Rhetoric as Character-Fashioning: The Implications of Delivery's “Places” in the British Renaissance Paideia

Abstract

Abstract: Pronuntiatio teaches charaeter creation and analysis. Because the rhetorical curriculum in the British Renaissance considers pronuntiatio essential, retains the educational goal of facilitas, treats every “text” as a declamation, and depicts inventio, dispositio, elocutio, and memoria in behavioral metaphors with rules mirroring those of pronuntiatio, Renaissance rhetoric is in practice an art of behavior centrally concerned with decorum. This connection between Renaissance rhetoric and ethics suggests a defense for the claim that the good orator is the good man and expands the domain of rhetoric from an art of expression, composition, or persuasion to an art of character-fashioning.