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Type of bind: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 808.042
EAN num: 9780967967509
ISBN number: 0967967503
Label: Paul Dry Books
Manufacturer: Paul Dry Books
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 292
Printing Date: May 01, 2002
Publishing house: Paul Dry Books
Sale Popularity Level: 25700
Studio: Paul Dry Books
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Product Description:
Who sets language policy today? Who made whom the grammar doctor? Lacking the equivalent of l'Acadmie franaise, we English speakers must find our own way looking for guidance or vindication in source after source. McGuffey's Readers introduced nineteenth-century students to 'correct' English. Strunk and White's Elements of Style and William Safire's column, 'On Language,' provide help on diction and syntax to contemporary writers and speakers. Sister Miriam Joseph's book, The Trivium: The Liberal Arts of Logic, Grammar, and Rhetoric, invites the reader into a deeper understanding--one that includes rules, definitions, and guidelines, but whose ultimate end is to transform the reader into a liberal artist.
A liberal artist seeks the perfection of the human faculties. The liberal artist begins with the language arts, the trivium, which is the basis of all learning because it teaches the tools for reading, writing, speaking, and listening. Thinking underlies all these activities. Many readers will recognize elements of this book: parts of speech, syntax, propositions, syllogisms, enthymemes, logical fallacies, scientific method, figures of speech, rhetorical technique, and poetics. The Trivium, however, presents these elements within a philosophy of language that connects thought, expression, and reality.
'Trivium' means the crossroads where the three branches of language meet. In the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, students studied and mastered this integrated view of language. Regrettably, modern language teaching keeps the parts without the vision of the whole. Inspired by the possibility of helping students 'acquire mastery over the tools of learning' Sister Miriam Joseph and other teachers at Saint Mary's College designed and taught a course on the trivium for all very first year students. The Trivium resulted from that noble endeavor.
The liberal artist travels in good company. Sister Miriam Joseph frequently cites passages from William Shakespeare, John Milton, Plato, the Bible, Homer, and other great writers. The Paul Dry Books edition of The Trivium provides new graphics and notes to make the book accessible to today's readers. Sister Miriam Joseph told her very first audience that 'the function of the trivium is the training of the mind for the study of matter and spirit, which constitute the sum of reality. The fruit of education is culture, which Mathew Arnold defined as 'the knowledge of ourselves and the world.'' May this noble endeavor lead many to that end.
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Rated by buyers 
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This excellent work is certainly a challenge, even for someone, like myself, who studied philosophy in college. It is, however, worth the effort. Combining the original 60-year old text with the deft editing (and entirely new material, particularly in the thought-experiment examples) by Marguerite McGlinn, this is a timeless work now available and accessible to new generations of readers.
on a personal note, editor Mrs. McGlinn passed away last week after battling pancreatic cancer. if you love this book as I do, it would be wonderful to honor her memory by donating to research into this terrible disease:
Marguerite Mulligan McGlinn memorial pancreas cancer research fund
c/o Dan Laheru MD
The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine
The Sol Goldman Pancreatic Cancer Research Center
The Sidney Kimmel Compreshensive Cancer Center
Bunting-Blaustein CRB Room G89
1650 Orleans Street, Baltimore, MD 21231
Rated by buyers -
This is one of my FAVOURITE books indeed. A wonderful and inviting summary of the Classical Education system known as the Trivium, you become aware of your own weaknesses as far as possessing the tools for advanced learning in the most scholarly fiends of learning.
Every single household should possess a copy of this book. Thank you so much for publishing with work.
Rated by buyers 
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The Trivium is one of those impenetrable books that one hesitates to condemn, because one suspects that to do so is to make a fool of oneself. Nevertheless I feel that it may be useful to provide a counterpoint to the nearly universally glowing reviews this book has attracted.
Reading The Trivium is an exercise in adversity. Sister Miriam lays down statement after rule after axiom, one after another, like dealing cards, often without support. As a reader you can accept each assertion and continue, or you can consider each postulate critically. I tried the former course for a time, but this caused me to glance off the surface of following material. When I resorted to critical thinking, I fell quickly into a struggle for dominance with the Sister, and bogged down. This book may have some value providing a certain historical insight, but I can't see how anyone with a recent education would approach it hoping to improve his grasp on any of grammar, logic, or rhetoric.
Vocabulary
I approached this difficult book by beginning with Chapter 3, why not? Immediately I realized this approach would fail. The Trivium introduces vocabulary, and unusual meanings for words I thought I already knew. While reading it from the middle, I was never quite certain whether I had understood a given statement, or not at all. Yet to begin at the beginning is to be treated little better.
This reviewer is passing familiar with Greek philosophy, though he is no academic. From other reviews I had expected The Trivium to present, well, the subjects of Alcuin's venerable Trivium in a useful way, with a rigorous, old school flavor that classical Greeks might have recognized. With regard to the flavor, I am accustomed to professors approaching such material with a touch of equivocation. You know: "Empedocles is thought to have originated the concept that all matter is composed of the canonical four elements. I'm sure this was very clever in his day, but you should know that our current models are rather more successful." I noticed no such restraint in this book. To be fair, I penetrated only some twenty pages but please, from that short introduction alone I have cause for much dissatisfaction.
Even when properly approached from the beginning, this book is a series of confrontations with unusual uses of recognizable words, frequently followed by opportunities through continued use to hone what one might take to be their meaning in the given context. It's an interesting way to introduce terminology, but unnecessarily difficult, I think. Do these words represent Greek concepts? English words are being tortured into service to describe something, whatever its origin. Are these standard translations of Greek terms? I think that they are not, and in any case I have been led to believe that there is seldom an easy one-to-one correspondence between the vocabulary of Greek philosophy and that of modern English. None of this is evident from the content of (the beginning of) this book. I would like to be treated more gently!
Argument
I have other complaints about Sister Miriam's book. One is the ease with which its author reels off questionable claims as if they were unimpeachable. A very typical example of my own struggle with this material may be elucidating. The Trivium opens chapter 2 with stock brazenness:
"The function of language is threefold: to communicate thought, volition, and emotion."
Alright. That's pretty blanket. Is it meant to be taken literally? Is it some classical Greek assertion with which I am unfamiliar, submitted for my amusement? If it is, shouldn't it be identified as such? If not, is it necessarily true? Where are we going with this? Should I just accept it and continue? No, no, I should drop anchor for a moment, and consider ramifications... Very well. The statement feels flawed, but I must admit I can't categorically countermand it with any certainty. However for myself I believe I would not have broken it down quite that way, and I'm not sure that to do so gives us any useful organization. I would expect such a decree to be followed by a citation, or by an authoritative justification. Yet while I've been dallying, the Sister has forged ahead and built on the statement, without giving what I would consider a reason to accept the foundation of her subsequent arguments.
The book appears to be thickly strewn with such curious traps, so expect to spend five unpleasantly thought-provoking minutes reading each page. Struggling with the book feels like playing a card game with the author, and she has all the trumps. Well, not all the trumps. It feels like she thinks she has all the trumps, correspondingly claims each trick played, and brooks no argument about her interpretation of the rules. The game is a variant of Bridge, in case you don't play, but you get my point.
Another example from the ... Read More
Rated by buyers -
If you are interested in a better understanding of 'Classic' approaches to literature, and are honestly willing to study and challenge your thinking aparatus, this is an excellent book on 'The Trivium.' It is very structured and didactic and Sister Miriam Joseph is very intentional and precise in presenting the information, but I suspect she did not suffer fools lightly when teaching. It does NOT fit into the current popular genre of 'The Trivium for Dummies.' I've never attended a Catholic School, but when I wasn't focused on what I was reading, I almost imagined I felt the Sister rapping across my knuckles with her Rule. However, if you are a disciplined reader and interested in learning this material, I would agree with the critics who rate this a 'Classic.'
Rated by buyers -
I learned a lot from this book. I only wish I had been taught or understood these fundamentals at a much younger age. I can't say it was an easy read, it's more a journey. Well it was for me. If you want to get the fundamentals of logic, grammar and rhetoric presented in a thoughtful and thought provoking way then this may suit.
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