Rhetoric - Ancient and Medieval - Graeco-roman Origins, Aristotle And His Successors, Roman Imperial Rhetoric, Medieval Transitions, Late Medieval Transformation
preceptive despite recent greek
Despite some recent controversy, rhetoric may be seen, from its ancient Greek-language origin, to be the systematic preceptive training that orators or public speakers have sought or received, from the fourth century B.C.E. onward. Signifying less a set of "ideas" than a preceptive practice, the Greek word rhetoric, later adopted into Latin (despite the equivalence of the phrase [ artificiosa] eloquentia), always refers to the Graeco-Roman preceptive tradition, which remained foundational from the time of Aristotle (384–22 B.C.E.) to that of Hobbes (1588–1679), Vico (1668–1744) and even Nietszche (1844–1900). It is only in recent times that the term has come to serve in a pejorative sense as a substitute for "truth."
Additional Topics
Invention (inventio) is the devising of matter, true or plausible, that would make the (legal) case convincing. Arrangement (dispositio) is the ordering and distribution of the matter, making clear the place to which everything is to be assigned. Style (elocutio) is the adaptation of suitable words and sentences to the matter devised. Memory (memoria) is the firm retention in the mind of the matte…
The same can be said for the pressing need of the revivalist international (Latin-using) church of the thirteenth century felt to communicate its elaborate salvational doctrines against heresy, apostasy, witchcraft (maleficium), heathenism, Islam, Judaism, secularism, impiety and various forms of lay piety, particularly that of women. This emphasis produced a vast range of sermons and preaching ma…
See also Christianity; Logic; Power; Rhetoric: Overview. Briscoe, Marianne G., and Barbara H. Jaye. Artes Praedicandi and Artes orandi. Typologie des Sources du Moyen Age Occidental fasc. 61. Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 1992. Camargo, Martin. Ars Dictaminis, Ars Dictandi. Typologie des sources du moyen Age occidental fasc. 60. Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols 1991. ———. Medieval Rhe…
Briscoe, Marianne G., and Barbara H. Jaye. Artes Praedicandi and Artes orandi. Typologie des Sources du Moyen Age Occidental fasc. 61. Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 1992. Camargo, Martin. Ars Dictaminis, Ars Dictandi. Typologie des sources du moyen Age occidental fasc. 60. Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols 1991. ———. Medieval Rhetorics of Prose Composition: Five English Artes Dictandi …
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