Emotion in the Rhetorical Arts and Literary Culture c.1070–c.1400

2021 ◽  
pp. 104-155
Author(s):  
Rita Copeland
Keyword(s):  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Literary Culture ◽  
Rhetorical Theory ◽  
Letter Writing ◽  
The Arts ◽  
Strong Emotion ◽  
Ars Dictaminis ◽  
A Performance

Chapter 3 explores how style itself became an explosive field in the professional rhetorics of the eleventh through thirteenth centuries, the ars dictaminis and the ars poetriae. These new pragmatics of rhetorical theory trace their roots back to the epideictic teaching of late antiquity, where the whole range of emotions is a property of style. The arts of poetry and of letter-writing have proved extremely resistant to modern theoretical probing of their affective and aesthetic principles, because they stress the technical dimension of composition. But they also see rhetoric as a performance-oriented enterprise, and for them the obvious resource for generating strong emotion lies in style. This apotheosis of style is the most durable medieval tradition of teaching how to respond affectively to texts and to write affectively oneself. It manifests itself with joyful zeal in all quarters, from lowly classroom poetry and exemplary anthologies to Petrarch’s commanding high style and Chaucer’s parodies of emotive style.

Encyclopedists, medieval

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Samuel Barnish
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Liberal Arts ◽  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Strong Influence ◽  
Arts And Sciences ◽  
The Arts ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Liberal Arts And Sciences ◽  
Martianus Capella ◽  
The Middle Ages

The modern encyclopedic genre was unknown in the classical world. In the grammar-based culture of late antiquity, learned compendia, by both pagan and Christian writers, were organized around a text treated as sacred or around the canon of seven liberal arts and sciences, which were seen as preparatory to divine contemplation. Such compendia, heavily influenced by Neoplatonism, helped to unite the classical and Christian traditions and transmit learning, including Aristotelian logic, to the Middle Ages. Writers in the encyclopedic tradition include figures such as Augustine and Boethius, both of whom were extremely influential throughout the medieval period. Other important writers included Macrobius, whose Saturnalia spans a very wide range of subjects; Martianus Capella, whose De nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii (The Marriage of Philology and Mercury) covers the seven liberal arts and sciences; Cassiodorus, who presents the arts as leading towards the comtemplation of the heavenly and immaterial; and Isidore, whose Etymologies became one of the most widely referred-to texts of the Middle Ages. These writers also had a strong influence which can be seen later in the period, particularly in the Carolingian Renaissance and again in the twelfth century.

An Empirical Investigation of the Arts Audience Experience Index

2016 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
pp. 27-46 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wing Tung Au ◽  
Glos Ho ◽  
Kenson Wing Chuen Chan
Keyword(s):  
Performing Arts ◽  
Intellectual Stimulation ◽  
Self Image ◽  
Performance Risk ◽  
The Arts ◽  
Confirmatory Factor ◽  
Overall Evaluation ◽  
Collective Engagement ◽  
Is Value ◽  
A Performance

Radbourne et al. proposed an Arts Audience Experience Index (AAEI) which stipulated that performing arts experiences consist of four components: authenticity, collective engagement, knowledge, and risk. Authenticity is associated with truth and believability of a performance. Collective engagement is an audience’s experience of engagement with performers and other audience members. Knowledge is concerned with understanding of and intellectual stimulation created by a performance. Risk is the extent to which a performance meets one’s expectation, is value for money, and fits with one’s self-image. We administered the AAEI to 465 spectators who attended a drama performance and 126 spectators who attended a musical performance. Supporting Radbourne et al.’s framework, confirmatory factor analysis found that audience members could differentiate among the four components of authenticity, collective engagement, knowledge, and risk along the two facets of importance and satisfaction. Regression analyses also showed that satisfaction with these four components contributes meaningfully to the overall evaluation of the performances, although collective engagement was found to be a relatively weaker predictor.

Ciceronian Rhetoric in Italy, 1260-1350

1999 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 239-288 ◽  
Author(s):  
Virginia Cox
Keyword(s):  
Rhetorical Theory ◽  
Civic Culture ◽  
The Political ◽  
Cultural Changes ◽  
Late Medieval ◽  
Ethical Attitudes ◽  
Ethical Discourse ◽  
Educational Role ◽  
Ars Dictaminis ◽  
Rhetorical Instruction

Abstract: The later thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries in Italy saw a marked new interest in the study of Ciceronian rhetorical theory, in both Latin and vernacular contexts. This reflects the increasing prominence within the civic culture of the Italian communes of practices of oral and adversarial rhetoric which the dominant instrument of rhetorical instruction in this period, the ars dictaminis, was ill-equipped to teach. While the utility of the strategies of argument taught by Roman rhetorical theory was widely recognised in this period, the ethical attitudes implicit in that theory represented a challenge to prevailing Christian constructions of the moral decorum of speech. Classical rhetorical theory may thus be seen to have constituted a destabilising presence within late medieval ethical discourse: a situation which presisted, to some extent, even after the political and cultural changes of the later Trecento had displaced rhetoric in Italy from a primary to a secondary, literary and educational, role.

THE USE OF SECULARISED LATIN PAGAN CULTURE BY CHRISTIANS

2010 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 475-492
Author(s):  
Claude Lepelley
Keyword(s):  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Literary Culture ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Christian Life ◽  
Christian Humanism ◽  
Classical Mythology ◽  
Classical Culture ◽  
Christian Men ◽  
Sidonius Apollinaris

The attitudes of educated Christians to the pagan literary culture of Late Antiquity have long attracted scholarly debate. Jerome and Augustine express the unease that many Christian men of letters felt, and Christian apologists repeatedly attacked the absurdity and immorality of pagan mythology. Yet both Jerome and Augustine nevertheless believed that classical culture could contribute to the Christian life, and mythology remained a source of inspiration for certain Christian authors. This is demonstrated vividly by the writings of two important late antique figures, Sidonius Apollinaris in 5th c. Gaul and the 6th c. African poet Corippus. In their works we can trace an evolving acceptance of classical mythology as a cultural rather than religious inheritance, moving towards the later Christian Humanism of the Renaissance.

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