The Renaissance of Rhetoric
Introduction
Just as the city-states of Greece had nurtured rhetoric, so did these European cities who served as incubators for the renaissance of rhetoric: Paris, Oxford, Milan, Turin, Rome, Venice, Alexandria, Naples, and Florence. By 1000 A.D. Venice controlled the upper Adriatic Sea and by 1100 it had taken over the eastern coast of Italy.
Italy
Ø Venice
A. Judah Messer Leon (1425-1498) – born and educated in Venice, he provided a commentary on Aristotle, Cicero, and Quintilian, instead of illustrating points with Greek or Roman orators, he relied on speakers of the Old Testament.
o From his book on rhetoric The Book of the Honeycomb’s Flow, is a rhetorical analysis of Hebrew scripture
o Rhetoric is linked to the prophets of old, such as Moses, Isaiah, & Ezekiel.
B. New Technologies (1456) - The Gutenberg developed his press, in Mainz Germany and word quickly spread throughout Europe.
o By 1500 there were 9 million books in Europe and 200 bibles printed
C. The New Academy of Venice (1500) - Became a publishing house of Greek texts, which caused humanism to intensify.
D. Rhetoric believed to be the most artistic of communication studies (Venetian painter Tintoretto 1518-1594)- He painted the baptism of Jesus and provided the public with important images that were rhetorical themselves:
o A persuasive force that enhanced faith in the common man & woman.
Ø Florence
A. Dante Alighieri (1265-1321) - Studied Aristotle, Cicero, Augustine, and Aquinas, two years before his death in 1321 he wrote his famous poem The Divine Comedy:
o It argues that the intervention of the church was blocking the state’s ability to organize Italy into a cohesive unit and it encourages the church to return to its spiritual mission.
o Dante’s “Inferno” demonstrates the wrong turns taken by republicans & church fathers, his “Paradise” reveals the benefits of empire, uses “Purgatory” to represent the disorganization of Italy by hoping it will choose paradise (a united empire) over hell (a collection of city-states), and Dante places his heroes Hector, Homer, Socrates, Plato, Cicero, & Caesar in “Limbo” (the circle of the unbaptized) on the edge of hell where they’d never know God’s glory.
B. Francesco Petrarch (1304-1374) – A priest and humanist, in his dialogues De contempt mundi he defended writers such as Virgil, Cicero, and Seneca. Petrarch believed that the classics could be helpful in developing a sense of rhetorical style, but warned against accepting their content as a guide to morals.
o Four of Petrarch’s characteristics were proved to be typical of those who contributed to the renaissance of rhetoric: He wrote in the Vernacular, he was a skeptic, he was a Humanist, and he despised the corruption in the church.
C. Tolerant of Discreet Homosexual Activity (Donatello) – Cosimo de Medici’s sculpture Donatello (1386-1466), became the first of many Florentine sculptors to shock the world with his revealing conception of the perfect human body.
o That Donatello was a known homosexual which reveals the tolerance of Florence during this time and its desire to return to Athenian values.
D. Financial & Personal Security of Citizens –Shook the foundations of the church.
o Security of the citizens of the city-states led to new calls for nationhood, freethinking, riots, and a rebirth of public address.
E. Machiavelli as Rhetor (1469-1527) – Niccolo Machiavelli was important to the renaissance of rhetoric, he wrote about the power of rhetoric in The Art of War, The Prince, and Discourses on the First Ten Books of Titus Livius. Machiavelli taught that guile and strength can be converted to cruelty, which can be used for good to keep citizens in line.
o Argued that rulers need to establish and / or reinforce leadership, religion, and patriotism. Machiavelli outlines these rhetorical tactics for achieving these goals in The Prince.
o Designated 3 categories for building credibility:
1. Ancestors and good Parenting, was derived from Cicero’s gravitas, claimed that good heritage resulted in good children.
· Modern Ex’s- The election of generations of Kennedy’s, Rockefellers, Roosevelts, Tafts, and Bushes in the U.S by voters who admire the political progenitors of these families.
2. Associations, based on the belief that good people attract one another, you can judge persons by the company they keep.
· Ex’s- Clubs, fraternities, and so on are formed to reinforce mutual tastes, values, and affections.
3. Deed of the Speaker, like Aristotle’s ethos, demonstrating that one is in the habit of doing good is important.
· Ex- These deeds can be great achievements, demonstrations of loyalty, and / or the ability to recognize talent in others.
France
Ø Paris
A. Desiderius Erasmus (1465- 1536) – One of the most important rhetorical theorists who stayed in the Catholic Church. His first work was his collection of Adages published in 1500; the book advanced Christian virtues using fables and made him the first humanist to live off of his writings.
o His most important work for rhetorical theory was De copia rerum et verborum (On Fullness of Expression), which drew heavily on Quintilian and quickly became a standard textbook throughout Europe.
B. Peter Ramus (1515- 1572) – He attacks rhetoric when he stole invention and arrangement for his version of logic. Wrote more than 50 works, including the first analysis of dialectical system of logic in French.
o Ramus split his theory into two categories:
1. Embellishment through expression, including tropes and figures. Claims that there are only 4 Primary Tropes- metaphor, metonymy, synecdoche, & irony.
2. Delivery (voice & gesture).
Germany
Ø Wittenberg
A. Martin Luther (1483-1543) – The printing press spread his attacks across Europe as German princes came to his defense and scientific discovery had eroded dogma of the church.
o He believed that rhetoric and the other arts were servants of God.
o Luther discovered that the pope was selling indulgences (forgiveness for sins) at St. Callixtus and other places to fund his wars.
o On Oct. 31, 1517, he began his revolt by tacking his 95 Theses to the front door of Castle Church.
o He published his attack on the selling of indulgences in the Vernacular, so that everyone could read would know about the corruption in the church.
o Luther translated first the New Testament and then the entire Bible into German, allowing “every man to become his own priest,” it sold over 100,000 copies.
o Luther reformed and revived the German universities. He wrote curricular plans and textbooks, including one on rhetoric.
The English Renaissance
o The tension between the kings and their nobles led to the rise of a parliamentary system that required polished public speaking. The parliament evolved from a council of priests, nobles, minsters, and landholders who advised the king. The first reference to the word “parliament” occurred in 1081 after William of Normandy had conquered England. In 1265, when Simone de Monfort seized power and imprisoned Henry III, Simon, the king’s brother-in-law, called a parliament for advice.
o By 1332, parliament was divided into a House of Lords and a House of Commons.
o The Renaissance in England was closely tied to the movement for reformation in the church and the rebirth of rhetorical theory.
A. Leonard Cox (c. 1495 – c. 1549)
o An English humanist and scholar of international reputation who found patronage inPoland. He was known to contemporaries as a grammarian, rhetorician, poet, and preacher, and was skilled in the modern as well as the classical languages.
o Cox wrote the first book on rhetoric in the English language, The Arte or Crafte of Rhetoryke (1530). Cox’s textbook proved more comprehensive and influential even though it ignored memory and combined style of delivery. He divided the logical genre between simple and compound themes such as definition, cause, and effect.
o Cox added the “logical” form of public speaking to the standard list deliberative, forensic, and epideictic.
B. Thomas Wilson (1523-1581)
o A humanist and anti-Catholic scholar who had an active life as a diplomat and a member of the Privy Council, a formal body of advisors to the monarchy, during the reign of Elizabeth I.
o Wilson’s The Rule of Reason was the first book on logic written in English; it reworked the topics set out by Agricola, who had created his list by combining those of Boethius and Cicero.
o His The Arte of Rhetorique (1553) brought all five classical cannons into the English language for the first time, although he privileged invention, arrangement, and style over memory and delivery, which again reflects the influence of Melanchthon on English rhetors.
o Writing in the English vernacular, Wilson grouped teaching, delighting with words, and persuading under the province of rhetoric.
o Wilson assigned different rhetorical talents to different classes of human beings. He endorsed three types of style, the “mighty”, the “small”, and the “low”, for adaptation to the structure of England.
C. The teaching of Art and Rhetoric
o Thomas Wilson believed that every discipline could be reduced to a method. His discussion of memory is the longest of any of the Tudor scholars since he analyzed its relationship with method, organization, and logic. Delivery was divided into voice and gesture, just as Ramus had suggested.
o Nonetheless, his book did endorse the teaching of the art of rhetoric that led in the part to its renaissance in England.
o The introduction of rhetorical studies to England caused a debate over the proper uses of rhetoric in the courts.
o In 1600, William Fulbecke wrote A Directive or Preparative to the study of Law, which reviewed and refuted arguments made by Wilson and others in support of rhetoric.
o Henry Peacham and George Puttenham argued for and practiced rhetoric as tropology. He published Garden of Eloquence in 1577. Puttenham claimed that art was a “certain order of rules prescribed by reason, and gathered by experience”. He also believed that language brings art to perfection through practice, including those “artes of Grammar, Logicke, and Rhetorick”.
D. The King James Bible
o Like Horace and Cicero before him, Puttenham believed that style was the image of the speaker. That is why in chapter V of Book III, The Arte of English Poesie, he claimed that style projects one’s persona.
o The neoclassical period in England revived Horace in poetry and literature, and Cicero and Quintilian in rhetoric, and as we have seen, Tyndale’s Bible had improved the language.
o It was during this period that the King James Version of the Bible was written.
The Spanish Renaissance
o The Renaissance came more slowly to Spain, where the Catholic Church exercised its authority with incredible cruelty, especially under Ferdinand and Isabella who revived the Inquisition in 1480 to ferret out the heretics and convert the Jews and Muslims.
o The Inquisition in Spain became so violent that Pope Sixtus condemned it. Five thousand Jews were publicly punished and another 500 were burned at the stake. The Spanish monarchs vowed to expel Muslims from their land and succeeded in 1492, when a civil war among Muslims broke out in Granada, the last stronghold of Islam in Spain.
A. Persecution
o King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella then incorporated great reserves of Muslim knowledge from Toledo, Cordoba, and Granada. They Christianized these communities but retained their Muslim architects and tile makers.
o The persecution of these minorities retarded the development of new ways of thinking and caused an exodus of major scholars from Spain. However, Ferdinand’s acquisition of territories in the New World and conquest of Sicily and Naples brought many riches to the kingdom.
o It is one of the reasons that Machiavelli uses Ferdinand as his model prince. This renaissance in Spain led to a revival of rhetoric there.
B. Women in Jesuit schools
o Gregoria Mayans Y Siscar’s (1699-1782) Rhetorica, which was published in Valencia in 1757, was the culmination of works begun by such scholars as Juan Luis Vives (1492-1540) and much more.
o Being a Jesuit, Mayans goal was to write a Christian rhetoric that was more accessible and clear than Augustine’s De doctrina christiana. Thus, it should come as no surprise that Mayans’ Rhetorica is highly Ciceronian in its orientation and probably derived from Soares’ work.
o Vives favored admitting women into Jesuit schools, which were fast becoming the best in Europe.
C. Juan Luis Vives (1492-1540)
o One of Mayans’s forerunners, Vives, who was from Valencia in Spain, was important not only for his writing on rhetoric and his new translation of Augustine’s City of God but also for tutoring Mary, the daughter of Catherine and Aragon and King Henry VIII.
o H wrote his letter on deliberative speaking in Oxford in 1523, where he also revealed the influence of scholastics on his work by arguing that invention was the province of dialect, not rhetoric.
o He also came to believe that rhetoric was “the living flow of the soul”. His theories soften the Ramain influence in the work of Thomas Wilson.
o From this point on rhetoric spreads to America with the Puritans.