In old school philosophy-speak, commencement addresses fall into a category Aristotle defined as epideictic oratory: the rhetoric of ceremony in which praise or even blame is laid at our feet and guidance is given on how to move forward.
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The first treatise, entitled Division of Epideictic Styles (Διαίρεσις τῶν Ἐπιδεικτικῶν), discusses the different kinds of epideictic speeches; the second, On Epideictic Speeches (Περὶ Ἐπιδεικτικῶν), has special titles for each chapter. Text in L Spengel's Rhetores graeci, iii. 329-446, and in C Bursian's "Der Rhetor Menandros und seine Schriften" in Abhandl. der bayer. Akad.
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Epideictic (also known as ceremonial), was concerned with praise and blame, values, right and wrong, demonstrating beauty and skill in the present. Examples of epideictic rhetoric would include a eulogy or a wedding toast.
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While the general populace currently views "doing rhetoric" as "menacing our fellow citizens with lies and misdirection," these devices have the ability to allow rhetoricians and social activists alike to bring about social change and repair rhetoric's reputation in the eyes of the general populace. For example, in Cynthia Sheard's article, "The Public Value of Epideictic Rhetoric," she discusses how epideictic rhetoric, which has traditionally elicited a negative public opinion, can be used to foster social change. Sheard calls rhetoricians to embrace a process of "[r]econceptualizing epideictic in order to emphasize ... [i]ts close connection to the public sphere and its visionary quality ... " Sheard continues to explain that "epideictic discourse alters the reality in which it participates by making its vision a reality for its audience and instilling a belief that the power for realizing the vision lies with them." According to Sheard, this ability to alter the audience's perception of reality, an ability that epideictic rhetoric was once criticized for, is exactly what gives this device the power to involve the general populace in social activism and persuade them to view rhetoric in a positive light instead of describing it as a manipulative device.
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Epideixis is Aristotle's least favored and clearly defined topic. Now considered to be the stuff of ceremonies with its exhortations, panegyrics, encomia, funeral orations and displays of oratorical prowess, epideictic rhetoric appears to most to be discourse less about depth and more attuned to style without substance. Still, the Art of Rhetoric is cited as an example of epideictic work (Lockwood, 1996). Epideixis may not deserve the charge of lacking depth.
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For Aristotle, the epideictic genre was of limited importance in the civic realm since it did not concern facts or policies. Perelman, in contrast, believes not only that epideictic rhetoric warrants more attention, but that the values normally limited to that genre are in fact central to all argumentation. "Epideictic oratory", Perelman argues, "has significance and importance for argumentation because it strengthens the disposition toward action by increasing adherence to the values it lauds" (1969, p. 50). These values, moreover, are central to the persuasiveness of arguments in all rhetorical genres since the orator always attempts to "establish a sense of communion centered around particular values recognized by the audience" (1969, p. 51).
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These considerations determine what information constitutes "facts" and "reasonableness" and thus help to determine the universal audience that, in turn, shapes the orator's approach. The adherence of an audience is also determined by the orator's use of values, a further key concept of the New Rhetoric. Perelman's treatment of value and his view of epideictic rhetoric sets his approach apart from that of the ancients and of Aristotle in particular. Aristotle's division of rhetoric into three genres – forensic, deliberative, and epideictic – is largely motivated by the judgments required for each: forensic or legal arguments require verdicts on past action, deliberative or political rhetoric seeks judgment on future action, and epideictic or ceremonial rhetoric concerns values associated with praise or blame and seeks no specific decisions.
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Deliberative rhetoric thus includes rhetoric that is used for political persuasion, discusses matters of public policy in order to determine what is advantageous or disadvantageous, and is usually concerned with the future. Rhetoric of the forensic genre questions guilt or innocence, is concerned with legalities, and concentrates on events that occurred in the past. The epideictic genre of rhetoric encompasses all rhetoric used for ceremonial and commemorative purposes. Epideictic rhetoric praises and blames, acknowledging that which is noble or shameful, honorable or dishonorable.
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Although Utopianism combined classical concepts of perfect societies (Plato and Aristotle) with Roman rhetorical finesse (cf. Cicero, Quintilian, epideictic oratory), the Renaissance genre continued into the Age of Enlightenment and survives in modern science fiction.
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Epideictic pheromones are different from territory pheromones, when it comes to insects. Fabre observed and noted how "females who lay their eggs in these fruits deposit these mysterious substances in the vicinity of their clutch to signal to other females of the same species they should clutch elsewhere." It may be helpful to note that the word epideictic, having to do with display or show (from the Greek 'deixis'), has a different but related meaning in rhetoric, the human art of persuasion by means of words.
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The epideictic oratory, also called ceremonial oratory, or praise-and-blame rhetoric, is one of the three branches, or "species" (eidē), of rhetoric as outlined in Aristotle's Rhetoric, to be used to praise or blame during ceremonies.
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He and Lockwood seem to say that what was in the past called rhetoric was later called literature. Curtius believed that misinterpretations of medieval literature occur because so much of it is epideictic, and the epideictic is so alien to us today. During the Middle Ages it became a "school subject" as the sites for political activity diminished in the West, and as the centuries went on the word "praise" came to mean that which was written. During this period literature (more specifically histories, biographies, autobiographies, geographies) was called praise.
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Chaïm Perelman, Lucie Olbrechts-Tyteca, The new rhetoric: a treatise on argumentation, University of Notre Dame Press, 1969, p. 52 Some of the defining terms for epideictic discourse include declamation, demonstration, praise or blame of the personal, and pleasing or inspiring to an audience. Lawrence W. Rosenfield contends that epideictic practice surpasses mere praise and blame, and it is more than a showy display of rhetorical skill: “Epideictic’s understanding calls upon us to join with our community in giving thought to what we witness, and such thoughtful beholding in commemoration constitutes memorializing” (133). Epideictic rhetoric also calls for witnessing events, acknowledging temporality and contingency (140). However, as Rosenfield suspects, it is an uncommon form of discourse because of the rarity of “its necessary constituents — openness of mind, felt reverence for reality, enthusiasm for life, the ability to congeal significant experiences in memorable language . . .” (150).
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Demosthenes's Funeral Oration (Greek: ) was delivered between August and September of 338 BC, just after the Battle of Chaeronea. It constitutes along with the Erotic Essay the two epideictic orations of the prominent Athenian statesman and orator, which are still existent.
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The Erotic Essay () was one of the two surviving epideictic speeches (along with the Funeral Oration) attributed to the Athenian statesman and orator Demosthenes. Ian Worthington dates the speech to between the late 350s BC and 335 BC. Though part of the Demosthenic corpus, the Erotic Essay is not generally believed to be an authentic work of Demosthenes, and its real author is unknown. However, Robert Clavaud has argued that there are no strong arguments for the inauthenticity of the epideictic speeches, against almost unanimous scholarly consensus to the contrary. Friedrich Blass believes that it belongs to a member of a school of Isocrates.
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Modern writers and historians generally consider the speech to be a masterpiece and one of the finest presidential inaugural addresses, with the final lines having earned particularly lasting renown in American culture. Literary and political analysts likewise have praised the speech's eloquent prose and epideictic quality.
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Van Mander states that Albrecht Dürer said of Geertgen "Truly he was a painter in his mother's womb", although Dürer's journal of his Netherlandish travels doesn't mention the painter, and it has been suggested that Van Mander was using a form of epideictic rhetoric to build esteem for a fellow Haarlemer.
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W.R. Roberts, 1954), New York: Modern Library. This concept can be explained through an example of a generic hybrid of deliberative and epideictic elements, in which a newly elected President delivers an inaugural address. The President is speaking at a formal ceremony recognizing the current state of the nation (characteristic of the epideictic genre), while simultaneously announcing his policy plans for the upcoming four years. U.S. rhetorician Carolyn R. Miller is the author of the article "Genre as Social Action" (1984). She argues, “Rhetorical criticism has not provided firm guidance on what constitutes a genre” and a “rhetorically sound definition of genre must be centered not on the substance or the form of discourse but on the action it is used to accomplish.” Miller, C. R. (1984).
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Commendatory verse is a genre of epideictic writing. In the Renaissance and Early Modern European tradition, it was taken to glorify both its author and the person to whom it was addressed. Prefatory verses of this kind—i.e. those printed as preface to a book—became a recognised type of advertising in the book trade.
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This sonnet is epideictic rhetoric of both blame and praise: blaming the sun for reminding man of his immortality, and praising the sun for the vast pleasures it brings man in his short lifetime. What are most highly valued of all are those that transcend time, and that is the sun.Engle 1989, p 834.
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38 Together with Carneades and Critolaus, he was sent to Rome to appeal a fine of five hundred talents imposed on Athens in 155 BC for the sack of Oropus. They delivered their epideictic speeches first in numerous private assemblies, then in the Senate. Diogenes pleased his audience chiefly by his sober and temperate mode of speaking.Aulus Gellius, Attic Nights, vii.
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A significant example of epideictic writing in Chinese poetry is the fu rhapsody that developed in the early Han Dynasty. This highly ornamented style was used for almost any subject imaginable, and often incorporated obscure language with extensive cataloguing of rare items, all in verse of varying rhyme and line length.David R. Knechtges, Wen Xuan: or Selections of Refined Literature. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984), introduction.
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Those animals do practice deliberative, judicial, and epideictic rhetoric deploying ethos, logos, and pathos with gesture and preen, sing and growl. Since animals offer models of rhetorical behavior and interaction that are physical, even instinctual, but perhaps no less artful, getting rid of our accustomed focus on verbal language and consciousness concepts will help people interested in rhetoric and communication matters promote human-animals' rhetoric.
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Epideictic rhetoric appeals to - and serves to sway - personal and cultural values, whereas pure deliberative and judicial rhetoric appeal to reason alone. And, Lockwood, also in Reader's Figure, describes how readers are figured by their readings, and how readers figure their readings, and that readers can accept the readers' account, and forget their own account of their present and past, and that the rhetor's account is produced by language.
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Of the pisteis provided through speech there are three parts: ethos, pathos, and logos. He introduces paradigms and syllogisms as means of persuasion. ;Chapter Three: Introduces the three genres of rhetoric: deliberative, forensic, and epideictic rhetoric. Here he also touches on the "ends" the orators of each of these genres hope to reach with their persuasions—which are discussed in further detail in later chapters (Book 1:3:5–7).
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Forensic rhetoric, as coined in Aristotle's On Rhetoric, encompasses any discussion of past action including legal discourse—the primary setting for the emergence of rhetoric as a discipline and theory. This contrasts with deliberative rhetoric and epideictic rhetoric, which are reserved for discussions concerning future and present actions respectively.Aristotle, On Rhetoric, 1.3.10–15. In contemporary times, the word forensic is commonly associated with criminal and civil law referring specifically to forensic science.
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When Palamedes threw Odysseus' son, Telemachus, in front of the plow, Odysseus avoided him, demonstrating that he was sane. Odysseus, who never forgave Palamedes for making him reveal himself, later accused Palamedes of betraying the Greeks to the Trojans. Soon after, Palamedes was condemned and killed (Jarratt 58). In this epideictic speech, like the Encomium, Gorgias is concerned with experimenting with how plausible arguments can cause conventional truths to be doubted (Jarratt 59).
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Criticism also classifies rhetorical discourses into generic categories either by explicit argumentation or as an implicit part of the critical process. For example, the evaluative standard that the rhetorician utilizes will undoubtedly be gleaned from other works of rhetoric and, thus, impose a certain category. The same can be said about the examples and experts quoted within the work of criticism. Classical genres of rhetoric include apologia, epideictic, or jeremiad but have been expanded to encompass numerous other categories.
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As Ingunn Lunde points out, Kirill's technique of quotations is based on the convention of the epideictic discourse where the establishment of verbal correspondences and parallels through emphasis and amplification serve to invocation of the authority of the sacred texts. "What is essential is the recognition of certain layer of sacred texts or voice in the orators' discourse". If we accept the conventional attributions of works to Kyrill of Turov, he can be justly named the most prolific extant writer of Kievan Rus'.
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Initial folio of De laude Cestrie, a c.1195 eulogy to the English town of Chester Literary descriptions of cities (also known as urban descriptiones) form a literary genre that originated in Ancient Greek epideictic rhetoric. They can be prose or poetry. Many take the form of an urban eulogy (variously referred to as an encomium urbis, laudes urbium, encomium civis, laus civis, laudes civitatum; or in English: urban or city encomium, panegyric, laudation or praise poem) which praise their subject.
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The virtues or the "components" of virtue according to Aristotle, were "justice, courage, self- control, magnificence, magnanimity, liberality, gentleness, practical and speculative wisdom" or "reason". Vice was the "contrary" of virtue. In his book Rhetoric and Poetics in Antiquity, Jeffrey Walker claims that epideictic rhetoric predates the rhetoric of courts and politics, the study of which began in the 5th or 4th century BC with the Sophists. The other two kinds of public speech were deliberative or political speech, and forensic, judicial, or legal speech.
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David Sloan Wilson and E. O. Wilson called Wynne-Edwards' theory "naive group selection"."Rethinking the Theoretical Foundation of Sociobiology" Among the mechanisms that Wynne-Edwards proposed was population regulation, based on the communication of population density by what he called epideictic displays, in which individuals advertised their genitals. If a population was becoming too dense, such displays would result in reduced breeding across the population, contrary to Darwinian natural selection but in line with Wynne-Edwards's group selection. The mechanism has never been demonstrated unequivocally.
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For centuries, epideictic oratory was a contested term, for it is clearly present in both forensic and deliberative forms, but it is difficult to clarify when it appears as a dominant discursive form. According to Chaïm Perelman and Lucy Olbrechts-Tyteca, “The speaker engaged in epidictic discourse is very close to being an educator. Since what he is going to say does not arouse controversy, since no immediate practical interest is ever involved, and there is no question of attacking or defending, but simply of promoting values that are shared in the community . . .” (52).
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Himerius is a typical representative of the later rhetorical schools. Photius (cod. 165, 243 Bekker) had read 71 speeches by him, of 36 of which he has given an epitome; 24 have come down to us complete and fragments of 12 others. They consist of epideictic or "display" speeches after the style of Aristides, the majority of them having been delivered on special occasions, such as the arrival of a new governor,He gave three speeches in honour of Nicomachus Flavianus, proconsul of Asia in 382-383 (Himerius, Orationes, xii, xxxvi,xliii).
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Literary critics have used the concepts of genres to classify speeches and works of literature since the time of Aristotle, who distinguished three rhetorical genres: the legal or judicial, the deliberative or political, and the ceremonial or epideictic. Since then, rhetorical approaches to genre and understanding of the term "genre" have evolved in several ways. New genres have been studied for their rhetorical effectiveness - like sermons, letters, and (more recently) non-verbal genres like political cartoons, film, and public monuments. Further contemporary genre criticism has revised understanding of genre in several ways.
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In "Gorgias", one of his Socratic Dialogues, Plato defines rhetoric as the persuasion of ignorant masses within the courts and assemblies.Plato, "Gorgias," The Classical Library Rhetoric, in Plato's opinion, is merely a form of flattery and functions similarly to cookery, which masks the undesirability of unhealthy food by making it taste good. Thus, Plato considered any speech of lengthy prose aimed at flattery as within the scope of rhetoric. Aristotle both redeemed rhetoric from his teacher and narrowed its focus by defining three genres of rhetoric—deliberative, forensic or judicial, and epideictic.
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After the death of Aurelius he became the private secretary of Commodus. His death took place at Rome in the eightieth year of his age, not later than 192 AD, if it be true that Commodus (who was assassinated at the end of this year) sent him a letter on his death-bed, which he is represented as kissing with devout earnestness in his last moments.Philostr. Vit. Adrian.Suda s.v. The Suda lists Adrianus' works as Declamations, Metamorphoses (7 books), On Types of Style (5 books), On Distinctive Features in the Issues (3 books), letters, epideictic speeches, Phalaris, and Consolation to Celer.
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In 1856 a considerable portion of a logos epitaphios, a Funeral Oration over Leosthenes and his comrades who had fallen in the Lamian war was discovered. Currently this is the best surviving example of epideictic oratory. Towards the end of the nineteenth century further discoveries were made including the conclusion of the speech Against Philippides (dealing with an indictment for the proposal of unconstitutional measure, arising out of the disputes of the Macedonian and anti-Macedonian parties at Athens), and of the whole of Against Athenogenes (a perfumer accused of fraud in the sale of his business).
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In the epideictic oration of Panegyricus,Panegyricus 4.21 Isocrates addressed to his countrymen with the following passage: Athenian autochthony also links to nationalistic political ideology in the fifth and fourth century. It justifies Athenian greatness and conquest over other poleis. In Menexenes, Plato has Socrates explaining the Athenian hatred against the barbarians It is unclear or unlikely that the above ideas belong to Plato himself, since Menexenus, the only non-philosophical Platonic work, has been regarded as a parody, a mock-patriotic funeral speech of Pericles or Aspasia, but in any case it provides an image of the Athenian ideology of that time.
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Relativism is avoided according to McKeon via the force of a rhetorical strategy rather than via access to a Platonic realm. McKeon borrows traditional rhetorical terms (see Aristotle and Quintilian) to outline the principles of the new rhetoric (creativity/invention; fact/judgment; sequence/consequence; objectivity/intersubjectivity) and then leads them toward brighter avenues of discovery by enlarging Aristotle's traditional rhetorical categories (epideictic, judicial, deliberative) and reintegrating philosophical dialectic. He believes that the materials for doing this are topoi and schemata. The new rhetoric must be universal, objective, reformulate the structure and program of verbal rhetoric and its subjects, and its applications must be focused on the particular now.
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The Blind Oedipus Commending his Children to the Gods (1784) by Bénigne Gagneraux. In his Poetics, Aristotle uses the tragedy Oedipus Tyrannus by Sophocles as an example of how the perfect tragedy should be structured, with a generally good protagonist who starts the play prosperous, but loses everything through some hamartia (fault). Aristotle's Rhetoric proposes that a speaker can use three basic kinds of appeals to persuade his audience: ethos (an appeal to the speaker's character), pathos (an appeal to the audience's emotion), and logos (an appeal to logical reasoning). He also categorizes rhetoric into three genres: epideictic (ceremonial speeches dealing with praise or blame), forensic (judicial speeches over guilt or innocence), and deliberative (speeches calling on an audience to make a decision on an issue).
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Agathon was also the first playwright to write choral parts which were apparently independent from the main plot of his plays. Agathon is portrayed by Plato as a handsome young man, well dressed, of polished manners, courted by the fashion, wealth and wisdom of Athens, and dispensing hospitality with ease and refinement. The epideictic speech in praise of love which Agathon recites in the Symposium is full of beautiful but artificial rhetorical expressions, and has led some scholars to believe he may have been a student of Gorgias. In the Symposium, Agathon is presented as the friend of the comic poet Aristophanes, but this alleged friendship did not prevent Aristophanes from harshly criticizing Agathon in at least two of his comic plays: the Thesmophoriazousae and the (now lost) Gerytades.
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At first he appears to have composed epideictic speeches, in which he attained to such proficiency that in 352–351 BC he gained the prize of oratory given by Artemisia II of Caria in honour of her husband, although Isocrates was himself among the competitors. It is said to have been the advice of his teacher that finally determined his career as an historian--a career for which he was peculiarly qualified owing to his abundant patrimony and his wide knowledge of men and places. Through the influence of Alexander, he was permitted to return to Chios about 333 BC, and figured for some time as one of the leaders of the aristocratic party in his native town. After Alexander's death he was again expelled, and took refuge with Ptolemy in Egypt, where he appears to have met with a somewhat cold reception.
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Menander Rhetor (), also known as Menander of Laodicea (), was a Greek rhetorician and commentator of the 3rd or 4th century AD. Two incomplete treatises on epideictic speeches have been preserved under his name, but it is generally considered that they cannot be by the same author. Bursian attributes the first to Menander, whom he placed in the 4th century, and the second to an anonymous rhetorician of Alexandria Troas, who possibly lived in the time of Diocletian. Others, from the superscription of the Paris manuscript, assign the first to Genethlius of Petra in Palestine. In view of the general tradition of antiquity, that both treatises were the work of Menander, it is possible that the author of the second was not identical with the Menander mentioned by the Suda; since the name is of frequent occurrence in later Greek literature.
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