A Theory of Contemporary Rhetoric (10 page)

In exploring the possibilities for rhetoric as a unifying principle or body of theory, Green (2006) discusses Hunter (1997), who proposes a separation of rhetoric, ethics, and literature in the secondary classroom. This separation, it seems, confines rhetoric to something like a contemporary combination of classical and renaissance rhetoric and could lead to a reductive language curriculum.

The larger conception of rhetoric as the
arts of discourse
is one I would want to propose here, not least because it builds on Moffett (1983), Hunter (1997), Green (2006), Kress (2005), and others who see rhetoric, in various guises, playing a role in the redefinition of English as a school subject. To keep the focus on Moffett for the purposes of the present chapter, a further dimension of rhetoric that he does not develop sufficiently (and acknowledges as much) is the aesthetic dimension: the
arts
of discourse. This term also has the benefit (and, some might argue, the disadvantages) of an emphasis on the
technè
(technique as art, craft) of contemporary communication, as well as on the political nature of rhetoric. In addition, rhetoric can deal with communication in any language or combination of languages and in a number and combination of modes, it can handle the difference between the fictive worlds and the real world or worlds, and it links itself to a long but varied tradition of public discourse.

But Moffett's position, as well as fundamentally arguing the case for speech and drama (in practice and as dialogic principles) at the center of discourse in a renewed English curriculum, prepares the ground for such a wider conception of rhetoric. Rhetoric's concerns are essentially simple: it is interested in who is speaking to or with (writing for, composing for) whom, why, what they are communicating about, and when and how they are doing it. These simple questions have complex and wide-ranging answers. Moffett's conviction—that the interchange of speech or drama (an interesting coupling that is not fully exploited for its real world/fictive world potential) realizes a principle that applies to all communication—is deeply rhetorical. From the vantage point of the early twenty-first century, when growth-based, literary, and/or skills-based models of English
or literacy no longer seem to convey the excitement or range of contemporary communication, Moffett's contribution as one of the first to challenge the orthodoxy of the written product at the heart of the English curriculum now looks prescient.

In partial conclusion, we could also say that Moffett's contribution to contemporary rhetoric needed further development: in relation to framing theory, dialogism, multimodality, and the fiction/non-fiction divide. What the discussion in this chapter hardly touches on, but what is so inspiring about
Teaching the Universe of Discourse
, is that it continues to be a tonic to any English teacher who is wondering what sequence of types of text to use in the classroom and why, how those types of text are related to each other, and how to engage and negotiate with his or her students.

Without wanting to invoke Booth's work (cf.
A Rhetoric of Fiction
, 1961) at this point (his contribution to thinking about Rhetoric is discussed elsewhere in the book), any chapter on rhetoric and English must consider the place of fiction within rhetoric. Fiction holds a strong central place in English curricula, both at school at university levels. Since the 1920s in England, at least, literature (novels, plays, poetry) has been seen as the central civilizing and humanistic core of the English curriculum, with “language work” spinning off from this literary core. To put it crudely, it is as if the highly framed world of fiction—the fictional worlds created in those literary works—has engineered a space within which students may explore various takes on the world, as well as the relationship between the world and their own inner worlds. In many senses, this engineered curriculum space is a privileged, free space for the individual. It affords the possibility of engagement, immersion, criticality (how do the fictional worlds portrayed compare to other such worlds?), therapy, enjoyment of language, entertainment, and self-realization.

But what is rhetoric's contribution to the understanding of fiction, or, conversely, fiction's place within rhetoric? We can characterize the relationship as having at least four dimensions: a
political
literary criticism, the connection between fiction and the real world via the notion of “possible worlds,” the building of a bridge between fiction and non-fiction, and a contribution to the understanding and making of fiction through framing and re-framing.

Any discussion of a work of fiction from a rhetorical perspective comes close to what has been termed “Marxist literary criticism” (see Eagleton 1976, 1983, 2004). The relationship is close, but not congruent with
Marxism. Rhetoric will ask the following of fiction: Who has been authorized to “speak” by being published? What are the gateways through which the journey to published work has been made? How do the media (literary magazines, list of publications in newspaper supplements, radio programmes, cultural affairs programmes on television, etc.) mediate the fictional work for audiences? Is there a late Romantic cult-of-the-single-author at work? How is the fictional work packaged (e.g., does the contemporary novel have precedence over short stories, plays, or poems in the market?)? If the novel has precedence, why is this? Is it a preference for unalloyed narrative within the population? Again, if so, why does the printed novel (or the novel read on an electronic reading device) hold more status than a story that is
told?
In short, how is power exercised in the literary world?

Such questions give rise to a consideration of the relationship between rhetoric and late capitalism. If fictional, published works are commodified and prepared for the market like any other product, they play a particular role in the life and economy of a society—and indeed, within a global society. A novel is conceived, written, and published. It either falls on stony ground, achieving little in the way of sales and falling off the marketing shelves quickly. It may have a shelf life of a few years, capturing the zeitgeist temporarily. Or it may become a modern classic. In addition to the baseline buying and selling of novels, however, is the creation and maintenance of an imaginative space for readers. Individuals and societies maintain this space as a human necessity: the space for private immersion, “escape” and reflection in a novel; the coming together of people in book groups or reading circles (see Duncan 2012) to share views on such reflection; and discussion of such experiences in literary magazines, chat shows, and radio/TV programmes. The three other dimensions are discussed
passim
in the following chapters.

4

Composition
, in the United States and U.S.-influenced education systems, sits in a symbiotic relationship with rhetoric: rhetoric provides the theoretical background and the classical models; composition is the practical manifestation. Freshman composition courses are common in the first year of undergraduate study and take various forms, from the generic to the discipline-specific. Their function is to prepare students for the linguistic and discoursal demands of written academic study. Their presence is both remedial and preparatory: remedial in the sense of compensating for shortcomings in writing instruction (and, to a lesser extent, reading instruction) at the higher levels, and preparatory in helping students to read and write academic texts such as position papers, research projects, essays, and dissertations. That rhetoric and composition are seen as closely related is encouraging. At its best, the relationship is one of exploration across a wide range of written genres, of exploration of function and audience as well as form, of the history of composition, and of the possibilities of rhetoric, seen broadly as the arts of discourse and related to the real world as well as to academia. At worst, the relationship between rhetoric and composition is seen in fossilized terms via formulae, as exercises (the Renaissance
progymnasmata
), too heavily dependent on classical models and practices, derivative, and “instructional” and pedagogically primitive. It is therefore no surprise that many students who experience this induction to academic study find the courses dry and irrelevant.

Just as we have looked at rhetoric in new terms in the present book, so too
composition
needs to be looked at anew. Literally, the term means “putting with”—to form by putting together. It is a useful term, because it both denotes an action or process of putting elements together (
composition
), as well as the created phenomenon itself:
the composition
. In that sense, it functions as a term like
writing
or
argument
. Its uses and associations suggest more: it is used not only to describe the act of making a piece of writing, but also the making of a musical or visual work. Indeed, the “composer” is most often used in music. There are other peripheral
uses (as far as our present interest is concerned), such as the composition of type arranged for printing, the quality or state of being compound (in chemistry), and the notion of composing oneself in the sense of being free from agitation. All these facets of the term
composition
have a common core: the idea of putting things together into a unified, proportionate, and aesthetically pleasing form.

The term was, and is, used to denote a piece of writing in school: a composition on any topic. In England in the 1950s and 1960s, it was the preferred term for school writing exercises. It fell out of use as more specific terms, denoting text types, emerged: essay, autobiography, story, “descriptive piece.” At the same time, more abstract generic terms entered, like “a piece of writing” or the invitation/instruction: “I'd like you to write about.…” The term
composition
fell out of use because it was associated with the narrowly rhetorical approach to the teaching of writing. Its composite origin of “putting things together” was lost, and it became a vestigial term to denote the act of writing and the products of writing in the classroom.

In contemporary conditions, why is “composition” worth reviving and remaking as the term of choice for teaching writing and other art forms? In the chapter on framing, we will set out the case for the act of framing to be central to rhetorical practice. But within frames, elements are arranged to convey meaning.

Before we focus again on writing, let us look at other art forms. An artist (principally, a visual artist) can create a work in a number of ways. Most conventionally, he or she will take a canvas and apply paint to it, putting together different colors to create a figurative or landscape depiction or to create an abstract painting. The composition may include other resources than paint; it could include found objects, lines drawn in pencil or charcoal, pieces of fabric or tiles, and so on. All of these are
composed
to convey meaning. Someone engaged in communal or community arts practice would go even further in terms of composition. He or she might decide on a site (e.g., a dilapidated building) around which to build his or her compositional project, interview people who have observations and/ or memories and/or reflections about the site, take photographs of it, look into the history of the building, record sounds associated with it, take map projections, and so on. In order to convey meaning about the building and its associations, the artist/composer puts a number of elements together— and might do so in an art gallery, in a studio, on location, or on film. All of these remakings and re-presentations are composed for particular effect — or for the audience to make whatever meaning of it that they wish (having brought their own frames of reference to the experience).

Similarly, a musical composer, using a different set of resources, can put together a short work or an orchestral work, or any kind of sound composition, by putting together sounds in particular combinations. These can work in relation to a number of different principles (harmonic, melodic, “serial,” rhythmic, via naturally occurring and “found” sounds) used singly or in combination. Within the frame of the musical genre, sounds are put together to make music. Even if the composition is undertaken on a score, without actual sound being made and composed, the act of composition via notation still occurs.

Writing is often underestimated in terms of its compositional nature. Once the system of words; letters (or characters); sounds; the relationship between letters and sounds (the grapho-phonemic relationship); the order of words in phrases, clauses, and sentences (“syntax”); of how sentences relate to paragraphs and other sub-sections of text; and how all these relate to the whole text in a range of genres—and thus to the context and audience—are learnt and become fluent means of expression, their
composed
nature is overlooked. And yet the writer/composer puts together letter with letter, word with word, and sentence with sentence to make a meaningful work. He or she is composing not only with the resources of words, but with the ideas and denotations that these words represent. The composition, then, is more than a technical and aesthetic act of “putting things together to create proportionate and beautiful form”; it is an act of conveying meaning, just as a visual artist or musical composer creates and conveys meaning.

“Putting things together” is a general description of the act of composing. What does the compositional process entail; what are its constituent elements and practices? First, it is a matter of the overall
conception
of the piece. That conception may be fully formed at the start of the composition, or it may emerge through the juxtaposition of different and separate elements. In a fully formed conception, the act of composing will be one of seeking the elements to realize the conception and putting them together in an arrangement that matches as closely as possible the original conception. When the work is not fully conceived from the start, there will be a period of collection of fragments, ideas, and materials in a number of media that can be laid out and then put together. Whether the making is fully conceived from the start or emerges in the process of making the selection of elements (which mode or modes, which media, which
resources?
) is crucial.