To Professor Richard Rice, sublime in mastery of
Aristotelian argot and Dragganian dialectic, from Lancia Stewart in her ardent and
faithful scholarship, voicing willing obedience and professing earnest
friendship.
This humble student wishes glad tidings upon your endeavors and those of kith and kin,
with sincere aspirations of future collaboration. As I proceed upward in avid
fellowship of esteemed learning, I entreat your tenacity of wit and steadfast
dedication to secure conscience and veracity in rhetorical thought, word, and
deed. To these ends, I importune upon your knowledge and generosity to guide my modest
ventures. Your mindful tutelage shall underpin my examinations of nebulous
parlance in martial colloquy and quest to unravel the Gordian Knot of statecraft seductions. The fruit of these blessings I shall bestow to your credit and virtue, and therefore grant
supplication to academia in your honorable service.
Always Thy Servant and Ever Respectfully, Lancia Stewart
Lancia--Most excellent post, thou most logical, astute, and thoughtful student of the highest possible order. Good thinking through of salutation, securing of goodwill, narration, petitio, and conclusion. Each of these rhetorical elements should be added to your rhetorical terms list. We are reading now about copia and lists which situate best practices for each of these sections of an effective letter. Still, each of these sections, I believe, are helpful in composing letters today, don't you think? Great topic for us to think about. Always YOUR servant!
ReplyDeleteLancia - I love your post! I just read Michael's, which is also great, but in a different way. Yours reminds me more of Victorian letters. (I have my MA in Lit and focused on Gothic.) This took me back to Dracula and early women writers! What I found most interesting between your two posts though is how concise Michael was and how vague you were able to be, while you both maintained the essence of this genre. You definitely embraced the style aspect and worked to sound more eloquent than content-driven, whereas most of Michael's letter was the other way around, although he was more ornate in his salutation, secreting of goodwill, and conclusion. Interesting stuff! Now that I've seen two excellent examples, I need to get mine posted. This has been quite the week and I am behind. Boo!
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