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In his Ethics, Aristotle suggests that *changes in stylistic and substantive predilections indicate advances in civilization*. --Chris Holcomb
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Cicero on DECORUM
“it is inseparable from moral goodness; for what is proper is morally
right and what is morally right is proper.” (De Officiis)
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Every Man Out of his Humour, Ben Jonson
Macilente:
'Tis strange! of all the creatures I have seen,
I envy not this BUFFONE, for indeed
Neither his fortunes nor his parts deserve it:
But I do hate him, as I hate the devil,
Or that BRASS-VISAGED monster BARBARISM.
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TO THE READER.
This figure that thou here seest put,
It was for gentle SHAKSPEARE cut,
Wherein the graver had a strife
With nature, to out-do the life :
O could he but have drawn his wit
As well in BRASS, as he has hit
His FACE ; the print would then surpass
All that was ever writ in BRASS :
But since he cannot, reader, look
Not on his picture, but his book.
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_Mirth Making_, Chris Holcomb
In his Ethics, Aristotle suggests that *changes in stylistic and substantive predilections indicate advances in civilization*. While enumerating the differences between the jesting of a BUFFOON and a witty gentleman, Aristotle compares each character type to Old and New Comedy, respectively: "The difference (between a buffoon and a gentleman) may be seen by comparing the old and modern comedies; the earlier dramatists found their fun in obscenity, the modern prefer innuendo, which marks a great advance in decorum; (4.8.6). This comparison suggest that smutty humor is less civilized than the more refined humor delivered through innuendo. (footnote pp. 199-200)
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-- CARTWRIGHT, WILLIAM, 1647,
Upon the Dramatick Poems of Mr. John Fletcher.
...Shakespeare to thee was DULL, whose best jest lyes
I'th Ladies questions, and the Fooles replyes; [70]
Old fashion'd wit, which walkt from town to town
In turn'd Hose, which our fathers call'd the CLOWN;
Whose wit our nice times would obsceannesse call,
And which made Bawdry passe for Comicall:
Nature was all his Art, thy veine was free
As his, but without his SCURILITY...
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Shakespeare and Voltaire.
Thomas R. Lounsbury
Review author[s]: Walter T. Peirce
Modern Language Notes, Vol. 18, No. 6. (Jun., 1903), pp. 178-179.
(...)The book is timely. We know that Voltaire once wrote a letter to the Academy on the subject of Shakespeare, and that he referred to him as a drunken savage. But no one before Professor Lounsbury, I think, has collected the various remarks of Voltaire on the subject, or traced the growth of his hatred through fifty years. (snip)
(Voltaire) himself had patronized Shakespeare, but with a distinct sense of that author's shortcomings. Bur when it came to the point of his being read and approved of in France, this was another matter. To quote Professor Lounsbury:
"From the outset Shakespeare had been in his eyes an inspired barbarian. As time moved on, he came to forget the adjective and remembered only the noun."
>From this time until his death in 1778 Voltaire never desisted from the struggle in behalf of the honor, not to say of the preservation, of the classic French drama. He was never silent on the subject for long at a time, and toward the end of his life his remonstrance rises to a senile shriek. In his letters, in his prefaces, in his Commentary on Corneille, in his Philosophic Dictionary, he piles abuse on him whom he now calls GILLES - the CLOWN. His tragedies are heaps of incredible stories, monstrous farces. His breaches of good taste would be tolerated nowhere save in the dark ages of an uncivilized country. And the author himself is a DRUNKEN SAVAGE.
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Puttenham, Arte of English Poesie
Now haue ye other VICIOUS MANNERS of speech, but sometimes and in some cases tollerable, and chiefly to the intent to mooue laughter, and to make sport, or to giue it some prety strange grace, and is when we vse such wordes as may be drawen to a foule and vnshamefast sence, as one that would say to a young woman, I pray you let me iape with you, which in deed is no more but let me sport with you. Yea and though it were not altogether so directly spoken, the very sounding of the word were not commendable, as he that in the presence of Ladies would vse this common Prouerbe,
Iape with me but hurt me not
Bourde with me but shame me not.
For it may be taken in another peruerser sence by that sorte of persons that heare it, in whose eares no such matter ought almost to be called in memory, this vice is called by the Greekes Cacemphaton, we call it the vnshamefast or figure of foule speech, which our courtly maker shall in any case shunne, least of a Poet he become a BUFFON or rayling companion, the Latins called him SCURRA. There is also another sort of ILFAVOURED speech subiect to this vice, but resting more in the manner of the ilshapen sound and accent, than for the matter it selfe, which may easily be auoyded in choosing your wordes those that bee of the pleasantest orthography, and not to rime too many like sounding words together.
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Jonson, VOLPONE, intro.
Never (most Equal Sisters) had any Man a Wit so presently Excellent, as that it could raise it self; but there must come both Matter, Occasion, Commenders, and Favourers to it. If this be true, and that the Fortune of all Writers doth daily prove it, it behoves the Careful to provide well toward these Accidents; and, having acquir'd them, to preserve that part of Reputation most tenderly, wherein the Benefit of a Friend is also defended. Hence is it, that I now render my self grateful, and am studious to justifie the Bounty of your Act; to which, though your meer Authority were satisfying, yet it being an Age wherein Poetry and the Professors of it hear so ill on all Sides, there will a Reason be look't for in the Subject. It is certain, nor can it with any Forehead be oppos'd, that the too much Licence of Poetasters in this Time, hath much deform'd their Mistris; that, every day, their manifold and manifest Ignorance doth stick unnatural Reproaches upon her: But for their Petulancy, it were an Act of the greatest Injustice, either to let the Learned suffer, or so Divine a Skill (which indeed should not be attempted with unclean Hands) to fall under the least Contempt. For, if Men will impartially, and not asquint, look toward the Offices and Function of a Poet, they will easily conclude to themselves the Impossibility of any Man's being the good Poet, without first being a good Man. He that is said to be able to inform young Men to all good Disciplines, inflame grown Men to all great Vertues, keep old Men in their best and supream State, or as they decline to Childhood, recover them to their first Strength; that comes forth the Interpreter and Arbiter of Nature, a Teacher of Things Divine no less than Humane, a Master in Manners; and can alone (or with a few) effect the Business of Mankind: This, I take him, is no Subject for Pride and Ignorance to exercise their failing Rhetorick upon. But it will here be hastily answer'd, That the Writers of these Days are other Things; that NOT ONLY THEIR MANNERS, BUT THEIR NATURES ARE INVERTED, and nothing remaining with them of the Dignity of Poet, but the abused Name, which every Scribe usurps; that now, especially in Drammatick, or (as they term it) Stage-Poetry, nothing but Ribaldry, Prophanation, Blasphemy, all Licence of Offence to God and Man is practis'd. I dare not deny a great part of this, (and I am sorry I dare not) because in some Mens abortive Features (and would they had never boasted the Light) it is over-true: But that all are imbark'd in this bold Adventure for Hell, is a most uncharitable Thought, and, utter'd, a more malicious Slander. For my particular, I can (and from a most clear Conscience) affirm, That I have ever trembled to think toward the least Profaneness; have loathed the use of such foul and unwash'd Bawd'ry, as is now made the Food of the Scene: (snip)
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Sidney , Defense
But let this be a sufficient, though short note, that we misse the right use of the material point of Poesie. Now for the outside of it, which is words, or (as I may tearme it) Diction, it is even well worse: so is it that HONY-FLOWING Matrone Eloquence, apparrelled, or rather disguised, in a Courtisanlike PAINTED AFFECTATION. *One time with so farre fet(ched) words, that many seeme monsters, but must seeme STRAUNGERS to anie poore Englishman*: an other time with coursing of a letter, as if they were bound to follow the method of a Dictionary: an other time with figures and flowers, extreemely winter-starved. But I would this fault were onely peculiar to Versefiers, and had not as large possession among Prose- Printers: and which is to be mervailed among many Schollers, & which is to be pitied among some Preachers. Truly I could wish, if at I might be so bold to wish, in a thing beyond the reach of my capacity, the diligent Imitators of Tully & Demosthenes, most worthie to be imitated, did not so much keepe Nizolian paper bookes, of their figures and phrase, as by attentive translation, as it were, devoure them whole, and make them wholly theirs. For now they cast SUGAR and spice uppon everie dish that is served to the table: *LIKE THOSE INDIANS*, not content to weare eare-rings at the fit and naturall place of the eares, but they will thrust Jewels through their nose and lippes, because they will be sure to be fine.
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Honest Ben/Honest Iago
Erring Barbarians – Performing Race in Early Modern England
Ian Smith
In the early modern period the concept of rhetorical barbarism –the demonizing of the speech of the racial and *cultural outsider* –can be understood as an attempt to control and protect the production and circulation of specific images through the racializing function of language. In an Erasmian theater of the mind, language has the power to create vivid and persuasive images that can determine the chosen identities of both an audience and a culture. Hence the need to control this power and the proliferation of images places the surveillance of language at the center of early modern concerns. Othello’s speech acts constitute a performance of cultural whiteness, adding his perspective on what it means to be a black man in this culture and, in effect, contesting the dominant negative images of blackness. Iago, the other agent in this cultural dialogue, counters Othello’s narratives and attempts to contain Othello’s language by rendering it barbarous. When, at the end of 4.1, Othello’s “sentences become preposterous” and his “utterance breaks itself into fragments and uncertainties,” in the language of Hoskins' _Directions_, the question is no longer purely one of his mental instability’ rather Othello’s linguistic collapse, engineered by Iago, is indicative of a culturally pejorative barbarism. If the barbarian is deemed uneloquent– if he cannot speak or speak well – then his narrative enargeia, his ability to produce images within a cultural dialogue, is seriously impaired and rendered rhetorically non-persuasive. The value of the label “barbarian” or “barbarism” is to exclude the potentially oppositional images of the outsider and the disruptive logic of his PREPOSTEROUS sentence from legitimate circulation, preserving the language of the host culture and its ability to produce its own images of itself and others as authoritative and civilized. Shakespeare's own use of racial reversals, a preposterous dramaturgy whose “barbaric” force questions the supposed discreteness of racial categories, stands as a neat metadramatic commentary on the urgency with which *Iago deploys the notion of the Barbarian as a STRATEGY OF SUPPRESSION*.
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And though thou hadst small Latin and less Greek
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Jonson, Timber
Præcept. element. - It is not the passing through these learnings that hurts us, but the dwelling and sticking about them. To descend to those extreme anxieties and foolish cavils of grammarians, is able to break a wit in pieces, being a work of manifold misery and vainness, to be elementarii senes. Yet even letters are, as it were, the bank of words, and restore themselves to an author as the pawns of language: but talking and eloquence are not the same: to speak, and to speak well, are two things. A fool may talk, but a wise man speaks; and out of the observation, knowledge, and the use of things, many writers perplex their readers and hearers with mere nonsense. Their writings need sunshine. Pure and neat language I love, yet plain and customary. A BARBAROUS phrase has often made me out of love with a good sense, and doubtful writing hath wracked me beyond my patience. The reason why a poet is said that he ought to have all knowledges is, that he should not be ignorant of the most, especially of those he will handle. And indeed, when the attaining of them is possible, it were a sluggish and base thing to despair; for frequent imitation of anything becomes a habit quickly. If a man should prosecute as much as could be said of everything, his work would find no end.
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Samuel Daniel: The Poet as Literary Historian
S. Clark Hulse
SEL 19 (1979)
In Cleopatra (1594), his last new work dedicated to the Countess of
Pembroke, Daniel continues to balance a cyclical view of the
historical process against Continental literary models (Garnier and
Jodelle) and a progressive view of English letters. In his preface he
echoes the Proem to the Faerie Queene to assert his place in a
cultural movement, based on a moral society, which seeks to rival the
sweet style of Italy. The Countess
Call'd up my spirits from out their low repose,
To sing of state, and tragick notes to frame...
And I ...May (peradventure) better please thy minde,
And higher notes in sweeter musique straine...
Now when so many pennes (like SPEARES) are charg's,
To chace away this TYRANT of the North:
GROSS BARBARISM, whose power growne far inlarg'd.,
*Was lately by thy valiant Brothers worth,
First found, encountred, and PROVOKED FORTH*...
Wherby great Sydney & our Spencer might,
With those Po-fingers being equaled,
Enchaunt the world with such a sweet delight,
That theyr eternall songs (for ever read,)
May shew what great ELIZAS raigne hath bred.
What musique in the kingdome of her peace.
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Sidney, Defence of Poetry:
But I have lavished out too many words of this playmatter. I do it, because as they are excelling parts of poesy, so is there none so much used in England, and none can be more pitifully ABUSED; which, like an unMANNERly daughter, showing a bad education, causeth her mother Poesy`s HONESTY to be called in question.
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(AN EXCELLENT FANCY)
No, I am that I am, and they that LEVEL
At my ABUSES reckon up their own:
Sidney, _Defence of Poesy_: eikastike vs. phantastike
But grant love of bewtie to be a beastly fault, although it be verie hard, since onely man and no beast hath that gift to discerne bewtie, graunt that lovely name of love to deserve all hatefull reproches, although even some of my maisters the Philosophers spent a good deale of their Lampoyle in setting foorth the excellencie of it, graunt I say, what they will have graunted, that not onelie love, but lust, but vanitie, but if they will list SCURRILITIE, possesse manie leaves of the Poets bookes, yet thinke I, when this is graunted, they will finde their sentence may with good manners put the last words foremost; and not say, that Poetrie ABUSETH mans wit, but that mans wit ABUSETH Poetrie. For I will not denie, but that mans wit may make Poesie, which should be EIKASTIKE, which some learned have defined figuring foorth good things to be PHANTASTIKE, which doth contrariwise INFECT the FANCIE with unWOORTHie objects, as the Painter should give to the eye either some excellent perspective, or some fine Picture fit for building or fortification, or containing in it some notable example, as Abraham sacrificing his sonne Isaack, Judith killing Holofernes, David fighting with Golias, may leave those, and please an ILL PLEASED EYE with WANTON SHEWES of better hidden matters. But what, shal the ABUSE of a thing, make the RIGHT use odious?
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Sidney, Defence of Poetry
But, besides these gross absurdities, how all their plays be neither right tragedies nor right comedies, mingling kings and clowns, not because the matter so carrieth it, but thrust in the clown by head and shoulders to play a part in majestical matters, with neither DECENCY nor DISCRETION; so as neither the admiration and commiseration, nor the right sportfulness, is by their mongrel tragi-comedy obtained. I know Apuleius did somewhat so, but that is a thing recounted with space of time, not represented in one moment; and I know the ancients have one or two examples of tragi-comedies, as Plautus hath Amphytrio. But, if we mark them well, we shall find that they never, or very daintily, match hornpipes and funerals. So falleth it out that, having indeed NO RIGHT COMEDY in that comical part of our tragedy, we have nothing but SCURRILITY, unworthy of any chaste ears, or some extreme show of doltihsness, indeed fit to lift up a loud laughter, and nothing else; where the whole tract of a comedy should be full of delight, as the tragedy should be still maintained in a well-raised admiration.
But OUR COMEDIANS think there is no delight without laughter, which is very wrong; for though laughter may come with delight, yet cometh it not of delight, as though delight should be the cause of laughter; but well may one thing breed both together. Nay, rather in themselves they have, as it were, a kind of contrariety. For delight we scarcely do, but in things that have a conveniency to ourselves, or to the general nature; laughter almost ever cometh of things most DISPROPORTIONED to ourselves and nature.
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best for comedy:
Th'Earle of Oxford and Maister Edwardes of her Maiesties Chappell for
COMEDY and ENTERLUDE -- Puttenham
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Speculum Tuscanismi, con’t.
'Tell me in good sooth, doth it not too evidently appeare, that this English Poet [Oxford] wanted but a good PATTERNE before his eyes, as it might be some delicate, and choyce elegant Poesie of good M. Sidneys, or M. Dyers (ouer very Castor, & Pollux for such and many greater matters) when this trimme geere was in hatching: Much like some Gentlewooman, I coulde name in England, who by all Phisick and Physiognomie too, Might as well have BROUGHT FORTH all goodly faire CHILDREN, as they have Now some YLFAVOURED and DEFORMED, had they at the tyme of their Conception, had in sight, the amiable and gallant beautifull Pictures of ADONIS, Cupido, Ganymedes, or the like, which no doubt would have wrought such deepe impression in their fantasies, and imaginations, astheir children, and perhappes their Childrens children to, myght have thanked them for, as long as they shall have Tongues in their heades."
Gabriel Harvey
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Venus and Adonis
But if the first HEIR of my invention prove DEFORMED, I shall be sorry it had so noble a godfather, and never after ear so barren a land, for fear it yield me still so bad a harvest.
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O manners! that this AGE should BRING FORTH such creatures! that Nature should bee at leisure to make 'hem.
(Jonson, Every Man In, IV.viii. 146-7)
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Fulke Greville - hereditary Recorder of Stratford-upon-Avon
"I know the world and believe in God."
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Author: Greville, Fulke, Baron Brooke, 1554-1628.
Title: Certaine learned and elegant vvorkes of the Right Honorable Fulke Lord Brooke written in his youth, and familiar exercise with Sir Philip Sidney. The seuerall names of which workes the following page doth declare.
Date: 1633
An Inquisition vpon Fame and Honour.
(snip)
Then make the summe of our Idea's this,
Who loue the world, giue latitude to Fame,
And this Man-pleasing, Gods displeasing is,
Who loue their God, haue glory by his name:
But fixe on Truth, who can, that know it not?
Who fixe on error, doe but write to blot.
"Who worship Fame, commit Idolatry,
"Make Men their God, Fortune and Time their worth,
"Forme, but reforme not, meer hypocrisie,
"By shadowes, onely shadowes bringing forth,
"Which must, as blossomes, fade ere true fruit springs,
"(Like voice, and eccho) ioyn'd; yet diuers things.
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Publique Ill Example: Oxford appears UNNAMED as Sidney’s intemperate and insubstantial ADVERSARY in Greville’s _A Dedication to Sir Philip Sidney_(originally published as _Life of Sidney_)
...And in this freedome of heart [Sidney] being one day at Tennis, a Peer of this Realm, born great, greater by alliance, and superlative in the Princes favour, abruptly came into the Tennis- Court; and speaking out of these three paramount authorities, he forgot to entreat that, which he could not legally command. When by the encounter of a steady object, finding unrespectiveness in himself (though a great Lord) not respected by this Princely spirit, he grew to expostulate more ROUGHLY. The returns of which stile comming still from an understanding heart, that knew what was due to it self, and what it ought to others, seemed (through the MISTS of my Lords PASSIONS, SWOLN with the WINDE of his FACTION then reigning) to provoke in yeelding. Whereby, the lesse amazement, or confusion of thoughts he stirred up in Sir Philip, the more SHADOWES this great Lords own mind was POSSESSED with: till at last with RAGE (which is ever ILL-DISCIPLINED) he commands them to depart the Court. To this Sir Philip temperately answers; that if his Lordship had been pleased to express desire in milder Characters, perchance he might have led out those, that he should now find would not be driven out with any scourge of FURY. This answer (like a BELLOWS) blowing up the sparks of EXCESS already kindled, made my Lord scornfully call Sir Philip by the name of Puppy. In which progress of HEAT, as the TEMPEST grew more and more vehement within, so did their hearts breath out their perturbations in a more loud and shrill accent. The French Commissioners unfortunately had that day audience, in those private Galleries, whose windows looked into the Tennis-Court. They instantly drew all to this tumult: every sort of quarrels sorting well with their humors, especially this. Which Sir Philip perceiving, and rising with inward strength, by the prospect of a mighty faction against him; asked my Lord, with a loud voice, that which he heard clearly enough before. Who ( LIKE AN ECHO, that still multiplies by REFLEXIONS) repeated this Epithet of Puppy the second time. Sir Philip resolving in one answer to conclude both the attentive hearers, and PASSIONATE ACTOR, gave my Lord a Lie, impossible (as he averred) to be retorted; in respect all the world knows, Puppies are gotten by Dogs, and Children by men. Hereupon those GLORIOUS INEQUALITIES of FORTUNE in his Lordship were put to a kinde of pause, by a PRECIOUS INEQUALITY OF NATURE in this Gentleman. So that they both stood silent a while, like a dumb shew in a tragedy; till Sir Philip sensible of his own wrong, the forrain, and factious spirits that attended; and yet, even in this question between him, and his superior, tender to his Countries honour; with some words of sharp accent, led the way abruptly out of the Tennis-Court; as if so unexpected an accident were not fit to be decided any farther in that place. Whereof the great Lord making another sense, continues his play, WITHOUT any ADVANTAGE of REPUTATION; as by the standard of humours in those times it was conceived.
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Greville, _Dedication_:
...Neither am I (for my part) so much in love with this life, nor believe so little in a better to come, as to complain of God for taking him [Sidney], and such like exorbitant worthyness from us: fit (as it were by an Ostracisme) to be divided, and not incorporated with our corruptions: yet for the sincere affection I bear to my Prince, and Country, my prayer to God is, that this Worth, and Way may not fatally be buried with him; in respect, that both before his time, and since, experience hath published the usuall discipline of greatnes to have been tender of it self onely; making HONOUR a triumph, or rather TROPHY OF DESIRE, set up in the eyes of Mankind, either to be worshiped as IDOLS, or else as Rebels to perish under her glorious oppressions. *Notwithstanding, when the pride of flesh, and power of favour shall cease in these by death, or disgrace; what then hath time to register, or fame to publish in these great mens names, that will not be offensive, or infectious to others? What Pen without blotting can write the story of their deeds? Or what Herald blaze their Arms without a blemish? And as for their counsels and projects, when they come once to light, shall they not live as noysome, and loathsomely above ground, as their Authors carkasses lie in the grave? So as the return of such greatnes to the world, and themselves, can be but private reproach, *publique ill example*, and a fatall scorn to the Government they live in. Sir Philip Sidney is none of this number; for the greatness which he affected was built upon true Worth; esteeming Fame more than Riches, and Noble actions far above Nobility it self.
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Shakespeare - Sonnet 72
O! lest the world should task you to recite
What merit lived in me, that you should love
After my death,--dear love, forget me quite,
For you in me can nothing worthy prove.
Unless you would devise some virtuous lie,
To do more for me than mine own desert,
And hang more praise upon deceased I
Than niggard truth would willingly impart:
O! lest your true love may seem false in this
That you for love speak well of me untrue,
My name be buried where my body is,
And live no more to shame nor me nor you.
For I am shamed by that which I bring forth,
And so should you, to love things nothing WORTH.
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Greville, __A Dedication to Sir Philip Sidney_
“I conceived an Historian was bound to tell nothing but the truth, but to tell all truths were both justly to wrong, and offend not only princes and States, but to blemish, and stir up himself, the frailty and tenderness, not only of particular men, but of many Families, with the spirit of an Athenian Timon.”
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"Since, if the MATTER be in NATURE VILE, /How can it be made PRECIOUS by a stile" -- Greville
Greville - Life of Sidney
Hereupon those glorious INEQUALITIES of FORTUNE in his Lordship [Oxford] were put to a kinde of pause, by a PRECIOUS inequality of NATURE in this Gentleman. So that they both stood silent a while, like a dumb shew in a tragedy; till Sir Philip sensible of his own wrong, the forrain, and him, and his superior, tender to his Countries honour; with some words of sharp accent, led the way abruptly out of the Tennis-Court; as if so unexpected an accident were not fit to be decided any farther in that place.
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Shakespeare - Sonnet 121
'Tis better to be vile than vile esteem'd,
When not to be receives reproach of being,
And the just pleasure lost which is so deem'd
Not by our feeling but by others' seeing:
For why should others false adulterate eyes
Give salutation to my sportive blood?
Or on my frailties why are frailer spies,
Which in their wills count bad what I think good?
No, I am that I am, and they that level
At my abuses reckon up their own:
I may be straight, though they themselves be bevel;
By their rank thoughts my deeds must not be shown;
Unless this general evil they maintain,
All men are bad, and in their badness reign.
