Sir Gawain and the green knight and the history of medieval rhetoric.

Authors

Joseph Turner, University of Louisville

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

4-2012

Department

English

Abstract

During the Middle Ages, rhetoric and literature were thoroughly intertwined, whereas current notions of disciplinarity, in which literature and rhetoric are constructed as separate traditions, muddy our understanding of medieval practice. This essay reads Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, an anonymous fourteenth-century poem, as engaged in a Ciceronian debate over the ramifications of legislative rhetoric on civic decision-making. Because of the paucity of information on medieval rhetorical practice, it concludes, literature is a resource that illuminates this neglected and misunderstood historical period.

Comments

This is an Accepted Manuscript version of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Rhetoric Review on 17 August 2012, available online: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/07350198.2012.711196

Original Publication Information

Turner, Joseph. "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and the History of Medieval Rhetoric." 2012. Rhetoric Review 31(4): 371-388.

ThinkIR Citation

Turner, Joseph, "Sir Gawain and the green knight and the history of medieval rhetoric." (2012). Faculty and Staff Scholarship. 314.
https://ir.library.louisville.edu/faculty/314

DOI

10.1080/07350198.2012.711196