Speaking to You explores the work of four important poets writing post-1960 - Don Paterson, Geoffrey Hill, W.S. Graham, and C.H. Sisson - in order to show how contemporary British poetry's creative handling of addresses to 'you' are key in its interactions with readers, critics, lovers, editors, fellow poets, and deceased forebears.

Excerpt from Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres Indeed, when the arts of speech and writing an mentioned, I am sen sible that prejudices against them are apt to rise in the minds of many. A sort of art is immediately thought of, that is ostentatious and deceitful the minute and trifling study of words alone; the pomp of expression the studied fallacies of rhetoric; ornament substituted in the room of use. We need not wonder, that, under such imputations, all study of discourse as an art, should have sufl'ered in the opinion of men of understanding and I am far from denying, that rhetoric and criticism have sometimes been so managed as to tend to the corruption, rather than to the improve ment of good tase and true eloquence. But sure it is equally possible to apply the principles of reason and good sense to this art, as to any other that is cultivated among men. If the following Lectures have any merit, it will consist in an endeavour to substitute the application of these prin ciples in the place of artificial and scholastic rhetoric; in an endeavour to explode false ornament, to direct attention more towards substance than show, to recommend good sense as the foundation of all good com position, and simplicity as essential to all true ornament. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

This new edition of Hugh Blair’s Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres, edited by Linda Ferreira-Buckley and S. Michael Halloran, answers the need for a complete, reliable text. The book seeks to generate a renewed interest in Blair by provoking new inquiries into the tradition of belletristic rhetoric and by serving as both aid and incentive to others who may join in the project of improving understanding of this landmark rhetorical scholarship. This edition contains forty-seven lectures and remains faithful to the text of the 1785 London edition. The editors contextualize Hugh Blair’s motivations and thinking by providing in their introduction an extended account of Blair’s life and era. The bibliography of works by and about Blair is an invaluable aid, surpassing previous research on Blair. Although the extent of its influence cannot be measured fully, Blair’s Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres was undoubtedly a primary vehicle for introducing many eighteenth- and nineteenth-century scholars to classical rhetoric and French belletristic rhetoric—its success due in part to the ease with which the lectures combine neoclassical and Enlightenment thought, accommodating emerging social concerns. Ferreira-Buckley and Halloran’s extensive treatment revives the tradition of belletristic rhetoric, improving the understanding of Blair’s place in the study of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century discourse, while finding him relevant in the twenty-first century.