The rhetorical coherence of Hooker's Preface to the Lawes. Issue 1 (6th October 2014)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Graves, Daniel
• Is Part Of: Reformation & Renaissance review. Volume 16:Issue 1(2014)
• Page Start: 9
• Page End: 23
• Publication Date: 2014-10-06
• Subjects: Richard Hooker -- Preface to the Lawes -- rhetoric -- digressio -- puritanism -- George Cranmer; Reformation -- Periodicals; Renaissance -- Periodicals; 270.605
• DOI: 10.1179/1462245914Z.00000000045
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1462-2459

Abstract

Abstract : This study questions the current consensus that chapters eight and nine of the Preface to Hooker's Lawes were added quickly on last-minute advice from George Cranmer for polemical purposes. In contrast, this paper argues for the Preface's rhetorical unity by suggesting Hooker had a firm command of his dispositio [layout], and that the Preface we know is the one intended. The justification is threefold. First: the article claims that on textual grounds Cranmer's 'An Excellent Letter' had little to do with the Preface despite claims to the contrary; rather, that letter influenced Hooker's Dedicatory Epistle to Archbishop Whitgift in Book V of the Lawes . To demonstrate this, we will cite five textual relationships between those two texts. Second: we explain the break between chapters seven and eight of the Preface by seeing chapter eight as a form of the classical digressio . Finally, we highlight the thematic unity of the Preface and illustrate how the eighth and ninth chapters form a rhetorical climax.