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Article published In:
Politeness in and across Historical Europe
Edited by Annick Paternoster, Gudrun Held and Dániel Z. Kádár
[Journal of Historical Pragmatics 24:1] 2023
► pp. 16–31

Cicero’s De Officiis, politeness and modern conduct manuals

| University of Otago
This paper considers the guidelines for polite conversation and appropriate comportment presented in Cicero’s philosophical treatise De Officiis (44 bce), examining them in the light of recent scholarship on modern conduct manuals (e.g., Terkourafi [2011], Alfonzetti [2016], Culpeper [2017] and Paternoster and Saltamacchia [2017]). In particular, it considers: (1) Cicero’s attempt to impose order on conversational practices; (2) his guidelines on rebuking others appropriately (a topic often omitted from modern manuals); (3) the ways in which his views on conversation coincide with modern theories of politeness; (4) his association of polite manners with moral behaviour and social class; and (5) the role of caricature in his depictions of inappropriate behaviour.
Keywords: Cicero, comportment, conduct manuals, conversation, Della Casa, De Officiis , manners, politeness, social class
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Polite conversation
  • 3.Polite criticism
  • 4.Showing respect and affection in conversation
  • 5.Comportment and morality
  • 6.Conduct manuals and social caricature
  • 7.Conclusion
  • References
Published online: 7 March 2023
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/jhp.00059.hal
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Cited by (5)

Cited by five other publications

Alfonzetti, Giovanna
2023. A European model of polite conversation?. Journal of Historical Pragmatics 24:1 ► pp. 105 ff. DOI logo
Kádár, Dániel Z., Gudrun Held & Annick Paternoster
2023. Introduction. Journal of Historical Pragmatics 24:1 ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
Paternoster, Annick
2023. The codification of nineteenth-century etiquette. Journal of Historical Pragmatics 24:1 ► pp. 160 ff. DOI logo
Unceta Gómez, Luis
2023.  Facetus and the birth of “European” politeness. Journal of Historical Pragmatics 24:1 ► pp. 32 ff. DOI logo
Torzi, Ilaria
2022. Il concilio degli dèi (Verg.Aen.10.1-117), fraars rhetoricae(im)politeness. Lexis :1 DOI logo

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