Description
Grammar is the mechanics of a language (always Latin, at the time); logic (or dialectic) is the "mechanics" of thought and analysis; rhetoric is the use of language to instruct and persuade. Sister Miriam Joseph described the three parts of the Trivium thus:
Grammar is the art of inventing symbols and combining them to express thought; logic is the art of thinking; and rhetoric, the art of communicating thought from one mind to another, the adaptation of language to circumstance.
Another description is:
Grammar is concerned with the thing as-it-is-symbolized,
Logic is concerned with the thing as-it-is-known, and
Rhetoric is concerned with the thing as-it-is-communicated.
The study of grammar, logic and rhetoric was considered preparatory for the quadrivium, which was made up of arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy. The trivium was the beginning of the liberal arts. At many medieval universities this would have been the principal undergraduate course. However, the contrast between the simpler trivium and more difficult quadrivium gave rise to the word "trivial".
Read more about this topic: Trivium
Famous quotes containing the word description:
“The great object in life is Sensation—to feel that we exist, even though in pain; it is this “craving void” which drives us to gaming, to battle, to travel, to intemperate but keenly felt pursuits of every description whose principal attraction is the agitation inseparable from their accomplishment.”
—George Gordon Noel Byron (1788–1824)
“The Sage of Toronto ... spent several decades marveling at the numerous freedoms created by a “global village” instantly and effortlessly accessible to all. Villages, unlike towns, have always been ruled by conformism, isolation, petty surveillance, boredom and repetitive malicious gossip about the same families. Which is a precise enough description of the global spectacle’s present vulgarity.”
—Guy Debord (b. 1931)
“He hath achieved a maid
That paragons description and wild fame;
One that excels the quirks of blazoning pens.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)