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. |
From inside the book
Results 1-5 of 14
Page 4
... night.” Imagine: just the other night, and such a thing to see. Wordsworth's “Michael” nearly ends: “And never lifted up a single stone.” “Ignorant” is a common or garden word, trans- formed to eloquence in Arnold's “Where ignorant ...
... night.” Imagine: just the other night, and such a thing to see. Wordsworth's “Michael” nearly ends: “And never lifted up a single stone.” “Ignorant” is a common or garden word, trans- formed to eloquence in Arnold's “Where ignorant ...
Page 14
... night , and very plainly before daybreak , Lisp'd to me the low and delicious word death , And again death , death , death , death , Hissing melodious , neither like the bird nor like my arous'd child's heart , But edging near as ...
... night , and very plainly before daybreak , Lisp'd to me the low and delicious word death , And again death , death , death , death , Hissing melodious , neither like the bird nor like my arous'd child's heart , But edging near as ...
Page 16
... night , ” it seems to be tran- sitive , but if it is , its object is me , a cogent reading since the sea has taken part with the bird in the transformation of boy into bard , one form of expressiveness creating another . But Whit- man ...
... night , ” it seems to be tran- sitive , but if it is , its object is me , a cogent reading since the sea has taken part with the bird in the transformation of boy into bard , one form of expressiveness creating another . But Whit- man ...
Page 44
Sorry, this page's content is restricted.
Sorry, this page's content is restricted.
Page 51
Sorry, this page's content is restricted.
Sorry, this page's content is restricted.
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
Adorno Aeneas agile with temporal Bartleby blue Browne's Cambridge catachresis chapter claim Collected Poems context culture Dante death Derrida Dido Donne English Language Essays expression eyes feeling Finnegans Wake Flaubert Geoffrey Hill gesture gives Guy Davenport Gweneth Hugh Kenner human Hydriotaphia Ibid imagination John John Donne Kenneth Burke King knock Lady Macbeth last line Latin literary Literature live Locke London Madame Bovary means mind modern night Ophelia Oxford passage passion phrase play pleasure poet poetry Professor Hogan prose quence quoted R. P. Blackmur reader reading reason rhetoric rhyme rhythm seems sense sentence Shakespeare silence song without words soul sounds speak speech stanza Stevens story style sweet syllable T. S. Eliot take the train talk temporal intervals things thought tion trans translation tree University Press verbal W. B. Yeats William Empson Woolf writing Yeats