The Practice of Meditation in Hugh of Saint-Victor’s Didascalicon: A Rhetorical Analysis through Memory, Textual Study, and Spiritual Unity

Abstract

Abstract The present article provides a novel rhetorical analysis of Hugh’s conception of the practice of meditation as he describes it in his most celebrated, influential, and widely read composition, that is, the Didascalicon de studio legendi. In order to examine that practice, it draws together, from a rhetorical perspective, the main features of Hugh’s pedagogy as explained in the Didascalicon, namely, the ultimate goal of human learning, the practice of textual study (lectio), and the different functions of memory in our intellectual lives. In this way, and in opposition to other construals, it attempts to explain Hugh’s notion of meditation in terms directly rooted in the Didascalicon.