La rhétorique de l’exhortation dans les sermons et oraisons funèbres de Jacques Benigne Bossuet

Abstract

This work is entitled : La rhétorique de l'exhortation dans Les Sermons et Oraisons funèbres de Bossuet. It shows how Bossuet's discourse affects his audience. As such, this study posits that Bossuet's works constitute a discourse on exhortation. As result, can we interrogate and understand this influence? In other words, what linguistic or even rhetorical material does such a speaker use, and what impact does this have on his audience? The hypothesis that follows from this is that Bossuet uses rhetoric to reach his audience, with a view to converting them and/or persuading them to adhere to his ideology. It is with a view to highlighting the rhetoric that this work follows argumentation as a theory. Developed by Oswald Ducrot, it emphasizes ethos and pathos as the real elements of conviction, rather than the sequence of arguments customary in early rhetoric. It provides a clearer picture of Bossuet's strategies for convincing his audience. To answer our questions, we have divided our study into two parts, each comprising two chapters. The first, ethos in Sermons and Funeral Overtures, focuses on the personality of the speaker. The second, a study of explicit nouns, identifies audience types. The penultimate chapter, modalities of utterance and enunciation, focuses on the speaker's involvement in his or her words. The final chapter highlights the various empirical arguments. The result of these analyses is that Bossuet's discourse induces rhetoric of exhortation.