TY - BOOK AU - Shields,David S. TI - Civil tongues & polite letters in British America T2 - Published by the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture and the University of North Carolina Press Ser SN - 9781469600550 AV - E162 .S555 1997 U1 - 306/.0973 21 PY - 1997/// CY - Chapel Hill, NC PB - Published for the Institute of Early American History and Culture, Williamsburg, Virginia by University of North Carolina Press KW - Etiquette KW - United States KW - History KW - Social interaction KW - Associations, institutions, etc KW - Literature and society KW - English language KW - Discourse analysis KW - Savoir-vivre KW - États-Unis KW - Histoire KW - Interaction sociale KW - Associations KW - Littérature et société KW - Anglais (Langue) KW - Analyse du discours KW - HISTORY KW - Social History KW - bisacsh KW - fast KW - Manners and customs KW - gtt KW - Sociale interactie KW - nli KW - Formules de politesse KW - 1500-1800 KW - ram KW - 18e siècle KW - Social life and customs KW - To 1775 KW - Mœurs et coutumes KW - Jusqu'à 1775 KW - Colonial Period, 1600-1775 KW - Moeurs et coutumes KW - 1600-1775 KW - Civilisation KW - Electronic books N1 - Includes bibliographical references and index; 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; Electronic reproduction; [Place of publication not identified]; HathiTrust Digital Library; 2010 N2 - 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 UR - https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&scope=site&db=nlebk&AN=965206 ER -