Bossuet's once-celebrated eloquence is now almost unknown; among those who felt his renown of yesteryear, very few will dare try to explain it. / Marked simultaneously by the Council of Trent's resolutions inciting Christian orators to show more sobriety, and by the necessity to rouse an audience not much inclined to evangelical simplicity (the courtesans of Louis XIV), the rhetoric of funeral orations may well result from the skillful integration of rhetoric techniques that were once pagan to the Christian mindset. / Bossuet taught a lesson in humility, modesty and piety, in a language that was bound to leave an imprint on the worldly; heroics, praise, moral portrait, epic tables and Cornelian vocabulary, usually destined for entertainment, were now used to convert: pagan techniques to save souls.... / It is quite possible that the eloquence of Bossuet resides within such a paradox.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:QMM.29519 |
| Date | January 2002 |
| Creators | Pham, Lan Vi Colombe |
| Contributors | Charbonneau, Frederic (advisor) |
| Publisher | McGill University |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Coverage | Master of Arts (Département de langue et littérature françaises.) |
| Rights | All items in eScholarship@McGill are protected by copyright with all rights reserved unless otherwise indicated. |
| Relation | alephsysno: 001956918, proquestno: MQ85870, Theses scanned by UMI/ProQuest. |
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