Epideictic Rhetoric and British Citizenship Practices: Remembering British Heroes from the 1857 Indian Uprising at Civic Celebrations

Abstract

Epideixis is generally understood as ceremonial rhetoric that praises or blames. When examined through the lens of civic celebrations such as the Coronation Durbars in fin de siècle colonial India or the protection of Confederate monuments, epideictic rhetoric instructs the audience to uphold what are purported to be the community’s common values. This educational epideixis, however, also exposes veiled anxieties not commonly associated with a seemingly ceremonial speech act. This new understanding of epideictic should encourage rhetoricians to further question rhetors’ use of epideixis and interrogate other aims in those speech acts.

Notes

1. A heartfelt thank you to RR reviewers David Kaufer and Keith Lloyd for their thoughtful and incisive reviews and to Julie Cyzewski for her support and comments.

2. The Indian Uprising of 1857 was one of the first, large-scale rebellions against Britain. During the eighteen months that British and Indian troops fought, major Indian cities like Lucknow, Delhi, and Cawnpore fell under siege. After the British army defeated the rebel Indian soldiers with the help of Indians who remained loyal, Queen Victoria took control of the colonial government from the East India Company. For the remainder of the nineteenth century, Britons portrayed these events as a national trauma and widely documented it in journalistic, historical, and fictional texts (Herbert). Even Britons who never traveled to India would have had sufficient knowledge to understand discussions such as those published in the travel guides, letters home, souvenirs, and newspaper articles that make up the texts analyzed in this article.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Danielle Nielsen

Danielle Nielsen is an associate professor of English at Murray State University. Her research and teaching interests include Victorian and Edwardian colonial literature and rhetoric, disability studies, and technical and professional writing. Her work has appeared in venues such as Flora Annie Steel: A Critical Study of an Unconventional Memsahib, Nineteenth-Century Gender Studies, and English Literature in Transition, 1880-1920. She can be reached at [email protected].