ENGL 6/7505
J. Comas
17 Mar 2011
Agenda for Week 10 (Mar 26)
Shrinking and Expanding the Boundaries of Rhetoric in Late Antiquity: Martianus and Augustine

Because we are a week behind, let’s begin catching up by devoting the first half of next week’s session to last week’s readings (i.e., Quintilian, Tacitus, & Longinus); then we will turn our attention to the fifth century, focusing on two enormously influential developments in the history of rhetoric (not to mention Western civilization): (A) a circumscription of rhetoric resulting from the establishment of the “liberal arts” as a governing concept in educational-social theory and (B) an expansion of rhetoric beyond its traditional parameters of political discourse, resulting from the appropriation of classical rhetoric by Christian theologians.

Introductory Reading: This article by the historian of rhetoric and Communications scholar, Michael Leff, provides a good, short introduction to our two main readings:
Michael C. Leff, “St. Augustine and Martianus Capella: Continuity and Change in Fifth-Century Latin Rhetorical Theory,” Communication Quarterly 24, no. 4 (1976): 2-9. [Available online via Walker’s subscription to the “Communication and Mass Media Complete” database.]
Primary Texts
(A) Martianus: The Emergence of the “Liberal Arts” Tradition in Fifth-Century Pagan Education
We will read a few short passages from the “encyclopedic,” fifth-century work regarded as the earliest presentation of the curricular model known as the “seven liberal arts”: Martianus Capella’s De nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii (The Marriage of Philology and Mercury). Martianus presents the liberal arts (grammar, dialectic, rhetoric, geometry, arithmetic, astronomy, harmony [or music]) as personifications of seven learned sisters in an allegory, in which the seven sisters are handmaids that Mercury presents to his bride. Martianus devoted a “book” to each of the sisters/disciplines; and each book begins with a physical description of the sister. These descriptions later became the source of iconographic representations of the seven liberal arts, including “Dame Rhetoric.” Our anthology, Readings in Medieval Rhetoric, contains Martianus’s description of Rhetoric; and I have prepared a handout that consists of his descriptions of Grammar and Dialectic.
Martianus Capella, from “Rhetoric,” Book V of De nuptiis [Readings in Medieval Rhetoric 1-5]
___, from “Grammar” and “Dialectic,” Books III & IV of De nuptiis [handout]
(B) The Emergence of Christian Rhetorical Theory and Pedagogy: Basil and Augustine
Basil, “To Young Men on Reading Greek Literature” [Readings from Classical Rhetoric 355-59]
Augustine, from Book IV of De Doctrina Christiana [RCR 360-78]
Recommended Secondary Readings
(A) On Martianus and the “Liberal Arts” Curriculum
George A. Kennedy, “Martianus Capella” in Ch. 9 of Classical Rhetoric and Its Christian and Secular Tradition 197-99.
Han-Liang Chang, “The Rise of Semiotics and the Liberal Arts: Reading Martianus Capella’s the Marriage of Philology and Mercury,” Mnemosyne 51, no. 5 (1998): 538-53. [JSTOR]
(B) On Augustine and the Emergence of Christian Rhetoric
Thomas M. Conley, “Rhetoric in Augustine” in Ch. 4 of Rhetoric in the European Tradition (74-8) & Outline of Book IV of De doctrina 105.
George A. Kennedy, “Saint Augustine” in Ch. 9 of Classical Rhetoric and Its Christian and Secular Tradition 170-82.
John D. Schaeffer, “The Dialectic of Orality and Literacy: The Case of Book 4 of Augustine’s De Doctrina Christiana,” PMLA: Publications of the Modern Language Association of America 111, no. 5 (1996): 1133-45. [JSTOR]