Trivium by Sister Miriam Joseph Csc

Trivium by Sister Miriam Joseph Csc

In Plato's Republic Socrates proposes a course of study that may be the original presentation of the idea of the "Liberal Arts." These "arts" are divided into two groups of learning: the Quadrivium, (number, geometry, music, and astronomy) and the Trivium (logic, grammar, and rhetoric). The study of the Trivium develops mastery in reading, writing, speaking, and intellectual reasoning. "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. In the 1940s, Sister Miriam Joseph at Saint Mary's College rescued that integrated approach with The Trivium: The Liberal Arts of Logic, Grammar, and Rhetoric. The Paul Dry Books edition provides new graphics and notes to make the book accessible to today's readers.

Sister Miriam Joseph (1898-1982) graduated from Columbia University with a PhD. Sister Miriam was a member of the Holy Cross Sisters and taught English at Saint Mary's College from 1931 to 1960. She also wrote Shakespeare's Use of the Arts of Language and a number of papers about Shakespeare and the trivium.