Invention

doi:10.1017/CHOL9780521300087.014

12 - Invention

from II - The rediscovery and transmission of materials

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 March 2008

Ullrich Langer

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Glyn P. Norton

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Glyn P. Norton: Affiliation:
Williams College, Massachusetts

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Summary

In the European Renaissance the term invention has many senses, several of which inform poetic theory and literary criticism: a ‘discovery’, a ‘finding’, the ‘faculty of discovery’ but also the ‘thing found’; something close to ‘imagination’, ‘wit’, and positively or pejoratively a ‘technique’ or ‘artifice’. Dominating the concept of poetic invention is the meaning of inventio in (mainly Latin) rhetorical theory. The noun inventio corresponds to the verb invenire [to find, to discover, to come upon]. In rhetorical treatises, at the place of invenire we often find reperire [to find, to discover] or excogitare [to think of, to find by reflection]. The most lucid and accessible account of the process of ‘finding’ that informs rhetorical composition is given by Cicero, in his De partitione oratoria (especially 1.3-2.5). The orator derives his ‘power’ [vis] from two sources: first, his res (the ‘things’ of the speech: subject-matter, including both ideas and facts); second, his verba (the words chosen to convey subject-matter). The finding of subject-matter precedes the finding of words, and although inventio is sometimes loosely applied to both kinds of finding, generally inventio concerns only subject-matter, not words, which are the province of elocutio [eloquence]. In composing a speech the orator has in mind an aim, an intention (quaestio: either unlimited, in the sense of a general enquiry, or specific, a causa). In order to achieve this aim, the orator must find subject-matter that will both convince his audience (literally, produce faith, confidence, or belief, fides, in those he wishes to persuade) and move the audience's emotions.

Type: Chapter
Information: The Cambridge History of Literary Criticism , pp. 136 - 144

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CHOL9780521300087.014 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 1999

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12 - Invention

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