On EloquenceYale University Press, 2008 M10 1 - 208 pages On Eloquence questions the common assumption that eloquence is merely a subset of rhetoric, a means toward a rhetorical end. Denis Donoghue, an eminent and prolific critic of the English language, holds that this assumption is erroneous. While rhetoric is the use of language to persuade people to do one thing rather than another, Donoghue maintains that eloquence is gratuitous, ideally autonomous, in speech and writing an upsurge of creative vitality for its own sake. He offers many instances of eloquence in words, and suggests the forms our appreciation of them should take. Donoghue argues persuasively that eloquence matters, that we should indeed care about it. Because we should care about any instances of freedom, independence, creative force, sprezzatura, he says, especially when we liveperhaps this is increasingly the casein a culture of the same, featuring official attitudes, stereotypes of the officially enforced values, sedated language, a politics of pacification. A noteworthy addition to Donoghues long-term project to reclaim a disinterested appreciation of literature as literature, this volume is a wise and pleasurable meditation on eloquence, its unique ability to move or give pleasure, and its intrinsic value. |
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... Literature and Society Selected Essays of R. P. Blackmur (editor) Reading America: Essays on American Literature England, Their England: Commentaries on English Language and Literature America in Theory (editor, with Louis Menand and ...
... Literature and Society Selected Essays of R. P. Blackmur (editor) Reading America: Essays on American Literature England, Their England: Commentaries on English Language and Literature America in Theory (editor, with Louis Menand and ...
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... literature. I. Title. pn4129.15.d66 2008 808.5'1—dc22 2007016897 A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. ♾ The paper in this book meets the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Committee on ...
... literature. I. Title. pn4129.15.d66 2008 808.5'1—dc22 2007016897 A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. ♾ The paper in this book meets the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Committee on ...
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... literature and theatrical exhi- bitions of the country have conformed themselves . The invaluable works of our elder writers , I had almost said the works of Shakspeare and Milton , are driven into neglect by frantic novels , sickly and ...
... literature and theatrical exhi- bitions of the country have conformed themselves . The invaluable works of our elder writers , I had almost said the works of Shakspeare and Milton , are driven into neglect by frantic novels , sickly and ...
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... literature at New York Uni- versity , that the qualities of writing I care about are increas- ingly hard to expound : aesthetic finesse , beauty , eloquence , style , form , imagination , fiction , the architecture of a sentence , the ...
... literature at New York Uni- versity , that the qualities of writing I care about are increas- ingly hard to expound : aesthetic finesse , beauty , eloquence , style , form , imagination , fiction , the architecture of a sentence , the ...
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