The jeremiad and Jenkin Lloyd Jones

Abstract

Speakers themselves within a speech sometimes suggest standards by which a rhetorical critic might at least partially evaluate that speech. In his speech, “Who is Tampering with the Soul of America?”, Jenkin Lloyd Jones suggests a cluster of images, a set of related rhetorical roles, that a critic usefully can employ to analyze the workings of this speech. Through direct statement and indirectly through word choice, Jones assumes the rhetorical roles of a “calamity howler” and an evangelist in the genre of a secular jeremiad. First the tradition of the American Puritan jeremiad and the characteristics of the contemporary secular jeremiad are traced. Then Jones's speech is analyzed as a “paradigm case” to further illuminate the nature of the contemporary secular jeremiad. Significant dimensions examined are: (1) internal and external evidence of Jones's self‐chosen role of Jeremiah, evangelist, and calamity howler; (2) invocation of the Puritan heritage and the American Dream; (3) value appeals and condemnations typical of the jeremiad genre; (4) stylistic creation of “presence” (5) use of historical and contemporary examples; and (6) intertwining of lamentation and optimism.

Notes

Richard L. Johannesen is Professor of Communication Studies and Adjunct Graduate Professor of English (Rhetoric) at Northern Illinois University, DeKalb.