The Rhetoric of the Revival: The Language of the Great Awakening Preachers

Michał Choiński explores the language of the key preachers of the “Great Awakening” of the mid-eighteenth century, and seeks to explain the impact their sermons exerted upon colonial American audiences. The revival of the 1739–43 is recognized as an important event in American colonial history, formative for the shaping of the culture of New England and beyond. Choiński highlights a variety of inventive rhetorical mechanisms employed by these ministers evolved into what came to be called the rhetoric of the revival," became commonplace for American revivalism, and were fundamental for the persuasive power of Great Awakening preaching and the communicative success of the "New Light" ministers. "