Bodily Pedagogies: Rhetoric, Athletics, and the Sophists' Three Rs
Debra Hawhee
2002
College English
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... etics, and t he Sophists' Three Rs Debra Hawhee or rhetoric and composition, the last decade of the twentieth century might be deemed "The Return of the Ancients." In many ways, contemporary scholars have taken up an earlier resurgence of the ancients, one that began decades earlier with what have since become standard historical treatments of the ancients (Kennedy, Kerferd, and Guthrie), and, perhaps most notably, in 1972, when Rosamond Kent Sprague's volume The Older Sophists made available the sophistic fragments in translation for the first time. But recent work aims to be more connective: rather than writing history for the sake of history, scholars such as Janet Atwill, Richard Enos, Susan Jarratt, John Poulakos, Takis Poulakos, Kathleen Welch, Victor Vitanza, and most recently Jeffrey Walker (Rhetoric) have reclaimed, refigured, and reread Aristotle, Isocrates, and the sophists, delineating ways in which these ancient figures might help us reframe or reconsider contemporary debates about pedagogy. The connections to feminism (arratt), cultural studies (T. Poulakos and Welch), postmodernism (Vitanza and Atwill) and the liberal arts (Atwill and Walker) have been convincing enough to spark renewed and broadened interest in how the ancients conceptualized rhetoric, how they taught, what they did. In many ways what follows is also a return to the ancients, but rather than attempt to connect the ancients to discourse already in circulation-an important task, to be sure-I want to instead explore a connection that inhered in ancient practices, a connection that isn't as apparently relevant to contemporary pedagogy, but as I will suggest just might be: that between rhetorical training and athletic training. It is important to note at the outset, as many writers have pointed out (for Rs Debra Hawhee or rhetoric and composition, the last decade of the twentieth century might be deemed "The Return of the Ancients." In many ways, contemporary scholars have taken up an earlier resurgence of the ancients, one that began decades earlier with what have since become standard historical treatments of the ancients (Kennedy, Kerferd, and Guthrie), and, perhaps most notably, in 1972, when Rosamond Kent Sprague's volume The Older Sophists made available the sophistic fragments in translation for the first time. But recent work aims to be more connective: rather than writing history for the sake of history, scholars such as Janet Atwill, Richard Enos, Susan Jarratt, John Poulakos, Takis Poulakos, Kathleen Welch, Victor Vitanza, and most recently Jeffrey Walker (Rhetoric) have reclaimed, refigured, and reread Aristotle, Isocrates, and the sophists, delineating ways in which these ancient figures might help us reframe or reconsider contemporary debates about pedagogy. The connections to feminism (arratt), cultural studies (T. Poulakos and Welch), postmodernism (Vitanza and Atwill) and the liberal arts (Atwill and Walker) have been convincing enough to spark renewed and broadened interest in how the ancients conceptualized rhetoric, how they taught, what they did. In many ways what follows is also a return to the ancients, but rather than attempt to connect the ancients to discourse already in circulation-an important task, to be sure-I want to instead explore a connection that inhered in ancient practices, a connection that isn't as apparently relevant to contemporary pedagogy, but as I will suggest just might be: that between rhetorical training and athletic training. It is important to note at the outset, as many writers have pointed out (for Rs Debra Hawhee or rhetoric and composition, the last decade of the twentieth century might be deemed "The Return of the Ancients." In many ways, contemporary scholars have taken up an earlier resurgence of the ancients, one that began decades earlier with what have since become standard historical treatments of the ancients (Kennedy, Kerferd, and Guthrie), and, perhaps most notably, in 1972, when Rosamond Kent Sprague's volume The Older Sophists made available the sophistic fragments in translation for the first time. But recent work aims to be more connective: rather than writing history for the sake of history, scholars such as Janet Atwill, Richard Enos, Susan Jarratt, John Poulakos, Takis Poulakos, Kathleen Welch, Victor Vitanza, and most recently Jeffrey Walker (Rhetoric) have reclaimed, refigured, and reread Aristotle, Isocrates, and the sophists, delineating ways in which these ancient figures might help us reframe or reconsider contemporary debates about pedagogy. The connections to feminism (arratt), cultural studies (T. Poulakos and Welch), postmodernism (Vitanza and Atwill) and the liberal arts (Atwill and Walker) have been convincing enough to spark renewed and broadened interest in how the ancients conceptualized rhetoric, how they taught, what they did. In many ways what follows is also a return to the ancients, but rather than attempt to connect the ancients to discourse already in circulation-an important task, to be sure-I want to instead explore a connection that inhered in ancient practices, a connection that isn't as apparently relevant to contemporary pedagogy, but as I will suggest just might be: that between rhetorical training and athletic training. It is important to note at the outset, as many writers have pointed out (for 143 example, Ong 43-45;J. Poulakos 32-39), that Greek culture is highly agonistic, and further (a point I will return to later) that, as with most civic activities in antiquity, these endeavors were decidedly masculine (Keuls; Stehle; Gleason), two considerations that help render more salient the cultural and historical connections this article will explore. THE PLACE OF THE SOPHIST The opening of Plato's Lysis depicts the character Socrates in transit from the Academy to the Lyceum, two of Athens's three public gymnasia, when he is intercepted by his friend Hippothales, who invites Socrates to join his circle of friends. The ensuing exchange, as narrated by Socrates, proceeds as follows: Where do you mean? I asked; and what is your company? Here, he said, showing me there, just opposite the wall, a sort of [enclosed area] and a door standing open. We pass our time there (diatribomen), he went on; not only we ourselves, but others [as well]-a great many, and [beautiful]. [What is this place, and what do you do there] (kai tis e diatribe)? A wrestling school (palaistra), he said, of recent construction; and our pastime chiefly consists of discussions, in [which] we would be happy to let you [take part]. That is very [kind] of you, I said; and who does the teaching in there? Your own comrade, he replied, and supporter, Miccus. (203b-204a; trans. adapted). Socrates has happened upon a private palaestra, common during his time in Athens, a place where young boys were sent to learn wrestling and other sporting activities. But more than that, as this passage indicates, such schools were also the site of philosophical discussions the likes of those described by Hippothales, in this case conducted by the sophist Miccus. Such discussions were understood as a kind of informal training, as they fostered the production and demonstration of skills important for public discourse, and the working through of particular cultural and philosophical topics, like friendship, in the example of Lysis. Evidence of sophistic activity in gymnasia and palaestrae is scattered through the remains of Greek writings. In Panathenaicus, Isocrates refers to the sophists' frequenting the Lyceum (18, 33). Diogenes Laertius writes of Gorgias's student Antisthenes (444-365 BCE), who was the first to set up some sort of permanent school at Athens; he apparently located his school in the Cynosarges gymnasium and attracted a large group of students (6:1-13). In his treatise "The Dialogue on Love," Plutarch mentions that his sons take philosophy in the wrestling school (2.749c). In the pseudo-Platonic dialogue Eryxias, Prodicus is said to have been discoursing so loudly that the gymnasiarch, the gymnasium overseer, had to ask him to keep the noise level down (397c-d). According to Plutarch, a public reading of Protagoras's On the Gods may well have taken place in the Lyceum (Lives 9.54). The example, Ong 43-45;J. Poulakos 32-39), that Greek culture is highly agonistic, and further (a point I will return to later) that, as with most civic activities in antiquity, these endeavors were decidedly masculine (Keuls; Stehle; Gleason), two considerations that help render more salient the cultural and historical connections this article will explore. THE PLACE OF THE SOPHIST The opening of Plato's Lysis depicts the character Socrates in transit from the Academy to the Lyceum, two of Athens's three public gymnasia, when he is intercepted by his friend Hippothales, who invites Socrates to join his circle of friends. The ensuing exchange, as narrated by Socrates, proceeds as follows: Where do you mean? I asked; and what is your company? Here, he said, showing me there, just opposite the wall, a sort of [enclosed area] and a door standing open. We pass our time there (diatribomen), he went on; not only we ourselves, but others [as well]-a great many, and [beautiful]. [What is this place, and what do you do there] (kai tis e diatribe)? A wrestling school (palaistra), he said, of recent construction; and our pastime chiefly consists of discussions, in [which] we would be happy to let you [take part]. That is very [kind] of you, I said; and who does the teaching in there? Your own comrade, he replied, and supporter, Miccus. (203b-204a; trans. adapted). Socrates has happened upon a private palaestra, common during his time in Athens, a place where young boys were sent to learn wrestling and other sporting activities. But more than that, as this passage indicates, such schools were also the site of philosophical discussions the likes of those described by Hippothales, in this case conducted by the sophist Miccus. Such discussions were understood as a kind of informal training, as they fostered the production and demonstration of skills important for public discourse, and the working through of particular cultural and philosophical topics, like friendship, in the example of Lysis. Evidence of sophistic activity in gymnasia and palaestrae is scattered through the remains of Greek writings. In Panathenaicus, Isocrates refers to the sophists' frequenting the Lyceum (18, 33). Diogenes Laertius writes of Gorgias's student Antisthenes (444-365 BCE), who was the first to set up some sort of permanent school at Athens; he apparently located his school in the Cynosarges gymnasium and attracted a large group of students (6:1-13). In his treatise "The Dialogue on Love," Plutarch mentions that his sons take philosophy in the wrestling school (2.749c). In the pseudo-Platonic dialogue Eryxias, Prodicus is said to have been discoursing so loudly that the gymnasiarch, the gymnasium overseer, had to ask him to keep the noise level down (397c-d). According to Plutarch, a public reading of Protagoras's On the Gods may well have taken place in the Lyceum (Lives 9.54). The example, Ong 43-45;J. Poulakos 32-39), that Greek culture is highly agonistic, and further (a point I will return to later) that, as with most civic activities in antiquity, these endeavors were decidedly masculine (Keuls; Stehle; Gleason), two considerations that help render more salient the cultural and historical connections this article will explore. THE PLACE OF THE SOPHIST The opening of Plato's Lysis depicts the character Socrates in transit from the Academy to the Lyceum, two of Athens's three public gymnasia, when he is intercepted by his friend Hippothales, who invites Socrates to join his circle of friends. The ensuing exchange, as narrated by Socrates, proceeds as follows: Where do you mean? I asked; and what is your company? Here, he said, showing me there, just opposite the wall, a sort of [enclosed area] and a door standing open. We pass our time there (diatribomen), he went on; not only we ourselves, but others [as well]-a great many, and [beautiful]. [What is this place, and what do you do there] (kai tis e diatribe)? A wrestling school (palaistra), he said, of recent construction; and our pastime chiefly consists of discussions, in [which] we would be happy to let you [take part]. That is very [kind] of you, I said; and who does the teaching in there? Your own comrade, he replied, and supporter, Miccus. (203b-204a; trans. adapted). Socrates has happened upon a private palaestra, common during his time in Athens, a place where young boys were sent to learn wrestling and other sporting activities. But more than that, as this passage indicates, such schools were also the site of philosophical discussions the likes of those described by Hippothales, in this case conducted by the sophist Miccus. Such discussions were understood as a kind of informal training, as they fostered the production and demonstration of skills important for public discourse, and the working through of particular cultural and philosophical topics, like friendship, in the example of Lysis. Evidence of sophistic activity in gymnasia and palaestrae is scattered through the remains of Greek writings. In Panathenaicus, Isocrates refers to the sophists' frequenting the Lyceum (18, 33). Diogenes Laertius writes of Gorgias's student Antisthenes (444-365 BCE), who was the first to set up some sort of permanent school at Athens; he apparently located his school in the Cynosarges gymnasium and attracted a large group of students (6:1-13). In his treatise "The Dialogue on Love," Plutarch mentions that his sons take philosophy in the wrestling school (2.749c). In the pseudo-Platonic dialogue Eryxias, Prodicus is said to have been discoursing so loudly that the gymnasiarch, the gymnasium overseer, had to ask him to keep the noise level down (397c-d). According to Plutarch, a public reading of Protagoras's On the Gods may well have taken place in the Lyceum (Lives 9.54). The It is perhaps unsurprising that Isocrates, the fourth-century BCE orator and student of the famed sophist Gorgias, was the one to articulate most explicitly this fusion of teaching styles. As Takis Poulakos argues in his book on Isocrates's rhetorical education, Isocrates's approach to rhetoric was decidedly interdisciplinary, and according to Poulakos this "interdisciplinary approach to rhetorical education is only symptomatic of a larger commitment on his part, namely, to link rhetorical education with the affairs and concerns of the polis" (2). Since athletic training and competition were already deeply politicized in Athenian culture (Kyle; Kurke), what better art to link to, strategically and methodologically, than the practices in the gymnasium, the place where the political, ethical body emerges? While Isocrates's linkage may have been strategic, he himself contends that the connection is historical: "Greek ancestors," likely the older sophists, developed these "parallel and comple- mentary [antistrophous kaisuzugas]" arts of the body and mind, "not separating sharply the two kinds of education, but using similar methods of instruction, exercise, and other forms of discipline." (Antidosis 180-83; trans. adapted). Athletic and rhetorical training were thus bound together, as Isocrates points out, in at least two ways: (1) together, training in athletics and oratory provide a program for shaping an entire self, and (2) the two arts draw from similar pedagogical strategies wherein the respective instructors impart to students bodily and discursive forms of expression: then, according to Isocrates, they "set them at exercises, habituate them to work, and require them to combine in practice the particular things which they have learned" (Antidosis 184). Furthermore, this passage describes a style of pedagogy based upon what I'm calling the three Rs of sophistic pedagogy: rhythm, repetition, and response. I will return to this particular passage later, but for now, suffice it to say that the linkage between athletics and rhetoric in Isocrates's treatise is more than just a clever comparison, and suggests deep connections between the two kinds of training practices. As Isocrates suggests, the sophists offered a distinctive approach to rhetorical pedagogy derived from physical trainers. The connection, however, does not lie in material learned, but rather inheres in a learned manner, a kind of habit-production based on movement. This movement begins with a rhythm. A RHYTHMIC INVASION Central for rhythmic production was the aulos, a pipelike reed instrument common to the era,2 and each palaestra had at least one aulos player associated with it. The aulos player's job was to set the rhythm for all gymnastic exercises, including the general warm-up activities and the focused practice of specific bodily movement. To the rhythm of the music, javelin throwers, wrestlers, boxers, jumpers, and other It is perhaps unsurprising that Isocrates, the fourth-century BCE orator and student of the famed sophist Gorgias, was the one to articulate most explicitly this fusion of teaching styles. As Takis Poulakos argues in his book on Isocrates's rhetorical education, Isocrates's approach to rhetoric was decidedly interdisciplinary, and according to Poulakos this "interdisciplinary approach to rhetorical education is only symptomatic of a larger commitment on his part, namely, to link rhetorical education with the affairs and concerns of the polis" (2). Since athletic training and competition were already deeply politicized in Athenian culture (Kyle; Kurke), what better art to link to, strategically and methodologically, than the practices in the gymnasium, the place where the political, ethical body emerges? While Isocrates's linkage may have been strategic, he himself contends that the connection is historical: "Greek ancestors," likely the older sophists, developed these "parallel and complementary [antistrophous kaisuzugas]" arts of the body and mind, "not separating sharply the two kinds of education, but using similar methods of instruction, exercise, and other forms of discipline." (Antidosis 180-83; trans. adapted). Athletic and rhetorical training were thus bound together, as Isocrates points out, in at least two ways: (1) together, training in athletics and oratory provide a program for shaping an entire self, and (2) the two arts draw from similar pedagogical strategies wherein the respective instructors impart to students bodily and discursive forms of expression: then, according to Isocrates, they "set them at exercises, habituate them to work, and require them to combine in practice the particular things which they have learned" (Antidosis 184). Furthermore, this passage describes a style of pedagogy based upon what I'm calling the three Rs of sophistic pedagogy: rhythm, repetition, and response. I will return to this particular passage later, but for now, suffice it to say that the linkage between athletics and rhetoric in Isocrates's treatise is more than just a clever comparison, and suggests deep connections between the two kinds of training practices. As Isocrates suggests, the sophists offered a distinctive approach to rhetorical pedagogy derived from physical trainers. The connection, however, does not lie in material learned, but rather inheres in a learned manner, a kind of habit-production based on movement. This movement begins with a rhythm. A RHYTHMIC INVASION Central for rhythmic production was the aulos, a pipelike reed instrument common to the era,2 and each palaestra had at least one aulos player associated with it. The aulos player's job was to set the rhythm for all gymnastic exercises, including the general warm-up activities and the focused practice of specific bodily movement. To the rhythm of the music, javelin throwers, wrestlers, boxers, jumpers, and other It is perhaps unsurprising that Isocrates, the fourth-century BCE orator and student of the famed sophist Gorgias, was the one to articulate most explicitly this fusion of teaching styles. As Takis Poulakos argues in his book on Isocrates's rhetorical education, Isocrates's approach to rhetoric was decidedly interdisciplinary, and according to Poulakos this "interdisciplinary approach to rhetorical education is only symptomatic of a larger commitment on his part, namely, to link rhetorical education with the affairs and concerns of the polis" (2). Since athletic training and competition were already deeply politicized in Athenian culture (Kyle; Kurke), what better art to link to, strategically and methodologically, than the practices in the gymnasium, the place where the political, ethical body emerges? While Isocrates's linkage may have been strategic, he himself contends that the connection is historical: "Greek ancestors," likely the older sophists, developed these "parallel and complementary [antistrophous kaisuzugas]" arts of the body and mind, "not separating sharply the two kinds of education, but using similar methods of instruction, exercise, and other forms of discipline." (Antidosis 180-83; trans. adapted). Athletic and rhetorical training were thus bound together, as Isocrates points out, in at least two ways: (1) together, training in athletics and oratory provide a program for shaping an entire self, and (2) the two arts draw from similar pedagogical strategies wherein the respective instructors impart to students bodily and discursive forms of expression: then, according to Isocrates, they "set them at exercises, habituate them to work, and require them to combine in practice the particular things which they have learned" (Antidosis 184). Furthermore, this passage describes a style of pedagogy based upon what I'm calling the three Rs of sophistic pedagogy: rhythm, repetition, and response. I will return to this particular passage later, but for now, suffice it to say that the linkage between athletics and rhetoric in Isocrates's treatise is more than just a clever comparison, and suggests deep connections between the two kinds of training practices. As Isocrates suggests, the sophists offered a distinctive approach to rhetorical pedagogy derived from physical trainers. The connection, however, does not lie in material learned, but rather inheres in a learned manner, a kind of habit-production based on movement. This movement begins with a rhythm. A RHYTHMIC INVASION Central for rhythmic production was the aulos, a pipelike reed instrument common to the era,2 and each palaestra had at least one aulos player associated with it. The aulos player's job was to set the rhythm for all gymnastic exercises, including the general warm-up activities and the focused practice of specific bodily movement. To the rhythm of the music, javelin throwers, wrestlers, boxers, jumpers, and other Bodily Pedagogies 147 Damonian fragment, "[s]ong and dance necessarily arise when the soul is in some way moved; liberal and beautiful songs and dances create a similar soul, and the reverse kind create (poiousi) a reverse kind of soul" (Diels and Kranz 37.B.6).4 Hence, for Damon, music and its attendant practices of song and dance are productive arts; they directly produce (poiousi) particular kinds of souls. Also following Damon, then, Plato's Socrates contends that "rhythm and harmonies have the greatest influence on the soul; they penetrate into its inmost regions and there hold fast (haptetai)" (Republic 401 d). The soul-gripping quality of music resides in an affective register, as music invades or penetrates (kataduetai) the depths of one's character. Aristotle, following the same logic, reasons, "[T]herefore it is plain that music has the power of producing a certain effect on the character of the soul" (1340b). What Aristotle has located in music is an almost inexplicable kind of transformative capacity. Following the line of thinking expounded by Damon, and also by the character Protagoras in Plato's dialogue, whereby the rhythms and scales literally "move in" to the soul (Protagoras 326B), Aristotle and Plato view music as an almost mystical mode of provoking particular dispositions. In other words, music's capacity to transmit dispositions falls outside of the category of reasoned, conscious learning, as rhythms and modes invade the soul, and at times, excite the body to movement. As J. G. Warry describes it, learning from music takes place through the production of tension or relaxation at muscular and nervous levels and is thereby more direct, more powerful (109). It is precisely because of music's direct, bodily delivery, its capacity for dispositional transformation, according to Aristotle, that music must be used for education, and used carefully. Damon, Aristotle, and Plato therefore all mark music as an ethos delivery system, an affective educative mechanism. Since ancient texts have a good deal to say about music in education, and, moreover, what they do say connects explicitly with athletic and rhetorical training methods and dynamics, music provides a useful context in which to consider rhetorical Here Quintilian articulates a critical intersection between rhetoric and athletics in the art of delivery. Quintilian described appropriate delivery as balanced, poised, evincing elegance, exuding propriety. These qualities, Aristotle claimed, could be learned from drama; indeed, the Greek word for delivery, hypokrisis, also meant acting. But Cicero located the roots of delivery elsewhere; in De Oratore, the character Crassus disagrees with the Aristotelian genealogy when he claims, But all these emotions must be accompanied by gesture-not this stagy gesture reproducing the words but one conveying the general situation and idea not by demonstration but by hints, with this vigorous manly (virili) throwing out of the chest, borrowed not from the stage and the theatrical profession but from the parade ground or even from wrestling (3.59.220) Further, the practice of shadowboxing or cheironomia, invoked by Crassus here, itself combines agonism, imitation, and the three Rs-rhythm, repetition, and responseand as such provided a useful model for rhetorical training. The Athenian stranger of Plato's Laws, for example, invokes this training technique as an analogue for the training of citizens, whom he refers to as "competitors in the greatest contests (athletas ton megist6n)": Johnstone, Christopher Lyle.
doi:10.2307/3250760
fatcat:rdkyq6mafrctzmuas63omx3sdu