Early Medieval Rhetoric in the Light of Principia Rhetorices: Dilemma of Augustine and Pseudo-Augustine
Being one of the Church Fathers and Saints, Augustine’s (354-430) little work titled Principia Rhetorices, which french priest Jacques-Paul Migne attached to the appendix of the first one (PL32) of the volumes that he published Augustine’s works in the series titled Patrologia Latina gathered in 221 volumes, is important in the sense that it presents the views of him or his followers. There are several ongoing arguments about who its writer is. Written as a synoptic manual, the work consists of ten chapters (caput) and each chapter has its own explicatory little title. In this study, after given an outline of Augustine and his works the art of rhetoric in the Early Middle Ages will be discussed at first. Secondly, the views concerning rhetoric in the manual, Principia Rhetorices, attributed to Augustine will be explained with charts, then with reference to the discussions over the writer of the aforementioned work, remarks will be stated regarding the dilemma of Augustine and Pseudo-Augustine. At the end of the study, the first translation of the aforementioned work from its original language Latin to our language Turkish will be presented.
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