de combat; un autre est fourni par les lettres de soldats qui, dégoûtés et se sentant trahis par ce

qu’ils considéraient être une conspiration bourgeoise responsable de leur vie misérable au fond

des tranchées, éprouvent un sentiment d’aliénation à l’égard du reste de la société. Un troisième

type d’écrits est celui du soldat qui, bien loin de se sentir un champion, se voit plutôt comme une

victime d’une sale guerre qui l’incite à sauver sa peau par la lâcheté. Ce dernier type d’écrits,

selon Rheault, aborde aux frontières d’une improbable identification: le soldat et l’ennemi d’en

face ne sont plus des ennemis, mais des concitoyens qu’un absurde no man’s land divise.


C’est de manière exquise que Shannon Purves-Smith nous parle de liminalité dans son

étude portant sur les prologues composés, au XVIIe siècle, par Philippe Quinault et Jean-Baptiste

Lully dans leurs tragédies lyriques, qui sont des opéras approuvés et payés par Louis XIV. Les

prologues de ces opéras, qui sont autant d’ouvertures ou d’exordes, ont été comparés, nous dit

Purves-Smith, au vestibule à l’entrée d’un édifice ou, pour utiliser le mot de Gérard Genette, au

" seuil" d’entrée (limen), ce qui est bien l’étymon et l’image au cœur du mot liminaire. Le

prologue occupe donc une position liminaire; il était certes le seuil qui donnait accès à

l’organisation de l’opéra, mais ses thèmes et ses figures constituaient aussi une liminalité en ce

qu’ils mêlaient le sacré et le profane (Dieu et le roi). Pour un auditoire du XVIIe siècle, les

thèmes musicaux du prologue et la "répétition quasi-liturgique des mots" rappelaient la messe

catholique: on y louait la grandeur du monarque et l’auditoire croyait participer à une sorte de

rituel religieux. (Notons en passant que cette idée d’un mélange du religieux et de l’idéologique

se trouve aussi dans l’essai de Schmidt). Purves-Smith soutient que le prologue d’opéra n’était

pas seulement l’occasion de faire entendre des arias légers ou procurer un divertissement; les

allégories, l’hyperbole, les stances poétiques, les images fastueuses et les nombreuses références

dont il est chargé sont autant de figures épidictiques, "pour ainsi dire des preuves" de la richesse,

de la gloire, de la puissance et du statut divin du roi.

Dans son essai, "In Praise of Kenneth Burke: His ‘The Rhetoric of Hitler’s ‘Battle’

Revisited,’” Josef Schmidt revisite la pièce bien connue de Burke. Il fait valoir que la lecture

qu’on en a aujourd’hui confirme la prétention de Burke selon laquelle Hitler a corrompu les

modèles d’origine religieuse à des fins militaires. Le texte de Schmidt se situe dans la zone

liminaire entre la perception qu’on réservait dans le passé à l’analyse d’Hitler par Burke et la

compréhension qu’on a aujourd’hui. Il souligne que non seulement les intuitions de Burke se


sont avérées fondées, mais qu’elles avaient des implications plus fortes encore que ce que Burke

lui-même pouvait imaginer en son temps. Schmidt pousse plus loin les remarques de Burke au

sujet de l’abâtardissement que faisait Hitler des symboles religieux: le dictateur fasciste

reproduisait, par exemple, l’organisation des espaces d’assemblées religieuses dans l’architecture

mise en place pour recevoir les grands rassemblements (qu’on pense, par exemple, aux lichtdom,

ou arcades de lumières d’une facture pseudo-religieuse, obtenus grâce aux projecteurs de

l’armée). L’article se termine sur un avertissement: le détournement du discours religieux est

monnaie courante de nos jours en politique, particulièrement aux États-Unis.

Rappelant les propos de Rheault sur le concept de rupture, Mirela Saim s’intéresse à une

autre discontinuité sociale et politique: le changement de direction dans le discours politique en

France sous la Restauration. Ce changement est mis en relation avec la création de la toute

nouvelle chaire de rhétorique à la Sorbonne. L’auteur scrute la figure de l’orateur à la

Démosthène de ce discours, se concentrant en particulier sur un texte commémoratif peu connu

d’Abel-François Villemain dont les conférences portant sur la rhétorique étaient courues dans les

années 1820. Examinant de plus près les éléments contextuels du texte de Villemain, Saim

propose une réévaluation de quelques théories courantes relatives à l’espace politique public

d’une France en train de faire "l’apprentissage de la démocratie.” Le texte de Saim fait partie

d’un projet plus ambitieux: une recherche en histoire de la rhétorique comparée au XIXe siècle

visant au redressement de la dynamique interne de la rhétorique et de l’éloquence dans le monde

moderne.

Dans "Presenting the Self in Everyday Life: Personalized License Plates as Rhetorical

Phenomenon,” la contribution de Robert et Tamara Seiler se veut une exploration du concept de

liminalité selon au moins deux perspectives. La première est celle d’une approche culturelle qui


tente de définir le lien entre la rhétorique et la culture populaire (qu’accompagnent une

sémiotique et une pragmatique); la deuxième veut que l’artefact, qui sert de support à la

rhétorique, constitue en soi un espace liminaire: la plaque d’immatriculation personnalisée est,

selon cet article, le lieu de "négociations dans un espace hautement contraignant et enchevêtré:

espace public et privé, civique et commercial." Les auteurs décrivent un échantillon de plaques

personnalisées qu’ils ont observées durant un an à Calgary (Alberta), au Canada. Cherchant à

comprendre les moyens utilisés par les conducteurs pour construire leur ethos, les deux auteurs

reconnaissent que ces courts textes sont polysémiques: nombreuses sont les plaques qui

reprennent les idéologies hégémoniques d’une société ouvertement consommatrice, mais qui,

peut-être, en même temps — dans des limites physiques imposées — cherchent à les renverser

ou à s’en moquer.

De tous les articles de ce numéro consacré à l’espace liminaire, celui de Kathleen

Venema est sans contredit celui qui traite le plus explicitement de l’espace, tant physique que

discursif. Le contenu de "'As we are both deceived’: Strategies of Status Repair in 19thC

Hudson’s Bay Company Correspondence" fait partie d’un projet plus vaste portant sur la

masculinité et l’impérialisme. Il montre jusqu’à quel point la rhétorique finement marchandée,

dans cette correspondance (ce que Venema appelle avec à-propos une "énergie épistolaire")

correspond à la géographie étendue et fragmentée de l’espace de travail occupé par cet empire

commercial des plus profitables. On y examine la rhétorique utilisée par deux agents de la HBC,

James Hargrave et Alexander Fisher, dont le statut se voit menacé après avoir été réprimandés

par le tout-puissant gouverneur général de la Compagnie, Sir George Simpson. Dans les limites

et les libertés propres au genre épistolaire, les deux agents ont dû négocier et jeter dans la

balance leurs intérêts égoïstes et un certain renoncement. Leurs protestations de solidarité et de


respect, leurs explications et leur souci de voir leur statut retrouvé, tout cela, face à la menace qui

pesait sur eux, tirait à conséquence et allait décider de leur succès ou de leur échec, au sein d’une

hiérarchie, en usage dans la Compagnie, fortement soutenue par la rhétorique.

Il y a, par ailleurs, les belles lectures qu’on peut faire, sous l’angle de la rhétorique, de

ces espaces qui s’insèrent entre les différents modes du discours, que ce soit la rhétorique

visuelle ou celle de la mise en scène des objets; la musique elle-même peut être étudiée sous cet

angle. Marie-Francoise Delaneuville-Shideler, dans "La rhétorique visuelle du thème de

l’écorchée dans les autoportraits de Frida Kahlo: outil de thérapie ou d’accusation?" aborde les

différents aspects pragmatiques de l’esthétique du thème de l’écorchée, autoportraits faits pour

convaincre, pour soigner l’âme, pour servir de pièces à conviction, etc. Delaneuville-Shideler

montre comment les choix esthétiques de Kahlo débordent tant les frontières que les moyens

d’information pour s’investir dans un intense dialogue fait d’images et porté à la défense des

femmes; les appels de Kahlo, s’appuyant sur des principes convaincants, sont de l’ordre de

l’éthique, de l’émotion et de la logique. Les autoportraits se veulent autant d’arguments, visuels

et cohérents, contre la violence. Ils forment un ensemble d’une éloquente esthétique en même

temps qu’on organon efficace, c'est-à-dire outil de connaissance utile à la justice. Selon

l’auteure, en appréciant la toile au-delà du plaisir éprouvé pour ce qu'elle est, on devient juge et

juré sur d’autres plans, nombreux, de la connaissance.

Finalement, nous avons l’article de Michael Purves-Smith, "George Frideric Händel’s

Musical Treatment of Textual Rhetoric in His Oratorio, Susanna." L’auteur y fait une étude

fascinante de la rhétorique en musique: il souligne les différents moyens auxquels a recours

Händel pour intégrer des éléments de la rhétorique antique dans son discours musical. Faisant

valoir que la musique et la parole se réalisent dans le temps et dans les sons, Purves-Smith


montre comment Händel construit des figures de rhétorique grâce aux rythmes, aux tons, à

l’usage de la pédale et aux arrangements vocaux. Par exemple, on représentera le dilemme d’un

personnage déchiré entre deux options dont aucune ne saurait le satisfaire, au moyen

"d’harmoniques arrangées ambigument"; la fausseté d’un autre s’exprimera par un "chromatisme

fuyant,” des "harmonies ambiguës" et des "arrêts brisés dans la trame musicale.” En musique, la

métonymie, la métaphore, l’hypotypose et la synecdoque ont leur place, nous montre l’auteur

dans l’interprétation musicale de Händel. Si les musiciens contemporains reconnaissaient qu’il

existe une chose tel qu’un lien rhétorique entre la musique et le texte, prétend l’auteur, leur

interprétation d’une pièce y gagnerait en sensibilité et en finesse, communiant mieux, du coup,

avec l’esprit qui animait le compositeur à l’instant où il créait son morceau.

Pour conclure, reconnaissons que le thème de la liminalité permet de mieux embrasser

ces dix textes ainsi que leur potentiel d’interprétation. Mon introduction même est un espace

liminaire: elle est le seuil de cette revue, elle l’ouvre et fait voir, entremêlées, des interprétations

textuelles et des applications de la rhétorique, qui font la richesse de ce premier numéro de

Rhetor. Elles sont séparées, elles aussi, par des espaces remplis de vibrations et de résonances

que je vous invite à parcourir.

RÉFÉRENCES

Bhabha, Homi K., éd. Nation and Narration. New York: Routledge, 1994.

Butler, Judith. “Imitation and Gender Insubordination.” Inside/out: Lesbian Theories/Gay

Theories. Éd. Diana Fuss. New York: Routledge, 1991. 13-31.


Charland, Maurice. "The Constitution of Rhetoric's Tradition." Philosophy and Rhetoric 36.2

(2003): 119-34.

Harris, Randy. “Rhetoric of Science Notes.” IF Homepage. 25 March 1997. 30 August 2004.

<http://www.ece.uwaterloo.ca/~jgwilkin/if/winter97/mar25/notes.html>.

Rosteck, Thomas, éd. At the Intersection: Cultural Studies and Rhetorical Studies. New York:

Guilford P, 1999.

Shields, Rob. Places on the Margin: Alternative Geographies of Modernity. New York:

Routledge, 1991.

Stillar, Glenn F. Analyzing Everyday Texts: Discourse, Rhetoric, and Social Perspectives.

London: Sage, 1998.

Turner, Victor, éd. Celebration: Studies in Festivity and Ritual. Washington: Smithsonian

Institution P, 1982.


La Rhétorique visuelle du thème de l’écorchée dans les autoportraits de Frida Kahlo: outil de thérapie ou d’accusation? MARIE-FRANÇOISE DELANEUVILLE-SHIDELER Carleton University

L’article s’interroge sur les nombreuses fonctions du thème de l’écorchée dans les

autoportraits de Frida Kahlo.1 Un pareil thème lui sert-il de thérapie ou d’accusation? Est-ce

qu’il lui donne aussi par sa qualité d’organon esthétique, c’est-à-dire d’outil de persuasion

visuelle, à la fois les moyens de se consoler et de plaider avec éloquence la cause des femmes

victimisées? Peut-on alors définir les autoportraits de Kahlo comme une chaîne d’arguments

visuels, une sorte de sorite représentatif, dont le sujet privilégié serait l’artiste écorchée, et dont

la pragmatique ultime poserait, en un tel champ clos, Kahlo en championne des femmes

maltraitées? Je vais tenter de répondre à ces questions en examinant l’armement rhétorico-

plastique de cette brave artiste qui n’a jamais cessé de se battre pour faire mieux vivre les autres

en dépit de nombreux revers de fortune.

Il m’est impossible, bien entendu, de présenter ci-bas le tableau complet de la situation ou

même d’éviter que mon discours ait un effet un peu collage. Ce mal, s’il existe, serait d’ailleurs

fort à propos puisque le terme français “collage,” inventé par les peintres surréalistes au nombre

desquels on compte Dali, Ernst, Magritte et Tanguy (quatre artistes qui ont influencé Kahlo, au

1On peut visualiser la plupart des autoportraits mentionnés dans l’article soit dans les ouvrages de Carlos

Fuentes ou dans ceux de Sarah M. Lowe que je cite dans la bibliographie.


dire d’Hayden Herrera2) s’applique autant aux compositions littéraires et musicales que

plastiques et possède, entre autres, la fonction assez désopilante et paradoxale, j’en conviens, de

dérouter le public, afin de mieux l’intéresser aux sujets de certaines toiles. Je prie donc les

lecteurs d’accepter comme simple cause de mon propre collage rhétorique, le fait d’avoir peut-

être trop réfléchi à la théorie des associations d’idées3 afin de susciter chez les critiques littéraires

plus d’intérêt sur la rhétorique visuelle de Kahlo. Et comme je suis bien plus artiste visuelle que

rhétoricienne, je profite également de l’occasion pour excuser dès maintenant mon inabilité

persuasive en me servant, en guise d’apomnemonysis (et donc pour défendre à l’avance

l’inorganisation éventuelle de mes arguments) de la même captatio benevolentiae utilisée par

Kahlo lorsque, désolée de ne pouvoir mieux décrire Diego Rivera, elle expliquait ainsi son

manque d’éloquence: “je vous préviens que je vais peindre ce portrait . . . avec des couleurs qui

ne me sont pas familières . . . avec des mots.”4

Ceci dit, et malgré sa condition d’état de recherche, j’estime quand même que l’article

s’inscrit déjà dans le domaine de la critique esthétique sociale puisqu’à la base de cette étude on

trouvera aussi les travaux de Gombrich et de Chadwick.5 En effet, ces auteurs étudient depuis

des années, les relations qu'entretiennent, dans leurs modes dominants de production, de

nombreuses femmes artistes (de Käthe Kollwitz en Allemagne à Nancy Spero aux États-Unis)

avec tous les problèmes de représentation (y compris celui de la mise sur toile de thèmes ayant

2 Point repris par Rupert García, Frida Kahlo, a Bibliography (Berkeley: U of California, Chicano Studies

Library Publications Unit, 1983) 8. 3Incidemment et pour justifier une fois de plus cette décision discursive, je rappelle aux lecteurs que

George Campbell a traité des associations d’idées dans le contexte de nombreuses disciplines, y compris la rhétorique (voir à ce sujet, Lloyd F. Bitzer, ed., The Philosophy of Rhetoric by George Campbell, 1776 (Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP, 1963) 50.

4“I warn you that I will paint this portrait . . . with colors that I am not familiar with: words,” cité en anglais par Martha Zamora, The Letters of Frida Kahlo – Cartas apasionadas (San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 1995) 142.

5Ernest H. Gombrich, Art and Illusion: A Study in the Psychology of Pictorial Representation (Princeton: Bollingen Series, 1962); Whitney Chadwick, Women, Art, and Society 1990 (London: Thames and Hudson, 1994).


rapport aux violences encore endurées par nombre de femmes un peu partout au monde) qui

concernent les genres, les classes, les races ou la sexualité.6 Donc, je ne comblerai finalement

que quelques autres trous, peut-être plus rhétoriques qu’esthétiques, pour expliquer aussi

comment Kahlo a fait face à d’assez semblables décisions dans son oeuvre.

Afin de mener à bien ce projet, j’appuyerai mon propos sur plusieurs concepts

rhétoriques prônés par Aristote et Quintilien, ainsi que sur d’autres théories critiques avancées

par Perelman-Tyteca, White, Barthes, Goodman, Varga, Gandelman, et Halsall. Je citerai

également quelques exemples de toiles qui illustrent que la pragmatique de l’oeuvre de l’artiste

est autant thérapeutique qu’accusatrice. Ensuite, j’analyserai The Broken Column (1944) en

fonction donc du thème de l’écorchée. Quand besoin sera, je toucherai sur l’un ou l’autre des

divers aspects du système représentatif de Kahlo parce qu’à mon avis, son système suit des

règles persuasives bien classiques lorsqu’il ajoute au répertoire international du traitement visuel

de la douleur humaine par son unique lexicon, ses compositions iconiques qui sont bien

appropriées à l’époque sociale, aux traditions locales (aztèques et mexicaines), et à la tradition

catholique.

Nous apprécierons ainsi comment et pourquoi les décisions esthétiques de Kahlo

l’engagent avec son public dans un dialogue soutenu qui transcende le temps et l’espace puisque,

près d’un demi-siècle après sa mort (le 13 juillet 1954), les plus grands musées du monde

exposent encore ses toiles alors que le Grand Écran lui rend enfin hommage.7 En bref, il

deviendra évident que par la rhétorique visuelle de ses oeuvres, Kahlo continue de nous lancer à

tous et à toutes des appels éthiques, pathiques et logiques dans le but de nous inciter, non pas

6Chadwick 13. 7Le film Frida est finalement sorti en novembre 2002.


seulement à réagir avec horreur contre les maux qu’elle détaille si graphiquement, mais avant

tout à agir pour enrayer ces sortes d’atrocités.

Revenons donc maintenant aux questions de thérapie et d’accusation. Du point de vue

thérapeutique, les autoportraits aident Kahlo à faire le point dans sa vie. Par exemple, la

dépiction de la douleur physique s’accompagne souvent sur la toile de commentaires écrits qui

attestent ainsi la souffrance émotionnelle de l’artiste. Dans Self-Portrait with Cropped Hair

(1940), produit esthétique de son divorce d'avec Diego Rivera, Kahlo non seulement se mutile la

chevelure en touches réalistes mais elle circonscrit aussi l'état dépressif dans lequel elle se trouve

par une épigraphe, peinte sur la toile même "Mira que si te quise, fué por el pelo — Ahora que

estás pelona, ya no te quiero" qui met particulièrement l'accent sur la relation cause-effet existant

entre la perte de ses cheveux, l'absence d'amour, et la douleur causée par l’abandon de son mari.

Par cet aveu visuel Kahlo essaie d’accepter son sort afin de mieux lutter contre la dépression en

projetant ses idées noires sur la toile. Elle transforme ainsi de façon presque oxymorique, c’est-à-

dire par des couleurs si vibrantes qu’elles hurlent silencieusement sa peine, son mal d’âme en

une vérité utile à la société.

En dehors de sa fonction syllogistique visuelle touchant au statut de son identité, cette

toile lui sert aussi à accuser d’insensibilité non seulement son mari mais également tous les

hommes qui agissent mal envers les femmes. La peinture de Kahlo lui permet donc d’exprimer

efficacement à la fois son désarroi: "[i]n painting I found a means to personal expression,"8 et

celui qu’éprouve toute femme dans une situation similaire. Par contre, dans A Few Small Nips

(1935) qui a été inspiré par le meurtre brutal d'une épouse par son mari enivré, Kahlo se fait plus

accusatrice dans son épigraphe. Elle élargit la définition iconique en y incluant la solitude et le

8Lettre à Carlos Chávez datée de 1939, citée par Zamora 199.


désespoir des femmes rossées, et même torturées physiquement, émotionnellement ou

intellectuellement par des hommes.

Kahlo affectionne donc les topiques visuelles qui parallélisent les topiques de la

rhétorique classique, telles la définition, et la cause et les effets. L’artiste ne s’arrête pas là. Et

parce qu’elle se définit comme seule, elle se transforme alors, en une sorte d’exemplum

représentatif, c’est-à-dire en un récit paradigmatique visuel, dont elle devient le sujet principal de

représentation: "I paint myself because I am alone. I am the subject I know best."9 Elle sait que

pour convaincre visuellement, elle doit faire partager ce qu’elle ressent — principe de la

rhétorique classique qu’avait d’ailleurs prôné Quintilien: "aucune substance ne peut

communiquer à une autre une couleur qu'elle n'a pas elle-même."10

Kahlo avance déjà sur la toile les théories plus modernes de Chaïm Perelman et de Lucie

Olbrechts-Tyteca, à savoir que “[l']a présence agit d'une manière directe sur notre sensibilité,”11

et celle d’Hayden White concernant la transformation de la connaissance d’un moment

historique en "narration"12 imbue de moralité. Par exemple, les deux toiles mentionnées plus haut

sont en effet deux anecdotes historiques moralisantes puisque l'une concerne les effets néfastes

du divorce de Kahlo, et l'autre se rapporte à un fait divers paru dans un journal lu par l’artiste.

Citons également, comme preuves visuelles supplémentaires, Retablo: The Accident (1925) qui

témoigne de l'accident qui paralysa l’artiste; Henry Ford Hospital (1932) qui commémore la

perte du bébé de Kahlo; ainsi que l’allégorie intitulée Self-Portrait (1940) qui, en représentant

9Cité par Carlos Fuentes et Sarah M. Lowe dans The Diary of Frida Kahlo − An Intimate Self-Portrait

(New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1995) 14. 10M.F. Quintilien, Institution oratoire, trad. Henri Bornecque (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1975-1980)

6.2.27-28. 11Chaïm Perelman et Lucie Olbrechts-Tyteca, Traité de l'argumentation: la nouvelle rhétorique, 1970

(Bruxelles: Éditions de l'Université de Bruxelles, 1976) 156. 12Hayden White, "The Value of Narrativity in the Representation of Reality," On Narrative. Ed. W. J. T.

Mitchell (Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1981) 2.


l’artiste en déesse aztèque, fait ainsi allusion à son identité mexicaine. De surcroît, les quatre

dernières toiles constituent des anti-modèles visuels puisqu'elles servent avant tout à dénoncer de

véritables actes malintentionnés envers les femmes.

Toutefois, il existe également des toiles qui représentent des modèles visuels futuristes

d'élimination de la souffrance féminine. Ainsi, dans The Love Embrace of the Universe, the

Earth (Mexico), Diego, Me, and Senor Xolotl (1949), le bonheur qui y est dépicté est personnel

pour Kahlo puisqu'elle se peint en mère de Diego transformé en bébé, nombril de son univers à

elle. Par contre, le bonheur dépicté dans Marxism Will Heal the Sick (1954) est surtout une

proposition politique de soulagement de la souffrance internationale. Une telle toile prend alors

un caractère pédagogique transculturel, voire idéologique. Cette hypothèse s'explique également

par ce que Roland Barthes appelle "les connotations de l'image."13 C'est-à-dire, les qualités de

force et de sens d'un objet ou d'un personnage photographié ou peint qui permettraient ainsi à des

représentations visuelles de circonscrire une moralité, à la fois historique et transculturelle, par

l’usage d’une analogie visuelle.

Rappelons en passant qu’à ce propos, et longtemps avant Barthes, Goodman avait

d’ailleurs déclaré: "rien n'est intrinsèquement une représentation; avoir statut de représentation

est relatif à un système symbolique;"14 et encore "[l']expression imagée aussi bien que la

représentation imagée se fait au moyen de symboles empruntés à un schéma dense."15 Pour

Goodman, les images sont dénotées plutôt qu'elles ne dénotent dans les systèmes en question et,

selon lui aussi, les images peuvent exemplifier des couleurs, des formes, des sonorités, des

13Roland Barthes, L'obvie et l'obtus, Essais Critiques III (Paris: Seuil, 1982) 15. 14Nelson Goodman, Langages de l’art – Une approche de la théorie des symboles (1968), trad. Jacques

Morizot (Nimes: Éditions Chambon, 1990) 270. 15Goodman 276.


sentiments."16 Dans les auto-portraits de Kahlo, les couleurs et les formes contribuent à montrer

que les images ont un sens, non seulement pour l'artiste, mais pour n’importe quel public. Il

existe même une liste élaborée par l'artiste de toutes les couleurs qu'elle utilise et des

significations qu'elle leur donne, selon Sarah M. Lowe.17 Nous possédons donc déjà la clef de

son code visuel, ce qui nous permet de mieux comprendre sa pragmatique iconographique, un

point incidemment, que Wittkower juge absolument nécessaire à l'évaluation de n’importe quel

message visuel lancé par un(e) artiste.18

Il est également possible de se reporter aux recherches biographiques qui concernent les

dessins automatiques de Kahlo pour combler les autres lacunes de sa rhétorique visuelle, et en

particulier à celles de Fuentes et de Lowe.19 Par exemple, celui intitulé par la main de l'artiste:

"Yo soy la DESINTEGRACION," la représente en train de tomber, physiquement et

émotionnellement, en morceaux. Kahlo écrit "desintegración" en lettres majuscules sur le dessin

pour mieux souligner le degré du nouveau mal qui la redéfinit, une fois de plus. Le dessin illustre

ainsi un schéma particulièrement "dense," pour reprendre le terme de Goodman, puisqu'il atteste

un état d'âme réellement douloureux. Un autre exemple est le Sketch for Remembrance of an

"Open Wound" (1938). Ces deux autoportraits illustrent l’usage de topiques visuelles qui

rappellent les topiques de la division et de la cause et des effets de la rhétorique classique. Leur

pragmatique ultime est d’envoyer au public un message pathique, presque oxymorique, qui

fonctionne à la fois comme un appel silencieux à l’aide et comme un cri accusateur.

16Goodman 278. 17Sarah M. Lowe, Frida Kahlo (New York: Universe Publishing, 1991) 27. 18Rudolph Wittkower, Allegory and the Migration of Symbols (1977; rpt. New York: Thames and Hudson,

1987) 174-186. 19Fuentes et Lowe 40.


Par de telles stratégies esthétiques, chaque autoportrait nous invite ainsi à considérer que

le système symbolique utilisé par Kahlo sert aussi à la représentation de souffrances similaires

partagées par d'autres femmes. En conséquence, les autoportraits de Kahlo ont également la

capacité de "re-représenter," c'est-à-dire de faire sentir au public des expériences à la fois passées

et très individuelles. Ce concept de "re-présentation" de l'image est ce que Barthes appelle une

sorte de "résurrection" — définition à laquelle il ajoute que "l'intelligible est réputé antipathique

au vécu."20 En rendant donc intelligible, c'est-à-dire "visible," sa propre souffrance, ainsi que

celle des autres femmes, Kahlo se sert effectivement du genre représentatif des autoportraits

comme d'un outil dénonciateur de longue durée, ou à effet soutenu.21

Chez Kahlo, l’usage de cet outil esthético-rhétorique peut se traduire par une répétition de

motifs désagréables à l'oeil, comme par exemple, le sang, les cicatrices, les mèches de cheveux

jonchant le sol, etc. En d'autres termes, certains autoportraits sont en effet des découpages

antipathiques au vécu de l'artiste ainsi qu'au regard du public. Leur pragmatique ultime est de

poser la problématique de la souffrance féminine et de soulever chez le public, sinon

l'indignation, du moins sa commisération envers le statut des femmes. Car par définition, si une

écorchée n’est pas un sujet plaisant à contempler, il est, par contre, très efficace lorsqu’on veut

soit choquer ou tirer un public de sa léthargie et l’aider à retrouver sa conscience.

Nous sommes donc, non seulement dans le domaine de l'art engagé mais également dans

celui de la passion qui, selon Aristote, produit très bien la persuasion.22 Parmi les autres moyens

20Barthes 25. 21Selon Albert W. Halsall, l’organon sert à exposer les éléments d’une méthode tout en continuant à

l’employer, "Visual Rhetoric: The Case of Arcimboldo," Rhetoric zwischenden Wissenschaften, Geschichte, System, Praxis als Probleme des Historischen Wöterbuchs der Rhetorik (Tübingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag, 1991) 188.

22Aristote, La Rhétorique, trad. Médéric Dufour (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1960) I-1356a-14; 77.


rhétoriques à la fois visuels et émotionnels employés par Kahlo dans ses autoportraits, les

découpages antipathiques, ou encore les "poses" pour utiliser, une fois de plus, la terminologie

de Barthes,23 sont des plus persuasifs. Rappelons maintenant qu'Aaron Kibédi Varga a aussi

proposé une hypothèse s'appliquant particulièrement aux capacités argumentatives et narratives

de l'iconographie. Parlant des portraits en général, Varga explique qu'ils peuvent tout aussi bien

avoir une fonction épidictique (c'est-à-dire de louange ou de blâme), qu'une fonction délibérative

concernant une persuasion contraignante et menaçante, ou encore même, une fonction judiciaire.

Cette dernière fonction transforme le peintre, selon Varga, en une sorte d'historien qui invite le

spectateur à porter jugement sur ce qu'il voit.24

On peut également appliquer la théorie de Varga à plusieurs toiles de Kahlo. Par

exemple, My Grandparents, My Parents, and I (Family Tree) (1936) et Roots (1943) remplissent

les fonctions rhétoriques de témoins délibérant sur l'identité de Kahlo vis-à-vis de sa terre natale

et de sa famille. Par contre, il existe d'autres autoportraits dont la raison d’être est avant tout de

servir d’images ou de miroirs accusateurs, tel The Two Fridas (1939) — reproche visuel du

manque d'amour de Diego Rivera envers Kahlo. Citons encore en preuve, The Broken Column

(1944), représentation anatomique de la souffrance endurée par l'artiste à la suite de son accident,

et qui se lit iconographiquement comme un débat, une remontrance, voire un sermon, et même

une accusation. Rappelons aussi cette autre accusation visuelle, plus mythique parce que présente

sous forme d'anthropomorphisme, de The Wounded Deer (The Little Deer) (1946)

23Barthes 20-25, 46, 51. Ajoutons ici que Barthes a exemplifié ce concept par plusieurs photogrammes de

S. M. Eisenstein qui représentent symboliquement, et historiquement, la souffrance des femmes du peuple russe en y opposant, par exemple, un simple chignon de femme à son poing levé.

24Aaron Kibédi Varga, "La rhétorique et l'image" dans La rhétorique du texte (Toronto: Trinity College, 1989) no. 8/9 - 140-141.


qui remet en question l’importance de la mimèse25 et de son message.26

Et finalement, insistons sur le fait que Kahlo se sert du mythe pour aussi établir, sur deux

toiles, un lien narratif entre la représentation de la souffrance féminine et la relation binaire

identité-altérité; à savoir: Tree of Hope (1946), et The Wounded Deer (The Little Deer) (1946).

Là, le mythe est relié, d’une part, à la culture mexicaine, par l'emploi de symboles aztèques et

mexicains, tels le soleil et le cerf qui sont des allusions rhétoriques visuelles au sacrifice, et

d'autre part, à la tradition figurative européenne de l'écorchée qui remonte à plusieurs siècles, et

dont nous allons maintenant parler plus à fond en nous appuyant sur ce que Claude Gandelman

appelle le "revival" de l'écorché.27

Gandelman a proposé quatre fonctions rhétoriques au thème de l'écorché(e) en peinture

qui sont toutes pertinentes à mon étude. Il s'agit, en premier lieu, de la fonction de la provocation

du public, et en deuxième lieu, de la fonction de la représentation visuelle de la dualité de

l'artiste.28 En troisième lieu, peindre équivaudrait aussi à "montrer une peau," car chez Kafka,

que Gandelman cite d’ailleurs en exemple, "créer, c'est se déchirer soi-même."29 Gandelman a

même étendu ce concept de "peau" à l'ensemble d'une oeuvre, allant jusqu’à proposer que La

Chapelle Sixtine serait, en quelque sorte, la peau de Michel Ange.30 En quatrième lieu,

Gandelman a associé le voyage dans l'espace que nous faisons par le dessin ou par la peinture à

une sorte de "voyage intérieur,"31comme le gnoteseaton de Platon ou le "connais-toi toi-même"

25Erwin Panofsky, Studies in Iconology (Oxford: Oxford UP, 1939) 4-15. 26Albert Cook souligne que le message d’une peinture est souvent enraciné dans la mimèse, Dimensions of

the Sign in Art (London: UP of New England, 1989) 16. 27Claude Gandelman, Le regard dans le texte, Image et écriture du quattrocento au XXe siècle (Paris:

Méridiens-Klincksieck, 1986). Voir spécialement le Ch. II: "Le geste du Montreur;" Ch. III: "L'art comme Mortificatio Carnis: le thème de l'écorché vif, de Vésale à Kafka."

28Gandelman 56 et 59. 29Gandelman 70. 30Gandelman 75. 31Gandelman 93.


socratique qui est en fait une méthode dialectique par laquelle les "peaux successives" de la hylé

sont enlevées "comme par auto-écorchement."32

Il est indéniable que Kahlo se représente déchirée et cicatrisée, que ce soit par des points

de suture dans Tree of Hope (1946) ou par des ronces dans Self-Portrait (1940). Nous pourrions

ajouter que dans The Broken Column (1944), elle s'auto-dissecte même. Quant au "voyage

intérieur," il suffit de citer "Yo soy la Desintegración," comme exemple à l’appui.33 En

conséquence, l'oeuvre de Kahlo illustre de façon pertinente les théories de Gandelman

concernant les fonctions rhétoriques de la représentation de l'écorché(e). Toutefois, en ce qui

concerne les fonctions de la "monstration," j’ajouterai que dans les autoportraits de Kahlo, cette

"monstration" remplit surtout celles d’une stratégie visuelle de dénonciation et d’un appel à

l'indignation du public, car selon Gandelman, le geste du montreur a également une fonction

rhétorique emphatique de par sa relation à la tradition chrétienne du martyr: "[d]ans la mort du

martyr, du ‘montreur,’ c'est l'acte même du montrage qui est hypostasié. Le martyr veut être un

simple ‘index’ qui pointe vers le vrai dieu."34

Nous avons vu comment Kahlo se confère le statut d’exemplum. Je propose maintenant

qu’elle s’octroie aussi le statut de montreuse, presque de martyre. Dans sa totalité, l'autoportrait

devient alors pour elle une sorte d’index dénonciateur qui invite le public à constater la

souffrance de la femme martyrisée tout en l’incitant à émettre un jugement de valeur sur ce qui

lui est montré. Notons toutefois que Kahlo semble avoir renoncé dans Without Hope (1945) à

32Gandelman 61. 33Selon Carlos Fuentes et Sarah M. Lowe, Kahlo aurait aussi été influencée par Posada, Magritte et Bosch.

Ces auteurs sont également d'avis que la douleur de Kafka peut être comparée à celle de Kahlo: "Kafka sees himself as animal hanging over an abyss, his hind legs still stuck to his father's traditions, his forelegs finding no firm ground. Kahlo tortured, hung, mutilated, and up in bits and pieces, eternally metamorphosed by both sickness and art …. For them both, the K of Prague and the K of Mexico, Nietzche … wrote, ‘Whoever has built a new heaven has found the strength for it in his own hell’” (24).

34Gandelman 37.


l'idée de faire de Dieu, et même de la science, des symboles de la solution aux souffrances des

femmes. En fait, l’artiste semblerait surtout insister que les femmes ne peuvent finalement

compter que sur elles-mêmes.

Après cette vue d’ensemble, et avant de conclure, analysons maintenant The Broken

Column (1944). Sur cette toile Kahlo se transforme bien en index accusateur. Elle y prend même

une pose douloureuse. Elle y incarne la souffrance au nom de toutes les femmes. On pourrait

presque dire qu’elle s’y écorche vive, en couleurs si brillantes, qu’elles ne peuvent que crier la

vérité. Selon Diego Rivera (passim), aucune femme n'aurait d’ailleurs mis sur la toile autant de

poésie agonisante. La composition du portrait, ou encore sa disposition rhétorique visuelle

dénonce, grâce à la topique iconographique de la cause et des effets, l'accident qui a rendu

l'artiste infirme ainsi que les souffrances que Kahlo a endurées pendant les opérations

subséquentes. En bref, Kahlo assume sur la toile la pose esthétique ou posture de la montreuse;

tout son corps devient alors évidence.

L'appel aux émotions est visuellement circonscrit par la répétition de larmes sur le visage

de la martyre. L'appel éthique se manisfeste par la posture toute droite de Kahlo. Elle est

partiellement nue, ce qui indique qu'elle est prête à ne rien cacher de sa souffrance physique. Elle

révèle toutes les cicatrices, c’est-à-dire les réels effets de l'accident. Cette posture rend son cas

crédible. L'appel à la logique est centré sur le corset qui soutient la colonne vertébrale, brisée en

six morceaux, de même que sur les clous qui aident à la maintenir en place. Je souligne que les

clous ont, de plus, une fonction métonymique à emphase religieuse qui vise à toucher un public

mondial, puisqu'en faisant allusion au Christ cloué sur la croix, ils insistent non seulement sur

l'innocence de la dite victime et sur son état de martyre, mais aussi sur l'universalité d'un tel

sacrifice.


Dans cet autoportrait, Kahlo devient alors syllogistiquement un symbole international de

la souffrance féminine: tout comme le Christ, elle a été persécutée. Quoique la représentation

visuelle de clous confère à l'image de Kahlo le pouvoir d'un ex-voto mexicain, sa fonction

pragmatique est mythologique au niveau national. Ceci permet alors de revenir au particulier et

d'identifier Kahlo comme martyre mexicaine.

L’efficacité persuasive du thème de l’écorchée dans cette toile-là réside premièrement

dans son inventio: Ainsi, Kahlo travaille au niveau des métaboles puisque la représentation

visuelle de clous lui permet de faire allusion à plusieurs points. Elle réside deuxièmement dans sa

dispositio: Kahlo emploie ainsi des topiques iconographiques (définition, division, cause et

effets, analogie) pour logiquement nous présenter son point de vue que les femmes souffrent

beaucoup. Troisièmement, elle réside dans son elocutio: les tons primaires (jaune, bleu et rouge)

sont des plus efficaces pour contraster la beauté d'une femme et la laideur des opérations subies,

et ultimement, la vie et la mort, et attirer ainsi notre attention sur le fait que c’est un crime de

détruire la beauté. Il ne fait aucun doute que la memoria est également bien servie dans cette

oeuvre puisqu’une fois vue, il nous est bien difficile de l’oublier.

Il m’a semblé que le moment était venu de réévaluer, du moins rhétoriquement, l'oeuvre

de Kahlo, car je suis d’accord avec Rupert García que Frida a continué jusqu’à sa mort de

peindre, d’aimer, et de se battre pour sa survie, pour les droits de la femme, et pour une société

plus juste.35 Je suis aussi d’avis qu’il existerait peut-être dans l’oeuvre de Kahlo une autre

intention méritant d’être éventuellement abordée. Il s’agirait d’un transfert de problématique

dans l'intégration de la production historique féminine au sein des développements théoriques.

Une pareille étude dépasserait sans doute les espérances de Chadwick en faisant alors du

35García 16.


discours visuel de la post-colonialité déjà présent dans l’oeuvre de Kahlo, un autre lieu de

communication efficace entre les sexes; et ne serait-ce que pour cette seule raison, je suggère

maintenant la poursuite d’une telle étude du point de vue rhétorique. Il me reste à répondre

affirmativement aux questions initialement posées. Le thème de l’écorchée fonctionne sur

plusieurs niveaux dans ce sorite visuel que sont les auto-portraits de Kahlo: il sert ainsi d’outil à

la fois thérapeutique et accusateur. Mais il immortalise également Kahlo en championne des

femmes victimisées.


OUVRAGES

Aristote. La Rhétorique. Trad. Médéric Dufour. Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1960.

Barthes, Roland. L’obvie et l’obtus: Essais Critiques III. Paris: Seuil, 1982.

Bitzer, Lloyd F., ed. The Philosophy of Rhetoric by George Campbell. Carbondale: Southern

Illinois UP, 1963.

Chadwick, Whitney. Women, Art, and Society. 1990. London: Thames and Hudson, 1994.

Cook, Albert. Dimensions of the Sign in Art. London: UP of New England, 1989.

Fuentes, Carlos and Sarah M. Lowe. The Diary of Frida Kahlo — An Intimate Self-Portrait.

New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1995.

Gandelman, Claude. Le regard dans le texte. Image et écriture du quattrocento au XXe siècle.

Paris: Méridiens-Klincksieck, 1986.

García, Rupert. Frida Kahlo, a Bibliography. Berkeley: U of California P, 1983.

Gombrich, Ernest H. Art and Illusion. A Study in the Psychology of Pictorial Representation.

Princeton: Bollingen Series, 1962.

Goodman, Nelson. Langages de l’art — Une approche de la théorie des symbols. 1968. Trad.

Jacques Morizot. Nimes: Éditions Chambon, 1990.

Halsall, Albert W. “Visual Rhetoric: The Case of Arcimboldo.” Rhetorik zwischenden

Wissenschaften, Geschichte, System, Praxis als Probleme des Historischen Wöterbuchs

der Rhetorik. Tübingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag, 1991.

Lowe, Sarah M. Frida Kahlo. New York: Universe Publishing, 1991.

Panofsky, Erwin. Studies in Iconology. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1939.


Perelman, Chaïm et Lucie Olbrechts-Tyteca. Traité de l’argumentation: la nouvelle Rhétorique.

1970; Bruxelles: Éditions de l’Université de Bruxelles, 1976.

Quintilien, M.F. Institution oratoire. Trad. Henri Bornecque. Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1975-

1980.

Varga, Aaron Kibédi. “La rhétorique et l’image.” dans La rhétorique du texte. Toronto: Trinity

College, 1989: no. 8-9.

White, Hayden. “The Value of Narrativity in the Representation of Reality.” On Narrative. Ed.

W.J.T. Mitchell. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1981.

Wittkower, Rudolph. Allegory and the Migration of Symbols. 1977. New York: Thames and

Hudson, 1987.

Zamora, Martha. The Letters of Frida Kahlo – Cartas apasionadas. San Francisco: Chronicle

Books, 1995.

RHETOR − Volume 1 (2004) <www.cssr-scer.ca/rhetor> 1

George Frideric Händel’s Musical Treatment of Textual Rhetoric in His Oratorio, Susanna MICHAEL PURVES-SMITH Faculty of Music, Wilfrid Laurier University

Any musician who is interested in performing “early music” (any western art music

written before about the beginning of the 20th century) confronts the problem of establishing

norms for its realization. For example, just how George Frideric Händel (1685-1759) heard his

music raises interesting questions. Providing answers has made the study of performance

practice one of the exhilarating preoccupations of musicians for, at least, the past half-century. In

this paper, I am especially concerned with the needs of singers. One of the principal resources for

a singer committed to recovering the vocal performance practices of the past is the text.

Therefore, as a contribution to the art of singing, using as a model Händel’s oratorio, Susanna, I

will examine how the composer dealt with textural rhetoric and thereby illuminate one of his

skills that may have gone mostly unrecognized.

Almost all of the evidence for this paper will be drawn from the score of Susanna, from

which a persuasive circumstantial case may be made to show that Händel thought it worth his

while to reflect in his music the formal rhetoric of the texts that he set. The arts of rhetoric and

music operate in the same medium, sound, and in the same dimension, time. One may conceive


of a musical rhetoric analogous to the traditional rhetoric of speech such that many of its figures

may be mimicked in music, even abstract tropes of meaning. At least from the beginning of the

16th century leading up to mid 18th century, a musical rhetoric flourished, based upon that of

speech. During this epoch this metarhetoric was espoused with particular enthusiasm by the

German musical establishment and a rigorous training in the arts of rhetoric undoubtedly will

have formed part of Händel’s education in the Lutheran Lateinschule of his youth in Halle,

Germany.1 While his music is cosmopolitan, showing the marked influences of his experiences

in Italy, a well as his long sojourn in England, one cannot discount the importance of his early

training in forming his attitudes towards his craft. This paper will show that Händel was deeply

committed to the task of text expression; his music demonstrates that he was highly susceptible

not only to the overall affekt of the texts he set, but to their finest nuances as well. In the service

of expressing his texts as forcibly as possible in music, he will have made liberal use of his

understanding of rhetoric to invent musical ideas, to assist with the process of ornamentation,

and to vivify the affective language of his music.

It is not difficult to find examples. Turning to the score of Susanna, the abstract triplet

figures in the First Elder’s aria, “Blooming as the face of spring” (Händel 115-118), depict

equally such disparate words as spring and wing, delight and joy, fair and care, and smile and

prayer. At the same time they serve, in this case, to unify the entire aria under one affekt.

Likewise, as we shall discover, Händel sometimes employs musical symbolism, but in practice

his intention is almost always evocative rather than symbolic. For example, the strategic use of

pedal to accompany the concept of wisdom in Daniel’s first aria (discussed below) is actually

1Dietrich Bartel, Musica Poetica (Lincoln and London: U of Nebraska P, 1997), 65–66. Subsequent

references appear parenthetically in the text.


more a musical metaphor than a symbol for wisdom. The mind makes the connection between

the calm strength of the pedal and the attributes of wisdom. However, it is difficult to attach his

music either to any of the lexica of musical figures with which he was likely familiar or with one

of his own invention.2 While it must be admitted that Händel’s audience was much more

conversant with the principals of rhetoric than is the average listener today, it is nonetheless

always virtually impossible to get the various actants (originator, performer, and listener) in a

musical-rhetorical equation to agree on its terms, let alone to distinguish them at the normal high

speed of musical performance. Aware of this impediment, busy professional composers may

have devoted little energy to making their music conform precisely to the theories of musical

rhetoric. Nevertheless, when the theorists turn to the effects of hypotyposis, (a term which along

with related terms such as prosopopoeia and pathopoeia appears fairly frequently in the writings

of the German theorists who dealt most extensively with musical rhetoric) in the sense of vivid

characterization as in enargia and mimesis,3 they touch upon the most useful technique that

composers have for reflecting word meaning in their music, and, at the same time they bring us

directly into the realm of the Classical tradition of rhetoric. I would suggest that Händel’s

infatuation and skill with this group of tropes is one of the distinguishing characteristics of his

music.

2For an interesting, although controversial, introduction to this subject, see Peter F Williams, Organ Music

of J. S. Bach, Vol. 3 (Cambridge Eng: Cambridge UP, 1980). A more positive overview is provided by George J. Buelow’s article, “Rhetoric of Music,” in Groves Dictionary of Music and Musicians., ed. Stanley Sadie, vol 15 (London: MacMillan, 1980) 793. For more extended studies of the subject see Patricia Ranum, The Harmonic Orator (Hillside, NY: Pendragon Press, 2001) on rhetoric and the music of Lully; Robert Toft, Tune thy Musicke to thy Hart (Toronto: U of Toronto P, 1993) on rhetoric in the Elizabethan and Jacobean English song tradition; and Dietrich Bartel, Musica Poetica on the German musical-rhetorical tradition.

3Richard A. Lanham, A Handlist of Rhetorical Terms (Berkeley: U of California P, 1984) 64. The word mimesis is used here in its literary sense of vivid, sometimes mocking, characterization. As a musical-rhetorical term it was used to refer to inexact musical imitation of thematic material.


In fact, Händel’s attitude to musical rhetoric was very likely similar to that of his friend

and rival from his early career in Hamburg, Johann Mattheson (1681-1764). Mattheson was a

gifted composer and performer who, likely as a result of the early onset of blindness, devoted a

large part of his career to writing about music. The most celebrated and influential of his writings

is the encyclopedic Der vollkommene Capellmeister.4 In it and elsewhere, he deals extensively

with musical rhetoric. Dietrich Bartel in his work Musica Poetica, a survey of the German

musical-rhetorical tradition from Joachim Burmeister (1564-1629) to Johann Nikolaus Forkel

(1749-1818) sums up Mattheson’s views as follows:

. . . just as music and rhetoric share common goals, so do they share common

methodologies, structuring principles, and expressive devices. While these were

initially defined and systematized by the rhetorical discipline, they are equally

evident in and applicable to the musical art. These musical phenomena which are

described in rhetorical terminology have a long standing history, . . . [which] can

. . . be gleaned both from well-composed music and from naturally gifted musical

expression through empirical observation. (Bartel 143)

To judge from their music, as well as from the friendship and the similarities in the background

of the two composers, Händel likely held views on musical rhetoric very similar to those of

Mattheson.

In fact, Mattheson seems to have thought of many of the rhetorical figures as being so

innate to music as to be beyond the need of description. Bartel quotes and translates the same

passage from Mattheson several times:

4 Johann Mattheson (1681-1764) was a prolific writer on musical subjects. His writings and especially Der

vollkomene Capellmeister (Hamburg, 1739) may be the most important sources of information on musical rhetoric as it was perceived by his own generation of German musicians.


the epanalepsis, epistrophe, anadiplosis, paronomasia, polyptoton, antanaclasis,

ploce, etc., assume such natural positions in music that it almost seems as if the

Greek orators borrowed these figures from the art of musical composition. For

they are purely repetitiones vocum, repetitions of words, which are applied to

music in various different ways. (Bartel 141, 183, 258)

In this quote Mattheson echos the views of Johann Georg Ahle (1651-1706), best known to

music history as J.S. Bach’s predecessor in the post of organist at St. Blasien in Muhlhausen. As

well as a skilled musician, he was a gifted poet and a writer on musical subjects. Bartel tells us

that in his Sommer-Gespräche,

. . . Ahle, the poet laureate, derives his concept of the figures directly from the

rhetorical source. He suggests that the composer first study the rhetorical figures

found in the text and then reflect these in the music, in

the same manner that the cadences and accents of the text might be represented by

the music. [Ahle writes:] “Just as orators or poets use a great variety of rhetorical

figures, so also do a number of melopoets use them in their musical discourse.”

(Bartel 123)

All of this leads one to wonder if Händel might have espoused a similar approach to musical

rhetoric and to ask if he might not sometimes have drawn inspiration from the rhetorical devices

that he found in the texts that he was setting. It is this question that this paper will attempt to

answer.

Händel often chose to set texts that are saturated with rhetorical figures, and that follow

traditional rhetorical organization in some detail. All the important English literary figures that

most touched his work − Dryden, Milton, Congreve, and Gay − took classical rhetoric as a given,


and evidently expected that their audience would appreciate it. Händel’s education probably

included extensive training in classical rhetoric. His father tried to steer him in the direction of

law and even after his father’s death Händel enrolled for studies in law at the University of Halle.

A thorough knowledge of rhetoric would have been a prerequisite for admission to any such law

studies. And as we have seen, he came originally from a milieu that included other composers,

such as Georg Philipp Telemann (1681-1767), and composer/theorists, such as Johann

Mattheson, whose music and writing exhibit an interest in traditional rhetoric. It was an ordinary

part of the environment in which Händel wrote his music. It was why the singers of his day

naturally turned, when they sought a foundation for their language of gesture, to the classical

teachings on pronunciatio and actio, especially those of Quintilian.

A characteristic of Händel’s approach to text is the extraordinary detail with which he

sets it to music. He often translates texts into music word by word, whereas Bach, for example,

seems concerned to capture them thought by thought. Rameau appears to place more emphasis

on French diction, poetics and prosody. Thus, in Händel, the word running, for example, is

usually set with a descriptive figure, the same one perhaps used for different words such as fly or

chace [sic], but in all cases equally descriptive. In the following example the mimesis is both

aurally and visually apparent:5

5All of the examples are taken from George Frideric Handel’s score of Susanna. Page numbers refer to the

edition made in 1858 by Dr. Frederick Chrysander; rpt. Miniature Score Series 1322 (New York: Kalmus, n.d.). I have chosen this edition because it is still much the most readily available for consultation. The occasional scholarly or musical lapse in his edition, especially in the realization of the continuo, does not undermine my arguments. In fact, awkwardness in the realization is sometimes resolvable by paying more attention to Händel’s treatment of the rhetoric. For example, Dr. Chrysander completely misses the significance of the hemiolas in Joacim and Susanna’s first duet (12–16) and so he does not perceive that the cadences in question should be realized hemiolas.


Figure 1: George Frideric Händel, Susanna 19–20.

For those unfamiliar with Händel’s skill at word painting, it may be useful to turn to

some musical and poetic analysis drawn from the first duet between Susanna and her husband,

Joacim. They sing of connubial bliss.

Figure 2: Susanna 17.

First, one may notice the setting of the word raptures. It could be the suitably emphasized focal

point of a Mahlerian, long-lined approach to singing Händ, but there is much more. Singers

familiar with the writings of baroque singing teachers would add to the word swell a suggestive

dynamic surge. Händel ensures that this will happen by placing it on a stressed second beat in

ternary rhythm (in this case the third group of the musical hemiola) and by giving it as long a

note as possible. The échappé that precedes it further contributes to the effect, as does the metric

reversal of the singsong iambs on the words beat and swell (the musical accents are editorial).


On another level comes the placement of the words high, pulse, and beats. High is

pitched high in the line at a caesura on an authentic cadence (a half–close would be more usual at

this point in a musical phrase). The meaning of beats is made clear by the rhythmic displacement

of the accented poetic foot as well as by the imitation in this bar between the descending thirds in

the bass and the melody. Pulse is placed at the highest point of the line. Taking, on the words

my pulse, the second parallel phrase up a perfect fourth graphically depicts the quickening of the

pulse; as does the displacement of the rhythm on the word, beat. Thou is emphasized by the

rising vocal ornament, and nigh by the safety of the falling third, the interval which pervades this

entire passage in both the melody and the continuo line. The rising fourth with which the phrase

opens is symbolically the interval of direct address as well as of noble sentiment. Händel uses it

very effectively to contrast Susanna’s strength of character with the sneaking chromaticism of

the First Elder and the impetuosity of the Second Elder’s scalar descents, all of which he

combines brilliantly in their trio (125–129).

Of all of the depictions we have been discussing, only that of the word pulse is, at first,

not very convincing—one would have expected a word-painter of the calibre of Händel to find

some sort of onomatopoeia to translate it. In fact, this is exactly what he does, as the hemiola

that begins with the word beat is surely the perfect way to suggest the action of the pulse. Even

the hemiola serves Händel for a multiple depictive purpose. Through subtle reharmonization, in

the course of the duet the hemiola is presented in many different guises, of which only the one

associated with the word pulse is unequivocal. By this Händel perhaps manages to foreshadow

the ephemeral nature of the young couple’s bliss.

Finally, there is dramatic irony in both the text and the music. For example, in a musical

combination of irony, foreshadowing, and symbol, Joacim, the representative of true love, early


on in the oratorio, begins a centrally important aria with almost the same figure that the First

Elder, the representative of false love, begins both his first recitativo accompagnato and his first

aria. The significant difference is that Joacim sings in the major while the First Elder’s figures

are in the more dissonant and “evil” minor.

Figure 3: a. Joacim (17) b. First Elder (66) c. First Elder (69)

The foregoing is meant to illustrate Händel’s detailed, word-by-word translation of text

into music. Were these examples uncommon, they would be hard to take seriously, but

everywhere in Händel one finds copious examples of the same sort of thing, even in the

recitativo secco. Only in relatively rare instances of formal fugal writing, where Händel is

setting such things as sententia or aphorisms, does his seemingly inexhaustible capacity for

musical imitation abate. Even in such cases, it could be argued that fugal pomp is especially

suited to the representation of these figures.

Music serves best the figures of hypotyposis, antithesis, and schemes such as anaphora or

accumulatio which rely on time. These devices create possibilities for balanced structures,

repetitions, and many compositional techniques that correspond to procedures in verbal

rhetorical figures. Given sufficient imagination, music can imitate a surprising range of verbal

meaning, with contrast as the main resource for musical representation: major/minor, up/down,

conjunct/disjunct, slow/fast, loud/soft, ternary/binary, tension/release, dissonance/consonance,

and so on. However, all these effects, either musical or verbal, are perceived, consciously or

unconsciously, in real time. What about tropes such as metaphor, which may require random


time assimilation? In other words, depending upon how deeply embedded a metaphor is in the

language of a given communication, we may make the attributive associations between phor and

tenor well after the communication is first made. In words, the equation is always weakened

through familiarity. There is no need to see a cow being milked in order to understand the

meaning of the word milked when it is used metaphorically in a sentence. Except for a few

specific instances, such as the trumpet and its calls and all that we associate with them, where

metaphors cross between music and words, such is usually not the case. We need to make the

connections between, for example, a musical pedal and the word wisdom. A moment’s

reflection is required to make them, reflection that is interrupted and postponed by the

unrelenting time scale of musical performance. Can such abstractions be meaningfully reflected

in music, and does Händel try to do so? The answer to both these questions is a qualified yes.

For example, one would think that a trope like synecdoche does not lend itself to musical

treatment, yet in the opening chorus of Susanna (8–9) there is an instance. In the line, “How

long, Oh Lord, shall Israel groan?” the word Israel is a synecdoche representing the citizens of

the state of Israel (the whole for the parts). This text is set as a four part fughetto, the Israelites

singing independent parts, while the following line, “Jehovah, hear thy people’s moan,” is set in

homophonic unison rhythm, suggesting the collective voice of the whole nation. Both its parts

and its whole thus represent the synecdoche, Israel, musically. While this could be a

coincidence, there are instances of complicated textual tropes that are set very persuasively by

Händel. In act three the First Elder sings a lament for Susanna. She responds with, “Tis thus the

crocodile his grief displays.” The reference to the crocodile serves the multiple purposes of

underlining his terrible perfidy and reminding us of Susanna’s dilemma which is akin to a


crocodilinae.6 Susanna is damned if she does and damned if she doesn’t give in to the demands

of the elders. In fact, her dilemma is exactly that debated in the Gorgias: would the virtuous

man choose virtue over life? This, of course, is a small reminder that Händel expected his

audience to be familiar with classical rhetoric. It calls from Händel in the ensuing recitativo

accompagnato, always signalizing important moments in his dramas, some beautiful and

ambiguously resolved harmonies (165–166). Such is the perfect way for Händel to reflect in

music Susanna’s “dilemma.”

Another example that is crucial to the plot of the oratorio is Daniel’s first aria. In contrast

to the two elders, rhetors by tradition, whose stature in their society demands veneration and

protects them from the discovery of their terrible lies, Daniel is the true rhetor and the rhetor of

truth. He has only this one aria to establish his credibility and he requires something especially

persuasive to do so. His argument deals with two sets of contraries, age and youth, wisdom and

lack of wisdom. We expect the subject term, age, to be coupled with the predicate term, wisdom,

and the subject term, youth, to be coupled with the predicate term, lack of wisdom. Here the

librettist expresses the contrasts as contradictions: age is not always wisdom, since youth is often

wisdom. This da capo aria concisely states the familiar theme that reality cannot be judged by

appearances. Both the text and the music play upon contradicting contraries, not to mention

synecdoche, metonymy, prosopopoeia, accumulatio, and metaphor, so that we may honestly say

that Daniel presents his case rhetorically. Coming at the denouement of the entire oratorio, this

aria at first seems surprisingly bland. Apart from the wonderful way in which the composer

6Richard Lanham defines dilemma as “any technique of argument which offers an opponent a choice, or

series of them, all of which are unacceptable” (54). Crocodilinae is a kind of dilemma described by Quintilian as follows: “A crocodile, having seized a woman’s son, said that he would restore him, if she would tell him the truth. She replied, “You will not restore him.” Was it the crocodile’s duty to give him up? (Quintilian, Institutio oratoria, trans. H. E. Butler, vol. 1 [Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1920-22], 162, n.2.


leads the ear to accept the opening b flat major chord, this is not an aria of the expected

Händelian magic. There is no orchestrational, or harmonic display. Yet, on closer examination

we discover that Händel admirably supports the textual argument musically in every way

possible, in the process reminding us of the characters of the two elders, thus turning the

discourse into a bona fide argumentum ad hominem. It is an aria about the central issue of

rhetoric, ethos, and librettist and composer bend all their resources to making Daniel’s argument

as convincing as possible.

Händel’s response works on many different levels. In keeping with an argument made by

negative contraries, the musical discourse is presented by inverse hypotyposis. Old age, which

one would expect to be represented with something staid, is given athletic, running and leaping

music.

Figure 4: Susanna 167

This is strengthened by the very close canonic imitation at the octave between the voice and the

bass, the effect of which is of great impetuosity, very much in keeping with the character of the

Second Elder, but not at all with the true wisdom that the doxa would associate with old age.

Furthermore, while it may again be coincidence, the canonic imitation could have been carried

on much more consistently to good effect. Instead, Händel chooses to dupe the ear with the

illusion of canon, thus suggesting the falsity of the Second Elder. As well, we note that close

imitation is an obvious and persuasive way to depict argument in musical terms.


Figure 5: Susannah 167

What is more, the instrumental part of the canon is a high basetto from which one would

traditionally drop all of the16-foot and harmony instruments. Thus the impression is left that

there is no real foundation for the music, an impression reinforced by the static harmonic rhythm

of the first three bars, in contrast with all the rhythmic and melodic activity. All of this, of

course, belies the image of old age. In addition, it is represented here as having a high, youthful

voice.

Youth, on the other hand, is given an exceptionally serious, solemn, hymn:


When the texture changes from three part counterpoint to implied four part homophony, an open

invitation to the keyboard player to use a full voiced realization of the harmony; the parts move

together with one accord. The tessitura of the solo voice is noticeably lower, and more dignified.

The harmony is supported by an unarticulated pedal on the tonic of the subdominant key (E-flat),

the key of the b section of this da capo aria. Although a modulation to the subdominant is by no

means an unusual procedure for Händel at this point in an aria, in this case he contrives to make


it quite fresh and unexpected, thereby heightening the contrast between the two sections. An

interpreter of this music might be tempted to reserve the entrance of the 16-foot continuo until

this point. At all events it should certainly be present, lending to the section on youth a feeling

of weighty certitude. Youth is set out in unadorned rhythms with no frivolity.

The text of this aria divides into two virtually equal three-line stanzas. The first,

associated with age, is in a pointed trochaic rhythm, while the second, the verse for youth, is

more spondaic. The dotted trochee seems impetuous and passionate, while the spondee is

associated with the grave and slow.7


Händel accentuates the trochee by setting the words “age’s sullen” with a broken melisma that

forces the singer to make the most of the dotted rhythm. In part this is probably word painting

for sullen, just as the octave leap is for wrinkled and the spondaic setting is for “solemn pace.”

The accumulatio of the text “sullen face, wrinkled front and solemn pace” is highlighted by the

increase in the harmonic rhythm leading to the cadence on the words “solemn pace.” The brief

cadential extension on the word pace is also a nice touch of word painting. All this is more

inverse word painting. Even the phrasing, which is exceptionally specific in this aria, is recruited

to the cause. In the a section the first figure of the ritornello is set as a dotted trochee. In the b

7Isaac Vossius in De poematum cantu et viribus rhythm (Oxonii e Theatro Sheldoniano, Prostant Londini:

apud Rob. Scot bibliop., 1673) writes “The grave and slow are expressed by the Spondee and Molossus: Whatever is soft and tender, the Trochee and sometimes the Amphybrachys will describe . . .” (qtd. and trans. by George Houle, Meter in Music, 1600-1800 [Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1987] 73).


section where the same music is called to depict age, it is set as a spondee. Is this a

musical/literary metonymy on the words “silver hairs,” and is all this coincidence? Who knows?

Certainly the metaphor on “bloom of vernal years” is made to stand out by harmonic means.

Much of this has to do with the interrelation between musical and poetic metre, and the

study known as rhythmopoeia.8 Händel uses it very subtly. Anyone who harbours any lingering

doubt about his understanding of the rules of English prosody need only examine the detail with

which he treats the matter in Susanna, in order to dispel them. The present aria is a good

example of such subtlety, as is the largo e piano from Susanna’s aria, ‘If guiltless blood be your

intent.” Another would be the aria, “Would custom bid the melting fair,” for which Händel sets

a regular iambic poetic foot as mostly dactylic and trochaic in a ternary metre.


Here he sets up rhythmic interplay on five levels: between the natural poetic metre, the imposed

poetic metre, the expected metre of the dance (minuet with its tendency to hemiola, or if we

choose a slightly slower speed, a sarabande with its emphasis on the second beat), the harmonic

rhythm of the music and the regular ternary rhythm. Similarly, we have cited a number of

examples of the use of the poetic metres to depict a special affect; another would be the

8 For a fine summary of this topic, see Houle chapter 3.


consistent use of anapaest for the Second Elder, who is characterized as blunt and rather fierce in

accord with the traditional description of the anapaest as suitable for the depiction of fury and

madness.9

To return to Daniel’s aria: the pedal, a pervasive expressive dissonance in the music of

J.S. Bach, is used more sparingly by Händel, which makes its appearance here all the more

telling. It, clearly, is meant to represent wisdom, as is the undulating articulated pedal used for

“sacred wisdom” here and “the truly wise” in the a section.

Figure 9: a. Susannah 170 b. Susannah 168

Although the words, “Sacred wisdom oft appears in the bloom of vernal years,” are the crux of

the argument, they are sung only twice. The second time the pedal is moved over to coincide

with the words “in the bloom of vernal youth.”

Figure 10: Susannah 170-171

This nice touch conclusively associates wisdom with youth for the purposes of the argument, so

Händel articulates the pedal and places it on an A in the top voice. The harmony under this pedal

9 Vossius writes in De poematum cantu et viribus rhythmi: “If we require numbers that may express Fury

and Madness, not only the Anapest is at Hand, but, what is still more powerful, the Paeon quartus” (qtd. Houle 73).


is purposeful and directional. The articulated pedal immediately falls out of the sky to the

bottom of the orchestra on a D in order to accompany the metonymy for age. At the same time

the voice drops a remarkable minor tenth, and the harmony loses its sense of direction as it is all

a d minor triad with no accented dissonance.

While it is risky to associate key with meaning in Händel, there may be some significance

to his choice of these two notes, D and A, since the oratorio as a whole is worked out to some

extent in terms of the polarity between them. The A, in this case major, is the key of triumph,

and A tends to be most closely associated with Susanna. The D, in this case minor, is associated

with gloom and guile. Similarly, the key of C major is too consistently associated with evil, and

with the Second Elder in particular, to be coincidence. C as well as A are, in this aria, the targets

for some especially dramatic examples of those scalar descents into the basement, so beloved of

baroque composers in general. These descents are also particularly associated with the Second

Elder.




Example 12 is a part of the final ritornello from the Second Elder’s second aria. The similarities

between it and example 11 are quite apparent in terms of the key, scalar descents and angular

short-longs (from the beat in example 12).

Here we come to the essence of this aria, which is an argument between good and evil,

represented by Daniel on the one hand and the two elders on the other. The question of where

true wisdom resides is a test submitted to Daniel as a proof of his skill as a rhetorician. It is

important for Händel to represent the two elders as a part of this aria and therefore, party to the

argument. He does so in many ways, among them the verbal metonymy, “from silver hairs”

(which stands not only for age but for the First Elder, who sings elsewhere “tho’ seventy winters

hoar my head”), and the musical metonymy of the opening ritornello. The rise to and away from

the interval of the sixth reminds us of the First Elder, as do the athletic intervals at the end of the

ritornello. The descent of the bass line into hell recalls the Second.

However, the most important way in which the First Elder is involved is through the

musical argument, which is perhaps the most striking aspect of this aria. He, in contrast to the

extremely blunt Second Elder, instinctively uses traditional rhetorical procedures in his effort to

persuade Susanna to his purposes. Between them, the two elders, but mostly the First, during the

course of the oratorio use appeals to pity (commiseratio), to flattery (comprobatio), to force

(argumentum ad baculum), to authority (argumentum ad verecundiam), to the crowd

(argumentum ad populum), to a reasonable excuse (dicaeologia), and to false analogy. These are

all used as false arguments, culminating in an egregiously perfidious lament by the First Elder

(162–164). Händel and his librettist consistently characterize falsity through misplacement of

the speech accents (76–81), through slippery chromaticism (127), through vacillating figures

(164, first system), frequently through halting broken music (abruptio, aposiopesis) (66–68),


through unexpected rhythmic turns (66–68), through specific use of poetic metres (153), through

ambiguous, enharmonic harmony and false relations (dubitatio)(165–166), and through what

might be called the topic of musical argument. These are compositional techniques that Händel

consciously uses from time to time throughout Susanna in order to draw our attention to the

rhetorical discourse. The First Elder’s aria of false analogy, “When the trumpet sounds to arms”

is a good example of a number of these, notably the musical argument between the three

numbered motives, the aposiopesis that betrays the First Elder’s actual frailty and indecision, the

uncertainly placed and vacillating harmonies:10


first aria, in which the argument is constructed between three motives of the utmost concision,

all drawn from the opening ritornello.

10 Donald Smithers, in the second volume of his A History of Oratorio (Chapel Hill: U of North Carolina P,

1977) notes that this aria is a “tongue-in-cheek version of the heroic fanfare aria” (330). This almost certainly misses the point. The text embodies a sinister false analogy: one call is to the noble fulfillment of duty, the other to sin. The guileful First Elder hopes to seduce the innocent Susanna to his ends. As the text is a false analogy, no musical affect could serve both parts of the analogy. Händel rightly chooses the sinister part. The noble trumpet of the aria’s first line, “When the trumpet sounds to arms” could have no actual role to play in this aria even though the instrument was called for elsewhere in Susanna.



These three motives are distributed in an astonishing variety of ways amongst the three voices

during the sections of the music associated with old age. This gives a very convincing imitation

of an argument between three people on the subject of good and evil. Immediately following

this aria the Judge exclaims, “Oh! wondrous youth.” Once one understands what Händel in

particular, but what his librettist as well, achieved in this aria, the remark is fully justified, and

Daniel’s ethos is persuasively secured.

Neither is this aria an isolated example. Virtually the whole oratorio yields similar

results, even the recitativo secco, and Händel deals with the emotional appeal of many of

Susanna’s arias with every bit as much detail. One thinks, as well, of the individualization of the

characters of Susanna and the two elders in their trio, “Away, away! Ye tempt me both in vain,”

or of the graphic turbae chorus, “Susanna is guilty, Susanna must bleed.” In fact, the more one

examines this libretto and score, the more convinced one becomes that together they form a

rhetorical tapestry, and that rhetoric should be brought into partnership with music and text if we

are to truly understand the work.

How could Händel have written a work of more than three hours duration in the space of

18 days and still find time to work out such a wealth of detail? The answer may be that he had

an extensive bank of techniques (topics) that enabled him to use rhetoric as a normal part of his


compositional procedures. Rhetoric was part of his compositional method as it was part of that of

many of his contemporaries, some of whom, such as Antonio Caldara (1670-1736), were even

more prolific than he. Much of the musical detail that I have examined seems contrived when

described, and it is true that other composers, even major ones (G.P. Telemann or Antonio

Caldara), sometimes do appear awkward when they attempt similar effects. Händel manages to

unify everything with a sovereign sense of musical direction, so much so that to a modern ear his

rhetorical effects go unnoticed. Therefore we ask the second question: what did Händel and his

librettist expect of their audience and performers with respect to perceiving the rhetoric? In

answer, it is reasonable to assert that the audience that attended the first performance of Susanna

was much better grounded in formal rhetoric than a modern one, and it usually had access to the

text before, after, and during the performance. The same is likely true of the performers of

Händel’s day.

If today there is general audience and performer indifference to rhetoric in the

performance of dramatic music of the baroque, is there any value in attempting enlightenment?

This brings us full circle to where we started: finding the norms of performance. The greater

portion of those who perform Händel today still opt for indifference, arguing that they can

intuitively sense how a line by Händel should be realized. However, there is a camp which is

interested in anything that can bring the performer and the audience closer to the ideals of any

given work’s creators. A full understanding of texts and their relationship to the music would

seem to suit the requirements of this last group. Rhetoric is a complex art, beyond the resources

of most musical performers without the help of specialists. It is much to be desired that trained

rhetoricians will begin to analyze musical texts as they have purely literary texts. The evidence

presented in this paper is often circumstantial, but it is clear that a strong case may be made to


show that Händel was aware of the rhetoric at work in his texts and that he was at pains to reflect

it in his music. The libretto of Susanna is a full-blown court room drama and, as such, it may

have drawn, from both the librettist and the composer, an unusual flowering of rhetoric. Still,

performers need to know what the originators of all of the texts and music that they perform

most likely thought was in them. Accordingly, they often need to understand the whole

constellation of devices that make up the combination of literary and musical rhetoric.

Finally, how would an understanding of textual rhetoric influence the way we perform

music? First, the more we understand the text, the more likely we may pick up clues about the

composer’s thinking − clues that may lead us into the heart of the music. Sometimes the rhetoric

of a text may provide the only clue as to the way in which a work should be performed. Daniel’s

first aria is such an example. It appears enigmatic and difficult to render persuasively. Once one

understands that it is deliberately cast as an argument, it is easier to interpret. A rhetorical

approach to this music provides the clues that bring to light the astonishing detail that Händel put

into his music. When his music is performed with all the detail that he put into its composition,

it becomes plastic and supple. It reminds us of the infinite detail that J. J. Quantz suggests is

needed to interpret an adagio, as when he describes the particular inflection that should be given

to every note, including the individual notes of ornaments.11 Finally, a full comprehension of the

text can help with the development of an appropriate gestural line, thus completing the rhetoric

of performance with the canons of pronunciatio. Therefore, a better understanding of all the

aspects of rhetoric that may be applied to Händel’s music will serve to make our performances of

his music more thoughtfully detailed and therefore, more persuasive.

11 See the chapter “On the Manner of Playing the Adagio,” in Johann Joachim Quantz, On Playing the

Flute (1752; rpt. London: Faber and Faber, 1976) 162–179.


REFERENCES

Ahle, Johann G. Musikalisches Frühlings-, Sommer-, Herbst-, und Winter-Gespräche.

Mühlhausen: Pauli und Brückner, 1695-1701.

Buelow, George J. “Rhetoric of Music.” Grove’s Dictionary of Music and Musicians. Ed. Stanley

Sadie. Vol. 15. London: MacMillan, 1980. 793.

Burmeister, Joachim. Musica poetica. Rostock: S. Myliander, 1606. Facs. Ed. Kassel:

Bärenreiter, 1955.

Bartel, Dietrich. Musica Poetica. Lincoln and London: U of Nebraska P, 1997.

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The Prologues of the Tragédies Lyriques (Operas) of Philippe Quinault: “A Very Agreeable Propaganda” SHANNON PURVES-SMITH Waterloo, Ontario

In this paper I investigate the pragmatic rhetoric that informs a somewhat unfamiliar

genre, the operatic prologue of the 17th century as it was conceived by the French librettist

Philippe Quinault (1635-1688) and the composer Jean-Baptiste Lully. During the reign of Louis

XIV this team produced eleven operas, or tragédies lyriques en musique, as they were originally

called. These spectacles, which each comprise a prologue and five acts, were enormously

successful. They combined chorus, soloists, dancers, sumptuous decors, elaborate special effects,

and rich costumes adorned with hundreds of ostrich plumes. We might say that Lully and

Quinault were the Rogers and Hammerstein or the Andrew Lloyd Webber of their day. However,

the prologues of these tragédies lyriques offered more than a lavish musical entertainment to

their 17th century audience. The exordia of their operas, like other epideictic (ceremonial) genres

of the period, such as the parliamentary speech, the academic speech and the harangue, were

really rhetorical tools for the extravagant glorification of Louis XIV.

Like these other types of discourse, the prologue, which dates back to classical Greece,

had its own traditions, conventions and rhetorical strategies, many of which Lully and Quinault

retained. But their collaborations, I believe, exploited the prologue=s theatrical context for

political ends to a greater degree than did their predecessors. In the tragédies lyriques of Lully

and Quinault, the prologue provided a means to further the monarchist propaganda that they


were encouraged to disseminate. One has only to read Pierre Zoberman=s book, Les Cérémonies

de la parole: l=éloquence d=apparat dans le dernier quart du siècle, to comprehend how

thoroughly this endeavour occupied the creative energies of the literary, artistic and politically

astute elites of that society.1

The analysis that I offer here of some of the rhetorical strategies found in the prologues of

Quinault=s librettos attempts to explain the significance that they had for their original audience.

It examines in particular their appeals to logos, pathos, and ethos. The discussion also aims to

engender an appreciation of the persuasive values of this introductory and quasi-independent part

of the opera, which, while it entertains, exhorts the spectator to accept a particular ideology.

There are indeed elements in Lully=s music that support the text in this function, but at present I

will concentrate for the most part on the rhetorical procedures in the poetry. Among these, we

will examine the role of allegory, the maxim, and hyperbole, as well as Quinault=s use of the

figures of pathos to involve the audience in the allegory, and the notion of this involvement as an

almost religious social ritual.

1The biographers and the critics of Lully and of Quinault, as well as the study by Pierre Zoberman, Les

Cérémonies de la parole: l=éloquence d=apparat dans le dernier quart du siècle (Paris: Honoré, 1998), confirm the fact that Louis XIV was interested in every artistic, literary and musical activity during his reign. His aim was to control the quality of works, and to ensure that their ideological values conformed to his own policies. In Jean-Baptiste Lully and his Tragédies Lyriques (Ann Arbor: UMI Research Press, 1974) musicologist Joyce Newman says that, based on the research of Franklin Ford in Robe and Sword (New York: Harper and Row, 1965), “no element of French life escaped the attention of Louis XIV, and every cultural and political institution was given new form” (44). According to the biographers of Lully and of Quinault, there is no doubt that they were interested in politics and that their friendship with the king influenced their operatic production. Some examples here will show to what extent Louis XIV was involved in the tragédies lyriques of Lully and Quinault: Étienne Gros describes in Philippe Quinault: sa vie et son oeuvre (Aix-en-Provence: Éditions “du Feu,” 1926) the making of an opera, in the words of the 17th century arts critic, LeCerf de la Viéville: “He [Quinault] would choose several [subjects], which he presented to the king. The king, in turn, would choose, give his advice and his opinion . . . . Quinault composed his libretto and, when he had finished a few scenes, he would run to show them to the Académie Française” (“Il [Quinault] en choisissait plusieurs [sujets], qu’il présentait au roi. Le roi choisissait à son tour, donnait des conseils et des avis . . . . Quinault composait son livret et, dès qu=il avait achevé quelques scènes, il courait les montrer à l=Académie Française” Gros 106). We know that the king chose the subject of Atys (Newman 73), that of Persée (Cuthbert Girdlestone, La Tragédie en musique (1673-1750) [Genève: Libraire Droz, 1972] 98-99), that of Amadis (Gros 114, Girdlestone 99), and that of Armide (Girdlestone 125). All translations of French passages are by the author of this article.


The action in the prologue of Quinault is usually an allegorical scene drawn from a

mythological source, often from the works of Ovid, or from subjects dating from the Early

Middle Ages, adapted from Ariosto and Tasso. The plot is meagre, and complex arguments, so

evident in the recitative of the play which follows, are lacking; in fact the verses are set as a

simple alternation of charming arias and choruses which express the joy and gratitude of all

concerned for the presence of the courageous, victorious and beneficent “Hero” who is always so

preoccupied with defending them against their enemies that he has no time for peace and its

attendant pleasures. The political motivation for this pervasive theme is Quinault=s absolute

allegiance to his sovereign and to the monarchist ideology.

The eulogy was the forte of Quinault. His mastery of epideictic rhetoric must have been

very useful to him at court. An example of one of the harangues that he improvised before the

king reveals not only his ease in this genre, but also his political engagement:

What good fortune for us [writes Quinault] to have such a glorious Protector who

gives us such memorable events to celebrate! We have no need to look elsewhere

than in himself for a perfect model of heroic Virtue, and we are certain that the

immortal splendour of his glory will descend upon our Works, and will transmit

to them the privilege of passing into Posterity forever.2

2Zoberman cites this passage in Les Panégyriques du Roi prononcés dans l’Académie française (1671-

1689) (Paris: Presses de l’Université de Paris-Sorbonne, 1991): AQuel bonheur pour nous [écrit Quinault] d=avoir un Protecteur si glorieux, qui nous donne à célébrer des événements si mémorables! Nous n=avons pas besoin de chercher ailleurs qu=en luy-mesme un modèle parfait de la Vertu héroïque, & nous sommes certains que l=éclat immortel de sa gloire se répandra sur nos Ouvrages, & leur communiquera le privilège de passer jusqu=à la dernière Postérité@ (188). Note that we retain the original spelling, including the 17th century application of diacritical accents, in all citations taken from works of the 17th century.


The AProtector,@ the Aglory,@ the Acelebration,@ the Aperfect model,@ the heroic virtue,@ and the

Aimmortal splendour@ in this passage are precisely some of the subjects that Quinault deals with

in his theatre.

The librettos of Quinault date from the years 1672-1686. The titles and the dates of the

first performances of the operas are as follows:3

Cadmus et Hermione (Le Serpent Python) 1673 Alceste (Le Retour des Plaisirs) 1674 Thésée 1675 Atys 1676 Isis 1677 Proserpine 1678 Persée 1680 Phaéton (Le Retour de l=Age d=Or) 1682 Amadis 1684 Roland 1685 Armide 1686

Most of these are preceded by a prologue which bears little or no narrative relationship to the

operatic play for which it serves as an opener. Lully=s biographer, Manuel Couvreur, calls them

Aa sort of vestibule . . . to the entire edifice.”4 However, when we take into account the text of

this seuil (threshold) — to use Gérard Genette=s term5 — of the work, the prologue really does

seem to act as a means of persuasion, or at least it would have for the audience of its time, who

would have grasped the hidden meaning of the allegorical references in its text.

Victor Fournel, editor of Quinault=s Théâtre choisi, tells us that the divinities in the

prologues, who celebrate the glory of Louis XIV, make allusion to current events. The poet

3The text we will use to study the prologues of Quinault is his Théâtre (1672-1686; rpt. Genève: Slatkine

Reprints, 1970). See original publication dates of the tragédie lyriques above. They are found on the following pages: Cadmus et Hermione 390-392, Alceste 407-408, Thésée 425-427, Atys 444-445, Isis 462-463, Proserpine 481-482, Persée 510-511, Phaéton 527-28, Amadis 541-542, Roland 556-557, Armide 579-580. Further references appear parenthetically in text.

4In the original, @une sort de vestibule . . . [de] l=édifice entier.@ Manuel Couvreur, Jean-Baptiste Lully: musique et dramtaurgie au service du prince (Paris : Marc Vokar, 1992) 328.

5Genette, Gérard. Seuils (Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 1987).


makes capital out of peace, or of war, of the victories outside of the country, or the splendours

within. Fournel writes:

The circumstances were not always equally favourable, and sometimes the royal

sun, the august emblem who furnished a bottomless mine of dithyrambic images

and parallels, found himself veiled in clouds; but nothing embarrassed a man so

gifted for flattery. Under the double veil of mythological allegory and excessive

adulation, one can find . . . the trace of historical events and even private changes

in the grand reign.6

Documents from the period confirm this assertion.7 In them, there is frequent reference to Louis

XIV as “the hero.” In my opinion, if we recognize that by Athe hero” in Quinault’s works, the

author also intends us to understand Louis XIV, the allegory in the prologues is clearly political.

6A[C=est] une espèce de cantate dialoguée qui convoque les divinités de l=Olympe pour leur faire célébrer la

gloire de Louis [XIV], en variant toutes les formes de l=adulation . . . . L=allégorie y tient une large place. Par ses allusions, le poète y fait oeuvre d=actualité; il tire un égal parti de la paix ou de la guerre, des victoires de dehors ou des splendeurs du dedans. Les circonstances n=étaient pas toujours également favorables et parfois le soleil royal, cet auguste emblème qui fournissait une mine inépuisable d=images et de rapprochements dithyrambiques, se trouvait voilé de nuages; mais rien n=embarrassait un homme si bien doué pour la flatterie. Sous le double voile de l=allégorie mythologique et de l=adulation à outrance, on y peut retrouver . . . la trace des événements historiques et même des transformations intimes du grand règne@ (Victor Fournel, Introduction, Théâtre choisi by Philippe Quinault, Paris: Laplace, Sanchez et 2. Cie., 1882) viii.

7L=abbé Dubos in 1719 writes in Réflexions critiques sur la poësie et sur la peinture (1770 ed. ; rpt. Genève: Slatkine Reprints, 1967): AQuinault a montré comment il y falloit traiter ces actions allégoriques [dans les prologues], et les allusions qu=on y pouvoit faire des événements récens dans les tems où les Prologues sont représentés@ (Première Partie, 230). (AQuinault showed how one must treat these allegorical actions [in the prologues], and the allusions that one could make to recent events in the time when the Prologues are performed.@) Jean Duron, responsible for the documentary research for a recent recording of the opera Atys, found letters which are Apeut-être écrites par un secrétaire zélé de Lully@ (Jean Duron, liner notes to Atys, by Jean-Baptiste Lully, libretto by Philippe Quinault, Les Arts Florissants, Cond. William Christie, Arles: Armonie Mundi, 1987, 1996) 6. (Aperhaps written by a zealous secretary of Lully@.) The following citation taken from one of these letters shows the relationship of the prologue to the contemporary activities of Louis XIV: @On parle beaucoup, déjà, du prologue d=Atys où, seuls, les Dieux paraîtront pour glorifier les victoires de Louis en Franche-Comté@ (qtd. in Duron 6). (APeople are already talking a great deal about the prologue of Atys where, alone, the Gods will appear to glorify the victories of Louis in Franche-Comté.@) Another letter from the same author informs us that this tragédie lyrique served to exhort the king to succeed in his campaigns as well as to praise him: ALouis médite sa prochaine campagne; la Cour, pour encourager son héros à pourfendre l=ennemi, veut lui offrir un spectacle digne de sa gloire. . . . C=est Atys bien sûr, que l=on répète actuellement@ (qtd. in Duron 7). (ALouis is thinking about his next campaign; the Court, to encourage its hero to ward off the enemy, wants to offer him a spectacle worthy of his glory . . . . It is Atys of course that they are rehearsing right now.”)


We will begin an examination of the persuasion at work in these divertissements with a

discussion of the appeal to logos, which is achieved through the use of allegory and maxims,

with their attendant hyperbole. In the spectacle of theatrical production, especially in the

prologues, which are concerned with beautiful music, dancing and splendid staging rather than

plot, an appeal to logos must be simplified to be clearly understood.

The Dictionnaire de l=Académie Française of 1695 defines allegory as Aa discourse by

which in saying one thing, one makes known another, of which it is the figure.”8 We will speak

of the interpretation of the meaning Quinault hides when he uses allegory, but first we must

identify the main rhetorical figure in these staged images or tableaux, which is personification

(prosopopoeia). The Aliving beings” in the prologues are characters that represent deities,

mythological personages, the virtues and vices, and often other incarnations of abstractions that

relate to life at the court of Louis XIV: the Games, the Amours, the Pleasure, Fame, Rumours,

etc. All these beings participate in a lovely imaginary world where a perfect hero protects them.

It seems that the sole occupation of the inhabitants of this world is the pursuit of pleasure —

innocent pleasure, of course, where shepherds and nymphs Aflee the burdensome pomp of

grandeur” — indeed! — and play in the countryside. This parody of rustic behaviour was a

convention of the nobility of the period. As well, these characters glorify the advantages of the

leadership of the “New Mars,” Louis XIV, whose wars enable beautiful artistic enterprises. For

example, the goddesses Melpomène and Flore in Atys sing:

Let us make ourselves, if it is possible, worthy of his regard:

Let us join lively and pure beauty,

Of which Nature shines,

8Dictionnaire de l’Académie Française (1695; rpt. Genève: Slatkine Reprints, 1968).


To the ornaments of the loveliest of Arts.9

This allegory is not specific. However, opera historian Cuthbert Girdlestone identifies

certain moments in the prologues where Quinault makes allusion to political events which took

place during the period of the creation of his operas.10 The poet himself says, in the stage

directions of Cadmus and Hermione, that his intention is that the audience will interpret his

prologue with reference to the achievements of Louis XIV. He writes:

The allegorical sense of this subject is so clear that it is useless to explain it.

Suffice it to say that the King has placed himself above ordinary praises, and that,

to form some idea of the grandeur and the brilliance of his glory, he must be

elevated to a Divinity even of the light [that is, the sun] of his emblematic

figure.11

According to Étienne Gros, Quinault=s principal biographer, the political role of the

prologue in the 17th century became “a tool of the government: by initiating the people in the

glory of the sovereign, it [fulfilled] an office similar to that which the Gazette de France

filled.”12 Couvreur explains that the “message” found in the prologue of the opera Thésée is the

dominant idea in all the prologues: “Its meaning is that, despite the war which the king continues

to wage on his enemies, the Pleasures, Amours and Games have no less place at the court.”13 The

endless repetition of this theme in the same words demonstrates Quinault=s attempt to confirm

9Rendons-nous, s=il se peut, dignes de ses regards: / Joignons la beauté vive et pure / Dont brille la Nature,

/ Aux ornemens des plus beaux Arts@ (Quinault, AAtys@, Théâtre 445). 10Girdlestone’s examples of political and historical references in the prologues are cited in Appendix I. 11ALe sens allégorique de ce sujet est si clair, qu=il est inutile de l=expliquer. Il suffit de dire que le Roi s=est

mis au-dessus des louanges ordinaires, et que, pour former quelqu=idée de la grandeur et l=éclat de sa gloire, il a fallu s=élever jusqu=à la Divinité même de la lumiere, qui est le corps de sa devise@ (Quinault Théâtre 390).

12Adeviendra . . . un moyen du gouvernement: en initiant les peuples à la gloire du souverain, il remplira un office semblable à celui que remplissait la Gazette de France@ (Gros 525-526).

13ASon sens est que, malgré la guerre que le roi continue a porter chez ses ennemis, les Plaisirs, Amours et Jeux n=en ont pas moins leur place à la cour@ (Couvreur 73).


the values such as gloire, beauty, virtue, and wisdom that the regime of Louis XIV inculcated, as

well as the privileges and pastimes that it furnished: l=amour, pleasure, luxury, gardens, dance,

songs, and wine. The prologues justified the way of the life of the French courtier, thus

augmenting the pleasure and pride of the public who witnessed them. They also praised the

virtues, such as revenge, victory, honour, and extraordinary acts, which Aristotle says prompt

epideictic rhetoric.14 These all relate to the exploits of the king. As Chaïm Perelman explains,

the confirmation of values is important; it creates a “communion” in the audience.15 I will return

to that notion when we examine how Quinault makes the spectators participate emotionally and

spiritually in the ritual of the prologue.

In addition to providing these persuasive strategies, the prologues were useful in

impressing the foreign dignitaries who attended them. Their sumptuous luxury represented a

rather convincing declaration of the power and wealth of a monarch with the funds, the leisure

and the human resources to present, apparently without end, and even in a time of war, these

marvellous spectacles. The operas were thus the rhetorical “proofs” of the power of France, and

their presentation aimed at persuasion. This was a trick of propaganda adapted from the theatre

of antiquity which the mid-seventeenth century theatre critic, the abbé d’Aubignac, had already

described.16

At the end of this discussion I have included some passages from the prologues which

illustrate Quinault=s use of rhetorical figures for pragmatic aims. The effect of the personification

14Aristotle speaks of these subjects in his Rhetoric, ed. and trans. H. C. Lawson-Tancred (London: Penguin

Books, 1991) 1366b-1367a. 15Chaïm Perelman and L. Olbrechts-Tyteca, The New Rhetoric, trans. John Wilkinson and Purcell Weaver

(Notre Dame: Notre Dame University Press, 1969) 51. 16Abbé François Hédelin d=Aubignac in La Pratique du theatre (1715 ; rpt. Genève: Slatkine Reprints,

1971) tells us that the Ancients also recognized the political value of ostentation: A . . . quand durant la guerre on continuë ces Jeux dans un Etat, c=est donner des témoignages bien signalez, qu=il a des tresors inépuisables et des hommes de reste; Que les perils et les travaux d=une campagne qui vient de finir, et d=une autre qui commencera bien-tôt, ne changent, ni l=esprit, ni l=humeur, ni le courage de ceux qui composent les armées” (2B3).


is to render the tone more elevated and to enhance the ethos of Louis XIV. For example, it is not

another nation, but rather Discord or Envy itself, a transcendental, powerful enemy, which

troubles France. In the examples I have chosen, the hyperbole is without limits: the hero is

immortal, his achievements manifold (Appendix I). All this encourages in the spectator the

recognition of and respect for the model of perfection, of altruism, of patriotism and of valour

that was Louis XIV. In embracing Quinault=s mythological society, the spectator Asigns@ a

contract in which he agrees to accept each myth it represents. It is then easier to listen to the

simplistic and artificial doctrine that we see in these examples.

Since these rhetorical arguments are sung, the short, pithy maxim is the perfect rhetorical

figure to convey this doctrine. The maxim affirms an idea without demanding a deep reflection

upon its meaning. Unlike the maxims in the tragedy proper, which often express in an ironic way

a dubious morality, those in the prologues concern the joys of abandoning oneself to the innocent

pleasures of love. Verses such as “Les Jeux et les Amours / Ne regnent pas toujours” (Lover=s

sports reign not forever) remind us that these pleasures are ephemeral, and that it is thanks to

Mars that Venus can reign — thus a justification of the king=s military exploits which, in these

prologues, he prefers to romantic distractions. Quinault=s maxims, highly regarded by Voltaire,

incidentally, are full of clever poetical figures that make them memorable. Set in Lully=s

charming, tuneful airs, they aptly fulfil the poet-as-rhetorician=s mandate to please.

While allegory, maxim and hyperbole are the main logical strategies in the prologues,

and clearly, these figures are also ethical, it is rather the appeals to pathos which Quinault prefers

as the means to persuade the receptor. If we consider the tragédie lyrique as a whole as a


rhetorical discourse, the prologue serves as its exordium. And as Cicero says, the function of the

exordium is “to move the heart.”17

Quinault excites the emotion of the spectator through the use of figures of mimetic

pathos,18 especially by hyperbolic exclamations, rhetorical questions and apostrophe, which

move the same passions — fear, horror, joy, etc. — as those felt by the characters on the stage.

Molinié points out the artificial character of the exclamation19 and, in the context of the

prologues, where this figure announces nothing new, this is certainly the case. The order of such

expressions in the text is not important and the meaning does not contribute to the plot, because

there is none. The following example comes from a dialogue between Victory and Discord in

Proserpine:

(La Victoire) Ah! qu’il est beau de rendre

La paix à l’Univers!20

From the same work comes the following example of ecphonesis, an emotional exclamation, and

apostrophe, which addresses a personified abstraction: “O Vertu charmante! / Votre empire est

doux.”21 These hyperbolic enthusiastic utterances are somewhat self-congratulatory suggestions

for the French audience, which is flattered to think of its nation as peaceful and virtuous. We find

rhetorical questions as well in the prologues that express these sentiments.

Other figures are distinguished by the imperative (“let us”), which indicates exhortation,

wish or prayer and which represents a collective incitement of the spectators to consent to the

praises of the characters and values in question. Expressions such as “Let us witness the

17Aad impellendos animos@ (Cicero, “De Partitione Oratoria” in De Oratore, Book III, trans. H. Rackham

[Cambridge, MA: Loeb Classical Library, Harvard UP, 1997] I, 4). 18 See Albert Halsall, L>Art de convaincre (Toronto: Paratexte, 1988) 215-231. 19Michèle Aquien and Georges Molinié, Dictionnaire de rhétorique et de poétique (Paris: La Pochotèque,

1996) 168. 20Victory: “Oh ! Isn’t it lovely to bring peace to the Universe!” (Quinault, Proserpine, Théâtre 481). 21“O charming Virtue ! Your empire is sweet” (Quinault, Persée, Théâtre 510).


immortal glory of a king who is the astonishment of kings and of the greatest heroes,” “Let us

unite our voices; let each of us respond,” and “Let us sing of the kindness of his laws, of his

glorious exploits,”22 although addressed to other characters on the stage, suggest that the public

also is included in the “us.” Because Quinault presents these injunctions in such an agreeable

way, embellished with lovely music and theatrical marvels, the public is more amenable to

accepting the obligatory propaganda.

Rather than serving as a cog in a sinister propaganda machine, the prologues seem to

have the function of a social rite, or celebration, in which the audience participates. In fact, some

of the choral sections are hymns, and the text clearly a paeanismus, or solemn chant of praise.

The praise is always directed at the magnanimous hero who drives out Discord and Envy from

the domain of Venus. Through mimetic figures of antipathy, such as onedismus (objuration, or

reproach), epiplexis (reproach in the interrogative form), bdelygmia, which expresses extreme

aversion, and curses, Quinault encourages the spectator to fear and detest the “monster” enemy

(who, in the prologue, takes the form of a serpent that “Apollo,” the sun god, must vanquish).

This demonizing of the enemy has its antithesis in the deification of the hero, the one who

“brings peace.” Quinault employs the figures of mempsis, optation and deesis, which are

rhetorical devices expressing prayer or supplication. These figures inspire the spectator=s

gratitude towards the king and recognition of his political and military successes. We find an

example of mempsis, or complaint, in this quotation from the Nymph of the Seine in Alceste:

22The first expression is spoken by Alquif, l=Enchanteur in AAmadis@: AAllons étre témoins de la gloire

immortelle / D=un Roi l=étonnement des Rois / Et des plus grands héros le plus parfait modèle@ (Quinault, Théâtre 542). The second is spoken by La Gloire in AArmide@: AQue l=éclat de son [du Héros] nom s=étende au bout du monde: Réunissons nos voix; / Que chacun de nous réponde.@ The third is spoken by La Gloire, La Sagesse, and les Choeurs: AChantons la douceur de ses loix; / Chantons ses glorieux exploits@ (Quinault, A Armide,@ Théâtre 580).


Le héros que j’attends ne reviendra-t-il pas?

Serai-je toujours languissante

Dans une si cruelle attente?

On ne voit plus de fleurs qui naissent sous nos pas.23

The reference is likely to the absence of the king, perhaps at war, a subject on which the

prologues frequently dwell.

Still, through optation, or wish, one uses the subjunctive mode to plead for “a happy

outcome.”24 For example, in the prologue of Thésée, which takes place before a stage set

representing the palace of Versailles, Bacchus and Céres say:

May all the rest of the world

Be envious of the good fortune of this appealing abode.25

Another figure of supplication is deesis, where the speaker addresses his wish to a god.

Lanham says that, by this figure one directs his words to human beings as well.26 In the artificial

world of Quinault, which mixes mythological characters with the historic hero, it is sometimes

difficult to distinguish the divine destinataire, or addressee, from the mortal. At the end of the

prologue of Armide, the choir prays,

May in the temple of Memory

His (the Hero’s) name be forever engraved;

23Will the hero whom I await not return? / Will I languish forever / In such a cruel expectation? / We no

longer see the flowers that grow beneath our feet (Quinault, “Alceste,” Théâtre 407). 24Bernard Dupriez, A Dictionary of Literary Devices, Gradus, A – Z (Toronto: University of Toronto Press,

1991) 471. 25(Bacchus et Céres) “Que tout le reste de la terre / Porte envie au bonheur de ces lieux pleins d’attraits . . . /

(Mars et Vénus) Au milieu de la guerre / Goutons les plaisirs de la paix” (Quinault, “Thésée,” Théâtre 426-7). 26“Deesis: the vehement supplication either of the gods or of men.” Richard Lanham, A Handlist of

Rhetorical Terms (Berkeley: University of California press, 1991) 328.


It is to him that is reserved

To unite Wisdom and Glory.27

The mention of supplication suggests perhaps that the audience experiences the prologue

as a sort of pseudo-religious rite. Quinault=s insistence on the glorification of the monarch and on

the quasi-liturgical repetition of words reminds us of the Catholic mass. This is not to suggest

that the prologues smack of sacrilege, since the Christian religion is not specifically alluded to in

prayer, or by oaths or symbols. While Louis XIV is a Agod@ of Versailles, he is the equal,

according to Quinault, of all mythological gods. It is tacitly implied in the prologues that Louis

XIV is divine, an accepted notion at the time.28 Thus, in some cases, the prologue serves as a

model of a liturgical rite, but with a secular end. If the word liturgy means, according to Russel

Hirst, “the ceremony, song, chanting, reading, preaching, praying, acting, dancing, gesture, use

of visual symbols, and every other aspect of communal religious worship,”29 we understand

clearly why Gros speaks of the “cult of royalty”30 when he explains the goals of the Quinaultian

prologue.

D=Aubignac points out that while the gods who appear in the classical dramas were real

for the Greek audience, they were “imaginary Divinities”31 for the French audience of the 17th

century. Nevertheless, he clarifies that “living in a Monarchist State, we hold as sacred the

person of the Kings,”32 thus distinguishing the pagan from the divine. Louis XIV is transformed

27“Que dans le temple de Mémoire / Son [du Héros] nom soit pour jamais grave; / C’est à lui qu’il est

reserve / D’unir la Sagesse et la Gloire” (Quinault, “Armide,” Théâtre 580). 28Manuel Couvreur makes a strong case for this point of view in Jean-Baptiste Lully; musique et

dramaturgie au service du prince. 29Russel Hirst, “Liturgy@ in An Encyclopedia of Rhetoric and Composition, ed. Theresa Enos (New York:

Garland, 1996) 394. 30@culte de la royauté” (Gros 525). 31Ades Divinités imaginaires@ (d’Aubignac 320). 32D=Aubignac writes, Avivant dans un Etat Monarchique, nous tenons comme sacrée la personne des Rois@

(304).


into Apollo in the allegory of the prologues, but as the perfect hero, according to Couvreur, he is

also the descendant of God. Couvreur says,

. . . everyone believed in the 17th century that the king is of a different nature than

that of other men. Only the prince possesses a double corps; one is mortal like

that of any human being; the other is immortal and survives in the dynastic

succession. Like Christ, the king is both mortal and immortal and this double

essence makes him the lieutenant of God on earth.33

It is not difficult to recognize the emblem of the king, the sun, as suggestive of the

association of Louis with Apollo. But in the prologues we can isolate another type of reference to

the divinity of the monarch. Musicologist Patricia Howard points out that even the music of the

Lully-Quinault operas imposed the symbolic convention of the association of Louis XIV to a

god, be it Apollo or the Christian god.34 The pompous dotted rhythms (“saccade” is the musical

term in French), an innovation of Lully, have their parallel in the music of the religious offices,

which Louis attended. As Couvreur says, this ceremony “always ended with the motet, Domine

salvum fac regem [composed by Lully]. Devoted to showing the connection between the king of

this world and That of Heaven, this motet was the crucial point in the Chapel services.”35 Louis

entered the theatre to the musical overture of the tragédie lyrique, with its characteristic

“saccade.” This is also the musical figure that Lully uses sometimes to accompany the entry of

“the Hero,” of the king or of the god in the prologue or tragedy. One of the pragmatic ends of the

33A . . . chacun croit au dix-septième siècle que le roi est d=une nature différente de celle des autres hommes. Seul le prince possède un double corps: l=un est mortel comme celui de tout être humain; l=autre est immortel et se survit dans la succession dynastique. Comme le Christ, le roi est à la fois mortel et immortel et cette double essence fait de lui le lieutenant de Dieu sur terre@ (emphasis in original, Couvreur 346). 34Patricia Howard proposes this theory in her unpublished thesis, The Operas of Jean-Baptiste Lully (University of Surrey, 1970) III-328-15. 35ALa cérémonie s=achevait toujours sur le motet Domine salvum fac regem. Consacré à la mise en évidence du lien qui unit le roi de ce monde à Celui des Cieux, ce motet était le point crucial des services de la Chapelle@ (Couvreur 334).


rhetoric of the prologues is therefore to reaffirm the association of the king and God, in a

ceremonial, but secular context.

Moreover, where the librettos imitate ritual aspects of the Christian liturgy, Quinault uses

such figures as encomium (praise), eucharistia (prayer of thanks), and eulogia (benediction).

These passages have the vocabulary, the grammatical structures and the reverential tone that we

find in such liturgical texts as the Magnificat, and in the Gloria and the Sanctus from the mass.

Where these texts use the word God or the Almighty, Quinault substitutes the word king in the

prologues, meaning Louis XIV. This word during his reign was almost synonymous with the

word gloire, meaning the honour acquired by a man of high rank through his great and

magnanimous actions. It implied self-sacrifice, certainly a Christian tenet. Quinault=s verses

reiterate the debt we owe to the Hero who offers himself in this way. They repeat the words God,

heaven, powerful, glory and immortal, as do many biblical passages. A passage from one of the

prologues (the first in Appendix I of this article) illustrates Quinault’s use of such language.

Likewise, stage directions even indicate in the prologue of “Cadmus et Hermione” that, after

having vanquished the evil which prevailed on earth, and having pronounced his benediction,

Apollo or “the Sun,” “rises up to heaven,”36 perhaps evoking the image of Christ. Lully usually

sets Quinault=s quasi-liturgical verses with hymn-like homophony, frequently responsorial in

nature, thus imitating the style of sacred music. To further the ecclesiastical comparison in the

prologues, Quinault uses metaphors and images involving altars, temples, trophies, sacrifices and

offerings. Lighting effects mentioned in the stage directions and the union of great forces of

choirs and instruments help to give the impression that earth is transformed into heaven by the

presence of the king. These factors seem to add up to what Zoberman calls Athat imperceptible

36Quinault, “Cadmus et Hermione,” Théâtre 392.


border between the profane and the sacred,”37 which he indicates was a feature of the ceremonial

discourse of the Académie Française of the period.

I would draw a parallel between attendance in those days at church and at the opera. If

the tragedy itself corresponds to the sermon, in that it instructs by its use of an exemplum

illustrating the correct moral behaviour to follow, then the prologue corresponds to the service

that precedes that lesson. Through beautiful ritual in song, hearts are stirred and minds consent to

an oft-repeated and comforting message that reaffirms the faith in the perfect monarch and his

divine right.

Since Louis XIV involved himself in the creation of these performances by proposing or

choosing their subjects and by influencing their ideological content, and as he faithfully attended

the performances and even many rehearsals,38 he was simultaneous orator and audience. And it

seems to me that no one was more “persuaded” by the prologues than the king himself. This in

turn, must have influenced the reception of the public: no one would have risked offending the

patron of these divertissements who was also their main character. Thus, rhetoric is at the root of

reception. It follows that, as Steven Mailloux suggests, reception study “makes significant

contributions to what might be called the study of cultural rhetoric — the tropes, the arguments,

37 Zoberman calls this Acette insaisissable frontière entre le profane et le sacré@ (Les Cérémonies de la Parole 657).

38 ASa Majesté ne se contentait pas d=indiquer les sujets [des operas de Lully], Elle tenait encore à suivre les répétitions . . . . Assidu aux répétitions, Louis XIV connaissait les tragédies en musique par coeur. Cette méchante langue de Saint-Simon prétend même qu=il >chantait dans ses particuliers les endroits les plus à sa louange des prologues des opéras=@ (Couvreur 21-33). (AHis Majesty was not content to indicate the subjects [of Lully=s operas], He was fond of attending the rehearsals . . . . Regular at the rehearsals, regular at the performances, Louis XIV knew the tragédies en musique by heart. That naughty tongue of Saint-Simon even claims that he >used to sing in private the places most laudatory of himself in the prologues of the operas.=@) According to Gros, ALouis XIV, passionné de la musique, entendait sans lassitude dix fois de suite le même opéra@ (Gros 112). (ALouis XIV, passionate about music, would listen without fatigue to the same opera ten times in a row.@)


the narratives circulating in a culture at particular historical moments.”39 The cultural rhetoric of

the 17th century was very different from our own.

We have seen the importance of allegory, of maxim, and, obviously, of hyperbole to the

logos of Quinault=s prologues. The elements that suggest religious ceremony also subtly augment

their appeal to pathos because they arouse an emotional participation in the celebratory

experience. Since the prologues remind the public, by their allusions to the Christian and to

mythological Greek tradition, of the celebration of the praises of divinities, they also make a

strong appeal to ethos. The prologues of Quinault and Lully, in the guise of innocent

entertainments, can be seen as a means to influence, by a process of rhetorical amplification, the

opinion of their audience, particularly its opinion of the monarch who had paid for these

sumptuous and engaging spectacles.

39Steven Mailloux, “Reception Study,” Encyclopedia of Rhetoric and Composition, ed. Theresa Enos (New

York: Garland, 1996) 592.


APPENDIX I: ALLEGORICAL EXCERPTS FROM THE PROLOGUES

1. From Quinault, “Phaéton,” Théâtre 527: (Saturne) Un Héros, qui mérite une gloire immortelle,

Au séjour des humains aujourd’hui nous rappelle. . . . Il fait mLler les jeux B cent travaux divers: Rien ne peut nous troubler; la Discorde est aux fers. L’Envie en vain frémit de voir les biens qu’il cause; Une heureuse paix est la loi Que ce vainqueur impose.

(A Hero, who merits immortal glory, Recalls us today to the dwelling places of humans. . . He mixes plays with a hundred public works: Nothing can worry us; Discord is in chains. Envy trembles in vain to see the benefits he brings about; A happy peace is the law That this conqueror imposes.) 2. From Quinault, AAtys,” Théâtre 444: Ses [le héros] justes loix, Ses grand exploits Rendront son mémoire éternelle : Chaque jour, chaque instant Ajoûte encore à son nom éclatant Une gloire nouvelle. (His just laws, His great exploits

Render his memory eternal. Each day, each moment

Adds new glory To his dazzling name.)

3. From Quinault, “Thésée,” Théâtre 425-427:

(Le Choeur) (Chorus) Les Jeux et les Amours Lovers= Sports Ne règnent pas toujours. Reign not forever.


(Les Amours, les Grâces, les Plaisirs et (The Amours, the Graces, the les Jeux se retirent.) Pleasures and the Games

withdraw.) (VÉNUS) (VÉNUS) Revenez, Amours, revenez; Return, Amours, return; Pourquoi quitter ces lieux Why do you leave this place Où l=on est sans alarmes? where we are out of harm? La beauté perd ses plus doux charmes, Beauty loses its sweetest

charms, Si-tôt que vous l=abandonnez. As soon as you abandon it. Revenez, Amours, revenez. Return, Amours, return. Beaux lieux, où les Plaisirs suivoient Lovely places, where the par-tout mes pas, Pleasures followed my

footsteps everywhere, Que sont devenus vos appas? What has become of your

charms? Qu=un si charmant séjour est triste et How sad and lonely is such a solitaire! charming abode! Hélas! Hélas! Les Amours n=y sont pas! Alas! Alas! The Amours are

not here! Sans les Amours, rien ne peut plaire. Without les Amours, nothing

can please. Revenez, Amours, revenez; Return, Amours, return; Quel chagrin si pressant vous a tous What distress so urgent has emmenez? taken you away? Est-il quelque danger dont Mars ne vous Is it some danger from which délivre? Mars does not deliver you? Il chasse les fureurs de ces lieux fortunés; He chases the furies from

happy places; A la seule Victoire il permet de le suivre. He allows none but Victory

To follow him. Revenez, Amours, revenez. Return, Amours, return. (On entend des trompettes et des tambours, (We hear trumpets and dont le bruit se mêle au son de plusieurs drums, whose sound blends instrumens champêtres. Cependant Mars with the sound of several paroît sur son char avec Bellone.) rustic instruments. Mars,

however, appears on his chariot with Bellone.)

RHETOR – Volume I (2004) <www.cssr-scer.ca/rhetor> 20(MARS, sur son char) (MARS, on his chariot) Que rien ne trouble ici Vénus et les Amours: Let nothing here disturb

Venus and the Amours: Que sous d=aimables loix, dans ces douces May one pass happy days in retraites, repose under gentle laws in

these sweet retreats. On passé en repos d=heureux jours; We pass happy days in peace; Que les hautbois, que les musettes May oboes, may bagpipes L=emportent sur les trompettes Prevail over trumpets Et sur les tambours. And over drums. Que rien ne trouble ici Vénus et les Amours. May nothing here disturb

Venus and the Amours. (On entend plus le bruit des trompettes & (We hear again the sound of les tambours, et plusieurs instrumens trumpets and drums, and champêtres jouent dans le tems que Mars several rustic instruments descend.) play while Mars descends.) Partez, allez, vôlez, redoubtable Bellone; Leave, go, fly, fearful

Bellone; Laissez en paix ici les Amours et les Jeux: Leave here in peace the Amours and the Sports; Que Céres [blé], que Bacchus [vin] Let Ceres [wheat], let Bacchus

[wine] s=avancent avec eux; come forth with them; Eloignez ce qui les étonne. May whoever frightens them

depart. Portez aux ennemis de cet empire heureux Bear to the enemies of this

happy empire Tout ce que la guerre a d=affreux; All that war has that is

dreadful; Vénus le veut, Mars vous l=ordonne. What Venus wants, Mars

commands you. Partez, allez, vôlez, redoubtable Bellone. Leave, go fly, fearful Bellone. (Bellone obéit et s=envole.) (Bellone obeys and flees.) (VÉNUS) (VENUS) Inexorable Mars, pourquoi déchaînez- Inexorable Mars, why do you vous contre un Héros vainqueur tant unleash so many jealous d=ennemis jaloux? enemies against a

Conquering Hero? Faut-il que l=univers avec fureur conspire Must the universe with fury Contre ce glorieux empire, Conspire against this

glorious empire, Don=t le séjour nous est si doux? Whose abode is so sweet to

us? Sans une aimable paix, peut-on jamais Without an amiable peace, attendre de beaux jours ni d=heureux? can one ever expect lovely

days or happy moments? La plainte la plus tendre, The most tender complaint,

21 Les plus doux soupirs des amans The sweetest sighs of lovers Sont le seul bruit qu=on doit entendre Are the only sound that we En ces lieux si charmans. must hear in such charming

places. (MARS) (MARS) Que dans ce beau séjour rien ne vous Let nothing frighten you in Épouvante; this lovely abode; Un nouveau Mars rendra la France A new Mars will make triomphante: France triumphant: Le destin de la guerre en ses mains est The fate of the war is placed remis; in his hands; Et si j=augmente And if I increase Le nombre de ses ennemis, The number of his enemies, C=est pour rendre sa gloire encor plus It is to render his glory even éclantante. more dazzling. Le Dieu de la valeur doit toujours l=animer. The God of worth must ever

rouse him. (VÉNUS) (VENUS) Vénus répand sur lui tout ce qui peut Venus lavishes on him all charmer. that can charm. (MARS) (MARS) Malheur, malheur à qui voudra contraindre Woe, woe to whomever will Un si grand Héros à s=armer! Force such a great Hero to arm

himself! (VÉNUS) (VENUS) Tout doit l=aimer All must love him. (MARS) (MARS) Tout doit le craindre. All must fear him. (VÉNUS ET MARS) (VENUS AND MARS) Tout doit le craindre. All must fear him. Tout doit l=aimer. All must love him.

22

APPENDIX II: POLITICAL AND HISTORIC ALLUSIONS IN THE ALLEGORY OF THE PROLOGUES

The following passages taken from La Tragédie en musique by Cuthbert Girdlestone

show the influence of political events on the allegory in the prologues of Quinault:

Cadmus et Hermione 27 avril 1673 “Palés, déesse des pasteurs, Mélisse, divinité des forLts et des montagnes, suivies de nymphes et de bergers, se réunissent pour chanter la beauté de la campagne au lever du jour et les bienfaits du soleil - entendez, du roi. Mais leur fLte est interrompue par des bruits souterrains et une espPce de nuit qui oblige l’assemblée champLtre B fuir sur un chÉur d’épouvante. Sa place est prise par l’Envie qui ‘évoque le monstrueux serpent Python’ et les Vents pour l’aider B troubler les beaux jours que le soleil donne au monde. Au cours du ballet elle essaie d’éteindre les feux du soleil, mais celui-ci lance des traits enflammés qui embrase le serpent et contraint l’Envie B abandonner la partie. Allégorie transparente: en 1673 la France est en guerre contre la Hollande B laquelle viennent de s’unir l’Autriche et le Brandebourg. ‘Tu triomphes, Soleil, tout cPde B ton pouvoir’ n’est pour l’instant qu’un pieux souhait qui ne se réalisera qu’en 1678 avec la paix de NimPgue. Pasteurs et nymphes reviennent célébrer sa victoire et le dieu lui-mLme daigne enfin apparaître en proférant des vÉux de bonheur universel” (Girdlestone 59-60). Alceste 11 janvier 1674 [Le prologue d’Alceste] “se joue devant le palais des Tuileries. ‘La nymphe de la Seine paraît appuyée sur une urne au milieu d’une allée dont les arbres sont séparés par des fontaines’. Elle déplore l’absence du roi, alors B la guerre, s’écriant jusqu’B huit fois: Le héros que j’attends ne reviendra-t-il pas? La gloire la rassure. Vois comme sa valeur a soumis B la Seine La fleuve le plus fier qui soit dans l’Univers; - le passage du Rhin est du juin 1672" (Girdlestone 69). Thésée 11 janvier 1675 “Dans le prologue le théâtre représente les jardins et la façade du palais de Versailles, le ‘château neuf’ achevé deux ou trois ans plus tôt. Son sens est que, malgré la guerre que le roi continue B

23porter chez ses ennemis, les Plaisirs, Amours et Jeux n’en ont pas moins leur place B la cour. 1674 est l’année des campagnes de Turenne en Alsace et au Palatinat et de la seconde conquLte de la Franche-comté; janvier 1675 voit les Alliés chassés de l’Alsace” (Girdlestone 73). Atys 10 janvier 1676 “L’année 1675 fut celle de la mort de Turenne, de la défaite de Créqui suivie de la reconquLte de l’Alsace. Le prologue d’Atys, aussi pompeux que les précédents, est moins précis et se contente de louer l’humeur belliqueuse et la gloire du roi. Le temps des jeux et du repos Lui sert B méditer de nouvelles conquLtes.” (Girdlestone 77) Isis 5 janvier 1677 “L’année 1675 avait vu trois victoires navales de Duquesne en Méditerranée. Quinault crut bon de les célébrer dans le prologue d’Isis dont les personnages sont la Renommée, Apollon et Neptune. C’est ce dernier qui entonne l’éloge du roi. Publiez des exploits nouveaux. C’est le mLme vainqueur Si fameux sur la terre Qui triomphe encor sur les eaux.” (Girdlestone 81) Proserpine 3 février 1680 “Entre le 10 aoft 1678 et le 2 septembre 1679 s’échelonnent les signatures des cinq traités dont l’ensemble constitue la paix de NimPgue. Le prologue de Proserpine, composé pour Ltre représenté en février 1680, célPbre ce moment le plus glorieux du rPgne. Il montre la libération de la Paix, tenue en esclavage par la Discorde et la Haine, grâce B l’intervention de la Victoire. La Félicité, l’Abondance, les jeux et les Plaisirs font l’éloge du vainqueur qui se sert de celle-ci pour faire triompher la Paix” (Girdlestone 84). Persée 17 avril 1682 “Le prologue est le premier oj il ne soit pas question de guerres et de victoires. Son sens est que, grâce au roi, la Vertu fait la paix avec la Fortune” (Girdlestone 90).

24

Phaéton 6 janvier 1684 “Le sens du prologue est que, grâce au roi, Saturne et Astrée ramPnent l’âge d’or; en 1682-83, en effet, Louis XIV n’a aucune guerre sur les bras; c’est l’époque des ‘annexions pacifiques’. La flagornerie B l’adresse du Roi-Soleil y est encore plus épaisse que d’habitude” (Girdlestone 98). Amadis 15 janvier 1684 “Dans le prologue, grâce B Louis XIV, Alquif et Urgande, roi et reine des fées, se réveillent pour faire représenter l’histoire d’Amadis” (Girdlestone 103). Girdlestone est de l’avis que la piPce qui suit ce prologue est aussi sans “portée morale.” “C’est au spectacle et au chatoiement des émotions multiples que Quinault fait appel pour conquérir son public” (103). En ce qui concerne la propagande, ce prologue est donc le moins spécifique. Roland 8 janvier 1865 “Le prologue roule sur les dangers de l’amour et l’extinction du flambeau de la guerre par Louis XIV. (Nous sommes en 1684.) Démorgon, roi des Fées et le premier des Génies de la Terre, annonce la paix. ‘Tout cPde au plus grand des héros’” (Girdlestone 112). Armide 15 février 1686 “Dans le prologue la Gloire et la Sagesse s’unissent pour louer et suivre le roi. (Nous doutons que ‘les monstres’ que le roi est dit tenir dans les fers soit une allusion B la révocation de l’édit de Nantes, comme le croit Gros)” (Girdlestone 118).

25

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Couvreur, Manuel. Jean-Baptiste Lully: musique et dramaturgie au service du prince. Paris:

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Rhétorique de la rupture dans les textes de poilus SYLVAIN RHEAULT Department of French University of Regina

Introduction

La Grande Guerre a été d'une ampleur sans commune mesure avec les guerres

précédentes et les nouveaux seuils atteints par l'horreur, avec des excès de toutes natures, furent

des conditions propices à l'émergence de nouvelles perspectives rhétoriques concernant le

combat.

Les poilus (le nom que l'on donnait aux soldats français lors de la Grande Guerre) ont

laissé des textes nombreux et variés, que ce soient des lettres, des mémoires, des journaux, de la

poésie, des pièces de théâtre ou des romans. Parmi les poilus, on compte nombre d'écrivains

dont, entre autres, Céline, Henri Barbusse, Roland Dorgeles, Blaise Cendrars, Jean Giono et les

poètes surréalistes. Alain-Fournier, Charles Péguy et d'autres sont morts à la Grande Guerre et

Apollinaire n'y a pas longtemps survécu. Si autant d'artistes et d'intellectuels sont montés aux

premières lignes, ce serait, selon Keegan, à cause du service militaire obligatoire, aujourd'hui

aboli, qui avait graduellement été établi pendant le XIXe siècle.1 Ces témoins des souffrances, de

la mort et d'autres expériences terrifiantes, ont raconté les combats en toute connaissance de

cause. Par le nombre et la qualité de leurs oeuvres, ces écrivains ont contribué à faire du combat

une thématique incontournable de la littérature française contemporaine.

1John Keegan, A History of Warfare (1993; New York: Vintage Books, 1994) 355.


Notre réflexion, en plus des textes littéraires, s'appuiera aussi sur les lettres de soldats de

la guerre de 14-18. Nous observerons dans ces textes les particularités rhétoriques propres aux

poilus, et plus particulièrement les manifestations de rupture. Pour les besoin du présent article,

on pourrait définir techniquement la rupture un cas où les parties de deux ensembles d'un même

paradigme diffèrent en tout point. Nous verrons dans les textes de poilus que les matériaux

littéraires se cristallisent à certains pôles et qu'il en résulte, à force de concentration, une

inévitable fracture avec d'autres pôles.

Certains aspects pertinents à la guerre seront relevés dans les textes des poilus et pour

chacun de ces aspects deux pôles seront présentés. En montrant comment l'écriture se focalise

sur l'un de ces pôles, nous verrons pourquoi des ruptures apparaissent. Nous verrons que la

perception de la guerre a été un premier catalyseur de rupture mais que les cassures principales

s'établissent autour du poilu lui-même, dans les différentes relations que son rôle social implique:

le poilu sera mis en rapport avec le civil, le champion et le chef. Enfin, la perception de l'ennemi

par le poilu, en rupture avec le discours officiel, viendra clore notre brève exploration du sujet.

1. La guerre du poilu: une non-bataille

Les poilus qui s'engageaient en 1914, envisageaient une guerre brève. Comme pour le

conflit précédent, la guerre franco-prussienne, les hommes s'attendaient à de grands mouvements

stratégiques ponctués de chocs brutaux et décisifs. Ceux qui allaient se battre pour la première

fois s'imaginaient que les engagements s'apparenteraient à ces batailles rangées de l'Antiquité où,

à l'instar d'une tragédie, tout était décidé en un lieu, un moment et une action. Voilà que se

dessine un premier pôle, celui d'un événement collectif ponctuel qui serait aussi court qu'une

bataille.

Mais les nouvelles techniques de combat devaient en décider autrement. Les

mitrailleuses, l'artillerie lourde et les tranchées avaient créé les conditions propices à un conflit

où une extrême usure, autant alimentaire que morale, allait finalement faire taire les canons en

1918. La guerre, événement collectif définitivement duratif, apparaît dans les textes de poilus


non pas comme une action collective, mais comme une attente pénible: "Ah, que c'est long et

monotone et déprimant. Voilà quinze jours que nous restons sur place."2 Dans le Feu et dans les

Croix de bois, les moindres ennuis sont consignés, aussi menus qu'ils soient: de la faction

interminable qu'on impose aux soldats à la boue gluante qui semble avaler les hommes en

passant par les poux et les corvées de tranchées. Les actions décrites ne sont pas des faits d'arme

héroïques, mais de petites anecdotes ponctuant la routine du soldat.

Le duratif se manifeste surtout par l'emploi de récits itératifs. On raconte une seule fois ce

qui s'est produit un certain nombre de fois: la montée au front, le creusage des tranchées, les

périodes de repos à l'arrière. En témoignent certains des titres de chapitres de Barbusse: "La

permission," "Bombardement," "La corvée," ou de Dorgelès: "La veille des armes," "Mots

d'amours" (qui évoque les lettres intimes reçues au front). En fait, la guerre est si "durative"

qu'elle en vient à imprégner la vie et les discours de tous les personnages évoluant sous son règne

et à les hanter bien après le retour à la vie normale, comme c'est le cas dans les romans Aurélien

d'Aragon et Gilles de Drieu la Rochelle.

Si l'attente émousse l'ardeur physique des guerriers, elle sert en revanche de catalyseur

aux réflexions de toutes sortes. Le combat devient non plus le lieu de l'action virile et meurtrière,

ce qu'on s'attendrait à trouver dans un récit de guerre, mais l'occasion d'explorer une intimité

souvent trouble, incertaine, parfois pleine d'espoir et d'autres fois sombrement pessimiste:

Mais pourquoi faisais-tu tout cela, Blaise, par déguelasserie?... Hé! parce que je

découvrais tout cela pour la première fois et qu'il faut aller jusqu'au bout pour

savoir ce dont les hommes sont capables, en bien, en mal, en intelligence, en

connerie, et que de toutes les façons la mort est au bout, que l'on triomphe ou que

l'on succombe.3

2Parole de poilus, sous la direction de Jean-Pierre Guéno et d'Yves Laplume (Paris: Librio, 1998) 44. Lettre

écrite par Maurice Maréchal le 27 septembre 1914. Pour les références subséquentes à Paroles de poilus, le nom de l'épistolier ainsi que la date de la lettre seront aussi donnés.

3Blaise Cendrars, La Main coupée (1946; Paris: Denoël, 1991) 234.


La guerre, qui se révèle n'être pas une bataille décisive, oblige le poilu à se réfugier en lui-même

pour échapper à l'insupportable durée.

2. Le poilu: un non-civil

Le statut de personnage littéraire du poilu s'entend mieux lorsqu'on défini le groupe social

auquel appartient le conscrit français par opposition à d'autres groupes sociaux. Ainsi, en

distinguant le poilu des non-combattants, qu'on regroupe sous la désignations de "civils," on se

rend compte que la différence entre les deux groupes tient à bien plus que le simple fait de tenir

une arme. Il faut tenir compte de la sous-culture militaire et surtout du rite initiatique par

excellence du combattant qui distingue "l'homme vrai" de la "demi-portion": le baptème du feu.

Norton Cru, connu pour avoir produit une importante étude sur les souvenirs des combattants,4

établit une distinction bien nette entre les écrivains "témoins," c'est-à-dire qui sont allés au front,

et tous les autres. Sont disqualifiés les récits de guerre dont l'auteur n'aurait pas été directement

exposé au feu. Cette position discutable, dont Frédéric Rousseau démonte les rouages dans un

livre publié l'an dernier, n'en démontre pas moins l'existence d'une rupture profonde entre

l'univers du poilu et l'univers dans lequel évolue le reste de la population.

La distinction entre combattants et civils se fait surtout sentir dans le contenu même des

textes. C'est que les expériences subies par les poilus sont si dissemblables en horreur et en

intensité de celles vécues par les civils qu'il en résulte inévitablement une sous-culture exclusive,

c'est-à-dire, pour les militaires, à la fois un milieu où ils se reconnaissent et évoluent avec aisance

et à la fois un stigmate qui tend à "exclure" les étrangers qu'ils sont devenus du reste de la

société. Le fossé entre les deux groupes semble s'élargir proportionnellement à la durée de la

guerre et se manifeste de mille façons dans les textes:

4Jean Norton Cru, Témoins: essai d'analyse et de critique des souvenirs de combattants / édités en français

de 1915 à 1928 (Paris: Les Étincelles, 1929).


La paix, c'était surtout le royaume des femmes. Elles ignoraient absolument cet

autre royaume aux portes de Paris, ce royaume de troglodytes sanguinaires, ce

royaume d'hommes . . . .5

Nous échangions nos impressions à haute voix, et les gens ne comprenaient pas,

pas plus notre langage que notre émotion . . . .6

Que veux-tu, j'ai constaté, comme tous mes camarades du reste, que ces deux ans

de guerre avaient amené petit à petit, chez la population civile, l'égoïsme et

l'indifférence et que nous autres combattants nous étions presque oubliés.7

Certains poilus plus engagés politiquement vont faire porter la responsabilité de cette rupture à la

classe sociale aisée, et les bourgeois deviendront ainsi des non-combattants abhorrés.

Dans une guerre où le patriotisme fait de moins en moins de sens, à la question "pour qui

se bat-on?" les poilus politisés de la Grande Guerre répondent, dans leurs lettres: "Regardez,

bourgeois, notre pas cadencé permet à votre volaille de cuire en son four."8 Barbusse, l'un des

écrivains les plus à gauche, présente dans le Feu les pauvres soldats d'une escouade comme les

victimes d'une machination de la bourgeoisie européenne. Après un engagement des plus

violents, les poilus philosophient sur leur condition misérable et sur la guerre:

Ah! vous avez raison, pauvres ouvriers innombrables des batailles, vous qui aurez

fait toute la guerre avec vos mains, toute-puissance qui ne sert pas encore à faire

le bien, foule terrestre dont chaque face est un monde de douleurs . . . .9

Le texte établit des liens non équivoques entre le guerrier et l'idéologie communiste. "Ouvrier"

est mis en relation avec "bataille," "guerre" avec "mains," "toute-puissance" avec "bien." Enfin,

5Pierre Drieu la Rochelle, Gilles (1939; Paris: Gallimard, 1969) 18. 6Cendrars 317. 7Paroles de poilus (Gaston Biron, 14 juin 1916) 104. 8Paroles de poilus (Henri Aimé Gauthé, non daté) 14. 9Henri Barbusse, Le Feu (1916; Paris: Flammarion, 1965) 430.


le narrateur fait de la masse un martyr: "foule terrestre" est mis en relation avec "monde de

douleurs." Dans les discussions qui suivent ce paragraphe, les soldats s'en prennent aux inégalités

sociales généralisées à toute l'Europe et qui leur paraissent bien plus inacceptables et

insupportables dans le contexte de la guerre. Barbusse affuble même d'une majuscule la

"Différence" entre les hommes souffrent et ceux qui font souffrir.10

Le procédé d'écriture consiste ici à amplifier la rupture entre poilus et civils en mettant en

contraste leur univers respectifs et en multipliant les anecdotes illustrant l'incommunicabilité

entre ces deux groupes. D'autre part, le recours par des écrivains à des idéologies politiques ou

religieuses, qui a pour but premier de redonner au combat une légitimité sociale véritable, a aussi

pour objectif de remettre à l'unisson la culture des combattants et celle des non-combattants.

C'est qu'il faut au moins proposer une explication valable, à défaut de pouvoir le guérir, à

l'insupportable malaise social causé par la rupture entre l'armée des poilus et la collectivité pour

laquelle ils se battent.

3. Le poilu: un non-champion

Pour comprendre d'où origine la prochaine rupture, il faut d'abord distinguer deux types

de combattant: le champion et le guerrier. Le champion est perçu comme le meilleur individu de

la collectivité, celui dont les habiletés supérieures lui valent des biens et du prestige. Mais pour

en arriver là, il doit combattre (ou performer) au sein de sa propre collectivité, pour son propre

bénéfice. Il représente l'individualité enviable. Le guerrier, quant à lui, fait la guerre, c'est-à-dire

qu'il combat pour le profit de la collectivité. Ses actions bénéficient d'abord à son groupe social,

et à moins de rapines et de pillage, le guerrier ne s'enrichira pas directement de l'action de

combat. Le lot du guerrier se résume à l'obéissance anonyme.

La propagande de guerre, tout comme les récits épiques, ingénieusement, affirme que

celui qui s'engage sera un "champion," que le guerrier, en affrontant l'ennemi, se révèlera digne

10Barbusse 372.


de figurer parmi les meilleurs de sa collectivité. Dix ans avant la Grande Guerre, Foch énonçait

ainsi sa vision de l'héroïsme au combat:

Les lauriers de la victoire flottent à la pointe des baïonnettes ennemies. C'est là

qu'il faut aller les prendre, les conquérir par une lutte corps à corps si on les

veut.11

"Lutte corps à corps" suggère un combat "équitable" où ceux qui ont le plus de vitalité devraient

l'emporter. Même avant 1914, il n'était plus possible, pour les adversaires, de s'affronter dans une

mêlée sanglante, comme c'était le cas depuis les batailles de l'Antiquité jusqu'aux campagnes de

Napoléon. La lutte corps à corps était devenue suicidaire.

Comme l'explique John Keegan dans A History of Warfare, les armes, avec la révolution

industrielle, avaient évolué en puissance, en précision et en portée.12 La mitrailleuse, devenue

portable juste au début de la Grande Guerre, ainsi qu'une artillerie plus puissante et plus précise,

dominaient maintenant le champ de bataille. On peut constater, dans la correspondance des

poilus, les affres des progrès techniques:

En effet, partout on se heurte aux machines. Ce n'est pas homme contre homme

qu'on lutte, c'est homme contre machine. Un tir de barrage aux gaz asphyxiants et

douze mitrailleuses, en voilà assez pour anéantir le régiment qui attaque.13

La nouvelle réalité technologique de la guerre, rendait dérisoire l'invocation des modèles

héroïques traditionnels. La rupture entre champion et guerrier, dans les textes de poilus, survient

en particulier lorsque le guerrier de la Grande Guerre se rend compte que ce ne sont surtout pas

les "meilleurs combattants" qui bénéficient des chances optimales de survie, mais les lâches et

les déserteurs, ou encore ceux qui savent le mieux se cacher des armes de destruction de masse,

nées de la révolution industrielle:

Nous, nous ne les [les Prussiens] voyons pas! Pour la malheureuse infanterie, la

tâche est bien facile à résumer: "Se faire tuer le moins possible par l'artillerie."14

11Paroles de poilus (Ferdinand Foch, De la conduite de la guerre, février 1904) 35. 12Keegan 361. 13Paroles de poilus (Michel Lanson, juillet 1915) 63.


Les armes nouvelles donnent une mort sans gloire, gratuite, anonyme surtout. C'est cet

insupportable anonymat, complètement à l'opposé de la vision glorieuse de ce qu'est un

champion, qui frappe l'imagination des hommes au front:

Je ne te parlerai pas de mon rôle dans cette guerre. Je suis le matricule no X, une

partie du maillon de cette immense chaîne. J'ai des heures de nostalgie et de

dégoût.15

Un fois qu'il a pris conscience de cette rupture, le poilu se met à déplorer vivement le fait que, en

tant qu'individu, la guerre ne lui rapporte absolument aucun bénéfice matériel. Au contraire, en

tant que "maillon de cette immense chaîne," il n'amasse que du malheur et de la misère:

On mange à même le couvercle de notre casserole de fer, et j'ai toujours dans ma

poche ma cuillère, juste essuyée à l'aide de papier. Tous les huit jours je dors une

fois sans mes bottes, tous les dix jours, je change de chaussette et je reçois ma

solde de cinq marks trente. . . . Personne n'a peur de la crasse; on rince, on boit et

l'on se lave dans l'eau des tranchées.16

Plutôt qu'en héros, le poilu en vient à se peindre en victime et, pour mieux faire entendre

sa complainte, à accentuer le contraste entre la situation que la guerre lui impose et celle,

implicite, qu'il aurait pu vivre en temps de paix. Giono, dans le Grand Troupeau, a exploité cette

opposition entre les épouvantables misères endurées au front et la vie dure mais vigoureuse qui

aurait pu être celle de l'homme aux travaux des champs. La perspective de la victime, comme

artifice romanesque, se révèle particulièrement efficace pour l'idéologie pacifiste qu'il adopte. De

même, Bardamu, le personnage errant de Voyage au bout de la nuit de Céline, apparaît comme

une victime de la "formidable erreur" que fut la Grande Guerre.17 Dans le Feu de Barbusse, les

discussions des soldats portent non pas sur les actions héroïques, mais sur les souffrances infinies

apportées par cette guerre qu'on leur impose. Il est paradoxal de constater que les soldats de la

14Paroles de poilus (Maurice Maréchal, 27 septembre 1914) 44. 15Paroles de poilus (Michel Taupiac, 2 mai 1915) 111. 16Paroles de poilus (Christian Bordeching, 24-25 février 1916) 69. 17Louis-Ferdinand Céline, Voyage au bout de la nuit (1932; Paris: Gallimard, 1996) 12.


Grande Guerre, dont le métier consiste à tuer, en viennent à se considérer eux-mêmes comme des

victimes.

4. Le poilu: un non-chef

Si on envisage l'armée comme un organisme, les chefs en formeraient la tête, tandis que

les soldats en constitueraient le corps. Les expressions s'inspirant de ce thème ne manquent pas:

un "corps d'armée," "à la tête des troupes," "une armée décapitée," etc. On s'attend à une union

très étroite entre le chef et sa troupe, comme Jeanne d'Arc menant les chevaliers au combat.

Les textes des poilus brossent un portrait bien différent de la relation entre les officiers

supérieurs et les soldats. Jules Romains exprime en termes quelque peu humoristique l'idée que

se font les officiers du combat: "à partir du grade de général de brigade, on a un faible pour

l'arme blanche."18 Cela rappelle étrangement la citation de Foch donnée plus tôt. Le texte laisse

entendre à quel point les poilus considèrent que les officiers sont déconnectés de la réalité des

combats modernes.

La rupture entre les poilus et leurs chefs ne concerne pas que les idées, elle est aussi

"géographique": "Ces Messieurs [les officiers de l'État-Major] ont des abris solides, sont à

l'arrière dans des pays . . . ."19 Ces vives critiques contre les officiers qui ne risquent pas leur vie

laissent à penser que la relation entre la tête et le corps n'est pas saine. Les poilus réagissent en

remettant en question la hiérarchie militaire: "Il n'y a pas de discipline militaire, c'est le bagne,

c'est l'esclavage!..."20

La façon de narrer reflète sans doute le mieux cette rupture dans les textes. Dans Les

Misérables, Victor Hugo décrivait avec force détails les épisodes de la bataille de Waterloo.

Rappelons au passage que le père de Victor avait été général sous Napoléon Bonaparte, ce qui a

pu teinter d'une omniscience digne d'un état-major la perspective du combat de l'écrivain. Il faut

aussi savoir que, depuis la fin du Moyen-Âge, le commandant dirigeait les troupes de l'arrière, et

18Jules Romains, Prélude à Verdun (1938; Paris: Flammarion, 1945) 237. 19Paroles de poilus (Georges Gallois, 25 août 1916) 95. 20Paroles de poilus (Émile Sautour, 31 mars 1916) 75.


non plus de l'avant.21 Il en est résulté cette image d'Épinal du général sur une colline observant à

la lunette la progression de ses bataillons. D'ailleurs, Romains fera remarquer, dans Prélude à

Verdun, "[qu'] il n'y avait nulle part en Artois ni en Champagne une butte assez haute pour que le

champ de bataille pût être embrassé du regard par le chef".22 En abordant un récit de guerre, le

lecteur moyen s'attend à lire des scènes de combat où un narrateur, adoptant le point de vue du

commandant de l'armée, survole le champ de Mars en pointant ici et là les actes de vaillance des

soldats. Ce point de vue omniscient de la bataille pourrait être comparé à ce qu'on appelle au

cinéma un plan d'ensemble.

En vérité, le guerrier ne perçoit de son environnement que ce qui lui est immédiat. Il n'a

aucune idée de ce que font les camarades à cent mètres de lui. On peut penser à l'expérience

vécue à Waterloo par Fabrice del Dongo dans la Chartreuse de Parme de Stendhal. Fabrice, à la

suite d'un général français, ne rencontre que de petits groupes de soldats. Pour poursuivre la

métaphore cinématographique, on pourrait parler d'un gros plan. La perspective restreinte réflète

aussi un changement historique dans la manière de faire la guerre. Depuis le début du XIXe

siècle, avec des armées de plusieurs dizaines de milliers d'hommes, les fronts s'étalent sur

plusieurs kilomètres et le général lui-même n'a plus de la bataille qu'une vision parcellaire, vision

qu'il doit composer au moyen des bribes d'informations qui parviennent à son quartier général.

Dans les textes de poilus, en présentant la guerre par le bas (le soldat) plutôt que par le

haut (le chef), il devient inévitable d'en approcher plus intimement les horreurs. La littérature

propose désormais au lecteur de partager le point de vue du simple soldat qui a pour toute

perspective la tranchée qui l'environne. Simple pion qui n'a plus conscience de l'évolution de la

bataille, le soldat n'est plus en mesure de donner un sens plus grand à ses actions. Il se sent

infiniment dépassé par des événements sur lesquels il n'a aucun contrôle. Ce combat de la

démesure, dont les développements trop vastes dépassent la compréhension d'un seul homme,

plus personne ne peut en saisir les enjeux.

21John Keegan & Richard Holmes, Soldiers (1985; Canada: Prospero, 1999) 209-10. 22Romains 42.


5. L'ennemi du poilu: un non-ennemi

On s'attend du poilu à ce qu'il haïsse son ennemi. Cela semble aller de soi. Apollinaire

désigne d'ailleurs l'ennemi du nom de "boche" dans ses textes. On constate cependant que tous

les poilus ne partagent avec le poète de l'esprit nouveau ce genre de patriotisme aveugle.

D'un côté des tranchées comme de l'autre, les soldats se respectent. Dans À l'ouest rien de

nouveau d'Erich Maria Remarque, le narrateur utilise "les gens d'en face"23 pour désigner

"l'ennemi. " L'autre n'est pas désigné au moyen de noms méprisants, parce qu'on réalise que les

soldats d'en face souffrent tout autant que les nôtres et qu'il ne sont absolument pas responsables

des malheurs subis. Ainsi, une rupture apparaît entre la collectivité en guerre qui avilit l'ennemi

dans le discours officiel et l'individu au front qui compatit avec celui qu'il en vient à considérer

comme un compagnon de souffrance.

À un premier degré de ce qu'on peut qualifier de "compassion pour l'autre, " le poilu

réalise qu'il n'a pas vraiment envie de tuer:

. . . dis-lui bien [à notre enfant] que si j'ai pu tirer dans ces affreux moments c'était

par nécessité mais que je n'ai jamais sacrifié une vie inutilement, que je réprouve

ces meurtres collectifs, que je les considère comme pires que des assassinats, que

je n'ai haï que ceux qui les ont voulus.24

Dans le même esprit, alors même qu'il est la cible de deux tireurs allemands, Bardamu, dans

Voyage au bout de la nuit, constate qu'il ne partage pas la même impulsion meurtrière:

Il s'était donc passé dans ces gens-là [les Allemands] quelque chose

d'extraordinaire? Que je ne ressentais, moi, pas du tout. J'avais pas dû m'en

apercevoir...25

23Erich Maria Remarque, À l'ouest rien de nouveau (1929; Paris: Stock, 2001) 80, 87. 24Paroles de poilus (Marin Guillaumont, 14 décembre 1914) 116. 25Céline 12.


À un second degré, le poilu constate que tout n'est pas mauvais chez l'ennemi. Maurice

Maréchal, un musicien de profession, s'insurge contre le discours officiel qui rabaisse

indistinctement tout ce qui est allemand, incluant les génies de la musique:

Saint-Saëns contre Wagner. Quelle bêtise! Parce que des brutes ont assassiné,

vouloir à toute force s'attaquer aux génies de l'autre race pour les renverser sinon

les amoindrir!26

Enfin, à un troisième degré, le soldat qui endure la souffrance des combats aura tendance

à projeter sur cet ennemi qu'il ne voit jamais de près sa propre misère et à voir en son adversaire

une créature aussi malheureuse que lui:

Et puis mon pauvre Maurice, il faut réfléchir que les Prussiens sont comme nous.

Vois-tu qu'un garçon prussien écrive à son père la même chose que toi et qu'il lui

demande un képi de Français, et si ce papa prussien rapportait un képi de Français

à son petit garçon et que ce képi fut celui de ton papa?27

Barbusse, dans le Feu, conclut ingénument son roman en affirmant que le soldat allemand et le

soldat français sont des prolétaires victimes d'un ennemi commun à leur classe: le bourgeois

fabricant de canons.

Conclusion

On a pu constater que la Première Guerre mondiale a donné de nouveaux visages au

combat dans la littérature française du XXe siècle. Il a été possible d'observer des ruptures

profondes entre la perception héroïque du combat et ce qu'il est en réalité, entre le combattant et

le non-combattant, entre le champion et le guerrier, entre le chef et le soldat, entre la perception

médiatique de l'ennemi et ce qu'est vraiment l'ennemi.

Ces ruptures apparaissent plus nettement encore lorsque l'on compare le texte de

l'individu happé par l'engrenage de la machine militaire avec le discours "officiel" de la

26Paroles de poilus (Maurice Maréchal, 23 octobre, non datée) 52. 27Paroles de poilus (Martin Vaillagou, sans date) 46.


collectivité en guerre. Pour donner un sens à son existence, le poilu n'a d'autres choix que de se

définir par ce qu'il n'est pas, par négativité. Le poilu ne combat pas, il attend. Le poilu n'est ni un

civil, ni un champion, ni un chef. Il réalise enfin que celui qui peut le mieux sympathiser avec lui

est le boche dans les tranchées d'en face, parce qu'il supporte les mêmes misères.

Paradoxalement, ces ruptures donnent naissance à deux sentiments qui peuvent coexister

dans les textes: la camaraderie et la solitude. Dans le cas de la camaraderie, il faut comprendre

que les ruptures sociales doivent être compensées par une forme quelconque de rapprochement.

Une solide camaraderie se forme entre les hommes qui, en plus des épreuves communes,

partagent aussi des exclusions communes. Après sa permission, Jean rejoint son escadrille:

Il [Jean] retournait dans une famille accueillante et nombreuse, la saine et rude

famille des hommes seuls, où des lois élémentaires gouvernaient l'existence sans

les charger d'inutiles soucis.28

Cette camaraderie issue de la guerre est présentée comme une vertu sociale et militaire. Vertu

sociale, parce qu'elle développe des liens entre les hommes, et vertu militaire parce que l'entraide

permet aux hommes de survivre sur le champ de bataille. Il ne faut cependant pas oublier que

cette camaraderie est restreinte à une sous-collectivité bien précise, c'est-à-dire la "famille des

hommes seuls," qui combattent loin des civils.

La solitude, l'autre conséquence des ruptures, se révèle dans le contraste obtenu en

opposant l'individu et sa collectivité. Si la rhétorique de la propagande valorise la collectivité et

son territoire, la rhétorique qu'on trouve dans les textes de poilus consiste plutôt à chérir la vie de

chacun des individus, comme c'est le cas chez Céline et Giono. Les textes de poilus défendent la

survie et la dignité de l'individu contre une collectivité qui, bien malgré elle, repousse ceux qui

combattent en son nom. Confrontés à la démesure de la guerre moderne et à l'exclusion de leur

collectivité, les poilus constatent qu'ils n'ont qu'eux-mêmes pour donner un sens à leur misère, à

leur combat et à leur mort.

28Joseph Kessel, L'Équipage (1924; Paris: Gallimard, 1945) 134.


Bibliographie Parole de poilus. Sous la direction de Jean-Pierre Guéno et d'Yves Laplume. Paris: Librio, 1998.

Apollinaire, Guillaume. Calligrammes. 1918. Gallimard: Paris, 1959.

Aragon, Louis. Aurélien. Paris: Gallimard, 1944.

Barbusse, Henri. Le Feu. 1916. Paris: Flammarion, 1965.

Bernanos, Georges. Les Grands Cimetières sous la lune. 1938. Paris: Librairie Plon, 1969.

Céline, Louis-Ferdinand. Voyage au bout de la nuit. 1932. Paris: Gallimard, 1996.

Cendrars, Blaise. La Main coupée. 1946. Paris: Denoël, 1991.

Drieu la Rochelle, Pierre. Gilles. 1939. Paris: Gallimard, 1969.

Giono, Jean. Le Grand Troupeau. 1931. Paris: Gallimard, 1992.

Hugo, Victor. Les Misérables. 1862. Paris: Gallimard, 1951.

Kaempfer, Jean. Poétique du récit de guerre, Paris: José Corti, 1998.

Keegan, John. A History of Warfare. 1993. New York: Vintage Books, 1994.

Keegan, John & Richard Holmes. Soldiers. 1985. Canada: Prospero, 1999.

Kessel, Joseph. L'Équipage. 1924. Paris: Gallimard, 1945.

Malraux, André. L'Espoir. 1937. Paris: Gallimard, 1996.

Norton Cru, Jean, Témoins: essai d'analyse et de critique des souvenirs de combattants / édités

en français de 1915 à 1928, Paris: Les Étincelles, 1929.

Remarque, Erich Maria. À l'ouest rien de nouveau. 1929. Paris: Stock, 2001.

Romains, Jules. Prélude à Verdun. 1938. Paris: Flammarion, 1945.

Stendhal. La Chartreuse de Parme. 1839. France: Classique Français, 1993.

Rousseau, Frédéric. Le procès des témoins de la Grande Guerre − L'affaire Norton-Cru. Paris:

Seuil, 2003.


ENTRE PAROLE ET IMAGE: LE DISCOURS POLITIQUE FRANÇAIS ET SES RESSOURCES CLASSIQUES

Mirela Saim Université McGill

Dans la construction plurielle des nouvelles cultures politiques de l'Europe et de

l'Amérique au XIXe siècle, construction témoignant d’une nouvelle conscience de l'espace public

moderne, le renouveau s'amorce aussi par une refonte et une réinterprétation complexe des

modèles discursifs anciens: c’est un renouveau ambivalent qui peut paraître paradoxal et qui

s'affirme selon les axes d'une parole publique qui, se voulant surtout populaire et démocratique,

se cherche assidûment des modèles. Selon ce renouveau programmatique qui suit des modèles

classiques, la "tribune moderne" du discours parlementaire est pensée comme lieu par excellence

de l'action politique, une action politique qui jouit aussi d’une signification surajoutée, car

l’action en sphère politique est également perçue comme action pédagogique collective. La

construction législative des nouvelles institutions de la modernité républicaine et le nouveau

langage du parlementarisme libéral deviennent aussi leçon de civisme: selon ce rapport

inaugural, la dimension didactique du politique de sphère publique serait donnée par le lien de

l'ethos individuel à la parole éloquente. Dans cette dynamique, l'image personnelle du politicien-

orateur, rapportée à son discours, est souvent saisie sous le jour d'une exemplarité contradictoire,

célébrée elle aussi comme double retour aux idées et sentiments d'antan et comme renouveau de

la pensée politique. C'est de cette coïncidence des enjeux de la rhétorique traditionnelle avec le


renouveau de signification attribuée à l'action politique que naît finalement la culture politique de

la modernité démocratique.

Dans ce qui suit, je vais examiner un ensemble de textes reliés par un modèle commun —

bien que de signification variable — visant la représentation historique idéalisée de la tradition

démocratique en tant qu'action de parole, donc de pratique rhétorique; de la sorte, je voudrais

déchiffrer la formation du concept d’éloquence démocratique, de l’envisager sur l’axe de

l’historicité et de son appartenance à l’imaginaire politique moderne. Dans ce sens, je vais suivre

le parcours d'un cheminement idéologique qui définit le discours rhétorique en France sous la

Restauration, tout en m'efforçant de signaler les "incidents" successifs subis par ce parcours, les

nuances ambivalentes d’un savoir épistémologique et communicationnel situé au centre de la

culture politique dans la première moitié du IXe siècle.

Formant avec Victor Cousin et François Guizot la "triade dorée" de l'enseignement

universitaire des années ’20, Abel-François Villemain (1790-1870) fut le professeur de

rhétorique le plus influent de la Sorbonne post-révolutionnaire.1 Son cours d'éloquence française

est resté pour longtemps l'exemple iconique d'une éloquence académique sans égal dans

l’histoire d’une institution qui brillait par l’esprit, la verve et le goût: qualifiées des "plus nobles

fêtes de l'intelligence,” ses leçons sont mentionnées avec une égale admiration par Stendhal et

par Goethe.2 D’autre part, l'orateur universitaire Villemain conçoit sa tâche dans le cadre d'une

pédagogie nationale orientée par la création politique, imposant une convergence de la critique

discursive avec la paideia du libéralisme politique moderne. La lecture de ses textes mémoriaux,

1Le"triumvirat de la Sorbonne" a été évoqué par plusieurs contemporains: Sainte-Beuve, A. Nettement, C.

Dejob, etc.; Sainte-Beuve a évoqué l'influence du cours d'éloquence française de Villemain dans ses Portraits Contemporains (Paris: Michel Lévy Frères, 1870, tome II): "le Cours de M.Villemain avait pris une influence immense; chacune de ses leçons était un événement et une fête." Le cours de rhétorique donné par Villemain fait aussi l'objet d'une étude détaillée par Jean Malavié, "Le cours d'éloquence française de Villemain,” L'Information historique 2 (1976): 59-73. Je remercie Françoise Douay-Soublin de me l'avoir signalé.

2Malavié 60.


parmi lesquels nous retiendrons un comme étant particulièrement significatif, montre à quel

point la chaire d'éloquence française a été envisagée par Villemain et par ses contemporains

selon une logique de l'engagement civique, articulant les requis d'un espace universitaire unique

consacré à la pédagogie politique.

Dans son texte, "Souvenirs de la Sorbonne en 1825. Démosthène et le Général Foy,"3

Villemain reconstruit une page d'histoire de l'institution universitaire française, voire, de

l'histoire institutionnelle de la rhétorique du XIXe siècle en France. Cette histoire, souvent

oubliée malgré son grand intérêt,4 nous est évoquée ici par la parole d'un de ses grands

connaisseurs, à la fois son critique et son historien. Examinons donc comment se construit ce

mythe subjectif du politique — par appel aux modèles séculaires de la cité ancienne — mais

respectant les données d'un mécanisme de consécration stéréotypée.

Dans l'entreprise de reconstruction totale de l'espace du politique qui caractérise les

premières années de la monarchie restaurée,5 années du début d'un parlementarisme encore

héroïque et d'orientation clairement contre-révolutionnaire, donc de rupture expresse avec le

passé révolutionnaire et impérial, l'illusion pédagogique attachée à l'action rhétorique de

l'assemblée délibérative est à la fois fondatrice et légitimante. J'entends par cela que le discours

en situation parlementaire est conçu comme offrant la meilleure leçon de civisme au “peuple,” à

la nation, à la société civile: après les années de tyrannie napoléonienne et gardant encore le

souvenir de la Terreur, le “dêmos” sera nourri et éduqué par le spectacle d’une parole éloquente

3Abel-François Villemain, “Souvenirs de la Sorbonne en 1825. Démosthène et le Général Foy,” Souvenirs

contemporains d'histoire et de littérature, vol.1 (Paris: Didier, 1854). Le texte est paru préalablement dans la Revue des Deux Mondes du 15 janvier 1853.

4Un intérêt prouvè aussi par les importants travaux de F.Douay-Soublin et J. P. Saint-Gerand. Dans ce sens, voir F.Douay-Soublin, “Y a-t-il renaissance de la Rhétorique en France au XIXème siècle?” Renaissances of Rhetoric, ed. S. Ijsseling and G. Vervaecke (Louvain: Leuven University Press, 1994); et J. P. Saint-Gerand, Morales du Style (Toulouse: Presses Universitaires de Toulouse, 1993). 5Moment caractérisé par Villemain avec acuité: “Il y avait donc à la fois en France beaucoup de bonheur et point de sécurité, beaucoup d’ordre matériel et une grande agitation des esprits” (410).


qui, par sa condition même, impose la loi tout en fixant des limites au pouvoir du roi. De ce fait,

le moment 1825 est vu par Villemain (en 1853) surtout comme appartenant à une histoire qui

s’investit dans la construction des institutions législatives et dans l’apprentissage des pratiques

institutionnelles qui les appuient.

L'identification de l'assemblée parlementaire avec une grande école nationale mène

évidemment à une identification métaphorique de l'éloquence politique du forum avec

l'éloquence de l'école, d'où l'effet d'indexation scolaire produit par le texte de Villemain, qui

suggère que l'audience parlementaire soit identifiable avec l'audience universitaire et que le

tribun législateur (devenu ainsi à la fois nomothète et nomologue6) accomplit notamment des

fonctions professorales. D'autre part, cette construction de l’imaginaire juridique de type

constitutionnel inclut aussi une claire dimension philologique. Aux yeux de Villemain, qui

nourrissait des ambitions politiques,7 l’identification du nomologue et du philologue est

particulièrement significative car elle explique comment le nomothète et l'orateur, réunis dans

une seule personne, font ensemble oeuvre de pédagogie nationale. D’ou l’insistance du retour à

Démosthène, un retour qui prend en charge toute clarification conceptuelle liée à la pratique de la

démocratie en contexte libéral. En d'autres termes, c'est également au niveau de l'ethos et au

niveau du logos que le modèle démosthénien est invoqué comme modèle idéalisé. “ L'illusion

pédagogique” qui marque de sa présence l'éloquence parlementaire de l'époque, issue, par

ailleurs, de la mentalité des Lumières,8 fait coïncider l'apprentissage individualisé du civisme

6Ces deux termes sont pris ici dans l’usage inauguré par Roland Barthes, dans ses travaux de narratologie et

de rhétorique, dont le plus important reste: “L’ancienne rhétorique. Aide-mémoire,” Communications 16 (1970): 172-223.

7Il sera ministre de l’instruction publique entre 1839 et 1844. Voir l’annexe no.3. 8Le requis pédagogique est d’ailleurs vu comme identifiant le “démos”: "le peuple, au contraire, se laisse

tromper, il est vrai, mais il ne demande pas qu'on le trompe, il n'en a pas besoin, et il sent celui d'être instruit. Il aime et accueille la vérité quand on ose la lui dire; et quand il la rejette c'est par défaut de lumières plus que par orgueil et corruption" écrivait déjà Jean François de La Harpe dans son Lycée ou cours de littérature ancienne moderne, vol.2 (Paris, 1813) 333-34.


libéral avec les pratiques de parole propres à l'assemblée délibérative — identifiant ainsi le

public des tribunes avec le public des amphithéâtres. Dans cette situation d'envergure à la fois

historique et paradigmatique, l'image du grand orateur athénien se donne à voir comme celle du

porteur même des idées politiques d'un patriotisme héroïque garanti par une image morale

monolithique: à son tour, cette image sera saisie comme promouvant une éloquence publique

puissante et efficace. Le retour au modèle démosthénien de l'éloquence politique deviendra ainsi

un topos qui polarise le domaine social et politique de la culture générale pour se retrouver au

cœur de son idéologie du civisme autonome, construit par le rejet total du passé proche et par

l'invention réparatrice d’un "souvenir" fictif. La complexité contradictoire de ce contexte de

l'oralité publique est donnée par un jeu tacite sur les deux extrémités de l'oubli et du souvenir:

respectant les limites imposées par l’idéologie officielle de la Monarchie de Juillet, il s'agissait

alors de recourir à une mémoire culturelle appelée à remplir le vide laissé par une "mémoire" du

vécu à la fois "introuvable" et indicible.

D'autre part, l'éloquence de modèle attique, imposée comme modèle central du discours

politique pendant la Restauration engage également la mémoire interprétante de l'orateur public

et les mécanismes de représentation de l'électorat — qui a pour mission de constituer l'audience

parlementaire. Or, la situation parlementaire française est, après 1823, tout à fait unique: par son

origine dans une élection censitaire qui limite l'exercice des droits civiques aux classes moyennes

de la population, elle confère à l'orateur parlementaire l'illusion d'une représentation à la fois

collective et sélective et le justifie dans sa mission nationale générale. La "fiction" d'une

délégation populaire acquise par mandat électoral est telle qu'elle justifie souvent le sentiment de

l'orateur — mandataire des plusieurs — de donner, par son discours, voix au "peuple."9 En même

9J'ai expliqué le dispositif sémiotique reliant la représentation discursive à la représentation électorale dans

une autre étude incluse dans les publications de ce projet, "Les représentants représentés: théorie et critique de


temps, grâce au mécanisme sélectif du vote censitaire, l'orateur parlementaire se donne aussi le

sentiment rassurant de constituer ce "peuple" selon les axes d'une stratification sociale sélective,

de conséquence culturelle précise.10

Si, en milieu parlementaire, la question de la liberté de parole reçoit des contours divers,

il reste, pourtant, que le problème symétrique de la représentation par la parole, c’est-à-dire de la

production discursive d'une parole adéquate aux besoins expressifs et communicationnels des

électeurs, prend, elle, une importante dimension politique. D'où l'idée centrale de toute la pensée

libérale de cette période qui s'efforce de "rendre la parole au peuple": le législateur crée tout

autant par la parole de la loi qui institue et contrôle que par la parole oratoire qui expose les

présupposés et, en argumentant, exprime les assises rationnelles des actes législatifs tout en

faisant appel à une émotivité émoussée par le partage des valeurs communautaires. Au centre

signifiant de la narration mémorielle de Villemain se trouve, justement, ce dispositif

d'identification virtuelle qui — en effet — nous fait comprendre combien le sujet collectif de

l'histoire est, à l'époque, rendu homogène par son statut identitaire: c’est un statut qui d'abord

l'engage dans l'apprentissage du politique et dans la construction fictive d'une démocratie "de

sélection,” marquée et identifiée par son partage du savoir classique! Le mythe d'une cité

d'Athènes de libre parole, où le régime délibératif des assemblées assurait la participation directe

et commune de tous et de chacun à la chose publique reçoit ici une construction à la fois

exemplaire et normative, pour devenir le plan de référence idéal du récit mémoriel. De ce fait, le

récit de Villemain de la visite à la Sorbonne du général Foy, le "nouveau Démosthène,” venu

l'éloquence démocratique chez Cormenin,” Écriture, Parole, Discours: littérature et rhétorique au XIXe siècle, ed. Alain Vaillant (Saint-Étienne: Éditions Printer, 1997) 89-98.

10Le mécanisme idéologique de cette capacité politique fondant et légitimant les complexes procédures de sélection censitaire à plusieurs degrés a été analysé en détail dans les travaux de Pierre Rosanvallon, dont notamment Le moment Guizot (Paris: Gallimard, 1985), Le sacre du citoyen (Paris:Gallimard, 1992), et La monarchie impossible (Paris: Fayard, 1994).


assister au cours d'éloquence française donné par l'auteur, reçoit une signification emblématique,

car il met en abîme une représentation complexe de l'idéologie libérale d'avant 1830,11 tout en

illustrant avec force la complexité de l’imaginaire social et politique qui lui donne le sens.12

Les trois éléments rassemblés par le texte de Villemain — la parole démosthénienne de

présence citationnelle, la présence exceptionnelle du général Maximilien Foy dans l'auditoire13

et le cours explicatif sur le second livre de la Rhétorique d'Aristote — sont ainsi reliés par une

articulation sémique qui oriente le plan narratif et qui va progresser vers l’unification sémique

des niveaux d'une représentation du fait rhétorique érigée en monument de civisme. D'autre part,

l'insistance professorale sur le second livre de la Rhétorique d'Aristote suggère avec adresse que

l'enjeu profond de l'action magistrale — figée désormais dans la légende — est, en effet, la

constitution d'une identité collective de type "athénien,” d'ouverture libérale moderne et

d'aspiration "républicaine,” donc constitutionnelle. D'abord située au centre consacré de

l'enseignement officiel du temps, à la Sorbonne, dans un lieu précis de consécration universitaire

— l’Amphithéâtre du Concours général — la narration de Villemain est clairement centrée sur

l'idée didactique, surtout montrée dans sa dimension enseignante14 et c'est bien par rapport à ce

topos consacré que s'organise le récit qui aura à mettre en parallèle l'ancien Démosthène et le

moderne, le général Foy. Et c’est à travers cette mise en parallèle des deux orateurs que le

politicien moderne est montré dans une lumière idéalisée car Maximilien Foy, pour sa part,

11Et dans ce sens il faudrait la comparer avec la visite, symétrique, du comte de Narbonne dans un

séminaire de rhétorique sous l'Empire, qui se trouve dans le même volume de souvenirs; Villemain y décrit la visite du ministre à l'École Normale, en 1812.

12Sur ce point, la remarque de Claude Lefort que, dans le langage de Guizot, s’effectue une forte “imbrication du politique et du social” de sorte que “le politique s’investit dans le social et … le social s’investit dans le politique” vaut aussi pour Villemain. Claude Lefort, “Le Libéralisme polémique,” Écrire à l’épreuve du politique (Paris: Calman-Levy, 1992) 124, 125.

13Ancien général de Napoléon, devenu chef de l'opposition parlementaire libérale, entre 1819 et 1825. Voir l’annexe no.3 pour plus de détails.

14Comme dans un mythe moderne on nous offre au début du récit le détail significatif des lieux et du temps (ille loco, ille tempore).


avoue qu’il apprend toujours de son modèle ancien et tente de s'identifier avec lui pour pouvoir

reproduire dans ses discours l'éloquence de son modèle, tant dans sa pureté de parole que dans sa

force de persuasion.

Dans la deuxième partie de son texte, Villemain amplifie encore plus ce parallèle par le

récit d'une lecture commentée - de mémoire - que le général Foy aurait fait sur le "Discours sur

la Couronne,” dans la version propre donnée par Villemain, inscrivant à l’occasion une allusion à

la question très controversée des traductions de Démosthène.15 La commune admiration pour les

paroles et l'attitude de Démosthène constitue alors l'indice d'un libéralisme militant qui réunit les

deux hommes, le professeur universitaire et l'orateur politique: la lecture partagée du "Discours

sur la Couronne,” en particulier celle du fameux serment sur les morts de Chéronée —

"l’immortel serment” — devient une sorte de rituel politique et idéologique purificateur.

On serait peut-être tenté de voir dans les pages de Villemain, parues en effet en 1854,

sous le Deuxième Empire, un plaidoyer nostalgique pour les mœurs plus pures des temps

politiques déjà révolus; mais le discours de l'éloquence politique des années 1819-25 nous

montre, en fait, une forte dominance du topos démosthénien, hégémonie discursive qui nous

amène à parler d'un modèle démosthénien dominant l'espace politique et social de la parole

publique. Il s’agit d’un modèle à la fois tropique et topique, reliant l'image personnelle au style

oratoire, modèle central d’une culture politique qui veut « inventer» la démocratie libérale en

France.16 De ce fait, les actualisations plurielles et successives de l'exemple oratoire

démosthénien dans la rhétorique française moderne dépassent la question d'une simple survie du

15Occasion, pour Villemain, de faire une rapide critique des versions antérieures, rejetant la “mauvaise”

version de Tourreil, tant décriée par les gens de lettres. 16Procès observable aussi dans le discours politique de langue anglaise, mais, évidemment, empruntant des

voies différentes.


classicisme.17 D'abord elles soulèvent la question beaucoup plus complexe du style de

l’éloquence politique en tant que lieu de croisement de la tradition rhétorique avec d'autres axes

du discours collectif — ce style faisant partie intégrante d'un contexte culturel qui se retrouve au

cœur même d'une théorie de l'efficacité de la représentation du sujet collectif de la modernité. Or,

dans ce sens, le choix des modèles discursifs a été imposé avec force par les Lumières. Le retour

aux Anciens est vu comme la seule voie d’invention rhétorique en espace public: “Qui voudra

donc se former le goût pour l’Éloquence, prendra nécessairement ses modèles dans l’Antiquité et

dès lors son choix ne peut tomber que sur Démosthène ou sur Cicéron” écrivait l’abbé d’Olivet

(1682-1768) dans son influent commentaire aux traductions des deux orateurs.18 Pour cette

raison, il me semble que la prédominance du modèle démosthénien opère une indexation

expresse et intentionnelle au registre de la rationalité discursive, registre qui s'opposera de plus

en plus au pathétique, à l'affectif, à l'appel aux sentiments et aux émotions — un style rhétorique

qui sera surtout identifiable avec le modèle cicéronien et, secondairement, avec une éloquence de

souffle romantique (et de moindre rigueur argumentative). Si pour Villemain ce style rhétorique

reste encore clairement limité à l’espace privé, il faut néanmoins repérer déjà les signes du

changement qui s’amorce: la transition prochaine vers une image plus affective de l'art oratoire.

Cette image, qui va de pair avec l'imposition doxique du romantisme, sera sous peu visible dans

l'effacement, à la fois idéologique et rhétorique, du modèle démosthénien, remplacé par le

modèle cicéronien, plus fleuri et plus élaboré, perçu comme offrant les possibilités d'une

17Le beau livre de Gilberte Ronnet, Étude sur le style de Démosthène dans les discours politiques (Paris,

1951) apporte des éléments très intéressants, car on peut suivre en détail la convergence de style entre l’éloquence pratiquée par Démosthène et les innovations signalées à la même époque dans le style des poètes tragiques.

18Philippiques de Démosthène et Catilinaires de Cicéron, Traduites par M. l’abbé d’Olivet (Nismes: J.Gaude, an IX, 1803) 5.


intensité expressive plus sensuelle et de plus grande ouverture humaniste, sinon carrément

individualiste.19

Dans ce sens, la préférence accordée à l'éloquence de Démosthène pendant la

Restauration est aussi à interpréter par comparaison avec le modèle d'une rhétorique d'efficacité

populaire "ascétique,” attribué à la rhétorique moderne des politiciens anglais.20 Dans un

passage significatif, Villemain explique au général Foy que la préférence accordée au modèle

démosthénien correspond à un choix délibéré car c’est un choix qui satisferait aux exigences

d’une éloquence politique de style national et d’une publicité consciente de sa responsabilité:

Je disais donc … que votre littérature anglaise, vos orateurs anglais,21 leurs

énormes discours, leurs démonstrations sans fin ne sont pas à notre usage. Il faut

une parole plus agile, plus prompte à l’assaut, plus vive à la riposte, comme la

course de nos Vélites .… Le modèle que je souhaite à nos orateurs, l’inspiration

efficace, après l’étude profonde des choses, s’entend, c’est l’éloquence antique.22

Et il ajoute encore, presque effaçant la distance historique:

Les anciens, … outre le génie avaient l’âme libre et haute, même sous l’Empire.

Je suis persuadé que, malgré toutes les différences de conditions sociales et de

19Ce que d'ailleurs John Quincy Adams (1767-1848), sixième président américain (1825-1829) et le

premier professeur de rhétorique à l'Université Harvard (entre 1806 et 1809), avait bien compris; évaluant les deux modèles traditionnels de la rhétorique politique classique, il écrivait du style de Démosthène: "His eloquence is characteristic of Democracy, as that of Cicero is of Aristocracy. It is the Doric to the Corinthian pillar.” Citè par Charles Darwin Adams dans Demosthenes and his Influence (New York: Longman, 1927) 166.

20Dans ce sens la rhétorique de Blair, avec ses développements et ses disséminations européennes, a joué un rôle important.

21Allusion à un mot d’esprit attribué à Villemain qui, à la question "Que reste-t-il des orateurs anglais?" répondait avec une fierté à peine dissimulée: "Il reste l'Amérique." Cité par Ferdinand Brunetière, L'Évolution des Genres (Paris: Mercure de France, 1889) 210{PRIVATE }.

22Villemain 409.


mœurs, l’étude des anciens est encore la plus excitante et la plus nourrissante pour

notre Tribune de France.23

L’idéal démosthénien dans le discours d’espace public, si habilement dévoilé par le récit

de Villemain de 1853, a une longue et riche tradition dans l’histoire de la culture Française: ses

enjeux, tout en restant rhétoriques, impliquent essentiellement des valeurs à la fois politiques et

littéraires. La Révolution et la Terreur se sont pleinement investies dans l’appropriation du

modèle politique lacédémonien d’une république de vocation militaire.24 Dans cette situation,

après un bref moment exceptionnel, créé par les magnifiques discours de Mirabeau (lui aussi

qualifié de "nouvel Démosthène"), l'exemple démosthénien sera surtout interprété comme preuve

d'inefficacité de la parole oratoire confrontée à la force brute de l’attaque armée. Pendant la

Constituante, Démosthène est perçu progressivement comme l'image même de l'impuissance du

parfait orateur ... mis en échec par l'inertie collective! Image d'une éloquence démocratique

libérale impossible dans l'ordre historique, Démosthène devient, pendant les années de la

Révolution, le symbole de l’intensité héroïque vouée à l’échec: sa parole, bien que forte et

profonde, n'est pas capable ni de passer la tribune ni de pacifier les dissensions internes. C'est

justement cette dimension tragique qui sera mise en avant par le discours de Vergniaud qui, dans

sa plaidoirie pour la guerre préventive, reprend l'argumentation de la “ Première Olynthienne.”25

D’ailleurs, c’est dans la même ligne de pensée que Robespierre l’a aussi dit clairement:

"Démosthène a beau tonner contre Philippe, Philippe trouve dans les vices d'Athènes dégénérée

23Villemain 410. 24Pendant les Lumières et durant la Révolution, Athènes offre "un modèle moins connu et moins souvent

invoqué que celui de Rome ou de Sparte.” Cl. Mossé, L'Antiquité dans la Révolution française (Paris: Albin Michel, 1989) 56. Les tensions de l’espace publique révolutionnaire sont explorées par J.Cowans dans son très intéressant étude du discours de la représentation To speak for the People. Public Opinion and the Problem of Legitimacy in the French Revolution (New York: Routledge, 2001).

25 Mossé 84.


des avocats plus éloquents que Démosthène”26 — ce qui, en effet, renvoie à la reprise d’un

passage fameux du “Discours sur la Couronne,” le 45. Ce sera ainsi donc, selon ce même axe de

signification, que l'on verra se figer l’évolution de ce topos de l'inefficacité rhétorique

représentée par Démosthène dans un “dialogue des morts” paru en 1800. Le texte du dialogue

oppose, justement, Mirabeau à Démosthène: on y voit Démosthène expliquant la défaite de sa

parole par l'action des partis, par la désunion destructrice des factions; en plus, la fameuse

question des fonds des spectacles affectés à la guerre, est interprétée, comme chez Rousseau, en

geste de véritable patriotisme de Démosthène! Et ce sera avec une logique historique des plus

"strictes" que ce dialogue, écrit par François-Xavier Pagès, se poursuit par la mise en discours de

la délicate question de la corruption politique, car les deux orateurs ont eu chacun leur moment

de "faiblesse"!

Paru en 1800, dans un recueil intitulé Nouveaux Dialogues des Morts, le dialogue de F.-

X. Pagès resitue le topos démosthénien au centre d’une réflexion sur la démocratie et ses

pratiques de parole, réflexion déjà fortement marquée par le moment historique, à la fois post-

révolutionnaire et pré impérial. Cette réflexion, qui est formulée pendant un entretien fictif entre

Mirabeau et Démosthène, énonce déjà les questions qui seront au cœur même de la nouvelle

culture politique française. Ainsi, F.-X. Pagès attire l'attention sur une différence conceptuelle

dans la construction du sujet politique qui aura à s'imposer beaucoup plus tard, celle de l'effet

oratoire sur une assemblée délibérative constituée par démocratie directe (visant une action

oratoire destinée à la foule) et celle de la prise de parole dans une assemblée de régime

représentatif, constituée par sélection, donc soumise à un degré de prévisibilité accrue.27 C'est,

26Mossé 123. 27C'est de cette opposition que, plus tard, s'autorise l'idéologie du suffrage universel, qui s'associe au

modèle républicain de modèle américain. Villemain, pour sa part, restera l'adepte du "modèle anglais,” consacrant, alors, l'option censitaire; il se verra confirmé dans ses opinions par les événements révolutionnaires de 1848-1850.


justement, en s’appuyant sur l’idée de cette différence — qui deviendra plus tard l'axe majeur de

l'idéologie politique républicaine –– que se constitue chez Pagès la comparaison de l'ancien et du

moderne. Finalement, Pagès considère que Mirabeau serait supérieur à Démosthène, car, en tant

qu’orateur moderne, il s'adresse à des connaisseurs et non à la masse!

Alors, si l’on peut penser que cette évaluation de Démosthène correspond à une

représentation déjà manipulée par l’écrivain, qui veut prouver la supériorité du tribun

révolutionnaire moderne, il n'en est pas de même avec un texte déjà plus ancien, datant du début

des années révolutionnaires. Une idée plus juste et plus moderne de l'apport du grand orateur

athénien à la constitution d'un type d'éloquence qui porte déjà le nom de "populaire,” tout en se

référant pourtant à la parole démocratique, est exprimée avec adresse par Hérault de Séchelles

dans son “ Éloge d'Athanase Auger ” de 1792.28 Dans un développement qui rappelle beaucoup

l'argumentation similaire de Hugh Blair, dans ses Leçons de Rhétorique et de Belles Lettres,

Hérault de Séchelles montre Démosthène comme étant le grand maître du savoir rhétorique et,

cette fois, comme l’image du succès d’une “éloquence populaire” qui sait entraîner son public

par la force de ses émotions: ici encore, la mise en parallèle fonctionne comme un mécanisme

textuel qui fait ressortir le talent oratoire moderne idéal, comme chez Jean-Jacques Rousseau.29

28Voir Hérault de Séchelles, “Éloge d’Athanase Auger lu à la séance publique de la Société de Neufs

Soeurs, le 25 Mars 1872,” Hérault de Séchelles. Théorie de l’ambition et autres écrits, éd. G. Guégan (Paris: Éditions Ramsay, 1978).

29Et qui sera partiellement repris par John Quincy Adams: dans ses conférences de rhétorique, publiées en 1810, il revient souvent aux passages tirés des Olynthiennes, des Philippiques et du Discours sur la couronne pour évoquer la force oratoire d'un discours de la vertu civique qui s’oppose tant à la force brute de la "tyrannie" qu’à la "fraude" politique. Comme Villemain, John Quincy Adams suit, dans ce début de XIXe siècle, le ton général d'une dynamique de la présence démosthénienne dans la culture de l'âge, une présence qui s'avère à la fois rhétorique et didactique.


En même temps, dans l’esprit de son temps, Hérault de Séchelles il y voit le grand orateur qui

met son génie au service d'une république menacée par la royauté.30

On voit que la réception de l'éloquence démosthénienne est, chez les modernes, liée à une

adaptation continuelle du mythe classique à la situation politique du moment, tout en étant

doublée par une saisie déshistorisante. De la sorte, le topos mythique est rendu plus flexible,

plus en mesure de mener à une actualisation idéalisante, tout en respectant les axes d'une

sémantique du passé. Dans ce sens, il me semble que l’on doit constater la continuité de mise en

discours du dispositif interprétatif caractérisant la construction figurative du discours d'espace

public, un dispositif textuel qui se constitue par la structuration triangulaire de l’espace discursif.

Le renouveau par recours au modèle démosthénien de la rhétorique politique entamerait ainsi la

mise en place d'un dispositif ternaire composé d'un traducteur-interprète de Démosthène

(Athanase Auger), d'un critique-auteur (Hérault de Séchelles, Pagès), et d'un orateur (Mirabeau

ou Rousseau). Ce dispositif ternaire, imposé par les auteurs classiques, a été reproduit, avec une

légère modification, par Villemain, dans le texte que nous examinons ici: l'auteur réunit dans sa

personne le critique et le traducteur et c’est dans cette double qualité qu’il met au centre de ses

réflexions l'orateur parlementaire idéalisé, Maximilien Foy. Or, la réduction du dispositif ternaire

dans le texte de Villemain est certainement symptomatique, car elle met en évidence

l'importance de la question du transfert sémantique en rhétorique, le problème de la

compréhension des modernes en ce qui concerne une performance orale étroitement liée à des

conditions de communication uniques et spécifiques. Question herméneutique entre toutes qui

domine effectivement le phénomène de la tradition des lectures et des interprétations des

discours de Démosthène en France.

30“. . . génie puissant qui protégeait par la seule force de son raisonnement une patrie et des Républiques

qu’un roi voulait asservir ” (Hérault de Sechelles 144).


En 1814 un jeune officier dans la marine napoléonienne stationnée à Corfou, Charles

Dupin (1784-1873), faisait la traduction des Olynthiennes en les accompagnant d'un brillant

commentaire intitulé “Essai sur Démosthène et sur son éloquence.” Dans le cadre de cette

discussion, l'essai de Charles Dupin reçoit un intérêt particulier, car il exprime avec clarté

l'entier renouveau de la représentation rhétorique et politique de l’image oratoire de Démosthène,

montrant le rapport de la typologie discursive de l'éloquence à la typologie du sujet historique

visé: sous l'Empire, le retour à Démosthène se fait en vertu d'une forte identification des soldats

de la Grande Armée avec le tribun de la liberté grecque, opposant la parole civilisée (des

Français) à la force brute du tyran “barbare” (des adversaires), poursuivant ainsi la logique du

républicanisme militaire déjà imposée par les années révolutionnaires. Dans cette logique, les

armées impériales ont toujours le sentiment de satisfaire à une vocation civilisatrice, portant chez

les "barbares" (de l'Europe centrale et orientale, de l'Espagne, de l'Égypte, mais aussi de l'Italie et

de la Prusse), la civilisation moderne et la liberté républicaine des Français.

C’est en suivant cette logique identitaire ethnique que Démosthène devient, chez Dupin,

le type même de l'orateur militaire, son éloquence s'imposant maintenant par sa concision et par

le resserrement de son argumentation:31 en plus, l'orateur est présenté comme figure typologique

du patriote. Il est ainsi compréhensible que le général Foy, ancien officier de la Révolution et de

l'Empire devenu membre du Parlement, soit attiré par ce modèle et, en le retransférant dans la

sphère politique, le redonne à la tribune. Mais en ce faisant, il “réinvente” encore une fois son

modèle, en l’adaptant à des nouveaux requis: dans sa pensée, le modèle de l’éloquence ancienne

est resignifié de nouveau pour être resitué dans un discours dominé par la logique d’une

rhétorique anti-militariste, la seule possible dans une période de reconstruction nationale. A son

31Qualités aussi attribuées à l’éloquence de Napoléon!


tour, Villemain reprend ces éléments dans son texte mémorial pour, ensuite, les intégrer dans la

question beaucoup plus ample de la construction d’une culture démocratique en France:

Malgré les fanfares parlementaires de Canning, je crois donc que, de notre vivant

nous n’assisterons pas derechef à la grande guerre; et tant mieux pour la liberté!

Mais cette liberté, il faudrait qu’elle se hàtàt de former en France des âmes fortes

et fidèles, des esprits animés d’un sentiment sérieux du Droit et du Devoir légal.32

Il reprend et développe ainsi un lieu commun du discours politique moderne, le topos du déficit

démocratique issu du déficit délibératif: déjà en 1807, pendant les années de l’empire post-

révolutionnaire, dans un des discours d’apparat académique on pouvait lire cette idée énoncée

par l’abbé Sicard:

Jusqu'à nos jours, nos Orateurs, étrangers aux formes des Assemblées

délibérantes, s'adressoient à un auditoire paisible, où, dans le recueillement, on

écoutoit un discours médité dans le silence, et qu'un studieux loisir avoit poli.

Mais qu’il étoit différent d'être forcé, pour ainsi dire, de dompter ses auditeurs! La

mobilité des débats donne, à chaque instant un nouvel aspect à la question; la

discussion se change en un combat, où le mérite de la défense est sans cesse

subordonné au plan d'attaque; où sans avoir jamais l'avantage de rien prévoir, il

faut conserver toujours la faculté de parer à tout. Cette sorte de succès est l'attribut

caractéristique d'un genre d'éloquence, dont, jusqu'à vous, chez les Français, il

n'existoit pas de modèle.33

32Villemain 416. 33M. L’Abbé Sicard, “Réponse de M. l'Abbé Sicard . . . au Discours de Son Éminence Mgr. le Cardinal

Maury.” Discours prononcés dans la Séance publique tenue par la classe de la langue et de la littérature françoise de l'Institut de France (Paris, 1807) 92.


Dans leurs discours sur l’éloquence de Démosthène, les auteurs modernes, de Rollin à La Harpe

et à Athanase Auger, reconnaissent tous l’absence de la “tribune moderne,” signalant le besoin

d’un espace public dédié à la pratique délibérative de la démocratie. Pour cette raison, ce sera

seulement pendant la Restauration que le modèle de l’éloquence athénienne sera perçu comme le

modèle nécessaire d’une éloquence délibérative qui trouve finalement sa réalisation inaugurale:

Josèphe Planche, un autre spécialiste moderne de Démosthène, exprime avec justesse cette idée

en écrivant:

Démosthène et Eschine ont surtout brillé dans le genre des harangues politiques.

Or ce genre d’éloquence étant aujourd’hui d’une application beaucoup plus

fréquente qu’autrefois, l’étude ou du moins la lecture des deux orateurs qui ont

excellé dans ce genre me paraît indispensable à tous ceux qui suivent la carrière

politique.34

La référence à un Démosthène tribun de la liberté et du patriotisme est en effet

pleinement attestée par le rythme et le choix des éditions et des traductions de l'époque qui nous

occupe. L'étude de la présence éditoriale des oeuvres de Démosthène fait ressortir avec une

fréquence excessive, presque à l'exclusion de tout autre texte, la prédominance de trois titres: le

Discours sur la couronne, les Olynthiennes et les Philippiques — la partie de l’œuvre de

Démosthène qui est marquée par la polémique et par l’appel soutenu à un civisme patriotique

austère, rejetant également l'amusement et la passivité civique.35 Nul étonnement alors que,

entamant en 1853 sa "panthéonisation" du général Foy, l’orateur représentatif d'une opposition

libérale décimée dans les élections de 1823, Villemain commence ses souvenirs par une allusion

au "Discours sur la couronne" pour finir par la citation commentée du serment sur les morts de

34Josèphe Planche, Œuvres complètes de Démosthène et d’Eschine, vol. 1 (Paris, 1819) 29. 35Voir la liste des éditions et des traductions données en annexe no.1


Chéronée: et c’est ainsi que le morceau oratoire le mieux connu de toute l'histoire de la

rhétorique est mis au service d'un libéralisme de représentation républicaine en train de se

constituer!

Pour conclure, il me semble que, pendant la "Restauration de 15 ans,” dans le contexte

particulier des années 1820-30, le discours politique de Démosthène représente le modèle central

d'une éloquence d'espace public qui se veut démocratique et populaire: c'est un modèle austère,

d'argumentation serrée, fondée dans l'énumération des faits, tout en restant d'une intense

identification éthique. Identification qui semble être le fond même d'une passion politique

exemplaire. Ce modèle rhétorique, qui structure la performance oratoire libérale des

"indépendants" au Parlement, se dégrade vite après 1827, et sera tout à fait compromis après les

journées de Juillet, en 1830.36 Il s’agit aussi d’une vision historique du passée qui, identifiée

avec l’orateur politique, sera aussi critiquée. L'autre historien important de la rhétorique

française de l'époque, L.M. de Cormenin (1788-1868) esquisse un portrait plus nuancé de

l'orateur Foy qui est, somme toute, mis sous le signe ambigu de l'anachronisme nostalgique: à

côté de Béranger et de Courier, il sera inclus parmi les quelques survivants de l'Empire qui, sous

la Restauration, donnent expression à des thèmes communs et déjà ambivalents: le regret pour la

perte de l’empire rencontre la confiance dans le progrès des Lumières, progrès qui s'investit

36La dégradation de ce modèle sous la Monarchie de Juillet est surprise avec fine perspicacité par une

caricature de Daumier, donnée ici en Annexe no. 4. Parue en 1835 et intitulée "Athéniens prenez garde à Philippe,” l'image reprend de façon satirique le topos de la cité athénienne pour la montrer comme audience faite d'autant de visages de la bêtise, parmi lesquelles on reconnaît aisément celui du roi Louis-Philippe, le "nouveau Philippe"! De manière tout à fait significative, le grand orateur, qui a un mouvement majestueux, légèrement dansant et envolé, est montré de dos, faisant, comme nous, face à la foule. Le contraste entre l'orateur de l'ancien héroïsme civique et son audience "louis-philipparde” est ainsi totale; elle définit avec intensité et humour l'idéalisme utopique des représentations politiques ; l’image caricaturale exprime ainsi toute la force d’un projet politique mis en échec par son propre discours.


principalement et nécessairement dans le processus d'apprentissage de la démocratie.37 Et

l’histoire de la rhétorique, en tant que histoire de la parole publique, est vue comme le domaine

même de cet apprentissage difficile.

Le texte commémoratif de Villemain surprend ainsi un moment complexe et

contradictoire de l’invention de la rhétorique moderne en espace public, invention qui s’accorde

avec une prise de conscience accrue de la responsabilité individuelle mise à l’épreuve du

politique. Décrit ici dans un langage clair, le lien des droits aux devoirs dans la philosophie

moderne du civisme est aussi consacré comme mode d’une rationalité qui dépasse les passions.

En ce sens, il est significatif que ce soit dans les discours de ce “nouveau Démosthène” que

Villemain veut identifier la présence des vertus politiques nouvelles:

On sentait surtout cette conviction utile et vraiment morale, que la Liberté

Politique n’est pas seulement une force, un droit, une puissance du grand nombre,

qu’elle est une science qu’il faut acquérir et perfectionner par l’étude, une vertu

qu’il faut maintenir par le caractère, et au besoin par les sacrifices.38

Comme l’a bien montré Pierre Rosanvallon dans ses études sur Guizot (le“Gramsci de la

bourgeoisie”39), la théorie du suffrage censitaire (qui a dominé le moment évoqué par

Villemain) est liée à une théorie du libéralisme qui a pour objet d’en faire une culture de

gouvernement - ce qui est d’ailleurs souligné par l’insistance de Villemain sur la représentation

“aristotélicienne” de son public étudiant, “nos jeunes Athéniens de 1825”!

37L.M.de Cormenin, Le Livre des Orateurs (Paris: Pagnerre, 1847). 38Villemain 397. 39Pierre Rosanvallon, “ Préface,” Histoire de la civilisation en Europe, par François Guizot (Paris:

Hachette, 1985) 15.


Dans le sillage d’une réflexion sur les enjeux politiques visés par la récupération libérale du

modèle démosthénien dans l'invention de l’éloquence parlementaire sous la Restauration,

Villemain fait, en effet, réitérer le problème de l’impératif moral d’une démocratie

constitutionnelle qui se pose encore des questions sur le sens et l’avenir de ses structures et de

ses choix tactiques. Procès déjà constitué dans toute sa complexe ambiguïté pendant les années

révolutionnaires, qui pensent et repensent leur lien au modèle de la cité ancienne.40 En 1853, les

réponses données par l’histoire ne font que dramatiser davantage les échecs et les occasions

manquées, tout en jetant une lumière plus claire sur les passions et les raisons d’un passé encore

récent, passé qui, pour un bref instant, a fait du général Foy, chef de l’opposition libérale, l’héros

“démosthénien” de la lutte pour une démocratie de tradition rhétorique.

40Dans ce sens, voir les études réunies par Chrissanti Avlami dans le volume L’Antiquité Grecque au XIXe

Siècle. Un exemplum contesté? (Paris: L’Harmattan, 2000). Particulièrement pertinents pour les questions examinées ici sont les analyses de C. Avlami et de F. Hartog.


ANNEXE NO. 1: LISTE DES ÉDITIONS ET DES TRADUCTIONS DES DISCOURS POLITIQUES DE DÉMOSTHÈNE PUBLIÉS PENDANT LA “RESTAURATION DE 15 ANS,” 1815-183041 1818

Pensées ou recueil des plus beaux passages de Démosthène, avec le texte grec en regard (Josèphe

Planche)

1818-1819

Oeuvres complètes de Démosthène et d'Eschine. Nouvelle édition de la traduction Auger, 1777

(avec une réédition aussi en 1804) revue par Josèphe Planche, avec un important commentaire.

1821

Aeschinis in Ctesiphon oratio

De Chersoneso et de pace. Orationes graece

Harangue de Démosthène sur la Couronne (ed.Gail)

Les Philippiques de Démosthène

1822

Harangues de Démosthène sur la Chersonèse et sur la paix

1823

Discours de Démosthène contre Philippe (texte grec/français)

Discours de Démosthène pour Ctésiphon

41Cette liste a seulement un charactère d’orientation.


Les Olynthiennes

Harangue de Démosthène sur la liberté des Rodiens

Les Philippiques de Démosthène

1824

Demosthenis Olynthiacae

Olynthiennes, avec notes et analyses en français, par V. H. (Vendel Heyl)

Quatre Philippiques, avec notes et analyses en français, par V.H.

Demosthenis Philippicae quatuor

Harangue sur la liberté des Rodiens

Demosthenis Oratio de Haloneso

Discours de Démosthène pour Ctésiphon

Philippi epistola et Demosthenis responsium, graece

Discours d'Eschine contre Ctésiphon

1825

Harangues et Oraisons choisies de Démosthène, par A. Auger

1826

Oratio de corona

Discours sur la Chersonèse et sur la paix

Première Philippique

Troisième Philippique


1827

Olynthiennes de Démosthène

Discours sur la Chersonèse et sur la paix, avec des analyses en français par V.H.

Discours de Démosthène pour la couronne

Discours sur la couronne, avec notes et analyses en français, par V.H.

Harangue d'Eschine sur la couronne

Analyses et extraits de Démosthène, Eschine, Lysias, Isocrate (F.Ragon)

1828

Excerpta ex Demosthenis, Eschinis, Lysiae et Isocratis orationibus, Volfio int.

Olynthiennes de Démosthène avec sommaires en français (G.Duplessis)

Les Philippiques

[Eschines. Discours sur la couronne]

1829

Analyses et extraits des harangues de Démosthène, Eschine, Isocrate, Lysias (F.Ragon)

Les Olynthiennes expliquées en français (Auger, Prieur)

Discours pour les Mégalopolitains

Harangues sur la couronne d'Eschine et de Démosthène (Boutmy,Vendel Heyl)

Discours sur la couronne

Harangue de Démosthène contre Leptine ou sur les immunités, d'après Wolf.


1830

Les Olynthiennes

Les Philippiques, avec notes et analyses, par V.H.

Sur la fausse ambassade, avec notes et analyses en français

Philippiques, expliquées en français (Auger/Cannissié)

[Eschine. Discours contre Ctésiphon]


ANNEXE NO. 2: PREMIÈRES TRADUCTIONS EN FRANÇAIS AU XVIe SIÈCLE DES DISCOURS POLITIQUES DE DÉMOSTHÈNE. Sur la couronne

1595[?] Version de Guillaume du Vair (1560-1521), incluse dans son De l'Éloquence françoise

et des raisons pourquoy elle est demeurée si basse. En 1618 cette traduction sera incluse dans les

Œuvres de Du Vair.42

Philippiques

1549 Les quatre Philippiques de Démosthène . . . nouvellement translatées de grec en français

par Jehan Lalemant. Paris.

1555 Quatre oraisons contre Philippe, roy de Macédoine voulant usurper l'empire de Grèce,

traduittes de grec en françois par Loys Le Roy. Paris.

Olynthiaques

1551 Trois Oraisons de Démosthène, . . . dittes Olynthiaques . . . translatées de grec en

françois par Loys le Roy. Paris: Vascosan.

1575 Sept Oraisons de Démosthène, prince des orateurs, à sçavoir, trois Olynthiaques et

quatre Philippiques... traduittes de grec en françois par Loys Le Roy, dict Regius. Paris: Morel.

42Cette traduction en Français est precédée par les traductions en Latin du discours, celle de 1485 donnèe

par Leonardo Bruni (Aretino), 1370-1444, publiée à Venice, et plusieurs autres, faites par Melanchton, Wolf, Denis Lambin, etc.


ANNEXE NO. 3: PRINCIPALES DATES BIO-BIBLIOGRAPHIQUES DES PERSONNALITÉS DISCUTÉES Abel-FrançoisVillemain 1790-1870

• Élève, au collège Louis-le-Grand, de Luce de Lancival.

1808 Maître de conférences à l'École Normale et occupant de la chaire de rhétorique au lycée

Charlemagne.

1812 Prix de la harangue latine.

Prix d'éloquence de l'Institut pour son "Éloge de Montaigne.”

1814 Suppléant de Guizot à la chaire d'histoire moderne.

1816-1830 Nommé professeur à la chaire d'éloquence de la Faculté des lettres de Paris, à la

Sorbonne.

1821 Reçu à l'Académie française, deviendra son secrétaire perpétuel dès 1834.

1823 Traduction française de De Republica (Michaud, 2 vols), d'après l'édition du manuscrit

retrouvé par Angelo Mai.

1830 Brièvement député.

1832 Pair de France.

1839-40-44 Ministre de l'instruction publique dans le ministères Molé et Guizot

1854 Souvenirs contemporains d'histoire et de littérature (Paris: Didier), qui inclut le texte

"Souvenirs de la Sorbonne en 1825.”

1858 "La Tribune moderne. Première partie. M. de Chateaubriand"

1870 "Étouffé par le Second Empire,” il meurt "le jour même du plébiscite.”

1882 "La Tribune moderne en France et en Angleterre. Seconde partie.”


Maximilien-Sébastien Foy, 1775-1825

• Comme Saint-Just, il fait ses études élémentaires au Collège des Oratoriens de Soissons.

1792 Commence sa carrière militaire; colonel et général pendant les années 1808-1814, il

participe aux guerres de la Révolution et de l'Empire.

1819 Élu à la Chambre des députés, devient le chef de l’opposition libérale.

1823 Réélu, en dépit de la défaite des "indépendants" de la “gauche constitutionnelle”.

1825 Mort inattendue du général. Les funérailles seront l’occasion d’une vaste manifestation

de solidarité de la gauche libérale.

1826 Publication posthume de la collection de ses discours (2 tomes, in octavo).

1827 Inauguration du monument du général Foy par David D’Angers. Le général y est

représenté en orateur, parlant à la tribune et entouré par un grand nombre de personnalités

politiques et culturelles.

Charles Dupin, 1784-1873

Géomètre, statisticien et parlementaire.

1803 Polytechnicien, devient ingénieur dans la marine napoléonienne.

1808-1812 Envoyé a Corfou, devient secrétaire de l'Académie Ionienne et traduit les

“Olynthiaques.”

1814 Publication des “ Olynthiaques ” et des Essais sur Démosthènes et sur son éloquence .

1827 Entre dans la vie parlementaire, où il restera jusqu'en 1870.


ANNEXE 4


OUVRAGES CITÉS

Adams, Charles Darwin. Demosthenes and his Influence. New York, Longman, 1927.

Adams, John Quincy. Lectures on Rhetoric and Oratory. Ed. J. Jeffery Auer and Jerald L.

Banninga. New York: Russell and Russell, 1962.

Avlami, Chryssanti, éd. L’Antiquité greque au XIXe siècle. Un exemplum contesté? Paris et

Montréal: L’Harmattan, 2000.

Barthes, Roland. “L’ancienne rhétorique. Aide-mémoire.” Communications 16 (1970): 172-223.

Blair, Hugh. Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres. London: J.Cranwell, 1817.

Brunetière, Ferdinand. L'Évolution des Genres. Paris: Mercure de France, 1889.

Cormenin, L.M. de. Le Livre des Orateurs. Paris: Pagnerre, 1847.

Cowans, Jon. To Speak for the People. Public Opinion and the Problem of Legitimacy in the

French Revolution. New York: Routledge, 2001.

Douay-Soublin, F. "Y a-t-il renaissance de la Rhétorique en France au XIXème siècle?.”

Renaissances of Rhetoric. Ed. S. Ijsseling and G. Vervaecke. Louvain: Leuven UP, 1994.

51-154.

Dupin, Charles. Essais sur Démosthène et sur son éloquence. Paris:Vve. Courcier, 1814.

Guégan, G., éd. Hérault de Séchelles. Théorie de l’ambition et autres écrits. Paris: Éditions

Ramsay, 1978.

Guizot, François. Histoire de la civilisation en Europe. Ed. Pierre Rosanvallon. Paris: Hachette,

1985.

La Harpe, Jean François de. Lycée ou cours de littérature ancienne moderne. Paris, 1813.

{PRIVATE }

Lefort, Claude. Écrire à l’épreuve du politique. Paris, Calmann-Lévy, 1992.


Malavié, Jean. "Le cours d'éloquence française de Villemain.” L'Information historique 2

(mars/avril 1976): 59-73.

Mornet, Daniel. Histoire de la clarté française. Paris: Payot, 1929.

Mossé, C. L'Antiquité dans la Révolution française. Paris: Albin Michel, 1989.

Olivet, Pierre Joseph Thoulier. Philippiques de Démosthène et Catilinaires de Cicéron. An 9.

Nismes: J.Gaude, 1803.

Pagès, François-Xavier. Nouveaux dialogues des morts, entre les plus fameux personnages de la

Révolution française et plusieurs hommes célèbres . . . morts avant la Révolution, suivis

de plusieurs autres dialogues entre des personnages vivants. Paris: Laurens, 1804.

Planche, Josèphe. Œuvres complètes de Démosthène et d’Eschine. Vol. 1. Paris, 1819. 29.

Richet, Denis. La France Moderne: l’esprit des institutions. Paris: Flammarion, 1973.

Ronnet, Gilberte. Étude sur le style de Démosthène dans les discours politiques. Paris: B.de

Boccard Éditeur, 1951.

Rosanvallon, Pierre. Le moment Guizot. Paris: Gallimard, 1985.

---. La monarchie impossible. Paris: Fayard, 1994.

Saim, Mirela. "Les représentants représentés: théorie et critique de l'éloquence démocratique

chez Cormenin.” Écriture, Parole, Discours: littérature et rhétorique au XIXe siècle. Ed.

Alain Vaillant. Saint-Étienne: Éditions Printer, 1997. 89-98.

Saint-Gerand, J. P. Morales du Style. Toulouse: Presses Universitaires de Toulouse, 1993.

Sainte-Beuve, C.A. Portraits Contemporains. Paris: Michel Lévy Frères, 1870.

Schindel, Ulrich. Demosthenes im 18 Jahrhundert. Munchen: Verlag C.H.Beck, 1963.


Sicard, R.A. “Réponse . . . au Discours de Son Éminence Mgr. le Cardinal Maury.” Discours

prononcés dans la Séance publique tenue par la classe de la langue et de la littérature

françoise de l'Institut de France. Paris, 1807.

Villemain, A.-F. Souvenirs contemporains d'histoire et de littérature. Paris: Didier, 1854.


In Praise of Kenneth Burke: His “The Rhetoric of Hitler’s ‘Battle’” Revisited JOSEF SCHMIDT Dept. of German Studies McGill University

After his election as chancellor in 1933, when Hitler’s programmatic manifesto Mein

Kampf reached the North American Continent in numerous translations, the reaction ranged from

mixed to very negative. It was the admirable achievement of one of the great rhetoricians of our

time, Kenneth Burke, to have seen beyond the boisterous, “exasperating, even nauseating”1

claims and statements of the Nazi leader, and to have discerned, by means of a rigorous

rhetorical analysis, the sinister tenets of an eclectic fascist ideology whose impetus was ultimate

aggression. In hindsight, it is no hyperbolic praise to call his book review, “The Rhetoric of

Hitler’s ‘Battle’,” a visionary and prophetic document whose profound examination proved to be

only too true! His rigorous examination of Hitler’s “acts and attitudes of persuasion”2 cuts to the

core of fascist propaganda. He could not foresee the apocalyptic destruction that would result in

“The Battle” of WWII with all its horrors, but he did recognize the all-pervasive corruption of

fundamental human values of the program in question. He also recognized the main pattern of

this work: a perverse manipulation of religious paradigms for the purpose of political

1Kenneth Burke, “The Rhetoric of Hitler’s ‘Battle,’” in Kenneth Burke: On Symbols and Society, ed. and intro. Joseph R. Gusfield (Chicago and London: U of Chicago P, 1989), 211. This essay was first published in book form in Burke’s The Philosophy of Literary Form: Studies in Symbolic Action, (New York: Vintage, 1941), 191-220. Further citations from the 1989 publication appear parenthetically in text. 2 Kenneth Burke, A Rhetoric of Motives, (Berkeley: U of California P, 1969), particularly the sub-chapter “Persuasion,” 49-55.


propaganda. This is all the more admirable since the historical pragmatic context of the work in

question was of a rather limited nature. Hitler’s manifesto was targeted primarily at unruly party

members who questioned the not yet undisputed “leader’s” views and policies. Only when he did

succeed in assuming absolute political power did the work in question acquire the status of a

“program.”

The structure of Burke’s essay is merely that of a book review, as he states quite openly

at the beginning. However, he reprimands his fellow reviewers:

If the reviewer but knocks off a few adverse attitudinizings and calls it a day, with

a guaranty in advance that his article will have a favorable reception among the

decent members of the population, he is contributing more to our gratification

than to our enlightenment. (211)

Burke clearly felt that other reviewers were too glib or short-sighted in reviewing Hitler’s book.

In order to discern the evils of a fascist ideology, Burke identifies a multitude of concepts

that Hitler uses frequently, like the creation of a common enemy (“the Jew, as his unifying devil-

function (214)” or the scapegoat mechanism (225). But Burke’s central line of argument,

namely that Hitler’s ideology of listing the evils facing the nation has to be primarily analysed

as the “corrupt use of religious patterns” (218), is borne out by our contemporary understanding

today. Only few of Burke’s contemporaries realized this, like Konrad Heiden who called it “a

kind of satanic Bible.”3

The components of Hitler’s fascist “unification device” are broken up by Burke into four

distinctive “features” (218ff):

(1) “Inborn dignity.” This religious/humanistic pattern of thought is given an “ominous twist by

3Konrad Heiden, Introduction, Mein Kampf, by Adolf Hitler, trans. Ralph Manheim (Boston: Houghton

Mifflin, 1943), xix.


his theories of race and nation . . . .” It translates into a Manichean antithesis of superior: inferior

(Aryan: Jews/Negroes).

(2) “Projection device.” The “purification by dissociation” was achieved through the scapegoat

designation that allowed an ailing middle class to assign social inadequacies to a single group

and allowed them to “conduct business without any basic change whatsoever.” Hitler’s prose is a

primary example of apodictic argumentation, his anecdotal experiences providing ample “proof”

for his social analysis.

(3) “Symbolic rebirth.” Hitler, by staging himself as a visionary, a prophet, gives “a malign

twist to a benign aspect of Christian thought,” namely a promissory goal.

(4) “Commercial use.” In the very pragmatic context of the thirties, he “provided a

noneconomic interpretation of economic ills,” bedeviling “‘Jewish finance’ instead of finance”

(emphasis in the original) that, if removed, eventually might leave “‘Aryan’ finance in control.”

Burke does not explicitly label rhetorical tropes, as, for example anthithesis for the first

point above or synechdoche for point 4. Instead, he emphasizes the pragmatic rhetorical context

of Hitler as “relying upon a bastardization of fundamentally religious patterns of thought” (230).

The means are identified as

the basic Nazi trick: the “curative” unification by a fictitious devil-function,

gradually made convincing by the sloganizing repetitiousness of standard

advertising technique – the opposition must be as unwearing in the attack upon it.

(229)

Inside the totalitarian social system of Nazi Germany, of course, opposition was hardly possible

since Gleichschaltung ‘consolidation of all media’4 eliminated the possibility of public

4Robert Michael and Karin Doerr, Nazi-Deutsch/Nazi German: An English Lexicon of the Language of the Third Reich (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2002) 192.


opposition and created ideal conditions for this kind of ideological advertising. Burke precedes

his remark on the curative unification by introducing the conventional summarizing of the

review, repeating the corrupt use of religious patterns:

What are we to learn from Hitler’s book? For one thing, I believe that he has

shown, to a very disturbing degree, the power of endless repetition. Every circular

advertising a Nazi meeting had, at the bottom, two slogans: “Jews not admitted”

and “War victims free.” And the substance of Nazi propaganda was built about

these “complementary” themes. (228-229)

Burke does not discuss, at this point, the fact that the liturgical ritual knows this technique of

indoctrination, of “endless repetition,” too.

Three short reflections shall illustrate why I find the foresight of this essay so penetrating

in hindsight. First of all, Burke, although he explicitly refers to Hitler’s insistence on his

movement expressing at any given moment a sense of community, could not have known how

true the focus of his analysis of pseudo-religious Nazi propaganda technique actually was — in a

much wider sense than he described. Albert Speer, Hitler’s confidant and, later, powerful

minister of the arms industry, survived the war and later chronicled what had actually happened

at headquarters. He was an architect by training, and Hitler entrusted most of his grandiose

architectural schemes to him. In our context, however, the important feature is that Speer makes

a convincing case on how Hitler deliberately developed a Versammlungsarchitektur — which

can be loosely translated as “congregational architecture” that was designed for political mass

rallies — and it did deliberately magnify essential parts of the liturgical Catholic mass ritual.5

The most visible and gruesome was the Lichtdom, the light dome, that is to say the spectacular

5See Josef Schmidt, “Événement fasciste et spectacle mondial: les jeux olympiques de Berlin en 1936,” Masses et cultures de masse dans les années trente, ed. Régine Robin (Paris: Les éditions ouvrières, 1991) 171-174 (La mise en scene).


use of powerful spotlights arranged to create the effect of an ecclesiastical building. I call it

gruesome because the spotlights employed were developed as state-of-the-art air defense

searchlights! Another spectacular example is Leni Riefenstahl’s propaganda movie Triumph of

the Will (1934), an account of the Nazi party rally in Nuremberg. An opening sequence shows

Hitler’s plane descending on the city while casting a shadow cross on the ground that should

symbolize his messianic mission.

A second, equally reprehensible, proof of Burke’s insight into Nazi pseudo-religion is the

historical analysis of how Christian churches dealt with anti-Semitic persecution; their uneasy

dealings evolved right to the end of WWII and after. The Vatican reacted in a very ambivalent

way to the gradually increasing persecution of Jews, whose blueprint is an essential part of the

discourse of Hitler’s “Battle.” Indeed, his hate litany contains all the historical Christian

arguments for anti-Semitism. The Catholic Church, during the thirties and early forties became

ever more evasive in defending the principal target of Hitler’s “bedeviling.” A chilling account

of this process of omission, Garry Will’s Papal Sin: Structures of Deceit, depicts how this

institution failed in a difficult and complex historical situation, but then tried to redress this

failure by retroactively interpreting its covert communications of appeasement as overt

condemnations.6

Thirdly, Burke’s analysis of Hitler’s pseudo-religious propaganda is borne out by

ideological studies of Nazi Germany. One of the main themes of Mein Kampf is the well known

racial “blood and soil” thesis. It was one of the secular political unification devices that Hitler

used, assigning every possible social virtue to returning the German nation to a pure Aryan race

and total domination of its perceived proper territory with a strong emphasis on an extensive

agricultural class. But it was definitely proposed in the tone of a religious mission. Hitler was 6Garry Wills. Papal Sin: Structures of Deceit (New York: Doubleday, 2000) 11-69.


“himself ascribing every calamity since the fall of the Rome to race mixing.”7

David Loewenthal’s contemporary analysis of a perilous trend in modern national

ideologies relies on a basic contradiction: history versus heritage. According to him the historian

seeks to convey a past consensually known, open to inspection and proof,

continually revised and eroded as time and hindsight outdates its truths. The

heritage fashioner, however historically scrupulous, seeks to design a past that

will fix the identity and enhance the well-being of some chosen individual or

folk.8

Hitler, being an historically rather unscrupulous political leader, adhered to the definition of

heritage as “but a profession of faith in a past tailored to present-day purposes;” his goal of

propaganda, therefore, became a unification message “apt to be labeled as false, deceitful, sleazy,

presentist, chauvinist, self-serving.”9 A vital part of his strategy was to unite a society as a nation

by delusions about both its history and its ancestry. Thus Loewenthal, a modern historian,

confirms in a different context what Burke had seen more than half a century ago.

Kenneth Burke closes his review of “The Battle” by returning to his own pragmatic

context, namely that “Hitlerite distortions of religion apparent” not be used by American

politicians “to perform a similar swindle” (230). His applied conclusion, an apt “rhetorical

generalization,” is a message that seems to fit our own contemporary scene surprisingly well:

And it is the corruptors of religion who are a major menace to the world today, in

giving profound patterns of religious thought a crude and sinister distortion. (230)

7David Loewenthal, The Heritage Crusade and the Spoils of History (Cambridge: U of Cambridge P, 1998) 209. 8Loewenthal xi. 9Loewenthal x.


REFERENCES

Burke, Kenneth. “The Rhetoric of Hitler’s ‘Battle.’” On Symbols and Society. Ed. and intro by

Joseph R. Gusfield. Chicago and London: U of Chicago P, 1989, 211-231.

---. “The Rhetoric of Hitler’s ‘Battle.’” The Philosophy of Literary Form: Studies in Symbolic

Action. New York: Vintage, 1941. 191-220.

---. A Rhetoric of Motives. Berkeley: U of California P, 1969.

Dupriez, Bernard. A Dictionary of Literary Devices: Gradus, A – Z. Trans and adapted by Albert

W. Halsall. Toronto: U of Toronto P, 1991.

Heiden Konrad. Introduction. Mein Kampf. By Adolf Hitler. Trans. Ralph Manheim. Boston:

Houghton Mifflin, 1943. xv-xxi.

Hitler, Adolf. Mein Kampf. München: Zentralverlag der NSDAP, 1943. 886-890.

---. Mein Kampf. Trans. Ralph Manheim. Intro. Konrad Heiden. Boston: Houghton Mifflin,

1943.

Loewenthal, David. The Heritage Crusade and the Spoils of History. Cambridge: Cambridge UP,

1998.

Michael, Robert and Karin Doerr. Nazi-Deutsch/Nazi German: An English Lexicon of the

Language of the Third Reich. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2002.

Schmidt, Josef. “Événement fasciste et spectacle mondial: Les jeux olympiques de Berlin en

1936.” Masses et culture de masse dans les années trente. Ed Régine Robin. Paris: Les

éditions ouvrières, 1991. 163-179.

Wills, Garry. Papal Sin: Structures of Deceit. New York: Doubleday, 2000.

RHETOR – Volume I (2004) <www.cssr-scer.ca/rhetor>

1

Presenting the Self in Everyday Life: The Personalized License Plate as Rhetorical Phenomenon1 ROBERT M. SEILER AND TAMARA P. SEILER Faculty of Communication and Culture University of Calgary We all know that, when an individual enters the presence of others, they seek information

about her or bring into play information about her they already possess.2 They are interested in

such matters as her socio-economic status, her self-conception, her attitude toward them, her

social competence, her trustworthiness, and so on. Of course, she seeks the same information

about them, trying to define the situation, trying to ensure that the encounter takes the course she

would like it to take. In this way, people get to know what is expected of them, not to mention

how best to call forth the desired response from others. We all realize that, in these everyday

encounters, we convey vital information directly and consciously when we provide verbal

documentary evidence about who we are and what we do and indirectly and involuntarily when

we reveal non-verbal information about our attitudes, beliefs, and emotions. We understand this

interaction as the rhetoric of everyday life.

1We presented a shortened version of this paper at the Canadian Society for the Study of Rhetoric conference, which was held at the University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, July 1997. We wish to thank Peter Wong, Research Officer, Alberta Transportation and Utilities, for kindly providing the sales figures for the PLP, and JoAnne Kabeary, General Studies, and Gus Brannigan, Sociology, the University of Calgary, for their comments and suggestions.

2Erving Goffman, The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1959) 1-2; Harold Garfinkel, Studies in Ethnomethodology (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1967) 9-11.


2

In this paper, we examine a mundane, seemingly impersonal, form of interaction which

materializes whenever people take to the road in an automobile: we are interested in the

rhetorical phenomenon of the personalised license plate (hereafter the PLP).3 In saying this, we

say that the PLP is in fact an integral part of the impression being made by the driver,

determining the information other people acquire about her. We focus on how people

consciously exploit the medium of the license plate4 and on how the text can be read or decoded5

with a view to understanding how such messages as 2QUICK4U and 2HOT4U foster and control

impressions.

1. Studying Popular Culture

The approach we have taken builds on the work of a variety of socio-semiotics theorists,

including Roland Barthes, Stuart Hall, and Pierre Bourdieu.6 It sees popular culture as a site of

struggle, focusing on the tactics used to evade or subvert the forces of dominance.7 Analysts

3The PLP has been in circulation in the USA since 1937, when the first personalised plate was issued in

Connecticut. See Sarah Jay, "Vanity in a License Plate is Spelled SOFINE," New York Times (25 December 1994, E2). There, the PLP accounts for only 2 per cent of all registered plates. As we know, PLP's convey messages that brag and swagger, posture and pun, declaim and disarm. See Thomson C. Murray, The Official License Plate Book: How to Read and Decode Current United States and Canadian Plates, ed. Michael C. Wiener (Jericho, NY: Interstate Directory Publishing Co. Inc., 1996). To appreciate the PLP phenomenon, one must turn to the notion of "conspicuous consumption." First developed by Thorstein Veblen, in The Theory of the Leisure Class (New York: Dover Publications, 1899), the term describes the practice of purchasing unnecessary and/or overly expensive goods and services in order to signal one's wealth and high status. More recently, a number of analysts have reconsidered this idea. In "Status Goods and luxury Taxes," American Journal of Economics and Sociology 34 (1975): 141-54, Edward Miller discusses certain kinds of purchases, e.g., diamond rings, expensive clothes, and so forth − describing them as "costly signalling" − in Social Limits to Growth (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1977); Fred Hirsh speaks of them as "positional goods"; and in Distinctions: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste, trans. R. Nice (Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1984), Pierre Bourdieu talks of the economic significance of "taste."

4Roland Barthes, "The Rhetoric of the Image," in Image-Music-Text, trans. S. Heath (London: Wm. Collins Sons, 1977) 32-51.

5Stuart Hall, "Encoding/Decoding," in S. Hall, D. Hobson, and P. Willis (eds.), Culture, Media, and Language (London: Hutchinson, 1980) 128-39.

6See Barthes (1977), Hall (1980), and Pierre Bourdieu, Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgment of Taste, trans. R. Nice (Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1984).

7See John Fiske, Understanding Popular Culture (Boston: Unwin Hyman, 1989) 18-20.


3

who take this approach argue that ordinary people use resources the elites (who control the

cultural industries) provide to produce popular culture. In contrast to the mass cultural model,

which conceptualizes artifacts in terms of unified meaning, the popular cultural model

conceptualizes cultural artifacts as

polysemic, open to a variety of quite different, even contradictory, readings. Some readings

support the ideological meanings of cultural elites; others clearly oppose those meanings.8

2. Our Project

The project we report on here grows out of our on-going study of popular cultural artifacts,

wherein we try to discover how some readings of these artifacts support the dominant ideology,

whereas others oppose it.9 In this case, we collected our data while driving in and around the

city of Calgary over the course of a year, from 14 February 1994 to 13 February 1995. We

always travelled with a small diary, so as to record the PLP's we saw. In every instance, we

8Hall (1980) 137-38 identifies three reading strategies: (a) "dominant readings" are employed by readers

who accept the dominant ideology; (b) "negotiated readings" are employed by readers who accept the dominant ideology but who modify it to suit their social position; and (c) "oppositional readings" are employed by readers whose social position is in opposition to the dominant ideology.

9Our project grows out of our on-going study of cultural artifacts. See Robert M. Seiler, "The Interactional Organization of News Interviews in Canada," in Proceedings of the Canadian Society for the Study of Rhetoric, vol. 3, ed. John Martin (Calgary: C.S.S.R., 1991), 114-28; "Word-and-Image Interaction in the Newspaper: Common-sense Constructions and Ideological Interpretations," in Proceedings of the Canadian Society for the Study of Rhetoric, vol.5, ed. Albert W. Halsall (Ottawa: C.S.S.R., 1995), 123-35; "Selling Patriotism/Selling Beer: The Case of the I AM CANADIAN! Commercial," American Review of Canadian Studies 32 (Spring 2002): 45-66; "Cultural Activities and Urban Spaces: Cinemas on Stephen Avenue, Calgary, 1920-1970," Prairie Forum 28.1 (Spring 2003a): 67-80; and "M.B. 'Doc' Marcell: The Official Photographer of the first Calgary Stampede," American Review of Canadian Studies 33.2 (Summer 2003b): 219-38; and Robert M. Seiler and Tamara P. Seiler, "The Social Construction of the Canadian Cowboy: Calgary Exhibition and Stampede Posters, 1952-72," Journal of Canadian Studies 33.3 (Fall 1998): 51-82; "High Anxiety: The Rhetoric of Crime Reporting in Canadian Newspapers," Canadian Journal of Rhetorical Studies 10 (September 1999): 97-112; "Ceremonial Rhetoric and Civic Identity: The Case of the White Hat," Journal of Canadian Studies 36 (Spring 2001): 29-49; and "David Alexander Colville: The Rhetoric of Ambiguity," Canadian Journal of Rhetorical Studies 13 (September 2002): 14-32.


4

recorded the following details: (1) the message displayed, (2) the make of vehicle, (3) the year of

vehicle, (4) the date of observation, and (5) the note book used and the page number, thereby

making sure that we never "invented" our information. We identified as "candidates" plates

whose alpha/numeric characters suggested some deliberate, as opposed to chance, arrangement.

For this reason, we would ignore a plate like THE 333, which we saw on a grey 1984 Honda

Accord. Usually, the passenger recorded the details. (Surprisingly, we recorded the details of

about 700 messages.) Prior to analyzing them, we eliminated duplicate entries and by the

process of systematic sampling reduced our corpus to 500. Ultimately, we wanted to formulate a

rhetoric of the linguistic strategies drivers in and around Calgary employ to project an

impression of themselves.

3. Background

The study of communication can be subdivided into three areas10: (a) syntactics, which

focuses on the problems of transmitting information; (b) semantics, which focuses on the

problems of the meaning of the symbols employed to convey the message; and (c) pragmatics,

which focuses on how communication affects behaviour. While a clear conceptual separation of

these areas is possible in theory, they are nevertheless interdependent in practice. Our project

touches on all three areas, but deals mainly with pragmatics.

In everyday life, we use the terms "communication" and "behaviour" interchangeably.

Thus, the data of pragmatics are not only verbal — arrangements of words and the meanings

generated thereby — but also non-verbal — gestures. From this perspective, it can be argued

that all communication — even the communicational clues in an impersonal context — affects

10P. Watzlawick, J. Beavin, and D. D. Jackson, Pragmatics of Communication: A Study of Interactional


5

behaviour. When an individual appears in the presence of others, she organizes her "activity,"

verbally and non-verbally, so as to convey the impression that puts her in the best possible

light.11 The sender is concerned not only with the effect her communication will have on the

receiver, but also with the effect the receiver's response will have upon her, the sender. Aristotle

produced one of the first models to capture these dynamics:

Speaker ÷ Argument ÷ Speech ÷ Listener(s)

In On Rhetoric,12 Aristotle writes that rhetoric affects decision making. He points out that the

successful rhetor must not only make the argument of his speech demonstrative and worthy of

belief; he must also make his own character look credible and put his listeners, who are to decide

the matter at issue, into the right frame of mind.

Today, theorists model interpersonal communication as a continuous, often simultaneous

process, whereby one person (encoder/decoder) formulates a message about some referent (some

idea, feeling, object, or experience) in some context, and sends it to some other person

(encoder/decoder), who responds to the message, depending upon how he perceives and

interprets it:

Encoder/Decoder ø Message ø Encoder/Decoder

By encoding, they mean translating the referent into symbols or sign-vehicles, such as words or

Patterns, Pathologies, and Paradoxes (New York: W. W. Norton, 1967) 34-36.

11See Goffman 1-3.


6

gestures, which are conveyed via channels of verbal or non-verbal stimuli.

In other words, if we agree that all behaviour in an interactional situation has message

value,13 we have to conclude that one cannot not communicate, however hard one tries. In a

significant way, this statement conveys the very essence of rhetoric. Activity or inactivity,

words or silence: all have message value; they influence other people and other people, in turn,

cannot not respond to this communication.

Thus, we could say that all behaviour becomes rhetorical as soon as someone interprets

it/responds to it on the basis of some interpretation, whatever the actor's intentions happen to

be.14 However, many acts are rhetorical by design, such as advertisements, music videos,

editorials, and so on, in that they (a) declare a position and (b) seek to defend it or to make it

attractive to others. Using

this more exclusive definition, we can say that rhetorical acts are intentional, deliberate attempts

to influence others. Often, these acts take place within the context of, or are modelled on, face-

to-face interaction.15

For the sake of this discussion, we define a rhetorical act as an intentional, polished

attempt to overcome the obstacles in a given situation with a specific audience on a given issue

to achieve a particular end.16 In this case, via seven alpha/numeric characters, the rhetor evokes

ideas, pictures, and experiences in those she addresses.

The power of the rhetor's character or ethos in this rhetorical act becomes more

12Aristotle, On Rhetoric: A Theory of Civic Discourse, trans. George A. Kennedy (New York and Oxford:

Oxford University Press, 1991). 13See Watzlawick et al 48-49. 14See Karlyn Kohrs Campbell, The Rhetorical Act (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing Co., 1996) 24. 15See Janet Beavin Bavelas, Sarah Hutchinson, Christine Kenwood, and Deborah Hunt Matheson, "Using

Face-to Face Dialogue as a Standard for Communication for Other Communication Systems," Canadian Journal of Communication 22.1 (1997): 6-7.

16See Campbell 120.


7

understandable when we think about the ancient term. The Greek word ethos is closely related

to our terms ethical and ethnic. In its widest sense, ethos refers not to the personality of the

individual but to "the disposition, character, or attitude peculiar to a specific people, culture, or

group that distinguishes it from other peoples or groups".17 Understood in these terms, its

relationship to the word ethnic becomes obvious, for ethnic refers to the distinctive cultural

group, and the ethos of an individual depends upon how well she reflects the qualities valued in

that culture. In other words, your ethos refers to the ways in which you as an individual mirror

the characteristics idealized by your culture or social group. We judge the character of another

by the choices that person makes regarding how she lives with other members of the community.

Clearly, as a site where individual and community "interact" on a day-to-day basis, where

a person reveals something about herself as an individual and as a competent member of the

community, the PLP message (we would argue) can be better understood in light of (a) classical

rhetorical theory, particularly the notion of ethos; and (b) popular culture analysis, which

encourages us to view it as a site of struggle, where an individual "makes do" with a procedure

and a material supplied by those in authority, turning a legally required and (one might argue) a

highly de-personalizing artifact — a license plate (which usually bears an alpha/numeric

message of conformity) into a highly visible expression of self.18 Moreover, the message can be

better understood in light of (c) modern theories of inter-personal communication.

In the following pages, we attempt to combine these analytical frameworks with a view to

providing some insight into the significance of what might well be regarded as a rather puzzling,

even oxymoronic, postmodern phenomenon: the PLP.

17Campbell 121. 18The sense of "self" used here derives from G.H. Mead who, in Mind, Self, and Society (Chicago:

University of Chicago Press, 1934), explained that the self emerges from social interaction with other human beings


8

4. The Personalized License Plate

The province of Alberta introduced the PLP on 1 May 1985, thereby making the so-called

"vanity" plate available to suitable applicants for a fee of $150. Records show that 2,607 sets of

PLP's were issued for the fiscal period 1 April 1994 to 31 March 1995, thereby bringing the total

number of PLP's in circulation in Alberta to 42,272 plates. According to Peter Wong, 1,935,706

active license plates were in circulation as of 31 March 1995.19 In any event, the PLP accounts

for about 2.4 percent of all registered license plates in Alberta. Applicants must consider a

variety of guidelines, including these:

1. PLP's must display no more than seven characters, i.e., letters or numbers,

including spaces. Applicants are advised that "0" (zero) or "1" (one) cannot be

used in place of an "O" (oh) or "I" (eye) to make a plate unique.

2. PLP's must be unique.

3. Alberta Registries reserve the right to reject a request for a PLP for any reason.

This means that an application can be denied if (a) someone already owns the

plate, or (b) the message is on a list of off-limit plates (plates must not cause

problems in terms of identification: one cannot request a plate saying QUEEN

or PREMIER), or (c) the plate offends against "good taste," i.e., contains an

ethnic, a religious, a sexual, or a political slur.

Clearly, the constraints on formulating a "unique" message, one that projects one's desired

image, are formidable.

via taking on the role of the other and/or internalizing the attitude of real and imagined others.

19Peter Wong, personal communication, 6 June 1997.


9

5. Methodology

While reducing our sample to 500 messages, we noticed the PLP's falling into just a few

categories. We hypothesised that these categories might be linked to a number of rhetorical

strategies. In designing an apparatus for categorising the PLP's, so as to uncover the "rhetoric" at

work in this medium, we took as our point of departure the words of Aristotle who, in identifying

what contributed to the ethos of a rhetor in a rhetorical act, wrote that it arose from (a) good

sense or social and practical wisdom, which he called phronesis; (b) good will or concern for the

long-term interests of the community, which he called eunoia; and (c) good character or moral

excellence, which he called arete. We folded these elements into the schema we produced (see

Table 1) to categorise the messages that make up our corpus.20

PERSON VEHICLE SETTING

1. name 1. name 1. name 2. attribute 2. attribute 2. attribute 3. achievement 3. distinction 3. distinction 4. maxim 4. maxim 4. greeting

Table 1: Schema for categorizing messages

We explain this schema in these terms: Depending upon the inflection intended, every

alpha/numeric combination of characters projects an image of "self" in terms of PERSON,

VEHICLE, possibly a non-verbal extension of the person, or SETTING, by which we mean a

20In constructing this schema, we assume that phronesis, eunoia, and arête (or the absence thereof) will be

expressed in the words a driver uses to describe herself, her vehicle, or her community. Admittedly, the government regulations governing the choice of words on a PLP limit the degree to which one is allowed to transgress community standards with regard to these three qualities; nevertheless, the regulations allow sufficient freedom for drivers to display these qualities in varying degrees. For example, one could read GOOFY as exerting less phronesis than SRVIVER.


10

focus on the rhetorical situation or (in many cases) the audience. We would argue that, with

regard to the category called PERSON, the rhetor conveys the persuasive force of her character

or individuality via (1) her name, including her (a) first name, (b) last name, (c) first and last

name, (d) nick-name, and (e) name of the unit she belongs to or aligns herself with. Sub-

category (e) includes those instances where the unit is not "family" so much as "business." As

well, we noticed the tendency to convey a sense of "self" in terms of (2) an attribute or personal

quality, or (3) an activity or an achievement, which serves as an index of status, or (4) a maxim

to live by. These sub-categories represent the strategies the rhetors in this study employ to

project an image of themselves.

As it happens, the other major categories break into the same sub-categories, with two

minor variations. In terms of vehicle and setting, the first three sub-categories need little

explanation: many rhetors project an image of themselves via (1) the make of the automobile

they drive or via the name of the place they live, (2) a quality or attribute of the automobile or

the place, or (3) some quality or distinction attached to the automobile or the place. In these

cases, the terms "achievement" and "distinction" are interchangeable. The last sub-category, (4)

maxim, is more complex. Many messages resemble maxims, but after examining them closely

we concluded that they sometimes identify the effect drivers wish to achieve vis-a-vis the

automobile and sometimes the drivers speak directly to a particular audience. Any message we

could not de-code we regarded as a GREETING, that is, it speaks to a small audience, possibly

members of the driver's family. We provide examples of these messages in Table 2.


1. name MARIE

1. name

VOLVO

1. name CALGARY


11

REESE WEE YIN COACH HEAVENS

NISSAN2 SASK2N KENORA XFIELD NANOOSE

2. attribute FRANTIC FOXYONE HUMBLE GOOFY WITTY

2. attribute HOT SPEEDEE SPUNKY ZIPPY VROOM

2. attribute EASY ST GREAT

3. achievement IMADEIT IPUSHEM WE SKI LIV2FLY TOPBOSS

3. distinction ITSHERS DADZCAD HER JAG BABSTOY IAMHIS

3. distinction GOLD88

4. maxim LIVNLUV DZIRTOB FLY HI UBUIBME YB NICE

4. maxim FUN 44 SUM SHO 2 DIE 4 4U2NVEE YIBUY4N

4. greeting ZUMWOHL SMYL4ME HELLO IDARE U SO WHAT

Table 2: Schema for categorizing messages

6. Results

The vast majority of the messages we studied can be decoded according to a variety of

semantic criteria, depending upon the approach one takes. We would argue that they fall into the

pattern we had projected: PERSON, VEHICLE, and SETTING. The senders of these messages

project themselves directly — as "individuals." However, 10 messages (2 per cent of the total)

defy decoding altogether. We read these messages as puzzles, categorising each (by default) as a


12

"greeting," reasoning that each conveys a (private) signal directed to a very small, possibly self-

selected audience. The over-all pattern that emerges from our study is outlined in Table 3.


1. name 295

1. name 008

1. name 024

2. attribute 021

2. attribute 012

2. attribute 002

3. achievement 031

3. distinction 037

3. distinction 001

4. maxim 015

4. maxim 008

4. greeting 046

Table 3: Distribution of messages

In this section, we gloss the major sub-categories, with a view to identifying the rhetorical

strategies invoked in significant cases.

6.1 Person

No less than 362 drivers (72.4 per cent) project an image of themselves as

"personalities" via the rhetorical strategies making up the category we call PERSON.

(1) Name. In this sub-category, we include (a) first names (53), (b) last names (80), (c)

first and last names (45), (d) nick-names (17), and (e) names of organizations, i.e., businesses

and social groups, based on our perusal of the Telus Calgary and Area telephone and Yellow

Pages directories. With regard to first-names, we identified the following distribution: 2 couples,

e.g., V AND W; 14 male, e.g., ALLAN, LARS, and WALDO; and 26 female, e.g., DEBBI,

MAGGIE, and TANYS. With regard to last names, more than half (47) convey the family name

only (without such designations as title), e.g., CAMERON, LOPEZ, and WYLLIE. Not


13

surprisingly, the names of 100 organisations or businesses (20 per cent) fall into the last sub-

category. Altogether, 89 drivers project an image of themselves via the business (presumably)

they work for, e.g., AVALON, HEAVENS, and TEASERS. (2) Attribute. A significant

number of drivers (21) chose to "construct" themselves in terms of a particular psychological

attribute. In a word, 11 messages convey a negative impression, e.g., FOXYONE, FRANTIC,

and WILD; 4 convey a positive impression, e.g., HUMBLE, SRVIVER, and WITTY; 3 convey

neither a positive nor a negative impression, e.g., OBUSYME; and 3 project a national

stereotype, e.g., AUSSIE1 and 1 LIMEY.

(3) Achievement. Altogether, 21 drivers (4.2 per cent) chose to project an image via an

important achievement. Significantly, 10 messages claim success in terms of a sport, e.g., LV

GOLF and WE SKI, and 12 claim success in terms of an occupation, e.g., DZINER, PIANIST,

and MUDMAN.

(4) Maxim. Finally, 15 drivers (3 per cent) project an impression via some maxim, by

which we mean a statement of belief or principle. We would cite as examples the following:

BUY LOW, FLY HI, and LIVNLUV.

6.2 Vehicle

Altogether, 65 drivers (13 per cent) chose to make an impression directly via the

vehicle on which they display a personalised message. The sub-categories make this context

clear:

(1) Name. As it happened, 8 drivers (1.6 per cent) chose to project an image via the

make of the vehicle. In some cases, the messages described the familiar, e.g., LASER,

NISSAN2, and VOLVO, and in others the message described the unfamiliar, e.g., COSSACK.


14

(2) Attribute. Altogether, 12 drivers (2.4 per cent) chose to make an impression via an

attribute of the vehicle. These fairly tame messages included JIFFY, SPEEDE, and SPUNKY.

This strategy may suggest that the driver shares or at least values the attribute named.

(3) Distinction. No less than 37 drivers (7.4 per cent) chose to project an image via

some distinction associated with the vehicle, e.g., BABSTOY, DADZCAD, and DOTSPET.

According to this strategy, other drivers are forced to think of the owner when they see the

vehicle bearing the message.

(4) Maxim. Altogether, 8 drivers (1.6 per cent) chose to make an impression in terms of

the status conferred by owning the vehicle in question, e.g., ABUVALL, SUM SHO, and 22

HOT.

6.3 Setting

No less than 63 drivers (12.6 per cent) chose to project an image of themselves in terms

of the setting in which this communicational interaction takes place. It might be argued that, in

evoking the context this way, these drivers tried to establish a common ground with their

audience.

(1) Name. Altogether, 24 drivers (4.8 per cent) chose to make an impression via a

particular place: 9 messages identified international sites, e.g., FRANCE, IRELAND, and

TIBET; 5 identified Canadian sites, e.g., HURON, KENORA, and NANOOSE; 4 identified

American sites, e.g., ROUTE 66, TEXAS A, and WALL ST. Interestingly enough, 5 identified

sites in Alberta, e.g., XFIELD, CALGARY, and DRAYTON.

(2) Attribute. Only 2 drivers (.4 per cent) chose to project an image of themselves via an

attribute of the place or the setting, e.g., GREAT.


15

(3) Distinction. As it happened, only 1 driver (.2 per cent) chose to make an impression

via the status of the setting itself, e.g., GOLD88. In this case, the driver calls attention to the

Winter Olympics, which were held in Calgary in 1988.

(4) Greeting. Altogether, 36 drivers (7.2 per cent) chose to recognise the audience,

thereby establishing common ground. Seven in particular capture this spirit by opening a

dialogue, e.g., EXQS ME, HELLO, and ZUMWOHL ("Good luck!" in German). However,

many chose to send greetings of a more provocative nature, including GETREAL, IDARE U,

and SO WHAT.

7. Concluding Remarks

The presentation of self in everyday life can be understood as impression management.21

In terms of the mediated interaction studied here, people (drivers) project an impression of

themselves via a highly compressed message made up of alpha/numeric characters and the

vehicle on which this message is mounted. Via the vanity plate, we can catch a glimpse of

individualism on our roads.

Understandably, the "rhetorical problem" presented by the PLP is challenging indeed.

On the one hand, displaying a regular license plate (uniform and therefore arguably egalitarian)

can suggest the qualities of effective ethical appeal. It could, in

Aristotle's terms, signify good sense, good will, and good character. On the other, displaying a

PLP can suggest a lack of good sense and good will, depending upon the view one takes of

"conspicuous consumption." Thus, from the rhetor's point of view, the problem is one of

formulating a message that balances the desire to stand apart from the community with a desire

21Goffman 208.


16

to align oneself with it.

Not surprisingly, the vast majority of PLPs we studied convey an impression of self via the

category PERSON. The ratio of PERSON messages to VEHICLE messages, like the ratio of


17

PERSON messages to SETTING messages, is nearly 5:1. In terms of this ratio, Calgary drivers

can be described as "conservative," in that many project an image of self via traditional

rhetorical strategies, aligning themselves with authorities, such as family or business.

In examining the strategy employed to display a first name, we find another telling ratio,

i.e., motorists display twice as many male names as female names. Again, one can read this

phenomenon in at least two different ways. Displaying one's first name instead of a set of

randomly selected alpha/numeric characters is a highly subversive act; arguably, it is more

subversive than displaying one's last name, since the former strategy asserts the individual per se

much more strongly. Read from this perspective, the message KAREN M is an assertive

statement, symbolically subverting the State and the Patriarchy, and presumably the ethos

projected is one that would impress some in the "audience" as favourable, others as

unfavourable, depending upon their attitudes toward women.

Such a message can be read differently, i.e., as a manifestation of "the female style" of

communication,22 a style that defers to male authority, downplaying a public persona in favour

of a private one, and offers more intimate, confessional, and egalitarian interaction than does the

(supposedly) more assertive, power-oriented and impersonal (male) style of communication.

Understood this way, the ethos projected is considerably less authoritative and more informal

than that projected by a last name, and the rhetor who chooses this strategy may be said to have

achieved a balance between subversion and compliance via a transgression that is softened by

old fashioned "feminine charm."

A significant number of individuals (17.8 per cent) displayed the name of what is

22See Deborah Tannen, You Just Don’t Understand: Women and Men in Conversation (New York: Morrow, 1990) 14.


18

presumably their business, e.g., RAJDOOT, the name of a restaurant. This strategy can also be

read in several ways. On the one hand, the message inflects prestige in two directions — toward

the driver, by associating her/him with a successful commercial enterprise (perhaps a particularly

ethos-enhancing strategy in a city where for many the entrepreneur is the dominant cultural

hero), and toward the business enterprise itself, particularly if the vehicle involved is especially

desirable. Seen this way, displaying the name of a business reinforces the dominant ideology,

valorizing the entrepreneurial virtues which (presumably) have enabled a particular individual to

occupy a "flashy" vehicle. On the other, this strategy can also be read as a subversive act, one

that appropriates public space (a license plate is, after all, a regulatory apparatus of the state, if

not an emblem of civil society) for (cheap) advertising. Interpreted this way, a PLP that sports

the name of a business is a triumph of commercial over civic values, i.e., for advertisers no

public space is "off limits."

Some of the other, more daring, rhetorical strategies we observed are also revealing.

Consider the people who project an image in terms of attributes or achievements. The message

LLB MBA, for example, clearly subverts the uniform nature of the regular license plate. We

would argue that this message (it appeared on a 1992 silver Acura Integra) projects an aggressive

persona; its matter-of-factness, almost impersonality, projects an authoritative ethos, the very

image of success, measured by degrees, and hence social and economic clout to an "audience"

who places a high value on education and professionalism.

These results reaffirm the view that, in studying popular cultural artifacts, such as album

covers, comics, clothing, jokes, postcards, posters, and PLPs,23 analysts can throw light on how

23A number of WEB sites are devoted to license plate collecting, including the Automobile License Plate

Collectors Association (the A.L.P.C.A.), which was founded (in 1954) to promote collecting, researching, and exchanging the license plate, and PL8S MAGAZINE, the on-line magazine devoted to license plate collecting.


19

central these artifacts are to the process of producing, reproducing, and resisting dominant

ideologies.24 Ultimately, what the PLP phenomenon registers is the ideological configuration of

Alberta's late capitalist, neo-liberal society. In making use of the materials that this society

affords them for constructing their private and public identities, individuals may at once contest

and reaffirm hegemonic discourse. The rhetorical choices we have described represent

negotiations of highly constrained and overlapping spaces, public and private, civic and

commercial. Whether or not one reads a particular PLP message as a successful assertion of

individual ethos in a drab, bureaucratic world, or as simply yet another (perhaps inadvertent)

valorization of a pervasive consumerism, one that limits the rhetorical choices available for

constructing ethos to choices among various brands of consumer products, will doubtless depend

as much on one's ideological perspective as on a particular driver's rhetorical skill. The

rhetorical practices which make up the discourse of vanity/conspicuous consumption, as people

in Calgary understand this notion, illustrate the complexities of self-presentation in

contemporary Canadian society.

24Wayne Martin Mellinger, "Postcards from the Edge of the Color Line: Images of African Americans in

Popular Culture, 1893-1917," Symbolic Interactionism 15.4 (1992): 413-33.


20

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1

Augustine, Ethos and the Integrative Nature of Christian Rhetoric

CHRISTINE MASON SUTHERLAND

Faculty of Communication and Culture

University of Calgary

Augustine of Hippo has long been recognized as an important figure in the history of

rhetoric. Some scholars believe that without his influence, rhetoric, the central study in the

Roman educational system, might not have survived into the Christian era. Certainly the fact

that the most influential theologian of the time had been a professor of rhetoric meant that

someone who really knew what was at stake came to guide the thought of his day.

Disillusioned though he was with the rhetorical practice of his own time − the self serving

rhetoric of display practised by the orators of the second sophistic period − Augustine yet

knew what the value of rhetoric was. His famous defence of rhetoric in On Christian

Doctrine1 establishes the importance of the art of speech as central to the Christian cause.

Neutral in itself, as Augustine believed, it could be used both for good and for evil: the

refusal of Christian orators to use it would give the enemy − the servants of Evil − a

dangerous advantage.

Yet rhetoric, as it was reworked by Augustine to be consistent with Christian culture,

was in many ways radically different from the old rhetoric of the classical era, as well as from

1St Augustine of Hippo, On Christian Doctrine, trans. D.W Robertson (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill,

1984) IV II.


2

the sophistic practice of Augustine=s own day. The old mentors and models − Cicero and

Quintilian, for example − were now challenged by new ideas coming from a very different

perspective, a Hebraic one. In as much as communication was practised by the ancient

Hebrews, that culture had a rhetorical practice, if not a rhetorical theory; but although there

are analogues to classical concepts at every point, the perspective is altered by the inclusion

of the divine in the whole process. Classical rhetoric (except, possibly, in the theory of Plato)

was centred upon human needs: it was concerned with morality, certainly, but it was not

concerned with theology. Hebrew, and later, Christian rhetoric, on the other hand, was

centred upon the divine. George Kennedy goes into some detail about the differences,

discussing them in terms of three of the key theories of rhetoric, as identified by Aristotle.

Thus ethos, which has to do with the character and reliability of the speaker, is in Hebrew

rhetoric fundamentally the ethos of God. AThus saith the Lord,” say the prophets: it is His

reliability that certifies the truth of the message, not that of the prophet himself. Similarly, the

speaker does not invent, or find the message: that is given by divine revelation. As for pathos,

the address to the audience=s emotions − that too is controlled by God. It is He, for example,

who hardens the heart of Pharaoh so that he will not let the children of Israel go.

One of the ways in which Hebrew rhetoric differed from classical was in ideas about

the relationship between speaker and audience. Here (following Kennedy) we must make a

distinction between three different strands of theory and practice in the rhetoric of antiquity in

the pre-Christian era: technical, sophistic and philosophical.2 Technical rhetoric is concerned

with the speech, or text, itself: it is prescriptive, setting forth procedures for the production of

discourse. It is at its strongest in the Roman republican period. Early Cicero and the pseudo-

Cicero wrote in this tradition. It can be a valuable resource, but it easily degenerates into an

2George A Kennedy, Classical Rhetoric and Its Christian and Secular Tradition from Ancient to

Modern Times (Chapel Hill: U of North Carolina P, 1980) 16, 17. Further citations appear in text.


3

obsession with the observation of rules. Sophistic rhetoric focuses on the speaker: it is

typically practised during those times when rhetoric as a force of public power in politics and

law is in abeyance. Its stress is upon the expertise of the orator, and his reputation for

eloquence: the orator as celebrity. It was this kind of rhetoric that was practised in

Augustine’s time, and in which he was trained, and he has bitter things to say about it in the

Confessions. For Augustine saw rhetoric − the use of the Word − as a holy undertaking, and

wresting it away from the service of God to inflate human pride was for him a form of

blasphemy. The third strand of rhetoric is the philosophical: it is seen as superior to the other

two because it focuses upon rhetoric as a way of trying to bring about peace, prosperity and

justice. It entails a vision that goes beyond personal ambition on the one hand and a

preoccupation with rules on the other.

The classical rhetoricians I shall discuss may all be seen as belonging to the

philosophical strand, though there are elements of the other two in Cicero. Kennedy

distinguishes philosophical rhetoric from the technical and sophistic largely on its overriding

concern for the audience. Here is what he says about it: “It tends to de-emphasise the speaker

and to stress the validity of his message and the nature of its effect on an audience . . . its

natural topic is deliberation about the best interests of the audience. . . .The emphasis in

philosophical rhetoric on what hearers should believe and do parallels the rhetoric of

religious movements like Judaism and Christianity”(Kennedy 17). Obviously, Hebrew and

Christian rhetoric has more in common with philosophical rhetoric than with the other two

strands. Yet even here there are vast differences; and Margaret Zulick has suggested that

what distinguishes Hebrew rhetoric is not simply, as in the classical model, a concern for

good of the audience, but a recognition of its power. Indeed, she believes that for Hebrew


4

rhetoric, persuasion is vested in the audience, not in the speaker.3 Assuming that Zulick is

correct, I want to explore some of the implications of this radical change as they relate to

considerations of audience in Augustine’s On Christian Doctrine and Confessions. But first

it is necessary to look in more detail at classical theories of audience.

For the most part, classical rhetoric was concerned with public address; and it had to

do with power: power in politics, and power in the law courts. It is important to bear this in

mind as we look at the theories of the great founders of the rhetorical tradition. But we begin

with an exception: Plato, drawing upon Socrates, who is one of the most important of the

early theorists, is more interested in rhetoric as the means of communicating the truth. He

speaks in the Phaedrus of the pains Awhich the wise man will undergo not with the object of

addressing and dealing with human beings but in order to be able to the best of his power to

say and do what is acceptable in the sight of heaven.”4 Furthermore, he also defines rhetoric

very broadly, not limiting it to public address, but also including private uses of discourse:

he defines it as Aa method of influencing men=s minds by words, whether the words are

spoken in court of law or before some other public body or in private conversation”

(Phaedrus 261). But although Plato=s attitude to rhetoric was different from that of nearly

every other theorist, it was he who began to ask the questions and address the issues taken up

later, in particular, of course, by Aristotle. Plato=s devotion to absolute truth made him

suspicious of ethos: what, he asks, does the character of the speaker matter as long as the

truth is spoken? (Phaedrus 275). But he was one of the first to point out that anyone who

engages in persuasion must understand the nature, characteristics and values of the person or

people addressed. He thus recognizes the importance of rhetorical pathos, the appeal to the

3Margaret D. Zulick, "The Active Force of Hearing: The Ancient Hebrew Language of Persuasion,"

Rhetorica 10.4 (1992): 367-380, 368. Further citations appear in text. 4Plato, Phaedrus and Letters VII and VIII, trans. Walter Hamilton (Harmondsworth, England: Penguin,

1985) 274. Further citations appear in text.


5

emotions. AThe function of speech is to influence the soul. It follows that the would-be

speaker must know how many types of souls there are” (Phaedrus 271). Furthermore, it is

important to match the different personalities to the different kinds of speech: "For such and

such a reason, a certain type of person can be easily persuaded to adopt a certain course of

action by a certain type of speech, whereas for an equally valid reason a different type

cannot” (Phaedrus 272).

Aristotle takes the theory of pathos somewhat further: he distinguishes different kinds

of audience in an elementary way − basically, young versus old − and pairs different kinds of

emotions which might appeal to them.5 He is concerned with the public speech rather than

private discourse. Also, unlike Plato, he recognizes, though reluctantly, that ethos is

important. The nature of the speaker is a very powerful means of persuasion. On the question

of audience, however, Aristotle=s most important contribution is his theory of the enthymeme

the handling of which he sees as the really vital attribute of the successful speaker. In order to

use enthymemes successfully, the speaker must understand the root values of the community

that he addresses so that he can present his case as consistent with those values. The

audience becomes therefore a willing participant in its own persuasion. The important thing

to notice, however, is that for Aristotle the understanding of how enthymemes work gives

power to the speaker, allowing him to manipulate the audience because of his superior

understanding of the process by which he is persuading them. Not that this means that the

speaker is abusing his audience, using them only to achieve his own ends: Aristotle, like

other philosophers of rhetoric, insists that the good of the public must be served.

Nevertheless, it is not, fundamentally, the audience which makes the decisions, but the

speaker manipulating the audience, even if for their own good.

5Aristotle, The Rhetoric and Poetics, ed. Edward P.J. Corbett (New York: The Modern Library, 1984)

II. 1389-1390.


6

The theory of ethos − the reliability, the trustworthiness of the speaker − as it

developed in the classical period had three elements: intelligence, integrity and goodwill. The

speaker must be in command of his subject, must know the background of his topic, must to

some extent be a wise, not merely an eloquent, man. Cicero, for example, would deny that the

moving speaker who is ignorant, who lacks wisdom, is a true rhetor at all: on the contrary he

is a danger to the state.6 Similarly, the orator must display integrity: he must be morally

trustworthy, having a sense of public duty and responsibility, and not merely serve himself

and those whom he represents. Quintilian would deny that the speaker who lacked integrity

was a true orator.7 In addition to wisdom (knowledge of relevant facts and good judgement)

and integrity, the orator must also demonstrate goodwill. That is, he must be motivated by a

desire not only to do good in general, but also to do good in particular to this specific

audience. Rhetoric is distinguished from dialectic partly by this consideration − the

immediate context, the immediate audience, the application of a general principle to a

particular situation. If a speaker is satisfactory on all three counts, he can expect that the

audience will reciprocate by evincing attentiveness, receptivity, and again goodwill. Notice

that here too the power remains with − in fact is engaged by − the speaker: the ideal audience

is expected to be compliant, obedient, and docile. Audiences are there to be persuaded. The

general sense of the function and practice of the orator, at its classical best, is well expressed

at the beginning of Cicero=s greatest work on rhetoric, De Oratore. Crassus (Lucius Crassus

who was Cicero=s admired model) speaks in this work for Cicero himself. Here are the words

that Cicero gives him: A[T]here is to my mind no more excellent thing than the power, by

means of oratory, to get a hold on assemblies of men, win their good will, direct their

inclinations wherever the speaker wishes, or divert them from whatever he wishes. In every

6Cicero, De Oratore, trans. E.W. Sutton (Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1976) I ix 38. Further citations appear in text.

7Quintilian, Institutio Oratoria, trans. H.E. Butler (Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1989) II. xv. 2.


7

free nation, and most of all in communities which have attained the enjoyment of peace and

tranquillity, this one art has always flourished above the rest and ever reigned supreme” (De

Oratore I. vii. 30).


8

As is apparent in this quotation, the underlying metaphor for the relationship

between the audience and the speaker, founded as it is on power, is one of combat. The

audience is the potential enemy; there is a contest: who is going to win? The very name

that Cicero uses for this public rhetoric is contentio − a fight, a struggle. It is easy to see

how this approach to rhetoric came about: the fundamental social function which rhetoric

served from its very beginnings in 4th century BC Sicily was forensic: Corax taught his

clients how to argue − how to win their cases − in court. And wherever rhetoric has most

flourished ever since, its use in the lawcourts has been dominant. Now in legal practice

this contentious rhetoric can be seen as legitimate: it is a form, almost a game; and

although it can be very wounding − see Cicero=s Second Philippic, for example − it does

not involve a direct confrontation with the audience. The party to be overcome is the

other side − the defence if you are the prosecution, and vice versa. The audience is the

jury, or the judge, who is being appealed to, but not attacked. The triadic nature of the

courtroom rhetoric − three parties, not two − to some extent mitigates the impact of sheer

power. It is distributed more evenly; there are two speakers, not one, and the presiding

judge (or jury) ultimately makes the decision. The case is quite different when the

situation is dyadic, when there are only two parties. But because the basic rhetorical

practice was the forensic, this hostility, this confrontation between speaker and audience,

became engrained not only in practice but also in theory. The audience is typically seen

as potentially a body to be won over by the exercise of good rhetorical technique.

We can see at once that Augustine=s relationship with the audience is quite

different, in a variety of ways. First, Augustine is committed not only to the long term

good of the audience as a community − that of course − but also to the eternal welfare of


9

each member of that audience. The object of the Christian preacher=s address is not the

winning of agreement to his favourite solution to a political or social problem, but the

conversion and sanctification of particular human beings. This tenderness for the

individual members of his audience is most apparent in Chapter X of Book IV of On

Christian Doctrine. In this passage, Augustine is following up the implications of his

principle of clarity. In his discussion of diction in Chapter X, 24, he substitutes this

principle of clarity for Quintilian=s principle of correctness: AGood teachers have, or

should have, such a desire to teach that if a word in good Latin is necessarily ambiguous

or obscure, the vulgar manner of speech is used so that ambiguity or obscurity may be

avoided and the expression is not that of the learned but of the unlearned” (On Christian

Doctrine IV.X. 24). That he is concerned with the individuals in the audience is made

explicit in the passage which immediately follows, where he extends this principle of

audience comprehension to the practice of memorizing:

This principle [of clarity] is valid not only in conversations whether with

one person or with several, but it is to be insisted upon much more when

sermons are delivered to the people so that we may be understood. But

where all are silent that one may be heard and all are intent upon him, it is

neither customary nor proper that anyone inquire about what he does not

understand. For this reason the teacher should be especially careful to

assist the silent learner. However, an attentive crowd eager to comprehend

usually shows by its motion whether it understands, and until it signifies

comprehension the matter being discussed should be considered and

expressed in a variety of ways. But this technique may not be used by


10

those who have prepared what they have to say and memorized it word for

word. (On Christian Doctrine IV.X. 25).

One key difference in the relationship with the audience, then, is that for

Augustine the individual member of the audience is of the greatest importance. This is

connected with another extremely important change: for Cicero the glory of the orator

was in his power over audiences, to Adirect their inclinations A or Adivert them from

whatever he wishes” (De Oratore I. vii. 30). Augustine specifically denies the

acceptability of this practice for the Christian orator: AThis eloquence is to be used in

teaching . . . [not] that [the listener] may do what he has hesitated to do, but that he may

be aware of that which lay hidden” ( On Christian Doctrine IV. XI. 26). The object is to

enlighten the audience, not to persuade: to empower by knowledge the individuals who

compose it, not to transfer their power to the orator. Augustine believes that normally the

truth itself is all that is needed to bring about the desired outcome. Only in exceptional

cases must the grand persuasive style be brought into play.

According to Zulick, this vesting of persuasion in the audience rather than in the

orator is typical of Hebrew rhetoric. AWhen Hebrew narrative describes a situation in

which persuasion takes place in an ethically positive way, it does so by ascribing the

decisive action to the hearer rather than to the speaker. It does so through the verb ‘sama’

to hear. The verb ‘sama’ means ‘hear,’ ‘listen,’ ‘pay attention to,’ and by extension

‘consent,’ or ‘obey’” (Zulick 376). It is not that the Hebrew culture recognized no other

form of persuasion: rather, it was, according to Zulick, that other forms were seen as to

some degree exploitive, and therefore ethically questionable. If power in classical

rhetoric is vested in the speaker, in Hebrew rhetoric it seems to have been otherwise:


11

power belongs to the recipient, Amaking the hearer rather than the speaker the deciding

figure in the rhetorical act” (Zulick 377). Thus the power of judgement is vested in the

audience. It is not simply a question of rhetorical pathos, emotional appeal. The members

of the audience are not manipulated; it is they who, under God, will ultimately decide

whether or not what is being said is acceptable. AWords carry weight; they convince

because they are the right words, the authoritative words, not because of the persuasive

art of the orator” (Zulick 377). As in the passage from On Christian Doctrine quoted

above, what is important is the revelation of the truth: Augustine=s listener becomes

aware of what lay hidden. It is, ultimately, the truth that convinces.

Among the possible influences on Augustine who were concerned with

enlightenment were the Neoplatonists. However, I do not think it is very likely that the

influence here is a Neoplatonic one. The fourth book was written at the very end of

Augustine=s life. According to Martin Camargo, Ain the interim between his conversion

and his writing the De doctrina, the libri Platonicorum have been superseded by the

Scriptures, in particular by the writings of Saint Paul.”8 Certainly by the time he wrote

the fourth book of On Christian Doctrine, towards the end of his life, he had gone beyond

Neoplatonism and seen the important ways in which it was fundamentally inconsistent

with belief in an incarnate God. Augustine=s rhetoric is firmly grounded in his theology,

and in particular in his principle of love. Here he makes it clear that our relationships

with other human beings − our neighbours − are dependent upon, integrated with, our

relationship with God:

8Martin Camargo, "'Non solum sibi sed aliis etiam': Neoplatonism and Rhetoric in Saint

Augustine's De doctrina christiana," Rhetorica 16.4 (1998): 393-408, 397.


12

Thus there is a profound question as to whether men should enjoy

themselves, use themselves, or do both. For it is commanded to us that we

should love one another, but it is to be asked whether man is to be loved

for his own sake or for the sake of something else. If for his own sake, we

enjoy him. But I think man is to be loved for the sake of something else. In

that which is to be loved for its own sake the blessed life resides. (On

Christian Doctrine I. XX II. 20)9

Intimately bound up with idea of love is the concept of the neighbour, whom

Scripture enjoins the Christian to love as the self. Augustine extends this idea to include

God Himself as the neighbour, recalling perhaps − though he does not cite it at this point

− the passage of Scripture in which Christ identifies Himself with the needy: "In as much

as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me"

(Matt. 25: 40). In the parable of the Good Samaritan, however, it is the helper of the

needy who is said to be the neighbour: "Which now of these three . . . was neighbour

unto him that fell among thieves?" (Luke 10:36). It is this idea of the neighbour as the

giver of help, rather than the receiver, that Augustine picks up and develops as part of his

discussion of love. His interpretation of the parable is that it is humanity who is the

traveller waylaid by thieves, and it is God in the person of Christ who is the Good

Samaritan, the rescuer:

Our Lord God Himself wishes to be called our neighbour. For Our Lord

Jesus Christ signified himself to be the helper of the man lying dead in the

road afflicted and abandoned by thieves. . . . He shows mercy in

9St Augustine argues that only God is to be enjoyed, or loved, for His own sake in On Christian

Doctrine I. V. 5 and I. XXII. 21.


13

accordance with His own goodness, while we show mercy for the sake of

His goodness rather than our own; that is, He has mercy on us that we may

enjoy Him, and we have mercy on our neighbour so that we may enjoy

Him [that is, God]. (On Christian Doctrine I. xxx. 33)

Since those the Christian preacher addresses are his neighbours, and since the

relationships to the neighbour and to God are so intimately connected, the power

relationship as it existed for the classical rhetorician cannot continue. Power is not vested

ultimately in the speaker, but in the audience as indwelt by the Holy Spirit. That this is

Augustine=s position is made clear in the Confessions: AAlthough I cannot prove to [my

readers] that my confessions are true, at least I shall be believed by those who ears are

opened to me by charity. . . .Charity which makes them good tells them that I do not lie

about myself when I confess what I am, and it is this charity in them which believes

me.”10 The goodwill which according to the classical theory of ethos characterizes the

speaker-audience relationship is thus transformed into that love which subsists between

the Christian speaker and his audience. Since both the speaker and the audience of

Christians are indwelt by the Holy Spirit, and both equally are informed by the love of

God, the relationship between the speaker and the audience is necessarily evened up: the

success of the communication depends upon God, operating both in the speaker and in

the audience. It has sometimes been said that On Christian Doctrine is principally a work

about conversion; but even if it is true that the audience here is not yet necessarily

Christian, it seems clear that God is nonetheless present in that audience, directing its

response.

10Augustine, Confessions, trans. R.S. Pine Coffin (Harmondsworth, England: Penguin Books,

1961) 10.3. Further citations appear in text.


14

Moreover, the speaker is not the privileged superior. It is God=s message; the

speaker therefore cannot take any credit for it even if he should wish to − and of course as

a Christian he should not wish to. If the Ciceronian position which saw the orator as

invested with power is thus overturned, so is the sophistic position which saw him as

invested with glory. It was specifically this latter position which Augustine had to reject,

since he had been trained in the sophistic tradition: AIt was my ambition to be a good

speaker for the unhallowed and inane purpose of gratifying human vanity,” as he tells us

in the Confessions (3.4). In both the Ciceronian and sophistic traditions, therefore, the

relationship between audience and speaker is characterized by a necessary imbalance

which empowers the speaker and leaves the audience as at best a passive participant. The

Christian revision of rhetorical theory evens up this imbalance, and recognizes the active

role of the listener.

To understand how Augustine came to this understanding, we cannot do better

than look at the Confessions as the model for communication: perhaps we may speculate

that Augustine learned respect for his audience from his experience of addressing God;

for it is God who is his audience in the Confessions. Here indeed the classical privilege of

the orator is entirely reversed: the speaker is inferior in every conceivable way to the

audience − ignorant, sinful, inglorious, having nothing to tell that the audience does not

already know far better, having as his purpose not the enlightenment of the audience, but

his own. Here indeed the orator might learn to respect his audience and to recognize its

power. Yet there is another consideration: embedded within the Confessions is a different

discourse, in which God is the speaker and Augustine the audience. Running through the

Confessions, Augustine=s address to God, and intertwined with it, is a parallel account of


15

God=s address to Augustine. The events of his life, the people he meets, the books he

reads, his dreams and visions − all these he sees retrospectively as God=s communication

with him. For example, the doctor who gave him the wreath for winning a poetry

competition is seen as the vehicle of God=s message: AYou did not fail to use even that

old man to help me, nor did you cease to give my soul through him the medicine which it

needed” (Confessions IV. 3). This doctor explains to Augustine the operations of chance,

answering his question as to why astrological predictions are sometimes correct. In

commenting upon this, Augustine says: AThis answer which he gave me, or rather which I

heard from his lips, must surely have come from you, my God. By means of it you

imprinted on my mind doubts which I was to remember later, when I came to argue these

matters out for myself” (Confessions IV. 3).

It appears possible, therefore, that Augustine=s model for the rhetorical

relationship between the source and the recipient was modelled on his own experience of

his relationship with God. The secular relationship, even at its best, as in the theory and

practice of Cicero, was adversarial, assuming a fundamental resistance, if not outright

hostility, as a necessary part of the communications process. The secular classical model

is fundamentally competitive. It is an agonistic relationship of winners and losers, and it

is a persistent model, even within the Christian era. We are familiar with it still, for

example in the saying: Athe pen is mightier than the sword.” Too often rhetoric was seen

as a weapon of domination, a way of withdrawing power from others to bestow it upon

oneself.

Illuminating here is the modern − that is, twentieth century − rhetorical theory of

Kenneth Burke. The old model of rhetoric, according to Burke, was persuasion; the new


16

is identification.11 Burke=s theory of identification assumes that rhetoric arises from our

partial, but only partial, identification with one another. A certain amount of

commonality is a prerequisite if communication is to happen: we must share a time, a

place, and a medium, such as language, or find techniques for overcoming the problems

imposed by the lack of such sharing For example, writing (and today electronic

technology) overcomes barriers of time and place, translation overcomes barriers of

medium. But if there were complete commonality, there would be no need to

communicate. It is because we are partially divided from one another that communication

is necessary; it is because we are partially united that it is possible. He calls this situation

the invitation to rhetoric; and the object, the purpose, of rhetoric is to bring about a

greater degree of unity, or, as he calls it, identification. One of the features of this theory

is that it typically perceives communication as taking place most effectively when the

power is most evenly distributed between the source and the recipient. That Burke=s

theory connects with Augustine=s is no accident: Burke was himself a student of

Augustine and his The Rhetoric of Religion draws upon Augustine=s work. The

theological nature of his theory of Identification is apparent in his alternative term for it:

Consubstantiality.12 He does not, so far as I know, specifically attribute this theory to the

influence of Augustine, but for anyone familiar with the work of both, that influence

strongly suggests itself.

Thus the introduction of the transcendent element, the divinity, in Augustine=s

Christian theory, equalizes the rhetorical relationship of speaker and audience, and leans

11Marie Hochmuth Nichols, "Kenneth Burke's Dramatistic Theory of Rhetoric," The Rhetoric of

Western Thought, 4th ed., ed. James L. Golden, Goodwin F. Bergquist and William E. Coleman (Dubuque, Iowa: Kendall Hunt,1989) 318-331, 323.

12Kenneth Burke, A Rhetoric of Motives (New York: Prentice Hall, 1950) 21.


17

towards a model of Identification. In this it seems that it is consistent with the integrative

nature of other parts of the Augustinian theory of rhetoric, based as it is upon the

principle of charity. It might even be said that the supreme act of identification − the

equalizing of the sender and the recipient − is the incarnation: here indeed the divine

humility brings itself down to a level at which communication becomes possible in an

entirely new way. And it is this model which seems to be at the heart of Augustine=s

rhetorical theory.


18

REFERENCES

Aristotle. Rhetoric. Trans. Ingram Bywater. New York: Random House, 1984.

Augustine. Confessions. Trans. R. S. Pine Coffin. Harmondsworth, England: Penguin

Books, 1961.

---. De doctrina christiana. Trans. D. W. Robertson. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1984.

Burke, Kenneth. A Rhetoric of Motives. New York: Prentice-Hall, 1950.

---. The Rhetoric of Religion: Studies in Logology. Boston: Beacon, 1961.

Camargo, Martin. A’Non solum sibi sed aliis etiam’: Neoplatonism and Rhetoric in Saint

Augustine=s De doctrina christiana.” Rhetorica 16.4 (1998): 393-408.

Cicero: De oratore. Trans. E.W. Sutton. 2 Vols. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1976.

Golden, James L., Goodwin F. Bergquist and William E. Coleman, eds. The Rhetoric of

Western Thought, 4th ed. Dubuque, Iowa: Kendall/Hunt, 1989.

Kennedy, George A. Classical Rhetoric and Its Christian and Secular Tradition from

Ancient to Modern Times. Chapel Hill: U of North Carolina P, 1980.

Nichols, Marie Hochmuth. "Kenneth Burke's Dramatistic Theory of Rhetoric." The

Rhetoric of Western Thought. 4th ed. Ed. James L. Golden et al. Dubuque, Iowa:

Kendall/Hunt, 1989. 318-331.

Plato. Phaedrus and Letters VII and VIII. Trans. Walter Hamilton. Harmondsworth,

England: Penguin, 1985.

Quintilian. Institutio Oratoria. Trans. H.E. Butler. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1989.

Zulick, Margaret D. AThe Active Force of Hearing: The Ancient Hebrew Language of

Persuasion.” Rhetorica 10.4 (1992): 367-380.


“As we are both deceived”: Strategies of Status Repair in 19thC Hudson’s Bay Company Correspondence1 KATHLEEN VENEMA Department of English University of Winnipeg In 1670, King Charles II of England granted the directors of the newly formed Hudson’s

Bay Company of Adventurers exclusive trading rights over a vast territory that stretched across

northern North America from Labrador to the Rocky Mountains. The Hudson’s Bay Company

would quickly become one of the most massive mercantile monopolies of the western world and

the world’s most lucrative fur trading company.2 Historians have conventionally figured the fur

trade as one of Canada’s original economic “pillars”3 and, until recently, focused almost

exclusively on economic issues and material details.4 In the last several decades, however, social

historians have begun to account for the lives and work of the people deeply involved in,

affected by, and crucial to, the fur trade – people who appear only obliquely in the written

1The author would like to acknowledge the generous assistance of the staffs at the Hudson’s Bay Company

Archives (Winnipeg) and the National Archives of Canada (Ottawa). 2Frederick Merk, “Introduction to the Revised Edition: The Strategy of Monopoly,” Fur Trade and

Empire: George Simpson’s Journal, rev. ed. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1968) xi, xiii. 3Winston Churchill, “Forward,” The History of the Hudson’s Bay Company 1670-1870, Vol. II: 1763-

1870, ed. E. E. Rich (London: Hudson’s Bay Record Society, 1959) ix; John S. Galbraith, The Hudson’s Bay Company as an Imperial Factor, 1821-1869 (Berkeley: U of California P, 1957); Harold A. Innis, The Fur Trade in Canada: An Introduction to Canadian Economic History, rev. ed. (Toronto: U of Toronto P, 1956); E.E. Rich, ed., The History of the Hudson’s Bay Company 1670-1870, Vol. II: 1763-1870 (London: Hudson’s Bay Record Society, 1959).

4Michael Payne, The Most Respectable Place in the Territory: Everyday Life in Hudson’s Bay Company Service York Factory, 1788-1870, Studies in Archaeology, Architecture, and History (Ottawa: Environment Canada, 1989) 27. Further citations appear parenthetically in text.


reports and who left few if any records of their involvement.5 As a result, the roles and lives of

aboriginal women and men, the evolution of Métis ethnicity, and the contribution of European

women have not gone entirely unremarked.

Despite the broadening focus, however, little attention has yet been paid to the unique

workplace that the Hudson’s Bay Company (hereafter “HBC” or “the Company”) constituted

and the unique discursive activity on which that workplace fundamentally depended. Although

Company headquarters remained in London for its entire 200-year existence, by far the majority

of its “gentlemen and servants” lived out their terms (sometimes their entire lives) in isolated

locations across northern North America. The HBC’s unique geographical “workplace” required

equally unique discursive maintenance − specifically, the exchange of hundreds of thousands of

letters between men at the Company’s far-flung posts and between those posts and headquarters

in Montreal and London. Although the Hudson’s Bay Company’s extraordinary business

success could, arguably, be attributed to its employees’ constant epistolary activity,6 little

attention has yet been paid to the textual, the performative, the rhetorical, and the social

constructivist nature of the actual letters.

Business writing in the HBC was strictly regularized when George (later Sir George)

Simpson joined the Company in 1820. A young clerk in London, Simpson had attracted the

favourable attention of Andrew Wedderburn Colvile, in whose brokerage firm he worked.

5Flora Beardy and Robert Coutts, eds., Voices from Hudson Bay: Cree Stories from York Factory

(Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen’s UP, 1996); Jennifer S. H. Brown, Strangers in Blood: Fur Trade Company Families in Indian Country (Vancouver: U of British Columbia P, 1980); Payne, op cit.; Arthur J. Ray, Indians in the Fur Trade: Their Role as Trappers, Hunters and Middlemen in the Lands Southwest of Hudson Bay, 1660-1870 (Toronto: U of Toronto P, 1974); Sylvia Van Kirk, ‘Many Tender Ties’: Women in Fur-Trade Society, 1670 1870 (Winnipeg: Watson & Dwyer, 1980).

6“If the Councils and their Minutes can be considered as the heart of the fur trade,” says R. Harvey Fleming, “then the journals, accounts and letters were the blood of the organization.” R. Harvey Fleming, “Introduction,” Minutes of Council Northern Department of Rupert’s Land, 1821-31, ed. Fleming, (London: Hudson’s Bay Record Society, 1940) ix.


Colvile, one of the Company’s directors, recognized Simpson’s innate business skills, and in

1820, as part of HBC strategy in its conflict with the North West Company, summarily appointed

Simpson “Governor-in-Chief locum tenens.”7 In that capacity, Simpson exerted more power in

HBC matters than any other officer in North America. Had he not been as extraordinarily

capable as he was, Simpson would almost certainly have been universally disliked for such an

unorthodox entry into the Company’s highest ranks – and for his stickling attention to every

detail of the Company’s business.8 Very much in keeping with contemporary emphases on

bureaucratization, administration, system, and efficiency,9 Simpson managed the company

according to an exacting and eminently successful economic programme. That programme

included a highly-regulated communication system — specifically the exchange of letters

amongst the various posts and between himself and the people in charge of those posts

(Galbraith, “Introduction” xv).

Enormous numbers of those letters have survived and are collected in archives across

Canada; they document the business activities of a vast mercantile enterprise and the myriad

shifting relationships in the HBC’s dense social network. This paper, part of a larger project that

examines discursive constructions of fur trade masculinity and imperialist contact, examines two

7John S. Galbraith, The Little Emperor: Governor Simpson of the Hudson’s Bay Company (Toronto:

Macmillan, 1976) 22-3; Rich 272-3. Further citations of Galbraith appear in text as (Galbraith, “Emperor”). 8According to John Galbraith, Simpson’s concern with details “would be incredible to a modern

corporation executive. In dozens of supplementary letters written to factors and traders . . . every aspect of the fur trade, however insignificant it might appear, fell under his scrutiny — leaky boats, pay of guides, observance of Sunday religious services, discontented apprentice clerks, and a multitude of other matters. Yet he was not dominated by minutiae. His instructions to the Company’s officers were all calculated to the ultimate purpose of maximum efficiency and maximum profit. He had become a virtuoso of the managerial art.” John S. Galbraith, “Introduction,” London Correspondence Inward from Sir George Simpson 1841-42, ed. Glyndwr Williams (London: Hudson’s Bay Record Society, 1973) xv. Further citations appear in text as (Galbraith, “Introduction”).

9Mary Poovey, Making a Social Body: British Cultural Formation 1830-1864 (Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1995) 30-1; Suzanne Zeller, Inventing Canada: Early Victorian Science and the Idea of a Transcontinental Nation (Toronto: U of Toronto P, 1987) 5-6.


sets of HBC correspondence in order to consider how, in specific cases, HBC “gentlemen”10

used epistolary form to negotiate the power relationships that determined their workplace status

– their literal and figurative “placement” in the country. As Charles Bazerman and James

Paradis explain,

[Workplace] texts are the transactions that make institutional collaboration

possible; they are the means by which individuals collectively construct the

contexts out of which intellectual and material products emerge. In the pragmatic

worlds of these specialized work communities, text is a force that transforms

human physical and conceptual limits . . . text construct[s] versions of reality.11

In the two correspondences examined, we get a glimpse of how two different men, both

constrained by epistolary form, use the possibilities of that form to revise and transform

discursive reality when correspondence from George Simpson fundamentally threatens their

professional status.12

Epistolary theorists agree that theirs is a shifting, unstable, labile genre, arguably

productive of every other writing genre that has developed, but one whose textual dimensions are

understudied in proportion to its prevalence and the powerful social forms it takes. They also

agree that while the genre is multi-form, it possesses certain stable features, including its dialogic

reciprocity, its construction of the persona of the writer and the reader, the real or metaphoric

distance that its form negotiates, and its always tenuous existence between public and private

10“Generally speaking,” G.P. de T.Glazerbrook explains, “the company’s employees were divided into

‘gentlemen’ and ‘servants’. The first were those who had some education and capacity for administration, and were in line for promotion.” G. P. de T. Glazerbrook, “Introduction.” The Hargrave Correspondence 1821-1843 (Toronto: Champlain Society, 1938); facsimile ed. (New York: Greenwood, 1968) xxi. Further citations appear in text.

11Charles Bazerman and James Paradis, “Introduction,” Textual Dynamics of the Professions: Historical and Contemporary Studies of Writing in Professional Communities (Madison: U of Wisconsin P, 1991) 4.

12Because the massive HBC archive offers almost unlimited possibilities, I have deliberately limited this paper’s scope to a small portion of correspondence to and from George Simpson in the early 1840s.


spheres.13 According to William Merrill Decker, letters are meant, essentially, to please and not

to intrude unnecessarily. “[T]he ideal,” he claims, “. . . is less a matter of form than of effective

content: writing that can please or otherwise fulfill the recipient’s expectations” (19). Decker

inadvertently echoes the vocabulary of politeness theory and by doing so, locates the labile letter

precariously balanced between what politeness theorists Penelope Brown and Stephen Levinson

call “positive” and “negative face.” According to Brown and Levinson, “positive face” is “the

positive consistent self-image” a person claims, while “negative face” is a person’s basic claim

to “freedom of action and freedom from imposition.”14 Like ideal interaction (Brown and

Levinson 61), the ideal letter maximally preserves and enhances both its recipient’s positive and

negative face. Lynne Magnusson’s ground-breaking work on Shakespearean language and social

discourse explicitly articulates the relationship between politeness theory and epistolary form,

and provides a powerful analytical model for examining what she calls, “socially situated verbal

interaction.”15 Magnusson’s analysis of Elizabethan vernacular letter-writing is particularly

relevant to this study, since that writing so clearly exhibits

the extent to which power relations in civil exchanges come to extend more

deeply into the grain of the language — into the discourse that enacts the heart of

13Janet Gurkin Altman, Epistolarity: Approaches to a Form (Columbus: Ohio State UP, 1982) 117;

Charles Bazerman, “Letters and the Social Grounding of Differentiated Genres,” Letter Writing as a Social Practice, ed. David Baron and Nigel Hall (Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2000) 15, 27; David Barton and Nigel Hall, “Introduction,” Letter Writing as a Social Practice 1-2; William Merrill Decker, Epistolary Practices: Letter Writing in America Before Telecommunications (Chapel Hill: U of North Caroline P, 1998) 4, 14, 20, 36, 46-7, 80; Toby L. Ditz, “Formative Ventures: Eighteenth-century Commercial Letters and the Articulation of Experience,” Epistolary Selves: Letters and Letter-writers, 1600-1945, ed. Rebecca Earle (Aldershot: Ashgate, 1999) 62, 72-3; Rebecca Earle, “Introduction: Letters, Writers and the Historian,” Epistolary Selves 1; Ylva Hasselberg, “Letters, Social Networks and the Embedded Economy in Sweden: Some Remarks on the Swedish Bourgeoisie, 1800-1850,” Epistolary Selves 99-100; Carolyn Steedman, “A Woman Writing a Letter,” Epistolary Selves 117-18. Further citations of Altman, Decker, and Ditz appear in text.

14Penelope Brown and Stephen C. Levinson, Politeness: Some Universals in Language Use. Studies in Interactional Sociolinguistics, ed. John J. Gumperz (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1987) 61. Further citations appear in text.

15Lynne Magnusson, Shakespeare and Social Dialogue: Dramatic Language and Elizabethan Letters (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1999) 1. Further citations appear in text.


the business rather than the flourishes that accompany it. In the early modern

period, increasingly more subtle and complex verbal tools serve the important

social functions of civility, which include the mutual acknowledgment and

display of the relative power of interlocutors, the management and repair of

aggression, and the maintenance of the hierarchical social arrangement. (37)

In much the way that Magnusson describes, 19th c fur traders, too, were regularly obliged both to

manage and repair aggression and to maintain the scrupulously monitored HBC hierarchy — all

within the constraints and the possibilities of epistolary form.

Despite his inauspicious origins (Galbraith, Emperor 11) and his unorthodox entry into

the Company, Governor George Simpson was, unarguably, the single most powerful man

connected with the enterprise. Simpson, dubbed “the little emperor” by his admirers (Galbraith,

“Introduction” xvi), answered only to the London Committee and, among a range of powers,

enjoyed the relative autonomy to assign and reassign people as he saw fit. Given the extreme

isolation of many HBC postings, the possibility of reassignment to a “bad” – or a “worse” –

location was strong incentive to most of the men to meet with the Governor’s approbation. In

the course of his forty-year career with the HBC, Simpson received thousands of letters from

those men: official letters reporting on business and reams of private letters, most of which

requested favours or solicited his opinion. Much more rarely, they were genuinely intimate

letters maintaining some of his few uninhibited friendships.16 Simpson’s own letters, even those

marked “private,” are remarkable for their insistent focus on business affairs (Galbraith, Emperor

16Arthur S. Morton, Sir George Simpson: Overseas Governor of the Hudson’s Bay Company (Toronto:

J.M. Dent & Sons, 1944) 288.


ix). A brief but telling example is Simpson’s 15 January 1840 note to James Hargrave, who was,

at the time, the Chief Trader at York Factory on leave from his duties in order to marry. “My

dear Hargrave,” Simpson writes,

The object of the present is to convey to you & your Bride our warmest

congratulations on the recent happy event which we saw announced yesterday in a

Glasgow Paper − and that every happiness may attend you both, is the earnest,

and fervent hope of my Better half, and of

My dear Hargrave

Your Sincere Friend

GeoSimpson

To that brief congratulation, Simpson could not refrain from adding a postcript five times the

length of the letter and dealing exclusively with business details – tasks that he required the

honeymooning Hargrave to look into.17

It might be argued that Simpson had taken a precise measure of the man he addressed.

James Hargrave entered the HBC in 1821 and spent the bulk of his 40-year career managing

Company affairs at York Factory, one of the HBC’s principal communications and transshipping

centres.18 In that position, he managed increasingly enormous volumes of incoming trade goods

and outgoing fur supplies and maintained an extensive correspondence with men at all the small

and large posts across the country that York Factory served (Payne 22; Glazerbrook xxv-xxvi).

If, as John Galbraith suggests, “Simpson’s concern with details would be incredible to a modern

corporation executive” (“Introduction” xv), the sheer volume of writing associated with

Hargrave’s position is at least as incredible. On 10 December, 1838, for instance, Hargrave’s

17National Archives of Canada (NAC) MG19 A21 Series I Letter 426 (Reel C 74). 18Jennifer S. H. Brown, “Changing Views of Fur Trade Marriage and Domesticity: James Hargrave, His

Colleagues, and ‘the Sex,’” The Western Canadian Journal of Anthropology 6.3 (1976): 92.


letterbooks contain draft versions of thirty letters, most at least a page in length, some longer, all

of which would have been recopied in Hargrave’s copperplate hand before delivery.19 Margaret

Arnett MacLeod describes the significance of Hargrave’s assiduous epistolary activity to the

Company. “In addition to every . . . ‘public’ letter,” she explains,

[Hargrave] usually wrote a second one marked ‘private.’ In the latter . . . he

soothed ruffled feelings, explained regulations that had caused resentment, and

gave encouragement, hope, or sympathy as needed, even though through many

years he was far from content with the conduct of the Company’s affairs himself.

His letterbooks suggest the large part that the extra effort of these “private” letters

must have played in welding the Company’s personnel into some semblance of

unity and loyalty.20

Simpson was assuredly well-aware of Hargrave’s unwavering efforts, epistolary and otherwise,

on the Company’s behalf — and of the personal ambitions21 that made him a likely person to

accede to his Governor’s endless requests and regulations.

G. P. de T. Glazerbrook calls Hargrave’s writing, “stilted, even for the style of the age”

(xvii); Hargrave’s peculiar style is nowhere more evident than in his official letters to Simpson,

which are consistently more formal even than other HBC gentlemen’s polite tomes. Hargrave’s

private correspondence with Simpson is only marginally less marked by extreme deference, as

his letter of congratulations on the Governor’s knighthood exemplifies. “Dear Sir George,” he

writes on 13 July 1841,

19NAC MG19 A21 Series II Vol. 23. 20Margaret Arnett MacLeod, “Introduction,” The Letters of Letitia Hargrave, ed. MacLeod (Toronto:

Champlain Society, 1947); Facsimile ed. (New York: Greenwood, 1969) xlix. 21Brown, “Changing” 94.


I beg leave to add a few private lines to my public Letter of this date for the

purpose of joining my poor mite of congratulations to the general voice of the

world on the honorable distinction conferred upon you by our gracious Sovereign.

— Richly and worthily has it been deserved, — long and happily may it be

borne!22

Hargrave’s discursive choices here reflect his acute awareness of the power differential that

characterized his relationship with Simpson. According to Brown and Levinson, interlocutors

choose modes of politeness that are determined by estimations of their relative power, the social

distance between them and the degree of imposition attached to the discursive event (74). In this

case, Hargrave relies exclusively on “negative politeness” — discursive gestures that maximally

assure a hearer that his desire for territory and self-determination are and will be respected (70).

By doing so, he obliquely articulates the social fact that the power difference between himself

and Simpson is sufficiently great that even congratulations — on the surface a non-threatening

act — have to be made in the context of permission and implicit apology.

Hargrave’s wonted deference to Simpson was put to the test at various points in his long

career, particularly, as MacLeod points out, during his protracted attempts to secure a promotion

to Factor-ship.23 Certainly Simpson’s letter of 29 June 1843, excerpted below, would have

provoked considerable consternation on Hargrave’s part. Marked “private,” it nevertheless

devotes itself almost entirely to matters of business. Simpson begins by indicating that eyestrain

requires him to dictate the letter to his private secretary, Hopkins, who, he assures Hargrave, “is

perfectly confidential[.] I, therefore, say & write through him as if in the full exercise of my own

22Hudson’s Bay Company Archives (HBCA) D5/6 Folio 166. 23MacLeod lxxiv-lxxv.


pen.” After a lengthy paragraph disagreeing with Hargrave’s proposal to increase the York

Factory Indent,24 Simpson launches into the following, ostensibly light-hearted harangue:

I am told the establishment of York is in very high order. Had I been

enabled to spare time, I should have taken a run down this season, but . . . the

extension of my voyage . . . was quite impracticable. — You talk of the economy

of your buildings; I am disposed, however, to think that there is rather a waste and

misapplication of labor, otherwise we should have had no such erection at York as

a look-out I hear of, which is described as the wonder of the age in the building

way . . . & which to be plain with you some of our witty friends have named

“Hargrave’s folly.” That is what I call luxurious smoking, at 200 feet above the

level of the mosquitoes [sic]; I have no doubt that a glass of Madeira and water, or

a foaming tankard of Brown Stout are very delightful in mid-air — Hopkins says

so, having experienced a little luxury in that way with a jovial clerical friend of

his on the tower of St. Olave’s Church in London.25

Simpson concludes the letter by offering Hargrave a share in his order of Manilla cigars and

leaves Hargrave with the task of distributing those cigars to other, equally fortunate, gentlemen.

The excerpt is noteworthy for its characteristic absences: Simpson’s writing typically eschews

any hint of hedging, explanation, or apology. According to Brown and Levinson, this kind of

discourse — they would call Simpson’s letter a “bald on record face-threatening act” (60) — is a

hallmark of the discursively powerful speakers who can, as they say, “enlist audience support to

destroy [the hearer’s] face without losing [their] own” (69).

24“Indents” were the lengthy and detailed lists, drawn up by Chief Factors and Chief Traders, of all the

goods that would be required in successive years. 25NAC MG19 A21 Series I Letter 641 (Reel C-75).


Interestingly, Simpson, who was notorious for his control over even minute details of

HBC business, levels criticism at what he knows only through others’ reports. “[O]therwise,” he

writes, “we should have had no such erection at York as a look-out I hear of, which is described

as the wonder of the age . . . & which to be plain with you some of our witty friends have named

‘Hargrave’s folly’” (emphasis added). Simpson, that is, both underscores the fact that Hargrave

has not informed him about the look-out and implies that his resulting disapprobation may

already be circulating through the wider HBC community. In the peculiar context of a vast

workplace maintained by epistolary energy, HBC correspondence perfectly exemplifies the

flexible boundaries between private and public spheres that Toby Ditz describes (70-3). Public

HBC letters, for instance, were addressed to Company officials with the expectation that they

would be widely read and circulated. Even private letters, though they were addressed to

individuals, were widely expected – at least in terms of their content – to circulate amongst

households or in bachelors’ quarters.26 In such a context, where even private correspondence

was potentially public, censure of any kind potentially jeopardized the recipient’s status, not just

in relation to the source of the criticism, but also within the broader community (Ditz 68-9).

Indeed, despite its jovial tone, Simpson exploits precisely this danger, adding to his

criticism the ostensibly lighthearted observation that Hopkins – the secretary present to the

letter’s construction, hence the person in first knowledge of Simpson’s censure – has indulged in

the same (relative) decadence that Simpson ascribes to Hargrave. Here, Simpson clearly exploits

what Janet Gurkin Altman calls “the moment of enunciation,” his consciousness “of writing in a

specific present against which past and future are plotted” (122). Specifically, Simpson exploits

the potentially public dimensions of censure by embedding into his text a credible version of the

26Donald Ross’s chagrin, expressed in a letter to James Hargrave, at a mutual acquaintance who has broken

into an HBC letter box (NAC MG19 A21 Series 1 Letter816), demonstrates the clear distinctions between sharing letters and wrongful access to letters.


(gossiping)27 conversation that (may have) attended its construction, a strategic instance of

enlisting a ready audience to threaten Hargrave’s positive face (Brown and Levinson 69).

Hargrave’s response is fascinating, particularly because, when he writes on 10 August

1843, he is responding to two of Simpson’s letters, the first of which reports Simpson’s lobbying

on behalf of Hargrave’s promotion. Hargrave’s rhetorical dilemma is, as a result, exacerbated:

in a single letter, he is obliged to acknowledge the enormous advantage he now stands to

experience and to address Simpson’s displeasure with his building ventures. “Dear Sir George,”

he therefore begins,

Your highly valued private favors of 28th and 29th June reached me on

the 30th Ulto; and the content of the former especially, for which I feel deeply

grateful, have repaid me for many long years of toil and expectation. — Permit

me further to assure you that among those who are honored with the execution of

your instructions in this land, — although the whole may surpass me in the

success of their efforts to meet your expressed wishes, – I will yield to none in my

anxious endeavouring to do so – or in a resolute determination to follow that

course which I believe will be approved of by you.28

By contrast with these convoluted expressions of negative politeness, Hargrave negotiates

Simpson’s criticism with aplomb. Especially in the context of his repeated invitations to

Simpson to visit York Factory and to participate directly in its business decisions, his response is

a marvel of restraint. “I regret,” he writes,

27Patricia Meyer Spacks’s work on gossip offers a fascinating perspective on Simpson’s discursive choices

here. According to Spacks, “The analogy between . . . letters and gossip . . . remind[s] us of gossip’s value as an agent of preservation . . . . [T]urning lives into stories declares their importance.” Patricia Meyer Spacks, Gossip (Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1986) 77.

28HBCA D5/8 Folios 417-19.


that your leisure did not premit you to honor us with a visit this summer, — for I

should have much wished to have the benefit of your instructions regarding many

matters of every day routine which I find it difficult to bring before you on paper

with all their attending circumstances. — Such a visit would also have shown you

how some of my witty friends had in their imagination counted my poor Outlook

of less than 40 feet into a perfect Tower of Bable — 200 feet high! — The history

of this affair is shortly as follows. — The roofs of the new Depot being too slant

to be ascended at most seasons without danger to life or limb . . . a means to

descry the arrival of the ship has formed a portion of the projected improvements

consequent on the rebuilding of the old Factory. — In pursuance of this object . . .

I seized the opportunity of a spare month and a few logs collected in this

neighbourhood the same winter and got built our present modest and useful

Outlook. — had I believed that you would have disapproved of such a step I

certainly never would have so undertaken it . . . . Its real use to the concern will

be best illustrated by the fact that by aid of it last month we were enabled to

perceive that our Schooner had, after her first attempt to sail for Churchill, been

stranded on the eastern shore . . . . By means of an immediate and powerful

assistance we succeeded in getting her off shore without material damage; but

without this means of observation we would in all likelihood have remained in

ignorance of her fate till both vessel and cargo — perhaps crews — had been

beyond the reach of rescue. — As for Madeira or Brown Stout in Mid-air — I

must confess my foolish pate had neither conceived nor aspired to such subline

ideas; and although I believe they must be very recherché in their way, yet it is


more than likely that my indifference to excitement will never allow me to try the

experiment. —

Hargrave mitigates conflict by appealing to a standard of epistolary form: he gestures to the

literal spatial distance that separates him from Simpson as the source of their current

misunderstanding. “Since the letter contains within itself its own negation,” Altman explains,

“epistolary narrators regularly make it emphasize alternately, or even simultaneously, presence

and absence, candor and dissimulation, mania and cure, bridge and barrier” (42). By

emphasizing the barrier that epistolary communication represents, Hargrave attempts to

reconstruct solidarity with Simpson: separated against both their alleged wishes,

misunderstandings are bound to occur.

Immediately afterward, however, assuming that his solidarity with Simpson has been re-

established, Hargrave instantiates precisely the paradoxical potential of epistolary form (Decker

46-7): he launches into a lengthy written narrative to justify his actions. Significantly too, he

embeds that justificatory narrative in a meta-narrative of “best business decisions.” By contrast,

that is, with the negative politeness with which his letter begins, he frames his explanation as an

expression of positive politeness, maximally assuring Simpson that he shares Simpson’s desires

– specifically and simply, the Company’s best advantage, always. Hargrave’s final lines extend

his gesture of positive politeness: by entering, self deprecatingly, into Simpson’s alleged good-

humour, Hargrave agrees to participate in the putative entertainment his “folly” has afforded his

HBC colleagues. In the face of Simpson’s censure, Hargrave’s restrained rhetorical choices re-

establish a reality defined by solidarity in the service of the Hudson’s Bay fur trade.

Hargrave’s restraint is particularly notable juxtaposed with the very different repair

strategies Alexander Fisher uses in a package of letters to Simpson on December 5, 1841.


Fisher, a Chief Trader, writes in an attempt to persuade Simpson to reverse his censure of

Fisher’s actions the previous year. Fisher encloses a variety of supporting documents that

describe a complex story summarized as follows:

Fisher received his new posting in June 1840 at Norway House where he was in the

company of four senior Chief Factors, four senior HBC men who all i) knew about his new

posting, ii) were familiar with the territory in question, and iii) were cognizant of Simpson’s

particular decrees governing HBC activity in one region of the territory, a place called Portage la

Loche. Several years previously, Simpson had expressly ordered that Company men travelling

through the area should emphatically not engage natives at Portage la Loche to carry their packs.

Despite the Chief Factors’ shared knowledge, however, no one informed Fisher about Simpson’s

special instructions. That August, en route to his new post, Fisher received a letter from Fort

Chipewyan indicating that a canoe had been dispatched to Portage la Loche for the express

purpose of conveying him to his destination. Fisher availed himself of the canoe and, as per the

instructions of that letter, left his brigade of men at Portage la Loche to follow after him.

Unbeknownst to Fisher, his Brigade, in his absence, availed themselves of the carrying services

of the natives of Portage la Loche.

On March 3 of the next year, 1841, Fisher received a detailed letter from his immediate

supervisor, Roderick Mackenzie, in which Mackenzie chastizes Fisher for having left his Brigade

at Portage la Loche while he went on ahead; details the problems associated, in the Company’s

eyes, with allowing their native servants to frequent Portage la Loche; quotes Simpson’s express

orders regarding Portage la Loche; and describes the season’s provision shortages as a direct

result of Fisher’s disobedience. The letter, a copy of which Fisher includes in his package to

Simpson, is markedly harsh. It clearly galls Fisher that Mackenzie, who was one of the Chief


Factors present the previous year at Norway House, could have informed him then of all this

information, precisely to avoid the present debacle. At least as galling to Fisher is the fact that

Mackenzie sends a copy of his rebuke — which is, from Fisher’s perspective, the first indication

that anything is wrong — to George Simpson, who has responded by censuring Fisher harshly.29

Far less is known about Fisher than about Hargrave; though Fisher served as a Chief

Trader from 1823 to 1842, he served primarily at minor posts. Letters from him exist in various

archives, including Simpson’s, Hargrave’s, and Donald Ross’s,30 but no specific “Fisher archive”

exists. From a rhetorical perspective, Fisher’s use of documentary evidence and persuasive

technique are most interesting. Along with his letter to Simpson describing the events, Fisher

includes i) a three-page document outlining his arguments about the case; ii) a copy of

Mackenzie’s letter, onto which Fisher adds his own notes; iii) a copy of a letter by another of the

four Chief Factors present at Norway House the previous year, indicating that arrangements had

been made for a canoe to meet him at Portage la Loche; iv) a copy of the letter from Fort

Chipewyan confirming that the canoe had been despatched; and, finally, v) a copy of his letter of

appointment to the new district.

Curiously, at least to 21st century readers accustomed to endlessly easy reproductive

technology, the “copies” that Fisher encloses are all in his own handwriting, a fascinating

instance of what constituted forensic “proof” at the time and a glimpse at the material basis on

which professional integrity and status could be established or destroyed. More curious,

however, especially in the context of HBC traders’ typical deference to Simpson, are Fisher’s

main rhetorical strategies. “Dear Sir,” his letter to Simpson begins,

29Very few letters from Simpson to Fisher appear to have survived, an interesting instance of the inherent

generic liabilities of epistolary study (Decker 53). 30Respectively, HBCA D5; NAC MG19 A21; and MG1 D20.


As we are both deceived with regard to the Portage la Loche affair, my self in

receiving instructions at variance with your Rules and Regulations, and you made

to believe that I had received correct necessary information respecting them . . . I

have thought it might be proper in my own justification to lay before you the

enclosed Documents . . . . I am at present labouring under the greatest suffering

and grief of feeling . . . for a fault not my own, but that of other persons. I beg on

the receipt of this, that you will generously come forward and honourably retrieve

my Character while I am yet in the service and before it is too late. For I will not

yet, allow myself to believe, you would willingly and knowingly injure the

Character of any innocent Gentleman in the Service.31

Though Fisher begins with a gesture of positive politeness, alleging solidarity between himself

and Simpson on the grounds that they have both been deceived, self-thematization saturates his

discourse: “I have thought”; “I am labouring”; “I beg”; “I will not allow myself to believe.”

And with this last claim, the face threatening suggestion that Simpson might “willingly and

knowingly injure the Character of an innocent gentleman,” Fisher likely jeopardizes whatever

solidarity he may have established. Almost bizarrely, Fisher risks even more explicitly face-

threatening acts in the three-page argument he attaches to his letter. “I . . . have been made to

suffer unjustly and innocently,” he laments there,

by being censured and broke from my charge without a hearing of any person to

represent me . . . my Character has been greatly injured . . . in the estimation of

my Friends and Colleagues as well as with the common servants in this Country,

and tho’ being perfectly innocent . . . suffering severely in feeling, for it is the first

thing that meets me when I rise and the last when I go to rest. . . .



[A]s I strongly suspect that my instructions were never made known to

Govr. Simpson and also he having but little time, and many important affairs to

attend to, on the impulse of the moment perhaps sacrificed me. — For such

reasons, I should feel sorry and be unwilling that any Gentleman in this Country

should feel alarmed . . . as my fate to day, may be theirs to morrow I do not wish

them . . . to think that Govr. Simpson would do an Act, beneath his Character and

Dignity and seized with avidity upon such an affair for the purpose to destroy my

prospects and Character and competence . . . . [R]ather that such should be

thought of Govr. Simpson in this Country or in the Civilized World I have

remained in the Country and with this view only . . . that Govr. Simpson might

have time to see his mistake and remedy the evil, for most assuredly it was never

his intention to injure an innocent Gentleman.32

Like Hargrave, Fisher is clearly acutely aware of the public nature of his censure and of the

direct effects that censure has, and will have, on his status among his colleagues and in the

Company generally. Unlike Hargrave, Fisher exploits not the spatial exigencies that provoke

epistolary form, but the form’s temporal instability. Not unlike Simpson, that is, Fisher situates

himself at the very cusp of epistolarity’s public-private tension by incorporating a fictional

audience of colleagues into his discourse, rendering them virtually present to the challenge he

issues Simpson: to remedy in the future the wrongs done to Fisher in the past. “I should,” he

writes, “be unwilling that any Gentleman in this Country should feel alarmed. As my fate to day,

may be theirs to morrow I do not wish them to think that Govr. Simpson would do an act beneath

his character and dignity.” According to Altman, epistolary language is “Janus-like, . . .



grounded in a present that looks out toward past and future. . . . The epistolary present is caught

up in the impossibility of seizing itself, since the narrative present must necessarily postdate or

anticipate the events narrated. For this reason epistolary narrative is particularly adapted to the

schemer or calculator figure, who plots future events and analyzes past ones” (127). Whether or

not Fisher could be characterized as a schemer, he inexplicably, arguably suicidally, frames his

final argument in terms of Simpson’s ethos. Fisher explicitly advances and rejects an

interpretation that would reflect badly on Simpson and figures his own actions as primarily

motivated not to clear his own name but to give Simpson the opportunity to “see his mistake and

remedy the evil.”

In Brown and Levinson’s terms, Fisher’s pleads his case by threatening both Simpson’s

positive and negative face: not only do his requirements impinge on Simpson’s desire for

autonomous determination, he threatens Simpson with the loss of all HBC gentlemen’s

approbation. In the face of Simpson’s censure, Fisher proposes an unlikely discursive reality in

which the powerful redress injustice under threat from their subordinates.

As my title suggests, both sets of correspondence examined here could be introduced

with Alexander Fisher’s phrase, “As we are both deceived,” since both are provoked by a gap in

interpretation between Simpson and an officer under his command. In each case, Simpson has

responded with censure, so that both men feel their reputation is attacked; both fear for their

subsequent status; and both potentially have the same thing – a Chief Factor-ship – to lose. How

each man represents the misunderstanding, the source of misunderstanding, himself, his case,


and his solutions provides a fascinating instance of very different uses of politeness strategies

within epistolary discourse. Politeness is, of course, as Magnusson explains,

strategic and context specific: the work it does to prevent, mitigate, and repair

damage to immediate relations and to the overall social fabric intensifies at points

of stress or threat. Hence, it varies not only with relative power but also with the

risk level of particular speech events, and for this reason we will not find a static

match between the stylistic forms of civility and the relative power of

participants. (37)

Many more factors than can be examined here – many more factors than will likely ever be

known – contributed to Fisher’s and Hargrave’s very different strategies of status repair. Their

subsequent epistolary encounters with Simpson are, however, worth summarizing.

Except for the following testy and rhetorically extravagant note, James Hargrave heard

nothing more from Simpson about his look-out:

Your explanations about the Lookout, which has been such a source of pleasantry

throughout the country (from the Atlantic to the Pacific — from the shores of

Labrador to the Polar Sea) are perfectly satisfactory; but, now that that work is

completed, can you not contrive to reduce your establishment of people, which

appears large.33

Hargrave was finally granted a Chief Factor-ship the following year, 1844. In 1845, three years

after tendering his resignation and moving to Montreal, Alexander Fisher, by contrast, received

the following final letter from Simpson:

I regret very much to learn that, “you find your means are not sufficiently

ample to keep pace with your expenses” & that on that account, you are disposed

33NAC MG19 A21 Series I, Letter 667 (Reel C-75).


to resume your duties in the service. The Govr. & Committee were not at all

prepared for this intimation, as from the circumstance of your having given notice

of retirement in 1842 . . . they took it for granted that you had abandoned all idea

of returning to the country. . . .

I think you could not have had better proof of my desire to serve you, than

the obtaining for you the two years leave of absence you have enjoyed, & I am

exceedingly sorry that, it is not in my power to be of further benefit to you in

reference to your interests in the Fur Trade.34

Countless letters, many of them to Governor George Simpson, made the vast enterprise

of Hudson’s Bay Company fur trading possible. By participating in Simpson’s highly-regulated

communication system, individual HBC men collectively constructed the social and material

dimensions of their unique workplace; those men’s letters, moreover, contribute, in an ongoing

way, to the documentary history of the Canadian west. HBC officers’ records of status threat

and status repair also demonstrate for posterity the rhetorical constraints and the rhetorical

possibilities of epistolary form. Within that form, they evidence both the social realities that

provoke particular politeness strategies and social realities as they are shaped by politeness

strategies.

34HBCA D4/66 Folio 198.


References

Altman, Janet Gurkin. Epistolarity: Approaches to a Form. Columbus: Ohio State UP, 1982.

Barton, David and Nigel Hall, eds. Letter Writing as a Social Practice. Amsterdam: John

Benjamins, 2000.

---. “Introduction.” In Barton and Hall. 1-14.

Bazerman, Charles. “Letters and the Social Grounding of Differentiated Genres.” In Barton and

Hall. 15-29.

--- and James Paradis. “Introduction.” Textual Dynamics of the Professions: Historical and

Contemporary Studies of Writing in Professional Communities. Madison: U of

Wisconsin P, 1991. 3-10.

Beardy, Flora and Robert Coutts, eds. Voices from Hudson Bay: Cree Stories from York

Factory. Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen’s UP, 1996.

Brown, Jennifer S. H. “Changing Views of Fur Trade Marriage and Domesticity: James

Hargrave, His Colleagues, and ‘the Sex.’” The Western Canadian Journal of

Anthropology 6.3 (1976): 92-105.

---. Strangers in Blood: Fur Trade Company Families in Indian Country. Vancouver: U of

British Columbia P, 1980.

Brown, Penelope and Stephen C. Levinson. Politeness: Some Universals in Language Use.

Studies in Interactional Sociolinguistics. Ed. John J. Gumperz. Cambridge: Cambridge

UP, 1987.

Decker, William Merrill. Epistolary Practices: Letter Writing in America Before

Telecommunications. Chapel Hill: U of North Caroline P, 1998.


Ditz, Toby L. “Formative Ventures: Eighteenth-century Commercial Letters and the

Articulation of Experience.” In Earle. 59-78.

Earle, Rebecca, ed. Epistolary Selves: Letters and Letter-writers, 1600-1945. Aldershot:

Ashgate, 1999.

---. “Introduction: Letters, Writers and the Historian.” In Earle. 1-12.

Fleming, R. Harvey, ed. Minutes of Council Northern Department of Rupert’s Land, 1821-31.

Gen. ed. E. E. Rich. London: Hudson’s Bay Record Society, 1940.

Galbraith, John S. The Little Emperor: Governor Simpson of the Hudson’s Bay Company.

Toronto: Macmillan, 1976.

---. “Introduction.” London Correspondence Inward from Sir George Simpson 1841-42. Ed.

Glyndwr Williams. London: Hudson’s Bay Record Society, 1973. xi-lviii.

---. The Hudson’s Bay Company as an Imperial Factor, 1821-1869. Berkeley: U of California

P, 1957.

Glazerbrook, G. P. de T. “Introduction.” The Hargrave Correspondence 1821 1843. Toronto:

Champlain Society, 1938. Facsimile ed. New York: Greenwood, 1968. xv-xxvi.

Hasselberg, Ylva. “Letters, Social Networks and the Embedded Economy in Sweden: Some

Remarks on the Swedish Bourgeoisie, 1800-1850.” In Earle. 95-107.

Innis, Harold A. The Fur Trade in Canada: An Introduction to Canadian Economic History.

Rev. ed. Toronto: U of Toronto P, 1956.

MacLeod, Margaret Arnett, ed. The Letters of Letitia Hargrave. Toronto: Champlain Society,

1947. Facsimile ed. New York: Greenwood, 1969.

Magnusson, Lynne. Shakespeare and Social Dialogue: Dramatic Language and Elizabethan

Letters. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1999.


Merk, Frederick. “Introduction to the Revised Edition: The Strategy of Monopoly.” Fur Trade

and Empire: George Simpson’s Journal. Rev. ed. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1968.

xi-xxxi.

Morton, Arthur S. Sir George Simpson: Overseas Governor of the Hudson’s Bay Company.

Toronto: J.M. Dent & Sons, 1944.

Payne, Michael. The Most Respectable Place in the Territory: Everyday Life in Hudson’s Bay

Company Service York Factory, 1788-1870. Studies in Archaeology, Architecture, and

History. Ottawa: Environment Canada, 1989.

Poovey, Mary. Making a Social Body: British Cultural Formation 1830-1864. Chicago: U of

Chicago P, 1995.

Ray, Arthur J. Indians in the Fur Trade: Their Role as Trappers, Hunters and Middlemen in the

Lands Southwest of Hudson Bay, 1660-1870. Toronto: U of Toronto P, 1974.

Rich, E. E. The History of the Hudson’s Bay Company 1670-1870. Vol. II: 1763-1870. London:

Hudson’s Bay Record Society, 1959.

Spacks, Patricia Meyer. Gossip. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1986.

Steedman, Carolyn. “A Woman Writing a Letter.” In Earle. 111-33.

Van Kirk, Sylvia. ‘Many Tender Ties’: Women in Fur-Trade Society, 1670 1870. Winnipeg:

Watson & Dwyer, 1980.

Williams, Glyndwr, ed. Hudson’s Bay Miscellany 1670-1870. Winnipeg: Hudson’s Bay

Record Society, 1975.

Zeller, Suzanne. Inventing Canada: Early Victorian Science and the Idea of a Transcontinental

Nation. Toronto: U of Toronto P, 1987.


1

The Development of Transitional Writers: The Role of Identification Strategies in Workplace Writing Competence1 DIANA WEGNER Print Futures Professional Writing Program Douglas College The writing processes of professional writers in organizational settings have been studied,

from a variety of perspectives, in both academic and nonacademic settings. These various studies

of professional writing have contributed to our thinking about a developmental, sociocultural

model of the adult writer in professional and workplace settings. Such a model necessarily entails

theorizing the diverse and often tacit organizational constraints of workplace culture (e.g. as a

“community of practice”2) and their effects on the writer’s goals and strategies. Some research

focuses on writers employed within specific workplace settings,3 often exploring the enculturation

of new employees into workplace genres;4 and some follow the transitional writer entering an

1An early version of this paper was presented at the Conference of the Canadian Association of Teachers of

Technical Writing, St. John’s, Newfoundland, 1997. 2E. Wenger, Communities of Practice (Cambridge, Mass.: Cambridge UP, 1998). Subsequent references

appear parenthetically in text. 3L. Odell and D. Goswami, eds., Writing in Nonacademic Settings (New York: Guilford, 1985); J. Selzer,

“The Composing Processes of an Engineer.” CCC 34 (1983): 178-187; A. Pare, “Discourse Regulations and the Production of Knowledge,” Writing in the Workplace: New Research Perspectives, ed. R. Spilka. (Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois UP, 1993) 111-123; C. Herndl, B. Fennell, and C. Miller, “Understanding Failures in Organizational Discourse: The Accident at Three Mile Island and the Shuttle Challenger Disaster,” Textual Dynamics of the Professions, eds. C. Bazerman and J. Paradis (Madison, WI: U of Wisconsin P, 1991). 279-305.

4J. MacKinnon, “Becoming a Rhetor: Developing Writing Ability in a Mature, Writing-Intensive Organization,” Writing in the Workplace: New Research Perspectives, ed. R. Spilka. (Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois UP, 1993) 41-55; G. Smart, “Genre as Community Invention: A Central Bank’s Response to its Executives’ Expectations as Readers,” Writing in the Workplace: New Research Perspectives, ed. R. Spilka (Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois UP, 1993) 124-140. Subsequent references for MacKinnon appear parenthetically in text.


2

academic discipline.5 Other studies focus on the differences between student-writers and

professional writers.6 Less common are studies of transitional writers (between the classroom and

workplace) in nonacademic settings. Lutz’s study of student-writers and organizational culture in

a coop placement is one example.7 More recently, Kastman Breuch8 has reported on the types of

behaviours and relationships student writers develop with clients for whom they are doing

research reports; Wickliff9 has reported survey results that provide evidence of the long-term

values of client-based group projects in technical communication courses; and Freedman is

currently completing research into genre acquisition by students in work placements.10

Such work has reinvigorated discussion of important issues for professional writing

instruction, such as what can be taught explicitly, what can be acquired only tacitly, and how a

transitional learning environment might be structured to induce tacit knowledge. For example, in

their exploration of the differences between workplace and classroom learning processes and

learning environments, Dias et al. (1999) probe the pedagogical constraints of classroom

instruction and the possibilities of creating productive transitional spaces. In addressing these

5C. Berkenkotter, T. Huckin, and J. Ackermann, “Social Context and Socially Constructed Texts: The

Initiation of a Graduate Student into a Writing Research Community,” Textual Dynamics of the Professions, ed. Bazerman and Paradis (Madison, WI: U of Wisconsin P, 1991) 191-215; J. Giltrow and M. Valiquette, “Genres and Knowledge: Students Writing in the Disciplines,” Learning and Teaching Genre, eds. A. Freedman and P. Medway (Portsmouth, NH: Boynton/Cook, Heinemann, 1994) 47-61.

6A. Freedman and C. Adam, “Learning to Write Professionally: ‘Situated Learning’ and the Transition from University to Professional Discourse.” Journal of Business and Technical Communication 10.4 (Oct.1996): 395-427; A. Freedman, C. Adam, and G. Smart, “Wearing Suits to Class: Simulating Genres and Simulations as Genre.” Written Communication. 11 (1994): 192-226; P. Dias, A. Freedman, P. Medway, and A. Pare, Worlds Apart: Acting and Writing in Academic and Workplace Contexts (London: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1999). Subsequent references appear parenthetically in text.

7J. Lutz, “Writers in Organizations and How They Learn the Image: Theory, Research, and Implications,” Worlds of Writing, ed. Matalene (New York: Random House, 1989) 113-134.

8L. Kastman Breuch, “The Overruled Dust Mite: Preparing Technical Communication Students to Interact with Clients,” Technical Communication Quarterly 10.2 (Spring 2001): 193-210. Subsequent references appear parenthetically in text.

9G. Wickliff, “Assessing the Value of Client-Based Group Projects in an Introductory Technical Communication Course,” Journal of Business and Technical Communication 11.2 (1997): 170-192.

10A. Freedman, “Catching the Wave: Rhetorical Genre Studies in 2001,” Draft of Conference Presentation: Oslo Genre Symposium, 2001. Subsequent references appear parenthetically in text.


3

issues, they have drawn their theoretical principles from rhetorical genre studies11 and the concept

of a “community of practice” as a “learning community” — that environment designed to create a

“zone of proximal development” for learners, where they can interact with experts as “legitimate

peripheral participants”.12

The framework for this paper also emerges from rhetorical genre studies and the concept

of authentic participation, and, within this conceptual frame, focuses on transitional writers and

the acquisition of effective “identification” strategies,13 a key factor in meeting the needs of a

multiple, organizational audience. In this paper the concept of “identification” is Burkean, from

his elaboration of the Aristotelian appeal to pathos into audience identification, on the one hand,

and division or separation from “the other,” on the other. Burke’s development of this concept as

a rhetorical strategy anticipates the more “consubstantial” or empathic turn of Rogerian rhetoric.

The central hypothesis of this paper is that the ability to achieve identification, especially where

differences persist, depends on understanding the rhetorical situation from inside a subculture. By

focusing on identification as a unit of analysis, I hope to learn how identification strategies

operate in organizational contexts and how they influence genre performance.

The transitional writers in this study are writing students who have studied the basics of

professional writing through formal instruction and are now, midway through their program,

engaged in a major workplace writing project that they undertake for the course, “Researched

11A. Freedman, “Catching the Wave: Rhetorical Genre Studies in 2001.” (Draft of Conference Presentation: Oslo Genre Symposium, 2001); C. Miller, “Genre as Social Action,” Quarterly J. of Speech 70 (1984): 151-167.

12E. Wenger, Communities of Practice (Cambridge, MA: Cambridge UP, 1998); J. Lave and E. Wenger, Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation (Cambridge, MA: Cambridge UP, 1991); J. Wertsch, Voices of the Mind (Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1991); M. Cole and Y. Engestrom, “A Cultural-historical Approach to Distributed Cognition,” Distributed Cognitions: Psychological and Education Considerations, ed. G. Salomon (Cambridge, MA: Cambridge UP, 1993) 1-46. See also R. Burnett, “Decision-Making during the Collaborative Planning of Coauthors,” Hearing Ourselves Think: Cognitive Research in the College Writing Classroom, eds. A. Penrose and B. Sitko (Oxford: Oxford UP, 1993) 126-146, for recommendations on creating a classroom-based zone of proximal development for learning collaborative skills. Subsequent references for Lave and Wenger appear parenthetically in text.

13K. Burke, Rhetoric of Motives (Berkeley: U of California P, 1962). Subsequent references appear parenthetically in text.


4

Reporting.” This semester long research project is to be completed for a nonacademic

organization. For most students, this is an unfamiliar genre. As fledgling consultants, they are

destined to acquire only a partial knowledge of the client organization. Such transitional writers

have been described by some as not yet fully “rhetorically mature”.14 Hudson depicts such

learners as occupying a “multidimensional space” because they are responding “simultaneously”

to more than one community.15 The influence of such a mixture of genres and communities is

seen to account for the appearance of inappropriate rhetorical features in the documents produced

by transitional writers. It is likely that their difficulties, such as construing the target genre in its

full situatedness, will occur unless a writer is initiated into and supported within the

organizational context by central members of a community of practice. Such support requires

both access to an organization and membership. Whereas access is usually available to new

employees, for the transitional student-writer it can be difficult to become recognized as a

legitimate participant of a working community, and then to be invited in. Membership can also be

blocked by the influence of school culture, by its genres and practices of evaluation (Dias,

Freedman, Medway, and Pare). The school context and its imperatives can act as impediments to

achieving the attenuated attention to organizational practices that is necessary for the creation of

authentic legitimate peripheral participation. A local analysis of how transitional student-writers

realize specific rhetorical features, here “identification” strategies, in their written products should

point towards and help explain how such features are learned and how context functions in genre

acquisition.

14J. MacKinnon, “Becoming a Rhetori: Developing Writing Ability in a Mature, Writing-Intensive

Organization.” Writing in the Workplace: New Research Perspectives, ed. R. Spilka. (Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois UP, 1993) 41-55; C. Miller, “Response to Elizabeth Tebeaux,” CE 41.7 (1980): 825-827.

15R. Hudson, Sociolinguistics (Cambridge, MA: Cambridge UP, 1980) 142-143.


5

This study set out to examine how transitional students employ identification strategies,

how their approaches to identification are related to organizational knowledge, and what

implications there might be for writing pedagogy. Briefly, the findings revealed that the

transitional writers I observed did not always successfully negotiate their goals with those of their

readers because they lacked the rhetorical maturity necessary to adapt strategies of identification

that fit their client’s organizational culture. Evidence of student strategizing and audience

reception suggests that, for those students who were not successful in creating satisfactory

identification, barriers to access and participation with members of the organization contributed to

gaps and misconstruals of organizational knowledge, and that some of this knowledge seems to be

“tacit” and not susceptible to explicit instruction.

The following sections provide a brief background of the writing program students were

enrolled in (including a description of the research report course and the assignment) and the

methods used to collect data (for both textual and oral evidence). I describe three client

organizations and the respective purposes of each research project and then report and discuss the

results of the study in order to analyze the identification strategies students adopted in the context

of their construals of organizational knowledge. In the concluding section I discuss the

implications this study may have for a developmental model of professional writing competence

in organizational contexts and for professional writing pedagogy.

1. Background

The participants in this study were six professional writing students (working in pairs) and

three representatives of the client organizations who worked with the students, first negotiating

with them a suitable research question, and then providing ongoing feedback. A description of the


6

writing program and the assignment will help develop a portrait of these six transitional writers

and go some way to explain the situation they found themselves in when they undertook this

research project.

The professional writing diploma program has been offered for ten years now at a

community college. It is a two-year, five-semester program, generally characterized as a post-

degree or post-basic professional program. Students’ ages range from early twenties to late fifties,

and they come with a diverse background of experience: many have been writing for a living,

many have an undergraduate degree, some have advanced degrees, and some are making a career

change. In addition to the application of standard entrance requirements, they are interviewed by

the program coordinator and dean, write an entry-level writing assessment, and submit a portfolio

of their writing. The program is very intensive and requires a major commitment on the part of

students. Curriculum is designed to provide a combination of practice (manual production, desk-

top and electronic media, interpersonal relations, personal narrative, and professional readiness)

and theory (writing, communications, document design, public relations). Half-way through the

program students complete an extended work placement. Most graduate as accomplished

professional writers, and many find suitable work shortly after graduation. Others may have to

wait six months or so, but eventually they too find employment that meets their expectations.

The research project is the major assignment in a second-semester course, “Researched

Reporting.” Of the first semester courses designed to help prepare students for the second

semester, those specifically relevant to the research report include an interpersonal

communications course, a research methods course, and a course in workplace writing that

introduces students to rhetorical genre theory, reception theories of meaning, and sentence-level

stylistics. The research report is the dominant writing task in the course, with the additional


7

requirements of satellite documents — an initial proposal report and two progress reports.

Students complete these reports collaboratively with a self-selected partner. Required research

activities include an extensive literature review and the use of at least three different but

appropriate empirical methods. Two analytical essays are also required as supports for writing the

reports: one is a genre analysis of four organization-based research reports students must find for

themselves (completed by groups of three or four); the other is an analysis of the culture of their

client organization (completed independently). The course involves readings on readability, genre

theory, and issues facing students writing for client organizations. Students are introduced to the

report assignment at the end of the first semester, so they have time to search for and secure a

client who is enthusiastic about the project, who can identify an authentic research problem, and

who can be available as an “insider-expert” for feedback on drafts, access to employees,

customers, and documents, and consultation when necessary. Usually one of the two students in

each collaborative pair has a relationship with the client organization, and acts as a go-between

for the other partner.

2. Method

This study is based on accounts of report production and reception, over an 18 week

period, by six student-writers and three organizational clients, who as “insider-experts” became

the “readers” of drafts. Rhetorical analysis of the documents produced for the project also

provided relevant data. As is customary in the course, each pair of students completed the

research project for an organizational client. Accounts from client readers were elicited through

interviews (some discourse-based), questionnaires, and think-aloud comments; accounts from the

student-writers were elicited through interviews and questionnaires. Unsolicited commentary


8

from students was also included in the data. Rhetorical analysis was applied to the initial

proposal, two progress reports, an organizational culture analysis (an essay), and the final report.

Interviews and questionnaires focused on student-writers’ knowledge of the organization’s

culture, readers’ assessments of the writers’ organizational knowledge, writers’ accounts of their

textual strategies, and readers’ responses to the reports. Over the 14-week semester, students

visited the organization, met with their “insider-expert,” other employees and managers, and

sometimes the organization’s own clients or customers. The regularity and degree of contact with

the client organization varied, depending on client availability and research needs. Suffice to say,

students were admitted varying degrees of access to the culture and community.

3. The Organizations

The three participating organizations reflect the kind of diversity one might imagine a

writing consultant would encounter: an established little league soccer association, a community

school administered jointly by a provincial ministry and a local school board, and a national

student press. Each report focused on an organizational problem that had been negotiated by the

pair of writers and client-reader as important and addressable. For each report these negotiated

goals and salient aspects of the situational context are described briefly here to give a sense of the

rhetorical situation students were responding to, the organizational culture that they had to “read”

in order to produce an appropriate response, and what access they had to the organization as a

community of practice. The names of organizations have been changed or made generic to protect

confidentiality.

The purpose of the research report for the little league soccer association was to

investigate “the need for increased legal liability insurance and professional legal counsel”


9

because the organization had “recently been troubled by the threat of legal action against the

organization and its volunteer members.” The soccer association is a volunteer organization (one

of 37 in the province) whose “objectives are to control (regulate) [little league soccer] and to

promote an active interest in [little league soccer] for youth…in the City” (final report). The

report was “confidential,” intended only for members of the executive of the soccer league “who

are voters responsible for decision making and changes within the association”(proposal). In their

final report, the writers recommend seeking legal counsel to ensure liability insurance is

sufficient, using alternative dispute resolutions for handling internal disputes, and improving

communications between coaches, players, parents, and administrators. One of the students, who

had been involved with the organization for nine years as a “soccer parent,” had fairly accessible,

regular contact with the insider-expert; the other student had only sporadic contact and relied on

the first for communication.

The writers of the second report, for a national student press, cited their purpose is to

investigate “the problem of how to increase student newspaper satisfaction with its advertising

arm” (proposal), especially in the western region of the country. It is suggested that advertising

decisions tend to favour certain centres of the country, and disadvantage the western region. The

students identify their readership as follows: the western regional coordinator, the regional

advertising representative, a member of the commission that reviews the advertising department

(progress report), and “anybody associated with [the national student press], who will have access

to our report either over the listserver or at the next [annual] conference” (proposal). In their final

report, their main recommendation is that the “advertising body of the [national student press], in

conjunction with the [provincial] student newspapers, form a commission for the next [annual

regional] convention.” They recommend that the “commission will be charged with the goal of


10

creating an action plan” in order to address “the issue of advertising revenue lost in [the province]

due to mishandling, unorganization [sic], or lack of representation” (executive summary). Both

students were working as writers and editors on their own college student newspaper, which is a

member of the national student press, and both had attended regional and national conventions of

the national press organization. One student was considering running for the position of [national

student press] liaison. They had easy access to members and sources within the organization at

the regional level.

A third pair of students undertook to investigate “the causes for the low enrollment of

programs at [the] Community School,” to report on “comparative models of successful

community school initiatives,” and to make recommendations (letter of transmittal, final report).

To clarify, a community school is distinct from a mainstream public school for, in addition to the

regular school programs, it offers community programs geared to improve student success. For

example, after regular classroom hours end, students can participate in activities such as aerobics

classes, day trips, and craft workshops. Community school programs are typically government

funded and targeted towards families in low-income communities. The writers identify one of the

challenges to the school as its “multi-organizational structure” and “diverse group of individuals”

(executive summary). In their proposal they document a very complex readership that includes

the coordinator of the community school (their insider-expert), members of the community

school’s facilitation team, and the principal and staff of the elementary school, which shares

facilities and resources with the community school. They note that parents are also potential

readers. They report that their “most pressing obstacle is the severe lack of communication at [the

school] between faculty, administration, the parent advisory committee, community school

coordinator, and the parents themselves.” In the final report they recommend that the community


11

school “create an awareness of potential internal resistance multi-organizational initiatives face,

bring parents into the school, and develop a long range administrative plan” (executive summary).

One of the students was a current member of the executive of the parent advisory committee and

had children attending both the elementary school and the community school. She had ongoing

and active involvement with the organization and made efforts to bring her partner into a

comfortable working relationship with the insider-expert and others within the organization.

A summary list of the three organizations, research problems, and insider-experts is

provided in Table 1.

Organization Problem/Issue Insider-Expert (reader) Little League Soccer Association

The feasibility of developing measures such as liability insurance in the event of a lawsuit (e.g. by parents)

Second VP of Executive

Community School The viability of programs offered by the community school, in light of low enrollments and tensions with the elementary school that houses and competes with community school programs for space and other resources

Community School Coordinator

National Student Pres Dissatisfaction with its advertising department, partly based on a perception of regional inequities

Western Regional Coordinator

Table 1. The Three Client Organizations, Research Issues, and Insider-Experts (Readers)

4. Results

In this section, I provide overviews of the findings for each report project in the form of

three scenarios: “The unaddressed reader,” “A good story at the reader’s expense,” and


12

“Identification.” These scenarios are followed by a detailed discussion of the thinking and

strategies that seem to have formed the basis for the students’ approaches to audience and thus for

their overall identification strategy.

Not surprisingly, I discovered that the insider-experts (client-readers) placed paramount

importance upon a “friendly” reception of the report by the primary, intended readers — it was

from this perspective that they judged the writers’ research and textual strategies. Consistency

with their expectations evoked comments such as “good” and “right”; deviations from these

expectations evoked concern, negative comments such as “not sensitive” and “not true,” and

judgmental questions about the inclusion of potentially inflammatory content. For their part, the

writers also regarded their audience’s expectations as important, but not always as paramount:

sometimes, they heeded one component of their audience and de-emphasized the needs of another

(“other readers”), and sometimes they did not accurately anticipate certain expectations,

apparently construing their audience and exigence in terms of factors either not salient to the

audience or to some other genre feature. There is evidence of three different types of responses:

(1) writers who did not address their readers’ expectations; they dismissed or ignored their

readers’ needs; (2) writers who misconstrued their audience because they employed inappropriate

strategies borrowed from another, incompatible genre; and (3) writers who met their readers’

expectations through an effective strategy of identification. In one case, the soccer association

report, there is evidence of problems arising from both problems with audience recognition and

genre interference. The following organizes the findings into three scenarios that summarize

students’ strategies and their clients’ responses.

4.1 The Unaddressed Reader: The Soccer Association Report


13

From the beginning the writers of the soccer association report tended to focus on the

problem of “violence” in the sport. They recommended, in this negative context, improved

training and behaviour of the association’s coaches as the best approach to addressing the liability

issue, whereas the Vice-President wanted them to focus on an investigation of liability insurance

and other legal aspects of protecting the association. This difference in priorities was first

identified as a problem in the initial proposal where the students referred to “a recent incident

involving suspension of a player and indiscreet actions on the part of the coach.” While the

students considered the recent case important (because it had moved the Board to consider

liability insurance in the first place), the Board judged it as having such negative significance that

its potential political impact required omitting mention of it. Instead of heeding the VP’s

direction, in the first progress report the students included newspaper clippings about the case and

violence in the sport in general, featuring a coaching expert’s comments, with a summary and

quotations from their own interview with this expert.

In response, the VP expressed serious concern. According to the students, she apparently

defended the organization and called into question the character of the coaching expert whose

comments had been cited. In a second progress report, when the writers again focused on

coaching and violence and dismissed the option of buying legal liability because of the expense,

the VP redirected them, in written comments, back to the question of liability insurance: “Please

include the recommendation of buying legal liability insurance. Whatever the cost (I’m sure we

will obtain figures from…), it will be discussed and voted on by the Executive.” The instructor

also gave the students advice: “Your reader is expressing a strong need and expectation here —

she seems concerned you may be losing this focus.” In the final report the violence issue still

dominated over the liability option. In an interview afterwards, the VP indicated she found the


14

emphasis on “violence” and coaches” to be “unsuitable.” To the recommendation to “take all

possible measures to discourage violence,” she responded, “We already to this — discourage

violence,” and wondered why this recommendation was in the report, “since the whole [region]

teaches heads-up already.” On the report itself, she had simply written: “Lastly, will the adoption

of these…recommendations eliminate our need for liability insurance? I don’t think so!”

On another issue, explicit disagreement arose over recommendations regarding parent

participation. In the first progress report, the writers had urged more parent incentives for

volunteer participation in the association. The VP responded that parents already have incentives:

I believe that rewards are that usually your child likes the parent to be involved and

share their enthusiasm (much like school activities). Other rewards are that you get

to meet many new and nice people — just like I met [the writer’s partner]! — and

these people are your social life for the season. There are team parties, travel to

out-of-town tournaments, etc., even some fund-raising events are fun — car

washes, garage sales. Another “reward” is that if you do your “job” well, it

improves things for the kids and Association. I guess these are all emotional

rewards, not monetary. The only perk the Exec gets is a Christmas dinner!

In the second progress report, the writers reiterated the recommendation for greater parent

participation. Obviously frustrated, the VP explained again why this was an inappropriate focus:

Each parent (family) is told at the parent/coach meeting that they will have a duty

to do on the team — some do this better than others — how can you force people

to do jobs?…[The] bottom line…[is that] you can’t force parents to do voluntary

work, if they are forced to do it, it’s not done correctly, or they cause trouble. So


15

what really happens, the parents that want to do it and enjoy doing the work take

over the others’ jobs — then get criticized for it!

At this point, after discussions with the students, the instructor advised them to “take into

consideration these constraints [as above on volunteers] on any recommendations” they make. In

the final report, instead of the parent participation recommendation the students made

recommendations for a job description for parent volunteers and improved communication about

violence to parents. There was no response from the VP on this change.

4.2 A “Good Story” at the Reader’s Expense: The National Student Press Report The writers of the report for the national student press also encountered problems with

reception, but for different reasons. The regional coordinator, their insider-expert and reader,

found certain elements in the final report inappropriate and counter-productive. In an interview

she cited undue negativity, inaccuracy, and an undesirable generality in the recommendations.

The students had conveyed disparaging and negative judgments of members of the newspaper

coalition, who are largely volunteers. They quote a member of the executive they interviewed

who declares that “at least a certain percentage of people who are hired at [the press] are complete

washouts.” They say elsewhere that “everyone [in the press] complains about [the advertising

department].” And, in backgrounding the organization, they report that the former liaison officer

[between the advertising department and the press] “ran off and got married to the then president

of [the press].” The Coordinator was particularly disturbed by a reference to the apparent

indiscretion on the liaison officer’s part, which she asserted was a rumour. Overall she felt these

types of statements showed an insensitivity to the audience, and speculated that the writers may

have wanted to “lighten it up” and create “drama,” effects that they would strive for in newspaper

articles but which were not appropriate for this research report. This seems supported by the


16

writers’ own description of the features of student press writing, which they quite seriously and

cynically claimed should include “inside jokes, personal touches, references to star wars and

alcohol, and rambling prose.” As writers for the student newspaper, they were perhaps not

conscious of importing such features into the report genre. Furthermore, they chose to be direct

with their readers, a strategy that would likely backfire with a purportedly apathetic audience of

volunteers:

We learned that there was a lot of apathy that we had to overcome in order to

achieve our goals. So, we had to state our conclusions up front, and we had to

make sure the conclusions were dramatic enough and do-able enough for the

people of [the press] to take notice.

4.3 Identification: The Community School Report The third pair of writers experienced, not a clash, but a synchronicity with their insider-

expert’s perspective and expectations. The community school Coordinator had, from the

beginning, identified the need to be sensitive to both staff and faculty (invested in the elementary

school) and parents (invested in the community school) — two constituencies using the same

facility whose desires were sometimes at odds. Consistent with this expectation, one writer noted

that “the introduction had to be soft,” for they didn’t want to reinforce the belief of some

community members that the problem originated with the elementary school (as opposed to the

community school). They also reported they had “downplayed” some of the recommendations in

the introduction because these “involved ideas that have been rejected by teaching and

administrative staff at the school;” they had “attempted to use language that showed empathy and

understanding while at the same time being informed…because of the sensitivity of our topic and

because some of our conclusions would not be welcome news.” They reported they had tried to


17

use modality (“may not be enough,” “we feel,” “we believe”) and were cognizant of negotiating

between two audiences: the receptive (community school) and non-receptive (elementary school).

They decided to make the recommendations “not too strong, rationalizing and explaining

potentially offensive suggestions;” and, “keeping in mind that school staff made up a large

portion of [their] potential readers,” they chose “to scuttle around the conclusion without directly

stating it.” These writers apparently had heard the concerns of their client that the two opposing

components of the report’s ultimate readership should both be “addressed” and at the same time

their differences had to be respected. Upon reading the final report, their insider-expert, the

coordinator of the community school, registered her enthusiasm and agreement.

5. Discussion

In an effort to elucidate why these writers either satisfied or did not satisfy their readers’

expectations, the following discussion provides a more detailed analysis of their strategizing

around audience through the deployment of an identification strategy, and how this strategizing

was dependent on their organizational knowledge.

Two of these cases illustrate obvious tensions between writers’ goals and the expectations

of a complex readership. The writers’ strategies seem to betray an incomplete knowledge of the

client organization and the genre. This may be a result of limited access to a zone of proximal

development where they could learn “on the job,” so that students construed their audience using

means external to the rhetorical situation. This led to compromised reader-writer identification,

which these findings suggest is a critical factor in how favourably intended readers received these

reports. This section analyzes the strategies of identification, both unsuccessful and successful,

that students adopted, and attempts to link these efforts to the larger issue of genre acquisition,


18

with identification as the genre feature in question, and its relationship to organizational culture

and shared knowledge.

Audience-writer “identification,” it should be pointed out, does not mean that readers and

writers must share exactly the same goals, although this is a popular interpretation, and is perhaps

what lies behind those instances where students are not able to convey their findings without

offending or otherwise creating unnecessary political resistance to their statements. According to

Kenneth Burke “You persuade a man [sic] only insofar as you can talk his language by speech,

gesture, tonality, order, image, attitude, idea, identifying your ways with his” (Burke p.55). But

such identification is not a matter of adopting another’s beliefs, values and creeds as one’s own —

a conclusion which I think the writers of the soccer association report made, such that they arrived

at an impasse over priorities and focus — a state of conflict that blinded them to other available

means of persuasion. Instead, as Burke says, identification is achieved “first by inducing the

auditor to participate in the form, as a ‘universal’ locus of appeal, and next by trying to include a

partisan statement within this same pale of assent” (Burke p.59). Such forms of persuasion can,

Burke continues, “readily awaken an attitude of collaborative expectancy in us…the audience is

exalted by the assertion because it has the feel of collaborating in the assertion”(Burke p.58).

With this experience of “collaborative expectancy” or “this pale of assent,” the effective writer

can then integrate a dissenting or “partisan” view. Through the appeal to pathos, identification can

arouse this collective emotional momentum as a basis or common ground for dissension.

It is the subtlety of this strategy that I think escaped some of these student-writers and that

I think in part explains the success of others. The adversarial model of conflict seemed to

stalemate the students writing the soccer association report, blinkering them to the possibilities of

identification as a strategy for both containing and conveying differences. And since it is


19

organizational knowledge, that contextual dimension of genre, which offers the means for such

rapprochement, merely recognizing the problem was not sufficient. Such knowledge was

especially lacking for one writer of the little league soccer association report. As the “outsider,”

she was dependent on her partner, a “soccer mom,” for information and strategy: “I discovered

that it’s very important to have a certain degree of familiarity with the organization.” At least in

part, she attributes the problems with their report to an incomplete enculturation of her partner:

“[she] was just a soccer mom, not involved with the Executive in the past. A deeper familiarity is,

in my opinion, invaluable.”

The “soccer mom,” on the other hand, had much cultural knowledge but had difficulty

making it explicit: it’s “a feeling based on nine years of talking to parents.” This probably led her

to value certain strategies she felt would suit their readers: she said she wanted to take “care in

choosing ‘non-inflammatory’ words that might threaten [the association’s] autonomy, i.e.

‘should’ rather than ‘must,’ ‘suggest’ or ‘encourage’ rather than ‘advise’ or ‘recommend;’” she

noted that “there may be more than meets the eye to this complex situation…diplomacy and ‘arms

length’ dispassionate style needed here.” And, contrary to her partner’s perception that she was

not in touch with the executive, she reported that her ongoing relationship with the VP (now in a

fifth year) and three interviews with the association’s President had helped her understand their

“attitudes.” She characterized the “executive” as sensitive to any perception “that they might be

perceived as ‘controlling’” and “protective of their autonomy.” Her partner interpreted this

differently: “I thought they’d be kid-centred but they were power-centred and defensive, not at all

open to criticism.” The data suggests, however, that the organization is in fact very child-centred,

and in this interest it is self-protective. The direct criticism that this student preferred, the “truth”

as she called it, would have been a painful and immediate reminder that apparently the executive


20

of the association did not want. The student’s stance here falls into the category of student-client

problems that Kastman Breuch calls “overruled requests” whereby “students would sometimes

recognize a request made by the client, but simply ‘overrule’ it” (Kastman Breuch p.197). She

explains that in such cases students inappropriately step outside of their role as “originators” of

the report into the client’s role of “evaluator” (Kastman Breuch p.206); quoting Petraglia, she

suggests that the writers may not be “able or willing to legitimate [the exigence] as real.”16

Awareness of the organization’s values and priorities, it seems, comes with learning the

culture. The “soccer mom” commented retrospectively: “I believe one’s intuition regarding

organizational analysis and the understanding or at least partial understanding of the various

‘undercurrents’ within organizational cultures just takes time.” Her partner, on the other hand,

who had very limited access to the organization, had felt cut off from the culture and “in the

dark:”

Because I had judged the organization, I had to be more alert to what was my

opinion, what was hearsay, what was fact, and what was speculation…[an

interviewee source] helped me to understand the ways organizations like the

[soccer association] operate. I feel I have been in the dark about these things.

Their different exposures to the soccer association led to a tension within their partnership and

unresolved disagreements about strategy, and likely explain the ineffectual audience orientation of

their report.

For different reasons, the writers for the national student press seemed unable to identify

with the experience of volunteer members who constituted a major segment of their intended

audience, opting instead to divide themselves from these apathetic “washouts” and “complainers.”

16J. Petraglia, “Spinning Like a Kite: A Closer Look at the Pseudotransaction Function of Writing,” Journal

of Advanced Composition 15 (1995): 29.


21

Such explicit division apparently left them only with the option to confront, a directness which

may have had for them the appeal of the drama of newspaper writing. They seemed to have an

almost cavalier disregard for their audience, focusing in their account of the process on

establishing their own style (which one writer described as “computer lingo” and “intellectual

trendiness”). Nor did they construe their insider-expert as a “client,” viewing the regional

coordinator more as a friend and colleague than as an organizational representative:

She’s one of my best friends, I’ve known her two years. I also call upon her often

in her professional capacity when my newspaper has problems.

I’ve known [the coordinator] for about one year, as a friend and as a paper person.

As a friend, instead of a client, the coordinator’s requests were apparently “unheard” by the

students (Kastman Breuch p. 198). The writers thus deferred the work of developing the specific

recommendations and professional stance that the regional coordinator wanted.

Instead of the tact, care, and self-effacement that an effective strategy of identification

would have required, they chose to work on directness and drama and their own “style,” as

illustrated in the following excerpts from the final report:

The aforementioned malaise between newspapers and [the advertising department]

has been created over the last few years by several conditions; [the advertising

department’s] consistent mishandling of advertising accounts…the insensitivity

that [its] board members have shown towards papers from outlying regions, and a

Byzantine set of laws, and bylaws…

[Provincial] papers want someone in [the province] selling national ads. This is a

nice idea, but it would be extremely difficult to implement. First of all, where

would this salesperson come from?


22

[The advertising department] has a strong belief that no one but them is really

capable of dealing with national clients, and if the papers try to do so, they will just

mess things up. [emphasis mine]

It may be argued that, to some extent, they had misread the conventional situation in which a

research report is produced; in this situation, a research report for a national student press would

entail a greater degree of formality than an article in a student newspaper. One of the students

reveals this genre confusion, reporting that she was unprepared for “meshing the constraints of a

formal report with [the] informality of [the] organization’s style.” The familiarity and immediacy

of the practices and values of the college newspaper (a subculture of the student press) thus

contributed to this confusion.

Greater cultural knowledge of the executive’s values and expectations would have helped

the students see that there were two genres situated in two different organizational contexts, and

requiring different approaches. The coordinator identified the challenge of learning about these

values early on: “They will need to talk to [national press] ‘dinosaurs’ ([members] that have been

around for more than a few years) to get as much info as possible. This could be difficult.” In a

think-aloud interview after receiving the report, she indicated that the students should have done

more organizational research; she described their reporting of the employee romantic liaison as

“insensitive:” “this could be a rumour they believed…[there is a] “difference between fact and

rumours…they did not do their research!” When asked how they would learn this, she said they

needed to “talk to a lot of people…read minutes…[and] “go to the conferences.” The students

themselves seemed to have some awareness that they did not have an adequate familiarity with

the organization for the purposes of their report. One alluded to the reality that, unlike the student

national press, “most organizations have a longer length of membership,” a factor that would limit


23

the availability of “old-timers” (“dinosaurs”) as sources of organizational learning. Her partner

believes that “the inspiration for the report can not be taught,” perhaps suggesting a less than

authentic engagement with the project. He also would advise other students to start “early…so

that the interviewees [sources inside the organization] and the interviewers can establish more of a

rapport, which would lead to greater depth,” implying that a stronger relationship with members

of the organization is necessary for substantive reporting.

The students writing for the community school met with much greater success, in part

because they were able to create a sense of common ground with both factions of their audiences.

The coordinator had flagged the need for “buy-ins” from “staff” as well as “parents;” she had let

them know that the principal of the school had a “tendency to take [such reports] personally” so

that “full support is needed from the teaching and administrative staff.” When the final report

arrived, she was pleased with its “inoffensive” approach. The anticipated unpopularity of their

findings and recommendations did not result in division or polarity, but operated as a rhetorical

challenge — how to present negative findings and at the same time retain the good will of a split

audience, neither of whom might be happy with the recommendations. Though their findings

implied there was some resistance among the elementary school staff to proposed changes and a

lack of support among some parents who had wanted the community school programs in the first

place, the writers made a point of “talking their language.” As a parent with children attending

both the elementary and community schools, one of the writers had learned this language. She had

known the coordinator for seven months through the school, where they both had young children;

they attended meetings of the Parents Advisory Committee, shared conversations in the

schoolyard and on the phone, and once collaborated in setting up a community school activity.

Both writers and reader knew the recommendations would not be met positively by all intended


24

readers, including the board that employs the coordinator, so they emphasized those values to

which both school communities subscribed. These were summed up in a phrase that the

coordinator identified as key to the report’s reception: a “holistic family-centred approach,” a

phrase she indicated she would be incorporating into her own year-end report. The portability of

this “consensual term” attests to its efficacy as a term of identification.17 The coordinator herself

was very pleased with the report; her single comment on the final version was “just great!”

Both students understood the importance of access to the organization, and their

references to learning “by the seat of your pants” and “life experience” indicate they had some

awareness of the tacit nature of their learning during the research project. The student affiliated

with the community school commented as follows:

Tasks, challenges, skills that [the professional writing] program cannot prepare

students for, would be what I call “by the seat of your pants” interactions and

communications. When you are researching a PROBLEM you have to realize that

looking at problems is often uncomfortable. I don’t know how you teach people to

deal with this. Our first semester [interpersonal communications] course did help a

bit, but when what you are doing is uncomfortable, situations come up where you

are on the spot. You can’t predict how people will react when you are poking

about asking questions about something that is uncomfortable.

The student outside the organization, and dependent on her partner as her liaison, specifically

identified the issue of access: “students…need some measure of access into the organization —

like an employee — so that the student can tailor the report to suit the organization.” And she

noted that the writing program could not have prepared her for the client’s responses:

17J. Giltrow, “Canadian Contexts for Public Advocacy: Briefs as a Genre,” Technostyle 7.3 (1988): 17-25.


25

Getting reactions from your client — every situation is different and brings

different reactions. [The writing program] can’t teach you that — it is life

experience — your own interactions with the client — how you handle problems

— again, every situation is unique.

She stressed the significance of having the experience of working as an “employee” instead of

being a student, of having learned “something about ‘doing a job’ for someone.” Her position

was, however, still peripheral: to the coordinator’s abbreviated evaluation of the report (“just

great!”), she responded that she wanted to hear more, but that the full meaning would likely be

available to her if she were more of an insider: “If closer to the situation, [I] might have

understood better what ‘just great’ means.”

6. Implications

Two key implications emerged from this study. The first suggests that an important

element of rhetorical maturity is a strategic, practical orientation to audience that depends on the

acquisition of both tacit and explicit features of organizational culture. The second suggests that

the academy’s tendency to judge and critique workplace practices in terms of idealized versions

of power and ethics is counterproductive to the everyday strategic work of identification that is at

the heart of functional organizations.

6.1 Writing Development: Identification, Audience, and Organizational Culture A developmental model of how adult writers acquire greater communicative competence

in workplace genres should account for “rhetorical development in context” (MacKinnon p. 42).

The results of this study suggest the acquisition of effective identification strategies is dependent

on organizational knowledge and that it is rhetorically situated; that it entails the strategic use of


26

organizational knowledge for building a necessary ground — for raising and integrating

differences — that is audience considerate and that can result in successful reader-based

documents. For example, every organization has its own practices of dissent. The writers of the

soccer association report resisted adjusting to political sensitivities that were customary within the

organization. One writer, valuing “freedom of expression” and “truth” over the organization’s

desire to elide potentially damaging material, did not apparently recognize what was very likely a

legitimate enactment of organizational solidarity, and missed an opportunity to present her

findings in terms of receptive ground.

Such recognition and learning involves what Miller refers to as praxis or practical

knowledge18: it requires much more than the classroom-based capacity to write for the teacher or

an academic discipline, or to imagine one’s audience or a hypothetical situation. Rather, the

development of adult writing competence involves an expansion of the writer’s range of rhetorical

innovation through the in situ experience of, and membership into, specific and often complex

social contexts. As students’ comments suggest, some of this organizational knowledge is tacit

and can be acquired only by participating in the “ambient community” (Lave and Wenger p. 100)

of the organization: “It’s a feeling,” it’s “undercurrents within organizational culture,” “it takes

time,” it’s learning “by the seat of your pants,” it’s “life experience.” The experiences of these

students suggest that instructors could enable their students’ success in meeting the needs of

organizational clients by designing these transitional spaces for accessibility and potential

membership (Wenger), and by providing concurrent classroom scaffolding that will help them

recognize genre regularities and develop a repertoire of rhetorical strategies for assisting specific

18C. Miller, “What’s Practical about Technical Writing?” Technical Writing: Theory and Practice, eds.

Fearing and Sparrow (New York: MLA, 1989) 14-26.


27

organizational cultures to harmonize or incorporate differences through their own local ways of

writing and persuading (genres and other situated practices).

6.2 The Classroom and the Workplace: Tension and Transcendence A second issue is the potential interference and disabling tension that can occur as

transitional students negotiate the imperatives of two communities. The developmental or

learning challenge goes beyond simply reifying a stillborn competition between genres or ethics,

though some argue for a pedagogy that would maintain such a tension and foster a conscious

critique of workplace practices.19 This approach not only ignores Miller’s argument for the praxis

of ethics by individuals in specific organizational contexts (Miller 1989), but also aggravates the

already polarized and unproductive attitudes of academia versus workplace rhetoric.20 More

important, for transitional students it can create tensions between workplace and school, and

result in unsatisfactory written products. One writer of the soccer association report experienced

this tension as a serious problem that she never satisfactorily resolved. She could not reconcile the

academic valuing of the pursuit of “truth” and “freedom of speech” with the coordinator’s

concerns:

Our collaboration boiled down to: was the grade more important than the final

product for the [soccer association]? I felt I had to compromise on one or the other.

The writers of the national student press report, (subsequent references appear parenthetically in

text) similarly influenced by academic culture, misread their challenge as a conflict between

19R. Spilka, “Influencing Workplace Practice: A Challenge for Professional Writing Specialists in

Academia,” Writing in the Workplace: New Research Perspectives, ed. Spilka (Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois UP, 1993) 213.

20See, for example, D. Sullivan, “Political-Ethical Implications of Defining Technical Communication as a Practice,” Humanistic Aspects of Technical Communication, ed. P. Dombrowski (New York: Baywood Publishing, 1994) 223-234.


28

satisfying the requirements of the assignment (writing a “formal” report) and satisfying their

client (an organization with an “informal” culture).

For the most part, however, although transitional students in this professional writing

program do often experience a tension between classroom and workplace imperatives, they are

not usually hampered by it. In fact, much anecdotal evidence indicates they revel in their

involvement with organizations and readily accept that, to satisfy their clients, it will be necessary

to engage in much more work than is usually required for classroom tasks. They transcend the

classroom with enthusiasm. Because they participate on the periphery of a community of practice,

in an incipient zone of proximal development, their activities broach authentic participation and it

seems that they can sense the experience of legitimate participation. Such transitional spaces

should invite instructors to provide structures that will create the conditions for the development

of authentic learning communities. Kastman Breuch suggests a number of strategies instructors

can incorporate to help transitional students achieve legitimate access and so avoid what Petraglia

refers to as “pseudotransactionality,” writing that turns towards the classroom and away from

truly transactional purposes (Kastman Breuch p.195). These include a variety of activities and

skills (including “Rogerian reflecting”) that fall under the three categories of client interviews,

listening, and seeking clarification (Kastman Breuch pp.202-208). To create an integrated

pedagogy, however, such skills and activities need to be expressions of a larger pedagogical

framework, and I would suggest that a rhetorical genre approach that looks to designing

communities of learning provides a promising theoretical orientation for such a framework.


29

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