Deck 7: Rhetoric in the Renaissance

Question 1

For what ability was Joanna Vaz famous?

Answer 1

Joanna Vaz was a Portuguese woman with a reputation for eloquence. She gained this reputation at a time when women were generally prohibited from speaking in public. While no written record of her speeches survived, she gained status through her oratorical ability, and was appointed tutor to the daughter of the King and Queen of Portugal.

Question 2

What does it mean to say that Christine de Pizan was a polemical writer?

Answer 2

Christine de Pizan can be understood as a polemical writer because she was a fierce advocate who was actively involved in controversies of the day. As a powerful writer and active rhetorician, she wrote several outspoken defenses of women in a time when many popular books portrayed women as immoral and incompetent. Christine used her immense rhetorical ability to encourage women to find meaning in their lives and pursue worthy acts.

Question 3

What was the status of rhetorical studies in Renaissance education?

Answer 3

Rhetoric was an aid to contemplation and moral refinement, as well as a path to political power.Rhetorical skill was the sign of an educated person, surpassing the prestige of philosophers, as rhetoric was able to combine both eloquence and wisdom. Over 2,500 books on rhetoric were published during this period. Students had large numbers of rhetorical strategies and terms.

Question 4

Identify some of the defining characteristics of Humanism.

Question 5

What famous book by Castiglione retrieved, for Renaissance European readers, Cicero's notion of the perfectus orator?

Question 6

What is Richard Lanham's explanation of the development of rhetorical figures of speech?

Question 7

What was Valla's opinion regarding the relationship between rhetoric and philosophy?

Question 8

What is the significance of the concept of the vita activa to Renaissance rhetoric? To which concept was it opposed?

Question 9

Who was Averroes? What role did he play in the history of Renaissance rhetoric?

Question 10

What was the response of many Humanists to the earlier Scholastic approach to education?

Question 11

What impact did the fall of Constantinople have on Italian Humanism?

Question 12

In what way are Agricola and Ramus significant to the history of rhetoric?

Question 13

How were style and science related in the late Renaissance?

Question 14

What innovation did Madame de Scudery bring to rhetoric?

Question 15

Humanists imagined a return to classical studies as providing a basis for broad social change. Is it still possible to imagine educational reform leading to social reform? Explain.

Question 16

Respond to the idea advocated by the Humanists that speech is the means by which human beings create civilization. Is this account too simple? Are there factors other than speech that could be said to be the basis for civilization?

Question 17

In what ways does the commercial life of modern democratic societies still depend on rhetorical skills? What studies would a new rhetoric, supportive of commercial and political life include?

Question 18

What argument could be made against Ramus' reduction of rhetoric to a concern for style and ornament in language? What argument could be made in favor of this reduction?

Question 19

What contemporary examples reflect that there is a connection between style and political or ideological commitments?

Question 20

Important to the revival of rhetoric during this period was the rise of an educated class of ___________________, which were rhetorically trained secretaries that were responsible for negotiating, recording, and communicating much of a city's civic functions.

Question 21

___________________ was one of the early Italian Humanists that exerted great intellectual influence through letter writing, was himself influenced by Cicero, and wished to see Italy return to the greatness of ancient Rome. Concerned with the "persuasive power" of rhetoric he wrote, "speech can have no dignity unless the soul has dignity."

Question 22

The Humanist movement believed in the ____________________, or the concept that rhetoric and reason should be used actively for political and civic involvement.

Question 23

The Humanists were against the concept of ___________________, which believed that rhetoric and reason should be used for personal contemplation. This concept was an important part of the early Christian model of monasticism and understanding divine truth.

Question 24

The Humanists' emphasis on putting a text in its historical context contributed to studies such as __________________, or the discipline of textual interpretation.

Question 25

A Dutch scholar, and author of On Dialectical Invention, ____________________ is famous for reducing rhetoric during the Renaissance period to ornamentation and holding dialectic as the true study of argumentation and wisdom.

Question 26

Which of the following was the name for the movement inspired by the Humanists that caused a resurgence of scholarly interest in languages and texts of classical antiquity?

A) Scholasticism
B) Classicism
C) Antiquitism
D) Neoplatonism

Question 27

Which of the following rhetoricians was Europe's first professional female writer? She was largely self-educated, attracted a wide audience, wrote in French rather than Latin, and her most popular work was The Treasure of the City of Ladies which included an "outspoken defense of women."

A) Joanna Vaz
B) Publia Hortencia de Castro
C) Christine de Pisan
D) Madame de Scudery

Question 28

Which of the following terms was the word Italian Humanists used for the source of emotions or passions in the human mind?

A) Affectus
B) Res
C) Evanesco
D) Pathologia

Question 29

Which of the following Humanists shaped the Neoplatonist movement, wrote Oration on the Dignity of Man, and similar to Gorgias saw rhetoric as magic and a way to control and alter reality.

A) Pico della Mirandola
B) Lorenzo Valla
C) Juan Luis Vives
D) Plutarch

Question 30

Which of the following was the term used by Humanists to describe the ideal type of educated person, who represented a true orator grounded in wisdom and skilled in eloquence?

A) Literae humanae
B) Uomo universale
C) Studia humanitatis
D) Corpus Hermeticum

Question 31

Which of the following rhetoricians was a late Renaissance woman who encouraged women to seek social status through writing rather than beauty and is famous for developing a rhetorical theory centered on conversation?

A) Joanna Vaz
B) Publia Hortencia de Castro
C) Christine de Castro
D) Madame de Scudery

Question 32

Although there was considerable opposition to women actually speaking in public during the Renaissance, some women gained reputations for their public oratory.

Question 33

Lorenzo Valla, perhaps the most influential of all humanist scholars, believed that rhetoric and oratory were only subordinate to philosophy, because philosophers had a superior sense of ethical understanding than the ordinary person.

Question 34

Rhetoric was incredibly prominent in Renaissance education; with over 2,500 books on rhetoric published during this time period students commonly learned systemized rhetorical theories and terms.

Question 35

One of the legacies of the Italian Humanists is that their interest in secular history introduced a study of history into schools that used historical writings that did not depend on arguments of divine intervention.

Question 36

During the Renaissance period, rhetoric in England was banned for its connection with magic, as the Royal Society believed it was a way for rhetoricians to mislead and control the common people.

Question 37

Peter Ramus was an academic iconoclast and built his career on attacking Aristotle, Cicero, and Quintilian.

Question 38

Provide the term for the following definitions:
-The discipline of textual interpretation, of particular interest to the Italian Humanists.

Question 39

Provide the term for the following definitions:
-Latin term for the active life of political involvement.

Question 40

Provide the term for the following definitions:
-A resurgence of interest in the language and texts of classical antiquity.

Question 41

Provide the term for the following definitions:
-Rhetorically trained secretaries responsible for negotiating, recording, and communicating the many agreements that allowed Italian commercial cities to function.

Question 42

Provide the term for the following definitions:
-The ideal type of the educated person in the Renaissance.

Question 43

Briefly overview the important role rhetoric played in Renaissance education.

Question 44

What was Lorenzo Valla's position on the relationship between rhetoric and philosophy?

Question 45

Identify two women who figure in the history of Renaissance rhetoric, and provide a brief description of the contributions or activities of each.

Question 46

Who was Christine de Pisan? When and where was she active? What did she urge women to do?

Question 47

Provide an overview of the Humanists' interest in, and approach to the study of, classical texts.

Question 48

Describe the role played by the notary in Renaissance Italy, and the place of rhetoric in their training.

Question 49

Describe Petrarch's interest in, and influence on, the study of rhetoric.

Question 50

What was the Corpus Hermetircum, and what does its popularity reveal about rhetoric's connection to another study during the Renaissance?

Question 51

Who was Pico della Mirandola, and what factors characterized his interest in language?

Question 52

How did writers like Agricola and Ramus tend to treat rhetoric in their own works?

Question 53

During the Renaissance, arts known as the studia humanitatis became important to education in Europe. What were some of these studies, and what shift from a medieval orientation to study and to life do they reflect? What role did rhetoric play in Renaissance education? Why would rhetoric have been of such universal interest and importance in Renaissance education? What writer was particularly important to shaping and securing the place of rhetoric in the Renaissance Curriculum?

Question 54

The Italian Humanists placed rhetoric at the very center of their studies. What were the marks of Italian Humanism as an intellectual movement. Why was rhetoric so important to the Italian Humanists? What important practical skills did rhetoric impart? What did it reveal about human beings, their thoughts, their activities, their capacity to build societies? What art did not give an adequate view of human beings and their activities?