Politeness And Its Impact On The Early Nineteenth Century

Thus, due to the all-encompassing deteriorating of human dignity, catalyzed by the chivalric values and battlefield honour, England must aspire to reverse their regressive ways, in its place observing Falstaff’s nonchalance and nihilistic behaviour.

Politeness is able to show a person’s feelings towards others and awareness of a social custom. There are many purposes of politeness including: creating a public self image, creating solidarity, threatening people to send a negative message, not threatening people or upsetting them, indicating social relationship, showing awareness of social context, and power dynamics. The value of polite speech in a culture has the purpose of creating solidarity. Polite speech in a specific culture is very important and should be practiced as much as possible.

Castiglione's The Courtier presents a set of female and male indications for being ideal or well-rounded persons, spread across four books of what was to become a Renaissance-specific manual for achieving the human etiquette ideal. A parallel is to be traced between these precepts that were drawn five centuries ago, and the current situation.

The study of honor in Renaissance cities presents an intriguing paradox. On the one hand, honor seemed ‘more dear than life itself’, and provided one of the essential values that shaped the daily lives of urban elites and ordinary city folk. For wealthy merchants and aspiring artisans, honor established a code of accepted conduct against which an individual’s actions were measured by his or her peers, subordinates and social superiors. Possessing honor helped to locate a person in the social hierarchy and endowed one with a sense of personal worth. The culture of honor, which originated with the medieval aristocracy, directed the everyday activities of urban-dwellers of virtually all social groups from at least the fourteenth century on.

“The History of the English Language”. http://www.uni-due.de/SHE/. Univ. of Duisburg Essen. April 2013. Web 4 Oct. 2013.

The following paper is an analysis of different societal conditions that impact the individual’s manners and the civility of the interaction between members of the society. The studies that were reviewed in the following paper cover many variables and scenarios that may affect the way a person interacts with another member of society.

Across cultures and time, honor and manliness have been inextricably tied together. In many cases, they were synonymous. Honor lost was manhood lost. Because honor was such a central aspect of a man’s masculine identity, men would go to great lengths to win honor and prevent its loss. This concept of honor is displayed in Edmond Rostand’s dramatic work, Cyrano De Bergerac.

Conversation is a ritual every person must encounter throughout their lives in order to function properly with one another in today’s society. However, every individual has a “different idea about what’s appropriate” when approaching someone in any sort of conversation; that is why we are referred to as individuals (Tannen 327). There are thousands of diverse languages to speak to one another with, in fact that means there are thousands of different ways to offend each other with our words. Within those languages there are several contrasting gestures that can offend any single person, such as the amount of times individuals apologize in one meeting, giving criticism too harshly, or thanking someone so often it does not seem genuine. In the article “What Do You Mean,” Deborah Tannen touches upon apologies, criticism, and thank yous in further detail to explain where individuals go wrong within conversation and how they can fix their actions. Individuals find it satisfying to please others by being polite because it is the ‘right’ thing to do, however like myself others need to stand up for themselves and get directly to the point now in order to avoid conflict later in life.

Some would say that honor is a thing of the past; a thing long since extinct with the King Arthur and the knights of the round table. In fact, it is not, it is real and can still be seen all around through people all the time. In Charles Dicken’s novel, A Tale of Two Cities, honor and dishonor are main themes that are exemplified and enacted through many characters. To be honorable, or to act in honor, is to act in a way that is not necessarily socially acceptable, but is morally right, noble, and kind. To be dishonorable is to neglect the basic responsibility of treating every human being in the respectful manner they deserve, giving no variance to rank or status. Throughout the book different men show varying degrees of honor and dishonor.

Henry David Thoreau published Walden about 160 years ago. Walden contains Thoreau’s report on his experience with solidarity in his cabin on Walden Pond where he stayed for two years, two weeks, and two days. The film, Die Wand, brings up an important question about whether or not one can truly survive, and even thrive, being completely alone. The woman, who remains unnamed, finds herself separated from her friends, and everyone in general, by an invisible wall she cannot penetrate. Although she found herself in despair for a few weeks, she finally manages to thrive and finds reasoning to survive through her animals.

The nineteenth century was a period of controversy, reform, and revolution. Among it were people longing to spread new ideas, discover new things, and find who they truly were. Though the desires of those in this time were not entirely contrastive to the ones of those in any other century, differences lie in the difficulty nineteenth century people faced in fulfilling said desires. This is not to say that people of the time lacked ambition—in fact, this is to say the exact opposite. Despite their abundance of ambition, contrary to current times, people were often suppressed from using their ambition to promote ideas that were considered socially unacceptable. Though there are many pieces of evidence to support this, multiple literary works

Baldassare Castiglione’s The Book of the Courtier was one of the most widely read books of the sixteenth century and appealed to and influenced the courts in Europe. Courtier answered the question: "What constitutes a perfect courtier?" and defined those characteristics and skills to fashion oneself into that ideal; especially the nobility. The “image” of an ideal courtier and set the standard for what it meant to be a gentleman. Europeans, and particularly in England, fashioned themselves in the “image” of Castiglione’s ideal, and the image endures. All it took was Sprezzatura, and lots of it.

Shakespeare uses the backdrop of the Trojan War in Troilus and Cressida to explore the interpretation of honor as something extrinsic without associating it with intrinsic moral values. In the seventeenth century, “honour” was used in four different ways: fame, renown, glory; credit, good name, reputation; noble rank, position of dignity, title of renown; source of distinction. Fame and reputation are the most common uses of honor throughout the play. Therefore, to avoid confusion and redundancy, fame and reputation will be synonymous to honor for this analysis. Curiously, “honourable” is defined as honest, upright, and distinguished. The adjective’s definition has clear moral roots based on societal and cultural norms. Thus, in regards to morals, it seems as though during Shakespeare’s time there was a clear divergence between honor and its derivatives. Therefore, by examining the significance and usage of “honor” throughout Troilus and Cressida, it becomes apparent that chivalrous and moral undertones are being exploited to advance glory and reputation.

During the Middle Ages, England was a nation in social chaos. Deception of every kind was rampart throughout the lands. Many people felt that there was a great need for moral improvement in society. In Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales he clearly brings to light his thoughts and concerns of “ethical cleansing.” No tale more fully expresses this idea than that of “The Pardoner’s Tale” and “The Nun’s Priest’s Tale.”

Furthermore, this definition of the word continued up until 1556 where the meaning changed slightly. Rather than describing only people, gentle now could describe objects as noble (Gentle, Adj.). However, in 1823 the connotation changed completely, gentle was now described as a location that was “haunted by fairies” (Gentle, Adj.). Soon though the definition once again began referring to those of “gentle blood,” or those of nobility (Gentle, Adj.). All of these connotations share the common theme of a highborn, mannered individual. These definitions feed into our current thoughts of the word gentle, someone who is very calm and tempered, due to the relation the word has to nobility. In the high point of nobility era, nobles were given extensive lesson on manners and how to behave. Thus, when we define gentle now, we are relating the word back to the original trained temperament of