More thoughts on sprezzatura, rather disjointed
(Not that I am feeling very sprezzatury today: jetlag + probably related insomnia means I feel as though everything involves wading through treacle.)
It's very much a class-marker kind of thing, as one might imagine from its coinage in Castiglione's The Book of the Courtier.
It is not supposed to be something found among the lower orders or, of course, women - this possibly segues into the characterisation of the 'scholarship boy' or the 'educated female' as being dreary dour grinds who make it on uninspired hard work. Rather than manifesting nonchalant inspired brilliance.
(I think Stephen Potter's invocation of 'to Edinburgh' (to appear to be working hard all the time) and 'to Harvard' (to appear to nonchalantly coast brilliantly) make much sense in this context. 'Edinburgh' resonates with the whole 'young man o' parts' making his way from humble origins on a diet of oatmeal and a Calvinist attitude towards effort, whereas Harvard does, or did, have a very different set of assumed values.)
(Potter's 'Lifemanship' books are interesting in that they are less about actually doing stuff with nonchalant competence than setting other people off-balance through gamesmanship-type ploys. This is not sprezzatura, but something else for which I don't think there are any words except those coined by Potter.)
If the lower orders or various excluded groups do manifest any kind of nonchalant excellence, this is, I think, probably attributed to their 'natural' qualities rather than involving any kind of agency ('innate sense of rhythm', as it were), and thus acquires very different meanings.
On another hand, could e.g. Jeeves be said to be manifesting sprezzatura??
Query: in literary representations, is the dramatic arc actually about the protag discovering that easy nonchalant supercompetence is not enough (Lord Peter Wimsey, Frances Crawford of Lymond...)?
A parting thought: relationship between sprezzatura and 'cool'...?
This entry was originally posted at http://oursin.dreamwidth.org/1236540.html. Please comment there using OpenID. View
comments.