Romanticism, rhetoric, and the search for the sublime.

• Author: Lepp, Nicholas
• Position: Book review

Romanticism, rhetoric, and the search for the sublime, by Craig R. Smith. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2018, 335 pp., $119.95 (Hardcover), ISBN-10: 1527515958 (English) ISBN-13: 978-1527515956.

Dr. Craig R. Smith's Romanticism, Rhetoric, and the Search for the Sublime sets out to develop a Neo-Romantic theory of rhetoric for modern times. Smith's primary argument throughout this book is that there needs to be a return to classic understandings of persuasion combined with romantic images of the sublime beauty of nature to persuade the general population to care more about the environment. Arguing that this book extends a kind of "green Romanticism or Romantic ecocriticism into the realm of rhetoric," Smith draws from romantics such as Thomas Sheridan, Hugh Blair, and Thomas de Quincy to develop a Neo-Romantic theory of rhetoric (p. xii).

I was initially drawn to Smith's book upon finding his 2016 article in the Western Journal of Communication titled "Constructing a Neo-Romantic Rhetorical Theory." This article acts as a precursor to Smith's larger work, providing a condensed, in-depth exploration into Neo-Romantic Rhetoric. One of the things that I really enjoyed about this article was the amount of different usages of Neo-Romantic Rhetoric Smith covered in such a short piece--in just a brief 17 pages, Smith discusses numerous different ways in which Neo-Romantic Rhetoric can be used to help advocate for the protection of the environment (2016). While Smith's essay cuts to the chase, his book tends to go in several different directions, including discussions on topics such as the Scholastics, humanism, and enlightenment theorists. At the beginning of the book, Smith suggests that he will investigate "the roots of Romanticism;" this becomes the justification for each of these chapters on topics that do not directly cover Romanticism or rhetorical theory (5). These chapters, however, are largely descriptive and historical, focusing on the lives of people whose theories influenced the romantics. For example, the 24-page chapter on Galileo is primarily descriptive of his lifetime, education, and how the church reacted to his theories. The importance of Galileo's work for the overall thesis of this book is discussed in the three-paragraph conclusion to the chapter. While Smith's attention to historical detail is quite well-researched and very impressively thorough, these investigations oftentimes lose the forest for the trees.

Smith...