Words on Fire
Eloquence and Its Conditions

Ranging from Cicero's Rome to contemporary politics, Words on Fire is a provocative rethinking of political eloquence for our time.

Rob Goodman (Author)

9781316517659, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 16 December 2021

200 pages
23.6 x 15.9 x 2 cm, 0.501 kg

'This book stands at the intersection of the current revivals of rhetoric in political theory, of Roman political thought, and of civic republicanism. Although many books and essays are worthy additions to these burgeoning fields, Goodman's Words on Fire is a 'must read' for both students and scholars who are at all interested in the renaissance of these studies. For Goodman, the Ciceronian rhetorical tradition offers itself as a critique of the 'technologization of politics,' which has come to include the use of an 'algorithmic' rhetoric to deny agency to both orator/politician and audience/citizenry. In opposition to this undermining of political choice, Goodman shows how Cicero and his successors present us with a rhetorical alternative, in which political speakers exercise the virtues of risk and in which democratic citizens make themselves vulnerable to altering their opinions in response to the persuasive abilities of political rhetors.' Gary Remer, Tulane University

Why is political rhetoric broken – and how can it be fixed? Words on Fire returns to the origins of rhetoric to recover the central place of eloquence in political thought. Eloquence, for the orators of classical antiquity, emerged from rhetorical relationships that exposed both speaker and audience to risk. Through close readings of Cicero – and his predecessors, rivals, and successors – political theorist and former speechwriter Rob Goodman tracks the development of this ideal, in which speech is both spontaneous and stylized, and in which the pursuit of eloquence mitigates political inequalities. He goes on to trace the fierce disputes over Ciceronian speech in the modern world through the work of such figures as Burke, Macaulay, Tocqueville, and Schmitt, explaining how rhetorical risk-sharing has broken down. Words on Fire offers a powerful critique of today's political language – and shows how the struggle over the meaning of eloquence has shaped our world.

Introduction: 'Just Words'
Part 1. Eloquence and the Ancients: 1. 'I Tremble with My Whole Heart': Cicero on the Anxieties of Eloquence
2. The Parthenon and the Outhouse: Cicero's Demosthenes and the Uses of Style
Part 2. Eloquence and the Moderns: 3. Edmund Burke and the Deliberative Sublime
4. Debatable Land: Macaulay, Tocqueville, and the Art of Judgment
5. Speaking 'As If': Carl Schmitt and Rhetoric as Ritual
Conclusion: On Not Listening.

Subject Areas: Political science & theory [JPA], History of ideas [JFCX], Social & political philosophy [HPS], Historical & comparative linguistics [CFF]