The Lost Seeds of Learning: Grammar, Logic, and Rhetoric as Life-Giving Arts

by Phillip J. Donnelly

The verbal arts of grammar, logic, and rhetoric are often referred to as tools of learning. But this analogy between words and tools too often relies on the common assumption that the verbal arts are merely neutral tools. Even reimagining the verbal arts as purposive tools that serve a good beyond themselves takes us only so far. We need an alternative analogy to stand against the cultural forces of consumption and production that often shape educational purposes in the age of global information technology. Thus, rather than tools, words are like seeds whose purpose is life-giving.

The Lost Seeds of Learning invites readers to consider how our understanding of the learners, the teachers, the content, the forms, and the purposes of the verbal arts becomes transformed in light of Christian faith. Recovering the vision of how grammar, logic, and rhetoric can be like seeds and not merely neutral tools helps us remember why these arts are crucial to Christian formation. These arts have an intrinsic purpose not of human choosing and a particular purpose to communicate new life. Such life communicated is a divine gift and the form of such communication can be self-giving. Such verbal giving and receiving is a living knowledge that relies on the testimony of particular persons over time. By imagining words as seeds, Christian educators can cultivate attention, patience, and responsible action rather than distraction, impatience, and paralysis.

Genres: Education

288 pages, Paperback

Published November 10, 2021

About the author

Phillip Donnelly is Associate Professor of Literature in the Honors College, and he teaches in both the Great Texts Program and the English Department. Before coming to Baylor, he taught at the University of Ottawa and at Texas Tech University. He currently serves as the Director for the Great Texts Program.

His research interests focus on the historical intersections between philosophy, theology, and imaginative literature, with particular attention to Renaissance literature and the reception of Classical educational traditions. The topics of his published work range from St. Augustine and post-modern critical theory to the Renaissance poetry of George Herbert and John Milton. He is a contributor to the new Milton Encyclopedia, edited by Thomas N. Corns (Yale University Press) and to the Oxford Guide to the Historical Reception of Augustine, edited by Karla Pollmann and Willemien Otten (Oxford University Press).

Source: http://www.baylor.edu/english/index.p...

See also: http://www.baylor.edu/great_texts/ind...

Reviews

[Jeremy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I review this book here. Ad Fontes review here.

[Samuel Sadler · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very mixed feelings about this book. When I was paying attention, the content was really valuable. The writing, however, I found very dry, which stretched my desire to pay attention.

[Davis Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

A valuable contribution to the classical education literature in many ways; I hope that the promised series eventually materializes. Donnelly has some very inspiring, exciting, and imaginative takes on the Trivium that go a long way toward revealing just how essential the concept is to the pursuit of human excellence. However, it does seem as if many books on the life of the mind from a Christian perspective end up hovering around these phrases/clichés waaayyy too much:

- "Cruciform existence"
- "In light of the Incarnation..."
- "We are bearers of the divine image"
- "I do not mean to suggest that [such and such] does not have theological value"
- "Seeking shalom"
- "Participating in divine revelation through charity"
- "Sacramental view of reality"
- "Through the self-emptying of Christ..."
- "The Gospel is translatable"

The typically cautious, painstaking writing style replete with such phrases made it seem as if I had read the book many times before, when really it turns out that a great deal of Christian scholars write exactly like this for some reason. Also, as I said in my review of The Liberal Arts Tradition, CAP publishes beautifully-presented books, but they really need to do something about the constant onslaught of footnotes.