A Brief History of Modesty

Abstract

This essay explores the concept of measure and excess through the lens of the term “modest.” By looking at modesty as a key value in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, we can start to unpick the complexities of the politics and aesthetics of moderation. The word modest is used widely throughout this period, and this article draws on textual examples from Jonathan Swift, John Milton, Sarah Fielding, and Alexander Pope to show the role the term played in the conception of political rhetoric, sexual propriety, social and dramatic performance. But as its varied uses show, modesty also highlighted tensions between naturalism, restraint, and passion, and revealed the potentially problematic relationship between virtue, and the appearance of virtue.