The rise rise of rhetoric in Ancient Greece was one of particular interest and concern to philosophers like Plato and Aristotle. Rhetoric became the eloquent art form of lawyers, politicians, and leaders seeking to persuade audiences through speech. According to Plato, poetry and rhetoric is dangerous to the ideal republic, “for its power to corrupt even good men, except for a very few, is surely a terrible thing” (Murray 53). In the YouTube clip that I have chosen, Marc Antony delivers his famous speech, Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears. Marc Antony’s cunning use of rhetoric plays heavily on the emotions of his Plebeian audience.
What makes Marc Antony speech so persuasive is his use of Aristotelian devices: logos, pathos, and ethos. The first rhetorical device that Antony uses is logos/logic to persuade his audience. Antony says, “The noble Brutus hath told you Caesar was ambitious.” Antony uses deductive reasoning to support Brutus’ argument.
Ambition is a grievous fault
Caesar had ambitions
Caesar had a grievous fault.
Antony counters his own deductive reasoning by logically illustrating how un-ambitious Caesar was. Caesar ransomed solders, wept for the poor, and denied the crowd thrice! Can this be considered ambitious? Antony turns away and weeps to appeal to the pathos of his audience. According to Plato, weeping and crying had no place in poetry or rhetoric because, “it is psychologically damaging, for it appeals to an inferior element in the soul, and encourages us to indulge in emotions that we ought to be kept firmly in check […] and disable our rational responses” (Murray xxv). Antonys’ display of emotions tugs at he heart of his audience who are touched by the tears in his eyes.
Antony uses more deductive reasoning to persuade his audience.
We should mourn those we once loved
We once had cause to love Caesar
Therefore we should mourn Caesar.
In a gripping tug at his audiences’ emotions; Antony equates the fall of Caesar to fall of everyone. The sight of Caesar’s mangled body stirs the crowd to a furry and rage. Pathos proves to be Antony’s strongest tool of persuasion.
Antony credibility/ethos is visible when he descends the platform and stands on the same level as the Plebeians. He endures himself to the people by claiming he is no orator (Plato also claims that he was not an orator) but a plain blunt man. Through the power of rhetoric Antony achieves what Plato feared the most; he mesmerizes his audience through eloquent speech, and war and chaos breaks out.
Works Cited
Murray, Penelope. Classical Literary Criticism. Penguin Books: New York, 2004.
Nordquist, Dr. Richard. “Comments on the Rhetoric of Brutus and Marc Anthony in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar”. Atlanta State University. 2 Feb 2009
youtube video:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eNRoeMvzMVo
great, may I have the writer's name, to cite the article in my paper.
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