Caroline Breashears, a professor of English at St. Lawrence University, has written the March essay for the Adam Smith 300 series for Capital Matters. She writes about Smith’s first intellectual pursuits in rhetoric and literature:
As an English professor, I claim Adam Smith for my own discipline, not least because he began his career as a teacher of Rhetoric and Belles Lettres (a term roughly meaning “polite literature”). He delivered lectures on the subject for the benefit of the public in Edinburgh between 1748 and 1751, more than two decades before he published Wealth of Nations, and later chose the subject for his first private class when he became a professor at the University of Glasgow. Student notes from the course in 1762-63 provide insight into his subjects and method. Although previous professors had referenced English literature, Smith was the first to make it a formal part of the course, teaching Jonathan Swift and Alexander Pope alongside Cicero and Longinus.
Smith’s attention to rhetoric and literature might seem tangential to his system of human flourishing. But, for Smith, studying rhetoric helps us learn how to speak in our own voices yet adjust our language and behavior to what others will go along with. And such skills enable us to engage in trade with dignity as well as profit.
As for literature, stories connect us, making us better and more prosperous people. Rhetoric and literature are essential to Smithian ethics.
Read her full essay here. And check out the January and February entries as well.