The Rhetorical Tradition
Patricia Bizzell and Bruce Herzberg
“Renaissance Rhetoric–Introduction”
“Desiderius Erasmus”
From Copia: Foundations of the Abundant Style
“Peter Ramus”
From Arguments in Rhetoric against Quintillian
“Thomas Wilson”
From The Arte of Rhetorique
Rhetoric Retold
Cheryl Glenn
Chapter Four: “Inscribed in the Margins”
The Rhetorical Tradition
Patricia Bizzell and Bruce Herzberg
“Margaret Fell”
Women’s Speaking Justified, Proved, and Allowed by Scriptures
“Madeleine de Scudery”
Of Conversation
Of Speaking too much, or too little. And how we ought to Speak.
Rhetoric in the European Tradition
Thomas Conley
Chapter Five: “Rhetoric and Renaissance Humanism”
“Renaissance Rhetoric–Introduction”
Secular humanism is defined as “[t]he intellectual movement [which emphasizes] human powers to know and change the world and insisted on scholars’ rights to pursue knowledge without being constrained by Church dogma” (555).
Early Renaissance rhetoric attempted to “reunite broad learning, philosophical wisdom, and eloquence” (555).
B&H take a counter-traditional stand that rhetoric in the Renaissance “traced along the path of Renaissance cultural development from Italy to Northern Europe and on to England” (556), which to me is a good thing since this cultural fixed path of migrating thought seems to much like a teleological time linewith the end point having the highest level of rhetorical saavy (and surprise! It’s England!). That whole concept sounds suspiciously like Bernal’s “extreme Aryan model” of Mediterranean socities. B&H explain:
But the pace of change varied greatly from place to place, and the development of rhetoric was conditioned by the great political, social, and religious changes that also occurred in this period…it is misleading to speak of rhetoric as a unified subject of study. There were many rhetorics in the Renaissance. (556)
B&H claim that rhetoric lost its political importance on the European scene as as large-scale monarchies took power, and through this fall in the hierarchy of importance, rhetoric lost it epistemic function, too (556). This was different in the Italian city states as the government and territory were small, in fact, they were still very much like the societies of antiquity when it came to the suasivepowerof rhetoric. While there was no large democracy (which even in Rome and in Greece was limited to males who were landowners and not slaves), there was still the possibility of courtiers who could persuade ruling families. The environment was highly stable (in comparison to other parts of Europe where the populations were dealing with wars, religious wars, and the Plague) and also very wealthy. These city-states had been mercantile centers since the Roman Empire. This in turn led to training centeresfor”rhetoric-related professions such as lawyer or notary, and also as places with a rich tradition of public oratory for state occasions and family ceremonies” (557).
Scholasticism was the main pedagogy in the universities at this time. Scholasticism was “committed to a version of Aristotelian empiricism that stressed the knowledge of external reality rather than emphasizing the mind’s power to reimagine and shape reality” (557).
Humanist during this period try to return to the classical. Through their work in translation, they began to see the meaning as “historically established” (560), and this helped foster a concept of rhetoric as important since there was no God-given Truth, only practices and actions taken informed by convention and the ability of individuals able to persuade others to take courses of action within the defined episteme of the city-state. For humanists, if an individual wanted to be “actively useful, the responsible citizen must express philosophical insights in language that is convincing in contemporary circumstances” (560).
This emphasis on individual citizens was based on a belief that individuals make “history by attempting to develop personal talents amid the constraints of given historical circumstances; thus individuality is both historically constituted and an act of will. This notion of self as performance gave an aesthetic cast to humanist scholarship that attracted the interest of many aristocrats” (561).
As the city-states were consolidated, the humanist scholars focused less on public-political life and more on education (561). Humanist education (then as now in my opinion) “was something of a paradox…The humanist educators devised curricula to prepare children to embody the Ciceronianideal of the public man at a time when to actually enact this ideal was becoming increasingly difficult except for the sons of a few aristocratic families. This controdictioncould perhaps be glossed over with boy students, for the could adapttheir literary skills to the demands for accomplished writing that grew as gvernemnetramified. They could find places as public servants, even if those roles were covert ones of courtiers or bureaucrats…the contradiction emerges in full force with respect to the many girl students who were educated alongside the boys in most early humanist schools” (562).
When women scholars called for full parity with male scholars “they were rebuffed in a variety of ways: told to limit their secular studies or risk vulgarity, to turn to sacred studies or imperil their souls–or told to cease altogether or be proved unchaste” (563).
Excellent rebuff of an argument for full confrontation with male scholars and awesome articulation of what any pejoritized group faces when squaring up to the ruling hegemony by Cassandra Fedele on 563.
An evolved claim about Renaissance “rhetorics” not just “rhetoric” on 564; the rhetorics are based on time, place, and government in power.
In Northern Europe there appears to be more of an emphasis on finding a universal method of rhetoric, one that could be easily taught. “It seemed to promise an almost magical power that would align the knower and the known and confirm and extend the human mind’s domination over nature. What we now call the scientific method may have been the another outcome of these same efforts” (567).
Erasmus: “greatly expanded the scope of sacred rhetoric. He followed Augustine’s lead in claiming that the preacher must seek to move as well as teach and exploring stylistic means for doing so” (567). He does this through “recovering a full range of rhetorical resources” (567). Erasmus was Catholic monk, but through the Brothers of the Common Life, who took no vows but volunteered themselves to a simple life in a communal setting where local acts of charity where encouraged. Erasmus also taught that letters could encompass all forms of classical rhetoric (deliberative, forensic, epidiectic), and did much to move letter writing out of the more stylistically rigid forms and purposes developed in the middle ages. Erasmus was a critic of the Catholic Church and its excesses, but still remained a member and defended Catholicism against Protestant critics.
Rasmus: published works that attacked Scholasticism and major classical figures (Aristotle, Quintillian) while he was a professor at the University of Paris. He claimed to have found better methods of divining the truth and teaching other how to do so, too. B&H explain:
[W]hereas earlier humanists carefully separated medieval scholarship from the classial authors they claimed it had corrupted, Ramus wished to throw off all authorities, classical or medieval. Hence he lays out his theoretical program by attacking Aristotle, Cicero, and Quintillian in turn. He also downplays th eimportance of classical languages in his educational scheme. Ramus was one of the first academics to publish all of his works in the vernacular–French, in his case–as well as in Latin. His attack on classical thought and language is so vigorous that one might question whether he can be called a humanist…Ramus’s positve program calls for the union of philosophy and eloquence, but by this he most emphatically does not mean the Ciceronian ideal. Like Agricola, Ramus simply includes in dialectic various activities of invention and arrangement that had been the province of rhetoric…by rhetoric Ramus means only the study of stylistic ornamentation…for serious business plain style is best…Ramism dialectic greatly [simplified] material to fit into dichotomies…a useful pedagogical tool. (568-569)
He is, essentially, the anti-Italian humanist who is still considered a humanist due to his emphasis on the power of the individual.
Wilson–an Englishman whose rhetorical textbook (yes, textbook) “was the first textbook in English not only to acknowledge rhetoric’s five-part structure but to discuss all five parts in detail” (571). It was popular since it heavily dealt in the concept of performance, since “the popularity of these rhetorics [Wilson's textbook was often reprinted] derived partly from the ambitions of social climbers in volatile Elizabethan society…They were sources of information on how to behave, talk, and write like a member of the upper social classes. Social mobility reinforced the idea of identity as performance, since the courtier, possibly newly arrived at a high rank, had to show that he or she belonged there. Even if born into an aristocratic family, one was required to give a seemingly effortless imitation of an aristocrat to prove that one’s rank was justified” (572). In this type of rhetorical situation, the rhetor has to rely heavily on the audience’s reaction because they ratify the rhetor’s performance and deem his/her persona as successful. The performer/rhetor is never offstage in this situation and requires many abilities, rhetorically, to meet this demand (composing primarily as writing was huge in Tudor ruled England; the courtier could be expected to write or speak on demand political speeches, love letters, poetry, praise for a specific superior or scorn for the super-ordinate’s enemies [572]).
Rhetoric creates the ground for poetry, but divides from logic–due to Ramist influence–and looses its “epistemic power” (573). Rhetoric then, as now, was deplored. The “‘best’ language was seen as value neutral tool of inquiry, not a value-laden medium of communication” (573).
Early humanists felt that all people were shaped by their culture, but that humans had the capability to step back and take a critical distance from the received social and religiouswisdomthey had received (and here this mean Protestant reformers, too). However, withthe rise of Cartesian science, this was not enough. “The new science attempted to elevate reason to an even more exalted position, claiming that it could free itself from all learned cultural dispositions and replace received wisdom withnewly discovered universals or absolutes…In other words, with the rise of science, culture bound knowledge began to seem second rate, and withitrhetoric, both secular and sacred, that drew on cultural knowledge” (574).
“True knowledge is a knowledge of things, not words. Hence [Arnauld's] logic text recommends beginning from personal experience and pursuing induction to achieve knowledge” (576).
“Yet even this rejection of rhetorical style constitutes a style, one of directness and simplicity” (576).
“Desiderius Erasmus”
Erasmus was very interested in education. He envisioned peace through unity in one political state (like ancient Rome) and one common religion (Roman Catholicism) and one common language (Latin). “For this dream to be realized, education must play an important role, since fluency in Greek and Latin wold have to be encouraged from an early age. Classical and patristic texts would be the focus of instruction. Rhetoric would be a natural extension and aid of this work., because the only surviving classical textbooks treated rhetoric and because rhetoric’s methods would help to analyze Greek and Latin texts. Erasmus draws heavily from Quintilian in his thinking on education” (582). Utopia would be achieved through education and the return to one, unified identity. Sounds familiar.
On Copia is intended to help the student “attain copie, or abundance, in his Latin style, and ultimately to attain the flow of powerful words and ideas that mark the accomplished rhetor” (582). The text primarilydeals with amplification, and in doing so treats a wide variety of figures and tropes.
Erasmus advocated flexible style of Latin that wasn’t a copy of what the “masters” had written as forwarded by the rigid Ciceronianism of his time. In this way, “Erasmus hoped that a Latin language revivified and liberated by his stylistic principles could become, once again, the universal language of a united Christian civilization” (583). This gained some traction, but was ended by the rise of the plainer Senecan style favored by the likes of Francis Bacon in the 17th century.
On Copiaisntacatalogue. It’s a “superabundant verbal play…that is designed to increase fluency of both words and ideas–the two are mutually generative” (583).
“The humanist analysis of sacred texts that Erasmus modeled and taught could become a means not only to verbal fluency but also to spiritual insight and piety” (585).
Last paragraph is an interesting talk about folly and transcending folly, which makes the person transcending look mad; for Erasmus, according to some scholars, this was a move towards a spiritual transcendence.
From Copia: Foundations of the Abundant Style
Erasmus names the dangers of copia in his first section and explains he will be pontificating about the two aspects of abundant style: “content and expression, and giving some examples and patterns” (597). By the end of the text he makes this clear by explaining how even in praising a man, a speaker can bring in contrary ideas that may seem to undercut the man, but through words serve to show how such ideas continue to praise the object of affection. It’s all in the turning of the phrase and bending the figures to the goal of a positive appraisal.
598 takes on Ciceronians by asserting Cicero participated in the type of exercises he (Erasmus) is about to describe. Ciceronians where all about slavish imitation of classical rhetoricians/rhetors according to B&H. Ciceronians would have been against Erasmus’s fluid style of Latin composition.
Abundant style has two aspects: 1)Richness of expression (synonyms, heterosis, enallge, metaphor, variation in word form, equivalence) and 2)Richness of subject matter (assembling, explaining, amplifying of arguments through examples, comparisons, dissimilarities, opposites) (598). This is all in the attempt to introduce variety into speaking and composing; Erasmus makes the claim that variety is found in nature, and therefore, is naturally pleasing to audiences. In the converse, if a speaker/writer can not speak/compose with variety he gives the appearance of being unnatural and consequently seen as “unintelligible, harsh, or even totally unable to express” (598-599) himself.
Vulgar words (richness of expression) are vulgar sometimes due to the words themselves (cursing, I suppose) and other time due to the fact the wrong word is applied to the wrong subject or are used at the most inopportune time. Erasmus makes uses the example of dung–good when talking to farmers, bad when giving a speech on the affairs of state in front of the sovereign or dignitaries (600).
Unusual words (richness of expression) should not be used for the sake of being clever. It comes off as artificial.
Poetic Words (richness of expression) should be used sparingly, especially in prose.
Archaic words make for good elaboration and add some charm. These words should be used sparingly.
Obsolete words are best used for humor or irony. The meanings have changed, and in a way I think this is a cloaked dagger thrown at the Ciceronians of Erasmus’s time.
Harsh words are often uncomfortable metaphors no one understands, or at least find odd but not clever.
Foreign words should be used sparingly.
Indecent words should be avoided, but can be used if they express certain acts that one is talking about (I assume this has something to do with the act of preaching; Erasmus mentions incest as a vile act but to talk about the act itself is not bad, so it would seem in warning about or describing for educational purposes is not indecent). A writer/speaker can learn how to use them by paying attention to those of good repute who are modest in their speech.
New words are good for spice but should be used moderately.
The rest of the text is the continual building on and elaboration of how to perform the abundant style. The headings are self-explanatory and the first paragraph after each heading describes the point of the section denoted by the heading. What I find more interesting are the terms that seem to match the “dreaded modes.” While I think it would be easy to see Erasmus as part of this long tradition of the modes in the composition classroom, I think that such critics need to understand the intent of Erasmus and the centuries between his work and that of current-traditional pedagogues. Erasmus fore-grounds the idea that language and thought are connected and one breeds the other; that the point of speaking/composing is to be flexible so as to create an abundant style when speaking or writing; and that this is an handbook intended for those working in Latin and Greek. Also, in his own time period, there would be no conflation between teaching language and its uses with the idea of a literary canon as now. Most primary and secondary schools, when teaching English, are actually teaching literary study either to promote the supremacy of Anglo-American traditions and to re-enforce those traditions as point of pride and the taken for granted superior literature within the entire world, or they use said class time to teach appreciation, to construct the text as art, as the repository of genius, and something that the reader should be edified by through reading and contemplating it.
This, I don’t think, was the milieu of Erasmus. If someone at this time was literate, said person was training for a position within the church or the government. Literacy wasn’t about passive consuming or edification–it was about producing text (oral, written) in a competitive, high stakes environment where a position in government could greatly affect the student’s material situation. How Erasmus’s students would capitalize on outlining or a manual giving examples would be much different than current-day students; due to the episteme of late capitalism students today are expected to consume or enjoy a text, not use it as a heuristic to question or interrogate their situation–and certainly not something they would produce to advance a specific claim about the world (or just a topic) after using another text to critically consider the events going on around them. While it may be said the stakes are the same for today’s students as it was for Erasmus’s (education equates to the license for a high-level profession) the difference is that it was stated upfront and made clear through the social practices of the Renaissance. Currently, in my opinion, everyone believes the U.S. is a classless society where everyone who is “worthy” makes it to the top of the social hierarchy through essential qualities, not through things like quality of education, socio-economic class, familial history, or ability to navigate social situations that please super-ordinates.
“Peter Ramus”
Ramus was anti-Scholasticism, and therefore, thought all classical–as well as most contemporary–styles of learning were useless. His master’s thesis argued that the work of Aristotle was useless. He believed the ability to reason was innate and that it could be cultivated through exercise, so there was no reason for a system like Aristotle’s or Quintillian’s to teach reasoning nor argumentation nor persuasion nor Latin nor Greek. Rhetoric is only questions of style in his system (which he proposed to replace the useless styles, like Scholasticism or classical thinkers) and the real power to make meaning lies in the dialectical.
Dialectical in Ramus’s system receives the invention and arrangement, too. There are ten topics of invention: causes, effects, subjects, adjuncts, opposites, comparisons, names, divisions, definitions, and witnesses (676). Arragnement should only follow the structure of the syllogism and move from the most general principles and work down to the most minute practices; “the process typically involves the creation of dichotomies at each level” (676). Ramus felt this was the most natural way to organize discussion on any subject. It mirrors the natural order of the world and the human mind, making any argument easy to remember, and thus the canon of memory is no longer needed.
Many did see this as the universal method of inquiry so many of the intellectuals of the day chased after. “Literary historian Frances Yates places Ramist dichotomours diagrams in the hermetic tradition, according to which certain spatial arrangments of symbols magically control, because they duplicate, the order of the world. The link with this tradition helps to explain how Ramus could present his method of arrangement as the perfect memory system, alinging the mind and the material to be known as they match and bond” (677).
Ramus say his method applicable to any endeavor, not just statecraft nor poetry nor prose.
Ramus attacks Quintillian on many fronts. First, he argues there is no need for moral philosophy nor moral character in a speaker. Also, he attacks Quintillian for including anything that may lead to speculation; the text should only include the things that the Quintillian wanted to impart to his students, not topics that other rhetoricians may want to discuss or consider. There should only be one correct answer. Moreover, there is nothing to be gained through continually reading and writing. Students should imitate their instructor or other excellent speakers (678-679).
From Arguments in Rhetoric against Quintillian
The intro is a derision of Aristotle, Cicero, and Quintillian, and a judging of them by his own method of arrangement, that is, the “natural” syllogism. Ramus closes in essentially the same way, and this seems odd. Not that he shouldn’t forward his own method or even argue for an explicit claim (ie, classical thinkers are wrong), but that he doesn’t seem to acknowledge these thinkers had their own system; Rasmus doesn’t seem to even try to demonstrate how his system is superior through comparison. He just runs classical thinkers down on the basis of their arguments not fitting his (literally his) method of analysis.
Ramus argues for efficiency (683 underlined).
For Ramus Reason and Speech are separate. Speech does not influence Reason as Erasmus taught, and consequently, rhetoric and grammar are lesser arts than dialectic. Grammar makes sure language is pure and understandable, rhetoric ensures a correct and appropriate delivery. (684)
Ramus, on 685, appears to be arguing for an essentialist view of the world. Morality and virtue are products of nature, not something that is inculcated within an individual.
685-686 Ramus performs an ad hominem attack. This whole piece, so far, appears to be one. It would seem it is based in rhetoric even though it claims to be based in dialectic. Ramus’s concept of syllogism as pure reason is nothing more than his own form of persuasion, or rhetoric. It just has traction since it allows him to speak in absolutes to an audience hungry for absolutes. Ramus just understands the kairotic moment. (687)
On 690 (section underlined) Ramus asserts we see the work of classical scholars as “splendid” because the rules of his times have been based on and forced to conform to the work of these thinkers since they are considered brillantby tradition alone. This I can agree withto an extent, there is a socially constructed network of forces at work, and yet I still have problems with Ramus’s inability to compare his method to that of Quintillian. This text is primarily an ad hominemattack that can only work with a like-minded audience.
“Thomas Wilson”
In the Arte of Rhetorique, Wilson of a way to find and and develop arguments, that is, rhetoric is more than embellishment. This is different than his what he says in the Rules of Reason.
The emphasis on aptness and conciseness is a way to emphasis, covertly, ethos according to Lois Agnew (699).
Due to the milieu of England in the 16th century, Wilson emphasizes written rhetoric. Letter writing and composition was all the rage it seems.
Book 1: Taxonomizing the subject via of definitions from classical times; places to search (invent) epidecictic or ceremonial speeches; gives app. places for deliberative speech (in this example a letter exhorting a friend to take up the study of law); stasis theory; palces for judicial speech; advice on how to handle conflicting or ambiguous laws.
Book 2: Detailed instructions for the disposition and arrangement of an oration broken into seven parts (for full description see 701). From there he turns to amplification and copia.
Book 3: Elocution and style (delivered via a taxonomy) and finally methods to memorize speeches (the classical “build a house” exercise).
From The Arte of Rhetorique
The mention on 703 of men who organized society into being through persuasion echos Cicero with a twist: the men are the elect and the faithful (whom I don’t think are necessarily one and the same). Very Protestant spin.
Questions with material consequences are the property of rhetoric (705).
Rhetoric is eloquence codified (707).
Is division akin to stasis?
Rhetoric Retold
Cheryl Glenn
Chapter Four: Inscribed in the Margins
This chapter follows the routine of all the others until thgeend. It then “explores Renaissance rhetoric, which flourished as a male-dominated practice that connected at various points with literature, education, religion, science, and politics. The last section charts the rhetorical activitesand contributions of three women who inhabited these rhetorical interstices” (119). Margaret Anne Roper, Anne Askew, and Elizabeth I. All are the models of Chrisitan humanism, the Protestant Reformation, and English imperialism.
By the end of the chapter Glenn overtly defines rhetoric as a very open term. Any type of writing (literary, religious) or publicly consumed speech acts created by a woman is rhetoric.
“Beauty and perfection–not intellect and schooling–were paramount to ideal womanhood, but cheerfulness, contentment, and modesty could give beauty to a soul” (129).
As there was little need for impassioned speeches in public settings about the right course of action to be taken by the nation state, rhetoricians concern themselves with other textual productions like poetry and the development of English (the vernacular for England) as the language of government and the court within the British Empire. Both feed into an English pride movement based in language, and through language, identity. (138-141)
[A] woman had to be swept into the public sphere on a wave of intellectual support, so that her rhetorical endeavors could be read through a masculine screen of male words, male religion, and male rule. (143) This comes through all women Glenn mentions as exemplars, although Elizabethth (158-172) had the power through her position as monarch to actually, brillantly, redefine her body as both male and female, and Askew’s(153-158) made her abilities known through the horrific event of being tortured and executed by men of church. While bothAskew and Elizabeth are excellent rhetorswho use both their respective rhetorical situations to their particular advantage, both still had to do so with the help of men–or at least play on the masculine tropes, figures, and stereotypes of prevalent in Renaissance England. Roper (146-153) is a more traditional version of this idea, as she was recognized by men and vouched for by men do to the quality of her translations of classical and foreign texts.
“Margaret Fell”
Fell was one of several Renaissnace women educated on the idea that education “made [women] better Christians and more docile daughters and wives” (748). Even though all women at this time were barred from university education, several educated women, according to B&H, felt more empowered due to education and the new forms of religions, and therefore spiritiuality, women could experience. Women felt “they answered to a high power, even if men censured them” and so some–lilke Fell–began to openly challenge social convention. The impetus was faith, and coupled with the humanistic ideas of individuality (also present in many of the new Protestant denominations), this acted as the energy to animate women like Fell (749).
Fell was a Quaker who was “also an active controversalist who helped shape the Society’s views on a range of issues. She was not merely an influence on George Fox [her second husband and a leader in the Society himself] but an intellectual leader of the movement in her own right” (751).
Moreover, Fell did not justify her own speaking merely on the grounds that she was possessed by God, prophesying in the griop of a holy vision. Many Protestant women adopted the posture of prophet to justify their public speaking, but this was an inherently humble role, implying that the womanherself did not speak but God spoke through her, and that she would subside when the divine spirit left her. Fell, in contrast, behaved like a full scale leaser of the Society of Friends throughout her life. (751)
Women’s Speaking Justified, Proved, and Allowed by Scriptures
As the title makes clear, this text is a polemic arguing against the silence of women in Church (meaning all matters ecclesiastical and participating as full clergy, I suppose). Fell goes directly to the Bible and demonstrates how women were either a) messengers b) prophets or c) been excluded from participation in the Church through skewed, biased readings. After each claim she produces support from the Bible, citing chapter and verse (a good example is upfront on page 753, first full paragraph, second column).
On 757 Fell claims any argument on the silence of women based on Judaic law is invalid. The New Convenant as proposed by Christ’s teaching voids the Law. “I permit not a Woman to speak, saith the Law: but where Women are led by the Spirit of God, they are not under the Law…for he [Christ] is the end of the law of Righteousness to all them that believe” (757 emphasis original).
“Madeleine de Scudery”
Scudery was a member of Parisian salon society. In salons:
The purpose of gathering was amusement. The participants played practical jokes on each other, proposed excursions to a favorite pastry shop or an outlying estate, engaged in literary disputes, poetry contests, and other word games, and above all, conversed wittily on the affairs of the day, current literature, and topics both morally serious and utterly frivolous. (761)
She continued Pizan’s literary tradition arguing for women of worth (762).
Sprezzatura–a courtiers’ facility in persuading super-ordinates with apparent naturalness , as if requiring little conscious effort (764).
Explanation of Castiglione’s influence on salon culture on 764.
Giving classical names to the characters within her texts lent an air of eloquence to the scenes, and because the conversations, all led by women, were constructed as “a civilizing force because [the conversations] encourage[d] virtue” (766). B&H go on to claim:
Thus it is at least equal in civic utility to traditional rhetoric, or perhaps more useful, since most forms of public speech described by traditional rhetoric are impolitic under an autocratic prince. Donawerth has also held that “compliments and graciousness, as well as intelligence and patriotism, move one toward a position of power” through one’s influence in salon society. In this way, women’s use of language in the semiprivate space of the salon has very public consequences. (766)
B&H assert “Scudery not only elaborates women’s place in [salon life], but also claims it as a rhetorical field in which women lead” (766).
Of Conversation and Of Speaking too much, or too little. And how we ought to Speak.
Both appear to be a conduct manuals for carrying on conversations in a salon setting set in the scheme of a secular morality tract, or at least the conversation one overhears in a salon between confidantes about accepted discourse practices within the community and the practices observed that should be avoided.
Rhetoric in the European Tradition
Thomas Conley
Chapter Five: “Rhetoric and Renaissance Humanism”
“The eloquence these scholars sought to master was not an empty pomposity of language or the extravagant artifice sometimes associated with rhetoric, but the harmonious union of wisdom and style whose aim was to guide men toward civic virtue, not to mislead them for the sake of winning the day” (109).
Conley makes the argument this desire for eloquence was in no small part based in the violent milieu of Renaissance Europe. Constant war, political strife, and questions of religion turned massacre led several to look for ways to persaude others without resorting to violence.
“Rhetoric, too, provides not so much an alternative to uncertainity as a way of managing it…In the absence of concensus on established meanings in Scripoture, and in the interests of minimizing or avoiding violence, both parties availed themselves of the resources provided by rhetoric” (110-111).
The power of rhetoric grows and its reputation is oddly uneven. It’s either seen as a civil science or as new type of mysticism (119).
