Tamil beautiful speech

[David Samuels]

John Bate wrote:

>one thing I find striking there is that at the very moment when the 18th
>century Americans were facing a mass electorate and a 'public,' per se,
>speakers such as Patrick Henry were shocking the aristocracy by speaking not
>in the Ciceroian high style but in the 'vulgar.' This use of a 'natural'
>language to speak to the masses has been a vital part of American oratory
>ever since (despite massive oratorical transformations).

Maybe this should be a new thread, since it's not about Tamil Nadu, but
I've found it interesting how political ideologies always seem to
incorporate some kind of ideal representation or image of the speaking
subject. Spinoza wrote, in the "Theologico-Political Treatise," that "In a
free state, every man is allowed to think what he will and to say what he
thinks." And Tocqueville is filled to the brim with observations connecting
how he thinks Americans talk with what he takes to be the political
philosophy of democracy and individualism. The whole controversy over
Webster's compiling a dictionary of "American" English. A couple of books
that I've liked in this area are Paul Corcoran's "Political Language and
Rhetoric (U.Texas Press 1979), and David Simpson's "The Politics of
American English, 1776-1850" (Oxford UP 1986).

Best,



David W. Samuels
Assistant Professor
Department of Anthropology
212 Machmer Hall
University of Massachusetts
Amherst, MA 01003

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email: samuels at anthro.umass.edu