On the Rhetorical Devices of an American Farmer - Essay Example

On the Rhetorical Devices of an American Farmer

"Letters from an American Farmer" were first published in London in 1782. At this time, Crevecoeur himself was in France. Despite concerns from his parents, his work immediately attracted the attention of the English public. This success contributed to several factors. On the one hand, sweat was certainly felt in Europe. There was difficulty in obtaining reliable information about events in America, especially at that time, when the War of Independence was drawing to a close. On the other hand, lyric descriptions of the expressions filling the pages of the Letters were so expressive that they received recognition not only among ordinary readers, but also among such well-known romantic writers as Samuel Taylor Coleridge, William Hazlitt, and P.B.Shelley. Reprints from Letters began to appear in newspapers and magazines.

"The Letters from an American Farmer" is one of the first works of American literature, which depicts in detail the life of the North American colonies. Offered analysis of stylistic devices such as comparisons, epithets, hyperbolas, repetitions, etc., helping the authorworks achieve particular expressiveness and so far define the attitude to the events described in the text. But in America, the "Letters" were not so popular. However, all that happens to the characters of the "Letters" placed in completely different, not like European ones, conditions. Crevecoeur creates a work in which offers real observers the author's opinion on life in the colonies during the period preceding the Revolutionary War of 1775-1783. They concern a variety of aspects of the life of an American farmer, and you may be filled very scrupulously. For example, telling the English correspondent about his farm, the plowman James, the main character of the story, gives exact explication about the provisions that are procured onhis farm for the winter: "Every year I kill from 1500 to 2000 weight of pork, 1200 of beef, half a dozen of good weathers in harvest; of fowls my wife always has a great stock ..."

He is less punctual in the eighth letter, which describes the peculiar inhabitants of Nantucket (Letter Eight). Peculiar customs at Nantucket are narrating about new unusual hard work of the local population, James writes that idleness in this land is considered the worst sin, and proves this with his many observations. Such attention to detail is the characteristic feature of the analyzed composition. Although the author declares authenticity of the events depicted by him ("...believe me, what I write is all true and real"), we note, however, that the sketch of the writer's is not an empty and passionate image of that life that flowed in the New World. Many scientists note that Crevecoeur clearly embellishes what is happening in America at the end of the eighteenth century. The author reflects the real circumstances but in highly idealized form". A researcher points to the "conscious orientation to the idyll." Pictures of a natural idyllic soul fill the pages of the Letters, be it a description of the residence of the chief hero or a story about an unusual village of Quaker communities of the Nantucket Islands and Martas Vinyard. So, for example, in (Letter One. Introduction), the author illustrates talks about how Americans expand daily settlements, huge forests turn into flowering fields, and the provinces themselves are filling with a lot of happy people having a free life and welfare. The priest believes what Europeans should think about, why is it happens. Similar "presetting" the tone of the narration felt throughout the composition, and this is certainly not accidental. Like in the works of famous American Benjamin Franklin, there is a persistent desire the author shows a new society with the most attractive side to convince Europeans to move to the lands of New England.

"Letters from an American Farmer" is a "work on the border of genre and style. It is no longer just "notes," but also not quite a novel, but anti-territorial poetry coexists here with elements of rhetoric; sprouts of new romantic attitudes are adjacent with "commonplaces" of educational literacy." Unlike typical times no works belonging to the genre of "Letters from an American Farmer" are well-designed literary texts promoted various lexical and stylistic means,widely used by the author in his knowledge base. Revealing the essence of the American nation, for touching upon questions on which the basis cultural dialogue can be built between America and England trying to figure out what it means to be a writer in this new so attractive to Europeans generally. Indeed, Crevecoeur stands in the position of a man who received a brilliant education, for whose Enlightenment ideas have a particular value. The author answers the set of questions using a whole block of different techniques that contribute to the creation of not only a positive image of the "Earth of the Promise," but also help the writer create a bright and memorable image of their heroes. Moreover, he constantly appeals to the kind of rhetorical devices, which is certainly no coincidence. European Enlightenment advocates for the land of the kingdom of Reason, in which there will be the principles of "freedom, equality, and brotherhood." At the heart of their concept is also on walked the cult of Nature, which was the basis of their ideas about the "natural man." Crevecoeur has an American culture, and in his works, the image of life in the colonies is clearly seen as close to natural origin. So, in the first letter, he says that Nature opens its arms when the North Americans are arriving at the new continent to people that give them food: "Here nature opens her broad lap to receive the perpetual accession of newcomers and to supply them with food." The personification of Nature is reflected in the use of personal pronouns for names to show how deeply the writer felt Nature. The similar attitude to Nature is observable throughout the text of the "Letters" of Crevecoeur. Moreover, his Nature is not only visible in the luxurious plants, it's not just the American wild cancan cherries in all their splendor, as their bushy branches, but more deep – in the constructive beginnings. So, approving James's decision to correspond with a possible English correspondent, his neighbor, a priest. In this case, James is compared as a future writer with one of the plants, rampant on the lands of the North American Continent. Comparisons with Nature are very characteristic for the whole piece and are favorite for Crevecoeur. The author skillfully weaves them into the text of his storytelling. So, in the third letter, "Who is such an American?" (Letter Three. What is an American?) by the mouth of the farmer James, the author compares between people and plants. All lyric descriptions of Nature are filled with a sense of admiration for it. In his time, Crevecoeur's personal forms find manifestation in the divine design. This attitude to Nature not only appears in the analysis of fragments of the composition described above. The author emphasizes this thesis practically in all twelve chapters of the Letters. In his narration, the writer also resorts to the help of hyperbole. The author notes not only the beauty and purity of Nature. He concludes that people need to follow logic laws. In his reasoning, Crevecoeur is very convincing. Bright and emotional epithets that are universally interwoven a writer in the outline of the story give "Letters" exquisite expressiveness. Many of them are very unusual, but this copyright uses of the case the writer's sketches are extremely accurate and help the reader to "see" in detail the episodes described. On the pages of the entire work, there are oppositions of the civilized world and the natural world. Crevecoeur often gives the emotional coloring of the text, introducing semantic collocations into opposing each other.

The favorite stylistic device of the author is also taking an antithesis. So, for example, contrasting American colonists to the inhabitants of England, Crevecoeur secretly emphasizes the merits of the first. The reasoning of the author, concerning the British, contains the well-known criticism: "These Englishmen are strange people because they can live upon what they call banknotes, without working, they think that all the world can do the same" On the pages of the entire work, there are oppositions of the civilized world and the natural world. Crevecoeur often gives the emotional coloring of the text, introducing into opposing each other in semantic regarding collocations.

In a diverse range of stylistic and lexical techniques that can be noted in the thread in "Letters," Crevecoeur also actively includes repeats and parallel constructions. Due to its multifunctionality and variety of species, repetitions are attached to the text in the special expressiveness and brightness, helping the author to express his attitude to the inventory -events recorded in the text and emotionally affect the reader. The stylistic repeat pattern is found in many various descriptions of Crevecoeur. They also help to emotionally influence the reader and contribute to the rhythmic organization of one or other statements. Offering the reader the information on the happy settlement, about which James is going to tell in detail, the author uses the specified technique in the description: "This happy settlement was not founded on an intrusion...Neither political nor religious broils, neither disputes with the natives nor any othercontentions have in the least agitated or disturbed its detached society" and return sticks to him literally on the next page: "... here you meet with neither ancient monuments, spacious halls, solemn temples, nor elegant dwellings; not a citadel nor any kind of fortification, not even a battery to rend the air with its loud peals on any occasion". To summarize the analysis done, on the rhetorical devices of an American Farmer, we conclude that "Letters from an American Farmer" represent the true chronicle of what is happening in the American colonies of events in the pre-revolutionary era and in that sense, they are a continuation and development of traditions of American literature of the colonial period. Each rhetorical device is unique in its stylistic presentation and the way it is highlighted in the canvas of the text. And on the other hand, investigated work written by Crevecoeur, revealing a change of genre orientation, is a highly artistic text that is rich in the used stylistic devices and rhetorical strategies. Commonly used a variety of lexico-stylistic means of writing allowed the writer to create the work, with lyric descriptions of the romantic period in the American literature that presents a huge research interest for numerous literary critics and attracts the audience from the worldwide. The "Letters" is the work of interest that helps to justify the individual style of the author and modern trends that were typical for the literature of the colonial period. Many literature devices are settled to organize the canvas of the text to shape the individual identity of the audience.