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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... Ideas of Order in Modern American Poetry An Honoured Guest: New Essays on W. B. Yeats (editor, with J. R. Mulryne) The Ordinary Universe: Soundings in Modern Literature Jonathan Swift: A Critical Introduction Emily Dickinson Jonathan ...
... Ideas of Order in Modern American Poetry An Honoured Guest: New Essays on W. B. Yeats (editor, with J. R. Mulryne) The Ordinary Universe: Soundings in Modern Literature Jonathan Swift: A Critical Introduction Emily Dickinson Jonathan ...
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... ideas: I wish, however, that the instrument might be less apt to decay, and that signs might be permanent, like the things which they denote. Johnson thought that English had reached its best form of itself—“the wells of English ...
... ideas: I wish, however, that the instrument might be less apt to decay, and that signs might be permanent, like the things which they denote. Johnson thought that English had reached its best form of itself—“the wells of English ...
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... ideas.”19 How has Shakespeare worded the play? Further questions I take pleasure in: how does William H. Gass compose a sentence; how did Guy Davenport make a paragraph; how did Yeats find that particular way of writing “No Second Troy ...
... ideas.”19 How has Shakespeare worded the play? Further questions I take pleasure in: how does William H. Gass compose a sentence; how did Guy Davenport make a paragraph; how did Yeats find that particular way of writing “No Second Troy ...
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Aeschylus alliteration appear asked Bartleby become better Blackmur blue body Burke chapter claim comes common Complete criticism culture death Eliot eloquence English Essays expression eyes face feeling figures force further given gives goes hand hold human ideas imagination instance John keep kind King knock language later Latin least leave light Literature live London look Macbeth matter means merely mind moving nature never night object Oxford passage passion phrase play pleasure poem poet poetry possible present question quoted reader reading reason refers relation response rhetoric rhythm seems sense sentence silence song soul sounds speak speech story style talk tells things thought tion trans translation tree turns understand University Press whole words writing York