The Concept of Conversation: From Cicero's Sermo to the Grand Siècle's Conversation

David Randall

Published by Edinburgh University Press 2018

The Concept of Conversation

From Cicero's Sermo to the Grand Siècle's Conversation

David Randall

https://doi.org/10.1515/9781474430128

Overview
Contents

About this book

The first history of early modern conversation in English

In the classical period, conversation referred to real conversations, conducted in the leisure time of noble men, and concerned with indefinite philosophical topics. Christianity inflected conversation with universal aspirations during the medieval centuries and the ars dictaminis, the art of letter writing, increased the importance of this written analogue of conversation. The Renaissance humanists from Petrarch onward further transformed conversation, and its genre analogues of dialogue and letter, by transforming it into a metaphor of increasing scope. This expanded realm of humanist conversation bifurcated in Renaissance and early modern Europe. The Concept of Conversation traces the way the rise of conversation spread out from the history of rhetoric to include the histories of friendship, the court and the salon, the Republic of Letters, periodical press and women. It revises Jürgen Habermas’ history of the emergence of the rational speech of the public sphere as the history of the emergence of rational conversation and puts the emergence of women’s speech at the centre of the intellectual history of early modern Europe.

Key Features

The first book-length history of early modern conversation in English
Synthesizes early modern intellectual history within the frameworks of rhetoric and conversation
Places the history of women’s speech at the heart of the history of early modern rhetoric
Fuses Habermas’ historical-theoretical framework to the history of rhetoric and revises both

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	v
Acknowledgements Publicly Available Download PDF	vi
Introduction Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
1 The Classic Origins of Conversation Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	17
2 The Medieval Reformulations of Conversation Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	38
3 The Renaissance of Conversation Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	54
14 Intimate Friendship Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	85
5 Court, Salon and Republic of Letters Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	122
6 Letters Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	166
7 Sociabilitas Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	183
Conclusion Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	223
Bibliography Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	224
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	256

(Deutsch)

Language: English
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
Audience: College/higher education;
Pages
- Main content: 272
Keywords: Literary Studies

eBook

Published: April 5, 2022
ISBN: 9781474430128