Change and continuity - the rhetoric of Blair's breaking off

Hello again.

It's been scandalously long since I've posted any actual news here.

More recently I've been preoccupied with doing the index for a book called Renaissance Figures of Speech (forthcoming from Cambridge University Press - it's great!). On May 10th, I took a break from my indexing work to watch Tony Blair's resignation being beamed to me from County Durham. This was a strangely appropriate interlude to working on a book about rhetoric. As Polly Toynbee noted in the next day's Guardian, "yesterday was a celebration of the ancient art of rhetoric, modernised for a touchy-feely age". I found the speech oddly moving.

A line I found particularly interesting in this speech was this: "Sometimes the only way you conquer the pull of power is to set it down." This reminded me of this:

Nigel Biggar, the ethical thinker, has written that the lesson we must learn 'about the just exercise of political power, about the use of power to heal and build relationships, is that nothing quite becomes it so much as the giving it up ... So if we would exercise power justly, in such a way as to promote the flourishing of human community, then we must practise the art of surrendering it.' Jesus had the power to protect Himself and promote Himself, but He forswore the use of it. Rome always used her legions to defend her interests: God declined so to use His. To follow the example of the Cross means to sit loose to power, to practise the art of surrendering it, and to determine to use such power as we have justly, wisely, creatively and sacrificially.

(Michael Lloyd, Café Theology (Alpha International, 2005), p.170. The quotation from Nigel Biggar is cited from Nicholas Wolterstoff, Lament for a Son (Eerdmans, 1987/Hodder and Stoughton, 1989), p.106.)

From a rhetorical point of view, one thing that was interesting is that Tony Blair broke off quite abruptly at the end. Commentators were unsure whether he intended to do so or whether he was overcome by emotion and unable to continue. This could be seen as an example of the figure of aposiopesis, which the Silva Rhetoricae website defines as "Breaking off suddenly in the middle of speaking, usu ally to portray being overcome with emotion." In Shakespeare's plays, there are moments whether it is unclear whether the character is deliberately breaking off for effect or whether Shakespeare is using the effect of the character breaking off to signify genuine emotion on the character's part. In other words, does the aposiopesis belong to Shakespeare or to the character? Did Blair consciously use aposiopesis as a device?

The nation faces some big changes. Some things have changed in my world too. The biggest change in Link House has been the retirement of Paul and Hilary as wardens and the arrival of Martin and Nicola as the new wardens. Paul and Hilary had a grand send off, where we gave them a cookbook of international recipes from Link House residents, and Martin and Nicola are settling in well and bringing their own touch to things.

Other news in brief:

I've become secretary of Christ's MCR (basically the body that represents graduate students in the college), by a round about process involving me losing an election for this position.

I've been to a wedding and took some photos of the inside of champagne bottles.

I was likened to "Andrew Marr on drugs" by the person leading a training session I attended on presentation skills. He also told me that this was endearing.

A chicken pox epidemic has hit Link House and seems now to be burning itself out.

I had a birthday lately.

I may or may not elaborate on these or other details of my life since February.