By the middle of the seventeenth century, colleges were founded in many European cities mainly due to the relentless effort of the Jesuits. At the core of these institutions, students were to master the art of “elocution both in oratory and in poetry and that the instruction be based on the triumvirate composed by Cicero, Aristotle, and Quintilian” (Corbett and Connors 471). Along with these canonical volumes, the Jesuits used textbooks written by other members in their order. With a Christian audience in mind, Cypriano Soares wrote De Arte Rhetorica, a textbook that conveyed the precepts of the classical rhetorical tradition in a manageable and approachable manner for his students. Overall, the Jesuits created a curriculum that revolved around the instruction of classical rhetoric to enhance their students’ prose and oral discourse. A formal education was exclusively available to male students; teaching rhetoric to women was extraneous because they were not allowed to speak publicly like their male counterparts. With a clear
emphasis on style, rhetorical practices found strength in the hands of the Jesuits who made it regain its credibility. In 1622, John Brinsley developed an instructional curriculum that aimed to teach students how to write “quickly.” Part of Brinsley’s pedagogy was based upon the premise that in order to write well in English, students needed to read and write in the classical
languages:
Writing English was closely connected with study of the classical languages, and with oral performance. Translation, imitation of models, reading aloud, copying
dictated material and printed texts, and recitation both catechetical and
disputational were standard classroom activities. (Murphy, Short History 216) Prior to the Renaissance and after the fall of the Roman Empire, the presence of the study of rhetoric in the curriculum was scarce. In that regard, James Herrick claims that “rhetoric
flourished in the Renaissance as a method of instruction in writing and persuasion, an avenue to personal refinement, a means of managing the intricacies of civic and commercial interest, and a critical tool for studying a variety of literary texts both ancient and contemporary” (147).
Attaining rhetorical prowess entailed a methodical instruction that was fruitfully hewed to the popular aesthetic of the time.
Murphy states in A Short History of Writing Instruction that, prior to the eighteenth century, “the primary method of instruction was speech, and the translation, imitation, or composition a student wrote, whether in English or in one of the classical tongues, was
understood as a script for oral performance” (217). In British education, rhetoric drew heavily on stylistic modes of inquiry, especially during the Renaissance. Once again, translation positioned itself as one of the methods through which writing instruction was taught in the classroom. By the middle of the eighteenth century “Greek and Roman rhetorical devices became an integral part of the theory of translation, devices that classical antiquity had never applied to translation theories. This practice signals the apex of translation theories in the time after classical antiquity” (Biguenet and Schulte, Theories 16). Drilling grammar exercises and memorizing grammar structures continued to be the preferred methods of instruction well into the twentieth century. It was believed that to read and write well, students had to practice grammar assiduously. Since “writing instruction was in Latin, [students] were required to translate into a good English style.
[And so] writing and speaking, English and Latin were likely to be taught side by side” (Murphy,
Short History 180).
The eighteenth century marked the beginning of interdisciplinary approaches to rhetoric with an emphasis on delivery. Golden and Corbett call the Enlightenment a prolific era in the history of rhetoric; mainly because it is at this juncture that rhetoric regains its legitimacy in the British curriculum becoming a course of its own. Before the eighteenth century, “writing
instruction per se had centered upon oratory, letters, and sermons, [however] writing became the medium of communication and record” (Murphy 180). It is at this point in history that rhetoric started to merge with other disciplines. In the University of Edinburgh, a group of rhetoricians established a connection between rhetoric and psychology starting what would later be known as the Current-Traditional movement. Although acutely different from each other, Frederick Crews’
Random House Handbook and Alexander Bain’s English Composition and Rhetoric: A Manual
(1866) are considered the first Current-Traditional textbooks and manuals of written
composition. In his book, Bain mapped out how the power of psychological understanding lead students to mastering persuasive modes of thinking. This psychology of persuasion was also explored in the United States to increase personal power and gain control. Despite the emphasis on the belletristic quality of rhetoric, it became clear that rhetoric opened up a multiplicity of dialogues and initiated a blending process with other disciplines principally to obtain a thorough comprehension of all sorts of texts. Bain, for instance, recognized an alliance between rhetoric and philosophy in his book Philosophy of Rhetoric (1776). This is how rhetoric stepped out of its solitary status and became part of a larger scholarly discussion.