Rhetoric and Courtliness in Early Modern Literature

The art of conversation was widely believed to have been inspired by the republican philosopher Cicero. Recognizing his influence on courtesy literature (the main source for "civil conversation"), Jennifer Richards reveals new ways of thinking about humanism as a project of linguistic and social reform. 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 Spencer.