Force of Fantasy: Restoring the American Dream / Edition 3

by Ernest G Bormann

Overview

In this book, first published in 1985, Ernest G. Bormann explores mass persuasion in America from 1620 to 1860, examining closely four rhetorical communities: the revivals of 1739–1740, the hot gospel of the postrevolutionary period, the evangelical revival and reform of the 1830s, and the Free Soil and Republican parties. Each community varies greatly, but Bormann asserts that each succeeding community shares a rhetorical vision of  restoring the “American Dream” that is essentially a modification of the previous visions.  Thus, they form a family of rhetorical visions that constitutes a rhetorical tradition of importance in nineteenth-century American popular culture. 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780809323692
Publisher:	Southern Illinois University Press
Publication date:	11/01/2000
Edition description:	1st Edition
Pages:	296
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Ernest G. Bormann is a professor emeritus in the Department of Speech Communication at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis. His many books include Effective Small Group Communication, The Process of Presentational Speaking, Communication Theory, and Forerunners of Black Power: The Rhetoric of Abolition.

Table of Contents

	Preface to the New Edition	vii
	Preface	xi
1.	The Critical Analysis of Seminal American Fantasies	1
2.	The Puritan Rhetorical Style: Forerunner of Romantic Pragmatism	26
3.	Jonathan Edwards and a Rhetoric in Transition	53
4.	The Evangelical Style: Theory and Criticism	79
5.	The Ungenteel Style	99
6.	Nature and the New Birth: The Ungenteel Vision	120
7.	The Style of Evangelical Reform: Practice and Theory	144
8.	The Styles of Antislavery Rhetoric: Revolutionary Agitation Versus Reform Persuasion	171
9.	The Rhetorical Vision of Abraham Lincoln	196
10.	The Culmination of Romantic Pragmatism	223
	Notes	245
	Bibliography	259
	Index	271

Editorial Reviews

Bormann’s research has been prodigious, and his descriptions are fascinating.  He has located little-known resources and from them is able to provide such vivid details (of the Methodist circuit riders and the camp meetings, for example) that it is almost possible for the reader to share in the fantasy themes. The Force of Fantasy is a tour de force, a remarkable explication and application of a critical system in an important historical period.  It reveals a serious humanistic critic at work explaining another way of looking at human communication, producing new insights into our past and a better understanding of how humans cope with reality.”

—Quarterly Journal of Speech

“Bormann is at his best when discussing the rhetorical themes and techniques of individual orators and when sketching the communication styles of Puritan and revivalist preachers.  There is, for example, no better statement about the artistry of Jonathan Edwards’s classic sermons than Bormann’s judgment that they ‘deserve to be studied and appreciated as rhetorical artifacts just as Hamlet might be studied as the highest expression of Elizabethan drama.’  Nor is there a superior summary of the stylistic changes in Abraham Lincoln’s speeches from the 1830s to the 1850s.  As the magnum opus of fantasy theme analysis, Bormann’s study deserves wide reading and close scrutiny.”—Rhetoric Society Quarterly

From the Publisher

Bormann, an academic in speech communication (emeritus from the U. of Minnesota), writes on four rhetorical communities in America from the 17th through the 19th century. These are the revivals of 1739-1740, the gospel of the post- revolutionary era, the evangelical revival of the 1830's, and the Free Soil and Republican parties. Bormann carries his discussion beyond rhetoric by employing the fantasy theme analysis as his methodology. The result is a broad overview of the ideas behind the rhetoric, and a conclusion that links the rhetoric to important trends in American popular culture. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

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