Rhetoric, Hermeneutics, and Translation in the Middle Ages
So far this book has emphasized the status and condition of exegesis, its relationship with rheto... more So far this book has emphasized the status and condition of exegesis, its relationship with rhetoric, and its role within vernacular translation. Now it is necessary to reverse that emphasis and to consider the fortunes of rhetoric, and specifically the role of rhetorical inventio in vernacular translation. The translations that I have discussed so far, Notker's translation of Martianus Capella, the Ovide moralise , and the Old French and Middle English versions of the Consolatio , define themselves in terms of exegetical practice. In the final chapter I will consider translations that offer themselves as forms of rhetorical invention. In order to understand this latter form of translation we must first take account of how the value of invention changes from the context of classical oratory to that of medieval poetics. My interest in this chapter will be to retrace the history of the relationship between rhetoric and hermeneutics, but this time directing my focus to how this relationship defines the meaning of rhetorical inventio for the later Middle Ages. INVENTION IN ANTIQUITY In ancient rhetoric, invention is the discovery of a plausible and persuasive argument through a system of proofs. Inventio (Greek heuresis ) literally means a “coming upon,” a discovery of that which is there, or already there, to be discovered. The term has little to do with originality or with creation ex nihilo . In all of its theoretical avatars among the ancients, invention is what Roland Barthes has aptly termed an “extractive” operation.
Emotion and the History of Rhetoric in the Middle Ages
Chapter 4 turns from following the long and varied tradition of stylistic teaching and practice t... more Chapter 4 turns from following the long and varied tradition of stylistic teaching and practice to dedicated theory: now the reception of Aristotle’s Rhetoric and especially its analytic of the emotions from antiquity to the late thirteenth century. This chapter treats pathos and enthymeme in Aristotle’s Rhetoric. It contrasts other ancient philosophical traditions of the passions with Aristotle’s phenomenological treatment of emotion in the Rhetoric. It traces the post-classical reception of the Rhetoric through medieval Arabic commentators on the emotions, Moerbeke’s authoritative Latin translation, Giles of Rome’s important commentary on the Rhetoric, c.1272, and other scholastic commentators on the relevant sections of Aristotle’s text. It also contrasts other medieval philosophies of the passions with what readers would have found in Aristotle’s Rhetoric. In his first engagement with the Rhetoric, Giles did not grasp the political significance of Aristotle’s treatment of emotio...
Emotion and the History of Rhetoric in the Middle Ages
Chapter 1 traces the millennial length of a theoretical discourse about affectio that begins with... more Chapter 1 traces the millennial length of a theoretical discourse about affectio that begins with Cicero’s De inventione before turning to a tradition of stylistic teaching that arose in parallel with that speculative rhetorical thought and that was to have much more profound consequences for medieval rhetorical practice. Cicero’s De inventione was the main Latin rhetorical treatise, along with Rhetorica ad Herennium, that the Middle Ages inherited from antiquity. Cicero treats emotion (affectio) as a topic of invention, and understands it in philosophical terms as a perturbation of the soul. That philosophical approach was elaborated in medieval commentaries. The chapter then turns to late antique handbooks of style. Style came to constitute a separate study; through these influences, style also became the main conduit for teaching emotion and rhetorical persuasion.
Emotion and the History of Rhetoric in the Middle Ages
Chapter 2 considers the fortunes of stylistic teaching about emotion in late antique and early Ch... more Chapter 2 considers the fortunes of stylistic teaching about emotion in late antique and early Christian literary rhetoric: Augustine’s De doctrina christiana, Macrobius’ Saturnalia, and Cassiodorus’ psalm commentary. Here the teaching can explicitly articulate an ethical dimension of style, where the teacher/speaker calls attention to his investment in the emotional charge of the text. But when that ethical value is merely assumed, not overtly stated, as in many monastic and clerical rhetorics over the following centuries, the force of the ethical defense of rhetoric diminishes. The chapter traces this “naturalization” of the ethical defense in the rhetorics of Isidore of Seville, Bede, Rupert of Deutz, and the twelfth-century cathedral master Onulf of Speyer.
Rhetoric is an engine of social discourse and the art charged with generating and swaying emotion... more Rhetoric is an engine of social discourse and the art charged with generating and swaying emotion. The history of rhetoric provides a continuous structure by which we can measure how emotions were understood, articulated, and mobilized under various historical circumstances and social contracts. This book is about how rhetoric in the West from Late Antiquity to the later Middle Ages represented the role of emotion in shaping persuasions. It is the first book-length study of medieval rhetoric and the emotions, coloring in what has largely been a blank space between about 600 CE and the cusp of early modernity. Rhetoric in the Middle Ages, as in other periods, constituted the gateway training for anyone engaged in emotionally persuasive writing. Medieval rhetorical thought on emotion has multiple strands of influence and sedimentations of practice. The earliest and most persistent tradition treated emotional persuasion as a property of surface stylistic effect, which can be seen in th...
Studies in the History of the Language Sciences, 1987
... Page 175. 148 RITA COPELAND grammatical categories by reference to English. ... Cicero recomm... more ... Page 175. 148 RITA COPELAND grammatical categories by reference to English. ... Cicero recommends translation as a practical method of learn-ing the style and form of the Greek masters of oratory (De Optimo Genere Oratorum 1949: v. 14-15; De Oratore, 1942: 1. xxxiv. 155). ...
How did Horace's Ars poetica become a classic of literary theory? What were the conditions in its... more How did Horace's Ars poetica become a classic of literary theory? What were the conditions in its medieval reception that transformed the work from a pragmatic teaching text into a canonical classic of poetic theory?
Rhetoric, Hermeneutics, and Translation in the Middle Ages
So far this book has emphasized the status and condition of exegesis, its relationship with rheto... more So far this book has emphasized the status and condition of exegesis, its relationship with rhetoric, and its role within vernacular translation. Now it is necessary to reverse that emphasis and to consider the fortunes of rhetoric, and specifically the role of rhetorical inventio in vernacular translation. The translations that I have discussed so far, Notker's translation of Martianus Capella, the Ovide moralise , and the Old French and Middle English versions of the Consolatio , define themselves in terms of exegetical practice. In the final chapter I will consider translations that offer themselves as forms of rhetorical invention. In order to understand this latter form of translation we must first take account of how the value of invention changes from the context of classical oratory to that of medieval poetics. My interest in this chapter will be to retrace the history of the relationship between rhetoric and hermeneutics, but this time directing my focus to how this relationship defines the meaning of rhetorical inventio for the later Middle Ages. INVENTION IN ANTIQUITY In ancient rhetoric, invention is the discovery of a plausible and persuasive argument through a system of proofs. Inventio (Greek heuresis ) literally means a “coming upon,” a discovery of that which is there, or already there, to be discovered. The term has little to do with originality or with creation ex nihilo . In all of its theoretical avatars among the ancients, invention is what Roland Barthes has aptly termed an “extractive” operation.
Emotion and the History of Rhetoric in the Middle Ages
Chapter 4 turns from following the long and varied tradition of stylistic teaching and practice t... more Chapter 4 turns from following the long and varied tradition of stylistic teaching and practice to dedicated theory: now the reception of Aristotle’s Rhetoric and especially its analytic of the emotions from antiquity to the late thirteenth century. This chapter treats pathos and enthymeme in Aristotle’s Rhetoric. It contrasts other ancient philosophical traditions of the passions with Aristotle’s phenomenological treatment of emotion in the Rhetoric. It traces the post-classical reception of the Rhetoric through medieval Arabic commentators on the emotions, Moerbeke’s authoritative Latin translation, Giles of Rome’s important commentary on the Rhetoric, c.1272, and other scholastic commentators on the relevant sections of Aristotle’s text. It also contrasts other medieval philosophies of the passions with what readers would have found in Aristotle’s Rhetoric. In his first engagement with the Rhetoric, Giles did not grasp the political significance of Aristotle’s treatment of emotio...
Emotion and the History of Rhetoric in the Middle Ages
Chapter 1 traces the millennial length of a theoretical discourse about affectio that begins with... more Chapter 1 traces the millennial length of a theoretical discourse about affectio that begins with Cicero’s De inventione before turning to a tradition of stylistic teaching that arose in parallel with that speculative rhetorical thought and that was to have much more profound consequences for medieval rhetorical practice. Cicero’s De inventione was the main Latin rhetorical treatise, along with Rhetorica ad Herennium, that the Middle Ages inherited from antiquity. Cicero treats emotion (affectio) as a topic of invention, and understands it in philosophical terms as a perturbation of the soul. That philosophical approach was elaborated in medieval commentaries. The chapter then turns to late antique handbooks of style. Style came to constitute a separate study; through these influences, style also became the main conduit for teaching emotion and rhetorical persuasion.
Emotion and the History of Rhetoric in the Middle Ages
Chapter 2 considers the fortunes of stylistic teaching about emotion in late antique and early Ch... more Chapter 2 considers the fortunes of stylistic teaching about emotion in late antique and early Christian literary rhetoric: Augustine’s De doctrina christiana, Macrobius’ Saturnalia, and Cassiodorus’ psalm commentary. Here the teaching can explicitly articulate an ethical dimension of style, where the teacher/speaker calls attention to his investment in the emotional charge of the text. But when that ethical value is merely assumed, not overtly stated, as in many monastic and clerical rhetorics over the following centuries, the force of the ethical defense of rhetoric diminishes. The chapter traces this “naturalization” of the ethical defense in the rhetorics of Isidore of Seville, Bede, Rupert of Deutz, and the twelfth-century cathedral master Onulf of Speyer.
Rhetoric is an engine of social discourse and the art charged with generating and swaying emotion... more Rhetoric is an engine of social discourse and the art charged with generating and swaying emotion. The history of rhetoric provides a continuous structure by which we can measure how emotions were understood, articulated, and mobilized under various historical circumstances and social contracts. This book is about how rhetoric in the West from Late Antiquity to the later Middle Ages represented the role of emotion in shaping persuasions. It is the first book-length study of medieval rhetoric and the emotions, coloring in what has largely been a blank space between about 600 CE and the cusp of early modernity. Rhetoric in the Middle Ages, as in other periods, constituted the gateway training for anyone engaged in emotionally persuasive writing. Medieval rhetorical thought on emotion has multiple strands of influence and sedimentations of practice. The earliest and most persistent tradition treated emotional persuasion as a property of surface stylistic effect, which can be seen in th...
Studies in the History of the Language Sciences, 1987
... Page 175. 148 RITA COPELAND grammatical categories by reference to English. ... Cicero recomm... more ... Page 175. 148 RITA COPELAND grammatical categories by reference to English. ... Cicero recommends translation as a practical method of learn-ing the style and form of the Greek masters of oratory (De Optimo Genere Oratorum 1949: v. 14-15; De Oratore, 1942: 1. xxxiv. 155). ...
How did Horace's Ars poetica become a classic of literary theory? What were the conditions in its... more How did Horace's Ars poetica become a classic of literary theory? What were the conditions in its medieval reception that transformed the work from a pragmatic teaching text into a canonical classic of poetic theory?
Join us for the launch of _Sources in Early Poetics_, a new series with Brill, with addresses fro... more Join us for the launch of _Sources in Early Poetics_, a new series with Brill, with addresses from the editors and a roundtable discussion featuring Prof. Gavin Alexander (Cambridge), Prof. Rita Copeland (Penn), Dr Lara Harb (Princeton), Dr Aglae Pizzone (Southern Denmark), and Prof. Filippomaria Pontani (Venice)!
'Sources in Early Poetics' publishes primary sources in literary criticism from Greco-Roman antiquity to the Enlightenment. Cutting across established period and disciplinary divides, the series emphasizes both the essential continuity and the inventive range of over two millennia of criticism in the West and its neighbouring traditions. From the Levant to the Americas, from Greek and Latin to Arabic, Hebrew, and the rising vernaculars, Sources in Early Poetics provides a forum for new materials and perspectives in the long, cosmopolitan history of literary thought.
The series publishes editions of single works as well as collections of shorter texts by one or more authors, with facing-page English translations provided for all non-English texts. We also publish English translations of works available in adequate editions elsewhere, but unavailable in authoritative and accessible English renderings. Special attention is given to unpublished, unedited, and untranslated sources, especially those remaining in manuscript.
The series has its origin in Poetics before Modernity, an international project founded by the General Editors in 2016. In addition to sponsoring _Sources in Early Poetics_ and other publications, the project also organizes events and collaborates with affiliated institutions, and is backed by an extensive Advisory Board, featuring some of the most distinguished scholars in the field.
General Editors
Vladimir Brljak (Durham) and Micha Lazarus (Warburg)
Editorial Board
Baukje van den Berg (CEU), Elsa Bouchard, (Montreal), Bryan Brazeau (Warwick), and Andrew Kraebel (Trinity)
Advisory Board
Gavin Alexander (Cambridge), Jan Bloemendal (Huygens), Rita Copeland (Pennsylvania), Anders Cullhed (Stockholm), Pierre Destrée (U catholique de Louvain), Kathy Eden (Columbia), Roland Greene (Stanford), Beatrice Gründler (Freie U Berlin), Stephen Halliwell (St Andrews), Lara Harb (Princeton), Philip Hardie (Cambridge), Bernhard Huss (Freie U Berlin), Ian Johnson (St Andrews), Casper de Jonge (Leiden), Pauline LeVen (Yale), Martin McLaughlin (Oxford), Alastair Minnis (Yale), Glenn W. Most (Chicago/MPWG Berlin), Stratis Papaioannou (Crete), Aglae Pizzone (Southern Denmark), Filippomaria Pontani (Venice), James Porter (UC Berkeley), Panagiotis Roilos (Harvard), Elizabeth Scott-Baumann (KCL), Peter T. Struck (Pennsylvania), María José Vega (U Autònoma de Barcelona), Zhang Longxi (City U of Hong Kong), and Jan Ziolkowski (Harvard)
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Free registration via Eventbrite: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/sources-in-early-poetics-launch-and-roundtable-tickets-247177995037
'Sources in Early Poetics' publishes primary sources in literary criticism from Greco-Roman antiquity to the Enlightenment. Cutting across established period and disciplinary divides, the series emphasizes both the essential continuity and the inventive range of over two millennia of criticism in the West and its neighbouring traditions. From the Levant to the Americas, from Greek and Latin to Arabic, Hebrew, and the rising vernaculars, Sources in Early Poetics provides a forum for new materials and perspectives in the long, cosmopolitan history of literary thought.
The series publishes editions of single works as well as collections of shorter texts by one or more authors, with facing-page English translations provided for all non-English texts. We also publish English translations of works available in adequate editions elsewhere, but unavailable in authoritative and accessible English renderings. Special attention is given to unpublished, unedited, and untranslated sources, especially those remaining in manuscript.
The series has its origin in Poetics before Modernity, an international project founded by the General Editors in 2016. In addition to sponsoring _Sources in Early Poetics_ and other publications, the project also organizes events and collaborates with affiliated institutions, and is backed by an extensive Advisory Board, featuring some of the most distinguished scholars in the field.
General Editors
Vladimir Brljak (Durham) and Micha Lazarus (Warburg)
Editorial Board
Baukje van den Berg (CEU), Elsa Bouchard, (Montreal), Bryan Brazeau (Warwick), and Andrew Kraebel (Trinity)
Advisory Board
Gavin Alexander (Cambridge), Jan Bloemendal (Huygens), Rita Copeland (Pennsylvania), Anders Cullhed (Stockholm), Pierre Destrée (U catholique de Louvain), Kathy Eden (Columbia), Roland Greene (Stanford), Beatrice Gründler (Freie U Berlin), Stephen Halliwell (St Andrews), Lara Harb (Princeton), Philip Hardie (Cambridge), Bernhard Huss (Freie U Berlin), Ian Johnson (St Andrews), Casper de Jonge (Leiden), Pauline LeVen (Yale), Martin McLaughlin (Oxford), Alastair Minnis (Yale), Glenn W. Most (Chicago/MPWG Berlin), Stratis Papaioannou (Crete), Aglae Pizzone (Southern Denmark), Filippomaria Pontani (Venice), James Porter (UC Berkeley), Panagiotis Roilos (Harvard), Elizabeth Scott-Baumann (KCL), Peter T. Struck (Pennsylvania), María José Vega (U Autònoma de Barcelona), Zhang Longxi (City U of Hong Kong), and Jan Ziolkowski (Harvard)
Please direct all queries to poeticsbeforemodernity@gmail.com.