Voice of Victorian Poetry, Griffiths examines the negotiation between spoken and written language that is central to the reading of Victorian poetry. In The Art of Eloquence,

The influence of Eric Griffiths looms large in this book. In his 1989 study The Printed Voice of Victorian Poetry, Griffiths examines the negotiation between spoken and written language that is central to the reading of Victorian poetry. In The Art of Eloquence, Matthew Bevis uses a similarly comparative approach to the languages of speech and writing as the basis for his analysis of the relationship between literature and political oratory. His central contention is that 'writing wards off the decisiveness of the tongue' (p.265); that the subtleties of written literary language can modulate the strident rhetoric of political speakers into 'another type of eloquence' (p.124), more measured and disinterested. The concept of disinterestedness is a key one for Bevis. He argues that the literary texts that he considers explore and weigh up the competing claims of different political stances, and that this disinterested approach means that the texts can 'be seen as models of responsible political conduct, for their willingness to engage with multiple and sometimes contradictory values can prepare the ground for a richer political response in future' (pp.8-9). Although the authors that Bevis discusses initially seem rather disparate, he succeeds in locating all four writers in the context of the political culture of the nineteenth century, which he calls 'the most insistently parliamentary age in Britain's history' (p.16). By examining Byron's speeches in the House of Lords, Dickens's early career as a parliamentary reporter, Tennyson's view of his civic responsibilities as Poet Laureate, and Joyce's interest in the political career of Parnell, Bevis shows that these writers were intensely aware of political ideas and language. He also makes effective use of sources such as Hansard's, The Times, and Punch (which frequently satirised political figures by likening them to characters from Dickens) to demonstrate how literature and