For the most part I agree with you. But the question is what did Jonson think? Did this figure represent good or bad form from Jonson's neoclassical perspective?
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Edward Herbert, Baron Herbert of Cherbury
To his Friend Ben Johnson, of his Horace made English.
'TWas not enough, Ben Johnson, to be thought
Of English Poets best, but to have brought
In greater state, to their acquaintance, one
So equal to himself and thee, that none
Might be thy second, while thy Glory is,
To be the Horace of our times and his.
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Horace - Inaequalis Tonsor
If I meet you with my hair cut by an uneven barber, you laugh [at me]: if I chance to have a ragged shirt under a handsome coat, or if my disproportioned gown fits me ill, you laugh.
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Horace Of the Art of Poetry - transl. Ben Jonson
...Most writers, noble sire and either son,
Are, with the likeness of the truth, undone.
Myself for shortness labour, and I grow
Obscure. This, striving to run smooth,
and flow,
Hath neither soul nor sinews. Lofty he
Professing greatness, swells; that, low by lee,
Creeps on the ground; too safe, afraid of storm.
This seeking, in a various kind, to form
One thing PRODIGIOUSLY, paints in the woods
A dolphin, and a boar amid the floods.
So shunning faults to greater fault doth lead,
When in a WRONG AND ARTLESS WAY WE TREAD.
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Footnotes to Horace _Art of Poetry_
A Monstrous Figure:
"The word PRODIGIALITER apparently refers to that fictitious monster, under which the poet allusively shadows out the idea of absurd and inconsistent composition. The application, however, differs in this, that, whereas the monster, there painted, was intended to expose the
extravagance of putting together incongruous parts, without any reference to a whole, this prodigy is designed to characterize a whole, but deformed by the ill-judged position of its parts. The former is like a monster, whose several members as of right belonging to different animals, could by no disposition be made to constitute one consistent animal. The other, like a landscape which hath no objects absolutely irrelative, or irreducible to a whole, but which a wrong position of the parts only renders prodigious. Send the boar to the woods, and the dolphin to the waves; and the painter might show them both on the same canvas.
Each is a violation of the law of unity, and a real monster: the one, because it contains an assemblage of natural incoherent parts; the other, because its parts, though in themselves coherent, are misplaced and disjointed."
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Quintus Horatius Flaccus his Book of the Art of Poetry to the PISO'S.
transl. Ben Jonson
IF to a womans head, a painter would
A horse neck joyn, & sundry plumes or-fold
On every limb, ta'ne from a several creature,
Presenting upwards a fair female feature,
Which in a blacke foule fish uncomely ends:
Admitted to the sight, although his friends,
Could you containe your laughter? credit me,
That Book, my Piso's, and this piece agree,
Whose shapes like sick mens dreams are form'd so vain,
As neither head, nor foot, one forme retain.
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Selfhood and the Soul
Shadi Bartsch
"The Ars Poetica, which began with a* disconnected human head as a sign of faulty poetic skill* now ends, with the three words 'plena cruoris hirudo',a leech full of blood" to indict not the untalented man, but the crazy one.'
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Shakespeare in France
It was only in the early 18th c. that Shakespeare became known across the Channel, mainly through the writings of Prévost and, in particular, Voltaire's Lettres philosophiques. Voltaire's praise of the English playwright was quite bold, and he drew inspiration from him for his own dramatic innovations (more spectacular stage action, local colour, etc.). However, his attitude was from the beginning divided (as was that of many English contemporaries), and in later years his hostility was expressed more openly. For all his genius, Shakespeare's IRREGULAR plays seemed monstrous by French standards— pearls in a dunghill. Diderot described him grandly as a ‘colosse gothique’.
http://www.answers.com/topic/shakespeare-in-france
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.Horace, Art of Poetry
Earl of Roscommon
Quintilius (if his advice were ask'd)
Would freely tell you what you should correct,
Or (if you could not) bid you blot it out,
And with more care supply the vacancy;
But if he found you fond, and obstinate
(And apter to defend than mend your faults)
With silenc leave you to admire your self,
And without Rival hugg your darling Book.
The prudent care of an Impartial friend,
Will give you notice of each idle Line,
Shew what sounds harsh, & what wants ornament,
Or where it is too lavishly bestowed;
Make you explain all that he finds Obscure,
And with a strict Enquiry mark your faults;
Nor for these trifles fear to loose your love;
Those things, which now seem frivolous, & slight,
Will be of serious consequence to you,
When they have made you once Ridiculous.
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Jonson, Timber
The COMMENDATION of good things may fall within a many, their approbation but in a few· for the most COMMEND OUT OF AFFECTION, selfe tickling, an easinesse, or imitation: but MEN iudge only out of *KNOWLEDGE*. That is the trying faculty. -- Jonson
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Jonson - Benevolent/Malevolent
I remember, the Players have often mentioned it as an honour to Shakespeare, that in his writing, (whatsoever he penn'd) hee never blotted out line. My answer hath beene, would he had blotted a thousand. Which they thought a MALEVOLENT speech. I had not told posterity this, but for their IGNORANCE, who choose that circumstance to COMMEND their friend by, wherein he most FAULTED...
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Dull Grinning Ignorance:
John Beaumont , Jonsonus Virbius
...Twas he that found (plac'd) in the seat of wit,
DULL grinning IGNORANCE, and banish'd it;
He on the prostituted stage appears
To make men hear, not by their eyes, but ears;
Who painted virtues, that each one might know,
And point the man, that did such treasure owe :
So that who could in JONSON'S lines be high
Needed not honours, or a riband buy ;
But vice he only shewed us in a glass,
Which by reflection of those rays that pass,
Retains the FIGURE lively, set before,
And that withdrawn, reflects at us no more;
So, he observ'd the like decorum, when
*He whipt the vices, and yet spar'd the men* :
When heretofore, the Vice's only note,
And sign from virtue was his party-coat;
When devils were the last men on the stage,
And pray'd for plenty, and the PRESENT AGE.
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Jonson, Timber
De Poetica. - We have spoken sufficiently of oratory, let us now make a diversion to poetry. Poetry, in the primogeniture, had many peccant humours, and is made to have more now, through the levity and inconstancy of men' s judgments. Whereas, indeed, it is the most prevailing eloquence, and of the most exalted caract. Now the discredits and disgraces are many it hath received through men' s study of depravation or calumny; their practice being to give it diminution of credit, by lessening the professor' s estimation, and making THE AGE afraid of their liberty; and THE AGE is grown so tender of her fame, as she calls all writings ASPERSIONS.
That is the state word, the PHRASE OF COURT (placentia college), which some call PARASITES PLACE, the INN OF IGNORANCE.
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Adulatio. Jonson, Timber
875 I have seene, that Poverty makes men doe unfit things; but honest men should not doe them: they should gaine otherwise. Though a man bee hungry, hee should not play the Parasite. That houre, wherein I would repent me to be honest: there were wayes enow open for me to be rich. But Flattery is a fine Pick-lock of tender eares: especially of those, fortune hath borne high upon their wings, that submit their dignity, and authority to it, by a soothing of themselves. For indeed men could never be taken, in that abundance, with the Sprindges of others Flattery, if they began not there; if they did but remember, how much more profitable the bitternesse of Truth were, then all the honey distilling from a whorish voice; which is not praise, but poyson. But now it is come to that extreme folly, or rather madnesse with some: that he that flatters them modestly, or sparingly, is thought to maligne them. If their friend consent not to their vices, though hee doe not contradict them; hee is neverthelesse an enemy. When they doe all things the WORST WAY, even then they looke for praise. Nay, they will hire fellowes to flatter them with suites, and suppers, and to prostitute their judgements. They have Livery-friends, friends of the dish, and of the Spit, that waite their turnes, as my Lord has his feasts, and guests.
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Horace, of the Art of Poetrie
transl. Ben Jonson
If to Quintilius, you recited ought:
Hee'd say, Mend this, good friend, and this; "Tis naught.
If you denied, you had no better straine,
And twice, or thrice had 'ssayd it, still in vaine:
Hee'd bid, BLOT ALL: and to the anvile bring
Those ill-torn'd Verses, to new hammering.
Then: If your fault you rather had defend
Then change. *No word, or worke, more would he spend
In vaine, BUT YOU, AND YOURS, YOU SHOULD LOVE STILL
Alone, without a rivall, by his will*.
A wise, and honest man will cry out shame
On ARTELESS Verse; the hard ones he will blame;
Blot out the careless, with his turned pen;
Cut off superfluous ornaments; and when
They're darke, bid cleare this: all that's doubtfull wrote
Reprove; and, what is to be changed, not:
Become an Aristarchus. And, not say,
Why should I grieve my FRIEND, this trifling WAY?
These trifles into serious mischiefs lead
The man once mock'd, and SUFFERED WRONG TO TREAD.
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Cartwright, to Jonson (in Jonsonus Virbius)
...Blest life of Authors, unto whom we owe
Those that we have, and those that we want too:
Th'art all so good, that reading makes thee worse,
And to have writ so well's thine onely curse.
Secure then of thy merit, thou didst hate
That servile base dependance upon fate:
Successe thou ne'r thoughtst vertue, nor that fit,
EXCLUDING THOSE FROM LIFE IN AFTER-TIME,
Who thought the peoples breath good ayre: sty'ld name
What was but noise; and getting Briefes for fame
Gathered the many's suffrages, and thence
That best applause of being crown'd within..
1611 - Catiline
To the Great Example of H O N O U R and V E R T U E, the most Noble
W I L L I A M
E A R L of P E M B R O K E , L O R D C H A M B E R L A I N, &c.
M Y L O R D,
IN so thick and dark an IGNORANCE, as now almost covers the AGE, I crave leave to stand near your Light, and by that to be read. Posterity may pay your Benefit the Honour and Thanks, when it shall know, that you dare, in these Jig-given times, to countenance a Legitimate Poem. I must call it so, against all noise of Opinion: from whose crude and airy Reports, I appeal to that great and singular Faculty of Judgment in your Lordship, able to vindicate Truth from Error.
*************************************
Catiline, Jonson
TO THE READER IN ORDINARIE.
THE Muses forbid, that I should restrayne your medling, whom I see alreadie busie with the Title, and tricking ouer the leaues: It is your owne. I departed with my right, when I let it first abroad. And, now, so secure an Interpreter I am of my chance, that neither praise, nor dispraise from you can affect mee. Though you COMMEND the two first Actes, with the people, because they are the worst; and dislike the Oration of Cicero, in regard you read some pieces of it, at School, and vnderstand them not yet; I shall finde the way to forgiue you. Be any thing you will be, at your owne charge. Would I had deseru'd but halfe so well of it in translation, as that ought to deserue of you in iudgment, if you haue any. I know you will pretend (whosoeuer you are) to haue that, and more. But all pretences are not iust claymes. The COMMENDATION of good things may fall within a many, their approbation but in a few· for the most COMMEND OUT OF AFFECTION, selfe tickling, an easinesse, or imitation: but MEN iudge only out of knowledge. That is the trying faculty. And, to those workes that will beare a Iudge, nothing is more dangerous then A FOOLISH PRAYSE. You will say I shall not haue yours, therfore; but rather the contrary, all vexation of Censure. If I were not aboue such molestations now, I had great cause to thinke vnworthily of my studies, or they had so of mee. But I leaue you to your exercise. Beginne.
To the Reader extraordinary.
You I would vnderstand to be the better Man, though Places in Court go otherwise: to you I submit my selfe, and worke. Farewell.
BEN: IONSON.
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A Foolish Praise:
Jonson on Shakespeare:
But these WAYS
Were NOT the PATHS I meant unto thy PRAISE ;
For seeliest ignorance on these may light,
Which, when it sounds at best, BUT ECHOES RIGHT ;
Or blind affection, which doth ne'er advance
The truth, but gropes, and urgeth all by chance ;
Or crafty malice might pretend this praise,
And think to ruin where it SEEMED to raise.
These are, as some infamous bawd or whore
Should praise a matron ; what could hurt her more ?
But thou art proof against them, and, indeed,
Above the ill fortune of them, or the need.
I therefore will begin: Soul of the age!
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Jonson, Cynthia's Revels
P R O L O G U E.
I
IF gracious silence, sweet attention,
Quick sight, and quicker apprehension,
(The lights of Judgments throne) shine any where;
Our doubtful Author hopes this is their Sphere.
And therefore opens he himself to those;
To other weaker Beams his labours close:
As loth to prostitute their Virgin strain,
To ev'ry vulgar and adult'rate Brain,
In this alone, his Muse her sweetness hath,
She shuns the print of any beaten PATH;
And proves new ways to come to learned Ears:
Pied ignorance she neither loves nor, fears.
Nor hunts she after popular Applause,
Or fomy praise, that drops from common Jaws:
The Garland that she wears, their bands must twine,
Who can both censure, understand, define
What merit is: Then cast those piercing Rays,
Round as a Crown, instead of honour'd Bays,
About his Poesie; which (he knows) affords
Words, above action: MATTER, ABOVE WORDS.
********************************
Horace
Hor. lib. 2. Epist. 1.
But lest you think 'tis niggard praise I fling
To bards who soar where I ne'er stretched a wing,
That man I hold TRUE MASTER of his ART
Who with fictitious woes can wring my heart,
Can rouse me, soothe me, pierce me with the thrill
Of vain alarm, and, as by magic skill,
Bear me to Thebes, to Athens, where he will.
Now turn to us shy mortals, who, instead
Of being hissed and acted, would be read:
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"Nos demiramur, sed non cum deside vulgo,
Sed velut Harpyas, Gorgonas, et Furias."
"We marvel too, not as the vulgar we,
But as we Gorgons, Harpies, or Furies see."
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Epigraph Sejanus -- Jonson
Non hic Centauros, non Gorgonas, Harpyiasque
Invenies: Hominem pagina nostra sapit. Mart.
(No Centaurs here, or Gorgons, look to find:
My subject is of man and humane kind.)
***************************************
Jonson, Timber
...BUT WHY DO men depart at all from the RIGHT and NATURAL *WAYS* of speaking? sometimes for necessity, when we are driven, or think it fitter, *to speak that in obscure words*, or by circumstance, which uttered plainly would offend the hearers. Or to avoid obsceneness, or sometimes for pleasure, and variety, as travellers turn out of the highway, drawn either by the commodity of a footpath, or the delicacy or freshness of the fields. And all this is called åó÷çìáôéóìåíç (eschematismene) or FIGURED LANGUAGE.
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Jonson, _Discoveries_
AFFECTED language:
De vere argutis.--I do hear them say often some men are not witty, because they are not everywhere witty; than which nothing is more foolish. If an eye or a nose be an excellent part in the face, therefore be all eye or nose! I think the eyebrow, the forehead, the cheek, chin, lip, or any part else are as necessary and natural in the place. But now nothing is good that is natural; right and natural language seems to have least of the wit in it; that which is writhed and tortured is counted the more exquisite. Cloth of bodkin or tissue must be embroidered; as if no face were fair that were not powdered or painted! no beauty to be had but in wresting and writhing our own tongue! Nothing is fashionable till it be DEFORMED; and this is to write like a gentleman. All must be AFFECTED and preposterous as our GALLANTS' clothes, sweet-bags, and night-dressings, in which you would think our men lay in, like ladies, it is so CURIOUS.
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Sweet Swan of Avon...who Seems:
The idea of ancient literary criticism
By Yun Lee
...In his treatise On Style, Demetrius declares that figured language must be employed if somebody wishes to address and to criticize either a tyrant or a powerful individual, and he advocates this as a middle course between flattery, which is base, and direct criticism, which is dangerous. Ahl notes, in an essay entitled 'The Art of Safe Criticism', that Quintilian, Vespasian's imperial rhetorician, subsequently elaborates Demetrius' account of the political use of figured language at Institutio oratoria 9.2.66. Quintilian sets out three different occasions on which figured language, which he defines as language that is changed from its most obvious and uncomplicated usage by poetic or oratorical usage (9.1.13), may be employed. The first of These concerns when it is dangerous to speak openly; the second concerns propriety - where the Latin 'it is not fitting/ suitable ('non decet' ) perhaps renders the Greek 'improper' (aprepes); while the third advocates the use of figured language where the novelty of such structures may produce delight and pleasure (. Of these three occasions, the first is the most obviously political, and what Quintilian proposes is a need for the author in question to tread warily around authority, particularly as author and political leader may be at odds. The following section of the work suggests that the rhetorician has in mind the empire, figured as tyranny: he cites the use of rhetorical figures in school exercises which require pupils to produce speeches to instigate rebellion against despots without speaking too plainly to tyrants (9.2.67).
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Liking Men:
Ben Jonson's Closet Opened
Lorna Hutson
University of St. Andrews
In the prologue to the revised text of Every Man In, Jonson distinguishes the play that he presents as the "first fruits" of his dramatic career from the offerings of the more popular Shakespearean tradition, in which playwrights disregarded neoclassical poetics, happily ignoring the principle of unity of time. He declares that he has not "so loved the stage" as to follow the example of his contemporaries, who
. . . make a child, now swaddled to proceed
Man, and then shoot up in one beard and weed,
Past threescore years; or, with three rusty swords,
And help of some few foot and half-foot words,
Fight over York and Lancaster's long jars,
And in the tiring-house bring wounds to scars.4
The often-heard complaint of earlier humanist authors against the chronicle drama's violations of temporal probability is here given a peculiarly Jonsonian inflection in the reference to "three rusty swords" and the quick-changes of "wounds to scars" backstage. Jonson, unlike Shakespeare, persistently draws attention to the "inert materiality" and "creaking contrivances" of theater. Here, of course, the demystification of these contrivances works to invalidate any techniques of illusion except for those of linguistic currency and contemporaneity. Jonson's play, unlike those chronicle histories of Shakespeare, will seem real because it offers images of "deeds, and language, such as men do use" in contemporary life, enlivened by examples of the unmanly commission of "POPULAR ERRORS":
I mean such ERRORS as you'll all confess
By laughing at them, they deserve no less:
Which, when you heartily do, there's hope left then
You that have so grac'd monsters may like men.
("Prologue," 26-30)
The ERRORS to be staged in Jonson's play for the delectation of the audience, then, are aspects of those plays they have elsewhere applauded or "grac'd." These will be on display as "monsters," foils against which what is likeable about "men" will appear. The category not just of men, but of "likeable men," is thus elided with the persuasive power of a verisimilar, unified dramatic action: "You that have so grac'd monsters"-that have clapped at ILL-FORMED PLAYS- may now direct a more discriminating and appreciative gaze at the "natural," "manly" form of this play.
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Cynthia's Revels, (Act IV, Sc. I) - Jonson (Satirizing a Courtly game of Substantives and Adjectives)
Philautia: Popular
Phantaste: Why "popular" breeches?
Philautia: Marry, that is, when they are not content to be generally noted in court, but will press FORTH on common stages and brokers' stalls, to the public view of the world.
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An Essay on Criticism - -- Alexander Pope
(Snip)
Great Wits sometimes may gloriously offend,
And rise to faults true Critics dare not mend;
From vulgar bounds with brave DISORDER PART,
And snatch a grace beyond the reach of Art,
Which, without passing thro' the judgment, gains
The heart, and all its end at once attains.
(snip)
But tho' the ancients thus their rules invade,
(As Kings dispense with laws themselves have made)
Moderns, beware! or if you must offend
Against the precept, ne'er transgress its end;
Let it be seldom, and compell'd by need;
And have at least their precedent to plead;
The Critic else proceeds without remorse,
SEIZES YOUR FAME, and puts his laws in force..
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"Neque, me ut MIRETUR turba, laboro: / Contentus paucis lectoribus" -
" I do not expend my efforts so that the multitude may *wonder* at me:
I am contented with a few READERS"
Jonson, Epigraph, Workes
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Droeshout Engraving - two left arms and a mask - Nabokov, Bend Sinister
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ambisinister
n. left-handed in both hands; awkward. WRONG in both hands.
***************************************
Awk \Awk\, adv.
Perversely; in the wrong way. --L'Estrange.
Awk \Awk\ ([add]k), a. [OE. auk, awk (properly) turned away;
(hence) contrary, wrong, from Icel. ["o]figr, ["o]fugr,
afigr, turning the wrong way, fr. af off, away; cf. OHG.
abuh, Skr. ap[=a]c turned away, fr. apa off, away + a root
ak, a[u^]k, to bend, from which come also E. angle, anchor.]
1. Odd; out of order; perverse. [Obs.]
2. Wrong, or not commonly used; clumsy; sinister; as, the awk
end of a rod (the but end). [Obs.] --Golding.
3. Clumsy in performance or manners; unhandy; not dexterous;
awkward. [Obs. or Prov. Eng.]
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Sinister \Sin"is*ter\ (s[i^]n"[i^]s*t[~e]r; 277), a.
Note: [Accented on the middle syllable by the older poets, as
Shakespeare, Milton, Dryden.] [L. sinister: cf. F.
sinistre.]
1. On the left hand, or the side of the left hand; left; --
opposed to dexter, or right. ``Here on his sinister
cheek.'' --Shak.
My mother's blood Runs on the dexter cheek, and this
sinister Bounds in my father's --Shak.
Note: In heraldy the sinister side of an escutcheon is the
side which would be on the left of the bearer of the
shield, and opposite the right hand of the beholder.
2. Unlucky; inauspicious; disastrous; injurious; evil; -- the
left being usually regarded as the unlucky side; as,
sinister influences.
All the several ills that visit earth, Brought forth
by night, with a sinister birth. --B. Jonson.
3. WRONG, as springing from indirection or obliquity;
perverse; dishonest; corrupt; as, sinister aims.
Nimble and sinister tricks and shifts. --Bacon.
He scorns to undermine another's interest by any
sinister or inferior arts. --South.
He read in their looks . . . sinister intentions
directed particularly toward himself. --Sir W.
Scott.
4. Indicative of lurking evil or harm; boding covert danger;
as, a sinister countenance.
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Figuring Disorder:
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 :
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Then, Crites, practise thy DISCRETION. -- Jonson
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Puttenham, Shakespeare, and the abuse of rhetoric
Studies in English Literature, 1500 - 1900; Houston; Winter 1996;
Hillman, David
abstract:
Hillman examines the way in which criss-crossing shaped the uses of the word "discretion" in early modern England. George Puttenham's "The Art of English Poesie" and some of William Shakespeare's plays are examined for their use of the word "discretion."
(snip)
...The term came into prominence in a wide range of texts and acquired a new range of meanings during the early modern period. According to the OED, the word had, prior to 1590, denoted personal "judgement," "discernment," or "prudence," as well as juridical "power of disposal" (in addition to being an honorific title, in such phrases as "your high and wise discretion").(6) But early modern discourse saw a burgeoning of overlapping meanings in a variety of cultural spheres. These included personal attributes (tact, propriety of behavior, or secrecy--in explicit contrast to madness, impertinence, and rashness); a social classification (the separation of those who possess these attributes--the "discreet"--from those who do not, and of those who have reached the "age of discretion" from those who have not); the legal power to enforce this stratification (the authority or "discretion of the law"); and the ostensibly purely aesthetic separations of literary decorum (the discrezione or "discernment" of Italian neoclassical literary theory; the Indo-European base of the word--* (s)ker, TO CUT--is in fact the same as that of "CRITIC").
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Jonson, Cynthia's Revels
Dear Arete, and Crites, to you two
We give the Charge; impose what Pains you please:
TH' INCURABLE CUT OFF, the rest REFORM,
Remembring ever what we first decreed,
Since Revels were proclaim'd, let now none bleed.
Arete. How well Diana can distinguish Times,
And sort her Censures, keeping to her self
The Doom of Gods, leaving the rest to us?
Come, cite them, Crites, first, and then proceed.
Crites. First, Philautia, (for she was the first)
Then light Gelaia, in Aglaias Name;
Thirdly, Phantaste, and Moria next,
Main Follies all, and of the Female Crew:
Amorphus, or Eucosmos Counterfeit,
Voluptuous Hedon, ta'ne for Eupathes,
Brazen Anaides, and Asotus last,
With his two Pages, Morus and Prosaites;
And thou, the Traveller's Evil, Cos, approach,
Impostors all, and Male DEFORMITIES ----
Are. Nay, forward, for I delegate my Power,
And will that at thy Mercy they do stand,
Whom they so oft, so plainly scorn'd before.
"'Tis Vertue which they want, and wanting it,
"HONOUR NO GARMENT TO THEIR BACKS CAN FIT.
Then, Crites, practise thy DISCRETION.
(crites - criticus in quarto)
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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.
A Quill, RUL'D by sharp Judgement, and such Laws,
Thy Lamp was cherish’d with suppolied of Oyle,
Fetch’d from the Romane and the Graecian soyle. (snip)
Disarticulating Fantasies: Figures of Speech, Vices, and the Blazon in Renaissance English Rhetoric
Grant Williams
In English Renaissance rhetoric manuals, the figure personifies language through a devious imaginary process. A common Renaissance appellation for figure, ornament, signals rhetorics sartorial capacity to dress language up as a desirable body. English rhetoricians regularly conceptualize the figure in terms of an ornament beautifying clothing; for example, in Henry Peacham, figures garnish speech just as perarls adorn “a gorfious Garment “ (f, A#); and in George Puttenham, the poet is like an embroiderer who sets a “stone and perle” or “passement of gold” upon “a Princely garment: (115). According to this logic, ornaments are inessential embellishments by which an already precious garment acquires an aesthetic enhancement, without threatening the garment’s originary autonomy. Yet, upon further inspection, the ornaments adorning these passages on ornaments betray their foundational, rather than subordinate, relationship to the ornamented speech. It is precisely the ornamented garement that permits speech to have an identity above and beyond the ornament.(…)The speech as a desirable object is likewise the imaginary effect of the figure as ornament.
However, ornament, congruent with Renaissance usage, may signify not only the embellishment on the garment but also the garment itself. For example, in Thomas Wilson, figures dress the actual speech in appropriate or inappropriate clothes (195). The slippage from “ornament on the clothing” to “ornament as clothing” suggests once more the figure’s constitutive function in conceptualizing speech. The figure can become anything the speech is, simply because the speech has been nothing but a figure. Language folded back onto itself, the sartorial figure quite literally echoes a famous fashion statement: “the clothes make the man.” By dressing up in fancy attire, the speech becomes a desirable body.
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In the Renaissance discourse of rhetoric, the figure involves itself in identity formation in two fundamental ways: it may reflect or project the writer/reader’s ego. With respect to an egocentric reflection, figures treat language as a site where the subject can master himself. Attempts at mastering language correspond to attempts at self-mastery, since “English rhetoricians are profoundly cognizant of the fact that language constitutes the domain of identity, although, as mentioned, they tend to domesticate the symbolic order, failing to move beyond the imaginary dialectic of self and other. In his section on ornament, Puttenham suggests the process by which figures permit the subject to gain an illusory ascendancy over the self: they equip the writer or speaker with the means to burnish and fashion his language into a “style” (119), which amounts to nothing less than “the image of man [mentus character] for man is but his mind” (124). This argument about style being the image of the speaker/writer is a popular topos in Renaissance writing and finds its most lucid expression in Jonson’s Timber or Discoveries, a text, like Puttenham’s , which conjoins rhetoric with poetry. Quoting in the margin Vives’s terse expression “Oratio imago animi,” that is, “speech is the image of the soul,” Jonson asserts,
No glasse renders a mans forme or likeness, so true as his speech. Nay, it is likened to a man: and as we consider feature, and composition in a man; so words in Language: in the greatness, aptnesse, sound, structure, and harmony of it. (78)
The implications of this Renaissance topos are obvious: since style is the self, the instruments for shaping, controlling and beautifying that style – the figures – empower the individual to fashion his own identity.
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Left-Witted -
Horace, Art of Poetry - transl. Ben Jonson
But you, Pompilius off-spring spare you not
To taxe that Verse, which many a day and blot
Have not kept in, and (least perfection faile)
Not, ten times o're, corrected to the naile.
Because Democritus believes a wit
420 Happier than wretched Art, and doth by it
Exclude all sober Poets from their share
In Helicon; a great sort will not pare
Their nails, nor shave their beards, but seek by-paths
In secret places, flee the publick baths.
For so, they shall not onely gaine the worth,
But fame of Poets, if they can come forth,
And from the Barber Licinus conceale
*The head that three Anticira's cannot heale.*
O I, LEFT-WITTED , that purge every spring
430 For Choler! if I did not, none could bring
Our better Poems: but I cannot buy
My title at their rate. I had rather, I,
Be like a whetstone, that an edge can put
On steele, though't selfe be dull, and cannot cut.
435 I, writing nought my selfe, will teach them yet
Their charge, and office, whence their wealth to fit:
What nourisheth, what formed, what begot
The Poet, what becommeth, and what not:
Whether truth will, and whether errour bring.
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ALL FOOLS Chapman
And what is beauty? a meer Quintessence,
Whose life is not in being , but in seeming:
And therefore is not to all eyes the same
But like a cozening picture which one way
shows like a Crow, another like a Swan.
