Early Medieval stylistic rhetoric

A G.P Van Der Walt

doi:10.4102/lit.v2i3.1024

Abstract

According to the well-known expert on medieval rhetoric, James J. Murphy, the three typical medieval forms of rhetoric are the art of letter writing, the art of preaching and the art of poetry (Murphy, 1971, p. xv). In this paper we are concerned only with the second of these arts, namely, the rhetoric of preaching. Though the perceptive treatises on the rhetoric of preaching, the so-called artes praedicandi, did not originate before the thirteenth century, pulpit rhetoric was very much alive in the earlier part of the Middle Ages and fine examples of this kind of eloquence can be quoted.

Highlights

According to the well-known expert on medieval rhetoric, Jam es J
F u rth erm o re, in the field of eloquence the figures of speech {tropi) are especially im p o rtan t since they are used in the Bible (De doct. chr., I l l, 87-8)
A u g u stin e fu r th e r expresses th e o p in io n th a t elo quence sh o u ld be a c q u ir e d only at a yo u th fu l a g e (De doct. chr., IV, 6 a n d 8). a n d even th e n is no t necessary to learn it from a rh e to ric ia n : it c a n be picked up merely by reading the works of ecclesiastical authors or by lis te n in g to andimitatingeloquent sp e a k e rs (De doct. ch r., IV, 9, 12 a n d 22)