Rhetoric and Dialogue in Hopkins's "Spring and Fall: To a Young Child": An Approach through Burke and Levinas

The epideictic genre of rhetoric has traditionally included public, ceremonial types of rhetoric, such as eulogies and public speeches, that affirm communities. Public memorials and even lyric poetry, however, also epideictically constitute personal and communal identities. When read through the theoretical lenses of Kenneth Burke and Emmanuel Levinas, Gerard Manley Hopkins's poem Spring and Fall: To a Young Child seems to evoke a public, communal attitude in readers. This epideictic effect challenges the conventional dichotomy between public and private audiences, inviting us to think more broadly about epideictic rhetoric and its audiences.