Untutored Lines

William P. Weaver is an assistant professor of literature in the Honors College of Baylor University, where he teaches Great Texts. His articles on Renaissance poetry and rhetoric have appeared in Shakespeare Quarterly, Studies in Philology, Spenser Studies, and Rhetorica.

• Acknowledgements; Introduction; Rites of passage; Scenes of performance: 1. Progymnasmata: Humanist Rites of Passage; The progymnasmata as an introduction to the art of rhetoric; Disciplinary boundaries in the English grammar school; Literary exercise between the disciplines; From discursive plenitude to disciplinary correction; Part I. Rudiments of Eloquence: Boyhood; 2. Fabula: Observing 'Amorous Rites' in Hero and Leander; Musaeus among the rudiments of eloquence; Marlowe's paraphrase; Leander in the scene of culture; Puberty rites and the English epyllion; 3. Chreia: Making Themes in Venus and Adonis; Boyhood study; Boyhood style; 'The lesson is but plain'; Venus' frustrated banquet; 4. Narratiuncula: Coming of Age in Oenone and Paris; Vivid narration; Paris at the crossroads; Paris in the upper forms; Irony, pathos, and the 'courteous reader'; Part II. First Exercises: Adolescence; 5. Narratio and Confirmatio: Forensic Performance in Lucrece; Adolescent study and style; Lucrece's narratio; Night, opportunity, and time; Troy and the perjured self; Lucrece's confirmatio; 6. Encomium: Antinous as Lord of Misrule in Orchestra; Aphthonian man; Tedious praise; Misrule; Poetic rule; 7. Thesis: Controlling Speech in Cephalus and Procris; 'Methinks the man amendeth the matter much'; Man, horse, and dogs; On contrarieties he answer made; Secret muse; Epilogue: Jesus' First Exercises in Paradise Regained; Appendix; Notes.

Weaver’s careful study of the making of the epyllion opens up further lines of inquiry.