Reading Blog 11

October 24, 2011

ARCS Ch. 9 & Madeleine de Scudery; Erasmus

Arrangement: Getting it Together
Rhetoricians agree that arrangement is the second part, and second most important part of rhetoric.  Arrangement usually contained two processes, selecting the arguments to be used and arranging them in an order that is clear and persuasive.  Obviously, arrangement has a lot to do with the rhetorical situation, there is always a time and a place for every different style.  I find it very interesting how arrangement has played such a vital role in rhetoric, even in ancient times.  The exordium, comes from the Latin words 'to urge forward.' Ancient rhetoricians gave the advice of exordia, being the first part of discourse and often performs the important function of establishing ethos.  It causes the audience to want to listen to the rest of the speech.  There are five kinds of cases used to determine the kind of exordium: honorable, difficult, mean, ambiguous and obscure.  Each case has different arrangements, varying slightly from each other to be more specific.  I think arrangement is very important.  It completes the style of the speech, determining both what kind of speech it will be and the effect it has on it's audiences.

Madeleine de Scudery
I find the salon concept very interesting.  I think it's funny that Scudery was very accepted into this society and took part in the many behaviors used in this scene.  It makes me wonder why she took part in such rigorous schooling, but then she didn't write under her own name, she used her brother's until he died.  Perhaps she wanted to always fit into her 'clique' instead of breaching the etiquette.  I also think it's very interesting that she wrote novels.  I find this especially curious since she did not marry because of the loss of freedom.  It seems to me that she would be proud of her writing and publish under her own name.

Desiderius Erasmus
Erasmus took the doctorate of divinity at Turin, and while studying published a collection of proverbs from classical sources with accompanying explanatory essays.  He went on to lecture at Cambridge for some time.  Erasmus was very interested in education and hoped that peace would come if humanity were united in one political state with one religion and one language.  He focused on education to achieve this goal.  On Copia was Erasmus's most influential work on rhetoric, dominating instruction in both Latin and northern European countries for the 16th century.  Another volume of this work was created some time later and was said to be more popular.  Erasmus is held as a key figure in the Renaissance era.  With humanist teachings and analysis of sacred texts  could become a means not only to verbal fluency but also to spiritual insight and piety.  Ecclesiastes, Erasmus's final work summarized the hopes for humanist education and for a newly inspired and united Christendom.  He was very skeptical, and wondered if his goals were plausible.  By believing in hope himself, Erasmus was able to instill hope in others as well.