Rhetoric Review Oct 2005

The Real and the Preferable: Perelman's Structures of Reality in Jonson's Bartholomew Fair

Mark Noe

Abstract

I argue that the debate between the Elizabethan theater and the Puritans was more than a simple argument about public morals. Drawing on Chaim Perelman and Lucie Olbrechts-Tyteca's concepts of arguments that structure reality, I examine this debate as a rhetorical struggle over the way reality itself would be conceptualized by a culture. This historically situated debate can, in turn, shed light on the political implications of arguments that structure reality.

Journal
Rhetoric Review
Published
2005-10-01
DOI
10.1207/s15327981rr2404_3
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Topics
modern rhetorical theory rhetorical criticism argument
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