Sweeney's Egyptian Rhetoric

Deborah Sweeney’s essay, “Law, Rhetoric, and Gender, in Ramesside Egypt," was very helpful in furthering my understanding of rhetoric and some of the mystery as to why it is important and ways in which we can use it.

In previous readings, such as Toye’s Introduction to Rhetoric, we have discussed that rhetoric is an important strategic tool for generating persuasive speech. Sweeney’s essay continues this art of persuasion, and she begins discussing how, why, and where these strategies have occurred, with a focus on rhetoric in the ancient Egyptian court systems. Sweeney gives an abundance of examples of rhetorical strategies in action and that is what I found very useful in the reading.

The reading shows how rhetorical devices were used in Egyptian Judicial situations, such as parallelism and antithesis as a rhetorical strategy. Sweeney introduces this quote to establish parallelism as a rhetorical tool: “Should the donkey die, I will be liable for it. Should it live, I will be liable for it.” (O Berlin P. 1121 r7-8) Sweeney goes on to show how parallelism, antithesis, pathos, metaphor, hyperbole, synecdoche, tropes, and etc., are all useful rhetorical strategies in the judicial realm of ancient Egypt.

The presence of Maat is found in Sweeney’s article also, but under the guise of the Aristotelian concept Pathos. Sweeney writes: “This behavior is represented in a very low-key manner, stating that someone did or did not do good to the speaker, perhaps connected with the Egyptian ideal of not speaking ill of other people.” (104) This may be evidence of the overbearing influence of Greek rhetoric as the base structure in which we study rhetorical strategies, which is funny because it seems that the book’s premise is to attempt breaking some of these preconceptions. After these readings in “Before and Beyond the Greeks,” I find that most people still study these concepts through an Aristotelian or Greek lens.

Overall, I found the reading to be an excellent resource in showing how rhetoric can be applied as a persuasive tool, instead of just stating that rhetoric is important. Sweeney’s chapter on Egyptian Law and Rhetoric might have been one of the most useful readings on rhetoric so far.