Texts in Context: The Chalice and the Sword
The thirteenth century was the high noon of Christendom; which also means it is when its light began to decline.
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Rhetorica: Won’t Someone Please Think of the Pathetic?—Part II
On the rhetorical appeal known as pathos; or, a practical manual for manipulating people’s emotions.
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Texts in Context: The Secret of the Rose—Part II
Both the origin and the ultimate development of courtly love are to be found in far stranger places than we might predict.
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Rhetorica: Won’t Someone Please Think of the Pathetic?—Part I
What, if anything, differentiates the rhetorician’s legitimate “appeal to emotion” from the sophist’s fallacies?
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Texts in Context: The Secret of the Rose—Part I
Romantic love certainly existed before the eleventh century. What the troubadours invented was the idea that it was a good thing.
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Rhetorica: How to Do Ethos Good
A person is credible if they not only possess, but display honesty, courage, and clarity. How do we do that?
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Texts in Context: An Examination of the Holy Office
The Inquisition might be the single most faultily-understood institution in history; and yet there is a core of truth in all the errors about it.
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Rhetorica: The Rhetorical Appeals
As there are three temporal contexts for rhetoric, so there are three appeals it can make to a man: those to credibility, intelligence, and humanity.
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Texts in Context: The Apostolic Poverty Movement
One of the most potent forces throughout medieval society was the apostolic poverty movement, heretical and orthodox by turns; but what was it?
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Rhetorica: A Speech in Time Saves Nine
Persuasion aims at action, and action takes place in time. It follows that rhetoric looks in three directions: past, present, and future.
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