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ANTO ́NIA SZABARI

of public speech. The most lasting consequence of his rhetorical practice consists in the
transformation of public speech while maintaining its reference to the sacred. According
to the analysis presented in this paper, at the historical basis of the modern arena of
public speech are not only eighteenth-century coffee houses (as the Habermasian notion
of the public sphere might suggest) but also the violent pamphlet wars of the Reformation.
If true, this insight should contribute to our understanding of the modern public sphere
and of public speech.

Luther’s Double Tongue

With its triple aim—docere,movere,delectare—in the early modern period classical rheto-
ric provided a conceptual framework for thinking about speech as an interpersonal act in
which a speaker produces an effect on an interlocutor. Seen as formal (oration, poem,
tract, etc.) or informal (dialogue, colloquy, letter, etc.), rhetoric conceives of speech as
originating in a rational individual producing an intellectual effect and sometimes also an
affect in another individual or in a collective. The aim of rhetoric is to lodge the effect
produced by speech in a rational interlocutor capable of calculating the interlocutor’s
thoughts and affects; in the strict sense, classical and Renaissance rhetoric is interested in
the act of speaking insofar as its effects can be predicted and circumscribed. Defining
speech asratio, it cautions against an excessive use of affective language. Within the
framework of classical and Renaissance rhetoric, Luther’s rhetorical practice of intensify-
ing the injurious effect of language can only be described as transgression and excess. This
is not to dispute the fact that Luther’s practice lends itself to analysis in the terms of
classical rhetoric, even less to argue that Luther ignored the rules of rhetoric, but rather
to argue that his texts tend to operate at the limits of the norms that classical rhetoric
prescribes.^4 Luther liked consciously to stretch the boundaries that in traditional rhetoric
separateelegantiaandurbanitasfrom licentious, obscene, or hurtful speech.^5 With consid-
erable self-irony, he referred to his own rhetorical excesses by calling himself a ‘‘chatterer
[Ich bin ein Wa ̈scher].’’^6
In early modern Europe, a good reputation conveyed social power, and the goal of
humanist education and rhetorical training was to attain it. Culturally, slander was sanc-
tioned as a form of challenge only within a culture of glory and political fame.^7 Dishonor-
ing one’s enemies or rivals was one of the ‘‘uses of works of art’’ (e.g., in the defamatory
images of traitors and rebels in the Italian Renaissance).^8 As the cultural elite, however,
Renaissance humanists promoted an ethics of moderation and control, one that relied on
the intellectual and moral ideal of the educated subject of humanism. The prominent
Dutch humanist Erasmus, observing the success and the popularity of the printing press,
laments in the 1508 edition of hisAdagesthat this new invention not only makes possible
the fast dissemination of classical works but also provides numerous opportunities for

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