SOURCE: Carson, Joan. “Rhetorical Structure in The Owl and the Nightingale.” Speculum 42 (1967): 92-103.

[In the following essay, Carson evaluates The Owl and the Nightingale as an example of deliberative oratory designed to emphasize the intellectual and rhetorical merits of its presumed author, Nicholas of Guildford.]

The various interpretations of the debate in The Owl and the Nightingale have given rise to more differences of opinion than exist between the protagonists of the poem. Comment has been voiced with more accord, however, upon the question of the poem's being a plea for preferment for Nicholas of Guildford. On the basis of “the nature and the persistency of the allusions,” Atkins holds that the author's main object “was to commend the case of Nicholas to the proper quarters for preferment.”¹ More recently, R. M. Lumiansky arguing in support of the thesis that the plea for Nicholas is the main object of the poem,² has indicated that the passages which praise him constitute a frame for the debate and that the entire piece is aimed at showing Nicholas' skill as a poet and his awareness of contemporary issues.³

The study of the poem's structure has centered on its similarity to one or another type of dialogue. Atkins states that the poet by a skillful working of materials “has given new life to the old conflictus”;⁴ Hinckley points out that the “Eclogues of Virgil, which are largely dialogues, offer few parallels” and that “on the whole, the evidence that Master Nicholas was influenced by Virgil is not convincing”;⁵ and Douglas Peterson considers the debate an exercise in dialectics, similar both in purpose and method to Abélard's Sic et Non.⁶

The subject of the debate, variously considered as pairs of contraries,⁷ represents the conflict of two world views which do not admit of reconciliation. Regarded from this point of view, the conflict is clearly a debate in which, though the protagonists argue with skill and vehemence, each retains her initial position yielding nothing to the other. However, if the poem is considered from the one point on which the owl and the nightingale are in accord—the worth of Nicholas of Guildford—their mutally opposed world views coalesce into a closely-worked argument in Nicholas' favor.

The general tendency to focus upon the content of the debate has tended, I believe, to obscure this aspect of its structure. In this study of The Owl and the Nightingale, I wish to consider the poem as an example of oratorical rhetoric according to the three genera of argument: forensic, epideictic, and deliberative.⁸ I shall consider the immediate aim of the poem as the plea for preferment for Nicholas of Guildford and, consequently, that the general intention of the poem is that of deliberative oratory: to move one or more persons to a decision.⁹ To this end the author uses both epideictic and forensic rhetoric; the epideictic passages are those in which the owl, the nightingale, and the wren praise Nicholas directly; the forensic section of the poem is that which redounds indirectly to Nicholas' praise by indicating his qualities of character and by intimating what his decision will be in judging the debate. Although within the framework of the deliberative intention the epideictic and forensic elements serve their own functions as parts of the whole, it is, nevertheless, possible to read the poem as an example of each of the three types of finite cause. These readings when viewed simultaneously reveal a knowledge of English legal procedure and contemporary issues as well as a wealth of fable and maxim informing the complex structure of the quaestio finita in such a way that all elements converge to make the request on Nicholas' behalf both forceful in argument and attractive in presentation.

In the twelfth century the pattern of the oratorical speech was known in Europe largely through the writings of Cicero and Quintilian. The histories of rhetoric in the Middle Ages are in general agreement that the most influential works were Cicero's De inventione, the pseudo-Ciceronian Ad Herennium, some of the later works of Cicero: the Orator, De oratore, the Topica; and the Institutio of Quintilian.¹⁰ In a list of textbooks, Sacerdos ad altare, which is believed to be anterior to 1210,¹¹ we find these works listed: “In rethorica educandus legat primum Tullii rethoricam et librum ad Herennium et Tullium de oratore et causas Quintiliani et Quintilianum de oratoris institucione.”¹² Much of this material is synthesized in manuals which served as texts in the schools,¹³ but the best minds still stretched themselves on the actual works of the Roman rhetoricians.¹⁴

In a general treatment of the oratorical speech, Cicero cites as its parts the exordium, narration, partition, confirmation, refutation, and peroration.¹⁵ This, however, is a very flexible norm; even here, Cicero cautions the orator not to include a narration unless it will be to his advantage to do so. In a later work, De partitione oratoria, he follows the Aristotelian four-part division, and is generally willing in the interests of utility to combine in certain cases the confirmation and the refutation, and the narration and the partition.¹⁶

The exordium is intended to make the auditors attentive, receptive, and well disposed.¹⁷ The narration, if the speech demands one, is an account of what has happened or what is supposed to have happened; in cases not concerned with public issues, it may deal with events (fabula, historia, argumentum), or it may center on persons in such a way that it reveals not only events concerning them but their attitudes and conversation.¹⁸

The partition is the outline of the case and functions either as a forecast of the main points the speaker intends to make or as a statement which distinguishes the points on which the opponents agree from those on which they disagree.¹⁹

The confirmation and refutation do not concern themselves “with scientifically demonstrated truths, about which there can be no debate, but with such contingent and approximate truths as lead to a difference of opinion.”²⁰ Its purpose, then, is the marshalling of the persuasive arguments which support the speaker's position.²¹ The rhetorical proofs used in persuasion are the enthymeme, which is an adaptation of deductive logic, and the example, which is the adducing of a past happening—real or supposed—adapted to persuade the audience.²² The example may take the form of either the illustrative parallel or the fable.²³ The refutation of the speech, which is often considered together with the confirmation, gives the speaker an opportunity to weaken his opponent's arguments.²⁴

The peroration of the speech has a threefold function: it should serve as a summation of the matter which has been discussed—without going back beyond the partition; it should arouse sympathy or pity for the protagonist; and it should excite indignation toward his opponent.²⁵

In classical rhetoric the quaestio finita is a consideration of a cause or “case” in the legal sense of the word. It is limited by the considerations of person, time, and place; and it is divided into the judicial, the epideictic, and the deliberative.²⁶ McKeon points out that in dividing the subject matter of rhetoric into the three kinds of oratory, “the rhetoricians of the Middle Ages followed Cicero or suggestions found in his works.”²⁷

Both because of its oratorical pattern and its inquiry on the honorable and advantageous course of action, I shall consider The Owl and the Nightingale as deliberative oratory. In speeches significantly placed at the conclusion of the poem, a specific and limited audience is urged to act in an honorable and advantageous manner by giving preferment to Nicholas. The wren laments that Nicholas has only one dwelling:

þat [is] bischopen muchel schame,
an alle [þ]an þat of his nome
habbeþ inert, ‘t of his dede.
Hwi nulleþ hi nimen heom to rede,
þat he were mid heom ilome
for teche heom of his wisdome,
an ȝiue him rente auale stude,
þat he miȝte heom ilome be mide?

(1761-68)²⁸

The owl then makes an appeal to honor inasmuch as the present neglect of Nicholas implies a lack of concern—unbecoming to honorable men—for the merits of one deserving of attention.

þeos riche men wel muche misdoð,
þat leteþ þane gode mon,
þat of so feole þinge con,
an ȝiueþ rente wel misliche,
an of him leteþ wel lihtliche.
Wið heore cunne heo beoþ mildre,
an ȝeueþ rente litle childre:
swo heore wit hi demþ adwole,
þat euer abid Maistre Nichole.
Ah ute we þah to him fare,
for þar is unker dom al ȝare.

(1770-80)

The reasons that validate these final pleas are persuasively set forth in the beginning of the poem. The setting of the scene and the initial skirmish between the owl and the nightingale (1-186) serve as the exordium of the speech. In discussing the methods of making one's auditors attentive, receptive, and well-disposed, Cicero says that in difficult cases where the listeners, while not actively hostile, are unsympathetic or weary—and from the tone of the conclusion we may suppose that this is not the first time that Nicholas' cause has been advanced—one may use a fable or a plausible fiction to arouse good will and interest.²⁹ In this instance we may consider that such a device has at least the merit of being an oblique approach to a familiar subject.

The narration, which is rarely used in deliberative oratory, is not found here, for the auditors are concerned with future rather than with past action.³⁰ The partition, which serves as a forecast of what is to follow, consists of the passage in which the owl and the nightingale select Nicholas as their judge (187-214). Although each disputant emphasizes different qualities as the basis for her choice, they concur in thinking so well of Nicholas as to be willing to submit to his judgment.

In the debate itself we have the confirmation or proof of those of Nicholas' qualities which are set forth in the partition. There he is praised directly in the evaluation of the owl and the nightingale whose unanimity of opinion gives his qualities an impressive luster; here, he is praised indirectly by means that will be considered later in the paper. The richness of this confirmation which is made up of example and illustration cannot be seen if we consider it on the deliberative level alone; it must be looked at as well from the viewpoints of epideictic and of forensic oratory.

The peroration provides a summation of the poem's content. Nicholas has been presented as eminently worthy of preferment by reason of the virtues which are explicitly mentioned in the partition and reemphasized in the confirmation; in the peroration, the advisability of granting Nicholas preferment is stated by the wren (1764-68), and the nightingale advocates a remedying of the neglect from which Nicholas suffers (1770-80). A double appeal is made to the auditors' emotion in that Nicholas apparently merits more than he has received, and in that those who have neglected him are deserving of censure on this point.

Epideictic oratory is seldom found by itself although large portions of it are often incorporated in forensic and deliberative oratory.³¹ In order to see The Owl and the Nightingale in its complexity and depth, it might be well to consider not only the partition and the peroration as epideictic, but to see the whole poem as a piece of epideictic oratory. From this viewpoint, too, the exordium is composed of the setting and the nightingale's first series of accusations (1-186). As the audience is presumably acquainted with the facts, namely, that Nicholas is an able and virtuous man deserving of preferment, the narration is not included.³²

The partition, which again comprises the selection of Nicholas as judge (187-214), foreshadows future action. In epideictic oratory, the qualities of character for which one is praised are those of which honor is comprised: wisdom, justice, courage, and temperance.³³ These are the very qualities in Nicholas which draw the united esteem of the owl and nightingale. In the discussion preliminary to his selection as their judge, the nightingale sees Nicholas as wise and cautious of speech and prudent in giving judgment (192-193); and she extols his prudence in that he can distinguish wrong from right and the things of darkness from the things of light (197-198). The owl, on the other hand, praises his temperance in that he is now settled and steady of mind, that follies have no attraction for him, and that he no longer delights in flighty ways.³⁴ She praises his fortitude when she says that not for the nightingale's sake will he utter false judgment (209-219), and his wisdom in that he will not be so deceived by the nightingale as to prefer her cause (206-208). Finally, she mentions Nicholas' justice by saying that he will prefer the course that is straight (211-214).

When epideictic oratory is used for a practical purpose, it requires a proof.³⁵ In the confirmation or proof of the poem, the virtues cited in the partition serve a dual function. First, they act as guide lines of the subsequent debate in that each bird attacks her opponent for the qualities or vices which Nicholas presumably finds distasteful, and she emphasizes on her own behalf the characteristics which Nicholas might admire and the attitudes with which he might be expected to sympathize. The owl who praises Nicholas for being direct and settled of mind, accuses the nightingale of being devious and flighty (211-214). The nightingale, on the other hand, who berates the owl for her song (39-40, 219-226), says that Nicholas has discriminating taste in matters of song. And having accused the owl of being an unnatural (33), and therefore an evil thing (89-90, 227-232), she says that Nicholas knows the things of darkness from the things of light (197-198).

The second way in which Nicholas' qualities are brought to the foreground during the confirmation is that during the debate Nicholas is praised indirectly by the auditor or reader. One of the demands made upon the epideictic orator is that he should make his audience feel that they are included in the praise either in terms of their opinions or their actions and way of life.³⁶ One may assume that the auditors will admire—and wish to see reflected in themselves—the virtues for which Nicholas is praised. The identification between Nicholas and the reader is accomplished by the voice of the narrator; it is he who relates the account of the debate, and it is he who voices the unspoken sentiments of the disputants. Thus, the reader's favor—and presumably Nicholas'—is directed toward the owl both because of the flimsiness of the nightingale's argument and because of what the narrator reveals about her wiles and strategy in trying to defeat the owl. The relatively few lines that the narrator devotes to the interior sentiments of the owl are confined to her anger at the nightingale's accusations (42-44, 143-148, 253-257, 1403-44) and her caution in watching for her opponent's tricks of pleading (470-473, 837-844).³⁷

At the beginning of the debate, the owl has no advantage; the nightingale looks upon her in scorn and, like men, regards her as loathsome and foul (29-32). The nightingale opens the debate proper with charges that the owl's song is like a lament, and that she behaves in an unnatural fashion inasmuch as she flies at night and cannot see during the day (217-220; 225-232). The nightingale emphasizes her last point by maxims to the effect that one shuns him who knows him to be foul and that the wicked see nothing to any good purpose (235-236, 241-251).

Concerning the owl, the narrator says only that she listened in great vexation and at length spoke to answer the charges one by one (253-390). The narrator, in reporting the interior consternation of the nightingale, also evaluates the owl's refutation:

Þe niȝtingale in hire þoȝte
athold al þis ‘t longe þoȝte
wat ho þarafter miȝte segge:
vor ho ne miȝte noȝt alegge
þat þe hule hadde hire ised,
vor he spac boþe riȝt an red.
An hire ofþuȝte þat ho hadde
þe speche so for uorþ iladde,
an was oferd þat hire answare
ne w[u]rþe noȝt ariȝt ifare.
Ac noþeles he spac boldeliche,
vor he is wis þat hardeliche
wiþ is uo berþ grete ilete,
þat he uor areȝþe hit ne forlete:
vor suich worþ bold ȝif þu [fliȝst],
þat w[u]le flo ȝif pu[n]isvicst;
ȝif he isiþ þat þu nart areȝ,
he wile of [bore]w[u]rchen bareȝ.
‘t forþi, þeȝ þe niȝtingale
were aferd, ho spac bolde tale.

(391-410)

Shaken by her inability to refute what the owl has said, the nightingale puts up a brave front although she knows her position is weak. Her second attack is in the form of a question to which she herself supples the answer. After asking why the owl sings a woeful song in winter and is silent in the summer (411-416), she suggests that it is because the owl is consumed with envy at the welcome which men and nature give her own song (417-454).

At this point the narrator gives an insight into the unspoken thoughts of the owl who is slow to answer “vor he mot hine ful wel biþenche, / þat is aferd of plaites wrenche” (471-472). The owl's reply is brief and straightforward: in winter she helps men with her song when they gather with their friends; as for summer, it is too rank, and, like the nightingale's song, leads man's thoughts astray (473-542). The nightingale is unable to answer the charge of encouraging wantonness, but instead of admitting defeat, she tries, illegally, to put forward another charge (543-551).

It is now the owl's turn to state a case against the nightingale, and it comes in the form of a question as to the nightingale's usefulness: “Wat dostu godes among monne?” (563). She immediately limits the nightingale's possible answers by pointing out that she is of little use to men and that she is small and defenseless and can do nothing but sing for a short time in the summer (559-590). The owl takes the opportunity to point out that she herself is helpful to men in that she catches mice in barns and churches (591, 607-610); then she answers the nightingale's earlier accusation that young owls foul their nest (625-655).

The nightingale is unwilling to admit defeat, and the narrator relates her anxiety in planning an answer despite her weak position:

Þe niȝtingale at þisse worde
was wel neȝ ut of rede iworþe,
an þoȝte ȝorne on hire mode
ȝif ho oȝt elles understode,
ȝif ho kuþe oȝt bute singe,
þat miȝte helpe to oþer þinge.
Herto ho moste andswere uinde,
oþer mid alle bon bihinde:
an hit is suþe strong to fiȝte
aȝen soþ ‘t aȝen riȝte.
He mot gon to al mid ginne,
þan þe horte boþ on [w]inne:
an þe man mot on oþer segge,
he mot bihemmen t bilegge,
ȝif muþ wiþute mai biwro
þat me þe horte noȝt niso:
an sone mai a word misreke
þar muþ shal aȝen horte speke;
an sone mai a word misstorte
þar muþ shal speken aȝen horte.

(659-678)

The narrator cites Alfred's maxim that a man is most cunning when he does not know what to do, and when trouble is at its peak, then help is nearest at hand (697-700).

The nightingale's answer is that although she can claim only one accomplishment, it is better than all those that the owl can boast: day and night, she says, she sings to help men prepare to enter the joy of heaven (712-742). Admitting her relative lack of strength, she stresses her skill and elaborates upon it as a superior power (751-762). She illustrates her point by telling anecdotes of cases where strength failed and skill succeeded: the relative power of a man and a horse (773-788); the taking of a castle (763-772); a wrestling match (795-804); and the fable of a hunt (809-836).

After accusing her opponent of using a specious argument, the owl says that the nightingale's song—far from leading them to heaven—incites men to lust, whereas her own song stirs to penance (837-845, 849-932). Shifting the direction of the discussion, the nightingale reproachs the owl for singing of trouble to come and curses her for her foreknowledge (1150-82). But when the owl put forth a cogent argument for the helpfulness of her foreknowledge, the narrator observes that the nightingale

… sat ‘t siȝte
‘t hohful was, ‘t ful wel miȝte,
for þe hule swo ispeke hadde,
Heo was ho[h]ful, ‘t erede
hwat heo þarafter hire sede:

(1291-96)

When the owl heard her opponent's counter reply that foreknowledge comes from sorcery (1297-1330) and that she herself sings because if a woman fails, she needs to be cheered (1440-67), she rejoiced because in admitting to cheering the fallen, the nightingale had come to grief (1511-14). The owl says that she protects wives, and that although men and children sometimes attack her in life, she serves them well in death as a decoy for smaller birds (1625-34). The nightingale took this admission as a boast of disgrace, and ignoring the owl's assertion of usefulness, she shrilled a note of triumph (1635) at which many small birds flew around her for they assumed that she was victorious over the owl (1661-62).

The first part of the debate goes to the owl, for through the narrator's comment we learn that the nightingale is aware that her opponent has spoken the truth and spoken it well. In the second part of the debate where the owl charges the nightingale with being useless to man, the narrator's voice reveals both the the nightingale's increasing dissimulation as she realizes the weakness of her case and the inward caution on the part of the owl who knows that she must be aware of her adversary's trickery.

When The Owl and the Nightingale is considered from the point of view of epideictic oratory, the peroration is the same in content and scope as it is when it is studied as deliberative oratory. Nicholas' praise is summed up by the wren and the owl (1752-60); the nightingale, who has shown herself as one whose word cannot be trusted, speaks only to protest her law-abiding nature and to say that she does not know where Nicholas can be found (1745-48). For the reader or auditor who has identified himself with Nicholas' virtues, it is not difficult to see how Nicholas would have judged the case; he would assume that Nicholas would decide as he himself—aided by the narrator's comment—has decided.³⁸

The most obvious category for a debate of a legal nature is the finite question of forensic oratory. The Owl and the Nightingale is a fine exemplification of that form although the legal terminology is that of the twelfth-century English law court rather than that of the Roman senate.³⁹

In considering the parts of the poem as corresponding to the sections of a forensic speech—as we must when we read the poem simply on the level of the birds' debate—the speech divisions are not entirely congruent with those of the deliberative and epideictic levels. The exordium consists only of the setting and the narrator's statement that the birds are inveighing against each other (1-5). The initial lines which form part of the exordium in the deliberative and epideictic aspects of the poem when the focus is on Nicholas and the reasons for his preferment function here as the narration (6-186) in which the preliminary skirmish contains, in brief, the rest of the debate. The partition is the passage in which the litigants select Nicholas as their judge; in this case the partition shows that on which the opponents are agreed and that on which they are not in accord.

The proof and refutation are seen in the alternate accusations and defenses of the birds, and the voice of the narrator functions here as the advocate who in court cases interprets evidence for judge or jury.

The debate itself which we have seen as being epideictic in quality when considered in terms of Nicholas' praise retains that aspect when we look at the poem quite simply as a bird debate since the term “epideictic” extends to censure. The contention between the birds does not focus directly, however, on qualities of character; it deals, rather, with external circumstances and physical attributes although qualities of character may be implicit in them.

In the beginning of the debate, the narrator comments on the mutual malice of the birds (5) and throughout the course of the argument indicates the nightingale's mockery and contempt. The external circumstances treated in epideictic rhetoric are descent, kinds of power, titles to fame, and friendships. Although the birds do not dwell on descent as such, each devotes considerable invective to the personal habits of the other. The nightingale observes that young owls foul their nest and that her opponent might find food suitable to her low condition in frogs and snails (94-100, 85-89). Later in the poem, the owl remarks that the nightingale lives near a privy, and that her eating habits are far from fastidious (581-602). The nightingale also criticizes the owl's manner of life in that she flies at night concluding, therefore, that the owl is an unnatural and evil bird (227-252). With regard to kinds of power; the nightingale accuses the owl of lacking the power to sing (223-226); whereas the owl retaliates by saying that her song is only different from her adversary's—and far more powerful (312-320). The question of friendships weighs heavily in the debate. The nightingale taunts the owl with being hated by smaller birds (65-70) who fear her and by men whose joy she holds in suspicion (417-432; 1111-20); after defending herself, the owl tells the nightingale that she is not of service to mankind, that she incites to lust and encourages frivolity (559-575, 894-898).

In the course of the poem much is said, as well, on the reverse of desirable physical attributes: agility (skill), strength, and beauty. The nightingale is forced to admit the strength which the owl claims, but she goes into considerable detail on the owl's lack of beauty (71-80). The owl considers the nightingale a small, sooty ball (577-582) and points out that she lacks the endurance to withstand winter's cold (533-536). Though the birds remain mutually unconvinced of the other's beauty, the nightingale acknowledges the owl's greater strength (752-762).

A large part of the debate concerns the kind of power each bird possesses. The nightingale sings songs that delight and encourage lovers; the owl sings songs of comfort and prepares men for evils to come; she catches mice, and in death she makes an admirable decoy.

The peroration of the poem presents at this level, too, the three qualities of a rhetorical conclusion. The summation of the debate is given implicitly when the nightingale intimates that it might, after all, be useless to go to Nicholas since he cannot know what has been said in the discussion, and the owl retorts that she can recount the debate word for word. Here, although the debate is not summarized in detail, the owl's remark is sufficient to recall it to the minds of the auditors. Sympathy for the owl is provided by the way the small birds, assuming the nightingale has won, converge for attack; and hostility for the opponent is achieved because of the way the nightingale, before submitting to judgment, assumes that the victory is hers and because of her attempt to evade formal decision of Nicholas.

We can see, then, that the three points of view from which the poem has been discussed are really three levels of perception. At first glance, it is a bird debate set up according to the structure of rhetorical forensic oratory, yet the content of the debate is epideictic in that it is composed of censure. At a deeper level, the mutual censure of the birds, as well as the censure of the birds by the narrator, who remarks unfavorably on their quarrelsomeness in general and on the wiles of the nightingale in particular, is really indirect praise of Nicholas. And praise with the intention of persuading coincides exactly with the purpose of a deliberative speech.

If we look at the poem as deliberative and epideictic oratory, its parts are perfectly congruent; and actually, for practical purposes, those two levels are one. The direct praise of Nicholas as a just and wise judge becomes doubly effective when it is seen as the subject of a deliberative speech, for in praising a man one urges a course of action. From the point of view of forensic oratory, we see that in the course of the heated debate the worth of Nicholas is the one point on which the birds are in accord. And with a sharp rebuke from the wren for the bishops who have not rewarded merit, the poet, who has combined a bird debate and the give and take of twelfth-century legal practice with the sophistications of classical rhetoric, rests his case.

Notes

1. J. W. H. Atkins, ed. The Owl and the Nightingale (Cambridge, England, 1922), p. xlii.

2. Kathryn Huganir, The Owl and the Nightingale: Sources / Date / Author (Philadelphia, 1931), p. 152.

3. R. M. Lumiansky, “Concerning The Owl and the Nightingale,” PQ, [Philological Quarterly], XXXII (1953), 414-415. Cf. Atkins, The Owl and the Nightingale, p. xlv.

4. J. W. H. Atkins, English Literary Criticism: the Medieval Phase (London, 1952), p. 143.

5. Henry B. Hinckley, “The Date, Author, and Sources of The Owl and the Nightingale,” PMLA, XLIV (1929), 353. Hinckley adds: “the Latin contention poems of the twelfth century must have been known to Master Nicholas, though it is difficult to trace their influence upon him unless it be in the matter of meter.” Ibid., 355.

6. Douglas L. Peterson, “The Owl and the Nightingale and the Christian Dialectic,” JEGP [Journal of English and Germanic Philology], LV (1956), 13. Peterson also notes “that by applying dialectic to the arguments advanced by the debators, the reader is expected to arrive at a final verdict in accord with the poet's sympathies.” Ibid.

7. The content of the debate has been variously synthesized as the conflict between “pleasure and asceticism,” Bernhard ten Brink, History of English Literature (New York, 1889), p. 215; “age and youth, gravity and gaiety,” G. E. B. Saintsbury, A Short History of English Literature (New York, 1927), p. 60; as art vs. philosophy, W. P. Ker, English Literature: Medieval (New York, 1912), p. 183; the ideals of the “strict monastic party as opposed to the more latidudinarian among the clergy,” W. J. Courthope, A History of English Poetry, I (London, 1919), p. 134; the “issues … between two types of poets and poetry, between the religious didactic poetry characteristic of the Middle Ages, and the new poetry with its love motive, which originated in the century 1150-1250,” J. W. H. Atkins, ed. The Owl and the Nightingale, pp. lvi-lvii.

8. Aristotle, Rhetorica, With an English translation by John Henry Freese. Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge, Mass., 1926), I. iii. 3. 1358b.; Cicero De inventione, With an English translation by H. M. Hunnell. Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge, Mass., 1949), I. viii. 12: Rhetorica ad Herennium, With an English translation by H. Caplan. Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge, Mass., 1954), I. i. 2; Quintilian Institutio oratoria, With an English translation by H. E. Butler. 4 vols. Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge, Mass., 1921, 1922), III. iv. 11-15.

9. “Deliberationes partim sunt eiusmodi ut quaeratur utrum potius faciendum sit, partim eiusmodi ut quid potissimum faciendum sit consideretur.” Ad Herennium III. ii. 2; “Deliberativum est in consultatione, quod habet in se suasionem et dissuasionem.” Ad Herennium, I. i. 2; De inventione, I. v. 7.

10. Richard McKeon, “Rhetoric in the Middle Ages,” Critics and Criticism: Ancient and Modern, edd R. S. Crane, et al. (Chicago, 1952), p. 260; Paul Abelson, The Seven Liberal Arts: A Study in Mediaeval Culture, Columbia Teachers' College Contributions to Education, No. 11 (New York, 1906), p. 54.

11. Charles H. Haskins, “A List of the Text-books from the Close of the Twelfth Century,” Harvard Studies in Classical Philology, Vol. 20 (1909), p. 37.

12. Ibid., p. 92.

13. K. F. Halm, Rhetores Latini minores (Leipzig, 1863).

14. Charles H. Haskins, The Renaissance of the Twelfth Century (Cambridge, Mass., 1933), p. 139.

15. De inventione I. xiv. 19; vide Ad Herennium, I. ii. 4.

16. “Nihil prodest narratio tum, cum ab adversariis re exposita nostra nihil interest iterum aut alio modo narrare; aut ab eis qui audiunt ita tenetur negotium, ut nostra nihil intersit eos pacto docere. Quod cum accidit, omnino narratione supersedendum est.” De inventione I. xxi. 30. The author of the Ad Herennium also states that in deliberative and epideictic oratory there need not be a narration. III. vii. 13; III. iii. 7.

17. De inventione I. xv. 20; Ad Herennium I. iv. 6; Institutio oratoria IV. i. 5.

18. De inventione, I. xix, 27. The exposition of the narration given in the Ad Herennium is closely allied to Cicero's treatment: I. vii. 12-viii. 13. Institutio oratoria IV. ii. 31.

19. De inventione, I. xxii. 31-33; Ad Herennium I. x. 17.

20. Donald L. Clark, Rhetoric in Greco-Roman Education (New York, 1957), p. 117. vide Rhetorica I. ii. 3.

21. “Confirmatio est per quam argumentando nostrae causae fidem et auctoritatem et firmamentum adiungit oratio.” De inventione I. xxiii. 34.

22. Institutio oratoria V. xi. 49; De inventione I. xxx. 49; Ad Herennium IV. lxix. 62. Cicero uses induction and deduction in the rhetorical sense, i.e., analogy and epicheireme or enthymeme respectively. “… the rhetorical example does not move from particular to general as does a logical induction. Nor does it move from universal to particular as does a deduction. It moves instead from particular to particular in the same class or order.” Clark, Rhetoric in Greco-Roman Education, p. 124.

23. Rhetorica, II. 20; example from public issues: De inventione I. xxxiii. 55; historical fact: Institutio oratoria, V. xi. 8; fictitious narrative: Institutio V, xi. 17-20. “The fictitious rhetorical example readily expanded into story and branched off from speechmaking, finding its destiny as a literary form with traces of its rhetorical origin.” Clark, Rhetoric, p. 128.

24. “Reprehensio est per quam argumentando adversariorum confirmatio diluitur aut infirmatur aut elevatur. Haec fonte inventionis eodem utetur quo utitur confirmatio, propterea quod, quibus ex locis aliqua res confirmari potest, isdem potest ex locis infirmari.” De inventione I. xli. 78.

25. “Haec habet partes tres: enumerationem, indignationem, conquestionem.” De inventione I. li. 98; vide Ad Herennium, II. xxix. 47.

26. Institutio oratoria III. v. 5-18. The finite question is the “thesis” which is the type of many mediaeval and Renaissance debates; it is unlimited by considerations of time, place, and person, and it lends itself to such topics as the relative merits of day and night or of wine and water.

27. McKeon, “Rhetoric in the Middle Ages,” p. 263.

28. The Owl and the Nightingale, ed. Atkins. This, and all other quotations from the poem are taken from the Atkins edition (MS Cotton).

29. De inventione I. xvii. 25; I. xiv. 20; I. xv. 21; Ad Herennium, I. vi. 10.

30. De inventione I. xxi. 30.

31. Ad Herennium III. vii. 15.

32. Ad Herennium III. vi. 12; De inventione I. xxi. 30.

33. De inventione II. lii. 159; Cf. II. liii. 160-165; Ad Herennium III. vi. 10-11.

34. A significant aspect of epideictic oratory is the notice that can be taken of the use that the subject has made of his advantages. De inventione II. lix. 178; Ad Herennium III. vi. 13.

35. Institutio oratoria III. vii. 4.

36. Institutio oratoria III. vii. 23-27.

37. A narration is used not merely to instruct the judge or auditors but to persuade them to look upon the case from the narrator's point of view. Institutio oratoria IV. ii. 20-21.

38. Not only Nicholas' qualities of character are praised in the peroration; we find, too, mention of those external circumstances which are also frequent subjects of rhetorical praise. The wren points out that he gives lawful judgments and composes wise sayings, and adds that in virtue of his writings, things are better in Scotland (1751-58). This specification of his justice and wisdom forms the summation of Nicholas' virtues. The auditor's sympathy is appealed to inasmuch as Nicholas is living in somewhat restricted circumstances (1759-60), and his antipathy is aroused for those because of whom it is so.

39. Atkins, ed. The Owl and the Nightingale, p. liii.