http://blog.richmond.edu/writing/2008/11/05/rhetoric-becomes-rhetoric-in-politics/ the University of Richmond Writing Center’s blog, a resource for all things related to writing. Tue, 24 Nov 2009 21:45:15 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=wordpress-mu-1.2.5 http://blog.richmond.edu/writing/2008/11/05/rhetoric-becomes-rhetoric-in-politics/#comment-136 LeeC Mon, 17 Nov 2008 13:57:37 +0000 http://blog.richmond.edu/writing/2008/11/05/rhetoric-becomes-rhetoric-in-politics/#comment-136 Definition 2 in the OED traces the deprecatory sense of 'rhetoric' to 1386 in Chaucer's "Clerk's Prologue" but I'm sure it dates back further than that. As for this election, I was surprised that some of the rhetoric was geared towards evoking a suspicion against articulate speech. We might trace this back all the way to Thomas Morton's confrontation with the Puritans at Merry Mount and their disdain for university education. Hawthorne wrote an excellent story based on the history: "The Maypole of Merry Mount" http://etext.virginia.edu/etcbin/toccer-new2?id=HawMayp.sgm&images=images/modeng&data=/texts/english/modeng/parsed&tag=public&part=1&division=div1 Definition 2 in the OED traces the deprecatory sense of ‘rhetoric’ to 1386 in Chaucer’s “Clerk’s Prologue” but I’m sure it dates back further than that. As for this election, I was surprised that some of the rhetoric was geared towards evoking a suspicion against articulate speech. We might trace this back all the way to Thomas Morton’s confrontation with the Puritans at Merry Mount and their disdain for university education. Hawthorne wrote an excellent story based on the history: “The Maypole of Merry Mount”
http://etext.virginia.edu/etcbin/toccer-new2?id=HawMayp.sgm&images=images/modeng&data=/texts/english/modeng/parsed&tag=public&part=1&division=div1

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