Reflections
Reflections on Rhetorical Studies
Roman Rhetoric: Theft, Innovation and Time
A brief paper on a few of the causes for Rome's personal brand of rhetoric. In this paper, I highlight the two cultures that had the greatest influence on Rome—the Estruscans and the Greeks— and how their existence, along with the building of a Republic, made rhetoric an important art for the Romans to develop.
Given the brevity of the assignment, there is not much more I can add or subtract from the paper, however, given the chance to elaborate on the piece, I would go into specific instances of Greek and Estrucan influences, detail the laws that forced Roman rhetoric to rise from the ashes of the Greek schools in Italy and how Roman rhetoric worked within both the Republic and the Empire.
Ambiguous Exaltation of Isocrates in Plato's Phaedrus
A short two page analysis of a single line from Plato's Phaedrus. Here, I attempted to show not only my knowledge of Greek history, but also my background in Greek philosophy, and then argue for Plato and Isocrates having the same goal (i.e., a morally good and successful Athens), but use seemingly contrary methods to reach their goal. It is because their shared goal that Plato's praise of a young Isocrates having the potential to be the greatest philosopher may be seen at face value or a back handed comment, because Isocrates is not the philosopher Plato's Socrates hoped he would be at the time Plato wrote this dialogue.