Introduction to Rhetoric
EN 1007 – Fall 2009 – Carol Poster
Lecture 8 – Nov 16
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Renaissance humanism
o Beginning of literacy
o Middle ages; much of lit professions in Europe were restricted to Catholic
Church.
o West fell apart into invaders of different places.
o If you weren’t part of the church you didn’t exist.
o Cathedral schools were popular.
o Monasteries not only had schools but were centers of learning and
teaching.
o Up until 1800 over 70% of Oxford went into priest hood – church taking
over.
o Bearcat tended to be priests.
Controversies over Cicero.
Latin as ‘artificial’ international language.
o Middle ages and 17th/18th century.
o By 15/1600 something happens which effects how writing is seen – rise of
nationalism.
o National governments begin to take rise.
o Thrown and altered.
o The pope – actually was the person who crowned the emperor.
o Rise of the nations – the nations want their own traditions and own
language, they slowly develop their own beurocratcy and cultural
nationalism.
Rise of middle classes.
Rise of vernacular literacy.
Style as amplification, persuasion and ornament.
o Grammatical parallelism the content is parallel when it isn’t.
o Direct address.
o An overall way of style
 Plain
 Simple, direct, unornamented.
 Practical situations
 Trying to convey info without confusion.
 Writing to friends/ESL people/ manuals.
 Middle
 Lysias – famous as the great example of the middle style.
 Described by rhetorical theory.
 Gentlemen speaking to gentlemen.
 Some figures of speech, some ornament but not a lot.
 Very simple and colloquial.
 Formal business.
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 Academic essays.
 In between.
 High
 Ordinate
 Eulogy
How to read Wilson
o Thomas Wilson – provide a native English alternative to the standard Latin
rhetoric everyone learned in school.
o Making up his own English terms instead of Latin terms everyone knew.
o Terns; some were adopted.
o Sound out the words. His writing is before the Standard English spelling.
Figures and vice.
Figures of thought and figures of speech.
o Figure of speech
 A departure from the ordinary.
 In terms of thought or phrasing.
 At time it’s easy to fall over the line between the figures and vices.
 Example: anacolouthon – start a sentence and break it off in the
middle.
 The thing switched to is more important.
 Can be used dramatically.
 Trick – you have to use them but you have to think about them
because it can be effective or a mess.
o Figures of thought
 Distinguished one is departing from the normal way you do content
and the other is a stylistic departure.
 Metaphor – implicit comparison.
 Simile – explicit.
Memorize terms and figures from Wilson.
Metaphor – important
Onomatapoia – important – words which as imitations of the thing they describe.
[cow is mooing]