A member of the Sisters of the Holy Cross, Sister Miriam was professor of English at Saint Marys College from 1931 to 1960. Sister Miriam Joseph (1898-1982) earned her doctorate from Columbia University. Her analysis of his plays and poems illustrates that the Bard knew more about rhetoric than perhaps anyone else. In her classic 1947 book, she lays out these figures of speech in simple, understandable patterns and explains each one with examples from Shakespeare. Sister Miriam Joseph views this theory of composition as integral to Shakespeares mastery of language. The book manifests enormous learning and real wisdom in applying that erudition to the needs of contemporary readers.-Harold Bloom The importance of this book is that it makes clear what we ought to mean when we call Shakespeare an artist in language.The average person today knows two figures of speech if he knows any.Shakespeare knew two hundred.-Mark Van Doren, New York Herald Tribune As part of their education in the trivium (the liberal arts of logic, grammar, and rhetoric), grammar school students in Shakespeares time were taught to recognize the two hundred figures of speech that Renaissance scholars had derived from Latin and Greek sources. Book Synopsis Paul Dry Books edition of this 1947 classic has been produced with the highest publishing standards as a companion to our edition of The Trivium Sister Miriam Josephs Shakespeares Use of the Arts of Language remains, after more than half a century, an immensely valuable aid to serious students of the greatest of all writers. This dense, authoritative textbook takes all of Aristotle's teachings on logic, grammar, and rhetoric, and some of his teachings of poetics, adds some of the insights gained in the subsequent centuries, and presents it in a well-organized flow.About the Book From amphibologia through onomatopoeia to zeugma, you too can master Shakespeares 200 figures of speech. And since then, The 'Trivium' continues to be rediscovered by new generations of writers and teachers. In 1947, when Columbia University Press published her celebrated dissertation, 'Shakespeare's Use of the Arts of Language,' Sister Miriam Joseph's previously published textbook gained wider notice. While most textbooks are lucky to enjoy a shelf life of three or four years, 'The Trivium' followed a different path.

In medieval universities, the Trivium comprised the three subjects that were taught first, specifically in this order: grammar, logic and rhetoric. The 'Trivium' is a systematic method of critical thinking for deriving certainty from any information coming into the mind via the five senses.

Full facsimile of the original edition, not reproduced with Optical Recognition Software.

The trivium sister miriam joseph