Lecture notes for Renaissance Rhetoric (1350-1700)
1347-1350: Black Plague kills 1/3 of European population
Following the plague, though, the European population increases from 45 million in 1400 to 69 million in 1500 to 90 million in 1600.
Secular states: France, Italy, and England and secular economies.
Increased prosperity and secularism leads to much of the great art and science of the Renaissance. See Humanism, below. In Classical and Medieval times, we are grasping for evidence that will shed light on the conditions of life; in the Renaissance, we are overwhelmed by sources. The period has been described as the era of "a thousand neglected authors" (James Murphy, historian).
Protestant revolution. 1517 Martin Luther’s 95 theses.
John Calvin (circa 1550): predestination: leads to puritanism which still influences American culture.
Henry VIII: in the 1530s, formed a new official Church of England (Anglican Church). After his death, his daughter, Elizabeth, successfully steered a middle ground for Anglicanism between Catholicism and Calvinism, keeping the church solvent.
An intellectual and artistic movement based on the idea that humans have power to reach understandings, change the world, and pursue knowledge and creativity without being constrained by church dogma.
Begins in 1300s, in Northern Italy, which had been a relatively stable environment, while other European provinces were embroiled in war or various kinds of social / religious upheaval. Also, Italy was still governed by its city-states, so many classical uses of rhetoric were still available.
Francesco Petrarcha, or Petrarch (1304-1374). An early, leading humanist who set the stage for the Renaissance. Petrarch sought a new kind of Christian classical learning--a way of being a public intellectual that would follow church doctrine but allow individuality to shine through. Petrarch was a poet, philosopher, law scholar, and statesman.
Humanism contrasts to Scholasticism, which followed Aristotelian methods of classifying the world. Humanists sought to know the world through rhetoric and dialactic.
To the humanist, religion is real and valid, but the form of religion is historically determined (reminiscent of the positions of Plato and the Sophists against the pagan religions of the classical era). Humanism advocates religious tolerance, because all forms of creativity show the divine spark in humans.
Problem: humanistic education is preparing people for this role of the broadly learned public intellectual, but there is are fewer and fewer outlets for this learning. As the Italian city-states come under monarchical control by single families, rhetoric becomes relegated to the society of "the court" and "the salon"--public spaces where people debated and performed for diversion. Baldesar Castiglione, in his The Book of the Courtier, argues for a new rhetorical style called Sprezzatura--eloquence without the appearance of elegance, a kind of nonchalant ability to speak beautifully and persuasively.
Humanism in Northern Europe
Martin Luther: 95 theses (1517).
John Calvin: Institutes of the Christian Religion (1536).
Protestant challenges to the Catholic Church are met with military action. The church sends a fleet north to "chastise" protestants in the Netherlands and England, but Elizabeth's fleet destroys the church navy (1588).
In France, the Bartholomew's Day massacre of protestants (1572). Soon after, a protestant siezes the French throne and passes the first law of religious tolerance (Duke of Bourbon).
Jesuit education: a Catholic response to humanism, designed to provide children of influential families with classical training that included rhetoric and attention to individual talents.
1450: the Gutenberg printing press: the book as a means of standardizing the education of protestants, who have to try to interpret the Bible for themselves.
Women’s roles in humanism: with the notable exception of Elizabeth I, women in the Renaissance are positioned in much the same role as Christine de Pizan—some are able to gain access to education, but only against the protests of men, and rarely with an outlet for exercising power.
Balanced the two worlds of Christianity and humanism, and made significant contributions to Rhetoric from that position.
His most famous work is non-rhetorical, a book entitled The Praise of Folly. Folly, personified, ridicules all social and religious groups, indicating the limits of human knowledge. His good humor can be seen in the excerpts from Copia in the photocopy packet. While arguing that a variety of expression is important in persuasive letter speech, Erasmus undercuts the sincerity of his argument by providing a ridiculously long list of examples.
Peter Ramus (1515-1572)
Attacks all previous scholarship in Rhetoric and Philosophy. Downplays the importance of classical language, publishing all of his work in French, not Latin.
For Ramus, the only effective Rhetoric is no Rhetoric. Knowledge is separate from language, and should be expressed with as little eloquence, as little language, as possible.
Ramus advocates lots of charts and graphs, and is said to be the first “technical writer.”
Ramus becomes quite influential throughout Europe, and his anti-Rhetorical stance influences education all over the continent.
The question is this: does language merely express thought, or are our thoughts (and so our knowledge) a function of language?
Michel de Montaigne (circa 1525-1590)
Opposing Ramus, Montaigne creates the genre of the essay. His writings are scholarly, but also personal, and always reveal the way that social conventions and his education have shaped his knowledge. A kind of Sophism.
Francis Bacon (1561-1626)
A statesman in the service Queen Elizabeth, who managed his public role in controversial (hypocritical? unethical?) ways.
Influenced by both Ramus and Montaigne.
Published his own essays in English, including Novum Organum (excerpt in packet).
Bacon believes science will do more to advance human causes than eloquence. He wants to develop a more closely defined vocabulary so that people, in using language, can escape from the vague-ness and error that is passed down in received knowledge. His interest in language reform influences many Enlightenment thinkers.
“Idols:” false ideas within a culture that are passed down and that continue to warp our perceptions of the world. Bacon attempts to isolate these so that we can avoid them by more precise use of language.
Rhetoric “applies reason to the imagination to move the will.” Language should shape the individual talent (humanism) to reasonable form for public use.
Madeleine de Scudéry (late 1600s)
Aristocrat within the court of King Louis XIV of France.
A writer, Scudery published novels under brother George's name. Once, she was even arrested for treason, when a servant heard she and George discussing the killing of a king. Turns out, the king was a character in a novel she was writing. Once everyone knew that she was the one who wrote George's novels, she began publishing anonymously, because it was considered crude to seek credit for publications.
Scudery's ideal conversation draws generously from all involved. People should contribute equally, and strive for harmony. To be dogmatic or insistent is to be selfish or narrow-minded. It is best to be complacent--that is, not to hold strong commitments to particular perspectives.