Rhetoric and Renaissance Culture

Since Jacob Burckhardt's Kultur der Renaissance in Italien (1869) rhetoric as a significant cultural factor of the renaissance has largely been neglected. The present study seeks to remedy this deficit regarding the arts by concentrating on literary theory and its aspects of imagination (inventio), genre (dispositio of the genera), style (elocutio), mnemonic architecture (memoria) and representation (actio), with illustrative examples taken from Shakespeare's works, but also on the intermedial rhetoric of painting and music. Particular attention is given to the rhetorical ideology of the Renaissance.

Autorentext

Heinrich F. Plett is full professor (chair) of English literature at the University of Essen, Germany, and director of the Centre for Rhetoric and Renaissance Studies at Essen University.

Klappentext
Since Jacob Burckhardt's Kultur der Renaissance in Italien (1869) rhetoric as a significant cultural factor of the renaissance has largely been neglected. The present study seeks to remedy this deficit regarding the arts by concentrating on literary theory and its aspects of imagination (inventio), genre (dispositio of the genera), style (elocutio), mnemonic architecture (memoria) and representation (actio), with illustrative examples taken from Shakespeare's works, but also on the intermedial rhetoric of painting and music. Particular attention is given to the rhetorical ideology of the Renaissance.

Zusammenfassung
"Pletts Werk wird mit Sicherheit für Jahrzehnte die definitive Darstellung zur Renaissance als einer rhetorisch geprägten Kulturepoche sein. Von vergleichbaren älteren Klassikern wie die aus der Feder der Romanisten Curtius und Lausberg hebt sich diese Untersuchung durch ihren modernen kulturgeschichtlichen und -wissenschaftlichen, interdisziplinären und intermedialen Ansatz ab. Die anglistische Rhetorikforschung hat in diesem Fall der Romanistik den Rang abgelaufen." (Wolfgang G. Müller in: Poetica 1/2 2006)