Completing the picture: Replacing generic embodiments in the historical flow

Grounded in an analysis of “situation”, this essay examines an approach to generic embodiments that offers unique contributions by rehistoricizing a rhetorical act once it has been identified as an instance of a particular genre. The piece begins with an examination of the varying senses, sources, and distinct functions of “situation” for generic rhetorical criticism. The importance of rehistoricizing a generic embodiment then is defended as a means for better understanding the influence of rhetorical acts on other rhetorical acts across time; the case of subsequent rhetorical acts that do not embody the genre in question, but that recover and revitalize an earlier generic embodiment's potential for the later rhetor's own purposes is of special interest. Barry Goldwater's 1964 campaign rhetoric, which embodied a jeremiad, and Ronald Reagan's subsequent recovery and revaluation of that rhetoric illustrates the arguments.

Key concepts:

• Collective Memory
• Generic Criticism
• Genre
• Goldwater
• Jeremiad
• Reagan
• Rehistoricizing
• Rhetorical Situation
• Situation