University of Rhode Island DigitalCommons@URI Open Access Dissertations 2016 “A Peculiar Power of Perception”: Scottish Enlightenment Rhetoric and the New Aesthetic of Language Rosaleen Greene-Smith Keefe University of Rhode Island,
[email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.uri.edu/oa_diss Recommended Citation Greene-Smith Keefe, Rosaleen, "“A Peculiar Power of Perception”: Scottish Enlightenment Rhetoric and the New Aesthetic of Language" (2016). Open Access Dissertations. Paper 464. https://digitalcommons.uri.edu/oa_diss/464 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by DigitalCommons@URI. It has been accepted for inclusion in Open Access Dissertations by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@URI. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. “A PECULIAR POWER OF PERCEPTION”: SCOTTISH ENLIGHTENMENT RHETORIC AND THE NEW AESTHETIC OF LANGUAGE BY ROSALEEN GREENE-SMITH KEEFE A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN ENGLISH LITERATURE UNIVERSITY OF RHODE ISLAND 2016 DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY DISSERTATION OF ROSALEEN GREENE-SMITH KEEFE APPROVED: Dissertation Committee: J. Jennifer Jones Stephen J. Barber Cheryl Foster Nasser H. Zawia DEAN OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL UNIVERSITY OF RHODE ISLAND 2016 ABSTRACT This dissertation is an inquiry into the ways rhetoric, as the study of the art of language use, and literature, as the art of written language, were coherently theorized in Enlightenment Scotland to articulate the complex nature of language and its inherent relationship to the human mind and its faculties. The chapters contained in this manuscript dissertation are previously published studies in eighteenth-century Scottish rhetorical theory, examining the multiple and sometimes contradictory legacies of this important body of work on language pedagogy, philosophy of mind and language, and political theory.