Sister Miriam Joseph (Books)

Sister Miriam Joseph Books

Sister Miriam Joseph Rauh was a pioneering educator and author dedicated to the principles of medieval liberal arts education. Her seminal work delves into the foundational trivium of grammar, logic, and rhetoric, exploring how these disciplines shape critical thinking and effective communication. Rauh's approach emphasizes the enduring relevance of classical learning, offering insights into the structure of knowledge and the art of clear expression. Her writings illuminate the timeless connection between rigorous intellectual training and a profound understanding of the world.

Shakespeare's Use of the Arts of Language

423 pages
15 hours of reading

4.3(40)Add rating

Grammar-school students in Shakespeare's time were taught to recognise the two hundred figures of speech that Renaissance scholars had derived from Latin and Greek sources (from amphibologia through onomatopoeia to zeugma). This knowledge was one element in their thorough grounding in the liberal arts of logic, grammar, and rhetoric, known as the trivium. In Shakespeare's Use of the Arts of Language Sister Miriam Joseph writes: "The extraordinary power, vitality, and richness of Shakespeare's language are due in part to his genius, in part to the fact that the unsettled linguistic forms of his age promoted to an unusual degree the spirit of creativeness, and in part to the theory of composition then prevailing . . . The purpose of this study is to present to the modern reader the general theory of composition current in Shakespeare's England." The author then lays out those figures of speech in simple, understandable patterns and explains each one with examples from Shakespeare. Her analysis of his plays and poems illustrates that the Bard knew more about rhetoric than perhaps anyone else. Originally published in 1947, this book is a classic.