The Rhetoric of Character in Baudri of Bourgueil’s Adaptation of <i>Heroides </i>16 and 17

Several scholars have suggested that character in some medieval texts evolves from rhetoric. This essay argues that character that emerges from rhetoric is not distinct from rhetoric, but another form of it. The essay argues that the work of Baudri of Bourgueil reveals a continuum of rhetoric enveloping argumentative rhetoric and character-based rhetoric in Carmina 7 and 8 – the eleventh-century Latin verse adaptation of Ovid’s Heroides 16 and 17, namely, the letters of Paris and Helen. Rhetoric and character are dialogical in Baudri’s development of their letters. Paris's use of argumentative rhetoric – arguments that he intends to persuade – elicits Helen’s character-based rhetoric drawn from medieval rhetorical handbooks that Baudri knew well. Baudri’s use of rhetoric goes beyond linguistic rules and conceits to create a dynamic, dialogical process that is responsible for developing one of the earliest characters in medieval Latin fiction.