Opposing Tyranny with Style: More, Lucian, and Classical Rhetorical Theory

Abstract

More’s most popular contribution to sixteenth-century humanism during his lifetime was a showcase of classical rhetorical styles: in 1506 he and Erasmus published their translations of several Lucianic satires, along with a declamation defending tyrannicide and their own declamations in response. As More engages the Greek satirist, he employs rhetorical tactics partially derived from Cicero’s three styles but with an Augustinian forcefulness that adapts the classical tria genera dicendi to his own literary objectives. Yet with his three distinct rhetorical styles that roughly approximate the plain, middle, and grand styles of the classical oration, More demonstrates that just as tyranny is an affront against the law, human nature, and the gods, those who oppose tyranny can only do so on those grounds. Through this criticism of the opportunistic assassin, we may understand the shades of ambivalence that obscure his indictment against tyranny in his contemporaneous Richard III, Utopia, and epigrams.