Aristotle's Three Forms Of Rhetoric Essay

Aristotle’s three types of rhetoric comprise of “the political, forensic, and the ceremonial oratory or display,” (Mueller, 93). Aristotle elaborates on how the three elements of the “speaker, subject and the person being addressed” ultimately “determines the speech’s end and object.” (Mueller, 93). The political form of rhetoric focuses on convincing individuals to act or not to act in a given situation. In this form of rhetoric, the speaker is either convincing the audience on a subject being addressed to do something or not to do something. Aristotle claims that these individuals are designated for “men who address public assemblies” (Mueller, 93). Forensic rhetoric deliberately takes a side on either the defense of the accused or against the accused and disputes that stance in front of a speaker, subject, and a person being addressed.

This form of rhetoric is usually seen practiced in the adversary system where a defense attorney or the prosecution debates on the accused innocence or guilt.

The ceremonial oratory is a form of language where the speaker either “praises or censures somebody” (Mueller, 93) There are distinct differences overall intentions of these forms of language. The essence of time is very important to different means of the orator as they constantly revolve depending on the circumstance. The political orator focus is on future implications on “things to be done hereafter that he advises, for or against” (Mueller, 93). The ceremonial orator central focus is on interpreting the present day and the current phases existing in that specific moment. In addition, these ceremonial orators occasionally “find it useful…to recall the past and to make guesses at the future.” (Mueller, 93). A good example of all of these rhetorics incorporated under a system is the trial process of the adversary system. It seems that Aristotle’s three types of rhetoric paved the foundation for our court system in the 21st

century.

7) The practice of Rhetoric from Rome built off of Aristotle’s classical rhetoric to form more of their own approach to explaining rhetoric. Notable classical scholars, such as Cicero and Quintilian contributed so much to rhetoric that helped us gain a better understanding of the structures of rhetoric. Although Rome enacted components of traditional Greece, they failed to incorporate as much of Greece rhetoric as possible. They begin to diverge away from the classical rhetoric approach and started focusing on stylistic traits and storytelling versus the sense of classical rhetoric knowledge of truth and reasoning. Rhetoricians decided to explore down the path of the artform of rhetoric—but by doing that, they begin to forget the true essence of rhetorical structural components. Hence, this served as a problem in discourse in Rome because they had these diverging views of what they wanted rhetoric to represent.