Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-45l2p Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-25T17:20:50.638Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Rhetorical Delivery for Renaissance English: Voice, Gesture, Emotion, and the Sixteenth-Century Vernacular Turn

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

John Wesley
John Wesley*
Affiliation:
University of Puget Sound
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

In the sixteenth century, perceptions of the English language changed from one of barbaric inadequacy to that of rare eloquence. Accounts for this shift tend to focus on literary or textual production, but this essay shows how these very linguistic concerns were motivated by the nonlinguistic practices appropriate to Latin rhetorical delivery (pronuntiatio et actio). The emotional contagion, legitimization of the inarticulate, cultural contextualization, and overcoming of natural physical defects that all stand at the heart of delivery here situate vernacular uplift at the corporeal level. The essay ends with an illustrative reading of William Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus.

Type
Research Article
Information
Renaissance Quarterly , Volume 68 , Issue 4 , Winter 2015 , pp. 1265 - 1296
Copyright
Copyright © Renaissance Society of America 2015

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Alexander, Michael Van Cleave. The Growth of English Education, 1348–1648: A Social and Cultural History. University Park, 1990.Google Scholar
Aristotle, . Rhetoric. Trans. Freese, John Henry. Cambridge, MA, 1959.Google Scholar
Ascham, Roger. English Works. Ed. Wright, W. A.. Cambridge, 1904.Google Scholar
Barkan, Leonard. “What Did Shakespeare Read?” In The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare. ed. de Grazia, Margreta and Wells, Stanley, 31–48. Cambridge, 2001.10.1017/CCOL0521650941.003CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bate, Jonathan. Shakespeare and Ovid. Oxford, 1993.Google Scholar
Beaumont, Francis. The Knight of the Burning Pestle. Ed. Zitner, Sheldon P.. Manchester, 1984.Google Scholar
Blank, Paula. Broken English: Dialects and the Politics of Language in Renaissance Writings. London, 1996.Google Scholar
Boas, Frederick S. University Drama in the Tudor Age. Oxford, 1914.Google Scholar
Brinsley, John. Ludus Literarius, or The Grammar Schoole. London, 1612.Google Scholar
Bulwer, John. Chirologia, or The Natural Language of the Hand; and Chironomia, or The Art of Manual Rhetoric. Ed. Cleary, James W.. Carbondale, 1974.Google Scholar
Cicero, . De Oratore. Trans. E. W. Sutton and H. Rackham. 2 vols. Cambridge, MA, 1959–60.Google Scholar
Cicero, . Brutus. Trans. Hendrickson, G. L.. Cambridge, MA, 1962.Google Scholar
Crystal, David. Evolving English: One Language, Many Voices. London, 2010.Google Scholar
Daalder, Joost. “The Role of ‘Senex’ in Kyd’s The Spanish Tragedy .” Comparative Drama 20 (1986): 247–60.10.1353/cdr.1986.0038CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Danson, Lawrence. Tragic Alphabet: Shakespeare’s Drama of Language. New Haven, 1974.Google Scholar
DeMolen, Richard. Richard Mulcaster (c. 1531–1611) and Educational Reform in the Renaissance. Nieuwkoop, 1991.Google Scholar
Dionysus of Halicarnassus. Critical Essays. Trans. Usher, Stephen. 2 vols. Cambridge, MA, 2000.Google Scholar
Draper, F. W. M. Four Centuries of Merchant Taylors’ School, 1561–1961. London, 1962.10.2307/3118641CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Elyot, Sir Thomas. Of that knowlage, which maketh a wise man. London, 1549.Google Scholar
Enterline, Lynn. “Rhetoric, Discipline, and the Theatricality of Everyday Life in Elizabethan Grammar Schools.” In Performance and Print in Shakespeare’s England. ed. Peter Holland and Stephen Orgel, 173–90. New York, 2006.10.1057/9780230584549_9CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Enterline, Lynn. Shakespeare’s Schoolroom: Rhetoric, Discipline, Emotion. Pennsylvania, 2012.10.9783/9780812207132CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Erasmus, Desiderius. Literary and Educational Writings 4: De pueris instituendis / De recta pronuntiatione. Trans. Beert C. Verstraete and Maurice Pope. Vol. 26 of The Collected Works of Erasmus. Toronto, 1985.10.3138/9781442676701CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Floyd-Wilson, Mary. English Ethnicity and Race in Early Modern Drama. Cambridge, 2003.Google Scholar
Fraunce, Abraham. The Arcadian Rhetorike. Ed. Seaton, Ethel. Oxford, 1950.Google Scholar
Fredal, James. Rhetorical Action in Ancient Athens: Persuasive Artistry from Solon to Demosthenes. Carbondale, 2006.Google Scholar
Green, Douglas. “Interpreting ‘her martyr’d signs’: Gender and Tragedy in Titus Andronicus .” Shakespeare Quarterly 40 (1989): 317–26.10.2307/2870726CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hart, John. An Orthographie. London, 1569.Google Scholar
Heywood, Thomas. An Apology for Actors. London, 1612.Google Scholar
Hoole, Charles. A New Discovery of the Old Art of Teaching Schoole. Ed. Campagnac, E. T.. Liverpool, 1913.Google Scholar
Horace, . Odes and Epodes. Trans. Niall, Rudd. Cambridge, MA, 2004.Google Scholar
Hulse, S. Clark. “Wresting the Alphabet: Oratory and Action in ‘Titus Andronicus.’” Criticism 21 (1979): 106–18.Google Scholar
James, Heather. Shakespeare’s Troy: Drama, Politics, and the Translation of Empire. Cambridge, 1997.10.1017/CBO9780511581960CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jones, Richard Foster. The Triumph of the English Language. Stanford, 1953.Google Scholar
Joseph, B. L. Elizabethan Acting. London, 1951.Google Scholar
Kahn, Coppelia. Roman Shakespeare: Warriors, Wounds, and Women. London, 1997.Google Scholar
Keilen, Sean. Vulgar Eloquence: On the Renaissance Invention of English Literature. New Haven, 2006.Google Scholar
Kyd, Thomas. The Spanish Tragedy. Ed. Bevington, David. Manchester, 1996.Google Scholar
Laertius, Diogenes. Lives of Eminent Philosophers. Trans. Hicks, R. D.. 2 vols. Cambridge, MA, 1959.Google Scholar
Leach, Arthur F. Educational Charters and Documents, 598 to 1909. Cambridge, 1911.Google Scholar
Lyte, H. Maxwell. A History of Eton College, 1440–1875. London, 1875.Google Scholar
Mann, Jenny C. Outlaw Rhetoric: Figuring Vernacular Eloquence in Shakespeare’s England. Ithaca, 2012.10.7591/cornell/9780801449659.001.0001CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Marston, John. Antonio’s Revenge. Ed. W. Reavley Gair. Manchester, 1978.Google Scholar
Mazzio, Carla. The Inarticulate Renaissance: Language Trouble in an Age of Eloquence. Philadelphia, 2009.10.9783/9780812293401CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Milton, John. The Complete Poetry and Essential Prose. Ed. Kerrigan, William, Rumrich, John, and Fallon, Stephen M.. New York, 2007.Google Scholar
Mulcaster, Richard. Elementarie. Ed. E. T. Campagnac. Oxford, 1925.Google Scholar
Mulcaster, Richard. Positions Concerning the Training Up of Children. Ed. William Barker. Toronto, 1994.Google Scholar
Paster, Gail Kern. Humoring the Body: Emotions and the Shakespearean Stage. Chicago, 2004.10.7208/chicago/9780226648484.001.0001CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Plato, . Phaedrus. Trans. R. Hackforth. Cambridge, 1997.Google Scholar
Plett, Heinrich F. Rhetoric and Renaissance Culture. New York, 2004.10.1515/9783110201895CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Plutarch, . Lives. Trans. Bernadotte Perrin. 11 vols. Cambridge, MA, 1958.Google Scholar
Pseudo-Plutarch, . Lives of the Ten Orators. Trans. Harold North Fowler. In Plutarch’s Moralia. 10:342–457. Cambridge, MA, 1960.Google Scholar
Puttenham, George. The Art of English Poesy. Ed. Frank, Whigham and Rebhorn, Wayne. Ithaca, 2007.Google Scholar
Quintilian, . Institutio Oratoria. Trans. Donald A. Russell. 5 vols. Cambridge, MA, 2001.Google Scholar
Rebhorn, Wayne. The Emperor of Men’s Minds: Literature and the Renaissance Discourse of Rhetoric. Ithaca, 1995.Google Scholar
Rhetorica ad Herrenium. Trans. Caplan, Harry. Cambridge, MA, 1964.Google Scholar
Rhodes, Neil. The Power of Eloquence and English Renaissance Literature. New York, 1992.Google Scholar
Rhodes, Neil. Shakespeare and the Origins of English. Oxford, 2004.10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199245727.001.0001CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Roach, Joseph. The Player’s Passion: Studies in the Science of Acting. Newark, 1985.Google Scholar
Scott, William. An Essay of Drapery, or The Complete Citizen Trading Iustly. Pleasingly. Profitably. London, 1635.Google Scholar
Seneca, . Epistulae Morales. Trans. Gummere, Richard M.. 3 vols. Cambridge, MA, 1962.Google Scholar
Shakespeare, William. The Complete Works. Ed. Wells, Stanley and Taylor, Gary. Oxford, 1987.Google Scholar
Shakespeare, William. Measure for Measure. Ed. Bawcutt, N. W.. Oxford, 2008a.Google Scholar
Shakespeare, William. Titus Andronicus. Ed. Waith, Eugene M.. Oxford, 2008b.Google Scholar
Smith, Bruce R. Ancient Scripts and Modern Experience on the English Stage, 1500–1700. Princeton, 1988.10.1515/9781400859399CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Spenser, Edmund. The Faerie Queene. Ed. A. C. Hamilton. New York, 2001.Google Scholar
Stewart, Alan. Close Readers: Humanism and Sodomy in Early Modern England. Princeton, 1997.10.1515/9781400864577CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Swift, Jonathan. Prose Works. Ed. Davis, Herbert. 14 vols. Oxford, 1939–68.Google Scholar
Sylvester, D. W., ed. Educational Documents, 800–1816. London, 1970.Google Scholar
Tacitus, . Annals. Trans. Jackson, John. 5 vols. Cambridge, MA, 1969.Google Scholar
Targoff, Ramie. “The Performance of Prayer: Sincerity and Theatricality in Early Modern England.” Representations 60 (1997): 49–69.Google Scholar
Thomas, Keith. Rule and Misrule in the Schools of Early Modern England. Reading, 1976.Google Scholar
Wagonheim, Sylvia Stoler. Annals of English Drama, 975–1700. London, 1989.Google Scholar
Walker, John. Elements of Elocution. 2 vols. London, 1781.Google Scholar
Watson, F. W. English Grammar Schools to 1660: Their Curriculum and Practice. Cambridge, 1908.Google Scholar
Whitelock, James. Liber Famelicus. Ed. Bruce, John. London, 1858.Google Scholar
Wilson, Thomas. The Art of Rhetoric (1560). Ed. Medine, Peter E.. University Park, 1994.Google Scholar
Wright, Thomas. The Passions of the Mind in General. Ed. Newbold, William Webster. New York, 1986.Google Scholar