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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Page 2
... means of it, man dances over all things. How sweet is all speech; [how sweet] all the illusion of sounds! With sounds our love dances on many-coloured rainbows.3 The dancing of speech is eloquence: the aim of a dance is not to get from ...
... means of it, man dances over all things. How sweet is all speech; [how sweet] all the illusion of sounds! With sounds our love dances on many-coloured rainbows.3 The dancing of speech is eloquence: the aim of a dance is not to get from ...
Page 3
... means to rhetorical ends . That is not true . Rhetoric has an aim , to move people to do one thing rather than another . Hitler's Mein Kampf is a work of rhetoric . So is The Communist Manifesto . So are Stanley Fish's Is There a Text ...
... means to rhetorical ends . That is not true . Rhetoric has an aim , to move people to do one thing rather than another . Hitler's Mein Kampf is a work of rhetoric . So is The Communist Manifesto . So are Stanley Fish's Is There a Text ...
Page 12
... mean television and the Internet . “ A craving for extraordinary incident ” would correspond to our “ reality ” television . “ Sickly and stupid German Tragedies ” : our pulp fiction , the best - seller list , in Henry James's phrase ...
... mean television and the Internet . “ A craving for extraordinary incident ” would correspond to our “ reality ” television . “ Sickly and stupid German Tragedies ” : our pulp fiction , the best - seller list , in Henry James's phrase ...
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Page 30
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