Rhetoric and Courtliness in Early Modern Literature

Abstract

Rhetoric and Courtliness in Early Modern Literature explores the early modern interest in conversation as a newly identified art. Conversation was widely accepted to have been inspired by the republican philosopher Cicero. Recognizing his influence on courtesy literature - the main source for 'civil conversation' - Jennifer Richards uncovers alternative ways of thinking about humanism as a project of linguistic and social reform. She argues that humanists explored styles of conversation to reform the manner of association between male associates; teachers and students, buyers and sellers, and settlers and colonial others. They reconsidered the meaning of 'honesty' in social interchange in an attempt to represent the tension between self-interest and social duty. Richards explores the interest in civil conversation among mid-Tudor humanists, John Cheke, Thomas Smith and Roger Ascham, as well as their self-styled successors, Gabriel Harvey and Edmund Spenser.

“Tumbled into the dirt”

“…Given that the vernacular adaptation of "civility" is one of the more studied legacies of Renaissance humanism the process need only be outlined here (Bryson 1996;Richards 2003). In his 1538 Latin-English dictionary the humanist and statesman Thomas Elyot defined civilis as that which 'pertains to a citizen'; civilis homo as 'a man expert in those things appertaining to the ministration of the common weal'; and civilitas as 'courtesy, civility' (Elyot 1538).…”

“…"Wit" likewise dominates other vocabularies of humour: "jest"/"jests" is used in 111 speeches, "merry" and its variables in 202. The figure suggests that in terms of the regularity of its usage "wit" was comparable to the language of "honest"/"honesty" -another keyword in medieval English and one which, like "wit", was given renewed and heightened significance by Renaissance humanists (Empson 1990;Richards 2003). "Wit" and "honest/y" each appears in every extant work written by Shakespeare save two: "wit" is missing from Antony and Cleopatra, "honesty" from Henry VI Part I.…”

Interpreting Communities: Private Acts and Public Culture in Early Modern England

“…As Jennifer Richards points out in her discussion of A Discourse, Smith might present the text as the record of a negotiation between different social interests, but the figure of the Doctor actually manages the debate in the manner of a Socratic dialogue, suggesting that it is the humanist-trained scholar-in other words, someone like Smith himself-who is best qualified to manage the state. 21 Nonetheless, it is in such representations of conversation by sixteenth-century humanists that Richards finds the emergence in England of a classicized concept of civic culture that seeks to reconcile the promotion of the common good with the satisfaction of self-interest. The argument of Rhetoric and Courtliness in Early Modern Literature is an elegant if complex one.…”

Public Discourse, Corporate Citizenship, and State Formation in Early Modern England

“…These were personal attributes of "discretion," "honesty," "judgment," "decorum," and "moderation" by which people were supposed to converse with each other and order their domestic and public lives. 67 These twin processes of institutional realignment and vernacular humanism had implications across society. However, the experience was particularly intense in England's incorporated boroughs and cities, or what were also known as "city commonwealths."…”

“…76 Its general aim was to create conversational moments in which all speakers could use their discretion no matter their relative power and status. 77 The expectation was not that speakers should ignore inequalities in wealth and position, which conversations inevitably exposed, but that they should rather negotiate them, or indeed use them advantageously, through their conversational acuity. 78 Structurally this required conversationally decorous and ordered spaces such as counsels and courts.…”