Eloquence Is Power: Oratory and Performance in Early AmericaOratory emerged as the first major form of verbal art in early America because, as John Quincy Adams observed in 1805, "eloquence was POWER." In this book, Sandra Gustafson examines 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. |
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Contents
Language and Power in SeventeenthCentury British America | 1 |
Gender in Performance | 40 |
The Savage Speaker Transformed | 75 |
Negotiating Power | 111 |
The Oratorical Public Culture of Revolutionary America | 140 |
The Body of the Nation | 171 |
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Common terms and phrases
Adams’s African American American Revolution Ames’s Antinomian audience Aupaumut authenticity authority Benjamin Franklin body Boston Massacre Brainerd British Cambridge Canassatego century chap Chapel Hill Christian claims colonial colonists conversion Cotton cultural David Brainerd debates Deborah Sampson described divine Edwards’s eloquence emotional England English evangelical figure Fisher Ames forms Gannett gender George gesture God’s Henry’s History Hutchinson Ibid Indian insisted Iroquois James Otis Jefferson John Adams John Marrant Jonathan Edwards language leaders letter linguistic literacy Mahican Marrant Massachusetts ministers missionary narrative native American negotiations Occom oral orator oratory Otis’s Patrick Henry patriot performance semiotic political popular preaching pulpit Puritan republican Revolutionary rhetorical role Samson Occom Sarah savage Scripture sermon social soldiers speak speaker speech and text spiritual spoken style symbolic textual Thomas tion tradition transformed verbal Virginia voice Washington Whitefield William women words writ writing Writs of Assistance written York
Bibliographic information
| Title | Eloquence Is Power: Oratory and Performance in Early America Published by the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture and the University of North Carolina Press |
| Author | Sandra M. Gustafson |
| Publisher | UNC Press Books, 2012 |
| ISBN | 0807839140, 9780807839140 |
| Length | 320 pages |
| Subjects | › › History / United States / Revolutionary Period (1775-1800) Language Arts & Disciplines / Public Speaking & Speech Writing |
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