Flattery

Is Flattery Good or Bad?

Flattery is a noun that means the act of giving excessive compliments, generally for the purpose of favoring oneself with the subject. Flattery is sometimes used in pick-up lines to attempt to initiate romantic courtship.

Flattery often connotes insincerity. It derives from ME. [OFr.flaterie (mod.flatterie)]. Historically, flattery was used as a standard form of discourse, meaning conversation, when addressing a king or queen. During the Renaissance period, it was a common practice among writers to flatter the reigning monarch. For example, Edmund Spenser flattered Queen Elizabeth I in The Faerie Queene or William Shakespeare flattering King James I in Macbeth.

Most associations with flattery are negative. Flatterers are sometimes described by pejorative phrases, having a negative or degrading effect, such as “suck-up” or “brown-noser”. Negative descriptions of flattery go as far back in history as the bible.

There are several synonyms for the word flattery. Several synonyms for flattery include: excessive, ingratiating praise, adulation, and blandishment. All these words are used to describe excessive compliments.

There are also several antonyms. Antonyms for flattery include: belittle, castigate, condemn, criticize, denounce, insult, offend, clash, deface, and spoil.

It is also used in famous works of art. As William Shakespeare once said:

”Or whether doth my mind, being crowned with you,

Drink up the monarch’s plague, this flattery?

Or whether shall I say mine eye saith true,

And that your love taught it this alchemy,

To make of monsters, and things indigest,

Such cherubins as your sweet self resemble,

Creating every bad a perfect best

As fast as objects to his beams assemble?

O, �tis the first,’ tis flattery in my seeing,

And my great mind most kingly drinks it up;

Mine eye well knows what with his gust is �greeing,

And to his palate doth prepare the cup.

If it be poisoned, �tis the lesser sin

That mine age loves it and doth first begin.”

The poem in its entirety means that the plague facing the monarch is flattery. He sees flattery and he accepts its challenge. The words are kind, but untrue and he believes it a lesser sin that he likes it when it is first said, even though it is based on false pretenses, insincere effort.

All around me I seek to amaze,

Yet I open my heart to none of them.

But even the worst I forgave,

for all said I was good with my pen.

�Flattery won’t get you anywhere.’

yet used subtly, it always will.

If you can make me think you care,

I will be yours, yours to hold still.

But do remember, I am wise-

for, like you, I wear a disguise.

The writer is suggesting that everywhere he looks he sees flattery, but he forgave them for the worst because they said he was good at writing. He believes flattery will not get you anywhere, but used right, it can. He says if they can please him, he will be theirs, but he, too, has a hidden agenda.

Adlai Stevenson once said that “I suppose flattery hurts no one, that is, if he doesn’t inhale” (Stevenson.297). It means that flattery does not hurt anyone as long as he does not breathe.

“Flattery is no more than what raises in a man’s mind an idea of preference which he has not,” spoken by Edmund Burke, he believes flattery is a preference that a man cannot choose. “Flattery is an ensnaring quality, and leaves a very dangerous impression. It swells a man’s imagination, entertains his vanity, and drives him to doting upon his own person,” Jeremy Collier. Flattery boasts one’s ego and make him believe to be the best, but it is a dangerous quality.

In the play King James I the Fourth, Hotspur makes a speech using flattery.

“Hot. Well said, my noble Scot: if speaking truth

In this fine age were not thought flattery,

Such attribution should the Douglas have,

As not a soldier of this season’s stamp

Should go so general current through the world.

By God, I cannot flatter; do defy

The tongues of soothers; but a braver place

In mine heart’s love hath no man than yourself.

Nay,

task me to my word; approve me, lord.”

Hotspur is saying that Scot speaks well if it is true, but flattery if it is not. He cannot flatter and he wants God to challenge the flatterers. There is a brave place in his heart for God and he wants God to believe him. The word flattery as used in the above passage means insincere praise.

“Oh, how I lie! If a fellow be a rudely awkward person, I tell him

how sensitive and discriminating

...