“Transcripts of the Heart”: John Thelwall and Romantic-era Shorthand Writing

Abstract

ABSTRACT This essay explores Romantic-era engagements with shorthand transcription as a way of representing the speaking body in text, especially in relation to the poet, radical orator, and teacher of elocution John Thelwall. With reference to projects in phonetic writing undertaken during the period by Benjamin Franklin, Erasmus Darwin, Thomas and Joseph Gurney, and others, I investigate the extent to which Thelwall characterized shorthand as a way of documenting an authentic and affective body and consider how the mediating role of the shorthand writer and their body complicates his claims for transcription as a direct record of spoken utterance.