Polemic
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Polemic (
Polemics often concern questions in
Polemical journalism was common in
History
In Ancient Greece, writing was characterised by what Geoffrey Lloyd and Nathan Sivin called "strident adversariality" and "rationalistic aggressiveness", summed up by McClinton as polemic.[6][7] For example, the ancient historian Polybius practiced "quite bitter self-righteous polemic" against some twenty philosophers, orators, and historians.[8]
Polemical writings were common in
Major political polemicists of the 18th century include Jonathan Swift, with pamphlets such as his A Modest Proposal, Alexander Hamilton, with pieces such as A Full Vindication of the Measures of Congress and A Farmer Refuted, and Edmund Burke, with his attack on the Duke of Bedford.[14]
In the 19th century,
Vladimir Lenin would also publish polemics against political opponents. The Proletarian Revolution and the Renegade Kautsky was notably directed against Karl Kautsky, and other works such as The State and Revolution attacked figures including Eduard Bernstein.
In the 20th century, George Orwell's Animal Farm was a polemic against totalitarianism, in particular of Stalinism in the Soviet Union. According to McClinton, other prominent polemicists of the same century include such diverse figures as Herbert Marcuse, Noam Chomsky, John Pilger, and Michael Moore.[6]
In 2007 Brian McClinton argued in
See also
- Critic
- Devil's advocate
- Dialectic
- Disputation
- Internet troll
- Irenicism
- Philippic
- Rhetoric
- Social gadfly
- Trash-talk
Notes
- ^ The story of Luther nailing his Theses to the church door has been doubted. See references in Martin Luther#Start of the Reformation - "the story of the posting on the door...has little foundation in truth."
References
- ^ Springfield, MA: Merriam-Webster. 2005.
- ^ American College Dictionary. New York: Random House.
- A Greek-English Lexicon. on Perseus.
- ^ polemic, or polemical literature, or polemics (rhetoric). britannica.com. Archived from the original on 11 April 2008. Retrieved 21 February 2008.
- ^ "Rare books collections: Hay Fleming Collection". St Andrews University Library. Retrieved 16 March 2022.
- ^ a b c d e McClinton, Brian (July 2007). "A Defence of Polemics" (PDF). Humani (105): 12–13. Archived from the original (PDF) on 22 March 2016.
- ISBN 978-0-300-10160-7.
- S2CID 153936734.
- ISBN 978-1-317-07929-3.
- ^ Chazan, Robert (2004). Fashioning Jewish identity in medieval western Christendom. Cambridge University Press. p. 7.
- ^ Tolan, John Victor (2000). Medieval Christian perceptions of Islam. Routledge. p. 420.
- ^ Philippe Bobichon, "Littérature de controverse entre judaïsme et christianisme: Description du corpus et réflexions méthodologiques (IIe-XVIe siècle ») (textes grecs, latins et hébreux), Revue d’Histoire ecclésiastique 107/1, 2012, pp. 5-48; Philippe Bobichon, "Is Violence intrinsic to religious confrontation? The case of Judeo-Christian controversy, second to seventeenth century" in S. Chandra (dir.), Violence and Non-violence across Times. History, Religion and Culture, Routledge, 2018, pp. 33-52.
- ^ Sidney Lee, "Carleill, Robert (fl. 1619)", rev. Reavley Gair (Oxford, UK: OUP, 2004) Retrieved 27 May 2017. Pay-walled.
- ^ Paulin, Tom (26 March 1995). "The Art of Criticism: 12 Polemic". The Independent. Retrieved 6 November 2016.
- ISBN 978-1-840-02728-0.
Bibliography
- Gallop, Jane (2004). Polemic: Critical or Uncritical (1 ed.). New York: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-97228-0.
- Hawthorn, Jeremy (1987). Propaganda, Persuasion and Polemic. Hodder Arnold. ISBN 0-7131-6497-2.
- Lander, Jesse M. (2006). Inventing Polemic: Religion, Print, and Literary Culture in Early Modern England. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-83854-1.
External links
Quotations related to Polemic at Wikiquote
