American rhetoric
Subtitle: context and criticism
By: edited by Thomas W. Benson ; with a foreword by Lewis Perry.
Contributors: Benson, Thomas W.
Publisher: Southern Illinois University Press
Published: 1989
Place of publication: Carbondale
Language: eng
Number of pages: 427
Subjects: Speeches, addresses, etc., American -- History and criticism; Politics and literature -- United States -- History; American prose literature -- History and criticism; English language -- United States -- Rhetoric; Oratory -- United States -- History
Description: Overview: Nine fresh views of the interconnections of historical, critical, and theoretical scholarship in the field of American rhetoric. Stephen T. Olsen addresses the question of how to determine the disputed authorship of Patrick Henry's "Liberty or Death" speech of March 23, 1775. Stephen E. Lucas analyzes the Declaration of Independence as a rhetorical action, designed for its own time, and drawing on a long tradition of English rhetoric. Carroll C. Arnold examines the "communicative qualities of constitutional discourse" as revealed in a series of constitutional debates in Pennsylvania between 1776 and 1790. James R. Andrews traces the early days of political pamphleteering in the new American nation. Martin J. Medhurst discusses the generic and political exigencies that shaped the official prayer at Lyndon B. Johnson's inauguration. In "Rhetoric as a Way of Being," Benson acknowledges the importance of everyday and transient rhetoric as an enactment of being and becoming. Gerard A. Hauser traces the Carter Administration's attempt to manage public opinion during the Iranian hostage crisis. Richard B. Gregg ends the book by looking for "conceptual-metaphorical" patterns that may be emerging in political rhetoric in the 1980s.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references.