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Author Shields, David S

Title Civil tongues & polite letters in British America / David S. Shields
Published Chapel Hill, NC : Published for the Institute of Early American History and Culture, Williamsburg, Virginia by University of North Carolina Press, ©1997

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Description 1 online resource (xxxii, 348 pages) : illustrations
Series Published by the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture and the University of North Carolina Press Ser
Published by the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture and the University of North Carolina Press Ser
Contents Chapter 1: Overture -- The Promise of Civil Discourse -- Chapter 2: Belles Lettres and the Arenas of Metropolitan Conversation -- A Conversation in the Suburbs -- Politeness and Wit -- The Model of Belles Lettres -- Sociability -- Gentility and Taste -- The Spas and the Sexes -- The Profanations of Grub Street -- Chapter 3: Coffeehouse and Tavern -- Henry Brooke -- The Poet as Agent of Urbanity -- Tavern Talk Transfigured -- Beyond Politeness -- Chapter 4: Tea Tables and Salons -- Tea and Sympathy -- The Garden of Sensibility -- Chapter 5: Rites of Assembly -- At the Ball -- Card Games and the Muse -- The Sphinx's Challenge -- Crambo -- The Contest of Wit -- Chapter 6: The Clubs -- The Brotherhood of Fish -- The Practice of Good Fellowship -- Chapter 7: The College, the Press, and the Public -- Elegy and the College Cult of Memory -- The Religious Sublime -- The Polite Christian -- Famous Characters and the Defamer -- The Duplicities of Print -- Old Janus -- Chapter 8: Gaining Admission -- The Rapid Rise of Dr. Dale -- An Anatomy of Hospitality -- Chapter 9: Toward the Polite Republic
Summary In urban areas from Boston to Charleston, the elite men and women of eighteenth-century British America came together in a variety of private venues to communicate and interact. David Shields looks into the taverns, tea rooms, salons, coffee houses, card parties, clubs, and fraternities where these displays of civility took place. He argues that such spaces, formed outside the domain of the state, became key sites for elite discursive formation, for the articulation and enactment of the values of civility. In an important reinterpretation of early American literary history, he argues that the belles lettres generated for and within these institutions in fact represent a powerful colonial genre involving experimentation with manners and social identities. By examining the language and forms of various "texts"--Including conversations, letters, privately circulated manuscripts, and other forms of expression - he reconstructs the discourse of civility that flourished in and further shaped elite society in British America
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and index
Notes Master and use copy. Digital master created according to Benchmark for Faithful Digital Reproductions of Monographs and Serials, Version 1. Digital Library Federation, December 2002. http://purl.oclc.org/DLF/benchrepro0212 MiAaHDL
digitized 2010 HathiTrust Digital Library committed to preserve pda MiAaHDL
Print version record
Subject Etiquette -- United States -- History
Social interaction -- United States -- History
Associations, institutions, etc. -- United States -- History
Literature and society -- United States -- History
English language -- United States -- Discourse analysis
Manners and customs.
customs (social concepts)
HISTORY -- Social History.
Associations, institutions, etc.
English language -- Discourse analysis
Etiquette
Literature and society
Manners and customs
Social interaction
Etiquette.
Sociale interactie.
Etiquette -- United States -- History.
Social interaction -- United States -- History.
Associations, institutions, etc. -- United States -- History.
Literature and society -- United States -- History.
Formules de politesse -- États-Unis -- Histoire -- 1500-1800.
Savoir-vivre -- États-Unis -- Histoire -- 1500-1800.
Littérature et société -- États-Unis -- Histoire -- 18e siècle.
Associations -- États-Unis -- Histoire -- 18e siècle.
SUBJECT United States -- Social life and customs -- To 1775. http://id.loc.gov/authorities/subjects/sh85140528
Subject United States
United States -- Social life and customs -- Colonial Period, 1600-1775.
États-Unis -- Moeurs et coutumes -- 1600-1775.
États-Unis -- Civilisation -- 18e siècle.
Genre/Form History
Form Electronic book
ISBN 9781469600550
1469600552
Other Titles Civil tongues and polite letters in British America