The trial of Warren Hastings : classical oratory and reception in eighteenth-century England / Chiara Rolli.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Rolli, Chiara, author.

Series:

Bloomsbury Collections - Classical Studies and Archaeology 2019.

Bloomsbury Collections - Classical Studies and Archaeology 2019

Library of classical studies

Standardized Title:

Tullius Indianus. English

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Hastings, Warren, 1732-1818.

Impeachment.

Rhetoric.

History.

Political oratory.

England.

Great Britain.

British & Irish history| BIC.

Burke, Edmund, 1729-1797.

Burke, Edmund.

Political oratory--Great Britain--History--18th century.

English language--18th century--Rhetoric.

English language.

Rhetoric--England--History--18th century.

Hastings, Warren, 1732-1818--Trials, litigation, etc.

Hastings, Warren.

Hastings, Warren, 1732-1818--Impeachment.

Local Subjects:

British & Irish history| BIC.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (viii, 209 pages).

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

London ; New York : Bloomsbury Academic, 2019.

System Details:

text file

Summary:

"The impeachment trial of Warren Hastings lasted from 1788 until 1795. Hastings was the first Governor-General of Bengal and his trial had a formative impact on the British Empire. Chiara Rolli shows that in an age when British education consisted mainly of classical studies, it was antique views of rhetoric and imperial governance that permeated the trial. Prosecutor Edmund Burke was figured as a modern-day Cicero fighting corruption in the colonies, while Hastings was Verres, the corrupt propraetor of Sicily in the first century BC. In their prosecution, both Burke and Richard Brinsley Sheridan employed certain coups de théâtre - such as fainting for emphasis - advised by Cicero and the later Roman rhetorician Quintilian, whose style of spectacular justice played particularly well amid the eighteenth-century vogue for sentimental drama. Burke's defence of natural rights and passion for extirpating vice in the colonies similarly reflected an admiration for Cicero, just as Hastings' preference to rule the conquered by means of their own traditions recalled models of Roman provincial administration. Using contemporary journalism, satire and other ephemera, the book reconstructs the public's equally profound grasp of these parallels. It illuminates new aspects of early British discourse around the Empire, and shows how deeply classical precedents influenced the cultural and political imaginations of eighteenth-century Britain."--Bloomsbury Publishing.

Contents:

List of Figures

Acknowledgements

Introduction

1 - Cicero, Verres and the Classics in Eighteenth-Century Britain

2 - A Clash of Characters

3 - Classical Oratory and Theatricality in the Trial against Warren Hastings

4 - Spectacles of Passion: Cicero's In Verrem and Burke's "Speech on the Opening of the Impeachment"

5 - The Reception of the Hastings Trial in the Newspapers and Satirical Prints

Conclusion

Notes

Bibliography

Index.

Notes:

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Includes bibliographical references and index.

Electronic reproduction. London : Bloomsbury Publishing, 2019. Available via World Wide Web. Access limited by licensing agreement.

ISBN:

9781350112735

Access Restriction:

Restricted for use by site license.