REVIEWS
“The Renaissance Rediscovery of Intimacy is very well written, lucid, and consistently engaging. Kathy Eden has very carefully woven together the warp and woof of her major concerns in each chapter, anticipating what will follow and looking back to what has preceded, offering signposts and summaries, forecasts and conclusions, all with authority and verve. There are many ‘eureka’ moments here, and Eden allows her reader to participate fully in discovering them. A wonderful achievement.”
— William J. Kennedy, Cornell University
“Presented with Kathy Eden’s customary concision, sustained focus, and meticulous scholarship, this new study of classical and early modern writing practices argues that the Renaissance remaking of the ‘intimate’ or ‘familiar’ style formed a key strand in the prehistory of modern individuality. Eden probes the social, legal, and hermeneutic implications of the cluster of classical terms used to characterize this style, which is understood not simply as an outgrowth of rhetoric, but crucially as an instrument of communication. What begins as a book about a rhetorical concept thus becomes in the end a cultural history with a remarkably rich anthropological resonance. The Renaissance Rediscovery of Intimacy is essential reading for anyone interested in the classical tradition, the history of rhetoric and style, and the cultural history of the individual.”—Terence Cave, St. John’s College, University of Oxford
— Terence Cave, St. John’s College, University of Oxford
“Focusing on style, letter writing, and familiarity, Kathy Eden uncovers a rich vein of intertextuality in the literary theory and practice of Cicero, Seneca, Petrarch, Erasmus, and Montaigne. Her deft analysis of detail continually opens up new perspectives on the larger rhetorical and philosophical issues. She shows how careful reading and decorous writing create new ethical qualities of character and friendship in the Renaissance.”
— Peter Mack, Director, Warburg Institute
“Kathy Eden’s elegant, concise, densely footnoted study marvellously explores how the combination of th[e] core ancient perception of the letter as intimate communication with the sense of the letter as a general paradigm of reading and writing worked on the imagination of the European Renaissance, once it gets into the system, at a particularly significant point, with Petrarch’s rediscovery and creative imitation of the private correspondence of Cicero.”
— Michael Trapp, Times Literary Supplement
“[A]n intellectually stimulating journey from antiquity to the Renaissance and back. Continuously plotting and connecting the dots between her texts, combining relevant anticipation with useful retrospect, [Eden] paints a convincing triptych showcasing three major early-modern intellectuals.”
— Jeroen De Keyser, KU Leuven, Bryn Mawr Classical Review
“Readers will appreciate Eden’s lucid prose, and the book will richly reward scholars interested in rhetoric, reading, and writing, in classical antiquity, in the Renaissance, and in the cultural expression of intimacy. . . . Highly recommended.”
— B. E. Brandt, South Dakota State University, Choice
“A splendidly thoughtful and erudite contribution to Renaissance scholarship.”
— Comparative Literature Studies
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Acknowledgments
Introduction Rediscovering Style - Kathy Eden
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226184647.003.0001
[rediscovery, intimacy, Renaissance theory, ancient sources, literature]
This chapter introduces the central role in this rediscovery of a number of recovered ancient texts, including Demetrius. This little bit of lineage sets in high relief how utterly foundational the genre of the so-called familiar letter is to the long heritage of Western literature. This letter only gradually and with difficulty invades the ancient ars rhetorica, grounded as it was in the adversarial nature of the oration, by the seventeenth century, epistolary writing has very nearly captured the larger literary field. It will even change the way early modern Christians read Scripture. Finally, the line of descent from Demetrius to Jonson places front and center the question of style. Renaissance theory adheres to its ancient sources. The intimacy rediscovered refers to a particular style of written communication. Furthermore, this chapter analyzes these practices as theorized by three of the most influential practitioners of the Renaissance, Petrarch, Erasmus, and Montaigne. (pages 1 - 10)
This chapter is available at:
https://academic.oup.com/chica...
A Rhetoric of Intimacy in Antiquity - Kathy Eden
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226184647.003.0002
[rhetoric, letter writing, communication, poetry, oratory]
Rhetoric addresses a fundamental feature of letter writing that establishes the groundwork for later epistolary theory: writing itself. The chapter compares the oral and written styles of communication. Style and character are prominent elements of the arts of both poetry and rhetoric. Drawing a sharp distinction between two kinds of style that characterize three kinds of oratory, Aristotle bases these distinctions on the perspective of the audience, how near or far they are from the source of the discourse—the speaker or the written word—and therefore on how much detail they can take in. Aristotle lays the groundwork for a theory of style that will in time further the aim of the letter writer to express innermost thoughts and feelings. (pages 11 - 48)
This chapter is available at:
https://academic.oup.com/chica...
A Rhetoric and Hermeneutics of Intimacy in Petrarch's Familiares - Kathy Eden
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226184647.003.0003
[Petrarch, Cicero, familiarita, style, Renaissance rediscovery, intimacy]
The famous encounter between Petrarch and the epistolary Cicero sets the primal scene for the Renaissance rediscovery of intimacy. This chapter focuses on the impact of Cicero's style of intimate writing on Petrarch's writing. Petrarch also claims in the opening letter to have learned from Cicero that “the true characteristic of an epistle is to make the recipient more informed about those things that are not known”, chief among these things is the writer's “state of mind”. The diversity among men, moreover, engenders a diversity of styles, any one of which may find favor with one reader but not with another, and even with the same reader on some occasions but not on others. Petrarch also acknowledges variations in his own style. Intending to express the innermost thoughts and feelings of the letter writer, it not only reflects but in turn strengthens the bond of intimacy or familiarita. Petrarch, throughout his letters, justifies both his own zeal in letter writing and encourages a comparable zealousness in his friends on the grounds that epistolary exchange substitutes for face-to-face conversation. (pages 49 - 72)
This chapter is available at:
https://academic.oup.com/chica...
Familiaritas in Erasmian Rhetoric and Hermeneutics - Kathy Eden
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226184647.003.0004
[intimacy, familiariter, Erasmus, rhetoric, epistolary theorists]
Erasmus assumes his office in the republic of letters as an educational reformer, grounding his agenda for reform, following his Italian predecessors, in the complementary activities of not only reading and writing but reading and writing familiar letters, especially Cicero's. Erasmus imports into northern Europe the very rhetoric of intimacy that Cicero labeled writing familiariter and Petrarch sought to revive in Familiares. It adds to the chorus of epistolary theorists describing the letter in terms of the style that defines a conversation between friends. Erasmus follows the rhetoricians especially Quintilian, in taking the persuasive oration as the point of departure for epistolary writing in De conscribendis epistolis. The writing familiariter bears on the relation between the correspondents rather than on the subject matter. The conciliatory and commendatory impulses are either confined to the letter's opening or identified more narrowly with two kinds of letter, both of which fall under the persuasive category while preserving their close association with intimacy. (pages 73 - 95)
This chapter is available at:
https://academic.oup.com/chica...
Reading and Writing Intimately in Montaigne's Essais - Kathy Eden
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226184647.003.0005
[Erasmian, Montaigne, rhetoric, hermeneutics, intimacy, Renaissance]
Erasmian reform, whether educational or religious, takes epistolary writing and reading as its point of departure. The Erasmian Christian approaches Scripture as a letter reader would the long-awaited communication of a sorely missed friend. Recent scholarship on Montaigne addresses in some detail both the Petrarchan and the Erasmian aspects of the essay, including its dependence on epistolary form. Addressing the challenges of reading a favorite French historian in the essay about conversation, Montaigne shifts the focus of attention from rhetoric to hermeneutics. Montaigne admits to finding mostly irritation in household management and to feeling more at ease in somebody else's home. Grounded in the expression of thoughts and feelings freely and openly exchanged in conversation between friends, this rhetorical and hermeneutic intimacy finds its earliest and most ardent Renaissance spokesmen among epistolary writers and readers whose practice as well as theory serves, in turn, as a model for writing and reading more generally. (pages 96 - 118)
This chapter is available at:
https://academic.oup.com/chica...
Rediscovering Individuality - Kathy Eden
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226184647.003.0006
[individuality, hermeneutical intimacy, forms, educational reform, fashions, rhetoric]
Erasmus stakes an editorial career on his ability to distinguish Jerome's writing from that of not only bumbling imitators but consummate forgers. Petrarch's discovery of a rhetoric and hermeneutics of intimacy as part of his epistolary project—a discovery passed on to northern Europe through Erasmus's educational and religious reform and refitted by Montaigne to vernacular specifications—is made possible. This chapter shows that the rhetorical and hermeneutical intimacy embraced by these humanists was a matter of style—that their concept of style was capacious enough to include the various forms and fashions that reveal the mind of the writer in all its individuality. (pages 119 - 124)
This chapter is available at:
https://academic.oup.com/chica...
Bibliography of Secondary Sources
Index
