Hidden Persuaders as a Means of Literary Grace: Sixteenth-Century Poetics and Rhetoric in England

Abstract

As T. S. Eliot might say, the market is bullish for books on the whole question of style and communication in the Renaissance. Williamson, The Senecan Amble; Wallace, Francis Bacon on Communication and Rhetoric; Howell, Logic and Rhetoric in England, 1500–1700; Ong, Ramus, Method, and the Decay of Dialogue; Neal, Renaissance Concepts of Method: the titles and performances are impressive and the list could be much longer. Among the problems raised but not exhausted by such excellent studies would be that of a detailed history of the relationship of poetics to rhetoric in English literary theory of the Renaissance; or of further explorations of Ramus' impact upon English poetical theory and practice in the manner of J. P. Thorne's article in volume 54 of Modern Philology: "A Ramistical Commentary on Sidney's Apologie for Poetrie." These would be large concerns. The scope of this paper is simply to consider whether some of the commonplaces of Renaissance rhetoric can be profitably applied to certain kinds of Renaissance poetry, and, if so, what happens when they are so applied.