Artful Eloquence: Jean Lemaire de Belges and the Rhetorical Tradition

Jenkins challenges the notion that Lemaire’s recourse to rhetoric was an artistic failure, arguing that rhetoric was actually his success. He demonstrates the importance of rhetoric in pre-Renaissance French literature, filling a crucial gap in previous scholarship. Jenkins provides an overview of rhetorical tradition and Lemair’s knowledge of it before performing an analysis of some of the rhetorical aspects of Lemaire’s writing.