British Abolitionism and the Rhetoric of Sensibility

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-viii

   PDF

2. Introduction

   • Brycchan Carey

   Pages 1-17

3. The Rhetoric of Sensibility

   • Brycchan Carey

   Pages 18-45

4. Arguing in Prose: Abolitionist Letters and Novels

   • Brycchan Carey

   Pages 46-72

5. Arguing in Verse: Abolitionist Poetry

   • Brycchan Carey

   Pages 73-106

6. ‘Read This, and Blush’: The Pamphlet War of the 1780s

   • Brycchan Carey

   Pages 107-143

7. Feeling Out Loud: Sentimental Rhetoric in Parliament, the Pulpit, and the Court of Law

   • Brycchan Carey

   Pages 144-185

8. Conclusion: Romanticism, Revolution, and William Wilberforce’s Unregarded Tears

   • Brycchan Carey

   Pages 186-196

9. Back Matter

   Pages 197-240

   PDF

British Abolitionism and the Rhetoric of Sensibility argues that participants in the late eighteenth-century slavery debate developed a distinct sentimental rhetoric, using the language of the heart to powerful effect in the most important political and humanitarian battle of the time. Examining both familiar and unfamiliar texts, including poetry, novels, journalism, and political writing, Carey shows that salve-owners and abolitionists alike made strategic use of the rhetoric of sensibility in the hope of influencing a reading public thoroughly immersed in the 'cult of feeling'.

• law
• novel
• poetry
• rhetoric
• Romanticism
• time
• British and Irish Literature

' British Abolitionism and the Rhetoric of Sensibility is a timely intervention in the scholarly study of the abolitionist movement. It consider, and suggests answers to, the criticisms some feminist and postcolonial scholars have levelled against eighteenth-century abolitionist writings...it offers a largely convincing reading of an important, little-understood area of eighteenth-century discourse.' - Anthony John Harding, Romanticism

BRYCCHAN CAREY is Senior Lecturer in English at Kingston University in London. He has co-edited Discourses of Slavery and Abolition and Abolition: Britain and its Colonies, 1760-1838, and has published widely in the academic press, including articles on William Wilberforce, Ignatius Sancho, John Wesley, The Spectator, and the politics of Harry Potter.

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