The Role of Criticism

 I. Rhetorical Approaches:

• • Rhetoric is the art of discovering all available means of persuasion. --Aristotle
  • Rhetoric as Ornamentation. --Isocrates
  • Rhetoric as Argumentation/Disputation.
  • Rhetoric as an educational tool.

• • Rhetoric is describing reality through language.
  • Rhetoric as creator of reality.
  • Rhetoric as metacommunication
  • Rhetoric as Drama

II. Criticism

• • To discover why something did or did not work.
  • As a way to enhance textual skills of the critic
  • To classify a text (genre criticism).
  • To explain a historical phenomenon (event, work, speaker, movement, campaign, etc.).

• • Formalism.
  • Traditional/Aristotelian
  • Dramatism
  • Symbolic Interactionism
  • Movement Theory
  • Experiential
  • Mythic/archetypal
  • Hermeneutic
  • Semiotic