The Times They Are A-Changin’: Ramus and Astell and the Early Modern Shifts in Rhetorical Theory and Practice (from Josh and Janelle)

In the 100 years between 1440 and 1540, European explorers from many nations struck land in places previously unknown to the Western World. With sea-faring pioneers exploring Africa, Central America and the Caribbean, South America, India and Southeast Asia, China and Japan, Canada and Greenland, contact with new cultures created spaces for discourse. Not only in the realm of exploration, but other social changes seemed, at this time, to provide new ways of thinking about the world and new rhetorics to discuss those changes—the movable type printing press designed by Gutenberg in 1439; the protestant reformation in 1517; the fall of feudalism; and the rise of the European mercantile middle class among others. Lloyd Bitzer invites us to regard rhetorical situation as “a natural…context of persons, events, objects, relations, and an exigence which strongly invites utterance.” The major historical moves being made at this time certainly provide the exigencies for the rise of rhetoricians like Mary Astell and Peter Ramus.

Astell’s and Ramus’ politics help us to understand the changes in rhetoric at this time. Primary among these is the shift in how rhetoric is positioned in the academy. For Ramus, rhetoric was no longer privileged as it was in the classical era, as part of the trivium. Instead, the art of rhetoric was divorced from logic and thought of only as related to style (and, in part, delivery). As such, rhetoric was considered a less serious educational enterprise, and new science grew into favor as it was perceived to be free of critical disposition and to be more universal (not culturally bound). Ramus sees a shift from rhetorical invention (interpretation) to empirical research that coincided with the rise of modern science and the rise of bourgeoisie and capitalism.

Although this shift is generally seen as a detriment to rhetoric, it did open the space of rhetoric to new voices.  Astell and Ramus both focus on the need for rhetoric to be employed through vernacular language, which allowed for people who did not have a classical education to still be rhetoricians. Unlike Ramus, Astell preferred natural eloquence over artificial eloquence, conceiving “an artificial and rhetorical stile compos’d of false thoughts, hyperbole, and forc’d figures…the greatest fault in rhetoric” (852). Astell believed that people were only responsible to God for accounting how they lived their lives, and, so as to act well, women should be allowed to work in limited spheres. Astell overcomes gendered barriers just as Ramus addressed those related to class.  

Astell and Ramus both break from traditional rhetorical tradition in the areas previously stated but also, notably, in their shift from rhetoric as a vocalized art to primarily written text. No doubt, such a shift is owes itself to the invention of the printing press and the wider distribution of printed materials. Compositions, then, understanding their production in this written format, are transformed in structure and style. The printing press also creates a change in pedagogical practices, especially in the role of and access to education, that make the popularity of Ramus and Astell possible.

Now, although Ramus and Astell both break away from the classical tradition of rhetorical theory, they should not be thought of as representing the same break. That they do so in different ways and for widely different reasons is just as interesting as the fact that they did it all. A brief examination of what they kept and what they rejected will help us to appreciate the unique intellectual moves they took to signal their break from the dominance of Aristotle, Cicero, and Quintilian.

It is interesting that although Ramus roundly rejects Quintilian and harshly criticizes Aristotle, he remains a contentious admirer of Cicero. I say contentious because although he expresses admiration for Cicero’s style, he rejects the theoretical underpinnings of Ciceronian rhetoric. He goes so far to say, in fact, that “not because of his mixed-up rules but because of our own rules, which we make conform to his achievements” (690). This statement has some important implications for both the theory and the practice of rhetoric. It suggests, first, that one can achieve good style and delivery even if one preaches bad theory (or perhaps even no theory) and two, that one’s practice might substantially differ from one’s theory in unconscious ways. If Ramus is correct, then all of Cicero’s success can be attributed to a mixture of luck and natural talent.

Astell, meanwhile, preserves one of the very things that Ramus sought to discredit in Quintilian while criticizing the aspect of Cicero that Ramus sought to preserve. Astell is very concerned with preserving Christian morality, going so far as to warn against “dressing up Error and Impertinence in a quaint and talking garb” (852). That is, Quintilian’s “good man speaking well” seems to prevail for her over style, the aspect of Cicero that Ramus so admired. And Ramus, of course, totally disavows the “good man speaking well” definition - so much that he says that even though bad people can and often do employ rhetoric to their advantage, it should not be a concern because it lies outside the purview of rhetoric (685). We see, then, that Ramus preserves one of the very things Astell rejects, and Astell rejects one of the things that Ramus preserves. Though they signal a break from the classical tradition, it is not a clean break but more of a fracture, perhaps a foreshadowing of the many different priorities rhetorical theorists would come to hold.