Conversation: A History of a Declining Art

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  Conversation: A History of a Declining Art
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• Size:
  1.3 MB
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• Added:
  06/06/2009
• Last check:
  2009-06-08 14:45:36
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  <pre>Miller, a freelance writer whose essays on 18th-century writers have appeared in the Times Literary Supplement, laments the decline of American conversational arts. By "conversation," Miller means the discussion of great and small topics by people who practice mutual tolerance for opposing viewpoints. The author agrees with philosopher David Hume's view that "it is impossible but people must feel an increase of humanity, from the very habit of conversing together." Miller's history is itself much like a pleasant academic conversation as it meanders through a mini-history of coffee-houses in 18th-century Britain, a consideration of poet Thomas Gray's "Elegy Written in a Country Church Yard" and Miller's displeasure with the counter-culture movement of the American 1960's and the current prevalence of conversation-precluding gadgets. In these latter arguments, he comes off at times as a Luddite, spewing scorn for cell phones and portable MP3 players, and if most of this book is an enjoyable and thought-provoking (if not conversation-provoking) read, Miller does manage a few missteps, as when he points to the taciturn masculinity of Hollywood westerns and Ernest Hemingway's terse writing style to bolster his thesis. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition. From The New Yorker Miller traces the history of conversation from Aristotle to the present day, focussing particularly on the eighteenth century. For him, the Paris salons where Diderot opined and the London coffeehouses where Dr. Johnson imbibed between aphorisms represent conversation's apogee. In America, he feels, it fared less well, even before the contemporary menace posed by the Internet, iPods, and the polarization of the political sphere. Thoreau dismissed conversation as a waste of time, and Melville thought it was a tool of con men. Miller defines conversation as the act of speaking with others without any objective other than enjoyment and exchange, and there is something conversational about his own style, which tends toward anecdote and ignores theoretical approaches that could have enriched his argument. Copyright © 2006 The New Yorker --This text refers to the Hardcover edition. Paperback: 368 pages Publisher: Yale University Press (June 21, 2007) Language: English </pre>
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Conversation Declining Art.pdf	1.3 MB

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