the rhetorical culture of the House of Commons, 1760-1800 /
First Statement of Responsibility
Christopher Reid
EDITION STATEMENT
Edition Statement
1st ed
PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION
Specific Material Designation and Extent of Item
xiv, 270 pages :
Other Physical Details
illustrations ;
Dimensions
24 cm
INTERNAL BIBLIOGRAPHIES/INDEXES NOTE
Text of Note
Includes bibliographical references (pages 245-260) and index
CONTENTS NOTE
Text of Note
The speaking chamber. Rhetorical spaces. -- Out of doors. Fictitious tribunals ; Bottling Niagara ; Gillray in the gallery. -- Making a figure. Educating the orator ; Where character is power. -- Rhetorical contests. Debating Lord Clive ; Community of mind: Quotation and persuasion
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SUMMARY OR ABSTRACT
Text of Note
"Although the later eighteenth century has long been regarded as parliamentary oratory's golden age, its speaking history remains to a large extent unexplored. Imprison'd Wranglers looks in detail at the making of a rhetorical culture inside and outside of the House of Commons during this eventful period, a time when Parliament consolidated its authority as a national institution and gained a new kind of prominence in the public eye. Drawing on a wide range of contemporary sources including newspaper reports, parliamentary diaries, memoirs, correspondence, political cartoons, and portraiture, this book reconstructs the scene in St. Stephen's Chapel, where the Commons then sat. It shows how reputations were forged and characters contested as speakers like Burke, North, Fox, and Pitt crossed swords in confrontations that were both personal and political. With close attention to the early lives of selected MPs, it pieces together the education of the parliamentary elite from their initiation as public speakers in schools, universities, and debating clubs to the moment of trial when they rose to speak in the House for the first time. Since this was the period when the newspaper reporting of parliamentary debates was first established, the book also assesses the impact speeches made on the audiences of ordinary readers outside Parliament. It explains how parliamentary speeches got into print, what was at stake politically in that process, and argues that changing conceptions of publicness in the eighteenth century altered the image of the parliamentary speaker and unsettled the traditional rhetorical culture of the House."--Publisher's website
PARALLEL TITLE PROPER
Parallel Title
Imprisoned wranglers
CORPORATE BODY NAME USED AS SUBJECT
Great Britain.-- History-- 18th century
TOPICAL NAME USED AS SUBJECT
Political oratory-- Great Britain-- History-- 18th century