Persuasion & Rhetoric

 

Even the most inspired poem must have some shape and purpose.

Both may take some time in finding, but the old requirements — to inform, to please and to move — still hold. That means checking for genre, and giving some attention to literary techniques.

Rhetoric or the Art of Persuasion

Rhetoric originally meant the effective use of language: not only to sway the ignorant mob, but to persuade our intellectual peers. And by governing such matters as laying out an argument, presenting the evidence, employing the appropriate syntax and diction, rhetoric was unavoidable: in law, politics, literature and everyday life. Nowadays, given its flagrant misuse in public life, a strident rhetoric is shunned in serious literature, and contemporary poetry in particular seeks the prosaic, even pedestrian, taking for granted that plainness bespeaks sincerity.

But rhetoric has not disappeared. There are always preferred ways of going about our social interactions, and rhetoric simply generalizes long experience into simple rules. Anyone attending courses on journalism or feature writing will be taken through the standard devices, which readers expect to see. There are conventions for the short story, for novels, and for poetry. Even the prodigiously gifted Shakespeare, the most supremely original and creative of writers, in practice followed the rules of Renaissance rhetoric very closely, depending on it for his most striking effects.

How much need be known of literary techniques? Not the terminology, generally, but what effect may be secured with what device. Isn't that rather calculating, say those who would see poetry as free expression, the outpourings of sincere emotion? No, because poetry is nothing of the sort. No, because the most artlessly moving lines will be found to have unconsciously adopted some rhetorical device. And no, because our everyday "natural" speech is equally controlled by conventions — is indeed a finely-tuned rhetoric, as every scriptwriter finds. There is no escaping this requirement. No organisation means no intellectual rapport, no emotional appeal, and no work of art.

Suggestions

View the poem as a straightforward piece of prose, and ask yourself:

 

1. Was the piece worth writing? Did it have something important to say? Would people really want to know?

2. Is it effectively presented? Would you pick it up and continue reading if the piece appeared in a local magazine?

 

3. What exactly are you aiming to achieve? If you don't know, consider rewriting until you do.

 

4. Do you understand your audience, and is that reflected in the literary techniques employed, in the syntax, choice of words and tone of the piece?

 

5. Have you done your homework like any conscientious journalist — arguments fairly presented, facts researched, engagingly presented from the reader's point of view?

 

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