second part of this study, as historically being a phase of critical
discussions of the purpose of poetry. The English middle ages, as has been
shown, considered style synonymous with rhetoric.




Chapter VI

Logic and Rhetoric in the English Renaissance



1. The Content of Classical Rhetoric Carried Over into Logic


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. Such a
serious person was Rudolph Agricola, who, in his treatise on logic,
accepted the mediaeval tradition that rhetoric was concerned only with
smoothness and ornament of speech and all that went toward captivating the
ears, and straightway picked up all the serious purpose and thoughtful
content of classical rhetoric which mediaeval rhetoric had abandoned, to
hand them over to logic. Consequently, in a work which he significantly
entitles _De inventione dialectica_, he defines logic as the art of
speaking in a probable manner concerning any topic which can be treated in
a speech.[137] According to Agricola's scheme, rhetoric retains
"_elocutio_," style; and logic carries over "_inventio_," as his title
shows, and "_dispositio_." His whole-hearted disgust with the stylistic