Roman Quintilian Rhetoric

“A great speech, rational or emotional, has the power to influence, challenge or persuade more than one audience.” Write an essay response supporting your argument to this statement in a close analysis of how three speeches have been crafted.
Roman rhetorician Quintilian once commented, “And what, after all, is an orator? Not a good speaker, but a good person speaking well..." Great speeches influence, challenge or persuade audiences from any context because they are messages ‘good' people have imparted upon human society to urge moral and social progress. Some orators such as Socrates focus on logical argument, whilst others such as Lincoln and Levertov use the emotional powers of their rhetoric. However, they all expound universally appreciated
Through the emotional and ideological power of his rhetoric, Lincoln’s speech not only inspires Union soldiers to create a free and just world, but also reinvigorates this intrinsically human struggle for moral progress within responders from any context. The allusions to the Declaration of Independence at the onset of the speech, with the direct quote of the iconic line “all men are created equal”, immediately appeals to the human desire for Liberty, and a yearning for the values of freedom and equality to emerge in the world is immediately felt by both Union troops and future responders. Lincoln further utilises the anti-thesis, “The world will little note, nor long remember, what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here”, to raise permanent and everlasting images of sacrifice for the ideals which his symbolic nation represents- freedom and equality- inspiring all audiences to similarly fight for moral progress. The epistrophe of ‘people’ in “that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth” re-enforces the image of human liberation. Combined with the juxtaposition of the moralistic ‘perish’ with the idea of ‘birth’, Lincoln simultaneously inspires and burdens Union troops to persevere in defending the nation- a living, evolving and ever-changing
These values have resonated down from Socrates’ to Lincoln’s and finally Levertov’s orations, and they continue to influence, persuade and challenge responders from any context to critically perceive and improve their own societies. As in Lincoln’s oration, Levertov uses rhetoric to sway our emotions. The hyperbolised oxymoron “a ‘balanced’ view of genocide”, combined with repeatedly re-enforced images of decay and destruction through long sentences of anaphoric listing, has an amplified emotional effect in highlighting the morally degraded state of society, challenging 1970s audiences to act. These images of decay simultaneously evoke an emotional response within future responders, forcing them to consider the enduring social and moral issue of war. Images of tranquility and beauty, “the spring sunshine, the new leaves” are contrasted to the reality of 1970s society. The universal appreciation of this image of beauty and peace not only influenced Levertov’s American audience to oppose the horror that was the Vietnam War, but continues to force future responders to question the very notion of warfare and oppose this impediment on society’s moral progress. Indeed, this indictment of governmental control over the moral direction of society is