Shakespeare's Use of the Arts of Language

by Sister Miriam Joseph

Overview

2013 Reprint of 1947 Edition. Full facsimile of the original edition, not reproduced with Optical Recognition Software. This was the first book which presented, in a complete manner, a general theory of composition then current in Renaissance England. Its particular contribution is the reorganization of the two hundred figures of speech, distinguished by Renaissance rhetoricians, into a simple, understandable pattern basic in Aristotle's Rhetoric: grammar logos, pathos and ethos. The purpose of the book is to provide a handbook of the theory of composition then current during the English Renaissance and to show Shakespeare's use of this theory by simple illustration from his plays and poems. The book is addressed to the wide audience of teachers of English and Renaissance literature, the philologist, the Shakespearian scholar, and to students and teachers of all Romance languages.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781614274896
Publisher:	Martino Fine Books
Publication date:	10/01/2013
Pages:	440
Sales rank:	814,429
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.98(d)

About the Author

Sister Miriam Joseph (1898-1982) earned her doctorate from Columbia University. A member of the Sisters of the Holy Cross, Sister Miriam was professor of English at Saint Mary's College from 1931 to 1960. She was also the author of Shakespeare's Use of the Arts of Language and many articles on Shakespeare and on the trivium.

Editorial Reviews

The importance of this book is that it makes clear what we ought to mean when we call Shakespeare an artist in language. [N]ot until now have modern readers been told how immense a thing rhetoric was in the Renaissance—how immense in scope, and how endlessly detailed in its numerous parts. Nor has it been apparent how thoroughly Shakespeare was master of this rhetoric. Few books about him will ever be more exciting.
—Mark Van Doren

New York Herald Tribune

Sister Miriam Joseph’s Shakespeare’s Use of the Arts of Language remains, after more than half a century, an immensely valuable aid to serious students of the greatest of all writers. The book manifests enormous learning and real wisdom in applying that erudition to the needs of contemporary readers.”—Harold Bloom

“The importance of this book is that it makes clear what we ought to mean when we call Shakespeare an artist in language…The average person today knows two figures of speech if he knows any…Shakespeare knew two hundred.”—Mark Van Doren, New York Herald Tribune

From the Publisher