Ithaca College

Bob Sullivan is co-editor of a new book, Thomas Elyot  Four Works on Counsel: The Doctrinal of Princes, Pasquill the Playne, Of That Knowlage Whiche Maketh a Wise Man, and the The Defence of Good Women. Robert Sullivan and Arthur Walzer, eds. (International Studies in the History of Rhetoric) Leiden: Brill, 2018. As a long time advocate for mentored inquiry at the College, Bob is especially pleased that two IC students (Julia Becker '14 and Emily Gallik '15) are given credit as editorial assistants, both in the table of contents and on the title pages of two of the texts.

The volume contains the first modern scholarly editions of Sir Thomas Elyot’s (1490-1546) four most important works on the rhetoric of counsel. Elyot's position as a counselor to Henry VIII was fraught, to say the very least. A friend of Thomas More, he was patronized by both Cardinal Wolsey and Thomas Cromwell. A devout Catholic, Elyot opposed the Protestants in Henry's court and publically supported Catherine of Aragon in the matter of her divorce. Accordingly, Elyot was acutely aware of the difficulties, indeed the dangers, of offering frank counsel in an increasingly autocratic polity. The Doctrinal of Princes (1533), Elyot's translation of Isocrates’ treatise on kingship, To Nicocles, was probably the first printed book to directly translate a Greek text into English.  Of That Knowlage Whiche Maketh a Wise Man (1534) imitates the structure of a Platonic dialogue to reflect on the responsibilities, challenges, and methods of advising a prince. Pasquill the Playne (1533), the first English pasquinade,addresses the same subject in parodic form. The Defence of Good Women (1540) was the first printed book in English to argue for the moral and political equality of women to men. All of Elyot’s texts demonstrate how rhetoric was received by humanists as a valued artifact of Classical antiquity and, just as importantly, how rhetoric was actually used within Renaissance courts. Each text is accompanied by a comprehensive apparatus criticus registering variations in all surviving editions and full notation. The volume also contains essays by the editors on Elyot’s biography and career, his influences, rhetorical purposes, and abilities as a translator, as well as extensive commentaries on each of the works.