Super Glossary

Humility Topos

Entertainment / Literature / Humility Topos: A common rhetorical strategy in which an author or speaker feigns ignorance or pretends to be less clever or less intelligent than he or she really is. Often donning such a persona allows a writer, poet, or playwright to create humorous, self-deprecating effects, or in the case of an argument, may cause the opponent to underestimate the opposition. One of the first examples of the humility topos in action includes Socrates and his Socratic method of argument, in which Socrates pleads his own ignorance so he can ask particularly difficult questions to those who disagree with his philosophy, eventually forcing them to make self-contradictory assertions. It is possible that Chaucer frequently engaged in the humility topos by depicting himself as 'a servant of the servants of love' in Troilus and Criseyde, where he claims to be merely a bookish clerk who knows little of romantic matters. Likewise, Chaucer creates 'Geoffrey the pilgrim,' an apparently naive persona who reports the peccadilloes and wickedness of other people in The Canterbury Tales pilgrimage company without condemnation or apparent realization of the wickedness that takes place around him. Chaucer, the historical author writing the text, appears to be quite aware of these incongruities and ironies, but creating such a persona for himself achieves humorous or richly ambiguous effects. A more recent example of the humility topos is that employed by Ben Franklin, in his Autobiography. Here, he constantly refers to his own inabilities, his own inadequacies, and his own limitations in such a charming way that he creates a congenial rather than scornful response in readers, even as he discreetly instructs his audience in practical wisdom. See rhetoric and persona, as well. For an example of Ben Franklin's use of the humility topos in a speech to the Continental Congress, click here.
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