A Woman Speaks

Language and rhetoric have always been as important in the history of ideas as have been the ideas themselves, for an inarticulately expressed idea, or one left untold, is doomed to be at most a historical curiosity, at worst without power or effect. ¹ Hildegard of Bingen understood this. She was aware of her world and her times, not only in terms of their political and cultural aspects but also of how her use of language and self-representation could affect her ability to influence those events which concerned her. Keenly cognizant of her status as a “mere” woman in a man's world, she nevertheless used language to exploit her unique visionary gifts to procure for herself the power and influence she could not otherwise hope to have. ² The manner in which Hildegard used language to further her own ends can be examined through her letters in terms of rhetoric and self-representation.