The Virtues and Vices of Speech Contributor(s): Pontano, Giovanni Gioviano (Author), Pigman III, G. W. (Editor), Pigman III, G. W. (Translator) |
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ISBN: 0674987500 ISBN-13: 9780674987500 Publisher: Harvard University Press OUR PRICE: $34.65 Product Type: Hardcover Published: September 2019 |
Additional Information |
BISAC Categories: - Philosophy | Language - Language Arts & Disciplines | Rhetoric - Philosophy | History & Surveys - Renaissance |
Dewey: 808 |
LCCN: 2018017735 |
Series: I Tatti Renaissance Library |
Physical Information: 1.3" H x 5.4" W x 8.1" (1.45 lbs) 544 pages |
Themes: - Chronological Period - 15th Century - Cultural Region - Italy |
Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
Publisher Description: Giovanni Pontano, who adopted the academic sobriquet "Gioviano," was prime minister to several kings of Naples and the most important Neapolitan humanist of the quattrocento. Best known today as a Latin poet, he also composed dialogues depicting the intellectual life of the humanist academy of which he was the head, and, late in life, a number of moral essays that became his most popular prose works. The De sermone (On Speech), translated into English here for the first time, aims to provide a moral anatomy, following Aristotelian principles, of various aspects of speech such as truthfulness and deception, flattery, gossip, loquacity, calumny, mercantile bargaining, irony, wit, and ridicule. In each type of speech, Pontano tries to identify what should count as the virtuous mean, that which identifies the speaker as a person of education, taste, and moral probity. |
Contributor Bio(s): Pigman III, G. W.: - G. W. Pigman III is Professor of English at the California Institute of Technology. |