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Agreed. While most of the other texts/excerpts can stand alone to have the reader make of it what they will, I feel that these plates alone don't convey enough sense of their context or significance.
No wonder Whately preferred Sheridan.
me Truth which was dry and Unaffecting in a vulgar Authors words, Charms and Subdues you when cloath'd in his
It's often more than just the words themselves or the way they are delivered that make such a difference, though. The first example that came to mind is Thersites's and Achilles's speeches in Book 2 of The Illiad, where Thersites (a lowly, uncouth, and ugly soldier) says essentially the same speech (in mostly the same words) as Achilles--one is well received and the other is not, but the difference wasn't strictly in charm.
et if you will believe it impossible, and upon that nr any other prejudice forhear t'attcmpl it, l'mc like lo go without my Wishes; my Arguments what ever they may be in themselves, arc weak and impertinent lo you, because you make them useless and defeat them of the End they aim at
Here Astell seems to be saying that if her audience is prejudiced against her, has already set in their minds that her task is impossible, then she'll get nowhere. Nice insight into the nature of the audience and their receptivity. Sometimes a fight is lost before it's ever begun, though that doesn't mean to stop trying. There's always another audience, one brought on by another exigence, context, or cultural technique (although below, she seems to be insisting that there's some kernel of perwasive opportunity left to her, can she but root it out).
you to Arm your Selves, supposing you to be of the Masculine Sex, and of Valiant Heroical Natures, to enter into the Field of Warr;
Interesting call for the reader to put themselves into this perspective, to immerse themselves in this context; the following list is a map of the journey she plans on taking the reader through with her orations, the diversity of which illustrate the breadth and scope of rhetoric and persuasion.
s opposed to the dynamic,insurgent and more cyclical time of becoming orAion
The "time" represented by Aion is unbounded, in contrast to Chronos as empirical time divided into past, present, and future: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aion_(deity)
Unlike both Aion or Chronos, kairos is a particular moment of time, a timely or opportune moment. It is situated in a particular context or need (a rhetorical situation).
diffe ́rance
Cf. Biesecker's "Rethinking the Rhetorical Situation from within the Thematic of Difference"
he conditions of representation
Rhetorical context shapes meaning, much like context shapes rhetorics.
every time technology change
This is one aspect of the exigence of this piece (re: Casey Boyle's "Step One: Exigence"). What are some of the other nuances of that exigence?
http://caseyboyle.net/2016/01/16/something-like-a-reading-ethics/
“These are unprecedented, brazen acts of censorship by a corporate monopoly that controls a primary channel of public communication,” said Nehlen, who’s running against Ryan in the GOP congressional primaries in Wisconsin. “It has severely compromised the integrity of our election processes, and Congress needs to hold public hearings and conduct a full investigation into these matters without delay.”
This language is ripe for studying.
practices
This sounds a lot like Edbauer--everything bleeds into each other to create an ever-expanding, active rhetorical situation.
Rhetoricaldiscourseiscalledintoinstancesofrhetoricalspeakingand'writingarestronglyinvited
Hypothesis was not cooperating with me, but I was trying to highlight "perceives" because I think this word complicates his idea of rhetorical situations. The criticism from Vatz is that he denies the rhetor's agency and gives the situation too much power over rhetoric, but this instance does seem to suggest some sort of agency on the part of the rhetor.
Meal1ing;-contextisageu"eral.couditiQI1ofhumancommunicationandisnot~~onymouswithrhetoricalsituation
This is obviously key, but I feel like some examples would help.
Can we think up some good examples of this difference?
I suspect it's the difference between situational factors which are not directly relevant/impactful to the rhetoric (such as whether the speech was delivered on a Wednesday, whether there was a light rain the night before, the size of the room in which the rhetor is speaking) and the factors which contribute to some urgency that demands a rhetorical response (recent political actions, a sudden death, impending threats from an outside force, etc.)
eporterscreatedhundredsofmessages
I like this example; the moment was so urgent that it demanded a rhetorical response, but a particular kind of rhetorical response that could be predicted before it was ever written out. It could be predicted so easily that hundreds of reporters performed it almost at once. There are certain types of rhetorical performances that we expect, and certain people from whom we expect those responses, to the point that they become comforting and predictable, regardless of the drama of the context:
magineforamomenttheGettysburgAddressentirelyseparatedfromitssituationandexistingforusindependentofanyrhetoricalcontext
This is of course easier said than done. I think this video is an interesting experiment of this idea in action, though. It includes 40 "inspirational moments" from different films. In context, each is the climax of the film, and is meant to be a persuasive rhetorical moment, but pulled from their contexts and strung together, many of the moments lose their emotional impact unless perhaps you are already so familiar with that particular film that the context floods back to you all at once:
implyput,thedeconstructionofthesubjectopensuppossi-bilitiesforthefieldofRhetoricbyenablingustoreadtherhetori-calsituationasaneventstructurednotbyalogicofinfluencebutbyalogicofarticulation.
What implications does this have for all the weeks we were worrying about a hostile audience? If you can't address that problem, then why go through such lengths? What has this all been about?
Part V. Connexion of Place
This section is jumping out at me this time around. Keep it mind later on when we turn to discuss the elements of the rhetorical situation. Campbell opens up for discussing the material dimensions of rhetoric: not simply rhetoric as the discursive activity of humans, but as an emergent aspect of human and nonhuman relations. Also, recall here Rickert on the role of the caves themselves in the making of cave art.
Whereas Bitzer suggests that the rhetor discovers exigencies that already exist, Vatz argues that exigencies are created for audiences through the rhetor's work.
Bitzer="discovers" exigence. Vatz="created" exigence.