Rhetoric

The early seventeenth-century English sermon was the bestselling print genre of its time and church preaching was more widely attended than any play. Jennifer Clement argues here that a major aim of these sermons was to teach people how to feel the right emotions — or as preachers would have said at the time the passions or affections — to lead a good Christian life. In the process preachers took a primarily rhetorical approach to the emotions; that is they used their sermons to define emotions and to encourage their listeners and readers actively to cultivate and shape their emotions in line with Scripture.

This study offers an overview of five key emotions — love fear anger grief and joy – in the sermons of key preachers such as John Donne Richard Sibbes Joseph Hall Launcelot Andrewes and others. It shows how these preachers engaged with contemporary treatises on the emotions as well as treatises on preaching to highlight the importance of the rhetorical as opposed to the humoral approach to understanding the emotions in a religious context. In addition Clement reads sermons next to early seventeenth-century religious poetry by writers such as Donne George Herbert Amelia Lanyer and Henry Vaughan to show how the emotional concerns of the sermons also appear in the poetry reverberating beyond the pulpit.

Bringing together rhetorical theory sermon studies and the history of the emotions Clement shows how the early seventeenth-century English sermon needs to inform our thinking about literature and its engagement with emotion in this period.

The present volume develops a new conceptual perspective on late-medieval meditation particularly in Hugh of Saint-Victor Guigo II and Bonaventure of Bagnoregio. For the most part modern commentaries on the subject have relegated rhetoric to the margins of attention if not to complete silence. In contrast this book contends that these writers arrived at their distinctive conceptions of meditation by drawing from the Ciceronian rhetorical tradition. They did so by deepening earlier rhetorical treatments of inventio while adapting them to the Christian life. The examination of this topic is divided into three principal and related aspects. First meditation is studied as a rhetorical notion for a specific kind of mnemonic rational and affective exercise. Second that notion is used to shed light on meditation as a compositional textual practice whose outcomes bear striking analogy to what Umberto Eco called the ‘open works’ of the Western avant-garde. Finally meditation emerges as a form of literary reception required for approaching and construing certain works. In exploring each of these aspects the study shows that rhetoric radically informs not only Hugh’s Guigo’s and Bonaventure’s engagement with meditation but also their views on salvation history monastic life divine revelation scientific learning and biblical hermeneutics. Thus despite the omission or relative insignificance of the ars bene dicendi in most modern investigations it is argued that rhetoric lies at the core of these authors’ entire religious outlook. In this way the present volume aims to contribute to a better understanding of these medieval figures by filling an important gap in the scholarly literature.

This is the first book-length study in decades to offer in-depth readings of a variety of late medieval poems across Gower’s trilingual corpus. Identifying Gower’s rhetorical cornerstones in Aristotelian pathos the theology of the Word and the execution of a plain style it provides fresh interpretations of poems in Latin French and Middle English that arise from an enhanced understanding of Gower’s literary methods. It explores the classical and medieval rhetorical traditions that informed Gower’s craft the biblical personae through which the poet achieved his rhetorical aims and the Renaissance publishers and authors who valued and imitated his strategies for composition. Gower adapted his rhetorical theory from the principles of Aristotelian texts Augustinian theology exemplars of Ciceronian style and the dictates of various artes poetriae; from the latter John of Garland’s Parisiana Poetria is especially important for outlining practices of Marian rhetoric. Modelling virtuous female speakers on the Virgin and prophetic narrators on John the Baptist and John the Evangelist Gower gave extra-scriptural voice to members of the extended Holy Family and in so doing achieved unimpeachable expressions inside classically informed structures of discourse. The epistolary structure proceeding from Ciceronian rhetoric and the artes dictaminis is one among Gower’s favoured rhetorical forms for projecting singular voices. His straightforward reiterative style in Middle English and his virginal speakers compelled Renaissance publisher Thomas Berthelette and celebrated authors Ben Jonson and William Shakespeare to praise Gower’s rhetoric in prefaces and imitate it on the stage.

En devenant le principal support pédagogique des grammatici l’œuvre de Virgile a joué un rôle central dans la formation intellectuelle de la jeunesse lors de l’Antiquité romaine tardive y compris dans la formation rhétorique : les discours - principalement ceux de l’Énéide - ont fourni aux commentateurs du grand poète l’occasion d’expliquer des notions rhétoriques et d’analyser des exemples précis de situations oratoires. Les contributions du présent volume explorent les différentes facettes de cet art virgilien de la parole tel qu’il a été compris par les professionnels de la littérature et de l’éducation de l’Antiquité tardive.

L'ouvrage a pour but d'analyser la fortune du rhéteur Aelius Aristide (117 - vers 180 ap. J.-C.) à l'époque humaniste et de comprendre les raisons qui sont à la base de la réception de son œuvre depuis la redécouverte de la langue grecque en Occident jusqu'à la Reforme. Le devenir des discours aristidiens est examiné sous plusieurs points de vue tout d'abord linguistiques mais aussi historiques sociaux et politiques afin de brosser le tableau le plus complet possible de la diffusion d'Aristide dans l'Europe savante. Quatre traductions inédites sont présentées pour la prèmiere fois ici dont trois réalisées par des humanistes italiens du xv e siècle (Cencio de' Rustici Niccolò Perotti Carlo Valgulio) et une par un humaniste allemand de la première moitié du xvi e siècle (Joachim Camerarius). Elles montrent l'incidence d'Aristide sur la culture occidentale ainsi que son importance pour la construction d'une identité moderne fondée sur une connaissance renouvelée de la rhétorique grecque.

Arnobius is a man of one book. A little known author he was a rhetor and a teacher at Sicca Veneria a town named after Venus - it is a predestined confluence of rhetoric and religion ! - in the 3rd century AD and his book Against the Heathen has never been the subject of a thoroughgoing study in French. Having converted to Christianity at the end of his life this African rhetor proves to be not only a brilliant and spirited writer but also a man of culture at home in Greek literature and in Latin. Remaining intellectually very close to the pagan ideas of his contemporaries he adopts in the seven books of an apology that he left unfinished at his death a vehement and insidious tone of controversy - verging upon dishonesty - in order to turn ancestral Roman religion and Greek mythology from their purpose with the sole aim of magnifying the glory of the Christian God.

Martin Camargo Professor of English Medieval Studies and Classics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is a beloved teacher mentor colleague and the scholar whose work this collection celebrates. With interests in defining ‘medieval rhetoric’ understanding the history of both literary and bureaucratic epistles explaining the revival of rhetorical studies in fourteenth-century England editing texts for teaching the trivium and excavating performance pedagogies in medieval language classrooms Carmago has paved the way for scholars in many fields including educational and institutional history; literature language and manuscript studies; and rhetoric in the Middle Ages.

This book pays tribute to his own ground-breaking research by presenting original and inventive new work in many of these fields. Authored by established scholars and innovative new researchers alike the essays contained in this volume give significant scope to didactic medieval commentaries theories of medieval rhetoric and language literary epistles and the ars dictaminis and poetry of various genres including romances and riddles as well as to the classroom practices that all of these investigations infer. In keeping with Camargo’s generosity in sharing resources the authors hope that their essays in turn will provide encouragement and suggestions for further work.

Au tournant du XII e et du XIIIe siècle les thématiques moralisatrices tiennent une place importante dans les sources musicales parisiennes particulièrement dans la pratique du conductus. L’analyse d’une sélection de conduits monodiques moraux attribués à Philippe le Chancelier révèle les qualités oratoires et rhétoriques de cette production tant par le texte que par la musique. Les deux entretiennent une relation complexe qui peut être de valoriser les sons des mots d’en clarifier le sens ou encore de mettre en place une construction savante à l’intention des esprits habitués aux subtilités de la poésie rythmique latine et des mélodies du plain-chant. Le désir de communication du message moral impose ses règles et ses figures comme autant de techniques apprises au contact d’autres pratiques du discours notamment celle du sermon. Les capacités du prédicateur à structurer son message et le fonder sur un substrat culturel scolaire et biblique se trouvent ainsi réinvesties dans l’élaboration de ces constructions lyriques. Ainsi par la collaboration de tous ces moyens la pastorale se loge là où le discours peut trouver une efficacité nouvelle dans la musique des mots et la déclamation de la voix chantée.

The essays collected here represent the current state of research into the works of John Gower poet philosopher and contemporary of Geoffrey Chaucer. They assess Gower’s literary output within the context of manuscript production and readership/ownership in late medieval England and the triangle of Latin French and English as literary and official languages in Ricardian England. Sections of the volume focus on manuscripts and the circulation of Gower’s works in languages other than English. In addition the literary and philosophical contexts that inform Gower’s poetics and politics are considered here resulting in readings of the poet’s rhetorical and ethical agenda as well as his texts’ intervention in and reaction to social outsiders in his contemporary London. A wide variety of critical discourses inform the readings presented here including medieval English French and Latin literary studies art history manuscript production and reception postmodern ethics and historical studies.

The essays in this volume presented in honour of John O. Ward explore the role of rhetoric in promoting reform and renewal in the Latin West from Peter Abelard (1079-1142) to Juan Luis Vives (1492-1540). Ward who has taught for many years at the University of Sydney has been an influential and creative force in medieval and renaissance studies both in Australia and internationally. This volume opens with a personal memoir and bibliography of Ward’s publications as well as an overview of the study of medieval rhetoric. The first of the three sections ‘Abelard and Rhetoric’ relates Abelard’s rhetoric to his logic his theology and his relationship to Heloise. A second section ‘Voices of Reform’ considers various writers (William of Malmesbury John of Salisbury Richard FitzNigel and William of Ockham) who bring rhetorical techniques to bear upon analysis of social conditions. A third section ‘Rhetoric in Transition’ deals with the evolution of rhetorical theory between the late fourteenth and early sixteenth centuries. The volume will be of interest not just to specialists in rhetoric but to all concerned with issues of reform and renewal in European culture during the period 1100-1540.