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Gentleman in Literature
It is difficult to find a proper starting point for the development of the gentleman.
In our modern understanding of the ideal(as conceived primarily from the nineteenth
century), the medieval knight, with his code of moral conduct, courteous behaviour to
women and fair play to defeated foes in battle, can be considered forerunner.
The term gentleman was first used in 1413 when, as George Sitwell explains. we
begin to meet in the public records with husbandmen, yeoman, and occasionally with a
franklin or gentleman, but it was long before the new fashion of calling oneself a
gentleman came into general use. By the sixteenth century, it had come into general use.
Renaissance was the era of mans self-fashioning. Appearance was everything. Men now
required manners and knowledge to impress at court, the epicentre of Renaissance
society.
The phenomenon of the English gentleman surfaced just prior to the eighteenth
century, amid a centrifugal redistribution of power from town municipalities and guilds to
the private person. The public sphere, long contaminated by monarchical hegemonies,
began a cleansing process of contained, idealist self-fashioning. Of course, much of the
impetus for change was couched in oligarchic self-interests, so the private person
became the protagonist in the society.
Gentleman a word simultaneously conjuring up diverse images, yet one so
difficult to define. When we hear the term, we might think of Englishness; of class; of
masculinity; of elegant fashions; of manners and morals. But we might also think of
hypocrisy; of repression; of outdated behaviour befitting the characters of a Victorian
novel, but which no longer holds any value in todays society. These conflicting images
make it difficult to pinpoint the term gentleman in a definition. But where words seem
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inadequate, deeds can speak more clearly. Before discussing presentations of the
gentleman in literature, an attempt has to be made, if not to define, at least to illustrate the
ideal. Shirley Robin Letwin writes that the gentleman conjures up images of frock
coats, ancient vicarages, and well rolled lawns, of order and serenity. The term
gentleman is highly ambiguous and amorphous, and consequently almost impossible to
pinpoint. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, Hazlitt wrote that what it is that
constitutes the look of a gentleman is more easily felt than described. We all know it
when we see it; but we do not know how to account for it. Attempts at a definition are
complicated by the fact that not only has the ideal changed considerably throughout the
ages, but it is also always tinged with subjective impressions, which points to the problem
of representation.
What is a Gentleman? It is almost a definition of a gentleman to say he is one who
never inflicts pain. This description is both refined and, as far as it goes, accurate. He is
mainly occupied in merely removing the obstacles which hinder the free and
unembarrassed action of those about him; and he concurs with their movements rather
than takes the initiative himself. His benefits may be considered as parallel to what are
called comforts or conveniences in arrangements of a personal nature: like an easy chair
or a good fire, which do their part in dispelling cold and fatigue, though nature provides
both means of rest and animal heat without them. The true gentleman in like manner
carefully avoids whatever may cause ajar or a jolt in the minds of those with whom he is
cast; -- all clashing of opinion, or collision of feeling, all restraint, or suspicion, or gloom,
or resentment; his great concern being to make everyone at their case and at home.
He has his eyes on all his company; he is tender towards the bashful, gentle towards the
distant, and merciful towards the absurd; he can recollect to whom he is speaking; he
guards against unseasonable allusions, or topics which may irritate; he is seldom
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prominent in conversation, and never wearisome. He makes light of favours while he
does them, and seems to be receiving when he is conferring. He never speaks of himself
except when compelled, never defends himself by a mere retort, he has no ears for slander
or gossip, is scrupulous in imputing motives to those who interfere with him, and
interprets everything for the best. He is never mean or little in his disputes, never takes
unfair advantage, never mistakes personalities or sharp sayings for arguments, or
insinuates evil which he dare not say out. From a long-sighted prudence, he observes the
maxim of the ancient sage, that we should ever conduct ourselves towards our enemy as
if he were one day to be our friend. He has too much good sense to be affronted at insults,
he is too well employed to remember injuries, and too indolent to bear malice. He is
patient, forbearing, and resigned, on philosophical principles; he submits to pain, because
it is inevitable, to bereavement, because it is irreparable, and to death, because it is his
destiny. If he engages in controversy of any kind, his disciplined intellect preserves him
from the blundering discourtesy of better, perhaps, but less educated minds; who, like
blunt weapons, tear and hack instead of cutting clean, who mistake the point in argument,
waste their strength on trifles, misconceive their adversary, and leave the question more
involved than they find it. He may be right or wrong in his opinion, but he is too clear-
headed to be unjust; he is as simple as he is forcible, and as brief as he is decisive.
Nowhere shall we find greater frankness, consideration, indulgence: he throws himself
into the minds of his opponents, he accounts for their mistakes. He knows the weakness
of human reason as well as its strength, its province and its limits.
If he be an unbeliever, he will be too profound and large-minded to ridicule
religion or to act against it; he is too wise to be a dogmatist or fanatic in his infidelity. He
respects piety and devotion; he even supports institutions as venerable, beautiful, or
useful, to which he does not assent; he honors the ministers of religion, and it contents
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him to decline its mysteries without assailing or denouncing them. He is a friend of
religious toleration, and that, not only because his philosophy has taught him to look on
all forms of faith with an impartial eye, but also from the gentleness and effeminacy of
feeling, which is the attendant on civilization.
Taken in isolation, Newman's descriptive definition, which appears an exemplary
idealization of the British gentleman, appears a standard, unsurprising presentation of a
socio-political ideal clearly related to specific class interest. In context, however, his
statement immediately appears more complex, since he does not address those with
political or even economic power. In fact, his intended audience of Irish Catholics were
doubly disenfranchised as members of a colonized people and a despised, only recently
permitted religion.
The concept of Gentleman is a complex one. Members of the British aristocracy
were gentlemen by right of birth (although it was also emphasized, paradoxically enough,
that birth alone could not make a man a gentleman), while the new industrial and
mercantile elites, in the face of opposition from the aristocracy, inevitably attempted to
have themselves designated as gentlemen as a natural consequence of their growing
wealth and influence. The concept of the gentleman was not merely a social
or class designation. There was also a moral component inherent in the concept. "The
essence of a gentleman," John Ruskin would write, "is what the word says, that he comes
from a pure gens, or is perfectly bred. After that, gentleness and sympathy, or kind
disposition and fine imagination." Ruskin also maintained that "Gentlemen have to learn
that it is no part of their duty of privilege to live on other people's toil," but many
"gentlemen" did precisely that.
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The term gentleman was, and is, a representative figure of society. His
presentation in literature explains much about the very society in which a particular piece
of writing was conceived. The gentleman is a social phenomenon, and the use made of
him in literature can reveal as much. The way in which an author presents a gentleman
reveals much about that very authors social and political background.
The term gentleman in the history of England presents an interesting
contradiction. There was no strict definition of what traits constituted a gentleman. There
were some specific criteria that helped the average man determine who was a real
gentleman--wealth, government position, activity within the Anglican church, and the
degree of deference accorded him. But along with these tangible criteria were intangible
factors such as behaviour, dress, courtesy, valour, education, and intelligence, which
could provide an otherwise well off non-gentleman the ability to claim some degree of
gentility within his social circle or community.
There is hardly any book in the whole range of English Literature or a character in
English history who has not something to say somewhere about the idea of gentleman.
The preoccupation in English literature with the ideal of gentleman is astounding. Even
writers whose work is not necessarily associated with the image of gentleman were and
are intrigued by the ideal. The gentleman in literature can be traced throughout the ages,
Chaucers verray, parfit, gentil knight being the first literary manifestation. According
to Mason, the beginnings of the Gentlemans pedigree are displayed with astonishing
clarity in The Canterbury Tales. In The Canterbury Tales, one can see for the first time
distinction between the gentleman of birth and the gentleman of merit. Since the time of
Chaucer, the gentleman has been a staple ingredient in both fictional and critical writing.
At the end of sixteenth century, Spencers introductory letter to his patron Sir Walter
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Raleigh, prefacing The Faerie Queene, explains that the general intention and meaning
of his work was to fashion a gentleman or noble person in virtuous and gentle discipline.
The elusive nature of the gentleman in the eighteenth century is reflected in the
descriptions offered by writers of the period. Daniel Defoe, for example, admitted the
confusion of the term when he suggested that the definition of a gentleman would serve
in the schools for a good thesis and long learned dissertations may be made upon it.
Despite his own warning, Defoe attempted to define the qualities of a gentleman in his
work The Compleat English Gentleman, written between 1728 and 1729. Defoe first
separates gentlemen into two groups -- the born gentleman and the bred gentleman.
Of the born gentleman, Defoe states that he is a person BORN (for therein lies the
essence of quality) of some known, or ancient family; whose ancestors have at least for
some time been raisd above the class of mechanicks. Clearly, however, Defoe believed
that being a gentleman involved more than birthright and idle living, for in his broader
definition he states that the term signified a man of generous principles, of a great
generous soul, intimates a kind of an obligation upon those who assumd the name to
distinguish themselves from the rest of the world by generous and virtuous actions.
An equally dismal view of gentlemen as a group is made by Richard Steele in The
Guardian, an early eighteenth-century periodical written and edited by Steele and his
partner, Joseph Addison. In an essay entitled Letter from a Gentleman-like Man dated
April 24, 1713, Steele drolly laments the dilution of the social standing of gentlemen by
the rise of imposters, what Steele calls pretty gentleman:
As the world goes now, we have no adequate idea of what is meant by
gentlemanly, gentleman-like or much a gentleman: you cannot be
cheated at play, but it is certainly done by a very gentleman-like man;
you cannot be deceived in your affairs, but it was done in some
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gentlemanly manner; you cannot be wronged in your bed, but all the
world will say of him that did the injury, it must be allowed he is very
much a gentleman.
Clearly Steele, who wrote primarily for the growing London commercial class,
believed that a true gentlemen recognized and respected the moral and ethical values of
society. An article on Fine Gentlemen in The Guardian in April, 1713 satirically
pointed out how dress and manners could distinguish a gentleman:
A nimble pair of heels, a smooth complexion, a full bottomed wig, a laced
shirt, an embroidered suit, a pair of fringed gloves, a hat and feather; any
of one of these and the like accomplishments ennobles a man, and raises
him above the vulgar, in a female imagination. On the contrary, a modest
serious behaviour, a plain dress, a thick pair of shoes, a leather belt, a
waistcoat not lined with silk, and such like imperfections degrade a man,
and are so many blots in his escutcheon. I could not forbear smiling at one
of the prettiest and liveliest of this gay assembly, who excepted to the
gentility of Sir William Hearty, because he wore a frieze coat, and
breakfasted upon toast and ale.
A June 10, 1710 article in The Tatler linked the contemporary British ruling class
to that of ancient Rome and pointed out the importance of the gentrys role in society.
There is not a citizen in whose imagination such a one does appear in the
same light of glory as Codrus, Scaevola, or any other great name in old
Rome. Were it not for the heroes of so much per cent. as have regard
enough for themselves and their nation, to trade with her with their wealth,
the very notion of public love would long before now have vanished from
among us. But however general custom may hurry us away in the stream
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of a common error, there is no evil, no crime, so great as that of being cold
in matters which relate to the common good.70
The appellation of a gentleman, wrote Richard Steele in 1710, is never to be
affixed to a mans circumstances, but to his behaviour in them.151 Steele summarized
the qualities of a gentleman in an April, 1713 article in The Guardian:
When I consider the frame and mind peculiar to a gentleman, I suppose it
graced with all the dignity and elevation of spirit that human nature is
capable of. To this I would have joined a clear understanding, a reason free
from prejudice, a steady judgement and an extensive knowledge. When I
think of the heart of a gentleman, I imagine it firm and intrepid, void of all
inordinate passions and full of tenderness, compassion and benevolence.
When I view the fine gentleman with regard to his manners, methinks I see
him modest without bashfulness, frank and affable without impertinence,
obliging and complaisant without servility, cheerful and in good humour
without noise . . . A finished gentleman is perhaps the most uncommon of
all the great characters in life.

In Richard Steeles article of 2 March 1711 he describes an imaginary
gentlemans club, whose members come from different ranks of society. Steele assembles
not only conventional representatives of the gentleman- the country squire, the captain in
the army, and the cleric- but also the student of law, the dandy, and, most importantly the
merchant. This reflected the contemporary debate about who had the right to call himself
a gentleman. Steele and his colleague Addison both believed that it was merit rather than
birth that mattered. In 1886, W. R. Browne of The National Review echoed Steeles
gentleman club by dividing gentleman into four main sub divisions as follows:(1) the
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Squire, (2) the Parson, (3) the professional man, (4) the man of business. But with his six
different type of gentleman Steele showed in 1711 that the social sphere of his
contemporary world had widened and was widening further.
While writing for The Spectator, Addison adopted the persona of the fictional Mr.
Spectator, a detached and amended observer of the manners of his contemporaries. As
Mr. Spectator, Addison comments on a cross section of people drawn from various walks
of life with mild irony and amused tolerance. These friends of the narrator comprise the
Spectator Club. The first of the club is a gentleman of Worcestershire, of ancient descent,
a baronet named Sir Roger de Coverley. The knight possessing exemplary humaneness,
sympathy, moral sense of responsibility serves as an ideal country squire of the
eighteenth century. He exemplified the values of an old country gentleman and was
portrayed as lovable but somewhat ridiculous making his Tory politics seem harmless but
silly. On the whole he is a fine literary portrait of an affable gentleman. In this article
Steele describes Sir Roger de Coverley as:
a gentleman that is very singular in his behaviour, but his singularities
proceed from his good sense, and are contradictions to the manners of the
world, only as he thinks the world is in the wrong. However this humour
creates him no enemies, for he does nothing with sourness or obstinacy;
and his being unconfined to modes and forms, makes him but the readier
and more capable to please and oblige all who know him. When he is in
town, he lives in Soho Square. It is said, he keeps himself a bachelor by
reason he was crossed in love by a perverse beautiful widow of the next
county to him. Before this disappointment, Sir Roger was what you call a
Fine Gentleman, had often supped with my Lord Rochester and Sir George
Etherege, fought a duel upon his first coming to town, and kicked Bully
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Dawson in a public coffee-house for calling him youngster. But being ill-
used by the above-mentioned widow, he was very serious for a year and a
half; and though, his temper being naturally jovial, he at last got over it, he
grew careless of himself, and never dressed afterwards. He continues to
wear a coat and doublet of the same cut that were in fashion at the time of
his repulse, which, in his merry humours, he tells us, has been in and out
twelve times since he first wore it. He is now in his fifty-sixth year,
cheerful, gay, and hearty; keeps a good house both in town and country; a
great lover of mankind; but there is such a mirthful cast in his behaviour,
that he is rather beloved than esteemed. His tenants grow rich, his servants
look satisfied, all the young women profess love to him, and the young
men are glad of his company: when he comes into a house he calls the
servants by their names, and talks all the way upstairs to a visit. I must not
omit, that Sir Roger is a justice of the Quorum; that he fills the chair at a
quarter-session with great abilities, and three months ago gained universal
applause by explaining a passage in the Game Act.(2-10)
No character in literature, not even Mr. Pickwick, has more endeared himself to
successive generations of readers than Addisons Sir Roger de Coverley: there are many
figures in drama and fiction of whom we feel that they are in a way personal friends of
our own, that once introduced to us they remain a permanent part of our little world. But
in the various Coverley Essays down in the great number of Spectator Papers before the
birth of the modern English novel we have a full-length portrait of such a character as we
have described, in addition to a number of other more sketchy but still convincing
delineations of English types. We are brought into the society of a fine old-fashioned
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country gentleman, simple, generous, and upright, with just those touches of whimsicality
and those lovable faults which go straight to the readers hearts.
Addisons Sir Roger we have called him, and be sure that honest Richard
Steele, even if he drew the first outlines of the figure, would not bear us a grudge for so
doing. Whoever first thought of Sir Roger, and however many little touches may have
been added by other hands, he remains Addisons creation: and furthermore it does not
matter a snap of the fingers whether any actual person served as the model from which
the picture was taken. Of all the bootless quests that literary criticism can undertake, this
search for the original is the least valuable. There is no original for Sir Roger; they may
have been suggested by someone the author had in mind. But once created they came into
a full-blooded life with personalities entirely of their own.
Sir Roger de Coverley in a way can be regarded as the first gentleman to be
portrayed in English literature with great care and finesse. Addisons brain child, he
remains to date one of the finest representations of English gentleman in the history of
English literature. He is a mirror image of the country squire who held a great
prominence in the English society and a typical benevolent gentleman of the eighteenth
century. Though many other characters were included in the magazine it was Roger de
Coverley who can be considered as a spitting image of the eighteenth century English
gentleman.