Thomae Mori verissima laus: Erasmus's use of topics in his epistolary description of Thomas More

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2020-11-13
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en
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This thesis seeks to shed a new light on Erasmus’s epistolary portrait of Thomas More (ep. 999). Up until now, letter 999 has primarily been read from a biographical perspective. This thesis, however, examines letter 999 from a rhetorical point of view. It consists of a comparison between Erasmus’s instructions on the use of topics in his Compendium rhetorices and his own use of these topics in letter 999. Based on this comparison, we can say that letter 999 is, in fact, almost entirely written according to Erasmus’s own instructions on topics. Moreover, Erasmus’s use of these topics constructs an idealised image of More, the Christian scholar. This conclusion does not counter the existing view that letter 999 is a sincere and accurate portrayal of More: in the eyes of Erasmus and his readers, descriptive texts like letter 999 can be rhetorical, truthful and sincere at once.
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