In a Manner of Speaking: Honors Blog 2
Hard to believe that the words of a man who lived before the time of Christ would still ring true today, isn’t it? It seems the basics of eloquence haven’t changed much in two thousand years; or, perhaps, Cicero was a man ahead of his time. Maybe it’s both.
Cicero begins by wondering whether eloquence has brought more harm or good to man. While he writes that the actions of eloquent men have led to “distresses,” he ultimately concludes that eloquence leads to tremendous things: “enduring alliances,” “holy friendships,” etc. However, wisdom without eloquence is ineffectual, and eloquence without wisdom is useless and leads to mischief.
The men of an earlier time, Cicero writes, determined not by reasoning but by brute strength. Only when a man arose and sought to draw out the capabilities of the minds around him through his impassioned wisdom and eloquence did civilization develop. Could any of it have happened without eloquence?
No, writes Cicero; but he acknowledges the capacity for evil as well. (Hitler, anyone?) Men that had acquired eloquence with no regard for knowledge or understanding fooled multitudes and brought about disasters. Therefore, many abandoned eloquence for quieter, more tranquil pursuits.
However, the misuse of eloquence should only strengthen the resolve of those who would use it well, Cicero writes. Eloquence has the largest effect on all affairs and, if paired with wisdom, will bring more advantages to the public than from any other source.
Cicero devotes some time to discussing the duty and end of oration and its subjects. Its duty, which is what ought to be done, is to “speak in a manner suitable to persuading men.” Its end, which is the goal of the duty, is to persuade by language. The subjects of oration, at least according to Aristotle, should be the demonstrative (praise or blame of an individual), deliberative (statement of opinion), and judicial (topics of accusation and defense or demand and refusal).
Finally, what we’ve all (or at least I’ve) been waiting for: the parts of effective eloquence. Cicero lists five: Invention, Arrangement, Elocution, Memory, and Delivery. I’ll discuss them slightly more in depth in my response. Speaking of which…
Response:
In keeping with this year’s theme – that is, beauty – we come upon beauty in a different form: eloquence. Cicero writes of something, like outward attractiveness, that can be misused for harm but is ultimately beneficial to humanity. It was intriguing to watch the origins of eloquence unfold, especially through the eyes of a Roman philosopher, B.C.
For my second reading, I chose President Reagan’s response to the space shuttle Challenger disaster. He gave this speech on January 28, 1986, only hours after the shuttle broke apart less than two minutes into its flight. The speech is short, the words simple – but the emotion and impact huge. Quiet and somber, he expresses his grief, encourages the nation, and looks to the future with hope. He ends with a then-unknown quote from a poem by John Gillespie Magee, a teenaged pilot in the Royal Canadian Air Force, who died at the age of nineteen: “We will never forget them, nor the last time we saw them, this morning, as they prepared for their journey and waved goodbye and ‘slipped the surly bonds of earth’ to ‘touch the face of God.’”
Cicero wrote: “No wisdom which was silent and destitute of skill in speaking could have had such power…” I think President Reagan understood this. The speech itself was written by Peggy Noonan, but America was looking to its leader for hope at such a tragic time. The invention, the arrangement, the elocution were not his; the memory of the event as a whole was burned into everyone’s mind already; but the delivery – the dignity, the solemnity – mattered.
Oliver Goldsmith (1730-1774) wrote: “True eloquence does not consist…in saying great things in a sublime style, but in a simple style; for there is…no such thing as a sublime style, the sublimity lies only in the things; and when they are not so, the language may be turgid, affected, metaphorical, but not affecting.” The president’s words that night in 1986 were said in a simple style, perhaps; but, for a nation mourning the crew of the Challenger, true eloquence had brought sublimity.