9/14 The Inaugural Address

It amazed me how frighteningly different the experiences are of watching/listening to Clinton’s first inaugural address, and then reading it. Something about the tone of his voice and the atmosphere proves to be manipulating in this circumstance, especially since, while reading through it and exploring its syntax and “sense,” it becomes clear that he’s saying a whole lot of nothing at all. The speech’s tactics are reminiscent of what Lanham discusses in chapter 3, and makes decent use of a periodic structure. Pacing is a technique that comes through both sonically, when he speaks, and also when it’s flat on the page.

“Not change for change's sake, but change to preserve America's ideals—life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness. Though we march to the music of our time, our mission is timeless.”

As Lanham mentions on page 51 regarding the tangible ingredients for a periodic style, the above quote seems to contain suspension, parallelism, balance, and climax. The four combined make for a sentence that we know from first few words is going to reveal something climactic, but it will do so gradually. The climactic moments within these two sentences are the ones that reiterate clichés, or fulfill our expectations within the inaugural address’ context. He suspends the arrival of the cliché by stating what is not to happen (with a well-balanced cliché, nonetheless) and follows up with a paratactic list.

While playing the address video and reading it simultaneously, I can also see what Lanham means when he describes virtuoso display, indeed, the “so that the information reaching the eye coincides perfectly with the rhythms reaching the ear, you begin to wonder whether the diagrammatic layout might be more suitable than the conventional linear one to what is said and how.” (52). With that, he asserts that we’re often times more comfortable with or well adjusted to statements that read like a diagram, instead of those that read linearly or straightforwardly. Suspense matched with instant gratification is popular in all art forms, from television, to music (classical and pop styles alike) and, evidently, also in public speaking. Perhaps it’s because it offers a certain level of specificity, and a differentiation between what feels wrong from what feels right. A sentence’s suspension, just like “Not change for change’s sake, but…” feels wrong and dissonant until it is met with what is right and tonal: “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

“Though our challenges are fearsome, so are our strengths. And Americans have ever been a restless, questing, hopeful people. We must bring to our task today the vision and will of those who came before us.”

This works even more simply and directly in the sentences above. Just as you think he’s going to dive into our fearsome challenges, he quite naturally counteracts them with prospect of “fearsome strengths” (whatever those may be). The second two sentences build off of each other, seeing as the first qualifies the second, and demands the fast, yet vague solution that follows.