Form and cultural context in rhetorical criticism: Re-reading Wrage

Ernest Wrage's landmark essay, "Public Address: A Study in Social and Intellectual History, " described a revisionist Paradigm of public address scholarship which has yet to be realized. Ironically, our received interpretations of Wrage mirror contemporary debates over critical practice. This essay reads Wrage's project at the conjuncture of two contemporary problematics: first, the tension in rhetorical scholarship between "textual criticism" and "critical rhetaric" second the intersection of rhetorical analysis and contemporary cultural studies. Rereading Wrage provides an elaboration of his original program and the opportunity to realign current critical positions by way of Wrage's alternative.