Ars Rhetorica Research Articles

μισθοῦ μυϵῖν: Apsines, Aristogeiton and initiation for pay

AbstractThe Ars rhetorica attributed to Apsines of Gadara contains five cryptic references to a speech prosecuting the Athenian politician Aristogeiton for proposing an illegal law to raise state revenue. It is disputed whether Aristogeiton is supposed to have moved to legalize payment (μισθός) for ‘closing one’s eyes’ (μύϵιν, i.e. taking bribes) or for ‘initiating’ (μυϵῖν) into the Mysteries. It also remains a mystery how Aristogeiton’s scheme was to function. I argue that ‘initiate for pay’ is correct and that in fact Apsines wrote the declamation against Aristogeiton. I reason to the best explanation of ‘payment’: neither an entrance fee into the Mysteries nor a tax, but payment made by pilgrims to something like a syndicate empowered by contract to conduct preliminary initiation. Such a scheme would contravene religious norms. The declamation’s speaker therefore must have prosecuted Aristogeiton on an indictment of νόμον μὴ ἐπιτήδϵιον θϵῖναι (‘proposing an inexpedient law’) so far unparalleled in Greek declamation. Moreover, I suggest that Apsines’ marriage ties to the Keryx clan at Eleusis supports his authorship of the Ars. These cryptic references highlight the influence that the Mysteries and the figure of Aristogeiton exerted on composers of declamations in the Imperial period.

Ars invectiva und artifizielle Mündlichkeit: Schmähungen in Rom zwischen Schulbuch und scheinbarer Spontaneität

Abstract This paper starts from the question of how the perception of an invective in Late Republican Rome is influenced, when it follows strictly the rules of the ars rhetorica. Since speaker and audience will have undergone the same rhetorical training, both sides have clear ideas about the rules of the genre, as they can be reconstructed from the surviving textbooks. At the same time, it can be shown on the basis of ancient evidence that insults were perceived not only more effective, but also as socially more acceptable if they arose unprepared from the situation – or if they gave exactly this impression. In the case of invective, thus, a speaker must make a special effort not to let his preparation become visible. For this purpose, he can, on the one hand, resort to the technique of artificial orality and apparent spontaneity and, in this way, take the usual dissimulatio artis to extremes. On the other hand, he can deliberately deviate from the rules of textbooks, resulting in a strong tendency of invective to a permanent innovation. This will be demonstrated by the example of some passages from Cicero's speech pro Caelio from 56 BC.

The Art of Murder and Ars Rhetorica: De Quincey’s Essay as Mock-Encomium

The Art of Murder and Ars Rhetorica: De Quincey’s Essay as Mock-Encomium Roxanne Covelo (bio) Introduction: Blackwood’s, murder, and rhetoric One of the thornier problems of “on murder considered as one of the Fine Arts” is its liberal mixing of real and fictional violence. In the essay, which appeared in the February 1827 edition of Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, De Quincey mixes examples from the Bible and Antiquity with murders having taken place not long ago in modern Britain, cases that his readers would no doubt remember vividly and to which he refers by name.1In spite of the potential sting of its subject matter, however, “On Murder Considered as One of the Fine Arts” was warmly received upon publication, and has remained one of De Quincey’s most popular essays ever since. This is perhaps for the very simple reason that it is genuinely funny. Even for contemporary readers, its comedy is something more than the proverbial sum of tragedy and time. And yet this essential feature of “On Murder”—its unlikely humor—is rarely explored in discussions of the essay. If it is mentioned at all, such acknowledgments often consist of no more than an offhand allusion to the “satirical” nature of the work, though just what is being satirized remains unclear. Most often, the word satirical is being used merely as a synonym for humorous, with only a handful of critics having undertaken seriously the task of approaching “On Murder” as satire and of identifying its object. These critics include John Whale,2Joel Black,3and Frederick Burwick,4 [End Page 309] who have each suggested that De Quincey may be critiquing the morbid voyeurism of British reading audiences, or that “On Murder” may constitute a satire of Kant’s aesthetic theory. However, for reasons that will become clear, this reading of “On Murder” as hidden attack is not wholly plausible, and the essay’s humor is better described as parodic rather than satiric in aim. The idea of his condemning readers’ fascination with violence, especially, is difficult to believe for anyone familiar with De Quincey’s personal interests and body of work; and, in any case, the sanctimony of an indictment of public morals would hardly have been de bon ton in the pages of Blackwood’s. Nor was the conceit of murder-connoisseurship particularly shocking or new. On the contrary, it was a common source of fun at the magazine, and the “Noctes Ambrosianæ” series, one of Blackwood’s more experimental endeavours, had already touched on the idea of murder-connoisseurship some years earlier. Robert Morrison cites the “Noctes” installment of April 1824, by John Wilson, as a possible source, given that Wilson speaks both of fires and of crime as possible aesthetic subjects, as De Quincey would likewise do in “On Murder.”5But there is also an earlier “Noctes” installment, from the May 1823 edition, in which contributor Gibson Lockhart makes light of the same subject.6The piece opens with one character explaining how he has come to town solely in order to watch a very promising hanging. “You like to see such things?” asks another; “[y]ou take pleasure in them?”7He replies that he does, and a third character chimes in that he has seen over a hundred different hangings, “besides plenty of shootings—and all manner of outlandish doings—guillotine—sword—axe.”8What follows is a lively critical discussion of good and bad public executions, and the merits of one form over another (“a beheading for my siller,” opines one speaker).9Clearly, the idea of violence as spectacle—and of the critics at Blackwood’s discussing that spectacle as they would any new book or performance on offer—was a running joke at the magazine, into which “On Murder” inserts itself merely as one more, fuller iteration. One parodic form in particular, that of the mock-encomium, allows us to account for the essay’s humor in a way that does not rely on a target of [End Page 310] attack. The mock-encomium was a literary exercise that borrowed the form of the ode in order to praise a...

Cash Is King: Timon, Diogenes, and the Search for Sovereign Freedom

Cash Is King: Timon, Diogenes, and the Search for Sovereign Freedom

El tratado Ars rhetorica y el comentario al Timeo de Casio Longino: testimonios de La Recepción de Platón en la Antigüedad Tardía

A bstract : The Ars Rhetorica of Cassius Longinus is not a work that has enjoyed particular popularity in studies of ancient rhetoric or on the philosophical activity in Late Antiquity. This is due, in part, to the shadow casted over this work by the anonymous treatise On Sublimity which was attributed to Cassius Longinus for a long time; in part, to the fact that this treatise and the rest of Cassius Longinus’ work is preserved in fragments; in part, because his most famous disciple, Porphyry, left his tutelage to follow the teachings of the most reputed Plotinus, who considered Cassius Longinus a philologist, but not a philosopher. Regardless of the reasons that contributed to eclipse the work of Cassius Longinus, namely, the unphilosophical spirit Plotinus saw in him or the poor quality of the sources we have for his study; the work of this author carries valuable information for the reconstruction of intellectual activity of the time. My aim is to examine one of the cases where Cassius Longinus can be an exceptional witness of the scholarly and philosophical activity which constitutes the Platonic tradition in Late Antiquity. At the end of the Ars Rhetorica’s chapter devoted to utterance (πeρὶ λέξeως) Cassius Longinus exposes his theory of rhetoric period. The fragments of the commentary that Cassius Longinus made on Plato’s Timaeus preserved in the commentary of Proclus sheds light on how Cassius Longinus received Plato's dialogue and applied his exegetical work from a stylistic point of view (in accordance with his work in rhetoric), but also from a philological one. I want to explore, to the extent that the fragmentary material allows me, the link between logic and aesthetics emphasized in the Ars Rhetorica in the light of Cassius Longinus’ own exegetical work on Plato. Thus, it may be possible to reconcile the philological and philosophical work of our author while shedding light on one of the chapters of the Platonic tradition in Late Antiquity. Keywords: Ars Rhetorica , Cassius Longinus, Late Antiquity, Rhetoric, Plato, Timaeus , Rhetoric period.

Retórica e história do pensamento político em Quentin Skinner

This article aims to show that the English historian Quentin Skinner mobilizes in his methodology of the History of Political Thought, the question of rhetoric in the analysis of texts and utterances made by agents. Skinner analyzes the debate over the notion of rhetoric from the use that classical Roman authors, such as Cicero, as well as authors of the English Renaissance about ars rhetorica . This article aims to point out that in its methodology, Skinner gives an important role to human agency and focuses its analysis on rhetorical disputes over concepts in which the authors of texts or discourses were involved.

À l’ombre d’Orphée : variations médiévales sur le mythe d’Amphion

Amphion forms with Orpheus and Arion a trio of mythological figures that embody the efficacy of music : music tames tigers, charms stones, fascinates dolphins. Music has the power to subjugate nature and to awaken it. The myth of Amphion transmits the most radical form of this emotive power : stone, the creature least sensible, miraculous obeys the melody of his harp to the point of being emotionally moved. The character of Amphion also conveys a political meaning. Unlike Orpheus, he is a musician of the polis, of a city -specifically Thebes -which he has founded and governed. No wonder medieval commentators of this myth increasingly interpreted music as rhetoric : to move, to emote is a key word in the oratorical art. Moving, setting into motion is a key-word of the ars rhetorica. Finally, the figure leaves its imprint in the story of Alexander who destroys the walls of Thebes thanks to the sound of Ismene’s flute, in an inversion of the foundational myth of Amphion.

Alcune riflessioni sull' ἐνάργεıα dall' Ars rhetorica di Pseudo-Dionigi di Alicarnasso

Many modern scholars have studied in detail the phenomenon of vividness (gr. ἐνάργεıα; lat. evidentia) in ancient rhetorical texts; however, they have neglected to examine two important testimonies included in an Ars rhetorica ascribed to Dionysius of Halicarnassus, but in fact to be ascribed to an anonymous rhetorician who probably lived in the third century AD. In these two passages the anonymous rhetorician faces some issues concerning the stylistic evidence that have not been previously studied. He analyzes the relationship between the vividness of the text and the use of everyday language, aimed to enhance realistic effects of discourse. This paper aims to present a detailed analysis of the comments offered by the anonymous rhetorician, that will help to define some peculiar aspects of stylistic vividness of the language in discourse.

Inexpressible Sadness: Sterne's Sermons and the Moral Inadequacies of Politeness in Tristram Shandy

The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, has long been established as a work of both refined sensibility and exceptional vulgarity. Since its publication, critics have remarked upon apparent contradiction between the 'indelicacies' of Tristram Shandy and its triumphantly 'pathetic' cameos (Mullan 152). The tension between these two elements is not accidental. In its juxtaposition of low humor and high sentiment, Laurence Sterne's novel not only underlines his negation of claims about a relationship between refinement and moral excellence made by eighteenth-century proponents of polite taste but also consistently argues that moral and philosophical implications of a polite neoclassical aesthetic are inherently at odds with Christian teachings. (1) Sterne's position on immorality of polite taste is well known; in an era in which clergymen could increasingly be enlisted as arbiters of decorum, it is in his position as a clergyman that Sterne mounts an engaged resistance to conflation of polite taste with spirituality. (2) Moreover, a reading of Sterne's Sermons reveals theological and rhetorical bases for challenge mounted by his impolite humor to what is revealed as corrupt in polite society: fact that polite taste has its origins in a refashioned classical antiquity means that polite refinement is not only hypocritical but in profound moral error, eschewing values and beauties of sacred texts in favor of those found in texts of sophisticated pagan origin. Sterne's humor revels in sexual innuendo but hinges upon responses to suffering--sexual frailty, illness, and death--addressable with moral coherence only through Hebrew and early Christian texts that pagan tradition dismisses as inelegant. Vulgarity in Tristram Shandy operates as a criticism of polite culture's inability to address major issues of life even as it points to prurience involved in discreet avoidance of impolite material. The bawdry of this Anglican minister's work is a reminder that English nation's official Christianity is incompatible with polite taste: a too-polite education may stop up all passage to our hearts (Sterne, 4.390). Sterne posits an incompatibility between Christianity and polite fictions of refined sensibility, particularly as each is used to confront pain of mourning; he reconciles this conflict with a sensitivity that, although in often patently impolite taste, is consistent with his faith and is clearly articulated in his theological writings. Christopher Fanning describes Sterne's Sermons as his ars rhetorica (58), underlining importance of looking to Sermons when comparing Sterne's aesthetics to his Anglicanism as manifested in his fiction. The Sermons reveal a revaluing of propriety based on origins of sacred texts: Sterne posits greater perfection--aesthetic and philosophical--of an unflinching and less ornamented style of writing which he argues descends from biblical rather than classical tradition, in which pivotal eighteenth-century concepts of sublime and beautiful play a key role in deciding issues of both aesthetic perception and Christian morality. Sterne's alter ego Parson Yorick articulates a desire to speak point blank to heart (Sterne, 1.377), voicing aims of an aesthetic, articulated in Sermons and played through Tristram Shandy, which recaptures unspeakable, particularly acknowledgement of suffering, for realm of social discourse. (3) Sterne's Sermons establish his distinction between a biblical and a classical aesthetic, his preference for biblical, and clearly articulate his criticism of a polite taste that is morally empty because it lacks divine authority. When suffering is at issue, avoidance of unsettling subject matter can cause social fracture and spiritual atrophy. In contrast, in Sterne's biblical aesthetic, grotesquerie and bodily excesses may become vehicles for sublime. …

Hobbes on Religion and the Church between "The Elements of Law" and "Leviathan": A Dramatic Change of Direction?

It has become something of an orthodoxy among Hobbes scholars to see a dramatic change in Hobbes's intellectual development in 1640s, that is, between earlier works The Elements ofLaw Natural and Politic (1640) and De Cive (1642) on one hand and (1651) on other. Various accounts have been given to explain these differences, dependent on issue at stake (rhetoric, methodology, political philosophy, theology, ecclesiastical polity), but what they have in common is their stress on radical character of Hobbes's turn of mind in that crucial decade of his exile. David Johnston, for example, has claimed that is an intensely polemical work that differs significantly in style and content from earlier works: dramatic change in literary form was connected with important changes in substance of his political theory, and [was] ultimately symptomatic of an underlying metamorphosis in his conception of nature and aims of political philosophy.1 He sees cause of this metamorphosis in Hobbes's growing realization that reason cannot assert itself. Most people are superstitious, gullible, and irrational, and these features are ingrained in them. Hence what Hobbes wants to do in is to initiate a cultural transformation by bringing people to see their own blindness, thereby leading men toward that enlightened, rational understanding of their own interests which he believes will form firmest foundation possible for a truly lasting commonwealth.2 Quentin Skinner too argues that Leviathan embodies a new and far more sense of what powers of unaided reason can hope to achieve.3 In his view this pessimism cleared way for a reappraisal of value of rhetoric, as well as a reconsideration of all leading elements in classical ars rhetorica. Thus in Hobbes endorsed the very approach he had earlier repudiated, presenting us with two different versions of same theory, but with two different and indeed antithetical theories, as well as with two correspondingly antithetical models of philosophical style.4 And while focusing more closely on Hobbes's religious and ecclesiastical views, Richard Tuck has argued in various publications that on religion Hobbes seems to have directly repudiated what he had argued in earlier works, and in doing so he pushed in a remarkably utopian direction.5 represented just an extension or a modification of arguments in De Cive, but their fundamental reversal.6 It is obvious that contains much new material, but I think this picture of Hobbes's radically new departure vis-a-vis The Elements and De Cive is fundamentally mistaken. Instead, I shall argue that there is much more continuity between three works than this picture suggests, and that many of reasons which have been adduced to explain this development are not valid. In this article I shall focus on Hobbes's position on religion and churchstate relationship in 1640s. In another, related article I have concentrated on Hobbes's views of reason and eloquence, criticizing pessimistic argument (as I have termed it) and how it has been used especially by Johnston and Skinner (for all their differences) in arguing that witnessed a reappraisal of value of rhetoric.7 In a sense it is easy to see why recent scholarship has stressed wide differences between views Hobbes expressed in his early works and Leviathan. Almost half of is devoted to religious issues, dismissing idea of any interpretative authority for Church, idea of natural eternity of soul after death, and traditional notions of purgatory and hell-- to mention only a few salient points. …

William Godwin and the "Ars Rhetorica"

THERE IS A RECIPROCAL RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN A NATION'S POLITICAL institutions and value it places on oratory. Some form of this maxim would have appeared a commonplace remark (and a locus of argument) throughout eighteenth century, and within context of political debate attempt to divorce oratory from a political or religious institution would have seemed unusual. The classical education of Englishmen who were prepared for the senate, bar, or encouraged them to view great oratory, among other arts, as indivisible from institutions; among ancient Romans, they judged, demise of oratory resulted from rise of luxury and degradation of senatorial virtue. (1) In eighteenth-century England, where democratic element of Commons supposedly balanced oligarchic and monarchic elements of Lords and King, connection between oratory and free institutions was played upon for sake of ideological support and liberally exploited by Whigs for purpose of political criticism. At same time, however, and often in reaction to this exploitation, eloquence was viewed as dangerous to free institutions because of its ability to rouse passions and put them under control of a talented speaker. (2) Fear of rhetoric went hand in hand with fear of complete subjection to democratic element and of tyranny that would inevitably result. From one point of view, therefore, it should seem strange (and eventually did seem strange) that William Godwin, long a partisan of parliamentary reform, would not seek it through democratic venue of public speaking, or at least approve of others' doing so. (3) From another point of view, it makes sense, however, that when in Enquiry concerning Political Justice (1793) he ended up proposing viability of a society without formal government, he should also discard public speaking with institutions which it would serve, in order to relocate scene of significant communication in private conversation. (4) Godwin's view of ars rhetorica harbors a further complication, moreover. (5) For while in 1793 he declared conversation medium of gradual reform, he also assiduously pursued his plan of enlightenment in public sphere of print journalism, venue open to private citizens who could use it to influence public decisions. This is an important choice, since he had earlier treated press virtually as a constitutional institution, as an extension of House of Commons' function of representing public opinion. To Godwin, not only press, but jury too had earlier constituted an important venue of public opinion, and it was not only not private, it was both traditionally a venue of authoritative public speaking and an institution deciding upon imposition of force. To be sure, value Godwin placed on press and jury in 1780S reflects his involvement with Foxite Whigs. The society without government he envisions in Political Justice, however, would integrate press into its new plan of education and would long preserve jury, to hear cases of violence against neighbors and property, before disappearing in final triumphant merging of private judgment and public good. This continuation of earlier views into later formulations is symptomatic of very rhetorical problem Godwin had continually to address: how to convince his audience that reform, even radical change, was possible. For, granted that in 1793 Godwin envisioned ultimate demise of parliamentary government and of entire legal edifice, yet if he wanted to effect this end gradually (and gradualness is a major component of his thought) what would he allow to carry over from old institutions, and how could old, rather than simply disappear, actually become something new? This question is intimately related also to his view of art of rhetoric, because it was originally in and for institutions of legislative assemblies and law courts that such an art was declared and described and (along with pulpit oratory) formed into stock of education in eighteenth century. …

The Waning of Medieval Ars Dictaminis

© The International Society for the History of Rhetoric, Rhetorica, Volume XIX, Number 2 (Spring 2001). Send requests for permission to reprint to: Rights and Permissions, University of California Press, Journals Division, 2000 Center St, Ste 303, Berkeley, CA 94704-1223,USA T he Žve essays in this special issue grew out of papers presented at the Twelfth Biennial Conference of the International Society for the History of Rhetoric (Amsterdam, July 1999), at the session entitled “What Killed the Ars Dictaminis? and When?” four of them ably chaired by Emil Polak. That session originated in a conversation I had with Malcolm Richardson in1997, at the previous ISHR conference, in Saskatoon. We had just discovered that his research on practitioners of vernacular letter writing and mine on teachers of Latin letter writing in late-medieval England independently suggested that in England the ars dictaminis had experienced something like what paleontologists call an “extinction event” around 1470. We wondered whether the suddenness of the demise was unique to England. Beyond that, we wondered why the mostwidely diffused and inuential variety of practical rhetoric during the later Middle Ages, an art thatwas highly teachable, adaptable to almost any institutional setting, aligned with key disciplines such as grammar and the law, should have disappeared at all. Having served the communication needs of a broad range of professionals throughout Europe since the late eleventh century, had the ars dictaminis simply worn itself out or had new needs arisen to which it could no longer respond? With good reason, more scholarship has focused on the origins of the ars dictaminis than on its demise. It is much simpler to identify the Žrst medieval treatise that teaches how to compose letters than to decide which letter-writing treatise is the last in that tradition. Few of the surviving ancient treatises on rhetoric provide any explicit instructionon letters: in theLatin tradition, the brief chapter on letters that concludes the Ars rhetorica of Julius Victor (fourth century AD) is virtually unique. While some such pedagogy clearly existed in

Cassiodorus's Commentary on the Psalms as an Ars rhetorica

Abstract: The Commentary on the Psalms is the least studied of Cassiodorus's sixth-century works. Close knowledge of it significantly alters our understanding of the Introduction to Divine and Human Readings, with which it should be paired. The Commentary serves to establish the Bible as the source for all the liberal arts and a model for rhetorical imitation. This essay examines the eloquence Cassiodorus discovers in the Psalter, focussing in particular on those passages which he marked with the marginal notation for Rhetoric: RT. Cassiodorus finds examples of deliberative, demonstrative, and judicial oration in the Psalter. His elucidation of them does not simply preserve classical lore,but rather presents a sophisticated alternative to pagan theory and practice. A fuller understanding of Cassiodorus's view helps us to grasp his formative influence on medieval culture, rhetoric, and poetics.

Cassiodorus’s Commentary on the Psalms as an Ars rhetorica

Cassiodorus’s Commentary on the Psalms as an Ars rhetorica

From marginal gloss to catena commentary: the eleventh-century origins of a rhetorical teaching tradition in the medieval West

From marginal gloss to catena commentary: the eleventh-century origins of a rhetorical teaching tradition in the medieval West In the following paper I draw attention to two different manuscript formats for the medieval tradition of textual annotation, in this case within the ars rhetorica and concerning the major rhetorical teaching texts for most of the period 1050-1600 A D , namely the Ciceronian D e inventione and the pseudo-Ciceronian Rhetorica ad Herennium} Thefirstof these two formats is represented by the continuous or 'chain' (catena) gloss, and the second by the marginal or scholion gloss. In brief, the catena gloss contains, not the text being glossed, but only key-words abstracted from that text, each of these being followed by the gloss on it. The resultant text, made up of these 'key-words' inserted into the gloss, like links in a chain, looks like a new continuous prose work which completely replaces the original (see Fig. 1 below, p. 113).2 The second type of formatting, the scholion gloss, presents the original text as an integral unit, the glosses being arranged around the text-block or inserted between the lines (see Fig. 2 below, p. 115). The differences between these two formats is never made plain in the published texts, nor is the cultural significance of the phenomenon given the attention it deserves. M y aim here is to attempttoremedy this situation. Rhetoric is in some ways an inappropriate topic for a medievalist. The term 'rhetoric' implies the negotiability of all certainty, whilst medieval scholasticism assumed the certainty of all truth, and eschewed an art that taught the fabrication of plausibility outside the schools, in the market-place, the forum, the law court, the retinue of duke, king, pope. Yet rhetoric comes to the fore even in a medieval context when certainties begin to crash, when truth becomes negotiable, when institutions lose dieir monopolistic control of knowledge.3 Such a period was the century and a half that divides die 1 In fact, the De inventione lost its popularity after the middle of the twelft 2 See, for example, the only modern printed edition of such a gloss: K. M . Fredborg (ed.), The Latin Rhetorical Commentaries by Thierry of Chartres, Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, Studies and Texts 84, Toronto, 1988. 3 See J. O. Ward, 'Rhetoric, Truth, and Literacy in the Renaissance of the Twelfth Century', in R. L. Enos (ed.), Oral and Written Communication: historical approaches, Written Communication Annual 4, London, 1990, pp. 126-57; and T. Coletti, Naming the Rose: Eco, Medieval Signs and Modern Theory, Ithaca (NY), P A R E R G O N ns 13.2, January 1996—Text, Scribe, Artefact 110 J. O. Ward lead-up to the Investiture Contest from the Fourth Lateran Council. These years represent the classic period for the role of rhetoric in medieval education and thinking. T w o aspects of the time-span to which this paper is devoted claim attention here. Thefirstis the advent of conflict and intellectual strife, and the second is the not-unrelated birth of the rhetorical catena commentary. The controversies that erupted over lay investiture, transubstantiation, the correct use of the ones in theological discussion, the construction of what Gillian Evans has called 'a missionary theology'4 —to name four of a number that could be cited—rendered truth and certainty negotiable in a way that cannot be detected for earlier centuries of the Middle Ages. It would be a mistake to confine the ramifications of these controversies to the literate elite alone. O n the contrary, as with the related controversies that surrounded the sacraments, the worship of crucifixes, the eating of meat, and the practice of contraception in the same period, ordinary people were deeply divided by controversies over the correct use of word sciences, over the correct understanding of the Trinity, over the preaching of the word of God, and over the lay investiture of priests and clergy.5 Widespread uncertainty in turn led to a renewal of interest in the rhetorical techniques of persuasion. It is no accident, therefore, that the years in question saw the birth and growth to maturity of the rhetorical commentary. By the...

A Platonist Ars Amatoria

The concept of an ‘art of love’ has been popularised for all time by the naughty masterpiece of Ovid. A good deal of critical attention has been devoted to this work in recent times, including some to his possible sources, but under this latter rubric attention has chiefly been directed rather to his parody of more serious types of handbook, such as an ars medica, an ars grammatica, or an ars rhetorica, than to the possibility of his having predecessors in the actual ‘art’ of love.

M. C. Lyons: Aristotle s Ars Rhetorica: the Arabic Cersion, A nelo edition with commentary and glossary, vol. ii. Glossary. [ii], 305pp. Cambridge: Pembroke Aradic Texts, [1982

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