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Cicero’s ears, or eloquence in the age of politeness: oratory, moderation, and the sublime in Enlightenment Scotland
This paper argues that Hume’s essay, ‘Of Eloquence’, should be read as part of a Scottish Enlightenment attempt to accommodate the sublime to commercial modernity. Hume inherits the sublime of ancient oratory not as a matter for narrow stylistic regulation - to be rejected in a new age of politeness, as some have argued - but as a moral problem at the heart of modern subjectivity. Hume looks to taste to regulate and contain the sublime, but it is Adam Smith who solves the problem of the sublime by recouping its excess as a mark of the possibilities for virtue in the modern age.
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- Published
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- Published version
Journal
Eighteenth-Century StudiesISSN
0013-2586Publisher
Johns Hopkins University PressExternal DOI
Issue
4Volume
46Page range
499-512Department affiliated with
- English Publications
Full text available
- Yes
Peer reviewed?
- Yes
Legacy Posted Date
2013-03-18First Open Access (FOA) Date
2016-03-22First Compliant Deposit (FCD) Date
2016-11-15Usage metrics
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