Author: Jennings, Margaret
Title: Medieval Thematic Preaching: A Ciceronian Second Coming
Review/Collection: In: Virginia Cox and John Ward, The Rhetoric of Cicero in its Medieval and Early Renaissance Commentary Tradition, Brill's Companions to the Christian Tradition, Volume: 2
Place edition: Leiden
Editor: Brill
Year edition: 2006
Pages: 313–334
Keywords: Héritage - Fortuna - Legacy, Rhétorique - Retorica - Rhetorics
Description: In the highly prescriptive manuals detailing the art of preaching— the artes praedicandi—and in the sermons developed out of them, Cicero the rhetor, master of persuasive and skillfully used language, was metaphorically reborn in the central Middle Ages. This ‘second coming’ certainly could be termed atypical, since Cicero’s name and dispositional principles were rarely mentioned in the artes praedicandi, and neither were cited in actual sermons delivered. Nevertheless, both treatises and sermons testify to a vibrant rhetorical tradition: the manuals relate to the Ciceronian commentary tradition and display an analogous use of Cicero’s organizational categories; the resultant sermons exhibit a practical application of the tenets explicated. Such evidence demonstrates that Cicero’s second coming, like his first, exerted influence in the larger world of moral instruction and affected contemporary composition in ways that extended far beyond the scholarly exercises of those students and teachers who actually knew about his life and works [Author].
Works:
Author initials: Jennings 2006
Title: Medieval Thematic Preaching: A Ciceronian Second Coming
Review/Collection: In: Virginia Cox and John Ward, The Rhetoric of Cicero in its Medieval and Early Renaissance Commentary Tradition, Brill's Companions to the Christian Tradition, Volume: 2
Place edition: Leiden
Editor: Brill
Year edition: 2006
Pages: 313–334
Keywords: Héritage - Fortuna - Legacy, Rhétorique - Retorica - Rhetorics
Description: In the highly prescriptive manuals detailing the art of preaching— the artes praedicandi—and in the sermons developed out of them, Cicero the rhetor, master of persuasive and skillfully used language, was metaphorically reborn in the central Middle Ages. This ‘second coming’ certainly could be termed atypical, since Cicero’s name and dispositional principles were rarely mentioned in the artes praedicandi, and neither were cited in actual sermons delivered. Nevertheless, both treatises and sermons testify to a vibrant rhetorical tradition: the manuals relate to the Ciceronian commentary tradition and display an analogous use of Cicero’s organizational categories; the resultant sermons exhibit a practical application of the tenets explicated. Such evidence demonstrates that Cicero’s second coming, like his first, exerted influence in the larger world of moral instruction and affected contemporary composition in ways that extended far beyond the scholarly exercises of those students and teachers who actually knew about his life and works [Author].
Works:
Author initials: Jennings 2006
