ENGL / COMM 4103RHETORIC AND PERSUASION

Introduction to Renaissance Rhetoric

“[T]he more humanists learned about the classics, the more they discovered that rhetoric was the discipline that had created the forms, disposed the contents, and ornamented the pages that they had admired and sought to imitate. Rhetoric proved to be . . . A noble and creative art, characteristic of human beings at their best.” (Kennedy 227)

Renaissance Rhetoric

Medieval to Renaissance Rhetoric Medieval Rhetoric after Augustine

The decline of rhetoric: Rhetoric lost much of its civic importance and function. Rhetoric found its place primarily in preaching, letter

writing, and literature Much classical rhetoric was lost or forgotten. Rhetoric ceased to be intellectually robust, descending

into arid and reductive handbooks and simplistic systems.

Medieval Greek Rhetoric: The split between eastern and western Roman empires

separated classical Greek works on rhetoric from the west.

Knowledge of the Greek language in the west was almost non-existent by the end of the medieval period.

Renaissance Schools of Thought Scholasticism:

A medieval system of education that grew up in monastic educational settings. Typified by rigorous application of dialectical

method to resolve contradiction through definition and classification.

An attempt to reconcile Christian thought with classical wisdom.

Focused on Aristotle and the neo-Platonists Dismissive of rhetoric’s epistemological functions:

Rhetoric relegated primarily to style. Logici – dialectic – more important than rhetoric.

Renaissance Schools of Thought Humanists:

Students and teachers of the “humanities” – those subjects dealing with human thought and experience: Grammar, rhetoric, history, poetry (literature), moral philosophy

The study of the humanities was filtered through classical thought. Humanists – at this time – were not necessarily opposed to

Christianity: “With the rarest exceptions, humanists in postmedieval Europe were sincere Christians” (Allen 293).

Humanism was an approach to learning and knowing, thus someone who applied humanist principles to religious matters was a Christian humanist; humanist principles applied to law made a person a legal humanist, and so on.

Humanists were thoroughgoing classicists Style became the most important of the five canons for

humanists.

Recovery of Classical Texts

Greek Texts Plato:

Marsilio Ficino published The Complete Works of Plato in 1484, making all of Plato available in Latin.

Aristotle: George of Trebizond published a Latin translation of

Aristotle’s Rhetoric ca. 1430 Trebizond’s chapter divisions in Rhetoric are still

used today. Rhetores Graeci (1508) included 90 Greek

rhetorical texts, including Plato, Aristotle, Isocrates, and Hermogenes

Recovery of Classical Texts

Latin Texts: Cicero:

Petrarch began the recovery of Cicero in 1345 with the discovery of lost Ciceronian speeches.

Brutus, Orator, and De Oratore discovered in 1421.

Quintilian: Poggio discovered Institutes of Oratory in 1416.

Other Latin Rhetoricians: Hermogenes, Longinus, Dionysius

George of Trebizond

Trebizond’s contributions to rhetoric: Five Books of Rhetoric (1433)

The first truly new rhetorical theory of the Renaissance. Ciceronian division of rhetoric into the five classical canons. Integrated classical Greek and Latin sources. Deals with the utility of oratory, the civic nature of rhetoric,

stasis theory, argument, division of oratory. Not terribly original, but a useful restatement and fusion of

classical rhetorical theory for Renaissance humanists. Numerous translations, including a landmark

translation of Aristotle’s Rhetoric, sometime after 1440. Introduction to Dialectic, a humanist textbook on logic,

published in 1440.

Renaissance Rhetoric Concepts Stark division between rhetoric and dialectic.

Scholastics subordinated rhetoric to dialectic. Rejected any ornamentation in discourse.

Humanists subordinated dialectic to rhetoric. Emphasized the importance of a graceful style in discourse.

Application of rhetoric to more literary contexts. Rhetoric’s deliberative function was curtailed during the

Renaissance. Application of rhetoric to non-linguistic contexts.

Rhetorical principles of style were adapted for other arts: architecture, music, visual art.

Cultural familiarity with rhetoric made rhetorical concepts and terms ideal vehicles for criticism and aesthetic judgments.