Abstract

During the Middle Ages, rhetoric and literature were thoroughly intertwined, whereas current notions of disciplinarity, in which literature and rhetoric are constructed as separate traditions, muddy our understanding of medieval practice. This essay reads Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, an anonymous fourteenth-century poem, as engaged in a Ciceronian debate over the ramifications of legislative rhetoric on civic decision-making. Because of the paucity of information on medieval rhetorical practice, it concludes, literature is a resource that illuminates this neglected and misunderstood historical period.

Journal
Rhetoric Review
Published
2012-10-01
DOI
10.1080/07350198.2012.711196
CompPile
Search in CompPile ↗
Open Access
Closed
Topics
Export

Citation Context

Cited by in this index (0)

No articles in this index cite this work.

References (28) · 1 in this index

  1. Art and Tradition in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. New
  2. The Rhetorical Tradition
  3. Rhetoric and Renewal in the Latin West, 1100–1540
  4. Chaucer, Geoffrey. 1987.The Canterbury Tales. The Riverside Chaucer, 3rd, Edited by: Benson, Larry. 114Boston…
  5. De Inventione
Show all 28 →
  1. De Officiis / On Duties
  2. De Oratore
  3. Rhetoric in the European Tradition
  4. The English Romance in Time
  5. Classical Rhetoric for the Modern Student
  6. Composition in the University
  7. European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages
  8. The Middle English Dictionary Online
  9. Gawain-Poet. The Poems of the Pearl Manuscript
  10. The History and Theory of Rhetoric: An Introduction
  11. College English
  12. Classical Rhetoric and Its Christian and Secular Tradition from Ancient to Modern Times
  13. 10.1632/003081203X68018
    PMLA  
  14. 10.2307/378743
    College English  
  15. Latin Rhetoric and Education in the Middle Ages and Renaissance
  16. Three Medieval Rhetorical Arts
  17. A Companion to the Gawain-Poet
  18. An Introduction to the Gawain-Poet
  19. The Popular Literature of Medieval England
  20. The Middle English Dictionary Online
  21. Modern Philology
  22. 10.2307/378744
    College English  
  23. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.” The Chaucer Review