Abstract
Abstract
This chapter focuses on methods of logical invention (that is, the discovery of material for discourse) by examining the work of Rudolph Agricola. It provides an in-depth analysis of how the topics of invention furnished structured and sophisticated approaches to the processes of reading and composition. The chapter then turns to Agricola’s English reception in the late sixteenth century. It traces the impact of Agricola’s method on the theories of reading developed by Gabriel Harvey and Philip Sidney and then offers a worked example of logical analysis from Spenser’s Faerie Queene, where virtuous reading is portrayed as one of the principal agents of moral growth.
Publisher
Oxford University PressOxford