In Cynthia's Revels Jonson mocked Oxford/Amorphus' aristocratic sublime style as a comical 'hyperbolical sublime'. In 1582, John Southern had written to Oxford a poem suggesting that only the poet 'well-born' should write sublime poetry (high singer). The liberties of an elevated, ornamental style were well suited to a high born courtier, but it seems to me that Jonson was presenting a moral sublime that was not dependent on birth.
*************************
Southern, Pandora (1584)
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,
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.
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.
***************************
Amorphus/altezza d’ingegno
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 –
******************************
Sublime Courtship:
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 figureand 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.
[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 figureand 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.
****************************
Greene's Groatsworth
There is an upstart Crow, beautiful in our feathers, that,
with his tiger's heart wrapt in a player's hide, supposes he is as well able to
bombast out a blank verse as the best of you, and, being an absolute Johannes
Factotum, is, in his own conceit, the only Shakescene in the country. Oh, that
I might entreat your rare wits to be employed in more profitable courses, and
let these apes imitate your past excellence, and never more acquaint them with
your admired inventions."
****************************
Cynthia's Revels:
Act V. Scene I.
Mercury, Crites.
Mercury, Crites.
I
|
T is resolv'd on, Crites, you must do it.
Cri. The Grace divinest Mercury hath done me,
In this vouchsafed discovery of himself,
Binds my observance in the utmost terme
Of satisfaction, to his godly Will:
Though I profess (without the affectation
Of an enforc'd, and form'd austerity)
I could be willing to enjoy no place
With so unequal Natures. Mer. We believe it.
But for our sake, and to inflict just pains
On their prodigious Follies, aid us now:
No man is, presently, made bad, with ill.
And good men, like the Sea, should still maintain
Their noble taste, in midst of all fresh humours,
That flow about them, to corrupt their Streams,
Bearing no season, much less salt of goodness.
It is our purpose, Crites, to correct,
And punish, with our laughter, this nights sport.
Which our Court-Dors so heartily intend:
And by that worthy scorn, to make them know
How far beneath the dignity of Man
Their serious, and most practis'd Actions are.
Cri. I, but though Mercury can warrant out
His Undertakings, and make all things good,
Out of the Powers of his Divinity,
Th' offence will be return'd with weight on me,
That am a Creature so despis'd, and poor;
When the whole Court shall take it self abus'd
By our Ironical Confederacy.
Mer. You are deceiv'd. The better Race in Court
Will apprehend it, as a grateful right
Done to their separate merit: and approve
The fit rebuke of so ridiculous Heads,
Who with their apish Customs, and forc'd Garbs,
Would bring the name of Courtier in contempt,
Did it not live unblemisht in some few,
Whom equal Jove hath lov'd, and Phœbus form'd
Of better Metal, and in better mould.
Cri. The Grace divinest Mercury hath done me,
In this vouchsafed discovery of himself,
Binds my observance in the utmost terme
Of satisfaction, to his godly Will:
Though I profess (without the affectation
Of an enforc'd, and form'd austerity)
I could be willing to enjoy no place
With so unequal Natures. Mer. We believe it.
But for our sake, and to inflict just pains
On their prodigious Follies, aid us now:
No man is, presently, made bad, with ill.
And good men, like the Sea, should still maintain
Their noble taste, in midst of all fresh humours,
That flow about them, to corrupt their Streams,
Bearing no season, much less salt of goodness.
It is our purpose, Crites, to correct,
And punish, with our laughter, this nights sport.
Which our Court-Dors so heartily intend:
And by that worthy scorn, to make them know
How far beneath the dignity of Man
Their serious, and most practis'd Actions are.
Cri. I, but though Mercury can warrant out
His Undertakings, and make all things good,
Out of the Powers of his Divinity,
Th' offence will be return'd with weight on me,
That am a Creature so despis'd, and poor;
When the whole Court shall take it self abus'd
By our Ironical Confederacy.
Mer. You are deceiv'd. The better Race in Court
Will apprehend it, as a grateful right
Done to their separate merit: and approve
The fit rebuke of so ridiculous Heads,
Who with their apish Customs, and forc'd Garbs,
Would bring the name of Courtier in contempt,
Did it not live unblemisht in some few,
Whom equal Jove hath lov'd, and Phœbus form'd
Of better Metal, and in better mould.
**************************
The Theory of the Sublime from Longinus to Kant
By Robert Doran
Sublimity as cultural theory
My effort to uncover some structural and thematic unity in
the theory and discourse of sublimity challenges the notion that the sublime
requires an appeal to an extrinsic theory (such as psychoanalysis) as an
organizing principle. I see the theory of the sublime as possessing a critical
function of its own, namely as an implicit theory of culture, a notion that
goes back to Longinus’s treatise, which extends beyond questions of verbal
expression to the elucidation of a specific moral and cultural outlook. This is
particularly in evidence in the final chapter of the treatise, which links the
dearth of literary greatness to cultural decline and decadence. This fusion of
aesthetic reflection and cultural critique will become an important feature of
the modern theory of sublimity.
As the index of an affective state of high-mindedness –
elevation/nobility of soul – the transcendence-structure of the sublime becomes
an important factor in shaping attitudes toward the great social revolution of
modernity: the decline of the feudal nobility and the emergence of a middle
class, the shift from a culture based on an aristocratic-warrior ethos to one reflecting
bourgeois-mercantile values. By connecting aesthetic intensity and elevation to
the idea of nobility of mind, by replacing properly religious experience with
an analogous, aesthetically inflected structure, the sublime represents one of
the pivot points on which the transition from a traditional or hierarchical to
a democratizing society is thought. In effect, what thinkers such as Boileau,
Burke, and Kant achieve through the sublime is a bourgeois appropriation of
aristocratic subjectivity (the heroic cast of mind). *The extent to which the
sublime is used to exalt the bourgeois individual through the aesthetic is
perhaps the least understood aspect of the discourse of sublimity.*
****************************
Jonson, Cynthia's Revels - Moral (bourgeois?) Sublime
Cupid. His name, Hermes?
Mercury. Crites. A Creature of a most perfect and divine
Temper: One, in whom the Humours and Elements
are peaceably met, without emulation of Prcedency;
he is neither too phantastickly Melancholy, too slowly
Phlegmatick, too lightly Sanguine, or too rashly Cho-
lerick, but in all, so compos'd and order'd, as it is clear,
Nature went about some full work, she did more than
make a Man when she made him. His Discourse is like
his Behaviour, uncommon, but not unpleasing; he is
prodigal of neither. He strives rather to be that which
Men call Judicious, than to be thought so; and is so
truly Learned, that he affects not to shew it. He will
think, and speak his thought both freely; but as distant
from depraving another Mans Merit, as proclaiming his
own. For his Valour, 'tis such, that he dares as little
to offer an Injury as receive one. In sum, he hath a most
ingenuous and sweet Spirit, a sharp and season'd Wit,
a straight Judgment, and a strong Mind. Fortune could
never break him, nor make him less. He counts it his
Pleasure to despise Pleasures, and is more delighted with
good Deeds than Goods. It is a competency to him that
he can be Vertuous. He doth neither covet nor fear;
he hath too much reason to do either; and that com-
mends all things to him.
Mercury. Crites. A Creature of a most perfect and divine
Temper: One, in whom the Humours and Elements
are peaceably met, without emulation of Prcedency;
he is neither too phantastickly Melancholy, too slowly
Phlegmatick, too lightly Sanguine, or too rashly Cho-
lerick, but in all, so compos'd and order'd, as it is clear,
Nature went about some full work, she did more than
make a Man when she made him. His Discourse is like
his Behaviour, uncommon, but not unpleasing; he is
prodigal of neither. He strives rather to be that which
Men call Judicious, than to be thought so; and is so
truly Learned, that he affects not to shew it. He will
think, and speak his thought both freely; but as distant
from depraving another Mans Merit, as proclaiming his
own. For his Valour, 'tis such, that he dares as little
to offer an Injury as receive one. In sum, he hath a most
ingenuous and sweet Spirit, a sharp and season'd Wit,
a straight Judgment, and a strong Mind. Fortune could
never break him, nor make him less. He counts it his
Pleasure to despise Pleasures, and is more delighted with
good Deeds than Goods. It is a competency to him that
he can be Vertuous. He doth neither covet nor fear;
he hath too much reason to do either; and that com-
mends all things to him.
********************************
As the index of an affective state of high-mindedness –
elevation/nobility of soul – the transcendence-structure of the sublime becomes
an important factor in shaping attitudes toward the great social revolution of
modernity: the decline of the feudal nobility and the emergence of a middle
class, the shift from a culture based on an aristocratic-warrior ethos to one reflecting
bourgeois-mercantile values. (Doran, The Theory of the Sublime from Longinus to Kant)
********************************
'Swan Song' of the Feudal Nobility:
THRENOS.
Beauty, truth, and rarity.
Grace in all simplicity,
Here enclos'd in cinders lie.
Grace in all simplicity,
Here enclos'd in cinders lie.
Death is now the phoenix' nest;
And the turtle's loyal breast
To eternity doth rest,
And the turtle's loyal breast
To eternity doth rest,
Leaving no posterity:--
'Twas not their infirmity,
It was married chastity.
'Twas not their infirmity,
It was married chastity.
Truth may seem, but cannot be:
Beauty brag, but 'tis not she;
Truth and beauty buried be.
Beauty brag, but 'tis not she;
Truth and beauty buried be.
To this urn let those repair
That are either true or fair;
For these dead birds sigh a prayer.
That are either true or fair;
For these dead birds sigh a prayer.
*******************************
Oxfordian Sublime:
A SPEECH SPOKEN AT THE TRYUMPH
BEFORE THE QUEEN’S MOST EXCELLENT MAJESTIE,
BY THE PAGE TO THE RIGHT NOBLE CHAMPION,
THE EARL OF OXENFORD: January 22, 1581.
BY THE TILT stood a statelie Tent of Orange tawny
Taffeta, curiously embroidered with Silver, & pendants on the Pinnacles
very sightly to behold. From forth this Tent came the noble Earl of
Oxenford in rich gilt Armour, and sat down under a great high Baytree, the
whole stock, branches and leaves whereof were all gilded over, that nothing but
Gold could be discerned. By the Tree stood twelve tilting staves, all
which likewise were gilded clean over. After a solemn sound of most sweet
Music, he mounted on his Courser, very richly caparisoned, when his page
ascending the stairs where her Highness stood in the window, delivered to her
by speech this Oration following:
(snip)
…Thus wandering a weary way, he espied at the last a Tree so
beautiful, that his eyes were dazzled with the brightness, which as he was
going unto, he met by good fortune a Pilgrim or Hermit, he knew not well, who
being apparelled as though he were to travel into all Countries, but so aged as
though he were to live continually in a Cave. Of this old Sire he
demanded what Tree it was, who taking this Knight by the hand, began in these
words both to utter the name and nature of the Tree.
This Tree fair Knight is called the Tree of the Sun, whose
nature is always to stand alone, not suffering a companion, being itself
without comparison: of which kind, there are no more in the earth than Suns in
the Element. The world can hold but one Phoenix, one Alexander, one
Sun-Tree, in top contrary to all Trees: it is strongest, & so stately to
behold, that the more other shrubs shrink for duty, the higher it exalteth it
self in Majesty.
For as the clear beams of the Sun cause all the stars to
lose their light, so the brightness of this golden Tree, eclipseth the
commendation of all other Plants. The leaves of pure Gold, the bark no
worse, the buds pearls, the body Chrisocolla, the Sap Nectar, the root so noble
as it springeth from two Turkeies (Turquoises), both so perfect, as neither can
stain the other, each contending once for superiority, and now both constrained
to be equals. *Vesta’s bird* sitteth in the midst, whereat Cupid is ever
drawing, but dares not shoot, being amazed at the princely and perfect Majesty. [note - see 'Love's Martyr - 'Vesta's Bird' as Turtle-Dove?]
(snip)
At the last, resting under the shadow, he felt such content,
as nothing could be more comfortable. The days he spent in virtuous delights,
the night slipped away in golden Dreams; he was never annoyed with venomous enemies,
nor disquieted with idle cogitations.
Insomuch, that finding all felicity in that shade, and all
security in that Sun: he made a solemn vow, to INCORPORATE HIS HEART into that
Tree, and ENGRAFT HIS THOUGHTS upon those virtues, swearing, that as there is
but one Sun to shine over it, one root to give life unto it, one top to
maintain Majesty: so there should be but one Knight, either to live or die for
the defence thereof. Whereupon, he swore himself only to be the Knight of
the Tree of the Sun, whose life should end before his loyalty.
******************************
Sublime Courtship - Shakespeare's Sacrificial Sublime -
From Phoenix and Turtle - Shakespeare
Here the anthem doth commence:
Love and constancy is dead;
Phoenix and the Turtle fled
In a mutual flame from hence.
So they lov'd, as love in twain
Had the essence but in one;
Two distincts, division none:
Number there in love was slain.
Hearts remote, yet not asunder;
Distance and no space was seen
'Twixt this Turtle and his queen:
But in them it were a wonder.
So between them love did shine
That the Turtle saw his right
Flaming in the Phoenix' sight:
Either was the other's mine.
******************************
Oxford to Cecil – January 1602
Now the matter depending in this sort, I find my state weak
and destitute of friends, for having only relied always on her Majesty I have
neglected to seek others, and this trust of mine, many things considered, I
fear may deceive me.
*****************************
Edward de Vere to Robert Cecil, April 27, 1603-
...I cannot but find a great grief in myself to remember the mistress which we have lost, under whom both you and myself from our greenest years have been in a manner brought up and, although it hath pleased God after an earthly kingdom to take her up into a more permanent and heavenly state wherein I do not doubt but she is crowned with glory, and to give us a prince wise, learned and enriched with all virtues, yet the long time which we spent in her service we cannot look for so much left of our days as to bestow upon another, neither the long acquaintance and kind familiarities wherewith she did use us we are not ever to expect from another prince, as denied by the infirmity of age and common course of reason. In this common shipwreck, mine is above all the rest who, least regarded though often comforted of all her followers, she hath left to try my fortune among the alterations of time and chance, either without sail whereby to take the advantage of any PROSPEROus gale or with anchor to ride till the storm be overpast. There is nothing therefore left to my comfort but the excellent virtues and deep wisdom wherewith God hath endued our new master and sovereign Lord, who doth not come amongst us as a stranger but as a natural prince, succeeding by right of blood and inheritance, not as a conqueror but as the true shepherd of Christ's flock to cherish and comfort them.
*****************************
English Authorship and the Early Modern Sublime – Patrick Cheney
In Cynthia’s Revels, near the beginning of his career (first
printed 1600), Jonson uses the word twice, both surrounding the figure of Amorphus,
described by Mercury in Act 2, scene 3 as ‘a traveller, one so made out of the
mixture and shreds of forms that himself is truly deformed’ (66-7). In other
words, Amorphus is a figure of transport, and his composition, made up of ‘forms’
that are ‘deformed’, takes us into what we have previously described as Kantian
territory. Amorphus is that sublime figure of form that has none (curiously
akin to Marlowe’s Helen of Troy), accommodated to the Jonsonian public sphere,
where Amorphus’ ‘adaptability and social versatility is a form of shapelessness
which links the literal metamorphoses of Echo, Narcissus, and Acteaon, and the
cultural ones of Asotus and others’ in the action of the play. (Rassmussen and
Steggle).
In using the word ‘sublimated’, Amorphus stands before the
Fountain of Self-Love, having just conversed with Narcissus’o ne-time beloved,
the beautiful nymph Echo – who has just abandoned Amorphus – when Jonson’s
figure of formless form steps forth to take the plunge: ‘Liberal and divine
fount, suffer my profane hand to take of they bounties’. Intoxicated by ‘most
ambrosiac water’, he broods why the beguiling feminine potency of the well
should accept him but Echo turn her heel:
Knowing myself an essence so sublimated and refined by
travel, of so studied and well-exercised a gesture, so alone in fashion, able
to make the face of any statesman living, and to speak the mere extraction of
language…; to conclude, in all so happy as even admiration herself does seem to
fasten her kisses upon me; certes I do neither see, nor feel, nor taste, nor
savour the least steam or fume of a reason that should invite this foolish
fastidious nymph so peevishly to abandon me. (1.3.24-35; emphasis added)
Amorphus speaks the alchemical language of sublimity but
adapts it to his personal identity – his ability to transport himself into a
heightened state of ‘language’ that attracts the erotic ‘admiration’ of others –
in an appropriately comical language of hyperbolic elevation.
Specifically, Amorphus engages in narcissism by vaunting his
self-knowledge: ‘travel’ refines and ‘sublimate[s]’ his ‘essence’ into a quintessence
of gold, and such sublimity underwrites his social and political theatre,
during which he can ‘make the face of any statesman living’, as Jeremy Face will do to London citizens in the
Alchemist. Sublime transport here is not transcendent but political and social,
the Protean self enlivened, capable of adapting to exigency, endlessly. Self-consciously,
Jonson makes comically sublime theatre out of a comically sublime theatrical
character. We might even see here an impressive staging of the kind of comical
hyperbole discussed by Longinus in On Sublimity, which is one form that the
sublime can take: ‘acts and emotion which approach ecstasy provide a
justification for, and an antidote to, any linguistic audacity. This is why
comic hyperboles, for all their incredulity, are convincing because we laugh at
them so much…Laughter is emotion in amusement’.
(snip)
Jonson’s linking of sublimity with a character named ‘Amorphus’
merits pause, because this agile figure looks like a photographic negative of
Jonson himself. Without question, the author-figure in Cynthia’s Revels is
Criticus (called Crites in the Folio edition), ‘the poet-scholar’ of “Judgement’
who ‘represents Jonson’s literary, philosophical, and ethical ideals’ (Bednarz,
Shakespeare & The Poets’ War 159-60), and who becomes the play’s arch-enemy
to Amorphus and the motley crew of corrupt courtiers, Hedon, Anaides, ad
Asotus. According to James Bednarz, Amorphus is a figure who represents ‘Deformit’
and the ‘lack of true conviction’, and who becomes enamoured of a nymph who
happens to be named Phantaste or ‘fantasy’ (159-600. In these terms, the project
of the play is to ‘replac[e]…the rhetoric of “nature’ and “instinct” staged in
Marston’s Jack Drum with the sterner interdictions of “art” and “judgement” in
a larger “allegory of self-knowlledge’ (160). According to Bednarz, Marston had
rejected Jonson’s rational, judgemental poetics in favour of one based on
imaginative instinct, which Jonson then shows to be purged of cultural
authority.
Nonetheless, as Rasmussen and Steggle write, Amorphus ‘prefigures
Jonson’s later tricksters’ in being ‘at the centre of the play’s action due to
his energy and inventiveness, both verbal and physical’. Rasmussen and Steggle
go so far as to see Amorphus as akin to Jonson himself: ‘biographically Jonson
is more like Amorphus than Criticus’, citing Jonson’s ‘experiences in foreign
travel’ and his ‘natural charisma and drive’. Even ‘Amorphus’s weaknesses (lack
of money and tendency to exaggerate) are close to those of Jonson;. Wisely,
Rasmussen and Steggle caution against ‘claim[ing] that Amorphus “is” Jonson, or
even to over-allegorize the tension between Amorphus and his nemesis Criticus’
(eds. 1:435); but they do help us see that the figure of Amorphus qualifies as
a *sublime counter-Jonsonian author-figure*. (pp. 220-1)
**************************************
Othello
Not I, I must be
found.
My parts, my title,
and my perfect soul
Shall manifest me
rightly.
**************************************
a sublime counter-Jonsonian author-figure: pillorying the False Sublime
Jonson’s Mock Encomium and the Hyperbolical Sublime: Above
the need/Since thy flight from hence
71Sweet Swan of Avon! what a *sight* it were (Jonson’s
suspicion of sight/seeming/seem shake lance)
72To *see thee in
our waters yet appear*, (uroscopy/disease)
73And make those
flights upon the banks of Thames, (Mount/bank)
74That so did take
Eliza and our James! (take/deceive)
******************************
Patrick Cheney, English Authorship and the Early Modern Sublime:
[... ] Indeed, the word [sublime] as a noun and adjective is fundamentally a sixteenth-century invention. According to Shaw, the word 'sublime' means 'The highest of the high; that which is without comparison; the awe-inspiring or overpowering; the unbounded and the undetermined'. Yet the Oxford Classical Dictionary recalls that the word derives from the Latin sublimitas, and comes to mean 'that quality of genius in great literary works which irresistibly delights, inspires, and overwhelms the reader. Fortuitously, the OED's first recorded example under Definition 2, 'Of language, style, or a literary work: expressing noble ideas in a grand and elevated manner', traces to Angel Day, who, in his 1586 English Secretorie, discusses the three styles of rhetoric: low, middle, and high of 'sublime'. the sublime style, Day says, is
the highest and statelyest maner, and loftiest deliverance of anye thing that maye bee, expressing the heroicall and mightye actions of Kinges, Princes, and other honourable personages, the stile whereof is sayde to be tragicall swelling in choyce, and those the most hautiest termes. (p.5)
Patrick Cheney, English Authorship and the Early Modern Sublime:
[... ] Indeed, the word [sublime] as a noun and adjective is fundamentally a sixteenth-century invention. According to Shaw, the word 'sublime' means 'The highest of the high; that which is without comparison; the awe-inspiring or overpowering; the unbounded and the undetermined'. Yet the Oxford Classical Dictionary recalls that the word derives from the Latin sublimitas, and comes to mean 'that quality of genius in great literary works which irresistibly delights, inspires, and overwhelms the reader. Fortuitously, the OED's first recorded example under Definition 2, 'Of language, style, or a literary work: expressing noble ideas in a grand and elevated manner', traces to Angel Day, who, in his 1586 English Secretorie, discusses the three styles of rhetoric: low, middle, and high of 'sublime'. the sublime style, Day says, is
the highest and statelyest maner, and loftiest deliverance of anye thing that maye bee, expressing the heroicall and mightye actions of Kinges, Princes, and other honourable personages, the stile whereof is sayde to be tragicall swelling in choyce, and those the most hautiest termes. (p.5)
Angel Day, The English Secretary - Dedication to Oxford
To the right Honourable Lord, EDWARD de VERE, Earle of
Oxenford, Viscount Bulbeck, Lord Sandford and of Badelesmere, and Lord great
Camberlaine of England, all Honour and happinesse, correspondent to his
most Noble de- sires, and in the commutation of this earthlie beeing, endlesse
ioyes and an euerlasting habitation.
ZEVXES endeuou|ring to paint excellent lie, made Grapes in
shewe so naturall, that presenting them to view men were deceaued with their
shapes and the birdes with their cullours. When Apelles drew Venus
(though the shew of bewtie seemed woonder|ful) he daunted not in his workmanship,
because he knew his cunning excellent.
If
in penning I were as skilful as the least of these in painting: I should neither
faint to present a discourse to Alexander, nor to tell a tale to a Philosopher.
My honourable L. the exceeding bountie wherewith your good
L. hath euer wonted to entertaine the desertes of all men, and very apparaunce
of Nobility her selfe, wel known to haue reposed her delights in the worthines
of your stately mind warranteth me: almost, that I need not blush to recommend
vnto your curteous vew, the first fruits of these my formost labours, and to
honour this present discourse with the memorie of your euerlasting worthinesse.
And albeit by the learned view and insight of your L. whose infancy from the
beginning was euer sacred to the Muses, the whole course heereof
may be found nothing suche, as in the lowest part of the same may appeare in
any sort answerable to so greate and forward excellence: and that the
continuaunce of this slender substance, is in no point matchable to manie thinges
of greater science, passing vnder your honourable countenaunce: yet may your L.
please to consider, that presentes (not out of the riche store and plentye a
lone of the wealthiest) are alwaies receiued as testimonies of regarde, in the
reputation of the mightiest: but sometimes trifles also ensuing of lesse
habilitie, (not honoured or reputed of by theyr valew, but by the generous estate
and surpassing bountie of the receiuer) are accompted of, moste espe|cially.
For the shrowd of my defence, that haue so much dared vpon
presumption of your accustomed fauor, to infixe your honoured name in the
forefronte of this my traueile: I can propoze no one in example vnto your L.
more worthie then your selfe, who not vnacquainted with the speciall partes and
aeternized memorie of them all, haue long since endeuoured your self to become
a noble patterne of them all, the exemplifieng of whose praise, cannot by anie
speeches of mine, be herein more greatlye put forwardes, then the same long
since hath bene published by the renowme of your own proper vertues.
My humble request vnto your L. is, that your gentle
acceptance hereof may be an encouragement to my after endeuours, for whose sake
I knowe the same shalbe of many regarded,
and the
insufficiency thereof the better protected. In which, besides the continuall
manifestation of your owne worthinesse, your L. shall binde me to honor you in
al duetie and humblenes, praying the eternall creator and guid of all your
stately enterprises, to haue the same with your L. in his fauorable
pro|tection.
Your L. most deuoted and loyally affected. Angel Daie.
*****************************
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:
****************************
Constraining/Holding/Ruling Shakespeare's Sublime Quill:
From To the Deceased Author of these Poems (William Cartwright)
by Jasper Mayne
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)
****************************
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:
****************************
Constraining/Holding/Ruling Shakespeare's Sublime Quill:
From To the Deceased Author of these Poems (William Cartwright)
by Jasper Mayne
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)
****************************
Beauty/Budd
Truth/Vere
Melville's Sacrificial Sublime - Billy/book/heir/sublimated essence/Marston's 'Wondrous Creature'
At sea in the old time, the execution by halter of a
military sailor was generally from the fore-yard. In the present instance, *for
special reasons the main-yard was assigned*. Under an arm of that lee-yard the
prisoner was presently brought up, the Chaplain attending him. It was noted at
the time and remarked upon afterwards, that in this final scene the good man
evinced little or nothing of the perfunctory. Brief speech indeed he had with
the condemned one, but the genuine Gospel was less on his tongue than in his
aspect and manner towards him. The final preparations personal to the latter
being speedily brought to an end by two boatswain's mates, the consummation
impended. Billy stood facing aft. At the penultimate moment, his words, his
only ones, words wholly unobstructed in the utterance were these--"God
bless Captain Vere!" Syllables so unanticipated coming from one with the
ignominious hemp about his neck-- a conventional felon's benediction directed
aft towards the quarters of honor; syllables too delivered in the clear melody
of a singing-bird on the point of launching from the twig, had a phenomenal
effect, not unenhanced by the rare personal beauty of the young sailor
*spiritualized now thro' late experiences so poignantly profound*.
Without volition as it were, as if indeed the ship's
populace were but the vehicles of some vocal current electric, with one voice
from alow and aloft came a resonant sympathetic echo--"God bless Captain
Vere!" And yet at that instant Billy alone must have been in their hearts,
even as he was in their eyes.
At the pronounced words and the spontaneous echo that
voluminously rebounded them, Captain Vere, either thro' stoic self-control or a
sort of *momentary paralysis induced by emotional shock*, stood erectly rigid as
a musket in the ship-armorer's rack.
The hull deliberately recovering from the periodic roll to
leeward was just regaining an even keel, when the last signal, a preconcerted
dumb one, was given. At the same moment it chanced that the vapory fleece
hanging low in the East, was shot thro' with a soft glory as of the fleece of
the Lamb of God seen in mystical vision, and simultaneously therewith, watched
by the wedged mass of upturned faces, Billy ascended; and, ascending, took the
full rose of the dawn.
In the *****PINIONED FIGURE*****, arrived at the yard-end, to the WONDER of all no motion was apparent, none save that created by the ship's
motion, in moderate weather so majestic in a great ship ponderously
cannoned.
False Sublime -
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 Mere Being
By Wallace Stevens
The palm at the end of the mind,
Beyond the last thought, rises
In the bronze decor,
A gold-feathered bird
Sings in the palm, without human meaning,
Without human feeling, a foreign song.
You know then that it is not the reason
That makes us happy or unhappy.
The bird sings. Its feathers shine.
The palm stands on the edge of space.
The wind moves slowly in the branches.
The bird's fire-fangled feathers dangle down.
