The Ethos of a Speaker in Fr. Jacek Woroniecki’s ‘A Tale of Telling Tales’ / Ethos mówcy w ‘Gawędzie o gawędzeniu’ o. Jacka Woronieckiego

Abstract

Woroniecki formulates his conception of the ethos of a speaker against the background of analyses of the conditions of telling tales understood as literary transcripts of living speech transmiting the wisdom of previous generations and addressed to a specific recipient. There is a close connection between the ethos of a speaker (his/her moral condition) and the ethos way of persuasion, a connection conditioned by the specificity of human nature. The way of revealing the speaker’s attitude, and the way in which the ethos reveals and interacts are inseparably connected with the speaker who is a man who cognizes and acts. The imitation or fabrication of the ethos, which is instrumental or detached from the speaker, are contrary to Woroniecki’s position. The specificity of the ethos persuasion (according to Woroniecki) consists in the fact that this persuasion is carried out in connection with the nature of a speaker who is capable of (moral) self-improvement, and of the creative presentation of his development to the auditorium.

Keywords

• ethos
• tale
• tale-telling
• speaker
• persuasion
• character