I've noticed in talking about the abundant style a marked shift in the current readings from that era. I'm a bit late on posting this, mainly because I wanted to see if this abundance of style had any impact on what we read by Locke and Hume. Where I see Lock and Hume being very concerned with the scientific part of the process of writing and rhetoric, the abundant style still has a place, although it is very subdued. As a writer, I know that in order to keep my writing interesting and engaging multiple tactics have to be employed from a rhetorical standpoint. In the abundant style, I use a variety of subject matter and variety of sentence structures to keep my reader interested and actively engaged in texts.
I think one of the biggest problems I have with modern/contemporary articles is the dryness and the staleness that comes with academic prose. Often I am drawn to the rhetoric that falls outside of the canons and that embrace multimodality or a difference in voice. I have figured out through the years the reason I'm drawn to these types of rhetoric is not only because they represent a rich culture that I am not actively part of usually, but also because they take the canon and mold it in a way that is interesting and refreshing. My contemporary dialogue will try and mold and shape a new way to interpret a socratic/platonic dialogue in that I plan on using a graphic novel type of setup to convey the ideas and notions that I think are readily available in using the visual and textual in conjunction with one another. While I'm no artist, there are programs that are used for pedagogical purposes that will help me fulfill my need and fill in my artistic gap. Hopefully, it turns out well.
Finally, looking ahead I am also planning on revising my teaching statement to include more about my visual and digital melding ideas that I've been developing for the past few weeks. I'm still burgeoning in this area, but it is the first time I've felt that pull towards a research that I can actually do as well as enjoy.
Michael, Interesting post. I agree that Locke and Hume seem more interested in being direct and clear, although there is some audience awareness involved that ties back to abundant style. But I am also thinking about what you wrote about in terms of multi modality. I'm trying to decide if they would classify this new shift as a modern manifestation of or a complete departure from abundant style. If part of Erasmus' rationale was to make rhetoric less ornate and more clear to a given audience, then multi modality does seem to do that. However, it can also exclude a particular audience - those who are not tech savvy. Older generations might shy away from the same elements that you are drawn towards, but again Erasmus includes bits about knowing your audience. And we now have the ability to embed additional information that builds clarity within our texts, which would remove some of the issues with obsolete, archaic, and foreign words. If we included, say, a foreign word, we could also create a video aside (Shakespearian-style modernized a la Ze Frank or the Vlog Brothers) or hyperlink to a deeper description of that term. So I suppose in some ways multi modality can circumvent the need for many of the rules of copia while it simultaneously progresses its spirit.
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