Kompozycja wypowiedzi w ujęciu rzymskiej szkoły retorycznej

Abstract

Achievements of the Greek art of speech were carried over with time to Rome and found there good conditions for development. Many works concerning creation of speeches to be addressed in public came into being. The most important include „Rhetorica ad Herennium”, elocutionary letters of Marcus Tullius Cicero and slightly chronologically later work of Quintilian entitled „Institutio oratoria” These discussions are most representative and present the whole of accomplishments of what is called „the Roman rhetorical school” The principles of building a speech developed by its representatives have been assimilated by vigorously developing Christianity. This could be possible at least for several reasons, once due to a teaching system where the trivium rhetoric element had a prominent place, further owing to the need for effective communication in the dialogue with pagan intellectuals, and in late antiquity, due to the desire to preserve cultural heritage of the falling empire. All this made standards set out in antiquity still valid throughout the medieval ars praedicandi until the modern preaching, conditioning to some extent also the contemporary homiletics. Therefore, knowledge of rhetorical compositional principles worked out within Latin rhetoric facilitates proper interpretation of the homiletic achievements of various authors; owing to, proven over time, effectiveness of the interaction, it may also be used in various contemporary forms of public speaking. It is worth noting that in the teaching of the representatives of the Roman rhetorical school, as referred to here, a tendency is visible to present a formula, or scheme, used as the basis for creating a speech. The number of specified parts of a speech happens to be different, however they always include introduction (exordium), the statement of the case (narratio), the proof of the case (confirmation), the refutation of possible opposing arguments (confutatio) and the conclusion (epylogus). Notions used to name each of the components of a speech are different in different authors. Clearly they use those definitions that they think reflect best the purpose of each of the elements. The diversity of views also applies to the outline of the major points in the argument as a separate part of the summary that should be included after the introduction and the statement of the case. Cicero and Cornificius saw this moment as a separate component and named it divisio, or partitio. However, Quintilian saw it only as the introduction to argumentation. It is worth stressing that in late antiquity all components of speech given by rhetors of the Roman school, even these of secondary importance, reached the status of separate parts in speech, what one can see well in the theory presented by Martianus Kapella. W hat is important, the authors agree with regard to the purposes of different parts of a speech; however, they have different views on the internal divisions within its different elements. This applies to the introduction, the statement of the case, but first of all the process of proving the case in which Cicero and the author of „Rhetorica ad Herennium” specified five components, and Quintilian - only three. Discrepancies that appear in the theory proposed by different rhetors may come from the fact that their argumentation was prepared on the basis of different Greek sources, or provided on the basis of the author’s own oratorical experience. Eventually, it is necessary to emphasize that the compositional scheme presented here did not constitute the final version of speech. The natural model of the structure of a speech as adopted from Greeks (ordo naturalis) for later rhetors was only the basis for final arrangement of the content. Therefore, the process of composition was transferred to the inventive part of a speech preparation. Unlike the predecessors, Latin speakers devoted the outline to artistic preparation of the material (ordo artificialis). This recomposition was made while preparing the final version of a speech, no longer following logical, but esthetic considerations, and anything was done to make a speech as attractive as possible.