MURPHY, J.J., (ed.),
Three Medieval Rhetorical Arts.
University Of California Press, Berkeley (...), 1971. XXIII,235p. Original burgundy cloth. Spine gilt titled. 'The texts, intended to be representative of three distinct kinds of mediaeval rhetorical textbook, the Ars Dictaminis, the Ars Poetica, and the Ars Praedicandi, are: the Rationes Dictandi by an anonymous fourteenth-century Bolognese writer; Geoffrey of Vinsauf's Poetria Nova; and the Englishman Robert of Basevorn's Forma Praedicandi. This is an excellent choice, for these works are not only typical of their genre. As well as translating the Rationes Dictandi Professor Murphy has provided a short introduction on mediaeval rhetoric. In it he shows how rhetorical theory in the Middle Ages derives from Aristotle, from Cicero’s rhetorical books and the Epistual ad Herennius, and from what he calls the ‘grammatical tradition’ of donates, Parisian and Horaces’ Ars Poetica. (…) This is an excellent introduction to mediaeval rhetorical theory by someone who is completely master of the field. It is a clear and judicious account (…), and will be most useful to the non-specialist. (…) The translation of the Poetry Nova, by Jane Kopp, is well equipped with notes, and will no doubt be useful to the reader who has no Latin. (…) Robert of Basevorn’s Forma Praedicandi is the most difficult of these three texts. Here the influence of classical rhetorical theory, and of what Professor Murphy calls the ‘scholastic method’, is all too evident. (…) In contrast to the other two translations, there is an almost complete absence of explanatory notes here. (…) Although the constituent parts of this collection of translations are not above criticism, it must be welcomed.’ (A.B. SCOTT in Medium Aevum, 1973, pp.262-265).
€ 25.00
(Antiquarian)