Complicating the classics: Neoclassical rhetorics in two early American schoolbooks

Rhetoric Society Quarterly Sep 2001

Complicating the classics: Neoclassical rhetorics in two early American schoolbooks

Shevaun E. Watson Miami University

Abstract

Abstract This article examines two texts important in American rhetorical history, Caleb Bingham's 1794 American Preceptor and Eliphalet Pearson's 1802 abridgment of Blair's Lectures. These schoolbooks challenge accepted historiographies of late eighteenth‐ and early nineteenth‐century rhetoric in two ways: they demonstrate that neoclassicism encompassed a much greater variety of ancient figures and texts than is usually presumed, and they suggest that neoclassical rhetorics operated within a more complicated sociopolitical milieu than is commonly understood. Bingham and Pearson emerge as key figures in early American rhetorical history and their books prompt reconsideration of American neoclassicism.

Journal: Rhetoric Society Quarterly
Published: 2001-09-01
DOI: 10.1080/02773940109391214
Open Access: Closed
Topics: rhetorical theory

Citation Context

Cited by in this index (0)

No articles in this index cite this work.

Cites in this index (1)

Halloran (1987)

Rhetoric and the English department

Rhetoric Society Quarterly

Also cites 8 works outside this index ↓

Connors Robert J. (1997)

Composition‐Rhetoric: Backgrounds, Theory, and Pedagogy

↗
Crowley Sharon (1998)

Composition in the University

↗
10.2307/361972

↗
Gummere Richard M. (1963)

The American Colonial Mind and the Classical Tradition

↗
10.1080/03637754609374896

↗
Miller Thomas P. (1997)

The Formation of College English: Rhetoric and Belles Lettres in the British Cultural Provinces

↗
10.1080/00335635909382357

↗
Royster Jacqueline Jones (2000)

Traces of a Stream: Literacy and Social Change Among African American Women

↗

CrossRef global citation count: 0 View in citation network →