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Jane Austen [ Art and Literature ]

… Abstract As a novelist of manners and an acute observer of human interactions, Jane Austen analysed the implications of late Georgian and Regency … to be insufficient. For Austen’s central protagonists, true sociability is expressed not in the polite language and manners of earlier models of social intercourse but demonstrated through meaningful acts of consideration towards others. … whom Mr Knightley determines ‘can be amiable only in French, not in English’: ‘He may be very “aimable,” have very good manners, and be very agreeable; but he can have no English delicacy towards the feelings of other people’ ( Emma …

William Godwin (and his Diary) [ Philosophy / Politics / Political philosophy / Feelings and Emotions / Diaries & Letters ]

… But it raises questions about how he reconciled his extensive sociability with his critique of social conventions, manners and fashion.  Recognizing this tension should encourage us to see that the appearance of extensive sociability in … and a central feature of his philosophical outlook, profoundly influenced by Rousseau, was a disdain for the false manners and decorum of ‘society’ and the world of fashion. From this perspective, it seems puzzling that he should seem … But it raises questions about how he reconciled his extensive sociability with his critique of social conventions, manners and fashion.  Recognizing this tension should encourage us to see that the appearance of extensive sociability in …

Politeness [ Taste & Manners / Education ]

… contemporary developments in urban living, class aspiration, print culture and consumption patterns. Concepts > Taste & Manners Practices > Education Keywords Social relations Civility Urban life Consumption Politeness was a key word in … and specialism began to displace the generalist and gentlemanly norm of intellectual culture. 9. Marjorie Morgan, Manners, Morals and Class in England, 1774-1858 (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1994). 10. Philip Carter, Men and the Emergence … Polite Society , Britain 1660-1800 (Harlow, Pearson, 2001). Davidson, Jenny, Hypocrisy and the Politics of Politeness: Manners and Morals from Locke to Austen (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004). Klein, Lawrence, ‘ Politeness and …

James, Duke of York and Albany (and court culture in Edinburgh) [ Aristocracy / Cities ]

… his family and court to Edinburgh for two stays between 1679 and 1682, which radically changed the structure and the manners of society there. The Scottish capital had not hosted any royal court since the visit of Charles I in 1633 for … 1679-82‘, in E. Cruickshanks (ed.), The Stuart Courts (Stroud: Sutton Publishing, 2000), p. 266-277. As for the manners of Edinburgh's upper class, they mirrored those of Whitehall. Suddenly, there were more theatre plays, dancing … based on the needs of the merchant class, seemed to have faded away. For about two years, the society’s rules and manners in Edinburgh recalled with some nostalgia those before the departure of the Stuarts in 1603. This was a …

Street sociability [ Cities ]

… extension, the new built streets of Britain’s other major cities, provide the backdrop for a modern comedy of manners in which ever more complex social codes are negotiated (or not). 8 This strand of literature would eventually … more regular, better paved, and better  lit. 10 From the 1690s movements including the Societies for the Reformation of Manners sought to police street behaviour – including swearing and prostitution. 11  ‘Highway robbery’ also emerged as a … (eds), English Masculinities, 1660-1800 (London: Longman, 1999), p. 111-131. When Erasmus Jones published his Man of Manners: Or Plebeian Polished in 1737, for the ‘benefit of persons of mean birth and education’, his first order of …