How words make things happen / David Bromwich
By: Bromwich, David [author].
Contributor(s): Ohio Library and Information Network.
Publisher: Oxford, United Kingdom ; New York, NY : Oxford University Press, ©2019Edition: First edition.Description: 113 p.ISBN: 9780199672790.Subject(s): Persuasion (Rhetoric) | Persuasion (Rhetoric) in literatureGenre/Form: Electronic books | Print books.Summary: Sooner or later, our words take on meanings other than we intended. How Words Make Things Happen suggests that the conventional idea of persuasive rhetoric (which assumes a speaker's control of calculated effects) and the modern idea of literary autonomy (which assumes that "poetry makes nothing happen") together have produced a misleading account of the relations between words and human action. Words do make things happen. But they cannot be counted on to produce the result they intend. The argument is enriched by examples from speakers and writers of various sorts, with close readings of the quoted passages. Chapter 1 considers the theory of speech acts propounded by J. L. Austin. "Speakers Who Convince Themselves" is the subject of Chapter 2, which interprets two soliloquies by Shakespeare's characters, two by Milton's Satan, and a character's inward meditation in a novel by Henry James. The oratory of Burke and Lincoln comes in for extended treatment in Chapter 3, while Chapter 4 looks at the rival tendencies of moral suasion and aestheticism in the poetry of Yeats and Auden. The final chapter, a cause of controversy when first published in the London Review of Books, supports a policy of unrestricted free speech against contemporary proposals of censorship. Since we cannot know what our own words are going to do, we have no standing to justify the banishment of one set of words in favour of another| Current location | Call number | Status | Date due | Barcode | Item holds |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| On Shelf | P301.5.P47 B76 2019 (Browse shelf) | Available | AU00000000014651 |
This edition previously issued in print: 2019
Written by a leading literary critic, this volume studies the words of a wide range of speakers and writers to explore the nature of persuasion, the effects of words, and how words can lead to action
Includes bibliographical references and index
Available to OhioLINK libraries
Sooner or later, our words take on meanings other than we intended. How Words Make Things Happen suggests that the conventional idea of persuasive rhetoric (which assumes a speaker's control of calculated effects) and the modern idea of literary autonomy (which assumes that "poetry makes nothing happen") together have produced a misleading account of the relations between words and human action. Words do make things happen. But they cannot be counted on to produce the result they intend. The argument is enriched by examples from speakers and writers of various sorts, with close readings of the quoted passages. Chapter 1 considers the theory of speech acts propounded by J. L. Austin. "Speakers Who Convince Themselves" is the subject of Chapter 2, which interprets two soliloquies by Shakespeare's characters, two by Milton's Satan, and a character's inward meditation in a novel by Henry James. The oratory of Burke and Lincoln comes in for extended treatment in Chapter 3, while Chapter 4 looks at the rival tendencies of moral suasion and aestheticism in the poetry of Yeats and Auden. The final chapter, a cause of controversy when first published in the London Review of Books, supports a policy of unrestricted free speech against contemporary proposals of censorship. Since we cannot know what our own words are going to do, we have no standing to justify the banishment of one set of words in favour of another
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