THE CLASSICAL TRIVIUM: THE PLACE OF THOMAS NASHE IN THE LEARNING OF HIS TIME

McLUHAN, MARSHALL & W. TERRENCE GORDON (Editor)

ISBN 10: 1584232358 / ISBN 13: 9781584232353

Published by Gingko Press, Corte Madera, CA, 2006

About this Item

pp: xv [1] 2 - 276. The first edition, bound in pale yellow, stiff card covers with French flaps. The pale yellow becomes darker yellow on the bottom third of the covers. This is a near fine copy in unread condition. The base of the spine has been lightly bumped. The book contains McLuhan's previously unpublished 1943 Cambridge University doctoral dissertation. In this thesis one finds the beginnings of McLuhan's world-shaking theories on media and communication. It was published posthumously in 2006. In this work, McLuhan's first foray into his ".future work on the interpretation of contemporary mediated culture, but also its application, as the author construes the entirety of Western culture through mutual relationships of the trivial arts - grammar, dialectic, and rhetoric." (Review by Nadia Dellicata, Regis College, Toronto School of Theology). I believe the importance of this volume to McLuhan's later contributions to twentieth century history cannot be overstated.

Seller Inventory # 009064

Bibliographic Details

• Title: THE CLASSICAL TRIVIUM: THE PLACE OF THOMAS NASHE IN THE LEARNING OF HIS TIME
• Publisher: Gingko Press, Corte Madera, CA
• Publication Date: 2006
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1584232358
• ISBN 13: 9781584232353
• Binding: Soft cover
• Edition: 1st Edition
• Condition: Near Fine
• Dust Jacket Condition: Not Issued
• Weight: 0.66 kilograms

About this title

Synopsis

Before Marshall McLuhan became the media & communications philosopher of the modern age, he wrote a doctoral dissertation that provided scholars with a thorough examination of the 16th century's "age of rhetoric."
In this previously unpublished work, a young McLuhan, as cultural historian, illuminates the complexities of the classical trivium, provides the first ever close reading of the enigmatic Elizabethan writer Thomas Nashe, and implicitly challenges the reader to accept a new blueprint for literary education. Ideas that would ground McLuhan's media analysis of the 1960s and 70s are here in embryo, as he sets out in scrupulous detail the role of grammar (interpretation), dialectic, and rhetoric in classical learning.
Under McLuhan's scholarly microscope, the internal dynamics of the trivium and its purpose are revealed. As is its indispensable role in giving full due to the rich prose of Thomas Nashe. In ranging over literature from Cicero to the sixteenth century, McLuhan discovers the source and significance of multiple traditions in Nashe's writings. Here, more than half a century after it was written, is a fresh, insightful, and richly coherent framework for studying Nashe and an unequivocal call for a program of education based on the ambitious and lofty ideal of reintegrating the classical trivium.

About the Author

Marshall McLuhan (1911 - 1980) was honoured for his achievemnets by institutions and governments across Europe and North America. His books have been published in more than a dozen languages and continue to sell throughout the world.