Composition: History & Theory: 1900 - 1919
The Rhetoric of Liberal Culture
Description
In Rhetoric and Reality: Writing Instruction in American Colleges, 1900-1985 (1987), James Berlin explains that the rhetoric of liberal culture was another school of thought about the way rhetoric functioned and the way composition should be taught. Under the liberal culture model, only a handful of gifted students were encouraged to take courses in composition, focusing on the belletristic forms and organic methods of composition. Liberal culture rhetoric was based on an epistemology that saw education as a means of cultivation for a student’s mind and spirit (44). This type of rhetoric was elitist and aristocratic and many of those that taught composition at Yale or schools that emulated this method felt that writing instruction should be reserved for those few students that possessed genius. For the remainder of students, courses in literature would be more appropriate. This belletristic approach valued the individual voice and the relation between form and content. Those that taught this version of rhetoric discouraged writing instruction even though they continued to provide it to freshmen, so long as they only wrote about literature.
Date of Upload
3/13/09