Speech to the Second Virginia Convention- Reflection Blog

In the Speech to the Second Virginia Convention, we are reading in a style that is different from the Puritan style we have been looking at recently. The Puritan style is much different from this new style that we see in this speech in many ways, but I think the most obvious way is that in the Puritan writing style, they relate everything to God and religion and in this new style of writing it is more of a logical approach and they have less of a religious view of things. This new writing style is called Rationalism, and this speech is a very good example of how the Rationalism writing style sounds. In the Puritan writing style, they refer to God a lot and they are all very religion based, and contrary to that we have Rationalism which is more of a logical way of thinking. For example, in this speech Patrick Henry says "If we were base enough to desire it, it is now to late to retire from the contest. There is no retreat but in submission and slavery." (Henry 118). I think that this passage shows the Rational style this speech was written in because he is basically saying, there is no way out of this for us so we should just go to war. I think this is rational because he was being very logical in the way he thinks about things. I think that it makes sense to go ahead and go to war if you already know it is going to happen. Another passage from this speech that really struct me as being a rational way of thinking was

The next gale that sweeps from the North will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms! Our brethren are already in the field; Why do we stand here idle? (Henry 118).

To me, this passage was very rational sounding for many reasons. What Patrick Henry is trying to say in this part of his speech is that if we stand around and wait any longer, they are going to begin a war with us so we might as well be the ones that start the war because we would have some sort of an advantage over them. I think that this passage reveals the Rationalism writing style used by Patrick Henry because of his logical approach and way of thinking. I like reading in the Puritan writing style better than the Rationalist writing style because I think it is interesting to see how people acted back when religion was the center of everything. Patrick Henry showed us a lot of qualities that go along with the Rationalism writing style in his speech Speech to the Second Virginia Convention. I think that Rationalist writing styles became more and more popular over time because society became less and less religion based. For example, look at where we are today in society as compared to where we were years ago. Things have changed and the writing styles have also changed along with society.

Bibliography

Henry, Patrick. "Speech to the Second Virginia Convention." Glencoe Literature. New York: Glencoe McGraw-Hill, 2009. 114-119. Print.