Almost all modern historians of rhetoric have undertaken to separate the men from the boys. But while rhetoric itself was talked about among men, it was to boys, and the handbooks that we have inherited-as well as most of those that we have lost-were intended for the instruction of the young. Feminist objections to classical rhetoric as been conducted among men-not women are consonant with this analysis, but I wish to emphasize here the ageism and academic self-hatred that we support when we accept the suppression of the pedagogical aspects of the history of our profession.' The dismissal of earlier pedagogical textbooks by both traditional and revisionist historians of rhetoric seems to me to be part of post-romantic unteachability topos, which assumes that what is most important about education is what least resembles the classroom.2 This topos is reinforced by more recent one that can be equally debilitating: the fear of teaching topos, in which having taught becomes synonymous with having oppressed.3 We can see their suppression of the pedagogical focus of classical rhetoric in the choice of rhetoric texts from earlier eras that traditional historians elevate to authoritative status. At one extreme is the modern canonization of Aristotle's Rhetoric, text that was never popular as pedagogical treatise in the ancient world, and at the other the rejection of Cicero's De invenltione and the Pseudo-Ciceronian Rhetorica ad Herenniurn. two rhetoric handbooks widely used in schools for hundreds of years. It is to the credit of traditional historians of rhetoric who are attempting to reclaim classical rhetoric as viable and important pedagogical alternative that they have been affected by this prejudice against pedagogy more in what they say than in what they do. Corbett's Handbook of Classical Rhetoric, for example, lavishly praises Aristotle's Rhetoric but, as the title reveals, presents its pedagogical material in fashion much closer to that of the Ciceronian tradition. Thomas Sloane, making passionate appeal in College English for the reclaiming of Ciceronian invention, dismisses De inventione as a famous and regrettably enduring handbook (462) before proceeding to extrapolate pedagogical content readily available in De invenhtione from the more diffuse and less pedagogically relevant De oratore.4

Research Article| February 01 1991 A Medieval Rhetoric Goes to School—and to the University: The Commentaries on the Poetria nova Marjorie Curry Woods Marjorie Curry Woods Department of English, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas 78712-1164. Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Rhetorica (1991) 9 (1): 55–65. https://doi.org/10.1525/rh.1991.9.1.55 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Tools Icon Tools Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation Marjorie Curry Woods; A Medieval Rhetoric Goes to School—and to the University: The Commentaries on the Poetria nova. Rhetorica 1 February 1991; 9 (1): 55–65. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/rh.1991.9.1.55 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All ContentRhetorica Search This content is only available via PDF. Copyright 1991, The International Society for the History of Rhetoric1991 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.