'He speaks to me as if I was a public meeting': rhetoric and audience in the works of the Ancrene Wisse Group

Millett, Bella (2008) 'He speaks to me as if I was a public meeting': rhetoric and audience in the works of the Ancrene Wisse Group. In, McAvoy, Liz Herbert (ed.) Rhetoric of the Anchorhold: Space, Place and Body within the Discourses of Enclosure. (Religion and Culture in the Middle Ages) Cardiff, UK. University of Wales Press, pp. 50-65.

Record type: Book Section

Abstract

'Among the works of the [Ancrene Wisse] Group, Ancrene Wisse is exceptional in the multilayered nature of its rhetoric... [it] draws on a wider range of sources than any other work of the group, not all of them composed for anchoritic use, and incorporates material suitable for a wide variety of audiences, not all of them anchoritic. It is not surprising that from a very early stage it began to be adapted for other purposes and for other kinds of audience ... but in those forms of the work not adapted in this way, its rhetorical focus is primarily on its immediate audience', treating other audiences as potential rather than actual and using a 'private and intimate rhetoric'.

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