Renaissance Rhetoric

The Renaissance was a time of new culture and knowledge. Known as the time of “rebirth”, many at the time of the Renaissance strived to broaden their horizons by learning more. Before it was mainly the aristocrats and courtiers who would study rhetoric but during the Renaissance the common person was able to study rhetoric. This was due greatly to the invention of the printing press which allowed rhetorical teachings to be available to everyone. Rhetoricians of the Renaissance interestingly focused on Cicero’s humanitas teaching and dismissed many other ancient rhetoricians work such as Aristotle. Famous Renaissance Rhetorician Petrarch admired Cicero for his concept that man should be able to combine literary art, moral philosophy and civic responsibility to writing and oratory. This concept was adopted by many and the expanded to northern countries in the 1400 and 1500s. In England Sir Thomas More attempted to adapt the humanist concept of rhetoric to educational purposes beyond the clergy, law and medicine. The idea of rhetoric teachings during this era was that any man or women can learn rhetoric and apply it to their daily life. Rhetoric was therefore simplified to make it easier for the common person to adopt.

            This concept of simplification was most adopted by Peter Ramus. Ramus ideas were threatening during the 1500s, especially for monarchs. Ramus attached Aristotle and Scholasticism thinking, which took an overtone of religious reform towards the Roman Catholic Church. Ramus dominant idea was that the ability to reason is innate in every normal human being and one did not learn it from Aristotle or classical sources. He stated that it was pointless to excessively study classical language and ancient texts. Ramus believed in a simplified rhetoric. He separated philosophy, or dialectic in to ten spheres which consists of: causes, effects, subjects, adjuncts, opposites, comparisons, names, divisions, definitions, and witnesses. He focused on the arrangement of the rhetorical arguments as a structure of syllogism where the argument begins general and then gets more specific. Overall Ramus method simplifies as it universalizes.

            Rhetoric in the Renaissance was the beginning of modern rhetoric. The idea that rhetoric should be available for all is something that is still believed today. Although modern rhetoric does pay more attention ancient rhetoricians ideas, the rhetoric practiced in the Renaissance still impacted modern rhetoric.