UNSPECIFIED (2002) Towards a rhetoric of experience: the role of enargeia in the 'Essays' of Montaigne. RHETORICA-A JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF RHETORIC, 20 (2). pp. 173-192. ISSN 0734-8584

Full text not available from this repository.

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to explore Montaigne's use of enargeia in three essays: "Des Cannibales", "Des Coches" and "De l'exercitation". During the French Renaissance, enargeia remained a central means by which writers transferred living experience into language. The elaborate visual possibilities offered by enargeia, encapuslated int he writings of Quintilian, were popularised in France through the diffusion of Erasmus's rhetorical handbook "De diuplici copia verborum ac rerum". However, the sense of graphic presence and truth conveyed by Erasmus's handbook came to be challenged through the increasing awareness of the disparity between living experience and verbal language. In his "Essais", Montaigne's awareness of the deceptive properties of visual representation allows him to explore, often playfully, the pleasures and instabilities of linguistic expression, and to gain a heightened insight into the perceptual inadequacy which characterizes much human behavior. In this way, Montaigne poignantly demonstrates the instructive nature of rhetorical theories on which he draws to illustrate his understanding of human experience.

Item Type:	Journal Article
Subjects:	D History General and Old World P Language and Literature > PN Literature (General)
Journal or Publication Title:	RHETORICA-A JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF RHETORIC
Publisher:	UNIV CALIF PRESS
ISSN:	0734-8584
Date:	2002
Volume:	20
Number:	2
Number of Pages:	20
Page Range:	pp. 173-192
Publication Status:	Published
URI:	http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/id/eprint/10828

Data sourced from Thomson Reuters' Web of Knowledge

Request changes to a record

Actions (login required)

View Item