Arguments in rhetoric against Quintilian: Translation and text of Peter Ramus’s ’Rhetoricae Distinctione sin Quintilianum’

245 Pages·2010·5.33 MB·English

by  Peter Ramus

Rhetoric ARGUMENTS IN RHETORIC
R
a
First published in 1986, this book offers the Latin text and English m
u AGAINST QUINTILIAN
translation of a pivotal work by one of the most infl uential and s
controversial writers of early modern times. Pierre de la Ramée,
better known as Peter Ramus, was a college instructor in Paris who A
T T P R ’
published a number of books attacking and attempting to refute R RANSLATION AND EXT OF ETER AMUS S
foundational texts in philosophy and rhetoric. He began in the G
early 1540s with books on Aristotle—which were later banned U Rhetoricae Distinctiones
and burned—and Cicero, and later, in 1549, he published Rhetoricae M
Distinctiones in Quintilianum. The purpose of Ramus’s book is an- E in Quintilianum
nounced in the opening paragraph of its dedication to Charles of N
Lorraine: “I have a single argument, a single subject matter, that T
S
the arts of dialectic and rhetoric have been confused by Aristotle,

I
Cicero, and Quintilian. I have previ ously argued against Aristotle N
and Cicero. What objection then is there against calling Quintilian
R
to the same account?”
H
Carole Newlands’s excellent translation—the fi rst in modern
E
English—remains the standard English version. This volume also T
provides the original Latin text for comparative purposes. In ad- O
dition, James J. Murphy’s insightful introduction places the text R
in historical perspective by discussing Ramus’s life and career, the IC
development of his ideas, and the milieu in which his writings were
A
produced. This edition includes an updated bibliography of works G
concerning Ramus, rhetoric, and related topics. A
I
N
Carole Newlands, the author of Statius’ “Siluae” and the Poetics
S
of Empire, teaches in the classics department at the University of T
Colorado at Boulder. Q
U
James J. Murphy, the author of several pioneering studies on the I
N
history of rhetoric, is a professor emeritus at the University of Cali-
T
fornia, Davis.
I
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I
A
N
LANDMARKS IN RHETORIC AND PUBLIC ADDRESS
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ARGUMENTS IN RHETORIC
AGAINST QUINTILIAN
BLANK
Translated by Carole Newlands
Edited by James J. Murphy
SOUTHERN ILLINOIS UNIVERSITY PRESS
Carbondale and Edwardsville
Copyright © 1986 by Northern Illinois University Press
Paperback edition with updated bibliography copyright
© 2010 by the Board of Trustees,
Southern Illinois University
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
13 12 11 10 4 3 2 1
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Ramus, Petrus, 1515–1572.
[Rhetoricae distinctiones in Quintilianum. English & Latin]
Arguments in rhetoric against Quintilian : translation and text of Peter Ramus’s
Rhetoricae distinctiones in Quintilianum (1549) / translation by Carole Newlands ;
edited by James J. Murphy. — Pbk. ed. with updated bibliography
p. cm. — (Landmarks in rhetoric and public address)
Originally published: DeKalb, Ill. : Northern Illinois University Press, 1986.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN-13: 978-0-8093-3014-0 (pbk. : alk. paper)
ISBN-10: 0-8093-3014-8 (pbk. : alk. paper)
ISBN-13: 978-0-8093-8614-7 (ebook)
ISBN-10: 0-8093-8614-3 (ebook)
1. Quintilian. Institutiones oratoriae. 2. Rhetoric—Early works to 1800.
3. Oratory—Early works to 1800. I. Newlands, Carole Elizabeth. II. Murphy, James
Jerome. III. Title.
PA6651.R3613 2010
808.5'1—dc22 2010013542
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements
of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence
of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1992.
The Bibliothéque Nationale, Paris, generously granted permission for
the use of its copy of the first edition of 1549 of Rhetoric distinctiones in
Quintilianum. The copy has the Bibliothéque Nationale number Z19120.
Designed by Jo Aerne.
Bibliography
BLANK
INTRODUCTION
~~~~~i\lrJl HIS VOLUME offers the text and translation of a
pivotal book by one of the most influential (and
controversial) writers of early modern times.
The public career of its author began in clamor
and ended in assassination.
In September of 1543 the Parisian printer Ja
cobus Bogardus issued together in one volume
two short technical books on logic! written in Latin by an obscure
young college instructor. Their author, Pierre de la Ramee, twenty
eight years old, was then teaching in the small College de l' Ave Ma
ria within the University of Paris. One book was called Dialecticae
2
institutiones (Training in Dialectic) and the other Aristotelicae animad
versiones (Remarks on Aristotle). They were but two books among
many published that year,3 but they began one of the most spec
tacular careers of that century.
What shocked his fellow teachers, setting him on a collision
course with the educational and philosophical establishment of his
day, was that in these two books la Ramee (or Ramus, as he styled
himself)4 issued a direct challenge to the authority of Aristotle.
The magnitude of this step may be difficult for many to understand
today, when virtually nothing is beyond public challenge. But both
the writings of Aristotle and the dialectical methodology of Aris
totle had been dominant at Paris since the days of Peter Abelard in
the twelfth century, and had been officially cemented into the uni
versity structure in 1215 with the approval of the first" curriculum"
2 INTRODUCTION
by the papal legate Robert de Sorbon.5 For more than four centu
ries, then, Aristotle was the foundational author for Paris, "Mother
of Universities." The whole edifice of scholastic philosophy-and
theology-had an Aristotelian base. Since newer educational in
stitutions throughout Europe tended to follow the Parisian model,
the Aristotelian cast of mind had been equally familiar for centuries
at universities from Oxford to Vienna.6
To say then as Ramus did that Aristotle did not understand logic,
and did not even know how to use the logical syllogism, was to
threaten an intellectual earthquake. Moreover, to bypass the whole
medieval scholastic tradition was to cast aside half a millennium of
theological scholarship as well.
7
Reaction was immediate. Ramus shortly found himself forced
into a public debate with one Antonio de Gouveia after some of his
fellow teachers appealed directly to King Francis I to intervene in
the case. Ramus spoke well, but was unable to control the outcome
of the debate;8 on March 26, 1544, Francis I issued a "Sentence
given by the King against master Pierre Ramus, and the books
composed by him against Aristotle." Significantly, the decree not
9
only accuses Ramus of being "temerarious, arrogant, and impu
dent" but castigates him for attacking "the art oflogic accepted by
all nations. In other words, Ramus is accused of undermining the
"10
whole discipline. His two books are named, their destruction or
dered, and their further printing forbidden. The king forbids Ramus
to teach or write about either dialectic or philosophy "in any man
ner without our express permission."
In the long history of the official suppression of ideas, this might
have been merely one more forgotten episode, if it had not been for
two factors. One was the indomitable energy of Ramus, who im
mediately set about to circumvent the decree. The other factor, far
more important as it turned out, was that Ramus had powerful
friends.
THE CAREER OF RAMUS
Ramus's biography reveals the importance of both these factors.
Born in 1515 at Cuts, in the district of Verrnandois in Picardy of a
poor farmer's family, Ramus came early to Paris (at the age of eight)
and as an impoverished student had to work his way through school
INTIWDUCTION 3
in a time-honored fashion as servant to richer fellows.l1 He com
plains that he was twice forced to leave Paris for lack of funds. At
the age of twelve he entered the College de Navarre and supported
himself as valet to fellow student Sieur de la Brosse. Among his
classmates were Charles Bourbon, future cardinal and king, and
Charles de Guise, later Cardinal of Lorraine and then Cardinal of
Guise. (Charles de Guise was to become the patron ["Maecenas"]
to whom Ramus later dedicated many of his books.)
In I 547 Henry II became king. Following the intercession of
Ramus's old schoolfellow, now Charles Cardinal of Lorraine, in that
same year Henry II lifted the ban against Ramus that had been im
posed four years earlier by Francis I. It is interesting to note that
Ramus's Brutinae quaestiones (Questions of Brutus) of 1547 is already
dedicated to Henry as dauphin, even before he became king.12
For the rest of his life Ramus enjoyed royal favor and protection.
In 1551 he was awarded the prestigious title of Regius Professor,
and thereafter styled himself "Regius Professor of Philosophy and
Eloquence." When the Wars of Religion began in I 562, he was able
to withdraw under royal protection to Fontainebleu. And after his
Catholic patrons realized his Protestant leanings, much later, they
did not act against him.13
His reputation increased throughout his lifetiqle and beyond.
One modern scholar declares that in the middle of the sixteenth
century Ramus was "far and away the greatest figure among the fac
ulties of Europe." "Truly," Theophilus Banosius was to say in his
14
Life ofP eter Ramus (1576), "there is no nation in ~he Christian world
that has not admired the wisdom of Ramus.
"15
By the time of his murder at Paris during the St. Bartholomew's
Massacre in August 1572,16 Ramus had published more than fifty
works in Latin and French, ranging in scope from editions of his
individual orations to massive compendia such as his Scholae in /ibe
rales artes (1569) in l,x66 columns. Even during his lifetime he was
anthologized, translated, reedited, opposed, and defended to the
extent that today it is virtually impossible to untangle the welter of
publications by Ramus and about him. 17 There were more ~han two
hundred editions of his Dialectic alone during the sixteenth century,
in half a dozen languages and in a bewildering variety of versions.18
He sought to reform the teaching of grammar-Greek, French, and
Latin-as well as dialectic, and throughout his academic life called
for new approaches to mathematics. Ramus did not hesitate to lec-