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Cicero’s ears, or eloquence in the age of politeness: oratory, moderation, and the sublime in Enlightenment Scotland

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journal contribution
posted on 2023-06-08, 13:59 authored by Catherine PackhamCatherine Packham
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.

History

Publication status

  • Published

File Version

  • Published version

Journal

Eighteenth-Century Studies

ISSN

0013-2586

Publisher

Johns Hopkins University Press

Issue

4

Volume

46

Page range

499-512

Department affiliated with

  • English Publications

Full text available

  • Yes

Peer reviewed?

  • Yes

Legacy Posted Date

2013-03-18

First Open Access (FOA) Date

2016-03-22

First Compliant Deposit (FCD) Date

2016-11-15

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