Classical Rhetoric in Tyndale’s An Answere vnto Sir Thomas Mores Dialoge

Abstract

Aristotle, Cicero, Quintilian, and Augustine define the means of persuasion and major styles of speaking and writing. Pseudo-Cicero’s Rhetorica ad Herennium and Quintilian’s Institutio oratoria classify numerous figures of speech. Using these categories, we analyze William Tyndale’s polemic, An Answere vnto Sir Thomas Mores Dialoge (1531). Under ethos, we trace the portrait of Tyndale. Under pathos, we examine the feelings supposedly evoked from More and from Little Flock. Under logos, we list Tyndale’s Reformation principles. Tyndale enhances the plain style with rhetorical questions, alliteration, and puns; the middle style with asyndeton; the grand style with personifications. Tyndale, the exiled biblical translator, is a voice crying in the wilderness.