None of the post below answers any of the questions I raised, copia
aside.
1. We are not writing Renaissance-style treatises on an email list.
Everyone here can write long, complex paragraphs for books and
formal essays. Some precision, rigor, logic and concision are
essential in such a forum. Length is fine if there's a reason; your
posts lack that reason.
2. I still don't know how the sexual and erotic is evident in the forms
of a Classical tradition that goes back to Aristotle, Cicero and
Quintillian.
3. Since the Greek rhetorical terms you cite do not go back to
Classical sources, who invented them? I'd be interested in the
sources. I'd also like to know what you think "anapodoton" means in
absence of a Classical rhetorical lineage for it. The burden of your
posts is that a Classical education in the Renaissance included
rhetoric. Quite true, but whose rhetoric and attributed to whom?
4. I certainly agree about Foucault. But of course you privilege, to
use the cant term, Renaissance rhetoric and poetics over other
interpretive or hermeneutic methods. I fail to see anything other
than whim in the decision. I myself choose to work from actual
Classical sources and then investigate how those sources were
employed in the Renaissance. That's also a whim. One ought to be
careful about claiming thoroughness, perfection or inclusiveness for
one's whim.
On 17 Oct 2000, at 20:07, shirley sharon-zisser wrote:
>
> Disentangling logic was an important skill in humanist education, another
> challenge we might take up from the humanists. Renaissance rhetoricians
> would not call tjis paragraph "gargantuan." They might refer to "copia" or
> "dilation," a category many of them valued. I take no credit for unfolding
> the sexual stakes of this category in Renaissance rhetoric. Patricia Parker
> has done so very well many years ago. But these sexual stakes being what
> they are, I invite the poster to consider the psychological stakes of his
> privileging of brevitas, and take pride in my use of copia, as in my
> entangling and difficult logic. As I said, I do not believe that any
> intellectual work which is not difficult is worth our while.
>
> Before I questioned anyone's knowledge of Renaissance rhetoric, I would
> check not the OED nor any modern electronic media, but Renaissance rhetoric
> books, which have of course escaped the notice of the OED as of most
> Renaissance scholars. Before I questioned a colleague's knowledge and the
> tuning of her mind, I would certainly read a colleague's, and other
> colleagues, publications on Renaissance theorizations of anapodoton and
> their sexual and erotic stakes. I would certainly do so if I very much
> liked to see evidence of what I disavow in advance.
>
> I do not believe in the postmodern any more than I do in the imaginary, in
> particular because, especially in its late Foucauldian vein, unlike
> Renaissance rhetoric and poetry, it encourages us to privilege semantic
> surfaces which inevitably cannot lead us beyond dead relics, and because I
> find the early modern thinking of the erotic and sexual and/as the
> rhetorical more refined and nuanced than even the very few contemporary
> attempts at precise theoretical thinking I do respect and value.
>
> Shirley Sharon-Zisser
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> >It's absurd to argue that unless we retune out mind to the
> >"categories of classical education undergone by the humanists" we
> >have slim chance of extracting anything but dead relics from the
> >treasury of Renaissance poetry. One does not have to assume the
> >mental set of Propertius' audience to understand and enjoy his
> >elegy. One does, of course, need to know the language along with
> >the relevant historioraphy, influences and sources. If one were to
> >apply this sort of nostrum to the study of all older literatures, the
> >retunings of the mind would produce cacophony. The sort of
> >arguments advanced in this and other posts do not suggest the
> >author has in fact tuned her mind to the Classical education of
> >Renaissance poets. The tenor of the arguments suggests to me, in
> >fact, that various postmodern instruments of excavation, as she
> >terms it, have been used to manipulate rhetoric in ways that produce
> >falacious readings in direct contradiction to the poems.
> >
> >
> >==============================================
> >Steven J. Willett
> >University of Shizuoka, Hamamatsu Campus
> >2-3 Nunohashi 3-chome, Shizuoka Prefecture, Japan 432-8012
> >Voice and Fax: (053) 457-4514
> >Japan email: [log in to unmask]
> >US email: [log in to unmask]
> >
> >
>
>
==============================================
Steven J. Willett
University of Shizuoka, Hamamatsu Campus
2-3 Nunohashi 3-chome, Shizuoka Prefecture, Japan 432-8012
Voice and Fax: (053) 457-4514
Japan email: [log in to unmask]
US email: [log in to unmask]
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