Historical Analysis

Development of Historical Analysis

Prior to the 20th century, communication as an academic discipline was housed in English departments. Scholars attempted to study discourse as though it were a sample of literature, rather than as a discrete and specialized form of communication with its own methodology and constraints. The public presentation of speeches helped initiate the elocution movement that attempted to attribute specific message meaning to gestures, facial expressions, and body positioning. This was a fad that soon fell into disfavor, and there was little academic exploration and analysis of this concept. However, in 1925 Herbert Wichelns revolutionized the way scholars considered public address. His essay, “The Literary Criticism of Oratory,” spawned a new avenue for scholarship called historical analysis or neo-Aristotelian criticism.

Wichelns posited that speeches held a vastly different purpose than literature, and therefore must be evaluated differently. Speeches, he believed, were concerned with effect on the audience. To assess public addresses, he suggested, one should turn to Aristotle’s Rhetoric for guidance. In performing neo-Aristotelian or historical criticism, scholars could simply examine extant speech transcripts and source materials within the framework of the canons of rhetoric that Aristotle delineated. First, this analytical process requires the scholar to reconstruct the context of the speech, including the occasion of the address and audience factors. This required an in-depth consideration of the social and historical milieu. A scholar would then do a close textual analysis to evaluate the rhetor’s use of ethos (credibility), logos (evidence and reasoning), and pathos (emotional appeals). The incorporation of ethos, pathos, and logos are considered to be the process of invention. Next, a scholar would assess the rhetor’s organization of ideas and consider how the arrangement of arguments could impact the speech. The critic must then cast his or her attention to the rhetor’s style. This included word choice and imagery, such as the use of metaphors, similes, repetition, and alliteration.

Delivery and memory comprise the final two canons of rhetoric. An analysis of delivery considers how the presentation of the speech could impact its success. Memory is a nearly antiquated concept in its original sense, which asked critics to evaluate the rhetor’s grasp of the material. With the advent of teleprompters, this category is seldom considered relevant now. Ultimately, the critic would determine if the speech had been successful or if a rhetor had used all of the available means of persuasion. History is replete with discourse to study, and scholars [Page 664]began evaluating what many considered to be the great speeches given throughout the ages. In 1943 this process culminated with a collection of essays in a two-volume set called A History and Criticism of American Public Address. Edited by William Norwood Brigance, the work considered key eras such as the colonial period and the early national period in the United States and featured historical and rhetorical analyses of major figures such as Jonathan Edwards, Henry Ward Beecher, and William Lloyd Garrison. Marie Hochmuth later compiled a third volume of the same name, published in 1955.

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