Week of November 10, Tuesday Post

The imitation chapter in Ancient Rhetorics for Contemporary Students perceived the idea of imitation in a more scholarly manner than I understood it to be. Quintilian’s quote on the rule of life to copy what one believed to be appropriate shined a unique light to imitation. One which made me wonder was the idea of myself and whether individuals are overall imitations of other people whom they find appealing enough to imitate them. Furthermore, I found the idea of copying by hand relatable to college students. Today, we either have the option of taking notes in class on paper, digitally on computers, or choose not to take notes. Until reading this chapter on imitation, I never believed there was an association with the way a person took notes, in the case of class lecture, and the ability to memorize material better. If anything I thought typing notes would help a person memorize material better. After reading Malcolm X’s anecdote on reading, writing, and memorizing words in the dictionary it was clear that copying by hand allows a person to slow down and focus on what is being imitated.

                   After reading a bit of Richard Whately’s biography and Elements of Rhetoric I noticed that as we begin to reach the nineteenth century of rhetoric originality is slowly beginning to fade away with the rhetors we are reading about. At this point in time print is steadily available and so are the writings and philosophies of ancient and medieval rhetors. Now at this point in history it seems that all rhetors are doing is agreeing with or challenging ancient and medieval rhetoric. There is no originality in the sense of their philosophy. Nineteenth century rhetors have historical rhetors to study and question. With ancient rhetors everything they argued was unique. There were no previous rhetors they could study to create their own ideas on rhetoric.