The formation of college English : rhetoric and belles lettres in the British cultural provinces / Thomas P. Miller.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Print version record.

""Contents""; ""Acknowledgments,""; ""Introduction. The Teaching of English in the British Cultural Provinces""; ""Some Guiding Assumptions About the Domain of Rhetoric""; ""Blurred Boundaries and Genres""; ""The Formation of College English""; ""Conclusion: The Dialectical Differences Contained Within the Formation of College English""; ""1. The Expansion of the Reading Public, the Standardization of Educated Taste and Usage, and the Essay as Blurred Genre""; ""Publicizing the Literate Culture""; ""Formalizing English""; ""The Essay as Blurred Genre""

""Readers as Spectators in Civil Society""""Conclusion: Reading Publics and Politics""; ""2. The Antiquarianism of the English Universities""; ""A Classical Education Suitable for a Gentleman""; ""Public Change and ""Public"" Schools""; "" Thomas Warton and the Oxford Professorship of Poetry""; ""John Ward and the Professorship of Rhetoric at Gresham College""; "" Conclusion: That unprosperous race of men commonly called men of letters""; ""3. Liberal Education in the Dissenting Academies""; ""The Dissenters' Departure from Classicism""

""Isaac Watts, Philip Doddridge, and the Teaching of Critical Literacy""""Joseph Priestley and the Teaching of English at Warrington Academy""; ""Priestley's Utilitarian Philosophy of Liberal Education and Liberal Political Economy""; ""Scientism, Belletrism, and the Teaching of English in Late Eighteenth-Century Academies""; ""Conclusion: The Rhetoric of Dissent and the Rhetoric of Belles Lettres""; ""4. The King's English and the Classical Tradition in Ireland""; ""English Politics and English Studies in Ireland""; ""Lawson, Leland, and the Professorship of Oratory and History at Trinity""

""English Studies in Student Societies""""English Studies Outside the University: Sheridan and the Elocutionists""; "" Conclusion: English Studies as Contact Zones""; ""5. English Studies Enter the University Curriculum in Scotland""; ""The Moderate Enlightenment in ""North Britain""""; ""The Cosmopolitan Perspective of Literary Societies""; ""The Introduction of English A Literacy Crisis in the Learned Culture?""; ""English Studies Enter the University Curriculum""; ""Conclusion: Belletrism, Scientism, and the Rhetorical Stance of the Spectator""

""6. Adam Smith and the Rhetoric of a Commercial Society""""From Civic Humanism and Natural Law to Civility and Political Economy""; ""Moral Sentiments and the Subordination of Rhetoric to Belles Lettres""; ""The Political Economy of Rhetoric in a ""Commercial Society""""; ""Conclusion: Rhetoric's Displacement by the Transition from Civic Humanism to Laissez-Faire Liberalism""; ""7. Campbell's Philosophy of Rhetoric and the ""Science of Man""""; ""The ""Science of Man"" at Aberdeen""; ""Making a Sense of the Common""

In the middle of the eighteenth century, English literature, composition, and rhetoric were introduced almost simultaneously into colleges throughout the British cultural provinces. Professorships of rhetoric and belles lettres were established just as print was reaching a growing reading public and efforts were being made to standardize educated taste and usage. The provinces saw English studies as a means to upward social mobility through cultural assimilation. In the educational centers of England, however, the introduction of English represented a literacy crisis brought on by provincial.

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