Essay
2022

Style Is the Man Himself: Eloquence and the Revival of Roman Virtue in Renaissance Humanism

Michelle T. Clarke

The Good Society 31, no. 1–2 (2022): 150–157.

A review essay on James Hankins’s Virtue Politics (2019), which argues that Renaissance humanism was held together by the conviction that a community’s health depends on the character of its rulers. Clarke extends the argument through eloquence: Petrarch, following Cicero and Quintilian, held that good speech both reveals and shapes a well-ordered soul, which is why humanists cared so intensely about getting Latin right. Machiavelli, by contrast, strips Livy of his style in the Discourses, treating eloquence and virtue as separable.

  • Renaissance humanism
  • James Hankins
  • Petrarch
  • Eloquence
  • Cicero
  • Machiavelli

How to cite

Clarke, Michelle T. “Style Is the Man Himself: Eloquence and the Revival of Roman Virtue in Renaissance Humanism.” The Good Society 31, no. 1–2 (2022): 150–157.

@article{clarke2022style,
  author    = {Clarke, Michelle T.},
  title     = {{Style Is the Man Himself: Eloquence and the Revival of Roman Virtue in Renaissance Humanism}},
  year      = {2022},
  journal   = {The Good Society},
  volume    = {31},
  number    = {1--2},
  pages     = {150--157},
  url       = {https://scholarlypublishingcollective.org/psup/good-society/article-abstract/31/1-2/150/386690/Style-Is-the-Man-Himself-Eloquence-and-the-Revival}
}