eBook

Rhetoric and Courtliness in Early Modern Literature

Richards, Jennifer

2003,2007,2009

Overview

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.

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Subject: 16th century / 17th century / Conversation / Conversation -- History -- 16th century / Conversation -- History -- 17th century / Conversation in literature / Courtesy in literature / Courts and courtiers in literature / Early modern, 1500-1700 / England / English language / English language -- Early modern, 1500-1700 -- Rhetoric / English literature / English literature -- Early modern, 1500-1700 -- History and criticism / History / History and criticism / Humanists / Humanists -- England / Intellectual life / Rhetoric
• ISBN: 9780521824705, 0521035716, 9780521035712, 0521824702