Hugh Blair and the
Enlightenment Style
• Separates
rhetoric and
dialectic
• Limits rhetoric to
style and delivery
• Learn rhetoric by
imitation alone.
18th Century Responses to Rhetorical Tradition
1.
2.
3.
4.
Uncritical acceptance of ancient doctrines
Focus exclusively on delivery (elocutionists)
Unite rhetoric with belles lettres
Ground all human knowledge in human
nature
Blair, Campbell’s Response
1. Culled classical rhetoric for useful ideas.
2. Emphasized delivery, but not to excess.
3. Blair saw value in belles lettres and going
beyond clarity, simplicity, etc. (breaking
norms can lead to sublimity).
4. Arguments must appeal to passions and
imagination as well as to reason and will.
John Locke
• Tabula Rasa
• Knowledge exists
independent of
language.
• Clarity essential.
George Campbell
Blair’s Rhetoric
• Produce good people who speak and write
well
• Take advantage of psychology
• Emphasize poetical features
Blair on Sentence Style
1. Any words that do not add some importance to the
meaning of a sentence always spoil it.
2. Take care with copulatives, relatives, and all the
particles employed for transition and connection.
3. Place the capital word, or words, where they will
make the fullest impression.
4. Make [sentence] members go on rising and growing
in their important over one another [building to a
climax].
5. Avoid concluding with adverb, preposition, or any
inconsiderable word.
Sentence Harmony
• As long as sounds are the vehicle of
conveyance for our ideas, there will be always
a very considerable connection between the
idea which is conveyed, and the nature of the
sound which conveys it.
Group Questions for Introduction
1. According to Blair, what is the value of
speaking and writing?
2. Why should we strive to make our writing
and speaking more eloquent?
3. What is the relationship between rhetoric
and belles lettres?
4. What role does nature and nurture play in
cultivating eloquence?
5. Why should we cultivate good taste?
Group Questions for Taste
1. What is taste? (discuss)
2. Why and to what extent do individuals differ
in taste?
3. How do we cultivate good taste?
4. What is the difference between delicacy and
correctness in regards to taste?
5. Why do some works (such as Homer’s Iliad)
withstand the test of time, whereas others
turn out to be mere fads?
Figurative Language
1. What are figures of speech? (discuss)
2. What roles do they play in language?
3. How do tropes or figures make style more
beautiful and graceful?
4. What are tropes and which ones does Blair
define and classify?