Star-y – pointing Pyramid:
Milton
On Shakespeare. 1630
WHat needs my Shakespear for his honour'd Bones,
The labour of an age in piled Stones,
Or that his hallow’d reliques should be hid
Under a STAR-Y-pointing Pyramid?
Dear son of memory, great heir of Fame,
What need'st thou such weak witnes of thy name?
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Melville, Billy Budd
Starry Vere:
Ashore in the garb of a civilian, scarce anyone would have taken him for
a sailor, more especially that he never garnished unprofessional talk
with nautical terms, and grave in his bearing, evinced little
appreciation of mere humor. It was not out of keeping with these traits
that on a passage when nothing demanded his paramount action, he was the
most undemonstrative of men. Any landsman observing this gentleman, not
conspicuous by his stature and wearing no pronounced insignia, emerging
from his cabin to the open deck, and noting the silent deference of the
officers retiring to leeward, might have taken him for the King's guest,
a civilian aboard the King's-ship, some highly honorable discreet envoy
on his way to an important post. But in fact this unobtrusiveness of
demeanour may have proceeded from a certain unaffected modesty of
manhood sometimes accompanying a resolute nature, a modesty evinced at
all times not calling for pronounced action, and which shown in any rank
of life suggests a virtue aristocratic in kind. As with some others
engaged in various departments of the world's more heroic activities,
Captain Vere, though practical enough upon occasion, would at times
betray a certain dreaminess of mood. Standing alone on the weather-side
of the quarter-deck, one hand holding by the rigging, he would absently
gaze off at the blank sea. At the presentation to him then of some minor
matter interrupting the current of his thoughts he would show more or
less irascibility; but instantly he would control it.
In the navy he was popularly known by the appellation--Starry Vere. How
such a designation happened to fall upon one who, whatever his sterling
qualities, was without any brilliant ones was in this wise: A favorite
kinsman, Lord Denton, a free-hearted fellow, had been the first to meet
and congratulate him upon his return to England from his West Indian
cruise; and but the day previous turning over a copy of Andrew Marvell's
poems, had lighted, not for the first time however, upon the lines
entitled Appleton House, the name of one of the seats of their common
ancestor, a hero in the German wars of the seventeenth century, in which
poem occur the lines,
"This 'tis to have been from the first
In a domestic heaven nursed,
Under the discipline severe
Of Fairfax and the starry Vere."
And so, upon embracing his cousin fresh from Rodney's great victory
wherein he had played so gallant a part, brimming over with just family
pride in the sailor of their house, he exuberantly exclaimed, "Give ye
joy, Ed; give ye joy, my starry Vere!" This got currency, and the novel
prefix serving in familiar parlance readily to distinguish the
Indomitable's Captain from another Vere his senior, a distant relative,
an officer of like rank in the navy, it remained permanently attached to
the surname.
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Deep Impression Took:
On Shakespeare. 1630
John Milton
(...)
Thou in our wonder and astonishment
Hast built thyself a live-long monument.
For whilst to th’ shame of slow-endeavouring art,
Thy easy numbers flow, and that each HEART
Hath from the leaves of thy unvalued book
Those Delphic lines with DEEP IMPRESSION TOOK,
Then thou, our fancy of itself bereaving,
Dost make us marble with too much conceiving;
And so sepúlchred in such pomp dost lie,
That kings for such a tomb would wish to die.
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Jeff Westover
The Impressments of Billy Budd
Voltaire relates a tour of the Thames he made with an Englishman who bragged that “ he would rather be a modest boatman on the Thames than an archbishop in France.” On the following day the famous writer was surprised to find the man “in heavy chains, bitterly complaining of the abominable government that took him by force from his wife and children to serve on the King’s ship in Norway.” Voltaire records his sympathy for the man, but impishly adds: “ A Frenchman, who was with me, admitted to me that he felt a malicious pleasure in seeing that the English, who reproached us so loudly for our servitude, were just as much slaves as we.” Instead of denying that the French “were slaves, “ the Frenchman’s remark asserts an equivalence of servitude in both England and France. According to this arch parable, English political liberty is a sham, for the impressed man is just as much a slave an any individual subjected to the whims of an absolute monarch.
(...)
The fabular quality of the event recounted by Voltaire corresponds to the hybrid of fiction and history embodied in Herman Melville’s Billy Budd. Just as Voltaire’s anonymous Englishman acquires a symbolic importance in his terse narrative, so the figurative significance of impressment permeates Billy Budd. (...) In order to explore the sociopolitical implications of impressment in Billy Budd, I want to exploit the polyvalence of the word impressment by considering its various cognates, including impress, impression, pressure, and press. I attend to the semantic range of these words in order to expolicate the various manifestations of a single principle. By adopting such an approach, I aim to show how impressment functions as the governing trope of Melville’s final work.
In Billy Budd, the meaning and effect of impressment as both an abstract principle and historical practice are multiform. There are, however, three primary categories of meaning and activity that define the work of impressment in Melville’s tale; these include the sociohistorical, the psychological, and the textual. In my first category, impressment refers to the conscription of men for military service. The other two categories are fully intelligible only within this context, for impressment is a practice with a specific historical trajectory entailing particular effects. In a more general sense, though, impressment may be described as a _principle of compulsion_. It functions as a constraining force in the service of a ruling power, providing the means whereby a dominant group implements its sovereignty. In this sense, the word figures the process of interpellation, or the production of subjects, and signifies a principle under which all three of my categories may be classed. From this perspective, the object of impressment is the production of obedient and disciplined subjects.
My second category of analysis refers to the constitution of impressment as impression, which brings into play the cognitive dimensions of the phenomenon. Impressment-as-impression is a process whereby external forces of subjection produce corresponding psychological forces on the part of the subjected individual. (Impressment-as-impression functions, in other words, somewhat like Michel Foucault’s disciplinary correlative to corporal punishment.) (...)
The last aspect of impressment I wish to explore is the textual. In the same family of words as impressment are the noun and verb forms of press and impress, words whose derivations both share in and differ from the origin of impressment (...) For while the end of impressment was to form compliant subjects, the printing press was used to evoke both allegiance and dissent. I wish to uncover the voice of such dissent in order to show how Billy Budd questions the subjugating force of impressment.
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Hamlet, Shakespeare
HAMLET
Be not too tame neither, but let your own discretion be your tutor. Suit the action to the word, the word to the action, with this special observance that you o'erstep not the modesty of nature. For anything so overdone is from the purpose of playing, whose end, both at the first and now, was and is to hold, as ’twere, the MIRROR up to NATURE, to show virtue her own feature, scorn her own image, and the very age and body of the time his FORM and PRESSURE.
************************
Milton:
Then thou our FANCY of it self bereaving,
Doth make us MARBLE with too much conceaving;
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_Imagination and the Presence of Shakespeare in Paradise Lost_. By Paul Stevens. Madison and London: University of Wisconsin Press, 1985.
Review by Nigel Smith
Imagination and the Presence of Shakespeare in 'Paradise Lost' is probably a mistitled book. Professor Stevens is certainly concerned with theories of imagination and the way in which these theories helped to determine the language of Milton's epic. There is also a consideration of Shakespeare's presence, confined mostly to instances in _A Midsummer Night's Dream_ and _The Tempest_. The significance of echoes from other plays are discussed, though a central consideration of echoes from the tragedies would have produced a very different work.
As the book stands, we are shown how Milton takes the Shakespearean incarnation of FANCY and modifies it, so that it becomes associated,via COMUS, with evil in Paradise Lost, unless it is governed by Reason, so reflecting the divine.
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John Milton
Comus
The Scene changes to a stately Palace, set out with all manner of deliciousness; soft Musick, Tables spred with all dainties. Comus appears with his rabble, and the Lady set in an inchanted Chair, to whom he offers his Glass, which she puts by, and goes about to rise.
Comus. Nay Lady sit; if I but wave this wand,
Your nervs are all chain'd up in Alabaster, [ 660 ]
And you a statue; or as Daphne was
Root-bound, that fled Apollo,
La. Fool do not boast,
Thou canst not touch the freedom of my minde
With all thy charms, although this corporal rinde
Thou haste immanacl'd, while Heav'n sees good. [ 665 ]
Co. Why are you vext, Lady? why do you frown?
Here dwell no frowns, nor anger, from these gates
Sorrow flies farr: See here be all the pleasures
That fancy can beget on youthful thoughts,
When the fresh blood grows lively, and returns [ 670 ]
Brisk as the April buds in Primrose-season.
And first behold this cordial Julep here
That flames, and dances in his crystal bounds
With spirits of balm, and fragrant Syrops mixt.
Not that Nepenthes which the wife of Thone, [ 675 ]
In Egypt gave to Jove-born Helena
Is of such power to stir up joy as this,
To life so friendly, or so cool to thirst.
Why should you be so cruel to your self,
And to those dainty limms which nature lent [ 680 ]
For gentle usage, and soft delicacy?
But you invert the cov'nants of her trust,
And harshly deal like an ill borrower
With that which you receiv'd on other terms,
Scorning the unexempt condition [ 685 ]
By which all mortal frailty must subsist,
Refreshment after toil, ease after pain,
That have been tir'd all day without repast,
And timely rest have wanted, but fair Virgin
This will restore all soon. [ 690 ]
(snip)
La. I had not thought to have unlockt my lips
In this unhallow'd air, but that this Jugler
Would think to charm my judgement, as mine eyes,
Obtruding false rules pranckt in reasons garb.
I hate when vice can bolt her arguments, [ 760 ]
And vertue has no tongue to check her pride:
Impostor do not charge most innocent nature,
As if she would her children should be riotous
With her abundance, she good cateress
Means her provision onely to the good [ 765 ]
That live according to her sober laws,
And holy dictate of spare Temperance:
If every just man that now pines with want
Had but a moderate and beseeming share
Of that which lewdly-pamper'd Luxury [ 770 ]
Now heaps upon som few with vast excess,
Natures full blessings would be well dispenc't
In unsuperfluous eeven proportion,
And she no whit encomber'd with her store,
And then the giver would be better thank't, [ 775 ]
His praise due paid, for swinish gluttony
Ne're looks to Heav'n amidst his gorgeous feast,
But with besotted base ingratitude
Cramms, and blasphemes his feeder. Shall I go on?
Or have I said anough? To him that dares [ 780 ]
Arm his profane tongue with contemptuous words
Against the Sun-clad power of Chastity,
Fain would I somthing say, yet to what end?
Thou hast nor Eare nor Soul to apprehend
The sublime notion, and high mystery [ 785 ]
That must be utter'd to unfold the sage
And serious doctrine of Virginity,
And thou art worthy that thou shouldst not know
More happines then this thy present lot.
Enjoy your deer Wit, and gay Rhetorick [ 790 ]
That hath so well been taught her dazling fence,
Thou art not fit to hear thy self convinc't;
Yet should I try, the uncontrouled worth
Of this pure cause would kindle my rap't spirits
To such a flame of sacred vehemence, [ 795 ]
That dumb things would be mov'd to sympathize,
And the brute Earth would lend her nerves, and shake,
Till all thy magick structures rear'd so high,
Were shatter'd into heaps o're thy false head.
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Delphic Lines:
Milton
On Shakespeare. 1630
WHat needs my Shakespear for his honour'd Bones,
The labour of an age in piled Stones,
Or that his HALLOW'D RELIQUES should be hid
Under a Star-ypointing PYRAMID?
Dear son of memory, great heir of Fame,
What need'st thou such weak witnes of thy name?
Thou in our wonder and astonishment
Hast built thy self a live-long Monument.
For whilst to th' shame of slow-endeavouring art,
Thy easie numbers flow, and that each heart
Hath from the leaves of thy unvalu'd Book,
Those DELPHICK lines with deep impression took,
Then thou our fancy of it self bereaving,
Dost make us MARBLE with too much conceaving;
And so Sepulcher'd in such POMP dost lie,
THAT KINGS for such a Tomb WOULD WISH TO DIE.
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John Milton's "On the Morning of Christ's Nativity" (1629)
...The Babe lies yet in smiling Infancy,
That on the bitter cross
Must redeem our loss;
So both himself and us to glorifie:
Yet first to those ychain'd in sleep, [ 155 ]
The wakefull trump of doom must thunder through the deep,
XVII
With such a horrid clang
As on mount Sinai rang
While the red fire, and smouldring clouds out brake:
The aged Earth agast [ 160 ]
With terrour of that blast,
Shall from the surface to the center shake,
When at the worlds last session,
The dreadfull Judge in middle Air shall spread his throne.
XVIII
And then at last our bliss [ 165 ]
Full and perfect is,
But now begins; for from this happy day
Th' old Dragon under ground,
In *straiter limits bound*,
Not half so far casts his usurped sway, [ 170 ]
And wrath to see his Kingdom fail,
Swindges the scaly Horrour of his foulded tail.
XIX,
The Oracles are dumm,
No voice or hideous humm
Runs through the arched roof in words deceiving. [ 175 ]
APOLLO from his SHRINE
Can no more divine,
With hollow shreik the steep of DELPHOS leaving.
No nightly trance, or breathed spell,
Inspire's the PALE-ey'd Priest from the prophetic cell. [ 180 ]
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http://www.dartmouth.edu/~milton/reading_room/nativity/notes.shtml#intro
Introduction. John Milton's "On the Morning of Christ's Nativity" is significant for its merit alone, though this remarkable poem is also important in the context of the artist's career. His first major work in English, the nativity ode reflects "his desire to attempt the highest subjects and to take on the role of bardic Poet-Priest" (Barbara Lewalski, Life of John Milton 38). Milton himself declares such ambition in a letter to his friend Charles Diodati: "I sing to the peace-bringing God descended from heaven, and the blessed generations covenanted in the sacred books,… I sing the starry axis and the singing hosts in the sky, *and of the gods suddenly destroyed in their own shrines*." ("Elegia sexta"). Milton's lofty tone suits he elevation of his artistry, as the nativity ode is the "first realization" of Milton's high poetic aspirations (Lewalski 37).
*******************
A DISCOURSE OF WIT.
BY David Abercromby, M. D.
Qui velit ingenio cedere rarus erit.
LONDON, Printed for John Weld at the Crown between the two Tem|ple Gates in Fleetstreet, 1686.
3. I cannot then pretend to give you a true and genuine Notion of Wit, but an imperfect, and rude inchoate description thereof, yet so general and comprehensive, that it contains all such Creatures, as without any violence done to the Word, we may truely call Witty. Yet shall I not say with a great Man of this Age, that Wit is, un je ne scay quoy, I know not what: For this would be to say no|thing at all, and an easie answer to all difficulties, and no solution to any. Neither shall I call it a certain Liveliness, or Vivacity of the Mind inbred, or radicated in its Nature, which the Latines seem to insinuate by the word Ingenium; nor the subtlest operation of the Soul above the reach of meer matter, which perhaps is mean't by the French, who concieve Wit to be a Spiritual thing, or a Spi|rit L'esprit. Nor with others, that 'tis a certain acuteness of Undestanding, some men possess in a higher degree, the Life of discourse, as Salt, with|out which nothing is relished, a Ce|lestial Fire, a Spiritual Light, and what not. Such and the like Expressi|ons contain more of POMP THAN OF TRUTH, and are fitter to make us talkative on this Subject, than to en|lighten our Understandings.
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Salvation History, Poetic Form, and the Logic of Time in Milton's
Nativity Ode
M.J. Doherty
...It helps that Milton's Muse, like the prophet of Isaiah, chapter d of poetic parallelism to the liturgical readings of Epiphany shows up in the themes of the coming of the Incarnate Son as the Light and the singing of the New Song who *casts out idols*. The Lord is everlasting light (Luke iii), the light to the Gentiles (Isa. xlix) that comes at the acceptable time on the day of salvation, the light which, by leading of the star, subordinates all kings and all nations to itself...
...Milton demonstrates the coming of the light by describing the evacuation of darkness, the emptying out of the places of the gods in the earth, from the inmost places of material substance - "And the chill Marble seems to sweat,/ While each peculiar power forgoes his wonted seat" (195-196) - to the outermost boundary of the "mooned Ashtaroth" (220) From the arches roof of the heavens and the shrine of Apollo at Delphos to the humblest evacuated urn, Christ's light penetrates space, completely expunging darkness. As Milton describes the pagan places of EGYPT, the power of hell is contracted into one spot, Memphis, in Osiris's complete perversion of religion: but in his "sacred chest" Osiris can no longer be at rest because the holy infant reigns.
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Milton
After these appear'd
495: A CREW who under Names of old Renown,
496: OSIRIS, ISIS, ORUS and their Train
497: *With monstrous shapes and sorceries abus'd*
498: FANATIC EGYPT and her Priests, to seek
499: Thir wandring Gods disguis'd in brutish forms
500: Rather then human.
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CREW
In Italian, a word for crew is ciurma, which is akin to ciurmaglia, a mob or rabble, and to ciurmare, to chat, cheat, inveigle (Westover, footnote)
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Puttenham, Arte
“And in her Majesty’s time that now is are sprung up another CREW of Courtly makers, Noble men and Gentlemen of her Majesty’s own servants, who have written excellently well as it would appear if their doings could be found out and made public with the rest, of which number is first that noble Gentleman Edward Earle of Oxford, Thomas Lord of Bukhurst, when he was young, Henry Lord Paget, Sir Philip Sidney, Sir Walter Raleigh, Master Edward Dyer, Master Fulke Greville, Gascoigne, Britton, Turberville and a great many other learned Gentlemen, whose names I do not omit for envy, but to avoid tediousness, and who have deserved no little commendation.”
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Oxford/Shakespeare/Comus
Milton, John: Comus
118: COMUS enters, with a charming-rod in one hand, his glass in the
119: other: with him a rout of monsters, headed like sundry sorts of
120: wild
121: beasts, but otherwise like men and women, their apparel
122: glistering.
123: They come in making a riotous and unruly noise, with torches in
124: their hands.
125:
126:
127: COMUS. The star that bids the shepherd fold
128: Now the top of heaven doth hold;
129: And the gilded car of day
130: His glowing axle doth allay
131: In the steep Atlantic stream;
132: And the slope sun his upward beam
133: Shoots against the dusky pole,
134: Pacing toward the other goal
135: Of his chamber in the east.
136: Meanwhile, welcome joy and feast,
137: Midnight shout and revelry,
138: Tipsy dance and jollity.
139: Braid your locks with rosy twine,
140: Dropping odours, dropping wine.
141: Rigour now is gone to bed;
142: And Advice with scrupulous head,
143: Strict Age, and sour Severity,
144: With their grave saws, in slumber lie.
145: We, that are of purer fire,
146: Imitate the starry quire,
147: Who, in their nightly watchful spheres,
148: Lead in swift round the months and years.
149: The sounds and seas, with all their finny drove,
150: Now to the moon in wavering morrice move;
151: And on the tawny sands and shelves
152: Trip the pert fairies and the dapper elves.
153: By dimpled brook and fountain-brim,
154: The wood-nymphs, decked with daisies trim,
155: Their merry wakes and pastimes keep:
156: What hath night to do with sleep?
157: Night hath better sweets to prove;
158: Venus now wakes, and wakens Love.
159: Come, let us our rights begin;
160: 'T is only daylight that makes sin,
161: Which these dun shades will ne'er report.
162: Hail, goddess of nocturnal sport,
163: Dark-veiled Cotytto, to whom the secret flame
164: Of midnight torches burns! mysterious dame,
165: That ne'er art called but when the dragon womb
166: Of Stygian darkness spets her thickest gloom,
167: And makes one blot of all the air!
168: Stay thy cloudy ebon chair,
169: Wherein thou ridest with Hecat', and befriend
170: Us thy vowed priests, till utmost end
171: Of all thy dues be done, and none left out,
172: Ere the blabbing eastern scout,
173: The nice Morn on the Indian steep,
174: From her cabined loop-hole peep,
175: And to the tell-tale Sun descry
176: Our concealed solemnity.
178: In a LIGHT FANTASTIC round.
179:
180: The Measure.
181:
182: Break off, break off! I feel the different pace
183: Of some chaste footing near about this ground.
184: Run to your shrouds within these brakes and trees;
185: Our number may affright. Some virgin sure
186: (For so I can distinguish by mine art)
187: Benighted in these woods! Now to my charms,
188: And to my wily trains: I shall ere long
189: Be well stocked with as fair a herd as grazed
190: About my mother Circe. Thus I hurl
191: My dazzling spells into the spongy air,
192: Of power to cheat the eye with blear illusion,
193: And give it false presentments, lest the place
194: And my quaint habits breed astonishment,
195: And put the damsel to suspicious flight;
196: Which must not be, for that's against my course.
197: I, under fair pretence of friendly ends,
198: And well-placed words of glozing courtesy,
199: Baited with reasons not unplausible,
200: Wind me into the easy-hearted man,
201: And hug him into snares. When once her eye
202: Hath met the virtue of this magic dust,
203: I shall appear some harmless villager
204: Whom thrift keeps up about his country gear.
205: But here she comes; I fairly step aside,
206: And hearken, if I may her business hear.
207:
208: The LADY enters.
209:
210: LADY. This way the noise was, if mine ear be true,
211: My best guide now. Methought it was the sound
212: Of riot and ill-managed merriment,
213: Such as the jocund flute or gamesome pipe
214: Stirs up among the loose unlettered hinds,
215: When, for their teeming flocks and granges full,
216: In wanton dance they praise the bounteous Pan,
217: And thank the gods amiss. I should be loth
218: To meet the rudeness and swilled insolence
219: Of such late wassailers; yet, oh! where else
220: Shall I inform my unacquainted feet
221: In the blind mazes of this tangled wood?
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Ascham, The Scholemaster
**But I know as many, or mo, and some, sometyme my deare frendes, for whose sake I hate going into that countrey the more, who, partyng out of England feruent in the loue of Christes doctrine, and well furnished with the feare of God, returned out of Italie worse transformed, than euer was any in CIRCES Court. I know diuerse, that went out of England, men of innocent life, men of excellent learnyng, who returned out of Italie, not onely with worse maners, but also with lesse learnyng: neither so willing to liue orderly, nor yet so hable to speake learnedlie, as they were at home, before they went abroad. And why? Plato yt wise writer, and worthy traueler him selfe, telleth the cause why. He went into Sicilia, a countrey, no nigher Italy by site of place, than Italie that is now, is like Sicilia that was then, in all corrupt maners and licenciousnes of life. Plato found in Sicilia, euery Citie full of vanitie, full of factions, euen as Italie is now. And as Homere, like a learned Poete, doth feyne, that CIRCES, by pleasant inchantmentes, did turne men into beastes, some into Swine, som
into Asses, some into Foxes, some into Wolues etc. euen so Plato, like a wise Philosopher, doth plainelie declare, that pleasure, by licentious vanitie, that sweete and perilous poyson of all youth, doth ingender in all those, that yeld vp themselues to her, foure notorious properties.
{1. lethen
{2. dysmathian
{3. achrosynen
{4. ybrin.
The first, forgetfulnes of all good thinges learned before: the second, dulnes to receyue either learnyng or honestie euer after: the third, a mynde embracing lightlie the worse opinion, and baren of discretion to make trewe difference betwixt good and ill, betwixt troth, and vanitie, the fourth, a proude disdainfulnes of other good men, in all honest matters. Homere and Plato, haue both one meanyng, looke both to one end. For, if a man inglutte himself with vanitie, or walter in filthines like a Swyne, all learnyng, all goodnes, is sone forgotten: Than, quicklie shall he becum a dull Asse, to vnderstand either learnyng or honestie: and yet shall he be as sutle as a Foxe, in breedyng of mischief, in bringyng in misorder, with a busie head, a discoursing tong, and a factious harte, in euery priuate affaire, in all matters of state, with this pretie propertie, alwayes glad to commend the worse partie, and euer ready to defend the falser opinion. And why? For, where will is giuen from goodnes to vanitie, the mynde is sone caryed from right iudgement, to any fond opinion, in Religion, in Philosophie, or any other kynde of learning. The fourth fruite of vaine pleasure, by Homer and Platos iudgement, is pride in them selues, contempt of others, the very badge of all those that serue in Circes Court. The trewe meenyng of both Homer and Plato, is plainlie declared in one short sentence of the holy Prophet of God Hieremie, crying out of the vaine & vicious life of the Israelites. This people (sayth he) be fooles and dulhedes to all goodnes, but sotle, cunning and bolde, in any mischiefe.
(SNIP)
But I am affraide, that ouer many of our trauelers into Italie, do not exchewe the way to CIRCES Court: but go, and ryde, and runne, and flie thether, they make great hast to cum to her: they make great sute to serue her: yea, I could point out some with my finger, that neuer had gone out of England, but onelie to serue CIRCES, in Italie. Vanitie and vice, and any licence to ill liuyng in England was counted stale and rude vnto them. And so, beyng Mules and Horses before they went, returned verie Swyne and Asses home agayne: yet euerie where verie Foxes with suttle and busie heades; and where they may, verie wolues, with cruell malicious hartes. A meruelous monster, which, for filthines of liuyng, for dulnes to learning him selfe, for wilinesse in dealing with others, for malice in hurting without cause, should carie at once in one bodie, the belie of a Swyne, the head of an Asse, the brayne of a Foxe, the wombe of a wolfe. If you thinke, we iudge amisse, and write to sore against you, heare, what the Italian sayth of the English man, what the master reporteth of the scholer: who vttereth playnlie, what is taught by him, and what learned by you, saying, Englese Italianato, e vn diabolo incarnato, that is to say, you remaine men in shape and facion, but becum deuils in life and condition. This is not, the opinion of one, for some priuate spite, but the iudgement of all, in a common Prouerbe, which riseth, of that learnyng, and those maners, which you gather in Italie: a good Scholehouse of wholesome doctrine: and worthy Masters of commendable Scholers, where the Master had rather diffame hym selfe for hys teachyng, than not shame his Scholer for his learning. A good nature of the maister, and faire conditions of the scholers. And now chose you, you Italian English men, whether you will be angrie with vs, for calling you monsters, or with the Italianes, for callyng you deuils, or else with your owne selues, that take so much paines, and go so farre, to make your selues both. If some yet do not well vnderstand, what is an English man Italianated, I will plainlie tell him. He, that by liuing, & traueling in Italie, bringeth home into England out of Italie, the Religion, the learning, the policie, the experience, the maners of Italie. That is to say, for Religion, Papistrie or worse: for learnyng, lesse commonly than they caried out with them: for pollicie, a factious hart, a discoursing head, a mynde to medle in all mens matters: for experience, plentie of new mischieues neuer knowne in England before: for maners, varietie of vanities, and chaunge of filthy lyuing. These be the inchantementes of CIRCES, brought out of Italie, to marre mens maners in England: much, by example of ill life, but more by preceptes of fonde bookes, of late translated out of Italian into English, sold in euery shop in London, commended by honest titles the soner to corrupt honest maners: dedicated ouer boldlie to vertuous and honorable personages, the easielier to begile simple and innocent wittes. It is pitie, that those, which haue authoritie and charge, to allow and dissalow bookes to be printed, be no more circumspect herein, than they are. Ten Sermons at Paules Crosse do not so moch good for mouyng men to trewe doctrine, as one of those bookes do harme, with inticing men to ill liuing. Yea, I say farder, those bookes, tend not so moch to corrupt honest liuyng, as they do, to subuert trewe Religion. Mo Papistes be made, by your mery bookes of Italie, than by your earnest bookes of Louain.
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Gabriel Harvey's satirical portrait of the Earl of Oxford:
Speculum Tuscanismi
Since Galatea came in, and Tuscanism gan usurp,
Vanity above all: villainy next her, stateliness Empress
No man but minion, stout, lout, plain, swain, quoth a Lording:
No words but valorous, no works but womanish only.
For life Magnificoes, not a beck but glorious in show,
In deed most frivolous, not a look but Tuscanish always.
His cringing side neck, eyes glancing, fisnamy smirking,
With forefinger kiss, and brave embrace to the footward.
Large bellied Cod-pieced doublet, uncod-pieced half hose,
Straight to the dock like a shirt, and close to the britch like a
diveling.
A little Apish flat couched fast to the pate like an oyster,
French camarick ruffs, deep with a whiteness starched to the purpose.
Every one A per se A, his terms and braveries in print,
Delicate in speech, quaint in array: conceited in all points,
In Courtly guiles a passing singular odd man,
For Gallants a brave Mirror, a Primrose of Honour,
A Diamond for nonce, a fellow peerless in England.
Not the like discourser for Tongue, and head to be found out,
Not the like resolute man for great and serious affairs,
Not the like Lynx to spy out secrets and privities of States,
Eyed like to Argus, eared like to Midas, nos'd like to Naso,
Wing'd like to Mercury, fittst of a thousand for to be employ'd,
This, nay more than this, doth practice of Italy in one year.
None do I name, but some do I know, that a piece of a twelve month
Hath so perfited outly and inly both body, both soul,
That none for sense and senses half matchable with them.
A vulture's smelling, Ape's tasting, sight of an eagle,
A spider's touching, Hart's hearing, might of a Lion.
Compounds of wisdom, wit, prowess, bounty, behavior,
All gallant virtues, all qualities of body and soul.
O thrice ten hundred thousand times blessed and happy,
Blessed and happy travail, Travailer most blessed and happy.
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Comus, Milton
Spir. Ile tell ye, 'tis not vain, or fabulous,
(Though so esteem'd by shallow ignorance)
What the sage Poëts taught by th' heav'nly Muse, [ 515 ]
Storied of old in high immortal vers
Of dire Chimera's and inchanted Iles,
And rifted Rocks whose entrance leads to hell,
For such there be, but unbelief is blind.
Within the navil of this hideous Wood, [ 520 ]
Immur'd in cypress shades a Sorcerer dwels
Of Bacchus, and of Circe born, great Comus,
Deep skill'd in all his mothers witcheries,
And here to every thirsty wanderer,
By sly enticement gives his banefull cup, [ 525 ]
With many murmurs mixt, whose pleasing poison
The visage quite transforms of him that drinks,
And the inglorious likenes of a beast
Fixes instead, unmoulding reasons mintage
Character'd in the face; this have I learn't [ 530 ]
Tending my flocks hard by i'th hilly crofts,
That brow this bottom glade, whence night by night
He and his monstrous rout are heard to howl
Like stabl'd wolves, or tigers at their prey,
Doing abhorred rites to Hecate [ 535 ]
In their obscured haunts of inmost bowres.
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Mentis Character - Style is the image of man, for man is but his MIND... (Puttenham)
No, I am that I am, and they that level
At my abuses reckon up their own;
I may be straight, 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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Hamlet
Fare thee well at once.
The glowworm shows the matin to be near
And gins to pale his uneffectual fire.
Adieu, adieu, adieu! Remember me.
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Melville, Billy Budd
Over him but scarce illuminating him, two battle lanterns swing from two massive beams of the deck above. Fed with the oil supplied by the war contractors (whose gains, honest or otherwise, are in every land an anticipated portion of the harvest of death), with flickering splashes of dirty yellow light they pollute the pale moonshine all but ineffectually struggling in obstructed flecks through the open ports from which the tampioned cannon protrude.
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Jeff Westover
The Impressments of Billy Budd
For many seamen at Spithead and the Nore, the political and linguistic barriers of literacy entailed a disabling relation of paternalism between the regime with which they negotiated and themselves. In Melville’s novella, Vere’s frequently remarked fatherly bearing towards Billy ironically worsens the foretopman’s position. The Captain’s kindness so flusters Billy, whose excessive desire to display his duty momentarily paralyzes him, that he strikes out not only in defense, but in a hapless, failed effort to speak. As Susan Mizruchi points out, “Billy suffers at times from...the inability to speak at all, which parallels his illiteracy, his inability to read the signs of his experience. The language available to him as a lower-ranking seaman differs from the superior articulation of the educated officers, Vere and Claggart.
The political arbitrations wrought by writing align plebeian illiteracy with regimental paternalism. Paternalism predicates inferiority, and that predication is implemented by an administrative literacy. The same paternalism that Vere shows toward Billy also prevails in a note addressed by one of the mutinous crews at Spithead to the Lords of the Admiralty on August 19, 1795: “the ill-usage we have on board this ship forced us to fly to your Lordships the same as a child to its father. It is almost impossible for us to put it down in [sic] paper as cruel as it really is with flogging and abusing above humanity.” The Spithead Delegates wrote another letter to Admiral Lord Bridport, addressing him as “the father of the Fleet.” For their part, the Nore mutineers similarly evoked the king’s title “Father of your People” in a petition. The tender though sentimentalizing image of a child seeking adult protection both reveals the pathos of the seamen’s plight and the apparently inherent union between administrative paternalism and proletarian illiteracy. Such language asserts the hierarchy that informs the military, but it does so by means of an ideology that posits military relations as familial; it thereby mystifies the real quality of the relations it constitutes. Hence Vere’s paternal regard for Billy masks the fact that he acts from an idiosyncratic interpretation of military requirements.
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Writing Britain: James VI & I and the National Body
Samantha Murphy
(...)Charnes’ description of narrative imperialism, especially in relation to its ability to create an absolute identity which structures the identity of others, is similar to Slavoj Žižek’s notion of the ‘nodal point’ or ‘master-signifier’. Since an ideology is “a network of elements whose value wholly depends on their respective differential positions within the symbolic structure” (Tarrying 231), Žižek posits that ideological space is composed of “floating signifiers” whose identity is ultimately anchored through “the intervention of a certain ‘nodal point’ … which ‘quilts’ them, stops their sliding and fixes their meaning” (Sublime 87). By affixing an ideological field, the nodal point effectuates its identity. Thus, it is not only the point through which the subject is attached to the signifier, but also “the point that interpolates individual into subject by addressing it with the call of a certain master-signifier (‘Communism’, ‘God’, ‘Freedom,’ ‘America’)” (Sublime 101). This master-signifier embodies the ideological field and supplies the identity of each component part. As the consolidation and naturalization of power is due, in no small part, to the manipulation of rhetorical signs and symbols, literacy can be defined as the act of learning signifiers in relation to the nodal point. Critical literacies enable us to step back from that point and deconstruct the absolute identity around which meaning is formed. Returning to Žižek, if we “see it [the master-signifier] in the light of day, it changes into an every day object, it dissipates itself, precisely because in itself it is nothing at all” (Sublime 170).[1]
As my contribution to this discussion of cultural studies and critical literacies, I offer a reading of the nation-building literacies produced during the reign of England’s first Stuart monarch, James I. Beginning a new dynasty with new cultural imperatives, James presided over England during a period of rapid growth and expansion. His vision, expressed through a paternally absolute discourse, sought to redefine England, both to others and herself, as a consolidated Great Britain. Courtier Francis Bacon observed that James’ policies endeavored to “IMPRINT and inculcate into the hearts and heads of the people, that they are one people and one nation” (qtd. in Ivic 135). Fostering a British national consciousness, Christopher Ivic notes, caused “[m]any of James’ subjects . . . [to find] themselves rethinking their place within an emergent multi-national British polity” (135). James, unlike his predecessors, viewed himself as head of a geographically and politically unified state and his rhetorical productions strove to create an indivisible nation-state centered around the conjoined body of king and subjects. This hybrid body situated James as an all-inclusive “louing nourish-father” (“Basilikon Doron” 27) who sustained and unified the subjects of his nation.
Crucially, James exhibited his body to his subjects through writing. Textuality, the book to be studied, is as much a means to power as direct political action. Jeffrey Masten cogently describes James’ position as “a figure situated at the intersection of contemporaneous meanings of author: authority, father, instigator, ruler, writer” (66).[2] James recognized that to narrate is not simply to produce words, it is to produce the parameters of being; thus, he used his published material as a forum to implement his own narrative imperialism. In the process, he raised issues of author/ity[3] and paternity in order to position the kingly body as his ideal of parens patriae.[4] One metaphor frequently used by James in this figuration is the mirror image. Calling his writing the “mirrour . . . / Which sheweth the shaddow of a worthy King,” James commands that it act as a “patterne” for his subjects (“Basilikon Doron” 1). In this, his rhetorical and material strategy is clear. The king’s body, replicated through his words, serves as the template for the bodies of his children-subjects. In the policy this analogy promotes, the king’s reflected image serves as the point of reference for each subject(ed) body.
(snip)
In consistently returning to the dangers of misinterpretation, James displays an understandable anxiety over the possibility of absolute authorship. In the sixteenth- and seventeenth-centuries, collaboration was the prevalent mode of textual production. The assignment of sole authorship was prescribed by neither law nor custom. Even when individual authorship was claimed, of course, texts did not emerge from a vacuum. As seen by James’ critique of his misreaders, his words do not simply or absolutely assign meaning. Responding to this danger, James took the unusual step of authorizing the collation and publication of his texts in 1616’s The Workes of the Most High and Mighty Prince, James. This was a crucial move in James’ establishment of narrative imperialism. In the words of historian Kevin Sharpe, Workes marks the “moment when the authority of the text resided in the name of the creator” (17).
How was James’ author/ity effectuated? In his preface to Workes, the Bishop of Winton describes the collection as “divers Off-springs . . . proceeded[ing] from one braine.” He continues that, in re-membering the scattered corpus, Workes “give[s] euery childe [its] owne Father; [and] euery Booke [its] trew Author.” In this, Winton echoes James’ rhetoric of benevolent paternal author/ity. The readers are prepared to view James as the generative father, birthing his textual offspring. As children of the true father, they properly reflect his image. Then Winton’s language takes a darker turn: the kingly text has been divorced from the royal body, resulting in the need to “recover those that have bene lost.” The lost offspring, separated from the king, are “abused by false copies” (qtd. in Masten 72). The reproductive metaphor has morphed into malevolence. Workes attempts to contain that malevolence and place rhetorical reproduction firmly into the king’s hands.
What James’ work rhetorically reproduces is a hybrid body encompassing himself and his subjects. Agreeing with Peter Sloterdijk’s contention that “[t]o embody a doctrine means to make oneself into its medium” (102), I argue that James sought to discursively and materially embody the doctrine of paternally generative author/ity. Exhibiting his body through writing, he creates a new literacy—a new common-sense map of meaning that consolidates his vision of absolute monarchy. As part of this process, James’ rhetoric extends out from the page to the material body. Calling his “life” a “law-booke and a mirrour to [his] people,” James insists that subjects “read” in him “the practice of their owne Lawes; [that] therein they may see, by [his] image, what life they should lead” (BD 34). Authorship goes beyond the written word when the body of the king is the “law-booke” for his people. Stressing the conjoined nature of monarch and subject, James acknowledges that any “sinne” committed by the king is not “a single sinne procuring but the fall of one; but . . . an exemplare sinne . . . draw[ing] with it the whole multitude to be guilty of the same” (BD 12-13). As a mirror to his people, a monarch’s sin is never singular; it is reflected back by the “whole multitude” of his subjects.
For James, the power relations inherent in patriarchal absolutism demand a hybridized kingly body; one that is antithetical to democratic principles. Acting as a hybridized network composing the body of the state, the king’s body is not only joined to, but symbiotic with, the body of his nation. All life flows from James, and in him there is all life. In Speach to the Lords and Commons, James states, “For the King that is Parens Patriae, telles you of his wants. Nay, Patria ipsa by him speaks to you. For if the King wants, the state wants, and therefore the strengthening of the King is the preservation and standing of the state; And woe be to him that divides the weale of the King from the weale of the kingdom” (195). Sharing a body, king and country are indivisible. With his hybrid body, James sustains his state with his voice containing all voices and his welfare translating into national welfare. Constructing a hierarchy of paternal author/ity, James displays his body through the written word as a means of creating a new national literacy. In these terms, the maps of meaning created by James place him as the fecund father, the literal embodiment of the law, the mirror for his subjects, and the boundary of the national body.
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Jeff Westover
The Impressments of Billy Budd
Text as Impress
In concluding his novella with two contradictory reports of Billy Budd’s demise, Melville both explicitly addresses the subjective nature of history and demonstrates the complex character of hegemony. As “an inside narrative,” the novella presents itself as a framework from which to assess the information in the different texts, even though the ambiguity that permeates the novellas suggest that its textual authority, like that of its concluding texts, cannot prove ultimately comprehensive. From this perspective, the narrator’s juxtaposition of the official naval account and the populist ballad invites a skeptical response to the authoritative truth of the novella.
Moreover, to the extent that Melville’s narrative renders “Billy in the Darbies,” both as a scene in its plot and ad the text of the closing ballad, it pre-presents and to some extent repeats the compulsion of impressment. The depictions of Billy in manacles form a composite “imprese,” or emblem, for the novella as a whole. Yet the image of Billy in chains functions as an impress in a more familiar sense, for this iconic posture represents the “characteristic or distinctive mark” of the text, figuring the impressed man par excellence. In this sense, military impressment is repeated in print form.
That repetition is not a simple matter, however. Although the dominant class of a society asserts its control partly through its recourse to a governing, constitutive ideology, the ascendancy of that class is by no means static and impenetrable. As Raymond Williams insists, “hegemony is not singular; indeed...its own internal structures are highly complex, and have continually to be renewed, recreated and defended; and by the same token,...they can be continually challenged and in certain respects modified.”
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Melville, Billy Budd, Ch. 7
With minds less stored than his and less earnest, some officers of his rank, with whom at times he would necessarily consort, found him lacking in the companionable quality, a dry and bookish gentleman, as they deemed. Upon any chance withdrawal from their company one would be apt to say to another, something like this: "Vere is a noble fellow, Starry Vere. Spite the gazettes, Sir Horatio" (meaning him with the Lord title) "is at bottom scarce a better seaman or fighter. But between you and me now, don't you think there is a queer streak of the pedantic running thro' him? Yes, like the King's yarn in a coil of navy-rope?"
