Freedom's Call: The Persuasive Power of Mercy Otis Warren's Dramatic Sketches, 1772–1775

Sarkela, Sandra J.

doi:10.1353/eal.0.0077

Cited by 5 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 31 publications

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“…Johnson argues that especially in the Anglophone tradition of cultural theory, textuality and visuality have been privileged, and "authority [has been] embodied in information and knowledge conceived of in terms of a visual order: perspective, vision/visionary, envisage/envision, point of view, discover, disclose, observation, speculation, illustration, demonstration, reflections, insights, second sight, revelation, theory (from the Greek word for 'spectacle')." 15 As a consequence, he claims, knowledge conveyed through sound, and aural metaphors to "describe" that knowledge, typically have been devalued or even discarded. Hence, a stronger focus on sound not only would suggest new objects of study for the field of cultural analysis, but also would contribute to a reassessment of those objects of study that already have been examined for their visual and textual characteristics.…”

Section: Listening To the Sounds Of The Pastmentioning

confidence: 99%

Gendered Sounds of Revolutionary American Theater

Lippert¹

2020

JAAAS

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This article examines the relationship of sound and gender politics in revolutionary America by reading two late eighteenth-century dramatic texts, the 1774 pamphlet A Dialogue, Between a Southern Delegate, and His Spouse (written pseudonymously by Mary V. V.), and Virginia playwright Robert Munford's five-act play The Patriots (written c1777, published only posthumously in 1798). Even though the sounds of early America cannot be accessed directly, as there was no sound recording in the modern, technology-based sense, and even though neither of the two dramatic texts has a known record of performances, the article sets out to explore how sound and speech were heard and negotiated, and how they reflected on prevailing cultural assumptions about gendered personhood, and the relationship between gender and politics. Arguably, attention to sound in these texts offers specific insights into the joint articulation of gender and transatlantic politics in the larger struggle over the American revolution. As this article shows, both texts, albeit for different reasons, strategically use gendered sounds to stage specific political interventions: By "listening" carefully to these sounds (as they are represented in writing), one can understand in more detail how acoustic environments impacted on the articulation, legitimation and deliberation of political argument in revolutionary America.

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Section: Listening To the Sounds Of The Pastmentioning

confidence: 99%