“A poetical dimension”: retórica e poesia em The Arcadian Rhetorike (1588), de Abraham Fraunce

Abstract

Among the arts of rhetoric composed in England in the second half of the 16th century, Abraham Fraunce’s The Arcadian Rhetorike (1588) presents a remarkable structural distinction. If, on the one hand, the rhetorical treatises of the period usually gave the ancient 5-part division of rhetoric, on the other hand Fraunce’s work gave a 2-part division of rhetoric: Elocution and Pronunciation. Closely following the model proposed by Petrus Ramus, Fraunce introduces in England the attribution of inventio and dispositio to Dialectics only, and elocutio and actio to Rhetoric only. Giving examples, of tropes, figures, voice and gesture extracted from poems in Greek, Latin, English, Italian, French, and Spanish – from Homer, Virgil, Sidney, Spenser, Petrarch, Tasso, Du. Bartas, Boscán and Garcilaso –, Fraunce shows the rhetorical mechanisms of poetry.  In this paper, I intend to argue that the choice of the Ramist method allows Fraunce to construct an “Arcadian” rhetoric, focusing on what he calls a “poeticall dimension”. In order to do this, I propose to (1) present the main characteristics of Fraunce’s art of  rhetoric, analyzing the historical circumstances of its composition; (2) examine the relationship that it maintains with other rhetorical and poetical treatises; and (3) discuss  the importance it had to the writing of poetry in the later half of 16th century England.