The Spirit of Independence: Establishing the Character of the Declaration of Independence
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
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Item Details
- abstract
- The Declaration of Independence is a document with a rich history in American public discourse. Countless books, speeches, and films have relied on its rhetoric to argue their points. However, it is not clear what method we should use to apply the Declaration outside of its original historical context. This thesis develops a rhetorical lens for validly applying a text to contexts other than its own. It argues that texts contain a spirit. The spirit of a text is its general personality, composed of moral, practical, and relational values hidden in the text. By discovering the spirit of the text, rhetoricians can apply classic texts to contemporary controversies. Thus, this thesis both develops the idea of textual spirits and explores the Declaration of Independence’s textual spirit. In doing so, it provides a means for bringing classic texts back into public discourse.
- subject
- American Revolution
- Declaration of Independence
- Ethos
- hermeneutics
- History
- Public discourse
- contributor
- Zulick, Margaret D. (committee chair)
- Mancall, Peter C. (committee member)
- date
- 2021-06-03T08:35:49Z (accessioned)
- 2021-06-03T08:35:49Z (available)
- 2021 (issued)
- degree
- Communication (discipline)
- identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/10339/98779 (uri)
- language
- en (iso)
- publisher
- Wake Forest University
- title
- The Spirit of Independence: Establishing the Character of the Declaration of Independence
- type
- Thesis