From Publishers Weekly
By eloquence, literary critic Donoghue (
Speaking of Beauty) emphatically does not mean the Ciceronian model of well-turned phrases supporting weighty arguments and capable of swaying hearts along with minds; such is mere rhetoric. In his estimation, eloquence is unencumbered by political aim or intent to persuade and requires no context or, perhaps, even meaning. It is language whose beauty has no agenda, and the author defends its gorgeous uselessness against both polemicists and moralists who frown on highfalutin departures from plain speaking. Donoghue's survey finds eloquence everywhere, from Dante and Shakespeare to
Taxi Driver hero Travis Bickle's immortal You talkin' to me?, and he elucidates its workings in dense readings of literary excerpts from many eras and several languages. The results are often incisive, as in his comparison of Melville's
Bartleby the Scrivener with the Book of Job, but sometimes his readings are so subtle that they don't register. Worse, by exiling both moral and social import from his lit-for-lit's-sake framework, Donaghue can seem precious and do what eloquence never does: leave the reader unmoved.
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Review
"Denis Donoghue brings a lifetime''s devotion to linguistic eloquence to this book, an eloquent plea for the appreciation of literary beauty."—Denise Gigante, Stanford University
(Denise Gigante 20090201)
"In this book, Donoghue continues his case for reading for aesthetic pleasure rather than to have our political values endorsed or abused. This is an argument that needs to be made, and it is all the more crucial that a critic of Donoghue''s stature make it."—David Rosen, Trinity College
(David Rosen 20090209)
"Via Shakespeare, Melville, Dickinson, Woolf, and more, Donoghue sensitively instructs us in eloquence—how it is achieved and how it is remarked, in gesture and incantation, the dancer and the dance."—Amanda Heller, Boston Sunday Globe
(Amanda Heller
Boston Sunday Globe )
“Donoghue is a formidably gifted critic whose range of reference is truly impressive.”—Peter Brooks, New York Times Book Review
(Peter Brooks
New York Times Book Review )
". . . . A labor of love pressed out of a lifetime of remarkable reading and writing and aided by a prodigious memory that does not just generalize knowledge but preserves its sources."—Michael Vander Weele, Christianity and Literature
(Michael Vander Weele
Christianity and Literature )
