SOURCE: “The Old Rhetoric vs. the New Rhetoric: The Quarrel between the Ancients and the Moderns,” in Communication Monographs, Vol. 49, No. 4, December 1982, pp. 263-76.

[In the essay that follows, Warnick seeks to “provide an account of the major issues in the Quarrel as they relate to the function and status of rhetoric in French society” in the eighteenth century.]

In his study of eighteenth-century logic and rhetoric in Britain, Howell has distinguished the “old rhetoric” of the seventeenth century and before from the “new rhetoric” of the eighteenth century. The former was limited to persuasive discourse, drew its proofs from the ancient theory of topics, and was characterized by an ornate, intricate, self-conscious style. The new rhetoric, however, focused on expository and didactic discourse, based its proofs on the facts of the matter being discussed, and was couched in a plain, unstudied style.¹ It would appear that the shift from the old to the new rhetoric marked a break from traditional Ciceronian rhetoric—a break which has had a profound influence on rhetorical theory and practice in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Interestingly, the same shift in perceptions of rhetoric's nature and function also occurred in France in the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

By the late seventeenth-century in France, there was considerable dissatisfaction in certain quarters with the quality of public disputation and oratory of the day.² Additionally, the literary triumphs of Corneille, Racine, and Molière can be counterposed to the mediocre output of the century's précieux poets and litterateurs.³ Many seventeenth century critics called for an end to the contrived, artificial rhetorical and literary discourse of their contemporaries. Their recommendations and disagreements resulted in a controversy which has since come to be known as the “Quarrel between the Ancients and the Moderns.”

For classical critics like Boileau, Rapin, and Fénelon, defenders of the ancients, eloquence was the art of communicating noble ideas in a style appropriate for the subject matter and occasion, and its goal was to edify listeners and inspire them to virtue.⁴ The classical critics believed that sublime discourses were best exemplified in the works of the ancients—Cicero, Demosthenes, Longinus, and Aristotle—and they looked to such models for the principles and standards of eloquence.⁵ In the moderns' camp belonged Fontenelles, Perrault, and the Port Royalists. Followers of Descartes and precursors of the great eighteenth-century philosophes, these men believed that rhetoric was a cumbersome and unnecessary fixture in the French educational system and that men could become eloquent without the study of ancient models. In the moderns' view, the ideal orator or writer should expose the truth by clearly defining the subject, dividing it into its natural parts, and arguing from what is known to be true to some well-grounded conclusion without a preoccupation with stylistic ornament or artificial organization. In the course of the Quarrel, the classical critics' view of rhetoric conflicted with that of the moderns. It is that conflict with which the present essay will be concerned.

The Quarrel assists us in understanding the causes for and manifestations of the change in public attitude toward the study and practice of rhetoric and eloquence in seventeenth and eighteenth century France.⁶ The purpose of the present essay is to provide an account of the major issues in the Quarrel as they relate to the function and status of rhetoric in French society. The essay will begin by examining rhetoric's problematic condition just prior to the outbreak of the Quarrel. The ancients' and moderns' conflicting opinions about the ends of discourse and esthetic criteria to be applied to eloquence will then be examined, along with their debate concerning the value of rhetorical education. Finally, there will be an effort to explain why the moderns prevailed over the ancients as the moderns' view of eloquence and their disparagement of traditional rhetorical training came to be accepted by French society.

RHETORIC AND ELOQUENCE UNDER THE MONARCHY

At the time of the Quarrel, there was considerable dissatisfaction with the teaching and practice of eloquence—a dissatisfaction which seemed justified, given the factors in French society and its educational system which had conspired to deprive rhetoric of its vitality and effectiveness. One of these was the influence of Ramism on the content and organization of French school curricula; and a second was the public demand for ornamental, pleasing discourses, as well as the limited occasions for political oratory under the monarchy. The end result was an ineffectual, flowery eloquence decried by the classical critics and to some extent defended by the moderns.

Howell has provided an account of the effects of Ramistic doctrine on the study of rhetoric, and he observed that, while Ramus and Talaeus did not intend to separate logic and substance from rhetoric, the effect of their reforms was not entirely fortunate.⁷ What they did was to strip rhetoric of the theories of invention and disposition and make them the exclusive province of dialectic. To rhetoric were assigned style and delivery, and thus Talaeus's Rhetorica treated only tropes and figures, voice and gesture. By making these the sole elements of effective speech, Howell tells us, “Talaeus … endorses the view that good style is a flight from the natural, and that anybody who words a thing as people would word it on everyday occasions is being ineffective.”⁸

But this separation of philosophy and rhetoric in the Ramistic system was only apparent. Ramus and Talaeus had intended that their students study logic and verbal skills in close conjunction and that the logical skills would be acquired before the verbal skills were practiced. In the curricula of seventeenth century French schools, however, this was not what happened. Rhetoric was studied as the second of the three elements in the medieval trivium, preceded by grammar and followed by logic or dialectic. Only the most advanced students went on to study the latter, and most students ended their study of the cycle of Arts subjects with rhetoric. France has observed that “there were attempts, at various times, to alter this order, putting rhetoric after logic on the grounds that it was wrong to learn the art of communication before you had anything solid to communicate, but for the most part the medieval order persisted up to the Revolution and beyond. …”⁹ And because of the influence of Ramus, the focus of the rhetoric class was on the learning of Latin and the acquisition of stylistic devices. France tells us that “the aim was to build up a ‘copia verborum ac rerum,’ a rich stock of works, expressions, and erudition which would serve the orator well when he had to prepare a speech or speak impromptu.”¹⁰ Students worked to acquire familiarity with tropes, figures, puns, and commonplaces by transforming plain, direct discourses through amplification into specimens written in the “grand style.” The products of such training appear to have been overconcerned with style and not at all concerned with valid arguments or good organization, according to the contemporary critics of this training.

The problem of poor preparation for substantive speaking was exacerbated by the lack of occasions for public speaking under the monarchy and by the public's demand for discourses designed to please and entertain. The classical critics, who supported the supremacy of such classical models of oratory as Demosthenes and Cicero, claimed that great oratory could only arise in a free republic. Boileau, in the guise of Longinus, observed that “we … who have been enveloped by the monarchy's customs and ways of doing things … who have never experienced this live and fruitful source of eloquence, I mean liberty … have made of ourselves great and magnificent flatterers.”¹¹ Like the other classical critics, Boileau believed that the panegyrics and other forms of epideictic discourse of the late seventeenth century were not characterized by the sublimity and inspiration of the great speeches of antiquity. The seventeenth century models of eloquence defended by the moderns were Bossuet, Bourdaloue, Massillon, and Fléchier. The primary genre in which they spoke, however, was the funeral oration which, in France's words, “merely presents in an extreme form the problems posed by preaching of all kinds.”¹² These funeral orations were rich, even lush, in style, being characterized by elaborate harmony, repetitions, vivid imagery, enumeration, and every variety of figured speech. The aim was flattery and entertainment rather than education and enlightenment.¹³

Furthermore, speakers of the second echelon and young aspirants to ecclesiastical offices seized upon public oratory and sermon making as a means of self aggradizement. The fruits of their efforts served more to advance their own cause than that of the church. Of this ambitious cadre, Fénelon said, “Young men with no reputation hasten to preach. The public thinks that they seek their own glory more than God's and that they are engaged in furthering their own fortune rather than saving souls. They speak like splendid orators and not like ministers of Christ and stewards of his mysteries.”¹⁴ Rapin, too, spoke of petty but florid discourses which had little substance: “[There are] those superficial Orators, who think to support the Weakness of their Fancy, by the Strength of their Expressions, and who distinguish themselves from others by cloathing their poor thin Matter, their little trifling Thoughts in Strong Lines, in great and magnificent Words.”¹⁵

Perrault, in his Parallèle des Anciens et des Modernes, dismissed this problem with an a fortiori argument. If those who speak on behalf of freedom and of their countrymen have reason to be inspired, he argued, then how much greater should be the inspiration of those who speak to save souls and inspire men to virtue? “Have our preachers no good reason to use the same rhetorical figures or to prompt sinners to shake off the yoke of their tyrannical passions?” he asked. “Conditions have never been more favorable for eloquence since salvation and eternal life are of greatest importance.”¹⁶ Believing that his audience would agree that the discourse of his contemporaries had surpassed that of the ancients, Perrault included French translations of funeral orations by Pericles, Isocrates, and Lysias as well as original French versions of those of Bossuet, Fléchier, and Bourdaloue in the appendix to the second volume of his Parallèle so that they might be compared. However, Perrault was in the minority in his opinion. As we have seen, most of the critics of his day agreed that the speaking of the majority of their contemporaries left much to be desired. And the ceremonial addresses of great religious figures had little effect on the life of the individual or of the church and none at all on the state.¹⁷

Upon considering the condition of the old rhetoric in post renaissance France, we must conclude that it had fallen on hard times. Stripped of its substance by the followers of Ramus, relegated to a training ground in Latin and etymology, denigrated, even by its supporters, as a subject misused and misapplied, the old rhetoric became a source of controversy in the Quarrel between the Ancients and the Moderns. The classical critics attempted to revitalize it by restoring to it those elements of classical rhetoric which had been suppressed or neglected in their century's preoccupation with form and style. The moderns, however, sought to repudiate classical rhetoric entirely and replace it with the Cartesian method and a focus on truth-establishing discourses unconcerned with style.

WHAT SHOULD BE THE ENDS OF ELOQUENCE?

To a considerable degree, the changing view of eloquence in seventeenth and eighteenth century France corresponded to a change in the nature of public interest in works produced by the intellectual elite of the country. In the early- to mid-seventeenth century, public speaking was limited to the bar and the pulpit, and books were available to the general public only on a limited basis. Public communication, then, was communication between educated elites—savants, members of the clergy and of the Academy, and the classically educated.¹⁸ By century's end, however, this had changed. There was a growth in generalized knowledge, due largely to the increased availability of books and the public's interest in reading and discussing the works of their countrymen. Saisselin has described the effects of this development: “More books meant more readers, different reading habits, different values, different types of books. The greater production of books meant a decline in erudition, an increase in general discussion. … The erudite ceased to appear as an extraordinary mortal standing above the crowd of vulgar, small, and ignorant minds. … Veneration for the savant, the man of erudition, the man who was supposedly initiated into the arcana of higher learning and knowledge, was no longer automatic.”¹⁹ Public discourse which formerly took place between elites, became discourse which had to appeal to a much larger and nonelitist public—the honnêtes gens of French society, titled persons, frequenters of the court, and women, many of whom had not benefited from a classical education.

The old rhetoric, then, was a rhetoric appropriate for the early seventeenth century public. Its purpose was to touch the audience, inspire virtue in them, and edify them. This purpose and form suited discourse directed from an elite to a select audience. But the public of the eighteenth century wanted to be entertained and instructed rather than uplifted or guided. Consequently, the opinions of the classical critics and the moderns as to what should be the ends of eloquence differed. The defenders of the ancients—Boileau, Rapin, and Fénelon—believed that all eloquence should have a moral end. The moderns rejected moral instruction as an end of discourse but were divided as to what its purpose ought to be. Perrault and Fontenelle believed that eloquence should be designed so as to entertain and that any work which failed to hold audience interest was of little use. Arnauld and Nicole, on the other hand, took an unequivocal stand against pleasure and believed that the only goal of discourse should be to communicate truth, that truth is beautiful in and of itself, and that it therefore has no need of stylistic ornamentation to make it seem attractive. A close examination of each of these three views—the ancient position and the two modern views—will illustrate the differences among them.

In his Art poétique, Boileau solemnly proclaimed that “A virtuous author does not corrupt the heart.”²⁰ In no case should an author betray virtue by making vice seem attractive. Speaking through Longinus in his treatise on the Sublime, Boileau describes the practices of his contemporaries by contrasting the great orator and his noble ends with the précieux poets and grandiloquent speakers of his own century who were concerned only with trivial matters. “A man who cares not for virtue admires only frivolous and perishable things. … He no longer raises his eyes above his own self interest and says nothing which goes beyond the ordinary. … Everything noble and great in him withers away and dries up, and he inspires only contempt.”²¹ Boileau contrasts this with the Sublime which “delights, enraptures, and produces in us a certain admiration mixed with astonishment and surprise, which is quite a different thing from merely pleasing or persuading.”²² The Sublime lifts us above the common place and inspires virtue in us. Moreover, it produces these effects simply by being understood and without the aid of artifice.²³

Rapin too believed that the end of eloquence should be to inspire audiences to virtue, but his view of its function was somewhat more audience centered than that of Boileau. For Rapin, persuasion and pleasure were necessary way stations on the path to moral improvement. “In order to persuade,” he said, “'tis necessary that we please: we ought to take care that we please in everything. …”²⁴ Because virtue was “naturally austere,” morality could only come to regulate an audience through discourse which was attended to because it appealed to its hearers' needs and interests.²⁵ Therefore, Rapin recommended that the true orator “make it his principal Study to understand the Affections and Interests of his Audience … and following the Natural Bent of their Inclinations move the same way they tend, and so take hold on what they seem most prone to.”²⁶ Only through the elements of pathos could the speaker hope to provide his listeners with effective moral instruction.

Fénelon was largely in agreement with Rapin on this matter, and his position is clearly stated in the Dialogues on Eloquence. Orators

Speak to persuade, that is what they always do. They also speak to please—that is merely what they too often do. But when they seek to please, they have another, a more distant aim, which is nevertheless the principal one. The good man seeks to please only that he may urge justice and the other virtues by making them attractive.²⁷

All worthwhile public discourse, then, should have a corrective function; its primary goal should be to guide listeners to virtue, and any other effect should be subsidiary to this end. Fénelon thus opposed any ornament or show of wit designed solely to please an audience or to make its members admire the speaker. “We must not think of eloquence as a frivolous art which an orator uses to impress the multitude's weak imagination and to traffic in words,” Fénelon urged. “It is a very serious art destined to instruct, curb the passions, reform customs, sustain laws, influence public deliberations, and make men good and happy.”²⁸

To the emphasis on morality and edification defended by the classical critics can be opposed the position of certain of the moderns—the secular critics, Perrault and Fontenelle. Realizing that the reading and listening public frequently sought entertainment rather than moral instruction, Perrault and Fontenelle questioned the classical critics' proscription of art for art's sake. They proposed quite different criteria for judging a work. Did it entertain its readers? Did it hold their interest? Did it appeal to the esthetic taste of its seventeenth century audience? If so, the work was to be accepted and approved. “A work which innocently diverts cannot be entirely useless,” said Perrault. “A book of this sort is not the least present one can give the public.”²⁹

Perrault furthermore argued that even meritorious works in philosophy and the sciences should be written so as to be understood and enjoyed by a popular audience. Of Plato's Dialogues he said,

The Dialogues of Plato were put into our language in order to cause the ancients to be loved and have people see the beauty in their works. Unfortunately, this did not succeed and, of a hundred women who have begun to read these Dialogues, there are perhaps only four who have had the strength to finish them.³⁰

In his treatise on the eclogue, Fontenelle went so far as to claim that an author could suppress unpleasant details and only partially expose the truth in order to insure the pleasure and entertainment of the audience. He observed that

The truth is necessary to please the imagination, but … frequently only a half-truth is necessary. Set forth only a portion of something, but set it forth vividly. [The imagination] will not discover that you have hid the rest, and you will take it as far as you want in the belief that the portion that it sees is its entire object.³¹

Even the truth can be sacrificed in the interest of pleasure which, according to Fontenelle, is the primary end of discourse. The focus on ornamentation, entertainment, and diversion is the principal feature of Perrault's and Fontenelle's theories which distinguishes them from the Port Royalists.

The Port Royalists, Arnauld and Nicole, agreed with other moderns on many important issues which later emerged in the Quarrel.³² Like Perrault and Fontenelle, they criticized the ancients and looked elsewhere for the principles and models of eloquence. The Port Royalists' theories were grounded in the works of Descartes, Pascal, and St. Augustine, and of Aristotle's Rhetoric they said, “one will never arrive by this route at any solid knowledge.”³³ On the issue of what were to be the ends of eloquence, however, the Port Royalists held opinions quite different from those of Perrault and Fontenelle.

Arnauld and Nicole believed that the purpose of all discourse should be to expose and communicate the truth. They thought that audiences should not be deceived by the seemingly pleasant. Davidson's description of their position is most helpful here. “The Port Royalists want to lead us away from habits of judgment that depend finally on the audience; the ideal image of people surrendering to the flow of eloquent language has no appeal for them. We should respond instead to the call of the object being known, to the demand of the subject matter.”³⁴ Arnauld and Nicole's injunction can be summed up in one rule: “Nothing is beautiful but that which is true.”³⁵ Following this rule would cause orators and writers to eliminate vain ornaments and false thoughts from all discourse, along with all the other accoutrements which fall into the category of “mere rhetoric.” Their distrust of discourse aimed at pleasing the audience was made clear when they observed, “if one only judges the essence of things by exterior appearance, it is impossible that he will not be frequently deceived. …”³⁶

The reader will recall that Fontenelle encouraged poets and orators to suppress the truth if by so doing they could better achieve their ultimate aim. His recommendation clearly conflicted with the position of the Port Royalists. In their view, the suppression of truth in the interests of persuasion was pure sophistry. They disparaged:

The commitment to uphold some opinion, to which one becomes attached by considerations other than those of truth; [which] leads one no longer to consider whether the reasons he uses are true or false, but whether they can be used to prove what he maintains. … Sometimes one goes so far as to say things one knows well to be absolutely false, so long as they serve the intended purpose.³⁷

The strong Cartesian strain in the thinking of Arnauld and Nicole should now be apparent: Trust only what is presented clearly and distinctly to your mind. Distrust rhetoric. As noted previously, the Port Royalists' position led them to denigrate Aristotle's Rhetoric because of what in their view was an overconcern with the elements of ethos and pathos—elements irrelevant to truth. The difficulty with their work as a basis for rhetorical theory and practice arose from their disregard for the psychological and emotive dimensions of communication and their belief that truth alone was sufficient to persuade. Davidson put it well, “The Port Royalists would have had a higher opinion of rhetoric if they had not held so high an opinion of truth, so firm a conviction of its attainability, and such confidence in its power to impose itself once grasped.”³⁸

Regarding the issue of what were to be the ends of eloquence, then, we can discern three separate positions which emerged immediately before and during the Quarrel. The three views correspond to the respective theorists' views of audience. For the classical critics, the audience was composed of well-bred, well-educated individuals who looked to the churchmen and authors of their day for moral instruction, edification, and inspiration. The purpose of discourse in their view was to improve and guide its listeners and readers. For Perrault and Fontenelle, the audience was made up of polished and intelligent, but not necessarily well-educated, auditors and readers who sought information and entertainment. According to the moderns' criteria, discourse should be geared to the “lowest common denominator” and should successfully engage and hold the interest of all audience members. It should therefore be designed, at least partially, to please and entertain. For the Port Royalists, the audience was comprised of clear-thinking rationalists who would be persuaded solely by truths presented clearly and distinctly to the mind. For them, discourse should be plainly and parsimoniously communicated, disclosing only truths and eschewing the frills and ornaments of rhetoric.

It was the Port Royalists' view of ideal eloquence which prevailed in eighteenth century France. This century's major works included Voltaire's Lettres philosophiques and his Siècle de Louis XIV, Buffon's Histoire naturelle, Rousseau's treatises on education and politics, and, of course, the great Encyclopédie. In fulfilling the public demand for access to knowledge in the natural and human sciences, history, and philosophy, such works were designed to instruct men and to establish and communicate information rather than to please or explicitly persuade. They were written in a style which was clear, simple, and unencumbered by the ornaments which had characterized seventeenth century discourse. France has observed that the writing of such treatises “led to the adoption of an austere tone, characterized by a wealth of technical terms … and by the absence of certain figures, metaphor and simile above all, but also the various pattern figures, antithesis, symmetry, and gradation, and the care for harmonious sentence construction.”³⁹ The ceremonial addresses of Bossuet and Fléchier, the précieux poetry of Fontenelle and LaMotte, and the self-conscious novels of Mlle. de Scudery had given way to the treatises of the philosophes which were written in a style which was “clear … harmonious, lively, and concise.”⁴⁰

RHETORIC IN THE CURRICULUM

In addition to their disagreement concerning the ends of eloquence, the ancients and moderns differed on the question of the place of rhetorical training in society. Was rhetoric a valid and necessary means of achieving eloquence, or was it a superficial and unnecessary fixture in the French educational system? The defenders of the ancients generally took the former position and spoke favorably of rhetoric since they believed the aspiring rhetor could only hope to become eloquent through the study of ancient precepts and models. The moderns, however, believed that rhetoric was not only unnecessary, it actually hindered eloquence.

The basic question to be answered in regard to the merit of rhetorical education was, “Is eloquence a natural or an acquired talent?” If natural, then orators with no knowledge of the precepts of rhetoric could produce sublime and moving discourses. If acquired, then knowledge of classical rhetoric and of ancient models was desirable and necessary. As could be expected, the classical and modern critics differed on this question as well.

In attempting to describe the Sublime, Boileau sought to uncover its characteristics by examining exceptional passages in the great models of antiquity. He hoped to discover what those passages shared with each other which made them Sublime. Citing Longinus, Boileau recognized the importance of rules and of method: “Although Nature never appears freer than in sublime and moving discourses, one can nevertheless easily recognize that it does not allow itself to go on at random and that it is not absolutely the enemy of art and of rules. …”⁴¹ For Boileau, then, the Sublime appeared natural but in fact could be attained only through the study and imitation of ancient models.

Rapin had such confidence in rhetorical education that he claimed that “one may be an Orator without the natural gift of eloquence, because Art may supply that defect. …”⁴² The “Art” to which Rapin referred here was the study and emulation of great works of antiquity. “For none will doubt,” he observed, “but that the works of the Ancients are the true Fountains whence we are to draw these Riches and Treasures … whence arises that admirable Penetration which enables us to distinguish true Beauties from false in Nature, and by them to rectify our Judgment in those of Art.”⁴³ Fénelon also emphasized the importance of studying the ancients. He began his Letter to the French Academy by recommending that the principles of its Rhetoric be drawn from the finest precepts of Aristotle, Cicero, Quintilian, and other ancients.⁴⁴ He further advised that the author of such a Rhetoric mix precepts with examples. Citing St. Augustine, Fénelon observed that “Men who have a quick and penetrating mind learn the art of eloquence more easily by reading the speeches of eloquent men than by studying the precepts of the art.”⁴⁵ Fénelon himself provided an abstract of the sort of work he was suggesting. His section on rhetoric in the Letter cited, among other works, Cicero's Orator, Demosthenes' First Phillipic, Virgil's Aeneid, Plato's Republic and the treatise On the Sublime, attributed to Longinus. It was his view that the moderns could never surpass the ancients by neglecting or ignoring such models and treatises, and he concluded the Letter by reminding his readers that “If you ever happen to surpass the ancients, it is to them that you will owe the glory of surpassing them.”⁴⁶

The moderns' attitude toward formal rhetorical training and study is epitomized by Charles Perrault, who left the Collège de Beauvais before his education was completed and studied independently for three or four years with a close friend.⁴⁷ Perrault disdained formal scholastic education and in particular the study of rhetoric which he regarded as a waste of time. “How many men knowing all the precepts of eloquence are not eloquent,” he asked, “and, on the other hand, how many eloquent ones do we see who know no precept of eloquence?”⁴⁸ Perrault believed that the only aid a speaker needed to produce clear, well—ordered discourse was the Cartesian method. The essential matter is to expose the truth by clear, methodical discourse which pleases and impresses its hearers. “Nothing persuades men more than that which is quite clear and intelligible,” he claimed; “the evidence of truth has always been the greatest charm of philosophers who do not notice the figures of rhetoric, however great and beautiful they may be. …”⁴⁹ Praising Descartes, Perrault criticized Aristotle for the lack of clarity in his method and for his failure to follow his own precepts. “We find everything [put forth] confusedly in his works,” Perrault concluded, “and we find nothing in them which is clear and precise.”⁵⁰

Arnauld and Nicole's view of rhetorical education was entirely in agreement with that of Perrault, and in their Port Royal Logic they missed no opportunity to lambaste rhetoric as traditionally taught and studied. In their opinion the rhetoric class was for many students an empty ritual wherein students memorized tropes, figures, and the commonplaces and learned very little about clear thinking and direct communication. Preparation of this sort produced orators who reasoned falsely and affected eloquence without communicating anything of merit or substance to their listeners. To this the Port Royalists opposed true eloquence, which they described as follows:

But the essential point consists in expressing things forcefully and in such a way that we convey a lively and luminous image to the minds of the auditors, which not only presents things such as they are but also the movements with which we express them: it is that which can be found in persons not very exact in their language or correct in the harmony [with which they speak] and which is found rarely in those who are overconcerned with words and embellishments because this effort diverts them from the substance of what they say and weakens the vigor of their thoughts.⁵¹

In its overconcern with stylistic embellishments and in its reliance on the commonplaces as the means of inventing arguments, scholastic rhetoric provided students with artificial devices which had little application to legal and religious speaking. “Consult as many lawyers and preachers as are in the world, as many people who speak and write and who always have subject matter to spare, and I do not know if you will be able to find anyone who has ever dreamt of making an argument à causa, ab effectu, or ab adjunctis in order to prove what he would like to prove.”⁵²

If we look to what was written in the eighteenth century on the subject, we will see that the public came to agree with the moderns that lengthy, intensive study of classical rhetoric was unnecessary. The general feeling was that any intelligent, discriminating individual could express himself well without the aid of rhetorical devices. This attitude was eventually translated into changes in French curricula in which rhetoric did not fare well. By the late eighteenth century, rhetoric and humanistic studies had lost their unquestioned supremacy and had to compete with technical and scientific studies for dominance in the curriculum.

One of the first signs of the shift in public attitude toward rhetorical training appeared in Rollin's Traité des Etudes (1726-28). In that work, the great architect of French education presented a lengthy defense of rhetoric and the classics—a defense which would have been unnecessary fifty years earlier when the Quarrel began. “Most fathers,” he observed, “regard as absolutely wasted the time that their children are obliged to spend in this study … which they believe to be both troublesome and fruitless. … Professors must struggle against this poor taste which has become quite common, and they must continually endeavor not to give in to this torrent [of public opinion] which has already almost totally prevailed.”⁵³

One of the most determined attacks against rhetoric and the study of the classics was launched by Diderot nearly forty years after Rollin's work had appeared. In his Plan d'une université pour le gouvernement de Russie, Diderot allows only one class, at the very end of the student's course sequence, for the study of “Greek, Latin, Eloquence, and Poesy” together. He observes that over-emphasis on rhetoric and dead languages prevents students from studying mathematics, physics, and the natural sciences and prepares them poorly in classics and eloquence themselves. He concludes that “young students know neither Greek nor Latin which they have been taught for so long a time, nor the sciences which they could have been taught at this same time. …”⁵⁴ And, furthermore, Diderot asks, “to whom are these ancient languages of any real use? I should almost dare to answer that it is to nobody, unless it be to poets, orators, classic scholars and other professional men of letters; that is to say, to the least necessary states in life.”⁵⁵

Immediately after the Revolution, the French government initiated a system of Central Schools having curricula patterned similarly to that recommended by Diderot. Mathematics and sciences were emphasized at the expense of the study of rhetoric, literature, and the classics. The curriculum generally included one course in Latin, one in literature, and none at all in rhetoric. Although this system of education lasted only a few years and was dismantled at the beginning of the Napoleonic Era, the demise of rhetoric as a mainspring of French education appeared unavoidable.⁵⁶

CONCLUSION

In the Quarrel, classical and modern critics scrutinized and defended traditional rhetorical theory and practice in a debate closely followed by the French public. That the moderns prevailed over the ancients can be seen when we note rhetoric's elimination from the curriculum immediately after the Revolution and also when we note the form and style of eighteenth century discourse, which departed so noticeably from the style of the old rhetoric. The Quarrel itself and the works it produced were a symptom if not a cause of these changes. The success of the moderns in the dispute can be attributed to at least two factors—the influence of Descartes and the classical critics' failure to respond to their audience's needs and interests.

The works of René Descartes, widely read and admired at the time of the Quarrel, were a factor in the moderns' success. Decartes professed disdain for rhetoric as taught and practiced in the seventeenth century. “Those who reason most strongly,” Descartes observed, “and who ponder their thoughts most carefully, so as to render them clear and intelligible, are always best able to persuade [their audience], even though they … have never learned the art of rhetoric.”⁵⁷ Descartes's followers, Perrault, the Port Royalists, and other modern critics, believed that familiarity with the Cartesian method was all that was necessary to produce excellent discourse and that formal study of rhetoric was unnecessary. Acceptance of Cartesianism undermined the respect for classical rules and for rhetoric; it also undermined the authority of the ancients and of the pedants who interpreted them.⁵⁸ It led the late seventeenth century public to challenge the supremacy of classical canons and rely instead on independent, reasoned judgment of the works to which they were exposed.⁵⁹ In short, the moderns' arguments succeeded because they were timely.

A second reason for the moderns' success was that they understood their readers and were better persuaders than were the classical critics. While the classical critics stood above their audience and attempted to dictate esthetic standards, the moderns identified with their audience and spoke for them. The classical critics viewed themselves as arbiters of taste and proposed the Sublime as an esthetic standard by which discourse was to be judged. The moderns replied that the Sublime was an indefinable ideal, and as representatives of the public they asked the defenders of the ancients for good reasons and sound arguments as to why the ancients were superior to the moderns.

Perrault's Parallèle, for example, was a decidedly rhetorical effort to deprive the ancients of their argument from tradition. (“Classical works should continue to be admired because they always have been.”) Perrault effectively shifted the burden of proof back to the side of the ancients and, after the publication of his work, the public awaited a response from Boileau. When the Réflexions sur Longin finally did appear, it was a disappointment. It was heavy-handed and difficult to read, and Boileau, instead of responding to Perrault's arguments as the public had hoped he would, dwelt on minor errors in Perrault's classical scholarship. His response carried little weight with the public, most of whom were not classical scholars themselves.⁶⁰ Fénelon's Lettre was also written for an elite audience—the members of the French Academy. To exemplify his arguments, Fénelon included over one hundred and forty citations from Greek and Latin works, many of them obscure. The arguments of the ancients' defenders were addressed primarily to the classically-educated elite among the French reading public and failed to win the adherence of that broad spectrum of French society—the honnêtes gens, many of whom scorned tradition and reverence for the classics.

A comparison of the states of eloquence and rhetoric before and after the Quarrel, then, shows marked differences. During the seventeenth century, orators and writers sought to persuade and entertain their audiences with an epideictic, ornamental rhetoric, but in the century which followed, their successors attempted to inform and instruct their audiences through arguments grounded in scientific and philosophical inquiry. The florid, overworked style of the seventeenth century was replaced by the plain, unstudied style of eighteenth century discourse, and eloquence came to be seen as a skill acquired through the practice of well-reasoned disputation rather than a particular erudition gleaned through study of classical models. Because of its concern with argument and persuasion, the “new rhetoric” of the Enlightenment was rhetoric nonetheless, as France's study of the rhetorical strategies of Descartes, d'Alembert, and Montesquieu clearly shows.⁶¹ But it was a rhetoric concerned with truth and discovery rather than ostentation and pleasure, and it marks a turn away from a traditional view of rhetoric as a purely ornamental art.

Notes

1. I have here listed only the three of six differences discussed by Howell which are most relevant to my study. Other differences which he isolates between the old and the new rhetorics include a focus on inductive (as opposed to enthymematic) proofs, shifts in organizational formats, and a change in the degree of cogency for rhetorical proofs. See Wilbur Samuel Howell, Eighteenth-Century British Logic and Rhetoric (Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1971), pp. 441-47.

2. See below.

3. For commentaries on the major works of the eighteenth century, see André Lagarde and Laurent Michard, XVIII^e Siècle (Paris: Les Editions Bordas, 1967); and Pierre-Georges Castex and Paul Surer, Manuel des études littéraires françaises: XVIII^e Siècle (Paris: Hachette, 1949). For more extensive treatments, see Robert Finch, The Sixth Sense: Individualism in French Poetry, 1686-1760 (Toronto: Univ. of Toronto Press, 1966); M. Gustave Lanson, Histoire de la littérature française (Paris: Hachette, 1908); Elbert B. Borgerhoff, The Freedom of French Classicism (Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1950).

4. Howell (pp. 505-24) observes that many aspects of Fénelon's rhetorical theory are “modern” as compared with the theories of his contemporaries. This is quite true, but Fénelon nevertheless must be placed in the ancients' rather than the moderns' camp in the Quarrel. His reliance on ancient theorists for the principal tenets of his theory, his unreserved praise of ancient orators and poets, and his love of the Greek and Latin languages make it clear that his sympathies lie with the ancients.

5. The Sublime was a concept vital to the classical critics' esthetic theory. Boileau, in particular, attempted to explain and illuminate the Sublime as a touchstone in rhetorical and literary criticism. For him it has two essential qualities: (1) it must strike and inspire the spirit of the listener or reader; and (2) it must be characterized by a natural, familiar, simple style. One frequently-cited example of the Sublime was the Fiat Lux passage from Genesis: “And God said ‘Let there be light: and there was light.’” See Nicholas Boileau-Despréaux, “Préface” to the Traité du Sublime in Oeuvres complètes (Paris: Editions Gallimard, 1966), p. 338; see also Théodore Litman, Le Sublime en France, 1660-1714 (Paris: A. G. Nizet, 1971), p. 75.

6. Seventeenth century writers who referred to “rhetoric” were actually referring to the old rhetoric as studied and taught in Jesuit schools and at the University of Paris. When they spoke of the practice (as opposed to the study) of fine public speaking, they used the term “eloquence.”

7. Howell's translation of Fénelon's Dialogues on Eloquence (Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1951), pp. 7-25. See also Walter J. Ong, S.J., Ramus: Method and the Decay of Dialogue (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press, 1958).

8. Howell, Dialogues, pp. 20-21.

9. Peter France, Rhetoric and Truth in France: Descartes to Diderot (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972), p. 4.

10. France, p. 13.

11. From Boileau's translation of [Longinus'] On the Sublime in Oeuvres complètes, p. 400. Unless otherwise noted, all translations from French works are the author's. Also, subsequent references to Boileau will be from the Traité du Sublime unless otherwise noted. Boileau's French translation of the Greek treatise, On the Sublime, first appeared in 1674. The translation is a very free one and in the end expresses Boileau's own thinking as much as it does that of the author of the treatise. As Litman noted (p. 71), “Let us note … that the Traité du Sublime is far from being a faithful translation of Longinus' work, and that Boileau, whose knowledge of Greek was not impeccable, was content with translating it very freely.” Boileau's translation, however, was widely read and quite popular. Even Fénelon, who read Greek, cited Boileau rather than the pseudo-Longinus. A thorough account of the influence of the Traité du Sublime on the French public is provided in Jules Brody, Boileau and Longinus (Genève: Librairie E. Droz, 1958), pp. 18-19.

12. France, p. 141.

13. For compilations of the oratory of seventeenth century religious figures, see Louis Bourdaloue, Oeuvres de Bourdaloue (Paris: Lefèvre, 1837); Oeuvres oratoires de Bossuet, ed. J. Lebarq (Paris: Desclée, de Bouvier et cie, 1890-1897); Oraisons funèbres [de Bossuet, Fléchier, et Mascaron], ed. M. Villemain (Paris: Firmin-Didot, 1889); and Jean Baptiste Massillon, Oeuvres complètes (Paris: Guerin, 1865-67). For studies of these speakers, see Anatole Feugère, Bourdaloue, Sa Prédication, et Son Temps (Paris, Perrin, 1888); Charles Emile Freppel, Bossuet et l'Eloquence sacrée au XVII^e Siècle (Paris: V. Retaux, 1893); and Jacques Truchet, La Prédication de Bossuet (Paris: Editions du Cerf, 1960).

14. Francois de Fénelon, Lettre à l'Académie, ed. Ernesta Caldarini (Genève: Librairie E. Droz, 1970), pp. 41-42. Written in 1713, the Lettre was first published in 1716. See my “Fénelon's Recommendations to the French Academy concerning Rhetoric,” Communication Monographs, 45 (1978), 75-84, for a brief publication history of this work.

15. René Rapin, Comparisons of the Great Men of Antiquity in The Whole Critical Works of Mon^R Rapin, trans. Basil Kennet (London: Walthoe, Wilkin, Bonwicke, Birt, Ward, Wicksted, 1731), I, 59. Subsequent references to Vol. I of the Critical Works will be to Rapin's Comparisons; references to Vol. II will be to Rapin's Reflections on Aristotle's Treatise of Poesie, trans. Thomas Rymer. The Critical Works is a translation of the 1684 collection of Rapin's oeuvres which I was unable to consult. For a treatment of Rapin's rhetorical theory, see Roger Meersman, “Père René Rapin's Eloquence des Belles Lettres,” Speech Monographs, 38 (1971), 290-301.

16. Charles Perrault, Parallèle des Anciens et des Modernes, II (1690; rpt. Munchen: Eidos, 1964), 254-55. Volumes I, III, and IV of this work were published in 1689, 1692, and 1697. Citations of the Parallèle will be hereafter cited as Perrault, II.

17. France, p. 115.

18. Fénelon, Lettre, pp. 40-41, describes the limited role played by eloquence in the France of his day.

19. Rémy G. Saisselin, The Rule of Reason and the Ruses of the Heart (Cleveland: Case Western Reserve Univ. Press, 1970), p. 8.

20. Boileau's Art poétique (1674) in Oeuvres complètes p. 182.

21. Boileau, p. 401.

22. Boileau, pp. 341-42.

23. If we considered nineteenth and twentieth century eloquence, could we find instances of the Sublime? Lincoln's “Gettysburg Address,” or perhaps King's “I Have a Dream”?

24. Rapin, I, 39.

25. Rapin, II, 142.

26. Rapin, I, 44.

27. Fénelon, Dialogues, pp. 61-62.

28. Fénelon, Lettre, p. 51.

29. Perrault, II, 136.

30. Perrault, I, 31.

31. Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle, “Discours sur la nature de l'eclogue” in Oeuvres de M^r de Fontenelle (Paris: Saillant, Desaint, Regnard, des Veuts de la Doué, 1767), IV, 143-44.

32. Arnauld and Nicole's Port Royal Logic, first written in 1662, predates the outbreak of the Quarrel by some twenty-five years. It was nevertheless well known to the French reading public, including the parties to the Quarrel, and directly or indirectly takes a position on many of the issues which later arose in their dispute.

33. Antoine Arnauld and Pierre Nicole, La Logique, ou l'Art de Penser (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1965), p. 241.

34. Hugh Davidson, Audience, Words, and Art: Studies in Seventeenth-Century French Rhetoric (Columbus: Ohio State Univ. Press, 1965), p. 67.

35. Arnauld and Nicole, p. 278.

36. Arnauld and Nicole, p. 287.

37. Arnauld and Nicole, p. 272.

38. Davidson, p. 82.

39. France, p. 78.

40. Jean d'Alembert, “Elocution,” Encyclopédie, ou Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts, et des métiers, V (Paris: Briasson, David, le Bréton, Durand, 1755), 521.

41. Boileau, p. 342. Boileau's position on the role of rhetorical study in attaining the Sublime changed in his later works. See Litman, p. 85.

42. Rapin, II, 139.

43. Rapin, Preface to Vol. I, n.p.

44. Fénelon, Lettre, p. 38.

45. Fénelon, Lettre, p. 61.

46. Fénelon, Lettre, p. 125.

47. Hippolyte Rigault, Histoire de la Querelle des Anciens et des Modernes (Paris: Libraire Hachette, 1856), p. 138. Rigault's is an excellent historical account of the writings of major figures in the Quarrel in France and in England. The Quarrel in France sparked an “English branch” in which the issues and outcomes were considerably different from those in France. See Richard Foster Jones, “The Background of The Battle of the Books,” in The Seventeenth Century: Studies in the History of English Thought and Literature from Bacon to Pope (Stanford: Stanford Univ. Press, 1951), pp. 10-40.

48. Perrault, II, 59.

49. Perrault, II, 73.

50. Perrault, II, 63.

51. Arnauld and Nicole, p. 276.

52. Arnauld and Nicole, p. 234.

53. Charles Rollin, De la Manière d'Enseigner et d'Etudier les Belles Lettres (Paris: l'Imprimérie Steréotype de Mame, Frères, 1810), I, 184.

54. Dennis Diderot, Plan of a University for the Russian Government, trans. and ed. F. de la Fontainerie (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1932), p. 243.

55. Diderot, p. 245.

56. For an account of post-Revolutionary changes in French education, see Emile Durkheim, The Evolution of Educational Thought: Lectures on the Formation and Development of Secondary Education in France, trans. Peter Collins (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1977).

57. René Descartes, Discours de la méthode (1637) in Oeuvres, ed. Charles Adam and Paul Tannery (Paris: Librairie Philosophique J. Vrin, 1965), VI, 7.

58. Saisselin, pp. 248-49.

59. For a full account of the influence of Cartesianism in France during the Quarrel, see Lanson, Origines et premières manifestations de l'esprit philosophique dans la littérature française de 1675 à 1748 (New York: Burt Franklin, n.d.; rpt. 1973).

60. For a description of public reaction to Boileau's response, see Rigault, p. 253. For the Réflexions sur Longin, see Boileau, pp. 493-563.

61. France, pp. 68-112.