Public Orator Research Articles

Radical right-wing Eurosceptics as public orators in the European Parliament: the logic of persuasion as an instrument to break consensus

Radical right-wing Eurosceptics as public orators in the European Parliament: the logic of persuasion as an instrument to break consensus

En folketaler med socialistisk patos. Martin Andersen Nexøs tale: "Fattigper og Fremtiden"

Martin Andersen Nexø’s speech at the Dynæs-gathering in 1913 is the most important of the many speeches he gave as a public orator, agitator, and popular lecturer, in Denmark and abroad. After an introduction to Danish oratory in the period, this article presents a close textual analysis of the speech, revealing Nexø’s synthesis of different traditions. In 1919, Nexø turned to communism, defending in the decades to come the Soviet Union. His change of ideology did not mean that his way of appealing to the emotions of the audience changed. Hence his oratory is characterized by a generalized pathos, as defined by Madsen and Lund (2021). Nexø’s ortho-dox, communist ideology (after 1919) may explain why there has been little research in his work as popular orator and lec turer. However, his rhetorical works are interesting because they – like his literary works – are marked by original pathos appeals, which made him one of the most popular speakers and writers in the 20th century

Kawa and the variable stopping of obstruents in Ende

Abstract This paper details a study investigating sociophonetic variation in Ende, a language spoken in Papua New Guinea. The study examines speech produced by 30 individuals, investigating what social and linguistic factors are linked with the variable alternation between stopped and affricated realizations of Ende retroflex obstruents [ʈ͡ʂ~ʈ] and [ɖ͡ʐ~ɖ]. Our analysis provides evidence that the obstruents in question are more likely to be realized as stops when they are voiced and when the speakers are orators. Orators are people who practice kawa, a long-standing practice whereby select individuals perform regular public orations. Among orators, the speaker’s age also appears to play a role in retroflex stopping. The link between the stop variant and social factors can be understood within the context of the distribution of power in the community, even in the absence of any explicit standard.

Koszty, jałmużny, splendor urodzenia. Toposy i argumenty pochwały w mowach pogrzebowych Jakuba Sobieskiego na tle współczesnych realizacji kaznodziejskich

Military Spendings, Alms, the Splendour of Birth: Topoi and Arguments of Praise in Jakub Sobieski’s Funeral Speeches vs His Contemporary Preaching Tradition The article deals with three arguments selected from a nobleman’s funeral praise of the 1st half of the 17th century Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth: bearing the military cost in defence of the homeland, endowing the building of churches, supporting monasteries and charitable institutions, and being well-born (praise e genere). The arguments are drawn from Jakub Sobieski’s (one of the best and the most famous Polish noble orators of his time) speeches delivered during funeral ceremonies of seven noblemen and noblewomen and sixteen funeral sermons dedicated to these decedents. Both sermons and noblemen’s funeral speeches (typical of old-Polish culture, yet different from the humanistic orations known and popular in the rest of Renaissance Europe) may seem to belong to the same genre of public orations, consequently, many scholars do not differentiate between them. In fact, their purpose, composition, and amplification of many topoi are very dissimilar. Being closely related to the Old Polish role model of a nobleman, the three arguments of praise could be expected to be widely applied and amplified in any genre of funeral speech, as they glorified the deceased in the eyes of noblemen. However, in Sobieski’s orations these arguments are either omitted or mentioned only marginally, while in sermons they are developed extensively. This paper offers a preliminary study of this problem, presenting a comparison of amplifying the three arguments of praise in two different genres of funeral orations delivered in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.

Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs

Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs

Ende oration and final /n/-realisation

Abstract This paper presents a sociophonetic analysis of word-final /n/-elision in Ende (Pahoturi River; Papuan). An analysis of 73 speakers reveals that tense, phonological context, and most significantly, whether or not the speaker is a kawa practitioner, a prestigious type of public oration, are significantly correlated with /n/-retention. A closer look at just five kawa practitioners reveals that age and genre may also play a role. The present study matches Schokkin’s analysis of /n/-elision in Idi (this issue). Indeed, the findings support her conclusions that this pattern is one of /n/-elision (not /n/-addition) and show similarities in conditioning factors. Analysing sociolinguistic variation in this region presents a unique set of benefits and challenges. This paper discusses how emically-derived categories relating to age, clan, and orator status may deviate from characterisations of prestige in Westernised and urbanised societies but better fit southern New Guinea’s social context.

“Celestial Epicurisme”: John Locke and the Anglican language of pleasure, 1650–1697

ABSTRACT This article presents a new understanding of how Anglican clergymen and writers remoulded common notions of the moral status of pleasure during the latter half of the seventeenth century. It addresses the current historiographical neglect of the philosophical content of ethical thought within the Church of England. For Anglican thinkers developed innovative moral arguments about the rational order of human satisfactions in order to direct the disruptive appetites towards good ends. This article illustrates the conceptual trajectory of this ethical discourse by comparing John Locke’s developing moral ideas with those of Robert South, Public Orator at Oxford after 1660, and Samuel Parker, Bishop of Oxford after 1686. For the course of Locke’s shifting ethical thought reflected a philosophical movement within an Anglican language of pleasure, from South’s moderate position – that pleasure was a significant good among other ends – to Parker’s radical stance – that goodness was reducible to that which was delightful.

Pope John XXIII, Conciliar and Contemporary Episcopal Pastoral Governance

AbstractThis article will discuss the emergence of an increasingly cogent argument made by Pope John XXIII for a redefined role of episcopal pastoral governance in the (ante) preparatory phase of the Second Vatican Council and during early conciliar debate. Pope John will be presented as encouraging a renewed role for bishops in his public orations preceding the Council. This continued in his support of the conciliar process and encouragement given to senior bishops at critical moments during its first session. As contemporary understandings of episcopal governance were questioned before and at the Council, increasing numbers of bishops saw the possibilities of revitalising their governance role in a pastoral mode. Its contemporary relevance lies in Pope Francis’ call to build a synodal church in which episcopal governance is exercised at the local and universal levels. Today, this requires individual bishops ‘to assume their responsibilities to govern their own diocese, always in consultation with the faithful.’1

Human Rights and Global Pharma Converge

In this article, based on the annual public oration of the Australian Centre for Health Law Research at QUT, Michael Kirby explores the interaction between the discovery of life saving and health preserving pharmaceuticals and international intellectual property (IP) law. He explains the investigation of this topic in a number of transnational bodies in which he has worked. He outlines the specific benefits of antiretroviral medicines for treatment of HIV causing AIDS and HCV (Hepatitis C). He explains the advent of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals in 2015 and his participation in a High Level Panel created by the UN Secretary General to ensure their attainment. The article closes with some suggested further directions in international IP law and health access.

Lucretia Mott Speaks: The Essential Speeches and Sermons ed. by Christopher Densmore et al.

Reviewed by: Lucretia Mott Speaks: The Essential Speeches and Sermons ed. by Christopher Densmore et al. Mary T. Freeman Lucretia Mott Speaks: The Essential Speeches and Sermons. Edited by Christopher Densmore, Carol Faulkner, Nancy Hewitt, and Beverly Wilson Palmer. ( Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2017. 264 pp. Illustrations, index. $75.) Lucretia Mott was one of the most widely renowned speakers of her time, known as much for "her inspiring and provocative words as for her principled and courageous actions" (xi). But Mott did not write down her speeches and sermons, preferring to speak spontaneously, in the Quaker tradition, guided by the inner light. Such a practice presents a conundrum to modern scholars, who have rightly placed Mott among the greatest reformers of the nineteenth century but who have thus far lacked a comprehensive collection of her intellectual contributions. [End Page 109] This new volume is an authoritative record of Mott's spoken works. The editors have mined archival sources, newspapers, and other printed accounts to identify a total of about 190 lectures, from which they have selected and reproduced sixty speeches. The result spans from Mott's first brief public remarks at the Twelfth Street Monthly Meeting in Philadelphia in 1818 to her address at the thirtieth anniversary of the Seneca Falls Convention in Rochester, New York, in 1878, when Mott was eighty-five years old. Editorial annotations reveal Mott's milieu: the audiences to whom she spoke, the allies and opponents to whom she responded, and the literary reference points she used to support her arguments. The editors offer a sensitive assessment of Mott's oratory as distinct from her letters in terms of both form and content. Mott's speeches and sermons represented the public face of her activism; unlike her correspondence, her lectures seldom mentioned household affairs. Furthermore, the records of Mott's speeches come to readers from third parties. The imperfect nature of such sources for faithfully capturing Mott's words is apparent when, for example, a stenographer noted, "a few words towards the close of this sermon were not heard distinctly" (68), or when a journalist summarized Mott's comments at the Seneca Falls women's rights convention in just a few sentences. The editors embrace such idiosyncrasies. In doing so, they demonstrate their archival resourcefulness and illuminate the character and context of Mott's public orations. The wide array of causes for which Mott spoke—including abolition, temperance, peace, religious freedom, and education—were intertwined in her mind as part of a larger campaign for the extension of liberty and democracy into all realms of society. Mott's speeches and sermons, in which she often invoked multiple, intersecting causes, serve as compelling evidence of the overlapping and international dimensions of nineteenth-century activism. The repetition of themes in Mott's lectures underscores the power of her radical vision, elevating her as a major intellectual figure and ratifying the editors' admirable ambition to unify the broad scope of her reform work in a single volume. The editors pose a strong challenge to the old-fashioned image of Mott as a quiet, retiring Quaker. Mott's provocative ideas, her eloquent arguments, and her occasionally sharp tongue are on display on every page. She often reminded her audiences that the principle of nonresistance was not equivalent to the acceptance of injustice. Mott's speeches demonstrate that her pacifism did not preclude her from constant, vigorous agitation. [End Page 110] Mary T. Freeman University of Maine Copyright © 2019 Clearance Center, Inc.

PLATO'S PILOT IN THE POLITICAL STRATEGY OF JULIAN AND LIBANIUS

The rhetorical career of Libanius of Antioch (a.d.314–c.393) spanned the reigns of a number of fourth-century emperors. Like many orators, he used the trope of the emperor as a pilot, steering the ship of state. He did this for his imperial exemplar Julian and in fact for his predecessor Constantius II as well. Julian sought to craft an identity for himself as a theocratic king. He and his supporters cast him as an earthly parallel to the Christ-like versions of Heracles and Asclepius he constructed, which was arguably a co-opting of Christian and particularly Constantinian themes. In a public oration, Julian even placed himself in the role of Christ in the Temptation in the Wilderness. This kind of overtly Christian metaphor was not Libanius’ preferred idiom, however, and he wrote of Julian as another kind of chosen and divine saviour-figure, one with its roots in the golden age of Greek philosophy. The figure of the κυβερνήτης, the ‘pilot’ or ‘helmsman’, is a philosophical concept with roots in the thought of the pre-Socratics but most familiar from Plato. The uses of this metaphor by Julian and Libanius highlight the rhetorical strategy and self-presentation the emperor employed during his reign.

Greek Myths in Roman Art and Culture: Imagery, Values and Identity in Italy 50 B.C.–A.D. 250 by Z. Newby

200 PHOENIX rejected success in the institutions of the Roman state, it fostered the emergence of what Watts aptly calls a new “drop-out culture” (149–168). Young élite Christians across the empire shocked their families by consciously rejecting marriage and the material rewards of secular careers. Initially, these unwashed radicals had little influence on imperial policy. But as the fourth century progressed, their power increased. Some of them became bishops of the Christian church. Others became famous spiritual advisers and ascetics. According to Watts, it was the growing influence of this new generation of radicals that significantly contributed to the hardening of religious attitudes in the 380s and 390s. There is much that is attractive about Watts’s depiction of the more rigorist Christian culture of the late fourth century. It is clear that the accumulating political power of the church and the growing spiritual authority of its ascetic superstars enabled militant groups to implement anti-pagan and anti-Jewish measures that one generation earlier would have been prevented by the imperial government. But is it really a generational shift that was at play here? As Watts himself observes, already in the 330s and 340s, some Christian intellectuals envisaged a more energetic push for de-paganization (46–47, 86–88). Conversely, the great majority of élite males born in the 330s and 340s followed the same path as their predecessors had one generation earlier. High officials such as the pagan nobilis Quintus Aurelius Symmachus (who carefully included many Christian high officials amongst the recipients of his published correspondence) or the Christian homo nouus Flavius Manlius Theodorus (to whom Augustine dedicated his De beata uita, but whom he later denounced as “a man of monstrous egotism” [Conf. 7.9.1]) were just as career-obsessed and religiously tolerant as the protagonists of Watts’s study. They look very much at home in the self-satisfied world of the fourth century, marked by “storehouses full of gold coins, elaborate dinner parties . . ., public orations before emperors, and ceremonies commemorating officeholders” (220). From this perspective, the crude force of Christian numbers may have been as important in propelling the late fourth-century escalation of radicalism as the biographical experiences of a new generation of activists. But none of this should be taken to diminish the value of this book. The Final Pagan Generation offers an innovative, beautifully written, and meticulously up-to-date social and political history of the fourth century. By restoring the perspective of a group of élite males who lived through this period of transformation, this elegant and humane book enables us to grasp the concrete ways in which religious change was experienced in antiquity. University of Maryland John Weisweiler Greek Myths in Roman Art and Culture: Imagery, Values and Identity in Italy 50 b.c.–a.d. 250. By Z. Newby. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 2016. Pp. xx, 387, 117 b/w figures, and 15 color plates. The role of Greek mythology in Roman culture has received much attention in classical studies, with scholars seeking lost Greek visual and textual “prototypes” or analogies, or, more recently, focusing on the effects of “Romanization” on these borrowed subjects. Newby approaches this topic from the perspective of lived experience, asking how the inhabitants of Roman Italy strategically used Greek myths “in sites of social BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS 201 interaction and self-representation” (7) to create a multivalent social discourse in particular contexts. She explores a variety of interpretive modes, including “connoisseurship, paideia, elevation, escapism, exemplum, paradigm and analogy” (30). Ultimately exemplarity is her answer, although myth also offered viewers ways to connect personally with human experiences, such as fear or love. Newby focuses on Roman Italy, mostly the urbs and the bay of Naples. She pays close attention to viewing contexts, exploring Greek myth in sculpture and wall-painting from villas, ekphrastic literature, and tomb decoration, noting a general preference for subject over style (or, at times, quality). Throughout, she aims not to bend the evidence to fit a predetermined assessment. Each chapter explores myth in various settings. Newby begins (“Introduction: Greek Myths, Roman Lives”) with a discussion of her scope, introducing primary questions and themes. Chapter One...

The State of Speech

The State of Speech

Art for the Nation. The Eastlakes and the Victorian Art World

Lady Eastlake (1809–93) would have been utterly horrified to find her face gazing out from the front cover of this volume, with her beloved Sir Charles relegated unceremoniously to the rear. When her husband was awarded his honorary doctorate by the University of Oxford in 1853, she was acutely embarrassed by the Public Orator’s reference to his ‘most famous wife’, deeming it inappropriate for there to be any mention of herself in the context of her husband’s achievements. Clearly, her appearance as cover-girl represents a marketing decision, rather than the authors’ choice, but this prominence given to the wife, rather than the husband, reflects the authors’ view that Elizabeth Eastlake – née Rigby – has so far tended to take centre stage, earning rather more credit than she deserves in relation to the National Gallery. Certainly, it is easy to be distracted by the colourful character of Lady Eastlake – evolving from the wittily outspoken young woman who could hold her own with publishers Murray and Lockhart, into the feisty champion of Effie in the great Ruskin marriage debacle, and finally into a crochety grande dame, pressurizing politicians to do her bidding after her husband’s death. Nicknamed ‘Lofty Lucy’, and a veritable ‘Doric pillar’ of a woman (according to Sara Coleridge), she has tended to stand head and shoulders above her husband in terms of biographical interest, just as she did in physical stature. Sir Charles Lock Eastlake (1793–1865), by contrast, a restrained and modest figure, offers less in the way of dramatic potential, and so has been left relatively unrecognized for the enormous changes he wrought in the national art scene – as President of the Royal Academy from 1850, and as first Director of the National Gallery from 1855.

William Strode’s The Floating Island: Play and Political Propaganda

In August 1636 Charles I, accompanied by his queen, nephews and Court, decided to pay the University of Oxford a three-day visit. In the previous seven years Archbishop Laud, Chancellor of the University since 1629, had made a number of important improvements to the University, including the building of a new quadrangle at his own old college, St John's; this royal seal of approval showed recognition of Laud's achievements and gave the impression that he had come to possess influence at the highest level. Officially the King was the guest of the University; it was the Public Orator, William Strode, who gave the speech of welcome when the royal party arrived, and the University who footed most of the bill; but it was the Archbishop who masterminded the whole affair.1 Among the entertainments provided for the guests were three plays. Two romantic comedies performed on the second day of the visit were well received, but William Strode's allegorical play The Floating Island, acted at Christ Church on the first evening of the visit, was a failure. What the royal party made of it is not recorded, but the Earl of Northumberland's chaplain thought it 'fitter for schollers then a Court', and Lord Carnarvon, less restrained, considered it the worst play he had ever seen except for one at Cambridge.2 A dedicatory poem which the author later attached to the play makes it plain that there was considerable barracking at the first performance (the second, staged for the university once the royal visit was over, was more successful). For the playwright the evening had clearly been a disaster, and the prologue quickly written a few days later for the repeat performance, to replace that addressed to the royal couple, shows his ruffled feelings:We hope to find Spectatours, and we may,For you'l not act the Humours of the Play;Or fret at Passions e'er you read them calm'dIn the next word. Your stomacks feele no QualmRising through smell of rude Philosophy:Nor shall you finde much more then to descryAn Academick birth.3Plainly for Strode the fault was in the audience, not in the play. Laud's opinion was similar: the play was 'very well penned, yet did not take the court so well'.4Later judgements of The Floating Island have, with justification, been less kind. The genre - half morality play, half masque - has been seen as an unfortunate choice, and the characters, representing various humours or 'Passions', as stilted and wooden. The plot, in which the Passions revolt against the benign rule of King Prudentius, but later realise their mistake and welcome his return, is hardly gripping, and attempts to enliven it with episodes of comedy are not successful. The dialogue attempts to be lively, but the sequence of events is too inconsequential and unmotivated for it to be convincing. The play is laboured, and patently produced with little sense of the dramatic.5Its author, William Strode, was at this time a man in the early stages of what appeared to be a promising career. Like several of his colleagues at Christ Church, he had been schooled at Westminster, where the writing of poetry was encouraged,6 and it was as a lyric poet that he first made his mark. He had arrived at Christ Church in 1617 at the age of fifteen or so;7 only two years later he was a contributor to the volume of Latin verse with which Oxford mourned the death of Queen Anne in March 1619,8 and he continued to contribute Latin verse to University publications for the next two decades. His contemporaries doubtless paid more attention to the poems in English which he produced throughout the 1620s. His love-poetry, elegies, comic verses, occasional pieces, parodies, satires, or 'posies' for necklaces and rings were copied widely in the University and further afield, and his songs were not only transcribed but sung on convivial occasions. Meanwhile he followed the normal academic and clerical course; in the summer of 1624 he had reached the stage of taking his MA, and by 1628 must have passed through the diaconate, since in December of that year he was ordained priest. …

Eurosceptics in the European Parliament: Exit or Voice?

Euroscepticism at the supranational level has remained largely overlooked by scholars. In an attempt to fill in this gap, this article focuses on the persistent minority of hard Eurosceptic MEPs. The objective is twofold. First, it aims to determine how Eurosceptic MEPs conceive and carry out their representative mandate. Second, it analyzes the impact of the institutional framework and of the visions of Europe on the strategies of these MEPs. Drawing on the insights of role theory and the dichotomy of A. Hirschman and using a qualitative methodology, the article proposes a typology of three main parliamentary roles (the absentee, the pragmatist and the public orator), corresponding to a continuum between exit and voice. It also shows that both the visions of Europe as well as the institutional context affect the parliamentary roles of MEPs.

Linguistic Creativity, Secondary Orality, and Political Discourse: The Modern Greek Myth of the "Eloquent Orator"

The use of tropes is one of the most striking features of Greek political discourse. Such creative linguistic resources are not used merely to "decorate" political speeches and render them more appealing to the audience, but, most importantly, to criticize the opponent(s) and project certain aspects of political identity. While such resources are employed in the recitation of politicians' written texts and indicate the "conversationalization" of political communication, they also seem to be important criteria for the evaluation of Greek politicians. Given that oral practices are more highly valued than literal ones in Greek culture, while at the same time school education has accorded "literary" value to linguistic creativity, Greek citizens tend to focus on creative features in assessing the political skills of public orators, thus contributing to the modern Greek myth of the "eloquent orator" as the most competent politician.

Eighteenth Century Shakespeare: Image of the National Hero

This paper explores three interconnected representations of Shakespeare in the eighteenth century: the Westminster Abbey statue of Shakespeare erected in 1741, David Garrick's Jubilee held in 1769, and John Boydell's Shakespeare Gallery founded in 1789. Shakespeare's statue had much to do with the advancement of Garrick's self-image in the Jubilee; Boydell employed Shakespeare as subject for history painting that was the most sublime of artistic genres. They were in line with the representation of Shakespeare in the history of his promotion as symbol of British national identity. They gave Shakespeare his cultural prominence in the period, mediating him to the public by the means of his images such as statues and portraits. The widespread popularity of images of Shakespeare became a part of the cultural and commercial activities of nationalism. The embodiment of Shakespeare as a national hero was bound up with the force of commercial, cultural and national endeavours. Also the paper observes that the eighteenth century tradition of worshiping Shakespeare's genius is kept in the current annual event of Shakespeare Birthday Celebrations held in Stratford-upon-Avon every April. Such aspects of the Jubilee as public orations and street procession of Shakespearean characters retain some influence over the anniversary of Shakespeare's birth and death: the Procession, the unfurling of the flags, and laying of floral tributes at his grave in Holy Trinity Church. This association demonstrates that the recognitions of Shakespeare as Britain's foremost pride and his home town as a site of pilgrimage are still intact even in the age of going towards globalization and multiculralism.

The Rhetoric of Sensibility in Eighteenth-Century Culture by Paul Goring

162 gernon Sidney, and John Locke, we will observe the emergence of distinctively liberal and republican modes of thought and discourse.’’ For the most part, it succeeds wonderfully. Mr. Ward’s simple but profound contribution to the debate shows that the liberal and republican interpretations present a false dichotomy—they both can be true. The intellectual forces that shaped the Exclusion Crisis and Glorious Revolution drew strength from the principles of natural liberty and individual rights as well as from the principles of civic virtue and political participation . The Whig political discourse of the period emphasized the value of liberty as well as the importance of virtue, which means that it is overly simplistic and schematic to reduce the whole conversation to a single paradigm. Mr. Ward does an excellent job of recreating the intellectual milieu of the Exclusion Crisis by revivifying the major alternative political philosophies, many of which are virtually unknown today, that formed the horizon of the early modern debate over sovereignty. The only pervasive problem in the work is that in trying to recreate this intellectual world, Mr. Ward sometimes finds his material slipping away from him. He shows that the liberal and republican traditions in Anglo-American thought were originally part of a single discourse of opposition against divine right absolutism, yet the differences between these traditions are often as glaring as their shared rejection of absolutism . Mr. Ward himself seems to feel the problem. He says that he has tried to ‘‘reconcile the different strands of this early modern philosophy into the complex heterogeneous whole it originally was.’’ But in what sense are the parts ‘‘reconciled’’ when the whole remains complexly ‘‘heterogeneous.’’ Matthew Simpson PAUL GORING. The Rhetoric of Sensibility in Eighteenth-Century Culture. Cambridge: Cambridge, 2005. Pp. 222. $50; $22.50 (paper). Aaron Hill’s The Art of Acting argues that actors summon up bodily signs in performance; a grammar of gestures manifests specific, identifiable ‘‘passions .’’ For Mr. Goring, power sharing and capitalism created a need in the middle class for the means of gentility, and orators revealed a model of politeness through physical movement and eloquence in public and in conduct books. British culture saw the human body as objectively performing ‘‘eloquent’’ movement and gestures in public; thus the body responds to cultural developments . The body in place and in motion is the site on which permutations of British ‘‘polite society’’ were displayed, recognized, and valued. While stage speech in the eighteenth century has been studied extensively, the body as a medium for public oratory and its attendant gestures has not. Mr. Goring distinguishes between polite bodily discourse and that of enthusiastic bodies, such as those ‘‘associated with Methodism,’’ especially the exuberant preaching of John Henley, who challenged religious propriety. Thomas Sheridan believed systematically ‘‘fixing ’’ British oratory and bodily performance would make English speech more natural than the ornamented French oratory , and these improvements would lend cultural coherence to the English nation. Bodily eloquence also appears in the sentimental novel and language of feeling. Readers ‘‘stage’’ politeness by 163 learning and sharing with others. Works by Richardson—particularly Pamela— Sarah Fielding, Frances Sheridan, and Henry Mackenzie constitute a genre of sentimental fiction featuring performance . Mr. Goring’s Epilogue examines Sterne’s oratory and bodily expression in sermons and literature. In sermonizing , Sterne’s indecorous wit and bawdiness did not exhibit appropriate gravitas, but in Tristram Shandy and Sentimental Journey he gently mocks scholars who produced technical formulae for public oration and somatic delivery: Corporal Trim’s now-famous reading of Sterne’s own sermon. Rebecca Shapiro Westminster College LYNN FESTA. Sentimental Figures of Empire in Eighteenth-Century Britain and France. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins, 2006. Pp. 312. $55. Recently, I overheard a renowned eighteenth-century scholar opine, ‘‘Aren’t we through with sensibility yet?’’ For some, it has been a long twenty years in which studies of sentiment have come of age and matured. By refusing to accept sentimentality on its own terms, however, Ms. Festa discovers some new dimensions to explore. She stakes the originality of this book on her insights into the concept of the person, but I find that the project is most memorable for unearthing the volatile politics of...

George Herbert's Distemper: An Honest Shepherd's Remedy for Melancholy

George Herbert's Distemper:An Honest Shepherd's Remedy for Melancholy Anne-Marie Miller Blaise What a striking change there is in tone when one compares George Herbert's 1619 letter to his step-father and his advice to Arthur Woodnoth in continuing his living with the same Sir John Danvers twelve years later. The younger Herbert seems both flattered by his forthcoming Cambridge oratorship and eager to benefit from the prestige and sense of power of such employment: The Orators place . . . is the finest place in the University, though not the gainfullest; yet that will be about 30 l. per an. but the commodiousness is beyond the Revenue; for the Orator writes all the University Letters, makes all the Orations, be it to King, Prince . . ., he takes place next the Doctors . . . and sits above the Proctors.1 The mature priest of Bemerton, on the other hand, gives serene words of encouragement to a friend who doubts his usefulness in fighting against the extravagance of John Danvers in his second marriage and to whom Herbert had earlier boasted the merits of becoming public orator: "Though you want all success either in inclining or restraining, To desire good & endeavour it when we can doe no more, is to doe it" (p. 381). Commentators and biographers of Herbert have often wondered at such a transformation. The turning point in Herbert's life occurred in those years for which we have the least information. How can one account for Herbert's letting go of court hopes and committing himself not only to the Church but to the small parish of Bemerton? Had he simply lost all his patrons? Was it illness, as he himself claimed, that made him "unable to perform those Offices for which I came into the World"?2 Did the death of loved ones – especially that of his mother in 1627 – lead him to further relinquish worldly honors? Or was it all a matter of personal piety? Lynette Muir, who looks at George Herbert's life from a historical viewpoint, alongside that of his Cambridge days friend, Nicholas Ferrar, [End Page 59] dismisses the third hypothesis, the most attractive in building up Herbert's saintliness. Muir's answer to both men's simultaneous withdrawal from public life is political: they sought disengagement and a commitment to Christian separation as part of a reaction not against monarchy itself but Charles's monarchical absolutism. One may notice how such an interpretation substitutes political idealism – the Church becoming "a new satisfactory institutional identity" – for pureness of faith.3 Even Izaak Walton implicitly stated that Herbert's taking orders was to be linked to the loss of his patrons: God . . . in a short time put an end to the lives of two of his most obliging and most powerful friends, Lodowick, Duke of Richmond, and James, Marquess of Hamilton; and not long after him King James died also, and with them all Mr Herbert's Court hopes. So that presently he betook himself to a retreat from London, to a friend in Kent. . . . In this time of retirement he had many conflicts with himself, whether he should return to the painted pleasures of a life or betake himself to a study of Divinity and enter into the Sacred Orders?4 Of course, suggesting that Herbert may have chosen "the painted pleasures of a Court life" had he wished to do so, enhances the final decision of "Holy Mr Herbert." Cristina Malcolmson's biography of George Herbert reads as a serious challenge to traditional interpretations of those relatively mysterious years from 1624 to 1630 during which the poet abandoned his seat at Parliament and took up holy orders, accepting a modest church position and resigning his Cambridge oratorship in the process. She argues that the period emerges neither as a moment of disinterested retirement from public life, nor as deliberate disengagement, but rather as a time of continued "frustration at lack of preferment," whether in the Church or more worldly positions.5 While I am greatly indebted to Malcolmson in what follows, I would like to suggest yet another reading of these years which shows that apparently conflicting interpretations are not in fact mutually exclusive...