Last Fall, I wrote a brief essay about the Progymnasmata, an ancient Greek curriculum for rhetorical education. The Progymnasmata consists of nine constituent parts, rhetorical genres to be mastered in chronological order, to break the learning of civil discourse into manageable parts. The idea is that all these rhetorics will come together to form what rhetorician Manfred Kraus calls “a kind of universal text-producing machine that could produce any sort of text at any required length for any imaginable occasion.”1 That may sound a little dramatic, but the idea of the Progymnasmata was to make speakers so well-rounded that they can potentially lead society.
In an age defined by outrage, polarization, and mutual misunderstanding, I think contemporary America is in dire need of well-rounded speakers.
I believe the Greeks were onto something with the Progymnasmata, but we need not go through the whole thing right now. Instead, I want to focus on the first three parts because they all constitute a skill I think is more important now than it has ever been for helping stabilize cohabitation in a pluralistic and civil society: storytelling.
The first three genres of the Progymnasmata are all about the general idea of a story: Fable, Narrative, and Chreia (anecdote).
Fable: a fictional and often fantastical story meant to teach a lesson
Narrative: A story about something that happened or is said to have happened, formatted by plot, setting, character, conflict, and theme.
Chreia: an anecdote about a famous person’s statements to teach a lesson.
The genres of fable and chreia are appropriate for particular audiences, but, as I will try to explain, the skill most universal, and most direly needed in American society, may be narrative.
Crafting a Good Narrative
Many rhetoricians have written and argued about the power of narrative, but they all seem to agree that, to varying degrees, humans are storytelling creatures. They also agree to a large extent that everything is a story; that is, everything has a narrative explanation for why it exists, from our thoughts to our actions. A feeling, whether individual or communal, has a previous story that causes and/or justifies it.
That said, narrative is more than simply telling a story. According to Aphthonius2, writer of the most well-known treatment of the Progymnasmata in Ancient Greece, said Narration must have six components: the person doing the action, the action itself, the time, the place, and the cause and delivery of the act. Kenneth Burke, a prominent 20th century rhetorician, called this criteria “dramatism” and rendered its parts as a “pentad” of scene, agent, agency, purpose, and act.
Both these authors agree that a plot of some sort is necessary, and in that plot a specific act or thought is implicitly or explicitly justified or condemned. We can see echoes of this take on storytelling in journalist education, in which burgeoning writers are told to be sure to address the “Who, What, Where, When, Why, and How” of each situation. These considerations are imperative to comprehensive storytelling.
But that is not the only criterion. Aphthonius also insisted that good narrative must be clear, concise, plausible, and pure in diction. The first two criteria are quite understandable; a storyteller should be as clear as possible and get to the point relatively quickly. However, I believe the latter two criteria are the most relevant for our purposes; they determine how strongly a clear and concise story can land.
Setting a Story
Amphthonius wrote that a story had to make logical and chronological sensed and it had to sound authentically Greek, because he was thinking solely of a Hellenistic audience. We can read this as gearing one’s language, historical references, and consideration of values in ways an audience would recognize and respect.3 Contemporary rhetoricians like Walter Fisher call this “narrative probability” and “narrative fidelity.”
In “Narration as a Human Communication Paradigm: The Case of Public Moral Argument,” Fisher defines narrative probability as coherence: how well a story holds together. Do the events, characters, and facts line up? Narrative fidelity is about how well a story resonates with a particular audience: how does a story align with the references, values, attitudes, beliefs, and already accepted stories of the audience in a way that will most likely result in persuasion. According to Fisher, narrative probability and fidelity are essential for getting one’s point across. Along with clarity and concision, these concepts of probability and fidelity will make for a powerful story.4
Why Narrative Matters More than Ever
So, why do I focus on narrative as opposed to other genres in the Progymnasmata? Well, one’s reputation and credibility is based on a perceived story about one’s life. And, whether we realize it or not, one’s conclusions and beliefs are the products of a story of how a person came to those conclusions and beliefs. If we want people to understand us (who we are and why we have certain beliefs), and sound logic is not doing the trick (as contemporary American society shows clearly), maybe narrative, i.e., an argument or explanation wrapped in a relatable story, can do the trick.
However, we have to acknowledge that there are competing narratives; everyone has a story, and some of them may contradict the lessons of our own preferred narratives. Comparing conflicting stories may be more civil than trading well-reasoned conclusions about the world. Conclusions feel, well, conclusive; they feel done. Stories, although they have an end, can easily keep going in our minds.
We can always create better and more beneficial stories.
Manfred Kraus, “Aphthonius and the Progymnasmata in Rhetorical Theory and Practice,” in Sizing Up Rhetoric (Long Grove, IL: Waveland Press, 2008), 59.
Other prominent authors of antiquity put forth their similar versions of the Progymnasmata, especially Theon and Pseudo-Hermogenes, but Aphthonius’s text has won out over the millennia.
George Kennedy, The Progymnasmata: Greek Textbooks of Prose Composition (Atlanta, GA: The Society of Biblical Literature), 96-97.
Walter Fisher, ““Narration as a Human Communication Paradigm: The Case of Public Moral Argument” Communication Monographs 51, no. 1 (1984), 1-22.