The Styles of Gorgias

From Style to Substance

An interpretive strategy used in several recent studies of Gorgias involves attending to his style as a means of understanding his substantive ideas. This hermeneutic approach is not confined to studies of Gorgias, of course, for critics have frequently explored the ways in which a philosopher’s manner of writing-- his or her use of the aphorism, meditation, dialogue, philosophical poem, or “remark,” for example-- may elucidate the content of his or her thinking. But the strategy has proved especially inviting for interpreting Gorgias for two reasons. First, the “substance” of Gorgias’ thought is particularly elusive, not only because much of his writing is lost and his few extant texts are frequently fragmentary and corrupt, but because he leaves many key terms undefined and ambiguous, and he appears to make contradictory assertions and claims. In this context, a strategy of reading that purports to clarify and render coherent his enigmatic thought is understandably appealing. Second, the hermeneutic strategy is particularly inviting because Gorgias himself seems to have attached enormous importance to his style, one often associated with such figures of speech as antithesis, anadiplosis (repetition of words), homoeoteleuton (likeness of sound in final syllables of successive words or clauses) and parisosis (arrangement of words in nearly equal periods). Given Gorgias’ attention to matters of style, it is not unreasonable to presume that they may offer a clue to understanding his enigmatic philosophy. In this essay, I will examine two prominent schools of critics who employ this hermeneutic strategy, and who arrive at conflicting interpretations of Gorgias’ overall “philosophy.” I then argue that each of these readings misconstrues the nature of Gorgias’ writing, and I present an alternative reading of his style. I conclude by suggesting that given his stylistic practice, Gorgias may possess a different conception of “philosophy” than that presumed by many of his interpreters.

Before examining these two schools of interpretation, it is useful to place them in respect to what may be termed the “traditional” construal of Gorgias’ style and its implications about his putative philosophy. For traditionally, most critics have seen Gorgias’ style as “poetic,” and have viewed his apparent preoccupation with style as an indication that he not a serious philosopher at all, but rather a mere “stylist,” an orator who deploys poetic devices to embellish his speeches. This view is first suggested by Plato, who describes Gorgias’ style as an “elegant feast” designed to please an audience rather than explore philosophical issues (Gorgias 447a). Aristotle echoes this portrayal of Gorgias as a poetic stylist lacking serious ideas, asserting that:

Since, though speaking absurdities, the poets seemed to have acquired their present fame through their style, for this reason prose style was in the first instance poetic, like that of Gorgias. And even now, many uneducated people think such stylists express themselves best (Rhetoric 1404a 24-8).

This construal of Gorgias as a poetic stylist is iterated by numerous classical critics who portray Gorgias as a stylist indifferent to “substantive issues” (DK Al, la, 2, 4, 21, 30, 32, 35); and it has persisted in the modern era as well, with critics characterizing Gorgias as a poetic orator offering “a plethora of words and a paucity of ideas” (Van Hook 122); “an artist in words and not a man with a message” (Smith 354); a writer who “simply borrowed a number of the techniques of poetry and developed to an extreme the natural Greek habit of antithesis” (Kennedy 64); and an orator in whose writing “there is nothing of philosophical importance; only a kind of clever-silliness” (Robinson 59). In Robert Connors’ version of this critical commonplace, “rhetoric for Gorgias was extremely poetical . . . abundant [in its] use of every poetic device-antithesis, isocolon, parison, homoeoteleuton--except meter . . . .His style is a result of his discovery of a techne by which he could most effectually tap the response of orally conditioned minds and provoke that poetic response through rhetoric” (48).

This construal of Gorgias as a “poetic” stylist is useful for understanding the two schools of critics under consideration, for in their project of “rehabilitating” Gorgias as a serious thinker, each school tends to retain the commonplace that Gorgias writes “poetically.” In this vein, each contends that Gorgias’ poetic style is integral to his enigmatic thought; that it is only through figurative speech that he is able to articulate what Richard Enos calls his “clear-cut epistemology” (51). The first school originates with Mario Untersteiner, whose approach is shared to varying degrees by Enos, Bruce Gronbeck and Richard Engnell. According to Untersteiner, Gorgias’ style is indeed poetic, in that it is replete with numerous figures of speech which, “before invading Gorgias’ artistic prose, [were] used by poetry, which influenced him” (200-201). Like the poets he draws from, Gorgias uses these figures “mimetically,” to represent or replicate the truth about things in themselves. But Gorgias departs from many poets in that he deploys these figures 44 epistemologically,” in order to display a view of reality that resists articulation in “rational” discourse. That is, he deploys poetic figures to represent or replicate the essential Truth about reality by “introducing them into a philosophical concept of life and into a tragic comprehension of reality” (201). These poetic figures are superficially quite diverse, but are in fact grounded on one distinctive figure, that of antithesis, wherein “opposite concepts are contrasted” (200). For such figures as isokola, homoeoteleuton, and parisosis, in balancing phrases and clauses, serve to elaborate and underscore the central antitheses of the text, and to provide each with “a stricter conceptual unity of its own, allowing its constituents to appear more clearly” (200).

The figure of antithesis is crucial, according to Untersteiner, for it enables Gorgias to replicate or imitate stylistically a “tragic” antithesis that is present in reality itself. That is, “by revealing an essential element in his own language he [shows) how reality [is] stamped throughout with the same pattern: the irreducibility of the antitheses (my italics)” (194). In Enos’s terms, Gorgias uses the antithesis as a fundamental methodological instrument, in that his “rhetoric stressed an antithesis which went beyond the stylistic form that earned him distinction to reveal and direct a philosophical method of inquiry” (45). The poetic figure of antithesis is indispensable for articulating the truth about Reality, because one of the fundamental aspects of this antithesis is a “tragic” conflict between Being and human understanding and logos, itself. As Gronbeck notes, the “tragedy of knowledge” is two-fold, for “Man seeking true knowledge is frustrated with the gulf between the non-rationality of the gods and the attempted rationality of his own mind; further, man working to convey what partial knowledge he has must move through the medium of logoi and by genus psyche, which is as capable of disease as the body” (3 1). Or, according to Engnell, “[f]or Gorgias, knowledge was tragic because when man approached the world rationally, through logos, he was always forced into contradiction or led to antithetical conclusions” (176). To attempt to argue for the notion that the Truth about reality cannot be proved is inherently contradictory and self-refuting; and Gorgias’ way to avoid such a dilemma is to use a “poetic” technique, and to thereby show through “imitation” what that reality is. In short, Gorgias is able to apprehend the true nature of reality, but also to recognize that he cannot “logically” articulate it. He circumvents this difficulty by using an antithetical style that in effect shows the Truth in a “non-logical” or poetic manner.

If this school sees Gorgias” “poetic” style as a mimetic display of the inherently antithetical nature of reality, a second school of critics interprets his style as expressive rather than mimetic, and infers that for Gorgias every account of ‘reality” is an arbitrary expression of the poetic rhetor. In this sense, Gorgias’ expressive style reflects a subjectivism, whereby one can never apprehend any “external” reality whatsoever. In this vein, Laszlo Versenyi argues that “Gorgias’ conception of the power of the word makes him more akin to the lyric poets who, instead of enlightening man, gratify, delight him, and provide an escape from his plight” (52). Because he considers “everyday life to be deluded, ignorant, unessential, and unsafe,” according to Versenyi, Gorgias uses his expressive style to generate imaginative alternatives to everyday life, offering “release and salvation through an escape into a better, more essential, and sounder realm” (52). In Charles Segal’s terms, Gorgias “transfers the emotive devices and effects of poetry to his own prose,” a practice whereby “logos is ... free from the exigencies of mimetic adherence to physical reality.... (107).” Gorgias is a subjectivist for whom what is called “reality” dwells only “in the human psyche and its malleability and susceptibility to the effects of linguistic coruscation” (107). And according to Jacqueline de Romilly, Gorgias is a “skeptic” who denies the possibility of knowledge, and whose poetic magic “rests on the notion that all truth is out of reach (my italics)” (20).

Perhaps the fullest version of this interpretation of Gorgias’ style is offered by Eric White, who sees Gorgias’ endlessly creative and figurative style as exemplifying a “will to spontaneity,” one by which he expresses new and illusory spheres of belief in an every-changing moment (21). Unlike Untersteiner, who sees Gorgias as systematically deploying the traditional figure of the antithesis, White sees Gorgias’ style as constantly innovative, lyrically originating novel figures from moment to moment. That is, Gorgias composes “an endlessly proliferating style deployed according to no overarching principle or rational design” (21), whereby he “restlessly experiments with the style of utterance in the hope of producing genuine novelty” (30). And unlike Untersteiner, who asserts that Gorgias’ antithetical style replicates the tragic architecture of reality itself, White argues that for Gorgias each whimsical figure of speech creates its own illusory domain, in that Gorgias “discovers in every new occasion a unique opportunity to confer meaning on the world” (14). Gorgias’ style thus reveals his underlying epistemology to be a subjectivism wherein each novel creation is an expression of his personal “whim,” an “ultimately arbitrary imposition of form upon the teeming variety of the world (my italics)” (36). And his capricious figuration implies that every ostensibly mimetic verbal account of an external reality is deceptive insofar as it is taken as an accurate representation of how things really are. Hence Gorgias implies in his style that, as Untersteiner notes, “‘tragic contrariety,’ in the last analysis, is only a figure of speech” (41-42).

The Styles of Adaptation

We are thus confronted with two conflicting analyses of Gorgias’ style and its epistemological significance, the former holding that Gorgias’ antitheses offer an insight into the tragic antitheses inherent in reality; the latter maintaining that Gorgias’ arbitrarily invented metaphors imply that any understanding of reality is forever out of reach. Whereas each of these construals provides a coherent interpretation of his style and thereby seems to “rehabilitate” Gorgias as a “clear-cut” epistemologist, I contend the readings do not accurately characterize his actual stylistic practice. For each of these approaches to Gorgias’ style may be termed “ahistorical,” in that they in effect isolate Gorgias’ works from their historical and cultural setting, and attempt to discern a coherent stylistic pattern within “the works themselves.” This approach is misleading, for it relies completely on how Gorgias’ style appears to us today, and makes no attempt to discern how it would have appeared to the audiences to which he addressed his works. Drawing on a distinction offered by Richard Rorty, we may say that each school offers a “rational” reconstruction of Gorgias’ style, attempting to assess it on the basis of how it sounds to our own ears, rather than attempting a “historical” reconstruction designed to discern how it would have been received by Gorgias’ contemporaries. In this section of my essay, I undertake a “historical” reconstruction of Gorgias’ style, placing each of Gorgias’ four major extant works among other texts in their respective genres. That is, I situate the Epitaphios, the Encomium for Helen, the Apology For Palamedes, and On Nature or Not-Being in the respective genres of the Athenian funeral oration, the Discourse on Helen of Troy, the Athenian legal Apology, and the Eleatic metaphysical tract. Drawing on recent philological and historical research in each of these four genres, I argue that in each of his works Gorgias adapts his style of writing to the vocabulary and protocols of speaking and reasoning of each genre or “discourse.” In short, I contend that rather than writing in a consistently “antithetical” or arbitrarily “innovative” style, Gorgias instead exhibits a diverse, chameleon-like manner of writing and speaking designed to adapt to the constraints of distinct, recognizable genres.

I turn first to Gorgias’ Epitaphios or “Athenian Funeral Oration,” a work which seems to exemplify the putative “Gorgian” style most strikingly. To our ears, Gorgias’ writing may seem highly antithetical and excessively ornate, giving credence to the readings of both Untersteiner and White; yet when we place Gorgias’ text among other extant Athenian funeral orations, we find that its antitheses and ornamentation emulate the expected stylistic conventions of the genre. An examination of the funeral orations of Lysias, Pericles, Hyperides and Plato all show that Gorgias’ use of formal and stately figures is quite in keeping with the conventions of the Epitaphios, an officially sanctioned military and political oration serving to honor the dead and reinforce communal virtues. A detailed analysis of the topoi and figures of these extant orations lies beyond the scope of this essay; but it may be noted that in his use of antithesis, as well as of homoioteleuta, parisosis and isokola, he echoes rather than departs from its formal and antithetical figuration. In Nicole Loraux’s terminology, “the Sophist, an opportunist in form as well as in content, has turned to the advantage of his own thought themes proper to the funeral oration. ... appropriating a fixed form to which he had first to subject himself” (227-228). The somber sonorities, repetition of sounds, and rigorous formality of Gorgias’ style is paradigmatic of the Athenian funeral oration rather than idiosyncratic; and what many critics identify as peculiarly “Gorgian” might better be described as typical of these works. Indeed, the paradigmatic status of Gorgias’ text is underscored by examining the Menexenus, wherein Plato parodies the entire genre of the funeral oration. For in his parody Plato mimics several of Gorgias’ specific phrases, suggesting that Gorgias’ oration is representative of the genre as a whole in both its content and its style (Loraux, 313).

If Gorgias adapts his manner of writing to the formal style of the funeral oration in his Epitaphios, he adapts to the very different conventions of epic, lyric and dramatic poetry in his Encomium of Helen. Indeed, the style of Helen differs from that of the Epitaphios to such an extent that some scholars have contended that the two texts are by different authors, Jebb asserting that Helen does not “bear any distinctive marks of the style of Gorgias,” and Spengel attributing it to Polykrates (101). This difference in the two styles is obvious even in translation; for whereas Gorgias uses antithesis throughout the Epitaphios, he uses this figure far less often in Helen, and instead deploys the more typically “poetic” figures of metaphor, simile, and personification. Indeed, Poulakos suggests that Gorgias uses Helen to personify his own art of rhetoric, defending Helen as a pretext for defending his often-maligned art (Helen 1-16). Gorgias’ use of conventionally “poetic” figures rather than the formal figures of sound found in the Epitaphios is understandable, for the style of what may be labeled the “discourse on Helen” is a distinctively imaginative literary discourse, in contrast to the more temporally and stylistically restricted funeral oration. But the predominant commonplaces and tropes in the discourse on Helen are nevertheless quite recognizable; and Gorgias’ use of these devices echoes their use by Homer, Stasinos, Stesichorus, Aeschylus and Euripides (Lindsay, 156; Suzuki, 15).

In the Palamedes, next, Gorgias adapts to yet another contemporary style of writing, employing the acceptable figures of speech and thought found in typical fifth-century Athenian legal apologies. As with the case of Helen, critics have disputed Gorgias’ authorship of the work precisely because of the marked difference in style between it and his other writings (Untersteiner 95). In this vein, Theodor Gomperz notes that classical critics distinguish between the ceremonial style which is “brilliant, exalted, stately, flowery and full of color,” and a forensic style that is “sharp, cool, clear and sober” (477); and presuming that he is indeed its author, Gorgias shows that he is master of each. As in the case of the Epitaphios, Gorgias’ success in adapting to the structural and stylistic constraints of the legal apology is attested to by Plato’s choice of the Palamedes as a model to imitate and parody in his Apology. For as James Coulter notes, Plato employs many of the same commonplaces and phrases as does Gorgias, among which are reference to the defendant’s modest wealth as proof of sincerity, the claim to be a benefactor of the judges, the falsity and contradictory nature of the charge, the lack of personal gain from committing such a crime, the use of logical rather than emotional appeal, the exhortation not to hurry what old age win soon bring about; the distinction between words and deeds; the future condemnation of the jury if it condemns an innocent defendant; the preference of death to dishonor (31-67). Plato’s choice of Gorgias’ work to parody strengthens the argument that Gorgias’ style is representative of the legal apology rather than a consistently “antithetical” or an arbitrarily novel presentation of figures of speech.

In his treatise On Not-Being, finally, Gorgias adapts to the conventions and constraints of yet another existing discourse, that of the traditional Eleatic tract or exercise. Gorgias’ original text is lost, and we have only paraphrases by Sextus and pseudo-Aristotle; hence it is impossible to draw definitive conclusions about such stylistic matters as his figures of speech. But it may be noted that in classical commentary on the work, there is no mention that Gorgias violated the stylistic practices of the Eleatics; and we may presume that his manner of writing was considered quite typical of the genre. Indeed, Gorgias’ choice of topoi, his use of deductive argument, and his “abstract” voice seem to imitate the accepted “philosophical” style of the Eleatic tradition. In Thomas Rosenmeyer’s assessment, “Gorgias’ pamphlet, i.e., the original of the two versions which we now possess, is seen as an epicheirema in the Eleatic tradition. His technique of argumentation places him in the company of Zeno and Melissus.... Norden showed up the stylistic kinship between Gorgias and Heraclitus, and actually there is more than mere style to connect the thought of the two.” (231). It lies beyond the scope of this essay to attempt to assess which Eleatic philosopher Gorgias most closely emulates; but it is sufficient for my argument to note that in this work, as in his other three texts, the most remarkable feature of Gorgias’ style is neither a consistent use of the antithesis nor an arbitrary figurative originality. This does not mean that Gorgias never uses antitheses; for some of the established discourses to which he adapts, in particular the official funeral oration, employ that figure of speech. Nor does it mean that he eschews “originality” in his figuration; for some discourses, such as the overtly “literary” discourse on Helen, encourage and reward overtly “creative” wordplay. But if one examines all four of Gorgias’ major extant texts rather than merely one or two, and situates those texts historically rather than examining them as isolated poetic artifacts, then one must conclude that Gorgias’ governing stylistic strategy is one of stylistic opportunism, adapting to the diverse norms of existing discourses, whether they be those of the formal and sonorous funeral oration, the playful and witty discourse on Helen, the lucid and sincere legal apology, or the abstract and terse Eleatic essay.

From Epistemology to Hermeneutics

Given this reading of Gorgias’ style, it appears that the results of my inquiry are primarily negative, for it does not seem possible on the basis of his style to ascribe any “clear-cut epistemology” to Gorgias. Were it the case that Gorgias systematically deployed antitheses, it may be plausible to conclude that his objective was to replicate mimetically an antithesis in the nature of the world itself, or were it the case that Gorgias arbitrarily invented novel figures of speech, it may be reasonable to infer that he is a subjectivist who sees reality as sequence of disconnected moments given a subjective coherence through force of will. But on the basis of historical evidence, I have argued that neither reading of his style is warranted, in that Gorgias appears to adapt his vocabulary and figures of speech to distinct, well-defined genres, rendering his own speech “fitting” to the vocabulary and norms of speaking and reasoning of each genre of discourse. Yet if Gorgias does not seem to possess an epistemological “foundation” for his stylistic practice, and instead merely “adapts” to contingent discourses as the occasion arises, should we conclude, with his philosophical opponents from Plato to Robinson, that Gorgias is simply not a philosopher, and instead is merely a “stylist,” albeit a diverse rather than strictly “poetic” one? I suggest that in one sense, these critics are correct, in that Gorgias does not ground his stylistic practice on a systematic epistemology. But whereas Gorgias’ style is without an epistemological foundation, this does not mean that he is to be dismissed as a “mere stylist” or “poetic orator.” On the contrary, I suggest that Gorgias’ practice of stylistic adaptation poses a profound challenge to conventional “Philosophy” as a whole insofar as it identifies its mission as the articulation of a “clear-cut epistemology.”

To spell out this challenge, I draw on Richard Rorty’s distinction between “epistemology” and “hermeneutics” (Mirror 315-322). In Rorty’s account, epistemology is a type of “essentialist”‘ or “foundationalist” philosophy, an attempt to provide a “ground” or “foundation” for knowledge either in an external “reality,” a valid method or mode of reasoning, or a single shared vocabulary. Such an epistemology would provide an unbiased or neutral framework for philosophical inquiry, justifying some assertions and disproving others. In Rorty’s formulation, “the notion that there is a permanent neutral framework whose ‘structure’ philosophy can display is the notion that the objects to be confronted by the mind, of the rules which constrain inquiry, are common to all discourse, of at least to every discourse on a given topic” (315-316). In contrast, “hermeneutics” involves a rejection of this notion, and instead presents “understanding” as a pragmatic project of learning to understand new discourses, one of moving beyond one’s familiar discourse by adapting to unfamiliar ways of speaking and thinking. Whereas the epistemologist seeks a single vocabulary in which to inquire into and describe reality and knowledge, the hermeneutic thinker sees various discourses as viable means to articulate or generate truths, without privileging any one such discourse as providing an access to the Truth itself, the essential nature of “things as they really are.” To the hermeneutic thinker, there is no one description of knowledge or of the world that is “ultimate” or “final.” Thus hermeneutics subverts epistemology in that it sees being rational as being “willing to refrain from epistemology-- from thinking that there is a special set of terms in which all contributions to the conversation should be put-and to be willing to pick up the jargon of the interlocutor rather than translating it into one’s own” (318).

Using this distinction, it is reasonable to conclude that Gorgias would see his own project of understanding as hermeneutic rather than epistemological. Unlike those early Greek thinkers who, in Eric Havelock’s terms, appear to have engaged in a “search for a primary language in which any system [of thought] could be expressed ” (8), Gorgias instead migrates nomadically among discourses, never promoting any as “primary” or privileged in its claim to articulating the truth about the essential nature of things. Rather, he treats understanding as a project of learning to speak effectively in new styles, using new vocabularies and new forms of reasoning. Unlike the epistemologist, who seeks an external “criterion” to warrant the truth of a philosophical claim, Gorgias, in Sextus’s phrase, “abolishes the criterion” (DK B3) purported to lie “outside” all discourse. In this context, Gorgias’ attention to matters of style does not justify the conclusion by his philosophical critics that he is a mere stylist unconcerned with “content”; for as a hermeneutic thinker Gorgias would not draw a rigorous distinction between “style” and “content,” between how something is said and what is said. Indeed, one might say that for Gorgias there is no “subject matter” that exists apart from the discourse in which it is raised; no “independent” content that antedates and is somehow “re-presented” in a given style. Rather, Gorgias offers various ways of describing and arguing, wherein each discourse or style provides a distinct way of seeing and thinking. Hence to look for a distinct “content” behind one or another of Gorgias’ own various styles, and to presume that his assertions in one discourse will necessarily be consistent with his remarks in a potentially incommensurate discourse, is to foist an “epistemology” upon him, rather than seeing him as engaging in a hermeneutic project of discursive adaptation.

Gorgias does not comment directly on his own methodology, but he suggests that he considers his own intellectual endeavor to be hermeneutic rather than epistemological with his metaphor of discourse as a “game.” Specifically, he compares speech to the Olympic games, noting that a verbal encounter or “contest” demands “daring and skill,” qualities shared with the athlete (DK B8). Gorgias’ metaphor is significant, for if each discourse is a kind of game, then it is “regulative” of its speakers, in that it prescribes its own protocols of speech and reasoning. Further, each discourse possesses its own internal criteria for speaking and reasoning, in effect claiming sovereignty for itself to warrant or reject statements made within it. Speaking metaphorically, Gorgias remarks that each discourse or logos is a kind of “powerful lord” (Helen 8), sovereign over its own domain and independent of alternative discourses. As such, no one discourse is “privileged,” in the sense that it is warranted in claiming priority over other discourses in its formulation or production of truths. Through his own practice, as well as in specific remarks, Gorgias implies that every discourse is of this sort, whether it is the Athenian funeral oration, the literary discourse on Helen, the Athenian legal apology, the Eleatic tract, or any of the discourses of poets, meteorologists, philosophers or popular orators (Helen 13). Individuals using one discourse are warranted from within that discourse to assert “truths”; but statements warranted in one discourse need not be warranted in another. For there is no one mode of speaking or thinking that is “supreme” or “neutral,” one within which every such claim may be adjudicated.

Insofar as Gorgias construes understanding as a hermeneutic project of adapting to diverse discourses, he would presumably reject the notion that any one discourse, and hence any one “style,” whether it be that of the funeral orator, literary critic, attorney or philosopher, has a privileged access to the truth. In this respect, he would repudiate Untersteiner’s claim that the “antithetical” style is able to replicate the nature of things as they “really” are, and that apprehension of this tragic antithesis is not itself justifiable only within the protocols of a particular discourse. For no one style, whether it is the antithetical formality of the Epitaphios, the lucid and closely reasoned legalese of the Palamedes, the metaphoric wittiness of Helen, or the elevated abstractions of Not-Being, possesses a privileged status offering a “direct” access to the inherent structure of the world. But whereas Gorgias would resist the assertion that any one discourse or style is privileged in this way, he would also reject the “subjectivist” notion that an individual is able to create his own reality arbitrarily, following his own whims, through the expression of novel figures of speech. For to speak effectively or successfully in any instance, one must speak “fittingly,” adapting to the constraints of the discourse at hand and speaking appropriately from moment to moment. Novel and recognizably “poetic” figures will be appropriate in some discourses, such as in an overtly “literary” discourse about Helen; but it is incorrect to characterize their use as “arbitrary”; rather, the articulation of poetic figures is itself regulated by the conventions of poetic discourse. As such, Gorgias implies that the success and “truth” of one’s remarks is determined neither by the essential nature of a putative “reality” lying beyond every discourse, nor in an individual speaker’s arbitrary inspiration or whim, but rather through the recognized protocols and criteria of the specific discourse being spoken.