Abstract

Aristotle's statement that the spectator of epideictic rhetoric judges dynamis ( Rhetoric 1.3, 1358b5-6) is problematic because it seems to direct audience judgment towards the ability of the speaker as opposed to the subject-matter of his speech. I argue that, as a reference to the speaker's ability, the remark indexes the peculiar competitive structure in which speeches of praise and blame are conventionally involved. Thus understood, it is essential to Aristotle's taxonomy of genres and helps resolve the dilemma created by naming the genre of praise and blame after a mode of performance, epideixis, compatible with speeches of any formal description.