The Roman rhetoricians task of dividing rhetoric into five canons was important, because prior to their idea of organizing and creating the speeches beforehand based on certain stands, the rhetors in Roman society had no common or reproducible method by which to create their speeches. Over the years, different canons have gained attention and been taught be in different ways, but these canons have always provided a template for the criticism of discourse (especially orations) and they have given a pattern for rhetorical education.
Each canon has a specific function in persuasion-invention is the means by which you find ways to persuade; arrangement involves putting together your argument in a specific structure; style is the way in which you present the argument in a beautiful or pleasing way; memory is when you use certain devices or schemas to help you prepare or memorize your text; and delivery is the way of making effective use of voice and gesture.
We tend to associate memory and delivery with acting and/or when speaking in front of a group based on a memorized speech, which is not always part of our modern process of persuasion. In fact, an important difference between the canons use in Roman times and how they are used in modernity is that memory and delivery have consistently received less attention than the other canons of invention, arrangement and style.
Each canon has a specific use in that also reveals certain theoretical notions of what persuasion entails. In fact, Sharon Crowley argues that the emphasis on different canons over time reflect the shift away from communal thought to individualistic thought. The shift also reveals the change from oral to textual persuasion, in which delivery and memory tend to be of less importance.
Style has also been of different types depending on the role of persuasion in culture. The rhetorical process of preaching has always emphasized style, since Augustine’s time. In fact, Ramus viewed style and delivery as purview of rhetoric, while others claimed it was a function of philosophical thought. In modern day, Chaim Perelman saw style as essential to giving audience a connection to ideas and the process writing movement saw style as equal to voice or the expression of individuality.
Sharon Crowley also notes that the current-traditional wave of rhetoric at the beginning of the century taught in composition courses limited the discussion of canons to that of arrangement and style. It wasn’t until writing studies emerged as a field in the 1970s that delivery began to be considered and delivery was further reanimated when the field’s attention turned to electronic and digital media.
Fundamentally, the canons have always reflected the way in which rhetoric has been tailored to the public life, whether that of Greece, Rome, the Church, all the way to the modern political arena. We can see how our own public discussions via cable news, twitter, facebook and other medias emphasize different canons. Now we see discussions of how the medium (electronic, visual, commercial) determine not only what is delivered, but the other elements of the canon like style, arrangement, and invention.
