John Tennant
My research concerns the transmission of cultural wisdom in Greek prose and poetry and how this transmission was called into question in the late fifth century BCE – coming to a head in works by authors such as Euripides, Thucydides, and especially Plato. I explore how proverbs, aphorisms, and other rhetorical commonplaces become particularly important at times when shared discourse breaks down, when language itself becomes an object of mistrust. I received my PhD in Classics from the University of California, Los Angeles (2019) and my MA in Classics from Stanford University (2013).
The transformative potential of figurative speech employed in proverbs became apparent to me while practicing as a union labor lawyer, my previous profession. The law itself is arguably composed in large part of just such phrases, with similar normative aspirations. I received my Juris Doctor from Harvard Law School, where I first became interested in the seeming connections between modes of discourse and speakers’ ethics and moral values. In 2002-03, I received a Fulbright Post-Doc Research Fellowship to work with police unions and immigrants' rights advocates in Paris, France, studying the ways in which tensions might be reduced in the Parisian suburbs between rank-and-file police officers and the communities they serve, composed primarily of Muslim immigrants from the Maghreb.
My current project (a continuation of the subject of my dissertation) is to frame Plato’s Republic as an attempt to reform the state of discourse in a politico-discursive crisis that occurred toward the end of the fifth and beginning of the fourth century in Athens, by focusing on the previously unexplored role that proverbs and gnômai play in Plato’s creation of the ideal polis. Plato uses such commonplaces not solely for the purpose of lending his dialogue a more authentic character. Rather, they both elucidate the dynamics of power that inhere in the prevailing modes of Athenian discourse and provide a locus for Plato’s critique of the improper use of language. Plato reveals how discursive reform is inseparable from social and political reform. Proverbs, gnômai, and other rhetorical topoi serve collectively as one of the building blocks of a just society. Put simply, wordcraft is statecraft.
I am also working on an article that has its origins In an SCS paper I delivered in January 2016 on the notion of failure in Longinus’ On the Sublime, drawing parallels between Longinus and Samuel Beckett’s discourses on failure. I am also very interested in Virgil’s poetry (especially the pastoral poems) and the reception of Virgil and the larger classical tradition by Eastern European poets such as Joseph Brodsky and Zbigniew Herbert. The relation between my reading of ancient and modern poetry, ancient and modern law and discourse, has always been reciprocal, with texts from the ancient and modern worlds illuminating and reflecting back onto one another.
The transformative potential of figurative speech employed in proverbs became apparent to me while practicing as a union labor lawyer, my previous profession. The law itself is arguably composed in large part of just such phrases, with similar normative aspirations. I received my Juris Doctor from Harvard Law School, where I first became interested in the seeming connections between modes of discourse and speakers’ ethics and moral values. In 2002-03, I received a Fulbright Post-Doc Research Fellowship to work with police unions and immigrants' rights advocates in Paris, France, studying the ways in which tensions might be reduced in the Parisian suburbs between rank-and-file police officers and the communities they serve, composed primarily of Muslim immigrants from the Maghreb.
My current project (a continuation of the subject of my dissertation) is to frame Plato’s Republic as an attempt to reform the state of discourse in a politico-discursive crisis that occurred toward the end of the fifth and beginning of the fourth century in Athens, by focusing on the previously unexplored role that proverbs and gnômai play in Plato’s creation of the ideal polis. Plato uses such commonplaces not solely for the purpose of lending his dialogue a more authentic character. Rather, they both elucidate the dynamics of power that inhere in the prevailing modes of Athenian discourse and provide a locus for Plato’s critique of the improper use of language. Plato reveals how discursive reform is inseparable from social and political reform. Proverbs, gnômai, and other rhetorical topoi serve collectively as one of the building blocks of a just society. Put simply, wordcraft is statecraft.
I am also working on an article that has its origins In an SCS paper I delivered in January 2016 on the notion of failure in Longinus’ On the Sublime, drawing parallels between Longinus and Samuel Beckett’s discourses on failure. I am also very interested in Virgil’s poetry (especially the pastoral poems) and the reception of Virgil and the larger classical tradition by Eastern European poets such as Joseph Brodsky and Zbigniew Herbert. The relation between my reading of ancient and modern poetry, ancient and modern law and discourse, has always been reciprocal, with texts from the ancient and modern worlds illuminating and reflecting back onto one another.
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Papers by John Tennant
Plato's effort at discursive reform in the context of proverbial expressions that are themselves part of the larger Greek wisdom tradition parallels, in turn, the critique against poetry in the Republic. This is because many proverbs can be traced back to a particular poem and its poet. Condemnation of specific excerpted verses reflects, thus, not simply an objection to the purportedly immoral message Plato’s text attributes to such passages but, in addition, a recognition of the double life enjoyed by many of the verses as eminently quotable proverbs and gnômai. The “quotability” of poetry in a culture with a rich tradition of excerpting lines and compiling anthologies – part of the larger Greek educational and rhetorical framework that emphasized the memorization of poetry for use in argument, conversation and public speaking – poses an obstacle to any attempt to improve a society gone awry. Modern paroemiology has revealed that a key element of any proverb is the ease with which it can be recalled. Thus, to the extent that memorized lines of poetry are in fact proverbs and gnômai, such versified wisdom expressions must figure prominently in any effort at reform.
I proceed book by book through the Republic, analyzing Plato’s use of proverbs and gnômai. Book 1 can be viewed as an evolutionary “progression of proverbs” that ultimately leads to the first of what will be several definitions of “justice” which Socrates and his interlocutors consider. I re-frame the attacks against poetry in Books 2 and 3 as an exposition of the contest among competing “sayings” (legomena) which are themselves part of the linguistic behavior that constitutes a society’s discursive practices or “vocabularies.” In my reading of Books 3-7, I examine the relationship between proverbial sayings and the theoretical construction of the ideal polis as we witness Socrates and his interlocutors draw time after time from the pre-existing reservoir of traditional proverbs. Lastly, I analyze Plato’s increasing self-reflexivity in the use of proverbs in Republic 8-10, which provides a meta-commentary on the task of communicating Plato’s philosophy through the medium of language.
The article first examines the concept of “genre” in connection with forensic oratory. Drawing upon the work of Mikhail Bakhtin, Tzvetan Todorov, and Andrea Nightingale, the article establishes a consonance between these scholars’ conceptions of genre and what other scholars have defined as the “genre” of forensic oratory.
The article then takes up the question of why Plato’s Apology traditionally has been excluded from this genre. I argue that certain views concerning the presumed historicity of speeches awarded the label of “forensic oratory” need to be reexamined, as there is no clear evidence that the Athenians required historical accuracy of the speeches we now classify as forensic oratory. By removing the requirement of historicity, we gain a more accurate picture of what constitutes forensic oratory and why Plato’s Apology deserves membership in this genre.
The article then examines in detail various rhetorical topoi in the Apology. I argue that by manipulating and reworking such topoi, Plato expands and redefines the genre of forensic oratory to include the new discursive practice of philosophy. The article reveals how Plato’s redefinition of the boundaries of forensic oratory transformed a criminal defendant’s speech in a court of law into the sine qua non of the philosopher and the philosophic life.
Keywords: forensic oratory; Plato; Apology of Socrates; genre.
Plato's effort at discursive reform in the context of proverbial expressions that are themselves part of the larger Greek wisdom tradition parallels, in turn, the critique against poetry in the Republic. This is because many proverbs can be traced back to a particular poem and its poet. Condemnation of specific excerpted verses reflects, thus, not simply an objection to the purportedly immoral message Plato’s text attributes to such passages but, in addition, a recognition of the double life enjoyed by many of the verses as eminently quotable proverbs and gnômai. The “quotability” of poetry in a culture with a rich tradition of excerpting lines and compiling anthologies – part of the larger Greek educational and rhetorical framework that emphasized the memorization of poetry for use in argument, conversation and public speaking – poses an obstacle to any attempt to improve a society gone awry. Modern paroemiology has revealed that a key element of any proverb is the ease with which it can be recalled. Thus, to the extent that memorized lines of poetry are in fact proverbs and gnômai, such versified wisdom expressions must figure prominently in any effort at reform.
I proceed book by book through the Republic, analyzing Plato’s use of proverbs and gnômai. Book 1 can be viewed as an evolutionary “progression of proverbs” that ultimately leads to the first of what will be several definitions of “justice” which Socrates and his interlocutors consider. I re-frame the attacks against poetry in Books 2 and 3 as an exposition of the contest among competing “sayings” (legomena) which are themselves part of the linguistic behavior that constitutes a society’s discursive practices or “vocabularies.” In my reading of Books 3-7, I examine the relationship between proverbial sayings and the theoretical construction of the ideal polis as we witness Socrates and his interlocutors draw time after time from the pre-existing reservoir of traditional proverbs. Lastly, I analyze Plato’s increasing self-reflexivity in the use of proverbs in Republic 8-10, which provides a meta-commentary on the task of communicating Plato’s philosophy through the medium of language.
The article first examines the concept of “genre” in connection with forensic oratory. Drawing upon the work of Mikhail Bakhtin, Tzvetan Todorov, and Andrea Nightingale, the article establishes a consonance between these scholars’ conceptions of genre and what other scholars have defined as the “genre” of forensic oratory.
The article then takes up the question of why Plato’s Apology traditionally has been excluded from this genre. I argue that certain views concerning the presumed historicity of speeches awarded the label of “forensic oratory” need to be reexamined, as there is no clear evidence that the Athenians required historical accuracy of the speeches we now classify as forensic oratory. By removing the requirement of historicity, we gain a more accurate picture of what constitutes forensic oratory and why Plato’s Apology deserves membership in this genre.
The article then examines in detail various rhetorical topoi in the Apology. I argue that by manipulating and reworking such topoi, Plato expands and redefines the genre of forensic oratory to include the new discursive practice of philosophy. The article reveals how Plato’s redefinition of the boundaries of forensic oratory transformed a criminal defendant’s speech in a court of law into the sine qua non of the philosopher and the philosophic life.
Keywords: forensic oratory; Plato; Apology of Socrates; genre.