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ProQuest Information and Learning 300 North Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 USA 800-521-0600 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. FLOWERS OF RHETORIC: THE NINETEENTH-CENTURY IMPROVISATRICE TRADITION DISSERTATION Presented in partial fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Melissa Joan Ianetta. M.A. * * * * * The Ohio State University 2002 Dissertation Committee: Approved by Professor Nan Johnson. Adviser Professor Kav Halasek Advis Professor James Fredal Department 0f English Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. UMI Number: 3059269 ___ __ ® UMI UMI Microform 3059269 Copyright 2002 by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights reserved. This microform edition is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. ProQuest Information and Learning Company 300 North Zeeb Road P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ABSTRACT Nineteenth-century literature played a central role in shaping rhetorical paradigms for Englishwomen. Examining the development of one construct of the woman orator, the improvisatrice. in conjunction with George Campbell's The Philosophy o f Rhetoric (1776) and Hugh Blair's Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres (1784). reveals how- imaginative literature was a site for the production and circulation of rhetorical theory . With the 1807 publication of Germaine de StaeTs Corrine. or Italy, the improvisatrice became a well-recognized representation of the private woman bringing her role as moral guardian into the public sphere. De Stael's notion of the improvising woman quickly became popular not just as a literary figure but as a supposedly authentic representation of women's oratorical processes as well. As the improvisatrice w as thus seen as an enactment of a rhetorical theory, this dissertation reads w orks in the improvisatrice tradition alongside the rhetorical theories of Campbell and Blair. Such an approach foregrounds the manner in which the discourse of power was used to recognize woman’s widening role even as it established her newly-recognized rhetorical abilities as innately inferior to man's. The inventional process of the improvisatrice rhetoric feminized Blairian belletrism and Campbellian epistemology. Reading Corinne alongside these rhetorical treatises therefore reveals a system of persuasion founded on imagination and innate ii Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. taste, two key components of nineteenth-century rhetoric. Likewise, the treatment of style in the improvisatrice rhetoric reiterates related precepts from Campbell's Philosophy and Blair's Lectures. The poems of so-called English Improvisatrice Letitia Landon illustrate well the redeployment of the rhetoricians' discussion of the relation of style to musicality and the moral sublime. As demonstrated by the waning of Landon's reputation, the improvisatrice rhetoric increasingly lost popularity as the century progressed. While Charlotte Bronte's juvenilia reveal an infatuation with this system, she later critiques itThe Professor and Villette. George Eliot is likewise critical of the improvisatrice rhetoric, an opinion which informs The Mill on the Floss but also "Erinna" andDaniel Deronda. As indicated by Bronte and Eliot's treatments, then, by the century's end. the improvisatrice rhetoric had fallen out of favor. iii Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. For my father, Lawrence James Ianetta, always the '‘good man speaking well” iv Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The personal and intellectual debts incurred in the writing of any dissertation have been magnified in this case by geographical distance. I thus gratefully acknowledge the assistance of my adviser. Dr. Nan Johnson, not only for her intellectual support but also for her seemingly endless patience with the obstacles incurred by my proximity, or lack thereof. Dr. Kay Halasek has provided a model of commitment and integrity influential on this dissertation as well as my own professional development. Dr. James Fredal's participation has been crucial to this project from its earliest inception. Along with the efforts of my committee. I wish to recognize those individuals whose contributions were more informal but no less crucial. Thanks first to those colleagues willing to read countless drafts: Tara Pauliny. Dana Oswald. Kristine Risely. Emma Perry Loss and Lisa Tantonetti enriched this project through their scholarly expertise. I am also thankful to Kathleen Gagel. w ithout whose good humor and professional efficiency this dissertation would have been immeasurably less. By providing both time and resources. Ohio State has greatly facilitated this project. I would like to thank the Graduate School for a Graduate Alumni Research Grant and the Department of English for a Summer Fellowship. Finally. I wish to thank Iain Crawford for his unending support. To him I owe a debt that can never be repaid. v Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. VITA August 6. 1969............................................Bom - Salem. Massachusetts 1997 ..............................................................M.A. English. Bridgewater State College 1993-1995....................................................Graduate Assistant. Bridgewater State College 19995-2001...................................Graduate Teaching Associate. The Ohio State University FIELDS OF STUDY Major Field: English vi Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Dedication .................................................................................................................................... iv Acknowledgements .......................................................................................................................v Vita................................................................................................................................................ vi List of Figures............................................................................................................................ viii Chapters: 1. Introduction........................................................................................................................ 1 2. "Look Upon Corinne:" Invention and Corinne. or Italy............................................... 42 3. "To Elevate. I Must Soften: Letitia Landon. Sublimity and Style..............................90 4. "Force Without A Lever:" Charlotte Bronte and the Improvisatrice ....................128 5. ............"She Will Do Me No Good:" George Eliot and the Improvisatrice ................... 168 6. Conclusion.................................................................................................................... 207 Bibliography ............................................................................................................................. 231 vii Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. LIST OF FIGURES Figure Page 6.1 The Lillie Improvisatrice by Simeon Solomon ........................................................ 223 viii Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION There remains to be treated of. another species of Composition in prose, which comprehends a very numerous, though in general, a very insignificant class of Writings, known by the name of Romances and Novels. These may. at first view, deem too insignificant to deserv e that any particular notice should be taken of them. But I cannot be of this opinion. [. ..] For any kind of Writing, how trifling soever in appearance, that obtains a general currency, and especially that early preoccupies the imagination of the youth of both sexes, must demand particular attention. Its influence is likely to be considerable, both on the morals, and taste of a nation. Hugh Blair