Philip Melanchthon
Institutiones Rhetorices (1523) [1521]
Rhetoric Timeline
Primary Source Synopses

First published in 1519 or 1521, the Institutiones Rhetorices was a brief handbook of rhetoric (some 60 small pages). Seel also the more developed rhetoric, Elementorum Rhetorices libri duo (1531).

The Institutiones reflects Melanchthon's immersion in dialectic, a subject upon which he had broadly published. This is evident in the fact that Melanchthon adds Judgment to the conventinoal canons of Invention, Arrangement, and Style.

Invention (a2r-b5r)
The first part of this short book is devoted to invention, where Melanchthon outlines the appropriate parts of an oration and the fitting topics of invention for each of four kinds of cases (Melanchthon adds "dialectical" oratory to the standard three kinds of causes or themes: demonstrative, deliberative, and judicial). He also outlines topics of invention of a more general nature that can be applied in any speech, referring readers to Erasmus's De copia for instruction in employing these, and then explicitly drawing his list of topics from Rudolph Agricola. They include some 60 such general themes as God, Nature, Life, Age, Virtue, Justice, Piety, Lust, Shame Pain, Hope, Anger, Friendship, Truth, War, Peace, Gold, Tyranny, etc.

Arrangement (b5r-b5v)
Mentioned briefly are the standard parts of an oration: exordium, narratio, confirmatio, confutatio, peroratio. These have essentially been dealt with in detail under each of the kinds of cases in the first section on invention.

Style (b5v-d6r)
The balance of this small rhetoric is devoted to style. Melanchthon generally defers to Quintilian and Cicero, and includes the following sections and terms:

 

Levels of Style ("character orationis") (b6r)
     Sublime
     Humble
     Medium

Ornamentation (b6r-b7v)
     Figures of words (figurae verborum)
     Figures of thought (figurae sententiarum)
Despite opening with this standard two-fold division of figures, Melanchthon proceeds within this section to set forth three separate divisions of figures:

  1. Figures of words
  2. Figures of discourse
  3. Figures of amplification
    These include those figures which "do not so much ornament as they augment" or amplify a discourse (b7r) such as distributio [=Division].

Grammatical Figures (b7v-b8r)
Melanchthon refers to Donatus or the tables of Mosellanus for more information on these figures, but briefly mentions the categories of orthographical or syntactical figures

Tropes (b8r-c1v)
Melanchthon divides tropes into those of words and of discourse (dictionum and orationis)

    Tropes of Words (dictionum tropos)
  metaphor translatio
  synecdoche intellectio
  metonymia transnominatio
  antonomasia permutatio nominis
  onomatopoeia nominis confictio
  catachresis abusio
  metalepsis transsumptio

    Tropes of Discourse (de tropis orationis) (c1v-c4r)
  allegoria  
  aenigma  
  paroemia adagium
  ironia illusio
  sarcasmos  
  astismus  
  mycterismus  
  antiphrasis  
  charientismus  
  hyberbole  
  parabola  
  paradigma  

Schemes

    Grammatical Schemes (c4v-c5r)
  prolepsis  
  zeugma  
  syllepsis  
  synthesis  
  synecdoche  
  antiptosis  
  hyperbaton  

    Rhetorical Schemes (c5r-c7r)
  repetitio anaphora
epanaphora (acc. Aquila)
epiloge (acc. Rutilius)
    epanalepsis
epanadiplosis (Sulipitius Victor)
    conversio (Cicero)
antistrophe
epiphora (Rutilius)
    palilogia
anadiplosis
epizeugxis
  complexio symploce
  copulatio ploce
antistasis
  traductio tautologia; ploce
  articulus

asyndeton
dialyton

cp. polysyndeton

  similiter cadens homoioptoton
similiter desinens
homoioteleuton
  hypallage  
  agnominatio paronomasia
  antanaclasis  
  eclepsis defectio
anantapodota
  aposiopesis reticentia


Figures of Thought (Figurae Sententiarum) (c7r-c8v)
  interrogatio erotema
pysma
  subiectio anthypophora
antisagoge
  exclamatio cf adhortatio, pathopoeia, areia
  dubitatio aporia
  paradoxum inopinatum
  communicatio anacoenosis
  permissio  
  licentia  
  aversio  
  prosopopoeia  


Figures of Amplification (c8v-d6r)
These figures, Melanchthon explains, pertain to copia of speech. He references Erasmus's De copia for further instruction.Like Erasmus, he couples amplification with strategies of abbreviation or attenuation.
Amplification of single words  
  auxesis (augmenting the meaning of a term)
  tapeinosis, meiosis (diminutio) (extenuating or downplaying)
Grammatical forms of amplification
  interpretatio synonymia, congeries
  incrementum  
  gradatio climax
  congeries synathroesmus, epitrochasmus
  contentio contrarium, antithesis
  commutatio antimetabole
  synoeciosis
  regressio epanodos
  Forms of Responding  
       anthypophora obiectio
antisagoge
  praeteritio pralipsis, occupatio
  praesumptio procatalipsis
  transitio metabasis
  correctio epanorthosis, metanoeia
  interpositio parenthesis
  reiectio apodioxis
  caussa aitiologia
  confessio paromologia
  dicaeologia dianoia
anangeon
  finitio horismus
  effictio hypotyposis
  expolitio kata synonymia
  distributio merismus
  divisio dialysis
  Personarum fictio prosopopoeia
dialogismus / sermocinatio
topographia
chronographia
  comparatio eikones (icon)
  sententia gnome
aitiologia
apophthegmata / chriseis (chreia)
  acclamatio epiphonema
  clausula  
  noema  
  adfectus pathopoeia

 




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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.
Gideon O. Burton, Brigham Young University
Please cite "Silva Rhetoricae" (rhetoric.byu.edu)


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