delivery is acting -- "how the voice should be used in expressing each emotion, sometimes loud and sometimes soft and sometimes intermediate" (of course, Aristotle). "Just as actors are more important than poets now in the poetic contests, so it is in political contests because of the sad state of governments." [I wonder if disconnection or dislocation or disaffection is a consequence of intellection]1403b "Delivery seems a vulgar matter when rightly understood. [1404a] but since the whole business of rhetoric is with opinion, one should pay attnetion to delivery, not because it is right but because it is necessary, since true justice seeks nothing more in a speech than neither to offend nor to entertain; for to contend by means of the facts themselves is just, with the result that everything except demonstration is incidental; but nevertheless, [delivery] has great power ...because of the corruption of the audience. ...Acting is a matter of natural talent and largely not reducible to artistic rule.
I wonder about the idea of "natural". Does it mean un-learned or just unconsciously learned? Is there something like innate delivery? It seems to me I've gotten the intonation wrong on occasion, sounded more intense about something than I actually was--more often less intense come to think of it. But I can't think of a time when I asked myself, how shall I enunciate these words? I've thought about the words and the word order, but not how to say them out loud. Maybe that's because I don't do a great deal of formal public speaking. Maybe I need to think about delivery more than I do. People sometimes interpret me as gruff when I don't think of myself that way at all. What is the opposite of "natural"? Affected, I guess. Or pretentious? Is it disingenuous? hmm. hypokritical? That's funny.
style -- good Greek, words in their prevailing sense, metaphors where there is a logical relationship between the two domains, and where the audience clearly understands the domain that is being borrowed to explain the unknown domain. "Neither flat nor above the digntiy of the subject, but appropriate [prepon]" 1404b.
energia -- movement, vivid detail, anything that creates an image for the audience which they can remember and experience as a vicarious reality. You want to make them feel and think like they are right there.
urbanity -- comes from gk. astios, which means of the city. Its opposite is aygokoi or of the farm, city vs country. But the designations aren't really geographical. The difference is really that between sophistication and lack of experience. The "farmer" is easily impressed and easily taken in. The urbane recognize nuances quickly and are not easily fooled, supposedly. But of course, as people who live in the southern united states, we are all aware of how one might play the rube to trap a city slicker.
urbanity -- foreign, unfamiliar, but not obscure or alien, something just slightly unexpected. When someone is listening or reading, they are usually a word or two ahead of you, anticipating what will come next, unless of course you are talking about something they don't understand. We anticipate because languages are conventional; we rely on common patterns for common ideas. To make the common seem more interesting, you need to find an unexpected way to say something, so that your audience has to pause momentarily to think, and when they do, they are rewarded with a new insight or idea.
One simple way to create urbanity is to twist a cliché -- not a rocket surgeon, not the sharpest tack on the seat, a writer who uses "IM" speak as being all thumbs.
The "trick" or "theft" is to see a similarity where others do not. When you can make an unexpected connection you create interest. If you make connections between things your audience can't perceive as connected, you sound either mystical or insane.
Another easy way to create interest is to use maxims, a personal observation about human behavior or human actions and deliberate choices, as Aristotle says, expressed as a universal truth. Aristotle explains that such expressions provide the first part of an enthymeme, the statement before the proof. If the maxim is good enough, or the speaker has enough moral authority, the proof won't be required. He also says that maxims are most successful when said by older people because they are generalizations and experience seems to warrant generalization. A youth who makes general statements about life contradicts his or her expected ethos.
[I'm not sure about any of what I'm saying in the following paragraph; I'm just trying to capture some illusive thoughts in writing so I can work on them some more later on] It's interesting to note how rhetorical conventions tend toward conservatism in the broadest sense of the word. If one has social ambitions, and one believes that learning the rhetorical rules will advance those ambitions, then one will inculcate an apparent respect for the standard expectations regarding social behavior. Old people shouldn't wear scarlet, young people shouldn't use maxims, there's lots of these and i really should make a complete list. Anyway, if the primary rhetorical principle is appropriateness, and that does seem to inform Aristotle and to transfer to Cicero and to Quintilian too, then rhetoric is inherently conservative, at least in so far as the word "rhetoric" refers to the schoolroom rules and practices. But maybe I'm over-emphasizing prepon. The concept of the unfamiliar is not prepon, not exactly. So perhaps even in Aristotelian rhetoric there is room to subvert conventional expectations of behavior and beliefs and yet still succeed socially. I guess everything would depend on how attuned one were to the true temper of the times. How does a young person affect gravity (gravitas) without looking like a pompous twit? How does an old person remain current without becoming rediculous? How do people who aren't allowed to express emotion learn how not to express emotion without suppressing their emotions? How does anyone learn to overcome the expectations and create an alternative ethos? If the primary rule of style is clarity and clarity is directness and directness pre-supposes safe disagreement between equals, then how does the subordinate disagree with the dominant without threatening the social order or incurring wrath? what are the rhetorical rules of the weak, the inferior, the subjected? Perhaps they don't exist because the subjected aren't invited to speak -- certainly they aren't invited to speak at the podium, but I'm thinking about less formal settings. Perhpas the rhetoric of the subjected is entirely directed inward, a more or less conscouse monologue used by a person on him or herself to keep him or her from speaking out or getting involved. The most eloquent expression of which would be the flop sweat, or would it be the internal rant? hmmm.
Anyway . . .
"It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in need of a wife" Jane Austin (a nice example of a maxim since it can readily be heard as ironic as well)
"If you want to know what God thinks of money, just look at the people he gave it to." Dorothy Parker
"Man is the Only Animal that Blushes. Or needs to." Twain
"The well-bred contradict other people. The wise contradict themselves." Oscar Wilde
Here's a slightly skewed example, also from Mark Twain.
Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence in society.
The first part is a well known maxim, a cliché. The sentence that follows it turns the whole thing into an enthymeme, and because it is absurd and we were expecting something trite given what preceded it, the effect is laughter. Or at least a knowing smile (urbanity).
Anaximenes, in Rhetorica ad Alexandrum, defines maxim as "a summary statement of your private judgement on things in general" .
Statement and proof.