Start your 48-hour free trial and unlock all the summaries, Q&A, and analyses you need to get better grades now.Lord Chesterfield, as a teacher, philosopher, professor, and eternal learner, believes in a different approach to the dynamics that often take place between parents and their children. The ultimate purpose was that young Stanhope should become—at the very least—a successful diplomat; but the principal objective of that occupation was “to get into the secrets of the court at which he resides” through any means, including flattery or intimacy with a king’s or minister’s mistresses. Respect is also key, parents still demand the same respect from their children as Chesterfield expects from his son. . The controversy concerned Lord Chesterfield’s realistic observations on those aspects of life that he constantly urges his son to explore: Search, therefore, with the greatest care, into the characters of those whom you converse with; endeavor to discover their predominant passions, their prevailing weaknesses, their vanities, their follies, and their humours, with all the right and wrong, wise and silly springs of human actions, which make such inconsistent and whimsical beings of us rational creatures. In modern times, parents put a high value on grades and schooling; Chesterfield chides his son to take more care in his accumulation of knowledge. Lord Chesterfield used litotes (understatement), a pedantic tone, and a hint of a condescending tone in an attempt to convince his son to follow the advice that Chesterfield provides in the letter. Lord Chesterfield uses both a academic and condescending tone in an effort to asseverate authorization over his boy. . There is In Lord Chesterfield’s letter to his son, he attempts to shape him into a respectable man worthy of inheriting the family wealth in ways that can still be recognized in parenting today. [but] They have, from the weakness of men, more or less influence in all courts.
Lord Chesterfield accomplishes this through the use of tone shifts, values, repetition, irony and hyperbole. Although the earl had served his country unimpeachably as a member of Parliament, lord lieutenant of Ireland, and ambassador to Holland, it is generally conceded that Lord Chesterfield would have remained an inconspicuous figure in the eighteenth century historical scene had it not been for the unintended publication of some four hundred letters he wrote to his illegitimate son, Philip Stanhope. LETTER III LONDON, December 2, O.S. . Lord Chesterfield's adequate insight reveals his own values from his past. 1746. Having traveled that country well himself, Lord Chesterfield could advise his son with cynical sophistication. On the periphery of literature exists a valuable and fascinating genre, the personal letter. Chesterfield feels a sense of superiority based on his own intellect and success, which causes him to criticize his son’s aim in life that could jeopardize his Rather, it is a means to worldly success—a dependable means, if Lord Chesterfield’s own career based on honesty and integrity is any measure. In this passage written by Lord Chesterfield, he talks to his son and the evolution of the English language, being advanced in his diction and descriptive in his phrasing. It was not the early letters to his son but the later ones—addressed to “My Dear Friend”—that aroused controversy after the letters were published. Lord Chesterfield uses strong diction when his sagacious nature implements his son to… . . DEAR BOY: I have not, in my present situation,—[His Lordship was, in the year 1746, appointed one of his Majesty’s secretaries of state. By reminiscing his mistakes, he strives to establish an understanding with his son and his own independent life: while also hoping to befriend and sway his son to exercise good judgment. When concluding his letter he warns his son that failure is not an option due to the humiliation it will bring. This 2 page handout uses the 1746 letter from Lord Chesterfield, to his son. . The early letters are charmingly didactic essays addressed to a preadolescent boy whom the writer hoped would become “not only the best scholar but the best bred boy in England of your age.” “Dear boy,” they all begin, and then proceed to shape little lessons on language, literature, geography, history, and good manners. It is this worldly self-interest that constitutes the dominant tone of the letters; as Lord Chesterfield declares, “Without some dissimulation no business can be carried on at all.” There is no trace of mysticism or sentimentality about him: “Religion must still be allowed to be a collateral security, at least, to Virtue.” Yet virtue, apparently, is not an end in itself. A academic tone can be noted most evidently in lines 23-25 when Chesterfield says “those irritants and sweetbriers which scratched and disfigured me in the class of mine. This is the true knowledge of the world; and the world is a country which nobody ever yet knew by description; one must travel through it oneself to be acquainted with it. . **CONCLUSION** As a result, Lord Chesterfield’s letter to his son consists of standards to be met without excuse. Along with those two strategies, he uses pathos to show the emotions of a father towards a son and the virtues he wants his son to learn throughout his journey to adulthood. They conclude with admonitions to obey his seventy-year-old tutor, Maittaire, and with promises of “very pretty things” to reward him for industrious study.