PASSIONATE ELOQUENCE: RHETORIC AND EMOTION IN MEDIEVAL ENGLISH POETRY【翻译】

ABSTRACT
This dissertation examines the ways three medieval English poets used the ancient art of
rhetoric to shape their poetic compositions and to make their messages more persuasive to
reading and listening audiences. Although these poets employed all three of the traditional
modes of persuasion—appeals to logos (reasoning), ethos (character) and pathos (emotion)—
this examination focuses primarily on the ways these poets sought to elicit and control
emotional responses in their audiences, thereby exposing an emotional dimension in these
texts that is not commonly contemplated by critics of these poems. And while the ability of
poets to affect audiences emotionally in the pursuit of persuasive agendas was often
considered the sine qua non of rhetorical artistry in the Middle Ages, not enough attention
has been given to the ways those efforts may shed light on common modern critical
approaches to these poems, as well as on their overall interpretation.
The first chapter examines how Chaucer, in The Franklin’s Tale, uses rhetorical
doctrines of style, and in particular the “colors of rhetoric,” to develop an emotional
dimension in his retelling of an old story from Boccaccio. I then show how the Franklin
attempts to use the emotional responses of his audience to move them toward accepting a
sophisticated notion of empathy as a remedy for the socio-cultural disruptions that troubled
late fourteenth-century English society.
In the second chapter, I examine how the anonymous twelfth- or thirteenth century
author of The Owl and the Nightingale uses rhetorical invention and style to evoke powerful
emotional responses in his audience in order to vivify the debate engaged in by the poem’s
two avian adversaries. In part, it is the emotional vehemence of their antagonism that shows
why the contest they are engaged should be regarded as a specifically rhetorical form of
iv
activity, and I argue that the poet’s uncommon display of rhetorical talent is meant as a plea
for his professional preferment.
The third chapter examines the way the Anglo-Saxon poet Cynewulf uses the art of
rhetoric—conceived of in the period as an art of eloquence—to heighten and intensify his
audience’s emotional engagement with his Old English retelling of an antique Latin narrative
of the martyrdom of Saint Juliana. Specifically, I argue that the poet’s use of a highly stylized
ornatus and his rhetorically grounded modifications to the story both serve to move his
Anglo-Saxon audience to a more passionate embrace of the saint’s holiness and a fiercer
rejection of the evils that threaten their Christian values.
v
PUBLIC ABSTRACT
This dissertation examines the ways three medieval English poets used the ancient art of
rhetoric to shape their poetic compositions and to make their messages more persuasive to
reading and listening audiences: Chaucer, in “The Franklin’s Tale” from his Canterbury
Tales; the anonymous poet of the twelfth- or thirteenth-century poem The Owl and the
Nightingale; and Cynewulf, the Anglo-Saxon poet of the Old English poem Juliana.
Although these poets employed all three of the traditional modes of persuasion—appeals to
logos (reasoning), ethos (character) and pathos (emotion)—this examination focuses
primarily on the ways these poets sought to elicit and control emotional responses in their
audiences, thereby exposing an emotional dimension in these texts that is not commonly
contemplated by critics of these poems. And while the ability of poets to affect audiences
emotionally in the pursuit of persuasive agendas was often considered the sine qua non of
rhetorical artistry in the Middle Ages, not enough attention has been given to the ways those
efforts may shed light on common modern critical approaches to these poems, as well as on
their overall interpretation.
vi
TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................................... 1
The Studies ......................................................................................................................................... 8
An Overview of the Emotions in Rhetoric up to the Middle Ages .................................................. 14
CHAPTER 1: “COLOURS OF RETHORYK BEEN TO ME QUEYNTE”: EMPATHY
AND RHETORICAL IDEALISM IN THE FRANKLIN’S TALE .......................................... 37
Ethos, Pathos and the ‘New Man’ ................................................................................................... 42
Amplification
as
Rhetorical
Method………………………………………………………………………………….46
Descriptive Amplification and Dramatic Characterization: ............................................................. 52
the Introduction of Aurelius ............................................................................................................. 52
Dramatic Characterization and Evaluative Coloration: Dorigen’s First Oration ............................. 57
The Awakening of Empathy ............................................................................................................ 68
No Help for Dorigen? ....................................................................................................................... 79
Aurelius Comes Around ................................................................................................................... 84
CHAPTER 2: “HE MOT GON TO AL MID GINNE”: EMOTION, INGENUITY
AND THE RHETORIC OF ALTERCATIO IN THE OWL AND THE NIGHTINGALE ........ 89
Rhetorical Invention Versus Dialectical Invention .......................................................................... 94
Topical Invention, Amplification, Repetition and Variety .............................................................. 96
The Role of Rhetorical Devices in Argument ................................................................................ 105
The Role of Ingenuity .................................................................................................................... 117
Pleader’s Tricks .............................................................................................................................. 123
The Perspective of the Narrator ..................................................................................................... 132
A Critical Reevaluation .................................................................................................................. 141
CHAPTER 3: “ÆPPLEDE GOLD”: THE MOTIVES OF ELOQUENCE IN
CYNEWULF’S JULIANA .................................................................................................... 158
Rhetorical Motive ........................................................................................................................... 163
The Exigency of Audience ............................................................................................................. 168
Framing Eloquence in Juliana ....................................................................................................... 172
Ornatus and Amplification ............................................................................................................ 174
A Focus on Emotion ....................................................................................................................... 180
A Smooth-Tongued Devil .............................................................................................................. 192
Juliana’s Eloquence ........................................................................................................................ 199
A Clash of Perspectives ................................................................................................................. 203
Dryht: Irony and Solidarity ............................................................................................................ 206
SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY ................................................................................................. 210
Primary Sources ............................................................................................................................. 210
Secondary Sources ......................................................................................................................... 212

原文地址：

http://www.hongfu951.info/file/resource-detail.do?id=b1402bcb-61a4-460e-824f-2a7a5ade2621