Eloquence is power
Subtitle: oratory & performance in early  America
By: Sandra M. Gustafson.
Publisher: Published for the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture, Williamsburg, Virginia, by the University of North Carolina Press
Published: 2000
Place of publication: Chapel Hill
Language: eng
Number of pages: 287
Subjects: Oratory -- United States -- History -- 17th century; Oratory -- United States -- History -- 18th century
Description: Oratory emerged as the first major form of verbal art in early America because, as John Quincy Adams observed in 1805, "eloquence was P O W E R." In this book, Sandra Gustafson examinese the multiple traditions of sacred, diplomatic, and political speech that flourished in British America and the early republic from colonization through 1800. She demonstrates that, in the American crucible of cultures, contact and conflict among Europeans, native Americans, and Africans gave particular significance and complexity to the uses of the spoken word. Gustafson develops what she calls the performance semiotic of speech and text as a tool for comprehending the rich traditions of early American oratory. Embodied in the delivery of speeches, she argues, were complex projections of power and authenticity that were rooted in or challenged text-based claims of authority. Examining oratorical performances as varied as treaty negotiations between native and British Americans, the eloquence of evangelical women during the Great Awakening, and the founding fathers' debates over the Constitution, Gustafson explores how orators employed the shifting symbolism of speech and text to imbue their voices with power. -- from back cover.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Based on the author's thesis (Ph.D--University of California, Berkley).
Table of contents: title: Machine generated contents note: Chapter One: Gender in Performance 40; title: i. Evangelical Performance of Speech and Text 40; title: ii. Women's Speech and Women's Silence in Jonathan Edwards's First; title: Northampton Revival 51; title: iii. The "Feminine" in Performance 61; title: Chapter Two: The "Savage" Speaker Transformed 75; title: i. Cultural Hybridism in Evangelical Oratory 75; title: ii. Competing Words 78; title: iii. Samson Occom's Pentecostal Indian Speech go; title: iv. John Marrant, "Savage" Speaker lol; title: Chapter Three: Negotiating Power iii; title: i, Republicanism and the Eloquent Indian ill; title: ii, Iroquois and American Publics 119; title: Chapter Four: The Oratorical Public Culture of Revolutionary America 140; title: i, Medium and Message in Revolutionary Public Culture 140; title: ii, Speech, Presence, and Representation 144; title: iii, The Transformative Speech of Patrick Henry 158; title: Chapter Five: The Body of the Nation 171; title: i. "Words of Reproach" and "Written Reason" 171; title: ii. Authoritative Bodies 184; title: Chapter Six: Forms of State 200; title: i. Documents and Debates 200; title: ii. Performing the Presidency 213; title: Chapter Seven: Political Speech in the New Republic 233; title: i. Representative Speech 233; title: ii. Figures of Difference 246; title: Conclusion 267; title: Appendix: Traditions of the Ancients 271; title: Index 279.