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A Course of Lectures on Elocution

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A Course of Lectures on Elocution Thomas Sheridan 1719-1788 Thomas Sheridan received a classical education from his father, the schoolmas­ ter Dr. Thomas Sheridan, and in 1743 received an M.A. from Trinity College, Dublin. He began a career as a stage actor and became known as quite a good one, uppearing in 1744 with the popular actor David Garrick, with whom he was favor­ ably compared, Sheridan's son, Richard Brinslcy Sheridan, became the now-famous playwright. Thomas Sheridan was the godson of Jonathan Swift, to whose innuence he at­ tributed much of his passion for the English language, as well as his Augustan atti­ \ I (,..D 1-1"' fw.._, tude toward the ancients. Like Swift, Sheridan endorsed the idea of "ascertaining" e,,t.,'-'o the language by establishing fixed rules for usage. .l� It was Sheridan's consuming interest in correcting the language that led him to 1-\-d-.:, 4f'tCAV\- '1 forgo his acting career and become a proselytizer for elocution, although he contin­ \:>c.. '��'lr ued to act on occasion and to manage theater companies for many years. His chier f:--u�� activity from 1756 to 1762 was giving his very successful lecture course, an en­ r---- 'i"..... • deavor repeated intermittently until as late as 1785. The Lectures 011 Elocutio11 (ex­ A Plan of cerpted here) were published in 1762; inf later years, Sheridan published Education (1769), Lectures 011 the Art o Readi11g ( 1775), and A General Dictionary of1/w £11,:lish La11,:1wge ( I 780). All these works reiterated in some form the argu• ment that Sheridan had first made in 1756, in a work called British Education: Or, The Source of tire Disorders of Great Britain. Being an Es.my towardsproving, that the Immorality, /g,ummce, am/ false Tuste, which so generallypre1•c1il, are the IICII· 11ml and 11eces.1·w}' Co11seque11ces of the present ,lefective System of Educatio11. \Vith a,1 at1e111p1 to shew, tlwt a revil'al of the Art ofSpeaki11g, and the S11tdy ofOur 011111 Language, might crmtrilmte, in a great me,1.mre, to the Cure of those El'ils. The subtitle goes on lo indicate that the revival of oratory and its elevation lo the status it held in ancient Athens and Rome would improve religion, morality, and the line arts and support the British constitution. The connection made here between "Immorality. Ignorance, and false Taste" is typically Augustan: From a knowledge \k.....��� and proper appreciation of classical culture (beginning, for Sheridan, with oratory), 4w (,,_ ._ o....,(_ °"' it follows as the nighl the day that one's moral values will rise to the corresponding �S�t\ level. Sheridan notes that the British, because or their superior religion and form of government, can rise even higher than the ancients. Oratory is the cornerstone of .,,�k..�­ this enterprise precisely because it combines the arts with practical political use, o,:.A. l._J� Sheridan thus found an ideal forum for his own talents and interests, and he was encouraged by the contemporary desire for linguistic self-improvement and educa­ tional reform (see the introduction to Part Four). He argues, Loo, that just as Ian• guage is the medium of reason, so voice and gesture are "the natural language of the passions." John Locke (p. 814) had demonstrated the fonnerconnection, but the lat­ ter, says Sheridan, needs further philosophical investigation. Sheridan's lectures ap­ peal to science, reverence for the ancients, linguistic anxiety (the popular passion ·1 HOMAS SHERIDAN for speaking correctly), and morality, bringing to bear every possible argumcnl for the importance of elocution. The very excess of this insistent overvalualion of elo­ cution Jed to criticism and undervaluation ofSheridan's project. Bul his arguments arc not without substance, and his principles for public speaking arc familiar and reasonable. His pmctical instruction consists primarily of advice Lo be natural, to treat public speaking as a form of conversation, to adhere to correct grammar and usage, and lo practice, for reasons of social expediency, the refined dialccl of the educated English. He cautions against reading-pronunciation (e.g., pronouncing "often" with the "t") and urges speakers to attend to the meaning of sentences to de­ termine the placement of emphasis and pauses. Gestures should also be natural. But, he notes, the meaning of gestures is conventional; they arc actions attached to ideas: Na11tral therefore means "not mechanical," rather than "springing from human na­ ture." The short extract included here contains Sheridan's argument about the relation­ ship between verbal and nonverbal communication. ll is a good example of both the sophistication and the peculiarity of Sheridan's approach. Though Sheridan's own famediminished, his work spawned many imitators, and the substance of his lectures wa" abstmcted into many textbooks, most notably Hugh Blair's popular and Jong­ Jived lecwres on Rhetoric and Belles lettres. The elocution courses, often required, that appeared in colleges in Britain and the United States from Sheridan's time to ours show the power of the ideas that Thomas Sheridan so decisively formulated. Selected Bibliography Our excerpt is from the facsimile. reprinted without notes or introduction in 1968, of the first edition of 1762, entitled A Co11r.rc <Jf Lecturesmi El<Jc11tio11. fl is bound with several shorter works on language, a plan for a grammar, and an articleon teaching English as a second lan­ guage. The Augustan Reprint Society has published a facsimile of Sheridan's 1759 A Dis­ course Being /11tmd11ctoryto Hi,r Courseof Lectures 011 El<Jwtio11 mu/ the English Language with a brief but helpful introduction by G. P. Mohrmann ( 1969 ). Though often dismissed as a er.ink, Sheridan is treated positively in William Benzie's hi­ ogr.iphy, The D11bli11 Oraror: Tlwmm Shcridcm's l11jl11e11cc 1111 Eightecmh-Ce11111ry Rhetoric wul Belles Lettre.1· (Leeds, 1971), and in Wallace Bacon's "TI1e Elocutionary Career or Thomas Sheridan (1719-1788)" (Speech Mmwgraphs 31 (March 11)64): 1-53). In Things, Tlumght, Wordsand Actio11.1·: The Problem of Language ini Late Eigl1tee111h,Cc11111ry British RhcJorical Theory (1994), H. Lewis Ulman places Sherdan in the context of eighteenth­ century rhetoric, relating him especially to Campbell and Blair, and praises his conceptual­ ization of words as actions and language as pcrfomiancc. W. S. Howell discusses Sheridan's y work sympathetically in Eigl1tcc11th-Ce11111r British logic a11d Rhetoric ( 1971 ). G. P. Mohnnann discusses the clements of science, sentiment, and traditinn:11 rhetoric that went into the elocutionary movement in "Tite Language of Nature and ElocutionaryTheo ry" (Quarterly Jmmwl of Speech 52 [April 1966): 116-24). Marie Hochmuth and Richard Murphy look at elocution in American schools in "Rhetorical and Elocutionary Training in Nineteenth•Ccntury Colleges" and Frederick W. Haberman dis1:usscs "English Sources of American Elocution," both in A Hiswry of Speech Ed11cC11io11 i11 America. ed. Karl Wallace (New York, 1954). 880 ENLIGHrENMfiNT RHETORIC u ,- \ • n.. -t\..... d; � -L-lll\e--ha:..s ,, .,. b.A-w t.<."' <,lDC.,,...hbv\..... � \\, ,, e.-l0('.\w.1Att., A Course of Lectures on Elocution Lw,..., lecture VI may be manifested to another. And as this is '� � _ chiefly done by an agreement in the use of certain � qN-'­ TONES signs, it is no mailer what those signs are; there -� � being little or no naturnl connection, beLween any ' _ v Thus far, I have considered the several points, verbal signs and our ideas, which is sufficiently \� that arc fundamentally, and essentially necessary, evinced, by the variety of languages that are spo• \t t, to every public speaker; without which he will be ken, in the differentcountries of the world. "'-' - j: so far from making any impression on his hear­ lt is true, the facility with which the communi- �·k'' ers, that he will not he able to command their at­ cation is carried on, by means of the organs of tention, nor, in many cases, even make himself speech, preferably to any other method; together understood. with some other reasons, which need not here be Yet so low is the state of elocution amongst us, enumerated, have made mankind in general that a man who is master even of these rudiments agree, in making articulate sounds or words, the of rhetoric, is comparntivcly considered, as one of symbols of their ideas; but we have ample proof, an excellent delivery. This very circumstance that this did not arise from a principle of neces- therefore, is a suflicient inducement, to apply sity, but conveniency. For they who are born closely, at least to the mastery of these points. deaf, can make themselves understood by visible But when a man has got so far, as I can see no signs; and we have it on the best authority, that reason that he should stop there, or that he should the Mimes of the Ancients, were perfectly intelli- not farther endeavour, to make himself master of gible, without the use of words. But why need I every thing, which c:an add grace, or force to his mention these, when every one who can read delivery; I shall now aucmpt to lay open the prin­ knows, that our thoughts may be communicated dples, that may serve as guides to him, in the use by visible marks, as well as by articulatesounds? of the two remaining articles, tones, and gesture: I am aware it will be said, that written lan­ upon whic:h, all that is pleasurable, or affecting in guage is only a copy of that which is spoken, and elocution, chiefly depend. has a constant reference to articulation; the char� Before I enter upon the subject of tones, it will acters upon paper, being only symbols of articu­ be necc!'isary to fix, the precise meaning, of the late sounds.
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