Rhetoric

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Rhetoric

Rhetoric, the art of speaking or writing persuasively, was a matter of great importance to educated people during the Renaissance. In schools, students used it to express their own ideas and to analyze the works of others. The basic principles of rhetoric were so familiar to educated people that they could use them almost without thinking. Eloquent speech became the key to success in professions and at court. Renaissance scholars based their study of rhetoric mainly on the works of Cicero, an ancient Roman orator and philosopher who claimed that when rhetoric combined wisdom and persuasive speaking, it produced civil government and justice.

Roots of Rhetoric. Scholars of the Middle Ages and Renaissance learned about rhetoric largely from two ancient sources: Cicero's On Invention and an anonymous text called The Art of Rhetoric for Herennius. These sources identified three major types of rhetoric. Judicial rhetoric was used to present a case in court, while political rhetoric aimed to persuade an audience about political issues. The third type, epideictic rhetoric, served to praise or blame a particular person or thing. Speakers might use this form of rhetoric at ceremonies such as funerals and birthday celebrations.

On Invention and Rhetoric for Herennius divided rhetoric into five basic parts, known as canons. The first canon, invention, referred to the way speakers selected arguments to support their positions. Scholars drew on certain basic categories of thought, which they called topics, to find their arguments. For example, in describing a person, a speaker might use such topics as appearance, education, and character. The Greek philosopher Aristotle (384–322 b.c.) discussed the techniques of invention in two of his works, Rhetoric and Topics. Cicero also wrote a work called Topics, which attempted to explain Aristotle's ideas further.

The second canon, arrangement, dealt with the structure of a formal speech. In ancient practice, a speaker would begin by introducing his topic and laying out the facts related to it. He would then announce his thesis (the point he wished to argue) and gave a brief overview of his argument. He offered arguments to support his thesis and to counter opposing viewpoints and ended with a formal conclusion. Renaissance humanists* used this structure in formal letters and essays as well as in orations.

The third canon, style, focused on word choice and figures of speech. The Rhetoric for Herennius was the major Renaissance reference for style. It identified three broad levels of style—plain, middle, and grand. It also described 64 different figures of speech for writers to use and imitate. Renaissance writers, who considered style very important for expressing emotion, came up with even longer lists of such figures.

The Rhetoric for Herennius also devoted chapters to the two final canons, memory and delivery. Renaissance authors were not much concerned with memory, which had to do with the use of mnemonics (memory aids) to learn a speech. However, they paid some attention to delivery, the art of using voice and gestures effectively during a speech.

Rhetoric in the Renaissance. These ancient methods of rhetoric fell out of favor during the Middle Ages, as educators focused more on logic. Scholars involved in the sciences tended to rely on dialectics, a branch of logic, rather than on rhetoric, to discuss their findings. Dialectics was a method of discussion between experts, while rhetoric aimed to address the general public. Unlike rhetoric, which aimed to persuade an audience, dialectics focused on discovering the truth.

During the Renaissance, however, some of the distinctions between these two fields began to blur. As more people became interested in scholarly questions, scholars began to find rhetoric a useful tool for bringing their studies to a wider audience. As a result, rhetoric gradually regained its importance in the academic realm. It also became important in three other fields: preaching, letter writing, and poetry. Renaissance preachers favored a grand style that played on their listeners' emotions. Humanist authors paid close attention to their use of rhetoric in private letters because they often hoped to publish them for a wider audience.

Renaissance writers continued to rely on the Rhetoric for Herennius and Cicero's On Invention as their main sources for the study of rhetoric. However, humanist scholars also recovered other ancient Roman manuscripts on the subject. In the mid-1300s, the Italian scholar Petrarch found works by Cicero that dealt with the art of rhetoric and the value of poetry and literature. In 1416 Italian humanist Poggio Bracciolini found the first complete manuscript of On the Education of the Orator, by the ancient Roman teacher Quintilian. This work described the training that a person would need to become an ideal orator, or "the good man speaking well." The book had a great influence on humanist methods of teaching rhetoric.

Greek studies also had a major impact on Renaissance rhetoric. Italian scholars began to study the Greek language in the late 1300s, and those who did not read Greek could refer to new Latin translations of Greek works. Renaissance scholars prepared new, more accurate translations of Aristotle's Rhetoric, which clarified many of the author's points. For example, they showed that Aristotle defined rhetoric not as the art of speaking persuasively but as the art of seeing all possible means of persuasion. They also identified three kinds of appeals that speakers could use to sway their audience. The first, ethos, rested on the moral character of the speaker. The second, logos, depended on reason, and pathos, the third, played on the emotions of the audience. These new translations of Aristotle's works reawakened interest in the ancient thinker's teachings on the subject of rhetoric.

Rhetoric and Education. During the first half of the 1400s, rhetoric formed the core of the humanist program of study. Teachers produced a variety of new Latin textbooks on this subject. One of the most influential manuals was On a Course of Studies (1512) by the Dutch scholar Desiderius Erasmus. It laid out a curriculum that would help students master Latin, imitate ancient writers, and create original works. Vernacular* rhetoric manuals began to appear during the 1500s. They became very important in England, where the Renaissance arrived later than in the rest of Europe. In England, texts in Latin were the first rhetorical manuals. Some English rhetorics focused on a single canon, such as invention or style. Others, like Thomas Wilson's The Arte of Rhetorique (1553), included all five canons. Wilson took a fresh approach to rhetoric, using examples from the Bible, classical works, and his own time to show how to apply the principles of rhetoric.

Scholarly writers also produced various treatises* on the meaning and value of rhetoric. Several of them sought to clarify the differences between rhetoric and dialectic. The northern European author Rudolf Agricola first took up this topic in 1479 in his Three Books On Dialectical Invention. Petrus Ramus, a French educator, expanded on Agricola's ideas in his Training in Dialectic (1543). Ramus claimed that invention and arrangement belonged to the field of dialectic rather than rhetoric. In northern Europe, the scholar Gerhard Johann Vossius took issue with Ramus' new approach. His Commentary on Rhetoric (1605) dealt with the full art of rhetoric as Cicero had described it. Another critic of Ramus was the English philosopher Francis Bacon. His Advancement of Learning (1605) echoed Cicero's idea that the complete art of rhetoric played an important role in civic* life.

(See alsoClassical Scholarship; Education; Humanism; Logic. )

* humanist: Renaissance expert in the humanities (the languages, literature, history, and speech and writing techniques of ancient Greece and Rome)