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The term African American engages the issues closely associated with the writings of the Americans and their place in the literary context: What role they have in the literature and what importance they exert in the cultural and literary dynamics? It is obviously a fact that their literature is an image of their social trauma and their conscious struggle against the slavery that had become the most obvious part of the lives. Racism has obviously been the most dominant theme of most of their literary works and construed in their culture. In 1773 Philips Wheatley, an eighteen year old was the first African American women to become a literary genius in poetry and got her book published in English in America. All the themes in her poetry are reflection of her life as a slave and her ardent resolve for liberation.
Her works are a part of the culture literature embodying in itself an ornament and jewel of thought process. Critics of eighteenth and nineteenth century “on her first volume of poems described her virtuosity for tracing the circumference of republican concerns. Those whose purposes it was to maintain the invisible center of a thriving of Anglo American economic culture celebrated her propriety in using ancient poetry, described her genius, valued as an ornament of Negro improvement, and noted her literary taste and piety.” (Felker, 81) In her culture so embodied in racism, she made the use of rhetoric device in all its vicissitude. A rhetoric device is an art of implying various techniques by the speaker to create dramatic, intellectual and emotional appeal while delivering the speech and Phillis as a poet embodied this device to speak in a different composition and arrangement of her poetry making it more appealing and persuasive for the listeners. Added to it, she incorporated sentimental and contrasting elements, which did not seem to occur during that period. In all, her poems were reflection of all the themes that were so common during the era.
Rhetoric is a device used as a guide in a writing process and poets most commonly used this device to express their ideas and themes. It is an argument to emphasize on the idea and is understood to have a very simple shape and keep the idea very relevant and to the point. It makes the reader reach the idea of argument with personal assurances, and guarantees. The Rhetoric word has been derived from the Greek word “Rhetor” meaning speaker and meaning of the term is “an art of public speaking”. (Habib, 65) The poet is allowed to use the greatest source of language as said by anonymous writer and is quite applicable to define rhetoric in poetry, “since nothing very much in the arts is a raw slice of life.” (Holcombe, Online).
All theorists and historians have acknowledged the fact that rhetoric was used profoundly in the political activities and was the most important component in democracy. The ruling powers had all the right to express independently and in an articulate way and had judged that it was only through the control of language, ideas and worldviews that a particular class could have a control over the economic and political spheres. But the way and in the situation, Phillis used the device was not conducive to that period. She was brought up as a slave girl, she wrote poetry in the period of her slavery and it was this poetry that got her freedom.
Balkun points out that Wheatley presented herself as a preacher and she had been redeemed also from the oppression as a will of God. This preaching of her itself suggests her use of rhetoric. This implication that related the will of God to her redemption from her Pagan land and the chance towards refinement and salvation liberated Wheatley’s ties from slavery. Furthermore, this implies that God somehow authorized the speaker of the poem primarily because Wheatley received redemption through God’s will.
Balkun attempts to interpret the poems through the presentation of the audience and the author, as implied by the rhetorical elements present in the literary pieces. She starts by analyzing poems on basis of its target audiences. These audiences were represented as the eighteen prominent Bostonians as noted by Henry Louis Gates, Jr. From there, Balkun attempts to analyze the two poems through its various elements – the message it promotes, how it becomes effective, and the relationships proposed between the author and the audience. In her interpretation, Balkun analyzes who the major readers were through the identification of the eighteen prominent Bostonians who summoned Phillis Wheatley in order to determine her ability to write the works that were credited to her.
Balkun starts with proving the profile of the eighteen men who summoned for Wheatley- basically through the presentation of the roles that these men took in the society. She notes that in order to fully understand poems of Wheatley, one must examine the target audience, and that target audiences represented by the eighteen men. Such point noted by Balkun notes the importance of analyzing the poem from a system that is derived from her objectives presented in her literary works and in her strategy.
Wheatley was aware from the beginning of her poetry career, her prospective audience and the reason for her writing the same. From the signature of the attestation, she came to known that her poetry would be read by the noble elite of Boston and her rhetoric strategy would be able to convince and manipulate them. As these poems first got into print in England, it was quite obvious that the main audience would be colonial powers. All her readers were the persons of powers. While writing her poetry, she also had puritan’s ideology in mind and attempted to create a link between the puritan tradition and audience. As puritans were themselves expecting the words as that of preacher she carefully set up the allusions and images with the sentimental tone. She gave her justification as a poet with the words, “While an intrinsic ardor prompts to write / The muses promise to assist my pen” (1–2). (Wheately, To The University Of Cambridge, In New-England) These lines are followed by her voice of slavery.
In all her poems, Wheatley represented herself as oppressed as she pointed to the fact that she looked at her race with a very “scornful eye” and by doing so, she aligned herself with the people who were actually subjected to challenges and hardships primarily because of their color, and faith. But in all her poems she never addressed the oppressors with hatred and aligned herself with God. She claimed herself also as true Christian as she forgave those who oppressed her race. Moreover, and she also termed these oppressors are also “Christians” only if they would no longer participate in the slave trade or in the racial discrimination of the black race.
Gorgias in 485-380BC was the first one to bring in the concept of rhetoric into the public sphere whose disposition of rhetoric lay on the language of poets. (Habib, 67) He looked at the world as the world of opposites, contradictions and polarities, which could be reconciled by only the words of poetry. He viewed that rhetoric touched the soul and so poetry. Styli devices of poetry and sounds of music was rhetoric which could make the speech very interesting and soul touching, while the teachings of Isocrates were dependent on the political events and emphasized on the education as a form or rhetoric device. He believed that education should impart moral values and emphasized on truth and virtue as the most important part of rhetoric and should include training of the mind and body as complementary form of activities. (Habib, 67) All in all their formation and the techniques of rhetoric emerged from the struggles out of the need of the political, educational and cultural causes. All the poets and speeches appeared to be the overflow of their passions and prejudices. They were adopting any way to persuade the audience.
Balkun focuses the rhetorical device in the “To the University of Cambridge in New-England” and “On Being Brought from Africa to America”, as construed in the cultural and racism theory. She says “these poems were designed to manipulate their audience in very specific ways”. (Balkun, 121 -122) Wheatley created a whole strategic effect of her stand into the unfolding drama of the poem when Balkun further said, “She sets the stage, introducing the hypocritical stance that allows so-called Christians to accept and even promote slavery and then lays the groundwork for a spiritual dilemma.” (Balkun, 121 -122) These two poems encompassing the religious and moral values are not only about her but also about her audience.
In her poem “To The University of Cambridge in New England”, she accepted her rebirth from the pagan past and demanded equality of Christianity and denounced prejudice as “sable race” and treated them as un-Christian and Pharisai. (Sollores, 45) Though Wheatley was criticized for not adequately giving attention to the many of the issues suffered by races, she was surely a social poet writing for the readers she was able to understand and was aware of.
The most important concept of rhetorical theory is called decorum and is explained as a law that dictates about the relationship between the various forms, contents and audience and for the work of art to make an impact of its audience, it should incorporate all the three important elements and should also understand the sensitivity involved in the social circumstances. (Soos, Online) Our Greek philosophers emphasized this point too who were able to visualize the context of their arguments and could judge what was persuasive in a given context, situation or a case. But it is also true that poetry rhetorician cannot convince someone in every situation or circumstance. He is in same situation as that of physician who has a complete knowledge of this art though he is not able to cure every patient, similarly rhetorician has a complete control over his method even though he is incapable to convince every body.
There is another word rhetoricians can make use of and that is the term enthymeme. This was the Aristotle way and was a product of Sophists. It is one of the rhetorical ways adopted in the argumentative speeches and used by many orators, prose writers and the poets. But we can also say that rhetoric is not something which is invented but as described by Jeffry walker, “enthymeme is not a device that has been invented by rhetoricians, or by Aristotle, any more than metaphor is; it is every day discursive practice, an existing feature of human behavior that rhetoricians attempt to name and describe.”(Walker, 1172) It is a form of proof or a demonstration in the public speech context. Since this demonstration is also a type of sullogismos therefore enthymeme is also a kind of sullogismos. We can also say enthymeme is a form of deductive arguments and give it a form; a speaker must include a statement as well as sort of reason for that statement.
We can say rhetoric is a freedom of flow of words and is associated with the real life. Neither Plato nor Aristotle associated rhetoric with the real life but sophists did. They were the first ones who made us realize and enthuse rhetoric with life. They were free to experiment with the different forms and styles to adorn their Greek language with their powerful force of words. They were quite aware of the human limitations in regard to their acquisition of knowledge; they brought to focus as their predecessors to feel the same sense of knowledge in the every day real life. The rhetoric style also creates much force and is said to use different words in order to avoid its extreme forcefulness. Philostratus reported in the “Lives of the Sophists” that “Gorgias who did for rhetoric as much as Aeschylus did for Tragedy.” (Schiappa, 58) It implies the forcefulness of the Sophists and inspiration and “of giving utterance to great subjects in the grand style, and of detached phrases and transitions, through which speech becomes sweeter than itself and more pompous, and he also used political words for ornament and dignity”. (Schiappa, 58) Aristotle rhetoric created an incredible influence on the development of the art of rhetoric. Authors contributing their ideas and thoughts, and also most famous Roman teachers of rhetoric, such as Cicero and Quintilian, often made the use of elements from the doctrine Aristotle.
The rhetoric has emerged in various forms in different periods and in a modified way yet the main stream of thoughts that made it as the most crucial part of our political and social lives has still kept its intensity intact. They emerged from the deep thoughts and analytical manifestations of the social and political life, which was realized by Phillis Wheatley, who manipulated her audience and kept them motivated by the force of her words. Her choice of words resulted in the disillusionment of the assumption of any powers that believed they had upon others and over her.
Works Cited
Balkun, Mary McAleer. “Phillis Wheatley’s Construction of Otherness and the Rhetoric of Performed Ideology.” African American Review (AAR) 36(2002): 121-35.
Felker, Christopher. “The Tongues of the learned are insufficient: Phillis Wheately, Publishing Objectives and Publishing Liberty”. Texts and Textuality: Textual Instability, Theory, and Interpretation. Ed. Philip G. Cohen. New York: Routledge, 1997. 81-120.
Habib, Rafey. “A History of Literary Criticism: From Plato to the Present”. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2005.
Holcombe, John. “Rhetoric In Poetry”. Internet (2007). Web.
Schiappa, E. “Landmark Essays on Classical Greek Rhetoric: Volume 3”. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1994.
Sollores, Werner. “Beyond Ethnicity: Consent and Descent in American Culture”. New York: Oxford University Press US, 1987.
Soos, Attila. “Bonsai and the Ancient Art of Rhetoric”. 2008. Web.
Walker, J. “Rhetoric and poetics in antiquity”. US: Oxford University Press, 2000.
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