JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.. Persuasive Ethopoeia in Dionysius's Lysias Abstract: Dionysius of Halicarnassus's account of ethopoeia at Lysias 8 is often cited as evidence of Lysias's mastery of character portrayal, but the passage itself has received little in-depth analysis. As a consequence, Dionysius's meaning has at times been misinterpreted, and some of his insights on characterization have been neglected. When the account is examined closely, three unique points of emphasis emerge which, taken together, constitute a particular type of characterization: persuasive, as opposed to propriety-oriented, ethopoeia. Making this distinction promotes conceptual clarity with regard to ethopoeia while calling attention to Dionysius's insights on the role of style and composition in the creation of persuasive ethos. University of California Press

One of the most distinctive stylistic virtues of speechwriting is characterization, the art of capturing a client’s voice in a believable and engaging manner. This article examines characterization in the context of corporate communication, interweaving an interview with veteran executive speechwriter Alan Perlman with accounts from the ancient rhetorical tradition. As the analysis shows, Perlman’s approach to characterization confirms long-standing rhetorical wisdom yet incorporates insights that reflect the contemporary corporate context in which he has worked. The analysis also calls attention to enduring tensions in characterization—tensions between imitation and representation, effectiveness and ethics, and dramatic character and trustworthy ethos.

The term “boring” is pervasive in contemporary popular evaluations of speakers and speeches. Although familiar today, the term is curiously absent from foundational Greek accounts of the art of rhetoric, raising a question about what, if anything, ancient Greeks thought about the subject. In this article, I aim to clarify Greek ways of thinking about boredom and rhetoric through an examination of the texts of Isocrates, focusing in particular on his Panathenaicus. As the evidence in Isocrates suggests, ancient Greek listeners did experience something akin to boredom, namely ochlos, or annoyance. The Greeks were also delighted (and hence not bored) by certain forms of rhetoric; some forms were delightful to crowds, and others, like the texts of Isocrates, were delightful to cultivated minds. Although Isocrates addresses antecedents of boredom, he makes only a handful of references of this sort, suggesting that boredom has afflicted some rhetorical cultures far less than others.

Aristotle's Rhetoric leaves a number of unanswered questions, among them the nature of the relationship between verbal style and êthos, or character, as a means of persuasion. Statements throughout the Rhetoric suggest a connection between manner of expression and persuasive character, but Aristotle's ideas in this area are underdeveloped. Here we argue that Aristotle's stylistic theory, while not demonstrably inconsistent with the technical proof through character, cannot be made to conform neatly with it in most salient respects. Though Aristotle does not explicit y identify style as a means through which the speaker may convey the impression that he possesses positive intellectual or moral qualities, he does recognize a role for lexis in the expression of generic character traits and is aware that an inappropriate style will damage the speaker's credibility. Hence, attention to style is important for the presentation of a plausible êthos and, in this limited respect, style does contribute to the maintenance of persuasive character. This conclusion must be inferred from passing remarks in the Rhetoric. The absence of a more fully developed theory is curious in light of the availability of examples from the discourse of Attic logographers like Lysias, a speechwriter universally praised by later critics for his mastery of ethopoeia(character portrayal).

This article reports the results of a speaking-across-the-curriculum project designed to improve classroom discussion in a first-year interdisciplinary humanities course. The project focused on equipping students with the communication skills necessary for effective participation, with the result being more engaged discussion and greater facility with the text.