************************
Laesa Imaginatio - Shakespeare/Oxford's 'crime'
***********************
Laesa Imaginatio, or Imagination Infected by Passion in
Shakespeare’s Love Tragedies
Werner Von Koppenfels
The Pathology of Fancy
A far too frequently quoted passage from A Midsummer Night’s
Dream places lovers in the disreputable company of poets and madmen, all of them
fired and driven by fancy or imagination (both terms are largely synonymous in
those pre-~Coleridgean times):
Lovers and madmen have such seething brains,
Such shaping fantasies, that apprehend
More than cool reason ever comprehends.
The lunatic, the lover, and the poet
Are of imagination all compact.
What is being stated here, in the final phase of an
Elizabethan comedy, and with more than a pinch of authorial irony, is the pathological
character of “strong” imaginations so suspiciously tied up with the FUROR of
erotic, melancholic, and poetic passions. But no sooner has the equation been
set up in the name of male rationality during the prenuptial chitchat of
warlike Theseus and his not entirely tamed bride Hippolyta than it is questioned
by the female voice of the duo. Fancy’s challenge to the reality principle
clearly has some compensation in store for its followers. The ambivalence of
its nature in theory and Shakespeare and practice is worth looking into.
According to Aristotle, human imagination occupies and important middle
ground between sense perception and notional thought, aisthesis and noesis.
What the great systematist regards and describes in a neutral way, can be seen
from a different – e.g., moralist – angle as a dangerous border-crossing
activity, or an unwholesome mixture of incompatible elements; as manic delusion
manifesting itself in milder form among lovers (witness the Roman tag amans amens, lovers are out of their
wits) and disastrously in the different stages of madness. The poetic dimension
of delusive fancy refers us back to the Platonic archetype of the poet as
“enthusiast” (“the poet’s eye in a fine frenzy rolling”) as someone overwhelmed
– in view of Aristotle’s masculine reason one is tempted to say ‘unmanned’ – by
the force of fancy. An unmanning of reason is the common denominator of
Theseus’s three categories of delusion. The potential productivity, though, of
the imagination so brilliantly slandered by him is more than hinted at in the
example of the poet. The warrior and statesman who sweeps away, as his kind is
wont to do, in the name of reality the supposed chimeras of the imagination, is
but a figment of fancy himself.
The productive side of the imagination is duly taken not of
in classical rhetoric, where it is made to serve the evidential or graphic
quality of each specific subject treated by the orator, in order to vivify the
merely factual and thereby “move” the audience. The poetic output of an excited
fancy will be one of the leitmotifs for the following reflections on the
relationship between passion and imagination in Shakespeare’s love tragedies.
************************************
"But that
benefit which I consider most in it [rhyme], because I have not seldom found
it, is, that it bounds and circumscribes the FANCY: for IMAGINATION in a poet
is a faculty so WILD and lawless, that, like an high-ranging spaniel, it must
have CLOGS tied to it, lest it outrun the judgment."
— Dryden, John
(1631-1700)
**********************************
Milton
Then to the
well-trod stage anon,
If Jonson's learned
sock be on,
Or sweetest
Shakespeare, Fancy's child,
Warble his native wood-notes wild.
He was, indeed, honest, and of an open and free nature;
had an excellent fancy, brave notions, and gentle expressions, wherein he
flowed with that facility that SOMETIME it was NECESSARY HE SHOULD BE STOPPED.
“Sufflaminandus erat,” as Augustus said of Haterius. His wit was in
his own power; would the RULE of it had been so too. Many times he fell into
those things, could not escape laughter, as when he said in the person of
Cæsar, one speaking to him: “Cæsar, thou dost me wrong.” He replied: “Cæsar did
never wrong but with just cause;
and such like, which were ridiculous.
*********************************
Dryden – Postscript
to ‘Of Heroic Plays’
I cannot find when
Poets had Liberty from any Autority to write non-sense more then any other men,
Nor is that Plea of Poetica Licentia uses as a Subterfuge, by any but weake professors
of that Art, who are commonly given over to a mist of Fancy a buzzing of
invention and a sound of something like sense, and have no use of Judgement…
What people say of
Fire (viz. That it is a good Servant, but an ill Master). May not unaptly be
applied to Fancy, which when it is too active Rages, but when cooled and
allay’d by the Judgement, produces admirable Effects….But some will I doubt not
object, That Poetry should not be reduced to the strictnesse of Mathematicks,
to which I answer it ought to be so far Mathematicall, as to have likeness, and
Proportion, since they will all confess that it is a kind of Paintaing [sic]…
…what Licence is left for
Poets[?]…that Licence is Fiction, which kind of Poetry is like that of
Landschap painting and poems of this nature, though they be not Vera ought
to be Verisimilia.
********************************
Fetter
a chain or manacle
used to restrain a prisoner, typically placed around the ankles.
"he lay bound
with fetters of iron"
synonyms:
|
shackles,
manacles, handcuffs, irons, leg irons, chains, restraints; More
informalcuffs,
bracelets;
historicalbilboes
"bound by
fetters of iron"
|
- a restraint or check on someone's freedom to do something, typically one considered unfair or overly restrictive.
"the fetters
of discipline and caution"
verb
verb: fetter;
3rd person present: fetters; past tense: fettered; past
participle: fettered; gerund or present participle: fettering
- 1.
restrain with
chains or manacles, typically around the ankles.
"a ragged and
fettered prisoner"
synonyms:
|
shackle, manacle,
handcuff, clap in irons, put in chains, chain (up); More
|
*************************************
From To the Deceased Author of these Poems (William
Cartwright)
Jasper Mayne
...And as thy Wit was like a Spring, so all
The soft streams of it we may Chrystall call:
No cloud of Fancie, no mysterious stroke,
No Verse like those which antient Sybils spoke;
No Oracle of Language, to amaze
The Reader with a dark, or Midnight Phrase,
Stands in thy Writings, which are all pure Day,
A cleer, bright Sunchine, and the mist away.
That which Thou wrot'st was sense, and that sense good,
Things not first written, and then understood:
Or if sometimes thy Fancy soar'd so high
As to seem lost to the unlearned Eye,
'Twas but like generous Falcons, when high flown,
Which mount to make the Quarrey more their own.
For thou to Nature had'st joyn'd Art, and skill.
In Thee Ben Johnson still HELD SHAKESPEARE'S QUILL:
A QUILL, RUL'D by sharp Judgement, and such Laws,
As a well studied Mind, and Reason draws.
Thy Lamp was cherish'd with suppolied of Oyle,
Fetch'd from the Romane and the Graecian soyle. (snip)
Jasper Mayne
...And as thy Wit was like a Spring, so all
The soft streams of it we may Chrystall call:
No cloud of Fancie, no mysterious stroke,
No Verse like those which antient Sybils spoke;
No Oracle of Language, to amaze
The Reader with a dark, or Midnight Phrase,
Stands in thy Writings, which are all pure Day,
A cleer, bright Sunchine, and the mist away.
That which Thou wrot'st was sense, and that sense good,
Things not first written, and then understood:
Or if sometimes thy Fancy soar'd so high
As to seem lost to the unlearned Eye,
'Twas but like generous Falcons, when high flown,
Which mount to make the Quarrey more their own.
For thou to Nature had'st joyn'd Art, and skill.
In Thee Ben Johnson still HELD SHAKESPEARE'S QUILL:
A QUILL, RUL'D by sharp Judgement, and such Laws,
As a well studied Mind, and Reason draws.
Thy Lamp was cherish'd with suppolied of Oyle,
Fetch'd from the Romane and the Graecian soyle. (snip)
*************************************
...Never did so much strength, or such a spell
Of Art, and eloquence of papers dwell.
For whil'st he in colours, full and true,
Mens natures, fancies, and their humours drew
In method, order, matter, sence and grace,
Fitting each person to his time and place;
Knowing to move, to slacke, or to make haste,
Binding the middle with the first and last:
He fram'd all minds, and did all passions stirre,
And with a BRIDLE guide the Theater.
Shackerley Marmion, Jonsonus Virbius
Of Art, and eloquence of papers dwell.
For whil'st he in colours, full and true,
Mens natures, fancies, and their humours drew
In method, order, matter, sence and grace,
Fitting each person to his time and place;
Knowing to move, to slacke, or to make haste,
Binding the middle with the first and last:
He fram'd all minds, and did all passions stirre,
And with a BRIDLE guide the Theater.
Shackerley Marmion, Jonsonus Virbius
*************************************
Billy in the
Darbies - (darbies - handcuffs)
But me they'll lash
me in hammock, drop me deep.
Fathoms down, fathoms down, how I'll dream fast asleep.
I feel it stealing now. Sentry, are you there?
Just ease these darbies at the wrist,
And roll me over fair.
I am sleepy, and the oozy weeds about me twist.
Fathoms down, fathoms down, how I'll dream fast asleep.
I feel it stealing now. Sentry, are you there?
Just ease these darbies at the wrist,
And roll me over fair.
I am sleepy, and the oozy weeds about me twist.
***********************************
The Injured/Disordered/Crazed/Infected
Imagination
Laesa Imaginatio, or Imagination Infected by Passion in
Shakespeare’s Love Tragedies
Werner Von Koppenfels
(con't)
But first of all the notion
of fancy as a menace to reason and a disease of the spirit calls for
discussion. This concept was widely propagated by European moralism with its
insistence on the delusions of homo sapiens in view of his inability to rule
his unruly passions. Montaigne, the father of modern scepticism, approaches the
topic in his own personal manner: “ I am one of those that feele a very great
conflict and power of imagination. All men are shockt therewith, and some
overthrowne by it. The impression of it pierceth me, and for want of strength
to resist here [sic], my endeavour is to avoid it”. Montaigne’s artful
surrender to the forces of fancy recommends the tactics of flight against the
attacks of an irresistible enemy. ON the other hand, and infectious imagination
might appear as the moralist’s natural ally, since it drastically reveals the
impotence of reason and willpower. As the essayist goes on to expound in great
detail, the emasculating effect of fancy sometimes causes sexual failing, or –
thus in the late essay III, xii – turns men into cowards through fear of death.
Early modern philosophy will intensify
this charge in the name of its most sacred principle. Descartes and Pascal both
denounce the imagination as a deadly adversary to reason, but from different
points of view. For Descartes, it is the ruin of pure thought unclouded by
prejudice, while for Pascal it embodies the supreme power of self-deception
which prevents man from recognizing his need of salvation. Malebranche calls
it, or her, in a nicely gendered formula, “la folle du logis,” the fool (or
madwoman) in the house of reason; and Hobbes, who sees it as one of the main
causes for religious enthusiasm and civil war, honors it with the deeply
ambiguous definition of “decaying sense.” Thus its Aristotelian middle position
between body and soul/spirit/reason is changed into what amounts to a betrayal
of the spirit, and its Greek and Latin etymologies are given a pejorative
twist: phantasia is reduced to a mere phantom, and imaginatio to
a distorted image.
An aspect of the
imagination that seems especially uncanny to rational thought is the fact that
this ambivalent agent of body and soul, in an act of mirror-like inversion,
tends to subject the mind to the external objects that set it afire. ~Bacon
speaks about “this Janus of Imagination” and continues: “Neither is the
Imagination simply and onely a Messenger, but is invested with, or at least
wise usurpeth no small authoritie in it selfe.” The sense, when overexcited by
strong impressions (says Robert Burton, to whom we owe the epoch’s most
detailed psychosomatic study of the imagination), act forcefully on the mind,
and this infection in its turn leads on to pathological states of the body, to “this
thunder and lightning of perturbation, which causeth such violent and speedy
alterations in this our microcosm, and many times subverts the good estate and
temperature of it. For as the body works upon the mind…so, on the other side,
the mind works upon the body, producing by his passions and perturbations
miraculous alterations, as melancholy, despair, cruel diseases, and sometimes
death itself.” What Theseus announced but jokingly, Burton, as a physician of
body and soul, confirms with scholarly authority: an infected imagination, or laesa
imaginatio in his medical terminology, is the common cause of both mental
and erotic derangement, since it distorts and blows up (“misconceiving or
amplifying”) the true proportion of things.[note - see Droeshout Engraving] Among those particularly
susceptible to the force of fancy, artists and writers are explicitly included:
“In poets and painters imagination forcibly works, as appears by their several
fictions, antics, images” (I, 159).
Thus Burton’s
discourse of melancholy diagnoses a circulus vitiosus between body and mind: a
melancholy disposition makes the fancy prone to infection, and an infected
fancy may derange the balance of bodily humours to the point of madness. Burton
treats love melancholy as a particular species of corrupted imagination, whose
cruelty surpasses the Spanish Inquisition (III, 141), and jealousy as its
subspecies, “a bastard branch or kind of love-melancholy” no less infernal.
Revealing as to the gender aspect of fancy is his statement tha thte passion of
love “turns a man into a woman” (III, 142). The heroes of the Shakespearean
love tragedy bear out this diagnosis quite openly:
Romeo. O sweet
Juliet,/Thy beauty hath made me effeminate (Romeo and Juliet, 3.1.113-14)
Troilus. I am
weaker than a woman’s tear (Troilus and Cressida, 1.1.9)
Antony. My sword,
made weak by my affection… (Antony and Cleopatra, 3.11.67)
To an Elizabethan
audience this insight would imply a dangerous topsy-turvydom in the hallowed
hierarchy of the sexes: The “Herculean hero” Antony enslaved and “unsexed” by
Omphale! For the specifically female manifestations of melancholy Burton quotes
several quthorities who attribute this disease to corrupt vapors arising from
the menstruous blood to cloud the brain (:that fuliginous exhalation of corrupt
seed, troubling the brain, heart and mind”; I, 414), and therefore regard it as
a “natural” evil. The weaker vessel, runs the – commonplace – argument, is more
or less at the mercy of its bodily passions; its physical delicacy makes the
imagination a convenient gate of access, less invitingly open to every
disturbing impression. Male fancy infected by erotic passion entails an infringement
of mental sovereignty, and therefore the danger (or chance?) of a certain loss
of manliness.
**********************************
Shake-speare from Lyly's Campaspe?
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)
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)
**************************************
In this stanza, part of a larger sequence in which
Shakespeare portrays Lucrece looking at a painting of Troy, Achilles is
represented by “his spear, / Grip’d in an armed hand, himself behind / Was left
unseen, save to the eye of mind” (lines 1424–26). Exploring Shakespeare’s
fairly idiosyncratic attention to the SPEAR of ACHILLES and its reputation for
being able to both “kill and cure” (2 Henry VI 5.1.101), Cheney
argues that this stanza in Lucrece is a particularly good example of a
“signature” moment in Shakespeare’s works, a passage in which “Shakespeare
signs his name to Achilles” (53) and in which—owing to its emphasis on
an uncannily present-yet-absent figure—we can sense an emblem of Shakespearean
authorship itself. (Bruster)
*********************************
Sidney as the picture of 'True Nobility":
From Moffett's _Nobilis_ or_ A View of the Life and Death of a Sidney_,
dedicated to WILLIAM HERBERT: Jan 1594 (?)
"A few, to be sure, were observed to murmur, and to envy him so great preferment; but they were men without worth or virtue, who considered the public welfare a matter of indifference- fitter, in truth, to hold a DISTAFF and CARD WOOL AMONG SERVANT GIRLS than at any time to be considered as RIVALS by Sidney. For no one ever wished ill to the honor of the Sidney's except him who wished ill to the commonwealth; no one ever for forsook Philip except him whom the hope that he might at some time be honourable had also forsaken; and no one ever injured him except him for whom virtue and piety had no love. He was never so incensed, however, by the wrongs of malignant or slanderous men but that at the slightest sign of penitence the heat of his disturbed spirit would die down, and he would bury all past offenses under a kind of everlasting OBLIVION. (p.82 Nobilis (The Noble Man), Moffett)
From Moffett's _Nobilis_ or_ A View of the Life and Death of a Sidney_,
dedicated to WILLIAM HERBERT: Jan 1594 (?)
"A few, to be sure, were observed to murmur, and to envy him so great preferment; but they were men without worth or virtue, who considered the public welfare a matter of indifference- fitter, in truth, to hold a DISTAFF and CARD WOOL AMONG SERVANT GIRLS than at any time to be considered as RIVALS by Sidney. For no one ever wished ill to the honor of the Sidney's except him who wished ill to the commonwealth; no one ever for forsook Philip except him whom the hope that he might at some time be honourable had also forsaken; and no one ever injured him except him for whom virtue and piety had no love. He was never so incensed, however, by the wrongs of malignant or slanderous men but that at the slightest sign of penitence the heat of his disturbed spirit would die down, and he would bury all past offenses under a kind of everlasting OBLIVION. (p.82 Nobilis (The Noble Man), Moffett)
**********************************
Roman Eloquence: Rhetoric in Society and Literature
(ed. William J Dominik)
Style and Gender in Public Performance
Amy Richlin
...Considering how the forum served as the locus of the boy's transition to manhood, it is not surprising that the content of Roman oratory includes a consistent strain of invective in which rival orators impugn each other's masculinity. But these gender terms were also applied by Roman theorists to literary style itself. The logical link seems to be the principle talis oratio qualis vita (Seneca, Epistles 114.1): a man's style indicates his morals, and his morals will affect the way he speaks.
(snip)
Seneca's own father's collection of remembered speeches and anecdotes, a memoir as well as a handbook, shows how gender and style served as signs in the rhetorical scholae of the early empire. This book was written by the elder Seneca for his sons and expressly dedicated to them, again marking the importance of the training of sons by fathers. Seneca invokes at the outset Cato's definition of an orator; like Seneca, his model addressed his definition of an orator to his son and wrote a book of rhetoric dedicated to that son. Cicero wrote the Partitiones Oratoriae for his son Marcus, and the book is actually framed as a sort of dialogue, or catechism, the characters being 'Cicero' (that is, Cicero's son Marcus) and 'Father' (that is, Cicero). Seneca's three sons appear occasionally as the intended audience throughout his book; for example, at the end of Suasoriae 2.23, Seneca remarks that the style or Arellius Fuscus 'will offend you when you get to my age; meanwhile I don't doubt that the very vitia that will offend you now delight you'. This goes along with an idea voiced by Cicero that the Asianist style is both more appropriate to young men than to mature men and more admired by young men than by old men (Brut. 325-7).
The elder Seneca depict declamations in the scholae staged as verbal duels among the participants, exchanges of witty criticisms establishing and contesting a hierarchy - often gendered, as in one story about Junius Gallio (Suas. 3.6-7):
I remember [Junius Gallio and I] came together from hearing Nicetes to Messalla's house. Nicetes had pleased the Greeks mightily by his rush [of language]. Messalla asked how he'd liked Nicetes. Gallio said: 'She's full of the god.' [Seneca says this is a Virgilian tag.] Whenever he heard one of those declaimers whom the men of the scholae call 'the hot ones', he uses to say at once, 'She's full of the god.' Messalla himself, always used to greet him with the words, 'Well, was she full of the god?' And so this became such a habit with Gallio that it used to fall from his lips involuntarily. Once in the presence of the emperor, when mention had been made of the talents of HATERIUS, falling into his usual form, he said, 'She's another man who's full of the god.' When the emperor wanted to know what this was supposed to mean, he explained the line of Vergil and how this once had escaped him in front of Messalla and always seemed to pop out after that. Tiberius himself, being of the school of Theodorus, used to dislike the style of Nicetes; and so he was delighted by Gallio's story.
The story points to several features of the game as played in the scholae. First, a speaker's style is rejected by labelling him as a woman. The style of the original target, Nicetes, is associated with Greek declaimers in particular and said to be characterize by IMPETUS, a flood or rush of words. So the bad style is feminine, foreign and overly effusive. Second, the people involved range from Ovid's friends and patron to Augustus: this august circle is following, like sports fans, questions of style among declaimers ranging from the Greek Nicetes to the consular Haterius. Moreover, these fans are also players: Tiberius' team affiliation is noted here; Messalla appears repeatedly in Seneca, sometimes as a noted declaimer himself (Controv. 2 pr. 14), occasionally insulting another declaimer.
(snip)
Quintilian says that, as much as he admires Seneca's style, he had occasion to criticize it (10.1.125-6. 127)
when I was trying to recall [my students] from a corrupt style of speech, broken by all vices (corruptum et omnibus vitiis fractum decendi genus), to a more severe standard. Then, however, [Seneca] was practically the only author in the hands of young men...But he pleased [them] precisely for his vices...
If only Seneca had more self-control, Quintilian concludes, he might have enjoyed the 'approval of the learned rather than the love of boys (puerorum amore)' (10.1.130).
This modelling, as has been seen, is not peculiar to Seneca and his fans: style is seen above all as something that is passed on from older men to younger men. Seneca's sons like Arellius Fuscus; Alfius Flavus likes Ovid; teachers train students or ridicule them; young men have fun imitating noted speakers. Young men are said to have a weakness for the ornate style sometimes castigated as effeminate. Oratory, then, not only manifests gender attributes in itslelf but is a medium whereby older men seduce younger men - though in the word, not in the flesh.
To sum up: The forum was a place for activities that defined Roman male citizens; young men came there to begin their lives as adults and were there trained by older men. This was a time when their sexual identity was felt to be in jeopardy and , perhaps for theis reason, to them is attributed a predilection for a style felt to be effeminate. The 'effeminate' style was so called by Roman rhetoricians for multiple reasons: they found it even in prhrasing, styntax and use of rhetorical figures. Orators used imputations of effeminacy to attack each other's style in a world in which men's reputations were on the line while they vied with each other in public performance...
(ed. William J Dominik)
Style and Gender in Public Performance
Amy Richlin
...Considering how the forum served as the locus of the boy's transition to manhood, it is not surprising that the content of Roman oratory includes a consistent strain of invective in which rival orators impugn each other's masculinity. But these gender terms were also applied by Roman theorists to literary style itself. The logical link seems to be the principle talis oratio qualis vita (Seneca, Epistles 114.1): a man's style indicates his morals, and his morals will affect the way he speaks.
(snip)
Seneca's own father's collection of remembered speeches and anecdotes, a memoir as well as a handbook, shows how gender and style served as signs in the rhetorical scholae of the early empire. This book was written by the elder Seneca for his sons and expressly dedicated to them, again marking the importance of the training of sons by fathers. Seneca invokes at the outset Cato's definition of an orator; like Seneca, his model addressed his definition of an orator to his son and wrote a book of rhetoric dedicated to that son. Cicero wrote the Partitiones Oratoriae for his son Marcus, and the book is actually framed as a sort of dialogue, or catechism, the characters being 'Cicero' (that is, Cicero's son Marcus) and 'Father' (that is, Cicero). Seneca's three sons appear occasionally as the intended audience throughout his book; for example, at the end of Suasoriae 2.23, Seneca remarks that the style or Arellius Fuscus 'will offend you when you get to my age; meanwhile I don't doubt that the very vitia that will offend you now delight you'. This goes along with an idea voiced by Cicero that the Asianist style is both more appropriate to young men than to mature men and more admired by young men than by old men (Brut. 325-7).
The elder Seneca depict declamations in the scholae staged as verbal duels among the participants, exchanges of witty criticisms establishing and contesting a hierarchy - often gendered, as in one story about Junius Gallio (Suas. 3.6-7):
I remember [Junius Gallio and I] came together from hearing Nicetes to Messalla's house. Nicetes had pleased the Greeks mightily by his rush [of language]. Messalla asked how he'd liked Nicetes. Gallio said: 'She's full of the god.' [Seneca says this is a Virgilian tag.] Whenever he heard one of those declaimers whom the men of the scholae call 'the hot ones', he uses to say at once, 'She's full of the god.' Messalla himself, always used to greet him with the words, 'Well, was she full of the god?' And so this became such a habit with Gallio that it used to fall from his lips involuntarily. Once in the presence of the emperor, when mention had been made of the talents of HATERIUS, falling into his usual form, he said, 'She's another man who's full of the god.' When the emperor wanted to know what this was supposed to mean, he explained the line of Vergil and how this once had escaped him in front of Messalla and always seemed to pop out after that. Tiberius himself, being of the school of Theodorus, used to dislike the style of Nicetes; and so he was delighted by Gallio's story.
The story points to several features of the game as played in the scholae. First, a speaker's style is rejected by labelling him as a woman. The style of the original target, Nicetes, is associated with Greek declaimers in particular and said to be characterize by IMPETUS, a flood or rush of words. So the bad style is feminine, foreign and overly effusive. Second, the people involved range from Ovid's friends and patron to Augustus: this august circle is following, like sports fans, questions of style among declaimers ranging from the Greek Nicetes to the consular Haterius. Moreover, these fans are also players: Tiberius' team affiliation is noted here; Messalla appears repeatedly in Seneca, sometimes as a noted declaimer himself (Controv. 2 pr. 14), occasionally insulting another declaimer.
(snip)
Quintilian says that, as much as he admires Seneca's style, he had occasion to criticize it (10.1.125-6. 127)
when I was trying to recall [my students] from a corrupt style of speech, broken by all vices (corruptum et omnibus vitiis fractum decendi genus), to a more severe standard. Then, however, [Seneca] was practically the only author in the hands of young men...But he pleased [them] precisely for his vices...
If only Seneca had more self-control, Quintilian concludes, he might have enjoyed the 'approval of the learned rather than the love of boys (puerorum amore)' (10.1.130).
This modelling, as has been seen, is not peculiar to Seneca and his fans: style is seen above all as something that is passed on from older men to younger men. Seneca's sons like Arellius Fuscus; Alfius Flavus likes Ovid; teachers train students or ridicule them; young men have fun imitating noted speakers. Young men are said to have a weakness for the ornate style sometimes castigated as effeminate. Oratory, then, not only manifests gender attributes in itslelf but is a medium whereby older men seduce younger men - though in the word, not in the flesh.
To sum up: The forum was a place for activities that defined Roman male citizens; young men came there to begin their lives as adults and were there trained by older men. This was a time when their sexual identity was felt to be in jeopardy and , perhaps for theis reason, to them is attributed a predilection for a style felt to be effeminate. The 'effeminate' style was so called by Roman rhetoricians for multiple reasons: they found it even in prhrasing, styntax and use of rhetorical figures. Orators used imputations of effeminacy to attack each other's style in a world in which men's reputations were on the line while they vied with each other in public performance...
*************************************
But hee redeemed his vices, with his vertues. There was
ever more in him to be praysed, then to be pardoned.’ - Jonson on
Shakespeare
Davies, Scourge of Folly
Of the staid FURIOUS POET FUCUS.
Epig. 114
Fucus the FURIOUS POET writes but Plaies;
So, playing, writes: that’s, idly writeth all:
Yet, idle Plaies, and Players are his Staies;
Which stay him that he can no lower fall:
For, he is fall’n into the deep’st decay,
Where Playes and Players keepe him at a stay.
****************************
Rhodri Lewis:
...the visionary quality of the furor poeticus was by definition irrational, and easily contaminated by the threat of ‘enthusiasm’; as there was Restoration consensus that the civil wars had been the product of enthusiastic speech and writing, this contamination was fatal. Consequently, the imitative model of poetics – and with it, translation – came to have a new prestige and cultural importance as an antidote to such anxieties: in CONSTRAINING the poet’s FREEDOM to ERR, it was seen as doing important meta-literary work, and conferred an intrinsic mutuality on the literary enterprise:
****************************
Title: Q. Horatius Flaccus: his Art of poetry. Englished by Ben:
Jonson. With other workes of the author, never printed before Date:1640
...Those that are wise, a FURIOUS POET feare,
And flye to touch him, as a man that were
Infected with the Leprosie, or had
The yellow jaundis, or were truely mad,
Under the angry Moon: but then the boyes
They vexe, and careless follow him with noise.
This, while he belcheth lofty Verses out,
And stalketh, like a Fowler, round about,
Busie to catch a Black-bird; if he fall
Into a pit, or hole, although he call
And crye aloud, help gentle Country-men;
There's none will take the care to help him, then, For if one should,
and with a rope make hast
To let it downe, who knowes, if he did cast
Himselfe there purposely or no; and would Not thence be sav'd,
although indeed he could;
Ile tell you but the death, and the disease
Of the Sysilian Poet, Empedocles'
He, while he labour'd to be thought a god,
Immortall, took a melancholick, odd
Conceipt, and into burning Aetna leap't.
Let Poets perish that will not be kept.
He that preserves a man against his will,
Doth the same thing with him that would him kill.
Nor did he doe this, once; if yet you can
Now, bring him back, he'le be no more a man,
Or love of this his famous death lay by.
Here's one makes verses, but there's none knows why;
Whether he hath pissed upon his Fathers grave:
Or the sad thunder-strucken thing he have,
Polluted, touch't: but certainly he's mad;
And as a Beare, if he the strength but had
To force the Grates that hold him in, would fright
All; so this grievous writer puts to flight
Learn'd, and unlearn'd; holdeth whom once he takes;
And there an end of him with reading makes:
Not letting goe the skin, where he drawes food,
Till, horse-leech like, he drop off, full of blood.
Finis
***********************
Tom O'Bedlam - Anonymous
With a host of FURIOUS FANCIES
Whereof I am commander,
With a burning spear and a horse of air,
To the wilderness I wander.
By a knight of ghostes and shadowes
I summon'd am to tourney
Ten leagues beyond the wild world's end.
Methinks it is no journey.
Of the staid FURIOUS POET FUCUS.
Epig. 114
Fucus the FURIOUS POET writes but Plaies;
So, playing, writes: that’s, idly writeth all:
Yet, idle Plaies, and Players are his Staies;
Which stay him that he can no lower fall:
For, he is fall’n into the deep’st decay,
Where Playes and Players keepe him at a stay.
****************************
Rhodri Lewis:
...the visionary quality of the furor poeticus was by definition irrational, and easily contaminated by the threat of ‘enthusiasm’; as there was Restoration consensus that the civil wars had been the product of enthusiastic speech and writing, this contamination was fatal. Consequently, the imitative model of poetics – and with it, translation – came to have a new prestige and cultural importance as an antidote to such anxieties: in CONSTRAINING the poet’s FREEDOM to ERR, it was seen as doing important meta-literary work, and conferred an intrinsic mutuality on the literary enterprise:
****************************
Title: Q. Horatius Flaccus: his Art of poetry. Englished by Ben:
Jonson. With other workes of the author, never printed before Date:1640
...Those that are wise, a FURIOUS POET feare,
And flye to touch him, as a man that were
Infected with the Leprosie, or had
The yellow jaundis, or were truely mad,
Under the angry Moon: but then the boyes
They vexe, and careless follow him with noise.
This, while he belcheth lofty Verses out,
And stalketh, like a Fowler, round about,
Busie to catch a Black-bird; if he fall
Into a pit, or hole, although he call
And crye aloud, help gentle Country-men;
There's none will take the care to help him, then, For if one should,
and with a rope make hast
To let it downe, who knowes, if he did cast
Himselfe there purposely or no; and would Not thence be sav'd,
although indeed he could;
Ile tell you but the death, and the disease
Of the Sysilian Poet, Empedocles'
He, while he labour'd to be thought a god,
Immortall, took a melancholick, odd
Conceipt, and into burning Aetna leap't.
Let Poets perish that will not be kept.
He that preserves a man against his will,
Doth the same thing with him that would him kill.
Nor did he doe this, once; if yet you can
Now, bring him back, he'le be no more a man,
Or love of this his famous death lay by.
Here's one makes verses, but there's none knows why;
Whether he hath pissed upon his Fathers grave:
Or the sad thunder-strucken thing he have,
Polluted, touch't: but certainly he's mad;
And as a Beare, if he the strength but had
To force the Grates that hold him in, would fright
All; so this grievous writer puts to flight
Learn'd, and unlearn'd; holdeth whom once he takes;
And there an end of him with reading makes:
Not letting goe the skin, where he drawes food,
Till, horse-leech like, he drop off, full of blood.
Finis
***********************
Tom O'Bedlam - Anonymous
With a host of FURIOUS FANCIES
Whereof I am commander,
With a burning spear and a horse of air,
To the wilderness I wander.
By a knight of ghostes and shadowes
I summon'd am to tourney
Ten leagues beyond the wild world's end.
Methinks it is no journey.
**********************
Greenwood, Shifting Perspectives and the Stylish Style
...We see both in architecture and painting the replacement of the Albertian canon of numerical relationships between parts and whole with a more subjective view of beauty, perhaps best expressed by Vasari when, in defining beauty a hundred years after Alberti, he commented on the work of the classicists by saying that:
There was wanting in their rule a certain freedom which, without being of the rule, might be directed by the rule and might be able to exist without causing confusion or spoiling the order; which order had need of an invention abundant in every respect, and of a certain beauty maintained in every least detail, so as to reveal all that order with more adornment. In proportion there was wanting a certain correctness of judgement, by means of which their figures, without having been measured, might have, in due relation to their dimensions, a grace exceeding measurement. (p. 31)
**********************************************
John Southern to Earl of Oxford (Pandora, 1584)
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, (see Signior Amorphus, Cynthia's Revels)
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.
...We see both in architecture and painting the replacement of the Albertian canon of numerical relationships between parts and whole with a more subjective view of beauty, perhaps best expressed by Vasari when, in defining beauty a hundred years after Alberti, he commented on the work of the classicists by saying that:
There was wanting in their rule a certain freedom which, without being of the rule, might be directed by the rule and might be able to exist without causing confusion or spoiling the order; which order had need of an invention abundant in every respect, and of a certain beauty maintained in every least detail, so as to reveal all that order with more adornment. In proportion there was wanting a certain correctness of judgement, by means of which their figures, without having been measured, might have, in due relation to their dimensions, a grace exceeding measurement. (p. 31)
**********************************************
John Southern to Earl of Oxford (Pandora, 1584)
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, (see Signior Amorphus, Cynthia's Revels)
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.
*********************************************
Infection/ casting waters
Sweet Swan of Avon ! what a sight it were
To see thee in our waters yet appear,
And make those flights upon the banks of Thames,
That so did TAKE Eliza, and our James !
**************************************
Jonson, Discoveries
{{Topic 54}} {{Subject: mass taste}}
Sweet Swan of Avon ! what a sight it were
To see thee in our waters yet appear,
And make those flights upon the banks of Thames,
That so did TAKE Eliza, and our James !
**************************************
Jonson, Discoveries
{{Topic 54}} {{Subject: mass taste}}
Vulgi expectatio.
333 Expectation of the Vulgar is more drawne,
and held with newnesse, then
334 goodnesse; wee see it in Fencers, in Players, in Poets, in Preachers, in all,
335 where Fame promiseth any thing; so it be {{new}} [[now]], though never so naught,
336 and depraved, they run to it, AND ARE TAKEN. Which shewes, that the only
337 decay, or hurt of the best mens reputation with the people, is, their wits
338 have out-liv'd the peoples palats. They have beene too much, or too
339 long a feast.
****************************************
334 goodnesse; wee see it in Fencers, in Players, in Poets, in Preachers, in all,
335 where Fame promiseth any thing; so it be {{new}} [[now]], though never so naught,
336 and depraved, they run to it, AND ARE TAKEN. Which shewes, that the only
337 decay, or hurt of the best mens reputation with the people, is, their wits
338 have out-liv'd the peoples palats. They have beene too much, or too
339 long a feast.
****************************************
Jonson, Alchemist
To the Reader
If thou beest more, thou art an understander, and then I
trust thee. If thou art one that takest up, and but a pretender, beware of what
hands thou receivest thy commodity; for thou wert never more fair in the way to
be COZENED, than IN THIS AGE, in poetry, especially in plays: wherein, now the
concupiscence of dances and of antics so reigneth, as to run away from nature,
and be afraid of her, is the only point of art that tickles the spectators.
But how out of purpose, and place, do I name art? When the professors are grown
so obstinate contemners of it, and presumers on their own naturals, as they are
deriders of all diligence that way, and, by simple mocking at the terms, when
they understand not the things, think to get off wittily with their ignorance.
**********************************
Shakespeare
O, for my sake do you with fortune chide,
The guilty goddess of my harmful deeds,
That did not better for my life provide,
Than public means which public manners breeds.
Thence comes it that my name receives a brand,
And almost thence my nature is subdu’d
To what it works in, like the dyer’s hand:
Pity me then and wish I were renew’d;
Whilst, like a willing patient, I will drink
Potions of eysell, ‘gainst my strong infection;
No bitterness that I will bitter think,
Nor double penance, to correct correction.
Pity me then, dear friend, and I assure ye
Even that your pity is enough to cure me.
O, for my sake do you with fortune chide,
The guilty goddess of my harmful deeds,
That did not better for my life provide,
Than public means which public manners breeds.
Thence comes it that my name receives a brand,
And almost thence my nature is subdu’d
To what it works in, like the dyer’s hand:
Pity me then and wish I were renew’d;
Whilst, like a willing patient, I will drink
Potions of eysell, ‘gainst my strong infection;
No bitterness that I will bitter think,
Nor double penance, to correct correction.
Pity me then, dear friend, and I assure ye
Even that your pity is enough to cure me.
***********************************
Shakespeare, King Henry IV
BARD.
Sir John, you are so fretful, you cannot live long.
FAL.
Why, there is it: come, sing me a song; make me merry. I was as
virtuously given as a gentleman need to be; virtuous enough; swore
little; diced not above seven times a week; paid money that I borrowed
--three or four times; lived well, and in good compass: and now I live
out of all order, out of all compass.
Why, there is it: come, sing me a song; make me merry. I was as
virtuously given as a gentleman need to be; virtuous enough; swore
little; diced not above seven times a week; paid money that I borrowed
--three or four times; lived well, and in good compass: and now I live
out of all order, out of all compass.
BARD.
Why, you are so fat, Sir John, that you must needs be out of all
compass, --out of all reasonable compass, Sir John.
Why, you are so fat, Sir John, that you must needs be out of all
compass, --out of all reasonable compass, Sir John.
Author: Burton, Robert, 1577-1640.
Title: The anatomy of melancholy vvhat it is. VVith all the kindes,
causes, symptomes, prognostickes, and seuerall cures of it. In three maine
partitions with their seuerall sections, members, and subsections.
Philosophically, medicinally, historically, opened and cut vp. By Democritus
Iunior. With a satyricall preface, conducing to the following discourse.
Date: 1621
Date: 1621
Generally thus much we may conclude of all melancholy
almost. That it is most pleasant at first, I
say mentis gratissimus error, a most delightsome humor, to walk alone
& meditate, & frame a thousand phantastical ImaginatioNs vnto
themselues. They are never better pleased then when they are so doing, they are
in Paradise for the time, & cannot wel endure to be interrupt: with him in
the Poet, Pol
me occidistis amici, non servastis ait! you haue vndone him, he complains,
tel him what inconvenience will follow, what wil be the event, all is one, canis
ad vomitum, t'is
so pleasant, he cannot refraine. He may thus continue peradventure many yeares,
by reason of a strong temperature, or some mixture of busines, which may divert
his cogitations: but at the last laesa Imaginatio, his
phantasy is CRASED, and now habituated to such toyes, cannot but work still
like a fat, the Sceane alters vpon a sudden, and Feare and Sorrow supplant
those pleasing thoughts, suspiti|on and discontent, and perpetuall anxiety
succeed in their
places, so by little and little that
shooing-horne of Idlenes, and voluntary solitarines, melancholy that ferall
fiend is drawne on, & quantum vertice ad auras aethereas, tantum ra|dice in
Tartaratendit, she was not so delitious at first, as now she is bitter and
harsh. A canker'd soule macerated with cares and discontents, taedium
vitae, impatience precipitates them into vnspeakable miseries. They cannot
indure company, light, vnfit for action, and the like. Their bodies are leane and
dried vp, withered, vgly, look harsh, very dull, and their soules tormented, as
they are more or lesse intang|led, as the humor hath bin intended, or according
to the con|tinuance of time they haue bin troubled.
*************************************
Disordered Figure:
'To The Reader / This figure, that thou here seest put, It was for gentle
Shakespeare cut; Wherein the graver had a strife With nature, to out-doo the
life: O, could he but have drawn his WIT / As well in brasse as he hath hit His
face the print would then surpasse All that was ever writ in brasse But, since
he cannot, reader looke Not on his picture, but his booke. / Ben. Jonson. /
From the Folio Edition of Shakespeare's Plays, 1623'.
*************************************
Author: Burton, Robert, 1577-1640.
Title: The anatomy of melancholy vvhat it is. VVith all the kindes,
causes, symptomes, prognostickes, and seuerall cures of it. In three maine
partitions with their seuerall sections, members, and subsections.
Philosophically, medicinally, historically, opened and cut vp. By Democritus
Iunior. With a satyricall preface, conducing to the following discourse.
Date: 1621
Date: 1621
Preface
...And yet notwithstanding they will defame & kill one
another, commit all vnlawfull actions, contemning God and men, friends and
country. They make great account of many senselesse things, esteeming them as a
great part of their treasure, statues, pictures, and such like moueables, deare
bought, and so cunningly wrought, as nothing but speech
wanteth in them, and yet they hate liuing
persons speaking to them. Others affect difficult things, if they dwell on
firme land, they will remoue to an Iland, and thence to land againe, being no
way constant in their desires. They
commend cou|rage and strength in warres, and let themselues be conquered by
lust and auarice, they are, in briefe, as DISORDERED in their MINDS, as Thersites
was in his body. And now mee thinkes O most worthy Hippocrates, you
should not reprehend my laughing, perceauing so many fooleries in men: for no man will mocke his
owne folly, but that which hee seeth in ano|ther, and so they iustly mocke one
another. The drunckard calls him a glutton, whom he knowes to be sober, many
men loue the Sea, others husbandry, briefly they cannot agree in their owne
trades and professions, much lesse in their liues & actions.
(SNIP)
Thus Democritus esteemed of the world in his time,
and this was the cause of his laughter: and good cause he had.
Democritus did well to laugh of old
Good cause he had but now much more,
This life of ours is more ridiculous
Then that of his or long before.
Neuer so much cause of laughter as now, neuer so many fooles
and mad men. 'Tis not one Democritus
will serue turne to laugh in these dayes, we haue now need of a Demo|critus
to laugh at Democritus, one iester to flout at another, one foole to
fleare at another; A great Stentorean Democri|tus as bigge as that Rhodian
Colossus. For now as Salisburionsis
said in his time, totus mundus histrionem agit, the whole world plaies
the foole, we haue a new Theater, a new Sceane, a new comedy of errors, a new
company of personat Actors If Democritus were a liue now, he should see
strange alterati|ons, a new company of counterfeit visads, whislers, Cumane
Asses, Maskers, Mummers, painted puppets, outsides, phantasticke shadowes,
Gulls, Butterflies, Monsters, giddy heads, &c. Many additions, much
increase of madnesse, were he now
to trauell, or could get leaue of Pluto to come see
fashions as Charon did in Lucian, to visit our cities of Moronia
Pia, and Moronia foelix, sure I thinke he would breake the rimme of
his belly with laughing. Si
foret in terris rideret Democritus seu &c. A Satyrrical Roman in
his time thought all vice, folly, and madnesse were at a full sea, Omne
in praecipiti vitium stetit: but we flow higher in madnesse, fare beyond them. Mox
daturi progeniem vitiosiorem, and the latter end (you
know whose Oracle it is) is like to be worst: but speake of times present.
(SNP)
How would our Democritus haue beene affected to see a
wicked caitiffe, or foole, a very idiot, a
funge, a monster of man, to haue many good men, wisemen, learned men to attend
vpon him with all submission, as an appendix to his riches, for that respect
alone, because he hath more wealth and mony, and to honour him with
diuine titles, and bumbast Epithets, whom they know to be a disard, a
foole, a couetous wretch, &c. be|cause he is rich. To see a filthy
loathsome cacasse, a Gorgons
head puffed vp by parasites, assume this vnto himselfe, glori|ous titles, in
worth an infant, a Cuman asse, a painted sepul|cher, an Aegyptian
temple. To see a withered face, a diseased, deformed, cankred complexion, a
viperous minde, & Epicure|an soule set out with orient pearls, Iewels,
diadems, perfumes curious elaborate workes; and a goodly person of an
angeli|call diuine countenance, a Saint, an humble minde, a meeke spirit
cloathed in ragges, begge and now ready to be starued. To see a silly
contemptible slouen in apparell, ragged in his coat, polite in speech, of a
diuine spirit, wise: another neate in cloaths, spruce, full of curtesie, empty
of grace, wit, talke non sense.
(snip)
Neuisanus the Lawier holds it for an axiome, most wome~
are fooles, Seneca men, I could cite more proofes and a bet|ter Author, but for
the present let one foole point at ano|ther. Neuisanus hath as
hard an opinion of richmen, wealth and
wisedome cannot dwell together, stultitiam patiuntur opes, and they doe
commonly infatuare cor hominis, besot men, and as we see it, fooles haue
fortune. For besides a naturall contempt of learning, which accompanies such
kind of men, and all artes which should excolere mentem, polish the mind, they
haue most part some gullish humour or other, by which they are led, one is an
Epicure, an Atheist, a gamester, a third a whoremaster, one is mad of
hawking, hunting, cocking, another of carousing, horseriding, spending: a
fourth of buil|ding, fighting, &c. Insanit veteres statuas Damasippus
e|mendo. Damasippus hath a humour of his owne, to be talkt of. Heliodorus the
Carthaginian another. In a word, as Scaliger concludes of them all, they are
statuae erectae stulttiae, the very
statues or pillers of folly. Choose out of all stories, him that hath beene
most admired, Alexander a worthy man but furious in his anger, ouertaken in
drinke; Caesar and Scipio valiant and wise, but vaine glorious, ambitious:
Vespa|tian a worthy Prince, but couetous. Hannibal
as hee had mightie vertues, so had he many vices, as Machiauell of Cosmus
Medices, he had two distinct persons in him, I will determine of all, they are
like double pictures, they are wise
on the one side, and fooles on the other. I will say
nothing of their diseases, emulations and such miseries, let pouertie plead the
rest in Aristophanes Plutus.
nullum magnum ingenium fine mixtura dementiae,
**Nullum magnum ingenium sine mixtura dementiæ (There
is no great genius without a tincture of madness).—Seneca: De
Tranquillitate .
********************************
Dryden’s ‘Radical Regularization’ of Shakespeare
Preface to Troilus and Cressida
The PREFACE to the Play.
THe Poet Aeschylus was held in the same veneration by the Athenians
of after Ages as Shakespear is by us; and Longinus has judg'd, in
favour of him, that he had a noble boldnesse of expression, and that his
imaginations were lofty and Heroick: but on the other side Quintilian
affirms, that he was daring to extravagance. 'Tis certain, that he affected
pompous words, and that his sence too often was obscur'd by Figures·
Notwithstanding these imperfections, the value of his Writings after his
decease was such, that his Countrymen ordain'd an e|qual reward to those Poets
who could alter his Plays to be Acted on the Theater, with those whose
productions were wholly new, and of their own. The case is not the same in England;
though the difficulties of altering are greater, and our reverence for Shakespear
much more just, then that of the Grecians for Aeschylus. In the
Age of that Poet, the Greek tongue was arriv'd to its full perfection;
they had then amongst them an exact Standard of Writing, and of Speaking: The English
Language is not capable of such a certainty; and we are at present so far from
it, that we are wanting in the very Foundation of it, a perfect Grammar. Yet it
must be allow'd to the present Age, that the tongue in general is so much
refin'd since Shakespear's time, that many of his words, and more of his
Phrases, are scarce intelligible. And of those which we understand some are
ungrammatical, others course; and his whole stile is so pester'd with
Figurative expressions, that it is as affected as it is obscure. 'Tis true,
that in his later Plays he had worn off somewhat of the rust; but the Tragedy
which I have undertaken to correct, was, in all probability, one of his first
endeavours on the Stage.
The Original story was Written by one Lollius a Lombard,
in Latin verse, and Translated by Chaucer into English: intended I
suppose a Satyr on the Inconstancy of Women: I find nothing of it among the
Ancients; not so much as the name once Cressida mention'd. Shakespear,
(as I hinted) in the Aprenticeship of his Writing, model'd it into that Play,
which is now call'd by the name of Troilus and Cressida; but so
*lamely* is it left to us, that it is not divided into Acts: which fault I
ascribe to the Actors, who printed it after Shakespear's death; and that
too, so carelesly, that a more uncorrect Copy I never saw. For the Play it
self, the Author seems to have begun it with some fire; the Characters of Pandarus
and Thersites, are promising enough; but as if he grew weary of his
task, after an Entrance or two, he lets 'em fall: and the later part of the
Tragedy is nothing but a confusion of Drums and Trumpets, Excur|sions and
Alarms. The chief persons, who give name to the Tragedy, are left alive: Cressida
is false, and is not punish'd. Yet after all, because the Play was Shakespear's,
and that there appear'd in some places of it, the admirable Genius of the
Author; I undertook to remove that heap of Rubbish, un|der which many excellent
thoughts lay wholly bury'd. Accordingly, I new model'd the Plot; threw out many
unnecessary persons; improv'd those Cha|racters
which were begun, and left unfinish'd: as Hector, Troilus, Pandarus
and Thersites; and added that of Andromache. After this, I made
with no small trouble, an Order and Connexion of all the Scenes; removing them
from the places where they were inartificially set: and though it was
im|possible to keep 'em all unbroken, because the Scene must be sometimes in
the City, and sometimes in the Camp, yet I have so order'd them that there is a
coherence of 'em with one another, and a dependence on the main design: no
leaping from Troy to the Grecian Tents, and thence back again in the
same Act; but a due proportion of time allow'd for every motion. I need not say
that I have refin'd his Language, which before was obsolete; but I am willing
to acknowledg, that as I have often drawn his English nearer to our times So I
have sometimes conform'd my own to his: & consequently, the Language is not
altogether so pure, as it is sig|nificant.
******************************
To make a proper estimation of his [Jonson's] merits as a dramatic
writer, we are to consider what was the state of the drama and the usual
practice of the stage-writers in those early times; and what alterations and
improvements it received from the plays of Jonson. Shakespeare, and Beaumont
and Fletcher,
are the only contemporary writers that can be put in competition with him; and
as they have excellencies of genius superior to those of Jonson, they have
weaknesses and defects which are proportionably greater. If they transcend him
in the creative powers, and the astonishing FLIGHTS of IMAGINATION, their
judgment is much inferior to his; and if he doth not at any time rise so high,
neither perhaps doth he sink so low as they have done.
- Peter Whalley, Preface, The Works of Ben. Jonson (1756)
Arthur Golding to
Edward de Vere (Epistle Dedicatorie, Psalms):
...I beseech your Lordship consider how God hath placed you upon a high stage in the eyes of all men, as a guide, patterne, insample and leader unto others. If your vertues be uncounterfayted, if your religion should be sound and pure, if your doings be according to true godlines: you shal be a stay to your cuntrie, a comforte too good men, a bridle to evil men, a joy to your friends, a corzie to your enemies, and an encreace of honor to your owne house. But if you should become eyther a counterfayt Protestant, or a perverse Papist, or a colde and careless newter (which God forbid) the harme could not be expressed which you should do to your native Cuntrie. For (as Cicero no lesse truely than wisely affirmeth and as the sorowfull dooings of our present dayes do too much certeinly avouch) greate men hurt not the common weale so much by beeing evil in respect of themselves, as by drawing others unto evel by their evil example...
...I beseech your Lordship consider how God hath placed you upon a high stage in the eyes of all men, as a guide, patterne, insample and leader unto others. If your vertues be uncounterfayted, if your religion should be sound and pure, if your doings be according to true godlines: you shal be a stay to your cuntrie, a comforte too good men, a bridle to evil men, a joy to your friends, a corzie to your enemies, and an encreace of honor to your owne house. But if you should become eyther a counterfayt Protestant, or a perverse Papist, or a colde and careless newter (which God forbid) the harme could not be expressed which you should do to your native Cuntrie. For (as Cicero no lesse truely than wisely affirmeth and as the sorowfull dooings of our present dayes do too much certeinly avouch) greate men hurt not the common weale so much by beeing evil in respect of themselves, as by drawing others unto evel by their evil example...
***********************************
Oxford Lies in 'Lethe's Lake':
Perrott, James, Sir, 1571-1637.
The first part of the consideration of humane condition vvherin is
contained the morall consideration of a mans selfe: as what, who, and
what manner of man he is. Written by I.P. Esquier. , At Oxford :
Printed by Joseph Barnes, and are to be sold [by J. Broome in London]
in Paules Church-yard, at the signe of the Bible.
--The well willer of them, that wish well--
James Perrott
...Even so commonly wee see that many of noble birthe and greate
parentage persuade themselves that they exceede all others in
estimation of bloode and linage: whereas they mighte consider with
themselves that how noblye soever they are borne, their Nobility hath
a beginning, not by their own, but by their Auncestors deserts and
vertues; wherefore if that there be not in them good partes and
properties aunswereable to the behaviour and good qualities of their
Elders, and their owne birthes, them are they but a blemish to the
Elders, and a staine to their names, and honors. We see the fairest
and richest silkes, when once they receive any blemish or staine, they
are more DISFIGURED
http://mysite.du.edu/~showard/shake.jpg
and in greater disgrace then cloath, or other
matter of lesse moment and reckoning: even so is it in the estimation
of Nobility. For a fault in a man of great birth and parentage is more
noted, and breedeth unto him greater disgrace and dishonour, then the
same should do unto a man of lesse and lower dignity. It is not inough
to be born of high bloude, without vertue aunswerable to that birth:
neither with reason may a noble man, because he is honourable
descended, challendge love, estimation, and honour of the actions
accomplished by his Auncestors, unless his owne carriage be
correspondent & aunswerable to theirs, and to his owne calling: for
Seneca sayeth, & that very truely, that, hee which braggeth of his
kindred, commendeth that which concerneth others. And the Poet
speaking to the same purpose saide very well.
Nam genus, et proavos, et quae non fecimus ipsi
Vix ea nostra voco.
that is:
What kindred did, or Elders ours,
And what we have not donne,
I call not ours: it scarcely hath
Us any credit wonne.
This caused a Gentle man of great worth and worthines (note - Sir
Philip Sidney), as any that have lived in our age, to adde this mote
underneath his coate of armes: Vix ea nostra voce. Who although hee
might most deservedly have claimed unto himselfe as much honor as ever
any of his Auncestors have had, yet he would not appropriate their
vertues (which could not be called his) unto himselfe: for he had
rather gaine glory by his owne noble and worthy actes, then be
accoumpted renowned for the greatness of his Auncestors, how neere and
how deere soever unto him. *As his noble minde is worthy of memory in
all ages, and his heroicall actes never to be committed to oblivion:
so are they (which DEGENERATE from their Elders, or do disgrace and
dishonor the honourable actions of their Auncestors) to be accoumpted
worthy if not of all shame) yet of a place in LETHES LAKE to lye in
perpetually*. Q. Pompeius Pretor of Rome did most stoutely and wisely
carry himselfe, when he did interdict and disinherite the sonne of Q.
Fabius Max. from the use and benefit of all his fathers goods, because
he did DEGENERATE from the vertues of his noble father, as spent that
most luxuriously, which his father had most honorable gotten. There
was a law amongst the Rhodians, that what sonne soever followed not
the foot-steps of their fathers vertues should be disinherited: which
lawe if it were kept, & did continue in force amongst us this day, it
would make many a sonne goe without goods, and leave his fathers
living for others to inherite. For our daies make experience of that,
which the Poet spake, and applied to former ages.
Aequat rara patrem soboles, sed plurimi ab illis
DEGENERANT; pauci superant probitate parentem. (Homer)
that is,
Fewe sonnes are found of fathers mindes,
Or equall them in vertues actes:
The greatest sorte growe out of kinde:
Who doth regard his fathers factes?
Children seldome seeke indeede,
Their sires (in goodness) to exceede.
********************************
William Shake-speare as Marston's Wondrous CREATURE:
Origin and Etymology of CREATURE
Definition of creature
1 : something created either animate or inanimate:
such as
a : a lower animal; especially : a farm animal
b : a human being
c : a being of anomalous or uncertain aspect or
nature
- creatures of fantasy
Origin and Etymology of CREATURE
Middle English, borrowed from Anglo-French, borrowed from
Late Latin creātūra "act of bringing into
being, something brought into being," from Latin creātus, past participle of creāre "to beget, give birth
to, CREATE
+ -ūra
******************************
Shakespeare - Fancy's Child (Milton)
*******************************
A narration and
description of a most exact WONDROUS CREATURE, ARISING out of the Phoenix and
Turtle Doues ashes. -- Marston
O Twas a mouing Epicedium!
Can Fire? can Time? can blackest Fate consume
So rare creation? No; tis thwart to sence,
Corruption quakes to touch such excellence,
Nature exclaimes for Iustice, Iustice Fate,
Ought into nought can neuer remigrate.
Then looke; for see what glorious issue brighter
Then clearest fire, and beyond faith farre whiter
Then Dians tier) now springs from yonder flame?
Let me stand numb'd with WONDER, neuer came
So strong amazement on ASTONISH’D eie
As this, this measurelesse pure RARITIE.
Lo now; th'xtracture of deuinest ESSENCE,
The Soule of heauens labour'd Quintessence,
(Peans to Phoebus) from deare Louer's death,
Takes sweete creation and all blessing breath.
What STRANGENESS is't that from the Turtles ashes
Assumes such forme? (whose splendor clearer flashes,
Then mounted Delius) tell me genuine Muse.
Now yeeld your aides, you spirites that infuse
A sacred rapture, light my weaker eie:
Raise my INVENTION on swift PHANTASIE,
That whilft of this same METAPHISICALL
God, Man, nor Woman, but elix'd of all
My labouring thoughts, with strained ardor sing,
My Muse may mount with an UNCOMMON wing.
O Twas a mouing Epicedium!
Can Fire? can Time? can blackest Fate consume
So rare creation? No; tis thwart to sence,
Corruption quakes to touch such excellence,
Nature exclaimes for Iustice, Iustice Fate,
Ought into nought can neuer remigrate.
Then looke; for see what glorious issue brighter
Then clearest fire, and beyond faith farre whiter
Then Dians tier) now springs from yonder flame?
Let me stand numb'd with WONDER, neuer came
So strong amazement on ASTONISH’D eie
As this, this measurelesse pure RARITIE.
Lo now; th'xtracture of deuinest ESSENCE,
The Soule of heauens labour'd Quintessence,
(Peans to Phoebus) from deare Louer's death,
Takes sweete creation and all blessing breath.
What STRANGENESS is't that from the Turtles ashes
Assumes such forme? (whose splendor clearer flashes,
Then mounted Delius) tell me genuine Muse.
Now yeeld your aides, you spirites that infuse
A sacred rapture, light my weaker eie:
Raise my INVENTION on swift PHANTASIE,
That whilft of this same METAPHISICALL
God, Man, nor Woman, but elix'd of all
My labouring thoughts, with strained ardor sing,
My Muse may mount with an UNCOMMON wing.
***********************************
John Southern to Earl of Oxford (Pandora, 1584)
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, (see Signior Amorphus, Cynthia's Revels)
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.
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, (see Signior Amorphus, Cynthia's Revels)
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.
***********************************
Tom O'Bedlam
Of thirty bare years have I
Twice twenty been enragèd,
And of forty been three times fifteen
In durance soundly cagèd
On the lordly lofts of Bedlam
With stubble soft and dainty,
Brave bracelets strong, sweet whips ding dong
With wholesome hunger plenty,
Twice twenty been enragèd,
And of forty been three times fifteen
In durance soundly cagèd
On the lordly lofts of Bedlam
With stubble soft and dainty,
Brave bracelets strong, sweet whips ding dong
With wholesome hunger plenty,
And now I sing, Any food, any feeding,
Feeding, drink, or clothing;
Come dame or maid, be not afraid,
Poor Tom will injure nothing.
Feeding, drink, or clothing;
Come dame or maid, be not afraid,
Poor Tom will injure nothing.
Billy Budd/Noble Foundling/Sacrificed by Captain Vere to preserve order.
…But without that intermediary poem [Melville After the Pleasure Party], the image of Jack Case might have been forever lost among other drowned, land-locked, or dying mariners. Reborn on recto leaf, he becomes the tutelary spirit of Billy Budd. Everything, it would seem, is hung from this royal mast. That Melville wished to impress us ignorant landsmen with this point is surely borne out by his elaborate contrivance to have Billy hanged not as usual in naval executions, from the yardarm of the foremast, but From the yardarm of the main-mast, otherwise known as the ROYAL-mast.
Mary Everett Burton Fussell, Billy Budd,
Melville’s Happy Ending.
**********************************
Billy Budd - noble foundling - 'Yes, Billy Budd was a
foundling, a presumable by-blow, and, evidently, no ignoble one. Noble descent
was as evident in him as in a blood horse.' (Melville, _Billy Budd_)
1850: "Hawthorne and His Mosses" by Herman Melville
"Would that all excellent BOOKS were FOUNDLINGS, without father or
mother, that so it might be we could glorify them, without including
their ostensible authors."
“I know not what would be the right name to put on the title-page
of an excellent book, but this I feel, that the names of all fine
authors are fictitious ones, far more than that of Junius,-- simply
standing, as they do, for the mystical, ever-eluding SPIRIT of all
BEAUTY, which ubiquitously possesses men of genius. PURELY IMAGINATIVE
as this FANCY may appear, it nevertheless seems to receive some
warranty from the fact, that on a personal interview no great author
has ever come up to the idea of his reader. But that dust of which our
bodies are composed, how can it fitly express the nobler intelligences
among us?”
1850: "Hawthorne and His Mosses" by Herman Melville
"Would that all excellent BOOKS were FOUNDLINGS, without father or
mother, that so it might be we could glorify them, without including
their ostensible authors."
“I know not what would be the right name to put on the title-page
of an excellent book, but this I feel, that the names of all fine
authors are fictitious ones, far more than that of Junius,-- simply
standing, as they do, for the mystical, ever-eluding SPIRIT of all
BEAUTY, which ubiquitously possesses men of genius. PURELY IMAGINATIVE
as this FANCY may appear, it nevertheless seems to receive some
warranty from the fact, that on a personal interview no great author
has ever come up to the idea of his reader. But that dust of which our
bodies are composed, how can it fitly express the nobler intelligences
among us?”
**************************************
Shakespeare
If my dear love were but the child of state,
It might for Fortune's bastard be unfathered,
As subject to Time's love or to Time's hate,
Weeds among weeds, or flowers with flowers gathered.
No, it was builded far from accident;
It suffers not in smiling pomp, nor falls
Under the blow of thralled discontent,
Whereto th' inviting time our fashion calls:
It fears not policy, that heretic,
Which works on leases of short-number'd hours,
But all alone stands hugely politic,
That it nor grows with heat, nor drowns with showers.
To this I witness call the fools of time,
Which die for goodness, who have lived for crime.
It might for Fortune's bastard be unfathered,
As subject to Time's love or to Time's hate,
Weeds among weeds, or flowers with flowers gathered.
No, it was builded far from accident;
It suffers not in smiling pomp, nor falls
Under the blow of thralled discontent,
Whereto th' inviting time our fashion calls:
It fears not policy, that heretic,
Which works on leases of short-number'd hours,
But all alone stands hugely politic,
That it nor grows with heat, nor drowns with showers.
To this I witness call the fools of time,
Which die for goodness, who have lived for crime.
***********************************
Daniel Defoe/ Academy:
The Work of this Society shou’d be to encourage Polite Learning, to polish and refine the English Tongue, and advance the so much neglected Faculty of Correct Language, to establish Purity and Propriety of Stile, and to purge it from all the Irregular Additions that Ignorance and Affectation have introduc’d; and all those Innovations in Speech, if I may call them such, which some Dogmatic Writers have the Confidence to foster upon their Native Language, as if their Authority were sufficient to make their own Fancy LEGITIMATE..
********************************
Droeshout - Irregular Figure
********************************
De Shakespeare Nostrat
|
I REMEMBER the players have often mentioned it as an honor to Shakespeare, that in his writing, whatsoever he penned, he never blotted out a line. My answer hath been, “Would he had blotted a thousand,” which they thought a malevolent speech. I had not told posterity this but for their ignorance, who chose that circumstance to commend their friend by wherein he most faulted; and to justify mine own candor, for I loved the man, and do honor his memory on this side idolatry as much as any. He was, indeed, honest, and of an open and free nature; had an excellent fancy, brave notions, and gentle expressions, wherein he flowed with that facility that sometime it was necessary he should be stopped. “Sufflaminandus erat,” as Augustus said of Haterius. His wit was in his own power; would the rule of it had been so too. Many times he fell into those things, could not escape laughter, as when he said in the person of Cæsar, one speaking to him: “Cæsar, thou dost me wrong.” He replied: “Cæsar did never wrong but with just cause; and such like, which were ridiculous. But he redeemed his vices with his virtues. There was ever more in him to be praised than to be pardoned.
*******************************
PROSPERO
Ye elves of hills, brooks, standing lakes and groves,
And ye that on the sands with printless foot
Do chase the ebbing Neptune and do fly him
When he comes back; you demi-puppets that
By moonshine do the green sour ringlets make,
Whereof the ewe not bites, and you whose pastime
Is to make midnight mushrooms, that rejoice
To hear the solemn curfew; by whose aid,
Weak masters though ye be, I have bedimm'd
The noontide sun, call'd forth the mutinous winds,
And 'twixt the green sea and the azured vault
Set roaring war: to the dread rattling thunder
Have I given fire and rifted Jove's stout oak
With his own bolt; the strong-based promontory
Have I made shake and by the spurs pluck'd up
The pine and cedar: graves at my command
Have waked their sleepers, oped, and let 'em forth
By my so potent art. But this rough magic
I here abjure, and, when I have required
Some heavenly music, which even now I do,
To work mine end upon their senses that
This airy charm is for, I'll break my staff,
Bury it certain fathoms in the earth,
And deeper than did ever plummet sound
I'll drown my book.
Ye elves of hills, brooks, standing lakes and groves,
And ye that on the sands with printless foot
Do chase the ebbing Neptune and do fly him
When he comes back; you demi-puppets that
By moonshine do the green sour ringlets make,
Whereof the ewe not bites, and you whose pastime
Is to make midnight mushrooms, that rejoice
To hear the solemn curfew; by whose aid,
Weak masters though ye be, I have bedimm'd
The noontide sun, call'd forth the mutinous winds,
And 'twixt the green sea and the azured vault
Set roaring war: to the dread rattling thunder
Have I given fire and rifted Jove's stout oak
With his own bolt; the strong-based promontory
Have I made shake and by the spurs pluck'd up
The pine and cedar: graves at my command
Have waked their sleepers, oped, and let 'em forth
By my so potent art. But this rough magic
I here abjure, and, when I have required
Some heavenly music, which even now I do,
To work mine end upon their senses that
This airy charm is for, I'll break my staff,
Bury it certain fathoms in the earth,
And deeper than did ever plummet sound
I'll drown my book.
**********************************
Shake-speare in Chains:
Billy in the
Darbies
But me they'll lash
me in hammock, drop me deep.
Fathoms down, fathoms down, how I'll dream fast asleep.
I feel it stealing now. Sentry, are you there?
Just ease these darbies at the wrist,
And roll me over fair.
I am sleepy, and the oozy weeds about me twist.
Fathoms down, fathoms down, how I'll dream fast asleep.
I feel it stealing now. Sentry, are you there?
Just ease these darbies at the wrist,
And roll me over fair.
I am sleepy, and the oozy weeds about me twist.