Rhetorica Jan 1999

Rhetoric Retold: Regendering the Tradition from Antiquity Through the Renaissance by Cheryl Glenn

Molly Meijer Wertheimer

Abstract

Short Reviews Cheryl Glenn, Rhetoric Retold: Regendering the Tradition from Antiquity Through the Renaissance (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1997) xii + 235pp. Glenn's purpose in Rhetoric Retold is feminist and cartographic: to remap the history of rhetoric by putting female rhetoricians and rhetorical practices solidly on the map. She challenges patriarchal rhetorical history at the center by including the voices of women who practiced rhetoric from the margins. Her hope is to revitalize "rhetorical theory by shaking the conceptual foundations of rhetorical study itself" (p. 10). Glenn's method derives from historiography, feminism, and gender studies. She uses "resistant readings...of the paternal narrative" and "female-authored rhetorical works" as well as "broad definitions of rhetoric" (p. 4). Her rationale for subject selection appears in Chapter One. Thereafter, she develops each historical chapter by overviewing cultural conditions of the period, describing women's place in those worlds, sketching the nature of patriarchal rhetoric at the time, then presenting the rhetorical activities of some exceptional women who were able to speak and write from the margins. Whenever she can, she highlights significant "points of contact" across all of the subjects she considers. Chapter Two examines pretheoretical sources of rhetorical consciousness in ancient Greece. Her reading of Sappho and female Phythagorians (Theano, Phintys, Perictyone) present rhetorical avenues that mainstream tradition never explored. She details public (argumentative) rhetoric (Corax, Gorgias, and Isocrates), then treats Aspasia as a silent heartbeat at the center of Pericles's intellectual circle. Aspasia was as likely a source of inspiration to Socrates and Plato as was Diotima. Glenn examines© The International Society for the History of Rhetoric, Rhetorica, Volume XVII, Number 1 (Winter 1999) 89 RHETORICA 90 tradition (Cicero and Quintilian), challenging this tradition with voices from the margins. Here we meet Vergima, Cornelia, Hortensia, Amasia Senta, Gaia Afrania, Sempronia, Fulvia, and Octavia. In Chapter Three Glenn details Christian cultural dynamics, calling the Bible the "ur-text of history, wisdom, and doctrine" (p. 75). She discusses inheritance laws, conceptions of women's bodies, the theoretical equality of men and women in the eyes of Christ, yet the practical inequality of doctrine and of Christian institutional piety. Examining representations of women in medieval literature (imaginative, Marian, inspirational), Glenn contends that women never received "the full range of human feelings or characteristics" (p. 86). Women appear as inferior to rational men, some of whose (Augustine, Jerome) rhetorical practices (ars poetica, ars dictaminis, ars praedicandi) Glenn treats next in some detail. She shows how a small group of religious women achieved some release from the cultural hold, such as Julian of Norwich and Margery Kempe, whose unusual rhetorical practices Glenn tells in illuminating detail. In Chapter Four Glenn overviews the general nature of Renaissance culture, tracing the patriarchal bias of laws, the nature of women's work both outside and inside the home, the inferiority of women's bodies when compared to men's, and more. She situates classical and Christian humanism, showing the usefulness of humanistic education in society and religious life. Some special English women, according to Glenn, received humanistic training, and she traces their (modest) literary accomplishments. She contrasts these women to the fake representations of women in literature; some women appear overly assertive (Edmund Spenser's Britomart, Shakespeare's Lady Macbeth), while others appear willfully disobedient (Juliet, Desdemona, the Duchess of Malfi). Such images reinforced women's exclusion from the public world of traditional Ciceronian rhetorical practice, though the entry of educated women became more probable as rhetoric and poetics converged in early English rhetorics that focused on style and eloquence. Glenn shows how three exceptional woman each used their own versions of rhetorical eloquence to make an impact on the public Reviews 91 from the margins—Margaret More, Anne Askew, and Queen Elizabeth I. In Chapter Five Glenn stresses the performative value of her project: the "promise that rhetorical histories and theories will eventually (and naturally) include women" (p. 174). She presents "four ways...[to] work together to realize...[these] performative...goals": we must recognize our common ground, "explore various means of collaboration", reevaluate the notion of "silence", and recognize the unlimited opportunities for research in this area (p. 174-78). This was a difficult...

Journal
Rhetorica
Published
1999-01-01
DOI
10.1353/rht.1999.0026
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Topics
classical rhetoric modern rhetorical theory rhetorical criticism collaborative writing archival research gender and writing
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