Irony, Silence, and Time: Frederick Douglass on the Fifth of July

Quarterly Journal of Speech

Volumn 89, Issue 3, 2003, Pages 216-234

  Terrill, Robert E ^a  

^a NONE

Author keywords

Fourth of July; Frederick Douglass; Irony; Time; Visual rhetoric

Indexed keywords

EID: 0242725538     PISSN: 00335630     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/0033563032000125322     Document Type: Review

References (89)

1. The most recent example of an irony-ending event, as I write this, is the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001. One of the most widely cited of irony's obituaries following this event is Roger Rosenblatt, "The Age of Irony Comes to an End: No Longer Will We Fail to Take Things Seriously," Time, 24 September 2001, 79. Two thoughtful responses to this obituary include David Beers, "Irony is Dead! Long Live Irony!" Salon.com, 25 September 2001 〈http://archive.salon.com/mwt/feature/2001/09/25/irony_lives/print. html〉 (Retrieved 15 November 2002); Tim Cavanaugh, "Ironic Engagement: The Hidden Agenda of the Anti-Ironists," Reason Online, December 2001 〈http://reason.com/0112/co.tc.rant.shtml〉 (Retrieved 3 November 2002).
2. The most recent example of an irony-ending event, as I write this, is the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001. One of the most widely cited of irony's obituaries following this event is Roger Rosenblatt, "The Age of Irony Comes to an End: No Longer Will We Fail to Take Things Seriously," Time, 24 September 2001, 79. Two thoughtful responses to this obituary include David Beers, "Irony is Dead! Long Live Irony!" Salon.com, 25 September 2001 〈http://archive.salon.com/mwt/feature/2001/09/25/irony_lives/print. html〉 (Retrieved 15 November 2002); Tim Cavanaugh, "Ironic Engagement: The Hidden Agenda of the Anti-Ironists," Reason Online, December 2001 〈http://reason.com/0112/co.tc.rant.shtml〉 (Retrieved 3 November 2002).
3. The most recent example of an irony-ending event, as I write this, is the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001. One of the most widely cited of irony's obituaries following this event is Roger Rosenblatt, "The Age of Irony Comes to an End: No Longer Will We Fail to Take Things Seriously," Time, 24 September 2001, 79. Two thoughtful responses to this obituary include David Beers, "Irony is Dead! Long Live Irony!" Salon.com, 25 September 2001 〈http://archive.salon.com/mwt/feature/2001/09/25/irony_lives/print. html〉 (Retrieved 15 November 2002); Tim Cavanaugh, "Ironic Engagement: The Hidden Agenda of the Anti-Ironists," Reason Online, December 2001 〈http://reason.com/0112/co.tc.rant.shtml〉 (Retrieved 3 November 2002).
4. On the relationship between an ironic attitude and theater spectatorship, see D. C. Muecke, The Compass of Irony (London: Methuen, 1969), 223.
5. Muecke, Compass of Irony, 220.
6. "If you will pardon the inelegant terms, irony can only 'complexify'; it can never 'disambiguate,'" in Linda Hutcheon, Irony's Edge: The Theory and Politics of Irony (New York: Routledge, 1994), 13.
7. Michael Leff, "Cicero's Pro Murena and the Strong Case for Rhetoric," Rhetoric & Public Affairs 1 (1998): 64. Leff is quoting Richard Lanham, The Electronic Word: Democracy, Technology, and the Arts (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993), 189.
8. Michael Leff, "Cicero's Pro Murena and the Strong Case for Rhetoric," Rhetoric & Public Affairs 1 (1998): 64. Leff is quoting Richard Lanham, The Electronic Word: Democracy, Technology, and the Arts (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993), 189.
9. Wayne Booth notes, "From the beginning, apparently, the word [irony] tended to get itself attached to a type of character ... rather than to any one device." In A Rhetoric of Irony (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1974), 138-39.
10. Booth, A Rhetoric of Irony, 138-41. Peter L. Oesterreich suggests that for Kenneth Burke, similarly, "Irony represents the typical shape of the liberal, enlightened intellect, in contrast to the metaphor, the metonymy, or the synecdoche, expressed in the naïve consciousness of mythological worldviews." Oesterreich also offers a useful thumbnail sketch of Romantic and postmodern conceptions of irony, both of which imply that contemporary culture is, or ought to be understood as, fundamentally ironic. In Peter L. Oesterreich, "Irony," in Encyclopedia of Rhetoric, ed. Thomas O. Sloane (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 404-6.
11. Booth, A Rhetoric of Irony, 138-41. Peter L. Oesterreich suggests that for Kenneth Burke, similarly, "Irony represents the typical shape of the liberal, enlightened intellect, in contrast to the metaphor, the metonymy, or the synecdoche, expressed in the naïve consciousness of mythological worldviews." Oesterreich also offers a useful thumbnail sketch of Romantic and postmodern conceptions of irony, both of which imply that contemporary culture is, or ought to be understood as, fundamentally ironic. In Peter L. Oesterreich, "Irony," in Encyclopedia of Rhetoric, ed. Thomas O. Sloane (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 404-6.
12. Muecke, Compass of Irony, 94.
13. Richard Harvey Brown, Society as Text: Essays on Rhetoric, Reason, and Reality (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987), 186-90.
14. On the potential of rhetoric to have a temporalizing effect, see Michael C. Leff, "Textual Criticism: The Legacy of G. P. Mohrmann," Quarterly Journal of Speech 72 (1986): 377-89; J. Robert Cox, "The Fulfillment of Time: King's 'I Have a Dream' Speech (August 28, 1963)," in Texts in Context: Critical Dialogues on Significant Episodes in American Political Rhetoric, ed. Michael C. Leff and Fred J. Kauffeld (Davis, CA: Hermagoras Press, 1989), 181-204; Robert Hariman, "Time and the Reconstitution of Gradualism in King's Address: A Response to Cox," in Texts in Context, 205-17; Randall A. Lake, "Between Myth and History: Enacting Time in Native American Protest Rhetoric," Quarterly Journal of Speech 77 (1991): 123-51.
15. On the potential of rhetoric to have a temporalizing effect, see Michael C. Leff, "Textual Criticism: The Legacy of G. P. Mohrmann," Quarterly Journal of Speech 72 (1986): 377-89; J. Robert Cox, "The Fulfillment of Time: King's 'I Have a Dream' Speech (August 28, 1963)," in Texts in Context: Critical Dialogues on Significant Episodes in American Political Rhetoric, ed. Michael C. Leff and Fred J. Kauffeld (Davis, CA: Hermagoras Press, 1989), 181-204; Robert Hariman, "Time and the Reconstitution of Gradualism in King's Address: A Response to Cox," in Texts in Context, 205-17; Randall A. Lake, "Between Myth and History: Enacting Time in Native American Protest Rhetoric," Quarterly Journal of Speech 77 (1991): 123-51.
16. On the potential of rhetoric to have a temporalizing effect, see Michael C. Leff, "Textual Criticism: The Legacy of G. P. Mohrmann," Quarterly Journal of Speech 72 (1986): 377-89; J. Robert Cox, "The Fulfillment of Time: King's 'I Have a Dream' Speech (August 28, 1963)," in Texts in Context: Critical Dialogues on Significant Episodes in American Political Rhetoric, ed. Michael C. Leff and Fred J. Kauffeld (Davis, CA: Hermagoras Press, 1989), 181-204; Robert Hariman, "Time and the Reconstitution of Gradualism in King's Address: A Response to Cox," in Texts in Context, 205-17; Randall A. Lake, "Between Myth and History: Enacting Time in Native American Protest Rhetoric," Quarterly Journal of Speech 77 (1991): 123-51.
17. On the potential of rhetoric to have a temporalizing effect, see Michael C. Leff, "Textual Criticism: The Legacy of G. P. Mohrmann," Quarterly Journal of Speech 72 (1986): 377-89; J. Robert Cox, "The Fulfillment of Time: King's 'I Have a Dream' Speech (August 28, 1963)," in Texts in Context: Critical Dialogues on Significant Episodes in American Political Rhetoric, ed. Michael C. Leff and Fred J. Kauffeld (Davis, CA: Hermagoras Press, 1989), 181-204; Robert Hariman, "Time and the Reconstitution of Gradualism in King's Address: A Response to Cox," in Texts in Context, 205-17; Randall A. Lake, "Between Myth and History: Enacting Time in Native American Protest Rhetoric," Quarterly Journal of Speech 77 (1991): 123-51.
18. Parataxis, as Richard Lanham defines it, generally refers to "Clauses or phrases arranged independently (a coordinate, rather than a subordinate, construction), sometimes, as here, without the customary connectives: 'I came, I saw, I conquered.'" In A Handbook of Rhetorical Terms, 2nd ed. (Berkeley: University of Califnoria Press, 1991), 108. James Jasinski refers to parataxis as an intermediate stylistic pattern, resident at the level of the sentence or paragraph. In Sourcebook on Rhetoric: Key Concepts in Contemporary Rhetorical Studies (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2001), 539-40. Here I enlarge parataxis to refer to a more general strategy of rhetorical juxtaposition in which images are placed next to one another in discourse without explicit information about their relationship. For similar usage, see Robert Hariman, "Allegory and Democratic Public Culture in the Postmodern Era," Philosophy and Rhetoric 35 (2002): 267-96.
19. Parataxis, as Richard Lanham defines it, generally refers to "Clauses or phrases arranged independently (a coordinate, rather than a subordinate, construction), sometimes, as here, without the customary connectives: 'I came, I saw, I conquered.'" In A Handbook of Rhetorical Terms, 2nd ed. (Berkeley: University of Califnoria Press, 1991), 108. James Jasinski refers to parataxis as an intermediate stylistic pattern, resident at the level of the sentence or paragraph. In Sourcebook on Rhetoric: Key Concepts in Contemporary Rhetorical Studies (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2001), 539-40. Here I enlarge parataxis to refer to a more general strategy of rhetorical juxtaposition in which images are placed next to one another in discourse without explicit information about their relationship. For similar usage, see Robert Hariman, "Allegory and Democratic Public Culture in the Postmodern Era," Philosophy and Rhetoric 35 (2002): 267-96.
20. Parataxis, as Richard Lanham defines it, generally refers to "Clauses or phrases arranged independently (a coordinate, rather than a subordinate, construction), sometimes, as here, without the customary connectives: 'I came, I saw, I conquered.'" In A Handbook of Rhetorical Terms, 2nd ed. (Berkeley: University of Califnoria Press, 1991), 108. James Jasinski refers to parataxis as an intermediate stylistic pattern, resident at the level of the sentence or paragraph. In Sourcebook on Rhetoric: Key Concepts in Contemporary Rhetorical Studies (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2001), 539-40. Here I enlarge parataxis to refer to a more general strategy of rhetorical juxtaposition in which images are placed next to one another in discourse without explicit information about their relationship. For similar usage, see Robert Hariman, "Allegory and Democratic Public Culture in the Postmodern Era," Philosophy and Rhetoric 35 (2002): 267-96.
21. There does not seem to be a consensus on why this speech was delivered on July 5 instead of on July 4. Neil Leroux states that "Since Independence Day fell on Sunday, many July 4 celebrations were held on the following day." In "Frederick Douglass and the Attention Shift," Rhetoric Society Quarterly 21 (1991): 36. William S. McFeely suggests instead that the July 5 date was Douglas's choice: "Douglass was writing the speech in response to an invitation from the Rochester Ladies' Anti-Slavery Society to give an oration in Corinthian Hall on the fourth of July. He agreed to speak, but not on that date." In Frederick Douglass (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1991), 172.
22. There does not seem to be a consensus on why this speech was delivered on July 5 instead of on July 4. Neil Leroux states that "Since Independence Day fell on Sunday, many July 4 celebrations were held on the following day." In "Frederick Douglass and the Attention Shift," Rhetoric Society Quarterly 21 (1991): 36. William S. McFeely suggests instead that the July 5 date was Douglas's choice: "Douglass was writing the speech in response to an invitation from the Rochester Ladies' Anti-Slavery Society to give an oration in Corinthian Hall on the fourth of July. He agreed to speak, but not on that date." In Frederick Douglass (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1991), 172.
23. McFeely, 173.
24. In David B. Chesebrough, Frederick Douglass: Oratory from Slavey (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1998), 19.
25. See Kurt Müller, "Anti-Slavery Rhetoric on the Fourth of July: William Lloyd Garrison," in The Fourth of July: Political Oratory and Literary Reactions, 1776-1876, ed. P. Goetsch and G. Hurm (Tübingen, Germany: Gunter Narr Verlag, 1992), 121-38.
26. As Kevin R. McClure notes, a brief but useful discussion of Douglass's evolving understanding of the Constitution is found in David W. Blight, Frederick Douglass' Civil War: Keeping Faith in Jubilee (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1989), 26-34. In Kevin R. McClure, "Frederick Douglass' Use of Comparison in his Fourth of July Oration: A Textual Criticism," Western Journal of Communication 64 (2000): 425-26.
27. As Kevin R. McClure notes, a brief but useful discussion of Douglass's evolving understanding of the Constitution is found in David W. Blight, Frederick Douglass' Civil War: Keeping Faith in Jubilee (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1989), 26-34. In Kevin R. McClure, "Frederick Douglass' Use of Comparison in his Fourth of July Oration: A Textual Criticism," Western Journal of Communication 64 (2000): 425-26.
28. Henry Louis Gates, Jr., "A Dangerous Literacy: The Legacy of Frederick Douglass," New York Times Book Review, 28 March 1995, 3, 16.
29. John Louis Lucaites, "The Irony of 'Equality' in Black Abolitionist Discourse: The Case of Frederick Douglass's 'What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?'" in Rhetoric and Political Culture in Nineteenth-Century America, ed. Thomas W. Benson (East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 1997), 49. See also James Jasinski, "Rearticulating History in Epideictic Discourse: Frederick Douglass's 'The Meaning of the Fourth of July to the Negro,'" in Rhetoric and Political Culture in Nineteenth-Century America, 71-89; Leroux, "Frederick Douglass and the Attention Shift," 36-46.
30. John Louis Lucaites, "The Irony of 'Equality' in Black Abolitionist Discourse: The Case of Frederick Douglass's 'What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?'" in Rhetoric and Political Culture in Nineteenth-Century America, ed. Thomas W. Benson (East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 1997), 49. See also James Jasinski, "Rearticulating History in Epideictic Discourse: Frederick Douglass's 'The Meaning of the Fourth of July to the Negro,'" in Rhetoric and Political Culture in Nineteenth-Century America, 71-89; Leroux, "Frederick Douglass and the Attention Shift," 36-46.
31. John Louis Lucaites, "The Irony of 'Equality' in Black Abolitionist Discourse: The Case of Frederick Douglass's 'What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?'" in Rhetoric and Political Culture in Nineteenth-Century America, ed. Thomas W. Benson (East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 1997), 49. See also James Jasinski, "Rearticulating History in Epideictic Discourse: Frederick Douglass's 'The Meaning of the Fourth of July to the Negro,'" in Rhetoric and Political Culture in Nineteenth-Century America, 71-89; Leroux, "Frederick Douglass and the Attention Shift," 36-46.
32. Lucaites, "Irony of 'Equality,'" 49; Eric J. Sundquist, "Frederick Douglass: Literacy and Paternalism," in Critical Essays on Frederick Douglass, ed. W. L. Andrews (Boston: G. K. Hall, 1991), 129.
33. Lucaites, "Irony of 'Equality,'" 49; Eric J. Sundquist, "Frederick Douglass: Literacy and Paternalism," in Critical Essays on Frederick Douglass, ed. W. L. Andrews (Boston: G. K. Hall, 1991), 129.
34. Bernard W. Bell, "The African-American Jeremiad and Frederick Douglass' Fourth of July 1852 Speech," in The Fourth of July: Political Oratory and Literary Reactions, 1776-1876, ed. P. Goetsch and G. Hurm (Tübingen, Germany: Gunter Narr Verlag, 1992), 139-53; McClure, "Frederick Douglass' Use of Comparison," 425-45; Gregory Stephens, "Frederick Douglass' Multiracial Abolitionism: 'Antagonistic Cooperation' and 'Redeemable Ideals' in the July 5 Speech," Communication Studies 48 (1997):175-94. Stephens provides an extended discussion in On Racial Frontiers: The New Culture of Frederick Douglass, Ralph Ellison, and Bob Marley (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999). Douglass's rhetoric is replete with doubled figures, multiperspectival attitudes, and irony, and the July 5 speech condenses eloquently many of the characteristics of Douglass's oratory. On irony as a recurring motif in Douglass's rhetoric, see Gerald Fulkerson, "Frederick Douglass," in African-American Orators: A Bio-Critical Sourcebook, ed. Richard W. Leeman (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1996), 91-92.
35. Bernard W. Bell, "The African-American Jeremiad and Frederick Douglass' Fourth of July 1852 Speech," in The Fourth of July: Political Oratory and Literary Reactions, 1776-1876, ed. P. Goetsch and G. Hurm (Tübingen, Germany: Gunter Narr Verlag, 1992), 139-53; McClure, "Frederick Douglass' Use of Comparison," 425-45; Gregory Stephens, "Frederick Douglass' Multiracial Abolitionism: 'Antagonistic Cooperation' and 'Redeemable Ideals' in the July 5 Speech," Communication Studies 48 (1997):175-94. Stephens provides an extended discussion in On Racial Frontiers: The New Culture of Frederick Douglass, Ralph Ellison, and Bob Marley (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999). Douglass's rhetoric is replete with doubled figures, multiperspectival attitudes, and irony, and the July 5 speech condenses eloquently many of the characteristics of Douglass's oratory. On irony as a recurring motif in Douglass's rhetoric, see Gerald Fulkerson, "Frederick Douglass," in African-American Orators: A Bio-Critical Sourcebook, ed. Richard W. Leeman (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1996), 91-92.
36. Bernard W. Bell, "The African-American Jeremiad and Frederick Douglass' Fourth of July 1852 Speech," in The Fourth of July: Political Oratory and Literary Reactions, 1776-1876, ed. P. Goetsch and G. Hurm (Tübingen, Germany: Gunter Narr Verlag, 1992), 139-53; McClure, "Frederick Douglass' Use of Comparison," 425-45; Gregory Stephens, "Frederick Douglass' Multiracial Abolitionism: 'Antagonistic Cooperation' and 'Redeemable Ideals' in the July 5 Speech," Communication Studies 48 (1997):175-94. Stephens provides an extended discussion in On Racial Frontiers: The New Culture of Frederick Douglass, Ralph Ellison, and Bob Marley (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999). Douglass's rhetoric is replete with doubled figures, multiperspectival attitudes, and irony, and the July 5 speech condenses eloquently many of the characteristics of Douglass's oratory. On irony as a recurring motif in Douglass's rhetoric, see Gerald Fulkerson, "Frederick Douglass," in African-American Orators: A Bio-Critical Sourcebook, ed. Richard W. Leeman (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1996), 91-92.
37. Bernard W. Bell, "The African-American Jeremiad and Frederick Douglass' Fourth of July 1852 Speech," in The Fourth of July: Political Oratory and Literary Reactions, 1776-1876, ed. P. Goetsch and G. Hurm (Tübingen, Germany: Gunter Narr Verlag, 1992), 139-53; McClure, "Frederick Douglass' Use of Comparison," 425-45; Gregory Stephens, "Frederick Douglass' Multiracial Abolitionism: 'Antagonistic Cooperation' and 'Redeemable Ideals' in the July 5 Speech," Communication Studies 48 (1997):175-94. Stephens provides an extended discussion in On Racial Frontiers: The New Culture of Frederick Douglass, Ralph Ellison, and Bob Marley (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999). Douglass's rhetoric is replete with doubled figures, multiperspectival attitudes, and irony, and the July 5 speech condenses eloquently many of the characteristics of Douglass's oratory. On irony as a recurring motif in Douglass's rhetoric, see Gerald Fulkerson, "Frederick Douglass," in African-American Orators: A Bio-Critical Sourcebook, ed. Richard W. Leeman (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1996), 91-92.
38. Bernard W. Bell, "The African-American Jeremiad and Frederick Douglass' Fourth of July 1852 Speech," in The Fourth of July: Political Oratory and Literary Reactions, 1776-1876, ed. P. Goetsch and G. Hurm (Tübingen, Germany: Gunter Narr Verlag, 1992), 139-53; McClure, "Frederick Douglass' Use of Comparison," 425-45; Gregory Stephens, "Frederick Douglass' Multiracial Abolitionism: 'Antagonistic Cooperation' and 'Redeemable Ideals' in the July 5 Speech," Communication Studies 48 (1997):175-94. Stephens provides an extended discussion in On Racial Frontiers: The New Culture of Frederick Douglass, Ralph Ellison, and Bob Marley (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999). Douglass's rhetoric is replete with doubled figures, multiperspectival attitudes, and irony, and the July 5 speech condenses eloquently many of the characteristics of Douglass's oratory. On irony as a recurring motif in Douglass's rhetoric, see Gerald Fulkerson, "Frederick Douglass," in African-American Orators: A Bio-Critical Sourcebook, ed. Richard W. Leeman (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1996), 91-92.
39. Fulkerson, "Frederick Douglass," 91-92.
40. I am indebted to Professor Stephen Lucas, who in response to an earlier draft of this essay suggested that I attend more carefully to the classical divisions of Douglass's speech.
41. Jasinski, "Rearticulating History in Epideictic Discourse," 80.
42. Ernst Behler, Irony and the Discourse of Modernity (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1990), 83. Behler is discussing the literary theories of Friedrich Schlegel. Muecker makes a similar point: "The opposition of points of view which the irony presents is paralleled by a tension between the ironist's sense of his own position, that is, his attitude and his feelings as an observer, and his sense of the victim's position." In Compass of Irony, 218.
43. Ernst Behler, Irony and the Discourse of Modernity (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1990), 83. Behler is discussing the literary theories of Friedrich Schlegel. Muecker makes a similar point: "The opposition of points of view which the irony presents is paralleled by a tension between the ironist's sense of his own position, that is, his attitude and his feelings as an observer, and his sense of the victim's position." In Compass of Irony, 218.
44. Fulkerson reports that this address was "meticulously written and delivered from manuscript" in contrast to most of Douglass's speeches, which were delivered extemporaneously. Fulkerson, "Frederick Douglass," 91.
45. Frederick Douglass, "What to the Slave is the Fourth of July? An Address Delivered in Rochester, New York, on 5 July 1852," in The Frederick Douglass Papers Vol. 2, ed. J. W. Blassingame (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1982), 359. All subsequent references to this speech text are in parentheses in the text.
46. On the specific generic expectations of a fourth of July oration, see Howard. H. Martin, "The Fourth of July Oration," Quarterly Journal of Speech 44 (1958): 393-401. For an insightful study of the rituals associated with early fourth of July celebrations generally, see Len Travers, Celebrating the Fourth: Independence Day and the Rites of Nationalism in the Early Republic (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1997), 41-54. See also Kurt W. Ritter and James R. Andrews, The American Ideology: Reflections of the Revolution in American Rhetoric (Falls Church, VA: Speech Communication Association, 1978).
47. On the specific generic expectations of a fourth of July oration, see Howard. H. Martin, "The Fourth of July Oration," Quarterly Journal of Speech 44 (1958): 393-401. For an insightful study of the rituals associated with early fourth of July celebrations generally, see Len Travers, Celebrating the Fourth: Independence Day and the Rites of Nationalism in the Early Republic (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1997), 41-54. See also Kurt W. Ritter and James R. Andrews, The American Ideology: Reflections of the Revolution in American Rhetoric (Falls Church, VA: Speech Communication Association, 1978).
48. On the specific generic expectations of a fourth of July oration, see Howard. H. Martin, "The Fourth of July Oration," Quarterly Journal of Speech 44 (1958): 393-401. For an insightful study of the rituals associated with early fourth of July celebrations generally, see Len Travers, Celebrating the Fourth: Independence Day and the Rites of Nationalism in the Early Republic (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1997), 41-54. See also Kurt W. Ritter and James R. Andrews, The American Ideology: Reflections of the Revolution in American Rhetoric (Falls Church, VA: Speech Communication Association, 1978).
49. Hutcheon, Irony's Edge, 60. Similarly, Richard Harvey Brown notes: "Irony is not merely stating the opposite of what one means, for by such a definition irony would be no more than lying. Instead, the ironist ... simultaneously asserts two or more logically contradictory meanings such that, in the silence between the two, the deeper meaning of both may emerge" (Society as Text, 173).
50. Hutcheon, Irony's Edge, 60. Similarly, Richard Harvey Brown notes: "Irony is not merely stating the opposite of what one means, for by such a definition irony would be no more than lying. Instead, the ironist ... simultaneously asserts two or more logically contradictory meanings such that, in the silence between the two, the deeper meaning of both may emerge" (Society as Text, 173).
51. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, trans. T. Irwin (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1999), 1127b.23-27. Behler suggests that Aristotle's formulation here and his explicit reference to Socrates as a representative ironic figure is the foundational classical expression of irony (Irony and the Discourse of Modernity, 79).
52. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, trans. T. Irwin (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1999), 1127b.23-27. Behler suggests that Aristotle's formulation here and his explicit reference to Socrates as a representative ironic figure is the foundational classical expression of irony (Irony and the Discourse of Modernity, 79).
53. Hutcheon reminds us that irony happens in the minds of auditors: "[T]here is no guarantee that the interpreter will 'get' the irony in the same way as it was intended. In fact, 'get' may be an inaccurate and even inappropriate verb: 'make' would be much more precise" (Irony's Edge, 11).
54. Frederick Douglass, 172.
55. Several critics have noted the ironic framework of Douglass's exordium. John Lucaites, for example, suggests that Douglass's opening is both "rather conventional" and "subtly ... ironic" ("The Irony of 'Equality,'" 57). Kevin McClure suggests that Douglass is "in the process of developing a new line of argument that simultaneously affirms" fundamental U.S. values while "condemning the hypocrisy of the celebration" (McClure, "Frederick Douglass' Use of Comparison," 433).
56. Several critics have noted the ironic framework of Douglass's exordium. John Lucaites, for example, suggests that Douglass's opening is both "rather conventional" and "subtly ... ironic" ("The Irony of 'Equality,'" 57). Kevin McClure suggests that Douglass is "in the process of developing a new line of argument that simultaneously affirms" fundamental U.S. values while "condemning the hypocrisy of the celebration" (McClure, "Frederick Douglass' Use of Comparison," 433).
57. John W. Blassingame argues: "Douglass exaggerated the restrictions placed on him during the first months as an antislavery lecturer," and suggests that the abolitionists actually "advised him not to give the details of his slave experience for fear that he might be recaptured." "Introduction to Series One," in The Frederick Douglass Papers: Series One: Speeches Debates, and Interviews: Volume 1: 1841-46 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1979), xlviii. Douglass's earliest recorded speeches support Blassingame's assertion, but they also exhibit a dearth of the interpretive critique for which Douglass's later speeches would be famous.
58. T. Gregory Garvey, "Frederick Douglass's Change of Opinion on the U.S. Constitution: Abolitionism and the 'Elements of Moral Power,'" American Transcendental Quarterly 9 (1995): 234.
59. Fulkerson, "Frederick Douglass," 91. Stephens counts 45 such instances in the speech, of which 17 are references to "your fathers. " In "Frederick Douglass' Multiracial Abolitionism," 184. The distance required by irony may require the ironist to position her/himself as an outsider, someone not integrated into the community, yet not fully estranged from it. See Jacqueline Bacon, "Do you understand your own language?: Revolutionary Topoi in the Rhetoric of African-American Abolitionists," Rhetoric Society Quarterly 28 (1998): 60. In the July 5 speech, Douglass never abandons the distancing pronouns "you" and "yours" but holds them in tension against the "fellow citizens" he is addressing. His ironic stance is consistent. It is not Douglass who must embrace, then relinquish irony, but his white listeners.
60. Fulkerson, "Frederick Douglass," 91. Stephens counts 45 such instances in the speech, of which 17 are references to "your fathers. " In "Frederick Douglass' Multiracial Abolitionism," 184. The distance required by irony may require the ironist to position her/himself as an outsider, someone not integrated into the community, yet not fully estranged from it. See Jacqueline Bacon, "Do you understand your own language?: Revolutionary Topoi in the Rhetoric of African-American Abolitionists," Rhetoric Society Quarterly 28 (1998): 60. In the July 5 speech, Douglass never abandons the distancing pronouns "you" and "yours" but holds them in tension against the "fellow citizens" he is addressing. His ironic stance is consistent. It is not Douglass who must embrace, then relinquish irony, but his white listeners.
61. Fulkerson, "Frederick Douglass," 91. Stephens counts 45 such instances in the speech, of which 17 are references to "your fathers. " In "Frederick Douglass' Multiracial Abolitionism," 184. The distance required by irony may require the ironist to position her/himself as an outsider, someone not integrated into the community, yet not fully estranged from it. See Jacqueline Bacon, "Do you understand your own language?: Revolutionary Topoi in the Rhetoric of African-American Abolitionists," Rhetoric Society Quarterly 28 (1998): 60. In the July 5 speech, Douglass never abandons the distancing pronouns "you" and "yours" but holds them in tension against the "fellow citizens" he is addressing. His ironic stance is consistent. It is not Douglass who must embrace, then relinquish irony, but his white listeners.
62. Leroux, "Frederick Douglass and the Attention Shift," 40.
63. Kenneth Burke, A Rhetoric of Motives (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1969), 19-23.
64. Brown, Society as Text, 179.
65. Jasinski, "Rearticulating History in Epideictic," 72.
66. Muecke, Compass of Irony, 23.
67. See Kenneth Burke's discussion of "act" and "scene" in A Grammar of Motives (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1969), 3-15.
68. Some subtle irony pervades even this portrayal of the Declaration because the ring-bolts and chains suggest the images of slavery that Douglass will present to his audience.
69. Russ Castronovo, Fathering the Nation: American Genealogies of Slavey and Freedom (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995), 7. Jasinski notes that by the middle of the nineteenth century the revolutionary tradition had been constructed as "rational, inevitable, natural, orderly, and conservative; the revolution had become, in a word, domesticated" ("Rearticulating History in Epideictic," 78). An anonymous QJS reviewer indicated that more notable discourses of post-revolutionary preservation include Daniel Webster's 1825 "Bunker Hill Monument Address," in Three Centuries of American Rhetorical Discourse: An Anthology and Review, ed. Ronald F. Reid (Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland, 1988), 207-25, and Lincoln's 1838 "Address before the Young Men's Lyceum of Springfield, Illinois," in Abraham Lincoln: His Speeches and Writings, ed. Roy P. Basler (Cleveland: World, 1946), 76-85.
70. Russ Castronovo, Fathering the Nation: American Genealogies of Slavey and Freedom (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995), 7. Jasinski notes that by the middle of the nineteenth century the revolutionary tradition had been constructed as "rational, inevitable, natural, orderly, and conservative; the revolution had become, in a word, domesticated" ("Rearticulating History in Epideictic," 78). An anonymous QJS reviewer indicated that more notable discourses of post-revolutionary preservation include Daniel Webster's 1825 "Bunker Hill Monument Address," in Three Centuries of American Rhetorical Discourse: An Anthology and Review, ed. Ronald F. Reid (Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland, 1988), 207-25, and Lincoln's 1838 "Address before the Young Men's Lyceum of Springfield, Illinois," in Abraham Lincoln: His Speeches and Writings, ed. Roy P. Basler (Cleveland: World, 1946), 76-85.
71. Russ Castronovo, Fathering the Nation: American Genealogies of Slavey and Freedom (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995), 7. Jasinski notes that by the middle of the nineteenth century the revolutionary tradition had been constructed as "rational, inevitable, natural, orderly, and conservative; the revolution had become, in a word, domesticated" ("Rearticulating History in Epideictic," 78). An anonymous QJS reviewer indicated that more notable discourses of post-revolutionary preservation include Daniel Webster's 1825 "Bunker Hill Monument Address," in Three Centuries of American Rhetorical Discourse: An Anthology and Review, ed. Ronald F. Reid (Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland, 1988), 207-25, and Lincoln's 1838 "Address before the Young Men's Lyceum of Springfield, Illinois," in Abraham Lincoln: His Speeches and Writings, ed. Roy P. Basler (Cleveland: World, 1946), 76-85.
72. Russ Castronovo, Fathering the Nation: American Genealogies of Slavey and Freedom (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995), 7. Jasinski notes that by the middle of the nineteenth century the revolutionary tradition had been constructed as "rational, inevitable, natural, orderly, and conservative; the revolution had become, in a word, domesticated" ("Rearticulating History in Epideictic," 78). An anonymous QJS reviewer indicated that more notable discourses of post-revolutionary preservation include Daniel Webster's 1825 "Bunker Hill Monument Address," in Three Centuries of American Rhetorical Discourse: An Anthology and Review, ed. Ronald F. Reid (Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland, 1988), 207-25, and Lincoln's 1838 "Address before the Young Men's Lyceum of Springfield, Illinois," in Abraham Lincoln: His Speeches and Writings, ed. Roy P. Basler (Cleveland: World, 1946), 76-85.
73. Henry Louis Gates, Jr., citing Peter Walker, reports that for a time soon after Douglass's break with Garrison he actually lost his physical voice and became "unable for an extended time to utter even one syllable." In Figures in Black Words, Signs, and the 'Racial' Self (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987), 120; Peter Walker, Moral Choices: Memory, Desire, and Imagination in Nineteenth-Century American Letters (Baton Rouge: Louisiana University Press, 1979).
74. Henry Louis Gates, Jr., citing Peter Walker, reports that for a time soon after Douglass's break with Garrison he actually lost his physical voice and became "unable for an extended time to utter even one syllable." In Figures in Black Words, Signs, and the 'Racial' Self (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987), 120; Peter Walker, Moral Choices: Memory, Desire, and Imagination in Nineteenth-Century American Letters (Baton Rouge: Louisiana University Press, 1979).
75. Leroux, "Frederick Douglass and the Attention Shift," 42.
76. Stephen H. Browne, "'Like Gory Spectres': Representing Evil in Theodore Weld's American Slavey As It Is," Quarterly Journal of Speech 80 (1994): 277-92; Theodore Weld, American Slavery As It Is: Testimony of a Thousand 47 Witnesses (New York: American Anti-Slavery Society, 1839), 7. Douglass's use of asyndeton throughout these passages heightens the paratactic effect of the series of images.
77. Stephen H. Browne, "'Like Gory Spectres': Representing Evil in Theodore Weld's American Slavey As It Is," Quarterly Journal of Speech 80 (1994): 277-92; Theodore Weld, American Slavery As It Is: Testimony of a Thousand 47 Witnesses (New York: American Anti-Slavery Society, 1839), 7. Douglass's use of asyndeton throughout these passages heightens the paratactic effect of the series of images.
78. The only exception is Douglass's "mistress"-although unnamed, surely Sophia Auld^who comforts him by saying that "the custom was very wicked" and that she hated to hear "the rattle of the chains, and the heart-rending cries," "I was glad," Douglass notes, "to find one who sympathised [sic] with me in my horror" (374). It is significant, perhaps, that the only sympathetic white voice that Douglass presents is a voice that is similarly oppressed and disenfranchised in the nineteenth-century U.S.
79. Oesterreich succinctly states a universally recognized facet of irony, that "irony conveys meaning by indirect reference rather than by direct statement" ("Irony," 404). Earlier in the speech, when Douglass was suppressing his own voice and making his point indirectly, we were in the realm of irony; here, when Douglass asserts his own voice and articulates his argument explicitly, we no longer are in the realm of irony.
80. Burke, Grammar, 503.
81. Burke, Grammar, 506.
82. For example, take the well-known metaphor from Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech: "We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation." The audience is asked to see the tenor (the U.S. cultural myth of unlimited opportunity) in terms of the vehicle (a bank vault), so that some of the associations connected with "bank vault" might be transferred to "opportunity." If the two images were presented in such a way that the audience did not understand that the bank vault was in the background as a source of connotative transference, the metaphor would be unintelligible. See Michael M. Osborn and Douglas Ehninger, "The Metaphor in Public Address," Speech Monographs 29 (1962): 223-34. The quotation from King's speech is from James M. Washington, ed., I Have a Dream: Writings and Speeches that Changed the World (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1992), 102.
83. For example, take the well-known metaphor from Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech: "We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation." The audience is asked to see the tenor (the U.S. cultural myth of unlimited opportunity) in terms of the vehicle (a bank vault), so that some of the associations connected with "bank vault" might be transferred to "opportunity." If the two images were presented in such a way that the audience did not understand that the bank vault was in the background as a source of connotative transference, the metaphor would be unintelligible. See Michael M. Osborn and Douglas Ehninger, "The Metaphor in Public Address," Speech Monographs 29 (1962): 223-34. The quotation from King's speech is from James M. Washington, ed., I Have a Dream: Writings and Speeches that Changed the World (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1992), 102.
84. Jasinski has differentiated "accommodation" and "audacity" as two forms of prudence, and argues that for the post-revolutionary generation these two senses of prudence had ceased to co-exist in a dynamic symbiosis but instead had calcified into a dysfunctional polarization. That generation thus found it impossible to emulate the audacity of the founders, and instead shouldered itself with the burden of accommodation. Re-establishing the dynamism between audacity and accommodation would require understanding the founders as both prudent and imprudent, as Douglass seems to be urging his audience to do. See Jasinski, "Idioms of Prudence in Three Antebellum Controversies: Revolution, Constitution, and Slavery," in Prudence: Classical Virtue, Postmodern Practice, ed. Robert Hariman (University Park: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2003), 168-78. I thank one of the anonymous QJS reviewers for pointing out this connection to Jasinski's essay.
85. James P. McDaniel offers a similar, although more thorough, comparison of the ironies of Purdy and Rorty in "'liberal Irony': A Program for Rhetoric," Philosophy and Rhetoric 35 (2002): 297-327. I am indebted to McDaniel for allowing me to read his essay in manuscript, as well as for reading a draft of this essay and offering insightful comment.
86. Richard Rorty, Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 74, 80.
87. Rorty, Contingency, 87.
88. Jedediah Purdy, For Common Things: Irony, Trust, and Commitment in America Today (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1999), 207, 10.
89. Muecke, Compass of Irony, 5.