Rhetorical Education for the Nineteenth-Century Pulpit: Austin Phelps and the Influence of Christian Transcendentalism at Andover Theological Seminary

Abstract

This archival study examines the rhetorical theory and writing pedagogy of Austin Phelps, an accomplished nineteenth-century preacher and professor of sacred rhetoric at Andover Theological Seminary. In disclosing Phelps's contributions to nineteenth-century rhetorical theory and pedagogy at the first graduate seminary in the United States, this article highlights the ways that Phelps's melding of American transcendentalist thought and Christian orthodoxy enabled him to adapt nineteenth-century rhetorical theory and pedagogy in important ways. By demonstrating the extent to which Phelps's discussions of practical rhetorical wisdom and experiential preaching complicate documented trends in rhetorical education at American colleges during the nineteenth century, this research aims to bring out a layer of the curriculum that other histories of writing instruction during the nineteenth century have not thoroughly investigated.

Notes

¹I am appreciative for the insightful feedback that I received from Theresa Enos, RR reviewers Nathan Crick and Scott Stroud, Tom Newkirk, Jim Webber, Lisa Shaver, and Courtney DePalma. I am also grateful for the funds given to support this project by the Office of the Vice Provost for Research at Baylor University. Likewise, I am thankful to the College of Arts and Sciences at Baylor University for the summer sabbatical I was given to conduct this research. I also want to offer my gratitude to Diana Yount for her guidance in the archive at Andover. Above all, I am grateful to my family for their unwavering love and support.

²Dr. Edward Payson Thwing was an influential nineteenth-century preacher and professor of sacred rhetoric and vocal culture in Boston and New York. Thwing authored several books on elocution.

³Historiographers such as Jacqueline Jones Royster, Shirley Wilson Logan, Jessica Enoch, and Anne Ruggles Gere have enriched nineteenth-century histories of rhetoric by examining alternative sites of rhetorical education.