Retórica Literária (not translated)
Code
722011125
Academic unit
Faculdade de Ciências Sociais e Humanas
Department
Ciências da Comunicação
Credits
10
Weekly hours
3 letivas + 1 tutorial
Teaching language
Portuguese
Objectives
The aim of this curricular unit is to promote a space of reflection on an area of communication which has been understudied in the Portuguese University. Literary Rhetoric has been gaining more and more attention by researchers in other countries, exploring themes that make it autonomous in regard to Stylistic or Literary Criticism as well as Argumentation Theory. What is at stake in Literary Rhetoric is to study the means of persuasion that can be found in the various forms of the literary text, throwing a fundamental light on its content. By reformulating concepts that have shaped the very affirmation of Rhetoric as a discipline throughout the Western cultural
tradition, Literary Rhetoric is nowadays a domain of knowledge absolutely necessary to understand the complex communicational processes which are at the bottom of the great literary creations of the past and, above all, of our times. Students are expected to be able to: 1) clearly identify the various rhetorical topics that can be found in a literary text; 2) understand and discuss these same topics as well as their implications for the understanding of the texts; 3) apply this knowledge to the analysis and creation of different communicational proposals.
Prerequisites
Subject matter
The seminar focuses on Wittgensteins various rhetorical strategies in the conception of his Philosophical Investigations. In this work, posthumously published in 1953, the author makes use of a variety of argumentative techniques that have attracted the interest of many scholars. These techniques include ironies, pseudo‐interlocutions or questions with no answer and, in the opinion of Stanley Cavell, [s]uch writing has its risks. Cavell concludes, however, that the author must take these risks if he wants to overcome the incongruence between what is said and what is meant or expressed.
In the course of our analysis we shall then try to clarify Cavells distinction between voice of temptation and voice of correction, which led to some readings of the Investigations, namely that of Alois Pichler, as a polyphonic album.
Bibliography
BAKER, Gordon (2004), Wittgensteins Method. Neglected Aspects, ed. Katherine J. Morris. Oxford: Blackwell.
CAVELL, Stanley (1986 (1962)), The Availability of Wittgensteins Later Philosophy, in Stuart Shanker (ed.), Ludwig Wittgenstein. Critical Assessments, vol. 2, From Philosophical Investigations to On Certainty: Wittgensteins Later Philosophy. London: Croom Helm, 36‐57.
LAUSBERG, Heinrich (52004) Elementos de Retórica Literária, tr. R. M. Rosado Fernandes, Lisboa, Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian.
PICHLER, Alois (2002), Drei Thesen zu der Entstehung und Eigenart der Philosophischen Untersuchungen: Fragment, Album, Polyphonie, in Rodolf Haller e Klaus Puhl (eds.), Wittgenstein and the Future of Philosophy. A Reassessment after 50 Years. Vienna, 355‐65.
PLETT, Heinrich F. (2009), Literary Rhetoric: Concepts Structures Analyses, Leiden, Brill Academic Publishers.
WITTGENSTEIN, Ludwig (42009), Philosophische Untersuchungen / Philosophical Investigations, ed. P. M. S. Hacker e Joachim Schulte, tr. G. E. M. Anscombe, P. M. S. Hacker e Joachim Schulte, Oxford, Wiley‐Blackwell. (Tradução da 2ª edição de 1958 por M. S. Lourenço, Investigações Filosóficas, in Tratado Lógico‐Filosófico e Investigações Filosóficas, Lisboa, Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, 1995 (1987), 159‐611.)
Teaching method
The method adopted for the seminar will combine exposition of the readings and commentaries on them along with discussion of student papers.
Evaluation method
Each student is required to write a paper (60%) to be presented and discussed in class (40%).