"During the past century, literary education, often divorced from rhetoric, has grown increasingly distant from the practice of language in statecraft, law, religion, and ethics.

Yet literature and rhetoric retain open, independent powers to enhance what Emerson calls "the conduct of life." In these essays, James Engell argues that a more complete literary training can foster a heightened sense of shared social experience, an awareness of diverse views, a love of language, and a more powerful ability to express the values we enshrine or debate.

Revealing a set of deep intersections among literature, politics, rhetoric, and the public deliberation of values, he explores how dedicated individuals of different callings resort to heightened language in order to secure knowledge, test beliefs, consider policy, and promote action."--BOOK JACKET.