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1 - Introduction

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 January 2010

By
Hugh Craig  and
Arthur F. Kinney
Edited by
Hugh Craig  and
Arthur F. Kinney
Hugh Craig
Affiliation:
University of Newcastle, New South Wales
Arthur F. Kinney
Affiliation:
University of Massachusetts, Amherst
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Summary

One of the earliest champions of language in Shakespeare's time was Thomas Wilson. In The Arte of Rhetorique (1553) he declares that

Suche force hath the tongue, and such is the power of eloquence and reason, that most men are forced euen to yelde in that, whiche most standeth againste their will. And therfore the Poetes do feyne that Hercules being a man of greate wisdome, had all men lincked together by the eares in a chaine, to draw them and leade them euen as he lusted. For his witte was so greate, his tongue so eloquente, & his experience suche, that no one man was able to withstand his reason, but euerye one was rather driuen to do that whiche he woulde, and to wil that whiche he did, agreeing to his aduise both in word & worke, in all that euer they were able.

Neither can I see that menne coulde haue bene broughte by anye other meanes to lyue together in felowshyppe of life, to mayntayne Cities, to deale trulye, and willyngelye to obeye one another, if menne at the firste hadde not by Art and eloquence perswaded that, which they ful oft found out by reason.

(sigs. A3v–A4r)

At the time such ideas were not especially original – the works of Aristotle and Cicero in the Tudor grammar schools had made them commonplace – but Wilson's ambition and vision are nevertheless unusual.

Type
Chapter
Information
Shakespeare, Computers, and the Mystery of Authorship , pp. 1 - 14
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2009

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References

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