Rudolphus Agricola (1444-85), a Dutch humanist, wrote poems, orations, and classical translations and commentaries. His De inventione dialectica (On the invention of logic) was important for the development of Renaissance rhetoric. Those who studied Agricola’s work realized that for purposes of persuasion, logical arguments in proper arrangement were just as important as style and manner of speaking. Petrus Ramus (Pierre de la Ramee, 1515-72) wrote in Latin on Aristotle’s use of logic in rhetorical argument and in 1555 published his Dialectique (Dialectic) concerning logical deduction, a significant contribution to Renaissance rhetoric. As the first published work in French concerning a major philosophical subject, the Dialectique had a tremendous impact on writers, especially since it was written in the vernacular.
Humanistic orations often used the rhetorical trope of comparison to praise or castigate the subject at hand, especially comparison of the ancient and the modern world. An oration delivered in the Sis-tine Chapel in 1508, for example, with Pope Julius II (1443-1513) in the audience, favorably compared Rome under his papacy with ancient Greece: “You, now, Julius II, Supreme Pontiff, have founded a new Athens when you summon up that prostrated world of letters as if raising it from the dead, and you command. . . that Athens, her stadiums, her theaters, her Athenaeum, be restored” (Rowland 2000, p. 157). The purpose of this eloquence was to contrast the culture of Rome with the “barbaric” nature of the Turks, whose “ancient evil” would be erased by the “sponge” of learning and “circumcised” at its roots. This cutting reference finally led the oration to the actual occasion of the speech, namely, the Feast of the Circumcision. Such stylistic circumlocutions exemplify humanistic oratory of the 15th and early 16th centuries.
During the 16th century, writers argued about whether it was proper to present official orations in the vernacular and, if it was, what type of vocabulary should be utilized. In 1553, Thomas Wilson’s Arte of Rhetorique, for example, advocated plain speaking and avoidance of “inkhorn” words. He opposed the neologisms being invented from Latin and sometimes Greek by his learned contemporaries. In the interest of English nationalism, even a few classical scholars participated in the Inkhorn Controversy, supporting Wilson’s point of view. In the end, however, new words coined from Latin and Greek made their way into public speaking, thus entering the vernacular vocabularies of western Europe.
World History
