Rhetoric and Literary Criticism

2014 ◽  
pp. 340-352
Author(s):  
Rita Copeland
Keyword(s):  
Literary Criticism ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Figurative Language ◽  
Narrative Structure ◽  
Critical Dimensions ◽  
Rhetorical Tradition ◽  
Textual Interpretation ◽  
Literary Thought ◽  
Scholastic Philosophy ◽  
The Middle Ages

Rhetoric was aimed at textual composition, but literary criticism was also always part of its remit. This chapter surveys the application of rhetorical thought to textual interpretation in the Middle Ages. This process was important for the interpretation of Scripture as well as literary works. The chapter considers the intersections between invention and hermeneutics, the relevance of theories of arrangement to analysis of narrative structure, and how rhetorical theories of genre and style (including figurative language) were transplanted into interpretive contexts. The chapter engages closely with the classical tradition, especially Ciceronian works, in order to demonstrate the value of classical thought for medieval theorists and literary exegetes. It explores the critical dimensions of the preceptive rhetorics of the Middle Ages, and it also considers how scholastic philosophy absorbed the rhetorical tradition and contributed to literary thought. Major medieval authors considered include Augustine, Geoffrey of Vinsauf, and Dante.

Prophecy, Fate and Memory in the Early Medieval Celtic World

2020 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Literary Criticism ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Religious Identity ◽  
Political Authority ◽  
Early Career ◽  
Early Medieval ◽  
Early Career Researchers ◽  
History Of ◽  
Critical Turn ◽  
The Middle Ages

Prophecy, Fate and Memory in the Early and Medieval Celtic World brings together a collection of studies that closely explore aspects of culture and history of Celtic-speaking nations. Non-narrative sources and cross-disciplinary approaches shed new light on traditional questions concerning commemoration, sources of political authority, and the nature of religious identity. Leading scholars and early-career researchers bring to bear hermeneutics from studies of religion and literary criticism alongside more traditional philological and historical methodologies. All the studies in this book bring to their particular tasks an acknowledgement of the importance of religion in the worldview of antiquity and the Middle Ages. Their approaches reflect a critical turn in Celtic studies that has proved immensely productive across the last two decades.

Oppositio in Geoffrey of Vinsauf and Its Background

1993 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 63-85 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles Fraker
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Rhetorical Tradition ◽  
Joseph Of Exeter ◽  
The Middle Ages

Abstract: The negation-figure oppositio was re-invented in the Middle Ages by Geoffrey of Vinsauf, who was able to reconstruct it by observing the practice of Virgil, Ovid, Statius, and Lucan. This was the procedure of the grammarians, for Geoffrey's treatment developed independently of the rhetorical tradition. The figure digressiowas developed similarly by Geoffrey, whose approach was also used by two contemporary poets, Joseph of Exeter and Gautier of Châtillon.

scholarly journals Introduction to the Study of “Kitab al-Hikayat al-‘Ajiba wa-l- Akhbar al-Ghariba”

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-3
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Narrative Structure ◽  
Arab Literature ◽  
The Middle Ages

The Kitab al-Ḥikāyāt al-‘Ajība wa-l-Akhbār al-Gharība (Book of Amazing Stories and Rare News) is an anonymous work written in Arabic that collects forty-two stories which are similar to those found included in compendia of popular Arab literature of the Middle Ages, such as The Thousand and One Nights. This article is an introduction to its study, and it includes the editions and the translations made on this interesting book as well as its narrative structure and content, according to the manuscript Istanbul Ayasofya Müzesi no.3397, edited by Hans Wehr and Alexander von Bulmerincq in 1956.

Intentionality

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tim Crane
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Mental States ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Intentional State ◽  
Intentional States ◽  
Scholastic Philosophy ◽  
Physical Phenomena ◽  
The Middle Ages

Intentionality is the mind’s capacity to direct itself on things. Mental states like thoughts, beliefs, desires, hopes (and others) exhibit intentionality in the sense that they are always directed on, or at, something: if you hope, believe or desire, you must hope, believe or desire something. Hope, belief, desire and other mental states which are directed at something, are known as intentional states. Intentionality in this sense has only a peripheral connection to the ordinary ideas of intention and intending. An intention to do something is an intentional state, since one cannot intend without intending something; but intentions are only one of many kinds of intentional mental states. The terminology of intentionality derives from the scholastic philosophy of the Middle Ages, and was revived by Brentano in 1874. Brentano characterized intentionality in terms of the mind’s direction upon an object, and he also claimed that it is the intentionality of mental phenomena that distinguishes them from physical phenomena. These ideas of Brentano’s provide the background to twentieth-century discussions of intentionality, in both the phenomenological and analytic traditions. Among these discussions, we can distinguish two general projects. The first is to characterize the essential features of intentionality. For example, is intentionality a relation? If it is, what does it relate, if the object of an intentional state need not exist in order to be thought about? The second is to explain how intentionality can occur in the natural world. How can biological creatures be in states that exhibit intentionality? The aim of this second project is to explain intentionality in nonintentional terms.

scholarly journals Intertextualidade e o cânone retórico

2017 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-15
Author(s):  
Richard Joseph Schoeck
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Art Criticism ◽  
Literary Canon ◽  
Rhetorical Tradition ◽  
Literary Art ◽  
History Of ◽  
European Education ◽  
Art Production ◽  
The Middle Ages

Este artigo parte de uma história etimológica dos termos "retórica" e "cânone" para abordar a interdependência de métodos e meios entre a arte literária (produção e crítica) e o tradicional sistema retórico que esteve na base da educação europeia desde a Antiguidade. A intertextualidade é reconhecida como uma "constante literária universal", e são apontados os modos pelos quais o ensino formal teve um papel central na validação do cânone literário na Idade Média e no Renascimento. Ao final, apontam-se caminhos para avaliar, decodificar e relativizar a tradição retórica no contexto da crítica moderna, ressaltando que o processo de desconstrução não deve implicar o desmantelamento das estruturas, mas uma consciente manifestação de cada uma delas.Palavras-chave: arte literária; crítica; intertextualidade; cânone; retórica.Abstract: Starting form an etymological history of the terms "rhetoric" and "canon", the article addresses the interdependence of methods and means between literary art (production and criticism) and the traditional rhetorical system that has been at the basis of European education since Antiquity. Intertextuality is recognized as a "universal literary constant," pointing out the ways in which formal (particularly British) teaching in the Middle Ages and in the Renaissance played a central role in validating the literary canon. In the end, ways to evaluate, decode and relativize the rhetorical tradition in the context of modern criticism are pointed out, emphasizing that the process of deconstruction should not imply the dismantling of structures, but a conscious manifestation of each one of them.Keywords: literary art; criticism; intertextuality; canon; rhetoric.

scholarly journals Western Philosophy and Theology in the Thirteenth Century

1918 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 409-432
Author(s):  
Maurice De Wulf
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Common Ground ◽  
Recent Book ◽  
Catholic Theology ◽  
Clear Cut ◽  
Current Definition ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Scholastic Philosophy ◽  
The Middle Ages

In regard to Western scholastic philosophy of the Middle Ages, every one repeats the laconic judgment, that it is “philosophy in the service, under the sway and direction, of Catholic theology.” It could be nothing else; and it seems that one has said everything after announcing this clear-cut formula. This current definition, susceptible of the most different meanings, is found on the first page of a recent book, published during the War, on the philosophy of the Middle Ages; and though the author gives a very mild interpretation of it, it is offered to the reader as an abridged thesis, in which one finds condensed all that is important to know on the subject. “Scholasticism is Philosophy placed at the service of already established ecclesiastical doctrine, or at least philosophy placed in such a dependence on this doctrine that it becomes an absolute Rule when both meet on common ground.”Now this current definition of scholastic philosophy in the Middle Ages defines it very badly, because it is a mixture of the true and the false, of accuracy and of inaccuracy. It must be distrusted, like those equivocal maxims which John Stuart Mill calls “sophisms of simple inspection,” which by force of repetition enjoy a kind of transeat or vogue in science without being questioned.

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