Elizabethan Rhetoric
Theory and Practice

Important and learned contribution to the cultural and educational history of Elizabethan England.

Peter Mack (Author)

9780521812924, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 17 October 2002

344 pages
23.6 x 16 x 3 cm, 0.718 kg

'… this is a significant contribution to our understanding of Elizabethan thought and expression, which deserves to be read by anyone interested in that period, whatever their discipline.' Review of English Studies

Peter Mack examines the impact of humanist training in rhetoric and argument on a range of Elizabethan prose texts, including political orations, histories, romances, conduct manuals, privy council debates and personal letters. Elizabethan Rhetoric reconstructs the knowledge, skills and approaches which an Elizabethan would have acquired in order to participate in the political and religious debates of the time: the approaches to an audience, analysis and replication of textual structures, organisation of arguments and tactics for disputation. Study of the rhetorical codes and conventions in terms of which debates were conducted is currently a major area of historical and literary enquiry, and Mack provides a wealth of new information about what was taught and how these conventions were exploited in personal memoranda, court depositions, sermons and political and religious pamphlets. This important book will be invaluable for all those interested in the culture, literature and political history of the period.

1. Introduction
2. Rhetoric in the grammar school
3. Rhetoric and dialectic in the universities
4. English language manuals of rhetoric and dialectic
5. Everyday writing: notebooks, letters, narratives
6. Histories, conduct manuals, romances
7. Political argument
8. Elizabethan parliamentary oratory
9. Religious discourse
10. Conclusion: rhetoric, ethics and politics.

Subject Areas: Educational: English literature [YQE], History of ideas [JFCX], History [HB]