Facts About the Art of Rhetoric by Thomas Wilson
The Value of The Art of Rhetoric
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According to Peter Medine's 1993 critical edition of the book (eight-ix), Thomas Wilson'due south 1553 Art of Rhetoric (or, in its original spelling, The Arte of Rhetorique ) "was one of the most successful books of its kind" in the English renaissance. Information technology went through eight different printings betwixt 1553 and 1585, and three dissimilar printers issued it for sale.
The fact is, all the same, that the book does not appeal much to modern readers. It has some of the least engaging features of a freshman English handbook and some of the more than pedestrian qualities of a desk encyclopedia. Compendious, prescriptive, almost quaintly pedantic, at times it becomes as boring in substance as its original black letter of the alphabet editions were repulsive in appearance.
Those weaknesses best-selling, however, ane should quickly add that they are also its strengths. The book is a thorough and systematic overview of the fundamental theory of literature as it was known, taught, and practiced by the humanists of sixteenth century
Differences between Wilson 's Ideas and Modern Literary Theory
1. Literature as intimately connected to philosophy, especially logic.
Literature, Philosophy, and the Liberal Arts. Like Cicero and Aristotle,
Rhetorical practice, therefore, differs from philosophy neither in subject nor in method but simply in two comparatively pocket-size features. First, rhetoric grounds itself in situations and occasions where the questions have a more limited and immediate scope than those addressed past philosophy. And, 2nd, rhetoric makes witting use of artful (including the connotations of artifice and artificiality as well as technical mastery and exact techne) language techniques, known collectively as "eloquence," to make its discourse enjoyable and persuasive for audiences defective the involvement or expertise to appoint in strictly logical discussion.
To understand this idea that literature and philosophy, especially moral and political philosophy, are substantively the same, information technology is necessary to consider the scholastic tradition which frames and underpins about of
Subordinate to philosophy at that place were the vii liberal arts, divided into two major categories. First, the 4 major sciences of the quadrivium were the essentially mathematical and largely speculative (i.eastward., theoretical) disciplines: astronomy, geometry, arithmetic, and music. 2d, at that place were the three essentially applied and applied arts of the trivium, i.east., the language arts of grammar, logic, and rhetoric. All forms of systematic and rational cognition could then be fitted into one or another of these domains, and literature (understood substantially as a organization of praxis composed of practical, "how to" precepts and instructions) fell into the category of the trivium.
The Trivium
The Practical Linguistic communication Arts: the Trivium. While the four major sciences of the quadrivium were unified by their essentially theoretical and highly mathematical discipline matters, the arts of the trivium (i.e., the trivial arts) were generically related past their practical and applied nature as the arts and sciences of linguistic communication. Linguistic communication, it should exist remembered, is assumed by the scholastic philosophers to be the quintessential expression and vehicle of reason. For their philosophy, language is the principal musical instrument for knowing. Heirs of the Aristotelian tradition (at least in logic), they understood the language arts to be practical and applied because only through linguistic communication can men either know the truth or exercise their reason to discover additional truth. The language arts, thus, are treated by the scholastics as pragmatic and applied arts because language must be mastered and used correctly in all forms of seriously rational, philosophic, and scientific reasoning.
In abrupt dissimilarity to modern linguistics and psychology, the scholastics did Not construe the language arts equally "practical" in the sense that they have utility for the ordinary transactions of life, though they patently understood that linguistic communication has such value. Rather, for the scholastic tradition the linguistic communication arts are understood every bit pragmatic in the sense that their proper understanding and application is necessary for all forms of philosophic discourse and scientific reasoning. The arts of grammar, logic, and rhetoric are pragmatic because they must exist applied, and applied rationally and correctly, in all forms of rational and scientifically intelligible discourse.
The scholastic tradition, in other words, has no interest in grammar or logic as descriptions of the ways that people actually talk or think; their approach to grammar and logic is radically dissimilar from the interests of modern linguistics or psychology. Rather, the scholastics' concern is much more like a modernistic estimator programmer's interest in grammer, and their involvement in logic is much like a modern cyberneticist'due south interest in logic; their desire is to make grammar and logic a formal organization of soapbox which obeys certain rules and conforms to certain patterns in order to plant a consistent process by which statements can exist combined with other statements in predictable, controllable, and reliable patterns for generating new and presumably true statements.
Grammar, in other words, becomes the basic footstep towards logic, and logic becomes the basic process for moving from known and presumably true assertions to previously unknown and yet still true assertions. Rhetoric thus becomes an intimately related, fraternal art of setting forth logical discourse in means that are not simply formally true simply besides properly elaborated so every bit to become both clear and interesting
The Basic Fine art of the Trivium: Grammer
The Fundamental Language Art: Grammar. For the scholastic tradition, grammar was the get-go stage of logic, and as such it was the foundation for all structures of rational knowledge. Think, the kickoff book of Aristotle'southward Organon (his set of eight treatises on logic) was the "Categories," a treatise on the basic grammar of the judgement; it explains subjects and predicates and the different ways in which subjects and predicates can exist reasonably combined to form rational sentences stating known truths. This was the basic text of scholastic grammar.
Because grammar taught the essential art of stating the known truth in rational (i.e., logically coherent) forms, information technology was the starting betoken for all intellectual soapbox; unless a statement conformed to certain grammatical rules (i.e., contained both a subject and a predicate, used one of the 10 known types of predication, etc.), then a rational person could neither gauge its truth nor combine information technology logically with other statements to move towards new insights. Statements needed to be grammatical, in other words, not for social or fifty-fifty but linguistic reasons (such as effective advice or articulate expression) merely for logical and scientific reasons; a grammatically incorrect assertion was illogical (non necessarily incorrect or not-communicative, only casuistic), and thus information technology could not be tested rationally or pursued intellectually. Mastering grammer was the kickoff step in learning how to behave out rational discourse and intellectual inquiry; grammar was the foundation for rational thinking.
The Central Art of the Trivium: Logic
The Central Linguistic communication Art: Logic. For the scholastics, logic was the science of combining reasonable (i.e., grammatically correct) statements of known truths into patterns that would yield new and previously unknown truths -- and doing so with absolute reliability.
The scholastic tradition, however, believed that while there is only one type of truth, that 1 blazon of truth can be perceived by human beings in two significantly different ways, intuitively and dialectically (or discursively). Logic, equally the science of knowing the truth, is therefore necessarily single, since truth is single. Merely logic takes on different characteristics when it is applied to the 2 unlike means of knowing.
Commencement, there is the type of knowing where the truth is perceived directly and intuitively; in this domain of knowledge, logic is strictly rational and scientific, working much every bit we think of symbolic logic or mathematics. In this domain, properly stated (i.e., grammatically correct) true propositions are intuitively obvious, not disputed or rationally disputable, and they tin can be logically combined to yield other statements that are equally indisputable. In scholastic terms, this is the logic of the strict or pure sciences, the logic of the quadrivium where logic works with almost mathematical rigor, precision, intensity, and clarity.
Only then there is the other way of experiencing the truth, the discursive way where truth emerges only through dialogue. This is an area where truth certainly exists merely where even properly stated propositions are subject to dispute or doubtfulness and must exist demonstrated and proven. This is the domain of the dialectical sciences, the expanse where reason must work discursively because even the most basic propositions are not intuitively obvious and may seem hundred-to-one or disputable to a reasonable heed.
Milton'southward Raphael, telling Adam most the nature of the intellectual soul in the sixth volume of Paradise Lost, explains this distinction as follows: " . . . reason is her [the intellectual soul's] being, Discursive or intuitive; soapbox Is oftest yours [flesh's], the latter most is ours [the angels'], Differing merely in degree, of kind the same." An obvious example of the areas where rational (i.e., grammatically correct) statements of the truth have an immediate and intuitive indisputability is geometry. The axioms of Euclid'southward Elements are non subject to dispute (except, equally information technology turns, for the fifth axiom, but it wasn't until the 17th century that Saccheri identified the trouble with Euclid's concept of parallel lines) because they are intuitively obvious; when the propositions of geometry are combined in correctly logical sequences, therefore, the proofs of geometry are indisputably true. So geometry is governed past the strict logic of the pure, rational sciences, and it can be understood as a model for the mode that all the sciences of the scholastic quadrivium were supposed to piece of work.
On the other hand, all the same, in philosophical subjects such as theology, aesthetics, politics, and ethics, fifty-fifty the most basic propositions of a science require demonstration and proof before they tin be accepted as true. In these discursive fields of enquiry, truth has exactly the aforementioned graphic symbol as it does in the intuitive fields ("Differing but in degree, of kind the aforementioned"), and thus the rules of logic are not essentially dissimilar from what they are in the strict sciences; however, in these fields the rules of logic must exist applied in significantly different means because human beings have such difficulty in perceiving the truth. Logic remains logic, but logical thought in a field such every bit geometry works differently from logical thought in an area such every bit politics or ethics. It takes on a different color and tone because it is working in a domain where logic must not merely state the truth simply also dispute those who doubt or disagree and demonstrate its proofs against all possible objections.
In these discursive fields, logic must work in a dialogue between true statements and statements of objections, doubts, misunderstandings, and counter-arguments. Thus the name "dialectics" comes to be used for logical enquiry that must demonstrate the proof of each suggestion by meeting and overcoming objections. Within dialectical logic, thus, and within the fields of inquiry where reason must work discursively, logic becomes largely an art of disputation and arguments, advancing and demonstrating arguments rather than merely stating the intuitively obvious. As Marlowe's Faustus says in his opening voice communication, "Bene disserere est finis logices," to dispute well is the end of logic.
The Third Fine art of the Trivum: Rhetoric
The Virtuoso Art: Rhetoric. Within the scholastic tradition, therefore, rhetoric is not essentially dissimilar from dialectical logic because both are arts of disputation, of advancing and proving arguments through logical discourse. Rhetoric, says
From
In the first place, while dialectics deals with questions having an abstruse and general telescopic, rhetoric deals with problems which have limited and immediate interest, i.east., with concrete questions involving the issues of specific times, places, and people. For instance, says
Secondly, rhetoric too differs from dialectic in its formal presentation of its discourse; dialectical philosophy presents its verbal processes with minimal ornamentation, and it refuses to develop arguments in ways that will merely "delight" an audience without making a strictly logical contribution to the discourse. Dialectics does not explicate or embellish its arguments, and information technology does not try to please indifferent or nonclerical auditors. Rhetoric, on the other hand, brings in "eloquence" to make dialectics more than appealing and more comprehensible; rhetoric presents its argument with language that uses consciously "artificial" ornamentation and conscientiously developed amplifications (which are non strictly required past the logic of the argument) in order to attract the interest and to persuade the reasonable faculties of an nonclerical or an initially uninterested audience.
Wilson uses the time honored distinction, traceable back to Quintillian, Cicero, and Zeno, of comparison logic to the man hand, saying that dialectics is like the closed fist -- hard, compact, threatening -- while rhetoric is the same affair merely with the hand opened -- gentle, extended, and friendly.
2. Literature as Grounded in, not Separated from, the Political and Social Processes of the Culture.
I of the central differences betwixt
Renaissance humanists, however, having read their Cicero and fifty-fifty their Aristotle fairly carefully, saw many and manifold situations in which properly rational, philosophically scientific thinking could and should be used to influence and to improve society. Speeches arguing causes in Europe'southward various parliaments, letters suggesting particular policies to bishops and patrons and princes, reports selling investors on mercantile ventures in newly opened markets, treatises persuading Christians of the need for particular reforms, even intimate correspondence urging a dearest patron or an admired friend (or a worthy adult female) to behave properly and to make wise decisions -- in that location were infinite occasions where an educated humanist could run into that properly rational and eloquent arguments should be made in gild for the truth to triumph within lodge or the church.
For humanist literary theorists such as Thomas Wilson, therefore, the real value of literature seemed to exist its power to motivate socially active and politically influential people by persuading them to human activity in accordance with the dictates of reason. For
A humanist such as
Twentieth century readers and writers, of grade, believe that the literary process is essentially separate from the ordinary transactions of life, and the humanists' assumption is somewhat difficult for us to grasp. It is alien to us, for example, to call up of the almanac report of the Secretary of the Treasury every bit legitimately inside the area addressed by a theory of literature. Wellek and Warren, for instance, in their highly influential Theory of Literature (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1942; rev. ed. 1956) defined the "subject matter of literary scholarship" by starting with the proposition that "literary language is first of all to be differentiated from the varied uses of every twenty-four hours life." And however, in 1610 (to apply simply an instance that comes readily to heed) when Lord Salisbury, Lord Treasurer of
3. Literary Creation as Performance, Not Construction.
Considering of the belief that literature must be a participating form in active social and political intercourse, Wilson and the humanists consistently speak of literary work as an act of performance rather than as the construction of a text. They think and write of it equally a transaction, not a construction. Writing (as distinct from speaking) is always treated equally purely instrumental, never central, and it is virtually ofttimes ignored completely, as though all literature were spoken, not written down. Writing is simply a means of preparing for a exact performance, or of recording a verbal performance, or fifty-fifty of transmitting a verbal operation, only the written text is consistently understood as NOT the literature proper but rather as merely an instrument in the creation of the literary reality, which is an actual verbal functioning.
Wilson seems, thus, extraordinarily unconcerned with the actual processes of composing and revising texts, and he seems incredibly indifferent (by mod standards) to the problems of, for example, various states and weather of literary documents and to the difficulties for a writer of controlling texts to guarantee a proper reading and correct interpretations based on re-reading. Past focusing so heavily on performance, and especially on operation within particular occasions or situations, he substantially blinds himself to many of the primal concerns of mod literary theory. His idea of literature is not that of the "well wrought urn" whose structural and architectonic features emerge to a readers consciousness later on carefully thoughtful and intense readings. And he is not concerned by the problems of an essentially unstable and slippery prepare of significations which shift and modify with each revisiting of the text. But he also gains an extraordinary degree of simplification in his sense of how to control literary processes, how to apply literary techniques to reach item effects, because the whole literary experience is understood within a temporal menses that moves at a pace set exclusively past the speaker and which disallows of thoughtful revisitings of the text past readers.
Nicholas Sharp
mackaythrogerfuns.blogspot.com
Source: http://www.people.vcu.edu/~nsharp/wilsint1.htm