The Rhetorical Power in the Saint Augustine’s Confessions
In response to the following prompts, construct a coherent, nuanced argument supported with well-analyzed evidence from the text. Your paper should 4 full pages (excluding citation) in length and written in clear, grammatically, and orthographically correct sentences. Remember that written work should be titled, typed, paginated, and double-spaced with 1-inch margins all around. Use a 12-point, legible font (e.g. Times New Roman).
Prompt:
In the Confessions, Augustine seems to have an ambivalent attitude toward the use of language and the art of rhetoric (the art of persuasion): for instance, he disdains being a mere “salesman of words in the markets of rhetoric” at the same time that his own style (indeed even the phrase just mentioned) reveals remarkable rhetorical power. Formulate an argument about the role of rhetoric in the Confessions, paying attention to Augustine’s ideas about language and literature.
This is a literature analysis evidence-based essay. I uploaded the pdf version of the text; The assigned reading is the following and Please ONLY use the following section of the text (e.g. for evidence, quotes, content, etc ) for this Assignment：
St. Augustine, Confessions: Introduction + Books I-II, VIII
Rousseau, Confessions: Book 1
Please do NOT use or reference any other sources other than the assigned portion of
St. Augustine, Confessions. Please pay attention to use and add analysis of literary devices to your analysis. Thanks so much for your efforts
Hi, for this assignment, I want a writer whose major is literature; a Master's & Ph.D. degree is both fine. Thanks a lot
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#6 The Rhetorical Power in the Saint Augustine’s Confessions
The power of rhetoric can make a phenomenal transformation in one's cognition. Like St. Augustine, whose Confessions uses the art of language as an essential aspect to develop his ideas' meditative elements, it allows readers from all walks of life to comprehend his insights. Thus, Augustine's rhetoric in Confessions demonstrates a commitment to compellingly communicating truth, and direct readers' attitude through language and form, therefore, teaching and delighting them. In St. Augustine’s Confessions, Augustine utilizes multiple rhetorics to develop the meditative aspect for dualistic perspectives between his current and past mindset and to persuade the truth that has been perceived no matter how difficult it is; proving comprehension.
Augustine's memorable literal opening, via multiple dualistic questions, conveys human beings' utter dependence upon God by startlingly comparing to the flourish of praise to God. By launching into a highly rhetorical discussion of God's attributes, he illustrates metaphorically, "you have made us for yourself, and our heart is restless until it rests in you"(32) to depict the absolute dependence on God and all human impulses come from God. In contrast, Augustine induces a contradiction — mortal sin— which elaborates that humanity can blind God's dependency. This duality draws forth the text's central conflict: he is painfully separated from God, and he is struggling to return. By further describing God as "deeply hidden yet most intimately present," the duality between the diction "deeply hidden" and "most intimately present" (33) portrays the prominent stylistic that allows Augustine to awaken a sense of vivid mystery among the reader.
Following the logic of obscurity, through God's direct characterization by using the second pronoun, "you," Augustine starts to build a sense of the intimate relationship between God and humanity to appeal to the reader's pathos. Immediately, Augustin continually states, "gathering to yourself but not in need" and "you pay off debts, though owing nothing to anyone; you cancel debts and incur no loss"(36); these contradictions eventually revolve around God's generosity and highlight God's unfailing love towards the human. In weaving biblical verses together to start with the essential truth, Augustine expects to draw his readers to a better perception of God's grace by expressing his faith through the vehicle of his anecdote in the following paragraphs.
Turning into adolescence, Augustine portrays an anecdote of himself involved in stealing pears with his adolescent friends to discourage readers from violating social norms and providing a baseline for the later development of Augustine's return to God. With his fellow "a gang of naughty adolescents," Augustine stole "a huge load of pears" that is "attractive in neither color nor taste" and "not for our feasts but merely to throw to the pigs"(56). With the unapparent description of the pear, he illustrates, "I loved my fall, not the object for which I had fallen but my fall itself"(56), which significantly highlights the truth: his desire is not the object, the pears, but the excitement in committing the crime of thieving. The pear acts as a vehicle to satisfy his mental desires through material gains. Realizing his actions from his older self's dualistic perspective, Augustine perceives himself as "wickedness filled me"(56). The diction of "wickedness" symbolizes innate human egoism, the desire to commit a crim...