Rhetorical Theory in Sixteenth-Century Spain: A Critical Survey

2002 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 133-148 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jorge Fernáández Lóópez

During the last thirty years, a growing scholarly attention has been paid to Spanish rhetoric. This paper gives an overview of the main studies on the subject and, with detailed bibliographical reference, draws a picture which presents the main features of Spanish rhetorical theory in the sixteenth century. Thus, references are made to the Council of Trent and its encouraging of sacred rhetoric, to the weight of Ciceronianism among Spanish rhetoricians -albeit some exceptions-, to the rigid detachment between rhetoric and poetics, to the relatively high production on the subject and to the limited influence of rhetoric and classical learning in the teaching of the time.

2019 ◽  
Vol 70 (296) ◽  
pp. 640-658
Author(s):  
Vanessa Lim

Abstract Hamlet’s ‘To be or not to be’ speech has long been the subject of intense scholarly attention. By situating the speech against the backdrop of classical and Renaissance rhetorical theory, this essay demonstrates that there is still much more to be said about it. The speech ostensibly examines a quaestio infinita or a thesis, and follows the rhetorical rule that the right way to do so is by the invocation of commonplaces. This reading of Hamlet’s speech is not only consistent with Shakespeare’s characterization of the university-educated prince, who frequently invokes commonplaces, but also has significant implications for our understanding of the play and Shakespeare’s own practice as a writer. The book that Hamlet is reading could well be his own commonplace collection, and it is perhaps in looking up his entries under the heading of ‘Death’ that Hamlet finds what he needs in order to examine his quaestio.


1957 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
pp. 275-288 ◽  
Author(s):  
George H. Tavard

The many aspects of Catholic activity during the sixteenth century make it difficult to present a systematic bibliography for that period. Interest in the Reformation era has considerably increased among Catholic scholars during the last decades. We must therefore proceed to a severe selection. Only studies that deal with the most significant topics will be included. No breakdown of the material can be completely satifactory. As the main point, however, is to give as clear a picture as possible, one must distinguish three broad periods: before, during and after the Council of Trent. Subdivisions of the subject matter in each period will necessarily overlap. But we will reduce this to a minimum.


Costume ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 50 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-19 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fang Chen

The subject of this paper is a style of fur headdress for women that became fashionable in the sixteenth century and on into the seventeenth, in late Ming China. It has hitherto received little scholarly attention. In Chinese, it is called wotu’er and this can be translated as ‘crouching rabbit’, ‘crouching cottontail’ or ‘crouching lapin’. We know that it was one of the luxury goods of its day, worn as a mark of high social status and wealth. This essay examines the shape of the headdress and how it was worn, as well as its material and price. How long was it in fashion and why did it become fashionable in the first place? The relevance of nomadic dress in influencing women’s garments in the sixteenth century will also be considered, as will the shift in the use of fur from functional to decorative.


1974 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 227-246 ◽  
Author(s):  
Felicity Heal

It is well known that the Tudor monarchs exerted highly effective control over the financial resources of the English Church, particularly in the years after the Henrician Reformation. So marked a feature of the sixteenth century were the demands which the Crown, followed by the rest of the leading laity, made upon the Church in order to gain easy profit, that the period has on occasions been characterized as the ‘ age of plunder ’ The dissolution of the monasteries, and its economic and social consequences, have long been the subject of scholarly attention and debate. The fortunes of the secular church, in contrast, have roused relatively little interest, except as a background to the Laudian revival. This is, of course, in part because the crisis which the parochial clergy, cathedral chapters and bishops, experienced, was less dramatic than that of the monks and chantry priests, and, perhaps partly because demands upon the secular church were often for taxation rather than for outright gifts of lands. None of the Tudors showed the slightest inclination to disturb the fundamental tithe relationship within the parishes, and there were very few, even among the most ardent advocates of reform, who spoke openly for the old Lollard concept of making tithe dependent upon the quality of the incumbent.


1996 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 43-78
Author(s):  
William W McBryde

This paper,first presented on 21 October 1995 at ajoint seminar ofthe Scottish Law Commission and the Faculty of Law, University of Edinburgh, on the subject of breach of contract, is a critical survey of the remedies available in Scots law for breach of contract. It considers interest, specific implement, interdict, breach of contract, the mutuality principle, damages and penalty clauses.


2011 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 25-78 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shawkat M. Toorawa

Q. 19 (Sūrat Maryam) – an end-rhyming, and, by general consensus, middle to late Meccan sura of 98 (or 99) verses – has been the subject of considerable exegetical and scholarly attention. Besides commentary, naturally, in every tafsīr of the Qur'an, Sura 19 has also benefited from separate, individual treatment. It has been the object of special attention by modern Western scholars, in particular those of comparative religion and of Christianity, whose attention has centred largely on the virtue and piety of Mary, on the miraculous nature of the birth of Jesus, on Jesus' ministry, and on how Jesus' time on Earth came to an end. In addition, Sura 19 is a favourite of the interfaith community. Given this sustained and multivectored scrutiny, it is remarkable how little analysis has been devoted to its lexicon. This article is a contribution to the study of the lexicon of this sura, with a particular emphasis on three features: rhyming end words, hapaxes, and repeating words and roots, some of which occur in this sura alone.


Author(s):  
Andrew Hadfield

Chapter 4 examines a variety of treatises and debates about rhetoric and its value, and whether the art of persuasion could be a dangerous tool in the hands of the unscrupulous or even whether it was a skill that risked corrupting the user, dangers that were identified by Quintilian, whose Institutio Oratoria (The Orator’s Education) shaped so much rhetorical theory and practice in the Renaissance. The chapter explores the practice of commonplacing, noting down particular maxims which could then serve as the basis of explorations of issues, a practice that, like rhetoric, generated anxiety about truth, falsehood, and lying. Particular attention is paid to Erasmus’s Colloquies and Lingua; William Baldwin’s A Treatise of Moral Philosophy, the most popular work of philosophy in sixteenth-century England; the use of commonplaces in Montaigne’s Essays; George Puttenham’s use of proverbs and figures in his Arte of English Poesie (1589); and Sir Philip Sidney’s understanding of poetry as lying in The Defence of Poetry.


Author(s):  
Justine Pila

This chapter considers the relative absence of scholarly attention to the meaning of the terms used to denote the subject matter that IP rights protect and the nature of those subject matter themselves. It then outlines the aims and methods of the definitional task undertaken in later chapters, and the stages in which that task proceeds. Using the distinction drawn by Richard Robinson, it proposes a nominal word:thing definitional exercise, rather than a word:word exercise, that considers recent use of the terms to be defined by European and UK legal officials. Drawing on the stipulative nature of authoritative legal definition, it also proposes an explicative aspect to the definitional exercise, focused on clarifying legal officials’ understandings of the relevant terms in the light of the relevant legal and policy context. And finally, it summarizes the conclusions reached at each stage of the definitional exercise undertaken in later chapters.


2021 ◽  
pp. 1-22
Author(s):  
KAARLO HAVU

Abstract The article analyses the emergence of decorum (appropriateness) as a central concept of rhetorical theory in the early sixteenth-century writings of Erasmus and Juan Luis Vives. In rhetorical theory, decorum shifted the emphasis from formulaic rules to their creative application in concrete cases. In doing so, it emphasized a close analysis of the rhetorical situation (above all the preferences of the audience) and underscored the persuasive possibilities of civil conversation as opposed to passionate, adversarial rhetoric. The article argues that the stress put on decorum in early sixteenth-century theory is not just an internal development in the history of rhetoric but linked to far wider questions concerning the role of rhetoric in religious and secular lives. Decorum appears as a solution both to the divisiveness of language in the context of the Reformation and dynastic warfare of the early sixteenth century and as an adaptation of the republican tradition of political rhetoric to a changed, monarchical context. Erasmus and Vives maintained that decorum not only suppressed destructive passions and discord, but that it was only through polite and civil rhetoric (or conversation) that a truly effective persuasion was possible in a vast array of contexts.


1981 ◽  
Vol 17 ◽  
pp. 149-166 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philip M. J. McNair

Between the execution of Gerolamo Savonarola at Florence in May 1498 and the execution of Giordano Bruno at Rome in February 1600, western Christendom was convulsed by the protestant reformation, and the subject of this paper is the effect that that revolution had on the Italy that nourished and martyred those two unique yet representative men: unique in the power and complexity of their personalities, representative because the one sums up the medieval world with all its strengths and weaknesses while the other heralds the questing and questioning modern world in which we live.


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