Brainstorming is the word I first heard for prewriting all the way back in middle school. "Jot down ideas." One teacher said. Another teacher...told us to create brainstorm "webs" where you start with one idea in the middle and then branch of with different little bubbles...I never did that. I would begin my papers and just write and revise (or sometimes never revise) all throughout middle school and most of high school. Late in high school I took the advice of one particular professor and started with an outline. The outline could help with the flow of the whole paper, I was told. Several of my professors critiqued the placement of my paragraphs or sections of the piece. They'd suggest this paragraph go more towards the beginning, or after a preceding section. So I started using outlines for some of my papers, especially when I experienced difficulty beginning the piece. The most useful prewriting exercise I practice today is to "free write," or simply start writing ideas and continue scribbling without worrying about structure, spelling, grammar, or whatever. This helps me get my ideas down and stretch my writing muscles - so to speak. More recently for college papers I have used a combination of free-writing and outlining to begin an essay and it has worked out pretty well for me.
Encomium of Helen
The one section I didn't really understand was #10.
"Divine sweetness transmitted through words is inductive of pleasure, reductive of pain. Thus, by entering into the opinion of the soul the force of incantation is wont to beguile and persuade and alter it by witchcraft, and the two arts of witchcraft and magic are errors of the soul and deceivers of opinion."
May be best to go backwards: Errors of the soul (false belief) and deceivers of opinion (destructive gossip) are a type of witchcraft and magic. This is done by incantation or repetition (think mottos and slogans). To reduce pain and increase pleasure, speak divine words: "For God so loved the world that he gave his only son, and whosoever shall believe in him will not perish but have everlasting life."
ReplyDeleteYeah, pretty dense stuff. I think it means that "divine" words, in the form of persuasive speech, is hard for people to resist. Helen was a victim of wanting to believe the lies to reduce the pain of being taken captive. Perhaps she suffered from a kind of Stockholm syndrome. It's possible this phenomenon was observed by people at the time, but was thought to be the effects of some kind of witchcraft. Or perhaps he is just stretching the "powers" of persuasion into the supernatural to make a point. Whatever the case, he sure likes to use the negative connotation of witches in that section, doesn't he?
ReplyDeleteI would say rhetoric can be looked at as witchcraft that can heal the soul regardless of whether or not the words the speaker has spoken are true. Basically, it struck me as hearing what you want to hear in order to make yourself feel better or telling someone a lie in order to give him some sort of false hope. I do agree that Matt was making an interesting connection about Helen and Stockholm syndrome. I think people can be so consumed by their own unhappiness or displeasure that they will believe the lie in order to temporarily alleviate the suffering.
ReplyDeleteWords have the same sort of magical powers we attribute to witchcraft, that's how I read this...
ReplyDelete