Democratic Eloquence The Fight over Popular Speech in Nineteenth-Century America |
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| Author:
| Cmiel, Kenneth |
| ISBN: | 978-0-520-07485-9 |
| Publication Date: | Jul 1991 |
| Publisher: | University of California Press
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| Book Format: | Paperback |
| List Price: | USD $16.95 |
Book Description:
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Democratic Eloquence tells the dramatic story of how Americans thought and argued about the English language between 1776 and 1900. The rise of a popular democracy in the early nineteenth century rudely challenged gentlemanly assumptions that only the well-educated should be able to speak in public. The popular challenge stimulated discussions about how grammars, dictionaries, even the English Bible should be written and what the idiom of a democratic society should be.
Democratic Eloquence tells the dramatic story of how Americans thought and argued about the English language between 1776 and 1900. The rise of a popular democracy in the early nineteenth century rudely challenged gentlemanly assumptions that only the well-educated should be able to speak in public. The popular challenge stimulated discussions about how grammars, dictionaries, even the English Bible should be written and what the idiom of a democratic society should be.