United States or Azerbaijan ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
But among serious people the painted and perfumed Dame Rethoryke of Lydgate and Hawes was in disrepute. She had turned over her business in life to the kings and devoted too much attention to ornament.
Dame Rethoryke moder of eloquence Moost elegaunt moost pure and gloryous With lust delyte, blysse, honour and reverence Within her parlour fresshe and precyous Was set a quene, whose speche delycyous Her audytours gan to all Joye converte Eche worde of her myght ravysshe every herte.
Grande Amour asks her to paint his tongue with the royal flowers of delicate odors, that he may gladden his auditors and "moralize his literal senses." She pretends to understand him, but when he asks her what rhetoric is, Rethoryke, she sayde, was founde by reason Man for to governe wel and prudently; His wordes to ordre his speche to purify. It has five parts, and so on.
Who so thynketh my wrytynge dull and blont And wolde conceyve the colours purperate Of Rethoryke, go he to tria sunt And to Galfryde the poete laureate To Janneus a clerke of grete estate Within the fyrst parte of his gramer boke Of this mater there groundely may he loke.
To make of nought reason sentencious Clokynge a trouthe wyth colour tenebrous. For often under a fayre fayned fable A trouthe appereth gretely profitable. This, says Dame Rethoryke, has the sanction of antiquity; for the old poets, who are famous for their wisdom and the imaginative power of their invention, pronounced truth under cloudy figures. This fortified the poets against sloth.
In this allegory of the education and love adventures of Grandamour the young man sits at the feet of Dame Rethoryke to be instructed at great length in her art. To none other of the seven liberal arts, in fact, does Hawes devote so much space.
The golden rethoryke is good refeccion And to the reader ryght consolation. Rhetoric and style, to Hawes and his contemporaries, mean the same thing. Both have to do, in Hawes's own language, with choosing aromatic words, dulcet speech, sweetness, delight; they are redolent of incense; they gleam like carbuncles in the darkness; they are painted in hard gold.
Thus Dame Rethoryke in her talk on inventio, is conducting a defense of poetry on the following grounds: it teaches profound truth under the guise of allegory; it blames the vicious and overcomes vice; it is the enemy of sloth; it records the honorable deeds of great men. The chapter on style only continues the song.
Thys lytle boke, opprest wyth rudenes Without rethorycke or coloure crafty; Nothinge I am experte in poetry As the monke of Bury, floure of eloquence. And in another place, again addressing Lydgate, he exclaims: O mayster Lydgate, the most dulcet sprynge Of famous rethoryke, wyth balade ryall. The poem records the experiences of Grande Amour, who, accompanied by two greyhounds, seeks knowledge.
The main concern is with the devices used by the poets to cloak truth under the veil of allegory. Rhetoric is an adjunct of the poet. my mayster Lydgate veryfyde The depured rethoryke in Englysh language; To make our tongue so clerely puryfyed That the vyle termes should nothing arage As like a pye to chatter in a cage, But for to speke with rethoryke formally.
Word Of The Day