Renaissance Rhetoric

During the Renaissance, traditional establishments such as the Roman Catholic Church, as well as the way of thinking that accompanied such establishments. People began to look to science, and literature for answers and institutions that allowed more of the population to be educated were established. During this time, people began to look at the teachings of the ancient Greeks, and thus rhetoric became one of the things that was focused on during this time of scholarly expansion. During the Renaissance, it is hard to pinpoint the origin of rhetoric during this time, although it has been traced through certain scholars who have coupled rhetoric with philosophy and eloquence, rather than keeping keeping the scope of rhetoric focused on figures and tropes. Though rhetoric is hard to trace in the Renaissance by not being chronological or geographical, we do see some of the outcomes of rhetoric during this time. For example Ramus took the responsibility upon himself to simplify rhetoric. Rhetoric needed to be simplified due to what was going on with the times. Simplified rhetoric was necessary because more people were becoming literate, and they needed to be able to comprehend the rhetoric that they could now access. Also, in correlation with the printing press, books were becoming smaller because technology allowed for people to move more freely about the land and so books needed to be portable. The simplification of rhetoric allowed for the increasing literate population to bring books along with them.