The Genre of Logic and Artifice: Dialectic, Rhetoric, and English Dialogues 1400-1600, Hoccleve to Spenser Judith A. Deitch A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Graduate Department of English University of Toronto @ by Judith A. Deitch 1998 National Library Bibliothèque nationale 1*1 of Canada du Canada Acquisitions and Acquisitions et Bibliographic Services services bibliographiques 395 Wellington Street 395, rue Wellington Ottawa ON KIAON4 OttawaON K1A ON4 Canada Canada The author has granted a non- L'auteur a accordé une licence non exclusive licence allowing the exclusive permettant à la National Lkary of Canada to ~ibliothequenationale du Canada de reproduce, loan, distribute or sell reproduire, prêter, distribuer ou copies of this thesis in microfonn, vendre des copies de cette thèse sous paper or electronic formats. la fome de microfiche/film, de reproduction sur papier ou sur format électronique. The author retains ownership of the L'auteur conserve la propriété du copyright in this thesis. Neither the droit d'auteur qui protège cette thèse. thesis nor substantial extracts fiom it Ni la thèse ni des extraits substantiels may be printed or otherwise de celle-ci ne doivent être imprimés reproduced without the author's ou autrement reproduits sans son permission. autorisation. Judith Deitch The Genre of Logic and Artifice: Dialectic, Rhetoric, and English Dialogues 1400-1600, Hoccleve to Spenser Doctor of Philosophy 1998 Graduate Department of English, University of Toronto Abstract This study examines the genre of dialogue in English across a two- century period in order to investigate both the complexities of the literary for-and the transition from medieval to Renaissance. After a review of the scholarship on dialogue, Chapter 1 makes the argument for a "dialectical" literary history as the theoretical foundation. Such a historical method accounts for contextualizing dialogue in two of the language arts of the university curriculum: dialectic and rhetoric. A third section places dialogue within current discussions of genre theory, differentiating it from drama, although the two forms share the same "situation of enunciating." In Chapter 2, still part of the "orientation" of the study, early English dialogues are contextualized within institutionaf educational prac- tices. Centring on an exposition of Reginald Pecock's Donet, dialogue is linked to literacy from the elementary stages through the most advanced type of debate--from catechism and primer through disputation. In this period, the conscious mind was structured like a dialogue. Chapters 3 and 4 are comparative case studies taking one dialogue from each century. Chapter 3 deals with dialogues on death and dying. Thomas Hoccleve's Lerne to Dye, which inculcates a dialectical method of self- examination in the reader, is compared with Thomas More's Dialogue of Comfort, which uses dialectic to support the unity of reason and faith in the praepar- atio ad mortem. Chapter 4 compares two dialogues of advice to the prince: Alain Chartier's Freende and Felaw, which explores the responsibilities of the public intellectual--the vox politica--to the cornmon weal; and Edmund Spen- ser's Vewe of the present state of Irelande which engages "Machiavellian rhet- oric" with its argument in utramque partem to both appropriate and subvert ideology. In each of the five dialogues, the interlocutors' positioning is found to be highly complex. Fifteenth-century dialogues reveal a strong rationalist tendency in a period known for the "waning" of intellectualism; sixteenth-century dialogues reveal continuities with the preceding era, dissecting points of view through the many-sidedness of this "genre of doubt." Corne now, and let us reason together. - -- Isaiah 1:18 iii Acknowled~ements The biblical admonition to put one's house in order requires here the not unpleasant task of expressing gratitude to al1 those who accompanied me on the long journey to completion. First of al1 1 would like to dedicate this work to rny supervisor, E. Ruth Harvey, whose transformation from skepsis to belief was the single most motivating force along the way. Her assurance one afternoon in the Warburg Institute, "Itts waiting for you," became a touchstone when confidence lagged- Of the others who walked with me down this road 1 want to thank Joan Gibson for giving me many opportunities for sharing thoughts on more than Renaissance dialogues; Patricia Vicari for fostering my work; Alan Bewell for bringing me to realize the need for a theoretical foundation; and Tan Dennis who taught me to Say, "Today is the first day of the rest of my thesis." My father, Dr. Daniel Deitch, and my husband, Ernst van der Sloot, gave me their unqualified support. Of the friends who cared for my intellectual, scholarly, professional and persona1 well-being, Mary Catherine Davidson, Goran Stanivukovic, Linda Hutjens, Justin Lewis, and Jane Couchman must be named. Mrs. Joan Harvey extended hospitality during a research trip to England. Financial assistance for my research was provided by: the Ontario Graduate Scholarship; the Social Sciences and Hurnanities Research Council of Canada; Victoria College, University of Toronto; and the School of Graduate Studies Travel Grant, University of Toronto. Table of Contents PART 1: ORIENTATION Preface vii Introduction: Context, Theory, Method I 1. The state of scholarship on medieval and 1 Renaissance English dialogue Dialogue bibliographies 9 Dialogue classifications Il II Historical method and the theory of literary 20 history The history of literary history 22 Epistemology of "the referent" 27 New Historicism? 33 "Dialectical" literary history 41 A prospective epis temology for li terary 45 his tory II- The genre of dialogue 53 Current theory of genre 58 Genera mixta 62 Genera historica 63 1s dialogue a genre? 67 The mode dialogismus vs. the genre dialogue 75 2 From "Donet" to Disputation: Reginald Pecockls 84 Dialogues and Educational Practice in the Middle Ages and Renaissance Primary forms of literacy: the "donet" and 84 dialogue Pecock's educational program 86 Pecock's Donet and dialogue grammars 93 Questions and answers in educational 99 dialogues "ffadir" and "soneV in Donet and 112 disputation The Donet, disputation, and syllogistic 124 argument PART CASE STUDIES 3 Dialectic and Dialogues of Dying, Death and Self- Cornfort: Thomas Hoccleve and Thomas More Dialectic and dialogue 1. Hoccleve's How to Lerne to Dye: dialogue, death, self-cornfort From death to the art of dying The spiritual education of the self in Lerne to Dye Dialogue as method Table of Contents ( continuedl II. Thomas More's Dialogue of Cornfort: a gymnastic 164 dialogue of the self Placing Thomas More: between medieval and 164 humanist Death and the construction of the ethical 171 self in More and Hoccleve More's gymnastic dialogue 173 Dialectic and suicide in Book 11: aporetic 176 reasoning in dialogue Faith and reason in Book III 184 4 Rhetoric and the Dialogue of Political Persuasion: Alain Chartier and Edmund Spenser Rhetoric and politics in the Middle Ages and ~enaissance Dialogue and the "author ' s m~uthpiece~~ 1. Chartier, dialogue, and the rhetoric of political advice Freende and Felaw: authority and interlocution Freende and Felaw: the role of the intellectual and the politics of advice 11. Reclaiming Spenser's Vewe of the present state of Irelande as dialogue Irenius and Eudoxus: interlocutors in dialogue Directing and objecting: a formalist description of Eudoxusts role Advice to the prince and "Machiavellian rhetoric" in the Vewe Conclusion 266 Bibliographies Abbreviations Primary Sources Secondary Sources PART 1: ORIENTATION Preface Antiquum morem dialogorum. .si quis hoc tempore praeceptis li tterarum includere, atque ad aliquam artis rationem revocare velit, rem ille meo judicio aggredietur difficilem, ac multis partibus impedi tam. Etenim si considerare attente, & contemplari diligenter volueri t, profecto paucas artes, ac disciplinas inveniet, quae tam mu1 tis ad tractandum sint obstructae difficultatibus, quam quae in figendis sermoni bus, quemadmodum dialogus, occupantur. [Whoever should desire at this time to include the ancient custom of dialogue within the precepts of literature, or to place it within a system of the arts, would, in my opinion, enter into a difficult business, and encounter obstacles on many sides. Even if he were to consider closely and to contem- plate carefully, he would find that there are really few arts or disciplines which are obstructed in their treatment by so many difficulties as this one which is occupied in forming discourse in the manner of the dialogue. 1' Beginning an analysis of dialogues today calls for an awareness of obstructions and difficulties just as it did when Carlo Sigonio penned these opening words of the dedicatory epistle to his De dialogo liber in the mid-sixteenth century. Their sentiment--not only of the difficulty of assessing and contextualizing dialogue within a f ramework of literary history and language arts, but also of the implied absence of previous attempts (Sigonio is consciously trying to fil1 a gap Carlo Sigonio, De dialogo liber in quo de personis, de locis, ac tempore scribendi dialogi vocatis ad examen antiquorum philosophorum auctoritatibus, elegantissime disserit, Opera Omnia, ed. Ludovico Antonio Muratoria, vol. 6. (Milan, 1737) 432. Translation mine. vii left by Aristotlers Poetics)--has been echoed periodically when the need to theorize dialogue resurges. Thus Dryden, writing 150 years later, laments that the whole art of dia- logue "wou'd ask an entire Volume to perform"; it is a work "long Wanted, and much desirrd, of which the Ancients have not sufficiently informrd us, *' and, he goes on to say, "1 question whether any Man, now living, can treat it accurately. At about the same time in France, Rémond de Saint-Mard wrote prefatory to his own discussion of the genre, "the nature of dialogue bas never been recognized; this is the destiny of simple things . lf3 In 1886 Victorian scholar C .H.