| dc.description.abstract | This dissertation argues that by adapting the style and techniques of
sentimental novels, poetry, and drama to persuasive writing a significant
number of late-eighteenth century political writers were able to develop a
distinct and recognisable rhetoric of sensibility. It develops this argument by
examining eighteenth-century views on the use and purpose of rhetoric, and by
looking at writing in one of the most wide-ranging debates of the lateeighteenth
century, the debate over abolition of the slave trade. Chapter One
looks at traditional ('neo-classical') rhetoric and contrasts this with some of the
many varieties of the eighteenth-century 'new rhetoric'. Chapter Two looks at
particular rhetorical strategies employed during the sentimental period and
identifies the main tropes of the rhetoric of sensibility. Chapter Three examines
the relationship between slavery and literary sentimentalism, looking at the way
in which imaginative writers used sentimental rhetoric to advance the idea of
anti-slavery. It also considers the extent to which abolitionist poems, plays,
and novels themselves contributed to the development of a sentimental
rhetoric. Chapter Four examines the use of sentimental rhetoric in nonfictional
slavery-related tracts and pamphlets. It explores the ways in which
the sentimental rhetorical strategies outlined in Chapter Two were adopted by
both pro and anti-slavery writers of the 1780s. Chapter Five discusses how
William Wilberforce, the main parliamentary advocate for abolition, used
sentimental rhetoric in his early parliamentary speeches. The conclusion
examines anti-slavery writing after the collapse of the first abolition campaign
in 1792. In particular, it examines the use of sentimental rhetoric in responses
to the revolutions in France and Haiti and suggests that after this date
sentimental rhetoric, though never entirely disappearing, was progressively
supplanted by other forms of rhetoric. | en_US |
