A Place of Darkness: The Rhetoric of Horror in Early American Cinema

By Kendall R. Phillips

“An illuminating history . . . it’s clear that the right story can still terrify us; A Place of Darkness is a primer on how the movies learned to do it.” —NPR
 
Horror is one of the most enduringly popular genres in cinema. The term “horror film” was coined in 1931 between the premiere of Dracula and the release of Frankenstein, but monsters, ghosts, demons, and supernatural and horrific themes have been popular with American audiences since the emergence of novelty cinematographic attractions in the late 1890s. A Place of Darkness illuminates the prehistory of the horror genre by tracing the way horrific elements and stories were portrayed in films prior to the introduction of the term “horror film.”
 
Using a rhetorical approach that examines not only early films but also the promotional materials for them and critical responses to them, Kendall R. Phillips argues that the portrayal of horrific elements was enmeshed in broader social tensions around the emergence of American identity and, in turn, American cinema. He shows how early cinema linked monsters, ghosts, witches, and magicians with Old World superstitions and beliefs, in contrast to an American way of thinking that was pragmatic, reasonable, scientific, and progressive. Throughout the teens and twenties, Phillips finds, supernatural elements were almost always explained away as some hysterical mistake, humorous prank, or nefarious plot. The Great Depression of the 1930s, however, constituted a substantial upheaval in the system of American certainty and opened a space for the reemergence of Old-World gothic within American popular discourse in the form of the horror genre, which has terrified and thrilled fans ever since.
 
“[A] fascinating read.” —Sublime Horror

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Mar 1, 2018
• ISBN: 9781477315538

Book preview

A Place of Darkness

THE RHETORIC OF HORROR IN EARLY AMERICAN CINEMA

Kendall R. Phillips

University of Texas Press

Austin

Copyright © 2018 by the University of Texas Press

All rights reserved

First edition, 2018

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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

Names: Phillips, Kendall R., author.

Title: A place of darkness : the rhetoric of horror in early American cinema / Kendall R. Phillips.

Description: First edition. | Austin : University of Texas Press, 2018. | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2017036484| ISBN 978-1-4773-1550-7 (cloth : alk. paper) | ISBN 978-1-4773-1551-4 (pbk. : alk. paper) | ISBN 978-1-4773-1552-1 (library e-book) | ISBN 978-1-4773-1553-8 (nonlibrary e-book)

Subjects: LCSH: Horror films—United States—History and criticism.

Classification: LCC PN1995.9.H6 P438 2018 | DDC 791.43/6164—dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017036484

doi:10.7560/315507

For Catherine, who keeps the darkness away.

Contents

List of Illustrations

Acknowledgments

INTRODUCTION. Cinema, Genre, Nation

CHAPTER 1. Superstition and the Shock of Attraction: Horrific Elements in Early Cinema

CHAPTER 2. Weird and Gloomy Tales: Uncanny Narratives and Foreign Others

CHAPTER 3. Superstitious Joe and the Rise of the American Uncanny

CHAPTER 4. Literary Monsters and Uplifting Horrors

CHAPTER 5. Mysteries in Old Dark Houses

CONCLUSION

Notes

Index

Illustrations

1. Theater promotion for Frankenstein (1931)

2. Still from Uncle Josh in a Spooky Hotel (1900)

3. Still from Uncle Josh at the Moving Picture Show (1902)

4. Still from The Haunted Curiosity Shop (1901)

5. Still from The Haunted Castle (1896)

6. Still from The Hindoo Dagger (1909)

7. Still from An Evil Power (1911)

8. Still from The Ghost Breaker (1914)

9. Still from Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1920)

10. Still from The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920)

11. Still from The Phantom of the Opera (1925)

12. Still from The Cat and the Canary (1927)

13. Still from Seven Footprints to Satan (1929)

14. Promotional photo from Dracula (1931)

Acknowledgments

THE FIRST OMEN THAT THIS PROJECT MIGHT BE ON the right track came to me in Austin, Texas. I had arrived there for the first day of several weeks of research at the University of Texas’s Harry Ransom Center. As I stood at the front desk awaiting the orientation, a staff member stepped out from the reading room to ask if I would be able to wait a few more minutes. A bat had found its way into the reading room, and they were awaiting the arrival of someone to remove it. Although the rescued bat was safely released back into the wilds of central Texas, its spirit remains in this book. Images of flapping bats appear throughout the breadth of the cinematic history I map out, from Georges Méliès’s 1896 short film La Manoir du Diable to Tod Browning’s 1931 feature film Dracula. Its menacing presence hovers over various film treatments of the horrific and supernatural—a reminder that the eerie nocturnal world can sometimes intrude into our everyday lives.

As is often the case in stories featuring bats, this meandering journey led me away from familiar surroundings and deep into another realm. This was a realm of dusty papers and lost films, a realm that was both similar to and starkly different from the bright world of contemporary cinema where I have spent much of my academic career. My journey into early film history, and the journey back, was facilitated by many individuals and institutions. First were those numerous outstanding scholars of early film history, whose work fills the endnotes. Without their guidance, warnings, and admonitions, this project would have been impossible. Second were the many scholars who, like me, work in the growing area of horror studies and whose passionate interest in the cultural dynamics surrounding horror films continues to inspire and inform my own work.

Perhaps the most important people for my journey into the earliest years of projected moving pictures were the amazing, gracious, and patient staff at the many archives I visited during the research for this book. I vividly recall arriving in Los Angeles for an extended stay and turning up at the University of Southern California’s Cinematic Arts Library. Ned Comstock, a senior library assistant, greeted me, and after going through the basic procedures he asked if I could be a bit more specific about my research interests. On the request form I had submitted weeks in advance, I had simply listed early horror films. Sheepishly, I confessed to Ned that this was probably as clear as I could be. I was, in many ways, the archivist’s worst nightmare—a clueless academic on a fishing expedition. Fortunately, Ned and the many other archivists I would rely upon rose to the challenge and offered helpful suggestions and resources throughout my stay.

Whatever useful insights might appear on these pages are due largely to these archives and the tireless work of their staff members. I have been fortunate to visit many outstanding archives. Portions of the project were made possible by the Warner Bros. Archives, School of Cinematic Arts, University of Southern California; the University of Southern California’s Cinematic Arts Library; the UCLA Film and Television Archive; the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’s Margaret Herrick Library; the University of Texas’s Harry Ransom Center; the George Eastman Museum; the New York Public Library; the Museum of Modern Art; the Library of Congress; the British Film Institute; and Ngā Taonga Sound and Vision, the New Zealand Archive of Film, TV and Sound. I also take my hat off to the amazing work by the online Media History Digital Library.

The time and resources required to visit these many archives, sometimes for weeks at a time, would not have been available were it not for another group of kind supporters. Syracuse University granted me a yearlong research leave to accomplish much of the archival work. I want to personally thank Ann Clarke, former dean of the College of Visual and Performing Arts, who has been a benefactor and friend throughout much of my career. I also want to acknowledge my colleagues at Syracuse University and several classes of patient Rhetoric of Film students who have listened to me ramble on about the importance of early cinematic practices. I am particularly indebted to the patient counsel of several colleagues, specifically Charles E. Morris III, Erin Rand, Lindsey Decker, Matt Fee, and Roger Hallas.

One other important part of my Syracuse University family has been the many supportive alumni who have offered suggestions and support. A few deserve special recognition. Kevin and Lauren Kern gave me much appreciated support and friendship during my time in Los Angeles and helped me navigate the world of California film archives. I also want to acknowledge Marylyn and Chuck Ginsburg Klaus, supportive Syracuse alumni who have become dear friends. I will always cherish the memories of dinners with them, during which Chuck and I talked about horror films and Marylyn tried to change the subject. I could not have completed this project without their generous support.

Bits and pieces of this project have been shared in various forums over the past few years. I am particularly grateful to the engaged audiences at the University of Denver, Pennsylvania State University, and Penn State Berks for their thoughtful engagement with early versions of these arguments. Additionally, a portion of the argument in chapter 3 was presented at a panel at the 2016 National Communication Association Convention in Philadelphia.

Beyond formal presentations, I have benefited greatly from many colleagues throughout the discipline who have provided guidance and encouragement, including Tom Benson, Bernadette Calafell, Cara Finnegan, Joshua Gunn, Casey Ryan Kelly, Claire Sisco King, Scott Poole, Michelle Ramsey, and Paul Stob.

Given that the journey of this book began with a cantankerous bat in Austin, Texas, it seems fitting that that is also where it should end. I am deeply thankful to the great folks at the University of Texas Press for their support and guidance. Jim Burr has been a model of patience and wisdom throughout this process, and I have enjoyed working with him and all the staff to bring this book to fruition. I am also grateful to two anonymous reviewers who gave numerous helpful suggestions.

Finally, I must acknowledge the person to whom this book is dedicated: Catherine Thomas. Without her love and support—and patience as I trekked around the planet searching out old films and crumbling documents—this project would not have been possible, and my world would be a much darker place.

Introduction

CINEMA, GENRE, NATION

THOUGH OFTEN REVILED OR DISMISSED, HORROR remains one of the most enduringly popular genres in cinema history. Even in the era of big-budget, effects-driven blockbusters, small-budget horror films can draw large audiences. In 2014, for instance, a low-budget horror film titled Annabelle, about a possessed doll, grossed more than $252 million in worldwide sales. There are many similar examples.¹ The precursor to Annabelle, The Conjuring (2013), grossed $320 million globally.² And there is also the hugely successful Paranormal Activity (2009), which grossed more than $100 million in the United States alone with an estimated production budget of only $15,000; its sequel, Paranormal Activity 2 (2010), grossed nearly $85 million.³ Beyond impressive box-office numbers, however, many intelligent, independent productions and filmmakers have also garnered critical acclaim. David Sims described Jordan Peele’s 2017 film Get Out as an atmospheric, restrained, extremely effective work of horror with a clear point of view and declared it one of the wryest, funniest, most relevant films of the year.⁴ A. O. Scott wrote in the New York Times that the Australian horror film The Babadook (2014) was brilliant and described it as tenderness, longing, resentment and all kinds of other emotional baggage . . . folded . . . into a highly effective little ghost story.⁵ And Betsy Sharkey of the Los Angeles Times praised the Iranian-born filmmaker Ana Lily Amirpour’s vampire tale A Girl Walks Alone at Night (2014) as a mesmerizing taste of Amirpour’s work, filled with enough creative invention to whet the appetite for more.⁶

Put simply, the current state of horror films is strong. Indeed, when considering the history of horror films, at least within the American context, truly weak moments among the genre are relatively few and far between. Surely there are times when the innovative nature of horror films seems to have run its course. Yet each time the genre falls into a rut, a new film comes along to redefine the genre, transgress audience expectations, and create a new model to energize the next generation of filmmakers. Occasional moments of languor aside, the horror genre has remained vibrant, provocative, and popular since at least 1931, the water shed year for horror filmmaking, with each new era finding its own vision of fear. The Gothic monsters of the 1930s were redefined by the creature features of the 1950s, which in turn were redefined by the brutal nihilism of the 1960s, then the slashers of the 1980s, and so on.⁷

The history of the horror film—from Dracula (1931) to Get Out—has been traced by many scholars, including me, in pursuit of genealogical similarities and deviations. Often, these tracings have begun with the premieres of Dracula and Frankenstein, also released in 1931. The popularity of these two films spawned a generation of what are now often termed the Universal monsters—the Mummy, Mr. Hyde, the Invisible Man, the Wolf Man, and the Creature from the Black Lagoon—but also led Variety at the time to declare the beginning of the horror cycle.⁸ Although the term horror had been occasionally used in relation to films before 1931, it gained almost immediate acceptance as the label attached to Dracula, Frankenstein’s Monster, and their cohort of Gothic monster characters and has remained the language to identify and frame the numerous and widely divergent films that followed.⁹

Given the popularity of the horror film and the elasticity of the genre, it is worth pausing at the moment when the genre, or at least its language, emerged. There is an interesting hinge moment—which I return to in the conclusion of this book—between the February release of Dracula and the November premiere of Frankenstein. In gearing up the promotion for its vampire film, the publicity machine at Universal Studios clearly struggled with language to describe the filmic adaptation of Bram Stoker’s popular novel (or to be more accurate, a filmic adaptation of the popular Hamilton Deane and John Balderston stage play).¹⁰ In the end, although entertaining promotional phrases such as CHILLING HORRORS OF THE NIGHT and simply HORRORS! worked well enough, they settled on something more ambiguous: The story of the strangest passion the world has ever known!¹¹ Just two months later, Variety would describe the popular vampire film and the forthcoming monster tale as the beginning of the horror cycle, and the new language would be quickly adopted. Six months later, as the same publicity machine was gearing up for Frankenstein, the language of horror had become much more comfortable. On promotional material outside theaters, a banner declared Frankenstein to be THE CHILLING HORROR AND ICY MYSTERY OF A HUNDRED THRILLING TALES FROZEN INTO A SUPERB EPIC OF TERROR (fig. 1). One of the film’s promotional posters declared it to be the original horror show.¹²

FIGURE 1. Promotion for Universal’s Frankenstein (released November 1931). Photo: Duke Wellington Photographs, Margaret Herrick Library, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Beverly Hills, CA.

The language of horror introduced during the period in between these two films became intimately linked to the many films that would follow—shaping the creative visions of directors, even those who intentionally sought to transgress the parameters of the genre, and the expectations of audiences ever since. Prior to 1931, at least when seen through a discursive frame, there were no horror films—the language of horror had not yet solidified into a definable genre. With the introduction of this language the genre of horror can be seen as coming into existence. Ultimately, we could not talk about the enduring popularity or transgressive nature of horror films without the emergence of this language in 1931.

Although the language of the horror film can be reliably said to have emerged, or at least gained popular usage, in 1931, the elements that constitute much of what we call horror were already present. Indeed, many of these elements—monsters, ghosts, haunted houses, witches, and assorted evil—were remarkably widespread. As early as 1896, short, so-called trick films incorporated devils and demons and monsters with remarkable regularity. Films of the early 1900s were replete with haunted houses, haunted hotels, haunted shops, and haunted rooms, along with witches and mystics of all varieties. Edison Studios produced a version of Frankenstein in 1910. There were film versions of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde as early as 1908 and of The Hunchback of Notre Dame in 1911. One can also note a critically acclaimed trio of German films—The Golem: How He Came into the World (1920), The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920), and Nosferatu (1922), among others—or the big-budget Universal versions of The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923) and The Phantom of the Opera (1925). Yet, despite these films’ prominence—numerically, culturally, cinematically—and their similarity to the films released after 1931, critics at the time did not characterize them as horror films.

By and large, scholars of the horror film have dealt with these earlier films in one of two ways. Some more or less ignore the language issue and count these earlier films as part of the genre or, in a slightly more nuanced way, as part of a kind of proto-genre. Bruce Kawin, for instance, engages a variety of films, including those produced before the popular usage of the term horror film, by utilizing a more conceptual definition: the horror film is defined by its recurring elements . . . by its attitudes towards those elements . . . and by its goal: to frighten and revolt the audience.¹³ This choice focuses on the constitutive elements of the genre—the appearance of ghosts or witches, the motif of the haunted house, the creepy mise-en-scène, and the like—rather than on its language. This approach mirrors what Rick Altman describes as the semiotic approach to genre, which seeks essential and ahistorical elements of the narrative construction as the defining qualities of any genre. It also follows Altman’s syntactic approach, which describes the core relationship between elements—in this case a relationship marked by fear and revulsion.¹⁴

A second strategy, one I have used in previous scholarship, has been to highlight instead the discursive frame for the genre. As James Naremore suggests, genre can be thought of as a loose, evolving system of arguments and readings, helping to shape commercial strategies and aesthetic ideologies.¹⁵ Crucial here is the language used for framing these arguments and readings—or as Andrew Tudor puts it, genre is a conception existing in the culture of any particular group or society; it is not a way in which a critic classifies film for methodological purposes, but the much looser way in which an audience classifies its films.¹⁶ Although the question of genre will be discussed more thoroughly in a later section of this introduction, what is useful here is to note the simple discursive definition of genre: if we call a film a horror film, then it is; if not, then it is not. For horror scholars pursuing (even tacitly) this definition of the genre, the horror genre begins in 1931 with the emergence of the discursive framework and its concomitant aesthetic and narrative choices and expectations. This approach is evident in Roy Kinnard’s insistence that the horror genre was officially born in the early sound era, on November 16, 1931, with the release of Frankenstein. Prior to this, Kinnard contends, there were not horror movies as the public thinks of them today.¹⁷

My purpose in this book is to pursue the middle ground between these broad and crudely rendered stances. On one hand, there were a surprising number of films released between 1896 and 1931 that dealt with elements that would later constitute the horror film: castles, cobwebs, monsters, maniacal killers, magical curses, avenging ghosts, and undead creatures. On the other hand, these films were not described, defined, or constituted by the language of horror. They were, in a discursive sense, not horror films. Given that both these statements are true, what were they called? If Frankenstein in 1931 and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde in 1932 were truly horror films, what about Frankenstein in 1910 and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde in 1908 (or even 1920)? This is the question that I try to answer in this book. In some ways, this book can be understood as a kind of prehistory of the horror film or, perhaps more accurately, as a genealogy. What were the ancestors whose odd comingling and interactions set the stage for the birth of horror films in 1931? In part, this means asking how the elements that would later constitute horror films, which I will often refer to as horrific elements, were treated within these films. But it also means exploring how horrific elements and the films that utilized them were discussed at the time. Rhona Berenstein, for instance, argues that generic elements circulated within films during the first decades of cinema but did not fall within a generic label.¹⁸ So if the language of genre had not stabilized, what were the discursive frames for horrific elements prior to the establishment of the language of horror? What did such frames mean, and how did they change between 1896 and 1931?

One of the conceits used here is that the way in which horrific elements were treated in early cinema is a question not merely of film history or even of genre but also of national culture. There is a clear linkage between the contours of cinema and the ongoing development of national identity. This is, in short, an approach to national cinema that focuses on the way cinematic texts—by which I mean both the films themselves and the way those films were discursively framed in public—help to elaborate, instigate, or interrogate a sense of national identity. Augmenting my interest in national cinema is my sense (shared by numerous other scholars) that tales of horror and terror are intimately bound up in questions of nationhood and national identity. Adam Lowenstein, for example, provides a compelling and insightful analysis of the way art-horror films have operated along the edges of historic traumas and national identity.¹⁹ Similarly, Linnie Blake contends that horror cinema is ideally positioned to expose the psychological, social[,] and cultural ramifications of the ideological expedient will to ‘bind up the nation’s wounds.’²⁰ Even more broadly, various scholars have justified their interest in horror film in part because of its general connection to points of social tension, conflict, and fear. Paul Wells captures this founding assumption, noting that the history of the horror film is essentially a history of anxiety in the twentieth century.²¹

This book seeks to explore the history of fear, trauma, and anxiety as reflected in films containing horrific elements prior to 1931 in order to better understand the cinematic and discursive frames within which these elements were presented and understood. Such an approach attends to the existence of specific constituent elements—similar to the proto-genre approach outlined above. But in attempting to navigate the middle ground between the proto-genre and discursive approaches, I pursue this genealogy not solely in terms of filmic elements but also in terms of the complex interplay between these films and the language used to describe, categorize, and frame them. I ask, in other words, quite literally: What were these early films, which employed the elements we would later understand to be part of horror but were not identified as horror films? How were they talked and written about? And how did these presentations and understandings relate to the broader cultural history of their filmmakers and audiences?

Navigating this ground will not be easy. Such an effort is prone to fall into anachronistic thinking, to project backward the elements and expectations of a genre that would not actually emerge for decades. How can one be sure, a critic might ask, that audiences in 1907 would have understood a witch as a character evoking fear and a sense of the supernatural or even as substantively different from a cowboy, a damsel in distress, or a firefighter?

Numerous historians of early cinema have warned against precisely this kind of anachronistic genre-construction and recommend treating early films not as proto-genres for later cinema but, instead, as a unique cultural phenomenon. Tom Gunning and André Gaudreault, for instance, have powerfully argued for the recognition of an early cinema of attractions that is not to be identified with later cinematic practices but, rather, exists as its own unique cultural form separate from (though related to) what would later become cinema proper. In this formulation it is tempting to subsume these early filmic depictions of ghosts and monsters within the broad cine-genres of the trick films—what Gunning calls the genre of discontinuity—or comedies. In chapter 1 (Superstition and the Shock of Attraction), I suggest that trick films dealing with horrific figures had unique qualities that differentiated them from other films of discontinuity and, in turn, had a unique relationship to broader issues in American culture at the time. Discussions of the supernatural and of superstition in general were widespread in the late nineteenth century, and the early trick films dealing with ghosts and witches can be seen as deeply engaged with the broader cultural dynamics around credulity and the attraction to what contemporaries called the marvelous.²²

I seek to interrogate how these horrific elements were discussed and what kinds of cultural work they were understood to be performing. In chapter 2 (Weird and Gloomy Tales), I observe a growing tendency to conflate the appearance of supernatural and horrific elements with foreignness through the use of the term weird. Although that word has a long association with the uncanny aspects of fate, its use in the early 1900s can be seen as associating tales of the supernatural with a kind of Old World, foreign, and backward type of thinking that stood in contrast to a growing sense of American national character as rational, empirical, and progressive. Just as American filmmakers and commentators began pushing, around 1907, for the development of truly American films and narratives, the supernatural and marvelous elements common in earlier years became associated with a style of filmmaking that was deemed decisively un-American.

Chapter 3 (Superstitious Joe and the Rise of the American Uncanny) explores the way American filmmakers took up horrific elements through what I call the American uncanny. Here I am borrowing Tzvetan Todorov’s notion of the literary form of the uncanny, a narrative form in which the apparently supernatural is eventually explained away as an illusion or trick.

In the American films produced in the 1910s, the uncanny narrative operated not simply through the pleasure of resolving the seemingly fantastic but also with the pleasure of viewing the foolishness of the individual who mistook the natural for the supernatural. Throughout numerous films and across various generic frames, a theme (the folly of superstition) operated to reinforce a rational, pragmatic American mind-set and to suggest what types of individuals—women, the poor, the rural, people of color—were not capable of achieving this rational national character.

Although often positioned as foolishness, Americans continued to be interested in horrific elements throughout the early decades of film. Chapter 4 (Literary Monsters) explores one of the dominant frames through which horrific elements were presented: the literary adaptation. As early as Edison’s 1910 adaptation Frankenstein, film producers framed their use of the horrific within the parameters of great literature. This trend continued into the 1920s, with numerous prominent films drawn from important novels: The Hunchback of Notre Dame, The Phantom of the Opera, and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Adapting great works of literature provided a rhetorical justification for the inclusion of horrific and increasingly gruesome elements and also helped to establish cinema as an artistic endeavor in and of itself.

The increasing complexity of cinematic narratives gave rise not only to these epics but also to a popular variation on the superstitious genre: the mystery thriller. These films are the focus of chapter 5 (Mysteries in Old Dark Houses). In films such as The Cat and The Canary (1927) and Seven Footprints to Satan (1929), the mystery thriller—often set in some dark old mansion—would provide the vehicle through which horrific elements became more explicitly frightening and grotesque. The mystery thrillers thereby represented a crucial shift in the American cinematic depiction of the horrific. No longer were audiences merely observing the apparently marvelous elements of the screen; now the audience was actively engaged in the mystery of these elements and the pleasure of seeking to discern the reality or unreality of the mysterious happenings depicted on-screen. Although these films maintained the stance of incredulity, their Gothic settings, mysterious happenings, and horrifying creatures began to push the boundaries of the skeptical American cinematic frame, especially as filmmakers began introducing sound technology.

The discussion concludes at the moment the horror film genre begins in 1931: the premieres of Dracula and Frankenstein. The popularity of these films led some commentators and officials of the Production Code Administration (PCA) to worry about the growing trend of gruesome pictures and about Universal’s horror cycle. These concerns may have been warranted. The enthusiastic public response to these films caused a fundamental transformation in the way horrific elements would be culturally understood. Once the rhetorical frame of the horror film was introduced to a nation of consumers, it was almost universally embraced and explains how American audiences have come to understand horrific cinematic elements.

From my perspective, the key to the current project is to understand it not as an exercise in early film history—something already done far more expertly by others—but as an effort in rhetorical studies. Although often understood either in its most traditional rendering as public speeches by political figures or in the pejorative sense as empty talk, I understand the art of rhetoric to be engaged in the complex