The Art of Eloquence: Byron, Dickens, Tennyson, Joyce
'In the course of these fifty years we have become a nation of public speakers. Everyone speaks now. We are now more than ever a debating, that is, a Parliamentary people' (The Times, 1873). The Art of Eloquence considers how Byron, Dickens, Tennyson, and Joyce responded to this 'Parliamentary people', and examines the ways in which they and their publics conceived the relations between political speech and literary endeavour. Drawing on a wide range of sources - classical rhetoric, Hansard, newspaper reports, elocutionary manuals, treatises on crowd theory - this book argues that oratorical procedures and languages were formative influences on literary culture from Romanticism to Modernism. Matthew Bevis focuses attention on how the four writers negotiated contending political demands in and through their work, and on how they sought to cultivate forms of literary detachment that could gain critical purchase on political arguments. Providing a close reading of the relations between printed words and public voices as well as a broader engagement with debates about the socio-political inflections of the aesthetic realm, this is a major study of how styles of writing can explore and embody forms of responsible political conduct.
1111322762
The Art of Eloquence: Byron, Dickens, Tennyson, Joyce
'In the course of these fifty years we have become a nation of public speakers. Everyone speaks now. We are now more than ever a debating, that is, a Parliamentary people' (The Times, 1873). The Art of Eloquence considers how Byron, Dickens, Tennyson, and Joyce responded to this 'Parliamentary people', and examines the ways in which they and their publics conceived the relations between political speech and literary endeavour. Drawing on a wide range of sources - classical rhetoric, Hansard, newspaper reports, elocutionary manuals, treatises on crowd theory - this book argues that oratorical procedures and languages were formative influences on literary culture from Romanticism to Modernism. Matthew Bevis focuses attention on how the four writers negotiated contending political demands in and through their work, and on how they sought to cultivate forms of literary detachment that could gain critical purchase on political arguments. Providing a close reading of the relations between printed words and public voices as well as a broader engagement with debates about the socio-political inflections of the aesthetic realm, this is a major study of how styles of writing can explore and embody forms of responsible political conduct.
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The Art of Eloquence: Byron, Dickens, Tennyson, Joyce

The Art of Eloquence: Byron, Dickens, Tennyson, Joyce

by Matthew Bevis
The Art of Eloquence: Byron, Dickens, Tennyson, Joyce

The Art of Eloquence: Byron, Dickens, Tennyson, Joyce

by Matthew Bevis

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Overview

'In the course of these fifty years we have become a nation of public speakers. Everyone speaks now. We are now more than ever a debating, that is, a Parliamentary people' (The Times, 1873). The Art of Eloquence considers how Byron, Dickens, Tennyson, and Joyce responded to this 'Parliamentary people', and examines the ways in which they and their publics conceived the relations between political speech and literary endeavour. Drawing on a wide range of sources - classical rhetoric, Hansard, newspaper reports, elocutionary manuals, treatises on crowd theory - this book argues that oratorical procedures and languages were formative influences on literary culture from Romanticism to Modernism. Matthew Bevis focuses attention on how the four writers negotiated contending political demands in and through their work, and on how they sought to cultivate forms of literary detachment that could gain critical purchase on political arguments. Providing a close reading of the relations between printed words and public voices as well as a broader engagement with debates about the socio-political inflections of the aesthetic realm, this is a major study of how styles of writing can explore and embody forms of responsible political conduct.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780191615610
Publisher: OUP Oxford
Publication date: 09/09/2010
Sold by: Barnes & Noble
Format: eBook
File size: 3 MB

About the Author

University Lecturer and Fellow in English at Oxford

Table of Contents


Abbreviations     viii
Introduction: Literary Persuasions     1
Disinterested Parties     1
Debating Societies     15
Byron's Hearing     29
Question, Question     29
Forms of Address     39
The Eloquence of Action     49
Poetic Justice     59
On Second Thoughts     74
An Audience with Dickens     86
Addressing the Times     86
Plotting Talk     100
Honourable Gentlemen     111
Bringing the House Down     130
Tennyson and Sound Judgement     145
Measured Language     145
Testing Voices     157
A Civil Tongue     172
The Tone of Empire     188
Joyce's Breathing Space     204
Governing the Tongue     204
Crowd Trouble     214
Stephen's Heroes     227
House Rules     242
Coda: An Eyed Ear     263
Bibliography     270
Index     293
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