And though thou hadst small Latin and less Greek,
The First Folio Droeshout Engraving represents Shakespeare's 'non-classical' form/body:
non⋅clas⋅si⋅cal
–adjective
1. not classical or contrary to classical precepts.
Main Entry: un·clas·si·cal
Pronunciation: -'kla-si-k&l
Function: adjective
: not classical; especially : unconcerned with the classics
Edward de Vere vs. Sir Philip Sidney
Shakespeare vs. Sidney family admirer Ben Jonson
"The Englishman in this quality is most vain, indiscreet, and out of order. He first grounds his work on impossibilities; then in three hours runs he through the world; marries, gets children, makes children men, men to conquer kingdoms, murder monsters, and bringeth Gods from Heaven and fetcheth devils from Hell." Whetstone, dedication to _Promus and Cassandra_
In First Folio poem Ben Jonson critiques Edward de Vere under cover of a figure - and correctly (according to classical precepts) employs figured language (eschematismene) to either:
1 - Speak truth to power.
2 - According to Quintilian, figured language may also be used to speak of 'conditions laid down by tyrants on abdication and decrees passed by the senate after a civil war, and it is a capital offence to accuse a person with what is past,'
I'm interested in the special condition of a Stuart amnesty, and an authorized 'forgetting' of the factional differences in the late Elizabethan court. Edward de Vere had opposed the Stuart accession - was _The Tempest_ a plea for amnesty/oblivion from the 'furious Medean/enchanter'?
"As you from crimes would pardoned be,
Let your indulgence set me free."
"...I'll break my staff,
Bury it certain fadoms in the earth,
And deeper than did ever plummet sound,
I'll drown my book."
George Marcelline (1609) writing of witches plotting against King James:
"Who, as he went to Padan-baran, or towards Denmarke, to take a wife in
the Royal house of the King, how cruelly was he assayled by *furious
Medeaes*, and his owne chiefe Ship foulded up in stearne *Tempests*?"
Contrary Windes did afflict it, beat and drive it every where, they
excited and blew the Waves, which swelled, foamed, roared, and gaped
with open mouths to swallow him. And as the winds wrastled on either
side, against the Mast, the sayles, and the maine yard, behold, even
in labouring (with al their might) to devoure him, they proved the
cause of his happy escape, and with full sayles (through all the
stormes) brought him to Port Loetus, in which place, al Scotland at
his return, welcommed him with singular joyfulness.
*******************
The idea of ancient literary criticism
By Yun Lee
...In his treatise On Style, Demetrius declares that figured language
must be employed if somebody wishes to address and to criticize either
a tyrant or a powerful individual, and he advocates this as a middle
course between flattery, which is base, and direct criticism, which is
dangerous. Ahl notes, in an essay entitled 'The Art of Safe
Criticism', that Quintilian, Vespasian's imperial rhetorician,
subsequently elaborates Demetrius' account of the political use of
figured language at Institutio oratoria 9.2.66. Quintilian sets out
three different occasions on which figured language, which he defines
as language that is changed from its most obvious and uncomplicated
usage by poetic or oratorical usage (9.1.13), may be employed. The
first of THese concerns when it is dangerous to speak openly; the
second concerns propriety - where the Latin 'it is not fitting/
suitable ('non decet' ) perhaps renders the Greek
'improper' (aprepes); while the third advocates the use of figured
language where the novelty of such structures may produce delight and
pleasure. Of these three occasions, the first is the
most obviously
political, and what Quintilian proposes is a need for the author in
question to tread warily around authority, particularly as author and
political leader may be at odds. The following section of the work
suggests that the rhetorician has in mind the empire, figured as
tyranny: he cites the use of rhetorical figures in school exercises
which require pupils to produce speeches to instigate rebellion
against despots without speaking too plainly to tyrants (9.2.67).
Quintilian,
Institutio Oratoria
Book IX
Chapter 2
65 Similar, if not identical with this figure is another, which is much in vogue at the present time. For I must now proceed to the discussion of a class of figure which is of the common est occurrence and on which I think I shall be expected to make some comment. It is one whereby we excite some suspicion to indicate that our meaning is other than our words would seem to imply; but our meaning is not in this case contrary to that which we express, as is the case in irony, but rather a hidden meaning which is left to the hearer to discover. As I have already pointed out,101 modern rhetoricians practically restrict the name of figure to this device, from the use of which figured controversial themes derive their name. 66 This class of figure may be employed under three conditions first, if it is unsafe to speak openly; secondly, if it is unseemly to speak openly; and thirdly, when it is employed solely with a view to the elegance of what we say, and gives greater pleasure by reason of the novelty and variety thus introduced than if our meaning had been expressed in straightforward language.
67 The first of the three is of common occurrence in the schools, where we imagine conditions laid down by tyrants on abdication and decrees passed by the senate after a civil war, and it is a capital offence to accuse a person with what is past, what is not p417expedient in the courts being actually prohibited in the schools. But the conditions governing the employment of figures differ in the two cases. For we may speak against the tyrants in question as openly as we please without loss of effect, provided always that what we say is susceptible of a different interpretation, since it is only danger to ourselves, and not offence to them, that we have to avoid. 68 And if the danger can be avoided by any ambiguity of expression, the speaker's cunning will meet with universal approbation. On the other hand, the actual business of the courts has never yet involved such necessity for silence, though at times they require something not unlike it, which is much more embarrassing for the speaker, as, for example, when he is hampered by the existence of powerful personages, whom he must censure if he is to prove his case. 69 Consequently he must proceed with greater wariness and circumspection; since the actual manner in which offence is given is a matter of indifference, and if a figure is perfectly obvious, it ceases to be a figure. Therefore such devices are absolutely repudiated by some authorities, whether the meaning of the figure be intelligible or not. But it is possible to employ such figures in moderation, the primary consideration being that they should not be too obvious.
