Vain Rhetoric: Private Insight and Public Debate in EcclesiastesThe Book of Ecclesiastes, like many ancient and modern first-person discourses, generates ambivalent responses in its readers. The book's rhetorical strategy produces both acceptance of, and suspicion towards, the major positions argued by the author. 'Vain rhetoric' aptly describes the persuasive and dissuasive properties of the narrator's peculiar characterization. It also describes how the Book of Ecclesiates, with its abundant use of rhetorical questions, constant gapping techniques, and other strategies from the arsenal of ambiguity, is a stunning testimony to the power of the various strategies of indirection to communicate to the reader something of his or her own rhetorical liabilities and limitations, as well as those of the religious community in general. |
Contents
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Chapter 2 READING ECCLESIASTES AS A FIRSTPERSON SCRIPTURAL TEXT | 62 |
AN OVERVIEW OF THE LINGUISTIC AND STRUCTURAL READER PROBLEMS IN THE BOOK OF ECCLESIASTES | 126 |
THE IRONIC USE OF PUBLIC AND PRIVATE KNOWLEDGE IN THE NARRATIVE PRESENTATION OF QOHELETH | 167 |
READER RELATIONSHIPS AND THE USE OF FIRSTPERSON DISCOURSE IN ECCLESIASTES 1169 | 239 |
THE EFFECT OF QOHELETHS FIRSTPERSON DISCOURSE ON READER RELATIONSHIPS IN ECCLESIASTES 6101214 | 326 |
SOME CONCLUSIONS | 380 |
WISDOM REFLECTIONS PUBLIC KNOWLEDGE IN THE BOOK OF ECCLESIASTES | 400 |
Bibliography | 403 |
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Other editions - View all
Vain Rhetoric: Private Insight and Public Debate in Ecclesiastes Gary D. Salyer Limited preview - 2001 |
Vain Rhetoric: Private Insight and Public Debate in Ecclesiastes Gary D. Salyer Limited preview - 2001 |
Vain Rhetoric: Private Insight and Public Debate in Ecclesiastes Gary D. Salyer No preview available - 2001 |
Common terms and phrases
ambiguity analysis argues audience begins Bible Biblical book of Ecclesiastes book's call to enjoyment canonical character characterize the narrator Chatman Christianson concludes context creates Crenshaw defamiliarize effect Epilogist epistemological ethos experience fictive first-person discourse first-person narration Form Critical frame-narrator function given hebel hermeneutical historical human I.A. Richards implied author implied reader interpretation interpretative community ironic irony Iser Johnson King's Fiction literary text Literature Loretz meaning metaphor Michael Fox model reader narratee/reader narrative Narratology narrator's nature noted Old Testament passage person perspective Poetics point of view post of observation postmodern present primacy effect private insight problem proverbs public knowledge Qohe Qoheleth Qoheleth's discourse Qoheleth's monologue reader critic reader-oriented Reader-Response Criticism recency effect reference regarding result Rhetorical Question role sage scepticism Scripture sense Solomon specific strategy structure T.A. Perry text's textual theme Theory third-person tion understanding utilizes valid values verses voice Whybray words