Advances in the History of Rhetoric, 17:179–203, 2014 Copyright © American Society for the History of Rhetoric ISSN: 1536-2426 print/1936-0835 online DOI: 10.1080/15362426.2014.933720 The Book of Margery Kempe and the Rhetorical Chorus: An Alternative Method for Recovering Women’s Contributions to the History of Rhetoric JULIA MARIE SMITH 5 University of Illinois, Urbana–Champaign This article defends the “rhetorical chorus” as a useful method for recovering women’s voices in the history of rhetoric. As distinct from the more amorphous term “collaboration,” which designates any act of cooperation in the production of rhetorical texts, the 10 “chorus” offers a more nuanced way to identify and map the recording, preservation, appropriation, and alteration of works originally dictated by women rhetors. Using The Book of Margery Kempe as an example, the study traces both homophonic and poly- phonic relationships between the lead voice of Margery and the 15 voices of her scribes and annotators. The Book of Margery Kempe, the manuscript attributed to medieval mys- tic Margery Kempe, offers an excellent opportunity to revisit one of the contentious historiographic issues: the recovery of women in the history of rhetoric. The book’s central character, who goes by the name Margery 20 Kempe, describes her pursuit of a saintly life. However, Kempe’s authority as a speaker (and even her existence) can be questioned on the grounds that the text is written in the third person and portrays Margery as an illiter- ate woman who depended on scribes to record her story (Hirsh 1975; Jones 2000). 25 Despite Kempe’s illiteracy, Cheryl Glenn in her book Rhetoric Retold (1997) compellingly argues for Kempe’s place within the rhetorical canon. Glenn maintains that Kempe had control over her work and should be Address correspondence to Julia Marie Smith, University of Illinois, Urbana–Champaign, 608 South Wright Street, Urbana, IL 61801, USA. E-mail: smith118@illinois.edu Color versions of one or more of the figures in the article can be found online at www. tandfonline.com/uahr. 179