Rhetoric Retold: Regendering the Tradition from Antiquity Through the Renaissance

by Cheryl Glenn

After explaining how and why women have been excluded from the rhetorical tradition from antiquity through the Renaissance, Cheryl Glenn provides the opportunity for Sappho, Aspasia, Diotima, Hortensia, Fulvia, Julian of Norwich, Margery Kempe, Margaret More Roper, Anne Askew, and Elizabeth I to speak with equal authority and as eloquently as Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, and Augustine. Her aim is nothing less than regendering and changing forever the history of rhetoric. To that end, Glenn locates women's contributions to and participation in the rhetorical tradition and writes them into an expanded, inclusive tradition. She regenders the tradition by designating those terms of identity that have promoted and supported men's control of public, persuasive discourse--the culturally constructed social relations between, the appropriate roles for, and the subjective identities of women and men. Glenn is the first scholar to contextualize, analyze, and follow the migration of women's rhetorical accomplishments systematically. To locate these women, she follows the migration of the Western intellectual tradition from its inception in classical antiquity and its confrontation with and ultimate appropriation by evangelical Christianity to its force in the medieval Church and in Tudor arts and politics.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0809321378
• ISBN13: 9780809321377
• Release Date: December 1997
• Publisher: Southern Illinois University Press
• Length: 248 Pages
• Weight: 0.82 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 6.0" x 8.9"

Customer Reviews

Superior Guide to Context--Plugs the Lacunae

I came upon this book on a PHD exam reading list, and after the other thirty seven canonical books I've recently read, this felt useful and completing. What Glenn does is not merely put forth a feminist reconstruction of the long history of rhetoric; she makes compelling and commonsense completions to advance an entire history of rhetoric. In addition, her sensibility about laws and atmospheres of various places and times adds to any reader's understanding of gender relations from a historical perspective. She highlights the subtle differences and shifts in patriarchy over time. An excellent book; well-researched;a pleasure to read.

Rhetoric Retold: Retold

Glenn accomplishes what no other feminist author has ever attempted--she has written a history for rhetoric that includes women. Before we have seen separatist books about women in rhetoric, but never a book that places Sappho on an equal level with Homer. Glenn is the first to reintegrate women into an area of study where they have thus far been denied.Glenn's history of rhetoric is itself a wonderful piece of rhetoric. I recommend this book highly--and not just because she is one of my professors at Penn State.