Marvels and Commonplaces

 Marvels and Commonplaces, Renaissance Literary Criticism 

Baxter Hathaway

(forward)

In writing this book, I have tried to provide a synopsis of the whole extent of Renaissance literary criticism and at the same time to conduct a thorough investigations of a key aspect of that whole. The reconciling of these opposing demands has not always been easy. The reader should expect to have to go beyond the limits of this relatively short book to understand all of the complexities of this large subject. 

(snip)

I have, however, not been content here with summary. I have tried to incorporate a lot of new material and to provide a new focus, and to being into play a new organizing principle in the ordering of the large corpus of Renaissance literary criticism. Consequently, I have attempted to effect a new specialized study based on the raw material, representing one aspect of the whole, while trying to show that this one aspect is a key aspect, one that will best give access to all the nuances of thought.

     My attempt here has been to define Renaissance literary criticism as a battle between a desire for realism – the depictions of everyday life as we experience it in the here and now, empirical and based on causality and human characters whose motivations are true to the life we know – and, on the other side, the age-old demand for the MARVELOUS in myth and poetry –the escaping from this world of brass into a golden one of fantasy that is closer to our heart’s desire.

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Invita Minerva

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Jonson, _Timber_

See where he complains of their painting CHIMAERAS (by the vulgar unaptly called grotesque) saying that men who were born truly to study and emulate Nature did nothing but MAKE MONSTERS AGAINST NATURE, which Horace so laughed at.

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Bartholomew Fair: Jonson

T H E I N D u C T I O N O N T H E S T A G E.

It is further covenanted, concluded and agreed, That how great soever the expectation be, no Person here is to expect more than he knows, or better Ware than a Fair will afford: neither to look back to the Sword and Buckler-age of Smithfield, but content himself with the present. Instead of a little Davy, to take Toll o' the Bawds, the Author doth promise a strutting Horse-courser, with a leer-Drunkard, two or three to attend him, in as good Equipage as you would wish. And then for Kind- heart, the Tooth-drawer, a fine Oily Pig-woman with her Tapster, to bid you welcome, and a Consort of Roarers for Musick. A wise Justice of Peace meditant, instead of a Jugler, with an Ape. A civil Cutpurse searchant. A sweet Singer of new Ballads allurant: and as fresh an Hypocrite, as ever was broach'd, rampant. If there be never 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, Tem- pests, 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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Jonson. Verse Prologue, _Every Man in His Humor _

SCENE,---LONDON

PROLOGUE.

Though need make many poets, and some such As art and nature have not better'd much; Yet ours for want hath not so loved the stage, As he dare serve the ill customs of the AGE, Or purchase your delight at such a rate, As, for it, he himself must justly hate: To 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 king jars, And in the tyring-house bring wounds to scars. He rather prays you will be pleas'd to see One such to-day, as other plays should be; Where neither chorus wafts you o'er the seas, Nor creaking throne comes down the boys to please; Nor nimble squib is seen to make afeard The gentlewomen; nor roll'd bullet heard To say, it thunders; nor tempestuous drum Rumbles, to tell you when the storm doth come; But deeds, and language, such as men do use, And persons, such as comedy would choose, When she would shew an image of the times, And sport with human follies, not with crimes. Except we make them such, by loving still Our popular errors, when we know they're ill. 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*.

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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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Shakespeare wanted Arte - Jonson to Drummond

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Notes to Horace, Art of Poetry:

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 [note – the IDEA of the Droeshout Engraving]. 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.

[note – against/contrary to nature]

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prodigialiter

ADV

amazingly| wonderfully

prodigialiter

unnaturally, extravagantly

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Jonson, _The Alchemist_

TO THE READER.

If thou beest more, thou art an **understander**, and then I trust

thee. If thou art one that takest up, and but a pretender,

beware of what hands thou receivest thy commodity; for thou wert

never more fair in the way to be cozened, than in THIS AGE, in

poetry, especially in plays: wherein, *now the CONCUPISCENCE of

DANCES and of antics so reigneth, as to run away from nature,

and be afraid of her, is the only point of art that tickles the

spectators*. But how out of purpose, and place, do I name art?

When the professors are grown so obstinate contemners of it, and

presumers on their own naturals, as they are deriders of all

diligence that way, and, by simple mocking at the terms, when

they understand not the things, think to get off wittily with

their IGNORANCE. Nay, they are esteemed the more learned, and

sufficient for this, by the many, through their excellent vice

of judgment. For they commend writers, as they do fencers or

wrestlers; who if they come in robustuously, and put for it with

a great deal of violence, are received for the braver fellows:

when many times their own rudeness is the cause of their

disgrace, and a little touch of their adversary gives all that

boisterous force the foil. I deny not, but that these men, who

always seek to do more than enough, may some time happen on some

thing that is good, and great; but very seldom; and when it

comes it doth not recompense the rest of their ill. It sticks

out, perhaps, and is more eminent, because all is sordid and

VILE about it: as lights are more discerned in a thick darkness,

than a faint shadow. I speak not this, out of a hope to do good

to any man against his will; for I know, if it were put to the

question of theirs and mine, the worse would find more

suffrages: because the most favour common errors. But I give

thee this warning, that there is a great difference between

those, that, to gain the opinion of copy, utter all they can,

however unfitly; and those that use election and a mean. For it

is only the disease of the unskilful, to think rude things

greater than polished; or scattered more numerous than composed.

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Jonson's admirers were at times outraged at the behaviour of the 'ignorant' audiences at the Globe. Following is written by 'Ev. B' and appears at the front of Jonson's 'Sejanus':

To the **most understanding** Poet.

When in the Globe's fair ring, our world's best stage,

I saw Sejanus, set with that rich foil,

I looked the author should have born the spoil

Of conquest from the WRITERS OF THE AGE;

But when I viewed the people's beastly rage,

Bent to confound thy grave and learned toil,

That cost thee so much sweat, and so much oil,

My indignation I could hardly'assuage.

And many there (in passion) scarce could tell

Whether thy fault or theirs deserved most blame -

Thine, for so showing, theirs, to wrong the same;

But both they left within that doubtful hell.

From whence, this publication sets thee free;

They, for their IGNORANCE, still damned be. 

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Jonson, _Timber_

(In the difference of wits, note 10)

Not. 10.--It cannot but come to pass that these men who commonly seek to do more than enough may sometimes happen on something that is good and great; but very seldom: and when it comes it doth not recompense the rest of their ill. For their jests, and their sentences (which they only and ambitiously seek for) stick out, and are more eminent, because all is sordid and vile about them; as lights are more discerned in a thick darkness than a faint shadow. Now, because they speak all they can (however unfitly), they are thought to have the greater copy; where the learned use ever election and a mean, they look back to what they intended at first, and <>

http://home.att.net/~tleary/GIFS/DROUS.JPG

The true artificer will not run away from NATURE as he were AFRAID of her, or depart from life and the likeness of truth, but speak to the capacity of his hearers. And though his language differ from the vulgar somewhat, it shall not fly from all humanity, with the Tamerlanes and Tamer- chains of the late age, which had nothing in them but the scenical strutting and furious vociferation to warrant them to the IGNORANT gapers. He knows it is his only art so to carry it, as none but artificers perceive it. In the meantime, perhaps, he is called barren, dull, lean, a poor writer, or by what contumelious word can come in their cheeks, by these men who, without labour, judgment, knowledge, or almost sense, are received or preferred before him. He gratulates them and their fortune. Another age, or juster men, will acknowledge the virtues of his studies, his wisdom in dividing, his subtlety in arguing, with what strength he doth inspire his readers, with what sweetness he strokes them; in inveighing, what sharpness; in jest, what urbanity he uses; how he doth reign in men's affections; how invade and break in upon them, and makes their minds like the thing he writes. Then in his elocution to behold what word is proper, which hath ornaments, which height, what is beautifully translated, where figures are fit, which gentle, which strong, to show the composition manly; and how he hath avoided faint, obscure, obscene, sordid, humble, improper, or EFFEMINATE phrase; which is *not only praised of the most, but commended (which is worse), especially for that it is naught*.

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True and False Wit:

Jonson, Discoveries

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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DISCOVERIES MADE UPON MEN AND MATTER -- Jonson

De corruptela morum. - There cannot be one colour of the mind, another of the wit. If the mind be staid, grave, and composed, the wit is so; that vitiated, the other is blown and deflowered. Do we not see, if the mind languish, the members are dull? Look upon an effeminate person, his very gait confesseth him. If a man be fiery, his motion is so; if angry, it is troubled and violent. So that we may conclude wheresoever MANNERS and FASHIONS are corrupted, language is. It imitates the public riot. The excess of feasts and apparel are the notes of a sick state, and the wantonness of language of a sick mind.

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TO THE MEMORY OF MY BELOVED

*MASTER* WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE,

AND WHAT HE HATH LEFT US

by Ben Jonson

Yet must I not give Nature all ; thy art,

My gentle Shakspeare, must enjoy a part.

For though the poet's matter nature be,

His art doth give the fashion : and, that he

Who casts to write a living line, must sweat,

(Such as thine are) and strike the second heat

Upon the Muses' anvil ; turn the same,

And himself with it, that he thinks to frame ;

Or for the laurel he may gain a SCORN ;

For a good poet's made, as well as born.

And such wert thou ! Look how the father's FACE

Lives in his issue, even so the race

Of Shakspeare's MIND and MANNERS brightly shines

In his well torned and true filed lines;

In each of which he **SEEMS** to shake a lance,

As brandisht at the **EYES** of ignorance.

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Oxford's Monstrous Imagination:

(Harvey prints his poem Speculum Tuscanismi disclaiming it as 'a bolde Satyricall Libell lately devised at the Instauce of an old friend.' It mocks Sidney's ENEMY the Earl of Oxford (See Katherine Duncan-Jones, Sir Philip Sidney: Courtier Poet, London, 1991, pp.166-7)

'Tell me in good sooth, doth it not too evidently appeare, that this English Poet 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, as their children, and perhappes their Childrens children to, myght have thanked them for, as long as they shall have Tongues in their heades."

Sidney: The

Critical Heritage

By Martin Garrett (pp.92-93)

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Liking Men: Ben Jonson's Closet Opened

Lorna Hutson

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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True to Nature/Against Nature/Running Away from Nature

Marvels and Commonplaces, Baxter Hathaway

The Marvelous and the Verisimilar

     Aristotle's emphasis on the verisimilar and the necessary was as clearly recognized in the sixteenth century as it is today; whether by verisimilitude Aristotle meant 'probability.' or 'truth to the facts in an imitation of a known subject,' or 'credibility' was not so clear then. We shall have to see as we move from critic to critic how the terms verisimile or vraisemblable undergo shifts in meaning. If a painter makes a good likeness in painting a portrait, his work can be called lifelike or 'true to nature'. If poetry is an accurate imitation of human life nad actions, a MIRROR reflecting the world as we know it, the poet becomes a kind of portrait painter, and doctrines of verisimilitude are closely linked with those of mimesis or imitation, so that the concept of imitation becomes one of the concepts closely related to the need for reconciling the marvelous and the verisimilar in a poem. Aristotle said tha tthe historian writes about what has happened, that the poet writes anbout whea might happen or shold happen according to verisimilitude or necessity, and that poetry is thus more hilosophical and serious than history since it aims at universals in treating particulars. History is not verisimilar then, because it is truth itself. (pp. 54-55)

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Introduction to the Latin translation of The Courtier 1572, written by Edward de Vere, translated from the Latin by B.M. Ward)

For what more difficult, more noble, or more magnificent task has anyone ever undertaken than our author Castiglione, who has drawn for us the FIGURE and MODEL of a courtier, a work to which nothing can be added, in which there is no redundant word, a portrait which we shall recognize as that of a highest and most perfect type of man. And so, although nature herself has made nothing perfect in every detail, yet the MANNERS OF MEN EXCEED in dignity that with which NATURE has endowed them; and he who surpasses others has here surpassed himself and has even OUT-DONE NATURE, which by no one has ever been surpassed*. Nay more: however elaborate the ceremonial, whatever the magnificence of the court, the splendor of the courtiers, and the multitude of spectators, he has been able to lay down principles for the guidance of the very Monarch himself.

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This FIGURE that thou here seest put

It was for gentle Shakespere cut,

Wherein the graver had a *Strife

With NATURE* to OUT-DOO the life.

O, could he have drawn his wit

As well in brass as he hath hit

His face, the print would then surpass

All that was ever writ in BRASS!

But since he cannot, reader look

Not on his picture, but his book.

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AW Johnson: _Ben Jonson: Poetry and Architecture_

     In the deep background Jonson shares the Aristotelian emphasis of

the Palladians. He writes in _Discoveries_ that the poet's art is one of

'imitation, or faining; expressing the life of man in fit measure,

numbers and harmony, according to Aristotle' (Disc.,ll. 2348-50); and

that the study of it 'offers to mankinde a certaine rule, and Patterne

of living well, and happily (Disc., ll. 2386-7) Poetry - like

architecture - therefore has a didactic function which exploits a

mimetic relationship between a well-shaped life and a well-shaped work

of art (and which can be metonymically embodied within the 'measure,

numbers, and harmony' of language as easily as it can be in stone). And

the determinant of the relationship is a moral one - a criterion of

'fitness' applied within the poem which emanates from the moral sense

of the poet himself:>> (p.27)

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Jonson made it clear that Shakespeare had an 'open and free nature' and was unable to properly contain or 'rule' his wit:

...wherein he FLOW'D with that FACILITY, that

sometime it was necessary he should be stopped: Sufflaminan-dus erat

[the brake needed to be applied]; as Augustus said of Haterius. His

Wit was in his own power; would the RULE of it had been so too.

_________________

Rule \Rule\, n. [OE. reule, riule, OF. riule, reule, F.

r['e]gle, fr. L. regula a ruler, rule, model, fr. regere,

rectum, to lead straight, to direct. See Right, a., and cf.

Regular.]

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[Horace's 'Aegri Somnia/Sick Man's Dreams']

Folly, and BRAIN-SICK humours of the time,

Distemper'd passion, and audacious crime,

Thy pen so on the stage doth personate,

That ere men scarce begin to know, they hate

The vice presented, and there lessons learn,

Virtue, from vicious habits to discern.

Oft have I seen thee in a sprightly strain,

To lash a vice, and yet no one complain ;

Thou threw'st the ink of malice from thy pen,

Whose aim was EVIL MANNERS, not ill men.

(Hawkins -- Jonsonus Virbius) 

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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.

[Droeshout Engraving]

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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 silence 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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Chapman, Revenge of Bussy D'Ambois

Clermont:

They are the breathing sepulchres of noblesse:

No trulier noble men, then lions pictures

Hung up for signs are lions. (2.1. l.154-156)

(snip)

A man may well

compare them to those foolish great-spleened camels

That, to their high heads, begged of Jove horns higher;

Whose most uncomely and RIDICULOUS pride

When he had satisfied, they could not use,

But where they went upright before, they stooped,

And bore their heads much lower for their horns;

*As these high men do, low in all true grace,

Their height being privilege to all things base*.

And as the foolish poet that still writ

All his most self-loved verse in paper royal

Or parchment ruled with lead, smoothed with the pumice,

Bound richly up, and strung with crimson strings;

Never so blest as when he writ and read

The APE-loved issue of his brain, and never

But joying in himself, ADMIRING EVER,

Yet in his works behold him, and he showed

Like to a ditcher: so these painted men

All set on outside, look upon within

And not a peasants entrails you shall find

More foul and measled, nor more starved of mind.

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George Sandys:

OVID'S

METAMORPHOSIS

ENGLISHED,

MYTHOLOGIZ'D,

And

Represented in Figures.

An Essay to the Translation

of VIRGIL'S AENEIS.

By G. S.

IMPRINTED AT OXFORD.

By IOHN LICHFIELD.

An. Dom. MDCXXXII.

Cum Priuilegio ad imprimendum hanc Ouidij

TRANSLATIONEM.

THE MINDE OF

THE FRONTISPEECE

And Argument of this

WORKE.

FIRE, AIRE, EARTH, WATER, all the Opposites

That stroue in Chaos, powrefull LOVE vnites;

And from their Discord drew this Harmonie,

Which smiles in Nature: who, with rauisht eye,

Affects his owne made Beauties. But, our Will,

Desire, and Powres Irascible, the skill

Of PALLAS orders; who the Mind attires

With all Heroick Vertues: This aspires

To Fame and Glorie; by her noble Guide

Eternized, and well-nigh Deifi'd.

*But who forsake that faire Intelligence,

To follow Passion, and voluptuous Sense;

That shun the Path and Toyles of HERCVLES;

Such, charm'd by CIRCE's luxurie, and ease,

*Themselues deforme*: 'twixt whom, so great an ods;

That these are held for Beasts, and those for Gods*.

PHOEBVS APOLLO (sacred Poesy)

Thus taught: for in these ancient Fables lie

The mysteries of all Philosophie.

Some Natures secrets shew; in some appeare

Distempers staines; some teach vs how to beare

Both Fortunes, bridling Ioy, Griefe, Hope, and Feare.

These Pietie, Deuotion those excite;

These prompt to Vertue, those from Vice affright;

All fitly mingling Profit with Delight.

This Course our Poet steeres: and those that faile,

By wandring stars, not by his Compasse, saile.

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Jonson, Every Man Out

THE STAGE.  

After the second sounding.

ENTER CORDATUS, ASPER, AND MITIS.

COR.  Nay, my dear Asper.

MIT.  Stay your mind.

ASP.  Away!

Who is so patient of this impious world,

That he can check his spirit, or rein his tongue?

Or who hath such a dead unfeeling sense,

That heaven's horrid thunders cannot wake?

To see the earth crack'd with the weight of sin,

Hell gaping under us, and o'er our heads

Black, ravenous ruin, with her sail-stretch'd wings,

Ready to sink us down, and cover us.

Who can behold such prodigies as these,

And have his lips seal'd up?  Not I:  my soul

Was never ground into such oily colours,

To flatter vice, and daub iniquity:

But, with an armed and resolved hand,

I'll strip the ragged follies of the time

Naked as at their birth --

COR.  Be not too bold.

ASP.  You trouble me -- and with a whip of steel,

Print wounding lashes in their iron ribs.

I fear no mood stamp'd in a private brow,

When I am pleased t'unmask a public vice.

I fear no strumpet's drugs, nor ruffian's stab,

Should I detect their hateful luxuries:

No broker's usurer's, or lawyer's gripe,

Were I disposed to say, they are all corrupt.

I fear no courtier's frown, should I applaud

The easy flexure of his supple hams.

Tut, these are so innate and popular,

That drunken custom would not shame to laugh,

In scorn, at him, that should but dare to tax 'em:

And yet, not one of these, but knows his works,

Knows what damnation is, the devil, and hell;

Yet hourly they persist, grow rank in sin,

Puffing their souls away in perjurous air,

To cherish their extortion, pride, or lusts.

MIT.  Forbear, good Asper; be not like your name.

ASP.  O, but to such whose faces are all zeal,

And, with the words of Hercules, invade

Such crimes as these!  that will not smell of sin,

But seem as they were made of sanctity!

Religion in their garments, and their hair

Cut shorter than their eye-brows!  when the conscience

Is vaster than the ocean, and devours

More wretches than the counters.

MIT.  Gentle Asper,

Contain our spirits in more stricter bounds,

And be not thus transported with the violence

Of your strong thoughts.

COX.  Unless your breath had power,

To melt the world, and mould it new again,

It is in vain to spend it in these moods.

ASP.  [TURNING TO THE STAGE.]

I not observed this thronged round till now !

Gracious and kind spectators, you are welcome;

Apollo and Muses feast your eyes

With graceful objects, and may *our Minerva* [my note - our Minerva/Nature/ compare 'my Shakespeare of Folio]

Answer your hopes, unto their largest strain!

Yet here mistake me not, judicious friends;

I do not this, to beg your patience,

Or servilely to fawn on your applause,

Like some dry brain, despairing in his merit.

Let me be censured by the austerest brow,

*Where I want art or judgment, tax me freely*.

Let envious censors, with their broadest eyes,

Look through and through me, I pursue no favour;

Only vouchsafe me your attentions,

And I will give you music worth your ears.

O, how I hate the monstrousness of time,

Where every servile imitating spirit,

Plagued with an itching leprosy of wit,

In a mere halting fury, strives to fling

His ulcerous body in the Thespian spring,

And straight leaps forth a poet!  but as lame

As Vulcan, or the founder of Cripplegate.

MIT.  In faith this humour will come ill to some,

You will be thought to be too peremptory.

ASP.  This humour?  good!  and why this humour, Mitis?

Nay, do not turn, but answer.

MIT.  Answer, what?

ASP.  I will not stir your patience, pardon me,

I urged it for some reasons, and the rather

To give these ignorant well-spoken days

Some taste of their abuse of this word humour.

COR.  O, do not let your purpose fall, good Asper;

It cannot but arrive most acceptable,

Chiefly to such as have the happiness

Daily to see how the poor innocent word

Is rack'd and tortured.

MIT.  Ay, I pray you proceed.

ASP.  Ha, what?  what is't?

COR.  For the abuse of humour.

ASP.  O, I crave pardon, I had lost my thoughts.

Why humour, as 'tis 'ens', we thus define it,

To be a quality of air, or water,

And in itself holds these two properties,

Moisture and fluxure:  as, for demonstration,

Pour water on this floor, 'twill wet and run:

Likewise the air, forced through a horn or trumpet,

Flows instantly away, and leaves behind

A kind of dew; and hence we do conclude,

That whatsoe'er hath fluxure and humidity,

As wanting power to contain itself,

Is humour.  So in every human body,

The choler, melancholy, phlegm, and blood,

By reason that they flow continually

In some one part, and are not continent,

Receive the name of humours.  Now thus far

It may, by metaphor, apply itself

Unto the general disposition:

As when some one peculiar quality

Doth so possess a man, that it doth draw

All his affects, his spirits, and his powers,

In their confluctions, all to run one way,

This may be truly said to be a humour

But that a rook, by wearing a pyed feather,

The cable hat-band, or the three-piled ruff,

A yard of shoe-tye, or the Switzer's knot

On his French garters, should affect a humour!

O, it is more than most ridiculous.

COR.  He speaks pure truth; now if an idiot

Have but an apish or fantastic strain,

It is his humour.

ASP.  Well, I will scourge those apes,

And to these courteous eyes oppose a mirror,

As large as is the stage whereon we act;

Where they shall see the time's deformity

Anatomised in every nerve, and sinew,

With constant courage, and contempt of fear.

MIT.  Asper, (I urge it as your friend,) take heed,

The days are dangerous, full of exception,

And men are grown impatient of reproof.

ASP.  Ha, ha!

You might as well have told me, yond' is heaven,

This earth, these men, and all had moved alike. --

Do not I know the time's condition?

Yes, Mitis, and their souls; and who they be

That either will or can except against me.

None but a sort of fools, so sick in taste,

That they contemn all physic of the mind,

And like gall'd camels, kick at every touch.

Good men, and virtuous spirits, that loath their vices,

Will cherish my free labours, love my lines,

And with the fervour of their shining grace

Make my brain fruitful, to bring forth more objects,

Worthy their serious and intentive eyes.

But why enforce I this?  as fainting?  no.

If any here chance to behold himself,

Let him not dare to challenge me of wrong;

For, if he shame to have his follies known,

First he should shame to act 'em:  my strict hand

Was made to seize on vice, and with a gripe

Squeeze out the humour of such spongy souls,

As lick up every idle vanity.

COR.  Why, this is right furor poeticus!

Kind gentlemen, we hope your patience

Will yet conceive the best, or entertain

This supposition, that a madman speaks.

ASP.  What, are you ready there?  Mitis, sit down,

And my Cordatus.  Sound ho!  and begin.

I leave you two, as censors, to sit here:

Observe what I present, and liberally

Speak your opinions upon every scene,

As it shall pass the view of these spectators.

Nay, now y'are tedious, sirs; for shame begin.

And, Mitis, note me; if in all this front

You can espy a gallant of this mark,

Who, to be thought one of the judicious,

Sits with his arms thus wreath'd, his hat pull'd here,

Cries mew, and nods, then shakes his empty head,

Will shew more several motions in his face

Than the new London, Rome, or Niniveh,

And, now and then, breaks a dry biscuit jest,

Which, that it may more easily be chew'd,

He steeps in his own laughter.

COR.  Why, will that

Make it be sooner swallowed?

ASP.  O, assure you.

Or if it did not, yet as Horace sings,

Mean cates are welcome still to hungry guests.

COR.  'Tis true; but why should we observe them, Asper?

ASP.  O, I would know 'em; for in such assemblies

They are more infectious than the pestilence:

And therefore I would give them pills to purge,

And make them fit for fair societies.

How monstrous and detested is't to see

A fellow that has neither art nor brain,

Sit like an Aristarchus, or stark ass,

Taking men's lines with a tobacco face,

In snuff still spitting, using his wry'd looks,

In nature of a vice, to wrest and turn

The good aspect of those that shall sit near him,

From what they do behold!  O, 'tis most vile.

MIT.  Nay, Asper.

ASP.  Peace, Mitis, I do know your thought;

You'll say, your guests here will except at this:

Pish!  you are too timorous, and full of doubt.

Then he, a patient, shall reject all physic,

'Cause the physician tells him, you are sick:

Or, if I say, that he is vicious,

You will not hear of virtue.  Come, you are fond.

Shall I be so extravagant, to think,

That happy judgments, and composed spirits,

Will challenge me for taxing such as these?

I am ashamed.

COR.  Nay, but good, pardon us;

We must not bear this peremptory sail,

But use our best endeavours how to please.

ASP.  Why, therein I commend your careful thoughts,

And I will mix with you in industry

To please:  but whom?  attentive auditors,

Such as will join their profit with their pleasure,

And come to feed their understanding parts:

For these I'll prodigally spread myself,

And speak away my spirit into air;

For these, I'll melt my brain into invention,

Coin new conceits, and hang my richest words

As polish'd jewels in their bounteous ears?

But stay, I lose myself, and wrong their patience:

If I dwell here, they'll not begin, I see.

Friends, sit you still, and entertain this troop

With some familiar and by-conference,

I'll hast them sound.  Now, gentlemen, I go

To turn an actor, and a humorist,

Where, ere I do resume my present person,

We hope to make the circles of your eyes

Flow with distilled laughter:  if we fail,

We must impute it to this only chance,

ART hath an enemy call'd IGNORANCE.

[EXIT.

*************************

Baxter Hathaway, The Age of Criticism

     In spite of the fact that some of Castelvetro’s comments on the nature of the dramatic mode have been cited as the first insistence on the unities of place and time and hence the significant beginning of the rigidities of the Neoclassic attitudes toward drama and hence a prime instance of his wrongheadedness, taken in context of the making of distinctions  between the narrative and the dramatic modes of imitating, they seem to make rather good sense. The dramatic mode, Castelvetro said, can move about less easily in time and space than can the narrative mode. It can represent only the visible and the audible, whereas the narrative mode can more easily bring into play states of consciousness and internal promptings. The dramatic mode stirs emotions more than narrative but gives a simpler and less full-bodied account of the nature of the events since some aspects of the action cannot be directly or fully represented on a stage. This is the kind of analysis of the limitations of certain media such as we make today when we decide what can be done in motion pictures that can be done only less well on stage or in novels. When Castelvetro said further that  “the dramatic mode represents actions as occurring in the time in which they would naturally occur” and that for this reason the length of a comedy or tragedy is limited by the comfort of the audience and “cannot represent more things than occur in the space of time which it takes to present the drama,” he did, it is true, limit the drama to what is simply imitative. The concept of poetic imitation held in the Renaissance was capable of extensions to include expressive poems as well as poems that are content to mirror externals, but Castelvetro – as well as some of the others – was trapped by his own logic to assume that no special case had to be made for drama as direct imitation and that consequently the nature of drama was to imitate wholly and directly. *For such reasons an expressive theater like that of Shakespeare came to be EXCLUDED from the Neoclassic world*. (pp. 19-20)

************************

Cartwright, William, 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,

Which chance, and th'ages fashion did make hit;

EXCLUDING those from life in after-time, 

Who into Po'try first brought luck and rime: 

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 

Made commendation a benevolence: 

THY thoughts were their owne Lawrell, and did win

That best applause of being crown'd within..

***********************

Jenny C. Mann in 'Outlaw Rhetoric' discusses soraismus as a form of linguistic abuse, quoting from Quintilian's Institutio oratoria:

There is also what is called Sardismos, a style made up of a mixture of several kinds of language, for example a confusion of Attick with Doric, Aeolic with Ionic. We Romans commit a similar fault, if we combine the sublime with the mean, the ancient with the modern, the poetic with the vulgar, for this produces a monster like the one Horace invents at the beginning of the Ars Poetica:

Suppose a painter chose to put together

a man's head and a horse's neck,

and then added other limbs from different creatures.

She continues...'Only by preserving a pure Roman expression uncontaminated by dialect forms can one avoid producing a monstrous style made up of "limbs from different creatures, " added to a man's head on a horse's neck. Quintilian thus turns the centaur and other monsters into tropes for language unrestrained by proper boundaries. (Jenny C. Mann, Outlaw Rhetoric) 

*************************

To the Deceased Author of these Poems...William Cartwright 

by Jasper Mayne

For thou to Nature had'st joyn'd Art, and skill.

In Thee BEN JOHNSON still HELD SHAKESPEARE'S QUILL:

A QUILL, RUL'D by sharp Judgement, and such Laws,

As a well studied Mind, and Reason draws.

Thy Lamp was cherish'd with suppolied of Oyle,

Fetch'd from the Romane and the Graecian soyle. (snip)

***********************

Margaret Tudeau-Clayton

Shakespeare’s Extravagancy

"Exemplifying then the emergent, bourgeois model of the exclusionary private singular self, as well as the linguistic and interpretative practices of a plain man in his plain meaning, the figure of Malvolio has also been taken, more specifically, to caricature Shakespeare’s principal contemporary critic and rival Ben Jonson. Promoting throughout his work the linguistic ideology of a plain man in his plain meaning together with the related ideas of a bounded, proper, private self and of proper authorial origin and ownership, Jonson’s explicit criticism of Shakespeare consists precisely in an expressed *will to curtailment*. Glancing perhaps at the figure of Malvolio Jonson records how the actors considered ‘malevolent’ his response to their praise of Shakespeare’s never blotting a line : ‘Would he had blotted a thousand’. He then goes on to reiterate and retrospectively justify this will to curtailment : ‘sometimes it was necessary he should be stop’d : … His wit was in his owne power ; would the rule of it had been so too’ (p. 584). Clearly Shakespeare was not sufficiently restrained or disciplined for Jonson who, later in these posthumously published notes, generalises the restraint requisite to good writing in terms of money management. At the close of a passage in which he has advised against excessive play or what he calls, significantly enough, ‘riot’ with figurative language, especially paronomasies, or play upon the letter, he sums up with : ‘There is a difference between a liberal and a prodigal hand’ (p. 623). Sounding rather like Polonius to Laertes Jonson here advocates an economic policy, and policing, of restrained expenditure, which is neatly illustrated by his use of a single metonymy — the hand — for the analogous economies of writing and money management. That Shakespeare’s hand tended towards the prodigal for Jonson is more specifically signalled in his portrait of Ovid in _Poetaster_, which alludes to Shakespeare as well as to Marlowe, and which may have provoked, or been provoked by, the caricatural representation of Jonson as Malvolio in Twelfth Night (produced, like Poetaster, in 1601). 

(snip)

Wandering across and blurring ‘proper’ boundaries, whether between English and not-English, or between literal and non-literal senses, the linguistic practices of the neologism and equivoque tend to the production of a mobile, impure, strange and extravagant hybrid vernacular, in short, what the purists, in their condemnations of the practice of neologism, call a gallimaufry, hodge-podge or mingle-mangle, three virtually synonymous figures which are used interchangeably to represent the ‘corrupt’ hybrid vernacular produced by the practice. The figure of the gallimaufry is, in addition, used of generically mixed cultural forms, as in ‘a tragy-call comedye or gallymalfreye’ (the first instance of the word recorded in the OED) — a mixing of ‘high’ and ‘low’ generic forms which Philip Sidney famously condemns as ‘mingling Kings and Clownes.’ As I have shown elsewhere, the figure of the gallimaufry is explicitly invoked in that notorious generic hodge-podge The Merry Wives of Windsor where Falstaff, who might be described as an embodiment of extravagancy in both the more and less modern senses of the word, and who is recurrently associated with the figure of the prodigal son, is said to love the gallimaufry. Still more relevant here, however, is John Lyly’s prologue to Midas (1592), in which he represents the ubiquitous practice of generically mixed cultural forms in terms of the culinary base of the figure of the gallimaufry — ‘what heretofore hath been served in severall dishes for a feaste, is now minced […] for a Gallimaufrey’ — and then proceeds to represent the instance which is to follow as ‘a mingle-mangle’, giving as his excuse that ‘the whole worlde is become a hodge-podge’.

************************

Shakespeare

Alas, 'tis true I have gone here and there

And made myself a motley to the view,

Gor'd mine own thoughts, sold cheap what is most dear,

Made old offences of affections new.

Most true it is that I have look'd on truth

Askance and strangely: but, by all above,

These blenches gave my heart another youth,

And worse essays prov'd thee my best of love.

*********************

Integritas - one/whole

Jonson, ‘On Poet-Ape,’ Epigrams (1616), No 56.: Shakespearean Sonnet Form

Poor Poet Ape, that would be thought our chief,

Whose works are e’en the FRIPPERY of WIT,

From Brokage is become so bold a thief

As we, the robbed, leave rage and pity it.

At first he made low shifts, would pick and glean,

Buy the reversion of old plays, now grown

To a little wealth, and credit on the scene,

He takes up all, makes each man’s wit his own,

And told of this, he slights it. Tut, such crimes

The sluggish, gaping auditor devours;

He marks not whose ‘twas first, and aftertimes

May judge it to be his, as well as ours.

Fool! as if half-eyes will not know a fleece

From locks of wool, or SHREDS from the whole piece.

Shakespeare, Poet-Apes and Ciceronian Crows

Jonson, Every Man Out

Asper. Well, I will scourge those APES,

And to these courteous Eyes *oppose a Mirrour*,

As large as is the Stage whereon we act;

Where they shall see the Times Deformity

Anatomiz'd in every Nerve and Sinew,

With constant Courage, and contempt of Fear. 

(my note - Neoclassical 'mirror' opposed to an 'expressive' Shakespeare)

*********************************

 The Poetics of Primitive Accumulation, Richard Halpern

Looking back somewhat sourly on the culture of the sixteenth century, Francis Bacon wrote that it was marked by

An affectionate study of eloquence and copie of speech, which then began to flourish. This grew speedily to an excess; for men began to hunt more after words than matter; and more after the choiceness of the Phrase, and the round and clean composition of the sentence, and the sweet falling of the clauses, and the varying and illustration of their works with tropes and figures, than after the weight of matter, worth of subject, soundness of argument, life of invention, or depth of judgement…Then did Car of Cambridge, and Ascham, with their lectures and writings, almost deify Cicero and Demosthenes, and allure all young men that were studious unto that delicate and polished kind of learning…In sum, the whole inclination and bent of those times was rather towards copie than weight.

What concerns Bacon here is not an imbalance within literary style but the proliferation of *stylistic elegance*throughout all of serious discourse. Paradoxically, the very autonomy of style allows it to colonize and dominate all other discursive functions; and as if to illustrate this peril, Bacon’s own language falls temporarily under the spell of style, succumbing to a delight in the “round and clear composition of the sentence, and the sweet falling of the clauses.” This sudden access of eloquence is not a return of the repressed, however, but a witty tribute to the lures of a humanist tradition from which Bacon only halfheartedly tried to extricate himself.

     In assailing what one critic has called the “stylistic explosion” [Richard Lanham] of the sixteenth century, Bacon questions the values of the English literary Renaissance itself. Ciceronianism was only one small part of this movement [my note- Euphuism], but more than any other it came to represent a mysterious addiction to style. Gabriel Harvey famously described his own bout with Ciceronianism in the confessional manner of a recovering alcoholic:

…..I valued words more than content, language more than thought, the one art of speaking more than the thousand subjects of knowledge; I preferred the mere style of Marcus Tully to all the postulates of philosophers and mathematicians; I believed that the bone and sinew of imitation lay in my ability to choose as many brilliant and elegant words as possible to reduce them into order, and to connect them together in a rhythmical period.

(snip)

It is no accident…that Erasmus, who reorganized the teaching of Latin around the concept of style, also wrote the first modern book of manners. De civilitate morum puerilium (1530) taught children the codes of *civil behaviour* as a natural complement to the achievements of “lyberall science”; social manners and literary style thus cooperated to produce a subject “well fasshyoned in soule, in body, in gesture, and in apparayle.” The cultivation of a good Latin style now appears as part of a larger process of “fashioning” subjects – a process that submits not only language but also manners, dress, and comportment to ideal of “exactness and refinement.” If it is clear that stylistic pedagogy is a form of social discipline, it is equally certain that discipline is becoming stylized. For in defining civility as “outward honesty of the body” (externum…corporis decorum), Erasmus transforms a set of social behaviours into a *bodily image*. The “well-fashioned” or civil subject is an aesthetic ideal that expands the concept of “style” to cover the whole range of social bearing. To produce a civil subject is to produce a “style” – of manners, dress, and discourse. And social style, like the literary style that is now a part of it, is developed not through obedience to rules but *through the mimetic assimilation of models*. Thus *De civilitate supplements a juridical approach to manners – the prescription and proscription of behaviours – with an imaginary logic*. (snip)( p32)

**********************************

Gabriel Harvey, Rhetor (1577)

On Art.

Can anyone be an artist without art? Or have you ever seen a bird flying without wings, or a horse running without feet? Or if you have seen such things, which no one else has ever seen, come, tell me please, do you hope to become a goldsmith, or a painter, or a sculptor, or a musician, or an architect, or a weaver, or any sort of artist at all without a teacher? But how much easier are all these things, than that you develop into a supreme and perfect orator without the art of public speaking. There is need of a teacher, and indeed even an excellent teacher, who might point out the springs with his finger, as it were, and carefully pass on to you the art of speaking colorfully, brilliantly, copiously. But what sort of art shall we choose? Not an art entangled in countless difficulties, or packed with meaningless arguments; not one sullied by useless [31] precepts, or disfigured by strange and foreign ones; not an art polluted by any filth, or fashioned to accord with our OWN WILL and judgment; not a single art joined and sewn together from many, *like a quilt from many rags and skins (way too many rhetoricians have given this sort of art to us, if indeed one may call art that which conforms to no artistic principles)*. We want rather an art that is concise, precise, appropriate, lucid, accessible; one that is decorated and illuminated by precise definitions, accurate divisions, and striking illustrations, as if by flashing gems and stars; one that emerges, and in a way bursts into flower, from the speech of the most eloquent men and the best orators. Why so? Not only because brevity is pleasant, and clarity delightful, but also so that eloquence might be learned in a shorter time, and with less labor and richer results, and so that it might stand more firmly grounded, secured by deeper roots. For thus said the gifted poet in his Ars Poetica: "Whatever instruction you give, let it be brief." Why? [32] He gives two reasons: "So that receptive minds might swiftly grasp your words and accurately retain them." And indeed, as the same poet elegantly adds: "Everything superfluous spills from a mind that's full."

(snip)

But those little CROWS and APES of Cicero were long ago driven from the stage by the hissing and laughter of the learned, as they so well deserved, and at last have almost vanished; and I now hope to find not only eager and attentive auditors, but friendly spectators as well, not the sort who scrupulously weigh every individual detail on the scales of their own refined tastes, but who interpret everything in a fair and good-natured way.

***********************************

William Scott, Model of Poetry (pp. 10-11)

     What if I grant (which is all indeed that Plato can demand and no more than Aristotle approves) that thee is somewhat of instinct in the poet? Do I thereby take away the being of an art in that kind? We know that Bezaleel is said to have the spirit of God, or an extraordinary instinct in the curious skill of working in metals; yet, without doube, instructions and practice (the necessary parents of all art) brought this disposition and inspired ability into actual perfection. Natalis Comes saith every excellent man in any quality (as Amphion in music) was called the child of Jupiter, because he had some more refinedness of nature, or some instinct above ordinary man. 

[my note - Garbriel Harvey on Oxford's 'Jovial Mind' in Speculum Tuscanismi dispute]

Scott, con't:

And the painter, in expressing the inward affections by the outward motions, wherein consisteth the grace and glory of is art, requires in the practiser 'forza ingenerata seco e accresciuta con lui sino dalle fasce' an inbred ability born and nursed in him even from his swaddlings' and this he calls a fury and saith it is reputed a divine gift, not a whit afraid to match it sith the poetical fury. Yet I trust no artist is so overweeningly conceited [my note - self-love] that he will neglect those artificial directions which bring this natural propenseness and supernatural inspiring into actual and habitual perfection. These things considered, at length I securely conclude with courtly Horace the skillfulliest and most naturally sweet lyric the Latins have, who saith:

Natura fieret laudabile carmen an arte,

quaesitum est: ego nec studium sine divite vena,

nec rude quid prodest video ingenium: alterius sic

altera poscit opem res it coniurat amice.

Doubt is, if poets art or nature make;

A reconcilement thus I undertake:

No soil yields fruit without art's husbanding,

No art makes barren minds rich harvest bring,

But, art embracing nature, nature art,

They sweetly work together, none apart.

Only I will say it were best for those some of our undertakers, who Sir Philip Sidney saith can endure by no means to be cumbered with many artificial rules, still to defend that the poet needs no art, no nor the reader neither lest by some cruel mischance he find them to be (as that knight calls them somewhere) POET-APES, that is unreasonable creatures, with a very ridiculous unhandsomeness mocking, rather that imitating, the highest and gracefullest ability of nature and art. This is of the GENUS.

******************

genus/race of Shakespeare's mind and manners

Plato - the ‘imitative tribe’ [my note - race/gens]

********************

Astrophil and Stella 3

BY SIR PHILIP SIDNEY

Let dainty wits cry on the sisters nine,

That, bravely mask'd, their fancies may be told;

Or, PINDAR'S APES, flaunt they in phrases fine,

Enam'ling with pied flowers their thoughts of gold.

Or else let them in statelier glory shine,

Ennobling newfound tropes with problems old;

Or with strange similes enrich each line,

Of herbs or beasts which Ind or Afric hold.

For me, in sooth, no Muse but one I know;

Phrases and problems from my reach do grow,

And strange things cost too dear for my poor sprites.

How then? even thus: in Stella's face I read

What love and beauty be; then all my deed

But copying is, what in her Nature writes.

*****************************

 Ben Jonson, ‘On Poet-Ape,’ Epigrams (1616), No 56. (Shakespearean Sonnet form)

Poor Poet Ape, that would be thought our chief,

Whose works are e’en the FRIPPERY of WIT,

From Brokage is become so bold a thief

As we, the robbed, leave rage and pity it.

At first he made low shifts, would pick and glean,

Buy the reversion of old plays, now grown

To a little wealth, and credit on the scene,

He takes up all, makes each man’s wit his own,

And told of this, he slights it. Tut, such CRIMES

The sluggish, gaping auditor devours;

He marks not whose ‘twas first, and aftertimes

May judge it to be his, as well as ours.

Fool! as if half-eyes will not know a fleece

From LOCKS of wool, or SHREDS from the whole piece.

************************************

Amorphus/Oxford, Cynthia's Revels - Jonson

He that is with him is Amorphus

a Traveller, one so made out of the mixture and shreds

of forms, that himself is truly deform'd. He walks

most commonly with a Clove or Pick-tooth in his

Mouth, he is the very mint of Complement, all his Be-

haviours are printed, his Face is another Volume of

Essayes; and his Beard an Aristrachus. He speaks all

Cream skim'd, and more affected than a dozen of wait-

ing Women. He is his own Promoter in every place.

The Wife of the Ordinary gives him his Diet to main-

tain her Table in discourse, which (indeed) is a meer

Tyranny over the other Guests, for he will usurp all

the talk: *Ten Constables are not so tedious*.

**************

Erasmus, “Apes of Cicero,” and Conceptual Blending

Kenneth Gouwens

(snip)

...the portrayals of apes even in the Adages of 1508 [note – Erasmus] could have done little positive for the animals’ image. In explaining the proverb “An ape is an ape, though clad in gold,” Erasmus retells Lucian’s story about an Egyptian king who taught some monkeys to dance, MASKED AND ATTIRED IN SCARLET. Initially compelling, the performance fell apart when a spectator scattered nuts before the apes, who ceased dancing and fought over them. (...) Another adage, “Hercules and an ape,” highlights a more insidious aspect of simian nature, the capacity to hoodwink: whereas “Hercules excels in strength,” the “ape’s power lies in sneaky tricks.” But if monkeys are ridiculous and tricky in and of themselves, in the 1508 edition they more often serve the purpose of holding the mirror up to human folly. Thus the proverb “A donkey among apes” is taken to describe how someone dull-witted falls in among “satirical and insolent people” who mock their hapless victim with impunity. More seriously, as one sees in the adage “An ape in purple,” the deception may consist in a veneer of cultured elegance that camouflages, albeit incompletely, a foulness beneath. The phrase can be applied, says Erasmus, to those “whose true nature, though they may be wearing very fine clothes, is obvious from their expression and character,” as well as “to those who have some inappropriate dignity thrust upon them, or when something nasty in itself is unsuitably decked out with ornament from some unconnected or external source.

.....Already in 1508, Erasmus occasionally likens apes to pseudo-intellectuals. Thus the adage “No [aged] monkey was ever caught in a trap” is “often applied to clever and slippery talkers who cannot be caught out.” Similarly, “a painted monkey,” which refers directly to an ugly old woman made up like a prostitute, can also illustrate and idea: for example, “if someone dresses up an immoral argument with rhetorical trappings so that it seems honest.” The two remaining images from 1508 point to the simian as unable even to approach the boundary that separates it from the human. Erasmus glosses “the prettiest ape is hideous” as referring to “things which are intrinsically defective, and by no means to be compared with even the lowest specimens of the class of things that possess any merit...” And “The tragical ape” appears to be practically a simulacrum of the human: “Ape, like manikin, is the word for what is scarcely a man and more like a pale copy of one...”

.....In subsequent expansions, Erasmus adds further shading to some of these adages, directing their thrust at scholars of the type lampooned in the _Ciceronianus_. Whereas in 1508 the gloss of “An ape in purple” ended with the observations “What could be more ridiculous?” the 1515 edition continues: “And yet this is a thing we quite often see in a household where they keep monkeys as pets: they dress them up with plenty of finery to look as much like human beings as possible, sometimes even in purple, so as to deceive people who do not look carefully or have seen nothing like it before...” Erasmus now ends the gloss by turning around the comparison: “How many apes of this kind one can see in princes’ courts, whom you will find, if you strip them of their purple, their collars and their jewels, to be no better than any *cobbler*!” Importantly, in this addendum Erasmus refers to apelike courtiers with the rare masculine form (simios), which he would use consistently when ridiculing “apes of Cicero” in the Ciceronianus.

****************************

Poetaster, Jonson

Caesar. We have, indeed, you worthiest friends of Caesar.

It is the bane and torment of our ears,

To hear the discords of those jangling rhymers,

That with their bad and scandalous practices

Bring all true arts and learning in contempt.

But let not your high thoughts descend so low

As these despised objects; LET THEM FALL,

With their flat grovelling souls: be you yourselves;

And as with our best favours you stand crown'd,

So let your mutual loves be still renown'd.

Envy will dwell where there is want of merit,

Though the deserving man should crack his spirit.

Blush, folly, blush; here's none that fears

The wagging of an ass's ears,

Although a WOLFISH CASE he wears.

Detraction is but baseness' varlet;

And APES are APES, though clothed in SCARLET. [Exeunt].

Rumpatur, quisquis rumpitur invidi! [MARTIAL – LET ENVIOUS POETS BURST]

*****************************

No shred zone:

Frontispiece to Jonson's 1616 ~Workes:

Around the pediment of the frontispiece is carved the Horatian tag:

'singular quaeque locum teneant sortita decentem' -

'Let each style keep the appropriate place allotted to it'

*****************************************

Greene's Groatsworth (1592):

Base minded men all three of you, if by my miserie ye be not warned: for vnto none of you (like me) sought those burres to cleaue: those Puppets (I meane) that speake from our mouths, those Anticks garnisht in our colours. Is it not strange that I, to whom they al haue beene beholding: is it not like that you, to whome they all haue beene beholding, shall (were yee in that case that I am now) bee both at once of them forsaken? Yes, trust them not: for there is an vpstart CROW, BEAUTIFIED with our feathers, that with his Tygers hart wrapt in a Players hyde, supposes he is as well able to BOMBAST out a blanke verse as the best of you: and being an absolute Iohannes fac totum, is in his owne conceit the onely Shake-scene in a countrey. O that I might intreate your rare wits to be imploied in more profitable courses: & let those APES imitate your past excellence, and neuer more acquaint them with your admired inuentions. I know the best husband of you all will neuer proue an Usurer, and the kindest of them all will neuer seeke you a kind nurse: yet whilest you may, seeke you better Maisters; for it is pittie men of such rare wits, should be subiect to the pleasure of such rude groomes.

In this I might insert two more, that both haue writ against these buckram Gentlemen: but let their owne works serue to witnesse against their owne wickednesse, if they perseuere to mainteine any more such peasants. For other new-commers, I leaue them to the mercie of these PAINTED MONSTERS, who (I doubt not) will driue the best minded to despise them: for the rest, it skils not though they make a ieast at them.

*******************************

John Oldham on Jonson

III.

Let dull, and ignorant Pretenders Art condemn

(Those only Foes to Art, and Art to them)

The meer Fanaticks, and Enthusiasts in Poetry

(For Schismaticks in that, as in Religion be)

Who make't all Revelation, Trance, and Dream,

*Let them despise her Laws, and think

That Rules and Forms the Spirit stint*:

Thine was no mad, unruly Frenzy of the brain,

Which justly might deserve the Chain,

'Twas brisk, and mettled, but a manag'd Rage,

Sprightly as vig'rous Youth, and cool as temp'rate Age:

Free, like thy Will, it did all Force disdain,

But suffer'd Reason's loose, and easie rein,

By that it suffer'd to be led,

Which did not curb Poetick liberty, but guide:

Fancy, that wild and haggard Faculty,

Untam'd in most, and let at random fly,

Was wisely govern'd, and reclaim'd by thee,

Restraint, and Discipline was made endure,

And by thy calm, and milder Judgment brought to lure;

Yet when 'twas at some nobler Quarry sent,

With bold, and tow'ring wings it upward went,

Not lessen'd at the greatest height,

Not turn'd by the most giddy flights of dazling Wit.

(snip)

V.

Sober, and grave was still the Garb thy Muse put on,

No tawdry careless slattern Dress,

Nor starch'd, and formal with Affectedness,

Nor the cast Mode, and Fashion of the Court, and Town;

But neat, agreeable, and janty 'twas,

Well-fitted, it sate close in every place,

And all became with an uncommon Air, and Grace:

Rich, costly and substantial was the stuff,

Not barely smooth, nor yet too coarsly rough:

*No refuse, ill-patch'd Shreds o'th Schools,

The motly wear of read, and learned Fools*,

No French Commodity which now so much does take,

And our own better Manufacture spoil,

Nor was it ought of forein Soil;

But Staple all, and all of English Growth, and Make:

What Flow'rs soe're of Art it had, were found

No tinsel'd slight Embroideries,

But all appear'd either the native Ground,

Or twisted, wrought, and interwoven with the Piece.

VI.

*Plain Humor, shewn with her whole various Face,

Not mask'd with any antick Dress,

Nor screw'd in forc'd, ridiculous Grimace

(The gaping Rabbles dull delight,

And more the Actor's than the Poet's Wit)*

Such did she enter on thy Stage,

And such was represented to the wond'ring Age:

Well wast thou skill'd, and read in human kind,

In every wild fantastick Passion of his mind,

Didst into all his hidden Inclinations dive,

What each from Nature does receive,

Or Age, or Sex, or Quality, or Country give;

What Custom too, that mighty Sorceress,

Whose pow'rful Witchcraft does transform

Enchanted Man to several monstrous Images,

Makes this an odd, and freakish MONKY turn,

And that a grave and solemn ASS appear,

And all a thousand beastly shapes of Folly wear:

Whate're Caprice or Whimsie leads awry

Perverted, and seduc'd Mortality,

Or does incline, and byass it

From what's Discreet, and Wise, and Right, and Good, and Fit;

All in thy faithful Glass were so express'd,

As if they were Reflections of thy Breast,

As if they had been stamp'd on thy own mind,

And thou the universal vast Idea of Mankind.

(snip)

XIII

*Let meaner spirits stoop to low precarious Fame,

Content on gross and coarse Applause to live,

And what the dull, and sensless Rabble give*,

Thou didst it still with noble scorn contemn,

Nor would'st that wretched Alms receive,

The poor subsistence of some bankrupt, sordid name:

Thine was no empty Vapor, rais'd beneath,

And form'd of common Breath,

The false, and foolish Fire, that's whisk'd about

By popular Air, and glares a while, and then goes out;

But 'twas a solid, whole, and perfect Globe of light,

That shone all over, was all over bright,

And dar'd all sullying Clouds, and fear'd no darkning night;

Like the gay Monarch of the Stars and Sky,

Who wheresoe're he does display

His sovereign Lustre, and majestick Ray,

Strait all the less, and petty Glories nigh

Vanish, and shrink away.

O'rewhelm'd, and swallow'd by the greater blaze of Day;

With such a strong, an awful and victorious Beam

Appear'd, and ever shall appear, thy Fame,

View'd, and ador'd by all th' undoubted Race of Wit,

Who only can endure to look on it.

The rest o'recame with too much light,

With too much brightness dazled, or extinguish'd quite:

Restless, and uncontroul'd it now shall pass

As wide a course about the World as he,

And when his long-repeated Travels cease

Begin a new, and vaster Race,

And still tread round the endless Circle of Eternity.

***********************************

Cartwright, William, 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,

Which chance, and th'ages fashion did make hit;

*Excluding those from life in after-time*,

Who into Po'try first brought luck and rime:

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

Made commendation a benevolence:

THY thoughts were their owne Lawrell, and did win

That best applause of being crown'd within..

*******************

Speculum Tuscanismi:

LETTER-BOOK OF GABRIEL HARVEY p. 97 Camden Society

And nowe, quoth he, to returne to mye miserable Mistrisse,

Verse, which, notwithstandinge her huge sumraes, and infinite

millions of most honorable comendacions, is oftentymes driven

very harde, pore sowle, for her vittales and lodginge. I passe

not if I bee a litle pleasurable awhile, and for this once playe

even the very right phantastic poett in deede.

And thereuppon feeling himselfe nowe, as he sayd, in his extem-

porall veyne of makinge notwithstanding.

See Venus, archegoddess, howe trimly she masterith owld Mars.

See litle Cupide, howe he bewitcheth lernid Apollo.

Bravery in apparell, and maiesty in hawty behaviour,

Hath conquerd manhood, and gotten a victory in Inglande.

Ferse Bellona, she lyes enclosd at Westminster in leade.

Dowtines is dulnes ; currage mistermid is outrage.

Manlines is madnes ; beshrowe Lady Curtisy therefore.

Most valorous enforced to be vassals to Lady Pleasure.

And Lady Nicity rules like a soveran emperes of all.

tymes, manners, French, Italish Inglande.

Where be y e mindes and men that woont to terrify strangers ?

Where that constant zeale to thy cuntry glory, to vertu ?

Where labor and prowes very founders of quiet and peace,

Champions of warr, trompetours of fame, treasurers of welth ?

Where owld Inglande ? Where owld Inglish fortitude and

might ?

Oh, we ar owte of the way, that Theseus, Hercules, Arthur,

And many a worthy British knight were woo'nte to triumphe in.

What should I speake of Talbotts, Brandons, Grayes, with a thousande

Such and such ? Let Edwards go ; letts blott y e remem-braunce

Of puissant Henryes ; or letts exemplify there actes.

Since Galateo came in and Tuscanismo gan usurpe

Vanity above all ; villanye next her ; Statelynes empresse,

NO MAN but minion : stowte, lowte, playne, swayne, quoth a

lordinge.

No words but valorous, no works but woomanish only,

For life magnificoes ; not a becke but glorious in shewte,

In deede most FRIVOLOUS ; not a looke but Italish allwaies.

His cringeinge side necke, eies glauncinge, fisnamy smirkinge,

With forefinger kisse and brave embrace to y e footewarde.

Largbellid kodpeasid dubletts, unkodpeasid halfehose

Streyte to the dock like a shirte, and close to the britche like a

Divelinge

A litell APISH hat chowchd faste to y e pate like an oister,

Frenche camarike ruffes, deepe with a witnesse starched to

the purpose,

Every on A per se A ; his tearmes and braveryes in printe,

Delicate in speeche, qweynte in araye, conceitid in all poyntes.

In courtely guises a passinge singular odd man,

For gallants a brave myrrour, a primrose of honnour,

A dimond for nonse, a fellowe peereles in Ingland.

Not the lyke discourser for tongue and hedd to be fownde owt,

Not the lyke resolute man for greate and serious affayres.

Not the like linx to spy owte secretis and privities of states,

Eied like an Argus, earde like a Midas, nosde like a Naso,

Wyngd lyke a Mercury, fit of a thousande for to be employde,

This neie more then this doth practis of Italy in one yeare.

*************

(Harvey prints his poem Speculum Tuscanismi disclaiming it as 'a bolde Satyricall Libell lately devised at the Instauce of an old friend.' It mocks Sidney's ENEMY the Earl of Oxford (See Katherine Duncan-Jones, Sir Philip Sidney: Courtier Poet, London, 1991, pp.166-7)

**************

Speculum Tuscanismi -Gabriel Harvey 1580

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.

'Tell me in good sooth, doth it not too evidently appeare, that this English Poet 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, as their children, and perhappes their Childrens children to, myght have thanked them for, as long as they shall have Tongues in their heades."

*************************************** 

VandA dedication - Shakespeare

 But if the first HEIRE of my inuention proue DEFORMED, I shall be sorie it had so noble a god-father : and neuer after eare so barren a land, for feare it yeeld me still so bad a haruest, 

***************************************

Horace:

Doubt is, if poets art or nature make;

A reconcilement thus I undertake:

No soil yields fruit without art's husbanding,

No art makes barren minds rich harvest bring,

But, art embracing nature, nature art,

They sweetly work together, none apart.

***************************************

Sidney, Defense of Poesy

...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 toSha 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? 

************************************

Shakespeare:

’Tis better to be vile than vile esteemed

When not to be receives reproach of being,

And the just pleasure lost, which is so deemed

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 that 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.

Figuring Illegitimacy in the Droeshout Engraving

Ambisinister Droeshout:

THE SYDNEY MORNING HERALD. SATURDAY. FEBRUARY 17. 1934

...With regard to Martin Droeshout, whose portrait of Shakespeare, appears on the title page of the First Folio , in 1923; as Durning-Lawrence savs, "Droeshout is scarcely likely to have ever seen Shakespeare, as he was only 15 years of age when Shakespeare died." DULL DRAWING. The face in Droeshout's picture certainly expresses no trace of that almost divine intelligence which one would expect to find there, and the figure, out of all drawing, is clothed in an Impossible coat, the sleeves of which are composed, to all appearance, of the back and front of the same left arm. This fact was remarked upon In "The Tailor and Cutter." in its issue of March 9, 1911; and in the April following, under the heading "Problem for the Trade," the "Gentleman's. Tailor" magazine printed the two halves of the coat arranged tailor fashion, shoulder to shoulder, and said : "It is passing strange that something like three centuries should have, been allowed to elapse before the tailor's handiwork should have been appealed to In this' particular manner." Facing this portrait in ' the First Folio, are these words, attributed to Ben Jonson, which after stating that "the Figure" was Intended for that of Shakespeare, and that the "graver" had a struggle to out-do the life, conclude with: O, could he but have drawn, hit wit As well lo brasse. as he hath hit His face; the Print would then surpasse All, that was ever writ In Brasse. But, since he cannot. Reader looks Not on his Picture, but his Booke. Ben Jonson could never have seriously considered that the dull, wooden, face in the engraving was anything like that of the author of the plays, and may have sarcastically bidden the beholder "looke not on his picture, but his book." BEN JONSON. Facing the title page of the 1640 folio of Ben Jonson's works, is a portrait of that poet by Robert Vaughan. a contemporary engraver, . which, like that of Martin Droeshout, Is a very rough, uncouth, piece of work, though it certainly expresses a certain amount of individuality and intelligence, yet not very much; and the figure Is very ungainly, though Jonson became very stout as he grew older, as we know by one of his Epigrams, and would be difficult to draw. Durning-Lawrence savs that In a very rare and curious little volume published anonymously in 1645, under the title of "The Great Assises holden In Parnassus by Apollo and his Assessours," Ben Jonson is described as the "Keeper of the Trophonian Denne," and in an Imaginary Westminster Abbey his medallion bust appeared clothed in a left-handed coat, like the figure by Martin Droeshout in the First Folio, and Stowe is quoted as having written regarding this: O' rare Ben Jonson what, a turncoat grown! Thou ne'er want such. till clad In stone; Then let not this disturb thy sprite. Another age shall set thy buttons right.

****************************

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)

What [do you do], when my judgment contradicts itself? it despises what it before desired; seeks for that which lately it neglected; is all in a ferment, and is inconsistent in the whole tenor of life; pulls down, builds up, changes square to round. In this case, you think I am mad in the common way, and you do not laugh, nor believe that I stand in need of a physician, or of a guardian assigned by the praetor; though you are the patron of my affairs, and are disgusted at the ill-pared nail of a friend that depends upon you, that reveres you. 

******************************

 Q. Horatius Flaccus: His Art of Poetry.

ENGLISHED By Ben: Jonson.

LONDON: Printed by J. Okes, for John Benson. 1640.

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,5 

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.

(snip)

Heare, me conclude; let what thou workst upon

*Be simple quite throughout, and alwayes one*.

_________________________

unum - one

simplex- simple, pure, UNMIXED - 

**************************

William Scott, Model of Poesy:

The Greeks have Sophocles and Euripides for tragedy; we have in Latin Seneca and Buchanan. For comedy the Greeks have Aristophanes, the Latins Plautus – for much wit somewhat uncivil – and Terence – purer and much chaster – following and bettering Menander the Greek comedian. Of late days we abound in this kind and I would it were not true enough of these times which either Tacitus or Quintilian (neither of them men of ordinary conceit or observation) saith was true of his age: the proper and peculiar vices of our state are the great account of stage players, fencers, and horse races, wherewithal the mind being mostly possessed, alas what leisure can we find for study of ingenious and honest arts (saith he)? Indeed, Sir Philip Sidney saith naughty play-makers and stage-keepers have made this kind (not only unfruitful but) justly odious, and so, like an unmannerly daughter showing a bad education, this kind causeth her mother Poesy’s honesty to be called into question. This fertileness hath brought forth a BASTARD kind of tragicomedy. Of great affinity to these interludes are the ancient satyr and mimic, that were first parts, one of the tragedy, and the other of the comedy, and after – worthily satyr taking his name from the *feigned rustical and boorish divinities*, so called, in like sort *they represented unseemly gestures, lewd and bitter scurrilities; the mimic from his apish fooleries, by gestures, motions, and gross imitations, like our clowns, antics or jigs in plays. But I reckon these scum unworthy the countenance of poesy*. 

__________________

Scum/dross

The scoria of metals in a molten state : DROSS

***************************

Soul of an Ignorant Age:

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,

N 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*. It is the First (of this Race) that ever I dedicated to any Person; and had I not thought it the best, it should have been taught a less Ambition. Now it approacheth your Censure chearfully, and with the same assurance that Innocency would appear before a Magistrate.

Your Lordships most faithful Honourer,           

BEN. JOHNSON.   

******************************

Motley Droeshout:

William Scott, Model of Poesy:

...The other part of this agreeableness is in the *correspondency of the invention*, so as it be still proportionable in itself (my note - Cynthia's Revels and Amorphus' invention). And this is that Horace means when he compares such as forget this principal grace to those idle painters that draw a fair woman's face on an horse's neck with wings upon her back (like a bird), her lower parts filthily (saith he) concluded in a fish. It is, saith the excellent painter, that symmetry or conformity of parts proportioned armonicamente that pleaseth the eye and mind of the beholder; so is it that suitable correspondency in the parts of our poems that yields a sweet harmony to our ears and a beauty to our eyes. The poem must be, according to Aristotle, as one body of fitly-composed members that heave a proportionable greatness and dependency one with and upon another, and this Horace means by his conclusion that your word must be 'unum' and 'simplex', it must not be *an hermaphrodite or mongrel* and this Scaliger means by constancy when he saith imitation must follow the thing and constancy the imitation. (p.35, Alexander)

unum - one

simplex - simple, single, unmixed (Alexander notes)

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OXFORD - Best for Comedy

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 doltishness, 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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Change/Constancy

Shakespeare:

Alas, 'tis true I have gone here and there

And *made myself a motley* to the view,

Gor'd mine own thoughts, sold cheap what is most dear,

Made old offences of affections new.

Most true it is that I have look'd on truth

Askance and strangely: but, by all above,

These *blenches* gave my heart another youth,

And worse essays prov'd thee my best of love.

Now all is done, have what shall have no end!

Mine appetite, I never more will grind

On newer proof, to try an older friend,

A god in love, to whom I am confin'd.

Then give me welcome, next my heaven the best,

Even to thy *pure* and most most loving breast. (note - pure/unmixed)

(The blench that means "to flinch" derives from blencan, an Old English word meaning "to deceive.")

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Syr Thomas Smiths Voyage into Rushia by Anon (1605)-: (possibly William Scott)

To the Reader.

REader, the discourses of this voyage (at the comming home of the Gentleman that was chiefe in it and his company into Eng|land) affoorded such pleasure to the hea|rers, by reason the accidents were strange and Nouell, that many way-laid the Nevves, and vvere gladde to make any booty of it to delight themselues, by vvhich meanes, that which of it selfe being knit together was beautifull, could not chuse but shevv vilde, beeing so torne in peeces. So that the itching fingers of gain laid hold vpon it, and had like to haue sent it into the world lame, and dismembred. Some that picke vp the crums of such feasts, had scrapt togither many percels of this Rushian commoditie, so that their heads being gotten vvith child of a BASTARD, there was no remedy but they must be deliuered in Paules Church-yard. But I ta|king the truth from the mouths of diuers gentlemen that vvent in the Iourney, and hauing som good notes bestovved vpon me in vvriting, vvrought them into this body, because neither thou shouldst be abused with false reports, nor the Voyage receiue slaunder. I have done this vvithout consent either of Sir Tho. himselfe, or of those gentlemen my friends that deliuered it vn|to me: So that if I offend, it is Error Amoris to my Countrey, not Amor erroris to do any man wronge. Read and like, for much is in it vvorthy obseruation. Farevvell.

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Jonson, Discoveries

In every action it behoves the poet to know which is the utmost bound, how far with fitness, and a necessary proportion, he may produce, and determine it...For, *as a body without proportion cannot be goodly*, no more can the action, either the comedy, or tragedy, without its fit bounds. 

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Cartwright, William, 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,

Which chance, and th'Ages fashion did make hit;

EXCLUDING THOSE FROM LIFE in AFTER-TIME,

Who into Po'try first brought luck and rime:

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

Made commendation a benevolence:

THY thoughts were their owne Lawrell, and did win

That best applause of being crown'd within.. 

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In Memory of Mr. William Cartwright.

John Berkenhead

...Thou didst not write

Warm'd by male Claret or by female White:

Their Giant Sack could nothing heighten Thee,

As far 'bove Tavern Flash as Ribauldry.

Thou thought'st no rank foul line was strongly writ,

That's but the Scum or Sediment of Wit;

Which sharking Braines do into Publike thrust,

(And though They cannot blush, the Reader must;)

Who when they see't abhor'd, for fear, not shame,

*TRANSLATE their BASTARD to some Other's NAME.* 

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Holding/Restraining/Ruling Shakespeare's Quill:

From To the Deceased Author of these Poems (William Cartwright)

by Jasper Mayne 

For thou to Nature had'st joyn'd Art, and skill.

In Thee Ben Johnson still HELD SHAKESPEARE'S QUILL:

A QUILL, RUL'D by sharp Judgement, and such Laws,

As a well studied Mind, and Reason draws.

Thy Lamp was cherish'd with suppolied of Oyle,

Fetch'd from the Romane and the Graecian soyle. 

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John Oldham on Jonson

V.

Sober, and grave was still the Garb thy Muse put on,

No tawdry careless slattern Dress,

Nor starch'd, and formal with Affectedness,

Nor the cast Mode, and Fashion of the Court, and Town;

But neat, agreeable, and janty 'twas,

Well-fitted, it sate close in every place,

And all became with an uncommon Air, and Grace:

Rich, costly and substantial was the stuff,

Not barely smooth, nor yet too coarsly rough:

No refuse, ill-patch'd Shreds o'th Schools,

The motly wear of read, and learned Fools,

No French Commodity which now so much does take,

And our own better Manufacture spoil,

Nor was it ought of forein Soil;

But Staple all, and all of English Growth, and Make:

What Flow'rs soe're of Art it had, were found

No tinsel'd slight Embroideries,

But all appear'd either the native Ground,

Or twisted, wrought, and interwoven with the Piece.

VI.

Plain Humor, shewn with her whole various Face,

Not mask'd with any antick Dress,

Nor screw'd in forc'd, ridiculous Grimace

(The gaping Rabbles DULL delight,

And more the Actor's than the Poet's Wit)

(snip) 

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Author: Holland, Abraham, d. 1626.

Title: Naumachia, or Hollands sea-fight Date: 1622

A Caveat to his Muse

(snip)

You deem it a matter of high worth

To have a fame among 'em: New come forth:

And thinke your chiefe felicity is marr'd

If you be not perch't up in Paules Church-yard

Where men a farre may know you in a trice,

By some new-fangled, brasse-cut FRONTispice.

Such book's indeed as now-dayes can passé

Had need to have their FACES made of BRASSE.

Is it not then sufficient for you

To stay at home among the residue

Of better sisters: where my dearest Will, [my note -not W. Shakespeare]

And other friends would praise and love thee still:

Him and my other harts-halfes I account

Intire assemblies, and thinke they surmount

A Globe of ADDLE Gallants: I averre

*One judging Plato worth a Theater.*

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Disarticulating Fantasies: Figures of Speech, Vices, and the Blazon in Renaissance English Rhetoric

Grant Williams

 ...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)

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Illegitimate Droeshout Engraving:

XLII. — THE MIND OF THE FRONTISPIECE

TO A BOOK.-- Ben Jonson

From death and dark oblivion (near the same)

    The mistress of man’s life, grave History, Raising the world to good and evil fame,

    Doth vindicate it to eternity.

Wise Providence would so : that nor the good

    Might be defrauded, nor the great secured,

But both might know their ways were understood,

    When vice alike in time with virtue dured :

Which makes that, lighted by the beamy hand

Of Truth, that searcheth the most hidden springs,

And guided by Experience, whose straight wand

    Doth mete, whose line doth sound the depth of things ;

She cheerfully supporteth what she rears,

    Assisted by no strengths but are her own,

Some note of which each varied pillar bears,

    By which, as proper titles, she is known

Time's witness, herald of Antiquity,

The light of Truth, and life of Memory. 

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Source for above:

Cicero, Orator, Bk2

"But I must consider my own powers. I now assert only that of which I am convinced, that although oratory is not an art, no excellence is superior to that of a consummate orator. For to say nothing of the advantages of eloquence, which has the highest influence in every well-ordered and free state, there is such delight attendant on the very power of eloquent speaking, that nothing more pleasing can be received into the ears or understanding of man. [34] What music can be found more sweet than the pronunciation of a well-ordered speech? What poem more agreeable than the skilful structure of prose? What actor has ever given greater pleasure in imitating, than an orator gives in supporting, truth? What penetrates the mind more keenly than an acute and quick succession of arguments? What is more admirable than thoughts illumined by brilliancy of expression? What nearer to perfection than a speech replete with every variety of matter? for there is no subject susceptible of being treated with elegance and effect, that may not fall under the province of the orator. {9.} [35] L   It is his, in giving counsel on important affairs, to deliver his opinion with clearness and dignity; it is his to rouse a people when they are languid, and to calm them when immoderately excited. *The same power of language causes the wickedness of mankind to be destroyed, and virtue to be secured. Who can exhort to virtue more ardently than the orator? Who reclaim from vice with greater energy? Who can reprove the bad with more asperity, or praise the good with better grace? Who can break the force of unlawful desire by more effective rebukes? Who can alleviate grief with more soothing consolation? [36] By what other voice, too, than that of the orator, is HISTORY, the evidence of time, the light of truth, the life of memory, the directress of life, the herald of antiquity, committed to immortality?*  

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The Feigned Commonwealth in the Poetry of Ben Jonson

Anthony Mortimer

Jonson [in Timber/Discoveries] defines the poet as one who feigns a commonwealth and creates a "proper embattling" of VICE and VIRTUE. This illuminates the epigrams and commendatory poems where shades of moral gray are replaced by black and white. The vicious are NAMELESS because vice is a vizard, destroying personality. The virtuous are named for recognition and imitation.

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Francis Bacon, Advancement of Learning

There be therefore chiefly three vanities in studies, whereby learning hath been most traduced. For those things we do esteem VAIN which are either false or frivolous, those which either have no truth or no use; and those persons we esteem vain which are either credulous or curious; and curiosity is either in matter or words: so that in reason as well as in experience there fall out to be these three distempers (as I may term them) of learning--the first, fantastical learning; the second, contentious learning; and the last, delicate learning; vain imaginations, vain altercations, and vain affectations; and with the last I will begin. Martin Luther, conducted, no doubt, by a higher Providence, but in discourse of reason, finding what a province he had undertaken against the Bishop of Rome and the degenerate traditions of the Church, *and finding his own solitude, being in nowise aided by the opinions of his own time, was enforced to awake all antiquity, and to call former times to his succours to make a party against the present time*. So that the ancient authors, both in divinity and in humanity, which had long time slept in libraries, began generally to be read and revolved. This, by consequence, did draw on a necessity of a more exquisite travail in the languages original, wherein those authors did write, for the better understanding of those authors, and the better advantage of pressing and applying their words. And thereof grew, again, a delight in their manner of style and phrase, and an admiration of that kind of writing, which was much furthered and precipitated by the enmity and opposition that the propounders of those primitive but seeming new opinions had against the schoolmen, who were generally of the contrary part, and whose writings were altogether in a differing style and form; taking liberty to coin and frame new terms of art to express their own sense, and to avoid circuit of speech, without regard to the pureness, pleasantness, and (as I may call it) LAWFULNESS of the phrase or word. And again, because the great labour then was with the people (of whom the Pharisees were wont to say, Execrabilis ista turba, quae non novit legem) [the wretched crowd that has not know the LAW], for the winning and persuading of them, there grew of necessity in chief price and request eloquence and variety of discourse, as the fittest and forciblest access into the capacity of the vulgar sort; so that these four causes concurring--the admiration of ancient authors, the hate of the schoolmen, the exact study of languages, and the efficacy of preaching--did bring in an affectionate study of eloquence and copy of speech, which then began to flourish. *This grew speedily to an excess; for men began to hunt more after words than matter--more after the choiceness of the phrase, and the round and clean composition of the sentence, and the sweet falling of the clauses, and the varying and illustration of their works with tropes and figures, than after the weight of matter, worth of subject, soundness of argument, life of invention, or depth of judgment.* Then grew the FLOWING and WATERY [NOTE-flowed/facility] vein of Osorius, the Portugal bishop, to be in price. Then did STURMIUS spend such infinite and curious pains upon Cicero the Orator and Hermogenes the Rhetorician [note - Harvey to Oxford - not for nothing visit Sturmius], besides his own books of Periods and Imitation, and the like. Then did Car of Cambridge and Ascham with their lectures and writings almost deify Cicero and Demosthenes, and allure all young men that were studious unto that delicate and polished kind of learning. Then did Erasmus take occasion to make the scoffing echo, Decem annos consuumpsi in legendo Cicerone [I have spent ten years in reading Cicero(ne); and the echo answered in Greek, One, Asine. Then grew the learning of the schoolmen to be utterly despised as barbarous. In sum, the whole inclination and bent of those times *was rather towards copy than weight*.

Here therefore is the first distemper of learning, when men study words and not matter, whereof though I have represented an example of late times, yet it hath been and will be secundum majus et minus[more or less] in all time. And how is it possible but this should have an operation to discredit learning, even with vulgar capacities, when they see learned men's works like the first letter of a patent or limited book, which though it hath large flourishes, yet it is but a letter? It seems to me that Pygmalion's frenzy is a good emblem or portraiture of this vanity; for words are but the images of matter, and except they have life of reason and invention, to fall in love with them is all one as to fall in love with a picture.

But yet notwithstanding it is a thing not hastily to be condemned, to clothe and adorn the obscurity even of philosophy itself with sensible and plausible elocution. For hereof we have great examples in Xenophon, Cicero, Seneca, Plutarch, and of Plato also in some degree; and hereof likewise there is great use, for surely, to the severe inquisition of truth and the deep progress into philosophy, it is some hindrance because it is too early satisfactory to the mind of man, and quencheth the desire of further search before we come to a just period. But then if a man be to have any use of such knowledge in civil occasions, of conference, counsel, persuasion, discourse, or the like, then shall he find it prepared to his hands in those authors which write in that manner. *But the excess of this is so justly contemptible, that as Hercules, when he saw the image of Adonis, Venus' minion, in a temple, said in disdain, Nil sacri es [Thou art no Divinity]; so there is none of Hercules' followers in learning--that is, the more severe and laborious sort of inquirers into truth--but will despise those delicacies and affectations, as indeed capable of no divineness. And thus much of the first disease or distemper of learning*.

The second, which followeth, is in nature worse than the former, for as substance of matter is better than beauty of words, so contrariwise vain matter is worse than vain words; wherein it seemeth the reprehension of St. Paul was not only proper for those times, but prophetical for the times following, and not only respective* to divinity but extensive[5] to all knowledge: Devita profanas vocum novitates, et oppositiones falsi nominis scientiae.[Avoid profane novelties of terms and the oppositions of what is falsely called knowledge." I Tim. 6.20] For he assigneth two marks and badges of suspected and falsified science: the one, the novelty and strangeness of terms; the other, the strictness of positions,[7] which of necessity doth induce oppositions, and so questions and altercations. Surely, like as many substances in nature which are solid do putrefy and corrupt into worms, so it is the property of good and sound knowledge to putrefy and dissolve into a number of subtile, idle, unwholesome, and (as I may term them) vermiculate questions, which have indeed a kind of quickness* and life of spirit, but no soundness of matter or goodness of quality. This kind of degenerate learning did chiefly reign amongst the schoolmen, who having sharp and strong wits and abundance of leisure and small variety of reading, but their wits being shut up in the cells of a few authors (chiefly Aristotle their dictator) as their persons were shut up in the cells of monasteries and colleges, and knowing little history, either of nature or time, did out of no great quantity of matter and infinite agitation of wit spin out unto us those laborious webs of learning which are extant in their books. *For the wit and mind of man, if it work upon matter, which is the contemplation of the creatures of God, worketh according to the stuff, and is limited thereby, but if it work upon itself, as the spider worketh his web, then it is endless, and brings forth indeed cobwebs of learning, admirable for the fineness of thread and work but of no substance or profit*.

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Jennifer Richards

HOW CASTIGLIONE READ CICERO

...The questione della lingua is focused on a particular question: should the courtier imitate the literary greats, borrowing from them words already endowed with authority, or should he follow the promptings of his own talents, and employ the language of his contemporaries? [24] Notably, it covers ground already familiar to us from the earlier discussion of nobility: can courtly gracefulness be learned, or is it a property natural to the nobly born? For this reason, it contributes to our understanding of the relationship between *art and nature* so central to the nobility debate, and it also further aims to inculcate in us a practice of reading which is itself ennobling.

Throughout the discussion, Canossa is committed to the idea that all we need is talent and a willingness to adopt the contemporary linguistic idiom, but he needs to defend his position against an interlocutor, Fregoso, who champions the need for imitation. Castiglione seems to set up an argument in utramque partem which enables us to see both sides of the debate, and to choose the more persuasive one. However, the dialogue does not quite work like that. When Fregoso objects that Canossa's advice encourages the courtier to reproduce the solecisms of ignorant speakers, our speaker produces this confusing explanation: "Good usage in speech is born with men who have native wit, and, with teaching and experience, acquire good judgement, and in accordance with it, agree upon apt words whose quality they know from a certain natural judgement rather than from art or any rule" (87/68). [25]

This sentence seems to epitomise Canossa's disdainful refusal to teach us; it looks like a deliberate obfuscation. However, he is in fact following the example set by the dissimulating Antonius, and is showing, not telling us, the artificial causes of "natural" rhetorical skill (78-80/63-64). The questione della lingua is difficult to follow not just because it is meandering, contradictory and ambiguous, but because it offers a partial account of De oratore while relying on our knowledge of that text. [26]

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Straying beyond Jonson's 'fit bounds'/custom:

Jonson, on Shakespeare

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

STOP'D: sufflaminandus erat; as Augustus said

of Haterius. His wit was in his own power;

would the RULE of it had been so too."

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