The Expansion of Compostion, Literature, Rhetoric and Education

The cross curricular elements of composition and rhetoric are greatly deserving of attention. Any teacher who has stood before a classroom of students can appreciate the value of being able to identify and explain the connection all academic areas share and how they enrich and strength each other. The prime example of this was The Illiad that served not only as one to the first records of rhetoric and the written language, but how rhetoric spans beyond the field of composition and literature. The Illiad proves that rhetoric is alive in literature (poetry), history, science, and religion. Literature is many times brushed off as unimportant when it contributes to so many other areas of study like history and science. This claim invalidates the claim of The Age of Reason that suggested it did not practice rhetoric. Without rhetoric it would not have been possible for these people to write their essays and share their views and ideas. It would appear that scholars of history and science would actually rely heavily on rhetoric. The progression of the practice is truly fascinating, and provides reasoning for the multiple definitions of rhetoric that are present in our world today.

Literature and history are often inseparable, and I find both to be exciting subjects. To look at the way these two subjects have influenced each other is thrilling. Literature is often used as a record for history, and history’s events often determine literary themes and styles. The Age of Reason brought about an abundance of essays, and the industrial revolution provided many writers, like Dickens, their subject matter. I would agree that Dante could be sighted as the beginning of the Renaissance, because The Divine Comedy opened the world of great literature to a broader group of people. He was one of the first poets to write one of his great works in his own vernacular (Italian). The Devine Comedy was not meant only for the upper class and the learned, but for another practical group of people. Any one who had the ability to read Italian had access to Dante’s Divine Comedy. Numerous poets, such as Chaucer, would follow Dante in writing in their own vernacular until it became quite common, but it would appear that the world of education still resisted opening itself to people who where not capable of speaking Greek and Latin. Starting at about the eighteenth century in Scotland professors of Edinburgh University took the English education down the path Dante had started with literature. By teaching mostly in English and allowing students who did not speak Greek of Latin into their course these professors opened education to a whole new class. Scotland seems to have set the standard as many other English universities followed. The Scottish Universities even made higher education not merely available to people of a lower class but also affordable. In The Formation of College English: Rhetoric and Belles Lettres in the British Culture Provinces Thomas Miller claims many students were granted financial aid not only from parishes and patrons but from university scholarships as well. The Scottish universities even began the destruction of the religious barriers in place in many English institutions. This may have been the beginning of the destruction of many of the barriers that would be and still are being broken in the English society today.