Blog for Tuesday (anti-procrastination)

Murphy.  Chapter 5.  Renaissance Rhetoric and Writing.

This is early, but I was in the mood for a little more history.  I'm hoping I'm doing this assignment correctly; I may be editing this post later.

I love reading about historical pedagogy.  It is my favorite part of books dealing with Shakespeare.  This might be my favorite Murphy chapter.  Reminds me once again that I'm glad to live now -- in the first place, I have access to education; in the second place, I don't have to come up with 200 different ways to write something like "it's nice to hear from you."

Questions:

146: Murphy points out that rhetoric was was often over shadowed by philosophy and theology.  What is the difference?  Is there truly a difference between rhetoric and philosophy?  As we have seen, ancient philosophers certainly discussed the nature of rhetoric.

147: The Renaissance had access to texts people of the medieval era did not.  How might medieval rhetoric and/or education been different with access to these texts?  Since the Church Fathers often had difficulties reconciling pagan and Christian thought, would having access to, say, Cicero, made a difference?

155: What must writing instruction be like during a time when (English) spelling and grammar rules were not yet completely in place?  What was it like learning Latin grammar in such a situation? 

160: What sorts of "little speeches" have you/we picked up in out late twentieth/early twenty-first education?  Are these the sorts of figures Plato railed against?

168: Murphy says girls were educated for the private life, boys for the public.  The idea of the public and private spheres arose out of the late twentieth century.  Can we really claim Renaissance women only moved in the private (home) sphere when many worked in businesses and participated in the marketplace?  Or should a local economy be considered the private sphere?  Moreover, Murphy quotes Margaret King that women were educated to go nowhere and do nothing.  Humanists saw educated women as a vital part of Christianity -- and of educating others (children).  Would the patriarchy really expend resources to educate women if they were truly meant to do nothing with it?  And isn't it sort of a patriarchal notice to suggest that this (masculine)(grammar school/Jesuit school) education was the only kind worth having?  

--Natasha