The performance of nobility in early modern European literature

"This study illuminates the idea of nobility as display, as public performance, in Renaissance and seventeenth-century literature and society. Ranging widely from Castiglione and French courtesy manuals, through Montaigne and Bacon, to the literature of the Grand Siecle, David M. Posner examines the structures of public identity in the period. Situated at the intersection of rhetorical and historical theories of interpretation, this book contributes significantly to our understanding of the role of literature both in analyzing and in shaping social identity."--Jacket.