Boethius was described as an important rhetorician who, ironically, did not place a high value on the study of rhetoric. In his piece "An Overview of the Structure of Rhetoric" his tone is reminiscent of the host of a nature documentary, watching rhetoric from afar. He is clinical and quick to point out the shortcomings of the field, as he makes it clear that rhetoric takes more diligence than skill. He does not laud himself as a teacher, and instead of providing examples on how to incorporate constitutio into speech, he briefly glosses over the obvious details in his impersonal overview. To me, it was obvious that Boethius was not deeply invested in rhetoric, as this comes across in his taxonomic approach to the "species of rhetoric".
The important lesson to learn from Boethius I felt, was that the whole is as influential as the sum of the parts. For instance, if the delivery, style or arrangement is off, the oration will suffer because it is impossible to properly cover such vital flaws when the audience is watching the orator's every move. Should one of these categories of the rhetorician's speech be lacking, the effect would be far less persuasive. This notion sheds light on the idea that while rhetorical speech is complex in definition, there are very basic needs, that could almost count as common sense, that must be satisfied in order for success. For instance, if the orator speaks too softly, this would be a demonstration of poor delivery which would greatly detract from the sum of the speech's parts. In essence, the intermingling components of spoken rhetoric can be likened to a stack of blocks, each dependent on the other- should one come loose, it is likely that the entire stack will fall. Execution is key to oration, and I feel that this makes it far more difficult than written argument where one can carefully formulate and structure their ideas as opposed to having to represent themselves through all of the various "species" that Boethius details. While Boethius does not convey an intimate relationship with his subject, he provides the reader with a useful summary of the essential parts of rhetoric.
I also felt that the most important thing out of this lecture and assigned reading was the development of a strong argument, in which Boethius addresses the necessary tools, such as complexity, delivery, and structure, that are truly essential to creating a strong and cohesive argument. Hannah's analysis of Boethius rings true: without his devoted interest within the field of rhetorics, it is interesting that he chose to be the rhetorician that he was. Although he followed the teachings of Aristotle quite closely, it was interesting to think of him after our classroom discussion as someone quite disconnected from rhetoric as a whole. I thought that this analysis proved helpful though, because the text showed the necessary tools to making a strong argument, which Boethius did practice in his own writings.
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