Publication Type
Book Chapter
Version
publishedVersion
Publication Date
1-2017
Abstract
Somewhere near the beginning of the eighteenth century a new concept of “dignity” was emerging alongside the rise of a new socioeconomic class, the bourgeoisie. This chapter explores the development of this distinctive new concept of dignity, investigating first the key elements of the so-called bourgeois virtues that provided content to this new ethos of dignity. Next, it probes the economic, political, and social conditions that facilitated the emergence and diffusion of bourgeois dignity during the eighteenth century. Finally, it discusses how this new understanding of dignity was diffused throughout society by one of the most influential literary endeavors of the period, Joseph Addison and Richard Steele’s The Spectator (1711–1714).
Keywords
Addison, Steele, bourgeois dignity, eighteenth century, commercial, virtue, Spectator, independence, self-making, politeness
Discipline
Philosophy
Research Areas
Humanities
Publication
Dignity: A history
Editor
Remy Debes
First Page
269
Last Page
289
ISBN
9780199385997
Publisher
Oxford University Press
City or Country
New York
Citation
HENDERSON, Christine Dunn. (2017). Bourgeois dignity: Making the self-made man. In Dignity: A history (pp. 269-289). New York: Oxford University Press.
Available at: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/soss_research/3400
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.
Additional URL
https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199385997.003.0013