Elizabeth Dyke’s manuscript lends itself readily to a study of its rhetoric, which Aristotle referred to the “available means of persuasion” of which a speaker made use (153). Chief among these means were the rhetorical appeals, which are most commonly recognized in contemporary classrooms as ethos, logos, and pathos. Today, we conceptualize rhetoric as more than oratory; rather, it’s the persuasion (or, according to Kenneth Burke, identification) that occurs within texts of any sort.
Another way to approach an understanding of rhetoric with regard to Elizabeth Dyke’s recipe book is through the concept of the rhetorical situation. Lloyd Bitzer writes that rhetorical situations are comprised of three components: exigences, audiences, and constraints. An exigence, according to Bitzer, is a kind of problem or obstacle to overcome; it’s an “urgency” or need that ought to be met (6). The audience is the recipient of the text or response written to the exigence. Constraints are anything which inhibit a response to this exigence. Among possible constraints to a rhetorical situation Bitzer includes beliefs, attitudes, facts, traditions, and more.
These frameworks can be applied to an understanding of Elizabeth Dyke’s manuscript. To what exigence was she responding? Who was likely her audience? Under what constraints did she operate in composing her recipes? To return to an Aristotelian notion of rhetoric, with what rhetorical appeals does Dyke compose her work? And, considering Burke’s work, does Dyke seek to build a shared understanding or identification between herself and her audiences?
Questions such as these do not necessarily have direct answers. But they can be used to productively analyze the manuscript as a whole or the individual recipes contained within it.
The following files are two examples of how one might begin a rhetorical analysis of specific recipes:
The specific recipes analyzed in these examples are pictured (and linked) below:
Works Cited and Additional Resources:
Aristotle. “From Rhetoric.” The Rhetorical Tradition: Readings from Classical Times to the Present, 2nd ed., edited by Patricia Bizzell and Bruce Herzberg, Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2001, pp. 169-240.
Bitzer, Lloyd. F. “The Rhetorical Situation.” Philosophy and Rhetoric, vol. 1, no. 1, 1968, pp. 1-14.
Burke, Kenneth. “Introduction” to A Rhetoric of Motives, U of California P, 1969.
Using Early Modern Recipes Today 