Perhaps the picture of Oxford that emerged in Alan Nelson's book 'Monstrous Adversary' can best be understood as 'fossilized invective' - as described by Amy Richlin in 'The Garden of Priapus':
"...There are myriad examples of Roman political or politicized invective in all forms, but they are mostly preserved by later biographers and historians who are quite obviously, sometimes consciously, repeating what had become a kind of party line. In other words, this invective is fossilized, kept alive by political motives that have long outlived the protagonists of the stories." (p.86)
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William Cartwright - To John Fletcher:
...Shakespeare to thee was dull, whose best jest lyes
I'th Ladies questions, and the Fooles replyes;
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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Papers Complaint, compil'd in ruthfull Rimes Against the Paper-spoylers of these Times. John Davies
...Another (ah Lord helpe) mee vilifies
With Art of Loue, and how to subtilize,
Making lewd Venus, with eternall Lines,
To tye Adonis to her loues designes :
Fine wit is shew'n therein : but finer twere
If not attired in such bawdy Geare.
But be it as it will : the coyest Dames,
In priuate read it for their Closset-games :
For, sooth to say, the Lines so draw them on,
To the venerian speculation,
That will they, nill they (if of flesh they bee)
They will thinke of it, sith loose Thought is FREE.
And thou (O Poet) that dost pen my Plaint,
Thou art not scot-free from my iust complaint
For, thou hast plaid thy part, with thy rude Pen,
To make vs both ridiculous to men.
(ll.47-62, Complete Works, vol. II, p. 75)
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Antony as a Miles Gloriosus in Cicero’s Second Philippic
Lewis A. Sussman
Abstract. A major strategy pursued by Cicero in his Second Philippic was to depict in the strongest possible terms Antony’s levitas and thus his total unsuitability to succeed Caesar as master of the Roman world. Cicero accomplished this aim in devastating fashion by casting Antony in a variety of roles fashioned after the stock characters found in Roman comedy. The most pervasive, subtle and damaging of these was the part of the miles gloriosus, the braggart warrior.
Cicero clearly had two major goals in composing his Second Philippic. First, he wanted to defend his own person and his entire political career against Antony’s caustic attacks contained in a ~Senate speech of September 19, 44 BC, a reply to Cicero’s moderate, but damaging First Philippic of September 2. But more importantly, Cicero urgently desired to destroy then and for all time Antony’s claim to the mantle of Caesar by demolishing his motives, methods, character, and political career.
In Cicero’s view Antony did not possess the requisite leadership qualities to hold high office, to say nothing of becoming a one-man ruler on the model of Caesar. For this reason Cicero takes pains throughout the speech to demonstrate Antony’s levitas, his shallowness and unreliability. This trait characterized his political career, but especially marked his personal life, thereby confirming his lack of the Roman quality of gravitas, which was considered necessary to occupy any position of power. We therefore find the speech peppered with lively accounts of his sexual misconduct, association with the dregs of society, lavish spending, wild parties, public drunkenness, crude behaviour, gambling and blatant dishonesty. Cicero’s rhetorical problem was how to organize a consistent, unified, artistic picture of Antony’s personality and his levitas, which would be effective, recognizable, believable, sarcastic, humorous, and above all, intensely damaging. Cicero’s brilliant solution, following the methodologies of Demosthenes’ De Corona, but particularly his own masterly Pro Caelio, was in a coherent and consistent fashion to endow Antony with all the attributes of a stock character of comedy, in this cast the miles gloriosus, or braggart warrior.
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Amorphus (The Deformed) /Oxford – foolish, self-loving aristocrat taken in by flattery: Orator Gloriosus?
Cynthia's Revels, Jonson
The C H A L L E N G E.
Amorphus.
BE it known to all that profess Courtship, by these Presents (from the white sattin Reveller, to the Cloth of Tissue and Bodkin,) that we, ULYSSES-POLITROPUS-AMORPHUS, Master of the noble and subtil Science of Courtship, do give leave and license to our Provost, Acolastus-Polypragmon- Asotus, to play his Masters Prize, against all Masters what- soever in this subtile Mystery, at these four, the choice and most cunning Weapons of Court COMPLEMENT, viz. the bare Accost; the better Reguard; the solemn Address; and the perfect Close. These are therefore to give notice to all comers, that he, the said Acolastus-Polypragmon-Asotus, is here present (by the help of his Mercer, Taylor, Millener, Sempster, and so forth) at his designed hour, in this fair Gallery, the present day of this present month, to perform and do his uttermost for the atchievement and bearing away of the Prizes, which are these: viz. For the bare Accost, two Wall-eyes, in a face forced: For the better Reguard, a Face fovourablyfavourably simpring, with a Fan waving: For the solemn Address, two Lips wagging, and never a wise word: For the perfect Close, a Wring by the hand, with a Ban- quet in a corner. And Phœbus save Cynthia.
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William Shakespeare, a Textual Companion
By Stanley Wells, Gary Taylor, John Jowett, William Montgomery
Cupid's Cabinet Unlocked
The title-page of this undated duodecimo volume does not indicate when or by whom it was printed, but describes it as 'Cupids Cabinet unlock't, Or, THE NEW ACCADEMY OF COMPLEMENTS. Odes, Epigrams, Songs, and Sonnets, Poesies, Presentations, Congratulations, Ejaculatins, Rhapsodies, &c.' writeen 'By W. Shakespeare'. Neither STC nor Wing records this item, nor does it appear in the British Library Catalogue. WE have been able to trace only two copies, both defective: Folger C7595a lacks leaf GII, and Boston Public Library G.176.62 lacks leaves I1-3. On the basis of the signatures it would appear to be an extract from a larger work; butr no such work has yet been identified, the pagination is regular (1-38), and p. 38 concludes with a 'FINIS'. The Folger copy is a separate item. The Boston copy is bound with a work with the running title 'The New Accademy of Complements'...Both these works are bound with a fragment of The Art of Courtship. It seems likely that Cupid's Cabinet Unlocked post-dates Benson's edition of Shakespeare's Poems (1640), and the title probably exploits an allusion to the pamphlet The King's Cabinet Opened, which marked a turning-point in the Civil War. In the political pamphlet, 'cabinet' is a pun, referring both to the chest of papers captured by the Parliamentarians, and to the inner workings of the King's cabinet; no such pun operates in the 'Shakespeare' volume, which is therefore probably the later work. The allusion implies that a treasure-chest of Shakespeare's poems has been found, comparable in importance to the chest of Charles I's papers published in June 1645. Although this allusion establishes that the volume dates from 1645 or later, similar titles can be found as late as 1679...
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Sidney's Womanish Man
Mark Rose
Idleness was understood to be the first shaft that 'Cupide shootethinto the hot liver of a heedlesse lover', so in desiring to give in toidleness the prince is only proving true to type. Distaff Hercules was the conventional image for just such a condition of effeminate idleness induced by passionate love. The distaff itself was an old symbol of idleness, and Sindey would have read in Amyot's Plutarch:
...that men given to idle luxury are like Hercules 'au palais royal de la royne de Lydie Omphale, vestu d'une cotte de demoiselle, se laissant souffletter & tresser aux filles & femmes de la Royne'.
'WIL you handle the spindle with Hercules, when you should SHAKE the SPEARE with ACHILLES?" asks a character in Lyly's Campaspe. Barnaby Rich states that lascivious women have made 'valiant men effeminate, as Hercules'. And Robert Burton uses 'Herculean Love' as an uncomplimentary epithet for passionate love. Sidney's own contempt for distaff Hercules is clear from the Defence of Poesie:
So in Hercules, painted with his great beard, and furious countenance, in a womans attire, spinning, at Omphales commaundement, it breedes both delight and laughter; for the representing of so straunge a power in Love, procures delight, and the scornefulness of the action, stirreth laughter. (iii. 40)
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An Unnoticed Early Reference to Shakespeare
Fred Schurink
IN a recent article in the Dictionary of Literary Biography Douglas Bruster noted that in the second edition of Thomas Vicars's manual of rhetoric, Xeipaγωγia, Manuductio ad artem rhetoricam (1624, first edition 1621), the author introduced a list of outstanding English poets.
(snip)
...What Bruster fails to mention, and what seems to have escaped the attention of scholars of English literature so far, is that in the third edition of the manual, published in 1628, Vicars added a short passage in which he punningly alludes to Shakespeare's name. The reference is included directly after his mention of the other English poets, and runs as follows: ‘To these I believe should be added that famous poet who takes his name from “shaking” and “spear”, John Davies, and my namesake, the pious and learned poet John Vicars.’
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Dedication in Latin to Bartholomew Clerke's Translation of The Courtier(1571/1572). Edward de Vere
[translated by B. M. Ward]
For what more difficult, more noble, or more magnificent task has anyone ever undertaken than our author Castiglione, who has drawn for us the figure and model of a courtier, a work to which nothing can be added, in which there is no redundant word, a portrait which we shall recognize as that of a highest and most perfect type of man. And so, although nature herself has made nothing perfect in every detail, yet the MANNERS of men exceed in dignity that with which nature has endowed them; and he who surpasses others has here surpassed himself and has even OUT-DONE nature [i.e., naturam superauit], which by no one has ever been surpassed. Nay more: however elaborate the ceremonial, whatever the magnificence of the court, the splendor of the courtiers, and the multitude of spectators, he has been able to lay down principles for the guidance of the very Monarch himself.
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"And of an ingenious INVENTION, INFANTED WITH PLEASANT TRAVAILE."
The above phrase was selected by Puttenham as an example of an 'intollerable vice' in writing. it had been publicly associated with the Earl of Oxford in an earlier text. This phrase was subsequently spoken by the affected courtier Amorphus in Jonson's _Cynthia's Revels_. Curiously, the phrase does not appear in full in the 1601 Quarto (while Oxford was alive) - but does appear in the 1616 and 1640 editions of Jonson's 'Works'.
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Jonson, _Cynthia's Revels_.
AMORPHUS. And there's her minion, Crites: why his advice more than
Amorphus? Have I not invention afore him? Learning to better
that INVENTION above him? and INFANTED with PLEASANT TRAVEL --
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Puttenham, Arte of English Poesie (1589)
CHAP. XXII.
Some vices in speaches and {w}riting are alwayes intollerable, some others now and then borne {w}ithall by licence of approued authors and custome. (snip)
Another of your intollerable vices is that which the Greekes call Soraismus, & we may call the [mingle mangle] as when we make our speach or writinges of sundry languages vsing some Italian word, or French, or Spanish, or Dutch, or Scottish, not for the nonce or for any purpose (which were in part excusable) but ignorantly and affectedly as one that said vsing this French word Roy, to make ryme with another verse, thus.
O mightie Lord or ioue, dame Venus onely ioy,
Whose Princely power exceedes ech other heauenly roy.
The verse is good but the terme peeuishly affected Another of reasonable good facilitie in translation finding certaine of the hymnes of Pyndarus and of Anacreons odes, and other Lirickes among the Greekes very well translated by Rounsard the French Poet,
&
applied to the honour of a great Prince in France, comes our minion and translates the same out of French into English, and applieth them to the honour of a GREAT NOBLE MAN in ENGLAND (wherein I commend his reuerent minde and duetie) but doth so impudently robbe the French Poet both of his prayse and also of his French termes, that I cannot so much pitie him as be angry with him for his iniurious dealing (our sayd maker not being ashamed to vse these French wordes freddon, egar, superbous, filanding, celest, calabrois, thebanois and a number of others, for English wordes, which haue no maner of conformitie with our language either by custome or deriuation which may make them tollerable. And in the end (which is worst of all) makes his vaunt that neuer English finger but his hath toucht Pindars string which was neuerthelesse word by word as Rounsard had said before by like braggery. These be his verses.
And of an ingenious INVENTION, INFANTED WITH PLEASANT TRAVAILE.
¶3.22.7 Whereas the French word is enfante as much to say borne as a child, in another verse he saith.
I {w}ill freddon in thine honour.
¶3.22.8 For I will shake or quiuer my fingers, for so in French is freddon, and in another verse.
But if I {w}ill thus like pindar, In many discourses egar.
¶3.22.9 This word egar is as much to say as to wander or stray out of
the way, which in our English is not receiued, not these wordes calabrois, thebanois, but rather calabrian, theban [filanding sisters] for the spinning sisters: this man deserves to be endited of pety larceny for pilfring other mens devises from them
&
converting them to his owne use, for in deede as I would wish every inventour which is the very Poet to receave the prayses of his invention, so would I not have a translatour be ashamed to be acknowen of his translation.
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Southern, Pandora (1584)
SUMMARY: Ode to Oxford in John Southern’s Pandora, The Music of the Beauty of his Mistress Diana. The title page gives the publication date as 20 June 1584. The language of the ode was criticized by George Puttenham in Book III, Chapter 22 of his Art of English Poesy, published in 1589. Puttenham also accused Southern of plagiarism, saying: ‘Another of reasonable good facility in translation, finding certain of the hymns of Pindarus and of Anacreon’s odes and other lyrics among the Greeks very well translated by Ronsard, the French poet, & applied to the honour of a great prince in France, comes our minion and translates the same out of French into English, and applieth them to the honour of a great nobleman in England (wherein I commend his reverent mind and duty), but doth so impudently rob the French poet both of his praise and also of his French terms that I cannot so much pity him as be angry with him for his injurious dealing’.
To the right honourable the Earl of Oxenford etc.
(snip)
Epode
No, no, the high singer is he
Alone that in the end must be
Made proud with a garland like this,
And not every riming novice
That writes with small wit and much pain,
And the (God’s know) idiot in vain,
For it’s not the way to Parnasse,
Nor it will neither come to pass
If it be not in some wise fiction
And of an ingenious INVENTION,
And INFANTED with PLEASANT TRAVAIL,
For it alone must win the laurel,
And only the poet WELL BORN
Must be he that goes to Parnassus,
And not these companies of asses
That have brought verse almost to scorn.
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1601 Quarto - Cynthia's Revels, Jonson
Act IV, Sc. V
Amorphus
And there’s her Minion Criticus; why his advise more then Amorphus? Have I not Invention, afore him? Learning, to better that Invention, above him? And Travaile.
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1616 Folio, Jonson
Act IV, Sc V
Amorphus
And there’s her minion Crites! Why his advice more then Amorphus? Have not I invention, afore him? Learning, to better that invention, above him? And infanted, with pleasant travaile ----
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1640 Folio, 'Works' Jonson
Amorphus
And there’s her minion Crites! Why his advice more then Amorphus? Have not I invention afore him? Learning, to better that invention, above him? And infanted, with pleasant travaile ----
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ULYSSES-POLITROPUS-AMORPHUS - Cynthia's Revels
Politropus/Polytropus
Polytropos means much-turned or much-traveled, much-wandering. It is the defining quality of Odysseus, used in the first line of the Odyssey and at 10.330. As used by Hippias with respect to Odysseus (365b) it includes being false or lying and carries the connotations of wily and shifty. Antisthenes, a follower of Socrates who wrote Socratic dialogues, also argued against the claim that Homer meant to blame Odysseus by calling him polytropos; Antisthenes claims that it is praise for being "good at dealing with men...being wise, he knows how to associate with men in many ways." See Charles H. Kahn, Plato and the Socratic Dialogue (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), pp.121-24.
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Gabriel Harvey, Latin address to the Earl of Oxford
Let that Courtly Epistle —
more polished even than the writings of Castiglione himself —
witness how greatly thou dost excel in letters.
I have seen many Latin verses of thine, yea,
even more English verses are extant;
thou hast drunk deep draughts not only of the Muses of France and Italy,
but hast learned the manners of many men, and the arts of foreign countries.
It was not for nothing that Sturmius himself was visited by thee;
neither in France, Italy, nor Germany are any such cultivated and polished men.
O thou hero worthy of renown, throw away the insignificant pen, throw away bloodless books,
and writings that serve no useful purpose; now must the sword be brought into play,
now is the time for thee to sharpen the spear and to handle great engines of war.
On all sides men are talking of camps and of deadly weapons; war and the Furies are everywhere,
and Bellona reigns supreme.
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Edward de Vere figured as Ulysses- POLITROPUS- Amorphus by Ben Jonson:
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Ben Jonson, _Cynthia's Revels_
Induction
These in the Court meet with Amorphus, or the deformed, a Traveller that hath drunk of the
Fountain, and there tells the wonders of the Water. They presently dispatch away their Pages with Bottles to fetch of it, and themselves go to visit the Ladies. But I should have told you — (Look, these Emets put me out here) that with this Amorphus, there comes along a Citizens Heir, Asotus, or the Prodigal, who (in imita- tion of the Traveller, who hath the Whetstone following him) entertains the Begger, to be his Attendant. ——
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Cleopatra:
Nay, 'tis most certain, Iras: saucy lictors
Will catch at us, like strumpets; and scald rhymers
Ballad us out o' tune: the quick comedians
Extemporally will stage us, and present 3660
Our Alexandrian revels; Antony
Shall be brought drunken forth, and I shall see
Some squeaking Cleopatra boy my greatness
I' the posture of a whore.
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Oxford figured by Jonson as polytropus, not polymetis:
Ascham, The Scholemaster
(posthumously published 1570, Dedicated to Sir William Cecil, Knight)
...Yet, if a ientleman will nedes trauell into Italie, he shall do well, to looke on the life, of the wisest traueler, that euer traueled thether, set out by the wisest writer, that euer spake with tong, Gods doctrine onelie excepted: and that is Vlysses in Homere. Vlysses, and his trauell, I wishe our trauelers to looke vpon, not so much to feare them, with the great daungers, that he many tymes suffered, as to instruct them, with his excellent wisedome, which he alwayes and euerywhere vsed. Yea euen those, that be learned and wittie trauelers, when they be disposed to prayse traueling, as a great commendacion, and the best Scripture they haue for it, they gladlie recite the third verse of Homere, in his first booke ofOdyssea, conteinyng a great prayse of Vlysses, for the witte he gathered, & wisdome he vsed in his traueling.
Which verse, bicause, in mine opinion, it was not made at the first, more naturallie in Greke by Homere, nor after turned more aptlie into Latin by Horace, than it was a good while ago, in Cambrige, translated into English, both plainlie for the sense, and roundlie for the verse, by one of the best Scholers, that euer S. Iohns Colledge bred, M. Watson, myne old frend, somtime Bishop of Lincolne, therfore, for their sake, that haue lust to see, how our English tong, in auoidyng BARBAROUS RYMING, may as well receiue, right quantitie of sillables, and trewe order of versifiyng (of which matter more at large hereafter) as either Greke or Latin, if a cunning man haue it in handling, I will set forth that one verse in all three tonges, for an Example to good wittes, that shall delite in like learned exercise.
Homerus. pollon d anthropon iden astea kai noon egno.
Horatius.
Qui mores hominum multorum vidit & vrbes.
M. Watson.
All trauellers do gladly report great prayse of Vlysses,
For that he knew many mens maners, and saw many Cities.
And yet is not Vlysses commended, so much, nor so oft, in Homere, bicause he was POLYTROPUS, that is, *skilfull in many mens manners and facions*, as bicause he was polymetis, that is, wise in all
purposes, & ware in all places: which wisedome and warenes will not serue neither a traueler, except Pallas be alwayes at his elbow, that is Gods speciall grace from heauen, to kepe him in Gods feare, in all his doynges, in all his ieorneye. For, he shall not alwayes in his absence out of England, light vpon a ientle Alcynous, and walke in his faire gardens full of all harmelesse pleasures: but he shall sometymes, fall, either into the handes of some cruell Cyclops, or into the lappe of some wanton and dalying Dame Calypso: and so suffer the danger of many a deadlie Denne, not so full of perils, to distroy the body, as, full of vayne pleasures, to poyson the mynde. Some Siren shall sing him a song, sweete in tune, but sownding in the ende, to his vtter destruction. If Scylla drowne him not,Carybdis may fortune swalow hym. Some Circes shall make him, of a plaine English man, a right Italian. And at length to hell, or to some hellish place, is he likelie to go: from whence is hard returning, although one Vlysses, and that by Pallas ayde, and good counsell of Tiresias once escaped that horrible Den of deadly darkenes.
Therfore, if wise men will nedes send their sonnes into Italie, let them do it wiselie, vnder the kepe and garde of him, who, by his wisedome and honestie, by his example and authoritie, may be hable to kepe them safe and sound, in the feare of God, in Christes trewe Religion, in good order and honestie of liuyng: except they will haue them run headling, into ouermany ieoperdies, as Vlysses had done many tymes, if Pallas had not alwayes gouerned him: if he had not vsed, to stop his eares with waxe: to bind him selfe to the mast of his shyp: to feede dayly, vpon that swete herbe Molywith the blake roote and white floore, giuen vnto hym by Mercurie, to auoide all the inchantmentes of Circes. Wherby, the Diuine Poet eHomer ment couertlie (as wise and Godly men do iudge) that loue of honestie, and hatred of ill, which Dauid more plainly doth call the feare of God: the onely remedie agaynst all inchantementes of sinne.
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‘Shreds of forms’- Deformed
Speculum Tuscanismi (1580) Harvey
Not the like discourser for Tongue, and head to be found out,
Not the like resolute man for great and serious affairs,
Not the like Lynx to spy out secrets and privities of States,
Eyed like to Argus, eared like to Midas, nos'd like to Naso,
Wing'd like to Mercury, fittst of a thousand for to be employ'd,
This, nay more than this, doth practice of Italy in one year.
None do I name, but some do I know, that a piece of a twelve month
Hath so perfited outly and inly both body, both soul,
That none for sense and senses half matchable with them.
A vulture's smelling, Ape's tasting, sight of an eagle,
A spider's touching, Hart's hearing, might of a Lion.
Compounds of wisdom, wit, prowess, bounty, behavior,
All gallant virtues, all qualities of body and soul.
O thrice ten hundred thousand times blessed and happy,
Blessed and happy travail, TRAVAILER most blessed and happy.
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Ascham, The Scholemaster
**But I know as many, or mo, and some, sometyme my deare frendes, for whose sake I hate going into that countrey the more, who, partyng out of England feruent in the loue of Christes doctrine, and well furnished with the feare of God, returned out of Italie worse transformed, than euer was any in Circes Court. I know diuerse, that went out of England, men of innocent life, men of excellent learnyng, who returned out of Italie, not onely with worse maners, but also with lesse learnyng: neither so willing to liue orderly, nor yet so hable to speake learnedlie, as they were at home, before they went abroad. And why? Plato yt wise writer, and worthy traueler him selfe, telleth the cause why. He went into Sicilia, a countrey, no nigher Italy by site of place, than Italie that is now, is like Sicilia that was then, in all corrupt maners and licenciousnes of life. Plato found in Sicilia, euery Citie full of vanitie, full of factions, euen as Italie is now. And as Homere, like a learned Poete, doth feyne, that Circes, by pleasant inchantmentes, did turne men into beastes, some into Swine, some
into Asses, some into Foxes, some into Wolues etc. euen soPlato, like a wise Philosopher, doth plainelie declare, that pleasure, by licentious vanitie, that sweete and perilous poyson of all youth, doth ingender in all those, that yeld vp themselues to her, foure notorious properties.
{1. lethen
{2. dysmathian
{3. achrosynen
{4. ybrin.
The first, forgetfulnes of all good thinges learned before: the second, dulnes to receyue either learnyng or honestie euer after: the third, a mynde embracing lightlie the worse opinion, and baren of discretion to make trewe difference betwixt good and ill, betwixt troth, and vanitie, the fourth, a proude disdainfulnes of other good men, in all honest matters. Homere and Plato,haue both one meanyng, looke both to one end. For, if a man inglutte himself with vanitie, or walter in filthines like a Swyne, all learnyng, all goodnes, is sone forgotten: Than, quicklie shall he becum a dull Asse, to vnderstand either learnyng or honestie: and yet shall he be as sutle as a Foxe, in breedyng of mischief, in bringyng in misorder, *with a busie head, a discoursing tong, and a factious harte, in euery priuate affaire, in all matters of state, with this pretie propertie, alwayes glad to commend the worse partie, and euer ready to defend the falser opinion*. And why? For, where will is giuen from goodnes to vanitie, the mynde is sone caryed from right iudgement, to any fond opinion, in Religion, in Philosophie, or any other kynde of learning. The fourth fruite of vaine pleasure, by Homer and Platos iudgement, is pride in them selues, contempt of others, the very badge of all those that serue in Circes Court. The trewe meenyng of both Homer and Plato, is plainlie declared in one short sentence of the holy Prophet of God Hieremie, crying out of the vaine & vicious life of the Israelites. This people (sayth he) be fooles and dulhedes to all goodnes, but sotle, cunning and bolde, in any mischiefe. &c.
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Forms of Nationhood
Richard Helgerson
In the course of very few years from the late 1570's to the early 1580's, humanist learning and courtly advancement have come to a parting of the ways. English rime follows the lead of the court, while quantitative verse is left to take the path that leads away from power. In these circumstances, the charge of barbarousness loses its force. If acorns are being consumed at court, they are by that very fact made courteous and civil.
The adoption of riming verse by the court and by courtiers, or at least the close association of one with the other, thus obscured for a while the issue that had been so clear in Ascham.
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Oxford as preeminent lyric poet:
Steven May, _The Elizabethan Courtier Poets_
The New Lyricism
During the 1570's a body of courtier verse emerged that revived the emphasis upon love poetry as it had been introduced to the Tudor court by Wyatt and Surrey. Upon this revitalized foundation, amorous courtier poetics *developed without interruption to the end of the reign and beyond*. Unlike courtier verse of the 1560's, the new lyricism modeled itself primarily upon post-classical continental authors, from Petrarch to the Pl?iade. Attention to the classics remained strong, of course, but the ancients were assimilated into the new poetics almost exclusively in the vernacular. The courtier's immediate experience is often reflected in this poetry, although the exact circumstances behind it cannot always be identified, nor does this later work necessarily grow out of actual experience. From a literary standpoint this is perhaps the most important shift away from the trends of the 1560's. Subsequent courtier verse placed a greater emphasis upon artifice in its treatment of occasional subjects, while it increasingly strayed away from real events as the most respectable inducements for writing poetry. The movement was toward fiction and the creation of poems to be valued for their own sake, not merely for their commemorative function. As courtier poets ventured anew into the realms of fiction, they made possible once again the creation of a genuine literature of the court. Progress toward a golden age of lyricism was slow, especially with regard to form and the technical aspects of composition, but the shift in direction occurred suddenly during the period between roughly 1570 and 1575.
Although Dyer has been considered the premier Elizabethan courtier poet, that is, the first to compose love lyrics there, the available evidence confers this distinction upon the earl of Oxford. His early datable work conforms, nevertheless, to one of the established functions for poetry practiced by Ascham and Wilson. IN 1572, Oxford turned out commendatory verses for a translation of Cardano's _Comfort_, published in 1573 by his gentleman pensioner friend, Thomas Bedingfield. This poem differs from earlier efforts of the kind not so much because it appeared in English (as had Ascham's verses for Blundeville's book), but because his verses are so self-consciously poetic. The earl uses twenty-six lines to develop his formulaic exempla: Bedingfield's good efforts are enjoyed by others just as laborers, masons, bees, and so forth also work for the profit of others. Oxford flaunts a COPIOUS rhetoric in this poem in contrast with the more direct, unembellished commendatory verses of his predecessors. His greatest innovation, however, lies in his application of the same qualities of style to the eight poems assigned to him in the 1576 Paradise of Dainty Devices, pieces that Oxford must have composed before 1575.
DeVere's eight poems in the _Paradise_ create a dramatic break with everything known to have been written at the Elizabethan court at that time...The diversity of Oxford's subjects, including his varied analyses of the lover's state, were practically as unknown to contemporary out-of -court writer as they were to courtiers.
Oxford's birth and social standing at court in the 1570's made him a model of aristocratic behaviour. He was, for instance, accused of introducing Italian gloves and other such fripperies at court; his example would have lent respectability even to so trivial a pursuit as the writing of love poetry. Thus, while it is possible that Dyer was writing poetry as early as the 1560's, his earliest datable verse, the complaint sung to the queen at Woodstock in 1575, may itself have been inspired by Oxford's work in the same vein. Dyer's first six poems in Part II are the ones he is most likely to have composed before his association with Philip Sidney. ...Yet even if all six (of Dyer's poems) were written by 1575, Oxford would still emerge as the chief innovator due to the range of his subject matter and the variety of its execution. ...By contrast, Dyer was a specialist...Dyer's output represents a great departure from courtier verse of the 1560's, and several of his poems were more widely circulated and imitated than any of Oxford's; still, the latter's experimentation provided a much broader foundation for the development of lyric poetry at court. (pp. 52-54)
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from Ascham, The Scholemaster:
Now when men know the difference and have examples both of the best and of the worst, surely to follow rather the Goths in riming than the Greeks in true versifying were even to eat acorns with swine when we may freely eat wheat bread amongst men.
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Helgerson, con't.
Knowledge of historical difference is what, for Ascham, distinguished his moment from all previous moments in English history. And such knowledge brings with it the possibility of choice. Ascham thus presents that active model of self-fashioning to which Spencer, in seeking to have the kingdom of his own language, fits himself - a model based on choice and imitation. What Ascham most despises is the passive acceptance of "time and custom," eating acorns with swine. What he most admires is the "forward diligence," as he calls it, of those who choose to eat wheat bread amongst men, those who make themselves over in the likeness of a pattern of civility superior to what mere barbarous custom affords. (Helgerson, Forms of Nationhood, p. 29)
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Jonson, Ode to Himself
“Come, leave the loathed stage,
And the more LOATHESOME AGE;
Where pride and impudence (in fashion knit)
Usurp the chair of wit!
Inditing and arraigning every day
Something they call a play.
Let their fastidious, vaine
Commission of braine
Run on, and rage, sweat, censure, and condemn;
They were not made for thee,—less thou for them.
“Say that thou pour’st them wheat,
And they will acorns eat;
’Twere simple fury, still, thyself to waste
On such as have no taste!
To offer them a surfeit of pure bread,
Whose appetites are dead!
No, give them graines their fill,
Husks, draff, to drink and swill.
If they love lees, and leave the lusty wine,
Envy them not their palate with the SWINE.
“No doubt some mouldy tale
Like PERICLES, and stale
As the shrieve’s crusts, and misty as his fish-
Scraps, out of every dish
Thrown forth, and rak’t into the common-tub,
May keep up the play-club:
There sweepings do as well
As the best-ordered meale.
For who the relish of these guests will fit,
Needs set them but the almes-basket of wit.
“And much good do’t you then,
Brave plush and velvet men
Can Feed on orts, and safe in your stage-clothes,
Dare quit, upon your oathes,
The stagers, and the stage-wrights too (your peers),
Of larding your large ears
With their foul comic socks,
Wrought upon twenty blocks:
Which, if they’re torn, and turn’d, and patch’d enough,
The gamesters share your guilt, and you their stuff.
(snip)
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Jonson, Timber
Adulatio.
875 I have seene, that Poverty makes men doe unfit things; but honest men should not doe them: they should gaine otherwise. Though a man bee hungry, hee should not play the Parasite. That houre, wherein I would repent me to be honest: there were wayes enow open for me to be rich. But Flattery is a fine Pick-lock of tender eares: especially of those, fortune hath borne high upon their wings, that submit their dignity, and authority to it, by a soothing of themselves. For indeed men could never be taken, in that abundance, with the Sprindges of others Flattery, if they began not there; if they did but remember, how much more profitable the bitternesse of Truth were, then all the honey distilling from a whorish voice; which is not praise, but poyson. *But now it is come to that extreme folly, or rather madnesse with some: that he that flatters them modestly, or sparingly, is thought to maligne them. If their friend consent not to their vices, though hee doe not contradict them; hee is neverthelesse an enemy*. When they doe all things the WORST WAY, even then they looke for praise. Nay, they will hire fellowes to flatter them with suites, and suppers, and to prostitute their judgements. They have Livery-friends, friends of the dish, and of the Spit, that waite their turnes, as my Lord has his feasts, and guests.
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Jonson
I remember, the Players have often mentioned it as an honour to Shakespeare, that in his writing, (whatsoever he penn'd) hee never BLOTTED out line. My answer hath beene, would he had BLOTTED a thousand. Which they thought a malevolent speech. I had not told posterity this, but for their IGNORANCE, who choose that circumstance to COMMEND their friend by, wherein he most FAULTED...
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Cartwright, to Jonson (in Jonsonus Virbius)
...Blest life of Authors, unto whom we owe
Those that we have, and those that we want too:
Th'art all so good, that reading makes thee worse,
And to have writ so well's thine onely curse.
Secure then of thy merit, thou didst hate
That servile base dependance upon fate:
Successe thou ne'r thoughtst vertue, nor that fit,
Which chance, and TH'AGES FASHION DID MAKE HIT;
EXCLUDING THOSE FROM LIFE IN AFTER-TIME,
Who into Po'try first brought LUCK AND RYME:
Who thought the peoples breath good ayre: sty'ld name
What was but noise; and getting Briefes for fame
Gathered the many's suffrages, and thence
Made COMMENDATION a BENEVOLENCE:
THY thoughts were their owne Lawrell, and did win
That best applause of being crown'd within..
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Shake-speare
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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