University of Duisburg-Essen

Term: Winter 2007/2008

Seminar: Classical Rhetoric for the Student of Today

"I Have a Dream"

An Example of Classical Rhetoric

in a Post-Modern Speech

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Table of Content

Introduction 3

1

"I Have a Dream" 4

1.1

Rhetorical Genre 4

1.2

Structure 5

1.3

Figures of Speech 6

1.3.1

Syntax 6

1.3.2

Pragmatics 12

1.3.3

Semantics 13

2

Summary 17

3

Sources 18

3.1

Primary Sources: 18

3.2

Secondary Sources: 18

2

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Introduction

"Martin Luther King, Jr. (January 15, 1929 ­ April 4, 1968), was one of the pivotal

leaders of the American civil rights movement."1 After attending Morehouse College in

Atlanta, King went on to study at Crozer Theological Seminary in Pennsylvania and Boston

University, where he deepened his understanding of theological scholarship and explored

Mahatma Gandhi′s nonviolent strategy for social change. On December 5, 1955, after civil

rights activist Rosa Parks refused to comply with Montgomery′s segregation policy on buses,

black residents launched a bus boycott and elected King president of the newly-formed

Montgomery Improvement Association. The boycott continued throughout 1956 and King

gained national prominence for his role in the campaign. In December 1956, the United States

Supreme Court declared Alabama′s segregation laws unconstitutional and Montgomery buses

were desegregated. Seeking to build upon the success in Montgomery, King and other

southern black ministers founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) in

1957. In the spring of 1963, King and SCLC led mass demonstrations in Birmingham,

Alabama, where local white police officials were known for their violent opposition to

integration. Clashes between unarmed black demonstrators and police armed with dogs and

fire hoses generated newspaper headlines throughout the world. President Kennedy responded

to the Birmingham protests by submitting broad civil rights legislation to Congress, which led

to the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Subsequent mass demonstrations culminated in

the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom on August 28, 1963, in which more than

250,000 protesters gathered in Washington, D. C. It was on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial

where King delivered his famous "I Have a Dream" speech. 2

King is known as a charismatic orator. His way of persuading people was to use the power

of words instead of physical violence. Words were his weapon and he knew how to use them.

The same year after he had delivered this speech, he received the title "Man of the Year" by

Time

magazine. One year later, he was given the Nobel Peace Price. This paper deals with "I

Have a Dream", as a post-modern political speech in terms of classical rhetoric. A

consecutively numbered edition of the speech is enclosed.

1 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Luther_King,_Jr.

2 http://www.stanford.edu/group/King/about_king/biography/

3

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1 "I Have a Dream"

1.1 Rhetorical Genre

"I have a Dream" is a political speech, which contains elements of a sermon. In terms

of rhetorical genres (

genera orationis

), according to the Aristoteleian classification, it is a

deliberative speech (

genus deliberativum

). The other two genres that exist next to deliberative

speech are epideictic speech, or eulogy, and the judicial speech. The latter one and the

deliberative speech have in common that the audience must give a judgement or make a

decision during the speech, whereas a eulogy is delivered to please the audience. 3 The eulogy

and deliberative speech allow the orator to mix up the two parts

narratio & argumentatio

in

terms of the strucure of a speech. In a judicial speech,

narratio

usually preceeds

argumentatio

. All of the three genres differ in their relevance in terms of time: judicial-past,

epideictic-present and deliberative-future. Deliberative speeches are delivered to influence a

decision that is made during a meeting or conference, and which concerns further actions.

King delivered his speech on the steps of Lincoln Memorial during a demonstration for jobs

and freedom. His speech reached not only the attendant crowd, but also politicians and

interested people worldwide via television and radio. King gave advice how to act and what to

change currently, so his vision of the common future for the American society might come

true one day:

But there is something that I must say to my people, who stand on the warm threshold

which leads into the palace of justice: In the process of gaining our rightful place,

we

must not

be guilty of wrongful deeds.

Let us not seek

to satisfy our thirst for freedom

by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.

We must

forever conduct our

struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline.

We must not

allow our creative

protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again,

we must

rise to majestic

heights of meeting physical force with soul force.4

3 Göttert, K. H. (p. 17)

4 "I Have a Dream" (l. 41-47)

4

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1.2 Structure

The speech is divided into three main parts:

exordium

(introduction),

narratio &

argumentatio

(main) and

peroratio

(closing). At the beginning of every speech, no matter if it

is a judicial speech, a speech of praise (

epideictic

) or a deliberative speech, there is an

exordium

. The functions of the

exordium

are to make the audience attentive, docile and

benevolent. Therefore, it contains a salutation, the topic or the cause, and sometimes flattery.

Martin Luther King, Jr. needs only one short sentence to fulfill these three functions:

I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest

demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation. 5

With the starting seven words, King not only greets his audience, but he also makes them

benevolent. He gives the gathered crowd a sense of unity. Despite the higher spatial position,

the speaker wants to give his audience the impression that they are on the same level. By

repeating the word "history" and using the superlative "greatest", King puts an emphasis on

the value and importance of the day and of his speech. His formulation makes the audience

attentive and docile. But one should not discount his fame and the fact that he already had

been introduced, before he demanded his speech. This kind of short introduction might

malfunction, if it was for an orator with less prominence.

The

narratio

combined with an

argumentatio

begins in line 3. Small bits of

information are given (

brevitas

), in a form of language that is clear and understandable for the

audience (

claritas

). King argues from authorities, which makes him a trustworthy speaker and

his

narratio

credible: "Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we

stand today,..." (l. 3); "When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words..."

(l. 14f.). These are the authorities in the first two subchapters of the main part of "I Have a

Dream". In the third and last part, the authority is represented by the main audience itself, the

protesters, King himself included: "We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind

America..." (l. 26f.). The three subchapters consist of a thesis preceding an antithesis, which

is each time introduced by the word "but". The first subchapter goes from line 3 to line 13. It

is about the Emancipation Proclamation and the liberation of slaves. King′s antithesis begins

5 "I Have a Dream" (l. 1-2)

5

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