Sarah Stickney Ellis, a popular and prolific writer, is now perhaps best remembered as Victorian England’s foremost “propagandist of domesticity.” Ellis, in her Young Ladies’ Reader (1845) “domesticated” women’s elocution by situating it within the home. Although women occupied the private rather than the public sphere, they nevertheless were responsible for much of England’s national greatness—its distinctive “domestic character.” In The Young Ladies’ Reader, elocution becomes a domestic duty supporting the English home and nation. Ellis restricts women’s reading to the private domain thereby reinforcing rhetoric’s traditional separation of male and female discourse.

This article examines the claim that rhetoric declined precipitously, and perhaps even “died,” sometime in the late eighteenth or early nineteenth century. While various causes have been proposed for the presumed demise, the rise of both Romanticism and nationalism has been advanced as destructive of the rhetorical tradition. Nationalism, in particular, is said to be incompatible with rhetoric because it replaced an older, universal, Latinate culture and thus displaced the classical tradition of which rhetoric was a key part. Contrary to such claims, I argue that the rise of British nationalism certainly influenced rhetoric, but did so in ways that benefited the development of modern rhetoric in Britain. I argue further that classicism and nationalism functioned, not in opposition, but in concert, contributing to a resurgence of rhetoric, elocution, and oratory in Britain in the eighteenth century and beyond.

Renaissance Debates on Rhetoric, edited and translated by Wayne A. Rebhorn. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2000. viii+322. Rhetoric and Community: Studies in Unity and Fragmentation, edited by J. Michael Hogan. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1998. xxxviii + 315 pp. The Cultural Life of Intellectual Properties: Authorship, Appropriation, and the Law by Rosemary J. Coombe. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1998. xi + 462 pp. Standing in the Shadow of Giants: Plagiarists, Authors, Collaborators by Rebecca Moore Howard. Stamford, CT: Ablex, 1999. xi + 195 pp. Wordsworth and the Composition of Knowledge: Refiguring Relationships Among Minds, Worlds, and Words by Brad Sullivan. New York: Peter Lang, 2000. xii + 202 pp. Culture of Eloquence: Oratory and Reform in Antebellum America by James Perrin Warren. University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1999. x + 202 pp.

Sean Patrick O'Rourke: Introduction On Saturday, November 20, 1993, five historians of rhetoric presented papers on the question, What is the most significant passage on rhetoric in the works of Francis Bacon? The American Society for the History of Rhetoric sponsored the panel, which was part of the Speech Communication Association's 79th annual meeting held in Miami Beach, Florida. Bacon's views on the nature and scope of rhetoric have become increasingly important. As a philosopher, historian, politician, advocate, scientist, and essayist, Bacon was well aware of the cultural uses of rhetoric, and he showed particular concern for the place of rhetoric in liberal education. Moreover, he systematized and promoted his ideas in a forceful, eloquent way. As a result, despite the judgment of many that Bacon made no original contributions to science and offered little that was pivotal in the history of jurisprudence or politics, Bacon has been a central figure in intellectual history. Certainly that remains true today. Bacon's thought is deeply relevant to the ongoing work in the rhetoric of science, his influence as a prose stylist has important implications for those concerned with the essay, and his stature and authority in the field of law make his writings a preface to the contemporary debates on the rhetoric of law. For reasons that will soon become obvious, the papers provoked a lively and enthusiastic discussion when they were presented in Miami. They are presented here in the hope that they will prove equally provocative to the readers of RSQ.