Before the Middle Ages

Abstract

Chapter 1 traces the millennial length of a theoretical discourse about affectio that begins with Cicero’s De inventione before turning to a tradition of stylistic teaching that arose in parallel with that speculative rhetorical thought and that was to have much more profound consequences for medieval rhetorical practice. Cicero’s De inventione was the main Latin rhetorical treatise, along with Rhetorica ad Herennium, that the Middle Ages inherited from antiquity. Cicero treats emotion (affectio) as a topic of invention, and understands it in philosophical terms as a perturbation of the soul. That philosophical approach was elaborated in medieval commentaries. The chapter then turns to late antique handbooks of style. Style came to constitute a separate study; through these influences, style also became the main conduit for teaching emotion and rhetorical persuasion.