Hugh Blair
1718–1800 · Scottish preacher, critic and professor of the Enlightenment
Hugh Blair (Edinburgh, 1718-1800) was a minister of the Church of Scotland, critic and professor and one of the figures of the Scottish Enlightenment. He is considered one of the first great theorists of written discourse, mainly for his influence on preaching and on the teaching of rhetoric.
He studied at the University of Edinburgh, where he took his master's degree at twenty-one, and in 1741 he was licensed to preach. He served several parishes in the city and in 1758 moved to the High Kirk of St Giles. Around 1762 he was made Professor of Rhetoric and Belles Lettres at Edinburgh, a post he held until his retirement in 1783.
His Sermons, published in five volumes between 1777 and 1801, promoted practical Christian morality and active public life, and they were translated into several European languages. His Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres, published in 1783, discuss style, beauty, the sublime and composition. In them he defined poetry as "the language of passion", so that each poem depends on the personality of its author. He also defended the poems of Ossian, attributed to James Macpherson, in a dissertation of 1763, whose praise did not survive later criticism. In Spain, José Luis Munárriz glossed and expanded his Lectures.
Key ideas
- Rhetoric as the art of discourse: teaching people to write and speak with clarity, order and elegance, based on reasoned principles.
- The sublime and the beautiful: the sublime differs from the beautiful through its force and the emotion it stirs in the reader.
- Poetry as the language of passion: a poem expresses feelings and therefore reflects the character of its author.
- Practical morality in the sermons: virtue is cultivated through hard work, civic duty and calm acceptance of one's place in society.
Curiosities
A vanished address
He lived in Argyle Square, on the south side of Edinburgh's Old Town. The property was demolished in the mid-19th century to create Chambers Street.
A preacher with a weak delivery
His spoken delivery was poor and was often described as having a strong Scottish accent, yet he was considered the most popular preacher in Scotland thanks to the clarity of his style.
Original Filopedia text based on Wikipedia (es) and Wikipedia (en) and Wikidata.