The term Eloquence as it relates to rhetoric Essay

The term Eloquence as it relates to rhetoric - Essay Example Also concr. eloquent language. Primarily of oral utterance, and hence applied to writing that has the characteristics of good oratory. In modern use: the notion of impassioned utterance is more prominent". History has produced a number of statesmen and philosophers who were physically weak and frail old men, but who with their sharp tongues and a nimble mind, would speak so sublimely in a simple and lucid manner that even the meanest despot would think twice before acting in haste. Eloquence is a tool and a facilitator that helps an ordinary speaker to become an orator. An orator would again use strong rhetoric to force out an issue in his own favour. In short, eloquence, rhetoric and oratory are interlinked. Eloquence when combined with oratory becomes powerful and when the two combine with rhetoric, the combination can become deadly and powerful, moving armies to inaction and turning the speaker from a position of weakness to a position of strength. The Oxford Dictionary emphasises this point and when Marc Antony speaks out to the citizens of Rome he begins with ‘Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears, for I have come to bury Caesar and not praise him’. In all probability, if Marc Antony had become a tirade of anger and wrong doing or even treachery against Brutus and this gang, then the crowd would not have rose to punish Brutus and the history of the world would have been different (Rawson, 1978). Eloquence is not about using very high blown language or even using complex terms and ideas and it is not about brow beating an audience into accepting a high sounding speech that they do not understand. Rather it is using ordinary words and phrases and combining them to force the audience into thinking on a different track. It is not about rabble rousing though leaders down the ages, have used it for waging mutiny