27. American Rhetoric from Jefferson to Lincoln

As in the Renaissance in England, the study of rhetoric in 18 th and 19 th century America had a profound effect on how people spoke and wrote and how literary and public language developed. In this lecture, we examine attitudes toward language and power in the political and literary arenas. Jeffersons Declaration of Independence comes out of a particular constellation of late18 th century attitudes toward expression and oration. American political language in the 19 th century is also profoundly rhetorical, drawing on the resources of American English as filtered through the powerful influences of the King James Bible and Shakespeare. The speeches of Abraham Lincoln exemplify public language at midcenturya blend of the elevated and the colloquial, with an expanding vocabulary and a distinctive syntax and style that came to be defined as uniquely American.