Edward de Vere was 'the best for comedy amongst us' - Palladis Tamia (1598) Francis Meres (1598)
Critical opinion thought comedy was a wretched thing. An aristocrat (high) who loved comedy (low) was paradoxical in nature.
My mind shies at the word ugly yoked with Shakespeare. It can be replaced with the translation 'bad' which is slightly more tolerable. The Droeshout signifies Bad Shakespeare or the bad poet Shakespeare.
Jonson - the father of English Literary Criticism - has put a terrible brand on 'Shake-speare' at the front of the First Folio. A 'fatherless' book 'Shakespeare' - like Melville's 'foundling' Billy Budd/Beauty.
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Aristotle, Poetics
As we have said, comedy is an imitation of baser men. These are characterized not by every kind of vice but specifically by the "ridiculous," which is a subdivision of the category of "deformity." What we mean by "the ridiculous' is some error or ugliness that is painless and has no harmful effects. The example that comes immediately to mind is the comic mask, which is ugly and distorted but causes no pain.
The ridiculous, which Aristotle defines above as an error (hamartema) or ugliness (aischos) which does not cause pain and is not destructive, is clearly related to the doctrine of the inappropriate or incongruous which stands in the Rhetoric, associated with nemesan, in polar opposition to pity and fear. The ridiculous along with its constitutive elements of error and ugliness are certainly inappropriate characteristics of the spoudaios person and action as well as of the person and action that Aristotle would designate as the norm. We suggest that what the ridiculous (to geloion) characterizes is an important and special case of "the inappropriate and incongruous": the special case of comedy where the errors and ugliness involved must be painless.
We have then argued that a theory of comic emotion and comic action, analogous to that of tragic emotion and tragic action, can be discerned in passages in the Poetics and the Rhetoric that are fully consistent with each other in comedy, instead of pity and fear, we have nemesan, an emotion which must range from the savage indignation of Aristophanes to the muted admonishments of Chekhov for whatever is ridiculous and inappropriate in human behaviour. (Aristotle on Comedy, Leon Golden)
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Cutting a Ridiculous Droeshout Figure
Horace
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.
(footnote - he is not ridiculous because the barber has cut his hair too short, but because he has cut it unequally - inaequalis tonsor)
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Jonson seems to be attempting some comedy of his own in the incongruity of the Droeshout Figure and the extravagant praise of the mock encomium (invective) of the accompanying poem. 'Flights upon the banks' - mountebank - and 'see thee in our waters yet appear' triggering images of urology, disease and contagion perhaps elicit feelings of 'righteous indignation' in certain minds - in my mind I see the destruction of Oxford's good name and fame.
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Jonson, _Timber_
The parts of a comedy and tragedy. - The parts of a comedy are the same with a tragedy, and the end is partly the same, for they both delight and teach; the comics are called διδασκαλοι, of the Greeks no less than the tragics.
Aristotle. - Plato. - Homer. - Nor is the moving of laughter always the end of comedy; that is rather a fowling for the people' s DELIGHT, or their fooling. For, as Aristotle says rightly, the moving of laughter is a fault in comedy, a kind of turpitude that depraves some part of a man' s nature without a disease. As a wry face without pain moves laughter, or a deformed vizard, or a rude clown dressed in a lady' s habit and using her actions; we dislike and scorn such representations which made the ancient philosophers ever think laughter unfitting in a wise man. And this induced Plato to esteem of Homer as a sacrilegious person, because he presented the gods sometimes laughing. As also it is divinely said of Aristotle, that to seen RIDICULOUS is a part of DISHONESTY, and foolish.
The wit of the old comedy. - So that what either in the words or sense of an author, or in the language or actions of men, is awry or depraved does strangely stir mean affections, and provoke for the most part to laughter. And therefore it was clear that all *insolent and obscene* speeches, jests upon the best men, injuries to particular persons, PERVERSE and SINISTER SAYINGS (and the rather unexpected) in the old comedy did move laughter, especially where it did imitate any DISHONESTY, and SCURRILITY came forth in the place of wit, which, who understands the nature and genius of laughter cannot but perfectly know.
Aristophanes. - Plautus. - Of which Aristophanes affords an ample harvest, having not only outgone Plautus or any other in that kind, but expressed all the moods and figures of what is RIDICULOUS oddly. In short, as vinegar is not accounted good until the wine be
corrupted, so jests that are true and natural seldom raise laughter with the beast the multitude. *They love nothing that is right and proper. The farther it runs from reason or possibility with them the better it is*.
Socrates. - Theatrical wit. - What could have made them laugh, like to see Socrates presented, that example of all good life, honesty, and virtue, to have him hoisted up with a pulley, and there play the philosopher in a basket; measure how many foot a flea could skip geometrically, by a just scale, and edify the people from the engine. This was theatrical wit, right stage jesting, and relishing a playhouse, invented for scorn and laughter; whereas, if it had savoured of equity, truth, perspicuity, and candour, to have tasted a wise or a learned palate, - spit it out presently! this is bitter and profitable: this instructs and would inform us: what need we know any thing, that are nobly born, more than a horse-race, or a hunting- match, our day to break with citizens, and such innate mysteries?
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Criticisms of Shakespeare appear to emphasize his extravagance - his disregard of boundaries, his imaginative excesses and his non-observance of classical rules.
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Mirth Making_, Chris Holcomb
In his Ethics, Aristotle suggests that *changes in stylistic and substantive predilections indicate advances in civilization*. While enumerating the differences between the jesting of a BUFFOON and a witty gentleman, Aristotle compares each character type to Old and New Comedy, respectively: "The difference (between a buffoon and a gentleman) may be seen by comparing the old and modern comedies; the earlier dramatists found their fun in obscenity, the modern prefer innuendo, which marks a great advance in decorum; (4.8.6). This comparison suggest that smutty humor is less civilized than the more refined humor delivered through innuendo. (footnote pp. 199-200)
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Bartholomew Fair, Jonson, From the Induction to the Stage
...If there be ne- ver a Servant-monster i' the Fair, who can help it, he says, nor a Nest of Antiques? He is loth to make Nature afraid in his Plays, like those that beget Tales, Tempests, and such like Drolleries, to MIX HIS HEAD with other MENS HEELS; let the concupiscence of Jigs and Dances, reign as strong as it will amongst you: yet if the Puppets will please any body, they shall be entreated to come in.
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-- CARTWRIGHT, WILLIAM, 1647,
Upon the Dramatick Poems of Mr. John Fletcher.
...Shakespeare to thee was DULL, whose best jest lyes
I'th Ladies questions, and the Fooles replyes; [70]
Old fashion'd wit, which walkt from town to town
In turn'd Hose, which our fathers call'd the CLOWN;
Whose wit our nice times would obsceannesse call,
And which made Bawdry passe for Comicall:
Nature was all his Art, thy veine was free
As his, but without his SCURILITY...
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Ben Jonson
De Shakespeare Nostrat 1
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,” 2 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; 3 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.
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Puttenham, Arte of English Poesie
Now haue ye other VICIOUS MANNERS of speech, but sometimes and in some cases tollerable, and chiefly to the intent to mooue laughter, and to make sport, or to giue it some prety strange grace, and is when we vse such wordes as may be drawen to a foule and vnshamefast sence, as one that would say to a young woman, I pray you let me iape with you, which in deed is no more but let me sport with you. Yea and though it were not altogether so directly spoken, the very sounding of the word were not commendable, as he that in the presence of Ladies would vse this common Prouerbe,
Iape with me but hurt me not
Bourde with me but shame me not.
For it may be taken in another peruerser sence by that sorte of persons that heare it, in whose eares no such matter ought almost to be called in memory, this vice is called by the Greekes Cacemphaton, we call it the vnshamefast or figure of foule speech, which our courtly maker shall in any case shunne, least of a Poet he become a BUFFON or rayling companion, the Latins called him SCURRA. There is also another sort of ILFAVOURED speech subiect to this vice, but resting more in the manner of the ilshapen sound and accent, than for the matter it selfe, which may easily be auoyded in choosing your wordes those that bee of the pleasantest orthography, and not to rime too many like sounding words together.
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Sidney, Defence of Poetry:
But I have lavished out too many words of this playmatter. I do it, because as they are excelling parts of poesy, so is there none so much used in England, and none can be more pitifully ABUSED; which, like an unMANNERly daughter, showing a bad education, causeth her mother Poesy`s HONESTY to be called in question.
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(AN EXCELLENT FANCY)
No, I am that I am, and they that LEVEL
At my ABUSES reckon up their own:
Sidney, _Defence of Poesy_: eikastike vs. phantastike
But grant love of bewtie to be a beastly fault, although it be verie hard, since onely man and no beast hath that gift to discerne bewtie, graunt that lovely name of love to deserve all hatefull reproches, although even some of my maisters the Philosophers spent a good deale of their Lampoyle in setting foorth the excellencie of it, graunt I say, what they will have graunted, that not onelie love, but lust, but vanitie, but if they will list SCURRILITIE, possesse manie leaves of the Poets bookes, yet thinke I, when this is graunted, they will finde their sentence may with good manners put the last words foremost; and not say, that Poetrie ABUSETH mans wit, but that mans wit ABUSETH Poetrie. For I will not denie, but that mans wit may make Poesie, which should be EIKASTIKE, which some learned have defined figuring foorth good things to be PHANTASTIKE, which doth contrariwise INFECT the FANCIE with unWOORTHie objects, as the Painter should give to the eye either some excellent perspective, or some fine Picture fit for building or fortification, or containing in it some notable example, as Abraham sacrificing his sonne Isaack, Judith killing Holofernes, David fighting with Golias, may leave those, and please an ILL PLEASED EYE with WANTON SHEWES of better hidden matters. But what, shal the ABUSE of a thing, make the RIGHT use odious?
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Sidney, Defence of Poetry
But, besides these gross absurdities, how all their plays be neither right tragedies nor right comedies, mingling kings and clowns, not because the matter so carrieth it, but thrust in the clown by head and shoulders to play a part in majestical matters, with neither DECENCY nor DISCRETION; so as neither the admiration and commiseration, nor the right sportfulness, is by their mongrel tragi-comedy obtained. I know Apuleius did somewhat so, but that is a thing recounted with space of time, not represented in one moment; and I know the ancients have one or two examples of tragi-comedies, as Plautus hath Amphytrio. But, if we mark them well, we shall find that they never, or very daintily, match hornpipes and funerals. So falleth it out that, having indeed NO RIGHT COMEDY in that comical part of our tragedy, we have nothing but SCURRILITY, unworthy of any chaste ears, or some extreme show of doltihsness, indeed fit to lift up a loud laughter, and nothing else; where the whole tract of a comedy should be full of delight, as the tragedy should be still maintained in a well-raised admiration.
But OUR COMEDIANS think there is no delight without laughter, which is very wrong; for though laughter may come with delight, yet cometh it not of delight, as though delight should be the cause of laughter; but well may one thing breed both together. Nay, rather in themselves they have, as it were, a kind of contrariety. For delight we scarcely do, but in things that have a conveniency to ourselves, or to the general nature; laughter almost ever cometh of things most DISPROPORTIONED to ourselves and nature.
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Speculum Tuscanismi, Harvey.
'Tell me in good sooth, doth it not too evidently appeare, that this English Poet [Oxford] wanted but a good PATTERNE before his eyes, as it might be some delicate, and choyce elegant Poesie of good M. Sidneys, or M. Dyers (ouer very Castor, & Pollux for such and many greater matters) when this trimme geere was in hatching: Much like some Gentlewooman, I coulde name in England, who by all Phisick and Physiognomie too, Might as well have BROUGHT FORTH all goodly faire CHILDREN, as they have Now some YLFAVOURED and DEFORMED, had they at the tyme of their Conception, had in sight, the amiable and gallant beautifull Pictures of ADONIS, Cupido, Ganymedes, or the like, which no doubt would have wrought such deepe impression in their fantasies, and imaginations, astheir children, and perhappes their Childrens children to, myght have thanked them for, as long as they shall have Tongues in their heades."
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Author: Breton, Nicholas, 1545?-1626?
Title: The good and the badde, or Descriptions of the vvorthies, and vnworthies of this age Where the best may see their graces, and the worst discerne their basenesse.
Date: 1616
A Noble man.
A Noble man is a marke of Honour, where [ 8] the eye of wisedome in the obseruation of de|sert sees the fruit of Grace: hee is the Orient Pearle that Reason polisheth for the beauty of Na|ture, and the Diamond sparke where diuine Grace giues Vertue honour: he is the Note-booke of Mo|rall Discipline, where the conceit of care may finde the true Courtier: he is the Nurse of hospitality, the reliefe of necessitie, the loue of Charity, and the life of Bounty: hee is Learnings grace, and Valours fame, Wisedomes fruit, and kindnesse loue: hee is the true Falcon that feedes on no Carrion, the true Horse that will bee no Hackney, the true Dolphin that feares not the Whale, and the true man of God, that feares not the diuell. In summe, he is the Dar|ling of Nature, in Reasons Philosophy; the Load|starre of light in Loues Astronomie, the rauishing Sweet in the musique of Honour, and the golden number in Graces Arithmeticke.
An Vnnoble man.
AN Vnnoble man is the griefe of Reason, [ 9] when the title of Honour is put vpon the sub|iect of disgrace; when, either the imperfe|ction of wit, or the folly of will shewes an vnfitnesse in Nature for the vertue of Aduancement: he is the eye of basenesse, and spirit of grossenesse, and in the demeane of rudenesse the skorne of Noblenesse: he is a suspicion of a right Generation in the nature of his disposition, and a miserable plague to a femi|nine patience: Wisedome knowes him not, lear|ning bred him not, Vertue loues him not, and Ho|nour fits him not: Prodigality or Auarice are the notes of his inclination, and folly or mischiefe are the fruits of his inuention. In summe, he is the shame of his name, the disgrace of his place, the blot of his Title, and the ruine of his house.
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Sonnet 121
'Tis better to be vile than vile esteem'd,
When not to be receives reproach of being,
And the just pleasure lost which is so deem'd
Not by our feeling but by others' seeing:
For why should others false adulterate eyes
Give salutation to my sportive blood?
Or on my frailties why are frailer spies,
Which in their wills count bad what I think good?
No, I am that I am, and they that level
At my abuses reckon up their own:
I may be straight, though they themselves be bevel;
By their rank thoughts my deeds must not be shown;
Unless this general evil they maintain,
All men are bad, and in their badness reign.
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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.
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)
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Greville - Life of Sidney
Neither am I (for my part) so much in love with this life, nor believe so little in a better to come, as to complain of God for taking him [Sidney], and such like exorbitant WORTHYness from us: fit (as it were by an Ostracisme) to be divided, and not incorporated with our corruptions: yet for the sincere affection I bear to my Prince, and Country, my prayer to God is, that this WORTH, and Way may not fatally be buried with him; in respect, that both before his time, and since,experience hath published the usuall discipline of greatnes to have been tender of it self onely; making honour a triumph, or rather TROPHY of desire, set up in the eyes of Mankind, either to be worshiped as IDOLS, or else as Rebels to perish under her glorious oppressions. Notwithstanding, when the PRIDE of FLESH, and power of favour shall cease in these by death, or disgrace; what then hath time to register, or FAME to publish in these great mens names, that will not be offensive, or infectious to others? What Pen without BLOTTING can write the story of their deeds? Or what Herald blaze their Arms without a blemish? And as for their counsels and projects, when they come once to light, shall they not live as noysome, and loathsomely above ground, as their Authors carkasses lie in the grave? So as the return of such greatnes to the world, and themselves, can be but private reproach, publique ill example, and a fatall scorn to the Government they live in. Sir Philip Sidney is none of this number; for the greatness which he affected was built upon true WORTH; esteeming Fame more than Riches, and Noble actions far above Nobility it self.
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Shakespeare:
O! lest the world should task you to recite
What merit lived in me, that you should love
After my death,--dear love, forget me quite,
For you in me can NOTHING WORTHy prove.
Unless you would devise some virtuous lie,
To do more for me than mine own desert,
And hang more praise upon deceased I
Than niggard truth would willingly impart:
O! lest your true love may seem false in this
That you for love speak well of me untrue,
My name be buried where my body is,
And live no more to shame nor me nor you.
For I am shamed by that which I bring forth,
And so should you, to love things NOTHING WORTH.
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"To My Book" by Ben Jonson
It will be looked for, book, when some but see
Thy title, Epigrams, and named of me,
Thou should'st be bold, licentious, full of gall,
Wormwood, and sulphur, sharp, and toothed withal;
Become a petulant thing, hurl ink, and wit,
As madmen stones: not caring whom they hit.
Deceive their malice, who could wish it so.
And by thy wiser temper, let men know
Thou are not covetous of least self-fame.
Made from the hazard of another's shame:
Much less with lewd, profane, and beastly phrase,
To catch the world's loose laughter, or vain gaze.
He that departs with his own HONESTY.
(honesty/integritas)
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William Empson points out that 'honest' and 'honesty' are used 52 times in Othello, writing that 'in Othello, divergent uses of th(is) key word are found for all the main characters; even the attenuated clown plays upon it; the unchaste Bianca, for instance, snatches a moment to claim that she is more honest than Emilia the thief of the handkerchief; and with all the variety of use the ironies on the word mount up steadily to the end. Such is the general power of the writing that this is not obtrusive, but if all but the phrases involving honest were in the style of Ibsen the effect would be a symbolical charade. Everyone calls Iago honest once or twice, but with Othello it becomes an obsession; at the crucial moment just before Emilia exposes Iago he keeps howling the word out. (William Empson, _Honest in Othello_)
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Jonson
De mollibus & effoemenatis There is nothing valiant, or solid to be hoped for from such, as are always kempt and perfumed; and every day smell of the tailor: the exceedingly curious, that are wholly in mending such an imperfection in the face, in taking away the morphew in the neck; or bleaching their hands at midnight, gumming and bridling their beards; or making the waist small, binding it with hoops, while the mind runs at WASTE: too much pickedness is not manly. Nor from those that will jest at their own outward imperfections, but hide their ulcers within, their pride, lust, envy, ill nature, with all the art and authority they can. These persons are in danger; for whilst they think to justify their ignorance by impudence, and their persons and clothes and outward ornaments; they use but a comission to deceive themselves. Where, if we will look with our understanding, and not our senses, we may behold virtue and beauty (though covered with rags) in their brightness; and vice, and DEFORMITY so much the fouler, in having all the splendour of riches to gild them, or the false light of honour and power to help them. Yet this is that, wherewith the world is taken, and runs mad to gaze on: clothes and titles, the birdlime of fools. (Discoveries 1751)
