Anselm, Retorikk i konflikt

Abstract

This assignment will focus on Anselm as a rhetorician through letter writing during conflict. To find the different rhetorical strategies he used in his letters I’ve read all of the letters of his collection, translated by Walter Fröhlich, to find his rhetorical norm for writing letters. After that I was able to find what kind of language, attitude, structure and more, that was unique to the letters of conflict. In this analysis I’ve categorized the letters to six categories; Anselm’s rhetorical norm to the clergy, Anselm’s rhetorical norm to monarchs, letters during indirect conflict with the clergy, letters during indirect conflict with monarchs, letters during direct conflict with the clergy, and letters during direct conflict with monarchs. Out of all the letters, I’ve highlighted a few of them to use as examples in this assignment and I’ve analyzed them in accordance with Murphy’s five parts that the letter should contain. In addition to this I’ve looked at the work of other historians to see which discoveries they’ve made on the topic, and have found that while some of them mention parts of Anselm’s rhetorical skills, and call him a rhetorical genius, none have touched the subject of Anselm’s rhetoric specifically during conflict and how conflict affected the way he wrote to his receivers. Although many have written about letter writing in the 1000’s to the 1100’s in general, and this have given me insight and information that I have been able to utilize in my interpretation of Anselm as a rhetorician and as a letter writer.