Renaissance Self-Fashioning: From More to Shakespeare

AI 1 HOR OF II'ILL IN THE. WORLD

Holbein, "The Ambassadors" (National Portrait Galle1y, London).

RENAISSANCE SELF-FASHIONING From More to Shakespeare

STEPHEN GREENBLATT

•

THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS

Chicago & London

Stephen Greenblatt is associate professor of English at the University of California, Berkeley. He is the author of Three Modt'rn Satirists: Waugh, Orwell, and Huxley (1965) nnd Sir Walta r~alcgh: Tlr~ R!'naissanct• M111r and His Role (1.973).

TK1I UNJVBRSlTY OF CHICAGO PKESS, CBJCJ>.GO

60637

Tltll UNlVERSITY 01' CHICAGO PRESS, lTD., lONOON

o 1980 by The University of Chicago All rights reserved. Published 1980 Printed in the United States of America 84 83 82 81 80 5 4 3 2 1

Library of Congress Cataloging in P ublication Data Greenblatt, Stephen Jay. RenaissQnce self-fashioning.

Includes bibliographical references and index. 1 English Literature-E
To Joshua and Aaron

•

Contents

Acknowledgments A Note on 'Texts Introduction

ix X

1

At the Table of the Great: More's Self-Fashioning and

2

~elf~Cancellation

11

The Word of God in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction

74

115

3

Power, Sexuality, and Inwardness in Wyatt's Poetry

4

To Fashion a Gentleman: Spenser and the Destruction 157 Qf the Bower of Bliss

5

Marlowe and the Will to Absolute Play

193

6

The Improvisation of Power

222

Epilogue Notes Index

255 258 309

Acknowledgments

Versions of several portions of this book have appeared in print: ·More, Role-Playing, and Utopia," Yale Revzew 67 (CJ978 by Yale University); "Marlowe and Renaissance Self-Fashioning," m Two Rmaissance Myth makers: Christopher Marlowe and Ben Jonson, edited hy Alvin B. Kernan, Selected Papers from the English Institute JQ75-76 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press (1°1977 by I he English Institute); "Marlowe, Marx, and Anti-Semitism," Critwullnquiry 5 (@1978 by The Oniversily of Chicago); "The Improvi•llton of Power," in Literature and Society, edited by Edward Said, Sl'lected Papers from the English Institute 1977-78 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press (t'1980 by The English Institute). I am grateful to the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Guggenheim Foundation, the Howard Foundation, and the University of California for grants that greatly faci litated the re•I'Mch and writing of this book. It is a pleasure to acknowledge as Wl'll my many debts to friends, colleagues, and students. T began to list them all and was startled by the sheer numbers, so I will n•treat to the expression of special thanks to Paul Alpers, Svetlana Alpers, C. L. Barber, Richard Bridgman, Natalie Zemon Davis, 'll'ven Knapp, Thomas Laqueur, Walter Michaels, Norman Rab~ ia1, Ralph Rader, Michael Rogin, Thomas Rosenmeyer, Richard ·,trier, and Alex Zwcrdling. As ,1lways, my wife, Ellen, l1ad a generous and sustaining in(hu•nce upon me.

A Note on Texts

I have, in the interest of readability, modernized the spelling and punctuation of all the texts with the exception of those places where the sense or meter is directly affected and the further exception of Spenser's poetry. Given Spenser's attempt to cast the glow of antiquity upon his work, it seemed perverse to rob it of that genuine antiquity that time has conferred upon it.

Introduction

My subject is self-fashioning from More to Shakespeare; my starting point is quite simply that in sixteenth-century England there were both selves and a sense that they could be fashioned. Of 1 ourse, there is some absurdlty in so bala a pronouncement of the 1'bvious: after all, there are always selves-a sense of personal 11rder, a characteristic mode of address to the world, a structure of bounded desires-and always some elements of deliberate shap•ng in the formation and expression of identity. One need only think of Chaucer's extraordinarily subtle and wry manipulations t~f persona to grasp U1at what 1 propose to examine does not sudd ~?n ly spring up from nowhere when 1499 becomes 1500. Moreover, there is considerable empirical evidence that there may well have been less (lutonomy i1). self-fashioning in the sixteenth •' ntury than before, that family, state1 and religious institutions Impose a more rigid and far-reaching discipline upon their rniddle-class and arlstocratic subjects. Autonomy is an issue but not the sole or even the central issue: the power to impose a shape 11pon oneself is an aspect of the more general power to control •dentity-that of others at least as often as one's own. What is centralls the perception-as old in academic writing as Uu1·ckhardt and Michelet-that there is in the early modem period ,, change i'n the intellectual, social, psychological, and aesthetic .It ucLures Lhat govern the generation of identities. This change is dtfficult Lo characterize i.n our usual ways because it ls not only '11111p lex bul resolutely dialectical. If we say that there is a new l rC'SS on the
2

lntroduciiOII

that there is a new social mobility, we must say that there is a new assertion of power by both family and state to determine all movement within the society; if we say that there is a heightened awareness of the existence of alternative modes of social, theological, and psychological organization, we must say that there is a new dedication to the imposition of control upon those modes and ultimately to the destruction of alternatives. Perhaps the simplest observation we can make is that in the sixteenth century there appears to be an increased selfconsciousness about the fashioning of human identity as a manipulable, artful process. Such self-consciousness had been widespread among the elite in the classical world, but Christianity brought a growing suspicion of man's power to shape identity: "Hands off yourself," Augustine declared. "Try to build up yourself, and you build a ruin." 1 This view was not the only one available in succeeding centuries, but it was influential, and a powerful alternative began to be fully articulated only in the early modem period. When in 1589 Spenser writes that the general intention and meaning that he has "fashioned" 10 Tile Faerie Qt1ce11e is "to fasllion a gentleman," or when he has his knight Calidore declare that "in each mans self ... I It is, to fashion his owne lyfes estate," or when he tells his beloved in one of the A.moretti, "You frame my thoughts, and fashion me within," 2 he is drawing upon the special connot<~tions for his period of the verb fashion, a word that does not occur at all in Chaucer's poetry. As a term for the action or process of making, for particular features or appearance, for a distinct style or pattern, the word had been long in use, but it is in the sixteenth century that fnshion seems to come into wide currency as a way of designating the forming of a self. This fermi ng may be understood quite literally as the imposition upon a person of physical foon-"Did not one fashion us in the womb?" Job asks in the King ]ames Bible? while, following the frequent injunctjons to "fashion" children, midwives in Lhe period at~ tempted to mold the skulls of the newborn into the proper sbape. 4 But, more significantly for Ollr purposes, fashiomng may suggest the achievement of a less tangible shape: a distinctive personality, a characteristic address to the world, a consistent mode of perceiving and behaving. As we might expect, the recurrent model for this latter fashioning is Christ Those whom God in his foreknowledge has called, Tyndale translates the epistle to the Romans, hi? ''f,\shionNI ullto tht• shape of his son" (8:2Q), and thus the true Chri·,ti.tn, lynd.1h• wtitcs tn the Ollrclit•llce, "feelelh . him self .. , ,,Jt 'lo•d llld fn&hitiiH.'d likl· untn Christ" "WI? ,1rc l!Xhortl•d,"

Introduction

Archbishop Sandys remarks in a sermon, "to fashion ourselves .tccording to that similitude and likeness which is in him," while tn the 1557 Geneva tl'anslation of the New Testament we read that Christ "was disfigured to fashion us, he died for our life." If Christ 1s the ultimate model, be is not even in the New Testament the only one: "In all things," Paul tells the Corinthians, in Tyndale's I ranslatlon, "f fashioned my self to all men to save at the least way ~ome" (1 Cor. 9:22). This principle of adaptation is obviously not limited to the propagation of the Gospel: in Richard Taverner's (;arden of Wisdom (1539), for example, we are told that whoever desires to be conversant with public affai rs, "must ... fashion h1mself to the manners of men,'' 5 and this counsel is tirelessly 1eiterated. Thus separated from the imitation of Christ- a separation that • .m, as we shall see, give rise to considerable anxiety-selfl.tshioning acquires a new range of meanings: it describes the prnctice of parents and teachers; it is linked to manners or dellll'clnor, particularly that of the elite; it may suggest hypocrisy or d1•ccption, an adherence to mere outward ceremony; it suggests rl'prcsentation of one's nature or intention in speech or actions. And with representation we return to literature, or rather we may W••sp that self-fashioning derives its interest precisely from the t H' l that it functions without regard for a sharp distinction between literature and social life. It invariably crosses the boundlilt' between the creation of literary characters, the shaping of nne sown identity, the experience of being moJded by forces outhit• one's control, the attempt to fashion other selves. Such h~Hmdaries may, to be sure, be strictly observed in criticism, just il we may distinguish between literary and behavioral styles, but 111 doing so we pay a high price, for we begin to lose a sense of the •umplex interactions of meaning in a given culture. We wall off ltl1•r,1ry symbolism from the symbolic structures operative 1l•...where, as if art alone were a human creation, as if humans llu•mselves were not, in Clifford Geertz's phrase, cultural arlll.lltS 6 '' !'here is no such thing as a human nature independent of culltm•,'' Gcertz writes, meaning by culture not primarily "complexes (1/ nmcrcte behavior patterns-customs, usages, traditions, habit ,(usiL•rs"-bu t rather "a set of control mechanisms-plans, red(){", rules, instructions . .-for the governing of behavior." 7 • '1(-t,lshioning is in effect the Renaissance version of these control nle,·h.mism.,, tht• cultural system of mconings that creates specific illdavidu,tls hy AOvcrning the p,lss;lgt• frnm abstract potential to

3

4

lntroductron

concrete historical embodiment. Literature functions within this system in three interlocking ways: as a manifestation of the concrete behavior of its particular author, as itself the expression of the codes by which behavior is shaped, and as a reflection upon those codes. The interpretive practice that I have attempted to exemplify in the essays that follow must concern itself with all three of these functions If interpretation limits itself to the behavior of Lhe author, it becomes literary biography (in either a conventionally historical or psychoanalytic mode) and risks losing a sense of the larger networks of meaning in which both the author and his works participate. If, alternatively, literature is viewed exclusively as the expression of social rules and instructions, it risks being absorbed entirely into an ideological superstructure. Marx himself vigorously resisted this functional absorption of art, and subsequent Marxist aesthetics, for all its power and sophistication, has never satisfactorily resolved the theoretical problems raised in the Grzmdrisse and elsewhere. a Finally, if literature is seen only as a detached reflection upon the prevailing behavioral codes, a view from a safe distance, we drastically diminish our grasp of art's concrete functions in relation to individuals and to institutions, both of which shrink into an obligatory "historical background" that adds little to our understanding. We drift back toward a conception of art as addressed to a timeless, cultureless, unversal human essence or, alternatively as a self-regarding, autonomous, closed system-in either case, art as oposed to social life. Self-fashioning then becomes a subject only for sociology, Literature for literary criticism. I have attempted instead to practice a more cultural or anthropological criticism-if by "anthropological" here we think of interpretive studies of culture by Geertz, james Boon, Mary Douglas, jean Duvignaud, Paul Rabinow, Victor Turner, and others. 11 These figures do not enlist themselves under a single banner, still less do they share a single scientific method, but they have in common the conviction that men are bom "unfinished animals," that the facts of life are less artless than they look, that both particular cultures and the observers of these cultures are inevitably drawn to a metaphorical grasp of reality, that anthropological interpretation must address itself less to the mechanics of customs and institutions than to Lhe interpretive constructions the m<'mbers of a society apply to their experiences. A literary criticism that has n(finities to this prnctice must be consnous of 1ls own st.ltus .ts Interpretation .md intent upon undcrst,uuflng lltl•ro~tu•~
Introduction

poeHcs of culture. Such an approach is necessarily a balancing •let--correcting each of the functional perspectives 1 sketched in the preceding paragraph against the others-and necessarily impure: its central concerns prevent it from permanently sealing off one type of discourse from another or decisively separating works of art from the minds and lives of their creators and their audiunces, l remain concerned, to be sure, with the implications of .trlistic representation as a distinct human activity-Shakespeare's depiction in Othello of his hero's self-construction and destruction ~~ not simply identical to those patterns of self-fashioning and Nelf-cancellation that I explore in the careers of several of my llttlhors-bul the way to explore these implications lies neither in dt•nying any relation between the play and social life nor in tlffinning that the latter is the "thing itself," free from interpretalton. Social actions are themselves always embedded in systems of public signHication, always grasped, even by their makers, in acts uf inte1-pretation, wlille the words that constitute the works of literature that we discuss here are by their very nature the manIfest assurance of a similar embeddedness. Language, like other •ugn systems, is a collective construction; our interpretive task must be to grasp more sensitively the consequences of this fact by Investigating both the social presence to the world of the literary lo•xl and the social pres~nce of the world in the literary text. The literary text remains the central object of my attention in this study t•f .,elf-fashioning in part because, as l hope these chapters will dt•monstrate, great art is an extraordinarily sensitive register of the t•nmplex struggles and hd as the (ocal point for ~:ollVt' rging lirw" nf furu• in ~ixll•Pnlh l<.'nlury culture; their

5

6

lntrod!tclron

significance for us is not that we may see through them to underlying and prior historical principles but rather that we may interpret the interplay of their symbolic structures with those perceivable in the careers of their authors and in the larger social world as constituting a single, complex process of self-fashioning and, through this interpretation, come closer to understanding how literary and social identities were formed in this culture. That is, we are able to achjeve a concrete apprehension of the consequences for human expression-for the "f"-of a specific form of power, power at once localized in particular institutions-the court, the church, the colonial administration, the patriarchal family-and diffused in ideological structures of meaning, characteristic modes of expression, recurrent narrative patterns. Inevitably, the resonance and centrality we find in our small group of texts and their authors is our invention and the similar, cumulative inventions of others. It is we who enJist them in a kind of historical. drama, and we need such a drama in part because compulsive readers of literature tend to see the world through literary models and in part because our own lives--quite apart from professional deformation-are saturated with experience artfully shaped. ' l£ we constantly use devices of selection and shaping in accounting for our lives, if we insist upon the importance of certain "turning points" and "crises" or, in Freud's famous modem instance, seize upon the plot of a Sophoclean tragedy to characterize our shared "family romance," then it is not surprising that we engage in a similar narrative selection when we reflect upon our shared historical origins. In attempting to glimpse the formation of identity in the English Renaissance, we cannot rest content with statistical tables, nor are we patient enough to tell over a thousand stories, each with its slight variants. The problem is not only lack of patience but a sense of hopelessness: after a thousand, there would be another thousand, then another, and it is not at all dear Htat we would be closer to the understanding we seek. So from the thousands, we seize upon a handful o£ arresting figures who seem to contain within themselves much of what we need, who both reward intense, individual attention and promise access to larger cultural patterns. That they do so is not, I think, entirely our own cntical invention: such at least is one of the enabling presumptions of lhis book We respond to a quality, even a willed or partially w illed quilllly, in lhL• figures themsl•lves, who Me, we assum\! by analogy In Olii'-1'1VI'1i, l•ng.lgt•d in lht>1r own acts of selection and shaping .1nd whn St'l'lll lo dtiVl' tlwmsclvcs luw.trd tlw most Sl'I1Sltive rcg•nns nl lill'll tlllllllt', 111 ''"Jill'!:>'• .llld I'VI'I\, by r.lt•stgn. tot•mbody

Introduction

ils dominant satisfactions and anxieties. Among artists the will to be the culture's voice--to create the abstract and brief chronicles of the time--is a commonplace, but the same will may extend beyond art. Or rather, fo r the early sixteenth century, art does not pretend to autonomy; the written word is self-consciously embedded in specific communities, life situations, structuJ'es of power. We do not have direct access to these figures or their shared cuJture, but the operative condition of all human understanding-of the speech of our contemporaries as well as of the writings of the dead-is that we have indirect access or at least that we experience our constructions as the lived equivalent of such access. We should note in the circumstances of the sixteenth-century figures on whom this study focuses a common factor that may help to explain their sensitivity as writers to the construction of identity: they all embody, in one form or another, a profound mobility. In most of the cases, this mobility is social and economic: More, the son o( a reasonably successful London Lawyer, becomes a knight, Speaker of the House of Commons, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, Steward of Cambridge University, and finally Lord Chancellor of England, the confidant of Henry VITI; Spenser, the son of a modest free journeyman of the Merchant Taylors Company, becomes a substantial colonial landowner described in royal documents as "a gentleman dwelling in the county of Cork"; HI Marlowe, the son of a shoemaker and parish clerk of Saint Mary's, Canterbury, receives degrees from Cambridge University-a more modest ascent, to pe sure, but an ascent nevertheless; Shakespeare, the son of a prosperous glover, is able by the close of nis career to acquire, on his father's behalf, a coat of arms and to buy the second largest house in Stratford. All of these talented middle-class men moved out of a narrowly circumscribed social sphere and into a realm that brought them in close contact wi.Lh the powerful and the great. All were in a position as well, we should add, to know with some intimacy those with no power, status, or education at all. With Tyndale, we have to do not with upward mobility, in the conventional sociological sense, but rather with a highly charged geographical and ideological mobility, a passage from Catholic priest to Protestant, from the Gloucestershire of his successful yeoman farmer family to London and then to Continental exile, from obscurity to the dangerous fame of a leading heretic. Finally, with Wyatt, whose family had risen in status and wealth only in the preceding generation, we have the restless mobility-France, Italy, Spain, Flanders-of the dipJomal. The six wril<>rs 1 consider her(.> then are all displaced in

7

lntroductio11

significant ways from a stable, inherited social world, and they all manifest in powerful and influential form aspects of Renaissance self-fashioning. But the aspects are by no means the same. Indeed my organization in this book depends upon the perception of two radical antjtheses, each of which gives way to a complex third term in which the opposition is reiterated and transformed. the conflict between More and Tyndale is reconceived in the figure of Wyatt, that between Spenser and Marlowe in the figure of Shakespeare. Wyatt does not raise the opposition of More and Tyndale to a higher level, though his self-fashioning is profoundly affected by the consequences of that opposition; Shakespeare does not resolve the aesthetic and moral conflict inherent in the works of Spenser and Marlowe, though his theater is enigmatically engaged in both positions. Rather Wyatt and Shakespeare express in literary works more powerful than any produced by their contemporaries the historical pressure of an unresolved and continuing conflict. Moreover, the issues raised at the theological level in the works of More and Tyndale are recapitulated at the secular level in the works of Spenser and Marlowe, while Shakespeare explores in Otltello and elsewhere lhe male sexual anxielles-the fear of betrayal, the suspension and release of aggression, the intimations of complicity in one's own torment-voiced in Wyatt'5lyrics. We may posit a direction enacted by these figures in relation to power: for the first triad, a shift from the Church to the Book to the absolutist state; for the second triad, a shift from celebration to rebellion to subversive submission. Similarly, we may posit a direction enacted by the works of literature in relation to society: a shift from absorption by commun1ty, religious faith, or diplomacy toward the establishment of literary creation as a profession in its own right. But we must recognize that such approximate and schematic chartings are of limited value. The closer we approach the figures and their works, the less they appear as convenient counters in a grand historical scheme. A series of shifting, unstable pressures is mel with a wide range of discursive and behavioral responses, invenhons, and counter-pressures. There is no such thing as a single "history of the self" in the sixteenth century, except as the product oi our need to reduce the intricacies of complex and creative beings to safe and controllable order. This book wm not advance any comprehensive "explanation" of English Renaissance self-fashioning; each of the chapters is intended to <>tand alone as an exploration whose contours are shaped hy our ~rt~sp ot the specific situation of the author or text. Wl' m,1y, hoWl'VI'r, conclude by noting a set of goveming con-

lntrod11clion

ditions common to most instances of self-fashioning-whether of the authors themselves or of their characters-examined here: 1. None of the figures inherits a title, an ancient family tradition or hierarchical status that mighl have rooted personal identity in the identity of a clan or caste. With the partiaJ exception of Wyatt, all of these writers are middle-class. 2. Self-fashioning for such figures invo_)yes submission to an absolute power or authority situated at l~artially outside the self-God, a sacred book, an institution such as church, court, colonial or military administration. Marlowe is an exception, but his consuming hostility to hierarchical authority has, as we shall see, some of the force of submission. 3. Self-fashioning is achieved in relation to something perceived as alien, strange, or hostile. This threatening Otherheretic, savage, witch, adulteress, traitor, Antichrist-must be discovered or invented in order to be attacked and destroyed. 4. The alien is perceived by the authority either as that which is unformed or chaotic (the absence of order) or that which is false or negative (the demonic parody of order). Since accounts of the former tend inevitably to organize and thematize it, the chaotic constantly slides into the demonic, and consequently the alien is always constructed as a distorted image of the authority. 5. One man's authority is another man's alien. 6. When one authority or alien is destroyed, another takes its place. 7. There is always more than one authority and more than one .1Iien in existence at a given time. 8. If both the authority and the alien are located outside the self, they are at the same time experienced as inward necessities, so that both submission and destruction are always already internalized. 9. Self-fashioning is always, though not exclusively, in language. 10. The power generated to attack the alien in the name of the ,1uthority is produced in excess and threatens the authority it sets nu t to defend. Hence self-fashioning always involves some experil'nce of threat, some effacement or undermining, some loss of self. To sum up these observations, before we turn to the rich lives .1nd texts tl1at exemplify and complicate them, we may say that ~clf~fashioning occurs at the point of encounter between an authority and an alien, that what is produced in this encounter parl.lkes of both the authority and the alien that is marked for attack, md hence that any achieved identity always contains within itself llw s•gnf.l of its own subvcrsion or loss

9

0

N

E

At the Table of the Great: More's Self-Fashioning and Self-Cancellation

"A Part of His Own"

A dinner party at Cardinal Wo~y's. Years later, in the Tower, More recalled lhe occasion and refashiOned it in A Dialogw· of Comforl Agai11sl Tribu/ati011 as a " merry tale," one of those sly jokes Ihat interlace his most serious work. The story reaches back to a past that, in the guthering daTicness or 1534, might weU have ~~eCmed to More almost mylhlcat, back before the collapse of his career, the collapse of his whole world. Perhaps nslmportant, It t~ach~s b~ck to a time before Mo{e hud decided to cmbnrk upon his c~recr. Ho piolurcs himself as an aqtb ltt0 us, ~leve~ youog man, uagcr to make a good imp ression. but at the same time 'a n Ol(tllider: in his fictionalized ve:rsion, he is A 1-l ungarian visitor to Gennany. 1"he vainglorious prelate-transparently Wolsey-had that day made nn oration so splendid in his own ~stimation that he ··tl as if on thorns until he could l1ear it commended by his guests. Alt!'r casting about in vain for a discreet way of introducing the •ubject, the cardinal finally asked bluntly wh,1t lht' company thnught of his oration. Eallng and conversation came to an abrupt h.llt; "Every man was fallen in so deep a study for the finding of ·•<1n1e exquisite praise."' Then one by one in order, each guest brought forth his Oattering speech. When the young More had '''·•ycd his part, he felt confident that he had acquitted himself wt.'ll, the more so in that he "@.s to be followed by an ignoran t priost. 13ulthc priest-a "wily fox" -far surpassed him in the emf~ ut lh>ltt!ry, nnd botJ• m turn wer.e bested by !he lnsl to speak, a ''llllOd ancum l. henoroble fla llerer" who. when he saw that he rnu lti nol <:xce,•d the cl.lbornLc compliments alroady produced, tl

12

C1tAP11llt

ONI

spoke not a word, "but as he that were ravished unto he~venward with the wonder of the wisdom ond e loquence that my lord's grace had uttered in that oration, he fet (i.e., fetched) a long sigh with an " oh" from the bottom of hi~ breast, ond held up bo.tb hands, and li(ted uphish~ad, and cast up IUs eyes into the welkin, and wept" (215-16). l'lovi much of More is·in this little storyl The jibes at the ignornnt priest who "could speak no Latin at all" and at the rich, worldly cardina~lH'\\ the last s porks of that humanist indignation at derica! ilbuscs that he once shared with l;rasmus and that had someho•v survived fifteen years o£ b itter anti-Protestant polemics. The setting recalls the rich significance for More of the dinner l'a•ly, emblem of human ting tQ save himself, Mo.:e resigned the chancellorship on the pretext of ill health, but he was too importnnt and too visible to be granted a silent,, unmolested J"etirement. Refusa.l to subscribe to the Oath of Supremacy-that is, to ~cknowledge lhat the king wM Supreme Head of lhe Ch.o.1.rch in Englandbrought him in 153<1 to the Tower and, on 6 July 1535, lo the scaffold. 'rh•s cl't•.•ptcr will describe the complex intcrpl,,y in More's hfe

tlt Ill< Table of 1/uo Grtal

and writ:lngs of self-fashioning and sclf-cancella1ion, the a..fting of" public role iUld the profound desire to esc.,pc from the identity so crafted, and I propose that we keep in our minds the image of More sitting at the table of the great in a peculiar mood of ambi tion, ironic amusement, curiosity, and revulsion. It is as if he were watching the enactment of a fiction, and he is equally struck by the unreality of the whole perlocmance nod by its immense power to impose itself upon the world . This is, in (act, one of the cenlm l perceptions of the Otalogr~e of C,mfort; repeated ngaln nnd again in an endless VL> ricty of g~;~ i ses. No soone r is one fantnsy lnld to rest th an ano ther pops up to b e grappled with in lum nnd defeated, until the w ho l'¢ world, the great body o f man's lor;>gings, a nxie ties, nnd &onl$, :thim nu:f's lik~: .i min.~~, l'u m pelli ug, tennctous, und utterly u nreal. Bu t why $hould men submit to lanta!>ies thai will not nourish o r sustain them? In part, More's answer ispowPr, whose qulntessenHaJ sign is the abiHty to impose one's fictions upon the world: the more outr~geous the fiction, the more impressive the manifestation of power. The vain cardinal may be in the grip of madness, but he can compel others to enter the madness and reinforce it. So too, a generation earlier, Richard m cast his ruthless seizure of the throne in the guise of an elaborate process of off~r. rclu~al, renewed offer, ,,nd reluctant acrept.rticipa te in It o r to watch it silently. l 1~ a brilliant pass<1ge of h 1S History of /(tc/wrrl /11, More imagines the tolk 01110ng the tomtnon people whb have just witnessed the s i nistc r f<1rce. 'l'hey marvel a t th e w hole p~rfonnnnce, ~ince no one cou ld be expected t6 be tnkcn in by It, but then, as om! of them o b,qcrws, "o.1en must iiOmcHmc for I·he 111i1 nncr sllke not be aknowe1l whitl Lhcy knuw.'': After ,1U, ~ bishop glion, though everyone knows he has paid for his office. And likewise, a l a play, everyone may know that the man playing sult~n ;,, in f<~ct, a cobbler, bot if anyone is foolish enough to "call him by his own name while he standeth in his majesty, one of his tonncntors might hap to breakhls head."

And su they •aid that these matters be king's games, as it were stage plays, and fo, the mon; pnrt played upon &c., ffoltls. In which poor men be but the lookers-on. And they that wise be will meddle no farther. flor they thnt "
lJ

To try to brc~k through the fiction is- dangerous-one can have o ne's head b rtlken. To try to take a pnTI of o ne's clwn, " to step up an d play wfth them," is equally dangerous. On U1c one hand, the great h ave the means. to enforce their elaborate, theatrical ce~:e­ monies of pride; on the other, tho:.e ceremonies. Me usuaUy per· formed, ominously, o·n scaffold&. B11 t if wealth and fon:e are the props on which -such ceremonies are based, why should the grca~ bother with the mrujqucrade at all? More's observation thaL few, if any, among the perfonners or the dudience are take.n In by the elabo rate prerense obviates o pure ly political explanation such as Machiavelli, describing simi· lar rituals, provides, For Machiavelli, the prince engages in deceptions for one very clear reason: to s urvave. The successful prince must be "a great [c lgnor a.nd dissembler; ,u\d men arc: ro simple and so ready lo obey presea1t. necessities, that one •vho deceives will ~!ways find thQse ))/ho ollow themselves to be deceived."' The observation hovers ~h~racterislidllly between cyni· uism and revolt, cold Eoamsel dod sntia:c, b111 ~~ least there is only one layer of deception: strip off thai layer and you reach the naked realities qf matter thru1to its im<1gination; and h1any have imagi ned rep ublics and pcincipalitaes which have never been seen or known to exist in relility; for h o•v we live Is so rar removed from how we o ught to live, that he who abandons what is done for \'l'hat ought Ia be done, will rather Jenm 10 b ring abou t his own ruin l;l:mn his preservation" (56). There are spiraling ironic& in this famous pas.qage from Tl•t• l'ri"c~ , but the vertigo is nrcestoc,l by~ pnssionnte com.nutmenl to life in this world and by a hard, steady confidence thai it is possible•to pen~tl'll le " to the re~l tn1th or the-m~trer.'' More, of course, cou.Jd claim with even grenter confidence to kM1W lhl• "reol lnalh," h~ t hlR •vas ,, lruth of .111 en tarely cli fft~rq nl

AI Ill< Tobit nf ti:< Grc.t

order. capable of callccllltg, but not dnnfyi~tg, human politic:;. In nell her of his great political works, the History of Ricltard l/1 and Utopia, does he invoke this ultimalC! religious truth as n decisive explanation: in the formcr, he writes a historical narrative in imitation of classic.tl models; in the latter, he illuminates conlempo· rary politics with the light not of his faith but of his imagination, inven ting one of those republics "which have never been seen or lmown to c>ntial historian ulike, l·hc pol lti.cal \VOrid i~ transparent; for tylort!, it is opnql.\e. And hi a sr•,nt rnith# hjs

S(onSe

Of the ab~olute l(uth# $40M G o nly to

have increased Ihat opacity, by rendering political life essentially absurd.

More did, to be sure, spend much of his career acting as if Parliament, the Privy Council, the law courts, and the royal court were anything but absurd, as if his own considerable gift for compromise, subtle maneuver, and partial reform might well contribute to a rational runelioralion of social life and a comfortable position for himself and his family. The tragic drama of his end may obscure for us his remar\sscssect a firm grasp of the complex f\Ctwork of mnterJa l interests that underlay the intricate fonnal ilies of Tudor gov· t•rnment, nnd knew well how to make his own placl' withi n these tunnalilics. The actual te>lculation but in n sense of the absu:rd: because they are mad, possessed by "fond fantasies," incapable of distinguishing between truth and nction. lt isnol orilyMachiavcllinn calrulation but humanist rc(orm that finds iV;limits in. this madness: political life H1111lllt be n:sQlvcd into undedylng forces, c~nnol be treated as a Hldc that Ihe ipillntcd understand and mampulate, beco~e it is lundnmcntnlly in811ne, it$ practitioners io the grlp of "h·enzi~s." And il is not Qn ly polihcal life, in !·he no1-row sense, that is so 111t.lgucl. bu1 l h~ 11renl body of mao's social rela tions.

15

16

C HA PTEK

ONE

To understand More, we most take this h,lunting perception of universol madness very ~eriously, not 1 In o ther words, simply as n rhetorical device or conventional tum of phrase. b ut as a centtal and e nduring respons~ fo exlstencc. 1t I$ a response he shared ,,l\kc so much else, with Ernomos, whose Prni"" of Folly fs its supreme nnd definitive expression. But Tilt' Prnisn nf Folly is a dang.,rous tool for exploiting More's response to life, in part bec~use of the fundnom?ntal d ifferences between Ern$m us nnd More (the former n dissatisfied monk, impatient with confinement; the latter a dis· satisfied layman, impatient wrth lfberty), en part becnuse of the success and familiarity of Erasmus's great work. Only when we p
Al

o,(' TaW~ aflhc Cr~at

nonetheless embraced.• But our knowledge of More's participation in a larger cultural mood should not diminish our sensitivity to its actual effect in his life and writingsTo grasp the precise character of what 1 have called More's estr.mgemcnt, we might comp~ it wllh the mood evoked by Holbein's famous work "The AmbassadoTS" (see fronlispi~e). painted In London two ye:srs before More's executaon. Jean de Dintcville, seigneur de Polisy nnd Frands l'sambassador to Ihe English court, nnd his friend Georges de Selve, shortly to be bishop of Lavaur, s t·and at e ither side of a two-shelved tabl<>. TI1cy nrc young, s uc~essful me n, whose impressively wide-rnngtng Interests and accomplishments are elegantly recorded by the objects scattered \Vith l.tU 1.du l i (.:,J!"HHtln~,:,:, on the table: celestJaJ onl1 teirestrlal

globes, sundials, quad runts and ot'her instnnne.n ls 0 1' astronomy .md geometry, n lu te, a case offlu:tes. a Genna11 book of arll hme tic, kept op<'n by a square, and an open German hymn book, on whose pages may be seen part of Lulher's translation of the "Veni Creator Spiritus" and his "Shortened Version of the Ten Commandments." 11le hymn book suggests more, of course, than lhe Interest in music that is elsewherec indicated; ats presence in the portrait of two important Catholic statesmen may signal lhe French king's attempt. by cynically advancing the Lutheran cause !n England, to further tension between Henry VnJ nnd the emperor Chnrlc• V, or, alte rnatively. it may ma1·k thnt moO\ent in European b isto a')' in which it still seemed possible to cultivated uten o f good willthot the CalholicChuoch and the Refoa·mers cou ld hteet on common g a·olll'ld and reso1ve their diffea·cnccs. If Moa:e hnd onae harbored such a Jmpe, lhe mon\ent for hin\ was lon g

J•Mt.•

Dln tevi llc a11d Selve are depicted in the context of the highest hnpes a nd achievements of their age. The objccls on the tabl
17

18

CHArTil&

ON""B

invested this art with far mo~e than tcchnip to a fash· ionable piece of jewelry, a11 enhancement of the self, bu t this re· ductio11 seems ·as much mocked ali confirmed by the large alien presence that has intruded into this supremely civilized world of human athievement. •~ The annmorphic death's-hcad draw~ to it· self ~not her discordant element io the painting: the broken string of the 'Jute, 1111 emblecnotlc play upon the very iden of discord. •• Tugeth••r thest•~u~~gest a subUe but powerful countercurrent to the rem·,., of l!.!rmcmy. r't:·concilintion, ond ~mfiJcnt- ln!t!llcctual

AI tilt T.:ble of tltt~ Grui

achievcm€'nt embodied elsewhere in the picture's objects and figures. Nonl' of these antitypl's isimmediately visible-the ornamental skull and broken string reveal themselves only to the closest scrutiny, only, thai is, if one abandons the large, encompassing view of Ute painting and app·roaches the canvas with such myopic closeness that lfie whole gives way to a mass of individual do;t,Uls. To see the large d('ath's-head requires o still more mdical abandonment of what wt! take to be "normal" vision; we must throw the enli.re pointing out of perspective in order to bring into perspecti ve what out usual mode of perc~ption cannot comprehend. Denth's prcseMe In Holbein's painHng i> at once more ~lusl vc ..auU thvtt· llibhJrlJilli; tl td.n Uu! cunYentional ropt'CHCntutlons of

death in late medieval art. In the familiar trnusi tombs, for example, the putresc€'n l, wo.rm-eaten corpse on the bot·tom level may be < mock the figure above, dressed in robes of high office. 15 But Ihe mocke•'Y amrms U1e viewers-understanding of the relation between life and death, indeed simplliies thai understanding. In Ibis sense, the tra11si tombs, for aU their horrible imagery, are c><press.ions of a certain kind of confidence: the confidence of a clear perception of things, a wi:Uingness to contemplate Ihe inevitable future of the flesh without mystification or concealment. We can sec the body both in its dignity and in its disgrace. In ''The Ambassado rs," such clear, ;;teady sigh t is rmpossiblc; death is nffi rmcd not in its power to destroy the flesh, oro$ Is familiar from l~te l'flcdicva lliter.,turc, in its power to horrify and ca use unbcot'tblc pain 1 but in itS uncanny inacoes~ibiliJy and ~bsencq. What is uuscen or per,civcd «s 1mly a blwd s far more ctisquieting than whalmay be faced boldly and din!ctly, pal'ticularly whc•' the li mllations of vision are gr~sped as structural, the cons~qucncc mo.re ,(the nalu1'1! or perception than of the timidity of the; perceiver. The anamorphic skull casts a shadow on the elegant floor-the 1l1.1dow of the shadow of death, Hervey neatly calls it-and thus Jcmonstmtcs its substantiality, but the shadow falls in a different •hrection from those cast by the ambassadors or the ob1ects on the t.obll'. 16 lis presence is thus at once affirmed and denied; if it can become visibl~ to us, when we take up tbe appropriate position ~t the nngle of the painting, it is manifestly not accessible to the fl~;ure~ in the painting (in the sense that the books and in~trumentsnrr assum~d to be accessible). To be sure, Din teviUe has Ill~ silver d~nth'R·hend brooch, bul we feel fnr more the ino•ummcnautnblllty between this 0111nmenl and the sku ll on the lillur th1111 t·h ~··~ ,,c:col'tl. A~;td this im'<)~mansurabl!ity is co11firn1cd

19

CHArTI.Il

ClNY.

by the fact that we must distort and, in essence, efface the ligurus in ,order to see the skull. That this effacement is moving-that it is Jell as a kind of death-Is a funclionof Holbein's mastery of those rcpresentntional teclu,ique.• tl"lilt pay tribute to the wodd, that glorify the surfaces and textures of things, !hat celebrate man's relatedness to the objects of his muking. f!or !hare is nothwg in the painting ~hat is not the product of human fashioning--no llo"•cr, no lapdog, no dislnntlnndstape glimpsed th rough an open window. 111c heave ns-and the earU, ar~ present only as the objects of measurement and representation, the objecl:s of the globemakcr's art lt is only when one takes tenve of this worl11onethelcss counterpoises all of the other objects. Yet paradoxically this skull, emblenc of tba't which rl!sists and outlasts artifice, is treated aestheHc:ally with the most spectacular display of the painter's ingenuity and skill, just as paradoxically the death's-head, e ntblem of the negntlon oLhum~n a<;:hievement, is w.om by Dinteville aS a fashionable ornament, a badg" of status akin to U1c Order of Saint Micltocl he wears
Ill

lh~ Tabl~ of th~ Grrut-

doubL Holbein fuses a radical questioning of the status of the world with a radical questioning of the statu.• of art. For the 1>.1inting insists. passionately and profoundly, on the repre:.cntalional power of art, its central role in n1an'~ apprehension .md control of reality, evenns it Insists, with uncanny pc(1;uasivcIIC5S, on the fictional character of that entire so-called r
[lllSSible A simple return ~o normal vision. Of course, we do return 111el rc3ssumc thnt perspective that seems to "give" us the world, Inti we do so in a slate of estrangement. In the same ~rtistic nmment, the moment of passage from Lhe center of U1e pnintmg to the• periphery, life Is effaced by death, representat-ion by arti(icc. Ihe non-place that is the place of the skull has re~ched out and I uched phenomenal reality, infecting it with its own alienation. 1~•111 de Dinteville and Georges de Selve, so present to us in their 1l111r.i~t h.tllucinntory substantiality, are revealed to be pigments on h••tched canvas, an illusionist's trick. They who seem to be pres' 111 heforo t~ exist nowhere, exist then ln utopia, I nr I justify this long discussion of "The Ambassadors" on the muqnd t!lnt it plunges us, wilh th.e sensuous inunecliJc:y nnd tm11 IIM1eity lhnl on ly a painting can nchi~vc, into the full compll•~tly of More's cslJ·~ngement and l.he dchness of his art. The • urld of Dinteville and Selve was More's world; with the image I ••fore us of the table laden with books and instruments, we may 1• t'.tll Roper's account Cli the period during which More was, in lltnn·~ phr~se, Henry VDl's "pet humanist." "When he had dona hiM nwn devotions," Roper writes, the king would send for More "mlu his trnverse, dnd there sometime in matters of astronomy,

i'"''"t!lry, divinity, .md such other faculties, and sometimes of his Wntldly ~(f<>ir.l, to sit and confer with him. And othl'r while would ll<' In the night hllve him up into his leads, there for to consider with hlln tht! divc(1;itics, courses, motions, and opcrntions of the ~~~" .md pl~nets." 1 • The conclusion o( the anecdote In Roper is lvo1tlllcrfully reveahng: finding himself increasingly trapped by lh&"ll' flllltcrlng royal attentions, More "bcgan thcrcqp&)n oomc· Y/h.ll In '""~emblc his nature," in other words. to b~C<1111 C n bore, lllllil ht$ company was no longer so much m donmnd. I( thlsJiccms

21

22

to lead us ii\va:y, from Holj:feiifs a,n.lbassado,ri; 1,J;>resunlnb_ty·vying for the kiti$'s attention, it f• only-because Ma1;e 1\ail in supr,cme meas.u r
im porta.nt st£11, th is e ngagement ail.il detacl\ment do -not occupy h"o-separate, sucC~.ye moments i n ·More~ catee.r-:~ ~arty ,i t;avolvenientin the wodq 1 (allowed b)l .a1s~llusiqil mel\t ~nd .w itb.i:lrnwaJ,J"oJ;,examflli}, g r "~.''ell a more eomplt!x .rbuilCLof'alt-erna.t hjg states-but r'alher are .a'i:(d np· s~on e..- d):J we confittently tpkJ:' the rneasur~ Qf fhc ~.by~s, t]1an Y"e percei,ve. a new ~lemenf !h~t seen)~ lo esh'il1lisn lbe un· nti,st-al Mt<1bllsh a s impk (>)·d'e r of contrast lhnt the wark J'rus rrntcs. Ultlpin rtnd Its anillosu!!S inhabit ih'U. !"otld of book I

At flu: J'nbl,. of the Creal

just as Enghmd inhabits the world of book H. Simllarly, the persona More and Hythloda.,us sit in the same garden and conver!;C wHh eoch other, but as m Holbein's painting, they cast shadows in different dir~ctions ·"'d are, in crucial r<~spccts, nece$snrily bl.ind to each other. Tltis disquieting internal rupture--this sense within the general frame or the worl< of incompatible perspectives between which the reader restlessly moves-is mirrored at yirtu~Liy every level of the te> to repn·scnl That •s. Marin seem~ to underestimate

24

C II A

r T e-.:

0 N fi

More's self-<:onsciousness, a self-consciousness for once the makb of its Gallic counterparts. If there exist highly signlficanl "blind spots" in Utopia-Cor example, an w:ban design that docs not seem to allow for the centralized exercise of power that tbe system nevertheless calls for-t hey exist like t·be gre~ l, central blind spot in Holbein's "Ambassadors": as the object of thq Drti:Jt's pro· found , playful at-tention . This playfu lncs!>-so easily acknowledged ond Jgnoreddeserves~pecial emphasis, for it occupies a ccntrnl role in botb the painting-and the book. The arts of mapmaking, calculafion, ·and measurement that figure so prominently t.n "TI1e Ambass.1dors" and Utopia ba,•e important prnctical functions in everyday life, but they are pro:>sent here as recre.,tion, the elegant play of distio· guishcd and !;cdouc. men. Thitplay-ls notconcQivod by humanh;tc;

as an ~sc.,pc from the serious, but as a mpde of civ ility, an enhancement of specifically human powers. As such. the globes and co[upasses, along will1 the lute and Autes, si l withoul COI\liadicLion next to the bo<1k of merobnnt's arlti:unetic, on the one hand, and u,.e book of divinl' worsb.ip, on the other, just as the mock alphabet- and maps of Utopza are bout1d up-literaTiy and figuratively-with a scarchtng inquiry into the sources of human misery and the possibilities of human government. The dlstorted st..-ull in Holbein's painting, for all the grimness o( its imagery, is itself an invitation to the viewer to play, while the reader of Ufopia is invited to enter a cnrcfu lly demarcated playground that possesses nonetheless a riddJh1~ relation to the world outside. 21 That ttte playfulness In "The Amb~ssadors" focuses on a skull suggests tho I the anamoz·ph lc technique may dedvc in port nt least from med.if!vnl melhods of medHation, particularly the concentration upon an object-frequently the death's-hl'nd-that enables one to lose the world, to perceive U1e ViiJ'Iily of humO>n life and the illusory quality of reality.ll One might '!IgUC that Holbein's palnting signals-the decay of such methods, a loss of intensity that can only be partially recuperated through illusionist tricks, but if so. one must conclude that this decay released a magnificent aesthetic byproduct. And while tllopltl too may owe somethi ng to medita· li\>e techhlqu~. detD.chcd fTom its original purpose, one would l:>.e hm'd pre5Sed from More's works to cbnclud~ that the leclmique was in dl!rov. In almostall his writings. More returns agai.n ond again 10 the unsei:tling of man's sense of reality, U1e questioning of his instruments of mea,uremcnt and represent,,tion, the demonstration

AI t!Jr T•bk •I ll
c...,

vf blind spots in his field of vision. In the Dialogue• of Comfort,

Antony challenges Vincent to prove that he is awake and not merely dreaming that he is awake, or dreaming that he has been challenged to prove his wakefulness, or dreaming thnt he has responded to this challengt' by moving his limbs or talking ralion•llly, or dreammg that he is merrily describing st~ch a dream to his friends, or dreaming that he has furally appealed beyond body and words to the unshakable conviction in his soul that he is awake. None of Vincent's response.~ does anything to arrest the vertiginous fall in~o an infinite regress of self-mirroring dreams; as wlth ~lmiJnr gnn1es p.lny~d by N.ichol~s of Cus~ 1 the mind is driven at uncc to an aaknoW iedgment of·the conjeL~~thnt pdnter,o; in Ly~rns. 1~ Mot'e's Oit~log•le

a

TCA...:r 'T 1! It 0 N £

of Comfort, by contrast, is no t at all amb.i.g uous: AntOlly's assur· ance rests· not upon I he reelin!l fait!~ of the lndlvidual, bu t upon the po1¥er ex~rdsed jointly· by the sa1 1'Jrirrgs {'1522), "all the while we live in.tliis wor1d, we l:>e b.ulpii(q nets, an.d witHin a su re _pri1\on, out of.wrrkh tbe.re can no m~n l!s~aJ'u?;'' but few of- t>S h;we t!ver gltn1pscd the walls, and !Ve..Bimt about a.<; thougi'L we wer.e tree. Or a_gain, " all our whol~ life. is but il si!ikn.ess nevel' llti:rable, but as one uncurahle c~nker, ·witb conlintial swaddling-and plp~­ tering-, botcl1ed Ltp to l.ive .a s l.t>ni; as \"C'n'lJ!Y. and l·n .cmicltision nndou btedly tp die 0f the Slime sjokness, and l!l_ough there nel(e_r came other'' u_b.ut few of us undersl'ilnd our conclil'lon, ~nd we slnll about as though we WCJ:-e 'in healtb. 'We fit1d the same vision -expressed in almost- the same words in More's early epigrams diSillusionmeittr t1:tey are the foun.dafiori of hls famous humor l'yhose 01ost ~:haracted.stic mode is the pol'll
xe

H sl:igul'\est perceive that oneowe:rc eamestly t;roud of the weam.ng of a g~y ·g olden .gown, wi>J ie tire lose! pl~yeth the lord in a mse-pla)i. woultlest ye nat l<~ilgh at his folly, considbring that ye are, very sure, that when !Ire piny is dorte, he shall go 1valk a knave . in his old ao.at? Nbw ye.•thln'kesl thy self.wise e no.ugh whill! ye 11rt prol,!d 111 thy play~~-:; garment, ,u:>d fqrgetlesl lhnt w lten ~hy plijy is <;!on~. yc Sh~lt go forlh ~s ppo r iiS he. No r ye

J\t ll1~ Tobl~ of tilt Crrat

rememberest not that thy pageant may happen to be done as ~oon ,,s his.•·• The theatrical metaphor was More's favorite. and for good reason: 1t is the point in wllich the disparate and seemingly disconcinuous aspects of his existence come together. touch, and resonate. l'or the s toge .,s emblem oi human existence combines, as it were, the competing perspectives of Holbein's painting: the theater pays tribute to a world that H Jove..<;-or nt the least tha t it ct~nnot live without-even as it exposes that world as a fiction. More uses thcntricu l imagery to.depldt a world living out rituals in whld·1 It h~s ceased fu lly ,to lielieve, to display thQ folly of hwnan l"~'liN'!Ri nr'IA~ In PVnkP thP ,treaf leveling powflr ,( De(llh, who ~I rips the king of h is rk111Ubes:ana reduces him at last ttl the same •l.>te ., the poorest beggar_ The metaphor has a leveling effect <'Ven without the invocation of death, for to conceive of kingship ,., a dramatic part, an expensive costume and some well-rehearsed lines, is potentially at least to demystify it, to reduce its sacral ymbolism to tinsel. The dangerous implications of this demystification can be seen quite dearly in More's ep1gram "On the King ,,nd the Peasant." A Co~-bred peasant comes to town and •'<>S n royal procession. When-the crowd ro.ns out "Long live the ~tng!" and with rnpt CXI?ressions gazes up at the ruler, the peasant • ·•lis out, "Whcrl! is the king? Where ls the king?" And on.:. of tbe bystanders rcplfed, "Thcrl! he is, l!'c one mounted h igh on tha t horse over lherc." ·rhc peasnnt snid, " Is thnt tl1e klng? l lhink you are foolln(! me. l-Ie seems to me to be a man in an ernbroidc1-ed grtrrnent. "l''

I• rom here it is only one step to the revoluHonary outrage of john 111111 11r at the least to the bitter anger of More's own fictional h.u·.tctcr. Raphael HythJodaeus. inveighing against the conI'"•!<:)' of the rich. But fur more often in More's 1vorks the theatri•lmctaphor tums inward, expressing his tragicomic perception ot llfl! liVed at a perpetual remove from reality. All men arc c<~ught "I In weeding layers of fantasy: the spectator laughs or is angry to ,.,. •lnothcr pride himself on a mere fiction, while ht' himself is no h· '· •I playt'r, no less entrameled in fantasy. More'$ sense o( human then at once leads bim to social cri ticis m .md under1111111'~ thnt cl'ihc1sm, en.1bhng .nim to ridicu le the ideology of the JIIIWOI'fu l bill. severely limiting th~ prncticnl consequences
""""lily

27

28

CJIAI'l'E.Iot

QNI

It would be n mlstnke, however, to lcavC! the disoussion of the thentricnl metaphor in More nt the level of his inner life, for the m~tapll()r COITt!Sponds qui II! cloSl!ly to I he actual Lhcahicalizalion of public life in the S<>ciety dominated by Henry VITI and C-uilinal Wqlsey. Henry's tnste for lavish dress, ceremonial banquets, pageantry, masque, and festivity aslo)Ushed his contemporaries and profoundly affected their conception o£ power. More's humorous sketch of the pompous royal process• on is far surpassed rn extraordinary elaboration by contemporary accounts of the king, accounts that almost always sound like broad parody and almost never arc. Even llenry's vigorous and imposing bulk is fairly lost beneath the sheer mass of stuff-jewels, feathers, yards of rich cloths-with which he bedecked himscU; there is nothing in ou.r culture outB-d(!

th~

most opulent operatie productions or

.1tavisms like Siena's Patio to suggest even faintly this frantic passion for dressing up: The second night were diverse stranger.; of Maximilian the Emperor's court and ambassadol'S of Spain with the king at supper; when they had SLLpped, the king-willed them to go into the quecn's ch.1mber, who so did. And in the mean season, the klng with IS others appareled in Almain !Ccrman) jnckets of crimson and purplesatin, with long quartered sleeves, with hose ol the same suit, their bonnets of white velvet, wrapped in fl-at gold of damask, with visors and white plumes,~'~ in with a mul]\mery, and alter a certttin tim~ thai th.ey l1ad ployed wit h t·hc queen nnd ihe st~angets, they departed. TIJC I1 suddenly cntcr~d fi rn insiiels, ri't hly appareled, play ing on their Instruments, and then fo llowed 14 persons gentlemen, all appareled in yellow sntln, cu t like Almni ns, bcnrlng torches. Arter tJw m cnme 6 disguised in white satih and green, embroidered ond sci with letters and casUcs of fi11e gold in bullion; the garments were of strange fashion, with also strange cuts, every cut knit with points of fine gold .and tassels of the sume, their hose cu i and tied in likewise, their bonnets of cloth of silver, wound with gold. First of these 6 was the king .... Then part of the genUemen. bearing tord1es departed and shortly returned, after whom camr in 6 ladies appareled in garments of crimson satin embroidered and traverst'd with cloth of gold, cut in pomegranates and yokes, stringed after the fashion of Spain. Then Ihe said 6 men danced with these 6 ladies; and .1fl~r IIMI th~y had danced " season, Lbe lod1e5 took of( the men's VISOl'S, whereby lhey were

AI lhr ·raJJie of llli! Gr
known: Whereof the queen and the strangers much praised lhe king, and ended the pastime." It is important to quote such accounts at length (and this is only a small fragment) in order to convey the amazing elaborateness of this "mummery," the staggering opulence, the illtention to detail, the sheer energy invested by participants and observers alike. We have come to expect impressionism in accounts of gmnd pageants; on the con trary, the duoniclcr and his audience revel in detail, in knowi ng l>rcclsely wltal kinds of doth were used, what color, whut cu i. We think of elegnnce·as arlied to simplici ty, n minimizing of menns; on the contraJy, l:len,·y and his cow't valued supcr,Jbund nnce, vnrtery, int:rlcacy~ and overpowering Insistence on co~t. The more conspicuous the consum pt·ion the better: the king's fingers "were one mass of jewelled rings," wrote the Vene· tlan ambassador, "and around his neck he wore a gold collar from which hung a diamond as big as a walnut."" ThJs is not, of course, simply self-indulgence, though it is ccrt.1inly that; display •hades into diplomacy, amorous dalliance into high politics. But it would be a mistake to pass too quickly to the social, political, or dtplomatic uses we may discover in this bel1avior; to do so Is to IMc the sense o( colossal waste, of inexhaustible appetite, of power utterly materialized in clothes and jewe.ls. lf we attend patiently tn the multihued silks, damasks, nnd sarchold More distinguished himself by his extemporaneous flt•rfonn.,nccs: 'Though he '"a~ young of years. yet would he at l hrlstmas-tidc suddenly sontetimes step in amon~;~ the players, .u~tl never studying for the mntter, make.> a p~ rt of his o•vn ~here f11<'1Wn lly .11110ng tham. whic:h made the lookers-on mO\'C sporl l'l,,on .,11 llw l,lnycr• b~~ldc."'' 'fhls ytluthfu l l:t lcnl 1!1, a!l l~oper

2~

30

ut1d orstood. br·illinntly evoGa~i ve in its m~nifestat:i.on of clazzli ng rhetorical facility and its striking anticipation of the latc.r Cllreer, a career in whlch More was at once enmeshed in a larger drnma and yet never the mere reciter of lines anyone l'lsc had written. Yet somewhere behind Roper's words, in our mind if not in his, lies More's own comment on the dnngP.r of such playjng in the klng's games: "For they ll1at sometime step up and ploy-wi th them, when they cannot play their parts, they disorder the play and do lhem· ~elf no good." More was always aware of the tension lllat underlay the seemingly effortless performance, and the mingling of thls tcnsi011 l"llh hi~ ev i<;lentdel igt, t makesl1is scl f-~onsciousncss as a playe r bolh compl!!Jing and elusive. Certainly some of More's most fervent admirers were rnystified and even emb"rrassed by hfs participdtiuu i u what he c:nU!f the "stage p lays" of the great, embarrassed pnrticularly by his own professed theatricality. Tho~ when Nicholas Ha.rpsficld in tlis Marian blogr.rphy-haglograplly r·nlllcr--of Mo r·e retclls tho one~-dote o( the dinner party at Cardina l Wolsey's, he is clearly uncomfortable at the part More cast for himselfin his own vetsion, the part of n willing but somewhat se<:ond-r.~te Oattcre.r. After quoting More's adcount, Ha.rpsf:teld hastet"IS to rcpni r what hi:' evidently perceives as cracks in the sain t's image' ln this vainglorious pageant of my Lord Cardinal,

though, as it appea.rcth, Sir Thomas More was in a manner forced, contrary to his sob<:>r and well-known modest natu re, to pk1y a pa ri to accommodate hilliSe!f somewhat to Lhe players in lh i$ foolisl1, food stoge ploy, yet I doubt nothing, if his answer were certainly known, he played no other part than might beseem his grave, modest person. and kept himself within reason· able boun ds, ar\d yjcldcd none other than compotc:nl praise. For in very deed. the oration w!rs not ttl be dis· praised or disliked. Bu t, a> we began to say, whether i t were for that, as it is not unlikely, thai Sir Thomas More would not magnify all the Cardinal's doings and s,ry· lngs above the stars, .. or for som e other causes, he neve.r en tirely and irom the heart loved him ."'' rn three sent('nces, Mor(''$ complex irony, Jlis sclf·consc:ious playing in the cardinal's pagc•ant, vanishes: first he is !arced, ngninst his modest nature, to play a part, then the part is none otlwr l har~ that SMt\C modes! l)~l:ttre, ~hen the pari cnlrrcly vrrn· ish~• rn the si 111pll' cxpr:es~ion nf luSt ,md re~•onable-prrlisc, finally

At lhe tab!r af thr. ("';rt'at

even tltis pritlse dissolves, and More em~rges as n resolute plainspeaker who incur:~ the cardinal's secret dislike by refusing to flatter him. Hnrp•field's embarm.ssment js comical, but it is not merely squeamish: it reflects, in its o"-n way, the peculil>r ambivalence that we have already encountered in More's response to the world, .1mbivnlcnce signaled by the variety of meanings that attach to his use of the tlu~alrical metaphor. More's mode of being is, after all, genuinely perplexing aod uncomfortable, the more so in the context or ·eo rly s ixteenth-century England, where it represents ~omething qu ite exceptional. for hfs lffe seems nothing loss tha n this: the invention of a disturbingly ulifami lin r form Of consclotlsnc:;a1 tense~ ironic, wittyf po ised between t!ngr~g~aHciH •..uu..l tll:!"·

tachmcnt, and above all, fully a'vareofits own stAtus as ru1 ilwention. These clements may be perceived in tl1e Lives of others who preceded him, but scattered, isolated; in More, they are selfl'Onsciously integrated and set in motion both in literary discourse ••nd in the actual social world. lndeed, a distinction between text .md lived reality such as may be implied by the close of the precedIng sentence is precisely abrogated by More's mode of existence. For one consequence of life lived as histrionic improvisation is that I hi! category of the real merges with that of the fictive; the histori<,11More is a narrative fiction. To make a part of o ne's own, to Uve 11nes life as n cha racte r thn1st into a play, constantly renewing mwself Pxtemporm1eousJy and forever aware of one's own tmrc)~lity-suoh wos More's condition, such, one might sny, his p roject. Sm~ ll wonder that Hn.rpsfield felt uncornfortablc t Whnt is haunting about such ·a pmjcct is the perpetual self.,n,•x ivcncss it demands, and, with this self-rcflexiwncss, per· 1u•tual sclf·est•·angcment. Morejs com mitted to askillg himself at •II times "Whnt w<>uld 'More' say about this?" and to ask such a l'"'stion implies the possibility of other identities unfulfllled by lho• particular role that he ism the act of projecting. From this, the l••·(uliar shadows that hover about him throughout his career, not only the shadow of the designing consciousness manipulating the "''"k but the shadow of other selves, crouched in the darkness. I l, ,.·"ionally a shaft of light catches one o( these for an instant, as ,.. "''" More tells Margaret that. had it not been for his family, he "'ut•ld l(mg ago bnve shut hi mself fn a narrow cell, or when he Hlt<18 nbClut hfs d istr.1ctiog engagements in the letter to Peter • •lit•. thnt prefaces l/lclfJiu:

I l1ln constnnlly engaged in l~gnl b Lislness, either plend ln!J or henrl ng. either giving an awnrcl llS '"'bite r

31

32

or deciding a c~se as fudge. I pay a visit of courtesy to one man and go on business to nnqther. I devote almost lhe whole day in public to other men's arfairs and the remafndcr to my own. l leave to myself, that is to lcnming, 11othing at all. When I have returned home, 1 mu$1 talk with my wife, chat with my children, and confer with my servll nts. All this activity 1 count as business whon it must be done-and it must be unless you want to be a str.mgcr in your own home.clS There is always, it seems, a "real" self-humanistic scl1alar or monk-buried or neglected, nnd More"s nature is such that one suspects that, had he pursued wholeheartedly one of these other idcnliti~•. he woulrl hnve continued to feel the same way. For lherc is behind lhese shadowy selves still another, darker shadow: the dream of a ('ancellation of !dantity 1tself, «n .,nd to all ·improvisation, an escape from n~rral:ive. The dream, as J shall argue, Is played out in Utopia, and its co_nscquencc is that More's life, and nut simply .his public life in the low court or the royal administration but his private life in his household or amon~; l1i.s friends, seems rom(losotl, mqdc 11p. U we may believe Roper, this quality extend ed even to his choice of a wHc:: More, the ~lory goes, loved I he second daughter of Master Colt, but when. he considered lhat the elder daughter would be sh~med by being passed over, he "of a certain pity framed his fancy towards he:r, nnd 's oon after marrjrd her'' (199). A family myth perhaps, but there is ample evidence elsewhere, ln~lucUns Mo-re's own ~:Joqucnt testimony in his letter to Giles, for 1\1> wilJingness to "£-rome his fancy." "Although .•. b«
AI lht Tablt of lit< C"'al

that," "picture," "imagine"-his mind works brillianlly and, it seems, inevilably in thls mode." Certainly More's enemies were highly aware of his penchant (or fictions: "Mr. More hath so long used his figures of poetry," writes Tyndale, " that (I suppose) when h~ errcth most, he now by the reason of long custom believeth himself that he saith most true.""" ForTyndale, poetry is 6ynonymous with Lying; it is a term of abuse: "0 poet, without shame!'' His one concession to a richer meaning is to allow that More may have be~n taken in by IU!< own falsehoods. But for More, ns we have scet1 1 fictions have a br more complex ond elusive fu ncti on . He does not, it should b~ stressed, si mply ••>ldudc T}'11dnlc's one>'n lng; he h as a powerful se~1se boU1 of the 1\my men usc the "figures of poetry" to lie and of the w;;y men gN ••n tanglcd in their own fablications. But the11 he makes up a part of his ow11 and plays ll a longside lhc other actors. And if this sclflotbhionlng is Lhe mark of an.auenalion Lhol extends to his own life, private ns wel l ilS public, it is Qlso, as Erasmus's tribute makes rlcar, I he source of much that is delightful, inventive, and energetoc in More. The hypothetical situations and histrionic improvisations are, o(ter all, manifestations of that bnlliant playfulrwss that issued in Utopia.

Utopia 11/upill offers the profoundcsl commentary on (hose nspeot;; of

Mui'C's life that we have been d isqussing; il is nt once the perfect •·•pt·ession of his ~elf-conscifous role-play1ng and an intense mt•ditntion upon its Umitatlons . Ar the heart of th is medltaUon is tl11•characterof RaphaeJHythlodaeus and his relation to U1e "More" who appears in Ute work as both presenter (or recorder) and ho1mclcr. J lythlodaeus, in effect, represents all tha t More dehher.>tcly excluded from the personality he created and played; he • the sign of More's awareness of his own self-creation, he11cc his >wn Incompleteness. J'hc poignancy of this sense of incompleteness is heightened by till• f.tct that More presents himself in Utopia in all of his clr' um;.lan tial reallty. "fhc "I" of the work is a man tied in a hundred '"'')'• to his particu lar lime and p lace, to his offices, re•)'on~J L;illties, family nnd friends. Rarely befor·e hnd a work '"'•lt!!d su successful nn illusi<:>n of reality; wi th 11 few d,;ft strokes l\ll•lll' liVOii;cs n wlwlc world o£ busy men imm91'!1Uc( in lhe.ir ''"'o•t•tll: Cuth h~o·t Tunslal, wlwm the kins " h11s just crcnlec,l i'!laMer

I CHAI'"'I't:K

ONii.

o f the ~oils to cvouyonQ's immense satisfaction"; the burgomaster of Bruges, "a figtuc of magnificence"; Georges de l]l emseckc, provost of Cassel. "a man not only trained in eloquence but a notuml orator"; Peter Giles, "a natiw of Antwerp, nn honorable man or high position in hiS home town." And at the center o( this group is Thomas More, "citizen and sheri(( of the famous city of C t-eat Britain, London," the king's "orator" in Gertain complex negotiations in the Netherlands. This is a man linked to other men, a man with a well-dafinea, widely nGknowledged public Identity, and that identity is further substantiated in the flurry of letters and commendations that preface lbe work. Erasmus to John Froben, William Budti to Thomas Lupset, Peter Giles to Jerome Busleydo:!n, John Desmarais of Cassel to Peter Gil~s, Busleyden to More, More to l..lle&-the lcners estabtbh More in lhe_midot of • dislinguished community of Northern Ebropcan humanists, men who know More personally or by reputation :md who di.scus,; Jiis work among th~mselvcs in tltat speci'll personal spint one reserves for ~he boo~s oF f:riends.J'' One notablt! cffed or thiN cir('UmShmtlality is to heighten the realism that ,1ttaches to Hytltlodaens .1ndhis account of his travels, a reaJism t.hat More and his friends have F,un with in lbcrr ma.Ps, vocabulary, and solemn pedantry. But fner~ ~re other effects as well. Into tlus mutual adminltion society of successful men erupts o figure who does Jlol· fit, wh o steadfn~tl}" •·ef,uses to fit. If Hythlodacus seems real to us, rubbing elbows as he docs with well-known historical personages, he seems, by the same token, tl1e very entlindimenl of the SllNice. ll ylhlncl,tcus Oatly rcjl'<'ts Peter Gill•s's suggestion

At II" T•blr of lht Crt•l

tha t, ~s an enHghtenci:l and eloquct;lt man, J;t., "attach him self to some king." Nothing, he objects, could be more frustrating or futile, and to prove his cru~C, he imagines himself in the council or the French king, arguing For peace where everyone clse is warmongering, advising the king to amend his own Indolence and nrrogance \vhere everyone else is b usy puffing th~m up, wami , g the ]d, g to ndjust hi s expenses to his revenues where everyone else is counseling him to pillage his people. "To sum it all up, if I tried to obtrude these and like ideas on men inclined to !he oppo· site way of thinking, t·o what deaf ears should 1 tell the tale!" (97). Morns is forced to gr~ l\t Hyth lodaous's point, but he coun ters by .1rgul:ng that .11 is- mere foolishness to [hrtlsl raclicn l ideas upon individuals who cannot posstbly be expected to accept them or t•ven consider them seriously. There is no room for academic ph•· losophy witlt rulers, bu t. them is nnoll•er philosophy, more pract1cal for statesmen, whic.h knows !Is stage, .1dapts itS<' If to the play in hand, and performs its role neatly and appropriately. This is the philosophy which you must employ. O the•wise we have the situation in which a comedy o£ Piau ius is being pcrff,lrmed and ~hQ household $laves nr.c making trivial jokes aJ one anothe~ and then you come on the stage in a pbilosopher's attiJ'e and recite the passage from the Ocltroill whNe Seneca is disputing with Nero. Would it not have been preferable to take. a pari without words than by reciting something in· appropr,jate to nhlkc n hodgep<)dgc o f comedy and lTag~dy? You would have spoi led and upset the actual play by bcinging in irrelevant matter-even if your contribution would have been superior in itself. What· ever play is being perfom1ed, perform it as best you <-an, nnd do not upset it all simply because you think of another which has more interest. (99) llythlodaeus, the fictional character, speaks for directness, for what we would now call authenticity; Morns, the "real" man, •p<•nks for l>Ubmission to fiction, for accommodation to lhe play at I1>1J1d. Indeed, Moms trlcs to teduc~ Hytlt lodaeus's au th~nti~i ty lt~o·lf tn a pnrl, in th is context- a pattkproprinte part. To insist upon reciting one's stiff-necked and <1lvmn line• regardless of the other characters is to make oneself h11th absurd and inl'ff~.octual; the man who wishes to conlri.b ute to lhl' tl~tt~:rnwn l'uf sooety lc.1J'ns hQw t·o adapt himself. 1-Jythlodaeus, lr, reply, rcie<:ts the implication that he too is mcrcly playing

35

36

CHAt'Tii.Jt

ONE

a part and argues that the accommodalion to fictions ({ahular} Morus counsels is tantamount to the telling or lies C{als11), corruption all the more dangerous for being cloaked ~s public setvice. Not only will nothing good be accomplished m I he public realm, but the wou ld-be virtuous councillor wflllose h is liberty a nd become, in effect, an ncto1· in the pri.nce's play, n ()lny that I~ both sinister and insane. This debate, with its self-conscious xecollc:ctions of Pinto and Seneca, io; a literary set-piece, as Utopia's early readers would have recognized, but it also represents a real ilnd pressing problem, both in More's personal life and in his culture. There are periods in which the relation between intellectuals and power is redefined, in which the old forms have ·decayed and new forms have yt.:t lu bt' d eveloped . The n~no.i~son~ wo:; auch

3

puriod: as in ...

tcllcctuals emerged from lhe Church into an independent lay status, they l1nd ro rccollceive (heir relation to power a nd partku· IMiy to the i ncreasing power of the (oynl court~. f1or mos~, not s u rprisingly, this simply 1nennt ru1 eager, b lind rush in to the s ervice of thcp rince; as Hamlet says ofRosencran~ and Cuildenstern , they did make love to this employment. But there was also a substantial and serious exploration of the implications of such employment, iJs responsibilities and dangers, and a few men like Pica della Mirandola and Erasmus hesitated , resisted, and cautioned. More, at once ambitious and deeply lnOuenced by b<Jth Pico and Erasmus, was, ns it were, poised at the center of these is~ues. As .he wrote book I of Lila pin, he wns trying to decide the e)\tent of his cbmmit ment to the serv1cc of Aen r,y Vlll , a dccisi.on which h e well knew wou ld ~hape the coUI"se of h i~ Llfe.4tl And a t slake, as r h ave suggested , W
At Jhc

TQb/r of lil t Crcnl

communism-and the extended argumen t that has prt.-..:eded it? ). H. Hexter, tl1e most astute student of !he structure of More's work, has argued precisely that l:herejsno relation, lhnl this is one of the points at which we may pe(("eive More stitching togetlu.'r pieces thnt he wrote quite independently and that represent " two differ<>nl and separate sets of intention."" For Hcxter, Hyililodacus's pmise of Utopian communism at the close of book l is simply a convenient structural device, a formal bridge to book n. The eulogy oi the Utopian community of all things does fuilCtion in th is way, bu t I would suggestthat it·servcs n deepcrpurposo: !lis, exactly as it a ppenrs to be, the climax of book [, a debote not simply ov~r public sarvice bltt over on e's \\Thole mc3dc of being. Con•nnu.ni~n.t b H ythfutld~~·~ mtlicnJ n:~pon~c lu the role-pl~yin~; whi~h More both argued for and embod ied. Against U1e " philosophy ... which knows its stage,'' h~ offer$ an uncompromisi ng vision ohoot-ond-bmnch changes in the structure uf society and hence in lhe structure of the individunl. Like Marx's <'ilrly Ecouomir n111l Pltilosoplric:nl Mnuuscripts, More's work propounds commurusm less as a coherent economic program than as ,, weapon agamsl certain tendencies in human nnture: scl!ishness and pride, lobe sure, but also iliat complex, self·consdous. theatrical accommodation to the wodd \vhich we recognize as a chnroctcrist ic mode ofrnodem individuality. Utopia then is not only a brilliant attack on the social and econom ic injustices of early svther he seesJtis mode of being as n dcliber7l te siTiltagcm .>gainstlhe evils o f his time. And through 1-!j•lhlodaeus, h~ perm its himself both lo question lhe effectiveness of the •lmlngem and to imagine a radical altemotwe. The heart of Uw. allemotive is an uncompromising rejection of pnvatc prop~rty: "II appears to me.'' Hythlodaeus states llaUy. "that wh('rcver you h,we private property and all men measure all things by cash values, there itis smn:ely possible for~ commonwealth to have jusHce or prosperity-unless you think justice <'AiBIS WhCTC ~IJ the best things flow into the hnnds o( the worst 1 itizens or pro~perily prevails. where all is divid~d among very I~IV" ( 103). AI a stroke, Hytlllodaeus dismisses the clnbor.lte ttiNll<'I-IY n f ~tntus a nd cuSl of Wt!l.llth in aod~ty Indeed

37

he scarcely h~s to attack this ideology because no one iJ1 the work rises !o defend it. When Morns objects to commurusm. he does so on the gm••nds that it impoverishes the commonwealth and ignores J1umnn psychology-"We cannot be saUsfuctory whcm all lh iJlgs are common" ( 107)- nottlutl it violates lhrl privileges t>f the feudal nobility.•~ If the rniddJe-dass More cannot rest easy with his own carefully fashioned social identity, he will not, at the same time, allow nn 1dentity to be giyen fully fonned by an exnlteil nnrrte and title. The pr~tensions of the social hierarcl1y I<J embody a "natural" moral order nee ridiculed in Utopi11. There is no rebuttal even when, at the work's end, Hythtodaeus carries his version of contemporary society to its extreme conclusion: "When 1 con~idet and turn over in my mfnd the sti\teof all cornmonw~a ltM flourishing anywhere todny. so help me God, J """ see nothirts else thana kind of ronspirdcy of the rich, who are aiming at their own interests unde~r the name and utle of the commonwealth" (2iJJ).

All meas\1rcs that ~hn at reform nnd stop short of a complete oboliHon of private properly Ml' inadequate: "There is no hope ... of ~ cure .md a retum to a healthy condition as long as ench individual is master of his own property. Nay, while you are intent upon the cure of Qne part, you ma'ke worse ~he malady of the olher parts. TilUs, the healing of the one member r~ciprocaUy breeds the disease of the other as long asnothingcan so be added to one as not to be taken away from another" (lQS-7). Without the communal ownership of property. every man Is set agninst every othar .man, for ll i's impossible to possess onything w lthq tit wr~sting it somehow from the possession of another." 111e xcsulting compctitivenes~ is reflected in the rancorous debates 1-lythlodaeus describes; it is as if eVl'l1 ideas were possessed as priva te propcey, each mon fiercely defeJldiJ1S his o wn . ]n sucb n society, individuals il re isola led, um'ltlached save where their material interests chance to coincide. while atlhe same time there is no true independence: all value depends upon the admiration or e n,vy excited by what is displayed ~nd consumed- Men become neutely sensil iw to all they are permitting cSthel"S lo see and ,ill that they are concealing within themselves. Even tl1c few virtuous men who wish to have no part m tbe competition must develop the same sen sitivi ty; after aiJ, this is just '"hot Moms counsels 1-iylhlodaeus to do. By implication then,· privnle owt1cr~hlr of property is c~usnUy linked in Utopw to p.d va tu ownership of self) \vh,lt C B. Macpherson calls "possessive mdivtdualism";"" to

AI tire 'rablt ofi 1/
abolish privntc property is to render such self-conscious individu·•lity obsolete. Utopian institutions are cunningly de$igned to reduce the scope of the ego: avenues of self-aggrandizement arc blocked, individuation is sharply limited . In a society based on private property, all things arc acquired at the exp•11se of someone else; the pleasure of possession is, at least in part, the knowledge that ~omeone else desires and does11ot possess what you do. In Utopia, pride of possession and pride o£ place are obliterated. Clothes "are t>f on e nnd lho same pattern throughout the ·islnncl nnd down the ccn lu d es" (127); the ~apes worn over these clothes are " of ane voiQr throughou t the isln1\d and that.the na turaJ coloi" ('133). li'ood I• d ivided equally, onct meaJs are ral<en in commpn . 111e houses, Hll lh rcc storie-• h igh, "a·re set together in a long rmv, conti nuous thi"Ough the block and faced by a corresponding one" (121); JesL 11nyone become personally attached to one of these identic.11 hullding~. "every ten years they actually exchange Lheir very homes by lot" ( 121). Presumably, few Utopians notice the change. rhcre is no place in Utopia then for the dazzling extravagance, the sumptuous was te that fascinated and repelled More; no Wolsey or Henry VIII could indulge his inexhaustible appetite and bwell w1th the immense accumulation of possessions. If the king .md ca rdinal seemed larger than life., it was bee~ use they were just th.11 , unnnturaUy bloated with the laboiS, lhe very lives, Of others. 111 Utopia. occupahons that cater to luxury or licentious ness are dlminalcd, $0 lhnt not 'only is there an abundance of n~cessary 1111ncis but 110 111011 may be sai4 eith er to labor in the s~tvice of tlll\llhet's wi ll O l' nwrdy to consum!' the labor of ano.thc~. VlrtuaJly ,1JI men wo rk; eve1y thirty families ;;~nnuaUy choose an official .. tll~d a syphogran l, whose "chief and almost'. .. only funclhut •. is to manage and provide that no one sit idle, but that each t1']1ly himself industriously to his trade" (127). TI1c syphogmnLs tho·msclves, though legaUy exempted from work, take no advanl.t~;· of this privilege. Occupations.are distributed cquilably, and tho• worst tasks-those that degrade or deaden a person-are perfllrmcd by slaves. This latter fea-e i.s chilling, but then More has • ~etl himself questions that the writers of s uch funtasies almost "''V<•r 11sk: who slaughters the meat? who disposes of the fflth? If t llupin is d~signed to reduce the size of the ego, to el iminate the J'<'k:.lbiHty of o 1-l,cnry VITI and to ob viate the neccssi~y of a More, II I• ~'1~1nlly J csignecl (o p revcf\llhe existence of,, clnss of laboren; l<'olurcd In tl111 condillun of animals. The syphogr~.nts provictl! that

CHAFTS!l

0Nli

no one sil idle, but th~y al~o provide that no titiz~n be "wearied like a beastof burden with conslllnt toil from early morning tlllla lc at night." Such w.retchednes~. observes 1-lythlodaeus, "is worse than the lot of ~lnYes, and yet It is a lmost everywhere the life of workingmen-except for the Utopi~ns" ( 127). The Utopian workday of six hours is astonishingly short by the sta ndhrds set in Tudor sta(u tcs;•• W<' cou id nrgue then that, far from discouraging individuation, Utopian instillltions are designed to permit its greatest possible flourishing. After all, "the c6risUiution o f thei1· commonwealth looks in the Cirsl p lace to th is sole object: that Cor all the citizens, as far as the public needs permit, as much time ns possible should be withdrawn from the service of the body and devoted to the fzeedom and cullu i'C: of Lhc mind" (135) Such a goal, unbounded by Jistlnctions of cL:u:£, casfe, or sel<, is ~eiluinely-radical. But here we encounter a crucial characteristic of Utopin: the steady constrklion of an i•titially lim· llless freedom. The English translation accurately renders the syntactic movt!ment of the orl~nnl: "The Interva ls between the hours of work, sleep, and food axe ldt to 1.'\'Cry man's discretion, not to waste in revelry or idleness, but to devote Lhe time Cree from work to some other occupation ·1CC<>rding to taste" (127-29). These occupations tum out to be two in number. altendance at-pre-dawn public lectmes or. "as •s the case with many minds which do not reach the level for any o{ the higher intellectual disciplines," voluntary continuation of the regular labor. Tl1e endless day prescribed by Lhe Statute of Artificers••• is scarcely longer Lhan that envisaged l1erc, thoug h one should odd that there· is, after supper, an hour's recreation, in the summer in the gardens, in the winter in the dh1ing halls. Similarly; the account 6f Utopian travel begins with a]nl()st u nJimjted license and ends with almost total restriction. A citizen can go where l;le ses .. , provided he has a letter from the governor granting him leave to tJ'avel andlixing the date of his return, (l,or travel within the territory belonging to his own city, he needs only the consent of ttis wife and foUler.) Wherever he goes, he must continue to pr•tetice hjs trade. These regulations ore n<.>L to be taken lightly: "I( any person gives nimself leave to slnlyout of hi• territorial liml!$ a nd is caug ht wi thout ihQ governor's ccrtllicate, he is treated with contempt, brought back os a runaway, and se· vcrely ptmis"ed. A rash repetition of Lhe oHense entails the sentenco of slavery" (1q7):17 The p.!ltem os repeated agrun and ag11in •n HyUtlodncus's ac•

1\J tlu~ 1·rzblt' of tit~ Great

count: freedoms are heralded, only to shrink in the course of the d~cription. The cause is not cynicism; rather prohibitions are placed solely on what the Utopians lake to be unnatural behavior. Presumably. it i~ only from a comrptpoint of view-one tainted by individuality, a thirst for variety and novelty, a conviction that each person posse..,ses his existence as a piece of private property-tha t what remains after the unna tural has been weeded out seems hopelessly thin and limited . The Utopians believe qulte 11iherwise, nnd th~y take pains to reduce sharply the number of points of rt>fcrcncc by which men mark themselves off from eacb ~lthc l'. Indeed , evCil the. larger units of differe ntiati on within socL~ty t>re oblitera ted. The w1ifonnity of dress s trikes nut· 110t cmly lli;;fii nst vtmit y

but' ognin~t

t-he

clubo r~l'e

dJstlnctJons o f tonk a.nd

occupation that were reflected (and legally regulated) in Tudor dress. Even so basic a dis tinction as city versus countty is elimit1olted; all men and women are trained in agricu lturl' and spend at l••nst 'iDme years fanning. A reader of a work like Femand Urdudel's Tltt McditarattJ!Illl n111l tlu M
41

42

sense of his own distinct id,entity is compounded of aJtigh ly social role, fashioned from his participation in a complex set of interlocking corporate bodies-law, pMiiament. court, city, church, family-and o S
li,

"~ H~;\lt~a has pcr:tun!:ilvely nrsucd, Uto1>ia is founded on

palriardlal familism,•• It is important to grasp what elements of the early modem family the Otopians reflect and what elements .ue noticeably miSsin~. In Utopia, marriage is the rule, even for p l'i csts (thereby el.irnilloting cona\tbmalle a~ a \vjclosp,·cnd, U somewhat disreputable, aJten1otive); adultery is punhihed "by H1e shictestlom1 of slavery" and. jn the case of a second offense, by death (19 t); mothers nun;e thc;r own offspnng (a practice that even l±ie urgent counsel of Ren:~issnncc physicians could not bring about for the middle and upper classes);"' families lodge together; husbands discipline their wives, parents thcir children. Sectarian religious rites, as distinct from the common worship of Mithras, take place in the home, and even confession is a family ilffair. '''Wives fall down at the feel of their husbands. dtilruen al the feet of their parents" (233). J'or Law·rence Stone, Utopia gives ideal expression to the "rise of the nuclear family in rody modem England" and the dedinc of other. competing affective bonds: "Where Plato's ideal had involved Ihe desl..-qclion .of the f.lm ily, tha t of More involved the d~'truction of nfl other soda! uni ts."' 0 At the same tin\e, we must remember that the sick are carro for not in the home but in hospitals; that houses do not reOect the ind ividual identity of Ihe families that inhabit them; that "though nobody is fo•·bidden to dJne ~t liome. yet no ohe 'd oes it wi llingly sl nee the protclice is considered not decent [honPstum] and since i l is foolish to Lakl! the trouble of pre pacing an inferior dinner when an excellent and sumpl1.1ous one is r~?adya:Lhand in the hall nearby" (141). The st .-ictly enforced monognmy ~ nd sexual exclusiveness Me not nccess;uily .signs ,)r tbe emolionol intensHy of the 111.1ma:ge bond; the reason thai Utopians punish extrnmarilal intercourse so

.A/ tl:e TDbl,. of fltt Gruf

sevel't'ly, Hylhlodaeos reports, "is lhcir foreknowledge Ihat, unless persons are carefully restrained from promiscuous intercourse, few will unite in married love, in which stale a whole life must be spent with one companion and all the troubles tnddental to it must be patiently borne" (187). And lest such an explanation seem to plnce n high value on sexual pleasure, we nre told thai the Utopians classify intercourse, along with defecation ond scrat<'hing, as an agreeable but decidedly low form of pleasur~:"' " I( a person th inks that his felicity consists In this kintluf pleQsurc. he must ndmit 1hat ha will be in the greatest hnppinc~s if his lot h'lppens to be a lUc Which Is 's pen t in perpetua l hunger, thirst, Itching, cnting, drinking, scrntch:ing, and rubbing. Who does not we llonl such n life Is not onl y djsgusting but w retched'( " (177). Utop inn marrlnge then 'does no! sttive for a deep nffcctive ua\ion between husband and wife based upon their sexual intimacy; the latter scavcs the interest of gl'Deration, which In tum serves the gent>ral intel't'SI of the community ralher than the particular inlerc•t of tht> family. A belief in inherited family characteristics, such .>s was widespread in the Renaissance and suavives to our own lime, would be counter to the Utopian commitment to human mnllcnbili ty Dod interchangeability, and hence thcl't' is no concern for a family "line" or for the purity ofthe "blood.'' No household may have fewer thlln ten or-more than sixteen adults: "Th is limit is t>nsily observed by lransfeaing !hose who exceed the rtumbcr in larg~r famil ies into those thai are under lhe pl't'SCiibcd number'' (137). Above all, thore i~ no f1.1mlly inheritance, no transfer 1>1' propMy in marriage, no sensc·of the'fanilly fortune. Por the most port, ,.,,ch ch ild is b.o· wn o'•l lo cr~nlc ,, p~tdmony if it does not nlnmd,y exist.

44

And what is baing planned for here is not merely lnnds, cattle, houses, bams, pensions, rents, offices, workshops, looms, masterships, partnerships, and shares, but also oc' powe•· whil e d is carding its exclusiveness and particularity. Children let by wh ich to c;loline either the whole o•· the chief pa •·t of humM h'a ppincss" (161). But here again, whill nt first seems to be~ limiUess vista turns out to be som~thing less. The Utopians do not embrace every-kind of pleasu re, but only "good a nd decent'' pleasure. fn· d eed, as in l'lato,-.such virtuo us p l.:nnure is ~Ill hat is hcld \O exist/ other sensations may be perceived 3S pleasu rnble, bu l such per· ccptions ''"' illusory. What tl1en of the enjoyment U1at a person

At thr Jable <>(II:< Grcnl

may feel in the course of unacceptable pursuits? TI>e Utopians are unimpressed by the testimony of the senses: "The enjoyment does not arise from the nature o( the thing itsclf but f:rom U>eir own perverse hnbi 1. The latter failing makes them lakl' whal is bitter for sweet, just as pmgnant women. by their vitinlcd ta~te suppose pitch nod tallow sweeter than honey. Yet it is impossible for any man's judgmcnl, depraved either by disease or by habit, to change the nalLLre of pleasure any more than that of anything else" (173). There are a limited number of pleasures then, and lhcse may be ran ked hicrarchkally. Pleasure is something locatod cmtsiil£• men; Indeed there is scan;aly any ln,side. \IY ilh this c(rast'ic d imi nulion of self-differe ntinjlcm and private jnwardn'tG$, WG approach the h eart of MQrc'D Dtrntcgy or Jntngincd

seU-cancclln tion in tltopin, for Jus engagement in the world involved precisely the maintain ing of a calculated distance between his public persona and his inner self. How else could he have sa t at Wolsey's table? How could he make his way in a world he perc<•ived olS insane and riddled with \-idous injustic:c? Even in his own family he kept back a part of himself from all except, perhaps. his daughter MargareL His whole Identity depended upon the •·xistence of a private retreat; his silences were filled with un••xprcsS«l judgments, inner thoughts. It is not surprising to find that in the 1520s More quite literally constructed such,, retreat for himself. Not only was his house in Chclsed a place set apart from the sccn~s of More's publicJife. but, as Roper tells u~. "bcCltnr O J' some pitiful image of Christ's bitter pas~ion ..• kneel down 0~ fall prostrate as ol l the (c~( of o1l1111flhty Otld, verily bellevin~; hjm to be thct·e Invisibly

45

46

CH.A Pr-Ell ONE

present iiSwitbo~~t onydoubt he is. There let him OJX~n his heart ~o Go!;\, nnd confess·his fou lts such as he can call to mind, and pmy God forgiveness. (242-43) There ~an be litllc doubt that thfs is an account of More's own practice. Meditative withdnwal or infonnal confession was not, of course, unique to More; in th~ early riftccnth century, we find Sai n i 13omnrdino of Siena exhortinS h is hearets to rcrirc to some closet ond look un to themselves, and this counsel Is frequent ly repcn lcd." As the public, dvic world made increasing clalms on men's lives, so. correspondingly, men tumed in11pon themselves, sought privacy, withdrew !or privileged momentsirom urban pressures." This dialectic of engagement and detachnlent is i.lmong ! hOSt! l'u1;1..:cb

l~ tct l f>tl.l.t~t,\lCd

the: inten6c: ind ivl.dunlity thi\t-. s ince..

Burckha rd[, has· been I'CCO!)'''izedas one of the legacies elf theRenaissoncc. Burckhardt, to l.>e sure, viewed such individuality as-a largely secular phenomenon. but it now 8eO!JllS clear that both secular ,md religious impulses contributed to the same psychic structure. Thus if More piously urges,, frequent retreat to "some secret soiHaty p lace," so does Montaigre, tho~tgh h is retreat is detached from explicitly t'cligious content and infused witb the spirit of ethica.J stoicism:

A man that is able may have wives, cllildren, goods, and chiefly hea.Jth. but not so tie himself unto them that his felicity depend on them. We shou ld reserve a stor!!house for ourselves, whnt need soever chance; altogether ours, nnd wholly freo, wherein we may hoard up and eslablish our true liberty and pl'incipal relrcat and soUlari ness, wherein we must go alone to ourselves, take our ordinary entertainment, and so privately that no ,,cqu.1intance or communication of any str~nge thjng moy lhcrein.Jind pl~cc: Ulere to discourse, to meditate -and la~!lh, as, without wife, with?ut children and goods, ~~• I hollt h'aln or servnms1 thattf by ony occasion they be lost, it seem not sto·.1nge to us to pass it over; we have a mind moving and turning in itself; it may keep itself company.s• The word Florio translates as "storohouse" is arritrc•·l•oullque, litemlly n room behind lhe s hop; thC! word conjures up n world 1>! ncgotiru11, in clf~ct-o World tlf pri\l'ate prof'crty. II Montaigne cou nsels a rotrcat from this world, he ls, a t the same time, ossunling its exbtl'n('<'; that is, his sem.e of self is inseparable from his ~ense or th~ lmull
At the T•blt oj ll1~ Cual

More's insight in Ulvpin !:hat there is an essential relationship between private property and private selves. Significantly, in Utopia, there are no arrierr·boutiques because there are no l1ouliques to begin w ith ." The publk realm stretches out into all spaces, physical and psychic. Wil'hd.rawal Into a "secret solitary place" within one's home is rendered quit~ literally impossible by the design of the houses: ' 'Every home has not only a door into the street but a back door into lhe garden . What ·Js more, folding doors, ensi ly opened by hand nnd I hen closing of the<nsclves, give ildmission to anyone. As a result, nothing is priviltc property anywhere" (121). The original is even.more to Ute point: ita nUiil "Sil""''' priuati est, " thus nothing is privilte Jnywhcre." This psyciiOlogic~l remodehng pro\!ides at least a portia! answer tu the t hnrgcs th
47

sign of weakness. Granted that there can be no crimes against property, there remain the innumerable minor offenses that, outside Utopia, are adjudicated ln cow·t. B11t ;,, Utopia the whole judicial syste m Is raditally simpUficd: the legal p rofession, in which More founded his public identity, is nonexistent, and there are very few laws. Social conl(Oi is maintained in large part by the intehSe commu nal p ressure of hol)or a nd bl;llnC: l£ anyone should prefer to devote th1s [free! time to his tmde .. .11e is not hindered; 1n fact, he is even pmisecJ as usefu l to the commonwealth. (U9) Though 11obody is forbidden to dine at home, yet no one does it willingly since the practice 1s considered not dec:cnl, (141) [If ill nes~ or d eath prevent a mother from nu..Sing her child, there are many volunteer wet-nur.:es,] sine~ everybody praises this kind of pity. (143) If any person gives himself leave to stray out of his t·errilorial limi ts and is caught w ithout the governor's cerlifkate, he is treated with contempt (147)

[In the case of premorital intercourse, r~ot only is the couple·severely p unished, bu t] both fqt]ler nnc\ .mo thcr of the fam ily in whose house tlle offense was commilled incur great disgrace as having been neglectful in doing their duties. ( l87) To great me n who hove d one ct1nspkuous service to their country they set up ln tlle market place stalues to stand as a record of noble exploits and, ~~ the same time, to have the glory of foref~tlters serve lhcir descenden ts as" spur nnd s timulus to virtue. (.1.93)

IT the women are anxious to accompany their husbands on military service, not only do they not forbid them but actually encourage them and incite tllcm by express ions of pmisc.... ll is the greatest reproach for a husband to return without his w ife or for a son to mme back having lost his father. (20'.)...11) lA person whq pclieves that the soul perishe$ wi th the body or 1:hat the world is a mere spmi of chance] is tendered- no honor, is entrusted with no office, and is put in chargo of no function. l-Ie is universaUy regarded as o f o sluggi•h ~nd .low disposition. [22!3)

Allhr f•N.a( thr GrtRI

It· i!;.above aJ[j n their famous use of precious met~ls and g~ms that the Utopians manifest their full rolla nee on shame as a meU1od o£ social control. Oat of gold and silver thi!y make chamber pots and other "humble vessels," as well as the cltains and solid fetters they put on th~ir slaves. Those who benr "the stigma of disgrace" for some crime h a\1<: "gold bmaments hflnging arou t\d th.cir necks, a. nd, as a last toudl,·a gold crown binding their temples" (153). As a result, of course, gold and silver become "a mMk of ill fame.'' Similarly, pearls, diamonds, and rubtes are used to adorn little children; "when they have grown som11what older and perceive thnt only chi ld rop use such toys, they lny th<101 asid e, not b:y any order of their parents, bu l through their own feeling of shame, just ns our own children, when they grow up, tfuo•v away their marbles, rattles, and dolls" (153). This Utopian practice is the occasion for the memorable story of the Anemolion ambassadors who arrive in Utopio decked o ut in their cosUy garmcnts11n.d nrc assumed by the common people to be sfnves o r downs. After seeing the con· tempt in whkh Utopians hold gold and jewels, the ombassadors ~re "crestfollen and for shame pol away all the finery with which they had made themselves haughtily conspicu1>us" (157). The r.1ntasy must hove bad n par1icu l~r piqunncy for More,, who was serving at the ti.Jne.as royal ambassador: he manages, a t a stroke, ll, metamorphose the kin'S into a despised slave and to devalue the role that he himselfhad tnkcn in the king's service. As the expericnc1! of the Anemolian ambassadors suggests, tll<>very functions not on ly as a penni and economic i nslitutic;m but •'San.extreme form ofshaming.58 The slave's shame is n sigrl.ificant p.1rt of.hls punishment and serves as well as a deterrent to ·others. Malefactors are not executed or shut away from public view bul fon:ed to do nasty or demeaning work under !he gaze of alL The 1,ublic quality of Utopian space renders this gaze ine~capoble, for llrdinary dtiZCJlS as wcJ I as slaves. l)eing see n is central to the ~xpcricnce of shame (and, for that matter, of pralse), and thus Utopia is constructed so lhot one..is always under observation. In the dining- halls, the syphogrants and priests sit in the middle of the:- rt.rst t01ble, ''which is the highest place and which allows them to have the whole <;Ompany In view" (143)·. 01d and yow1g arc "'II led togethe r, so that "the grave and reverent behavior of the old n~o~y restrain the younger people from mischievous freedom in word Mdgesture, since nothing can be done or said at table which ,.,.,,1pes IJ1e notice of the old present on every side" (143). Sin1ilndy, at tho roli~ious obscJvnnces, the haads·of the ho useholdS are

so

C"lfArTEJl ONE

seated where they may overlook th~ir families; "every gestu~e of everyone abroad is observed by those whose ol.lthority and discipline govern them at home" (235). Those homes. as we have seen, have no locks on any of the doors, Md tnere ore, in ,,deli lion, no hiding places in the commw1ily at large: "Nowhere is there any license to Waste time, nowhere any pretext to ev~de work-no wine shop, no' alehouse, no brothel ~nywhcre, no opporhu1ity for corruption, no lurking hole, no secret meetins place. On the con· trary, being uncle~ the eyes of aU, people -nre bound either to be pcrfooning the uSttal lobor or to be cnfoylng their leisure Ln a fashion not without derency" (H7) 'l'he danger of a sod~ I !!)'Stem thnt depends so heavily upon the constant surveillance of its members is tha t there are inevitably moments in which physical observalion s1mply faits. Since honut Is only lost in the .di,approying gaze oC others, the absence of tile threat of shame would seem Lo lieen$e ads of rObbery -and violence.•'' The Utopians correct for this problem by inculcating a belief inn ronstant, lnvtslblc surveillance. l!ven if n man should find a r~re room~nl of privacy in this society where there is no~h­ ingbut public space, he would be pursued by the senseofbcing-observed und hence by the threat of shnme. For the Utopians believe that the dead "move about among the living and are witnesses of their word$ and action •• " and this bc.lief keeps men "from any secret dishonorabk deed'' ('US). Honor and shame l>elng soo.i~! evaluations, they partkipate, as J. G. PeriSt:iany observes, in "the nature of sodal sanctions: the more monolithic the jury, Lhc more trenchant the fudgment."W Tile extenliion of survei llance to the dead in effect rend CIS lhejury supremely monolithic and always in sc~>ion.

There is a furl her problem in an ethos of honor 11nd shame thai should be noted: the inequality of rules. In societies organized m•owtd a code of honor, the code normally applies on,ly to thoso who are worthy of it. "A single system of values of- honour," writes Pierre Bourdieu, "establishes two opposing sets of rules of conduct-"<>n the one hand thnt which g<>vems relntlonshi.ps br.· tween kinsmen and in general all personal relationships thl\1 con (orm to the same pattem as those between kinsmen; and on th•• o t·her hand, thai \vnich is iialld In on!''S relationships wlU, stt~~ng· e,.,_ ..., We may see this double standard at work in Utopian foreign relations, 1vher11 behavior is sanctioned that would be "'' vercly punished al hoi1H!, but within Utnpinn sodety Ute opposi lion is c·ollapscd by cxtt>ncling the family lo the entire island: ~II

J\ 1 t11t Tal1lr o{ ,,, Gttal

Utopians (wi th the exception of slaves) arc considcr~d kinsmen and hence share the same interest in the preservation of honor. In Utopia then the greatest moral fon:e in men's lives is respect for public opinion. Citizens are drawn townrd virtue by the p~"Os­ pect of ho11or, ~he Jughcst honor being rew11rded to " the vc•y best among the good," the priests (229). Conversely, to be exposed to ridicule or disgrace-to be laden with gold ornaments or to be regarded "as of a sluggish and low disposition''-is fell to be Li n bearable; the p 1:llssu re is enough to ensure a high level of socinl vc•·, I tl1ink, is gui/1, b y whidtl mean pangs of conscience, the inner conviction of sinfulness, the anxious aware· ness of having violated a law or distanced oneseU from God."'- As we shall see, such feelings ar~ by no means entirely eliminated in Utopia, but tile cocrdve power of public opinion- the .;ollectivc judgment of the community, perceived as an objective, extemnl r.•ct-diminishes the logical necessity foT a mech;mism of social ll.tnlrol operating within the inner recesses of an individual con· 11dousness such as More's own. There are many signs;, Morels lllc of n powerful sense o? guilt and smfulness, whose most strikIng outward manifestations are the hnic shiit he secretly wore and the flagellation he secretly practiced to mortify his flesh. Both of these penitential practices reflect the sttuct·urc we have como; to 11xped: o public equnblllty, good humor, and sel!-possess ion con· • ••.\ling private suffering and judgment. It would be misleading, I think, to interpret this selff'Unishmcnt as a conscqu<>nce of personal pathology or even cxclu~~V~Iy as the attempted expiation of an insupportable gullt. 111e pr.•ctrces were •vidcsprend in the period-even Wolsey owned no h•wer than three hair shirts, though there is no evidence that he • tually wore any of them.,_and they were conceived as acts of r••m•·mbrn nce and almsgiving as well as. expiation. But there tan I"' lillie question th~t More dld expel'iencc intense and sustained •Ill ill feelings: qulte apart from any deeper psychological mots, his •vhole mode of life, with Its mingled accommodation and resis'••nce tu the world, wo11ld have called such fcelingslnto being, and 1111')' wo uld huve been confirmed by the religious 'iilenl of pur ity that he never c~chewcd, We may recall that the young More had 1 .m~lated a letter In which Pico della Mirnndola writes that "a

Sl

S2

C:UAPTE..II ONE

po •-fect man shm~ld
Wben, at~ U1e end of h'ls HI!!, More pray~ "l'o know mine own viUty and wretchedness," he expresses a lifelong perception of his conditit,m , rin•alizcd i!l scc.b practices os self-scourging and the daily recitation of !he Seven Penitenlial Psalms.~ To these •y.m bolic acknowledgments of guilt, we may-add the longing for run· rinemenl that More voiced .1t the end of his life, and we may speca.late that in 1516, at t·he turning point in Jus career, he may have fell wlth particular intensity the distance that separated him from the monastic life he hnd relectccl. With its theoretical cele· btafion of pleasure and its partial displacement of guilt by shame. Utopia was at least in part a response to this deep current in his JHc, a dream of reHef. The strong emphasis in 1Jtopia on shame and communal solidarity ma.y have represented as well More's TC$J>Onse to certain cll!lnen ts he perceived as dangerous in the religious climate of rus time. Protestantism obviously did not spring up from nowhereJn 1517; Lulher's crisis of guilt was symptomatic of a far broader cultural crisis, .1!1 !:he 'e vent1l of Ute 1520s and '30s make al,undantly de= Again_and ·•gain we encounter Ute same paHem: grave spir· ltual anxiety, an illtcnse feeling of bejng in a false or sinful relationship to Cod, a despairing sense of !:he impossibility of redemption despite scrupulous ritual observance, suddenly tra.nsfornted into inner con vklion or sal-:atio n through faith i n God's love. Luther's brilliant exposition of th is pattern became, bl coul'$e, a model, but only because it spoke so powerfully to !he p•-ychological and spiritual· state alrendy in existence. More's own spiritual anxieties were contained and consol~d b_y the tenets and pra.;ticcs o£ the Catholic Church, but by 15 16 11~ may h~w already seen ample evidence of the condition that wou1d be literally brought home to him several years later in the figlll'l.' of hi ~ son-in-la...,, William Rcper. According to Harpslielc,i, Roper was a Lutheran when he marrit!uMatgatel Mtlre in 1521. Tit~ "fall •nto here~y" bet;dn when a "<;c;rupll'" of Roper's consciencj! w." nnt ~s~uy the ou tw.ud ubsurvnnces of the faith; his anxiety

At tht Tablr of

th< Grtnt

grew and was finally l11id to res~ by t:he conviction that "faith only did justify," thnt "only qelief should be su£fldenL"IHI Of course, this experience took place some yeMS after More wrote Utopia; in 1516 More h"d almost certainly never heard of Luther. But it would not have tnken a mimcu lous prcsd possibility o i ·that psychological experience by reducing the inner life .and strengthening communal consciousness. S u,h rdlcctions mJy help·us ro underst;:and how More, who .)'vns lo become a staunch pcrse,cutor of h&esy nnd an. undeviating ,lpologjst for Dtholic orthodoxy, cou ld have conceived for Utopia what \llilS, in the early sixteenth century, a radical policy oLreligious toleration, The Utopians believe that no one should ;ruffcr for h1s rclision , that everyone should b,e. free to follow the doctrine of his d1oicc and to attempt to persuade otht!rs of th~ truth of this doctrine, provided that such attempts remain modest and non· vaolent. If this allows a lassitude ol belief beyond that penni!ted 1n .any Renaissance European slate and fur beyond More's own Sllb· ~equent policy, lL is the lb);icnl consequence of~ society designed to reduce the scope of the inner life: the Utopians concern them· .elves fur more with what.men do tban with '"hat they believe. In Utopia thai whi_cb is not manlfeslcd in public bchnvior has little dnim to c>
There are, to be sure, restrictions placed on the policy of lnleration-here too the broad vista turns out to have its bDunds-bu t· Lh~se reshictions <1re nttributed to moral mthcr tha.n wn private desires'' (223). Doglll•tti.sm tnev itably entcrs into this oon'viction, for ttlere c~n be no o•mpirical basis for such certainty abotit th~> consequences of unl>djef, but ~ignificantly the dogmatism is \'irtua!ly hidden from thu Utopians tl'emselves: they sec t hemselvcs nQt as imposing the h'llCts of a particul~a· religious faith but t'ather as dcf~ndlng the jlllbUc intere$t against private desires. Characteristically, they tlt•fcnd thi5 anleresl not by threats and torture-Lh~ standard I umpcan trcalmcnt hu t by the withdrawal of honor, publlc

53

Cl'l A

1~ T

6

I(

0 N L:

office, and the right to argue in the presence of the common people. rn short. the nonbeliever is shnmecL We may add thnt Utopia as n whole nels upQn its readers pre· cisely through the ethos of shame; in R. W. Chambers's well· known formulation, 'The underlying thought of Wupia always is, Witlt uot/liug sav• Rc11son ,,.,guide them, 1/J~ Utopia us do 1/us; "1'!1 Y"l wr CltristiaJI £11glis/wi~11, we Christian E~rOJII'aJis ...!'' •7 Each particular feature of Utopian life holds up to scorn a complemen· tary n~g~.tive feature in the ordinary world and demonstrates how the abuse of ~orn:tption o,r diStortion could be blocked. Utopian shame opposes the undesirable development of inwardness through guilt, as its communism opposes the development of a sense of self-ownership; both nrc viewed as tr~ps or nlgl:ltmares. Marx Lou, H udght be observed,

:;:a\.Y

suHt and private owni-f'1::;h1p

as forces imprisoning men, but not before they had liberated men from other, prior forces; they in tum would have I() be de~troyed, but they were necessary, indeed lneviL<~bl!! elements in the proce~s of human emancipation. More docs not see history l11this way; he wishes, as il were, to stop modem history before it starts, even as h~ wishes lo ncc that Utopia woulll obliterute if il could. it is at the same lime a pleasing reassurance that the (antasy of self-annihliation may be indulged on playlully •vithoul real loss.

At lire Tob1l' of tJtt Gre11l

We m~y rc>c311 Ihal More finally decided to a~cpt the royal appointment, that he had,, strong streak or personiil ambition and a complex involvement in the world of competitive enterprise and politic compromise. Significantly, when in 1516, in a letter to Erasmus, he record!. a playful daydream about Utopia, he imogtnes himself not as a nameless citizen, attending early morning lectures ~nd plying his useful trade, but a.s n great prince: "You have no idea how thrilled. I a m; l feel so expanded, and I. hold my head high. For in my daydreams I have been marked out by my Uto pinns to be their king forever; I can see myself now mnrching nlo11g, crowned with a diadem of wheat, very sl'rlking in my 11ranciscnn frock, cn rrying a handful oi 'vheat as my sacred scepter, lhn-,nged by o dJsLlnguish-=-d Jt:Unu~ uf AllldUtullau~, Wld, with

this huge en tourage, giving audience to foreign o mba~sadors and sovereign~:·._ 'fh~ ego that was to have shrunk to nothing has instead swollen, if only in jest, to..heroic size, and we arc reminded thnt far £rom being erJaced by hisaeation, More wa.s made famous by it. The fame is no accident, thrust upon him, as Roper wishes us to believe was the case with all his worldly successes; More himself conceived the flattering tributes to his genius th.1t accompanied the text, and he asked Erasmus, to whom he had entrusted hts work for publication, to supply recommendations not only by ~holars but especially by statesmen. •" Moreover. within Utopia itself, and particularly in Utopian reli gion, there arc important elements that seem to cut across the t~om munnl ethos of shame and honor. Th us we would expect the lltopions, with !heir priz.ingof ht~nlth and comfort, to trea t• nsci::ti dsm with derision, but the·iTspirit·ofr-idicule pu lls up shot:! before the sect called the Buthre~ne, who undertake the most miserable I•ISks, eschew all Slll'ttnl <~ctivlty, :abstain from mea t, and entirely reject the pleasures of this life. "The more thnt these men put themscl"eli in the posilion of sTaves"-that is, the more they as.ume the stigmata of shame-" the more are they honored by all" (227). llythlodacus is quite conscious of the anomaly: "lf the (lluthrescae( based upon arguments from reason their preference of
55

56

CUAP'l'~K

ON£

sorry fortheir sin (peccnlum ] than forl'hei.r punishment" ('1 9 1). The distinction shows a surprising cc>ncem for an inner state, a concern eYidently based on a theological and intentional, rather than purely behavioral, conceptiono~crime. Indeed, despite their maslet)' of tech niques to regulnte bchovio.r, the ,Utopians hove little faith in U1e social basis of morality; they see to it, ..Hythlodaeus reports, that their childrt!n pay attention at religious services, lest they "spend in childish foolery the time in which they ought to be c~1nceiving n tellgiou~ fear towards the gods, the .grentest and almost:"the only stimulus to the practice of virtues" (235). One would have thought that there were stimuli enoughmassive, constant, relentless fuducemcnts to vortu~without the add ition of "religious fear," but the Utopians believe otherwisf!". Shumc '1:. n Very importnn l p;t.d of thl~ CJ1forcvmQnt o f cnn fnrm ity.

but it is not trusted to work. alone. 111e lull complement of disctplinary forces may be seen quite clearly in the account of priestly admonition: "It is counted a great disgrace for a man to be summoned or rebuked by them as not belng.pf uprjghtli(e. lt is thei r f unci ion to &lve advice or admonition, but to check and pun ish oUenders belongs to the governor and the other civil officials. The priests, however, do exclude &om divine services persons whom they find to be unusunlly bad. There is almost no punis hment wltich is moJ'e dreaded: they incur very great disgrace nncl a"!' tortured by a secret fear of religion'' (Z27-29). 111e public disgrace of excommunication is reinforced by a secret fear which is, in tum, rei nforced by the threat of l'hysic.ll pun1shmcnt: "Even their bod i(:s will not long go scot-free. rr the)' do not demonstrnte to tl1e priests their speedy Tepent.mce, they nrc seized and punished by the senate for theiJ: impiety" (229). II is here, in this crushing of impiery, that all the coorclvc powers of Utopian society-shame, gu ilt, and bodjly harm- come togcth!". And lhe fonll of their union, 1n this commonwealth celcbrato;d fo r its tolel'ance, is tht prcci"' form of the operation of the Holy Jnquisilion: excommunJcation, public shaming. thee attempt to awaken guilt, the grim transfer of the unrepentant sinner from the religious to the secular nrm. 70 At a moment like this, we realize how tenuous is the balance of forc:es in Ul<>pia-intellectual ambtlion and sclf-effacemenl, Christian humanism and realpolitik, radicalism and the crav mg for orde•. refo J·ming '.!!~1 nnd detached Irony, confidence in hu man power ond mlsantlltopy, expansiveness and the longing for stri~l confmcrnent Utopin d(l(."' not reconcile these forces, nor does II nJl;•nJ.<:e tlwm mto " ~nherent, cwcr.~tching opposition , a dc.r

.Al Jl,r Taiii.J' 11[ tJJt GrC.III

choiCC'. Rather, il functions as a playground in which a shifting series of apparcnlly incompatible impulses can find intense expression without flying apart or turning violently on each other. Of course, within the work there is a powerful sense of opposing positions-aU discussions o£UJopia, including the present one, invariably acknowledge this feature-but the fonnal design 11nd the known details of composition have tended to obscure the fact that the work's most vital antinomies are expressed in the same artistic moments. More's oct of self-fashioning is precisely .1n /let of sclfcancellotion, fust as his most daringly iconoclostic f,mtasy expresses h is most Insistent d esire for absolute order. More bri ngs together then a nl.lit:•t, •uchd, and rcUgious p ressures and fast1 1ons thllJ11 tmn a vision that seems at once utterly clear and utterly e lusive. J have spoken or Ill!! place where this vision occurs as a playground; More's tenn for it is a /1/Jel/JJs, a handbook, For the paradoxical unity or Ulotlin depends in large part upon the physical existence o( the book, upon the reduction in its punted pages of the con· flicting moments of composition to the timeless uniformity o£ mechanical reproduction, upon its ellacement of the hand of the au· thor so as to pernu t his reintroduction as a fictional character, upon its coll'lpse of the fabulous and the mimetic into the poker· faced neutrality of movllble type. And beyond the physical exist~ncc of the bonk, Utapi11 depends upon the simple circumslnnce•o obvious ns to be virtually Invisible-that there arc not two forms uf lan!,"llagc, one rcifea·ential and the other nomefercall'inl, one for lru\'h a nd tho o ther for 6ction . ~nt'LIS a nd ·.H ythlodaeus ~peak the qamc lnngunge; Engl~nd and OtopJa a•'c pre~ent by virtue of a ~Ingle mcthodolosy o( representation. Jf th is ci rcu mslnncSs, Utopia is not, as we have fuNI •~u n, nbsulu ldif c,lhur, nnd M.bre's und9ing of himself l$ not

fl""

57

58

represented as a chaotic disst>mination of the ent'rgies so rigidly sttuct~1rcd in his llfe but rather as a mOr-fVL lhe Chu.r<:h, the BritiJ>h Empio·o, me Revoluhon , or even Liberal Oemocr.1cy--ot is both because Utopia insist~ that any interpretation depends upon the rc;;~der's position and because the stakes se~on su o·prlsingly high. The struggle is not merely over nn isolated wo•k of genius but over n whole culture. "'flte Whole Corps of Christendom" Ulopm appears almost timeless, reaching effortlessly back to Plato and fonvard to our o.yn age, b\ot its existence is nonetheless the resull of a daring &=P of a single propi tious moment: five y~at'S earlier or later More could not have written it. Of course, all great works o£ art strike us in just this way, but with tltopia the subsequent ·events .yere .!It> epochal that we may look bnCk on J5 l6 ~I' an almost magical year, equivalent, inJts wny, to 1788 in France or 1913 in the whole of Europe. Certainly, if we chart in More's life and writinE;;s the subseq uent cours.e of the eleoncnto fused 'in Wopi11, we discover a virtual disintegration. Thus we may recogm~ essential aspects of Hythlodaeus in the vidous protrnits More drows of Luther and Tyndale. The reformers, f'Or More, are dcspo:>rale and isolated fanatics, wildly lhulins out at the familiar, time-honored institullon,; and beliefs. !'ailing to find everything perfect and all men good, tbey flatly condemn the whole existing order of thinJilS. And in the onme or wlml do they do so? Jn the name of a complethly imaginary chun:h thnt they alone have seen, that they alone insist o~ real. This church hos nu place (or the familiar, inerad.ic~ble vjces of 111nnki.nd; il is, of course, without blemish, withoul so much as the possibility of blemo~h. Aythlodacus's steadfast confidence, Jlis dismiss~) of all objcdocons, ho!I6CillhonJ!, prophetoc voice he.;omc by 1523 Luther~

AI II" Ta~lt of lit< Gttot

hysterical and intolcrnnl certainly. Hylhlodaeus's argument from his experience of Utopia-"You should have been '"llh me in Utopia and personally seen their manners and customs as I did" (107)-becomes in MOI'E's parody Luther's comical .md demonic insistence on the truth of his calling: "By what reason, father, do you prove thnt you alone must be believed?" To ll\is he returns this cause: " Bcc.1usc I am ccrt~in," he soys, "that I ha:ve m y teachings from heaven." Ago in we ask: "l.ly what reason are you certain that you have your teachings frqm heaven?" "Because God h~s seized me unawares," he says, "nnd cnrrled me into U1e midst of these lllrmoils." Agnin therefore we demand: "How do you know that God has seized you1" ''Because Jam certain," he says, "that my teaching is from Cod." "How do you know that?" "Because God has seized me." "How do you know"thisl" nsecause I am <"ertam:·

"I low are you certain?" ''Bccnusc I know._,

"Bu t how do you know"?" "Bec,luse I am c~::-rt:&Jin." 7 I

Cerm lnty about that which

doe~

not exist becomes for More t·he

V<1ry embli!un of wh~t is maddeiring and R9 t~niC about the h.CI"Ctics.

l,uth(n's power over i'he unsuspectil1g, w ho long for n rele~se fmm nn ul\c~rtnilt, imperfect, an'd guilt"ridden existence, derives from his t lns<:rupulous understanding that, in the absence of reality, the mere form& of renlity will suffice. He has grasped that t·he convenlionnl techniques of representation may be employed in the •·crvicc of that which cannot truly be represented because it does not and cannot exist. He has then mastered not only the dogmatic ronfidcnce of Hythlodaeus but the aesthetic cunning of Hythlod;\cus's creator. AI a point in the Rrsponsio aif Lttllll'nlln in which More is reIterating his endless ch.1Jlenge to Luther to bring forward his invl•lble ch urch. the maiginal gloss, by More or by his publisher, l(khard Pynsoll, mocl<s, Enm fortnssu 11it/i1 in Vto,,in-"Perhnps be linq sce11 it in Utopi.1." 71 !'low revealing and melancholy Ill is sar.u~m is: by 1523, Ulopin couHbe invo~ed 1101 "" nn Image of the lllr,,l ~omnwnwcnlth b11t .1r. ,, ;m.•se of 11 mndn1nn'u fnntnsy. It

59

60

CHAI'TBR

ON!!

could be invoked with precisely the ridicule and contempt that Protestant polemicists would use against More. Thus the Protestant martyrologist John Foxe, rebutting More's assertion that the heretic Bilney abjured before his death, indignantly asks, " And how is this p)"Oved? By th rec 11r lour mighty a~uments-as big aSmi ll -posts, .fetclled ou t Of Utopia, froni whence thou must know, reader, can come no fictions, bul a ll li11c p11etry.'' 7l In ""of hjs controversbllltcrature., More respL~nds to the Protestant charge that the Catholics worship idols of their own makb1g with the countercharge, tirelessly repeated, that the heretics have constructed an imaginary world and have rome to believe inil, or at least to claim that they believe in jt_ lt is lmpoliSible. More writes in the Dialogue Coucenuug Reres~es, to dispute wilb the hPrPtirs: "When their hearts are once fired u pon their blind affections, a man may with as much fruit preach to n post, ns reason with them lO the contrnry. For they nothing poncler what is reasonably spoken to the•l1, but whereto their ftmd affection .;,, . cli •1cth, tnal-thing they lc~n to, and that they believe, or at the leastwise thal way they walk and say theybeHeve it. l'or i11 good faith, thi!t they do believe in deed, their matters be so mad that l believe it· not.""'" Protestant belief, for More, is constantly revealed to be something else: madneliS, effrontery, blindness, hypocrisy, demonic possession, buffoonery, lying. More's wavering on the status of heretical "belief" may look Incidental-the effect of haste o r rhetorical striving for effect-but Jt is in fact central to an understanding of his bitter [um against the Utopian mode. For belief-not so mr1ch the pwclst: doctrines h'e ld but the expe·,;cncc nf holdjng them-is, with the assistance of the Holy Ghost, constllut1vc or religious t·ruth itself. That is. for More, conviction does not fbllow upon an objective nssessment of the facts but js the prior condition for establishing those fucts. Thus far, More may sound surprislngly like Luther, for whom faith alone is the path to redemption. But for luther, (ruth is an illumination received by the individualin dlrect communion. with God; for More, belief is a social phenomenon, the shared conviction of the community, the couseiJSI/5 fidelf,~m. Individual conviction, no !llatter ho'IV lnlensdy "eld, nQ. nl~tter how carefully buttressed by apparently irrcflltable "eviclel)~c," is, if it conflicts with the common consensus, at best irrelevant, at worst c•imina l or mad. Thus in conducting his argument with Tyndal~. More does not he~ tate to ignore Erasmus's text of the Bible, despite Its evJdenl scholarly authority, when its readings threaten to conflict with Ute consensus. And Erasmus h1mself would be hardpressed

AI

II•• Tnble of lhr Grrut

6)

to object to More's procedure, since he shared the same funu~­ mental conception of belief." Now it should be stressed that for More consensual belief is constitutive only of religious tnuh; Jts force over men's minds is no less powerful elsewhere, but in reillms apart from what is essential to man's sah'lltion, consensual belief can constitute mrnniltg, thnt is, it can determine what men consider real, but it canno t constihtte truth. Thus I n such realms, rea lity, however powerfully felt, can nlw~ys be shown to excl ude other meanings; one can .always cons truct, at least i n i masi 11atio n, n cou ntc rreolity. All config ura lions ;u·e nol ther~by collapsed into o sil1gle unclif1

fere ntl ntcd mass: jud![tllehts.are possible, even necc,;sa •y, but absolute cerlllin ty-thc certalnty on~:: Hhly ~u!t::,~!;s concern ing those doctrines essential to salvation-is not. Of coUt·sc, some rash Jndividuills within any given reality·constructiOI\ wi ll always be persuaded that theirs is the only conceivable reality; the wist! man, however, wi ll understand that, in matters apnrt from the LruU1 of the faith, he must always live \'lith doubt, with Ute nagging con· sciousncss of distortion and indeterminacy, with the silent subVI.'rsi vcness of .mamorphosis. Only I he timeless, universal truth of religious belief will admit to no subversion, no countertruths, for it is gllaranteed by what Mom takes ns lhe irrefutable fact that the Holy Spirit would not have nllowcd his flock to be in mortal e rmr (or over llfteen hund red ycars. 71• The essence of God's promise then lies ln the conti nu ity o f the solid, public GonsenstiS of ChristiAn men and wome n tiH'Ough the centuries; the'sign of the cove nnn ll s precisely that the church is kno\vt\ and \risible. Chl'istia n faith dwells in L11e ligh t of public knowledge, noUn lhe dark, hidde n r<'!ces~es of Ihe Individua l soul or ln the "no place" of an invisible clnu-ch: "The chu rch is ns S~int J>.,uJ saith, the.pillar and the> foot (lr ground, that h to say the ~ure strength or fastening of the truth. And thJs rhun:h must be that known Catholic Church of which from age lo .1ge the •cript ure hath been n.>eeived, and the people taustn and nota l'hurch unknown of only good men orek>ets only, m which is neither preacher nor people assembled to preach unto, nor sacraments mmi•tcred by nny man as ,, mmistcr of that unknown church, nor people of an unknown church to minist~r them unto ••mung whom ciln be no such assembly for no man cun know whe•·e to call another, nor how to know a nother If they ~ame to l!•llhl•r by h.1 p." 71 In th~ " unknown" c hurch of the h<~retics, men am isola ted and '''I rift , ~tj l off from the po~t. fi'Om 1J1e ceremo nl~s nnd prc~chi ng

62

CnAt'Tt:Jl

ONB

that con(inn the faith, from fellow believers. Indeed, More asks Luther, should a Turk ,_,;sh to become a Christian , where woUld he go to le~m the faith? and who wou ld distingu ish for him the o rtbodox teach er from the hercticl Without tbe prop oHhe known, acknowledged church, <.>verything is cadically uncertain, riot merely for the hypothetical Turk but for the ordinary Christian: "From this chutQh you must l~:arn about the mass, if you wi~h to speak con-cclly about the mass. Otherwise you w ill be borne abou.t in doubt and uncertninty by every wind of doclline, and you will reduce everything to doubt. "7tl Luther was, of course, hardly the apostle of rndkal doubt, and 1t is difficult to !.ocate in this period instances of the gnnwing bncertainty More claims thnt the Re· formers spawned. Even those who p:.sscd back and forth several t-imes behvccn_ C.:.thoUcism and P;:ote.c;to'\nti..-m .sPem to "have expe-

dence.d not corrosive skepticism but s uccessive and incompotible states of certainly, IJULMore does Jtot need actual insta nces of uncertainty; the specter of interpretive .1narchy needs to be invoked as much to stabilize his own position~ to .1ttnck another's. Not only order and security, but truth itself for More is to be found o~tly In lhe visible community of believers; truth Jpart fTom community, truth that resides solely in the secret conviction of the heart, is a dangerous illusion that must be destroyed. lf in the 1520s Hythlodaeu s Is transfooned into a dangerous heresiarch, Utopia itself Is not entirely 1·ecoo~eived as the invisible church about-which he raves. R.1ther it is split: its nonexistence is beque<Jthed to Luther and company, while ils massive communal soJid11•ity becomes the con$ensus of the Catholic Church. As U.t<>pian society 1s designed to efface the individua l, S\velling with self-importance or nursing a private reserve of judgment. so the Church as More represents it vehemently opposes those who dare to set themsetves o(f from the commun ity ,and to lay, claim to n private truth. Luther, More charges, '"persuades everyone that nothing IS anywhere certain but that each one believes at his own rlsk," and the conscqucm;e IS inlerpretativc·anarchy; "Dt>apis.ing lhe au thority of the whole churcl1, despisi ng the holy fn ther~ al1d the doctors and all the ancient interpreters, eacl1 one will interpret sacred scripture according to his own understanding and fonn for h imself whatever f~ith he chooses- l'or since Luther has made each person tlw judge of l'ete.r and a lso o f P~u l, each perso11 may 1110\111 1 the tribunal In hls own heart and judge both men: here Paul speaks well, here badly. II ere Peter teaches nghtly, here he lcachC$ wrongly."''' Thlb 'iluatiQn
Al tlrt Table of 'hr Gwd

63

U1e correct response to authoiilyand tradition: "The whole church of Christ for more than a thousand years past tells you this [that water should be poured into the -wine]. Whatever her spouse has inspired in her for so long a time sorely must be so, however much a new heretic may now deny and contemn it.'''0 The bedrock conviction of Christ's sustaining presence in his visible church SolVeS More from. t.lie drastic implications of his conception of belief, or rather it nUows hlm to play intensely and ironically with those implications withc;>ut, however, sliding toward n final, vertijfinous centerlessness. Tn all of the worh o£ religiottS controvers)!, ~ny inth\1ation that reality is not given bt~t ril thcr conslrt~cted b,y the ~hared convktions and insmutions o£ ffiQfl

dttpcnda upon t·hc CCJ;'tain cxistc n tC

o(

ill

SoJc, u llimnle tOin-

munity, the Catholic Church. When the t:O IISCII $11$ firlnliwlr fs threatened, the possibility of l'layful, subversive fantasy-what we have called the playground-is virtt~ally destroyed. ·n,ere are, to be sure, tattered remnants in the merry tales and in the masks to which More remains attached, but, as More himself seems to acknowledge, the essential spirit is gone. 8l lt was once possible for Emsmus, in Tlr~ Prai~ of Folly, to "jest upon the abt~scs" of saints' images, holy relics, and the like, "after the manner of the dysours n.e., jester·s] part ln a play, ... yet hath Tyndale by erroneous books in setting forth Luther's pestilent heresies. so envenomed the hearts of lewdly disposed per:sons that men cDn not almost now speak of such things in so much as a play, but tlmt such evil he
•

64

CHAt•'tliK

0Nf.

more rational order but the collapse of society itself: "'fhe people would neJthcr be ruled by laws nor obey rulers, nor listen to doctors, but would be so fJ"ce und unbridled, .. - thol no one would be forced, nor commanded, nor counselled, nor taught anything, no~ would anyone vener~te the snints." The specter of anan:hy-"not only will the papacy not endure but also royal power, and supreme magistracy, and the consulate and every administrative office whatever will fall into ruin and Ihe people will be without faithThe Utopians, to be sure, cheerfully declare that they are prepa(ed to ~c~epl n supcriodnilh, should they ever encou nter one, but this flexibility docs not signa l More's acceptance of the principle that the celigi<,>us conscnsu&-~nd hence, reli.gious tmth-<:,ould change, still les~ tha t th~:re shou ld be ,, l$i nd of competitive marketplace of doctrines, The Utopian nlti111de is Morels Cockaync-Hkc fani<~SY of n p~oplc for whom con.version to the truth faith woultl be no lr•1UI11Q, a (nntasy aki n to thai indulged i n by Christo pher Columbus on L2 October 1·192.••· No wonder U1at we are told or n prelate who burned wil'h the desire to be named apostle to the Wopians: they wou ld be a blissfully easy Jlssignmcnt. "After they had heard from us," reports Hythlodaeus, " Ihe name of Christ, His teaching, His character, His miracles, and the no less wonderful constancy of U1e many martyrs whose blood freely shed had drawn so mnny nations far and wide 1nto their fellowship, you would not believe how readily disposed 01ey, tw, 1'/er£ to join it, whether through the rather mysterious inspiration of God or because they thought it nearest to that belief which IM5 the •videst prevalence among them" (2.19). There is no question<;>( O>rbtianity being absorbed by the Utopian cult of Mitluas; rather the Utopoans will on hme JOin the fellow&hipof the Catholidaith(ul When Luther challcn!:CS the con>cnsus, when he chorges th.11

ill lite Table of 1},. Grrnl

the pope Is the Antichrist and that the doctrinal unHy of the Church is maintained by pers_ecufing lhe authentic r.,ithful, More responds, as he must, with horror. He resists even the notion that the Protestttnts actually believe their false doctrines, since belief cunstilures truth and the consensus must be Immune from rift; instead, as we have seen, he argues thnl the heretics are either mad or diabolically willful. As a whole class, the controversia l writings of the Catholics and Protestants alike are, :os B. M. Clomo says of c~rly Chlislian apologetics, "a series of libels cnmouAngcd as treatises,""' but we shou ld not for this rcas~>.n discount the personal intensity of More's rhetorka l .violence: "flor a~ loqg as your reverend patern ity will be detenn ined to tell theso shameless lico, others will be pe•·•nictted, "" behntf of his llnglioh m~je~ty. to throw back into your paternity's shitty mouth, tn•ly the shit-pool of nl.l shit, all the muck and shit which your damnable rottenness has vomited up, and to empty outall the sewers and privies onto your crown.''"" This is the raw voice o(halred, hat.red that would gladly kill what it perceives as demonic. We may sense the hatred t•ven in passages that display more of More's chMactcristic irony .md control: If our father Tyndale had been in paradise in the ~lead of our father Adam, he- should never have needed any serpent or woman either to tempt him to eat the apple of the tr~e of knowledge. For when God hnd forbade hirn the enttng thereof upon pain of death, as he forbiddeth us lechery upon pain of damnation: llwn would he have searched for the cause of the com mandment. And when his wit wouJd have founden none because the flesh had there no need of taming: then wou ld he hnvc ea ten on a good pace, and hiiVC thought that God almighty had but played the wnnton with him, and would not be angry with him for an apple and so would he by his own rule of scarchi ng have found out as much mischief as the woman and the serpent and the devil and au.~•

The woman, the serpent, and the devil-an ascending mad of WICkedness-are all collapsed into Tyndale who is cast, m ,, mini·tlure satirical drama, as father Adam. But the Identification of the hl'crctic with all that is most ;ili~lhe feminine, the bestial. and the demonic--Is not perhaps the deepest source or More's violt•tlcc. More lnis recast as bateft;&l, as d.cservihg extenninoHon, •ltunc uf the qunllt ics of n1ind we mo$~assooiatc with the ~ u thor qf l/1/lf'lll, 'J'(l 6<mrch fllr c111~ses, 1,1 q ue;:tiQn the ~lvcn, 1'0 r'al)' on Qne's

66

CRArT I!It

ONB

own probing "wit" are now manift>sl signs of evil, evil that must b(' ridiculed in prin~ond persecuted remorselessly by both church and state. Of course, neither in Utopia nor in Ric/1nrd Ill nor irdhe leiters to Martin Dorp, Edward lee, and Ihe Monk, John Batmanson, did More ever intt>nd to ust> h:is intt>lligence lo question God's authority, but as Hythlod~eus's story of the ignorant, zealous friar in C.1rdinal Morton's entour.age suggests, More wellllnderstood in 1516 that his wit and independence might strike some careless or bigoted observers as heterodox and thnt the blanket appeal to religious authority could b(' used to stllle all challenging thought: "We hov
version of himselL Ju~t as Utopia is split belween the heretics' "unknow11 church" and the consrns115 {fdclium, so More is split: the garden in which Morus and Hythlodaeus once talked together has been destroyed, The part of More's identity that refused to be swept up in the opinions of the multitude, that rultivated a stubbornly independent and ironic judgment of human affairs, that regarded the stage plays of the great as madness or evil-the part given expression in Hythlodaeus-is transformed into the heretic's isolation, stubbomMss, and galling insistence upon his right to judge. And wh.1t of Morus? what of the More who accpmmoclated himsel! to !'hose stage plays and at.t empled to in fl ucuce state policy !rom within Ihe circle of power? He n1ny be glim psed, In part, in tbe theatrica l flexibility manifested by the wJ·Iter of lhc>Se ,hundreds upon hund •·eds·ofpages of polemics, in lhc abi lity to shift voice:$ to suit the particular scene: patient with the perplexed, violent with lh~ violen t, >Olemnly intellectual, savagely mocki.ng. coarsely: popular, or gently funny. ffe may be seen s till more dearly in the king's good servant, heighterung as Lord Chancellor the persecution of heretics, keeping discretely silent m the lace of abuses he could not prevent, participating tactfully, if G. R. Elton is correct. in a circumspect but perilous internal opposition to royal polfcies th,lt threatened the liberties of the Church."'' As More knew from the ~>('ginning, there were dangerous potential conflicts inherent in !illCh " part, for tht:! fl"xible, realistic adviser to lhl! nationaL:monarch was also the man who believed tM t nll ,·ohcrcncc ultimately derived rrom the uni11crsnl Cathottc! Ch11rt:h. A~ I~;Jng as fhe nntional,md lntcmaHoo~l au1'11ori,t tes were llukt•d in ltrt<wty union, or ,,j 1~"~1 ,neil wQrkl t\g In upp~si tltm, lw

At lit< T•IJI.-of lh• Gr,:ul

cou ld functi on, but when they drifted toward incrc~sfngly bitter ronAict over the issue of the ktng's divorce and royal supremocy, More was put into an impossible position. Hall's Cllroniclc gives us a glimps(' of Murus in extremity, straining almost to the breaking point that "philosophy, more practical for stlltcsmen, which knows its stage, adapts itself to the play in hand, and performs its role neatly .md appropriately." The stage in question was parliament, the roll! presenter of the opinions in favor of Henry's divorce that had be!!n obtained from contine ntal universities. This w~s n comm ancl performance, and More neatly nnd appropl'iately cqmplicd, " n ot showing 1" Roper wri tes, "o! whnt mind himself was th~rein."'' ' More's closing words to the Commons, after tl1e rending· oE the lcon'lcd opj11ions, sugge:;t bolh his ~XlHtva Uiu.1ry

ski ll a t fashioning his part and the d ifficu lty or his morn! and poli tical situation: "Now you o i this Common House may report in your countries what you bave 5een and heard and then all men shall openly perceive that the King hath not att.,mpted this matter of will or pleasure, as some strangers report, but only for the discharge of his conscience and surety of the succession of his realm: '!lois is the cause of our repnir hither to you, and now we will depnrt."•l The generalimpression is that the Lord Chancellor supper~ his muster's position, but, c<,>nsidered closely, the words say fw less: no I only does More refrain 1rom personally affirming the jusrlcc or the king's position. he. does not even quite endorse the king's clrum to be actin g on the bas-is of religious scruple and national policy. The little speed1 :is a minor mnsterpiece of evasion, but it leads one to recall Hythlodaeus's skeptic~ I respunsc to lheoliliqtws dlteiiiS, the "lndi:rect apf)macll(' thn~Morus haq counseled' to the extent that one ptaise!l evi l policies, one furt hers them; to the exlimt that one praises them fa intly, one risks being " counted a spy and almost a traitor'' (103). Such i1> the fate of Morus, such the extent to which accommodation has been stretched. TI1is extreme tbeatrical improvisation at the very center of power, this tense, cunning suppress•on of his true beliefs could not be long sustained, either at the level of politics or at the level of More's own soul. On 16 May 1532 More resigned his oUlce and attempted to withdraw into the fastness of ''
67

1534 More disclaims any competence to pass judgment or even t{) comment on the issues involved in the marriage to Anne Boleyn: "So am I he that amon~r other his Grace's faithful subjects, his Highness being in pos'session of his marriage and this noble woman really anointed Queen, neither murmur at it nor dispute upon it, nor never did nor will, but without any other munnermeddling of the mallcrrunon g his other faithful subjects faithfully-prayto Cod for his Grnce and hers both, long to live and well and their noole issue too, in such wise as mny be to the plensu.rc of God, honor and su rety t o themself, rest, peace, wealth. and Jnofit Lmto this noble rualm.''''~ Obv itlusly, Mo rewaswJilling to go very f~r indeed LO accommod nle h imselt to the play a t ha nd; in his great Marlnn edition of Mo•·~'• CoiJ.lctcd Wo,ks, his n~>phew Wlllinm ~~•IPll <'Jilit>lly omitted th is passage from t he leiter. But this and similar concessions are nolan aberrant and desperate respons~ to intolerable pressure; they are the climax of a life-strategy, the maintenance, as we ha.ve put it, of a calculated distance between the public ptr:;Otw and the inner self. II is supremely appropriate that the heart of More's legal position in his last months was the right to remain silent. On 13 April 1534 he was summoned to Lambeth and shown the Act of Succession and the conjoined Oath of Supremacy. The former renounce.d Henry's maJ"ri,lge Wi th Catherine, declared tha t the kings marrlngc with Anne Bol~yn was "consonant to the laws of Almighty God," and establish ed tha t H e nry's heirs or tha t marriage alone. were to be s uccessors to th e arown;the lattCI' in e ffect , ffi nned that the king was U1e Supreme Head o n earth of the Church in En glnnd. More d~clan~d himself prepared to swear to th<' succession , but he re fused the Oath of Supren1acy and ~lso refused to g ive ll reason for his refusal. for refusing tl1e oath he was i mprisoned and, on 1 ju ly 1535, brougbtto ltail on charges of treason.lo h ig defense, he declared that "for this my silence neither yoUl' law·nor any law tn the world is -able justly and rightly to punish me:••• The prosecution did not concede thiS argument, but they did indirectly acknowledge Its force by producing, in the Iorm ot Richard Rich's testimony, evidence-almost certainly perjuredtha t More had in Cact broken his ~lienee and spoken trea.sonou& words against the king's supremacy. When in Utapin More imilgin es the cUacement or what I have c.1llcd hi.s lUe stratt!gy, he imagines o slate thnt wou ld retlut:e til" inn!•r life to a ci pher and he nce Wt)ui.J hnvo no In terest in on t.hs;

AI the "l"abl~ of the C:rent

the mod~ st.tte, by contrast, accepts the inner h fe of each individual but demands that it be renderrd discursive. From the viewpoint of the prosecution, More was hiding e~scnti~l testimony (ns to his affirmation or denial of the oath) witltin lumself; his silence then "is a sure token and demonstration of .1 nature maligning against the statute." More responds with what Chambers ca lls " h is great plea for the liberty of silence": "I assure you," he dcclnrcs, "that I have not hii:herto to this hour disclosed and opened my conscie nce and mi nd to' any person Jiv,ing in all the world."?~ More opp cllls, 1J1 effect, to his profou nd i~olalion IU'd estran gem ea1l, I'll the conf that More will not under any c:ircumstances alter or suspend. To do so would be to render his whole world meanln_gless, to plunge anto a chaos of uncertainty. "I nm not then bounden," he writes S<'Vcral weeks later frorn his cell in the Tower, " to ch•mge my conscience and confirm It to the co1•ncil of one realm, against the gcncr;U counci l nf Chri,tcndom. " "7 lndc....,d, in the las t letters, Mor..!'~ conscience ~omes I(> b~ ld~ntfficd more and more p1,1werfully ond d iceptly with thl~ C\') 11\rnatnul ~nlic;Jar1ty, as if the finn! wc•c)<s hod bur~ed

69

70

C.U..ArT$1l

ONU

away all that stood between his intimate sense of himself and the great consensus of Christendom with which he longed to merge. At the end when he speaks of his couscieucr, he speaks at once of his innermost bemg and his participation in the community, the communion, of aU true Christians, past, pn!sent, and future, in the visible body of the Catholic Church. But, of coluse, that visibility was increasingly a matter of doubt in !lngland in the 1530~. At least as early iiS ISJ l, wiUl Ole submission of the dergy a~ the Convocation of Canterbury to 1 le nry's oloi1n to supremacy "01s 1\;i r as the law of God permits," the "one corps" of Christendo m b egan to r~cede from view . 13y the time of M~re's imptisonmel\l in ll)e Tower, on 17 April 153•1, Its existence w~s fnr more an aflinnaHon Qf religious belief thnll o rccogn i7.ed, tangible, in:,Ututit:;)nrtl presence . .More's nppcnln lo t:hc coMco.:at!>

do nol express doui,Jt-il anyt:lting, they arc more serene .md confident in the late writings than i n the strident work~ of controversy-but they are appeals lo something seen with the eyes of faith. In June 1535, Thomas CTOmwell asked Mol'l! how he distinguished between the Church's right to demand a precise answer to the question of papal supremacy and the king's right to demand a: pl'l!dse :.nswer to Ole question of royal suprcmucy-"they were as well burned for Ole denying of that as they be beheaded for Ole denying o( thjs." More replied by diFferentia ring between a local law and " the who)e corgs of Christendom."''a But in the m iq JS30s, Englan.d wns scarcely an isolated, Jocnl p1·oblem, ;md consensu~ )~ prodaim ed ll' the lace Qf a drastk and maru fest disintegration o f consensus. Where. th e $keplic may ask, is the single, utlivcrsal bc>dy of all Chcistlrul believers to be secn? Precisely at this point we may recall Hythlodaeus's J'epty to the skept leal Morns: "You should have been with me hl Utopia and personally seen ilieir manners and c;ustoms us I did" (107)_ For in his growing isolation-..ven among the religious orders very few refused their assent-More in effect recovers that part of himself that he had consigned to the heretics. Tme, he had never wavered from his adherence to the consensus, but when he held power and. seemed, as he put it to Roper, "to sit upon the mountains trcadin!r hcr<•tics under our feet like ants," .. this adherence scarcely had a vl>ie>n<~ry ciMracter. Now he spoke, nt the peril of his life, for a community no more v iJ;Ible Jn England th~n the "unknown church'' he h11d mo~ke.d, The Cadwllc Church, lp be sure, wn$ lHr,hly vibiblp dsewhCIJ.'-J.{Qrne ;vas upt, one~ ~ll. the mytbical Amnuwtum- bu t M1li'C 1~ scn~c Qf the Church hnd uc~cr ,-~sl~p

AI fl~t Tahlt of lite Gr
exclusively on Rome. He coulp appeal, of course, to the unity of the "holy S<>ints in heaven,'' but this appeal only he•ghtens the sense that to affirm in 1535 the es..,nlial singleness of the "whole corps of Christendom" was to affirm that which ordinary, earthly vision could not see. It is tempting to aq;ue that at the end Hylhlodaeus, metamorphosed for long. bitter years into the hateful parodies of luther and Ty ndale, returns to his originalform and displaces Morus: just as Hythlodaeus had pred icted, the adaptable, well -meaning servant of the prince l1ns been ru.tned, his strategy of tactful perforrna!lce exposed as hopelessly ilpdequ.1t_e.l3u t has Nlorus been so utterly routed? More's wriHng and 'behavior i11 his finn I mlm lhs sugges.ls thor here too he is adnptmg himself to the play in hnnd,.though U1e play is n more solemn and fearful one than any in w hich he had ever performed. lf one remembers More for his upholding unto death of the Catholic 01urch as the sole principle of intelligibiUty ~nd certainty. one also remembers him for his remarkable ironic humor in the fn~ of horror, for the insistent infusion of his distinctive personilfity into apparently impersonal procedures of state, far the innumerable ways he contrived to signal the ongoing process of his adaptation to the role thrust upon him. More had long conditioned ltiniself, I nave argued. to ask himself on all public occasions, ''What would 'More· say about this1" .1nd he relics deeply upon this c0 nd;t;oning throughout the fina l months. His humor is, no doobt. a sponfnneous c~prcssion of his persan~ l i.ty. but Jt is also something more deHb~rnte ly fQshloned. oiS WC' C«11 perhaps most clearly pl!rce)Ve at those 111(>11\0 I'ltS ln whic.b the jests seem forced. 1 0~ li.s a stra tegy, humor cotdd hardly ••vc More's life, but lt could fulfill an overlapp.ing scl"ies o( important funclions. It wa" the ex-pression of an oblique resistance to ~u l hority. The unsympathetic Hall speaks of More's ceaseless " taunting and mocking,""" and while this seems too negative a response, it is true to the authentic element of aggression in the jesting. It is, moreover. ,, sign of More's embodiment of a cultural ideal: a posture of nonchalance, disinvollura, at the imminent prospect of death. This attitude may reflect in part the influence of stoicL~m on Ren.1issance humanism. in part the bourgeois adoption of an nristocratic ethos. but its deepest roots lie in religious fairh; merriment was the manifest sign of that certainty More's beliefs conferred upon ltim , 102 Finally, More's humor is n way oi mn~tering the l<•rtor of hi$ si tuation, a ter{or tha~ cnn be ~;~auged by o•nihrring n l:lcl'~lted o~count of U1e !l'<ecution of tbe Gar:thu.siaJt monks. And h<1 hue! lo tnGc not only the physic,, I hormr bu t, in the

71

C.HArTEit

ONI

weeks preceding his !rial, the ease with which he could obtainJlis rclt'ase. Thus when his daughter Margaret wrote to urge him to take the oath, More first responded with ~n anguished expression a( "dead!)• grief," then :in the subsequent weeks contrived to deal with such exchanges with characteristic trony: h~ dubs Margaret "Mistress Eve" and likens her to an actress in a play. to> Humor was not More's only response to fc<1r, nor his only way qf marking the complex distance that separated him (rom the martyr's role he simultaneously resisted and embraced. The most moving und personal moments of the Tower Works arc thoseci"n which Mo1·c reflecl11 not ueon tl1e heroic martyr whu"rushes forth eagerly to his qeilth," tiutupon the martyr who "creeps out hesitantly and fearfully." 1"'' Whoever is "u tterly c:nashed by feelings of oll'rtainty, so paradoldcally IS the fear, for it signa lled his hLTmble resistance too martyrdom th~"t could only then be thrusl"upon hlm by Cod . ln n moving ·reversol of cxpo~lationR, Mru-e imotgilws not t hn I he is rccnaot-i ng jq;;us'.s part·, imitating Christ, but rather U1nt wil:h supreme generosity Christ h~s rehearsed the J.>art thai More must now play: "For here he will see the kwing shepherd li~ting the w~ok lamb oo his shoulders, playing the same 1-ole as lw hi msclf docs, expressing his very own feelings, and for thjs reason: so that anyone who Inter feels himself disturbed by similar feelings migltt Lake courage and not lhink lhat he must despair." 111• At such a moment as this, More's role--playing, that highly complex consciousness of fashionjng himself that marked his intense individuality, is absorbed into a larger totality, 1nto the total life of Christ, into the total institution that claims to be the guardian ui that life's meaning. This merger explains, 1 think, a very odd qunllty of the Tower Wmks, namely, the ir mysterious passag~ from Intensely per~onal meditation to what app~or.; tn be lil)'. l••dlmtfi l)hlborntions of s~holnstic H1eolo~;y . ' 1'' ThcSt! ulobor.tliollo

At tht Tnble

of thr Cr,.at

of the words l1f Aqu1nas or Gefl!on M~ the voice or the total institution in which More longed all his life to be absorbedJ just as the feaTfu l medital'ioru. and the humor are the voice of his ironic, complex sense of self; though we may still mark the differences between them, the two voices are no longer opposed. In the Tower Works, in his cell, and ~t lost fn his deat·h, More once agai n brought together in dialogue Moros and H.ythlodaeus, aspects 6( his identity and his culture that had for so long been violently •undered. But now it is not in a garden that they converse; they ITiumph and arc destroyed together on a ~caffotd .

•

73

T

w

0

The Word of God in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction

In 1531 ~ lawyer named James Bainham, son of .t Glouccstcrshire knight, was accused ofl1eresy, arrested, .1nd taken from the Middle Temple to Lord Chancellor More's house 111 Chelsea, where he was detained while More tried to pen;uade him to abjure his Protesmnt beliefs. The failure of th1s attempt called forth sterner measures until, after torture and the threat of execution, Bainham fiMIIy did <>bjure, payinga£20 fine to the king and standing as-a pen itent before the priest d uring the Sunday sermot\ a l Paul's. Cross. But scarcely a month after his rch:asc, according to John ooxc, Bainhnm regrelied his abjut~tion "a nd was never quiet in mi lld and aonscience tLnlillhe time he hnd \Lttc•·ed 11is fall tomll hi5 acquainrcmc~. and asked Cod and all ihc world forgiveness, bef~il: the congrega tio n in those d.a ys, i.n a wo.rehouse in Bow lone." ' On the following Stmday, Bainhmn come openly to Saint Austin'~ church, stood up "v.t Ill<' ~~·dl fflk lnc]ld ol tur nl "'flhc Hook M.ll'lyral'-l'oxc li.t·.

or

74

•t"hl" Wory/ of Cvd irr lhct Agt: o[Ml'.clumlcol H.rptodutllUN

him whipping Bainham at a tree :in his garden-but he was just as surely not the sweet soul conjured up by those who speak admiringly o( More's "hearty, loving labor Cor the man's amendment." , Behind this labor lay-a threat1he Lord ChanceUor fully endorsed: "to thieves, murderers and heretics grievous," he wrote in his own epitaph. 3 "Now the spirit of error and lying," More concludes venemously of one Protestant martyr, "hath taken his wretched soul with him straight from the shore fire to the fire everlasting."·' Th~ spiritual violencellere enables us to understand how More>'s Cholso1>-for Erasmus, "Plalo's Academy on a Chris· tia 11 fool ing"; for R. w. Chambers, " this small pat•·inrchal, monnslic Utopla"-could function, for brief pcdods. iiS a prison ho use,• Thts distu rbmg fatt ~h;~tters that careful $tlpnrati(m of public and private! to wbkh More himseU, as we hove seen, clung as long as he could, TI1e immedia te occasion for this shattering was More's high office-th11 JUdiciJ.I functions of the chancellorship and More's determination to use his position to war against heresy But the public and private spheres were always interlocked, even when More himself most struggled to keep them apart: the private life made possible the publicby.makingitmorally bearable; the public life defined the private by giving i t a reason to exist. From William Roper's early biography to Robert Bolt's Mmr far All Scn5olls, we have been led to pidu re Chelsea -as a kind of Ideal suburb-.' maglcpl hoven of wit, httmanism. and familia) tenderness. When, in Roper's superb ncwunt,l'yl.ore, under arrest, bic;ls farewell to his fnmily, he "pulled lhe wicket a.i;ter him and shut lhem all from him":• we hnve passed poignantly from the eJldoscd , loving, domestic retrea t to Lhc murderous world of Tudor power. This sense 111e pn:~~ing business ht the person or th!! oeca~i(mnl heretical

76

C!!Af>TtR

TWO

prisoner. To James Bainham, More's house must· have seemed .1nything but a haven from the world. As we have tried to grasp the prindples governing More's self-fashioning, so we must tum now to the shaping of the .identities of thOS(' he so much loathed. Here again, as we shall see, identity is achiev~-dat the intersection of an absolute authority and a demonic Other, but the authority has shifted from the visible church to the book. This investment of power i11 the book has, 1 hope to demonstrate, ltnportant consequences both for self-fasnioning and for the way we read. Ne ither Bninhnm's belief'S no r his ultimate fate are partlcul!ll'ly unusual. I Je had tead works by the English Lu therons, Ty ndale, Frith, nmJ Joye and "never ·~a'w. any error" ln them; he affi m1ed that "Christ's l;lody is no t chewed with teeth, bu t received by faith''; he did riot

belie,re.ln_pr~ying

to dcpm'tOd salnts, l:hought

that Saint Paul would have condemned Ute doctrine of purgatory as hcrctici\1, doubted the necessity of conf~ssio1l to a priest, and believed that repentance alone was suffieient for God's forgiveness. Though More foundhlm a chatterer-"Bninham the jangler," heci\lls him'-the record o(his i1ltcrrogationsshows him rather circumspect: he denied, tor example, having S.lid that "he had as lief to pray to Joan his wife, as to our lady," pleaded ignorance on such issues as psychopannychism. and was careful to frame most of his answers in th~ words oi Scripture. What rivets our interest in the ca.s e, almost lost in the great moss of J'oxe's famous work, is the criti cal role tak~n. at the height of the d 1·nm~ of .1bjurotion and rclnpse, by the pri1lted boo k. "l'o ullderstnnd the role o f the book we must u nde rstan1! the drama Jtse.l.f, a nd the key'to such undel'$tilndi1lgis n recognition 6£ It~ dia lecl;col structure: !Jai:nha.IJ1 '5 actions •lfte1' hi s release were generated d irectly and sy'stemil lically by the constihJellt elements of the process that led to his objomtion. Jnnt process consisted of a progressive revelation of power; a movement from the private In the public, from rational discourse to intolerable pressure, from civil conversation to humiliation and V'iotcncc. It is as if we were watching the stripping away of masks from the face of power: .1 convcrsi\tion w1th Thomas More nt Chelsea gave way to 1m prisonment within his house, then transfer to the Tower, then interrogations, the rack and the thrent ofburn11lg, then the S1gn111g of the bill of abjuration and final public disgrace. This disclosure of the fo!'a! that always U1ldcrlics even the mosr ~ppnrcn tly calm •nd ben1W' discourse of ttw al1thorilies Is lliU! oJ th,• rucurrcul 111t>L.jf~ in enrly T'rotcslllll l ~tcounts o( petSecuti(in, Su~'ilv lll't\\lll1lHlt8 (1\'CI' finely d ra\Y'I1 ihcalngktd polnts iltl' lak<•ll

l'11e Woni of Cor/ iu tlrt Agt 'f Mtdtnniepl R~luodtt(l(qtl

with the utmost St!liousness by both heretic and inqui$itor, os if Uley were engaged in an academic disputation, but these are in fact shadow arguments,.as in a ritual or a play, for actual persuasion is out of the question: the heretic wlll either abjure for fear of punishment or >Land firm and be punished. Protestant historiography insists that recow-se to violence did not alway• char~cterize the Church's relation to dissent; Augustine and jerome, Foxc dedares, relied only on the strength of intellect to contend with heresy, and such w~s the[r reami ng and eloquenc~ that they easily prevailed; "but in their plnce, there Is sltch posterity crepe in, as which, with m~ rc power Md vlol'e nce', do for the most pnrt defend that w h ich they comtot judge o•· discenl, I'/ hen they nrc not ,,ble fo «CCOill J>Ibh tJu.: llhttll!r by learniog.''fl Prot.,stonts described and seem to have experienced the inquisitorial proces.< as a kind oh:l_e monk theater; tr,., long scenes of dodrinal d~bate have to be played out, with each of the actors performing his preon:lained part, until the inevitable epiphany of "mere power and violence." Thusjn the Lollard William Thorpe's account of his examination in }gQ7, the authorities. interrogating him in detail on each of Ius heretical posibons, become increasingly enraged by hJs refusal to submit, until the archbishop of Cantcrbury-"strikmg with his hand fiercely upon a cupboard"- lhreatens to have him imprisoned like a thief. When this histrionic outburst fail5 to break Thorpe', \"ill, the qhow of violence incre.ls
n

78

CHArTflK

1'WO

111c sense of the inquisitorial process as theater culminates in a revelation of the ultimate roles, the truth in which all partial representations lind their meaning and ground. Christ's suffering conslltutes more than a powerful similitude to the suffering or the herclic; it is the latter's underlying reality, and hence identifica· tion is as much somatic as metaphoric. The point is wor:tltsttessing, since the Protestant emphasis on iuwnrd gr.~ce tends to obscure the in•plicalion of the body and hence to r~nder public behavior incomprehensfble o~ i.rrelevant. Christ is present not only in I he mind ofWl!linm 'Thorpe but in his ~ituntion; to put the ma tter 60mc~ l mt differently, th.e outward phy$i<:nl compulsion o,f tlw quthorlties is ovcunasl'c.red by ~n inwnrd compulsion thad.!; no less physical. We may see this counterc(>mpulsion, tbis somatic imilation of Christ, most dearly i11 another account o( a heresy investigation, t:hatofSJrJohn Oldcastlc, Lord Cobham, who led an abortive l.ollard rebelHon in 1414. Near the dose of the interroga tion, one or the inquisitor<; asked Oldc.lslle if he would woT'Ship images .tnd, more particularly, the Cross of Ouist:

"Where is it?" said the lord Cobham. The &iar s.~id: "Lptll you the c.-ase, Sir, that it were here, even now before you. "-The lord Cobham answered; "This is a great wise man, to put me an earnest question of a thing, and yet he himself knoweth not where the thtng itself is. Yet once ngoin I ask you, Wbot w<Jrship I should do unto it?" A clerk said unto him: "Such worship as Paul ~pcctkelh ol, attd tbat is this; God fo••bid that r should joy, but OJtly in tho!'C:ross of Jesus Chrlst."-Then snid Ihe lord C6bham, and spread his nmts nbrond: "!'his is the very c>·oss, yea. and so much be Iter than your cross of wood, in that it was created of Cod. yet will not lseek to have il worshipped."" In his Goya·like gesture, Oldcastle at once identifies himself with Christ on the cross and carefully avoids l'ilhcr a blasphemous self-exaltation or a celebration of images. The physical gesture is both an expression of his faith and n condemnation of the in· quisltorial procedure. It- is a brilliant piece of histrionic lm· provisation. identifying his tormentors with lhe tormentors <>I Christ and transfoa:ming his situation into,, symbolic reenactm!!nl of the crud ffxio11 Oklcn•Uc. Uke WiiJiam TnocpeoP, indeed, like Jny indlvi(lu.\1tl> tp'IJI >P cvnlrbrlilng n hostile inhtilution lha l P'•Hscuses vabtly HIII"'"IM (oJ'I·~. haN rec<>11rsu to th.- wcnpuu nf ll)q pmverlcs~: lh,•

Tnt Wonf of God m rhr Ast- of Mtcluuucol R.cpmtfu,.tlo•t

•eizure o( sym/Jo/ic initiative. He may be crushed, but his mar±yr· dom wlll only eonlim1 his constructlcm of reality, for U1~ very success of the domlnantlnstitution is exposed as a rdgn not ofits rightness but of Ule power of the Antichrist. We may argue, of course, that such a symbolic victory Js trivial-in 1419, art~ clucllng the authoritl¢5 lor sevcml yet'rS, Oldcastle was " h~nged up lhere by .the middJe, in chnins of iron, ond so oc,>nsumcd alive Jn lhe fire""-bul though large numbers of individuals mny be dealt with in this fashion, it is only in a concentration camp that a monopoly of violence alone is sufficient to control a whole society. The Catholic Church had neither the wi ll nor the technical meaM lu creal~ suc.j1 ~ 1vorld; li ke all slgnlilcanl and durable h uman in,titutionst H ~:olied for lts prc$crvntion and -reprod.uclion opuu u

thick nehvork of symbolic bonds as well as an apparatus of t'el'res"on. Against the symbolic initiatives of the hereHcs, the Church npposed not on ly violence but its own powerful symbolism, and yet the final recourse to force w\dermincd this symbolism even .1s it seemed to confirm its power. For each eublic exercise of violence, each tortlln! and bumlng, could suggest to onlookers th~t Ule Church ultimately depended not upon ils Iruth but upon ~~~ power. 11 If Foxe's lmmcnscl.y influential ''Book of l\ll~~tyrs"-morc prop· ~trly, Acts 11url Monuments (1563)-dwelt lovingly upon scenes of horror, if it insisted again and again tho1t beneath Ule institutions .md symbolic l.lnguage of the Catholic Church lay "mere power .md violence," it was nul because of a private fixaHon nor even primoriJy becouse of the rhetorical capital in unmerited sufferitJg, but because ~he revelation of such violence attaL"kcd thal ~on­ 'cnsual unity for which More went to Ule scaffold. A consensus held together by threats of torture and the stake ·; s no consensus at ,,11 Catholic authorities for theirnwn paM denied U1al they were uylng to co•npel belief and Insisted l}lnt Ule hc•·etlc could on ly 1'\'lurn to the Holy Mother Church "purely and unfeignedly." When a heretic like James 8ainham agreed to submi t--ond it was to obtain such submission that the Church. dJrectcd all its t•ffuns-he h~d to declare in the bill of abjuration that he "voluntoll'ily, as a b·uc p~itent P91"SOn" ~bjurecl his h~esic~. The prosecution of heresy fhen-as is inevltabla tn the prosecution of th11ught-crim...-combined extreme dllress with the insistence on the purely voluntary character of the penitent's act.•• And, to be 'nrc, the prisoner did hnvc a certain grim freedom: he could ··hoo&e I() relum to the " tru th" or to cmbrnce the stake. It Is the a~t thol'ities themselves, bt>lh socollor und roligl~:>us, who

79

80

CltAr1'Eil Tw-o

adamantly insist tho! they have no power over the heretic's soul; as Augustine had argued, credtr~ uon polest /romo uisi volms, "Man cannot believe against his wilL" But Augustine hod also written. Quae peior mors tmimne quam Iibertas erroris? " What death is wor:se for the soul than the liberty to err?" and this ~ronviction W;as stre ngthened by the urg<mt determlnatir,m to prevent the infection of others.•• If power docs not. extend to rhc sou l, h mny be e~et­ cised upon the body; indeed sc,ular p.ower is essentia lly the ability to perform certain operations upon the body: to t"emove it from one pla'e to another, to conOnc it, to cause it extreme pain, to reduce itto ashes. The conviction that the soul is entirely separate from the body licenses the exercise of such power, while the exercise of such power helps to produce the conviction that the soul b entlnily scporotc from th<> body. For it is pr~eminPntty whPn the Church is involved in the corporal discipline of .1n unwilling sttb· jcct (as opposed, lhn l is, t<111 willing penitent) thot il lnvoki!S the oi d of the secul~U" arm and hence rcse.r.ves to itself the Qtu'!! of the sottl, while consigning to !he state the punishm en t of Ute b'ody. And it is preeminently when b.is body is su bjocted to torment il•al the obstinate neretic is most suffused wi.U1 the conviction that h1~ soul is inviolable. To tl1is extent the exen:ise of powei'-Q( viol enCl.' or the threat of violence, in this world or the next-confirms for both inquisitoT and heretic the separateness and incorporeality ol the souL Michel Foucault hos carried this argument to its extxeme, clnimln~t; that the soul I~ not, ,~s Christian theology holds, bom g"ll ty and pun.ishable, bu t r~ther is engendered by tho vezy p,t•o cess of pu nlsb.me nt, su •vcillance, diScipline, and constr.ll.nt. "' II this is too T·ldical a reduction, il is nonetheless cleor in o eose ilk~ james Bai.nham's thot the object of ihe authorities' inqulry-th•• stole of the heretic's soul-is itself significan tly shaped by surh inquiries, performed throughout the course of his life [TQm earlie>t childhood. The individual conscience as a fertile field of l<nowl edge is at least in pari the product of a complex operation of power-of watching, training, correcting, questioning, confess• ing. And in the case of a heretic, the threat of punishment that underlies this operation, always present if only in a veiled, sym• bolk, or allegorized form, is at last con>pletely realiocd, for tl"' edification not only ot the victim but of the entire community. Hence the publicity of a punishment that in a later age would takt· pl~ce, if at all, in a dank cellar or behind barbed wire: in tht Church'~ symboHc system, as opposed to the heretic's, the rack

Thr Wctrd of Cod m the Age of Mechamcnl Rcprorlucilotl

a11d the fire arc at once foretaste and confirmation of those otherworld ly tortures that were sculpted in stone, painted in vivid colors, described in rich rhetoriCal detail. "From the short fire to the lire everlasting." The heretic is enrolled in a virtuall/ltaltr of torments; early editions of Foxe's work include a woodcut of Bainham standing on a stage before the congregation at Paul's Cross and holding a faggot of wood and a candle, symbols of the fate he nos averted by means of his penitence. 17 Th is pttbfic ceremony is the clinwx of n procedure designed to assure thnl the external perfo1mance of abjuration be(ol'e the ~ommu nlty rl'l~ccts a sin~e1·e inner repentance; the authorities are l;>y 110 means only interested in o public show unclcmak''" to snvc one'o toki n. Thci• object is knowli::dgc 'of !he gcnuinencS!I of IIi" heretic's re turn to t·he tru lh , in token whereof Bainham hnd to swear an oat h to the articles of abjuration and to sign n11d kiss the book i11 which these articles werererorded.. It ls the cross of power that it can only know the inner state Jt has brought into being through outer gestures; even as il asserts the incorporeality of the soul, it must accept a physical sign. The act of kissing the book is a •il,'ll devised to assure that the physical has indeed given way to the spiritual, for the book's phy&ical existence is only the carrier of tts incorporeal meaning. while in the kiss, whose erotic quality •;eems to contradict any dlarge of compulsion, the soul itself is ronceivccl to be present.•• In the rnonth following his release, Bainham reenacted the !!le1!>c nts of the process of a bjumtion, only tuming them il1side out . Where before he had been free in mind while under extreme physical dur~ss, now he was free in body while ul1'dcr extreme mental or spi ritt1al duress. Indeed, Bainham seems to hnvc expeci••nced lhis co11dition not as an innet: conflict but as an external pressure, weighing upon his conscience; "U I s hould Ml return ••gain unto the truth," hi! said, holding the New Testament in his hand, " this word of God would damn me both body ~nd soul at the day of judgment" (4:702). Instead of the C.1tholk Church and the state then, Cod himself and his revealed word threaten l~unham with torments. The d~ parallel is not nccidental, for ll11inham conceives of the Catholic Churclt as a demonic parody of the true chu rch; "there were two churches," he told his inquisitors ,,, the (irst interrogation, " the church or Christ m ili tnnt, al1d the d w reh of Aoticbrlst; nnd .. . thfs church o( Antichris t may nnd tloth err; b ut the chur~h of Chri~t dolh not" (·1:699). We have ,Jircacly encountered thi s con ception of il d emonic c hurch In Mot~,\:

81

CHAPTeR

T\'fO

neither side could reslsf invoking lt, for It had both powerful doctrinal precedent and psychic' force, but it was dangerously rever.;ible.'" And there w3S a danger beyond rever.;ibility: ils eHect here was to forre Bainham to repeal the actions or his oppressor on himself In order to translate them from the reillm of Antichrist to the realm or Christ militant; to restore their true significance. Thus he could not achieve quiet in mind and con:science simply by dismissing the actions of the Catholic Church .1s n horribleo injusti.c~ or even by re~enting inwardly. Since hos abjuration had hod n public as well as nn inner aspect, so lt:>O his return to God wou ld have to be potfomwd publicly. lind not ChtisL saiCI , "who5oever shall deny m.e before men, him will I nlsti deny bcl'ore my Fnlher which ls in heaven" (Molt, l0:~3)l Bainham had to affrn1, CJwi.st ba.for12 m~ ;u; he had d~oiod him before men. At llrst, he "ullered his fall to all his acquaintance," but apparently he.

felt this infonnal confession-the equivalent of the early Informal Interrogation-to be incomplete. He Lhcn appeared bcl'ore the Protestant congregation, !he Brethren, and asked their forgiveness and Cod's.'" In t11e symmetry or Bainham's symbolic acts, this confessoon to the group of fellow believer.;, meeting secretly in the \varchousc, was the equivalent to the formal interrogation in the Tower. As the Tower interrogation was situated between the relative privacy of More's Chelsea and the full publicity of Paul's Cross, Bninham's discourse wi th the herei-il'al congregation linked his po·ivate anguish and his decisive public appearance at Saint Al\5t in's Chlorch . lnd~ed tl1e meeting nl Bow l.nne seems io hav<' givet> llainhllm the str~'ngJi> to pa$s from unc l111 prohibited books, the BreUuen seem to hove been profoundly energized by their sense of community. J ndividu~lly, they could be treated JS the madmen and fools thai More, in the optimism (If his hat red, called them; together they possel>Sed th .. strength to unsettle the immense weight, the vast equolibrium, of the Cathohc establishment. The pages of Foxe and Tyndalc MC full of this en ergy, just as the voluminous contmver.;i,>l writings of More dt\! haunted by o terrible weariness, by a sense or grinding lnbor ihrnugh sleepless nights. A~ lhe name Brt!thren sug.gt:sl~. members of !he enrly Ptole~tani l)fiiUfl' were cnoq;ed with f11ten&e fnmilinl emotion loWilrd on•• a11111h~r· "llo r ~~~ did we no I Qnl.y call one
Thr Word of GPd

1n

rht Agr oj Mtdramtid R~pr.o4urifon

student ~t Oxford ln 1528 fell afoul of the cleri.,al au thorities, has left a particu larly vivid acco1.1n t o£ this emoUon in <1n unfinJshed memoir printed by Foxe. His natural brother, a "rnnk P~pist" 11nd "the most mortal enemy that ever I had for the Gospel's s.1ke.'' is suppl;mted by his adopted bJT,Ithers in Christ whose perils he shares: ''The n kneeled we both down togt'lher on our knees, lift:· ing up our he~rts and hands to Go'd, our heavenly Pother, . . . and then we embraced, and kissed the one the other, the tears so abundantly flowing out from botnour eyes, that we all bewet both our faces, and SCilrcely for sorrow1:ould we speak one to the otber; nnd so he departed from me" (5:W). pnlaber .finds in the moveme nt. not only new brothers but a m!w father, hj$ teacher John Clark: "Be came to me, and took me up in his arms, kissed me, the tears trickling down &om his eyes, and said unto me: ... from henceforth forever takE' me for your father, and l will take you for my son.in Christ'' (5:42n. The fellow bellevers were thus bound to e~ch other in passionate rituals of ldnship, nnd the new f!unily was '' bridge between individual experience and the alien, largely c~tholic, public world. It was as a member of such a group then that Bainham made bjs co11fession before the conventicle in the wnrehouse ln Bow L~ ne. If Lhl~ confession, like his e~rlicr informal expres~;ons of remorse, left him unsatisfied, if thl' net of repentance was still incomplete, the support of the group apparently gave him the immcn>;e, reck· less courage needed to tak<> the next and decisive step: the public confession at Saint Austin's, where he tt.'stiflcd n.ot to his brothers nnd sisters in Christ but to nn in.d lf£ere nt and possibly hostile commurrity, Only In standing before such an audience and "declaring ~penly, with weeping tears. that he had denied God" could Bainbam annul the denial at Paul's Cross and find the release, the " quiet," that had eluded him. Bis model perhaps was $aint Peter, wtto thrice denied Christ, wept bitterly at his weakness, and went on to fuHill his calling. That calling, accocrung to legE'nd, 1nduded martyrdom, md it certainly appears that Bainham sought such a firte. At the least, he must have known whal was likely to happen, but he was compelled to act as he did.z:q1 is as if only ~y embracing the• stake-as f'oxe reports he did at the e ncl-<:ould l1e .mnul tne kiss that had confirmed his abjuration. This sense of compulsion in Bainham's behavior may lead one plausibly to Freud's concept o£ umlomg 1ohat hos been done-''un1;\CSchehenmachen" or, liternlly, "mahlng un.happened." IJndolnS. wril'es P1-c~1d, "i~~ i'l5 il wor¢,J1CgC~ tivc magic, and endeavours, by means ol mutor symbolism, to ' blow uway' not merely the

84

CHArTER

TWO

conseque11ces of some event (or experi~ncc or impression) but the event itself."l:! SllciJ a notion can help us understilnd ~he elements of ritunl expiation, annulment, and above all symmelry nt work in lhe heretic's relapse: each separate phase o£ the polluting process of abjuration must be blown away by a com:$ponding symbolic act of undoing. But Frrud's "negative magic" is unconscious, a neurotic defense against impulses that threaten the structures of the conscious mind tu\d hence must be repressed; to invoke rtndoirtg as nn explanation ra U\er than an analoll seems to me mjs[ead· ing.24 The dangers of such a reduction o.ro exempli(;ed by a recen t psychohistorical study that, while it does not- discuss undoing, does characterize the Tudor martyrs as "compulsive neurotics" taking "the self-willed, self-inflicted path ofsmcide" rather than the .:.c:lf.. prese-rVing pnth of -"cooper.lt-i<m \vHh tlu~ 111118ictr..lles.ul:-"

The Relom1ers' bitter denials that lhey were seehlng dcatli b5f refusing to embrace orthodoxy are dismissed as defensive reductions of guiiL. But are there then ever moments in which a man may legitimately determme, in order to save his soul, not to cooperate wHh the magistrates, even if execution is the certain consequence? Is to be chained to a stake and burned to death so un· mistakably "suicide"? The actions of a man like Bainham were not neurotic symptoms ln the midst of a presumpt_ively sane society, but symbolic actions fully understood by both friends and enemies and explicable In terms of a complex theological and political system. This does not, of course, obviate the possibl~ functioning of "u~Jconscious" forces, but it does sugge~t U1at theS<• forces were o rga:njzed .md gJven exp•·esslon by~ fully consciou~. publicdiscomse. And this disrourse is manifested most concretely ln !he case of Ba;nham and dozens like him in Lhc crudnl significance o£ the printed book. At Saint Austin's, it will be recalled, BMnham st(K)(! up "wilh the New T~stament in his hand in English and the Obedience of,, Christ inn Man in his bosom." lt is hard tq tell if there is o ne book h~re or lwo, for "the Obedie nce of a Christian Man" mny refer t<1 Bainham's inner stale or to Tyndale's book of the same name, whkh Bainham owned and may have carried next to his heart. Thl· ambiguity here is felicitous, forTyndalc's manual, which he wrottin exil~. probably ill Worms, in 1527, is precisely designed to bt absorbed: one should not, it;1 principle, be able· to sa)' where lht· book stops and identity begins. This absorption of the book once provides a way of being in the world and shapes the reader'•· inner life; Christi.>n obedience is simultaneously a form of action Md an intem al stale Such fashioning of action and identHy I

•I

1'irt Word t)f God in tilt

A.~c

uf Mtcluwltal Rt~productum

essential because in brealting images, radical Protestants have rejected a central Catholk mode o! generating inward reflectionrecall More's advice to meditate in private "before an altar or some pitiful Image or Christ's bitter passion"-while in abMdoning formal auricular confession, they have rejected the primary Catholic mode of maintaining the obedience of the Christian man by orderi ng thi~ inward reflection. Sine~ the momentous decree of lhe Fourth Lateran Council of 1215, Omnis utriusqtte s~.r11s, which commanded yearly confession, tllere had arisen a va~t literahrrc (or confessors and pen itents detailing a complex methodology for the examinntion otnd formal cleansing of conscience.i• It is this systematic, institutionalized £orm of self-sorulilly in the service of discipline And consolMion that cau!!ic:d the young Ausue~tUtion

monk Martin Luther such anguish and is violently rejected by virtually every tefonner. "Shrift In the ear,'' wri tes Tyndale ;, the 0/Jedicuce, "is verily a work of Safan.''27 Because of subsequent developments, we associate Protes· tantism with a stiU more intense self-scrutiny, the alternately an· guished and joyful self-reflection of Bunyan•s Crnre Abounding or l'ox·s Journal. But significantly; among the early Protestant,; we lind almost no fonnal autobiography and remarkably little private, personal testimony "' The kind of self-consciousness voiced in these forms, the sense of be•ng set apart from the world and o( l••king a stance toward it, the endless, daily discursiveness of later )\enernfions, is only In the process of being shaped, while the lr.1cli1ionaln1ethodology for the
n rnnnuscripl patilll1tly c6pied for a monosti.: llbra•y, a .unr's life kwinQiy recorded In a prlvute collection-all nl these h1\Vc n ct1rtoil1 lml.itc il\limn~y and prusen~-c: tMy pnss~ss, In

86

CH A rTii 1t

T \V 0

Waller Benjamin's tenn, an aura linking them to a ritual function or, at the least, to a particular, sp;:cific human rommunily. 29 We are accustomed lo believe thatprint culture moved away from that presence, lost that aura: after all, there is no longer the visible sign of the recording hand, the sense of unique production. Printis, in these terms, a form ofdepeJ"Sonalizalion. But we must balance thl$ perspective with that afforded by Tyndnle's work: that in the early period of print culture the book could have a special kind of pres· ence that perhaps no manuscript ever had. Por wilh the rejection of formal atu:icu lar confession and th~ power of the l<ey~. work~ like Tyndale's are, il1 eflect. among the primary S<>urces o~ self· fashioni ng. In tl\e symmetry of unmaking and displaceq1ent, t,hey occupy 1he $trllc:lural posilion of the con fessionnl manual. but tney rf'fuc.;f:t thP ln~t-ihatinnal f-ramPwnrk lh,11 sPems to have controlled the experience or at least the Tepresentalion of interiority in th~ Middle Ages. That .framework insisted that interiority be sub· ordinatcd to an intimate verbal transaction, that it be embedded in a ritual of confession and absoluHon within the visible fabric of the Church. Tyndale's 0/Jeduma and similar Protestant guides to the inner life have no such end in view; the printed word does not serve the spoken, but has ~ kind of absoluteness, integrity, and finality. Distance from the scribal hand, production in relatively large quantities, mechanisms of distribution far distant from the author ~nd printer, refusal of subordin~~tlon to a ritualized verbal transaction, the very lack of aura-all thnt we may call the obs/racl r~ess of the early Protestant printed book- give It an intensity, n shaping power, an element of compulsion that the late medieval manuals of confession never had.'" Works like the Obedience differ as well from the printed or, fo• that matter, manuscript accounts of the inner life In the next cen tury. In seventeenth-century spiritual autobiosraphy, the innc1 life is rtpr.senled in outward discourse; thot is, the reader en counters the record of events that have already transpired, thllt have been registered and brought from the darkness withi1\ to t~~· clenr light of the page. In the early sixteenth century there is not yet so clearly a fluid, continuous Inner voice-• dramati• monologue-to be recorded. The words on the page in Tho Ob~dl­ cnce of a Cl~ristian Man are aspects of the inner life, awkward an,J eloquent, hall-formed, coming into exi5tcnce. These words are not carried out fnto the light but are destined for the opposite proceos they wlll be studied, absorbed, internalized , colored by ,, thousand personal histories. It i~ as if Cor a brief moment we ·~·· the thing itself, not repres~nted b11t prcscntrll in its Qriginal anil

l'llt Won1 of God ir1 lht A,sr -of Medrarr;c41 R.tprDdUtl;l'rr

originating fonn. The phenomenon 1 describe-this presence in the written word of identity-lias its last brilliant flowering in the essays o( Mont.1igne and, by transference from script back to voice, in the soliloquies ofRamlet, words thai claim not access to the inner life but existence as the inner life. And the choracteristic of these words-as oppo~ed to modem attempts to record the discourse of interiority-is their public character. the apparent impersonality of their rhetorical structure, their performative mode. I( the revelation o( Ham let's innermost thoughts is a highly formal quaestro on the problem of being and nonbeins, delivered in direct address to an e normous, outdoor, public as~cmbly, we may und erstand some of the force of tliis peculiar convention by recalll"g w
87

90

CIIAPTJIR

TWO

But it would be a mistake to imagine that Tyndale wrote the Obedie11ce to please or reassure Henry Vlll; two years later the reformer did not hesitate to write and publish Tire Practice of Prelates, a work that opposed the royal divorce and won the king's lasting enmity?• The extremity, the violence, of his vision of obedience reflects other motives. As a rebel against the Catholic Clmrch, Tyndale, like virtually all the early rcfonners, needs to see that Church as profound ly disobedient; he constructs a universe in which all men are locked into a rigid code of obedience, a code utterly beyond their control or volition, fixed by God himself, and then observes, angrily and triumphantly, that there is no place in this universe for the Catholic Church. Any claim the Church might make for men's obedience is a competitive claim, an attempt to divert obedjen-ce due olsowharo; and the Church cnmpounrlc; Ihi~

crime by failing itself to obey its rulers, the temporal princes. Tyndale juxtaposes then a call for violent disobedience to the Chu tcl1 nnd a call for absolute s ubmission to tl1e k ing. Such is the ind ividual's relation to lhe g rea t, pabiarchal institutions o f the world: onefalher must be destroyed; the other exalted to supreme temporal authority. In the individual's relation to God, the split is resolved by the transformation of rebellion into proper boldness and of submission into proper observance; "Let a child have never so merciful a father," Tyndale writes in the E:rpositiorr of I Jolrn (1513), "yet if he break his father's commandments, though he be ,,ot under damnation, yet he is ever chid and rebuked nnd now and then lashed with the mel: by the reason whereof he is never bold in his father's presence. But the chHd that kecpc th his father's commandments is s LLre of him self and bold in his father's presence lo speak and ask what he will." 3 " It is precisely in strict obedience to God that men become "sure of themselves," and tl,is <>ssurance contrasts with the groveling idolatry Tyndale claims that the Catholic Church desires from its members. The Obedierrce sets out to expose and dismantle those false pr.u;:ticc5-Superstitious ceremonies, factitiOLlS sacraments, confession, the worship of saints, monasticism, typology, clerical celibacy, purgatory, indulgences, excommtlllication- that constitute the means by which the Church transforms good Christians into abject idolaters. If some CathoHc practices bear a curious resemblance to true doctrine and observance, it is because they have been cunningly designed to do so. Tile preaching of God's word inevitably involves an attack on the Church's perversion of that word· "It is impossible to preacll Christ, except thou preach .lg.ltnst Antichrist" (185). For though both Christ's tc~chings and

1'],,. Wonl of C()d m the Agt of MtdrQtf;cal Rt'produrUotl

the Catholic Church's abuses are easy, according to Tyndale, for all to grasp, nevertheless, as the contemporary embodiment of Anti· christ, the Church has the uncanny power to simulate certain aspects of authentic Christian faith, to construct a holy mask suffidently convincing to deceive the unenlightened, to pcrfomr as in a theater the truth that it should actually embody. This histrionic power is one of the marks of Antichrist and a source of his cndur· ing power: "his nature is (when he is uttered and overcome with the word of God) to go O LLt of the play for a season and to d isguise himself, nncl thEm tu come in agai n witl1 a new name nnd a new rni mcnt."·'OSuch masquerad ing is, of course, antithetical to the true nature of God, for "Christ is not hypocrite'' who "playeth a part in a play and representeth a person of state which he is not." l-Ie " is always that his name signifieth: he is ever a saver.""' The Obctlicllcc must strip away the Antichrist's mask, but the task is difficult, for the Church is a vast, devious, international conspiracy, with tentacles reaching everywhere fTom the poorest hamlets to the councll chambers of the great: " In every parish have they spies, and in every great man's house, and in every tavern and alehouse. And through confession know they all secrets, so that no man may open his mouth to rebuke whatsoever they do, but that he shall be shortly made a heretic. In all councils is one of them; yea, the most part and chief rulers of the councils are of them: but of their council is no man" (19]). All classes have been d upes and victi ms of the Ch urch, from the peasant who belleves that a few mumbled Latin verses will make his coo·n grow better to the gentlemnn who must ~upport an army of clerical drones. The false shepherds do not overlook a sh red of the fleece: "The parson sheareth, the vicar shaveth, Lhe parish priest polleth, the friar scrapeth, and the pardoner pareth; we lack but a butcher to pull off the skin" (238). And the greatest dupes are the kings, "nothing now-a-days, but even hangn1en unto the pope and bishops, to kill whomsoever they condemn without any more ado" (242). What begins as a doctrine of obedience ends as ruthless criticism: it is as if the former makes the latter possible, by assuring a firm ground on which to stand, boundaries within which to contain violent anger. The more rigid, harsh, and absolute the law of obedience, the more far-reaching and daring the attack on the comtptions of authority. Having exalted fathers lo the sta tus of domestic gods, Tynda le can tucn around and write, of the chu rchmen: "And when they cry, "Fathers, fa thers," remember that it were tlw (alhcrs lhal blinded and robbed the who le world, nnd brought us into th is captivity, wherein these ct1foo·ce to keep

91

92

CH~I'Tf.H

TWO

us still. Furthermore, as they of the old time arc fathers to us, so shall these foul monsters be fathers to them that come after us; and the hypocrites that foUow us will cry of these and of their doings, "Fathers, fathers," as these cry "Fathers, fathers," of them that are past" (324). Having similarly exalted kings, Tyndale can attack them as either tyrants or mere shadows; combining both charges, and with a sly glance at Henry's title "Defender of the Faith" he can urge them not to let the pope any longer make them so drunk with vain names and other baubles, "as it were puppetry for children," that they will bankrupt their realms and murder their people 1'(or defend ing of <,> ur holy father's tyranny" (204-5). For all hi s vehemence, however, Tyndale's attack is bounded by the order thnt enables it to exist: l1e wi ll denounce the Church and expose Jdns:.t ond <:mpcro~ ~.!:; coaupt tool&, he will Ions for God l'O

come like a thief in the night and destroy the great ones of the earth, but he will not exhort the people to act for themselves. He is no Thomas Miintz.er at the head of a revolutionary party; the commons are urged to take patience and suffer the abuses under which they groan. Violent anger has been released only, it seems, to be swallowed up again. But not completely. Historians frequently divide early Protestants into conservatives and radicals, with Tyndale placed squarely among the former, as a preacher of passive obedience.•> But such a distinction, though virtually inevitable, may be misleading, for even in the 0/Jediem·e's openi ng catalogue of ineluctable au thorities, there is a subtle yet highly significant shift when we reach "The Obedience of Subjects unto Kings, Pri1;1ces, and Rulers." We expect a htrther discourse on obedience; we hear instead of the necessity of submission. 1\nd there is a great difference, as Ja mes Bninham could testify. For tllere are certain extreme situations in which a man must disobey the king, even as the king is exhorted to disobey the pope and to break those vows which were unlawful to begin with. These are situations in which a man has been commanded to perform an action or express a belief directly contrary to the law of God and the faith of Christ. Such cases compel dissent, though the individual so compclled must at the same time bear patiently and without resistance the fuU punishment meted out by the authority he has disobeyed. He must. that is, act as James Bainham acted. The Ob•tlifllce, as More quickly pointed out, is in fact a guide to tlisob~tlience of church and state."' Such disobed ience is not, of course, a rejection of the principle of authori ty bu t is obedience to a hi ~her autbol'ity at whose comm.tnd .1 11 lesser restraint• fall away: ''Jacob robbed l.~ban his

T1tt Word of God in lire Age of MtchauirJd Rrproductt'ou

uncle; Moses robbed the Egyptians; and Abraham is about to slay and burn his own son; and all are holy works, because they are wrought in faith ,1t God's commandments. To steal, rob, and murder are no holy works before worldly people, but unto them that have their trust in God: they are holy when God commandeth them."•• Thomas More was not alone in expressing horror at the queasy possibilities opened by this view. In the absence of a visible chu rch, how is a man to be sure of his position-sure enough, that is, to take the far less spectaClllar but still drastic steps that led a ma n like Ba inhom to the stake? There did not exist in the early sixteent h ce ntury, after a ll, a coh erent idcolO!lY of dissen !: the med ieva l past bore wltness to inmunerable conspiracies, rebeJiiQJ,G, jncquctios, hcrcc;lcD,, mlllcnn ful oulbur!tS, but provid ed

no principle of negation. If the movements led by Wycllffe and Hus offered the glimmerings of such an ideology, these movements were certainly not suf6cient by themselves to sustain disobedience; the Obediellce scarcely alludes to the Lollards, and it would take Foxe's massive rewriting of history in the middle decades of the sixteenth century to establish a "tradition" of resistance to illegitimate spiritual authority. Tyndale does not seek to set up a vanguard party that will make the necessary decisions nor to ally himself with a discontented social class or status group; such developments, insofar as they happen at all, begin considerably later in the century and do not assume clear form unti l the following century. 4 5 What TyndaJe seeks is rather a principle powerfu l enough to uphold individ uals in daring acts of d issent against overwhelming s piritual a nd political au thority and to s usta in th ese ind ividuals during the s ufferings that would follow such acts. For Tyndolc, th is principle is found in the other book j.1mes Bainham held in his hand at Saint Austin's Church: the Bible, freed of the Church's false hermeneutics, translated into the vernacular, printed in quantities large enough for all men to possess or at least have access to a copy. The vernacu Jar Bible, to which Tyndale devoted his life, was one of the principles of the earlier heretical movements, but neither technology nor the individual conscience had been fully prepared; now it was possible to put into the hands of literate and at least make accessible to illiterate believers .1n infallible rule by which to judge the words and deeds of those who set themselves up as absolute authorities: "Forasmuch now as thou partly seest the falsehood of ou1· prelates, how all the ir study is to deceive us and to keep us in dm·kncss, to s itos ~ods in our cclJ'lsciencesf and handle us at t·hcir plcnsurc, Dnd to

93

CIIArTnR

TWO

lead us whither they lust; therefore I read thee, get thee to God's word, and thereby try all doctrine, and against that receive nothing" (324). "Get thee to God's word": so Tyndale voices that fetishism of Scripture preached by all of the early Protestants. More, defending the position of the Catholic Chllrch, Jrgued that we are bound "not only to believe against our own reason the points that God shewed us In Scripture; b ut al~o that Cod teacheth his church without Scripture against our own mind also."'- We Jrc bound, Tyndale countered, "to look in the Scripture, whether our fathers have done right or wrong, and ought to believe nothing without a reason of the Scripture and authority of God's word" (330).

A reader who took this counsel to heart and looked into the English New Testament of 1525 could leam almost the whole of the heretical creed from the prologue and glosses. Follow ing Luther. Tyndale dwells on man's utter worthlessness, the bondage of his wi ll : "The devi l is our lord, and o ur ruler, OLLr head, govemo.r, our ptlnce, yea, and our god. And om will is locked and knit faster unto the will of U1c devi l, thall could an hundred thousand chains bind a man unto a post . . .. Whatsoever we do, think, or imagine, is abominable in the sight of God.''• 7 This depravity is not the consequellce of the observable behavior of particular individuals but rather the condition of existence; a human fetus is equally abominable: "By nature, through the fall of Adam, are we the children ofwrath, heirs of the vengeance of God by birth, yea, and from Ollr conception. And we have ou r fellowship with the damned devils, und er the power of darkness and ru le of Satan, whi le we arc yet in our mother's wombs . . . . And ns an adder, a toad, or a snake, is ha ted of man, not for the evil that it hath done, but for the poison that is in it, and hurt which it cannot but do: so are we haled of God, for that natural poison, which is conceived and born \vith us, before we do any outward evil" (14). This vision of human loathsomeness is proclaimed, of course, only to be redeemed by the glad tidings: Christ "hath fought with sin, with death, and the devil, and overcome them; whereby all men that were in bondage to sin, wounded with death, overcome of the devil, are, without their own merits o r dese rvings, loosed , justified, restored to life and saved , brought to Hbcrty and rec· onciled Ullto the favour of Cod, and set at one wi th him ngaill" (9). Man has been driven to desperation by Lhe law in order to be saved by the gospel; hearing and believing this news, a Christi;u1 "cannot but be glad, and laugh from the low bottom of his heart" (9). This joyful redemphon comes only through man's faith in

1 he Word of God in th~! Age of Meclmm'col H.tprodurt(ou

Christ's sacrifice Md not through good works: "By faith arc we saved only" (15) declares Tyndale's prologue, echoing Luther's famous sola fide. When he turned from this prologue to the text itself, the reader found ample confirmation of the Reformer's doctrines. More likened Tyndale's translation to "poisoned bread" and counted over a thousand ''faults" in it; he was surely correct in pointing out the Lutheran intent behind the use of "congregation" instead of "church," "love" instead of "'charity," "senior'' instead of 1 'pri est/' Nknowledgeu instead of "confession,~~ and so on. 48 And the subversiveness of the translation was hei ghtened by the sim· pie fact tha t·charges like More's could be so plausibly reversed and the Vulgnto cxpoGcd a.t;; o partisan, pilrt:i;l.) troncl~tion, olantcd to

favor the interests of the Catholic Church. The success of this reversal mny be gaused by the decree of the Council of Trent, dated 8 April 1540, whkh ordains that "the Vulgate approved through long usage during so many centuries be held authentic in public lectures, disputations, preachings and exposition, and that nobody dare or presume to reject it under any pretext." 40 An un· spoken assumption over centuries that the Vulgate was the authentic version is one thing; a decree to that effect is quite another. The Protestant translators had forced the Church into the declara· tion that the "authentic" version was to be preferred in all in· stances to the original. By contrast, Tyndale could, in the prologue to the 1525 New Testament. exhort "those that are better seen in the tongues than l, and that have better gifts of grace, to interpret the sense of the Scripture" to mend the translation wherever necessary. 50 The pri nt ing of the English New Testament in 1525 ma•·ked for men like Bainha m a turning point in human history : Cod once more spoke directly to men. "The truth of holy Scripture," Bainham declared at his first interrogation, "was never, these eight hundred years past, so plainly and expressly declared unto the people, as it hath been within these six years" (698). Bainham himself had no need of a vernacular translation to understand Scripture; according to Foxe, he was learned in both Latin and Creek. The issue then is not his own personal access to the Bible; a text in English and in print rather than script are for the Reformers keys to the repossession of God's word by the Christian people. The vernacu la•· wrests the Bible from the hands of the priests, and the printing press assures that this li beration of the word is irrevers· ible. Por manuscript copies of the New Testament alone, even co pies l>rcparcd by a com petent scriptorium, were necessarily

95

96

CI1APT8R

TWO

time-consuming to make and hence both costly and scarce. By seizing and destroying su ch manuscripts, the authorities could seriously impede the dissemination o f God's word. But printed books were quite another matter. When in 1529 More went to Antwerp with his friend CutJ1bert Tunstall, Ule bishop of London, the latter bought up and burned as many copies of Tyndale's New Testament ;md o!Jler heretical works as he could find, but this was a pre-Gutenberg strategy. The money Tunstall spent !or the books only helped Tyndale to hasten the production of the second edition o£ his translation, which appeared in 1534." The word of God in the age o f mechanlcal reproduction-ftfty thousand copies by the time ofTyndalc's dea!Jl-has a new, direct force: "All mercy that Js shewed there is a promise unto thee, if thou -tum to Cod. And aU vengeance :md wrnt-h

~hPwttd

there is

threatened to thee, if Ulou be stubborn and resist. And this learning and comfort shalt thou evermore lind in Ule plain text and literal sense."<> "The plain text and literal sense": translation is not the imposition of an intermediary between God's word and man but just the opposite- the tearing aside of a veil of deceit in order to present the text in fo il immediacy. If God's word Was to be experienced by more than a handful of clerks as an unmediated address to the soul, Ulen Ule language of Ule Bible could only be the vernacular. Even for a man well trained in Latin, the English Scriptures spoke to the heart in a way the Vulgate never could; llie vernacular was the unself-conscious language of the inner man.S3 Bainham's interrogators offered him the embrace of the Holy Mother Church-" the bosom of his mother was open for him" (700), they told him. The Reformers offered a different intimacy, the intimacy not of Uw institution, imaged as the nurturing female body, but of the book, inlaged, in terms displaced from that body, as self, food, and protection: "As thou readest," Tyndale writes in the Prologue to Genesis, "think that every syllable pcrtaincth to thine own self, and suck out the pith of Ule Scripture, and aot1 thyself against all assaults."•·• The power o f the English Bible was at its height precisely it) the years when copies were pubUcly bumed by the authorities, when readers put their lives in danger to read it. ss By llieir opposition to vernacular translation, by seeing to it lliat not a single English Bible had been produced since the invention of printing, the Catholic authorities in England vastly heightened the impact ol Tyndale's work. Only those who had been brought up to th ink ol thC' Bible as a La tin work could c>Cpcricnce the full s hock of the voice of God ~pcnki ng lo them in Englis h from its P•'I)CS. Add to

'I II( Word of Gotl itr Ott Age of Mecltrmical H.tpr4>ductio/J

this the threa t of persecution, and the effect must have seemed overpowering, almost irresistible. This is surely one of the reasons why, during a brief period, Protestantism in England could sur· vive and spread wiUtout any signilicant institutional framework, on the force of the word. When Tyndale writes of arming oneself with the syllables of Scripture or Bainham speaks of his fear that trus word of God-pointing to the book in his hand-would damn him, we must take them at very close to the literal meaning: the printed English New Testament is, above all, n form of power. It is invested with the obility to control, guide, d iscipline, console, exalt, and punish that the Church had arrogated to itself for centuries. And lest this be though t inAated rhetol"ic, let us reca ll that jom cs Bninham :.imply could notlivt: will1 l l1..: JJdill uf w l1ut he took

to be his betrayal of the book; he preferred death. Bainham is by no means unique. Of the numerous comparable instances, we may recall Latimer's moving account of Thomas Bilney, who had abjured in 1527 and done public penance-"bome his faggot"-at Paul's Cross. Upon his return to Cambridge, Bilney "had such conflict within himself" that his friends were afraid to leave him by himself; day and night they attempted to comfort him, but no comfort would serve. "As for the comfortable places in Scripture, to bring them unto him it was as though a man would run hi m through the heart with a sword."56 After two years of such pa in, he went to Norfolk, began again to preach Luthcro n teachings, and was arrested as a relapsed heretic. According to Foxe, while awaiting execu tion Bilney thrust his hand into the flame of a ca nd le, recall in g ns he did so a passage from Isa iah: "When thou walkesl in the fire, it shall not burn thee, and the flame shall not kindle upon thee, for I am the Lord thy God, the holy One of lsrael." 57 Where the Scripture had literally tormented BiJney after abjuration, it now shield s him from agony. At the end, as More relates, Bilney was taken "and Tyndale's books with him too, and both two burned together," with "more profit unto his soul," More adds, than had he "lived longer and after died in his bcd."so These and other testimonials to the magical power of the Word are the extreme expressions of a far more pervasive influence that would make the English Bible, when its dissemination became a matter of national policy, by far the single most significant book in the langLmge. Access to the Bible was a decisive force behind the extraord inary spread of literacy to the masses, so that by the midd le of the sevcntecl\th cen tury perhaps as many as 60 percent of men in the large•· towns of the South and at least 30 pen:cnt in the counhy n8 n Whole could read.S" By royal com mand, rciloroled in a

97

CHAPTER

TWO

proclamation in 1541, "Bibles containing the Old and New Testament in the l::nglish. tongue" were "to be fixed and set up openly in every of the said parish churches" so that "every of the King's majesty's loving subjects" might read in the Scriptures.•• Immediately after the proclamation, William Malden tells us, "divers poor men in the town o( Chelmsford in the county of Essex .. . brought the New Testament of Jesus Christ, and on Sundays did s it reading in [the] lower end of the Church, and many would flock about them to hear the reading."• ' Indeed, interest was sufficiently popular and intense for a 1538 Declaration to warn the unlearned against engaging in biblical exegesis "in your open Taverns or Alehouses," an admonition, as one scholar notes, no doubt honored more in the breach. 62 Over two hundred editions of the r loly Gcrlptures wccc prqduccd between 1521 and t(l()O, 480 between 1601 and 1700; by the early eighteenth century, well over 500,000 copies of ll1e Bible, by conservative estimate, hod been printed. Tyndale had unleashed an immense Coree. This force receives its supreme literary tribute more than a cent·ury after Tyndale's death in the works of Bunyan. According to Grace Aborwdiug, particular biblical passngcs had an obsessional force in Bunyan's life, hammeringat hi s mind, striking him across the face, pursuing him relen tlessly: "Now about a week or fortnight after this, I was much followed by this scripture, Simo11, Simou, behold, Sata11 lrat/1 desir.d to /rave you, Luk. 22, 31. And sometimes it wou ld sound so loud within me, yea, and as it were call so strongly after me, that once above all the rest, r turned my head ove r my shou lder, thinking verily that some man had behind me called to me ... . " 63 Texts "tear and rend'' his soul, "touch" him, "seize" him, "fall like a hot thunder-bolt" upon his conscience; and even the consoling visitations have something violent about them: "And as I was thus before the lord, that Scripture fastned on my heart, 0 ma11, great is llry Faith, Matt. 15.28, even as if one had clapt me on the back" (65). A massive cultural investment of power in the book culminates in this uncanny, uncontrollable presence. That it is Bunyan, imprisoned for preaching without the permission of the authorities, who testifies to this presence reminds us that once they had ctisploced Catholicism, the Protestan ts h.1d to reinforce and control the power of God's word with more obvio ttsly physical pw>islunen ls and with the whole apparatus of paLriarchallamily, cl1ttrch, school, and state. But in the first years the power was .1lmost uniquely present in the book itself. "l11e lord began to work for his Church," writes Foxe, "not with sword ·'"''

ThD Wor,t of God m the Age of A1e.chanicol RtprorliJr.tl'ou

target to subdue His exalted adversary, but with printing, writing and reading. . . . How many printing presses there be in the world, so many blockhouses there be against the high castle of St Angelo, so that either the pope must abolish knowledge and printing or printing at length will root him out.'' 64 The Bible has displaced the consensus fidelium as the principle of intelligibility and the justification of all action: "Without God's word do nothing" (330).•• The authority of God's word is assured by the i1111er experietwe of God's word; the true interpretation of Scripture is made possible by the feeling faith of the beli ever•• More, like all Catholic apologists, argued that we arc bound "to give diligent hearing, fim1 credence, and faithful obedience to the Chu rch of ChriQl conce_rnins the sense and undcrvtnnd ins of holy

Scripture, not doubting but since he hath commanded his sheep to be fed, he hath provlded for them wholesome meat and true doctrine."•' If we waver in this acceptance of the Church's hermeneutic authority, we will be plunged into uncertainty and doubt, for how else can we know that the Scripture comes from God? Tyndale's most eloquent and radical reply to this question came three years after the Obedience, in his Anstuer to Sir Tltomas More's Dialog11e: "Who taught the eagles to spy out their prey? Even so the children of God spy out their Father; and Christ's elect spy out their Lord, and trace out the paths of his feet, and foUow; yea, though he go upon the plain and liquid water, which will receive no step, and yet there they find out his foot.""" ln response, More tried. with several jokes, to dissipate the fo1-ce of this vision and, more seriously, to expose its violence; the Scripllu·e is the herct·ics' prey, "to spoil and kill and devour it as t·hcy list, even by the special inspiration of God ."G9 But Tyndale fully intended the violence of his metaphors; a Christian does not need elaborate training to understand God's word; he seizes upon it, by instinct, for his very survival. Tyndale thus is able to reject the mediation of the Church and its tradition; the individual has sufficient means within his own conscience to grasp the truth of God's word as revealed in Scripture. ln response to this challenge, Catholic apologists tend to affum an increasingly external authority, but it is important to note that the sharp opposition which thus emerged is historically misleading. For, as we have seen, it is precisely the Church that had, over several centuries, slowly developed and endched the inner life of the individual, as a locus of its power, a means of discipline and consolation. Rcfon11crs like Tyndale are attempting, In effect, a seizure of power.

99

100

CHA.rTBR

TWO

With the 1525 translation of lhe New Testament and the 1530 translation of the Pentateuch-the first five books of the Old Tcstament-Tyndale took wh,lt he felt were the essential steps toward this seizure that he, of cou rse, conceived as the triumph of Cod's word. Bu t even in 1525 he recognized that a read ing alone, withou t any instruction as t·o l•ow to read the Bible, might not be sufficient. Most of h is subseq uent writings may be u ndc•'Stood as allempts to p rovide s uch insln•ction and to clear away im· pediments; for Tyndale a ll human enterprises rest ultimately on the fate of reading. Thus, in its long concluding sec1ions, U1e Olledi· c11ce turns from an analysis of the responsibilities of rulers and subjects to an attack on the four-fold method of scriptur,u interpretation, an attack mounted in the name of what Tyndale calls "the Utera.L sense." Tyntinlp'c; nntinn of thP litPra l sense by no

mea ns a mounts to a coherent theory of interpretation; more often than not it is merely a stick to beat a reading he dislikes. But it •·eflccted an d no doub t sll·engthened certni n te ndencies that proved immensely influcntinl not only in. the reading of Scripture but in the reading and writing of imaginative literature in this period and beyond. In the first place, and perhaps most important, Tyndale's "literal sense" is the expression of a powerfulcoujide11ce: it is easy to understand Scripture, its meaning lies directly in front of us, competing interpretations are perverse mystifications. There is no need oi advanced degrees, the mastery of difficult languages, the juggling of arcane symbolisms, prodigious memory, an ex· pensive library; the tm th is as accessible to a shoemaker as to a theologian, per haps more accessible, for the latter has been poisoned by p
The Word uf Cmllu the Age -of Meclltmicol ReprodurJiorr

talking serpent, you might just as well "sing of the image of clay made by Prometheus, or of fire stolen from heaven by subtlety and put into the image to give life to the clay." 70 And if Erasmus thus struggles rather poignantly with the palpably fictional appearance of certain books of the Bible, with the disturbing resemblance to pagan myths of origin, he struggles equally with the purely historical appearance of other books: "What difference is there whether thou read the book of Kings o r of the Judges in the Old Testament, or else the history of Titus Livy us, so thou have respect to the all egory nere nother [i.e., if you look at the veiled meaning in neither]? For in the o ne, that is to say Titu9 Livyus, be many things wnich wou ld amend the common manners; In the other be son'le thins,s, yea. ungod.Jy as they seean dl lla~ li a.::tl lvuk_j ng; on,

wh ich also H they be understood superficially should hurt good manners" (147). The solutio1\ to the problem is to discard "the rind or out·er part" of Scripture and nourish oneself on the allegory. One cannot uncover these mysteries by means of one's own mind, but only by a "known and certain craft" which is taught in works like the Pseudo-Dionysius's De diuilms nominiblls. Erasmus may have preached a simple "philosophy of Christ," available to fools and wise men alike, but the place to acqujre this philosophy was clearly not the literal sense of the Bible. By contrast, Tyndalc insists, as we have seen, that the most readily access ible sense of Scripture is always the heart of the meaning: "There is no story nor gest, seem it never so simple or so vlle unto the world, but that thou shalt find therein spirit and life and edifying in the literal sense" (3J9). Even he is forced to acknowledge thor Uu! Scl'ipture uses "proverbs, s imilltudcs, rid dles, or all egori~s. as all other speeches do," but the meaning of these devices "is ever the literal sense" (304). From the examples he proceeds to give, it appears tllat by the "literal sense" here Tyndale means a clear, moral lesson or principle of faith that is openly stated elsewhere in the Bible. Allegorical interpretation is permissible if it is a self-conscious and provisional process, with no inherent claim to trutlt: "allegories are no sense of the Scripture, but free things besides the Scripture, and altogether in the liberty of the Spirit" (305). By themselves, "allegories prove nothing" and can make no more claim upon our faith than any fiction: "ii I could not prove w1th an open text that whlch the allegory doth express, then were the allegory a thlng to be jested at, nnd of no great
101

102

CHAI'1'1tJt

TWO

reader, for such indirect or metaphorical speech "doth print a thing much deeper in the wits of a man than do th a pla in speaking, and leaveth behind him as it were a sting to prick him forward, and to awake him withal" {306). The third major effect of Tyndale's insistence on the "literal sense" follows directly from this view: an emphasis on the rhetorical nature of Scripture. Nowhere is the influence of humanism on the early Protestants clearer. The Bible is not a vast network of occult signs but a divine work of persuasion, designed to strengthen the reader's faith and to deter him from evil. Thus, for example, the render should concern himself less with the ultimate, abstract significance of a word U1an with its function in a particular, highly specific context: " A serpent figureth Chrisl in one place, and U1c devil m another; and il llvn Joth likewioc" (208). The meaning of key words is established not by institutional definition but by the reader's grasp of context: "if this word collgregntion were a more general term than th is word church, it hurtcth not, for the drcumstance doth ever declare what thing is meant thereby." More replies that if this is so, Tyndale may translate any word as he wishes: "For so he may translate the world into ~ football if he join therewith certain dt·curnstances, a nd say this round rolling football that men walk upon and ships sail upon, in the people whereof there is no rest nor stability, and so forth a g.·eat long tale; with such circumstances he might as I say m~ke any word undcrstanden as it like himself, whatsoever the word before signified of itself." 71 Jn the controversial wotks this argument leads o nly to a re· affirmation of familiar positions: for Tyndale, a willingness to have his translation improved upon by others, provided they submit themselves to God's word; fo1· More, a conviction that "good Christian men, " perceiving the heretical intent of the translation, should "abhor and bum up his books and likers of them with them." 12 But the effect on the translation itself ofTyndale's interest in "circumstance" and in rJtetorical power is more significant; it is reAectcd in the clarity of the narrative, its impress ive coherence, its commitment to the constant engaging of the reader's ready understanding: The e lde1· brother was in the fie ld, and when he came and drew nigh to the house, he heard minstrelsy and d.1ncing and called one of his servants and asked what those things meant. And he sa id unto him: thy brother i~ come, and thy f.1ther had ldllctl the f:11lcd calf, be''""c he ho1th rece•ved him safe and sound And he was

Tlu• Word of Cod in lht Agt of .M.tdta"ical Rcwodud;o,

angry, and would no t go in. Then came his father out and cntreilted him. He answered and said to his father: Lo these many years have I done thee service, neither break at any Hme thy commandment, and yet gavest thou me never so much as a kid to make merry with my lovers: but as soon as this lhv son was come, which hath devoured thy goods with harlots, thou hast for his p leasure killed the fatted calf. And he said unto him: Son, thou was ever with me, and all that I have is thine: it was meet that we should make merry and be glad: for this thy bmther was dead •nd is •live aga in: and was lost, and is found . (Luke 15:2~32)73 O ur familiarity with the Authorized Version, which, as always, follows Tyndnle quite closely, may inhibi t our grasp of Tyndale's remarkable advance in simple, loving eloquence-in "openness"-over the Wycliffite translation.s . The second Wycliffite version, for example, renders the close of verse 29, "and thou never gave to me a kid: that ! with my friends should have eat." The Authorized Version loses in intensity what it gains in accuracy: "and yet thou never gavest me a kid, that I might make merry with my friends." Tyndale's interest in "circumstance" is reflected still more closely in his conviction that the reader must be sensitive to the naturol order of a text, even one that does not tell a story, and must not jumble the beginning and the end . God's word cannot be cut and spliced; to do so, indeed, can be dangerous, as Tyndalc, following Lu ther, explains in the Prologue to Romans. The " unquiet, busy, a nd hig h-climbing" s pirit that rushes to chapters 9-l l o f Pau l's epistle ht the hope of understanding predestination runs the risk of falling in to despa ir. Only when the reader has fuUy experienced the meaning of the first seven chapters is he ready for the eighth, which, in tum, is the necessary introduction to those that follow: "After that, when thou art come to the eighth chapter, and art under the cross and suffering of tribulation, the necessity of predestination will wax sweet, and thou shalt well feel how precious a thing it is. For except thou have born the cross of adversity and temptation, and hast felt thyself brought unto the very brim of desperation, yea, and unto hell-gates, thou canst never meddle with the sentence of predestination without thine own harm, and without secret wrath a nd grudging inwardly against Cod; for otherwise it sha ll not be possible for thee to think tha t God is l'ighteous a nd just." 7·• The order of the reading experience is a UImportant; the chnpte•·s bave been a rranged rhetol'ically to pro· Juce ~s~cnti,tl psychologica l effects which arc at the same time

103

104

CHAPT$:~

1'W0

doctrinal truths. TI1e.re is a kind of historicity and narrativity built into the experience of faith through the act of reading: by following the text in its proper sequence, the reader reenacts in his own spirit the passage from the Old Testament to the New, from the law that kills to God's free gift of grace. This sense of necessary sequence marks much of Tyndalc's prose and distinguishes it sharply from More's. The Co11{utnfio11 of Ty~~tlnlc's A11swa, as More acknowledges in responding to his el)emies, is a lmost unreadable; the brethren, he writes irt the Apology, complain tha t his work is too long "and therefore tedious to rend." MoJ·e 1ustifie• this e laphantine text on the pn ,·adoxical gmund that many of his readers woul.;! grow weary in the attempt to rend a long book, "and therefore h•we I token the more pa in upnn PV<'JY chapter, to the in tent that they shall not need to read over any chapter but one, and that it shall not force greatly which one throughout all the book." There is no need to read the book through or to read its chapters in sequence; More's goal rather is to compile an encyclopedia of antiheretical arguments, but a strange kind of encyclopedia, since its ultimate aim is to be unnecessary, unread : "Now he that will therefqre read any one chapter, either at adventure, or else some chosen piece in whim himself had weened [i.e., thought] that his evangelical fatherTyndale had said wonderful well, . .. when he shall in that chapter as I am sure he shall, find hJs holy prophet plainly proved a fool, he may be soon eased of any further labor. For then hath he good cause to cast him quite off, and never meddle more with hi m, ~nd then shall he never need to (cad more of my book neithe r, and so shall he make it short enough." 75 It is crucially important for More to demolish the texts of lhc RefoMTlers, while not crucially important to pu t his own text in their place. Hence the odd sense of the disposabiUty of More's discourse; his work longs to disappear, to cede place to multiple voices, to tradition and ultimately to the institution as lhe Jiving expression of the Christian consensus. More's commitment to the disappearance of his text paradoxically commits him to an endless text. He cannot allow his controversial works to possess foMTl, because forrn would grant to tbe heretics a narr.ltive coherence, • "free-standing" perspective that More denies. If More's controversial writings want to be ab•orbed back intn the community, Tyndale's can perhaps be thought to cede place too, but on ly to another, superior, and finnlly irreducible text Where in More the text must always give way to the institution Ihat lie~ beh ind it and cnn lrols in lorprctntiOn, in 1'yndnle the text

li1e 11\'Did of Cod 1'n tlte Agt of Muhnr~ital Rtpro,1tlCII'ou

strives to establish itself beyond interpretation as the personal history of the individual reader: "Then go to and read the stories of the Bible for thy learning and comfort, and see every thing practised bc(ore thine eyes; for according to those ensamples sh.1ll it go with thee and all men until the world's end.'' 7• The rhetorical force of the Bible depends upon the reader's grasp of the stories in their full narrative power and upon the preS(/1/11(55 of the language. Where the first Wycliffite translation had striven for the li tera l sense in an a lmost totemic way-that is, preserving the Latin word ordc1· Ql the expense of English syn tax- Tyndale follows Wycliffe's disciple, )ohn Pttrvey, in the attempt to re nder Scripture in what the latter called "open" English. 71 The mot·e ''open" the lc·x l, the

le.,~

dependent upon an lr\sti tutio i',Ql inter-

pretatio n. More himself, we shou ld add , did no t object to the rhetoricru force of Tyndale's translation, nor did he or the clerical au thorities oppose on principle an English Bible. But approval of such a project, they argued, would have to wait until the heresy was crushed and the authority of the Church reaffirmed. Tyndale's Bible was hateful to More not because it was in English but because its "false" translations and its glosses lured men to their destruction, while Tyndale himself watched from the safety of the Continent. After all, unlike many of those who were shaped by Tile Obedie11ce of n Cllristinu Mn11, Tyndale did not passively suffer the conseque nces of disobedience; a t every point in his career when his views threatened to bring down upon !tim the rage of authority, he chose to move in search of less constra ining, less menacing circumstances where he could pursue !tis wot-k. In 1523, t•u nn ing afoul of hi s clerical s upe1i o rs in Little Sodbury where, on leaving the universi ty, he had gone to teach, Tyndale did not simply submit. "When I came before the chancellor [of the Gloucestershire d iocese]." he bi tterly recalls, "he threatened me grievously, and reviled me, and rated me as though 1 had been a dog." In the midst of this humiliation, Tyndale remembered that the bishop of London had been pr.liscd for his learning: "Then thought I, if I might come to this man's service, f were happy. And so I gal me to London." 18 And when the bishop of London, More's friend Tunsta ll , refused to help, Tyndale betook himself into exile, from whence he nooded England with his words and the words of Scripture. r low d id he reconcile his social ethic and his actions? The answer seems to lie in his reply to Cromwell's agent, Stephen Vnugh nn, who tried to persuade him to return to England, s ubmit h imself " to the obedJence and good o J·dct• of the

105

106

C11AJ'TER

TWO

world," and ttust in the king's men:y. "I assure you," Vaughan reports Tyndale as saying, "if it would stand with the King's most gracious pleasure to grant only a bare text of the Scripture to be put forth among his people, tiki! as is put forth among the subjects of the Emperor in these parts, and of other Christian princes, be it of the translation of what pcrso11 soever shaJJ please his Majesty, I sha ll immediately make failhful promise never to write more, nor abide two days in these parts alter the same; but im1nediately to repair into his realm, and there most humbly submit myself at the feet of his RoyaJ Majesty, offering my body to suffer what pain or torture, yea, what death his Grace will, so that this be obtained.""' The mission of putting forth the Scripture in the vernacular has priority over everything else in his Life including his social ethic; let such a translation freely circulate and he will, in effect, cease to exist. He wiUfall silent, he will die. And in a sense his own life, as something a utonomous, something he possessed, had already ceased to exist. It had been fu lly absorbed in his greo t· project. According to a plausible if suspiciously prophetic account in Foxe, Tyndale first expressed that project at the height of an argument with a learned divine who had declared, "We were better to be without God's Jaws than the Pope's." Tyndale replied, "I defy the Pope and all his laws. If God spare my life, ere many years I will cause a boy that driveth the plough shall know more of the Scripture than thou doest." 80 The words are strikingly reminiscent of the hope Erasmus expressed in 1516 in the Pnrnclesis, the preface to his Greek and Latin edition of the New Testament: "1 dis1>gree ve1-y much with those who are unwilli ng tha t l'loly Scriptu,·e, translated into the vu lgM tongue be read by the uneducated .... 1 would that even the lowliest women read the Gospels and the Pauline Epistles. And 1 would that they were translated into all languages so that they could be read and understood not only by Scots and Irish but also by Turks and Saracens .... Would that, as a result, the farmer sing some portion of them at the plow, the weaver hum some parts of them to the movement of his shuttle, the traveller lighten the weariness of the journey with stories of thi s kind["8 1Tyndale may indeed have conceived his project from thi s vision of Erasmu~; have we not· just witnessed the way a man's whole sense of himself may be shaped by anot·her's words? But we rnll$t also note the vast difference betweC1'! Erasmus'~ "Wou ld that" and Tynda le's "I will cause," a difference com· pounded of the intertwining connicts between generations, temperaments, and cultures. What Erasmus is willing to express as ,, wi•h. Tyndale puts as his pt•rsonal mission.

·nu Word of Cod in Ore A&e of M(dtat~icat Re,,oduciiM

107

The mission is conceived in anger and rebellion and expressed with a considerable sense of self-importance. "I defy the Pope, and all his laws," the obscure, powerless country priest grandly declares, and the inflated sense of personal significance canies over to the vaunt that follows. We may glimpse this egotism throughout his subsequent career, in his stinging attacks on the character and competence of his fellow workers William Roy and George Joye, in his increasing defensiveness about the validity of his own translation; but, significantly, all of its manifestations are closely ,·elated to his mission as translator. Though he insists on the interiol"ity of fai th, we have at the end of hi s work YC1y litUe sense of his presence, ofpersounl suffering and redemption. The mos t intimate onccdote in h:is wriling·.s is the account

or hJs

un·

successful attempt to acquire Tunstall's patronage for the ions labor of translation. Tyndale published the 1525 New Testament anonymously and claims that he would have continued this practice-for Christ "exhorteth men (Matt. 6) to do their good deeds secretly"-had he not been compelled to dislinguish his own work from the scurrilous work o£ his former associate Roye.n Unlike Luther, Tyndale never gives us a sense of inner depth, of the powerful imprint of his own experience, of the eUect of others upon his consciousness; what he gives us is a voice, the voice of the English Bible. Our sense of supreme eloquence in English is still largely derived from Tyndale-attempts at sublimity in our language tend to be imitations, most often unconscious and freq uently inept, of the style of the English Bible-and he seems to have accornpiJshcd this remarkable achievement by transforming his whole self Into that voice. Tyndale's is a life Hved as a project. When, in n Jetter of advice and com.fort to john Frith, he reflects on his own career, he th inks exclusively of his relationship to God's Word: "I call God to record against the day we shall appear before our Lord Jesus, to give a reckoning o( our doings, that I never altered one syllable of God's Word against my conscience, nor would this day, if all that is in the earth, whether it be pleasure, honour, or riches, might be given me."" Having made this assertion and disturbed perhaps by its element of pride, he follows, a few sentences later, with an unconvincing expression of humility: "God hath made me evilfavoured in this world, and without grace in the sight of men, speechless and rude, dull and slow-witted." This little exercise in self-denigration does not matter; !tis ego is fu lly rea lized in the work as translator. It is of this work that he still thinks at the close of his li fo.

II

108

CHAPTER TWO

In 1535 Tyndale. who was living with an English merchant in Antwerp, was lured Jrom the saiety of his house by one Henry Phillips, a ITcacherous Englishman who claimed to be a fellow Protestant, and betrayed into the h.1nds of the Catholic au· thorities .... Accused of heresy, Tyndalc was imprisoned for over a year, awaiting his trial, at Vilvorde Castle, near Brussels. From thls period of imprisonment, there survives a Latin letter he wrote to the governor of the castle; the prisoner requests warmer clothes, but, above all, he continues, "T beg and beseech your clemency to be urgent with the commissary, that he will kind ly permit me to have my Hebrew Bible, Hebrew Grammar, and Hebrew Oictio· na•y. thntl may pass my time in that study."85 As Balnham seems to have thought of himself as Saint Peter, Tyndalc quite possibly is thinking h~re of Saint Paul, who asked , in his <econd epi
T!11'

Wont of Cod iu Jhe Agt of Muhnuie"RI Rtprod.,ctlou

cntel and vena l politician who had sold his SeJVices to the highest bidder; More thought Tyndale an immoral madman. There can scarcely be any doubt that More would have worked actively to bring about the execution of Tyndale as he had worked actively to bring about his capture; there is little question that Tyndale would have celebrated More's execution as a blow stntck against an agent of the Antichrist. Wit!\ his famous genius for friendships, and b rilli ant wit, his comp lex balance between council chamber and clo ister, law COllft a nd scholar's study, Parliam en t and family, More's life seems richer a nd fuller than Tyndalc's, who lly given over to the sing le-mi nd ed p ursuit of the En glish Scripture. But eleven mon ths ofte r Tyndale's death, the English Bibl(,'esocntinlly Ty•>J dlt:'> Di !Jk-wa~ lt:t;ally a uthorized In a n England wh ose king had been declared Supreme Head of the nationa l chu rch. For all the v io lent division, however, there are certain significant similari ties between More and Tyndale. Though he was comfortable with ceremony and defended it in print, the heart of More's faith was not ritual practice but a spirit of communion that manifested itself at once in inner assurance and a virtuous life. For his part, Tyndale, though deeply influenced by Luther, was never completely at home in Lutheran theology and, it has been argued, in the course of his career moved steadily awny from it. He did not, to be sure, soften hi s hatred of the Catholic Church, b u t his increasing com mi tment to the law, to mora lity as the fulfillment of the contract between Cod a nd man, led h in> s urprisingly close to the position of Catholics like More or Co le t. •• Th e movement may be ill ustrateQ by o characte ristic example of the cha nges Tyn dale mad e between the Prologue to the 1525 New Testa me n t· a nd 1530 revisio n of that prologue p•inted separately as The Pntltwny to tile Script11re. Me•1 of right faith, he writes, " have delectation in the law (notwithstanding that they cannot fulfill it [as they would] for their weakness); and U>ey abhor whatsoever the law forbiddeth, though they cannot [always] avoid it." 89 The words in brackets were added in 1531 and radically change the meaning: the first version More would have abhorred as heretical, the second he might almost himself have written. The link here between the two e nemi es, Catholic and Reformer, is human ism. More, to be sure, came to feel very u neasy about his own and Erasm us's early works, while Tyndale harsh ly condemns "all the moral vi1·tue o f Aristotle, Plato, and Socrates" as p ride abon>l nablc to Cod . All the sa me, both men conti n ue l'h rougho ul thci1· careers to b~ deeply inOuenced by l'he Ch ristian humanists'

109

110

CBAPTB,_

TWO

preoccupation with rigl•tliving. "It is better to will the good lhan to know the truth," Petrarch had written,'"' and this conviction makes itself felt even ln the midst of intense theological controversies. At the same time, More and Tyndale share certain ambiguous feelings about even virtuous and moral living in the world. This is easier to see in More, with his sense of the way good men may be manipulated and his still deeper sense-Augustinian in character-of a fundamental chasm between the city of man a nd the city of God. This chasm makes even U1e most v irtuous man fulfilling h is duties to the best of his ability seem like a n actor on a stage, lifelik~ but nevertheless a t a fundame ntal distance from reality. Tyndale seems far removed fro m this sensibility; but, in fact, no sooner has he woven hi,; h;Prnrrhy of authorities. each ordained by God and standing in the place of God, than he begins to unravel it again, until it vanishes altogether: "In Christ there is neitiler father nor son, neither master nor servant, neither hus· band nor w ife, neither king nor subject: but tile father is the son's self, and the son the father's own self; and the king is the su bject's own self, and the subject ls the king's own self; and so forth, I an1 thou tilyself, a nd thou are J myself, and can be no nearer of kln" (Obedience, 296). Of course, such a total coUapse of identity is only "in Christ"; in the temporal world, the distinctions still hold. But thls neat resolution is more apparent than real, because, after all, Christ and the temporal world are not simple opposites. Christ had a historical reality, on which Tyndale insists; we pray to him, and try to fu lfill h is commands in this world; the m an who th in ks tha t his order and the world's order nre e ntirely separate and dls· tinct is foolish or evil or b oth. What then is the relationship be· tween the utterly sanctified roles-father, master, king-and the obliteration of these roles? Precisely none. At times, social iden· tities seem as fixed and inHexible as granite; at times, they shim mer like a mlrage. This ambigu ity deepens whe n we consider the complex clia lect i<· of exlema] man ifesta t·io n and inne r conviction in Tyndale, a di· a lectic already g limpsed in the story of Bainhrun. On the on e hand, all that matters is the justifying faith; on the other, that faith in evitably and irresistibly blossoms in works in tile world. 'Ill~ ab· sence of such works is a clear sign that the faith is merely feigned or imagined, but by tilemselves works are worthless, no m.lll<•r how virtuous they may appear in the world's eyes. To be s url', mos t ofte n in Protestant writings, these " works" divide them selves into two qui te different categories: the wor·ks nf l'he hypo• ~riles tend tn b<• cultic observan<'l·~· prodir;ious numbers uf Alii'

11rr Word of God ln lite Age of MtcJrarricpl RtprodtWtou

Marias recited or candles bumed or fasts undertaken-whi le the works of the elect tend to be acts of kindness or generosity or compassion. But lhe distinction is by no means absolute or reliable; Tyndale goes out of hls way to condemn the classical moral virtues when pursued for their own sake and to assert that actions which seem worthless or evll in the world's eyes-even robbery and murder-may in fact be the fulfillment of God's commandments and the manifestation of true faltb. This position, which horrified More, paradoxically provides the setti ng fo r the deepest link between himseU and Tyndale, for it drives Tyndnle to a n i ntensc need for someth ing external to him self in \vhich h e could to tally merge h is id entity. We have ah·eady SPPn how M n t('l

w.1~

d rawn to ~u ch a mPrgPr, w h irh hr chrn.·ac ..

teris ticnlly conce ived as an i d entificatio n 'vith an institution o r COJ\Sensus. Tyndale, of course, defied lhe existing chu rch, reviled monasticism, and ridiculed Utopia, but he committed himself wilh passionate totalism to God's Word as manifested in the Bible. Human actions by themselves are always problematical; they must constantly be referred to an inner state that must, nonetheless, be experienced as the irresistible operation of a fon:e outside the self, indeed alien to tl1e self. The man of faith is seized, destroyed, and made new by God's Word. He gives up hls resistance, his irony, his sense of his own shapiJlg powers, and experiences instead the absolute certainty of a total commitment, a b indi ng, irrevocable covenant. ForTyndale, the Mosaic law, with the exception of certain CLtltic practices, formed the very core of thls covenan t w hich the New Te~tament enabled man to fulfi ll . And this contract: was equaJiy bind ing on God a nd man: a ll scriptural promises, Tyndale writes in the prologue to the 1534 Pentateuch, "include a convenant: that is, God bindeth himself to fulfill that men:y unto thee on ly ii thou wi lt endeavour thyself to keep his laws."•' The Bible then is the point of absolute, unwavering contact between God and man, lhe written assurance that God will not be arbitrary, the guarantee that human destiny is not ruled merely by chance, cunning, or force. It provides for Tyndale what lhe Chun:h provides for More: not simply a point of vantage but a means to absorb the ambiguities of identity, the individual's mingled egotism and selfloathing, into a larger, redeeming certainty. For More, to be s ure, the assurance rests in an institution, while forTyndalc it rests in a snc•·ed text llluminalcd by falth, but both ach ieve guaran teed acCC$S to a truth that lies beyond indiv idual or ~ociol construction, beyond doubt o •· •-ebeilion. 1 he spiritu.11v iolence that marks this achievement in both More

111

lll

CHArTtR

TWO

and Tyndale no doubt reflects the harsh temper of the age and the convict ion that the immortal souls of thousands of fellow Christians hung in U>e balance, but it may also be viewed in the ron text of the urgent need to discipline certain impulses highly characteristic of each of them. The appeal of the total institution to More is in direct proportion to all the elements in his personality and career that pull against such an institution: his complex subversive irony, his sense of role-playing, his playful imagination. Thes~ elements nrc not crushed in More's later caree r, but they are split and reorganized, transformed and absorbed so that it takes a scholarly effort to recognize the author of lito pin in the author of the Coufrttntimt . There is no comparable shift in Tyndale, and C. S. Le wis can e ven speak of "the beautiful, cheerful integrJtion" of hi s world. 02 But though it is quite true that Tyndalc u tterly denies the medieval distinction between religion nnd secular life that con tinued to haunt More, Tyndale's rebelliousness, rejection of institutions, and fierce independence exist more in nervous alliance than cheerful integration with his affinnalion o( the ab· solute authority of the Bible. U !'e seems at moments to set himself against the whole established order of things, if he exalts "sure feeling" over "historical faith," if he asserts that "the kingdom of heaven is within us:' 93 he is saved from the most disturbing and radical implications of such positions by his sense of the inflexible and external compulsion of the Jaw, the absolutcotlremess of God's word . He Is saved too from the imagination. For just as More ch arged that the Protestants had fashioned an unr-eal chu1-ch out of the ir own fevered imagina tion, 1'yndale charactetistically r·everses the ch arsc and nsserts that at the hea rt of tl1e Ca tholic Ch urch-which at first seems too alien and external to man- there is nothing else than man's own imagination idolatrously worshiped. TI>e same Church that forbids laymen to read Scripture in their own Jan· guage permits them to Tead "Robin Hood, and Bevis of Hampton, Hercules, I lector, and Troilus, with a thousand histories and fa· bles of love and wantonness, and of ribaldry, as filthy as heart can think."'" The same Church that conspires against the saving faith of Christ enjoins its members "to build an abbey of thine own imaginat ion, trusting to be saved by the feigned works of h.ypo· crites.""The Church is comfortable with such corruptions, since its own essence is fiction. As soon as they acquired worldly power, the spir·i tuality "gave themselves only until poetry, and shut I(P the Scri pturc."'16 The n1ass~ penance, confession to a priesl, pur.. gal01y, lndul~;ences, all are works of the hum~ n imagination

T11r Word of Cod irr tlu.• Age of J.1~dlnnical Rfproducll'ou

tricked out to appear divine. Thus in choosing More, the pope and his agents "did well to choose a poet to be their dcfender." 91 But ultimately, all the mummery and poetry wiD be brought low, for nothing, Tyndale writes in the Obedie11ce, "bringeth the wrath of God so soon and so sore on a man. as the idolatry of his own imagination" (292). To a reader who believes, as I do, that all religious practices and beliefs are the product of the human imagination, these charges have a melancholy and desperate sound. It is as if the great crisis in the Church had forced into the consciousness of Catholics and Protestants ali ke the wrenchi11g possibili ty that their theological system was a fictiona l Collstruction; that fhe whole, vast edifice of church and state 1-est·ed o n certam imagina•y postulates; that social hierarchy, the distribution of property, sexual and poHtical o rd er bore no guaran teed corresondence to the actual structure of the cosmos. "God Is not man's imagination," Tyndale declared, but there was a time when such a declaration would have seemed unnecessary and absurd. To be sure, this is spoken against the Catholics; it is their faith that is damnable idolatry, just as More charged that it was the Protestant church that was to be found only in the realm of man's imagination. But the extreme violence on both sides exists precisely so as to deny the contaminating presence of the imagination-of human making-in one's own beliefs. Only by destroying the other will one assure the absolute reality and necessity of the order to which one has subm i.ttcd oneself and hence fu lly justify this submission. Tyndale in the Ol1edieuce and elsewhere saw the exist ing church as a conspiracy of Lhe rich agai.nst the poor, the educated against the ignorant, the priestly caste against the laymen. More In Utopia saw the existing sta le as o rg.l.nized, respectable robbery, "n kind of conspiracy of the rich, who are aiming at their own in terests under the name and title of the commonwealth." Between them, they undermined the two great pWars of the European social order from feudal times, exposing their pretensions to divine s.1nction as mere ideology, ridiculing their attempts at mystification, insisting on their human origin and their material interests. If we stand back for a moment from the fierce quarrel between More and Tyndale and view them together, they suggest a radical and momentous social crisis: the disintegration of the stable world order, the desocramcntalizotion of church and state, the subversive perception of the role of 1'11c mind, and specifically the imagination, in the creation of opp1·ess lve institutions. Sharing these perceptions, ,, Cod- haun ted ,·evolutionary li.ke Thomas Mtintzcr will l"l?Spond

ll3

1l4

CHAl'TJI. R

T ..... O

by atlempting to destroy both church and state, to liberate men from their oppressors and usher in the millennium; More and Tyndale, on the contrary, both search ever more insistently for a new basis of control, more powerful and total than the one they have helped to undermine. They seck to order their own lives and with them the physical and spiritual lives of all men. They struggle, in the words of Saint Paul, to cast down "imaginations, and every high thing thatexalteth itself against the knowledge of God" and to bring "into captivity evety thought to the obedience of Christ" (2 Cor. 10:~5). Both More and Tyndale die in the attempt.

T

H

R

E

E

Power, Sexuality, and Inwardness in Wyatt's Poetry

There is no translation that is not at the same time an interpreta· lion. This conviction, stamped indelibly in the mind by the fact that men went to the slake in the early sixteenth century over the rendering of certain Greek and Latin words into English, lies at the heart of virtually all of Wyatt's translations, never more so than in his version of the penitential psalms-the traditional grouping of psalms 6, 32, 38, 51, 102, 130, and 14-3-that were, in the climate of the 1530s and '10s, essentially and unavoidably controversial.' Rejecting the t-elatively mild formu lations of his major con tempo· rary sources, Wyatt captures the authentic voice of ea rly English Protestanti sm, its mingled humility a nd milllancy, its desire to subm it without in termediary directly to Cod's wi ll, and above all its inwardness.' Where the Vulgate stiU clearly speaks M t·he close of the 51st psalm of a lustorical Zion and jerusalem, where John Fisher, the martyred Catholic bishop of Rochester whose devotional work Wyall had before him, speaks of the "heavenly city of the Church Triumphant," Wyatt speaks, in words of his own invention, of "Inward Sion, the Sion of the ghost" and of the "heart's Jerusalem."' He thus heightens the significance of the psalmist's refusa! to offer outward sacrifices, a refusal grounded on the conviction that God "delightest not in no such gloze I Of outward deed os men dream and devise" (498-99). The last clause is a lso Wyatt's add ition .1nd serves to distinguish, in the manner of Tynclale ond Luther, between the idolatrous worship of the producl'$ of Ihe h~1 mon imagination and t11e true inwardness of faith. 4 My initia l pu1·posc in thls chapter will be to exam ine the extent• t·o which the in l ~tlsc l11w.1rdness Wyatt voices in the pcnilcnlinl 115

116

CHAPTI!R

THKEH

psalms is brought into being by the forces sketched in the preceding chapter. Unlike More, Wyatt has no s upreme consensus, set apart from royal power and made visible in an enduring institution, that absorbs into itseU all individual voices and confers ultimate meaning on human lives. But unlike Tyndale, Wyatt does not give himseU over entirely to the Word : theological selffashioning-the power of the book over identity-cannot be long separated from secular self-fashioning-the power of sexual and political struggles at court. The church in England has become an adjunct of the s tate, and a discussion of Wyatt's psalms will be drawn iJ·rcsislibly from the presentation of the self in the court of God to the presentation of the self in the cou rt of 1-lenry VITI, that is, to the court lyrics. With these and the sati res, we move decisively away from t·he t•eligious context that governed inwardness in More and Tyndale. Indeed it is likely tha t even in the presence of God, Wyatt casts a nervous glance at the king; the two irascible autocrats seem, in any case, to bear a striking resemblance to each other. We must not, however, pass too quickly to a sense of the immediate occasion, biographical or more broadly historical, of Wyatt's poetry, even in its most intimate moments. Though Wyatt gives it both a personal and markedly Protestant cast, the inwardness of the penitential psalms is by no means either his own innova tion or the invention of the early sixteenth-century Reformers. lt is embedded in l:he poems themselves, which n(c among the most influential expressions of soul-sickness in the JudeaChristian tradition. They speak of s tain and cleansing, guilt and redemption; they address a God who "desirest truth in the inward pal"ls" (51:6); they cry out from isolation and persecution and express an intimate longing, fear, and b·ust. Inwardness, to be su,·e, is not their only dimension: they express an intense fear of physical assault, unmerited when it comes from malicious enemies, all too justified when it comes from God. But the body's pain is inseparable (rom the pain of the "heart": an insupportable dread, a sense of worthlessness and insignificance, a tormenting awareness of having ruptured a personal bond essential to life itself Likewise, there are expressions of a communal, indeed specifically national character, particularly at the close of psalm l30, but th,, conccms of the whole society are reached only by way of th~ ind ividual; tht! primon:Ual peni tential experience lakes p lace .1t the level of the isolated, s uffering soul. Th is soul m.1y be said. or cou rse, lo e mbody l1umanity as a w hole, but s uch rc~>rcsentativ<' status unly heightens the importance of t·hc individ ual.• The

Potoer, St•,tunlity, amllmvnrdness i1f Wyatr.:; Pot:try

psalms enact not a communal confession of sin, a gu ilt born by the entire community and pt~rged by a shared ritual of absolution, but an unmistakably persoua/ crisis of consciousness. It is the individual, cut off from his ki nsmen and foUowers, who acknowledges his fault and suffers divine chastisement. And if this chastisement bears eloquent witness to the otherness of God before whom and agaiusl whom one has sinned, it is felt at the same lime as the lash of conscience, the secret sense of g ui lt in the innermost reaches of one's being.• Taken together, as they appear to h~ve been for centuries, the penitential psalms seem to express not c:mly powerful sta tes of defilement, sin, and guilt and the complementary longing for cleansing, forgiveness, and redemption but a movement, a psychological and moral pattern, which other men can experience-reenact- in their own lives. The movement may be likened to the course of an illness in which the initial onslaught is followed by a brief remission, then succeeded by progressively graver assaults and remissions until an int~nse crisis is experienced and passed, whereupon ~he disease slowly wanes. Bach of the psa lms thus expresses a version of the whole, but in graded degrees of intensity and elaboration; the movement is at once •·epelitive and linear. Such considerations have far more than formal, aesthetic importance, fur these poems bear a powerflll functiona l significance from a very early date; they constitute, in effect, a dynamic mold, one of the models by which men organize their experience. As the Church's penitential system develops, this paltem becomes insti tutiona lized, prescriptive. Thus in a canon from the monk Regina's Ecclesiastical Discipli11c (ca. 906), the bishop is instructed to lead the penitents into the church, where " prostrate upon U1e floor, he shall chant with tears, together with nil the clergy, the seven peni tential psa lms, for their absolution ."' AI this point, penance still reflects the wholly public character of the system of forgiveness and reconciliation that characterizes the early Middle Ages; the inwardness of the psalms is not thereby c.1nceled. but it is absorbed into a ritual that marks the entry of the penitent. once and for aU, into a formal social category, with rigid obligations and severe disabilities that continue until death. By the twelfth nnd thirteenth centuries, however, this system had been largely replaced by the momentously different penitential practice that we glimpsed in the previous chapter: a system that called for regular, individualized, and "private" confession to a priest. The priv~cy ,hould not be ovcremphnsi,zcd: the confessiol1<1 1 box was n mld-sixkcnth-cenhuy innovation, and, until

117

118

CUAPTER

1""&1!15

its widespread use, confession was relatively open and would have bcc.m audible (and no doubt interesting) to those wai ting their tum to confess. But at least in comparison with t·hc earlier period, the confession of the High Middle Ages is profoundly private in the sense of its intense interest in the inward state of the individual penitent, a state that must be repeatedly and convincingly rendered in discourse, narrated to the priest. The Ch urch's concern for the penitent's willingness to perform overwhelming disci plinary exercises gives way to a concern for the sincerity of the penitent's contrition, which now becomes the central part of the sacrament of penance. • The seven psalms take their place in this new system not only as a ritual practice-part of the penitent's public "satisfaction"-b ut, Ll10re :si gnHict~ ntly, ns

(l

s uldc to

;1

desired s p iritual cond it-ion

Accord ingly, the psalms' lraditionaJ attribution to King Dovicl is insisted upon with increasing elaboratio n of details; David comes to function as a kind of model penitent whom the worshiper can imitate. The poems' formal characteristics as a group-their fusion of the cyclicaJ and the linear, their passage th rough anguish and dread to consolatio n and security- are now seen clea rly as a de picti on of the penitent's spirltuaJ progress, one that must be repea ted on a regular basis. The recitation that in the tenth century marked a decisive, unrepealable act becomes by the early sixteenth century the daily practice of a pious layman like Thomas More. This is not to say that the psaJms have now become a strictly psychological express io n, the represcntntion of a pa •·ticular cast of mind at a moment of crisis. Such a perception of psychological processes is indeed possible, almost inevitable by the late Middle Ages, but even when there is a lengthy discussion of the character of David, as in Fisher's commentary, the psychological is carefully sub ordinated to the doctrinal. Everywhere in the seven psalms, Fisher sees injunctions of the proper threefold method of dolng penan~e: contrition , confession, and satisfaction. The three stages, he com ments, may be likened to Ihe erasure of writing: with each step tlw marks are further effaced until the paper is once again perfectly clear. And the "paper" in question is not simply the mind of th•· penitent: he may "feel" cleansed after contrition and confession. but there remains in the sou l "a certa·in I'JXation or d uty" thJt must be satisfied with pain in th is life or in purgatory.• Luther, C.1lvin, and Zwingli a ll attacked this threefold p~11.111C<' though they disagreed .1bout the extent to which any confession tu a minister of God's word wa• to be .1llowcd. Tynd.1le, ,,. w~ lMvt·

Powrr, Scxwrlity, aud

Jnwnrdm~ss

in WyntJ's Poetry

119

seen, carried this attack to England, asserting that confession was the key to the Church's spy network and hence a mainstay of its corrupt power. But the Protestant assault did not extend to the inwardness fostered by the penitential system or to psychological models like the penitential psalms. On the contrary, contrition becomes for luther still more the essence of repentance, predsely because the insitutional role in absolution- the power of the keys-has been cast away. The presence of Protestant ideology in Wyatt's version of the penitential psalms, in the lines we have quoted and elsewhere, may be likened (as I have already suggested in another context) to a seizure of powc1·, a coup carried o ut in the very heart of the ind ividual. At stake, as Luther suggested i u hb cun 1uu.:utdJY o u thtt Sl::.l iJ:>,l hU1

Wll:>

viltuully tlu:!

whole doctrine of the Reformed faith: the nature of sin, repentance, grace, justification, and worship. 10 Thus the inwardness of these poems can in no way be conceived as Wyatt's private affair, any more than can the controversial writings of More and Tyndale. The intensely personal moment-the withdrawal into the darkness of the self, the anguished acknowledgment of festering guilt, the solitary straining for reconciliation with God-is intertwined with the great public crisis of the period, \vith religious doctrine and the nature of power." The consequence for the penitential psa lms as poetry is that now more than ever the text does not respect aesthetic limits, indeed is scarcely even "poetry" in the sense in wh ich we usua lly use the term: that is, rhythmkal language formally marked off from the ordi nary, practical functions of discourse. To be sure, the penite ntia l psalms ore decisively marked off from the eve,yday; they are, after all, sacred, but their sacred ness only in tensifies U1e insistence upon the interpenetration of text and reader, and by "reader" we must include as the first and most important instance Wyatt himself in his psychological and spiritual particu larity. This particularity had always been implidt in the psalms, we have argued, even in the Church's institutional framework: a man "shall not confess another man's trespass," Fisher comments, "but only his own.",, Still, the sacrament of penance directed attention toward the consoling and disdplining power of the Church. With the rejection of the penitential system, as we have already seen in the case of Bainham, the book assumes a still greater compulsion and intimacy. The penitential psalms must be experienced as expressions of the reader's own consdousness: the distance between reader and text is effaced and the poems a bsorbed into the reader's in nc•·lifc, which Is In t.urn the legitima te object of both secu lar and

120

CUAJ"TI!R

1'J-tRI!ll

religious power. And if this conception seems to exalt the reader (or the translator). such exaltation js sharply tempered by the fact that here, as with Tyndale's Obedie11ce, the reader is virtually created by the text he absorbs. In Wyatt, as in Tyndale, translation is the supreme expression of this paradoxical relationship, for the translator at once pays homage to the original text and transforms it into the representation of hls own voice and cu lture." Discussions not only of the penitential psalms but of virtually all of Wyatt's poetry have generally reflected either the belief that Wyntt inherited an ine rt mass of cliches and, by virtue of his intense individuality, managed at his best to infuse this frozen material w ith wan11th and life, or the belief that his poetry exemplified " the clash between a desperate personal need and U1e impersoau,J tll'\d C(!remonial forms which $:uch noods

as~umed

in the

court of Henry Vlll." 14 Such views posit an opposition between the constrairung, repressive force of literary and social convention and the vivifying force of personality, emotional need, honesty-an opposition that seems to me a romantic misreading of the early sixteenth centwy. I would suggest that there is no privileged sphere of individuality in Wyatt, set off from linguistic convention, from social pressure, from the shaping force of religious and political power. Wyatt may complain about the abuses of the court, he may declare hh independence from a corrupting sexual o r political enta nglement, but he always docs so from within a context governed by the essential values of domination and submission, the values of a system of power that bas an absolute monarch as head of both church and state. Fot all h is impulse to nega te, Wyatt cannot fashjon ltimself in opposition to power a nd the conventions power d eploys; on the contrary, those conventions are precisely what constitute Wyatt's self-fashiorung. If as a poet Wyatt seems to be set off from his contemporaries, it is not because he managed to burst through imprisoning cliches, but because in this aspect of a cultural competition he proved himself a superior performer. Far from struggling against the supposed anonymity of received forms, Wyatt seems to me to have been almost incapable of both genuine anonymity and detachment from received forms. He could, of course, play with masks-the translations are all a kind of elaborate masking-but the masks arc part of' the socia l game in which he is fully implicated ns a competing p layer. They do not permit an authentic detachment. It is in the light of such a general conception o f Wyalt's selffashion ing, I s ul}gcst, that we must understand his atlempt to " drnmati?o'" the penitential psalms by bon·owl ng fo·om Aretina

Power, StZitality, and lruonrd!Jt.''-.'> ;, Wyafl's Poetry

the " historical" prologues that set the poems in the context of a notorious abuse of power, King David's adultery 'vith IJathsheba and his responsibility for the death of her husband Uriah. The psalms arc conceived as dramatic soliloquies, David's anguished response to the prophet Nathan's denUJtciations, and it would 6rst appear that such a setting would have the opposite effect from the one I have described: that is, the historical framework would seem to dista11ce the poems from both poet and reader by insisting upon the local and particular circumstances of their original composition. 13ut the dramatic setting-which is handled awkwardly and, for the modem reader, lends little but histrionic vulgarity to the entire sequence-seems to have appealed to Wyatt precisely because il embeds the poems f1rmly in a world of royal power he inhabited. Tha t is, we must coJ\ce ive the drama not as a performance that takes place behind a proscenium arch that frames and isolates the represented action but as an interlude that is thrust in among the ordinary lives of the beholders. If, as H. A. Mason suggests, Wyatt wrote the work in 1536, when he was imprisoned and nearly executed in the aftermath of the fall of Anne Boleyn, the invocation of David may glance, slyly and indirectly, at Henry Vl1l himself. Instead of behaving with self-righteous and murderous indignation, the king should emulate David-the implicatiOn wou ld run-and repent his own scandalous abuse of power in the service of his lust. In Wyalt's psalms, wrote Surrey, "Rulers may see in a mirror dear I The bitter fruit of false concupiscence."" The setting, if this reading is accurate, provided Wyatt not only with a mirror to hold up to the kingsomething akin to the parable Nathan first uses to awaken David's conscience-but with a mask to protect himself against the king's wrath, for the Tudor monarch bore scant resemblance to the king of Israel, and it would have be<m fatal for a subject to poillt hi s finger directly at him and say, "Thou art the man." As Morus and Hythlodaeus both grasped, anything short of abject flattery had to be put to the autocratic ruler with tactful indirection; the principle was stated memorably by Sir Walter Ralegh when asked why he chose lo wri te about the ancien t past rather than his own times: "whosoever in writing a modem History, shall follow truth too near the heels, it may haply strike out his tceth." 16 As if to protect his teeth, Wyatt's mask in the psalms is of double thkkness: not only is the mora l dr.>wn from the life of the biblical nrlcr, but the setti ng is a translation from the Italian. The implied reflection upon Henry V!JI has what government spokesmen now call "dcniability"

121

122

CHAPTBit

1'lCR£2

Quite apart from these considerations o£ self-preseJVation, the allusion to the king, if present at all (and the dating of Wyatt's poetry remains uncertain), seems to me subordinated to interests at once more personal and more general. Wyatt's poetic individuality is not something uncovered, disclosed as by the lifting of a veil, but something put on, created by the briUiant assim ilation of liternry materials. In the case of the psalms, those materials focus particular attention on the interpl•y of power and desire: by using the Bathsheba story as the con text for the entire sequence, the Renaissance in effect sexualizes what in the original is o broader expression of sinfulness and anxiety. The speaker of the psalms-the voice seems unmistakably Wyatt's, the condition his own-is surrounded by enemies who conspire agninst him, but his worst enemies arc the "mermaid&" with.in h..imsolf, his senses...

who have contrived to "usurp o power in all excess" and who must be forced "by constraint" to "Obey the rule that reason sha ll express" (175). Under the "tyranny of sin," the poet has been en· trained into "filthiness," hi s "entra ils infect with fervent sore" (353). 17 Where the Vulgate describes the psalmist's nightly grief as an aspect of that misery which he begs the Lord to heal, Wyatt and his contemporary sources describe it as a kind of prophylactic discipline: By nightly plaints, instead of pleasures old, I wash my bed with tears con tinual, To dull my sight that it be never bold To stir my heart ag~i" to such a fall. (148-51)

As a result of tl1is discipline, and with the help of Cod, the poet can "stop his ears" to the mem1aids' songs and block the sensual tempters from reaching his fortified heart. The repentant David, we are told in the prologue to psalm 39, is now "Inflamed with fur more hot affe<:t I Of Cod than he was erst of Bersabe" (317- 18). Th is transference of "hot affect" from mistress to the Lord is at the center of Wyatt's rendering of the penitential psalms, and the force of lhe transfom1ation of desire is intensified by the fact that God is present not only as mc~cifu l friend but as s tem judge: 0 Lord, 1 dread, and that I did not dread I me repent, and evem1ore desire Thee, thee to dread . (83-85)

To love God is to love the •mit<>r, the punisher whose heavy hand

Pnwtr, Sex1urUty, ami Inwardness iu Wyatt's Jlortry

123

was so "increased" upon him both day and night, in Wyatt's elaboration of psalm 32, and held my heart in press With pricking thoughts bereaving me my rest, That withered is my lustiness away. (246-48)

The turning of eros from Bathsheba to God, the transformation of desi re from "filth" to worship, is effected through subm ission to domi.nntion: I, lo, &om mi ne e rror A m plungod up, n& hor::;c out of t.h c m il-e

With st•·okc of spur: such is thy hand on me, Tha t in my Resh for terror of thy ire Is not one point of firm stability, Nor in my bones there is no steadfastness: Such is my dread of mutability. (333-39)

It is not until we reach the phrase "with stroke of spur" that we realize that the peculiar expression "Arn plunged up" is a full passive; it c.1ptures with uncanny accuJ"acy the paradoxical act of rising beneath and because of immense downward pressure. This ascent through the acceptance of domination from on high is for Wyatt the q ui ntessen tial penitential experience.'& Subm ission to domination is, as we have seen. at the center of 1'yndalc'& Luthel'a n politlcs and theology. In Wyatt's psalms we encoun tq•· o ne of the psychological aspects of this ideology: sexuali ty in its naturnl, that is sinful, sta te is aggressive and predalory; in its redeemed state, passive. Sexual aggression-that which motiva ted David's abuse of power-is transferred en tirely to the sphere of transcendent power, where it serves to bring about penitence. If the penitential experience is marked by a loss of "firm stability," a sense that the body has no "steadfastness," the pain of this uncertainty-as the language implies, this impotence-is welcome insofar as it leads to a higher stability and firmness grounded outside the body. The goal, to reverse one of the tenets of phenomenology, is to lose the body as our "point of view on the world, t·he place where the spirit takes on a certain physical and historica l situation." 1'1 1"h is centraUty of the body, a given of modern con~cio u sness, is seen as unbearable, at once v ulnomble to mutnbil.l ty and presum ptuo usly independent : the senses must· be

124

checked, the body not permitted to be our central human expression in the world.2° By the time he composed his translations of the psalms, Wyatt had encountered the Inquisition and endured two imprisonments, the latter extremely perilous. In 1536 from his cell in the Tower, he appears to have watched the execution of Anne Boleyn: ·~rhe bell-tower showed me such sight / That in my head sticks day and night." 21 In the late 1530s, Wyatt wrote to his son of the "thousand dangers and hazards, en mWes, hatreds, prison1nents, despites, and jndignations" he had faced, and his father had endured the same: if "the grace of God that the fear of God always kept with rum, had not been, the changes of this tro ublosome world that he was in had long ago overwhelmed him. This preserved him in prison from the hands of the tyrant [Richard 1111 tha i could find in his heart to see him racked, from two years and more prisonment in Scotland, in Irons and Stocks, from the danger of sudden changes and commotions."» The son to whom this brief family chronicle was written was beheaded for treason by Queen Mary. In such a world, an obsession with "steadfastness" and a mistrust of Ihe body are hardly surprising. The psalms at once reproduce the experience of power, by celebr.lling a crushing rus· ciplinnry force, and transfer this experience to a "higher" level, where the spirit is secured from the vulnerability of the body. The victim of both the homage to secular power and its transcendence is the body as the perceiving center of human existence. Repentence e ntails an assault upon the primacy of perception, an assau lt sig naled by David's withdrawal from the world of lightthe world in which his senses are kindled by the vision of " Bar· sa be Ihe bright''-to the cave "wherein he might him hide I Fleeing the lig ht, as in prison or grave" (61-62). The first psalms are sung in total darkness, relieved midway through the sequence by a mysterious beam of ruvine light that pierces the cave striking the harp and, by reflection, David's eyes, "Surprised with joy by penance of the heart" (316). This is. the light not of bodily but of spiritual perception, a distinction underscored by the fact tllat David stares "as in a trance" upon the ground and, still more, by the frequent descriptions of David's prone or kneeling positionhis humble abandonment of the upright posture thnt establishes human beings in perceptual opposition to the world of objects."' The body itself must be reduced from the presumptuous indepen· dencc of the perceiver to the status of an object in the world, gazed upon by the Cl'ca lor as by a jailor. lmprisonrt'\Cnl (and we shou ld recall that Wyatt probably translated the psalms jusl oftc,· his l'c•

Powtr, Stxuoliry,

1111d

lntoortl,ttss b1 WynJI's PtJclry

lease from the Tower) becomes not an object of fearful contemplation but a metaphor for the state of grace. The psalmist thus pl!!ads with God, " Do not from me turn thy merciful face," and Wyatt adds, xeve~1 li ngly, "Unlo my self leaving my government" (543-44). To be left alone, unregarded and selfgoverning, is far worse than to be punished, for as in Tyndale or, more famHiarly, in Donne's Holy Sonnets, identity is achieved in momcnl s of chastisement: "For thou d idst lift me up to tllrow me down, I To teach me how to know myself again" (575-76).""' Selfknowledge-and the second line here is Wyatt's own-is achieved by sub~nitting the body to discipline, a conception that accorded weTI with Renaissance child-rearing and educational practices. The sequcu<e clo•cs with a clear ind•cataon that his prayers have been answered, that identity has been established outside of himself, beyond. his own live bodily being: "for thine am I, thy servant aye most bound" (775). The phrase "aye most bo01•d," the assurance of eternal domination, is Wyatt's addition and responds to his intense "dread of mutability,'' his longing for "steadfastness." At moments the poet conceives of sin as bondage (341-44) and hence penitence as liberation, but his most persistent wish is for a state of perpetual bound servitude to God: The ~realest comfon that I can pretend 1s that the chi ldren of U>y servants dear, That in thy word are got, shall without end Before thy face be stablished all in fere. {628-31)

The final phrase, again Wyatt's addition, plays on the now archaic sense of "ferc" as "companion" as well as the obvious "fear": a community is fiMIIy fashioned o ut of dread, a congregation locked into the desired dom ination. To be "sta blished"- boundcd and unchanging, all avenues of escape blocked off, forever under lhe gaze of the Lord-is to be saved from the radical instability that is the pool 's fears and hence to a pproach the t imelessness of God: "thou thyself the self remainest well/ That tho u was erst, and shalt thy years extend" (625-26). The goal of steadfastness or boundedness was, as we have seen, central lo the careers of both More and Tyndnlc; it is (or both Catholic and Protestant the response to a crisis in political and spiritual authority. Wyatt's penitential psalms offer us an almost formulaic reduction of the historical, psychological, and literary forces thnt we have repe,\led ly encountered: power ovu scxunlity t'mdurvs iuwnrlirm;.<. In othur words, the in ner life expressed in the

125

126

CUA.FTER

TUI.E.Il

penitential psalms owes its existence to a wrathfu l God's power over sex uality; before the Lord's ange•· was s tirred up by "filthy life," David was btind to his own inwardness, an inwardness h e is now driven to render in speech. Hence divine power over adulterous sexuality produces penitential inwardness. The imposition of secular power has its place in the production of penitential inwardness as well, particularly if the impetus behind Wyatt's transla ti on was the king's violent wrath against his adulterous w ife and her alleged lovers. Each of the tem1s of the fonnula we have extracted from the psalms represents a rich interaction of meanings. David's abuse of his political power-the monopoly of legitimate force that enables him to send Uriall to his death-is the result of the sensual usurpation

o(

•·eason's power w ithin_him.

Th i ~

11rsurpation in turn is

an aspect of the wa r between s in and fai th in which God is invoked as a merciful ally a gal nst the feared enemy, but God is M the same time the threatening, wrathful judge whom men must fear and to whom they must submit. The proper mode of relation to this d ivine power is directly linked to the struggle between Catholicism and Protestantism, and hence to the temporal as well as s piritual power of the Ch urch . As even this brief sketch ~hould make clear, not only is the term power itSs sexuality and i1110ardlltSS. Sexuality is both the sinful desire that must be resisted and the "hot affect" to God, both the rebellious tonging to gratify the senses and the passionnte, tearful craving for self-abasement and s ub miss io n. Inwardness is a psychological state (and hence subjective) and a spiritual conditio n (a11d hem;e objecti ve); it bespeaks withdrawal and yet is insistently public, for we may only encounter a discursii>t inwardness, one dependent not only upon language but upon an audience. lndeed it is precisely this aodience, in the figure of God as ultimate reader, who h as bro ugh t the p salms into bei ng by the pressure of his hand, and so we are retu rned from inward ness to divine power. The overarching effect of the penitential psa lm s as poetry (insofar as they succeed at all) is to insist upon the inter· dependence of categories which, in ordinary discourse, hav" an illusory distinctness. The poems express a si ngle, unified process which we may describe in religio us te •·ms as penitence o •· In psychologicnl terms as lov ing s ubmission to domination. And Wyatt attempts to convey this process by fashioning a new poetic technique, introducing lrrzn rima into English and, as important,

Powrr. Sfxunlity, and Jnwnrdt~~ss in Wyalt'B Po,.lry

forging a language sufliciently forceful and subtle to represent the fusion of power, sexuality, and inwardness. This sense of an intimate relationship between Wyatt's poetry and the forces that shape his identity may be confirmed by examining his other lena rima poems, the satires. Like the psalms, the satires appear to have been written in the wake of a personal crisis, quite possibly the same crisis: in 1536, following a q uarrel with the Duke of Suffolk and coincident with the arrest of Anne Boleyn and her alleged lovers, Wyatt was imprisoned in the Tower, from which, after several anxious weeks, he wos .rclens~d wit·h the command to return home to A llingto n Castle and lea rn, under h i~ fat her's eye, "to address him better."" Both sets of f.IU~' "" til~" may jointly represent his response to th is command, a struggle to clear himself of the entanglements that had nearly brought him to the scaffold and to achieve a new mode of "address." Both invoke the pressure of power; both tu rn in revulsion from the allurements of lust; both depict retreat from the locus or corruption to safer ground, in the psalms a " dark Cave," in the satires "Kent and Christendom." The psalms express, as one critic notes, certain aspects of the secular stoic dochi ne of the satires: the longing for steadfastness, "firm stability," wholeness and integrity. The satires, for their part, have at moments a homiletical fervor that links them to the psalms. 26!n both, through the experience of power the poet discovers his true voice. But if the simi larities between the two sets of poems are su f· ficient to suggest thAt they both emerged f1·om the same or at least highly similar circumstances, the differences bclween them are tqo g reat to be bridged with a single term, such as "Christian stoicism''; rather, they seem to represent alternative and even competing modes of self-fashioning. We may recall Thomas More in 1516, lorn between those versions of himself that he calls Hythlodaeus and Morus; in just such a spirit, Wyatt may have represented to himself in poetry contrasting ways of facing his circumstances and shaping his identity. Thus though both the psalms and the satires self-consciously give voice to a " true" self, stripped of falsification and corruption, we encounter two distinct versions, the former produced by submission, the latter by negation. Where the ps11lmist longs to be utterly bound by God's wiU, to accept eternal domination, the satirist discovers himself in the act of $ay ing 110. Where the psalmist prays, "Do me to know what way thou wilt J bend" (760), the satirist lists all that he cannot do-"1 can not f,·,1me my tong
127

128

CBAl'T£Jl

THltRB

cannot with my work complain and moan," " I cannot speak and look a saint," and so on for doze ns of verses-un til he bursts forth in a general cry of negation: " I cannot, I; no, no, it will not be." 27 Of course, though distinct, submission and negation are not necessarily incompatible; we have already seen them yoked in a powerful ideological form in Tyndale's Obedience, a work that may well have influenced Wyatt's inwardness. The attack o n the co rruptions of the great is carefully quali fied by the satirist's derual that he scorns o r mocks "The power of them to whom fortune hath lent I Charge over us, of rught, to strike lhc stro ke" ("Mine Own joh11 Po i 11s," 8-9), while the psalmist's turn to Cod presupposes something like the satirist's rejection of the court. Yel already in Tyndalc, submission and negation pu Ute nsely aga inst each other; in Wy~ t-rc; Jl~r'll m s r'lnrl ~a ti rP_c;. lhPy a ppPn r tn slraill tow ard o ppos-

ing expressions.'8 Where David pleads with God nol lo run away, "Unto my self leaving my government," the speaker of the second satire, "My Mother's Maids," counsels sell-possession: Then seek no more out of thy self to lind The thing that thou hast sought so long before, For thou shalt feel it sitting in thy mind. (97-99)

Where the psalms are solitary expressions of anguish, sinfulness, and fallh, the satires are confident, mo ralizing, and self-justifying conversations with friends. Where the psalms long for an end to the isolated self by means of submission to Cod's do mination, the sati res call for retrenchment, renunciation of the longing for power and wealth, acccplonce of limitation in the name of freedom and $Ccur ily. The psalms represent an attempt lo break away from enveloping con·uption by means of a radical reformol·ion of the self, a plunge into the intense emotions of dread, love, and willing servitude. The satires counsel a retreat from anxiety; the individual does not seek to be driven or possessed or crushed but to be steadfast and independent. He grants the right of rulers "To strike the stroke," but then quickly turns to his own integrity, untouched by any outward force, incapable of compromise, hypocrisy and doubleness. This "sell-conte nt," a value far from the spirit of the psalms, is the key to a mastery over the accidents of existence, the answer to the restlessness, anxiety, and posing of cmut society. "lne goal of the satires is not as in More to find the institu tio nal guarantee of certainty no r as in TynJ.11e to reach un-

Powl'r, Stl:IUtlity, O.tld ltrWQrdnes.s

r, Wyntl'.s Poetry

129

mediated union with the Word; the goal is to lake control of one's life by finding within oneself a sustaining center. The worst pain that the satirist can ask Cod to visit upon the fools he attacks in "My Mother's Maids" is that "looking backward" they may see the bright figure of virtue and, "whilst they clasp their lusts in arms across," "fret inward for losing such a loss." That is, illicit desire is dismissed not, as in the psalms, beca use it is mortally s infu l and arouses the wrath of a jealous Cod, but because se>? This is the closest Wyatt comes .in U1e satires lo the Stoic's o utright rejection of the body epitomized in Seneca's flat pronouncement: "Refusal to be influenced by one's body assures one's frcedom."J
This simplicity is both a life style and a literary style, a conjunction captured most perfecUy perhaps in the deliberately proverbial flatness of "But here I am in Kent and Christendom." This is spoken in contrast not only to the foreign countries where as diplomat he would have had to practice "Rather than to be, outwardly to seem" (92) but to the London where as courtier he would have had to call the crow a swan and the lion a coward, praise flattery as eloquence and cruelty as justice. "M.ine Own John Poins" bitterly assa ils that divorce between the tongtJe and the h eart w h.ich. is the constan t lament o{ humanists throughout the sixteen th century. The great e nemy is hy pocrisy, the'llbili ty to feign nnd play parts:

130

CH/.l'TI!R

TH:REE

My Poins, I cannot f1<1me my tongue to feign, To cloak the tru th for pra ise, without desert, or Ihem that list all vice for 10 retain. (19-21)

As the long catalog that follows mokcs clear, most of the vices that th e sat il'ist attacks involvi! what jurgen Habermas hru; called "d istorted communkation"-5elf-censorship, deceit, false reverence, mystification, inversion-and the strength of the attack lies in its recognition of the essential link between language and power. When speech enters the milieu of the court, it is inevitably perverted; indeed, its perversion is precisely the priv ilege and the achievement of power which ;s, as Habermas cla ims, itself a form of distorted communication." The satires on court abuses written later in the sjxteenth century almost always have recour>" tu "" idealized version of court life, a proper use of power usually located in the figure of the q ueen and a handful of "perfect" courtiers. It is against this visionruy model t hat particular vices are measured, so that the very attack upon deviations bears witness to the triumph of normative court ideology." In Wyatt, by contrast, the essence of power is to prevent a clear grasp of norms of any kind by compelling a systematic perversion of sta11dards: And he that dieth for hunger of the gold Call him Alexander, and say that Pan Passeth Apollo in music manifold, Praise Sir Thopas for a noble tale And scorn the sto1-y that the knight told . ("Mine Own Jo hn Poins," 47- 51) What is lost in this topsy-turvy world is not only a grasp of Ihe nature of virtue and truth but an understanding of the sell; these, the satire suggests, c~n only be achieved elsewhere, at a safe distance from power. Wyatl makes his forced retirement seem a noble attempt to purge himself of that cynical ro!e-play i11g in which he and his poetry had been involved by virtue of participation in the intrigues of court and diplomacy, an attempt to cleanse his speech of its Machiavellian manipLllation of appearances. He will discover him se)( not through the exe rcise of pro tean powers of ~el f­ transformation, but through a grasp of all that he cannot do, all that his nature ,v;n not pem1it him to learn_ And in its clarity and leanness his poetry will be a model of undistorted communication, exemplined by that intimate exchange with a close friend that

Power,

So:u~llity1

sud

lnwardr~tss

lr1 Wyalt's Pot tty

must have mode the form of the verse epistle particularly appealing to him. Wyatt forges for himself a blend of a conversational directness and moral earnestness that enables him to pass gracefully from the lively retelling of a fable"Peep," quoth the other, "Sister, I am here," "Peace," quoth the towny mouse, "why spcakest thou so loud?"to exalted reflections on its moral: Alas! my Po ins, how men do seek the best And find the worse, by error as they strny! And no marvel, whe'' sight is so oppressed And bl in d the guide. ("My Mother's Maids,'' 70-73) The poetic voice here and the values expressed are familiar from the hundreds of similar performances in the centuries that followed; this is the classic voice of what Courthope in 1897 called with perfect precision "an English gentleman conversant with affairs."" Like all such successful models, this voice gradually came to seem inevitable, natural, an object in reality; in Wyatt we may witness one of the crucial moments in its invention. And the purpose it serves is to fre~ the speaker from any implication in the world he attacks; unlike the court lyrics, here he stands safely apart, in fh·m moral rectitude. Having withdrawn from the court to the country, Wyott achieves a sense of self-confidence nnd selfcontent, of in tegrity and invulnerability. Until reccn t·ly the satires were Wyott's most adm ired poem$: Warton speaks of "these spirited and manly rencctions," written "wi th the honest indignation of an independent phi losopher, and the freedom and pleasantly of Horace," NoH of their "force and dignity," Courthope of their "strength of individual feeling," and Tillyard of their "air of unaffected self-expression.")• In their energetic expression of a confident wholeness and independence, they renected and helped to shape a powerful, enduring sentiment among the English gentry, a sentiment that found its full poetic nowering in the Horatian imitations of the eighteenth century. But it is important to understand how mochof the self is left out of th is self-presentation, how tighUy the nexus of power, sexual ity, and inwardness has been reined in. What is left to express in this "unaffected self-expression"? Inwardness is eloquently pra ised-

131

132

CHAPT&Jl

'rllltl!t

Then seek no more out of thyself to find The thing that thou hast sought so long before, For thou shalt feel it sitting in thy mind("My Mother's Maids," 97-99) but is defined almost entirely negatively. The s.1tirist claims to have a cc111er in his life from whim he speaks with secure assurance, but he pays for this claim in the coldness that lurks beneath the surface energy, U1e stiffening that seems to preclude the possibility of full emotional life. Sexuality has diminished to nothing: the satirist defines h imself by his attack on sexual viciousness in the cou rt and his stoic d ismissal of the pursu it of p leasure. Power is denounced as the very essence of corruption: the satirist defines h imself by h is distance from the pursuit of power .1nd wealth. There i.,, to be !Sure, both money and sodaJ standing d~:»;,~idh:U

with the spMker-hunting and hawldng, servants, land on which to walk and ride "at liberty"-but he is not at all implicated in the processes by whim this wealth is secured. We may remind our· selves that the estate to which the poet retreats from power is the reward for royal service and that the pleasant acres are sweUed with confoscated monastic lands. We may point out the ironic connection between the comfortable means evoked by the phr.1se "My mother's maids" and the grinding rurnl poverty so eloquently depicted in the fable of the country mouse and the town mouse; we may observe that the hig h moral tone of the fable's close cal moment we glimpse "" unpleasant answer to the question wtth wh ich the poem has begun- ''The cause why tha t homeward I nw draw": the poet's country freedom is in fact a kind of house arrest But the tho<1ght is dispelled with t·he image of the !J~I1tlen"' "

Po:otr, Stxu41ity, atullrru'Dnfntss i11 Wyatt's Pottry

t33

leaping ,lcross bowldaries, though a lingering resc l'vation su r· vives in ''it is ordered so." Only in "A Spending Hand," which may have been written later than the first two satires, is there somewhat more than a perfunctory acknowled~;tnent of the limiting conditions of U1e rural life and the voice Wynn has fashioned to p raise it. 111e poem combines the preoccupations of the other satires: it pillories the duplicities of court life-In word alone to make thy language sweet, And of the deed yet do not as thou says-(38-39)

while it exposes the self-deception by which Sir Francis Brian thinks he can successfully combine a career as courtier and dip· lomat with an "honest name" and a "free tongue." Yet the ceJebrntion of coun try rectitude that we might have expected is instead both lightly travestied in the speaker's own encomium-"drink good ale so nappy for the nonce, I Feed thyself fat and heap up pound by pound"-and vigorously attacked in Brian's reply: "For swine so groans I fn sty and chaw the turds moulded on the r,round." For Wyatt's Brian, the rural retrentis nothing more than bestial sloth, no better than the life o f id le monks: "So sacks of dirt be filled up in the cloister." Against this excremental existence. llrian holds up the ideal of service: "Yet will I serve my prince, my lord and thine." 11his is the ideal Wyatt himself inherited from his fnthcr, the self-concept ion of his profession and i1ldeed of his w ho le social class. This is the p1·inciple they repeatedly invoke to explain to others and above all to themselves their difficult, anxious careers, to make moral sense out of apparent moral chaos, to ward off the claims of competing conceptions of service, sum as those embraced by More o r Tyndale. This is, in o ne line of mono'yllabic verse, the justificntion of an entire e xistence. At the comparable moment in book l of U!opin, 1-Jythlodaeus ronfronts Peter Giles •vith what service to the prince entails in the rc.>l world: the inevitable and progressive corruption of one's own moral position in pandering to the debased will and pleasure of lhc ruler. Wyatt here mounts a similar
the audience that assumes Brian's place as recipient of the mock advice-do not toke the cynical counsel at face value; we know for n certainty that the pose is a "thrifty jest/' a pointed dramatic Irony that heigh tens rather than undermines the speaker's integ, rily. How we know this is more difficu lt to say with precision- we assume tnat Wyatt is not deliberately exposing his ow11 degradation, we assume that such advice, if seriously intended, would not be committed to paper and that the tt'rms of moral capitulation would be softened, we assume from the model of Horace's satire on legacy hunters or from mock encomia that Wyatt is working in a familiar satiric trodition. And the close o ( the poem supports these assumptions: the corrupt, world ly proverbs a re invoked to be rejected. The rejection, however, on ly leads back to the um;atisfactory

~h\te

with which t-hP pnPm bf'gan: to trol stilJ up

and down and never rest, running day and night from realm to realm, wearing oneself out to no apparent purpose. To be sure, by the poem's end, this choice is given a certain dignity, the dignity of honest poverty and the acceptance or occasional adversity for spea king the truth. Yet this ethos of sclflcs~. loyal s~rv icc-the ethos of Lenr's nobl~ and ~rue-hearted Kent- seems in Wyatt's poem pallid and abstract, an ideal that can be voiced only by guarding it from all contact '"ith Jived experience. To accept the "fnee tongue" that the poem celebrates in its last Jines as anything more than a hopeless fantasy is to forget everything that the preceding lines have implied: that the corruptions listed wi th such bitter energy are not those of csolated indiv id uals but of a whole system, that th ey consti tute the rules of the game. It is precisely such a rorgctting that the poem seems to demand , and this may be only U1e extremes! instance of that ideological obscuring of unpleasant contradictions or qualifications that we have already witnessed in the first two satires. Wyatt and his peers need to view themselves in a favorable light, to fashion their im· ages as independent, courageous, freedom-loving gentlemen who condem n the viciousness of others, the c1·aven "beasts" who cheat a nd lie a nd curry favor. Having rejected the praise of rur~lrctrca t , "A Spending Hand" has no altern
Powtr, Stxlll'llity. tJrtd ItrwnrrltltSS ;u Wytztt's Porlry

135

and the ability to survive, yes, but not an honest name. Already by 1519 he had earned notoriety by riding, in company that included

the king of France himseli, "daily disguised through Paris, throwing eggs, stones and other foolish trifles at the people" ;>• Brian was evidently the kind of man a king would take along when he felt the urge to amuse himself in this fashion. His was a career of conniving, betraya l, politic marriage, sycophancy, and pandering. Though Wyatt's poem seems quite deliberately to avoid turning its sa tire ngainst Brian, more than one of the vices it catalogues bear an uncanny resemblance to well-known incidents in Brian's life.n There is no explicit internal evidence for an ironic reversal, an exposure of his unscrupulous boon companion as a mock honest n'lnn (just as the speak..:t IM U }JH!l~HUt!ll tu u~

(J

mud<.

corrupt man), but some such thought must at least have crossed Wyatt's mind. At a minimum, any contemporary reader of the poem would have had to be dimly conscious of the work of forgetting that he had to undertake to make Brian the spokesman for honesty. The effect of this consciousness is to raise a faint but significant uneasiness about the comfortable stance of gentlemanly rectitude, to signal the potential deviousness of this apparenUy straightforward discourse. Power, with its distorting influence, was supposed to be "out there:· the object of high-minded contempt, but the satirist himself stands on morally uncertain ground-his position may be itself a kind of pose taken· in response to the dict~tes of power. Men like Brian-and possibly Wyatt hi mself-find it diplomatically useful to assu me a ro ugh hone~ty m1d inco rruptibility, an air of satirica l tru t-h-telli ng. It is as if Wyatt felt compelled to acknowledge the di stance betwee n this stance and rea lity, to deflect this acknowledgme nt f1'0m himself onto a blatant timeserver like Brian, and then to deflect it further by presenting Brian as an honest man. What should be solid and unambiguous- the poetic alternative to the duplicity of the court-threatens to crack apart, and if the reader hastens to repair the cracks, by excluding as "irrelevant" whnt he knows about Brian, there remains an unsettling awareness of having done so. But why should Wyatt have risked subverting his own moral authority? The answer seems to lie in the force of his extraordinary intelligence, in the need to give vent in however indirect a form to his perception of his si tuation. More accurately, the poetry itself constitutes this perception-the penitential psal ms and the satires are, by vistu c of thei r poetic mode, cunclmeuts of Wyatt's condition, functional registers of his relation to the wol'ld. The force of Wyatt's poc t1-y consists precise.Jy in its full, painful engagement in

136

CHAPTEJt

Tlfa&l

the anxieties, bad faith, and betrayals of his career, even as the poetry is written to serve the ends of that career. The point is wo rth stressing because of the tendency to read back into the Re naissance the modern notion- not wholly adeq uate even for our own period in which art has far more a utono my-thAt poetic technique is developed entirely for its own sake out of a dis· interested aesthetic concern for form and apart from both personal interests and the general interests of the culture as a whole. No doubt Wyatt tons fascinated with literary form and may have been, in Patricia Thomson's phrase, a "born cxperimenter." 3~ "The English language was rough and it~ ve1·ses worthless," wrote john Leland in a Latin elegy. " Now, lea rned Wyatt, it has had the benefit of your file.'''" For Puttenham, In the 1580s, WyaH and Surrey "were the two chiefbl;ins., who having travPlltaci inln Italy.

and there tasted the sweet and stately measure and style of the Italian Poesy ... , greatly polished our rude and homely manner of vulgar Poesy, from that it had been before, and for that cause may justly be said the first reformers of o ur English metre and style.""' But as Puttenham's whole work makes clear, this ma11ner of "courtly mak ing" is not at all set apa1·t from the d om inant social and political concerns of the culture; ''wh ile the Arle of E11glislt Po•sie is ostensibly a treatise on poetry," a perceptive critic has recently noted, "it is at the same time one of the most significant arts of conduct of the Elizabethan agc." 41 \'\1yatt's poetry is, in effect, a species of conduct. To be sure, the court of Henry VIII has been freq uently invoked in discussions of Wyatt's poetry, but, more often than not, for the purpose of dism iss ing any claims the poetry mig ht make to be taken seriously: Wyatt, like the other court writers, was merely supplying material for social occasions. Consequently, the study of these poems belongs to sociology rather than to literature. (II. A. Mason)4 2 The whole scc11e comes before us .. . . We are having a little music after supper. In that atmosphere all the confessio nal or autobiographical tone of the songs falls away. (C. S. Lewis)43 But is this really what it meant to write from within the court? Entertainments in the court of Henry VIII were perhaps less lighthearted than Lewis's charming account suggests; con· vcrsation with the king himseU must have been like small talk

J)owrr, Srxuality, nmllnwardtJtSS in Wy11tt's Potlry

wi th Stalin. And Mason's sense of the trivializing force of "social occasion" may Hkewise be misleading.•• Certainly when we consider even the relatively slight lyrics in the Devonshire MS, we find very little verse that is merely "occasional" (in the sense of those lines ~till turned out by the poet laureate on the occasion of the queen's birthday). On the contrary, however much these poems impress us as e ntertainments, fashioned to be read o r sung in a soph isticated group of courtiers and ladies, they convince us at the sa me time that the poet has a stqke in them, though the preoise nature of that stake may be obscme. Indeed lt is precisely their b lend of playfulness and danger that marks them as the product of the court; we mu st imagine a gamt> in w h ich icleaJjsm and cynicism, aggression and vulnerability, self-revelation and hypocrisy are te nsely conjoined. The game seems often chi ldis h, the stakes are enormous and, on occasion, fatal: we would do weU to reread TI1c C!lnrterltollse of Pan11a or to recnU More's sense that the great and powerful of his time were madmen performing plays on a scaffold. Wyatt is a master of this game. He rehearses the familiar tropes and stale paradoxes, parades the appropriate proverbs and turns of phrase, assumes the expected poses, and yet convinces us again and again of the reality of his pain and disiUusionment. It is as if the d aring of thc game consisted in freighting fragile artifice with an unexpected weight of pass ion . 1\.nd thoug h Wyatt set:rns to have had tlti s daring in grcate1· measure than his conte mporaries, he was by no means alone : the poems only make sense in a society of competing plnycrs. The aggression, anxiety, and vu lsarity inherent in all such competitions are, on occasion, u nd isguised, as in the following lyric U1at cannot be atrributed w ith certainty t·o Wya tt b ut is clearly a product of Ute world in which hi s poems were written: To wet your eye withouten tear, And in good health to feign disease, That you thereby mine eye might blear, Therewith your friends to please; And though ye think ye need not fear, Yet so ye cannot me appease; Bu t as you list, feign, flatter, or gloze, You s hall not win if I do lose. Prate and paint and spare not, Ye know J can me wreak; And i( so be ye care not,

137

138

CHA PT ER

T HRRH

Be sure I do not reck: And though ye swear it were not, I can both swear and speak; By god and by the cross, If I have the mock, ye shall have the loss. •• The poem derives its effect from convincing us that the menace is real, that its moments of roughness and irregularity and obscu rity nrc the result of its embeddedness in a specific, highly charged situation. That situation is a tense sexual struggle, and the lines suggest moves and coun termoves that express themselves in a kind of Inti mate shqrthand. Thus the Tather obscure exchange," And if so be ye CMe not, I Be sure Tdo not reck," seems to say, " If you ore ind ifferent to 111y power to wreak revenge on you-because you do nol think m~ ctt.pable of it or becau.se you Are counting on my

restra int and even my own self-interest-you should understand first, that I do not care about your ind"i(ferencc and se<:ond, that I am reckless, that is, I do not care, finally, how badly I am hurt in the revelations that will come out so long as you are hurt even more badly."•• The poet does not shrink in the slightest from the full nastiness of this menace: "You shall not win if I do lose." C. S. Lewis writes that when he starts to take the voice and implied sexual relationships in such poems seriously, his sym pathy deserts his own sex: " I feel how very disagreeable it must be for a woman to have a lover like Wyatt." Still, Lewis conti nues, "£ know thi s reaction to be unjust; it comes from using Ihe songs as th ey were not meant to be used."·17 But the notion that these are n1cr~ly aftor-c(inner entertainments, d istanced and generalized to the po in t of anonymity, does not really lay to rest the perceptions Lewis so acutely voices only to disavow. As with the peni tential psalms, personal in te nsi ty and inwardness, the felt reality of expressed relationships, is not diminished by literary convention but rather created but il. The conventions of lyric poetry from the nineteenth century to the present lead us to demand as proof of experiential stringency in art a certain self-conscious opposition to the dominant culture and a high degree of particularity; neither was a requirement of the early sixteenth century. On the contrary, the sense of social compu lsion is precisely what gives lyrics like "To Wet You r Eye" their force. The fact that such lyrics are called forth by an entire social ambiance, that they are its most familiar and characteristic expres· sio ns, docs not mean that the expressiQns a1'c thereby trivialized. Melancholy was fashionable in th e late s ixteenth century, ,,s w.1s

Powrr. Srxrtality~ and lrtwarrlnc.ss fu Wyatt's Pl)tlry

hysteria in the late nineteenth: neither condition was any the less intense or "real" for being the manifestation of a cu ltural norm, as much "sociosis" as "neurosis."•• So too, in the wake of U1e dismantling of the cult of the Virgin, in the absence of a fuUy articulated celebration of married love, in a cultural milieu dominated by a ruthless despot and pervaded by intrigue and envy, it may not surprise us that court entertainments habi tually express disillusionment, frustration, menace, hostility to the very women who are courted, and craving for a security that erotic love cannot offer. The freq uency of such expressions, their conventionali ty, is here the vi1·tual assurance of their ljved reality. lt is o nly if o ne is convi nced that poetry emanates spontaneously from an inviolable cor·e o f s ubjecti v ity and has no &ignificont rclntion to power tbat

one could conclude, with Mason, that the conventi onali ty of the court lyrics is proof that there i s in them " no t the slightest trace of poetic activity."•• We must grasp instead that in helping to create the subjectivity they express, these poems are the secular equivalent of the penitential psalms. Wyatt and the other court poets are as much written by their conventional lyrics as writers of them. Wyatt's poetic technique, his fasioning of a powerfully expressive idiom, is inseparably linked to his participation in the court. His language is a tool, a weapon, in a dangerous contest, as the poet of "To Wet Your Eye" is intensely aware: And though ye sweil< it were n ot,

r can both swear and speak;

Oy god and by the cross, lf I have the mock, ye shall have the loss. The poet's nbi lily to swear and speak more forcefully and persuasively thnn his mistress is the heart of h is power, the power to hurt her more terribly than she can hurt him, and the poem not on ly aflirms this power but attempts to embody it. This accounts for the curious fusion of recklessness and calculation in the final lines: "By god and by the cross" is at once an impulsive exclamation of anger, a solemn oath to strengthen the force of the threat that follows, and a measured display of that ability to S\vc!ar that he has just aUirmcd. As such, it is true to its status as a line in a poem: recklessness in poetry is always calculated recklessness. And calculoted recklessness, as Machiavelli observed, is one of the esse ntial tech niq ues for sexual and political survival. It is no t o nly the ambiance of the EngUsh court that sho uld be invoked here but the methods and ethos of tha i o ther wo rld in

139

140

CHArT£R

THKIIU

which Wyatt and many of his fellow poets were engaged, Renaissance diplomacy. "You shaU not win if I do lose" is a timehonored diplomatic maneuver, "perfected" in the nuclear diplomacy of our age, and this sense of sexual relations as diplomacy extends throughout the poem: masking and unmasking, alliances and appeasement, the threat of losing face (to "have the mock") and the counterthreat of reprisal. To be sure, there is no thing in this poem that had to come from diplomacy, but the o verlapping of themes, here and in many poems by Wyatt and his circle, is striking.•o In 1~27 Wyatt accompanied Sir john Russell's em bassy to the papal court of Clement VII, scheming futi lely as the imperial t•·oops, virtually beyond the control of their o wn officers, advanced toward Ro me. The twenty-four-year-old Englishman glimpsed a world that stiU seems, in Ralegh's phrase, to glow and shine li ke rotten wood, a world of treachery, sophistication, and boundless corruption. It is above all a world in which po1oer seems lo be man's supreme product and goal, power directly linked, as always, to wealth, status, and the monopoly of violence, but also thought of as something quite independent, a possession to be wrested from another, an object of intellectual interest, a consummate manifestation of human energy. This energy is conceived in remarkably personal terms; it is the emanation of the emperor, king, prince, or co11dottiere in his concrete individuaJHy. This is perhaps why the physical presence of the European ru lers- the aclua l body of Henry Vlll , Wolsey, Francis 1. Charles V-impresses us intensely for the first ti me d uring th is period. The ruler's social identity seems to be absorbed into his personal being; his power, for all its dependance upon loyo l troops, mer· cha nt fleets, tJ-easuries, natu ral Tesources, seems to breathe forti\ from his body. This too is perhaps why the punish ment of rebels and traitors in the period becomes so much more protractedly and agonizingly brutal. The fairly straightforward executions, if we may so term them, of the Middle Ages become virtuoso performances of torture, as if the physical. torment of the traitor had to correspond fully to the incorporation of power in the body of the prince. Finally, this is perhaps why power and sexuality seem so closely intertwined, manifestations of the same energy of the body. Rebels were castrated, their sexua l orga ns burned before thei r eyes, prior to execution. Conversely, the prince's sexual acts we re affairs of state.s1 Power, conceived in these personal and phys lcJI tonns, is not on ly the ability to levy taxes or raise an Bl"my bu l 1·hc abi lity to

Power. Se;mnUty, and Inwardi!CSS in Wyolt'li Poetry

enforce su bmission, manifested in those signs of secttlar worship-bowing, kneeling, kissing of rings-that European ruJ. ers increasingly insist upon. U these signs always have nn air of fiction about them-and indeed in England they become increasingly fantastic until they reach the aesthetk mania of the court of Charles 1-so much the better, because, as we have argued, one of the highest achievements or power is to impose fictions upon the world and one or its supreme pleasures is to e nforce the occeptance of fictions that are known to be fictions. As a diplomat for most of his adult life, Wyatt was engaged at once in the assertion of his master's power (and hence the imposition of his fictions) and in the attempt to weaken and resist the cuii iJ.>"ting power of ocher Julers. I he two tunctions are inseparable, at lenst in this p~riod, for lhe Renaissance seems to have conceived of diplomacy as it conceived of trade: it posited a severely limited substance (power or wealth) and hence assumed that the gain of one party is inevitnbly the loss of the other. "To th ink or exchange as advantageous to both pa rties," LouJs Dumont has recently observed, "represented a basic change and signalled the advent of economics."" The earlier model of exchange, I would argue, permeated the consciousness of Wyatt nnd the ot her male poets of his circJe, and helped shape not only political but sexual t•elntions, so that a failure in love is like the rupture of a treaty and n consequent loss of power, while even an erotic triumph seems most often to be achieved at the expense of one or the other of the lovers, ns well as of a third party. "I love an other," Wyatt writes in a moment of sta.-k simplicity, "and thus l hate myself."~-' Any expression of need or dependence or longing is thus perceived as a significant defeat; the characteristic male as well as na tional dream is for an unshakable self-sufficiency that would render all relations with others supernuous: " I am as I am and so will I be." $< But such a hard, indifferent identity-in conflict, after all, with the Protestant conviction of man's utter helplessness-cannot be sustained; even its few expressions are tinged with anxious defiance or calculating re~ for those opinions that are supposedly being scorned. The single self, the aflirmation of wholeness or stoic apathy or quiet of mind, is a rhetorical construct designed to enhance the speaker's power, allay his fear, disguise his need. The man's singleness is played off against the woman's doubleness-the fear thal she embodies a destructive mutability, that she wears a mask, that she must not under any circumstances be trustt'd, that she inevitably repays love with betrayal. The woman is that which is essentially foreign

Hl

142

CHAPl'Elt

THKEJi

to th~ man, yet the man is irresistably drawn into relations with her; hence the need for the diplomat's art. Diplomacy then, along with courtiership, seems to have influenced Wyatt's conception of the essential function of discourse which he grasped as a shifting, often devious series of strategic maneuvers designed to enhance the power of the speaker, or rather of the party whom the speaker represents, at the expense of the power of some other party. The distinction between the speaker and the power he represents is worth emphasizing, for it is reproduced ,,t the level of court poehy; that is, the poem itself is a ki nd of agent, sent forth to perform the biddi ng of its master. The poem is clearly not the direct expression of its a uthor's mind- it is shaped by the complex aesthetic and social ntles o f 1iter."' •·y production and possessc$ a ccrtttin lccw:~y l hat ordinary

speech docs not normally possess. But it is governed by its over· arching purpose which is to enhance its creator's personal position, to manifest and augment his power. We may note, in this regard, that Renaissance diplomacy is distinguished by its abandonment of the customary medieval phrases about an ambassador's offic~, phrases that defined the position in terms of the "public good," the "general welfare," the "commonwealth or Christendom," and the "pursuit of peace. " When, in the late fifteenth century, the Venetian Ermolao Barbaro writes of dip lomacy, he states quite simply, "The first duty of an ambassador is exactly the same as that of any other servant of a government, th,, l is, to do, s~y, advise and think whatever rnny best serve the pres c rvation and aggran d i7.ement of his own state."•• Wyatl's poctr}' serves ,, comparable function in relation to his posit io n at coul"i, and even at,, distance from the court, in the psa lms and satires, II is above all power th at shapes his poetic discourse. A court lyric, to be sure, may be> considered apa rt from II• creator and its immediate context: it finds its way into commo11 place books, is set to music, and circulated outside the court •·· included in anthologies and quoted in handbooks on the .ut nl poetry. And, afler all, we know little enough about the prectM· circumstances of these poems, many of which have come to u• without clear attribution, since appearance in print was somt• thing courtiers actively avoided. But if we grasp the extent '" which Wyatt and others like him were defined by th~ir relation ''' power, the extent to which they were at once attracted ond "' pellcd by 1-lc nty VI IJ and the world he represented, we g•·osp nliH< readily in thei r poetry the heigh tened awareness elf tcchn i q u ~~ '''

,,our.tr, St:tuaUty. smd lnwatdtlt!iS iu Wyntt'1 f'or1ry

self-present~tion and concealment. As ambassador, courtier, and

poet, Wyatt seems to have self-consciously cultivated a bluff manner and a taste for homely proverbs, cultivated, th~t is, a manner that denies its own cunning. We may recall More's comparable diplomatic masquerading-"full of craft and subtlety," his foreign rivals reported, concealed "by smooth speech and calm expression in the English way." 56 As his dispatches to Henry VITI and Cromwell show, Wyatt developed a fine sensi tivity to such nuances of feigning, to the deviously indignant denial of deviousness, to plausible lies and passionate insincerity: And for the other pa1t that they (the emperor's d iplo· milts] be about the clearing of their purposes witl1 France, I suppose the conclusion of that cle~ring wiU be but cloudy. And that they would set out some appearal1ce thereof to win time; forT cannot see that it should be for their purpose if they thought that clearing should come to conclusion to tell it me, unless they would have it hindered rather than furthered, for so they take that we would, or else to see il thereby we would make to them any o£fer with declaring whereof they might recompense the Frenchmen with the like. But in sum, they of Ihe court that dare a litUe more liberally speak with their friends make here a mock unto the Frenchmen." This sensitivity to doubleness, this sense of discourse as a calculated series of deceptive moves, this constant apprehension of betraya l and mockery, is familiar to any reader of Wyatt's lyrical expressions of disillusionmeot io love: the poet either realizes in the bitter aftennaU1 of betraya l tha t he has been duped or vows, on the basis of his experience, never to be duped again. The relation between this erotic disillusionment and Wya tt's experience of deception in diplomatic service illld the court is clearest in a poem like "What 'vaileth Truth": What 'vailcth truth? or, by it, to take pain? To strive by steadfastness, for to attain, To be just, and true: and Oee from doubleness: Sit hens all alike, where ruleth craftiness, Rewarded is both false, and plain. Soonest he speedeth, that most can fain; True meaning heart is had in disdain. Against deceit and doubleness What 'vaileth truth? Dece ived is he by crafty train Thnt n1caneth no guile and doth remain

143

144

CHAPT £ R

T HRBR

Wi thin the trap, without redress, But for to Jove, lo, such a mistress, Whose cruelty nothing can refrain, What 'vaileth truth?

So completely are the realms of love and power interchangeable that it is not until the last lines that we know that Wyatt is writing about his mistress at all. Indeed the revelation of this interchangeability is the heart of the reader's experience, for we are induced to read the poem as a brooding reflection on career, rule, and reward until the close jat'S us into connecting the d is illusioned perception of power with the disillusioned perception of Jove.•• Even the formal skill involved in the strucll
shaped his consciousness of calcu lated effect, above all Uuough the manipulation of language in the game of power. In 1540, for example, Wyatt was instructed to call the emperor Charles V an "ingrate" for his refusal to hand over a Welshman in his train, Robert Brancetour, whom Henry Vlll wanted an-csted for treason and brought to England. Actording to the account Wyatt sent to the king, Charles was (understandably) incensed at the charge: "For I wou ld ye know 1 am not Ingrate and il the king your master hath done me a good turn, I have done him as good or better. And I take it so that l can not be towa rd hlm Ingra te. The inferior may be Ingra te to the g reater, an d the term is scant suHer~blc between like. But peradventure because the language is not ym11· naturol longue ye may mistake the term." "Sir," quod I, "I do no t know that I misdo in us ing the term Lhat I am commanded." "Then," quod he, "I hill it you to lh'end your moster know it, and ye how to utter his commandment." "Nor l see not," quod I, "sir, under your supportalion that that term should infer prejudice to your greatness. And though yourself, sir, excuseth me by the tongue, yet I can not render thai term in my longue into the French tongue by any other term which I know also to descend out of the Latin, and in the original it hath no such relation to lessemess o r grcatemess or persons. Although I know it be no t so meant to charge your maicsly in so evil part that you should so be moved thereby." 5 '' Once the wotd " ingmte" is used, the focus of attention sh ifts fmm Bnmcctour to what MattiJ1gly ca lls the "chief burde11" of the

Pot(•tr, Sarurlily, and lmcarrtnrss ;, WyaU'$ Poetry

Renaissance d iplomat, "maintaining the dignity o( his master's crown in the! eternal wrangle over precedence." 60 And the nuances of language are the heart of this wrangle: Wyatt grasps immediately that the emperor's seemingly gracious allowance of a possible mistake in translation is a sllght, a move to regain t·hc initiative. There is, as both emperor and ambassador know, some· thing outlandish about English: "Nobody in the sixteenth century," writes Mattingly, "except nn Englishman was expected to speak Einglish, not even the perfect ambassndor." 61 Wyatt responds with a clevet mixture of firmness, pedantry, and qualification, so that, as he tells it at least, he comes close to "winning" this little encounter. But, we should add, Brancetour was not handed ove r. 6~

In this anecdote we not only see again the ilttimate t-clation in Wyatt's experience between language and power, the subtle engagement of word]; in the struggle to dominate, but we glimpse too the central place o£ translation. Once again criticism has treated Wyatt's remarkable translations as a purely literary affair, whereas in fact their very existence almost certainly depends on his ambassadorial experience. I am speaking not simply of Wyatt's intimate acquaintance, through Jiving abroad, "'
145

1·16

CUAPT£'R

TJIKEH

Wyalt's debt to Petrarch is dear, but so is his deliberate and careful refashioning of the original poem, his transfonnation of transcendental idealism into exhaustion and bitterness. Petrarch's pictorialism is discarded, as is his loving attention to time, place, and season; the mystical vision becomes the hunt; the focus shifts from the longed-forobject in its exquisite landscape to the mind of the poet. Petrarch depicts an experience of illumination and loss; Wyatt an attempt at renunciation; the former is alone with his unattainable beloved, the latter withdraws from a crowd of hunters. Pe trarch's sonn~t ends with the poet's fall into the water and the disappearance of the ltind; Wyatt's with the inscription on the dinmond collar, and this collar, emblematic in l'etrarch of the beloved's un attainability, her absolute freedom in and for God, seems in Wyatt o sign of hPrpnsfiP!>.~tinn hy nnl" vnstly morP pn\.VPr-

fu l than the poet. "Caesar's I am" is the cold assertion that expli· cates the string of earlier assertions around whid1 the poem is structured: "I know where is an hind," "I may no more," " I leave off therefore," "I put him out of doubt." The intimation of power spreads backward like a stain through the preceding lines, so that the whole poem comes to be colored by it. So rooted does "Whoso List" seem in the cynical realities of court intrigue that critics have confidently idenriflcd the hind as Anne Boleyn, who is rumored to have been Wyatt's mistress be· fore she became the possession of Caesar, Henry Vlll. This identirtco tion is plausible-it follows, after all, from the embeddedness of Wya tt's verse in the politics of the court-but stated thus baldly it seems to me to d im inish the effect of the poem, an effect that depends on the poet's immense power of implicntiou, a power hejg htened, as I have a·rgued, by Wyatt's am· bassadorial experience. The poem's briHiance is linked precisely with its restra int and suggestiveness.» There is, in fact, nothing in the poem that is unequivocally about worldly power and ap· propriation; even the words "Caesar's I am" may refer, as they do in Petrarch, to the motto inscribed on the collars of the emperor's hinds so that they would be left alone and thence, by the con· ventional symbolic exchange, to the hind's dedication to God. They do not suggest this transcendental meaning, but that they do not is purely by implication. The poem seems suspeuded between tl'
PoWi'r. S("J:Uilhty. ond lnil.•ardn-tss in Wyolt's Porlry

ona nce that seems more than a mere side effect. The whole poem is caught up in a series of suspensions, or alternately, in passages from one stale to another. The poet has not withdrawn from the hunt; rather he is in the act of trying to disengage h imsell. Thus the poem opens on a note of detachment and superiority belied by the "alas," as if a carefully plotted show of cool indifference were undermined by an involuntary expression of grieL The poet then places himself among those "that farthest cometh behind," only to reveal that this knowledge of his position, this consciousness of !tis own weariness and the emptiness and vanity o f the effo rt, is to no avail: l)c ca11not detach himself and fully re nounce the hunt. No sooner d ocs he acknowledge th is inabillty- "flainting I fotlow"-than he a(l'bms, m the same llne, his renunciation: " I leave off therefore." There seem to be two separa te, indeed opposing intentions held in tense juxtaposition. As if recognizing this impasse, at line 10 the poet writes as if he were beginning the poem over again, this tbne not to attempt a clear disengagement of himself from the hunt but a clear statement of its hopelessness, its "vanity." The reader is left with the impression that, despite the poet's attempts at decisiveness, he never quite "leaves off," that he is incapable of fully drawing his mind from the "deer": the poem itself bears witness to his continued obsession even as it records the attempt to disengage himself from it. And it is not only the poet who is suspended o r in p~ssage: just at the point that the hind seems most wild, as free and untouchable as the wind, s he is revealed by her diomond collar n~ tame, and just at the point that she seems most tame, s ho is revealed as most wild. 'T'he collar which is the manifest sign of h er tameness is at the san1e time the manliest sign of 11er wildness. The phrase "wild for to hold" is richly suggestive: at the simplest level, it means " imposs ible to grasp," as the proverb of trying to hold the wind in a net had earlier suggested. The hind is unconfined and uncontrollable; she moves freely without restraint, subject only to her own will. But here, as in other poems by Wyatt, we find the proverb invoked only to be complicated and qualified. "Wild" suggests not only elusiveness but the uncanny menace associated with the medieval tradition of the wild man or wild woman: a being who has fallen away from a state of rome ness or civilization to the savage condition of animal, a creature dissolute, llcenHous, and potentia lly violent, living outside the bounds of human convention, living ou tside human bo11ds. 11'tis fig ure is the focus for some of the deepest fears of medieval and Ren nissnnce cu lture, for wildness exposes the tconuous ness and artificinllty of society's

147

148

CHA l•T~R

Tll!.\l!ll

elaborate codes and challenges the stable order imposed upon sexuality, sustenance, and government. The wild man or woman represents the radically alien being, unassimilated and unknowable.... "Wild" in this sense signals danger and thus crystallizes that transformation of the hunter into the hunted subUy implied in the poet's inability to draw his wearied mind from the deer. The danger lies not only in the hind's own wildness-her irresistible yet unatta inable beauty, her othemess-but in the power of "Caesa r": it is, paradoxically, withln the power of the ruler to confer wildness. And, by a further paradox, th is wildness is a form of protection for the hind; the collar stops the hunt, transforms the hiJld from prey to pet or possession. The deer seems tame, and thiq

~f'('ming

t
This sublle play on the sense of "w ild" is the climax of Wyatt's powers of implication; while remaining ambiguous and elusive, it compels a profound reevaluation of all the preceding terms, above all rendering it impossible to take noli me lnngere in its original religious context. That context is evoked only to be violated, so that the reader experiences the wrenching transformation of the sacred to the profane which is the essence of Wyatt's treatment of Petrarch. Petrarch's nessun mi /ocelli clearly recalls not only Caesar's protected hinds but john 20:1!>-17, the apparition ofJesus to Mary Magdalene at the sepulcher. "Jesus saith unto her, Woman, why weepest thou? whom seekest thou? She, supposing him to be the gardener, saith unto him, Sir, if thou have borne him hence, tell me where thou hast laid him, and I wlll take him away. jesus saith unto her, Mary. She hii'OCd herself, and saith unto him, Rabboni; which is to say, Moster. jesus saith unto her, Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended to my Father." This Is the quintessential moment of suspension, of poise between states of being, evoked by Petrarch as the key to hi sown moment of vision, with its wondrous sense of presence and distance, joy and loss. In Wyatt, the allusion, made even stronger by the direct quotation of the Vulgate, is bitterly ironic, and the spiraling ironies seem to embrace the whole scholastic theory of the nature of Christ's body as he appeared to Mary and the disciples after his death. According to this theory, Christ's Glorified Body, as it was called, has four qualities, qualities which are at least implici tly present in Petrorch's poem and w hi ch seem to be parod ied in Wyatt's poem: impassibili~y. or freedo m from suffering. becomes cold ind ifference; clarity, or glorious bea uty, becomes the irresistible lure of th11 woman; agility, o r the nbility to pass from place

Porutr, SenuJiity 1 and ltrwordncss in Wynu•, Poriry

to place wi th great speed, becomes the lady's maddening elusiveness; and subllfly, or the complete subjection of the body to the soul, becomes the ~ubtlety of the courtesan. What we have been caUing suspension or passage is here revealed as lrnuslntio11. In its subtle restraint and power of implication, "Whoso List" makes part of its meaning the complex process of transformation from one language to another, from one culture to another. The drama of the lyric is the passage from Petrarch's vision of the world to Wyatt's or rather to the vision we ourselves constitute on the basis of the poet's dcliber,1tely aJi usive selfrepresentati on. Of course, the effect is d iminished if we ore unfamiliar with th" source, but it is by no means ent irely lost, for the reader is •n any case ;mplicated in the sonnet's essential act ivity, the transformation of va lues. The poet twice addresses the reader as a potential hunter-"Whoso list to hunt," "Who list her hunt''-both i1witing and dissuading him, making him reenact Ute poet's own drama of involvement and disillusionment. We share the passage from fascination to bitterness, longing to weariness, and we do more than share: we are forced to take responsibility as translators in our own right. It is we, after all, who refuse to take noli me tangere in a religious sense, we who understand Caesar not os God but as an all too human protector, we who hear-as Wyatt's contempbraries may have done--Anne Boleyn and Jlenry VII I where there is only talk of a hi"nd and her hunter>. It is as if a whole mystical visionary ethos gives way before our eyes and nuda our· pressurr to a corrupt and dangerous go me of power. Th is sense of om own implication in the act of lmnslalion coi ncides with the faint but disturbing intimations t:hal the poel himself bears some rcsponsibili ty for his frustration. The lost line, as we have already seen, is a complex reversal oi expectations: from the point of view of the hunter it should be the lameness rather than the wildness of the hind that is the disabling surprise. And this reversal subverts the speakers implied innocence and selfrighteousness: the hind was hunted as a wild animal, so it is scarcely surprising that she turns out to be wild. What did the hunter expect? What else could she have been? She is fulfilling not only the laws of kind but the nature of lhe speaker's own approad1, the structure of the relationship. The transformation from idea lism to disillusionment was foreordained in the very first line with the n1cnlion of the hunt. Bu t pe1·haps the transformation has even deeper roots, for if we argue that,, md ic.1l shift from the sacred to the profane is part or

149

150

CHAI'.t:llR

THKIII

th~ experience of Wyatt's poem, we may ~I the same Ume observe that the C01111ectio11 between them remains deeply felt, and not simply as the relatedness of diametrical opposites. I have already spoken of this connection in regard to the penitential psalms with their poetic revelation of the linkage between power, sexuality, and inwardness. This is precisely the nexus of both "Una candida cerva" and "Whoso List To Hunt," where the poet's inner life in each c.1sc is shaped by the relation of Caesar and the object of d esire. Petrarch's poem, afte r a ll, is as much about frustration und loss as Wyutt's, ond if the former does not speak of n hunt, it has its own d istu rb ing image for the purs uit: the miser's seru-ch for t•·easurc. Thc•·e is, I suggest, a seJlsc in whi ch this shared emo1iona l slate and the structure of relations that brings it about are

1"1'\0rc important than the contrasting identHicntions of C:llcs;~ r w-ith

God and with the king. From this perspective, Petrarch's idealism is not rc,Jinced by Wyatt's sense of weariness and emptiness but rather fulfillt•d by il. 65 I am not suggesting that the relation between tmnscendental vision and cynical betrayal was present to Wyatt's consciousness nor that the subUe complicity of the lover in IUs own failure was fully intended; rather they are intimations at the edges of his finest poems, as if the act of representation itself, in its highest achievements, hod its own powers of implication. Few of Wyatt's poems have this resonance, but it seems unmistakably present in moments of the peni tential psalms, in "Whoso List," and in hi s greatest achievement, "They Flee from fVlc": They nee from me tha t sometime did me seek WlU1 naked foot stalki11g in my chombe1·. I have seen them geJltle, tame, and meek That now are wild and do not remember That sometime they pu t them self in danger To take bread a t my haJld, and now they range Busily seeking with a continual change. Th~nked be fortune it hath been othenvise Twenty times better, but once in special, In thin array after a pleasant guise When her loose gown from her shoulders did fall And she me caught in her arms long .1nd small, Therewith,,! sweetly did me kiss And softly sa id, Dear h eart how like you this? It was no dream: I lay broad wak ing. But all is tumed thorough my gentleness In to a strange fashion of forsa king, A11d 1 h ave leave to go of he,. goodness,

Powtr, Stl:1wlity, amlllm,ar-diii~SS iu Wyntl's Pot'l')l

And she ~Iso to use newfangleness. But since that I so kindely am served, I would f11in know what she hath deserved. In one of the best recent discussions of this poem, Donald Friedman suggests that we consider the speaker a "fully imagined persona" deliberately distanced from Wyatt himself who subjects his creation ton searching "dramatic analysis." This analysis "reveals a man whose sensibility has been warped by subservience to a code he has just leamed is false and impermanent."•• Such an approach enobles us to confro nt t11e bad faith in the speaker's self-righteous J'csentment, the jronies that underlie and su bvert the cla im that "all is tLtrned thoroug h my gentleness / Into a strange tosh lo n ot torsaking." "Gentleness" has, by this po int, been so charged with inner contradiction and aggression that the speaker's simple attempt at irony tltM\s against him: his "gentle· ness"- the code that governs his sexual betrayal-may indeed have led to what he perceives as betrayal. "I would f11in know what she hath deserved." Excluded from the predominantly male rhetorical culture, "she" has no opportunity to respond, but were she to do so, we might imagine her saying, "Dear heart, what did you expect?" The speaker's relations with women are charged with that will to power, that dialectic of domination and submission, whose presence we have viewed elsewhere in Wyatt's poetry.•7 The creatures who now flee fro m hJm once put themselves "in da nger I To take bread ,, t my hand," a relationship he remembers with bi ller satis(,1ction. But the image is already more than a sim ple assertion of successful domination; il conveys a complex interweav ing of condescension, menace, and en treaty. The wild creatures are induced to place themselves in subm issive postures only if the man suspends all signs of aggression and holds himseU perfectly still. TI1e paradox of a power suspended, rendered passive, in order to exist at all is intensified in the second stanza where the bravado of "twenty times better" gives way to the highly particularized recoUedion of a moment of perfect passivity. Friedman finds trus stanza "an anticlimax that reveals the poverty of moral imagiMtion that underlies an elaborate, exalted, and idealizing vision of human conduct''; the scene, he writes, is "a sketch o( rapacious appetite, its outlines blurred and made glamorous by ritualized manners and by the compressed meanings of a conventional diction."•• This response is the outcome of the view thnt i·hc spea ker is a persona fro rn whom bot h poet and audience OJ'e wholly detached, but 1 think it is p(CCisely hel'e thnl

!52

CUAPl'Elt

T HR. Bfl

the limitations of this view become evident. For the remembered scene, far from being anticlimactic, seems in the context of both this poem and of early Tudor poetry remarkably intense, almost haunting in its presence. The erotic experience is indeed the object of critical rcnection, but from within, from the midst of a powerful engagement. And the criticism is not of "rapacious appetite:• which is little in evidence in either the man or the woman, but of the almost infantile passivity that is the other side of manly domi· nation. Tha i passivity is tantalizingly ambiguous: in the first stanza, it seems to be disguised aggressio n; in the second, an e<:static re· lease from aggression; in the third, a form of victimization. And this progression s uggests an emotional pa Itern that charact.,rizes not only n particular relationship but, as the initial "they" suggests, a whole series of relationships. The paltern is roughly as follows: the man is sexually aggressive; his desire can only be satisfied through the transfonnation of aggression into passivity; this passivity-at once masked aggression and its negationinvites both embmce and flight; the flight, perceived as a betrayal of his "gentleness," leads the man to tum his passivity back into aggression against the woman for whose embrace he stiU longs. The powerful intensity of "They Flee from Me:• like that of "Whoso List," derives from the fact that neither audience nor poet is permitted to stand at a comfortable distance from the speaker. It is mi sleading to conceive of the poem as if it were one of Brown· ing's dramatic monologues, even if such a conception enables us to isolate certain impottant elements, for this p laces us a t a moral remove whc•-e the poem itself insists that we are pa •·tidpants. Th e experience at the heart of the poem is less a matter of individual char.1cter, isolated like a laboratory specimen for our scrutiny, than a matter of shared language, of deep cultu ral assumptions, of colle<:tive mentality. Hence the ambigujty of the speaker's passiv· ity has its roots not in the quirks of a complex personality-there is little individuation of this kind in Wyatt's poetry-but rather in the connicting cultural codes that fashion male identity in Tudor court lyrics. If, as I have suggested, those lyrics rcnect both the religious and secular institutions that dominated their creators' lives, we might note that in the lutheran context, passivity, understood as submission to nurturing domination, is a traoscen· dent value, while in the context of Henrician diplomacy, passivity, understood as the failure to manj[est one's power, is a sign of dangerous vulnerability, rccuperable on ly if the failu •-e is implied

Potutr, St<:tuality. atJd ItrwMdUtit<; in Wynii'J Po4ttry

to be a mask for a more potent aggression. Now neither the religious nor the diplomatic code directly determines the sexual relaHons implied by love poetry in the court, but they both affect the way erotic experience will be represented and understood. The deep disquiet occasioned by "They Flee from Me" emerges then from the contradictions inherent in the code by which the speaker lives and in which we ourselves as readers nrc implicated (just as Wyatt's first audience would have been implicated); bad faith is not confronted face to face but glimpsed on the periphery, in the hollowness that attaches to words like "gentle, tame, and meek," ill the darklless that J1overs about the false phrases of poli.teness-"1 have leave to go of l 1er goodness," "since that I so kindely am served"-to which the speaker sWI iron ically clings. As in "Whoso List," the process portrayed as betrayal turns out to be a fulfillment, but there is no evidence that Wyatt set out to depict the disappointed lover's involvement in his own failure. A subversive awareness intrudes itself into the work of art but is inaccessible to ;:. lover who views himself as a gentleman betrayed by a fickle mistress and asks bitterly what she deserves. From within this dominant perspedive, one is aware only of a painful striving toward a percepHon that remains just beyond the field of vision, an unsettling intinmtion that the link between male sexuality and power has produced this mingled fntstration, anxiety, and contempt. for Wyatt to articulate this perception would be to write a di£fcrcnt kind of poem-a psalm or a sotir~and u\ so d oing the perception would be utterly changed, for os we huvc seen, the psa lms transfer " hot affect" to an all-powerful God while the satires attempt to withdraw £rom both power und sexuality. li Wyatt's best court lyrics make us perceive in a crit ical form the lived experience of sexua l politics at court, they do so in the manner that Balzac's art gives us a critical view of the lived experience of capitalist society: not, that is, because the artist has abandoned his ideology but, paradoxically, because he has clung to it. Balzac and Solzhenitsyn, writes Louis Althusser, "give us a 'view' of the ideology to which their work alludes and with which it is constantly fed, a view which presupposes a relrrnl, an intenral dislntttinliou from the very ideology from which their novels emerged. They make us 'perceive' ... in some sense from/he inside, by an inlcmnl distance, the very ideology in which they are h~ld.""'' To understand how this inte.rnal distance, this gap between discourse and intention, is generated in Wyatt's lyrics, we must return to the conditions of his poetic creation. As

153

l!H

CHArTER

TIIRBB

courtier and amba>sador, Wyatt developed techniques of sellfashioning that he brings to bear on hjs poetry; these techniques are weapons in a struggle for power and precedence in wh ich seXtJal relations are fully implica ted. The goal, both politically and sexually, is doml nation and possession (for which Wyatt provides powerful images in the hunt and the diamond collar), but such a goal cannot be openly avowed; instead both diplomats and lovers constantly invoke and half believe in the values of "service." ....gentleness," and .... truth." Encountering the same contradktions, Thomas More was drawn to irony and to dreams of self-cancellation or absorption into a transcenden t consensus. Wyatt too, under the scourge of royal discipline, expresses the longing for both transcendence and wit-hdrawal. bul h.-. lark~ Morp'c;: :lh~lute institution juiit as he

lacks Tyndnle's unwavering and consuming adherence to an absolute text. Wyatt is far more purely dependent than either More or Tyndale upon secu lar power, and it is in relation to this power that his identity is shaped. In the competitive struggle to express ltimselfmore powerfully, intensely, ond pers uasively than anyone else in the court-to win sympathy, comma nd respect, hurt his enem ies, in short, to dominate-Wyatt enlists and helps to create the forces of realism, manliness, individuality, and inwardness. These forces are intertwined, and it is in their complex relation that the resonance, the crucial intemnl distance, of his lyric poetry arises. Critics have long celebrated Wyatt's "manliness." The modem anthology's observation of hi s "manly independence in love" is in a line of such commen ts stretching back to Surrey's praise of Wyatt as "manhood's shnpe." 70 The qualities that seem to evoke this term iln? sarcasm, the will to dominate, 01ggression toward women, concern for liberty 01nd invulnerability and hence resistance to the romantic worship of the lady, a deliberate harshness of accent and phrasing, and-for Surrey at least-a constant and unappeasable restlessness. This last seems to me a particularly fruitful term for the shape of manhood in Wyatt, for it suggests the blend in his works of defiance, assertiveness, energy, inventiveness, dissatisfaction, and passionate incompleteness. These qualities arc not, of course, Wyatt's own invention, but it is important to see how little appropriate would "manliness" so understood be as a description of any poet before him or, for that matter, of More or Tyndale. Wyatt appears to have fashioned it as his literary and social identity, in part perhaps as a flattering imitation of Henry VIII, The notion of manliness has, of c:ourse, undergone numerous compJcx

Powtt. Su:ualily, nnd lnward"tss i11 Wyatt's Port,.y

transfonnntions since the early sixteenth century, but a certain underlying continuity is suggested by the frequency with which the tenn continues to be employed in descriptions of Wyatt's poetry. Wyatt's manliness becomes, in its way, as profound and inAuential a pattern for the future as More's ironic blend of engagement and detachment and Tyndale's passionnte identification with the Word. The principal expressive mode of manliness in Wyatt's d is· course is realism, exemplified in the unsentimenta l weighing of motives In the d iplomatic d ispatches or the "ploin speaking" of such poems os ''Madam, Withouten Many Words" and "You Old Mule." Wyatt presents himself as a man suspicious of aurea te dicliua • oullt h11•uL>tl" ind irections of rhetorJc, fond of homey tales and proverbial wisdom. That this stance was idcnHficd as Wyatt's and perhaps cu ltivated by him is suggested by his charge that his enemies, in inventing a speech that they then attributed to him, strewed it with oaths and proverbial expressions to make it sound like his own. These enemies nearly had his head by charging that he had said that he wished the king "cast out of a cart's arse," that is, hanged like a lhief; Wyatt countered that he had merely said he feared the king has been "left out of the cart's arse,"that is, that his interests had been overlooked. 71 Realism as a discursive technique in Wyatt is closely linked with a heightened sense of individuality, dramatized superbly in his poetry by means of irtnovative metrical techn iqucs.7' The vers~ swells and b uckles, the Stress suddenly shifts, the tronslnlion veers away from its original, to register the pressures of the poet's pow· erful ego. The nnturul environment and even the mistress herself play relatively little part; always squarely at the center is the speaker, complaining, threatening, resolving to make an end, recording his doubts and hopes. There is no more insistent expression of the "I" in Tudor literature. This insistence is by no means the equivalent of security; on the contrary, the self manifested so urgently has all of the instability of egotism, at once threatening to swallow up the whole world and terribly vulnerable: for suddenly me thought My heart was tom out of his place." But of thcimportn11cc of his identity, Wyatt has no doubt whatever; there is none of the diffidence that colors self-presentation from Chaucer to More. This fa ith in the centrality of the self is not simply a sign of egoti sm but is vnlidated-jusfified in a quasi-thcologicaJ

155

156

CHAPTER

THRUn

sense-by the inwardness that Protestantism held to be one of the signs of truth, the inwardness celebrated in the penitential psalms. By achieving this powerful interiority, the court poetry docs not appear to be concerned only with histrionic selfmanifestation but with the revelatio11 of the self in discourse. The audience is not being manipulated but invited to experience the movement of the poet's mind through assurance, doubt, dread, and longing. This painstaking rendering of the inner life seems to surpass any social game, though the poems rema in clearly embedded in such a game. We Jre now prepared to grasp how the gap between d iscourse and intention opens up in Wyatt and hence how it is possi ble for his g1·eo test poems to engage in complex reflections upon the system of values that has generated them. The ski ll fu l merger of manliness, realism, individuaJjty, and inwardness succeeds In maki11g Wyatt's poetry, at its best, distinctly more convincing, more deeply moving, than any written not only in his generation but in the preceding century. But his achievement is dialectical: if, through the logic of its development, courtly self-fashioning seizes upon inwardness to heighten its histrionic power, inwardness turns upon self-fashioning and exposes its underlying motives, its origins in aggression, bad faith, self-interest, and frustrated longing. Wyatt's poetry originates in a kind of diplomacy, but the ambassadorial expression is given greater and greater power until it intimates a perception of its own situat ion that subverts its officia l purpose. Wyatt's great lyrk.~ arc the expression of this dialectic; they give vo.ice to competing modes of self-presenta tio n, one a manipu lation of appearances to achieve a desired end, the othe1· a rendering l11language, an exposure, of that which is hidden within. The result is the complex response evoked by a poem like "They Aee from Me": on the one hand, acceptance of the speaker's claim to injured merit, admiration for his mastery of experience, complicity in his"manly" contempt for women's bestial faithlessness; on the other hand, :recognition of the speaker's implication in his own betrayal, ack11owlj!dgment of the link between the other's imputed bad failh and his own, perception of an interior distance in the ideology so passionately espoused. We sense, in short, a continual conflict between diplomatic selfpresentation, struggling to appropriate inwardness, and inwardness struggling to achieve critical independence from selfpresentation. Neither triump hs: hence the suspcusion of Wyatt's court· Jydcs between impositio ns of the self on the world and criticnl Cxplo•·ntl on of inwardness.

F

0

u

R

To Fashion a Gentleman: Spenser and the Destruction of the Bower of Bliss

More, Tyndale, and Wyatt all make strong, independent claims upon our attention, but they also come to stand for more than their own private visions or personal destinies. They give voice to longings and fears that are deeply embedded in the nation's social and psychological character; taken together, they may be said to enact the momentous ideological shift in early modem England from the co1tsensus fidelimn embodied in th e universal Catholic Chu rch to the obsolutistclaints ofthe Book and the King. It may be helpfu l at this point to review briefly and somcwhnt schematically the ground ihat has been covered. For More the self is poised between an ironic, self-conscious performance, grounded upon hidden reserves o f private judgment and silent faiU1, and an absorption into a corporate unity tha t has no need for pockets of privacy. In the former state, identity is a mask to be fashioned and manipulated; in the latter, it is a status firmly established by the corporate entity and comprehensible only as a projection of that entity. There are moments in More's career and writings in which he seems to veer sharply in one or the other of these directions, as when he flatters Wolsey or when he lives as a l.ly member of the Charterhouse. But more often the two states are i ntertwincd: thus he writes Utopia, with its vision of the entire ~bsorption of the individual into the larger body of the community, at the moment in which he is most intensely engaged in calcu lated self-presentation. O r again, in the midst of subtle maneuver$ designed to placate the king and hence in the midst of his ll'ICJSt dcmnnd i11g improvisational performoncc, More slides into nn inn·onsi ng ly powerful identification wilh th~ Church's 1~7

158

CHAPTER

POUR

martyrs, until at the end he has become one of their number. We may, I think, argue that the moments both of the greatest creative force and of the greatest estrangement and violence occur when the self-conscious, self-concealing, theatrical identity touches the corporate identity. These conjunctions did not happen spontaneously; they took place under intense pressure brought to bear upon More because of his relation to power and to the heretics he sough t to destroy. ForTyndale the self is Likewise poised, but between poles quite different from those glimpsed in More. There is, to be sUie, a high ly ind ividua ted identity, but i.t is not· at all conceived as a threatrica l role, a mask behind which one conceals private judg· mcnts. Such theatricality is repugnant to Tyndalc; he associates it with what he takes to be the hypocrisy of Catholic prelates and their lay agents, wi th the refmed hostility of Cuthbert Tunstall and thl.' smooth temporizing of More. The righteous individual, for Tyndale, has no scope for feigning, indirection, or hidden judg· ment; he seizes directly, as it were rapaciously, upon the trulh. Any more devious path bears ,..ntness to bad faith and back· sliding, or, at best, to an um'lilling, enforced concession to the overwhelming pressures of a corrupt social world. To take delight in -social performance as distinct from inward reality is unthinkable or rather thinkable only as a characteristic mode of the follow· ers of Satan. Tynda lc's own sense of his identity is marked precisely by his refusal to make a pnrt for himself in the midst of th" ongoing pCl·formonce. As a tu tor in Gloucestershire he did 1101keep silent, cloak ing his judgments behind a cover of a[fobi!Hy, but quarreled ope11ly and violently with tl1ose whose views of the Church he could not accept, until he was forced to depart for London. And when it became clear that he could not do as he wished in London, he left there too. These departures signal a pattern of rejections in Tyndale's life that centers on the crucial rejection of the Catholic Church. Man must live outside t11e institution, must not accept it as mediator between himself and other men or God. There is no longer a dense body of offices, ceremonies, rituals, traditions passed down from generation to generation, in the midst of which a man takes his place. If there is none of More's calcu lated role-playing, there ls equally none of his absorption into a visible corporate body. Thus Tyndalc can speak of man in a kind of isolation that Is entirely alien to More, ca n claim that a single, unaided man's judgment is su fficien t unto itself to distinguish the true from the f"lsr, to fi nd

To Fasl1io1t a Gtntlcman

and understand God. To be sure, there is isolation in More as weU, as the vigils in the New Building attest, but this isolation is not complete, for the believer is never entirely detached from the body of all Christians, from the visible, tangible guarantor and preserver of the unity of mankind. In Tyndale those bonds are cut with the reje<:tion of the Church: "Who taught the eagles to spy out their prey?" The violence, both literal and metaphoric, that accompanies this rejection ind icates how threatening it seems; nonetheless, it is the necessary self-constituting act. The sell must have at its core a principle of nega tion powerful enough to tear itself away fJ·om the bod y of the Chu rch, to attack its communal rituals, to refuse even a th.:at, ic,,J dl;l' UUIIUutl..-ltion to its sacraments. O ne canno t pret~ch Christ withou t preaching Antichrist; o ne cannot achieve an idelltity witho ut rejecting at1 identi ty. At the same time, the principle of negation, though necessary, is not sufficien t to the fashioning of the self. Alongside rejection of the Church-and hence alongside individuation, isolation, singleness of being-there is a powerful counterforce of obedience. This obedience, it should be noted, is quite dilferent from More's membership in the corpus Cllristianomm. Where the latter implies absorption, oneness, the former implies the separation of individuals, a distance tra nscended but never entirely effaced. Protestants and Ca tholics alike use the trad itional Pauli ne concept of the Chu rch as body, but, as a sodal historian has recently argued, the more authentic biological i mage of the Protestant com· munity is t·he network of ligaments and nerves. ' The netw ork, fitting ly, is not tangible or visible, save to t he anntomi st; it is a conce pt most men take on faith. Identity then is not defined by participation in a body-hence in visi ble, communal rituals-but by a place in a schema of communication, legal rclat ionshi ps, obedience. The principle of negation in each man ultimately de· rives from the divine power that ani mates the nel'.vork in which he has a place, and the expression of that power, the master key to the encoded system of relationships, is the Bible. The book-for Tyndale, the printed book in the vemacula~isplaces the communal body. No successful synthesis of these two modes of being was possible: even an irenic ge nius like Erasmus could not convinci ngly argue that one mig ht select good qualities from each and combine them into a new, com prehensive totality. What was possible was a complex, unstable yoki ng of aspects of both in o secular context. Thorn~~ Wyatt's court poetry insists tha t it· hos no inner silences,

159

160

CHAPTER

FOUR

that it obeys its own principle of individuation. The scll stands alone, defined by its rejection of the doubleness that in a corrupt world assures sexual and political success. For Wyatt this doubleness is, above all, characteristic of women; hence singleness, fidelity, the identity of inner state and external appearance, are attributes of the virtuous man. Wyatt's verse is a constant affirmation of his manliness, manifested not only in professions of singleness, but in deliberate stylistic roughness, coarse d irectness, aggression toward women, restlessness. This manliness is, I suggest, the eq uivale nt in court poetry ofTyndale's eagle-self, deliberately cut off from false socia l rituals, refusing to play a com1pt game, whole. But of course, in U1e secular context, there is no sacred book by means of which man is reintegrated into a larger social network. There is only secular power. the ground and end not of a just order of things but of a vicious competition. Where Tyndale's singleness then is set in the context of his participation in a vast system of obedience, Wyatl's is caught up in a struggle for secular power. Consequently, Wyatt's declarations of self-absorbed independence and hatred of feigning are counterpoised by intimations of their opposites. The contempt for doubleness is itself a theatrical manipulation of appearances; the bluff honesty is a subtle, diplomatic maneuver in an elaborate and dangerous contest. Wyatt's Tyndale-like singleness then has been made over into a More-like thcatrical ity. But as Tyndale's isolatio n was transcended by his religious project, More's role-playing was transcended by his longing for abso•·ptio n into the Church. Wyatt has neithc•· More's Ch,,.ch nor Tyndalc's passionate obedience to the Word of God: he has only secular power, tl1e will to domination that govems both political nnd sexuol relations at court. And in this bleak context, Wyatt's manipulation of his manly honesty affords glimpses of a bad faith that receives its definitive depiction in honest !ago. In his most brilliant court poems, Wyatt hovers on the brink of reflecting directly upon his condition, exploring his complicity in his own failure, his iMbility to free himself from the dialectic of domination and submission, but he cannot ever succeed in rendering this reflection fully conscious and deliberate. For, in the midst of an ongoing engagement in precisely those competitive conditions that shape his identity and determine the purposes of his speech, how could he establish a position from which to conduct such an exploration? l( More was able to do so, it was only by virtue of his ardent ad hetencc to an institution that had for Wyatt been discredited and driven o ut of England. WyMt docs. to be sure, tum tb

To Fashion o Gtuiltmau

other poetic fonns that signal the unraveling of his uneasy courtly identity, but the psalms succeed only in transferring Ule nexus of power, sexuality, and inwardness to a hlgher court, while U'le satires, for all their attempt to establish a hard, well-defended identity secured by withdrawal from dangerous reldtions to women and power, are drawn back toward the conh'adictions and role-playing from which they sought to escape. For someone in Wyatt's si tuation, role-playing seems virtually inescapable, fo•· both the concentratio n (>f power in the court and Protestant ideology lead to a heightened consciousness of identity, an increased attention to its expression, and an intensi fied effo rt to shape and con tro l it. The fashioning of the self is ra ised to the Sldtu:-, uf t1 prubl~.o:m o r a program. TJ1c pressure brought to bear on

identi ty- the pressure of consciousness and power, in the ind ividua l and in the society of which he is a part-has profound literary consequences, some of which we have already glimpsed in the Ulrce figures we have examined. In the chapters that follow we will consider a second triad-Spenser, Marlowe, and Shakespeare-focusing now more on the particu Jar texts and less on direct links between the authors and their works. This nar· rowing of focus is due to the greater illusion of independence in the art, to the fact that we must now consider more complex and seemingly au tonomous characters in fully realized fictional worlds. As the pressure toward self-fashion ing that we have already viewed in More, Tyndale, and Wyatt reaches over hig her levels of conscious artistry, the li terature of the later sixteenth centu•-y becomes increasingly ade pt at renderi ng such characters in highly individuated situatio ns. Moreover, it becomes in· creasi ngly possible for at least a small number of men to conceive of literature as their primary actiyjty: as we pass from Spenser to Marlowe to Shakespeare, we move toward a heightened investment of professional identity in artistic creation. Consequently, it becomes easier to discuss the formation and undermining of identity will1irt individual wod<s without formally referring beyond them to the lives of the creators, though we must remind ourselves that the very existence of such apparent inwardness depends upon the lived experience of a self-fashioning culture.' Before tuming to Spenser, we will attempt to sketch very briefly some of the salient characteristics of this culture. Despite its nge nnd its well-documented limitations, o ne of the best int>-od uctions to Renaissance self-fash ion ing remains Bl>rtkha •·d t's Civi/iz~tio/1 of tl1e RennissnHce in finly.~ Uurckho •·dt's crucial pe•·ceptlon wos that the political upheavals in Ita ly in the later

161

162

Middle Ages, the transition from feudalism to despotism, fostered a radical change in consciousness: the princes and COIIdottieri, and their secretaries, ministers, poets, and followers, were cut off from established forms of identity and forced by their relation to power to fashion a new sense of themselves and their world: the self and the stale as works of art. But his related assertion that, in the process, these men emerged at last as free individuals must be sharply qualified. While not only in Italy, but in France and England as well, the old feudal models gradually crumbled and fell into ruins, men created new models, precisely as o way of con· taining and channeling the energies which had been released . -rhe chief inteUectual and linguistic tool in th i~ croMion was rhetoric, which held the central place in the hu manist education to which most gentlemen were at· IPMt Pxpo•P
To FDsldou a CetHltmDrr

secret rehearsals which underlie the successful perfonnance. For a sense of these, we must turn to the cruder manuals, such as n,. Court of Civil Courtesy (1577), a handbook designed to help its reader to thread his way successfully through the labyrinth of social distinctions, to win at the game of rank. For example, if a host of equal or lower social rank seats a gentleman below an inferior, the author suggests that the gentleman casually sit down two or three places below even his assigned place; then if his host tries to move him back, he should say nonchalantly, "As long as I find good mont, I never use to study for my place." 7 The point, of course, is that this is spoken by someone who has intensely studied for his place. Dissimulation and felgl'llng are an lrnportam parr of the instruction given by almost every court manual, from this comedy of manners, to Guaz>.o's defense of the pretence necessary to achieve an agreeable social presence, to Castiglione's idea of the sugercoated pill of political virtue. 8 One of the most penetrating Renaissance studies of this feigning and indeed of the whole mentality of the courtier is Philibert de Vienne's brilliant mock encomium, The Pllilosopllt r of lilt Court (1547). According to the speaker of this little-known work, translated by George North in 1575, "Our new and mom! Philosopl•y may thus be defined: A certain and sound judgment, how to live according to the good grace and fashion of the Court.'"' Where old-fashioned philosophers used to struggle to probe below the appearance of things to their essence, modern moralists need on ly pay scrupulous attent ion to surfaces: "the semblances and nppennmces of all things cunn ingly couched, are the principal supporters of our Philosophy: for such as we seem, such arc we judged here ... " (56-57). Acts which have plausible "coverings and pretty pretexts" (50) are to be condoned; acts without them arc condemned as crimes. This is not presented as the voice of conscious cynicism; quite the contrary, the speaker considers himself highly moral. He talks of commutative and distributive justice, of prudence, temperance, and magnanimity. Above all, he prizes honor, in defense of which a man mny lawfully fight and, if need be, kill. But such extreme measures are rare; as in Tilt Courtier, a man wins honor Jess by the sword than by the possession of grace, a quality which may be acquired through careful study and practice.'" Philibert's target is not the craftiness of a confidence man but the iclcnlism, the high moral tone, tha t serves at once to advance the courtier's career and to conceal his rapacity from himself. The philosoph~r of t·hc court has no intention of forgo ing the pleasure>

163

164

CHAPTBR

FOUR

of an unspotted conscience; indeed that conscience is one of the choicest products of the humanistic education t·hat his social world requires of its participants. But the problem is to maintain this conscience in the face of the violations of its tenels in the reality of behavior at court. If those violations are invisible for much of the time, there are nonetheless moments at which a life pervaded by dissimulation must confront a moral tradiHon that insists, in the teachings of Socrates for example, that dissimulation is immoraL Philiberl's interest is the working of the court mind at such momen ts, the social accommodation of a n e thical embarrassment: "Socrales forbids 6uch masking and general disguising, because we should not appear to be olbers than we are: a nd we also allow the sa me .... But Socrates letteth us not, that hav ing no desire to show ourselves contrary to that wP wnulrl hP esteemed, not-

withsland ing we dissemble, and accommodate ourselves to the impcrfeclions of everyone, when the same doth presen t us danger, and is prejudicial unto us ..•. Himself doeth serve us for example, for all hough he was ever like unto himself ... yel was he the grealest dissembler in the world" (97-98). By virtue of several convenient d islortions and Ihe discreet omission of lhe circumstances of his death, Socrales is absorbed into the elhos of rhetorical self-fashioning that Plato, in Theaetehts and Gorgias, has him condemn. For the philosopher of the court, Socra les is no longer opposed to a soph islic view of the world" Ihe v irtue of man consisteth not in thai which is only good of itself, follow ing the opinion of Philosophy: but in that which secmcth to them good " (12}-but o ne of its supr·c mc practilioners. The pote ntially disilhtsioning conflicl bclween social idea ls and social behavior has been averted, and Philibe rt's speaker can conclude wilh ~celebration of Protean man: "Th is facility of the Spirit is nol therefore to be blamed which makes men according to the pleasure of others, to change and transform himself. For· in so doing he shall be accounted wise, win honor, and be free of reprehension everywhere: which ProterlS knew very well, lo whom his diverse Metamorphosis and oft transfiguration was very commodious" (101). 11 Philibert has seen deeply into the mind he satirizes and cunningly mimics ils forms of thought and expression. Indeed, there is some evidence that Tirt Philosopher of /Itt Court may have been taken a t face value in England as a manual of courl behavior. 11 [f so, it is a slnrtling tribute to the accuracy of Phi li bcrl's perception of the pressu.-e on lhe court mind lo pr·eservc its idealism by transform ing disruptive c riticism inlo histrionic cclc br·M ion ond

To Fashion

Q

Gentleman

confirmation. Titis pressure intensifies as one moves closer to the center of power; ~~ the very center even hostility and frustration wear the face of perfervid worshlp. Thus Sir Walter Ralegh may have chafed at Elizabeth's Spanish policy, wishing it more mililani, but he did so only in the context of the "romance" which he carried on with his royal mistress. She was Cynthia and he was the Ocean, she was Diana and he an adoring follower, she was the heroine of a chivalric romance and he her devoted knight. When he had incurred the d isfavor of his sixty-year-old mistress, U1e midd le-nged lover declared himself heartsick with loneliness and grief: "W hi le she wa~ yet near at hand, that 1 might hear of her ooce in two or three days, my sorrows were the less: but even now my hcort i:.; etwt Into the depth of all mjsery. J t h llt' am wont to

behold her riding li ke Alexander, hunting li ke Diann, walking like Venus, the gentle wind blowing her fair hair about her pure cl1eeks, like a nymph (etc.]." 13 To accompany such ftne sentiments, Ralegh even staged a scene of violent passion, modeled on the twenty-third canto of Orlando Furioso. I lis kinsman, Sir Arthur Gorges-no doubt acting upon instructions-carefuJJy described the "strange Tragedy" in a letter to Cecil, concluding "I fear Sir W . Ralegh will shortly grow to be Orlando Furioso, i( the bright Angelica persevere against him a little longer." The key to the performance is provided in a post· script: "I could wish her Majesty knew."'" Ralegh was more tlamboyant than most, but the phenomenon as a whole is famili ar. Sir Robert Carey has left a record of the way he wns ca ught up in Elizabeth's U1eatricals. In 1597, smarti ng at nol having been paid for his services as Warden of the gast Marches, he eodc to l"hcobatds uninvited and requested an audience wiU1 U1e queen. Both Cecil and Carey's brother (who was then l.ord Chamberl~ in) advised him to leave at once without letting the queen know of his rash visit, for they assured him she would be furious. But a courtier friend, William Killigrew, devised a better plan: he told the queen that she was beholden to Carey, "who not having seen her for a twelvemonth and more, could no longer endure to be deprived of so great a happiness; but took post with all speed to come up to see your Majesty, and to kiss your hand, and so to return instantly again." 15 Carey was then granted an audience and was given the money due to hfm. How are we to take a story like thls? Carey implies i11 his accoun t thnt the queen was taken in. Perhaps; nnd yet wi thout de· nying he•· ,, jot of her e nonnous vanity, we mny be vi rtually certain that TIIIznbcth wn• well aware that lw hncl not l"iddcn fi'Om the

165

166

CHArTtA

POUR

Scottish marches in order to kiss her hand . By insisting upon the roman tic fiction , she determined t·he whole lone of theix subsequent dealings: Carey was no longer a civil servant demanding his pay, but a lover at the feet of his mistress. He had been absorbed into Petrarchan politics. Not su,.prisingly, one oi the most acute contempol"Ury observers of these tactics was Sir Franci s B~con. Tf the courti ng and professions of love which the queen encouraged are viewed indulgently, "they are much like the accounts we lind in romances of the Queen in the blessed islands, and her court and institutions, who allows oi amorous admiration but prohibits desire. But if you take them serio usly, they chal lenge admiration of another ki nd and of a very high order; for certain it is that these dalliances detracted but little from her lame and nothing aL all from her majesty, and neither weakened her power nor sensibly hindered her business." 16 Bacon perceives Arst, that the romantic atmosphere of the court had a distinctly literary cast, and second, that it did not interfere with royal control. The two were in fact interhvined: Elizabeth's exercise of power was closely bound up with her use of fictions. 17 A surviving holograph of one of her speeches, at the close of a difficult session, enables us to glimpse the quccn's characteristic strategy: "Let this my discipline stond you in stead of sore•· sh·okes," she writes, "never to tempt too far a Prince's pow .. ." The last letters are crossed out, and in their place she writes ''paticnce.n Ul ln an intensification of that political mode described by More, everyone perceives that power has been made to mask as pa llence or th at it has a.~sumecl romantic trappu1gs, bu t the perception that a ficllon is being imposed is mrely hlmed against Eli2abcth as it will be turned against James and Charles. The reasons lor the queen's relative success are many and complex; they may be summarized by observing that it d id not seem in the interest of a substantial segme nt of the population to attempt to demystify the queen's power, and hence it was enormously difficult to do so. The queen's power was linked with fictions in a more technical sense as well: her reign, according to Ernst Kantorowicz, witnessed the first major secular elaboration of the mystical legal fiction of " the King's Two Bodies." " I am but one body, natura lly considered," Eli7.abeth declared in her accession speech, "though by [God's) permission a Body Politic to govern." When she ascended the throne, according to the crown lawyers, her very being was profoundly altered; in her mortal "Body natural'' was incarna ted the immortal and infalllblc "Body politic." Her body of

To Ftuhion

12 Gtmtltnum

flesh would age and cUe, but the Body pol itic, as Plowden wrote, "Is not subject to Passions as the other is, nor to Death, for as to this Body the King never dies." Her visible being was a hieroglyphic of the timeless corporate being with its absolute perfection, just as, in the words of Coke, "a king's crown was a hieroglyphic of the laws." '" She was a living representation of the immutable within time, a fiction of permanence. Through her, society achieved symbolic immortality and acted out the myth of a perfectly stable world, a world which replaces the Rux of history. Even without this elaborate doctrine, of course, kingship always involves fictions, theatricalism, and the mystifica tion of power. The notion of " the King's Two Bodies'' may, however, have heig htened l!lil:.abeth's consduu:, :;,t!rl!it! of her identity as at least

in part a perso11a ficta and her world as a theater. She believed deeply-virtually to the point of religious conviction 20-in display, ceremony, and decorum, the whole theatrical apparatus of .-oyal power. "We Princes," she told a deputation of Lords and Commons in 1586, "are set on stages, in the sight and view of all the world duly observed. " 21 In the official spectacles and pageants, everything was calculated to enhance her transformation into an almost magical being, a creature of infinite beauty, wisdom, and power. Bu l even her ord inary public appearances were theatrically impressive. A contemporary, Bishop Goodman, recalled in later years having seen the queen emerge from council on a December evening in 1588: "This wrought such an impression upon us.{or shows nnd pngea11IS nre ever best seen by torchlight, tl10t all the way long we did nothing but talk of what an admirable queen she was, and how we would adventure our lives to do her service."" Goodman was anything but a cynic, but, in recollection at least, he could see the royal appearance as a performance calculated to arouse precisely the emotions that he felt. And a performance it was. The queen's words to the crowd on that occasion- " You may wel l have a greater prince, but you shall never have a more loving prince"were repeated with variations throughout her reign. They were part of a stock of such phrases upon which she was able to draw when need arose. Her famous "Colden Speech" of 1601 was little more than a particula•·ly felicitous combination of these refrains-there is scarcely a phrase in it which she had not used again and again. Tile whole public character was fomled very early, then to be played and replayed with few changes for the next forty years. Already in her (onnal procession through the City o n the day

167

16H

C:HA£'T6R

POUM

before her coronation, U>e keynotes were sounded. "If a man should say well," wrote one observer, "he could not better term the city of London that lime, than a stage wherein was showed the wonderful spectacle, of a noble hearted princess toward her most loving people, and the people's exceeding comfort in beholding so worthy a sovereign." Where her sister Mary had been silent and aloof at her accession, Elizabeth bestowed her gratitude a nd affection on all. "I will be as good unto you," she assured her wellwishers, "as ever queen was to her people .... And persuade yourselves, that for tbe safety and quietness of you all, I will not spore, if need be, to spend my blood."" Mutu11l love and royal self-sacrifice-in her rirst address to Parliament some weeks later, she reiterated these themes and added a third, perhaps the most important of all: "And in the end, this shall be for me sufficient, that a marble stone shall declare that a Queen, having reigned such a time, lived and died a virgin" (Neale, 1:49). The secular cult of the virgin was born, and it was not long before the young Elizabeth was portraying herself as a Virgin Mother: "And so I assure you all," she told Commons in 1563, "that, though after my death you may have many stepdames, yet shall you never have a more natural mother than r mean to be unto you all" (Neale, 1:109).24 Through the years, courtiers, poets, ballad makers, and artists provided many other cuJt images: in Ralegh's partial List, "Cynthia, Phoebe, Flora, Diana and Aurora," to which we may add Astraea, Zabeta, Deborah, Laura, Oriana, and, o( course, Belp hoebe and G loriana. 25 The gorgeous rituals of praise channeled nat·ionnl nnd religious sentiments into the worship of the prince, masked over and thus temporarily deflected deep social, political, and theological divisions in late sixteenth-century England, transformed Elizabeth's potentially disastrous sexual disadvantage into a supreme political virtue and imposed a subtle discipline upon aggressive fortune seekers. The best contemporary description of U1e effects of the romanticizing of royal power is by the queen's godson, Sir John Harington: Her mind was oftime like the gentle air that cometh from the westerly point in a summer's mom; 'tw.lS sweet and refreshing to all around her. Her speecll did win all affections, and her subjects did try to show all love to her commands; for she would say, "her state did require her to command what she knew her people wou ld willingly do from their own love to her." Herein did she show her wisdom fully: for who did choose lo

To Faslrion

11

Gt:llllcmGIJ

lose her confidence; or who would withhold a show of love and obedience, when their Sovereign said it was their choice, and not her compulsion? Surely she did play well her tables to gain obedience thus without constraint: again, she could put forth such alterations, when obedience was lacking, as left no doubtings whose daughter she was. •• Harington's cunning description will repay close aHention. It begins with the conventional rhetoric of adoration, the familiar language of countless panegyrics. The next sentence opens in the same mode--we have simply turned from her mind to he•· speech-b ut the•·c is o Sllbtle shift in the second clause: "her sub· j ~cl• did try to show all love to J1er commands." rrom mind to speech to commands-we have moved irom poetica l virtue to power. That power, however, is masked by lhe queen's persuasive speech, which not only transforms obedience into love but, in the phrase "her state did require her to command," suggests that it is she who is obeying an order while her subjects are privileged to act "willingly." We then tum to the subject who thinks he is beguiling his prince with a "show of love and obedience"-what Castiglione called a "salutary deception" 27-but who is in fact being manipulated. The final sentence is almost shockingly ex· plici t: first the picture of the queen as a clever gamester and then the allusion to llenry vrrr, the peclect picture, in R.tlegh's phrase, of a merciless prince. We have come a long way from the gentle ai r of a SLLmmer's mom! Behind all the cultic shows of love, in ,·eserve but ready to be used w henneccssa1y 1 lies force. And yet the recognition of such force is not for Harington the decisive perception: "We did all love her/' he conclud es, "for she said she loved us, and much wisdom s he showed in this matter. " 18 The realism and irony remain, but they are caught up in an appreciation of the mutual interest of both ruler and subject in the transformation of power relations into erotic relations, an appreciation of the queen's ability at once to fashion her identity and to manipulate the identities of her followers. It is 10 a culture so engaged in the shaping of identity, in dissimulation and the preservation of moral idealism, that Spenser addresses himself in definjng "the general intention and meaning" of the entire f"nerie Queene: the end of all the book, he writes to Ralegh, "is to fashion a gentleman or noble person in vertuous and gentle d jscipline. "2•>The poem rests on the obvious bu t by no means universal assumpt·ion that a gentleman can be so fashioned, not simply in 01't but in life. We will , in the remainder of this

169

170

C 1-l A P'T 8 R

Jl 0

t,1 R

chapter, consider the implications of one episode in this educative discipline, the destruction of the Bower of Bliss in book 2, canto 12. After a perilous voyage, as readers of Tltr Faerie Q11ee11e will recall, Guyon, the knight of Temperance, arrives with his companion, the aged Palmer, at the realm of the beautiful and dangerous witch Acrasia. After quelling the threats of Acrasia's mon· strous guards, they enter the witch's exquisite Bower where, aided by th
least be certain H-.at the perspective is important: like Falstaf:f·s banishment, OtheUo's suicide speech, and the harsh punishment ofVolpone, the close of book 2 of Tl•e Fnerir Queene has figured in criticism as one of the great cruxes of English Renaissance literature. The destruction of Acrasia's Bower tests in a remarkably searching way our attitudes toward pleasure, sexuality, the body; tests too our sense of the relation of physical pleasure to the pleasure of aesthetic images and the relation of both of these to what Guyon calls the "excellence" of man's creation. By "tests" I do not mean that the work examines us to see if we know the right nnswcr- the poetry of the Faerie Queene, as Pau l Alpers has demonstrated, continually invites us to trust o ur own experience of it' lich surfaceJ"-rather, th is experience tends to revea l oJ· defim· importan t nspecls of ourselves. TI1us when C. S. Lew is, invoking the "exqu isite health" of Spenser·s imaginMion, charactelizes th1• Bower as a picture of "the whole sexual nature in disease,'' ol "male prurience and female provocation," indeed of "skep tophi lin," the reader familiar with Lewis's work will recogn;,,. links to his criticism of erotic passages in Nero nnd l.eander and Vem1s n11d Adonis, links to his conception of maturity and of mentdl and moral health. This is not to deny that Lewis's brilliant a< count describes disturbing qualities that any attentive reader Dt.l)' recogni.te in the Bower, but it may help us to understand why Itt· writes that "the Bower of Bliss is not a place even of healthy animalism, or indeed of activity of any kind," whereas Spcnfit'l depicts Acrasia and her adolescent lover reposing "artcr lung wanton joys" and even (following Tasso) pictures droplcls lll sweat t.-i ll ing down AC!rasia's snowy brenst " through lnngor c;>f h••• late sweet toil." What for Spenser is the plncc "Whc•'c l'lcu;u"·

To FRsllion a Centlematr

.lwo.'lls in sensual delights" is for Lewis the realm only of {rustrat .. on; all sexual activity is in this way reserved for the Garden of :\tlonis and hence tied securely to teproduction.' 1 \t the other extreme, Yeats dismisses the moral judgments in the canto as "unconscious hypocrisy." Spenser, he tells us, "is a poet of the delighted senses, and hjs song becomes most beautiful when he writes of those islands of Phaedria and Acmsia."" And lwrc again the reader familiar with Yeats will recognize certain JWrennia l interests and values. The point would be too obvious to ltelabot·, were it not for the fact that much Spenser commentary of lilt• past several decades treats the Bower of Bliss ond comparable passnges in Spenser as if they Were technical puzzles to be solved, ·'' i( one could determtne their meaning quite aport from their o•lft--ct upon the reader: "The main subject of the bower of Bliss is diSorder in the human body, the general image or picture Is of the r .mse of that disorder, the imagery used in painting this picture is ,,If of disorder, and the laws of decorum are satisfied."l3 A syrnl'••thetic response like Hazlitl's to the canto's "voluptuous pathos, md languid brilliancy of fancy" or a residual uneasiness about the '''''I ruction are dtsmissed as absurd. Indeed the Romantic readers nl the poem implicitly stand charged as either degenerates or ouoral incompetents. To be sure, critidsm has convincingly shown tlhlt the intellectual tr.1ditlon behind Guyon's act of moral violence lnrludcd not only Puritanism (which must, in any case, be under· tuod as far mot·c than a hysterical rejection o f the flesh) but a rich m.•trlx ol classical and medieval thought.M Moreove r, it has dem· m•strnted thn t the description of tl1e Bower itself is not an isolated ''lwouty" that Spenser, in growing uneaslness Jnd bad faith, de· , tdcd to crush, but an episode embedded in a nart·ative that is oh,•ped throughout by the poet's complex mora l intelligence. The llmnantic critics who have been discredited by this scholarship, ltuwcver, had the virtue of fully acknowledging the Bower's inh "'e erotic appeal. It is frequently said in teply that Spenser has flVt•n us a picture of healthy sexual enjoyment in the Garden of A
h•nru.

w.. '""Cold th.o l 11ftur nn initial ettrnctivencss Ihe liowcr becomes

Vl

172

CHAPTnR

POUR

stuliifying, perverted, and frustrating or that the reader's task, like the hero's, is to interpret the images correctly, that is, to recognize the danger of "lewd loves, and wasteful luxury" embodied in the Bower. I believe that one easily perceives that d.mger from the beginning and that much of the power of the episode derives precisely from the fact that his perception has little or no effect on the Bower's con tinued sensual power: Upon a bed of roses she was layd, As faint through heat, o r dight to pleasant sin, And was arayd, or rather disarayd,

All in a vcle of silke and silver th in, That hid no whit her alablaster skin, Uul rather shewd more white if more might bee. (2.12.77)

"Pleasant sin"- the moral judgment is not avoided or suspended but neither does it establish its dominion over the stanza; rather, for a moment it is absorbed into a world in which the normal conceptual boundaries are blurred: languor and energy, opacity and transparency, nesh and stone all merge. Similarly, the close of the famous rose songGather the rose of love, whilest yet is time, Whiles! loving thou mayst loved be with equall crimeinvites us n1omentarily to transvalue the word "crime," rct:Jding it

as the equ ivalent of "passion" or " intensity," even as we continue to know that "crime" canno t be so transv.,lued. We can master the iconog~aphy, read all the signs correctly, and still respond to the allu re of the Bower. lt is, as we shall sec, the threat of thls absorption tha t triggcll! Guyon's climactic violence. Temperance-the avoidance of extremes, the "sober governmen t" of lhe body, the achievement of the Golden Mean- must be constituted p; radoxically by a supreme act of destructive excess. The Bower's dangerous attractiveness is in sharp contrast to the Cave of Mammon, where Guyon's experience, and ours, is re· markable for the complete absence of sympathetic response to the temptation. The hero's journey through the Cave, past the fabulous displays of riches, embodies one of the basic patterns in the life of a temperate man: to be constantly confronted with baits which arc at once spectacular and curiously easy to resist. The CO I1Seque11ccs of succumbing to these tempt.1tions are horriblenoi·hing short of bci11g t·om to pieces-but lhe temperate man resists far less for fear of the evi l conseque nces than o ut of gc 11uiJ1e i11d iffcrcnce. That is, Ma mmon's offers nre on ly nttrnctivc to those

To Fnrohlon o Ctrrlltmlm

who are going to faU-a tautology not at all aHen to Spenser or to l>rotestant thought. Guyon faints not as an emblem of tensjon, the strain of resisting temptation, but from want of food and sleep. In the Bower of Bliss, Guyon's "stubbome brest gan secret pleasauncc to embraceh (2.12.45), and he does not merely depart from the place of temptation but reduces it to ruins. To help us understand more fully why he must do so in order to play his part in Spenser's fashiooing of a gentleman, we may invoke an obscr· vation made in Civilizatio11 n11d Its Discollltllfs: " It is impossible," writes Freud, " to overlook the extent to which civmzation is built up upon a renunciation o r ;,,stinct, how much it presupposes pre· cisely ilie nonsatisfaction (by suppression, repression, o r some other means?) of powerlul mstincts .... Civilization behaves to· ward sexuality as a people or a stratum of its population does which has subjected another one to its exploitation."" Modem criticism would make t he destruction o r the Bower easy by label· ing Acrasia's realm sick, stagnant, futile, and joyless, but Spenser, who participates wiili Freud in a venerable and profoundly signi· ficant intertwining of sexual and colonial discourse, accepts sexual colonialism only with a near-tragic sense of the cost. If he had wished, he could have unmasked Acrasia as a deformed hag, as he had exposed Ducssa or as A•·iosto had exposed (though more ambiguously) the e nchantress Alcina, but instead Acrasia remains enticingly seductive to the end. She offers not simply sexual pleasure--"long wanton joys"-but self-abandonment, erotic aestheticism, the melting of the will, the end of all quests; and Spenser Lmderstands, at the deepest level of his bei ng, the a ppeal of such an end. Aga in and again his kn ights reach out longingly lor resolution , closure, or release only to have it snatched from them or deferred; ilie whole of T11e Faerie Queme is the expression of an intense craving for release, which is ovem1astered only by a sl ill more intense fear of release. The Bower of Bliss must be destroyed not because its grati· fications are unreal but because they threaten "civility"-civili· zation-which for Spenser is achieved only through renunciation and the constant exercise of power. If this power inevitably entails loss, it is also l'ichly, essenti ally crea tive; power is the gua rantor o r value, the shaper of all knowledge, the pledge of human redemp· tion. Power may, as Bacon claimed, prohibit desire, but it is in its own way a version of the erotic: ilie violence directed against Acrasia's sensual paradise is both in itself an equivnlen l of erotic excess and J t>lcdge of lov ing service to l he royal mistress. Even when he most bitterly criticizes its abuses or 1·ecords its

173

174

CHAPT'ER

POUR

brutalities, Spenser loves power and attempts to link his own art ever more closely with its symbolic and literal embodiment The Fntrie Qucc11e is, as he insists again and again, wholly wedded to the autocratic ruler of the English state; the rich complexities of Spenser's art, its exquisite ethical discriminations in pursuit of the divine in man, are not achieved in spite of what is for us a repellent political ideology-the passionate worship of imperia li sm- but are inseparably linked to that ideology. To say that Spenser worships power, that he is our originating and p•-eeminent poet of empire, is not, in the heady manner of the late '60s, to co11demn his work as shallow, craven, o r timeserving. Rather, his work, like Freud's, bears witness to the deep complicity of ou r moral imagination even in its noblest ~ nd most hauntingly bo:1utHul man ifestatio ns in the grv:.t Western celebratio n of

power. Alongside Freud, we may invoke Virgil, whose profound faith in Aeneas's personal and world-historical mission and whose adoration of Augustus are tempered but never broken by a bitter sense of all tll3t empire forces man to renounce, to nee from, to destroy. The example of Freud is useful, however, because it helps us to grasp the relation of our response to the Bower to our own contemporary preoccupations, to perceive as well those qualities in Renaissance culture which we are at this moment in our history uniquely situated to appreciate. If all of civi lizati011 rests,
To FasMon a Genil~mou

cultural movement initiated in the Re naissance and that the places on which our social and psychological worJd seems to be cracking apart are those structural joints visible when it was first constructed. In the midst of the anxieties and contradictions attendant upon the threatened coUapse of this phase of our civilization, we respond with passionate curiosity and poignancy to the onxieHes and contradictions attendant upon its rise. To experience Renaissance culture is to feel what it was like to form o ur own identity, and we arc a t once more rooted and more estranged by the cxperi· e nce. [f it is ll'uc that we al'e highly sensitive to those aspects of the Renaissance that mark the early, tentativt'!, conO ict-ridde n fashioning o f moJt:ln~.:uu:t~iuu~ness, then The Fnerit~ Queeue Is o f quite

exct'!ptiona l signi ficance, for Spenser's stated intention is precisely "to fashion a gen tleman or noblt'! person in Vt'! rtuous and gentle discipline." This mirroring-the conscious purpose of the work seeming to enact the larger cultural movemt'!nt-may help to account for the reader's sense of encountering in Spenser's poem the process of self-fashioning itself. ln the Bower of Bliss that process is depictt'!d as involving a painful sexual renunciation: in Guyon's dt'!stTUctive act we are invited to experience the ontogeny of our cu lture's violent resistance to a sensuous release for which it nevertheless yearns with a new intensity. The resistance is ncces· sary for Spenser because what is threatened is "our Sclfc, whom though we do no t see, I Yet ea
175

176

CHAPTER

POOR

So all things else, that nourish vitall blood, Soone as with fury thou doest them inspire, In generation seeke to quench their inward fire. (4.10.46) Spenser cannot deny pleasure, even the extreme pleasure suggested by "rage," "fury," and "fire," a legitimate function in sexuali ty. Quite apart from the poet's own experience and observation, it may have been extremely difficult even for figures far more suspicious of the body than Spenser to imagine an entirely pleasureless generation of children (though, as we shall see later, such a doctrine foiJ nd occasional expression), for there seems to have been widespread medical belief in early 1nodern Europe that for conception to take place, both the male and the female had to experience orgasm. 37 Virtually all of Spenser's representations of sexual fulfillment, including those he fully sanctions, seem close to excess and risk the breakdown of the carefully fashioned identity: Lightly he clip! her twixt his armes twaine, And streightly did embrace her body bright, Her body, late the prisoR of sad paine, Now the sweet lodge of loue and deare delight: But she faire Lady ouercornmen quight Of huge affection, did in pleasure melt, And in sweete rauishment pourd o ut her spright: No word they spake, nor earthly thlng they felt, But like two senceles stocks in long emb racement dwelt. (3.12.45 [15901) The distinction upon which self-definition rests at the close of book 2- between temperate pleasure and inordinate pleasurecan only be understood in terms of a further distinction between a pleasure that serves some useful pwpose, some virtuous end, and a pleasure that docs not. Thus the denizens of the Bower acknowledge time solely as an inducement to the eager satisfaction of desire here and now, before the body's decay, and not as the agency of purposeful direction. That dircction-
To Fashron o Gt,ltemau

undermine the power that Spenser worships. But this way of distinguishing temperate and inordinate pleasure is less stable than it first appears, for desire may be "quenched" in generation but is not itself temperate. On the contrary, generation only takes place because all living beings-men and beastr-are "priuily pricked with" Venus's "lustfull powres" (4.10.45). All attempts to restrain these powers must be overcome for fruitful sexual union to occur: thus Scudamour must seize Amoret from the restraining and moderating figurer-Womanhood, Shamefastness, Modesty, Silence, Obedience, and the like-who sit at the feet of Venus's image. The fashioning of a gentleman then depends upon the imposi tio n of control over inC!jc~pnbly in1modernte sexual im p ul:;e:; that, forth~ s u1vlvnl vf llu:

race, must constantly recur: the discriminations upon which a virtuous and gen tle discipline is based are forever in danger of collapsing. Hence, I suggest, the paradox of the Knight of Temperance's seemingly intemperate attack upon the Bower of Bliss: Guyon destroys the llower and ties Acrasia "in chaines of adamant"-"For nothing else might keepe her safe and sound"-in a violent attempt to secure that principle of difference necessary to fashion the self. "Excess" is defined not by some inherent imbalance or impropriety, but by the mechanism of conrrol, the exercise of restraining power. And if excess is virtually invented by this power, so too, paradoxically, power is invented by excess: this is why Acrasia cannot be desttoyed, why she and what she is made to rep resent must continue to ex ist, forever the object of the destructive q uest. For were she not to exist as a constant threat, the powet Guyon embodies would also cease to exist. After all, we can assume that the number of people who actually suffer in :~ny period from melt-dow11 as a resu lt of sexual excess is quite small (comparable to the number of cases of that spontaneous combustion depicted by Dickens), small enough to raise questions about the motives behind the elaborate moral weaponry designed to combat the supposed danger. The perception of the threat of excess enables institutional power to have a legitimate "protective" and "healing" interest in sexuality, to exercise its constitutive control over the inner life of the individual. Self-fashioning, the project of Spenser's poem and of the culture in which it participates, requi res both an enabling institut ion, a source of power and com mu nal values-in 7'/Je Faerie Q11ecne, the court of Gloriann--.1nd a perception of the not-self, of all that lies outside, or I'Csists, 0 1· tlweatens identity. The destruction of the Bower is the fulfillment of the knight's quest- the institution has

177

178

been glorified, the demonic other at once identified and destroyed-but the inherent contradictions in the relations between temperance and pleasure, restraint and gratification have been deferred rather than resolved. What appears for a moment as decisive closure gives way to renewed efforts, other quests, which, as we have already glimpsed in Scudamour, attempt to compensate for the limitations, the sacrifice of essential values, implicit in the earUer resolution. In a remarkable study of how societies make "tragic choices" in the allocation of scarce resources (e.g. kidney machines) or in the determination of high risks (e.g. the mmtary draft), Guido Calabrcsi and Philip Bobbitt observe that by complex mixtures of approaches, societies attempt to avert " tmgic results, that is, results which imply the rejection of values wh irh ""' pmcl •imPrl to be fundamental": these approaches may succeed for a time, buUt will eventually become apparent that some sacrifice of values has taken place, whereupon "fresh mixtures of methods will be tried, structured ... by the shortcomings of the approaches they replace." 38 These too will in time give way to others in a "strategy of successive moves" that comprises an "intricate game," a game that reflects the simultaneous perception of a tragic choice and the determination to "forget" that perception in an illusory resolution. Driven by the will to deny its own perception of tragic conflict inherent in the fashioning of civility, Tile Faerie Qr1eene resembles such an intricate game. Thus a particu lar "move," here the de~truct ion of the Bower, represents in effect a bl'illiant solution, constructed out oi the most conventional materials and yet unmistakably original, of U1e uneasy, aggressive, masculine court identity fashioned by Wyatt: male sexual aggression-U1e hunt, the loathing, the desire to master-is yoked to the service of ideal values embodied in a female ruler, and it is through this service that identity is achieved. The conception obviously depends upon Queen Elizabeth's own extraordinary manipulation of a secular mythology infused with displaced religious veneration, yet Spenser manages to suggest that the "vertuous and gentle discipline" he chronicles is not limited by its historical circumstances. Like Elizabeth herself, Spenser appeals to an image of female power-the benevolent and nurturing life force-that transcends a local habitation and a name. But this ''solution" has its costs that Spenser, as we have seen, represents with extraordinary power and that drive him to further constnoctions. Each heroic quest is at once a triumph and a fl ig ht, an escape

TO F.ashlon

11 G~r~tlema.u

from the disillusionment glimpsed for a brief moment on the Mount of Contemplation and again at the close of the Mutabilitie Cantos. Spenser's knights live in the profound conviction that there is a moral task set for themselves by virtue of the power of Gloriana, a demonic object out there to be encountered and defeated. Each triumphant act of virtuous violence confirms this conviction, defending it from all that would undermine the rightness of the moral mission, all that would question the possibility of achieving a just, coherent, stable identity anchored in the ardent worship of power. B1.1t the destruction of the Bower of Bliss suggests the extcnl to which each self-constituting oct iS haunted by inadequacy and loss. The expenencc I have just described is, insofar as the work retains its power, common to us all, embedded in each of our persona l histories, though a protective cultural amnesia may have led us to forget it until we reexperience it in art. We need, at this level, bring nothing to the text but ourselves. Fuller under· standing, however, requires that we confront not only personal history but the history of peoples. We must, as Clifford Geertz suggests, incorporate the work of art into lhe texture of a particular pattern of life, a collective experience that transcends it and completes its meaning.'" If Spenser told hls readers a story, they lis· tened, and listened with pleasure, because they themselves, in the shared life of their culture, were telling versions of thot slory again and again, recording the texts on themselves and on the world arOLLnd them. In this sense, it is not adequate for a cultural poetic~ to describe t·he destruction of the Bower of BHss or any liternry text os a reflection of its circumambient culture; Spenser's poem is one manifestation of a symbolic l
179

lSQ

CHAPTBJt

llOUK

the nation's population-while their shared elements seem to bear out Freud's master analogy: "Ovilization behaves towards sexuality as ~ people or a stratum of its population does which has subjected another one to its exploitation." In the texts written by early explorers of the New Wodd, a long, arduous voyage, fraught with fabulous dangers and trials, brings the band of soldiers, sailors, and religious fathers-knight, boatman, and palmer-to a world of riches and menace. The adventurer's morality is the morality of the ship, where order, discipline, and constant labo r are essential for survival, and they are further un ited by their explicit relisious faith ond by an unspoken bu t powerful male bond. The lands they encounter are often achi ngly beautifu l: "1 am completely persuaded in my own mind," writci1 Colu1nbus in 1498, "that the Tcrrcctri.:oll P~u·:tdinc iD in the place 1 have described.'' 40 So Spenser likens the Bower of Bliss to

Eden itself, "if ought with Eden mote compayre," and lingers over its landscape of wish fulfillment, a landscape at once lavish and moderate, rich in abundant vegetation and yet "steadfast," "attempred," and well "disposed." If these descriptive terms are shared in the Renaissance by literary romance and travelers' accounts, it is because the two modes of vision are mutually reinforcing: Spenser, like Tasso before him, makes frequent allusion to the New World-to "all that now America men call" (2.10.72)-while when Cortes and his men looked down upon the valley of Mexico, they thought, says a participant, of Amadis of Gaulc.•• The Amerkan landscape has to European eyes themystel'ious in l'i mntions of a hidden art, as Rnlegh's description of the O rinoco suggests: "On both sides of this J'iver, we passed the most beautifu l country that ever mine eyes beheld: and whereas all that we had seen before was nothing but woods, prickles, bushes, and thorns, here we beheld plains of twenty miles in length, the grass short and green, and in diverse parts groves of trees by themselves, as if they had been by all the an and labor in the world so made of purpose: and still as we rowed, the Deer came down feeding by the water's side, as if they had been used to a keeper's call. "·U Spenser, to be sure, has no need of the "as if"-he credits art as well as nature with the making of the paradisal landscape-but this difference should not suggest too sharp a contrast between an "artless" world described by the early voyagers and the poet's "artificial" Bower. The Europeans again and again record their astonishn1ent at the lndians' artis~ic br:illiancc: "Surely I marvel

To FasJuurr a Gerttleman

not at the gold and precious stones, but wonder with ~stonish­ ment with wh~t industry and laborious art the curious workmanship exceedeth the matter and substance. I beheld a thousand shapes, and a thousand· forms, which f cannot express in writing; so that in my judgment I never saw anything which might more allure the eyes of men with the beauty thereof."~' But all of this seductive beauty harbors danger, danger not on ly in the works of art which are obviously idolatrous but in the Edenic landscape itself. The voyagers to the New World are treated, like Guyoll and the Palmer, to mild air tha t "breathed forth sweet spirit and hole~om smell'' (2.12.51), and they react with n1inglcd wonder and resistance: "Smooth and pleasing wordo misht be !!pol<en o£ the swee t- odor~, and per(uines of lhl!!:tt:

coun tries," w.-ites Peter Martyr, "which we purposely o mit, because they make rather for the effeminating of men's minds, than for the maintenance of good behavior.' 044 Similarly, if the New World could be portrayed as a place "In which all pleasures plenteously abownd, I And none does others happiness envyc" (2.10.58), a Golden World, it could also serv~ften in the same text and by virtue of the same set of perceptions-as a screen onto which Europeans projected their da.rl<est and yet most compelling fantasies: "These folk live like beasts without any reasonableness, and the women be also as common. And the men hath conversation with the women who that they been or who they first meet, is she his sister, his mother, his daughter, or any other kind,-ed. And the women be very hot and disposed to lecheJ"dncss, 1\nd they eat also one anothet·. The man eatcth his wife, his chi ldren .... 1\nd that land is righ t fLttl of folk, for they live commollly 300 year and more as with sickness they die not:••• Jn l582 Richard Madox, in Sierra Leone with Edward Fenton's expedition, heard from a Portuguese trader comparable stories of African customs: "He reported that near the mountains of the moon there is a queen, ;m empress of all these Amazons, a witch and a cannibal who daily feeds on the flesh of boys. She ever remains unmarried, but she has intercourse with a great number of men by whom she begets offspring. The kingdom, however, remains hereditary to the daughters, not to the sons.''46 Virtually all the essential clements of the travel narratives recur in Spenser's episode: the sea voyage, the strange, menacing creatures, the paradisal landscape with its invisible art, the gold and silver carved with "curious imagery," the threat of effeminacy checked by the male bolld, the generosity and wan tonness of the

181

t82

C HAP TER

POUR

inhabitants, the arousal of a longing at once to enter and to destroy. Even cannibalism and incest which are the extreme manifestations of the disordered and licentious life attributed to the Indians are both subtly suggested in the picture of Acrasia hanging over her adolescent lover. And oft inclining downe with kisses light, For fear of waking him, his lips bedewd, And through his humid eyes did suckc his spright, Quite molten into lust and pleasure lewd. (2.12.73)

In book 6 of The Faerie Q11eene Spenser offers a more explicit version of these dark imaginings;H here in book 2 the violation of the taboos is carefully displaced. so that the majo•· threat is not pollution but the very att'ractiveness of the vision. Sexual excess has caused in Verdant a melting of the soul/" and this internal pathology is matched by an external disgrace: His warlike armes, the idle instruments Of sleeping praise, were hong vpon a tree, And his braue shield, full of old monimcnts, Was fowly ra'st, that none the signcs might see. (2.12.80)

The entire fu lfillment of desire leads to the effacement of signs and hence to the loss both of memory, depicted in ca nto 10 and of the capacity for heroic effort, depicted in the figu 1-e of the boatman who ferries Guyon and the Palmer to the Bower: Porwnrd they passe, and strongly he them rowes, Vn till they nigh vnto that gulfe arryve, WhCJ'e streame more violent and greedy growes: Then he with all his puisaunce doth stryve To strike his oares, and mightily doth dryve The hollow vessell through the threatfull wave, Which, gaping wide, to swallow them alyve In th'huge abysse of his engulfing grave, Doth rore at them in valne, and with great terrour rave. (2.U.5) The threat of being engulfed that is successfully resisted here is enco untered again at the heart of the Bower in the fonn not o[ cam1ibn listic violence but of erotic absorption. Verdant, his head in Acrn$ia's lop, has s unk into a nan;Qtic s lumber: all 1' manJyo

energy, all purposeful d ixection, all sense

q(

diUcrence upon

To FasJriou a CrutltmfW

183

which "civil" order is founded have been erased. This slumber corresponds to what the Europeans perceived as the poinlltsslless of native cultures. lt was as if millions of souls had become unmoored, just as their ancestors had, it was thought, somehow lost their way and wandered out of sight of the civilized world. Absorbed into n vast wilderness, they lost all memory of the true hhtory of their mcc and of the one God and sank into a spiritual and physical lethargy. It is difficult to recover the immense force which this charge of idleness carried; some sense may be gauged perhaps from the extraord inary harshness 1vith which vagabonds were trcnted,
Thnt the Indians 1vcrc idle, that they lacked all work d iscipline, wa> JJ• ovcu , to th~ Sdtllifaction of the Europeans, by the demonstra·

blc fact thai t·hey mnde wretched slaves, dying after a few weeks or even days of hard labor. And if they were freed from servitude, they merely sl id back into their old customs: "For being idle and slothful, they wander up and down, and return to their old rites and ceremonies and foul and mischievous acts."'" That the Euro· pean voyagers of the sixteenth century, surely among the world's most restless and uprooted generations, should accuse ~he Indians of "wandering up and down" is bitterly ironic, but the accusation served as a kind of rudder, an assurance of stability and direction. And this assurance is confirmed by the vast projects undertaken to fix and enclose the native populations in the mines, in cncomiendas, in fortiCied hamlets, and ultimately, in mass graves. A whole civi liza tion was t·aught i n a net a nd, like Acmsia, bound in chains of ad amant; the ir gods were melted down, their palaces a nd temp les razed. their groves felled. "And of the fa irest late, now mad e the fowl est place. "51 Guyon, it will be recalled, makes no a ttempt to destroy the Cave of Mammon; he simply declines its evil invitations which leave him exhausted but otherwise unmoved. But the Bower of Bliss he destroys with a rigor rendered the more pitiless by the fact that his stubborn breast, we are told, embraced "secret pleasance." In just this way, Europeans destroyed [ndian culture not despite those aspects of it tha~ attracted them but in part at least because of them. The violence of the destruction was regcnera~ive; they found in it a sense of identity, discipline, and holy faith." In tearing down what both appealed to them and sickened them, they strengthened their power to resist their dangerous longings, to repress an tisocial impu lses, to conq uer the powerfu l desire for release. And the conquest of desire had the more power beca use it con t•a inod with in itself a version of tha t which it destroyed: the

I

184

<:HArTER

POUR

power of Acrasia's sensuality to erase signs and upset temperate order is simultaneously attacked and imitated in Guyon's destruction of the exquisite Bower, wh il e European "civi lity" n.td Christianity were never more ferociously assa ulted than in the colonial destruction of a Cllllure U1at was accused of mounting just such an assault. One measure of European complicity in what they destroyed is the occurrence of apostacy or at least fantasies of apostacy. Bernal Diaz del Castillo tells one such story about a common seaman named Gonzalo Guerrero who had survived a shipwreck in the Yucatan and refused to rejoin his compatriots when, eight years later, Cortes managed to send word to him : " I am married and have three children, and they look on me as a Cacique here, and a captain in time of war. Go. and God's blessing be with you . Rut my face is tattooed and my ears are pierced. What would the Spaniards say if they saw me like this? And look how handsome these children of mine are!" 51 The emissary reminded him that he was a Christian and "should not destroy his soul for the sake of an Indian woman," bLtt Guerrero clearly regarded his situation as an improvement in his lot. Indeed Cortes learned that it was at Guerrero's instigation that the lnqians had, three years before, attacked an earlier Spanish expedition to the Yucatan. We have, in the tattooed Spanish seaman, encountered an analogue to those disfigured beasts who try to defend the Bower against Guyon and, in particular, to Gryll, who, having been metamorphosed by Acrasia jnto a hog, "repyned greatly" at his restoration. Such crea tures give a local ha bitation and a na me to those vague feelings of longing and compHcity that penneate accounts of a sensuous life that must be rejected and destroyed. And if the Yucatan seems too remote from Spenser's world, we need only tum to our second frame of reference, Elizabethan rule in Ireland, to encounter similar stories. In Spenser's own Vietv of tlu: Prcsclfl Stale of lrelm1d, probably written in 1596, Eudoxius asks, "is it possible tha t an Englishman brough t up natw·aJJy in such sweet civility as England affords co uld find such liking i1;1 that barbarous rudeness that he should forget his own nature and fo•-go his own nation? ... Is it possible that any should so far grow out of frame that they should in so short space quite forget their country and their own names? ... Could they ever conceive any such devilish dislike of their own natural country as that they would be ashamed of her name, and bite of£ her dug from which they sucked life?">• In reply, Spe nser's spokesman, Irenius, speaks

To Fasl1io11 a Gc.ulltmrm

bitterly of those Englishmen who are "degenerated and grown almost mere Irish, yea and more malicious to the English than the very Irish themselves" (48}; these metamorphosed wretches even prefer to speak Irish, although, as Eudoxius observes, "they should (methinks} rather take scom to acquaint their tongues thereto, for it hath been ever the use of the conqueror to despise the language of the conquered, and to force him by all means to leam his."'' lrenius locates the source of this unnatural linguistic betrayal, this effacement of signs, in the subversive power of Irish women. The rebel Englishmen will "bite off her dug from which they sucked life" because another breast has inte1vened: " U1e chi ld Ihat suckel11 the mllk of the 11LLrse must of 11ecessity leam ltis first speech of her, the whid\ being the first that Is enured to his tongue is ever after most pleasing unto him," and "the speech being Irish, the heart must needs be lrish." 56 The evi l metamorphosis caused by Irish wetnurses is completed by miscegenation: "the child taketh most of his nature of the mother ... for by them they arc first framed and fashioned" (68}. As the fashioning of a gentleman is threatened in book 2 of77•e Faeri~ Q11ee11e by Acrasia, so it is threatened in Ireland by the native women. It is often remarked that the Vie-.o, which Spenser wrote after his completion of Tile Faerie Quee11e, expresses a hardening of attitude, a harsh and bitter note brought on by years of tension and frustration. It may well reflect such a change in tone, but its colonia l poli cies are consistent with U1ose with wh ich Spenser had been associated from his arrival in Ireland as Lord Grey's secretary in 1580, tha t is, from the time in which Tile Faerie Qt~ee/lc was in the early stages of its composition. When Spenser "wrote of Ireland," Yents com ments, "he wro te as an official, and o ut of though ts and emotions that had been organized by the State."57 It was not only in his capacity as an official that Spenser did so: in art and in life, his conception of identity, as we have seen, is wedded to his conception of power, and after 1580, of colonial power. For all Spenser's claims of relation to tile noble Spencers of Wormleighton and Althorp, he remains a "poor boy," as he is designated in the Merchant Taylor's School and at Cambridge, until Ireland. It is there that he is fashioned a gentleman, there that he is transformed from the former denizen of l!ast Smithfield to the "undertakcr"-the grim pun unintended but profoundly appropriate-of 3,028 acres of Munster land. From his first acquisition in 1582, this land is at once tile assurance of his status-the "Gent." next to his name--and of hjs insecul'ity: ,·u incd abbeys,

185

186

CHAPT8J\

FOUa

friaries expropriated by the crown, plow lands rendered vacant by famrne and execution, property forfeited by those whom Spenser's superiors dednred traitors. For what services, we ask, was Spenser being rewarded? And we answer, blandly, for being a colonia l administrator. But the answer, which implies pushing papers in a Dublin office through endless days of tedium, is an evasion. Spenser's own account presses in upon us the fact that he was involved intimately, on an almost daily basis, throughout the 1sland, in the destruction of Hibemo-Normnn civilization, the exercise of a brutnl force that had few if any of the romantic trapp ings with which Elizabeth contrived to soften it at home.•• Here, on the periphery, Spenser was an agent of and an apologist for massacre, the burning of mean hovP1s :mrl n( rrops tvith the doli berate intention o£ st.uvingthe inhabitants, forced relocation of peoples, the manipulation of

treason charges so as to facilitate the seizure of lands, the endless repetition of acts of military "justice" calculated to intimidate and break the spirit. We may wish to tell ourselves that a man of Spense•Js sensitiv ity and gifts may have mitigated the extreme policies of ruthless men, but it ilppenrs that he did not •·ecoil in the sligh test from this horror, did not even feel himself, like his colleague Geoffrey Fenton, in mild opposition to it.•• lrelnnd is not only in book 5 of The Fatrie Quee11e; it pervades the poem. Civility is won through the exercise of violence over what is deemed bar· barous and evil, and the passages of love and leisure arc not moments set apart from this process but its rewards. "Every detail or the h uge resettlement project" in Munster, writes Spenser's biographer Judson, "was known to him as it unfolded, including its intricate legal Mpects, and hence his final acquisition of thousands of acres of forfeited lands was entirely natural.""' Natural perhaps, but equally natural that his imagination is haunted by the nightmares of savage attack- the "outrageous dreadful! yeUing cry" of Maleger, "His body leanc and meagre as a rake" and yet seemingly i•npossible to ki ll• 1-oJ1d of absorption. The latter fear may strike us as less compelling tha n the former-there is much talk, afler all , of the "savage bru tishness and loath ly r.Jthiness" of native ClL~toms-but U1e Eli.:abethans were well aware, as we have already seen, that many of their most dangerous enemies were Englishmen who had been metamorphosed into "mere Irish." Spenser's own career is marked by conflicting desires to tum his back pn Ireland forever and to plant himself eve r more fi.rmly in Mltnster;•> if the lntter

Ta FasJtion a Gentl~mau

co urse scarcely represented an abandonment of English civility, it may nonetheless have felt like the beginning of the threatened transformation. I do not propose that Spenser feared such a metamorphosis on his own behalf-he may, for all we know, have been obscurely attracted to some of the very things he worked to de· stroy, though of this attraction our only record is his poetry's fascination with the excess against which it strugglc~nly that he was haunted by the fact that it had occurred over generations to so many of his countrymen. The enemy for Spenser then is as much a tenacious and surprisingly seductive way of life ns it is a military fo1-ce, and thus alongside a ruthless policy o( mass starvaUon al"\d massacre, he advocates the destruction of native Irish iJ.;n tHy.

Spenser is one of the first English writers to have what we may call a Oeld theory of culture, that is, the conception of a nation not simply as an institutional structure or a common race, but as a complex network o£ beliefs, folk customs, forms of dress, kinship relations, religious mythology, aesthetic norms, and specialized modes of production. Therefore, to refonn a people one must not simply conquer it-though conquest is an absolute necessity-but eradicate the native culture: in the case of Ireland, eliminate (by force, wherever needed) the canows, horseboys, jesters, and other "idlers"; transform the mass of the rural population from cowherds with their ddngerous freedom of movement to husbandmen; brenk up the c.Jans or sects; prohibit public meetings, counci ls, and assemblies; tran;form Irish nrt, prohibiting the subversive epics of the bards; make schoolc.llild rcn ashamed of their parents' backwnrd.ness; discourage "English se ttlers from speaking Ir ish; prohib it traditional Irish dress; eliminate elections of chiefs, divisible illheritance, and the payment of fines to avoid capi tal punishment. And always in this immense undertaking, there is the need for constant vigilance and unrelenting pressure, exercised not only upon the wild Irish but upon the civilizing English themselves. "So much," writes Spenser, "can liberty and ill example do" (63) that the threat of seduction is always present, and the fU"St inroad of this seduction is misguided compassion: "Therelore, by all means it must be foreseen and assured that after once entering into this course of reformation, there be afterwards no remorse or drawing back" (110). Pitiless destruction is here not a stain but a virtue; after all, the English themselves had to be brought from barbarism to civility by a similar conq uest centuries bcfMc, a conquest that must be ever renewed lest the craving for

187

188

CKAPTER

110UJl

"liberty and natural freedom" (12) erupt again. The colonial violence inflicted upon the Irish is at the same time the force that fashions the identity of tbe English. We have returned then to the principle of regenerative violence and thus to the destruction of the Bower of Bliss. The act of tearing down is the act of fashloning; the promise of the opening stanza of canto 12-"Now gins this goodly frame of Temperance I Fairely to rise"-is fulfi lled at the close in the inventory of violence: But all those pleasant b<:lwres and Pa llace braue, Cuyou broke downe, with rigour pittilcssc; Ne oug ht their goodly wo,·kmanshi p might saue Them from the tempest of his wrathfulncsse, But that their blisse he tum'd to balefulness; Their groues he feld, their ga rd ins did deface, ' I heir arbcrs spoyle, their Cabinets suppressc, Their banker houses bume, their buildings race, And of the fairest late, now made the fowlest place. (2.12.83) If the totality of the destruction, the calculated absence of "remorse or dra,ving back," links this episode to the colonial policy of Lord Grey whiclh Spenser undertook to defend, the language of the stanza recalls yet another government policy, our third "restoration" of the narrative: the destruction of Catholic Church furnishings. In the lnventarium mouumentorum superstition is of 1566, for exa mple, we may hear repeated echoes of Guyon's acts: Imprimis o ne rood with Mary and john and the rest of the painted pictures-burnt . . .. Item our rood loft- pu lled down, sold Dnd defaced . ... Item our mass books with the rest of such feigned fD blcs and peltering popish books-burnt ... . Item 3 a liar stones-broken in pieces ....., In 1sn Spenser, a student at Pembroke, could have witnessed a similar scene at nearby Gonville and Caius where the authorities licensed the destruction of "much popish trumpery." Books and vestments, holy water stoops and images were "mangled, tom to pieces, and mutilated"-discerpla dissecta et lacerata-before being consigned to the bonfire ...' Then: is about the Bower of Bliss the tni nt o( a graven imDge designed to appea l to the sensual as o pposed to the s piritual nature, to tum the wonder and admi ration of men away from the

To faslrion n Gtmlleman

mystery of divine love. In the Bower the love survives only in the uncanny parody of the Pieta suggested by Verdant cradled in Acrasia's arms. It is not surprising then to find a close pa.rollel between the evils of the Bower and the evils attributed to the misuse of religious images. Devotion to the representations of the Madonna and saints deflected men from the vigorous pursuit of the good, enticed them into idleness and effeminacy. With their destruction, as Hugh Latimer writes, men could tum "from ladyness to Godliness."" Statues of the virgin were d ismembered by unru ly crowds, frescoes were whitewashed over and carvings in "Lad y Chapels" wer~ smashed, in order to free men from thralldom to wha t· nn EUzabethan lawyer calls, in describi 11g the pope, 11

thc witch o( t·hc world. " 6 "

But the art destroyed by Guyon does not pretend to image holy things; it is designed to gmce its su rroundings, to delight its viewers with its exquisite workmanship. Against such art there could be no charge of idolatry, no invocation of the Deuteronomic injunctions against graven images, unless art itsel( were idolatrous. And it is precisely this possibility that is suggested by Guyon's iconoclasm, for Acrasia's realm is lavishly described in just those terms which the defenders of poetry in the Renaissance reserved for imagination's noblest achievements. The Bower's art imitates nnturc, but is privileged to choose only those aspects of nature that correspond to man's ideal visions; its music is so perfectly melodious and "attempred" that it blends wllh all of nature in on" harmony, so that the whole world seems transfor·med iJHo a musical "consort"; a bove all, the calculation and cffor·t that lie behind the man ifesta tion of such perfect beauty arc entirely concealed: And that which all faire workes doth most aggrace, The art, which all that wrought, appeared in no place. "Aggrace" has virtually a technical significance here; Castiglione h,1d suggested in Tire Courtier that the elusive quality of "grace" could be acquired through the practice of sprezznlura, "so as to conceal all art and make whatever :is done or said appear to be without effort and almost without any thought about it."67 Spenser deeply distmsts this aesthetic, even as he seems to pay homage to its central tenets; indeed the concea lment of art, its impos ition upon an unsuspecting o bserver, is one of the great recurring evi ls in The Fnrrle Queene. Acrasia as demonic artist and whore combines t·he attributes of those other masters of d isguise,

189

1911

CHAPTER

POUR

Arch imago ~nd Duessa. 68 Their evil depends upon the ability to mask and forge, to conceal their satanic artistry; their defeat de· pends upon the power to unmask, the strength to turn from magic to strenuous virtue. Keith Thomas notes that in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the Protestant "emphasis upon Ute virtues of hnrd work and application ... both reflected ~nd helped to create a fr.tmc of mind which spumed the cheap solutions offered by magic, not just because they were wicked, but because they were too easy. " 69 Sprezznhtra, which sets o ut to efface ~II signs of "hard work and application," is a cult of the "too easy," a kind of aesthetic magic. But what can Spenser offetin place of th is discred ited aesthetic? The answer li es in an art tltat constantly calls alieni-ion to Hs own processes, that includes within itself framing devices and signs of its own crea ted ness. Fnr from ]tiding its traces, Tire Faerie Queene announces its status as art object at every turn, in the archaic diction, the usc of set pieces, the elaborate sound effects, the very characters and plots of romance. For the allegorical romance is a mode that virtually by definition abjures all concealment; the artist who wishes to hide the fact that he is making a fict-ion would be ill-advised to write about the Faerie Quecne. If you fear that images may make a blasphemous claim to reality, that they may become idols that you will be compelled to worship, you may smash aU images or you may create images that announce themselves at every moment as things made. Thus did the sixteenth-century kabbalists of Sa fed circumvent the Hebraic injLulction agai nst images of the Godheacl; 70 their visions are punctuated by rem inders that these nrc me•·ciy metaphors, no t to be con rused with div ine reality itself. So too did the more moderate Protestan t· Reformers retain a version of the Commwlion, re· minding the part-icipants that the ceremony was a symbol and not a celebration of the real presence of God's body. And so does Spenser, in the face of deep anxiety about the impure claims of art, save art for hlmself and h;s readers by making its createdness explicit. Images, to be sure, retain their power, as the sensuous description of the Bower of Bliss attests, and Spenser can respond to the charge that his "famous antique history" is merely "th'aboundance of an idle braine ... and painted forgery" by reminding his readers of the recent discoveries, of "The Ind ian Peru," "The AmaZOilS huge riuer," and "fn1itfullest Virginia": Yet oil these were, when no rnan did them know; Yet haue {rom wisest ages hiddel\ beene: And Inter times things mo re vnknowne shnll show.

191

When then should witlesse man so much misweene That nothing is, but that which he hath scene? What if within the Moones faire shining spheare? What if in euery other starre vnseene Of other worldes he happily should heare? He wonder would much more: yet such to some appeare. (2 Proem 3) For a moment the work hovers on the brink of asserting its status as a newfound land, bot Spenser immediately shatters such an assertion by invoking the gaze of royal power: And tho u, 0 fairest Princesse vnder sky, In thts foire mirrhour maist behold thy lace,

And thine owne rea hnes in lond of Faery, And in thi s antique Image thy great auncestry. (2 Proem 4) In an instant the "other world" has been transformed into a mirror; the queen turns her gaze upon a shining sphere hitherto hidden from view and sees her own face, her own realms, her own ancestry. That which threatens to exist independent of religious and secu lar ideology, that is, of what we believ~"Yet all these were, when no man did them know"-is revealed to be the ideal image of that ideology. And hence it need not be feared or destroyed: iconoclasm gives way to appropriation, violence to colonization. J. H. Elliott rema rks that the most significant aspect of the impact of the new world upon the old is its insignificance: men looked at things unseen before, t hings al ien to their own culture, and saw on ly themselves.71 Spenser asserts that I'aerie Land is a new world, another Peru or Virginia, only so t·hat he may colonize it in the very moment of its discovery. The "other world" becomes mirror becomes aesthetic image, and this transformation of the poem from a thing discovered to a thing made, from existence to the representation of existence is completed with the poet's tum from "vaunt" to apology: The which 0 pardon me thus to enfold [n couert vele, and wrap in shadowes light, That feeble eyes your glory may behold, Which else could not endure those beames bright, But would be dnzled with exceeding light. (2 Proem 5) The queen is deified precisely in the acto( denying ott's claim to ontological digni ty, to the possession or embodimon t· of •·ca li ty.

192

CHAPTIR

POUR

Such embodimen t· is the characteristic achievement of great drama, of Marlowe and supremely of Shakespeare, whose constant allusions to the fictionality of his creations only serve paradoxically to question the status of everything outside themselves. By contrast, Spenser's profoundly rmdrnmatic art, in the same movement by which it wards off idolatry, wards off Ihis radical question ing of everything that exists. That is, if art Hke Shakespeare's realizes the power we glimpsed in Wyatt, the power in Althusser's words, to "make us 'perceive' ... from tire irrside, by an irrtema/ dista11ce, the very ideology" in which it is held, Spenserean allegory may be understood as a countermeasure: it opens up an internal distance within art itself by continually referring the reader out to a fixed authority beyond the poem. Spenser's art does not lead us to perceive ideology critically, hut "'ther affirms the existence and inescapable moral power of ideology as that principle of truth toward which art forever yeams. It is art whose. status is questioned i11 Spenser, not ideology; indeed, art Is q uestioned precisely to spare ideology that internal d istantiation it undergoes in the work o£ Shakespeare or Marlowe. In Tire Faerie Queerre reality as given by ideology always lies safely outside the bounds of art, in a diffetent nea lm, distant, infinitely powerful, perfectly good . "The ha llmark of Spenserean narration," Paul Alpers acutely observes, "is confidence in locutions which are at the same time understood to be provisional."" Both the confidence and the provisionality slem &om the externality of true value, order, meaning. For Spenser this is lhe final colonialism, the colonialism of language, yoked to the serv ice of o reality forever outside itself, dedicated to "the Most lligh, Mightie, and Magnificent l;:mpresse ... Elizabeth by the Grace of God Queene of England Fraunce and Ireland and of Virginia, Defendour of the Faith."

F

1

v

E

Marlow e and the W ill to Absolute Play

On 26 june 1586 a small Oeet, financed by the Earl of Cumberland, set out from Gravesend for the South Seas. It sailed down the West African coast, sighting Sierra leone in October, and at this point we may let one of those on board, the merchant john Sarracoll, tell his own story: The fourth of November we went on shore to a town of the Negroes, ... wlfich we found to be but lately built: it was of about two hundred houses, and walled about with mighty great trees, and stakes so thick, that a rat could hord ly get in or out. But as it chanced, we came d irectly upon a port which wns not shut u p. w here we e ntered with such fierceness, that the people Aed all out of the town, which we found to be finely buill after their fashion, and the streets of it so intrica te that it was difficu lt for us to Hnd the way out that we came in at. We found their houses and streets so finely and cleanly kept that it was an admiration to us all, for that neither in the houses nor streets was so much dust to be found as would fill an egg shell. We found Httle in their houses, except some mats, gourds, and some eortJwn pots. Our men at their departure set the town on fire, and it was burnt (for the most part of it) in a quarter of an hour, the houses being covered with reed and straw. 1

This passage is atypical, for it lacks the blood bath tha t usually cl imaxes these incidents, but it wiJJ serve as a reminder of what unti l recently wus called one of the glorious ach ievemen ts of Renaissance civilization, and H wiJJ serve as a convenient bridge from JU):

194

CDAPTSa

f'JVB

the world of Edmund Spenser to the world of Christopher Marlowe. What is most striking in Sarr~coll's account, of course, is the casual, unexplained violence. Docs the merchan t feel thnt the firing of the town needs no explanation? If asked, would he have had one to give? Why does he take c~re to tell us why the town burned so quickly, but not why it was burned? Is there an aesthetic element in his admiration of the town, so finely built, so intricate, so cleanly kept? And does this admiration conHict with or somehow fuel the destructiveness? rr he feels no uneasiness at all, why does he suddenly shift and write not we but our men set the town on fire? Was there an order or not? And, when he l'ccalls the invasion, why does he think o( rats? The questions are all met by the moral blankness that rests like thick snow on SMrnrnll'< sentences: "The 17th. day of November we departed from Sierra Leona, directing our course for the Straits of Magellan." If, on returning to England in 1587, the merchant and his associates had gone to see the Lord Admiral's Men perforrn a new play, Tambrtrlnine the Great, they would have seen an extraordinary meditation on the roots of their own behavior. For deX spite all the exoticism in Marlowe-Scythian shepherds, Maltese Jews, German magicians--it is his own counttymen that he broods upon and depicts. As in Spenser, though to radically different effect, the "other world" becomes a mirror. z If we want to understand the historical matrix of Marlowe's achievement, the ana logue to Tnmburloine's restlessness, aesU1etic sensitivity, appetite, an.d viole nce, we might look not at· the p laywright's litcrnry sources, llOt even at the relentless power-hunger of Tudor absolutism, but at the acquisitive energies of English merchants, entrepreneurs, and adventurers, promoters alike of trading companies and theatrical companies. But what bearing does Marlowe actually have on a passage like the one with which I opened? He is, for a start, fascinated by the .X idea of the stranger in a stu~nge land. Almost all of his heroes aret aliens or wanderers, from Aeneas in Ca(lhage to Bambas h1 Malta, from Tamburlnine's endless campaigns to Faustus's demonic fl ights. From his fit'S! play to his last, Marlowe is drawn to the idea of physical movement, to the problem of its representation within the narrow confines of the theater. Tamburlaine almost ceaselessly traverses the stage, and when he is not actually on the move, he is imagining campaigns or hearing reports of grueling marches. The obv·ious effect is to enact the hero's vision of a nature that "Doth leach us all to hnve asp iring minds" and of the soul that "Wi lls us

\ Marlowu and the Will to AltsoiJftl' Pl11y

to wear ourselves and never rest" (1 Tam 2.6.871, 877). But as always in Marlowe, this enactment, this reaHzation on the level of the body in time and space, compHcates, qualifies, exposes, and even mocks the abstract conception. For the cumulative effect of this restlessness is not so much heroic as grot~~omic, if we accept Bergson's classic definition of the comic as the mechanical imposed upon the living. Tamburlaine is a machine, a desiring.lr' mach ine thnt produces violence and death. Menaphon's admiring descripti on begins by making him sound like Leona rdo's Vilruvian Man or Michelangelo's David and ends by making him sound like an expensive mechanical device, one of tho$c curious inventions that courtiers gave to the queen at New Year's: a huge, straight, strongly jointed creature with a costly pearl placed be· tween his shoulders, the pearl inscribed with celestial sym bols. Once set in motion, this ll1i11g cannot slow down or change course; it moves at the same frenzied pace until it finally stops. One further effect of this unvarying movement is that, paradoxically, very little progress seems to be made, despite fervent declarations to the contrary. To be sure, the scenes change, so quickly at times that Marlowe seems to be battering against the boundaries of his own medium: at one moment the stage represents a vast space, then suddenly contracts to a bed, then tums in quick succession into an imperial camp, a burning town, 11 besieged fortress, a battlcfleld, a tent. But then all of those spoces seem cu riously alike. The relevant contrast is A11tony nml Cleopatra where the restless movement is organized arou nd th~ deep structurnl o ppositi on of Rome a.nd Egypt, or 1 Herm; IV where the tavern, the cou rt, and t·he country are perce ived as diversely shaped spaces, spaces tllat elicit and echo differen t tones, energies, and even realities. In Tamburlaine Marlowe con irives to efface all such differences, as if to insist upon the essential meaninglessness of theaiTical space, the vacancy that is the dark side of its power to imitate any place. Thjs vacancy-quite literally, this ab· ~ sence of scenery- is the equivalent in the medium of the theater to the secularization of space, the a.boHtion of qualitative up and down, which for Cassirer is one of the greatest achievements of Renaissance philosophy, the equivalent then to the red uction of the universe to the coordinates of a map:3 Give men M11p, then let me see how much Is left for me to conquer all the world, 11lnt these my boys may finish all my wants. (2 Tam 5.3.45 16-18)

195

1%

CfiAPTER

fiVE

')( Space is transfonned into an abstraction, then fed to the appetitive machine. Titis is the voice of conquest, but it is also the voice of wants never finished and of transcendental homelessness. And though the characters and situations change, that voice is never entirely absent in Marlowe. 'Barabas does not leave Malta, but he is the quintessential alien: at one point his house is seized and turned into a nunnery, at another he is thrown over the walls of the city, only to rise with the words, "What, all alone?'· Edward II should be tl1e very opposite; he is, by his role, the embodiment of the land and its people, but without Gaveston he lives in his own country like an exllc. O nly in Doctor FnuslttS does the re seem to be a s ig11 ificant dlfference: having signed away his soul and body, Faustus begins a course of restless wandering, but at the close of th,. I'WC'nty.. rour yean;, he feels

;t

compulsion to rerun, to \.ViHcn

berg.• Of course, it is ironic that when a meaningful sense of place finally emerges in Marlowe, it does so only as a place to die. But the irony runs deeper still. For nothing in the covenant or in any of the devil's speeches requires that Faustus has to pay his life where he originally contracted to sell it; the urge is apparently in Faustus. as if he felt there were a fatality in the place he had undertaken h.s studies, felt it appropriate and even necessary to die there and nowhere else. "0 would l had never seen Wittenberg," he de spairingly tells his friends. But the play has long before this ex posed such a sense of place to radical questioning. To Faustus', insistent demands to know the "where about" of hell, Mephis tophi lis replies, Hell hath no limits, nor is circumscrib'd In one self place, for where we arc is hell, And where hell is, must we ever be. (567-69)

By implication, Faustus's feeling about Witlenberg is an illusion, one of a network of fictions by which he constitutes his idenht)' and his world. Typically, he refuses to accept the account of ,, limitless, inner hell, countering with the extraordinary, and in tlw drcumstances, ludicrous "1 think hell's a fable." Mephistophili<'•. quiet response slides from parodic agreement to dcvastatin1: irony: "Aye, think s.o still, till experience change thy mind." 5 Th<· experience of which the devil speaks can refer not only to torment after death but to Faustus's life in the remaindQr of the play: tlw half- trivia l, half-daring exploits, the alternating states of bliss .1nd despair, the questions that are not answered ond the o11swers Ih•>i br·ing no tea I satisfaction, the wanderings Ih.1t lead nowhere. 'l lw

Mtitlowt tmd lite Will /o Absclut~ Piny

197

lu lling line may CiUT)' a further suggestion: "Yes, continue to 1h1n k that hell's a fable, until experience transfonns your mind." At 1lw heart of this mental transformation is the anguished percep· twn of lime as inexorable, space as abstract. In his final soliloquy, l·.m~tus's frenzied invocation to time to stop or slow itself gives way to horrified clarity: "The stars move stiU, time runs, the clock will strike" (1460). And his appeal to nature-
t~·d s

ln>~ght

rctutns us to U1e violence with whkh we began, the vioh
198

CHAPTER

PIV.£

q uality different from other time, should possess its end: "Now will l make an end immectiately.'' he says, writing with ]tis blood. But in Marlowe's ironic world, these desperate attempts at boundary and closure produce the opposite efCect, reinforcing the condition they are meant to efface. Tamburlaine's violence does not transfo1·m space from the abstract to the human , bu l rMhe r further reduces the world to a map, the very emblem of abstraction: I will confute those blind Geographers That make a triple region in the world, Exclud ing Regions which r mean to trace, And with this pen reduce them to a Map, Calling the Provinces, Cities and towns After my name :.nd thine Zc11ocrate. (1 Tam 4.4.1715-20)

AtTamburlaine's death, the map sti ll sb-etchesou t b efore him, and no thing bears his name save Marlowe's play (the crucial t'Xception to which we will return).• Likewise at his death, pleading for "some end to my incessant pain," Faustus is h.1Unted by eternity: "0 no end is limited to damned sou ls" (1458). The reasons w h y attempts at mak ing a mark or an end (ail are complex and va'Y significantly with each play, but one critical link is the feeling in almost all Marlowe's protagonists that they are 11sing 11p experience. This feeling extends to our merchant, john Sarracoll, and nis men: they not on ly visit Sierrn Leone, they consu me il. TamburJaine exults in just this power to "Conque r, sack, and utterly consume I Your cities" (2 Tam 4.2.3867- 68). He even contrives to use up his defeated enemies, transforming Bnjnzeth into his footstool, the kings ofTrebizon and Soria into horses to be discarded, when they are broken-winded, for"fresh horse" (2 Tam 5.1 .4242). In a biznrrely comic moment, Tamburlainc's son suggests that the kings just captured be released to resume the fight, but Tamburlaine replies, in the language of consumption, "Cherish thy valor still with fresh supplies: I And glut it not with stale and daunted foes" (2 Tam 4.1 .3761-{;2). Valor, like any appetite, always demands new food. Faustus's relationship to knowledge is s trikingly sim ilar; in his opening soliloquy he bids farewell to each of his studies in turn as something he has used up. He needs to cherish his mind with fresh supplies, for nothing can be accumulated, nothing saved or savored. And as the remainder of the play makes clear, each of these fa•·ewells is an oct of destruct ion: logic, medicine, law, and

Marlo~

atrd tltt Witl to Absol11ft' Pltry

divinity are not so much rejected as violated. The violence arises not only from the desire to mark boundaries but from the feeling that what one leaves behind, turns away from, 11111st no longer exist; that objects endure only for the moment of the act of attention and then are effaced; that the next moment cannot bc fully grasped until the last is destroyed. Marlowe writes in the period in which European man embarked on his extraordinary career of consumption, his eager pursuit of knowledge, with one intellectual model after another seized, squeezed dry, and discarded, nnd his frenzied exhaustion of the world's resources:'' Lo here my sons are all the golden Mines. IJ1cstimable d rugs and precious stones, More worth than Asia and the world beside, And from th' Antartic Pole, Eastward behold As much more land which never was descried, Wherein are rocks of Pearl that shine as bright As all the Lamps that beautify the Sky, And shall I die, and this unconquered? (2 Tam 5.3.4544-51) So fully do we inhabit this construction of reality that most often we see beyond it only in accounts of cultures immensely distant from our own: "The Nuer (writes Evans-Pritchard] havc no ex· pression equivalcnt to 'time' in our language, and they cannot, therefore, as we can, speak of time as though il were something actual, which passes, can be wasted, can be saved, ond so forth. 1 do not think that they ever experience the same feeli ng of fJghting against ti me or of having to co-ordinate activities with an abstr.1ct passage of lime becnuse their points of reference are mainly the activities themselves, which are generally of o leisurely cha racter . ... Nuer arc fortunate."'" Of course, such a conception of time and activity had vanished from Europe long before the sixteenth cen tury, but English Renaissance works, and Marlowe's plays in particular, give voice to a radically intensified sense that time is .I abslTact, unifom1, and inhuman. The origins of this sense of time are difficult to locate with any certainty. Puritans in the late sixteenth century were already campaigning vigorously against the medieval doctrine of the unevenness of time, a doctrine that had survived largely intact in the Elizabethan church calendar. They sought, in effect, to desacramentalize time, to discredit and sweep away the dense web of sa ints' days, "dismal days," seasonal taboos, mystic observances, and folk festivals that gave time a d lslif1ct, irrcgtilnr shape; in its place, they urged n simple, flat rou l inc of six d.1ys work and a sabbath rest. 11 Moreover, there

199

200

seem, in this period, to have been subtle changes in what we may call family Hme. At one end of the life cycle, traditional youth groups were suppressed or feU into neglect, customs that had allowed adolescents considerable autonomy were overturned, and children were brought under the stricter discipline of the immediate family. At the other end, the Protestant rejecHon of the doctrine of purgatory eliminated the dead as an "age group," cutting off the living from rituali2ed communion with their deceased parents and relatives." Such changes might well have contributed to a sense in Marlowe and some of his contemporaries that time is alien, profoundly indifferent to human longing a11d anxiety. Whatever the case, we certainly find in Marlowe's plays a powerful feeling that time is something to bo;, resLsted and a related fear that / fu lfillment or fruition is impossible. "Why woste you thus the time away?" an impatient Leices!E>r asks Edward II, whose crown he has come to fetcl1. "Stay a while," Edward replies, " let me be king till night" (2045), whereupon, like Faustus, 13 he struggles vainly to arrest time with incantation. At sucll moments, Marlowe's celebrated line is itsel£ riel! with irony: the rhythms intended to slow time only consume it, magnificent words arc spoken and disappear into a void. But it is precisely this sense of the void that compels the characters to speak so powerfully, as if to struggle the more insistently against the enveloping silence. That the moments of intensest time-consciousness all occur at or near the close of these plays has the effect of making the heroes .x seem to struggle against 1/zeatrica/ time. As Marlowe uses the vacancy of theatrical space to suggest his characters' homelessness, so he uses the cu1ve of theatrical lime to suggest their struggle aga inst extinction, in effect against the nothingness int·o which all characters fall at the end of a play. The pressure ofthc dramatic medium itself likewise underlies wl1atwe may call the repelitio11 compulsio11 of Marlowe's heroes. Tamburlaine no sooner annihilates one anny than he sets out to annihilate another, no sooner unharnesses two kings than he hitches up hvo more. Barabas &•\ins and loses, regains and reloses his wealth, while pursuing a seemingly endless string of revenges and politic murders, including, cllaracteristically, two suitors, hvo mars, hvo rulers, and, in e((c<:t, two children. In Edward 1T the plot is less overtly episodic, yet even here, after spending the first half of the play alternately embracing and pa rting from Gaveston, Edward immediately replaces tbe slain favorite with Spencer Junior and thereby resumes the same pattern, the willful courting of disaster that is finally " rcwa•·ded" in the casl'lo cesspool. Finally, as C. L. Barber observes, "Faustus

Mnrlowt' IIUd tht. wm to Absolutt Play

repeatedly moves through a circular pattern, from thinkins of the joys of heaven, through despairing of ever possessing them, to embracing magical dominion as a blasphemous substitute."'" The pattern of action and the complex psychological structure embodied in it vary with each play, but at the deepest level of the medium itself the motivation is the same: the renewal of existence through repetition of the self-constituting act. The character repeats himself in order to continue to be that same character on the stage. Identity is o theatrical invention that must be reitera ted if it is to endu re. To grosp the fu ll i mport of tl1is ootion of .-epet·ition as selffashion ing, we must understand its relation to I:he culturally dominant not 1on Ol' rcpehllon as a w-a rning o r memorinl, an instrument

of civiJity. In this view recurrent patterns exist in the ltistory of individuals or nations in order to inculcate crucia l moral values, passing them from generation to generation.u Men are notoriously slow learners and, in their inherent sinfulness, resistant to virtue, but gradually, through repetition, the paradigms may sink in and responsible, God-fearing, obedient subjects may be formed. Accordingly, Tudor monarchs ordered the formal reiteration of the central tenets of the religious and social orthodoxy, carefu lly specifying the minimum number of times a year these tenets were to be read :.loud from the pulpit.•• Similarly, the punishment of criminals was public, so that the state's power to inflict tom1cnt and death could act upon the people OS an edifying caution. The high number of such execu tions reflects not only judicial ''massacres" 17 but the attempt to teach through reiterated ten·or. Each bmnding or hanging or disemboweling was theatrical in conccpt iot1 and perfo1mance, a [epentablc admonitory dr-ama enacted on a scaffold before a rapt audience. l11ose who threatened order, those on whose nature nurture could never stick-the traitor, the vagabond, the homosexual, the thief-were identified and punished accordingly. This idea of the "notable spectacle," the "theater of God's judgments," extended quite naturally to the drama itself, and, indeed, to all of literature which thus takes its rightful place as part of a vast, interlocking system of repetitions, embracing homilies and hangings, rOyi!l progresses and role learning. '" It is by no means only timescrvcrs who are involved here; a great artist Like Spenser, as we have seen, embraces his po t·tidpation in this system, though, of course, that participotion is more complex than most. In Spcnse1's rich and su btle version ()f the civilizing process, the apparent repetitions with in e.1ch book and in Tile Fnerie Qul!elle ns n wh())e st•rvc to

201

202

CHAPTER

FIVll

ini tiate hero and reader alike into the nuances of each of the virtues, the complex discriminations that a humane moral sensibility entails, while, as we have seen, the shifting resolutions of analogous problems help to shore up values that are threatened by the shape of a prior resolution. The heroes' names and the virtues they embody both exist prior to the experiences chronicled in their books and are fully established by means of those experiences; Spenscrcan repetition expresses that which is already in some sense real, given by the power that exists outside the poem and that the poem celebra tes. Marlowe seems to have regarded the drama's participatlon in such a system-an admonitory fiction upholdi~1g n mbral orderwith a blend of obsessive fascination and contemptuous loatlci.ng.

·rnmborlnim' ropq~tcdly teases its audience with t·hc fonn of the

cautionary tale, only to violate the convention. All of the signals of • J the tragic arc produced, but the play stubbornly, mdically, refuses to become a tragedy. "The Gods, defenders of the innocent, I Will never prosper your intended drifts" (1 Tam 1.2.264-65), declares Zenocrate in actl and then promptly falls in love with her captor. With his dying breath, Cosroe curses Tamburlaine-a sure prelude to disaster-but the disaster never occurs. Bajazeth, the king of Arabia, and even Theridamas and Zenocratc have powerful premonitions of the hero's downfall, but he passes from success to success. Tamburlaine is proud, arrogant, and blasphemous; he lusts for power, betrays his allies, overthrows legitimate autho rity, and threatens the gods; he rises to the top of the wheel of fortune and thc11 stc~dfastly refuses to budge. Since l·he domi nant· ideology 110 longer iJlsists that rise-and-dedi11e and pride-goesbefore-a-fall are unvarying, universal rhythms, we undoubtedly miss some of the shock ofTamburlaine's career, but the play itself invokes those rhythms often enough to surprise us with their failure to materialize. Having undermined the notion of the cautionary tale in Tambur/aillt, part 1, Marlowe demolishes it in part 2 in the most unexpected way-by suddenly invoking it. The slaughter of thousands, the murder of his own son, the torture of his royal captives are all without apparent consequence; then Tamburlaine falls ill, and when7 When he burns the Koran! The one action which Elizabethan churchmen themselves might have applauded seems to bring down divine vengeance.''' The effect is nol to celebrate the transcendent power of Mohammed but to challenge the habit of mind that looks to heaven for rewards and p unishments, that imag ines h uman eviJ as " the scourge of Cod." SimiJa,·ly, in Docto/'

Marlowe rnrd lire Will to Ab:>elutt Play

Fa11stus, as Max Bluestone observes, the homiletical tradition is continually introduced only to be undermined by dramatic spec111de,20 while in Edward II Marlowe uses the emblematic method of admonitory drama, but uses it to such devastating elfecl that the audience recoils from il in disgust. Edward's grisly execution is, as orthodox interpreters of the play have correctly insisted, iconographically "appropriate," but this appropriateness can only be established at tire expense of every complex, sympathetic human feeling evoked by the play. The audience is forced to confront its insistence u pon coherence, and the result is a profound questioning of the way audiences constitute meaning in t·he theater and in life." There Is a questioning too of tile way individuals are constt tu led in the theater and in life. Marlowe's heroes fashion themselves not in loving submission to an absolute autnority but in self-conscious opposition: Tamburlaine against hierarchy, Barabas against Christianity, Faustus against God, Edward against the sanctified rites and responsibilities of kingship, marriage, and manhood. And where identity in More, Tyndale, Wyatt, and Spenser had been achieved through an attack upon something perceived as alien and threatening, in Marlowe it is achieved through a subversive identification with the alien. Marlowe's strategy of subversion is seen most clearly in The few of Malta, which, for this reason, I propose to consider in some detail. For Marlowe, as for Shakespeare, the Agurc of the jew js useful as a powerfu l rhetorical device, nn embod iment for a Christian audience of all they loathe and rear, aJI t·hat appears stubbornly, incd ucibly different. Introduced by Machiavel, the stock type of demonic villainy, Bornbas enters already trailing clouds of ignominy, already a ''marked case." Bul wltile never (elinquishing tile anti-Semi tic stereotype and the conventional motif of the villain-undone-byhis-villainy, Marlowe quickly suggests that the jew is not the exception to but rather the true representative of his society. Though he begins with a paean to liquid assets, Barabas is not primarily a usurer, set off by his hated occupation from the rest of the community, but a great merchant, sending his argosies around the world exactly as Shakespeare's much loved Antonio does. His pursuit of wealth docs not mark him out but rather establishes him- if anything, rather respectably-in the midst of all the other forces in the play: the Turks exacting tribute from the Christians, the Christians expmpriating money from the jews, the convent profit·ing from these expropriations, religi ous orders competing for woalthy converts, the prostitute plying her lmdc rmd the

203

CHAPTB~

FIVJl

blackmailer his. When the Governor of Malta asks the Turkish "Bashaw," "What wind drives you thus into Malta road?" the latter replies ,.,nth perlect &ankness, "The wind that bloweth all the world besides, I Desire of gold" (3.1421-23). Barabas's own desire of gold, so eloquently voiced at the start and vividly enacted in the scene in which he hugs his money bags, is the gJo,'lfing core of that passion which fires all the characters. To be sure, other values are expressed-love, faith, and honor-but as private values these are revealed to be hopelessly fragi le, while as public values they arc revealed to be mere screens for powerfu l economic forces. Thus, on tl1e one hand. Abigail, Don Mathias, and the nuns arc killed off witl1 remarkable ease and, in effect, with the complicity of the laug hing audience. (The a udience at the Royal Shakespea re Company's brilliant 1964 production rnarPd wit·h riPli gh t when the poisoned nuns came tumbling out of the house.) 22 On the other hand, llie public invocation of Christian ethics or knightly honor is always linked by Marlowe to baser motives. The knights concern lliemselves with Barabas's "inherent sin" only at the moment when they are about to preach him out of his possessions, while the decision to resist the "barbarous misbelieving Turks" facilitates all too easily llie sale into slavery of a shipload of Turkish captives. The religious and political ideology that seems at first to govern Christian attitudes toward infidels in fact does nothing of the sort; this ideology is clearly subord inated to considerations of profit. It is because of the p rimacy of money tha t Barabas, for all the contempt heaped upon hi m, is seen as the dominant spirit of the play, its most energetic and inventive force. A victi m at the level of reli gion and political power, he is, in effect, emanci pated at the level of civil society, ema11cipated in Marx's con temptuous sense of the word in his essay On the jewis/1 Questiou: "The Jew has emancipated himself in a Jewish manner, not only by acquiring the power of money, but also because money has become, through him and also apart from !tim, a world power, while the practical Jewish spirit has become the practical spirit of the Christian nations. The Jews have emancipated themselves in so far as the Christians have become Jews."ll Barabas's avarice, egotism, duplicity, and murderous cunning do not signal his exclusion from the world of Malta but his central place within it. His "judaism" is, again in Marx's words, ua universal antisocial eJe... mcnt of the present time" (34). Por neither Marlowe nor Marx does tbis l'ecogniHon signal a turning awny from Jew-baiting; if anything, Jew- balting is in-

Marlow' tmd tlrt Wffl to Absolutt Pl11y

tensifi(!d even as the hostility it excites is directed as well against Christian society. Thus Marlowe never discredits anti-Semitism, but he does discredit early in the play a ''Christian" social concern that might othcnvise have been used to counter a specifically Jewish antisocial element. When the Governor of Malia seizes the wealth of the Jews on tile grounds that it is "better one want for a common good, I Then many perish for a private man" (1.331- 32), an audience at all familiar with the New Testament will hear in these words echoes not of Christ but of Caiaphas and, a few lines further on, of Pilate.'" There are, to be sure, moments of social solid arity-a$ when the jews gather around Barabas to comfort him or when Ferne~e and Katherine together mourn the death o£ their sons-bur they are brief and ineffect·ual. 1he true emblem of the society of the play is the slave market, where "Every one's price is written on his back" (2.764)."' Here in the marketplace men arc literally turned, in Marx's phrase, " into nlimnble, saleable objects, in thrall to egoistic need and huckstering" (39). And at this level of society, the religious and political barriers fall away: the Jew buys a Turk at the Christian slave market. Such is the triumph of civil society. For Marlowe the dominant mode of perceiving the world, in a society hag-ridden by the power of money and given over to the slave market, is contempF, contempt aroused in the beholders of i' such a society and, as important, governing the behavior of those who bring il into being and function within it. This is Barabas's constant attitude, virtually his signature; his withering scorn lights not only on lhe Christian m lers of Malta ("thus slaves will learn," he s neers, when the defeated Governor is fo•·ccd into su b· mission [5.2150]), but on his daughter's suitor ("t·he slave looks like a hog's cheek new sl ng'd" [2.803]). his daughter ("An Hebrew born, and wou ld become a Christian. I Cnzzo, dinbolo" [4.1527281), his slave lthamore ('Thus every villain ambles afte r wealth I Although he ne'er be richer than in hope" [3.1354-55]), the Turks ("How the slave jeers at him," observes the Governor of Barabas greeting Calymath [5.2339j), the pimp, Pilia -Bona ("a shaggy, totter'd staring slave" (4.1858)}, his fellow jews ("See the simplicity of these base slaves" [1.448]), .1nd even, when he has blundered by making the poison too weak, himself ("What a damn'd slave was I" [5.2025)}. Barabas's frequent asides assure us that he is feeling contempt even when he is not open ly expressing H, and the reitcmtion of the derogatory epithet slave firmly anchors t·his cont·cmpt in the structure of relations lha t govc ms the p iny. 13nrnbn$'s liberality in bestowing th is r:pithct~from the

205

206

CH:APT£R

J11VII

Govemor to the pimp-reflects the extraordinary unily of the structure, its intricate series of mirror images: Pilia-Borz.a's extortion racket is repeated at the "national" level in the extortion of the jewish community's wealth and at the international level in the Turkish extortion of the Christian tribute. The play depicts Renaissance international relations as a kind of glorified gangsterism, a vast "protection" rac.ket."26

At all levels of society in Marlowe's play, behind each version of the racket (and making it possible) is violence or the threat of violence, and so here too Barabas's murderousness is presented as ot once a characteristic of bis accursed tribe and the expression of o u11iversal phenomenon. Thi s expression, to be sure, is extravago11t-he is J"esponsible, directly or indirectly, for the deaths o ( MathiM, Lodowick, Ah ie• il . Pili~- I~OT7,, nellomira, Jthamore, Friar jacarno, Friar Bamadine, and innumerable poisoned nuns and massacred soldiers-and, as we shall see, this extravagance helps to account for the fact that in the last analysis Barabas cannot be assimilated to his world. But if Marlowe ultimately veers away from so entirely sociological a conception, it is important to grasp the extent to which Barabas expresses in extreme, unmediated fonn the motives that have been partially disguised by the spiritual humbug of Christianity, indeed the extent to which Barabas is bro11ght irtlo being by the Christ ian society around him. His actions are always responses to the initiatives of o thers: not on ly is the plot of the whole play set in motion by the Governo r's expropriation of his wealth, but each of Barabas's particular plots is a reaction to wha t he perceives as a provocation or a Ihreot. Only his final stratagem-the betrayal of the Turksscems an exception, since the Jew is for once in power, but even this fMal blunder is a response to his perfectly sound perception tha t "Mnltn hates me, and in hating me I My life's in danger'' (5.2131-32). Barabas's apparent passivity sits strangely with his entire domination of the spirit of the play, and once again, we may tum to Marx for an explication of Marlowe's rhetorical strategy: '1udaism could not create a new world. It could only bring the new creations and conditions of the world within its own sphere of activity, because practical need, the spirit of which is selfinterest, is always passive, cannot expand ot will, but finds itself extended as a result of the continued development of society" (38}. Though the jew is identified here with the spi rit of egotism and selfish need, his success is credited to the triumph of Christiani ty which "objcctifiesn and he nce alie nates all natibnal, natural,

Marlowr and IJr~ Will to Absollttt Play

moral, and theoretical relationships, dissolving "the human world into a world of atomistic, antagonistic individuals" (39). The concrete emblem of Utis alienation in Marlowe is the slave market; its ideological expression is the religious chauvinism that sees jews as inherently sinful, Turks as barbarous misbelievers. Tlte Jew of Mnlta ends on a powerfully ironic note of this "spiritual egotism" (to usc Marx's phrase) when the Governor celebrates the treacherous destruction of Barabas <~nd the Turks by giving due praise "Neither to Fate nor Fortune, but to Heaven" (5. 2410). (Once again, the Royal Shakespeare Company's audience guffawed at this bit of hypocritical sententiousness.) Bu t we do not have to wait un til t·hc closing moments of the play to Witness the Chl"istian practice of nli ennHon. It is, as I have suggested, present throughout, and nowhere more powerfully than in the figure of Barabas himself. For not only are Barabas's actions called forth by Christian actions, but his identity itself is to a great extent the product of the Christian conception of a jew' s identity. This is not entirely the case: Marlowe invokes an "indigenous" Judaism in the wicked parody of the materialism of job and in Barabas's repeated invocation of Hebraic exclusivism ("these swine-eating Christians," etc.). Nevertheless Barabas's sense of himself, his characteristic response to the world, and his self-presentation arc very largely constructed out of the mlltcrials of the dominant, Christian culture. This i• nowhere more evident than in his speech, wh ich is virtually composed of hard little aphorisms, cynic~tl adages, world ly maxims-all Ute neatly packaged nastiness of his society. Where Shylock is dUferentiated from the Christians even in his use of the common language, Barabas is inscribed at lhe cen ter of the society of the play, a society whose speech is a tissue of aphorisms. Whole speeches are little more than strings of sayings: maxims arc exchanged, inverted, employed as weapons; the characters enact and even deliberately "stage" proverbs (with all of the manic energy of Brcughel's "Netherlandish Proverbs"). When Barabas, intent upon poisoning the nuns, calls for the pot of rice porridge, lthamore carries it to him along with a ladle, explaining that since "the proverb says, he that eats with the devil had need of a long spoon, I have brought you a ladle" (3. 1362)." And when Barabas and lthamore together strangle Friar Bamadinc, to whom Abigail has Tcvcaled their crimes in confession, the jew explains, "Blame not us but the proverb, Confess and be hang'd 1' (4. 1655). Proverbs in '1'/r~ jew of Mnltn are a kind of currency, the compressed ideologicnl wealth of society, the money of the mind.

207

208

(:HAPTI!:R

f!JVI

Their terseness corresponds to that concentrMion of material wealth that Barabas celebrates: "Infinite riches in a little room." Barabas's own store of these ideological riches comprises the most cynical and self-serving portion: Who is honor'd now but for his wealth? (1.151)

Ego millimet sum semper proximus. (1.228)

A reaching thought will sean:h his deepest wits, And cast wi th cunning for the time to come. (1 .455-56) W~

... in extremi.ty

Olll)ht tn make bar of no policy.

(1.507-8)

... Religion Hides many mischiefs from suspicion. (1.519-20)

Now will I show my self to have more of the Serpent Than the Dove; that is, more knave than fool. (2.797-98) F,1ith is not to be held with Heretics. (1.1076) For he that liveth in A uthority, 1\nd neither gets him frien ds, nor fills his bags, Lives like th e Ass th at IEsop s peaketh of, 111at labors with a load of bread ~nd wine, And !coves it off to snap on Th istle tops. (5 .2139-43) For so !live, perish may all the world. (5.2292) This is not the exotic language of the jews but the product of the whole society, indeed, its most familiar nnd ordinary face. And as the essence of proverbs is their anonymity, the effect of their recurrent usc by Barabas is to render him more and more typical, to de-individualize him. This is, of course, the opposite of the usual process. Most dramatic charact~Shylock is the appropriate example-accumu late identity in the course of their play; Barabas loses it. He is never again as clistinct and unique a1;1 i1;1dividual as he is in the first mom ents:

MariO\I.IC and I he

wm to Al1soluJe Ploy

209

Go tell 'em the jew of Malta sent thee, man: Tush, who ~mongst 'em knows not Barabas? (1.102- 3)

Even his account of his past- killing sick people or poisoning wells-tends to make him more vague and unreal, accommodating him to an abstract, anti-Semitic fantasy of a jew's past. In this effacement o( Barabas's identity, Marlowe reflects not only upon h is culture's bad faith, its insistence upon the otherness of what is in fact its own essence, b ut also upon the tragic llmHations of rebell ion aga inst this cultuie. Like all of Marlowe's heroes, Barabas de fines himself by negating cheris hed values, b ut his identity is itself, as we have seen, a social cons truction, a fiction com posed ol the slea.z iest materials in his cu lture.•• If Marlowe questions the notion of literature as caution ary tale, if hi s very use of admonitory ficHons subverts them, he cannot dismiss the im mense power of the social system in which such fictions play their part. Indeed the attempts to challenge this system-Tamburlaine's world conquests, Barabas's Machiavellianism, Ed,..,ard's homosexuality, and Faustus's skepticism-are subjected to relentless probing and exposed as unwitting tributes to that social construction of identity against which they struggle. For if the heart of Renaissance orthodoxy is a vast system of repetitions in which disciplinary paradigms are establish ed and men gradually lcnm what to desire and what to fear, the Marlovian rebels and skeptics remai n e mbedded within this orthodoxy: they sim ply reverse the paradigms n"d embrace what the society brands ns ev il. In so doing, t'hcy imagine themselves set ilt d iametricnl opposition. to their society where In fact they have unwittingly accepted its ci'Ucial s tructu ral e lements. For the crucial issue is no t man's power to d isobey, but the characteristic modes of desire and len •· produced by a given society, and the rebellious heroes never depart from those modes. With their passionate insistence on will, Marlowe's protagonists anticipate the perception that human history is the product of men themselves, but they also anticipate the perception that this product is shaped, in Lukacs phrase, by forces that arise from their relations with each other and which have escaped their control.,. As Marx writes in a famous passage in Tl1c Eig/Jitellt/J Brm1wire of Louis Bo11aparte: "Men make their own history, but they do not make it just as they please; they do not make it under circumstances chosen by themselves, but under c ircumstances directly found, given nnd tTansmitted from the p ast. The tradition of all the dead gcncJ'a tions weighs like a nightmare o n the b •·ni n o f

liO

CHA"'PTF.I(

FIVII

the living. And just when they seem engaged in revolutionising themselves and things, in creating something entirely new, precisely in such epochs of revolutionary crisis they anxiously conjure up the spirits of the past."30 Marlowe's protagonists rebel against orthodoxy, but they do not do so just as they please; their acts of negation not only conjure up the order they would destroy but seem at times to be themselves conjured up by that very order. The jew of Malta continually demonstra tes, as we have seen, how close Barabas is to the gentile world against which he is set; if this demonstration exposes the hypocrisy of tha t world, it cuts against the jew as well, for his loathing must be repeatedly di rected against a version of himself, until at the dose he boils in the pot he has prepared for his enemy. S imilarly, F:1u~t-11 c;'~ whole career bind' him

QVO.r

more closely to

thot Christian conception of the body and the mind, tha t divinity, he thought he was decisively rejecting. He dreams of living "in a.ll voluptuousness" {337), but his pleasures are parodlc versions of Holy Communion. 31 Of all Marlowe's heroes, only Tamburlaine comes close to defining himself in genuinely radical opposition to the order against which he wars; he does so by virtue of a powerful if sporadic >l /materialism that Marlowe seems to· have compounded out of a strange blend of scholarly and popular heterodox clements in his cultltr'e, From academic Life, Marlowe could draw upon Lucretian naturalism, with its vision of a cosmos fomwd by tbe restless clash of opposing elements; fro m popular cu lture- the cu lture we glimpse Aectingly in ballads, trial records, nnd the like-h,e could d •·ow upon an unillusioned reduction of ideology to power and of power to violence." From both he could derive the remarkable centrality of the body that is the play's obsessive p •"Coccupation. The action ofTnmb11rlaitte-endless stabbing, chaining, drowning, lancing, hanging- is almost entirely directed toward what we may call a theatrica.l proof of the body's existence. In what seems a ?.any parody of Christ and Doubting Thomas, Tamburlaine at one point wounds himself for the edification of his sons: "Come boys, and with your fingers search my wound, I And in my blood wash aD your h.1nds at once" (2 Tam 3.2.331&-17). Likewise, the dying in the piny-and they are legion- speak of themselves in an oddly detailed, almost clinical language, as if to insist upon the corporeal rea lity of their experience: I feel my liver p ierced, and all my veins, Tho t there begin and no ltrish every pa •·t,

Mr~rtow(

and Ule Wiii to AbsotUJt Ploy

Mangled and torn, and all my entrails bathed In blood that straineth from their orifex. (2 Tam 4.3417-20) Yet even here, I would argue, the movement toward a truly radical alternative is thwarted by the orthodoxy against which it struggles. The materialist rejection of transcendence is belied by Tamburlaine's single-minded commitment to "princely deeds" of violence. The body is affirmed only in wounding and destroying it, and this aggression i(onically generates the odd note of detachment- bodilcssness-that characterizes even those lines I have just quoted. A different attitude toward the flesh-sensual enjoyment, sell-protection, tolerant acceptance, ease-ls explicitly attacked and killed in the figure of Tamburlaine's "cowardly" (and remarkably sympathetic) son Cilyphas. Tamburlaine stabs Calyphas because the "effeminate brat" possesses A form not meet to give that subject essence Whose matter is the flesh of Tarnburlaine, Wherein an incorporeal spirit moves. (2 Tam 4.1.3786-88) The Aristotelian language of the Schoolrnen here signals the operation, within the bizarre and barbaric scene, of precisely those conservative principles agtti.nst which Tamburlaine had seemed to be set, just as moments later the former Scythian shepherd ca n speak of plaguing "such peasants as resist in me I The power of heaven's eternal majesty" (2 Tam 4.1.3831-32). Tamburlnine •·ebels against hierarchy, legitimacy, the whole established order of things, and to what end? To reach, as he declares, "The sweet fruition of an earth ly crown." Enrtllly tan-;( tali2ingly suggests a materialist alternative to the transcendental authority upon which aU the "legitimate" kings in lhe play base their power, but the suggestion is not realized . Theridimas's response to Tamburlaine's declaration of purpose sounds for an in· stant as if it were about to confirm such an alternative, but then by a trick of syntax it veers away: And that made me to join with Tarnburlaine, For he is gross and like the massy earth That moves not upwards, nor by princely deeds Doth mean to soar above the highest sort. (1 Tnm 2.6.881-84) Tamburlai nc's wi ll is hnmea.s urably stronger, but its object is essentially the same as that of Mycetes, Cos roe, Bnja:r;eth, o•· n11y of

211

212

CHArTeR

ltiVI!

the other princelings who strut around the stage. Part 1 ends not in an act of revolt but in the supreme gesture of legitimacy, a proper marriage, with the Scourge of God earnestly assuring his father· in-law of Zenocrate's unblemished chastity. The close of part 2 may seem closer to an act of radical freedomCome, let us march against the powers of heaven And set black streamers in the firmament To signify the slaughter of the gods(2 Tam 5.3.4440-4.2) bu t, as in Fnuslt<s, the blaSJ?hemy pays homage to the power it insults. In just th is way, several years after Marlowe wrote his play, an illiterate visionary, condemned to death for claiming to be Christ come in judgment upon the queen and her counci llors. demanded on the scaffold that God deliver him from his enemies: "If not, I willllre the heavens, and tear thee from thy throne with my hands. " Jl Such acts of aggression are spectllcular, but they are ultimately bound in by the orthodoxy against which they revolt Marlowe stands apart then from both orthodoxy and skepticism; he caUs into question the theory of literature and history as repeatable moral lessons, and he calls into question his age's characteristic mode of rejecting those lessons. But how docs he himself understand his characters' motivation, the force that compels them to repeat the sa me actions again and again? The answer, as I have already suggested, lies in their will to self-fash ioning. Marlowe's .l' heroes struggle to invent themselves; they stand, in Coriolanus's ph rase, "As if a man were author of himself I And knew no other ki n" (5.3.36-37). Shakespeare characteristically forces hls very Mal'lovia11 hero to reach out and grasp his mother's hand; in Marlowe's ploys, with the exception of Dido Quee11 of Carfizage, we never see and scarcely even hear of the hero's parents. Tamburlaine is the son of nameless "paltry" Scythians, Paustus of "parents base of stock" (12), and Barabas, so far as we can tell, of no one at all. (Even in Edward II, where an emphasis on parentage would seem unavoidable, there is scant mention of Edward!.) The family is at the center of most Elizabethan and Jacobean drama as it is at the center of the period's economic and social structure;"' in Marlowe it is something to be neglected, despised, or violated. Two of Marlowe's heroes kill their chlldren without a trace of remorse; most prefet male friendships to marriage or kinship bonds; all insist upon free choice in determining their intimate relations. Upon hi s father's death, Edwa rd immediately sends for Gaveston; Barabas adopts Tthamore in place of Abigail; Faustus

Mnrlowr mrd the Wut lo Ab$Oiutt Play

213

cleaves to his sweet Mephistophilis; and, in a more passionate love scene than any with Zenocrate, Tamburlaine wins the ardent loyalty of Theridamas. The effe<:t is to dissolve the structure of sacramental and blood relations that normally determine identity in this period and to render the heroes virtually autochthonous, their names and identities given by no one but themselves. Indeed self-naming is a major enterprise in these plays, repeated over and over aga in as if the hero continues to exist only by virtue of constantly renewed acts of wi ll. Augustine hnd written in Tlze City of God that "if God were to withdraw what we may call his 'constructive power' from existing things, they would cease to exist, just ns they did not exist before they were made:·>< Jn the neutrality of time and space Ulat characterizes Marlowe's world, this "constructive power" must exist within the hero himself; jf it should fail for an instrult he would fall into nothingness, become, in Barabas's words, "a senseless lump of clay I That will with every water wash to dirt" (1.450-51). lienee the hero's compulsion to nepeal his name and his actions, a compulsion Marlowe links to the drama itself. The / hero's re-presentations fade into the reiterated performances of ,. the play. U Marlowe's protagonists fashion themselves, they are, as we have seen, compelled to l$e only those forms and materials produced by the structure of relations in their particu l.u, quite dis· tinct worlds. We watch Tamburlaine constnzcl himself out of phrases picked up or overheard' "And ride in triumph tluough Persepolis" O T!lm 2.5.754) o r " I that am terro'd the Scou rge and Wrath of God" (1 Tnm 3.3.1142). Like the gol<;J taken from unwary travelers or the troops lured away from other princes, Tamburlaine's identity is something appropriated, seized fz·om others.36 lr Even Edward II, with his greater psychological complexity, can only clothe himself in the metaphors available to this station, though these metaphors-the "Imperial lion," for examplor-often seem little applicable. And the most haunting instance in Marlowe of this self-fashioning by quotation or appropriation occurs in Doctor Faustus, when the hero concludes the signing of the fatal deed with the words "Cons11mmnt11m est" {515). To unfold the s ignificance of this repetition of Christ's dying words, we must restore them to their context in the Gospel of John:

f"'

After thi s, jesus k110wlng that all things were now occo"'plishcd, that the Scripture might be fu lnllcd, saith, I thirst. Now there was set a vessel run of vincgnr: and

2t4

CHAPTflk

FIVK

they (iUed a sponge with vinegar, and put it upon hys· sop, and put it to his mouth. When jesus therefore had received the vinegar, he said, It is finished [Consummatum est): and he bowed his head, and gave up the ghost. (19:2&-30)37 As it is written in psalm 69, "and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink," so it is ful6lled; Christ's thirst is not identical to the body's normal longing for drink, but an eunctmetrt of that longing so that he may fully accom plish the role darkly prefigured in the Old Testament. The drink of vinegar is the final structural element in the realiza(ion of h is identity. Faustus's use of Christ's , words then evokes U1e archetypal act of rolc.:toking; by reenacting the moment in which Christ acknowledges the fulfi ll me nt of Jtis being, lhc mogician hopes to touch upon the priuuaJ springs of

identity itself. But whatever identity Faustus can thereby achieve is limited to the status of brilliant parody. His blasphemy is the uncanny expression of a perverse, despairing faith, an appropriation to himself of the most solemn and momentous words available in his culture to mark the decisive boundary in his life, an ambiguous equation of himself with Christ, first as God, then as dying man. "Co11S11mmatum est" is the culmination of Faustus's fantasies of making an end, and hence a suicide that demonically parodies Christ's self-sacrifice. But in the Gospel, as we have seen, the words arc a t1·ue end; they are spoken at the moment of fulfillment and death. In Doctor FnllStlls they me ra ther a begi nning, spoken at the moment Paustus is embarking on his bnrga in. Unlike Christ, who is h is own transcendent object, and whose corecr is precisely the rea llzation of himself, Faustus, and all of Marlowe's sellfashioning heroes, must posit an object in order to exist. Naming oneself is not enough; o ne must also name and pursue a goal. And if both the self and object so constituted arc tragically bounded by the dominant ideology against which they vainly struggle, Mar· lowe's heroes nevertheless manifest a theatrical energy that distinguishes their words as weU as their actions from the surrounding society. If the audience's perception of radical difference gives way to a perception of subversive identity, that too in its tum gives way: in the excessive quality of Marlowe's heroes, in their histrionic extremism, lies that which distinguishes the ir self-fash ioning acts from the society around them. The Turks, fria rs, and Christian knights may all be driven by acquisi tive des ire, but on ly 13ambas can speak of ' 1lnfinite riches in a li ttle

Mltrlowt< 11nd tl1~ W1tl to Aflwlule Play

215

room, " only he has the capacity for what one must call aesthetic experience: Bags of fiery Opals, Sapplrirts, Arnfllrysls, /aciutlrs, hard Topaz, grass-green Emeralds, Beauteous Rubies, sparkling Diamonds, And sclq-scen costly stones .... (1.60-63)

Simi larly, Theridimas may declare that" A God is not so glorious as a King," but when he is asked if he himself would be a king, he replies, "Nay, though I praise it, I can live without it" (1 Tam 2.5.771). Tamburlaine cannot live without it, and hls reward is not only

~ 'Th~ sw~ct

fruitiuu uf

dll

c::arthly cro\-.rn" but what

Plato's rival Gorgias conceives as "the magic violence of spcech."l8 It Is this Corgian conception of rhetoric, and not the Platonic or Aristotelian, that is home o ut In Marlowe's heroes. For Co rgias man is forever cut off from the knowledge of being, forever locked in the partial, the contradictory, and tlle irrational. U anything exists, he writes, it is both incomprehensible and incommunicable, for "that which we communicate is speech, and speech is not the same lhlng as the thlngs that exist." 39 This tragic epistemological distance is never bridged; mstead, through the power of language men construct deceptions in which and for which they live . Corgias held that deception-<tpate-is the very essence of the creative imagination: the tragic artist exceeds his peers in the power to deceive. Such a conception of art does not preclude its claim to strip away fraud, si.nce tragedy ''with its myths and emotions has created a deception such thot its successful practHioncr is nearer to reality than the unsuccessful, and the man who lets hinlself be deceived is wiser than he who does not."•• In Tire few of Malta Sambas the deceiver gives us his own version of this aesthetic: "A counterleit profession," he tells hls daughter, "is better I Than unseen hypocrisy" (1.531-32). In the long run, the play cha llenges lhls conviction, at least from the point of view of surviva l: the Governor, who is the very embodiment of "unseen hypocl'i sy" eventually triumphs over the Jew's "counterfeit profession." But Marlowe uses the distinction to direct the audience's allegiance toward Barabas; to lie and to know thot one is lying seems more attractive, more aestheticaliy pleasing, and more moral even, than to lie and believe that one is telling the truth.

216

CHArTtiR

PIVE

The ethical basis o£ such a discrimination does not bear scrutiny; what matters is that the audience becomes Barabas's accomplice. And the pact is affirmed over and over again in Barabas's frequent, malevolently comic asides: LooowtcK Good Barabas, glance not at our holy Nuns. BARABAS No, but I do it through a burning zeal, Hoping ere long /o set lire }rouse a fire. [Aside) (2.849-51)

Years ago, in Naples, [watched a deft pickpocket lifting a camera from a tourist's shoulder-bag and replacing it instantaneously with a rock of equal weight. The thief spotted me watch ing but did not run away-instead he winked, and J was frozen in mu te complicity. The audience's conventional silence becomes in The /etu of Malta the silence of the passive accompuce, winked at by his fellow criminal. Such a relationship is, of course, itself conventional. The Jew has for the audience something of the attractiveness of the wily, misused slave in Roman comedy, always on the brink of d isaster, always revealed to have a trick o1· two up hJs sleeve. The mythlc core of this character's endless resourcefulness is what Nashe calls "stage-like resurrection," and, though Barabas is destined for a darker end, he is granted at least one such moment: thrown over the city walls and left for dead, he springs up fuJI of scheming energy.•t At this moment, as elsewhere in the play, the audience waits expectantly for Barabas's recovery, tuil/s his continued existence, and hence identifies with him. Barabas first wins the audience to him by means of the incantatory power of his language, nnd it is through this power too tha t Faustus conjures up the Prince of Deceptions and that To:unburlaine makes his entire life into a project, transforming himself into an elemental, destructive force, driving irresistibly forward: "For Will and Shall best fitteth Tamburlaine" (1 Tam 3.3.1139). He coll apses all the senses of these verbs-intention, command, prophecy, resolution, and simple futurity-into his monomaniacal project. All of Marlowe's heroes seem similarly obsessed, and U1e result of their passionate willing, their insistent, reitcrnted naming of themselves and tlleir objects, is that they become more intensely real to us, more present, than any of the other characters. ThJs is only to s.1y that they are the protagonists, but once agaln Marlowe relates the shape of the medium itself to the central experience of the plays; his heroes seem determ ined to realize the Idea of themselves as dramatic heroes. 42 There is a parallel in Spenser's Ma lbecco wh\l is so completely what he is-in this case,

AiotrloU't' tmd the Vlilllo Absolute P/4y

so fanatically jealous-that he becomes the allegorical incarnation of jealousy itself. But where this self-realizatjon in Spenser is Platonic, in Marlowe it is Gorgian-that is, Platorusm is undermined by the presence of the theater itself, the unavoidable distance between the particular actor and his role, the insistent awareness in audience and players alike of illusion. Within the plays this awareness is intensified by the difficulties the characters experience in sustaining their lives as projects, by that constant reiteration to which, as we have seen, they are bound. For even as no two performances or readings of a text are exactly the same, so the repeated acts of self-fashioning are never absolutely identical; indeed as GUles Delcuze has recently observed,

w~

can uu ly SJJ.:ak of repetition by 1-efere.nce to the dif

fercnce or change that it causes in the mind that contemplates it.•3 The result is that the objects of desire, at first so clearly defined, so avidly pursued, gradually lose their sharp outlines and become more and more like mirages. Faustus speaks endlessly of his appetite, his desire to be glu tted, ravished, consumed, but what is it exactly that he wants? By the end of the play it is clear that knowl· edge, voluptuousness, and power are each mere approxim~tions of the goal for w hich he sells his soul and body; what that goal is remains maddeningly unclear. "Mine own fantasy I ... will re· ceive no object" (136-37), he tells Valdes and Cornelius, in a phrase that could stand as the play's epigraph. At first Barabas seems a simpler case: he wants wealth, though there is an unsettling eq uivocation beh... ecn the desire for wealth as power and security and desire for wealth as an aesthetic, evcll metaphysical gratification. But the rest of the play does not beM out this desire as the center of Barabas's being: money js not finally the jealous God of the jew of Malta. He seeks rather, at any rost, to revenge himself on the Christians. Or so we think until he plots to destroy the Turks and restore the Christians to power. Well then, he wants always to serve his own self-interest: Ego millime I sum semper proximus (1.228) . But where exactly is the self whose interests he serves? Even the Latin tag betrays an o minous self-distance: "I am always my own neighbor," or even, "I am always next to myself." Edward II is no clearer. He loves Gaveston, but why? "Because he loves me more than all the world'' (3n). The desire returns from its object, out there in the world, to the self, a self that is nonetheless el(ceedingly unstable. When Gaveston is killed, Edward has within seconds adopted someone else: the will exists, but the object of the will is li ttle more than an illusion. Even Ta mburla ine, with his rirm declaml'inn of a goal, becomes ever more equivoca l.

2V

218

CHArT£.R

I'IVE

"The sweet fruition of an earthly crown" turns out not to be what it first appears-the acquisition of kingship-for Tamburlaine continues his restless pursuit long after this acquisition. His goal then is power which is graphically depicted as the ability to transform virgins with blubbered cheeks into slaughtered can:asses. But when Tamburlaine views the corpses he has made and defines this object for himself, it immediately becomes something else, a mirror reflecting yet another goal: All sights of power to grace my victory: And such are objects fit for Tnmbrtrlniue, Wherein as in a mirror may be seen, I-I is "onor, that consists in shedding blood. (1 Tnm 5.2.2256-59)•• It is Tamburlaine, in his celebrated speech "What is beauty sayeth my sufferings then?" (1 Tam 5-2.1941ff.), who gives the whole problem of reaching a desired end its clearest forrnal expression in Marlowe: beauty, like all the goals pursued by the playwright's heroes, always hovers just beyond the reach of human thought and expression. The problem of elusiveness is one "' of the major preoccupations of Renaissance thinkers from the most moderate to the most radical, from the judicious Hooker to the splendidly injudicious Bruno. 45 Marlowe is deeply influenced by this contemporary thought, but he subtly shirts the emphasis from the infinity that draws men beyond what they possess to the problem of the human will, the difuculty men experience in truly wn11ting onyUting. It is a commonplace that for Sa int Augustine the essence of evil is that anything shou ld be "sought for itself, whereas things should be sought only in terrns of the search for God."'• Ma.-lowe's heroes seem at first to embrace such evil: they freely proclaim their immense hunger for something wltich takes on the status of a personal absolute, and they relentlessly pursue this absolute. The more threatening an obstacle in their path, the more deterrnined they are to obliterate or overreach it: I long for, I bum, I wiU. But, as we have seen, we are never fully convinced by these noisy demonstrations of single-minded appetite. It is as i£ Marlowe's heroes wanted to be wholly perverse, in Augustine's sense, but were incapable of such perversity, as if they could not fina lly desire anything for itself. For Hooker and Bruno alike, this inability arises from the existence of transcendent goals-it is a proof of the existence of God; for Marlowe it springs from the suspicion that all objects of desire a.-e fictions, thcntricnl illusions shaped by human subjects. And those subjects no·c themselves

I

Marlotct lind th~ Will to Ab'iOIUit Pl•y

219

fictions, fashioned in n!iterated acts of self·naming. The problem is already understood in its full complexity by Montaigne, but, as Auerbach obse1-ves, ''his irony, his dislik~ of big words, his calm way of being pmfoundly at ease with himscl.f, prevent h im from push ing on beyond the limits of the problematic and into the n!alm of the tragic. "" Marlowe, whose life suggests the very op· posite of that "peculiar equilibrium" that distinguishes Montaigne, rushes to embrace the tragic with a strange eagerness. Man can only exist in the world by fashioning for himself a name and an object, but these, as Marlow~ and Montaigne under· s tood, are both fictions, No particular name or object can entirely satisfy one's inner CI\Crgy den\anding to be expressed or fi ll so completely the porcntia l of one's consclot"n""" Uldt ull lunging• are quelled, all intimations of unreality silenced. As we have seen in the controversy between More and Tyndale, Protestant and Catholic polemicists demonstrated brilliantly how each other's religion-the very anchor of reality for millions of souls-was a ctmning theatrical illusion, a demonic fantasy, a piece of poetry. t:lach conducted this unmasking, of course, ilt the name of the real religious truth , but the collective effect upon a skeptical intellect like Marlowe's seems to have been devastnting. And it was not only the religious dismantling of :reality to which the playwright was responding. On the 'distant shores of Africa and America and at home, in their "rediscovered" classical texts, Renaissance Europeans were daily confronting evidence that their accustomed re· ality was only one solu tion, among many others, of perennial human problems. Though they often tried to destroy the a lien cu ltures they encountered, or to absorb them into their ideology, they could not always destroy the testimony of their own consciousness. "The wonder is not that things are," writes Valery, "but that they are wlral they are and not something else."•• Each of Marlowe's plays constitutes reality in a manner radically dif· ferent from the plays that preceded it, just as his work as a whole marks a s tartling departure from the drama of his time. Each of his heroes makes a different leap from inchoMc appetite to the oil· consuming project: what is necessary in one play is accidental or absent in the next. Only the leap itself is always necessary, at once necessary and absurd, for it is the embracing of a fiction rendered desirable by the intoxication of language, by the will to play. Marlowe's heroes must live their Jives as projects, but they do so \in the m idst of intimations that the projects are iUusions. Their stre ngth is not sJppod by these intima tions: lhcy do not withdraw into s toical resigna tion or conlemplaliw soli tude, nor do they en·

220

dure for the sake of isolated moments of grace in which they are in touch with a wholeness otherwise absent in their lives. Rather they take courage from the absurdity of their enterprise, a murderous, seU-destructive, supremely eloquent, playful courage. This playfulness jn Marlowe's works manifests itseU as cruel humor, murderous practical jokes, a penchant for the outlandish and absurd, delight in role-playing, entire absorption in the game at hand and consequent indifference to what lies outside the boundari es of Ute game, radical insensitivity to human complexity and suffering, extreme but disciplined aggression, hostility to tmnsccndence. '\'here is some evidence, apart from the cruel, aggressive plays Utemselves, for a similar dark playfulness in Marlowe's own c;~rcoa·,

with lhc com.ic (~nd extremely dnnscrou$) blnaphcmies,

the nearly overt (and equally dangerous) homosexuality-tokens of a courting of disaster as reckless as that depicted in Edward or Faustus. In the life, as in the plays, the categories by whlch we nonnally organize experience are insistently called into question-is this a man whose recklessness suggests that he is out of control or rather that he is supremely in control, control so coolly mocking that he can, to recall Wyatt, calculate his own excesses? What little we know about Marlowe's mysterious stint as a double agent in Walsingham's secret service-it seems that he went to Rheims in 1587, perhaps posing as a Catholic in order to ferret out incriminating evidence against English Catholic seminariansand wha t lit tle we can gather &om the con tents of the Baines libel suggests, beyond estrangement from ideology, a fathoml~ss and eerily playful self-estrangement. The will to play Oaunts society's clwrished o rthodox:ies, embraces what the culture finds loathsome or frightening, transfonns the serious into the joke and then unsettles the category of the joke by taking it seriously, courts selfdestruction in the interest of the anarchic discharge of its energy. This is play on the brink of an abyss, absolute play. In his turbulent life and, more important, in his writing, Marlowe is deeply implicated in hls heroes, though he is far more intelligent and self-aware than any of them. Cutting himself off from the comforting doctrine of repetition, he writes plays that spurn and subvert his culture's metaphysical and ethical certainlies. We who have lived after Nietzsche and Flaubert may find it difficu lt to grasp how strong, how recklessly courageous Marlowe must have been: to write as if the admonito1y purpose of literature were .1 lie, to Invent fictions on ly lo create and not to serve God or

Marlouoc and t.he. Will to Absolutt Pl.:y

the state, to fashion lines that echo in the void, that echo more powerfully because there is nothing but a void. Hence Marlowe's implica tion in the lives of his protagonists and hence too his surmounting of U1is implication in the creation of enduring works of art. For the one true goal of all these heroes is to be characters in Marlo we's plays; it is only for this, ultimately, that they manifest both their playful energy and their haunting sense of unsatisfied longing.

•

221

s

I

X

The Improvisation of Power

Spenser and Marlowe are, from the perspe.;tive of this study, mighty opposites, poised in antagonism as radical as that of More and Tyndale in the 1530s. 1f Spenser sees human identity as conferred by loving service to legitimate authority, to the yoked power of God and the state, Marlowe sees identity established at those moments in which order-political, theological, sexual-is violated. If repetition for Spenser is an aspect of the patient labor of civility, for Marlowe it is the means of constitu ting oneself in an anonymous void. If Spenser's heroes strive for balance and control, Marlowe's strive to shatter the restTilints upon their desires. lf in Spenser there is fear of the excess that thrcate11s to e11g ulf order a11d seems to leave an ineradicable ta.i11t 011 temperance itself, in Marlowe there is fear of the order that thJ-e,ltens to extinguish excess and seems to have always already turned rebellion into a tribute to authority. Jf Spenser writes for an aristocratic and upper-m iddle-class audience in a self-consciously archaizing manner, thereby participating in the de.:orative revival of feudal trappings that characterized Elizabethan courtly ritual,' Marlowe writes for the new public theater in a blank verse that must have seemed, after the jog-trot fourteeners of the preceding decades, like reality itself. If Spenser holds up his "other world" to the gaze of power and says, "Beholdl This rich beauty is you r own face," Marlowe presents his and says, "Behold! This trngi-comic, mogn ificcn t deformity is how you appear in my rich art." If Spenser's art constantly questions its own status in order to protect power from such q uestioning, Marlowe unocm1ines power in

The lmprovilnfio" of Power

order to raise his art to the status of a self-regarding, seU-justifying absolute. There is not, of course, anything in Spenser or Marlowe compa· rablc to the vjolent polemical excoonge between More and Tyn· dale, but there is a t least one resonant moment of conjunction that wi ll se1'Ve to exemplify the oppositio n I have just sketched hc •·e. In book 1, canto 7 of The Faerie Quome, dismayed by the news that Redcrosse has beett overthrown by the giant OrgogUo, Una providentially encounters Prince Arthur, the embodiment of Magnificence-the virtue, according to the Jetter to Ralegh, that "is the perfection of all the rest, and containeth in it them all." This is Arthur's first appearance in the poem, and there follows an clabomtc dcocription of his gorgeous :.nnor,

;t

des.c:.ription thnt inC"IurlP!'

the following stanza on his helmet's crest: Vpon the top of all his loftie creSt, A bunch of ha.ires discolourd diucrsly, With spdncled pearle, and gold full richly drcst, Did shake, and seem'd to daunce for iollity, Like to an Almond tree ymountcd hye On top of greene Seli11is all alone, With blossomes braue bedecked daintily; Whose tender locks do tremble euery one At euery little breath, that vnder heauen is blowne. (1.7.32) As early as the late eighteel>th century, a reader records his s ur· prise to Gnd this passage almost verbati m in part 2 of Tnmburlnillt'. 2 It OCCLtrs Ln the scene in which Tam burlaine is drawn on stage In his chariot by the ca ptive kings. "with b its in thcil· mouths," the stage direction tells us, "reins in his left hand, in his right hand a whip, with which he scourgcth them." £xulting in his triumphant power, Tamburlainc baits his captives, hands over the weeping royal concubines to satisfy the lust of his common soldiers, and-his own erotic satisfaction- imagines his future conquests: Tht·ough the streets with troops o f conquered kings, I'll ddc in golden armor like the Sun, And in my helm a h·iple plu111e shall spdng, Spangled with Diamonds dancing in the air, To note me Emperor of the three-fold world, Like to an almond tree ymounted high, Upon the lofty and celestial mount,

223

224

CHAPTER

SIX

Of ever green Sclimts quaintly decked With blooms more wrute than Hrricina's brows, Whose tender blossoms tremble every one, At every little breath that thorough heaven is blown. (4.3.4094-4113)

What is sung by Spenser in praise of Arthur is sung by Tamburlaine in praise of himself; the chivalric accoutrement, an emblem of Arthur's magnarurnous knighthood is here part of Tamburlaine's paean to his own power lust. Lines that for Spenser belong to the supreme figure of civility, the chief upholder of the Orde1· of Maidenhead, the worshipful servant of Gloriana, fo.r Marlowe belong to the fantasy life of the Scythian Scourge of God. Marlowe's scene is self-consciously emblematic, as if it were a lhPntrirnl ;mprnvi<:(lt-iOn in the Spensere:m m:H'Incr. but now with

the hero's place taken by a character who, in his sadistic excess, most closely resembles Orgoglio. 3 And even as we are struck by the radical difference, we are haunted by the vertiginous possibility of an underlying sameness. What if Arthur and Tamburlaine are not separate and opposed? What if they arc two faces of the same thing, embodiments of the identical power? Tamburlaine's is the face Arthur shows torus enemies or, alternatively, Arthur's is the face Tamburlaine shows to his followers. To the Irish kern, Spenser's Prince of Magnanimity looks like the Scourge of God; to the llngli sh courtier, Marlowe's grotesque conquerer looks like the Faerie Queenc. How shall we characterize the power tha I possesses both faces and cn n pass from one lo the o U1er? In a famous passage in Tlte Priucc, Machiavelli writes that a prince must know well how to use both the beast and the man, and hence the ancients depicted Achilles a11d o ther heroes as educated by Chi ron the centaur. This discussion is an early instance of the celebration of psychic mobility that has continued to characterize discussions of Western consciousness to the present time. Thus in his influential study of modemiu.tion in the Middle East, Tlte Passing of Traditional Society, the sociologist Daniel Lerner defines the West as a "mobile society," a society characterized not only by certain enlightened and rational public practices but also by the inculcation in its people of a "mobile sensibility so adaptive to change that rearrangemen t of the self-system is its distinctive mode.'' 4 While traditional society, Professor Lerner argues, functions on the basis of a " hi!)hly constrictive personality" (51), one that resists change a11d is incapa ble of g ras,j'ing the si tuati.o n of nnot hc1·, the mobile

Tlu lmpreruisaLiou of Powrr

225

personality of Western society "is distinguished by a high capacity for identification with new aspects of his environment," for he " comes equipped with the mechanisms needed to incorporate new demands upon himsell that arise outside of his habitual experience" (49). Those mechanisms Professor Lerner subsumes under the single term tmrpatlry, which he defines as "the capacity to sec oneself in the other fellow's situation" (50). In the West, this capacity was fostered first by the physical mobility initia ted by the Age of Exploration, then confirmed and broadened by the mass media. ·~rhese," he writes, "have peopled the daily world of thei r audie nce with sustained, even in timate, experience of the Jives of others. 'Ma Perkins,' 'The Gold bergs,' 'I Love Lucy'-all these I.J riug u:, (Jit:nJ :J we

l lt:Vt:f

met, b ut \"hose joys

t1 11d 501•rows

we

intensely 'share"' (53). And the international dlfrusion of U1e mass media means a concomitant diffusion of psychic mobility and hence of modernization: "ln our time, indeed, the spread of empathy around the world is accelerating" (52). To test the rate of this acceleration, Professor Lerner devised a set of questions that he and his assistants put to a cross-section of the inhabitants of the Middle East, to porters and cobblers, as well as grocers and physicians. The questions began, '1f you were made editor of a newspaper, what kind of a paper would you run?" and l confess myself in complete sympathy with that class of respondents who, like one shepherd interviewed in a vi llage near Anka ra, gasped "My Cod! How can you say such a thing? ... A poor villager ... master of the whole world" (24). Professor Lerner invariably interprets such answerS as indicative of a constrictive personality il1copnble of empathy, but in fact the Turkish shepherd, with his Tamburlainiatt language, reinti'Oduces the great missing term in the analysis of modernization, and tha t tel1T1 is power. For my own part, I would like in this chapter to delineate the Renaissance origins of ilie "mobile sensibility" and, having done so, to shilt the ground from "I Love Lucy" to Otlrello in order to demonstrate that what Professor Lerner calls "empathy," Shakespeare calls "I ago." To help us return from the contemporary Middle East to the early seventeenth century, let us dwell for a moment on Professor Lerner's own concept of Renaissance origins: "Take the factor of physical mobi lity," he writes, "which initiated Western take-off in an age when the earth was underpopulated in terms o( the world man-land ra tio. Lnnd was to be had, more or less, for the finding. The g1·cnt explorers took oyer vast rent cstote by plan ting o

226

CHA.rTER

StX

flag; these were slowly filled with new populations over generations" (65). It didn't exactly happen this way. Land does not become "real estate" quite so easily, and the underpopulation was not found but created by those great explorers. Demographers of Mesoamerica now estimate, for example, that the population of Hispaniola in 1492 was 7-8 million, perhaps as high as 11 million. Reduction to that attractive man-land ratio was startlingly sudden: by 150 I, enslavement, disruption of agriculture, and, above all, European disease had reduced the population to some 700,000; by 1512, to 28,000.$ '!'he unimaginable massiveness of the death rate did not, of course, go unnoticed; European obse•·vers took it as a sign of God's determination to cast down the idolaters and open the New World to Christianity. W ith tho

p;~ssage

from the sociologh;t', bl:.nd world o( ccrcam.o·

nial flag-planting in an empty landscape to violent displacement and insidious death, we have already moved toward Shakespeare's tragedy, and we move still closer if we glance at an incident recounted in 1525 by Peter Martyr in Ihe Seventh Decade of De orbt 11ovo. Faced with a serious labor shortage in the gold mines as a result of the decimation of the native population, the Spanish in Hispaniola began to raid neighboring islands. Two ships reached an outlying island in the Lucayas (now called the Bahamas) where they wexe received with awe and trust. The Spanish learned through the ir interpreters that the natives believed that after death their souls were first pUI·gcd of their sins in icy northern mountains, then borne to a parad isnl island in the south, whose beneficent, lam~ prince offered them innumerable pleasures: " Lhc souls enjoy eternal delights, among the dancings and songs of young maidens, and among the embracements of their ch ildren, and whatsoever they loved herelofore; they babble also there, that such as grow old, wax young again, so that all axe of like years full of joy and mirth."• When the Spanish understood these imaginations, writes Martyr, they proceeded to persuad<; the natives "that they came from those places, where they should see their parents, and children, and all their kindred and friends that were dead: and should enjoy all kind of delights, together with the embracements and fruition of beloved things" (625). Thus deceived, the entire population of the island passed "singing and rejoicing," Martyr says, onto the ships and were taken to the gold mines of Hispaniola. The Spanish, however, reaped less profit than they hod anticipated; when they grasped what had happened to them, the Lucayans, like certain Gem1an J~w i sh commu nities d ul'ing the c .·usadcs, undertook mass su icide· "bccon1ing desper-

227

ate, they either slew themselv;,s, or choosing to famish, gave up their fa int spirits, being pcrsUBded by no reason, or violence, to take food" (625). Martyr, it app~a ··s, feels ambivalent about the story. He is certain that God disapproves of such treachery, si nce many or those who perpetrated the fraud subsequently died violent deaths; on the other hand, he opposes those who would free enslaved natives, since bitter experience has shown that even those lndi.ms who have apparently been converted to Christianity will, given the slightest opport~unity, revert to "th<'ir ancient and native vices" and turn savagely against those who had instructed them "with fatherly charity" (627). 13ut, for our purposes, Mnt·tyr's .1m bivalence i::t lt!:,:;; impv1laut Lhan Lhe powcl" of his story to cvol
a crucial Renaissance mode of behavior that links Lerner's "empathy" and Shakespeare's !ago: I shall call that modeimprovisatio11, by which l mean the ability both to capitalize on the unforeseen and to transform given materials into one's own scenario. The spur-of-the-moment q uality of improvisation is not as critical here as the opportunistic grasp of that which seems fixed and established. Indeed, as Castiglione and others in the Renaissance well understood, the impromptu character of an Improvisation is itself often a calculated mask, the product of careful preparation. 7 Conversely, all plots, lil4trary and behavioral, inevitably have their origi n in a moment prior to formal cohe~nce, a moment of experimental, aleatory impulse in which the available, received materials are curved toward a novel shape. We cannot loca te a point or pure premeditation or pure randomness. What is essential is the Europeans' abi lity again and ngain to insinuate themselves into the preexisting politkal, religious, even psychic structures of the natives and to tum those structures to their advantage. The pro· cess is as familiar to us by now as the most tawdry business fraud, so familiar that we assume a virtually universal diffusion of the necessary improvisational talent, but that assumption is almost certainly misleading. There are periods and cu ltures in which the abi lity to insert oneself into the consciousness of anoU1e1· Is of relatively slight itnporlanc~, the object of limited concern; others in which it is a major preoccupation, the object of cultivation and fear. Professor Lemer is right to insist that lhb ability is a characteristically (though not exclusively) Westem mode, present to vary· ing degrees in the classical and medieval world and greatly strengthened from the Renaissance onward; he misleads only in insist inf_l ft1J·U1er thJt il is nn act of imagin" l iw generosity, n sym· polhctlc appreciation of the situation of the o thet· fellow. !'or when

CHAf'TER

SIX

he speaks confidently of the "spread of empathy around the world," we must understand that he is speaking of the exercise of Western power, power that is creative as well as destructive, but that is scarcely ever wholly disinterested and benign. To return to the Lucayan story, we may ask ourselves what conditions exist in Renaissance culture that make such an improvisation possible. It depends iirst upon the ability and willingness to play a role, to transform oneself, il only for a brief period and with mental reservatio ns, into another. This necessitates the acceptance of cllsguise, tbe ability to effect n divow?, in Ascham's phrase, between the tongue and the heart. Such role-playing in tu rn depends u pon the trans£om-.ation of another's reality into a ma ni pulable fictio n. The Span ish had to perceive the Ind ians' relieinu"

hP1iP(~ ;:t,; mu~i nn s, " i mt:!tginr~tionq" A~

MArtyr'<;

Fneli ~h

translator calls them. Lucayan society, Martyr observes, is based upon a principle of reverent obedience fostered by a set of religious fables that "are delivered by word of mouth and tradition from the Elders to the younger, for a most sacred and true history, insomuch as he who but seemed to think otherwise, should be thrust out of the society of men" (623). The Lucayan king performs the supreme sac:ra.J functions and partakes fully in the veneration accorded to the idols, so that if he were to command one of his subjects to cast himself down from a precipice, the subject would immediately comply. The king uses this absolute power to ensure the just distribution, to families accordi ng to need, of the tri be's food, all of which is stored commLmally in royal granaries: "They had the golden age, mine and 1/rirw, the seeds of cl iscord, were far removed from them" (618). Martyr then perceives the social function of Lucayo n religio us concepts, the native apparatus for their transm ission and reprod uction, and the punitive appara tus for the enforcement of belief. In short, he grasps Lucayan religion as an ideology, and it is this perception that licenses the transformation of "sacred and true history" into "crafty and subtle imaginations" (625) that may be exploited. If improvisation is made possible by the subversive perception of another's truth as an ideological construct, that construct must nt the same time be grasped in terms that bear a certain structural resemblance to one's own set of beliefs. An ideology that is perceived as entirely alien would permit no poin t of histrionic entry: it could be destroyed but not performed. Thus the Lucayan religion, in Mortyr's account, is an anamorphic representation of Ca tholicism: there are " images" ca rried forth with solemn pomp on " the holy day of ado,ration"; worshj pers kneel reverently before

The lmp1fJrris.ltion of Powtr

229

these images, sing "hymns," and make offerings, "which at night the nobles divide among them, as our priests do the cakes or wafers which women offer" (622); there are "holy relics" about wh ich the chief priest, standing in his "pulpit," preaches; and, os we have seen, there is absolution for sin, purgatory, and eternal delight ill paradise. The European account of the native reHgion must have borne some likeness to what the Lucayans actually believed; why else would they have danced, singing and rejoicing, onto the Spanish ships? But it is equally important that the religion is conceived as analogous to Catholicism, close enough to permit improvisation, yet suflicienUy distanced to protect EUI'opeon beliefs ft·om the violence of fictionalization. The Spanish wc1-c not compcJJed to pc••ccive their ow1' rwligion as

a

m:\nip ..

ulable human construct; on the contrary, the compulsion of their own creed was presumably strengthened by their contemptuous exploitation of an analogous symboHc structure. This absence of reciprocity is an aspect of the total economy of the mode of improvisation that I have sketched here. For what we may see irt tbe Lucayan story is an early manif~station of an exercise of power that was subseq LLently to become vastly impo•tant and remains a potent fOJ"Ce in our Hves: the ownership of another's labor conceived as involving no supposedly "natural" reciprocal obligation (as in feudali5m) but rather functioning by concealing the very fact of ownership from the exploited who believe that they are acting freely and in their own interest. Of course, once the ships reached Hispaniola, this concealed ownership gove way to direct enslavement; the Sp•mish were not capable of continuing the improvisa tion into the very mines. And it is this fai lure to sustai n the illusion that led to the ultimate failure of the enterprise, for, of course, the Spanish did not want dead Indians but live mineworkers. It would take other, subtler minds, in the Renaissance and beyond, to perfect the means to sustain indefinitely an indirect enslavement. l have called improv isation a ce ntral Renaissance mode of be· havior, but the example 0 11 which L have focused is located on a gcogrophical margin and might only seem to bear out Immanuel Wallerstein's theory that Western Europe in the sixteenth century increasingly established its ownership of the labor and resources of tho~ located in areas defined as peripher
230

CHAPTJiR

!JIX

n,c Anglican Church and the monarch who was its Supreme Head did not, as radical Protestants demanded, eradicate Catholic ritual but rather improvised within it in an attempt to assume its power. Thus, for example, in the Accession Day celebration of 1590, we are told that the queen, sitting in the Tilt gallery, "did suddenly hear a music so sweet and so secret, as every one thereat greatly marvelled. And hearkening to that excellent melody, the earth as it were opening, there appears a Pavil ion, made of white Taffeta, being in proportion like unto the s.1cred Temple of the Virgins Vestal. This Temple seemed to consist upon pi llars of por· phyry, arched like unto a Church, within it were many larnps burn ing. Also, on the one side an All ar covered with cloth of gold; and thereupon two wax candles burning in rich candlesticks; upon the Altar also were laid certain Princely presents, whlch after by three Virgins were presented unto her Majesty.'"' n,is secular epiphany pennhs us to identify two of the characteristic opera· tions of improvisation: displacement and absorption. By displacement I mean the process whereby a prior symbolic structure is compelled to coexist with other centers of attention that do not necessarily conflict with the original structure but are not swept up in its gravitational pull; indeed, as here, the sacred may find itself serving as an adornment, a backdrop, an occasion for a quite secular phenomenon. By absorption I mean the process whereby a symbolic structuxe is taken into the ego so completely that it ceases to exist as an extemal phenomenon; in the Accession Day cere· mony, instead of the secular prince hum bli ng herself before the sacred, t·he saared seems on ly to <.mhance the ruler's identity, to express her power.'" Both displacement and absorption are possible here because the religious symbolism was already charged with the celebration of power. What we are witnessing is a sh ift in the institution that controls and profits &om the interpretation of such symbolism, a shift mediated in this instance by the classical scholarship of Renaissance humanism. The invocation of the Temple of the Vestal Virgins is the sign of that transformation of belief into ideology that we have already examined; the Roman mythology, deftly keyed to England's Virgin Queen, helps to fiction
Tire Tmprovi5ation of Power

ramque partem, the cultivation of the scholar's power to speak equally persuasively for diametrically opposed positions. The practice penneated intellectual life in the early sixteenth century and was, Altman convincingly argues, one of the fonnative influences on the early drama." It is in the spirit of such rhetorical mobility that Erasmus praises More, as we have seen, for his ability " to play the man of all hours with all men" and th,tt Roper recalls the young More's dazzling improvisations in Cardinal Morton's Christmas plays. The hagiograph icol bias of Roper's and most subsequent writi.ng on More has concealed the extent to which this improvisational gift is closely allied to a control of power in the law couYlS ilnd the royn1 $crvicc: the mystific8tion of tnnnipuJoUon as

d isinterested empathy begins as early as the sixteen th century. As a corrective, we need only recall More's controversial works, such as Tl•e Confutation of Tyndnlc's Answer, whose recurrent method is through improvisation to transform the heretic's faith into a fiction, then absorb it into a new symbolic structure that will ridicule or consume it. Thus Tyndale had written: "Sin we through fragility never so oft, yet as soon as we repent and come into the right way again, and unto the testament which God hath made in Christ's blood: our sins vanish away as smoke in the wind, and as darkness at the coming of light, or as thou cast a little blood or milk into the main sea." More responds by maliciously improvising on Tyndale's text: "Neither p111'gatory need to be feared when we go hence. nor penance need to be done while we be here, b•n sin and be sorry and sit and make merl'y, and then sin ngah1 and then repen t a li ttle and run to the ole a nd wash nwoy th e sin, think once on God's promise and then do what we Ji st. For hoping sure in thnt, kill we ten men on a day, we cast but a little blood into the main sea." Having thus made a part of his own, More continues by labeling Tyndale's argument about penance as "but a piece of his poetry"-an explicit instance of that fictionalization we have witnessed elsewhere-and concludes, "Go me to Martin luther .... While that friar lieth with his nun and woteth well he doth nought [i.e., knows he does evil], and saith stiU he doth well: lei Tyndale tell me what repenting is that. He repenteth every morning, and to bed again every night; thinketh on God's promise first, and then go sin again upo n trust of Cod's testament, and then he cn lleth it casting of a little milk into the moin sea.",. Improvisa tion here obviously docs not in tend to deceive its origina l nbjl•ct but to work upon a thi rd party, the rc.1dcr, who migh t be w.wcring between fhe rt>forrncrR nnd the' Cntholic

231

'232

CHAPTER

SIX

Church. If the heretic spe.a ks of sin redeemed by Cod's testament as milk, More retwns that milk to sin, then surpasses the simple reversal by transfonning it to semen, while he turns the sea that imaged for Tyndale the boundlessness of divine forgiveness into the sexual insatiability of luther's nun. These perversions of the reformer's text arc greatly facilitated by the fact that the text was already immersed in an intensely charged set of metaphoricallransfonnations-that is, More seizes upon the brilliant instability of Tyndale's prose with its own nervous passage from Chdsl's blood to sin conceived progressively as smoke, dorkness, blood, and finally milk. Mol'e's artfu l improvisation makes it seem that murder and lust lay just beneath U1e surlace of the original discourse, as a kind of dark subtext, nnd he Is able to rln c;n n'lnrP phmsihly hPC":tU!;P both viniPnrf" and sexuaJ anxiety are

in fact powerful underlying forces in Tyndale's prose as in More's. That is, once again, there is a haunting structural homology between the improviser and his other. l would hope that by now Otllrl/o seems virtually to force itself upon us as the supreme symbolic expression of the cultural mode I have been describing, for violerlce, sexual anxiety, and improvisation are the materials out of which the drama is constructed. To be sure, there are many other explorations of these materials in Shakespeare-<>ne thinks of Richard Ill wooing Anne" or, in comedy, of Rosalind playfully taking advantage of the disguise that exile has forced upon her-but none so intense and radical. In Iago's first soliloquy, Shakespeare goes out of his way to empha· size the improvised nature of the villain's plot: Cassia's a proper man, let me see now, To gel this place, and to make up my will, A double knavery ... how, how? ... let me see, After some time, to abuse Othello's ear, TI1at he is too familiar with his wife: He has a person and a smooth dispose, To be suspected, fram'd to make women false: The Moor a free and open nature too, That thinks men honest that but seems to be so: And will as tenderly be led by the nose ... As asses are. I ha't, it is engender'd; Hell and night Must bring this monstrous birth to the world's Ught. (1.3.390-402) 14

We w ill hy shortly to cast some ligh t on why logo conceives of his activi ty here as sexua l; for the moment, we need only to observe all

Tile Improvisation of Powf't

233

of the marks of the impromptu and provisional, extending l'o the ambiguity of lhc lhird·person pronoun: "to abuse Othello's ear I That he is too f
but Roderigo, of course, Iago presen ts himself as incapable of improvisation, except in the limited and seemingly benign fonn of banter and jig.•• And even here, he is careful, when Desdemona asks him to improvise her praise, to declare himself unlit for U1e task: I am about it, but indeed my invention Comes from my pate as birdlime does from frieze, It plucks out brain and all: but my Muse labours, And thus she is deliver' d. (2.1.125-28)

Lurking in the homely denial of ability is the image of his in· vention as bi1·d lime, and hence a covertcelebrut ion o r his power to e nsnare others. Like Jonson's Mosca, Iago is fully aware of himself as an improviser and revels in his ability to mnnipu iMe his lric· tims, to lead them by the nose like asses, to possess their labor withou t their ever being capable of g rasping the relation in which they are enmeshed. Such is the relation !ago establishes with virtually every character in the play, from Othello and Desdemona to such minor figures as Montano and Bianca. For the Spanish colonialists, improvisation could only bring the Lucayans into open enslavement; for lago, it is the key to a mastery whose emblem is the "duteous and knee-crooking knave" who doles "on his own obsequious bondage" (1.1.45-46), a mastery invisible to the servant, a mastery, that is, whose character is essentially ideological. lago's attitude toward Othello is nonetheless colonial: though he finds himself in a subordinate position, the ensign regards his black general ns "an erring barbarian" whose "free and open nature" I~ J fc1·1ilc field for explo itation . However gnll h1g ilmay be to him, lnf.\o'~ subordlnn l'io n is a ki nd q( prol·cction, ror it conceals

CHAPTil'R

$1X

h•s power and enables hlm to play upon the ambivalence of Othello's relation to Christian society: the Moor at once represents the institution and the alien, the conqueror and the infidel. Iago can conceal his malicious intentions toward "the thick-lips" behind the mask of dutiful service and hence prolong his improvisation as the Spaniards could not. To be sure, the play suggests, !ago must ultimately destroy the beings he exploits and hence undermine the profitable economy of his own relations, but that destruction may be long deferred, deferred in fact for precisely the length of the play.', If I ago then holds over others a possession that must constantly efface the signs of its own power, how can it be established, Jet alone maintained? We will find a clue, I think, in what we have been caiUns the process of

fiction;~ li.za.tion

thnt transforms a fixed

symbolic structure into a flexible construct ripe for improvisational entry. Tins process is at work in Shakespeare's play, where we may more accurately identify it as submissiou to uarrative srlf·faslriouiug. When in Cyprus Othello and Desdemona have been ecstatically reunited, lago astonishes Roderigo by informing him that Desdemona is in love with Cassio. He has no evidence, of course--indeed we have earlier seen him "engender" the whole plot entirely out of his fantasy-but he proceeds to lay before his gu ll all of the circumstances that make this adultery plausible: "mark me, with what violence she first lov'd the Moor, but for bragging, and telling her fantastical lies; and she wiU love him still ~or prating?" (2.1.221-23) . Desdemona cannot long take pleasure in her o utlandish match: "When the blood is made dull with the act o f sport, there should be again to inflame i t, and g ive satiety a fresh appetite, loveliness in favor, sympathy in years, manners and beauHes" (2.1.225-29) . The elegant Cassio is the obvious choice: "Didst U1ou not see her paddle with the palm of his hand?'' lago asks. To Roderigo's objection that this was "but courtesy," lago replies, "Lechery, by this hand: an index and prologue to the history of lust and foul thoughts" (2.1.251-55). The metaphor makes explicit what lago has been doing all along: constructing a narrative into which he inscribes ("by this hand") those around him. He does not need a profound or even reasonably accurate understanding of his victims; he \vould rather deal in probable impossibilities than improbable possibilities. And it is eminently probable that a young, beautiful Venetian gentlewoman would tire of her o ld, outlandish h usband and tum instead to the handsome, young li eute nant: it is, after all, one of the master plots of comedy. Wh~t I ago as inventor of comic narrative needs is a shn rp eye for

235

'nu! lmprovisatiorr of Power

the surfnces of social existence, a sense, as Bergson says, of the mechanical encrusted upon the living, a reductive grasp of human possibilities. These he has in extraordinarily full measure.•• "The wine she drinks is made of grapes," he says in response to Roderigo's idealization of Desdemona, and so reduced, she can be assimilated to !ago's grasp of the usual run of humanity. Similarly, in a spirit of ironic connoisseurship, he observes Cassia's courtly gestures, " If such tricks as these strip you out of your lieutenantry, it hod been bette•· you had not kiss'd your three fingers so oft, whic-h now again you are most apt to play the sir in: good, weJI kiss'd, an excellent courtesy" (2.1.171-75). He is watching a comedy of manners. Above all, !ago is sensitive to habitual and sclfHn"'ltJng forms of discourse, to Cassio'-~ retu.:tiou wllt!u he

l~c~s

l1ad a

drink or when someone mentions Bianca, to Othello's rhetorica l extremism, to Desdemona's persistence and tone when she pleads for a friend; and, of course, he is demonically sensitive to the way individuals interpret discourse, to the signals they ignore and those to which they respond. We should add that Jago includes himself in this ceaseless narrative invention; indeed, as we have seen from the start, a successful improvisational career depends upon role-playing, which is in tum allied to the capacity, as Professor Lerner defines empathy, "to see oneself in the other fellow's situation." This capacity requires above all n sense that one is not forever fixed in a single, divinely sanctioned identity, a sense !ago expresses to Roderigo in o paroclically sententious theory of self-fashioning: "ou•· bodies are ga rdens, to the which our wills are gardene1-s, so that if we w ill plaot nettles, or sow lettuce, set hyssop, and weed up thyme; supply it with one gender of herbs, or dist r~ct it witb many; either to have it sterile with id leness, or manur'd with industry, why, the power, and corrigible authority of this, lies io our wills" (1.3.320-26). Confident in his shaping power, lago has the role-player's ability to imagine his nonexistence so that he can exist for a moment in another and as another. In the opening scene he gives voice to this hypothetical self-cancellation in a line of eerie simplicity: "Were l the Moor, I would not be lago" (1.1.57). The simplicity is far more apparent than real. Is the "I" in both halves of the Hne the same? Does it designate a hard, impacted self-interest prior to social identity, or are there two distinct, even opposing selves? Were l the Moor, l would not b~ lago, because the "I" always loves itself and the arenture I know as lngo hates the Moor he serves or, altemo tively, becaiJNC "" the Moor I would be other illnn !tun now, free ul thc tormcutlng ·'Pre lit(• ollld revulsion

236

CHArTflR

StJ(

that characterize the servant's relation to his master and that constitute my identity as !ago. I would be radically the same / 1 would be radically different; the rapacious ego underlies all institutional structures / the rapacious ego is constituted by institutional structures.•• What is most disturbing in !ago's comically banal and fathomless expression-as for that matter, in Professor Lemer's defmition of empathy-is that the imagined self-loss conceals its opposite: a ruthless displacement and absorption of the other. Empathy, as the German Einft71zlung suggests, may be a l~ling of oneself into an object, but that object may have to be drained of its own substance before it will serve as an appropriate vessel. Certainly in 01/ze//o, where all relations are embedded in power and sexuality, thet-e is no realm where t:he suhject and object can merse in the

unproblemalic accord affinned by the theorists of empathy.>• As !ago himself proclaims, his momentary identification with the Moor is a strategic aspect of his malevolent hypocrisy: In following him, I follow but myself. Heaven is my judge, not I for love and duty, But seeming so, for my peculiar end. (1.1.58-60)

Exactly what that "peculiar end" is remains opaque. Even the general term "self-interest" is suspect: Ia go begins his speech ina declaration of self- interest- " ! follow him to serve my tum upon him"-~nd ends in a declaration of self-division: " I am not what r om,""' We tend, to be sure, to hear the latter as "I am not what I seem," hence as a simple confirmation of his public deception. But " I nm not what 1 run" goes beyond social feigning: not only does lago mask himself in society as the honest ancient, but in private he tries out a bewildering succession of brief narratives that critics have attempted, with notorious results, to translate into motives. These inner narratives-shared, that is, only with the audience-continually promise to disclose what lies behind the public deception, to illuminate what Iago calls " the native act and figure" of his heart, and continually fail to do so; onather, they reveal that his heart is precisely a series of acts and figures, each referring to something else, something just out of our grnsp. "I am not what I am" suggests that this elusiveness is permanent, that even selfinterest, whose transcendental guarantee is the divine "I am what I o m ,~~ is a mask. 2:2 lago's constant recourse to narrative then is both the affirmation of absolute self-interest and the aflim1ation of absolute vacancy; the oscillation between the two Incompatible positions s uggests in !ago the principle of norra tlvity itself, cut off

Z37

11re lmprovisafio" tJf Powrr

from original motive and final disclosure. The only termination possible in his case is not revelation but silence. The question remains why anyone would submit, even unconsciously, to !ago's narrative fashioning. Why would anyone submit to another's narrntive at all? For an answer we may recall the pressures on all the figures we have considered in this study and return to our observation that there is a structura l resemblance between even a hosHlc improvisation and its object. In 01/re//o the characters have always already experienced su bmission to narrativily. Th is is clearest and most important in the case of Othello himself. When Brabanlio bri ngs before the Signiory the charge that .his daughter has been seduced by witchcraft, Othello pro m· iscs to deli ver 11 0 round unvornlGh'd true ... I O f m y w hole coLu-&c of Jove" (1.3.9Q-91), and at the heart of this tale is the telling of

tales: Her father lov'd me, oft invited me, Still question'd me the story of my life, From year to year; the battles, sieges, fortunes, That I have pass'd: I rnn it through, even from my boyish days, To the very moment that he bade me tell it. {1.3.128-33)

The telli ng of the story of one's life-the conception of one's life as a story"-is a response to public inq uiry: to the demands of the Sena te, s itting in judgme nt or, at the least, to l·he p1·e$ence of an inq uiring community. When, as recorded in the fourteenthcentury documents Le Roy Lad urie has brilliantly studied, the peasant·s of the Languedoc village of Montaillou are examined by the Inquisit ion, they respond with a narrative performance: "About 14 years ago, in Lent, towards vespers, I took two sides of salted pork to the house of Guillaume Benet of Mont.1illou, to have them smoked. There I found Guillemette Benet warming herself by the lire, together with another woman; I put the salted meat in the kitchen and left."'" And when the Carthaginian queen calls upon her guest to "tell us all things from the first beginning, Grecian gui le, your people's trials, and then your joumcyings," Aeneas responds, as he must, with a narra tive of the destiny decreed by the gods." So too Othello before the Senate or earlier in Braba ntio's house responds to questioning with what he calls his " lr;wel's hislory" or, in the Fo lio r~ading, as if no tin g the genre, his " t,·nvclcr's hist01-y.'' This history, it should be noted, Is nol· on ly of evcr1ls in disla11 t lands and amonf; ~tr.1nge people~: " I rnn

238

CHAPT&k

SIX

it through.'' Othello declares, from childhood "To the very mo-

ment thnt he bade me tell it. •• We arc on the brink of a Borges-like narrative that is forever constituting itself out of Ule materials of the present instant, a narrative in which the storyteller is constantly swallowed up by the story. That is, Othello is pressing up against the concUtion of all cUscursive representations of identity. He comes dangerously close to recognizing his status as a text, and it is predsely this recognition that the piny as a whole will reveal to be insupportable. But, at this point, Othello is stiJJ convinced that the text is his own, and he imagines only that he is recounting a lover's pcrfonnance. In the 45th sonnet of Sidney's Astrophil ami Stella, Astrophil complains that wlule Stella is indifferent to the suJferings she has caused him. she weeps piteous teal'S at a fable of some unknown lovers. He concludes, Then think my dear, that you in me do read Of Lovers' ruin some sad Tragedy: I am not I, pity the tale of me. In 01/re//o it is !ago who echos that last line-"! am not what I am," the motto of the improviser, the manipulator of signs that bear no resemblance to what they profess to signify-but it is Othello himself who is fully implicated in the situation of the Sidney sonnet: that one can win pity for oneself only by beconting a tale of oneself, and hence by ceasing to be oneself. Of course, Othello thinks that he has triumphed through h is narrative selffashioni ng: she thnnk'd me, And bade me, if I had a friend that lov' d her, I should but teach him h ow to tell "'Y st01y, Alld that would woo her. Upon this hint I spake: She lov'd me lor the dangers I had pass'd, And I lov'd her that she cUd pity them. (1.3.163-68) But lago knows that an identity that has been fashioned as a story can be unfashioned, refashioned, inscribed anew in a cUfferent narrative: it is the fate of stories to be consumed or, as we say more politely, interpreted. And even Othello, in his moment of triumph, has a dim intimation of this fate: a half-dozen lines after he hns reculled "the Cannibals, that each other ent," he remarks complacently, but wi th an unmistakable undertone of anxiety. that Desdemona would come "and with a greedy ca r I Devour up my discou rse" (1.3.149-50) .

239

Tiu: Jmprovisntiar1 of Pototr

Paradoxically, in trus image of rapacious appetite Othello is recording Desdemona's submissio11 to IUs story, what she calls the consecration of her soul and fortunes "to his honors, and his valiant parts" (1.3.253). What he has both experienced and narrated, she can only embrace as narration: my story being done, She gave me for my pains a world of sighs; She swore i' faith ' twas strange, 'twas passing strange; 'Twas pit iful, 'twas wonclrous pitiful; She wish'd s he had not heard it, yet she wish'd That heaven had made her such a man. (1.3.158-63)26 It is, of course, characteristic of early modem culture that male submission to narrative is conceived as active, entailing the fashioning of one's own story (albeit within the prevailing conventions), and female submission as passive, entailing the entrance into marriage in which, to .recall Tyndale's definition, the "weak vessel" is put "under the obedience of her husband, to rule her lusts and wanton appetites." As we have seen, Tyndale explains that Sara, "before she was married, was Abraham's sister, and equal with him; but, as soon as she was married, was in subjection, and became without comparison inferior; for so is the nature of wedlock, by the ordinance of God."27 At least (or the world of Renaissance patrin.rchs, this accouot is fanciful in its glimpse of an original equality; most women mus t have entered marriage, like Desdemona, directly from patemal domina tion. " I do perceive here n div ided duty," she tells her father before the Venetian Senate; "you are lord of all my duty,"

but here's my husband: And so much duty as my mother show'd To you, preferring you before her father, So much I challenge, that I may profess, Due to the Moor my lord. (1.3.185-89)18

She docs not question the woman's obligation to obey, invoking instead only the traditional right to transfer her duty. Yet though Desdemona proclaims throughout the play her submission to her husband-"Commend m e to my kind lord ," she gasps in her dying words-t·hnt submission does not accord wholly with the mn le drcnm of fem.ole passivity. She was, B1·abnntio tells us,

240

CRAPTBR

S TX

A maiden never bold of spirit,

So still and quiet, that her motion Blush' d at her self, {1.3.94-%}

yet even this self-abnegation in its very extremity unsettles what we may assume was her father's expectation: So opposite to marriage, that she shunn'd The wealtl>y wried darlings of our nation. (1.2.67-68)

And, of cour$c 1 her marriage choice is, for rlrabnntio, an act of astonishing disobed ience, explicable only as the somnambulistic behav ior of o ne bewitched or drugged. He views her elopement nol ..,, i'1 ha.nsft't of obedlet'lce bul a.s t.h .dt uJ ll ctt~u " ua ..1 tt::C-ldcss

escape from what he caUs his "guardage." Both he and I ago remind Othello that her marriage suggests not submission but deception: She did deceive her father, marrying you; And when she seem'd to shake and fear your looks, She lov'd them most. (3.3.21(}-11)29

As the sly reference to Othello's "looks" suggests, U1e scandal of Desdemona's marriage consists not only in her failure to receive her father's prior consent but in her husband's blackness. That blackness-the sign of all that the society find s frighteni ng and dangerous-is the indelible witness to Othello's permaneJ>t status as an ou tsider, 110 matter how J1ighly the state may value hisservices or how si ncerely he has embraced its values. 30 The safe passage of the female from father to husband is in'CpoJ·ably disrupted, marked as an escape: "0 heaven," Brabantio cries, "how got she out?" (1.1.169). Desdemona's relation to her lord Othello should, of course, lay to rest any doubts about her proper submission, but lt is not only Brabantio's opposition and Othello's blackness that raise such doubts, even in the midst of her intensest declarations of love. There is rather a quality in that Love itself that unsetUes the orthodox schema of hierarchical obedience and makes Othello perceive her submission to his discourse as a devouring o r it. We may perceive this q uality most clearly in the exquisite moment of th~ lovers' reun ion on Cyprus: O't'll tiLLO It gives me wonder great ns my content To see you here before me: 0 my sou l's joy,

Thr Jmprovisntiott of l'oruer

241

If after every tempest come such calmness, May the winds blow, till they have waken' d death, And let the labouring bark climb hills of seas, Olympus-high, and duck again as low As hell's from heaven. If it were now to die, 'Twcre now to be most happ y, for I fear My soul hath her content so absolute, Tha t not another comfort, like to this Succeeds in unknown fate . The heavens forbid oESDEMONA But tho I" our loves a nd comforts should increase, Even as o ur days do grow. OTHEI.I.O Amen to that, sweet powers! I cannot speak enoug h of this content, It stops me h ere, it is too much o f joy. (2.1.18~97) 31

Christian orthodoxy in both Catholic and Protestant Europe could envision a fervent mutual Jove beh.,een husband and wife, the love expressed most profoundly by Saint Paul in words that are cited and commented upon in virtually every discussion of marriage: So men are bound to love their own w ives as their own

bodies. He that Joveth his own w ife, loveth himself. Por never did any ma n hate his own flesh, but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord doth the congregatio n: for we ore me mbers of his body, o f his flesh a nd of his bon es. For this cause shall a man leave fnthe •· and mo ther, a nd sh all b e joined unto h is wife, and they two shall be one flesh. This m ystery is gTe~ t, but I spcok of Christ and of the congregation. 32 Building upon th is passage and upon its source in Ce11esis, com mentators could write, li ke the Reformer Thomas Becon, that marriage is a "high, holy, and blessed order of life, ordained not of man, but of Cod, yea and that not in this sinful world, but in paradise that most joyful garden of pleasure." But like the Pauline text itself, all such discussions of married love begin and end by affirming the larger order of authority and submission within which marriage takes its rightful place. The fam ily, as William Gouge puts it, " Is a little Church, and a little Commonwealth ... whereby trial may be made of s uch as arc fit for any place of au t·horlty, o r of subjection in Church or Commonwealth.''" In O thollo's ccstntic wtlrds, the prop<•r •c11llm<•nl• o f 11 Christian

242

CHAPTER

SIX

husband sit alongside something else: a violent oscillation between heaven and heU, a momentary possession of the soul's absolute content, an archaic sense of monumental scale, a dark fear--equaLly archaic, perhaps-of "unknown fate.'' Nothing conflicts openly with Christian orthodoxy, but the erotic intensity that infonns almost every word is experienced in tension with it. This tension is less a manifestation or some atavistic "blackness" specific to OtheLlo than" manifestation or the colonial power of Christian doctri11e over sexuality, a power visible at th is point precisely in its inherent limitation.·''' That is, we glimpse in this bl'icf moment the bou11dary of the orthodox, the strain of its control, the potential disruption of its hegemony by passion. This scene, let us sh-ess, does not depict rebellion or even complaintl)esdemona Invokes "the neavens" and Othello an~wen;, "Amen to thnt, sweet powers!" Yet the plural here eludes, if onlysHghtly, a serene affinnation of orthodoxy: the powers in their heavens do not refer unmistakably to the Christian God, but rather are the nameless transcendent forces that protect and enhance erotic love. To perceive the difference, we might recall that if Augustine argues, against the gnostics, that God had intended Adam and Eve to procreate in paradise, he insists at the same time that our first parents would have experienced sexual intercourse without the excitement of the flesh. How then could Adam have had an erection? Just as there are persons, Augustine writes, "who can move their ears, either o ne at a time, or both together" and o thers who have "such command of their bowels, that they can break wind continuously at pleasure, so as to produce t·hc effect of singing," so, before the Fall, Adam would have had fully rational, willed control of the organ of generation and thus would have needed no erotic arousal. "Without the seductive stimu lus of passion, with ca lmness of mind and with no corrupting of the integrity of the body, the husband would lie upon the bosom of his wife," and in this placid union, the semen could reach the womb "with the integrity of the female genital organ being preserved, just as now, with that same integrity being safe, the menstrual flow of blood cAn be emitted from the womb of a virgin." 35 Augustine grants that even Adam and Eve, who alone could have done so, failed to experience this "passion less generation," since they were expelled from paradise before they had a chance to try it. Nevertheless, the idea l of Edenic pJacicUty, untried but intended by Cod for man· kind, •·cmnins as a reproach to all fallen scxualtty, on exposure of Its inherent violence.l• The rich and disturbing pathos of the lovers' passionate reunion

Tlt( /mprovisafio11 of Potott

in Otllello derives then not only from our awareness that Othello's premonition is tragically accurate, but from a rent, a moving ambivalence, in his experience of the ecstatic moment itself. The "calmness" of which he speaks may express gratified desire, but, as the repeated invocation of death suggests, it may equally express the longing for a final release &om desi.r e, from the dangerous violence, the sense of extremes, the laborious climbing and falling out of control that is experienced in the tempest. To be sure, Othello welcomes this tempest, with its charge of erotic feeling, but he d oes so for the sake of the ultimate consummo Hon tha t the experience can call i.nto being: "If after every tempest come s uch calmness . . . ." That which men most fear to look upon in the storm-d eath-Is for Uthello that wluch makes the storm endurable. If the death he invokes may figure not the release from desire but Hs fulfillment- for deatll is a common Renaissance term for orgasm- this Fulfillment is characteristically poised between an anxious sense of self-dissolution and a craving for decisive do· sure. If Othello's words suggest an ecstatic acceptance of sexuality, an absolute content, they suggest simultaneously that for him sex· uality is a menacing voyage to reach a longed-for heaven; it is one of the dangers to be passed. Othello embraces the erotic as a supreme form of romantic narrative, a tale of risk and violence issu· ing forth at last inn happy and final tranquillity. Desdemonn's response is in an entirely different key: The heavens fo1·bid Bu t thnt out loves and comforts should Increase, Even ns our days do grow. This is spoken to a llay Othello's fear, but may it not instead augment it? For if Othello characteristically responds to his experience by shaping it as a story, Desdemona's reply denies the possibility of such nn!Tative control and offers instead a vision of unabating increase. Othello s.1ys "Amen" to this vision, but it arouses in him a feeling at once of overflowing and inadequacy: I cannot speak enough of this content, It stops me here, it is too much of joy.

Desdemona has once again devoured up his discourse, and she has done so precisely in bringing him comfort and content. 37 Rather than simply confuming male authority, her submission eroticizcs everything to which it responds, from the "disastrous chances" and "moving acciden ts" Othello relates, to h is simplest dema nd H.-'" to his very mistrcntmcnl of lwr:

243

244

CUAPTI!R

S IX

my love doth so approve him, That even his stubbornness, his checks and frowns, Prithee unpin me,- have grace and favour in them. (4.3.19-21)39

The other women in the play, Bianca and Emilia, both have moments of disobedience to the men who possess and abuse them-in the case of Emilia, it is a heroic disobedience for which she pays with her life. •• Desdemona performs no such acts of defiance, but her erotic submission, conjoined with !ago's murderous cunning, far more effectively, if unintentionally, subverts her husband's carefully fashioned identity. We will examine more fully the tragic process of this subversion, but it is important to grasp first tha t Othello's loss of himself-a loss depleted diSCursively m h1s mcoherent ravmgs-anses not only from the fatal conjunction of Desdemona's love and !ago's hate, but from the nature of that identity, from what we have called his submission to narrative self-fashioning. We may invoke in this connection Lacan's observation that the source of the subject's frustration in psychoanalysis is ultimately neither the silence nor the reply of the analyst: Is it not rather a matter of frustration inherent in the very discourse of the subject? Does the subject not become engaged in an ever-growing dispossession of that being of his, concerning which-by dint of sincere portra its which leave its idea no less incoherent, of recti flcations which do not succeed Ln free ing its essence, of stoys and defenses which do not prevent his sta tue fr·om tottering, of narcissistic embr~ces which become like a puff of air in animating it-he ends up by recognizing that this being has never been anything more than his construct in the Imaginary and that tl\is construct disappoints all of his certitudes? For in this labor which he undertakes to reconstruct this construct for ntroll~er, he finds again the fundamental alienation which made him construct i tlike mrollter Ollt, and which has always destined it to be stripped from him by ntlotlru. 41 Shakespeare's miJitary hero, it may be objected, is particularly far removed from this introspective project, a project that would seem, in any case, to have little bearing upon any Renaissance text. Yell think it is no accident that nearly every phrase of Lacan's critique of psychoanalysis seems a brilliant reading ofOJ!tello, {or I

245

would propose tho! there is a deep resemblance between the con· struction of the self in analysis-at least as Lacan conceives it-and Othello's self-fashioning. The resemblance is grounded in the de· pendence of even the innermost self upon a language that is always necessarily given from without and upon representation before an audience. I do not know if such are the conditions of human identity, apart £rom its expression in psychoanalysis, but they are unmistakably the conditions of theatrical ident ity, where existence is conferred upon a character by the playwright's language and the actor's performance. And in Otlre/lo these governing circumstances of the medium itself are reproduced ond intensified in the hero's situation: his identity depends upon a con!}t-.:tnt pcrformnnoc, at> we have seen, of h1& "Gtory/' n lo,;s of his

own origins, an embrace and perpetual reiteration of the norms of another cu lture. It is this dependence that gives Othello, the war· rior and alican, a relation to Christian values that is the existential equivalent of a religious vocation; he cannot allow himself the moderately flexible adherence that most ordinary men have toward their own formal beliefs. Christianity is the alienating yet constitutive force in Othello's identity, and if we seek a discursive mode in the play that is the social equivalent of the experience Lacan depicts, we will find it in cotifessioll. Othello himself invokes before the Venetian Senate the absolute integrity of confession, conceived, it appears, not as the formal auricular rite of penitence but as a generalized self-scrutiny in God's presence: as faithful as to heaven I do con(css the vices of my blood, So justly to your grave ears I'll present How I did thrive i.n this fair lady's love, And she in mine. (1.3.123-36) 42

The buried identification here benveen the vices of the blood and mutual thriving in love is fully exhumed by the close of the play when confession has become a virtually obsessional theme. •l Theological and juridical confession are fused in Othello's mind when, determined first to exact a deathbed confession, he comes to take Desdemona's life: If you bethink yourself of any crime, Unreconcil'd as yet to heaven and grace, Solicil foo· it straight .... Therefore confess thee freely of thy sin,

246

CUAPT&ft

S IX

For to deny each article with oath Cannot remove, nor choke the strong conceit, That I do groan withal: thou art to die. (5.2.26-28, 54-57)

The sin that Othello wishes Desdemona to confess is adultery, and her refusal to do so frustrates the achievement of what in theology was called "a good, complete confession.',.. He feels the outrage of the thwarted system that needs to imagine itself merciful, sacrnmcnta l, when it disciplines: thou dost stone thy heart, And makest me call what [ intend to do A murder, which 1 thought a sacrifice. (5.2.64-66)

We a1-e at last Jn a position to locate the precise nature of the symbolic structure into which lago inserts himself in his brilliant improvisation: this structure is the centuries-old Christian doctrine of sexuality, policed socially and psychically, as we have already seen, by confession. To lago, the Renaissance skeptic, this system has a somewhat archaic ring, as if it were an earlier stage of development which his ovm modem sensibility had cast off. •s Like the Lucayan religion to the conquistadors, the orthodox doctrine that governs Othello's sexual attitudes-his simultaneous idealization and mistrust of women-seems to lago sufficiently close to be recognizable, sufficiently distant to be manipu lable. We watch him manipulate it d irectly at the beginning of act 4, when he leads Othello through a brutally comic parody of the late medieval confessional manuals with their casuistical attempts to define the precise moment at which venial temptat ion passes pver lnto mo1·t~J sin: IAGO To kiss in private? OTHELLO An unauthoriz'd kiss. IACO Or to be naked with her friend abed, An hour, or more, not meaning any harm? OTHELLO Naked abed, !ago, and not mean harm? It is hypocrisy against the devil: They that mean virtuously, and yet do so, The devil their virtue tempts, and they tempt heaven. 11\CO So they do nothing, ' tis a venial slip. (4.1.2-9)

!ago in effect assumes an extreme version of tho laxist position in such manl1als i11 order to impel Othello toward tbe rlgorist version that viewed adultery as one of the most horrible of morta l sillS,

Tlr~

lmproviS4ltion of Powtr

more detestable, in the words of the Entdilorillm ptnilenliale, "than homicide or plunder," and hence formerly deemed punishable, as several authorities remind us, by death.41• Early Protestantism did not soften this position. Indeed, in the mid-sixteenth centu ,·y, Tyndalc's erstwhile collaborator, George joye, called foro return to the O ld Testament penalty for adulterers. "Cod's law," he writes, " is to punish adultery with death for the tranquillity and commonwealth of His church." This is not an excessive or vindictive course; on the contrary, "to take away and to cut off putrified and corrupt members from the whole body, lest they poison and destroy the body, is the law oE love.'' 47 When Christian magistrates leave adultery unpunished, they invite more betrayals and risk the tuin of the rcnlm, for

i\!i

Protcot::mt.t.- in particular re ..

peatedly observe, the family is an essential component of an interlocking social and theological network. Hence adultery is a sin with the gravest of repercussions; in the words of the great Cambridge Puritan William Perkins, it "destroyeth the Seminary of the Church, whkh is a godly seed in the family, and it breaketh the covenant between the parties and Cod; it robs another of the precious ornament of chast·lty, which is a gift of the Holy Ghost; it d ishonors their bodies and maketh them temples of the devil; and the Adulterer maketh his family a Stews."•• It is in the bitter spirit of these convictions that Othello enacts the grotesque comedy of treating his wife as a strumpet and the tragedy of executing her in the name of justice, lest she betray more men. But we still must ask how !ago manages to persuade Othello that Dcsclcmona has committed adultery, for all of ll1e cheap tricks logo ploys seem somehow inadequate to produce the unshakable conviction of his wife's defUemenl that seizes Othello's sou l and d rives him mad. After all, as Iago taunts Othello, he cannot achieve the point of vantage of God whom the Venetian women let "see the pranks I They dare not show their husbands" {3.3.206-7): Would you, the supervisor, grossly gape on, Behold her topp'd? (3.3.401-2) How then, without "ocular proof" and in the face of both love and common sense, is Othello so thoroughly persuaded? To answer this, we must recall the syntactic ambiguity we noted earlier-"to olbuse Othello's ear, / That he is too familiar with his wife"-and turn to a still darker aspect of orthodox Christian doctrine, an nspcct central both to t·he confessional system and to Protestant NL'I(•scru tiny. Onmis t111111lor fc menlior· est rlrfllllcr·, goes the Stoic

247

248

epigram, and Saint jerome does not hesitate to draw the inevitable inference: "An adulterer is he who is too ardent a lover of his wife:••• Jerome quotes Seneca: "All love of illlother's wife is shameful; so too, too much love of your own. A wise man ought to love his wife with judgment, not affection. Let him control his impulses and not be borne headlong into copulation. Nothing is fou ler than to love a wife like an adultress. . . . Let them show themsleves to their wives not as lovers, but as husbands:·•o The words echo through more than a thousand years of Christian wl'itlng on marriage, and, in the decisive form given them by August ine and his commentators, remain essentially unchallenged by the leading continental Reformers of the sixteenth and early seventeenth century, by Tudor ecclesiastical authori ties, ~nrf

eovPn hy F.li?'.;"JhPt-h;.'lln ::.nrl JtlrnhPan PurH:tn$0 who sharply op..

posed so many conservative Anglican doctrines. ·n,ere is, to be sure, in all shades of Protestantism an attack on the Catholic doctrine of celibacy and a celebration of manried love, a celebration that includes acknowledgment of the legitimate role of sexual pleasure. But for Reformer as for Catholic, this acknowledgment is hedged about with warnings. illld restrictions. The "man who shows no modesty or comeliness in conjugal intercourse," writes Calvin, "is committing adultery with nis wife," and the Ki11g's Book, attributed to Henry VID, informs its readers that in lawful matrimony a man may break the Seventh Command ment ''and Jive unchaste with his own wife, if he do unmeasurably or inordinately serve his or her fleshly appetite Ol' Just."$' ln the Augustinian conception, as elabo•·atcd by Raymond of PefiMorte, William of Rennes, and others, there are four motives for conj ugal intercourse' to conceive offspring; to render the marital debt to one's partner so that he or she might avoid i ncontinency; to avoid fornication oneself; and to sa tisfy desire. The first two moHves are without sin and excuse intercourse; the third is a venial sin; the fourth-to satisfy desire-is mortal. Among the many causes that underlie this institutional hostility to desire is the tenacious existence, in various forms, of the belief that pleasure constitutes a legitimate release from dogma and.constraint Thus when asked by the Inquisition about her happy past liaison with the heretical priest of Montaillou, the young Crazide Lizier replies with naive frankness, "in those days it pleased me, and it pleased the priest, that he should know me carnally, and bL known by me; and so I did not think I was sinning, and nei the1 did he.''$ 1 "With Plene Clergue," she expla ins, " I liked it. And so it could not displease God. It was not a sin" ('1 57). For the peasa nt

Th~

lnrprovi$atimr of Powtr

girl, apparently, pleasure was the guarantee of innocence: "But now, with him, it does not please me any more. And so now, if he knew me carna lly, I should think H a si11" (151). A comparable altitude, derived no t from peasa nt culture but from the troubadours, evidently ties behind the more sophist-icated courtship of Romeo: "Thus from my lips, by thine my sin is purged." 5·' It should not surprise us that churchmen, Catholic and Protestant alike, would seek to crush such dangerous notions, nor that they would extend their surveillance and di~ciptine to married cou ples and warn that excessive pleasure in the marriage bed is at least a po tential violalio11 of the Sevenl"11 Commandment. "Nothing is more viJc," GilYO Raymond's inAucntil'll '"mma_, "than to love

your wife in adulterous fashion."•• The conjugal act may be with· out sin,.writes the rigorist Nicolaus of Ausimo, but only if "in the performance of this act there is no enjoyment of pleasure."SS Few summns and no marriage manuals take so extreme a position, but virtually all are in agreement that the active pursuit of pleasure in sexuality is damnable, Cor as jacobus Ungarelli writes in the sixteenth century, those who undertake ·intercourse for pleasure "excl ude God from their minds, act as bru te beasts, Jack reason, and if they begin marri3ge for this reason, are given over to the power of the devil.'''" Confessors then must determine if the married penitent hits a legitimate excuse for intercourse and if the act has been performed with due regard for " matrimonial chastity," wh ile Protestants who hnve rejected auriculm· confession m ust simllarly scrutinize thei r own behavior for signs that their pleasure has been too "spacious."57 " Lust is more spacious than love," writes Alexander Niccoles in the early seventeenth century; it " hath no mean, no bound ... more deep, more dangerous than the Sea, and less restrained, for the Sea hath bounds. but it [lust) hath none."5• Such unbounded love is a klnd of idolatry, an encroachment upon a Ch ristian's de bt of loving obedience tu Cod, and it ultimately destroys the marital relatio nship as well. Immodera te love, nnother Puritan divine warns, "will either be blown down by .omc storm or tempest of displeasure, or fall of itself, or else de· generate into jealousy, the most devouring and fretting canker that can harbor in a marrif!d pcrson~s breast."SI) These anxieties, rich in implication for Otilello, are frequently l!'mper"d in Protestant writings by a r~cognition of the joyful ll i'dor of young married couples, but there remains a constant fcnr uf excess, ond, ils Ambrose t>bsel'v cd cC'n iu rles earlie1·, even the

249

250

CHAPT6R

$IX

most plausible excuse for sexual passion is shameful in the old: "Youths generally assert lhe desire for generation. How much more shameful for the old 10 do what is shamefu l for the you ng to confess."6° Othello himself seems eager to ward off Ihis shame; he denies before the Senate thai he seeks To please the palate o r my appetite, N<Jr to comply with heat, the young affects In me defunct .... (1.3.262-64)• 1

But Desdemona makes no such disclaimer; indeed her declaration of passion is frankly, though by no means exclusively, sexual: That I did love the Moor, lo live with him, My do;.,V'llright violence, nnd ~om of fortunes,

May trumpet to the world: my heart's subdued Even to the utmost pleasure of my lord. (1.3.248-51) 02 This moment of erotic intensity, th.is frank acceptance of pleasure and submission to her spouse's pleasure, is, I would argue, as much as !ago's slander the cause of Desdemona's death, for it awakens the deep current of sexual anxiety in Othello, anxiety that with Iago's help expresses itself in quite orthodox fash.ion as the perception of adultery.•J Othello unleases upon Cassio-"Michael Cassio, I That came a-wooing with you" (3.3.71-72}--the fear o[ pollution, defilement, brutis h violence that is bound up with his own experience of sexual pleasure, while he must destroy Desdemona both for her excessive experie nce of pleasure and for awa kening such sensations in himself. Like Guyon in the Bower of Bliss, Othello transforms his complicity in erotic excess and his fear of engulfment into a "purifying," saving violence: Like to the Pontic sea, Whose icy current and compulsive course Ne'er feels retiring ebb, but keeps due on To the Propontic and the Hellespont, Even so my bloody thoughts, with violent pace, Shall ne'er look back, ne'er ebb to humble love, Till that a capable and wide revenge Swallow them up. (3.3.460-67)

His insupportable sexual experience has been, as il were, displaced and absorbed by lhc acl of revenge which can swallow up nol only Lhe guilty lovers but-as the syntax suggest$-his own "bloody thoughts."

251

Tht lmprotris.dlion of Por«r

Such is the achievement of !ago's improvisation on the religious sexual doctrine in which Othello believes; true to that doctrin e, pleasure itself becomes for Othello poll ution, a defilement of his prope•ty in Desdemo,;n and in himself. ~·• It is at the level of this dal'k, sexual revulsion tha t lago has access Lo Othello, access assured, as we sh ould expect, by the fact that beneath his cynical modernity and professed self-love !ago reproduces in himself the same psychic structure. He is as intensely preoccupied with adultery, while his anxiety about his own sexuali ty may be gauged from the fact that he conceives his very invention, as the images of engendering suggest, as a kind of demonic semen that will bring forth monsters. 6s Ind eed logo's discourse--his assaults on wome n, on the irratiuudltty vf -=• u::t, on the brutjshne&:s of the sexun l act-

reiterates virtually to the letter the orthodox terms of Ungarelli's allack on those who seek pleasure in intercourse. The improvisational process we have been discussing depends for its success upon the concealment of its symbolic center, bul as the end approaches this center becomes increasingly visible. When, approaching the ma rriage bed o n which Desdemona has s pread the wedding sheets, Othello rages, "Thy bed , lust stoi n'd, sh all with lust's blood be spotted" (5.1.3G), he comes close to revealing his tormenting identification of marital sexuality-limited perhaps to the night he took Desdemona's virginity-and adultery.66 The orthodox element of this identification is directly observedthis sorrow's heavenly, II sh·ikes when i.t docs love-(5 .2 .21-22)

and on her marriage bed/ deathbed Desdemona seems at last to pluck out the heart of the mystery: OTHELLO Think On thy sins. DESDEMONA They are loves I bear to you. OTHELLO And for tha t· thou diest. DESDEMONA Thot cleath's unnatura l, that kills for loving. (5.2.39-42) The play reveals at this point not the unfnlhomable darkness of human motives but thl'ir terrible transparency, and the horror of lhe revelation is its utter inability to deRecl violence. Othello's ident ity is entirely caught up in the narrative structure that drives him 10 tu rn Desdemona Into o being incapable of p leasu re, a piece of "monumen tal alabMLcr," s n that he Will ol last be able to love he•· without the lain I of udullery:

252

CliAPTE.It

SIX

Be thus, when thou art dead, and I will kill thee, And love thee after. (5.2.1S..l9) It is as if Othello had iound in a ne~philic fantasy the secret solution to the intolerable demands of the rigorist sexual ethic, and the revelation that Cassio has not slept with Desdemona leads only to a doubling of this solution, for the adulterous sexual pleasure that Othello had projected upon his lieutenant now rebounds upon himself.6 7 Even with the exposure of Iago's treachery, then, there is for Othello no escape-r<~ther a still deeper submission to narrative, a reaffi rmation of the self as story, but now split suki· d-ally between the defender of the faith and the circumcised enemy who must be destroyed. Lodovico's bizarrely punning response to Othello's ftnat speech-"0 bloody pertoct!"-tnslsts precisely upon the fact that it was a speech, that this life fashioned as a text is ended as a text. To an envious contemporary like Robert Greene, Shakespeare seems a kind of green-room !ago, appropriating for himself the labors of others. In 01/rello Shakespeare seems to acknowledge, represent, and explore his affinity to the malicious improviser, but, of course, hls relation to the theater and to his culture is far more complex than such an affinity could suggest. There are characters in his works who can improvise without tragic results, charncters who can embrace a mobiuty of desir(!--<)ne of whose emblems is the male actor p laying a female character dressed Ltp as n male-tl1at neither lago, nor Othello, nor Desdemona can endure. Destructive violence is not Shakespeare's only version of these materials, and even ln Otlzcllo, lago is not the playwrighes only representation of himself. Still, at the leas! we must grant Robert Greene that it would have seemed fatal to be imitated by Shakespeare. He possessed a limitless talent for entering into the consciousness of another, perceiving its deepest structures as a manipulable fiction, reinscribing it into his own narrative fonn. 68 1f in the late plays, he experiments with controlled disruptions of narrative, moments of eddying and ecstasy, these invariably give way to reaffirmations of self-fashioning through story. Montaigne, who shares many of Shakespeare's most radkal perceptions, invents in effect a brilliant mode of IIOII· IIarrntive selffashioning: "I cannot keep my subject still. It goes along befudd led and staggering, with a natural d runkez1ness. I take it in this conditioJt, just as it is at the moment I sive my attention to it·.'·•·• Shakespea re by contrast remains throughou t his career the

Tltt Improvisation of Power

supreme purveyor ol"empathy," the fashioner of narrative selves, the master improviser. Where Montaigne withdrew to his study, Shakespeare became the presiding genius of a popular, urban art form with the capacity to foster psychic mobility in the service of Elizabethan power; he became the principal maker of what we may see as the prototype of the mass media Professor Lerner so admires.

Finally, we may ask, is this service to power a function o£ the theater itself or of Shakespeare's relation to his medium? The answer, predictably, is both. The theater is widely perceived in the period as the concrete manifestation of the histrionic quality of life, and, more specifically, of power- the power of the prince who stands as a •, ncco•· upon

tt

stage before the eyes of the nation, the

power of God who enacts His wi ll in the Theater of the World. The stage justifies itself against recurrent charges of immoraHty by invoking this normative function: it is the expression of those rules t11at govern a properly ordered society and displays visibly the punishment, in laughter and violence, that is meted out upon those who violate Lhe rules. Most playwrights pay at least professional homage to these values; they honor the institutions that enable them to cam their keep and give voice to the ideology that holds together both their "mystery" and the society at l.u-ge. In Marlowe, as we have seen, we encounter a playwright at odds with this ideology. If the theater normally renects and Antlers the royal sense of itself as national performance, Marlowe struggles to expose the underlying motives of any performance of power. If the theater normally affirms God's providence, Marlowe explo•·es tl:le tragic needs nnd interests that are served by all such aHl1111ations. If the El izabethan stage fwtctions as one of the public uses of spectacle to impose normative ethical pattems on the urban masses, Marlowe enncts a relentless challenge to those patterns and undermines employment of rhetoric and violence in their service. Shakespeare approaches his culture not, like Marlowe, as rebel and blasphemer, but rather as dutiful servant, content to improvise a part of his own within its orthodoxy. And if after centuries, that improvisation has been revealed to us ns embodying oln almost boundless challenge to the culture's every tenet, a devastation of every source, the author of Othello would have understood that such n revelation scarcely matters. After all, the heart of ol. successful improvisation Lies in concealment, not exposure; and besides, ns we have seen, even n hostile lmprovis.11ion reproduces the relalions of power tiMt it hopes to d is pine~ .md absorb. This Is not to dismi•q lhc power of hntrcd
253

254

CUAl'TI!R

SIX

distinctions-it matters a great deal whether Othello or lago, the Lucaynns or the Spaniards prevail-only to suggest the boundaries that define the possibility of any improvisational contact, even contact characterized by hidden malice. I would not want to argue, in any event, that Shakespeare's relation to his culture is defined by hidden malice. Such a case can no doubt be made for many of the plays-sh'angerthings have been said- but it will sound forced and unconvincing, just as the case for Shakespeare as an unwavering, unquestioning apologist for Tudor ideology sounds forced and unconvincing. The solution here is not, I suggest, that the trutb lies somewhere in between. Rather the truth itself is radically unstable and yet constantly stabilized, as unstable as those male a uthorities that aifil'm them,.olvo.; onJy to be undennined by subvcrsiv,. women Anrl t-he n to

be reconstituted in a different guise. If any reductive generalization about Shakespeare's relation to his culture seems dubious, it is because his plays offer no single timeless affimlation or denial of legitimate authority and no central, unwavering authorial presence. Shakespeare's language and themes are caught up, like the medium itself, in unsettling repetitions, committed to the shifting voices and audiences, with their shifting aesthetic assumptions and historical imperatives, that govern a living theater. Criticism can legitinlately show-as I hope my discussion of Otltello does-that Shakespeare relentlessly explores the relations of power in n given culture. That more than exploration is involved is much harder to demonstrnl·e convincingly. If there a re intimations in Sha kespeare of a release from the complex narrative o rders in whkh everyone is i nscribed, these intima tions do not arise (rom bristling resistance or siJ·idcnt den unciation-the mood of a Jaques or Timon. They arise paradoxically (rom n pecul iarly intense s11bmissio11 whose downright violence undermines everything it was meant to shore up, the submission depicted not in Othello or! ago but in Desdemona. As both the play and iis culture suggest, the arousal of intense, purposeless pleasure is only superficially ,, confirmation of existing nlues, established selves. 70 In Shakespeare's narrative art, liberation from the massive power structures that determine social and psychic reality is glimpsed in an excessive aesthetic delight, an erotic embrace of those very structures-the embrace of a Desdemona whose love is more deeply unsettling than even a !ago's empathy.

Epilogue

A few years ago, at the start of a plane flight from Baltimore to Boston, I settled down next to a middle-aged man who was staring pensively out of the window. There was no assigned sealing, and I had chosen this neighbor as the least likely to disturb me, since I wanted to finish rereading Geertz's Tuterprelatiou of Cultures, which I was due to teach on my return to Berkeley the following week. But no sooner had I fastened my seat belt and tumed my mind to Balinese cock-fighting than the man suddenly began to speak to me. He was traveUng to Boston, he said, to visit his grown son who was in the hospital. A disease had, among othe r consequences, impaired the son's speech, so thnt he could only mouth words sound lessly; still more seriously, as a result of the ill ness, he had lost Ids will to live. The father was going, he told me, to try to restore that will, but he was troubled by the thought that he would be incapable of understanding the son's attempts at speech. He had therefore a favor to ask me: would I mime a few sentences so that he could practice reading my lips? Would I say, soundlessly, " I want to die. I want to die"? Taken aback, I began to form the words, wHh the man staring intently at my mouth: " I want to ..." But I was incapable of finishing the sentence. "Couldn't I say, '1 want to live'?" Or better still (since the seat belt sign had by this time Hashed off), he might go into the bathroom, I s uggested lamely, and practice on himself in front of a mirror. "It's not the same," the man replied in a shaky voice, then turned back to the window. "I'm sorry," I sa id, and we sa l in s ile nce for the rest o f the llighl'.

256

£piloguc

I could not do what the man had asked in part because I was afraid that he was, quite simply, a maniac and that once I had expressed the will to die, he would draw a hidden knife and stab me to death or, alternatively, activale some device secreted on board lhe plane that would blow us alllo pieces (it's not for nothing that I have been living in California for the pasl ten years). But if pamnoia tinged my whole response, Ihere were reasons for my resistance more complex than the fenr of physical atlack. I fell superstitiously that if l mimed the man's terrible sentence, it would have the force, as it were, of a legal sentence, that the words would stick like a burr upon me. And beyond superstition, I was aware, in a manner more forceful than anything my academic research had brought home to me, of the extent to which my idontity and the. words I utt'er coincide. tlle edC!nl to whlch 1 want

to fom1 my own sentences or to choose for myself Ihose moments in which I will recite someone else's. To be asked, even by an isolaled, needy individual to perform lines that were not my own, thai violated my sense of my own desires, was intolerable. When I first conceived this book several years ago, I intended to explore the ways in which major English writers of the sixteenth cenlury created their own performances, lo analyze the choices they made in representing themselves and in fashioning characters, to understand the role of human aulonomy ln the construction of identity. lt seemed to me the very hallmark of the Renaissance that middle-class and aristocratic males began to feel that they possessed such shaping power over thci ,·lives, and I saw this power and the freedom it implied as an important element in my own sense of myself. But as my work pi'Ogressed, I perceived that fashioning oneself and being fashioned -by cultural instilut ions-family, :religion, stale-were i nscpnrobly intertwined. In all my texts and documenls, there were, so far as I could !ell, no moments of pure, unfettered subjedivity; indeed, the human subject itself began to seem remarkably unfree, the ideological product of the relations of power in a particular society. Whenever I focused sharply upon a moment of apparently autonomous sell-fashioning, I found not an epiphany of identity freely chosen but a cultural artifact. If !here remained !races of free choice, lhe choice was among possibilities whose range was strictly delineated by the social and ideological system in force. , The book I have written reflects these perceptions, but I trust that it also reflects, though in a manner more tentative, more iron ic than I had originally intended, my in itial impulse. For all of the sixteenth-cen tury Englishmen! have wi'ILtcn about here do In

Epilog•"

fact cling to the human subject and to self-fashioning, even in s uggesting the absorption or corruption or loss of the self. How could they do otherwise? What wa~r, for that matter, what is--the alternative? For the Renaissance figures we have cor;Jsiclered understand that in ou r culture to aba ndon sclf-fashion1ng is lo abandon the craving for freedom, and to let go of one's stubborn hold upon selfhood, even selfhood conceived as a fiction, is to die. As for myself, l have related this brief story of my encounter with the distraught father on the plane because I want to bear witness at the close to myovenvhelming need to sustain the illusion that I am the principal maker of my own identity .

•

257

Notes

Introduction I. Augustine, sennon 169, quoted in Peter Drown, Rtligiou and Society i11 tlrt Age of Saint Augusline (London: Faber and Faber, 1972), p. 30. 2. Fnrrit Q11u11e, "A l etter of the Authors Expounding His Whole In· tention in the Cowse of this Worke"; Ft~trit Qllttllt 6.9.31; llmortlti 8. Citations of Spenser's poetry are to Tltt Works of E1/mumf Sptuur: A Var· ior~uu

Edition, ed. Edwin Greenlaw et al. (Baltimore: johns Hopkins Uni· versily Press, 1932-57). 3. job 3 L:15. The OED, fiom which mony of the following examples are

drawn, ci tes the lntc sixteenth..ccntury tnmslation of La Pl'imaudaye'-s Frcuc/r Academy: "The secde ... rcceivcth not fashion presently upo n tlw conception, b ut remaineth for a time without nny figure" (sb 2b). There is nn illumil,ating discussion o£ self-fashioning by Thotl)US Greene, 'The Ji'lcxibilily of the Self in Renaissance Li tcrnturc, H in Tire Disciplines of Criticism, ed. Peter Demetz, n,omas Greene, and Low ry Nelson, Jr. (New Hnven: Yale University Press, 1968), pp. 241-64 . Greene's starting point is the assertion in l'ico that man may choose to fashion (rffingtrc) himself in whatever shape he prefers. 4. See David Hunt, Parents and Childmr in Hrstory: TIJ£ Psyclrology of Famrly /Jfe in Eorly Modem Franct (New York: Basic Books, 1970}, p. 132. The OED cites Richard Mulcaster's Positions: "I( the infinnity in fashion be ca~ual ... , exen::ise .. , -wiU make thai straight which Wi15 crooked" ~b

2a). 5. Richard Taverner, Garden of Wisdom (london: 1539), p. Bviii•. I owe this rerc.rencc to Richard Yanowitz, "Tudor Attitudes Toward the Power of Language" (Ph.D. diss., University of California, 1978). 6. Clifford Ceertz, Tire fnterprettrtiou of Cultures (New York: Ba•ic Books, 1973), p. 51. 7. Ib id ., pp. 44, 49.

:m

r\loltrs lo Pages 4-17

8. Karl Morx, Grmrdris~: Foundations of tlu! Criliqut of Political Economy, trans. MarHn Nicolaus (New York: Vintage,l973), pp. llG-11 . 9. See Clifford Geertz, Tht lrrlupretaliorr of Culturts and lslnm ObStrved (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1968); james Boon, From Symbolism to Strucluralism: Lcui·SirtttiSS in a Liltrary Tradition (New York: Harper & Row, 1972) and 11rt Arrllrropologicnl Romana of Bnli 1597-1972: Dynamic Ptrspeclwes 111 Mnrriage nrrd Caste, Politics and Religion (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977); Mary Douglas, Purity nrrtl Dn11,~er: Arr Analysis of Corrctpts of Pol/utiorr arrd Taboo (New York: Praeger, 1966) and Nnlurnl Symbols: Explorations ;,. Cosmolog.; (New York: Pantheon. 1970); Jean Duvignaud, Cluurge nl Shebika: Report from a North 1\fricnn VU/r~gc, trnJl S. I4rtmccs Fl'onayo (New York; Pantheon, 1970)i Pnul Rablnow, Rc ... flee/ions OJI Fieldwork ill Morqcco (Berkeley: University or Cnli (Onlitl Press, 1977);

V iclOI TUI III;!I ,

or.wla$, r icldsl rmd Mdaplrors: Symbolic 1\ctiOII ;,

Humau Society (fl hnca: Comell University Press, 1974) and Tire Rifrtal Pro· uss: Stmctrtr< and Anli·Stmcture (Ithaca, Com ell Unh•crsity Press, 1969). 10. Quoted in E. de Sclincourt's introduction to Spenser: Pocticol Works. ed. ). C. Smith and E. de Selincourt (London: Oxford University Pres•. 1912), p . xxxviii.

Chaptei One 1. A Dialogue of Comfort agaiusl Tribulotion, ed. Louis L. Martz and Frank Manley, Tl1r Compltlc Works of St. 71romos Mar< 12 (New Haven: Yale University PreSil, 1976), p. 213. Hereafter cited as Complete Works. 2. Tire Hislory of Ki11g RichJUd lll, eeL R. S. Sylvester, Complete Works 3 ( 1963). p. 80. 3. 7'/Je Priua, trnns. Luigi Ricci, rev. E. R. P. Vincent (New York: Mod· em Librory, 1950), pp. 64-65. Machiavelli's explanation, it should be r-oted, has its own clu ~:~i veness: ()n the o ne hand 1 thc1·c is n cold observalion of some:lhil1g :1kin to t'llaw of nature-the fox always cnts the he11S; on the o ther hand. there is smoldering o utrage at the stupidity, the willful·

ness, orthe victims. 4. In William Roper, Tire Ufc of Sir Tlromas More, ed. Rlchnrd S. Sylves· 1er and Davis P. Harding (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1962). p. 239. I have been deeply inlluenc:ed throughout by Sylveste(s seminal work; see cspeciatly, "A Part of His Own: Thomas More's Literary Pei'SOn· .1tity in His Early Works," Mortana 15 (1967). pp. 29-42. See also David Bleich's psycho~n.tlytic attempt to correlate More's writing "with paruc· ular infMtile modalities" ("More's Utopia: Confessionnl Modes," Ameri· ran lrnnso 28 (1971!. pp. 24-52). 5. The classic <1«0unt of this phenomenon is )ohan Hu1zinga, Tire Wn11i11g of tire Middle Ages (London: E. Arnold, 1924). 6. On the persistence of these hopes. see Frances A. Yates, 1'1rr French ·\(ildcmics of tire Srtlwrtlr Cmlury (London: Warburg Institute, 1947), pp. 1119-235; Roy Strong, Tilt· Cull of Elizabtl/lr (l..omlo n: 1'hnmcs & tludson, 11177), pp. 176-77. 'l. Mn1·y r.. S. lforvey, I/I)/1Jriil 15 "AmiJtt:;Mtlm~" (l.ondo u~ Ct•nrt.;t.1 ~ell&:

259

Notes to Pogt.s 17-19

260

Sons, 1900), p. 232. On llolbcin's painting, which is in the National Callery in London, see also Michael Levey, The Cmnn11 School, National C•llery Catalogues (London: National Gallery, 1959), pp. 46-54; Carl Ceors Heise, Hans Holbtirr d. f.: Die Cesandten (Stuttgart: Philipp Redam Jun., 1959); Ernest B. G ilman , The Curious Perspective: Uttran; n11d Pictoritll Wt'l itt the Seve,tccullt Century (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1978), pp. 91H04. 8. jurgls BaltruSaltls~ Ammlorpltoses; ou persp1~ctives c.·ttrieuscs {Paris: Olivier l'errin, 1955), p. 65. The lute as a standard object in the teaching of perspective is familiar from Ddre(s "Portillon"woodcut or 1525. Albrecht OUrer, lizt P11inter's Mamud, trans. Walter L Strauss (New York: Abaris Books, 1977), p. 392. 9. Ficino, Plato11i< Thtology. trans. josephine I. Burroughs, in]oumal of lilt History of Ideas 5 (1944): 235. On perspective in Ren>issance art, see S3muel Y. Edsorlon. jr_, ThP Rn1.af.i;sanu Discovery of Linear Perspective (New York: tlosk Books, 1975); Oaudio Cuill~n, "On t he Con-

~:)pcci~Uy

cept and Metllphor o r Perspective," in Compnrntisls Ill Work, cd. Stephen C. Nichols, Jr., and Richard B. Vowles (Waltham, Muss.: Blaisdell l;'u b. Co., 1968), pp. 26-90; a nd Erwin Panofsky, "Die Perspective als symbolische Form," Vorl rRgc dcr lJibliothek Wnrburg (1924-25). 10. lam, as will be clear, skeptical of Edgar R. Samuel's theory that the skull was meant to be corrected by an unidentified optical lens held by the viewer: see "Death in the Class-A New View of Holbein's 'Ambassador$"' in Burlington Magazi11e 105 (1963), pp. 436-41. II . See BoluuS.,iliS, pp. ~8-76; also Fred L.t.-cnl>n, 1/iJJm lmagts (New Harry N. Abrams, 1976), pp. 13-14. Levey dismisses as exceedingly unlikely the suggestion sometimes made that the skull is a punning signature: /!olrle Be in for " ho llow bone." The painting in any case is manifestly a celebrat-ion of Holbein's geni us.

12. He rvey, pp. 203-7. 13. Such mockery is n commonplace in reprcscnl
'IS. Sec Erwin l'anorsky, 1'omb Swlpltlr<, ed. H. W. )nnson (New York: H. N. Abrams, 1964). 16. Hervey, p. 205. It is typical or the perv•sivc irony or l(olbein's work that this substantiality shouJd be proved by a sh adow. Levey observe• U1at the times marked on three or the faces of the polyhedral sundial difler (rom one another: "The variations in the cast shadows are, of cou.rsc. impossible; as the times indico1tcd are not even the ~me, it is difficult- to

Notts to Pages 20-lb

suppose anything except that different parts of the instrument were painted at different hours" (51). Possibly so; but Holbein may also be subtly furthering the unsettling of the sense of reality. 17. l,rofesso .. Michae l l3ilxnndaJJ, to whonl I om iJ1debted for s~vcrt'll valuable suggestions, thinks thnl the poses nrc more likely to reOect the rtslrniul counselled by NOJ'Ihem writers of bchnvlor manuals. 18. Roper, Life, p. 202. Henry VID may have been imitating Italian princes; see, for example, Vespasiano"s account of the intellectual inter· ests of Federico, Duke of Urbi.no, in R~traiss111rcc Princes, Popes, and Prt· lates, trans. William George nnd Emily Waters (New York: Harper Torch· books, 1963), pp. 99- 105. Elton's characterit..Jtion occurs in "TI1ornDS Moro, Councillor (1517-1529).'' in Sf. Tho11111S Mar.•: Actio11 aurl Coutemtlln· tlou (New Haven: Yale University Press, 19n), pp. 87-122. 1?. 1"hc definition quoted by 6Hz3bc th McCutcheon, "Oof\yina tho Contrary: More's Use of Litotes ; n the Utopia," In Esselllinl Arlic/es for the Study of TI•omas Mort, ed. R. S. Sylvester and C. P. Marc'hadour (Ham· den, CoM.: Archon Books, 1977), p. 263. 20. McCutcheon, pp. 271-n. Elsewhere jn her fine article, she remarks thnt "we1 rc never quite sure where we stand tn the Utopia .... On the smallest synlllcticallevel ,,mbiguity does exist o( a sort whkh can never be altogether rcsolv~d. and probably was not meant to be" (2n). "' Self·

Co,sumiug Artifncls: 'flu~ EA·perience of SeVt!nketlllr-Ceutury Utarntrtn• (Berkeley: University of California Press, J9n), Stanley Fish provides n pow~rful critical analysis of the literary eq ujvnlcnt to anamorphosis; see esp. chapter 3, "The Dialoctic of the Self in Herbert's roetry," pp. 156-

223. 2'1. Louis Marin, Utopiq~<e$; jeux d'espaces (Paris: Minuit, 1973), p. 81. In "Lies nnd. the Limitable Inane: Contradiction in More's Utopian (R~unis.. SllllCC Qunrlcrly 26 [ 1973), pp. 173-80), Alnn P. Nasel argues that Mo re dclibomlcly includes controdictions in his account of Utopia to call allen·

tion to ils fictionality. 22. Utopia satisfies virtually all of the conditions of play described by Johnn lluizinga, Homo Uldttl5 (Boston: Beacon, 1960). 23. For an extraordinarily subUe and complex development of the im· plications of meditation upon an object-here a representation of Cod in which lhc eyes appear to follow one-sec Nicho las of Cusa, Tilt Visio11 of G~tl, lrans. Emma Gum ey Snlter (New York: J. M. Dent & Sons, 1928). 24. As Honold l..evno is tlemonstraling in work In progress, this t·hcme is developed througho ut Cus~'s career; the most rnmiliar express ion or it is in De docln iguormrtia, 25. Dia/ogur of Comfort, p. 133. 26. Sec Natalie Zeman D.1vis, "Holbein's Picturts of Dtalll and the l(eformalion at Lyons," Studits m the Renaissancr 3 (1956), pp. 97-130. 27. O n the relationsh•p between Utopm and More's Christianity, there hns been considerable dcb.1tc. l'hr most impr<•"ivc ,md subtle diHcus· sion, in my view1 is by J. II llcxtcr 11'1 hi~ mmul'r(ullnlrod uctjon to t h ~

261

NttltiiO Pllgts 26-33

262

Yale Utopia, ed. Helder and Edward Surtz, S.J., Complete Works 4 (1965), csp. pp. lxiv-txxxi. Hexte(s .ugument has been endorsed by Quentin Skinner in "More's lito pin,'' Past and Prtsenl 38 (1967), pp. 152~. and in ·rile Foundations of Motfmr Political TlrougJrt, 2 vols. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978), I: J93ff. Skinner overslatcs the case, howevcr1 when he argues thnt More's irnpl icaLion is ''thnl it rnay be possible to become a perfect Christlan without any knowledge ol lhc Church or its dogmas at all" (233). More is C
evolu Uon ol their religious bcll
1963), p. 38.

35. Utopia, p. 4. 36. Pmis. of Folly, trans. 1-loyt L-lopeweU liudson (New York: Moden, Library, 1941), p. 2; Tire Cpislll!il of Erasm11s, lrans. Francis Morgan Nichols, 3 vols. (New York : Russell & Russell, 1963), 3:392. "It would be difficult," Erasmus notes in this letter, "to find any one more successful in speaking tr ltnrpor., the happiest thoughts being attended by the hap· picst language; while a mind that catches and anticipatts all that passes, and a ready memory, having everything as it were in stock, promptly supply whatever the time, o r the occasion, demands" (398). When More married , according to Grnsmus, "he chose a very young g irl, o lady by birth, with her character slill unformed, having been alwnys kept in the counl'ry with her parents ;lnd sistcrs -So that he was aU Lhc belter able to fashion her according 10 his own habits" (395). 37. Indeed, if G. R. Elton i• correct, this habit ol mind rnoy have contributed to More's death : "II seems not unlikeJy, in the circumstances. that in his conve=tion with Riche More lor once took the hypothetical manner of argument that litt.le bit too far, saying somethrng that made it possible to persuade the jury that treason had in fact been ~poken," Policy rrml Police (Cambridge: Cambridge University Pre._<, 19n), pp. 416-17 1

Notn to Ptzg~ 33-JB

On More and Tudor training in the nmoral cultivation of ambivalence,"

sec Joel Altman, Tilt Tudor Play of Mind: Rlretoncnll11quiry and t/1t Devel· opmcnl of Elizobetlwu Drama (Bc.r keley: University of California Press, 'L978), esp. pp. 31-106. 38. William Tyndalc, An Answu to Sir Thom11s More's Diologtw, in Tlte Works of the English f~eformers: William Tynda/e nurlfohn Frif/1, ed. Thom~s Russell, 3 vols. (London: Ebenezer Palmer, 1831), 2:15. Cf. p. 196. To which More repUes, "And as for my poetry verily I can litUe else, and yet not that ncithe.r. But it had been good for Tyndale's soul and a thou..,nd souls beside that he had meddled but with poetry instead of holy !!
of the Prefatory Letters and Ver>;es," Studies in the Renaissance 10 (1963), pp. 91-107. 40. See, more re<:<ently, Jerry Mermel, "Preparations for a Politic l.ife: Sir Thomas More's Entry into the King's Service,"foumnl of /VItditoal and Renaissauce Sh•dies (1977), pp. 53-M. See likewise David M. Bevington, "The Dialogue in Utopilt: Two Sides to the Question," Studits i11 Pltilology 58 (1961), p. 507: "It is centrbi to on understanding of the dialogue to realize that in 1515-16 More perceived a dilemma. He gave expression to it In • pattern of two alternatives: Hythlodneus's wnrine$5 of all Machiavellianism as an earnest of future ill intent, and personn Mo~·s cautiously idealistic tendency to seize upon any my of hope as a basis for gradual lmprovement.,. 41. J. H. Hexter, More's "Utopia": The Biogrttplty of nn Idea (Princeton: Princeton University Pres.•, 1952), p. 28, reiterated in the introduction to tho Ynle lltopirt, p. xix. For suggestive reflections on the relation of Lhc lwo parts and on several of the aspects of More's work discu$Scd here, sec Marin, Ulopiques, and Fredric jnmeson, "0( lslnnds and Trenches: Ncutralizolion and the Production of Utopian Discourse" (review of Marin), Diacritics (1977), pp. 2-21. 42. In this respect Utopia is, as Russell Ames has argued, the work of a "city" man; there is no spokesman for the aristocracy, and Hythlodaeus's scari ng attack on klngs and warriors stands virtually unchallenged (sec Ames, Cniz.cn Tlromas Morr: nnd His Utopitr [Pri11ceton: Princeton Uni .. vcrsity Press, 1949]), b ut nlso J. H. l-lexter's persuasive criticisms (Uio1•i11, pp. liv-lvii). 43. Sec, in his commend>tory letter to Lupsrt, William Bud~·s satiric description of "the object o( legal and civil arts and sciences": "wilh spitefulond w>tchful cunning a man should behave towand his neighbor, with whom he is joined by rights of citizenship and 50metimes of family, so ns nlways to be taking t>Omethaug or other t\W•'Y, dmwing it nway, shaving 1t away, swC4'1rinr, It .nvay, flqU'-'t.'7i OR It out, beating it out, scooping il out, twisting II n u t, sh.1kins it out" (etc.) (7) 4•1. C. 13. MncphCJ'fiOn, '1'111• Pnlltlr111 T/r;•r'"fclj l•utl.~t'li,'livr• ludi4Jitlrwll~m· lltlfll~rs to Lockr (London Oxl<>•·d Uniw,..lty I'"'"• 11162). Altm Mocf.lrllll1l'

263

NoltS IO l'ngtJ 40-46

264

hos argued that as early as the thirteenth ceniUry Engl~nd was in effect "a capil:tlist-market economy without factories." 11ust is, "there were

already • developed market and mobility of labour, land was treated as a commodity omd full private ownership was established, there was very considernble geographical and social mobility, • complete distinction between farm and family existed, and r.1tional a«ounting and the profit motive were widespread" (Tire Origms of £nglisl: l11dividuolism: Tire Family, Property, rmd Social Transition [Oxford: Blackwell, 19781, pp. 195-96). Conwquently, suggests Macfarlane, "the majority of ordinary people in England from at least the thirtel'nth century were rampant Individualists" (163).

4S. As l!exter and Surtz note (Utopia, p. 404), the Henrician "Acte conArlilicars &: Labourers" speciAes labor daybroak to night from m id-September to mid-March; before 5:00A.M . to between 7:00 and 8:00 ccrnyn~; P,M.

(mm mid-March to mid-September.

46. One should note that in Utopia, as in Tudor culture generally, the concem is not only to ensure a high level of productivity but lo avoid idleness, which is thought to be the nursery of vice and sedition. 47. Slavery remained a statutory punishment in Tudor England; see, for example, Proclamation 329, ''P"!viding Penalty for Rumors of Military Defeat" (3 Edward VI), in Paul L. Hughes and )ames F. Larkin, Tudor Royal Prodamations, 2 vols. (New Haven: Yale UniVersity Press, 1964), 1:456. 48. Utopia, p. xli. 49. Sec lawrence Stone, The Family~ Sex ami Marrlagt ;,1 Ensland JSD01800 (New York: Harper & Row, 1977), pp. 42&-32.

50. "The RiSI' of the Nuclear Family in Early Modem England: 'the Pntrinrchal Sll>ge," in Tire Family iu Hi~lory, ed . Charles 1!. Rosenberg (Phllndelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1975), p. 25. 51. The Utopiruls divide pleasure between the soul and body, the fonner being higher. 'llle pleasures of the body nre in tum divided between ovcraU hcalU1 nnd lhe joys of the senses; aga in the fom1cr are hisher. The joys of the senses are in tum divided belwf! ,md John A. Ted~schf (Florence: C. C. SMsoni, 1971), f'P· 123-24.

NottS hi Pagts 46-0S

55. William j. Bouwsma, in "Anxiety and the Formation of Early Modem Culture" (unpublished CSS· 27: Honor "is o" IY It·· rcvocably committed by ntlitudes expressed in the presence of witnesses, the representatives of public opinion." 60. Honor a11d Shamt, p. 9. 51. H011or and Shamt, p. 228. 62. For the distinction between guilt and shame, see Hclen Merrell Lynd, On Shame and the Starch for /dertlity (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1958), and, especially, Paul Rlooeur, Tire Syml!olism of Evil, trans. Emerson IJuchnnnn (Boston: Beacon Press, 1957). 63. George Cavend ish, The Life .,,d Death of Cardinal Wolsey, ed. RlchMd S. Sylvester and Davis P. Harding (New Hoven: Yale University Press, 1962), p. 166. 64. ''111e Life of John Picus, Earl of Mirandula," in Tht f.11glis/1 Works of Srr TlromtU Mort, ed. W. E. Campbell, 2 vols. (reprint of RasteU's 1557 edition; London: Eyre nnd Spott:iswoode, 1931), 1:379, 356. 65. 71romll5 More's Pmy.r Book. A Facsimile Reprod11ctio11 of lite A11notated l'llgt•s, lranscdpt:ion nncl translation by l o uis U. Martz and l~ichnrd S. Sylvester, Elizabethan Club Series 4 (New Haven: Yale University t>ress, 1959), p. 205. 66. Horpsficld, pp. 85-86.

67. Chambers, T11omas Mort, p. 128. 68. Characteristically, More deflates the fant•sy; the letter concludes: "I w~ts

going to continue with this r.:tSCinating vi-oion, but the rising Dawn

has shattered my drenm poor met-and sh.1kcn me off my throne and !illll1mons me back tQ lht.• 1.-fnnlgcry or 1111.1 cmun~. UutaliCiiSI lhis thought )~lvos me consolntion: J'<:•11 kfngdomR do tl
265

266

Nolts to P.a,ges 55~2

69. Stlteltd utters, p. 76: "Some time ago I sent you my Nowl~ere; I am most anxious to have it published soon and also that it be handsomely set off with the highest of recommendations, if possible, from several people, both intellectuals and distinguished statesmen." 70. 51111, "impiety" here means not heretical belief (for which, More •tales cxplidHy, the Utopians have no physical punishment} but immoral behavior. 71. Respousio ad Lutherum, ed. John M. Headley, tr.lns. Sister Scholastlca MnndcviUe, Complete Works 5:1 (1969), pp. 305-7. 72. Respousio, p. 119. 73. John Foxc, Acts and Mouumculs, cd. josinh Pratt, 8 voJs. (London:

Ceorge Seely, 1870), 4:643. 74. Olalogflc Coucemiug Heresies, inEng/ialr Works, ed. Campbell, 2:322. 75. On Erasmus's conception of the con~cusrts fidt!Uilm, see Jruncs I<. McConko, "l!r-D:tmu:s and the Grammar of Con:5cnt," $trirtimn Crn~mrirmum

2 (1969): 77-99. On More's relation to Erasmus's biblical scholarship, see Richard C. Marius, "Thomas More's View of the Church," in Confutat{or:, pp. 1351-52. On coiiSti!SilS in More's thought, see Marius, p. 1292; john Headley, ''More Against Luther: The Substanc~ of the Diatribe," in&sporrr Pokmics (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1968). 76. Tyndale may argue that the churchmen are like the scribes and pharisees, mired in erro:r, but More can show him (with a wry gJance at the Reformer's own method) "the plain scriptures, in which God hath made m•ny such plentious promises of his assi..tence with his Holy Spirit in his church, perpetually to keep it from all dnmnnblc errors, by Leaching H ~nd leading it into every truth rhat though he suffer many gre•t pieces of people to fnll out thereof, and so litUc and li llle the body to be minished nnd mndc a small flock in comparison, till his pleasure shall be to increase il agnln, yet shall he never neither suffer it to be dest1·oycd nor the flock

that remoineth how many branches soever the devil blow off, to be brought unto lhe scarcity either of faith or virtue, that the synagogue of the Jews was at Christ's coming" (Corrfulntioll, pp. 616-17). 77. Ibid., p. 617. "These heretics," More writes, "be almost as many sects as men, and never one agreeth with oth~r, so th:.t if the world were to learn the right way of them, that mauer were much like, as if 3 man walking in a wildemess that fain would lind th~ right way toward the town that he intended, should meet with a mnny of lewd mocking knaves, which when the poor man had prayed them to tell him the way, would get them into • roundel tuming them back to back, and then speak all at once, and each of them tell him, 'this way; each of them pointing forth with his hnnd the way that his face standeth" (772}. 78. RfSponsio, p. 599. 79. Rtspo11~io, pp. 619-21. No one, I lru$1, will be surprised to learn that Luther nnd Tyndnle were not, ,liter all, defenders of the liberty of the Individual.

NoJcs Lo Page; 63- 72

80. Rtspousio, p. 413. 81. Thus More can attack the anonymous author of the heretical Supper of lht Lord as "Master Masker'':" And verily as we see sometime, that such as walk in visors, have much the less fear and shame, both what they do and what they say. becau.oe they think themself unknown: so do these folk oftentimes little force [i.e. what they write that use to put out their books, and set not their names unto them" (AIISU'trt . .. to tire Poyseued Bookc I London: W. RasteU, 1534]. 86•-87'). 82. Cou{llltrllou, p. 178. 83. " I say therefore in t hese days in which men by their own default misconstrue and take ham1 of the very Scriptu re of Cod, until men better amend, if nny man would now translate Mori11 [i.e. Tlit•l'rtllse of Folly) into Engli sh, or some work9 either 01al r have myself w ritten ere this, albeit there be none hann thcrctn 1 folk yet be.tng (as they be) given 10 t.•ke hann o f thnt that is good, I would not o nly my darling's books but mine own also, help to bum them both with mine own hands" (Cou{111nlio11, p.l79). 84. McConico, p. 89. 85. Rtspousio, pp. 259. 141. 86. Cf. Columbus,]o11rn•/s ond Other Documtnls on tilt Ufc aud Voyagts of Chrisloplrtr Columbus, trans. and ed. S>muel Eliot Morison (New York: Heritage Press, 1963), p. 65. More objects to violent or even strident attempts at conversion; see Utopia, p. 219. 87. E. M. Cioran, Tire New Gods, trans. Richard Howord (New York: Quadrangle. 1974), p. 17. 88. Respousio, p. 311. 89. Confutlllion. p. 62. 90. G. R. Elton, "Sir Thomas More and the Opposition to Henry VIII," 8ullclin of 1/ro llrstitute of Nistoricol Researclr (London University) 41 (!968), pp. 19-<34. 91. Roper. p. 225. Blto n comments suggestively on this incident in ' 'Sir Thomas More nnd the Opposition to Henry VJn.'' pp. 25-26. 92. 1-11111'5 Clrrorriclc, p. 780. 93. Sekclcd l..ellvrs. p. 211. 94. Chambers, p. 336. 95. Chambers, pp. 33(>-37. 96. Stltcltd ulltrs, p. 213. 97. Stlectcd l..eHcrs, p. 222. 98. Stlccltd Lcllers, pp. 251-<>'"2. 99. Roper, p. 216. 100. See Chnmbers, p. 306. 101- Hall's Clrro111clc, p. 317. 102. We may note the identic3l point made in •ICCOUnts or Protestant martyrdoms; sec, for exomple1 foxe~s tlccount o( Or. T1lylor, Vicar of r-locl lcy: "All the wny Dr. Taylor was joyful .m d mer.-y, ""one that accountetl hlrns~lr going to a pleasant bnnqut~t or bridal" (l'oxc, Acls 111rtl Morrlll/1/llt/S (.:695). I 03. See Strlect~il !flit,., pp. 22•1ff; '/It,• Ct>tt'r·'l'""tlrrll·r a{ Si~ 11to111us

=•l

267

268

Nott.s to Pagts 72-77

Morr, ed. llliz.abeth Frances Rogers (Princt!ton: Princt!ton University Press, 1947), pp. 514-32. 104. Dt Tristilia Christi, ed. and trans. Oarenct! H . Miller, in Compltlt Works 14 (1976), p. 249. 105. ~ltcltd LcHers, p . 225. More describes his own timorousness in a letter to Margaret; see Selected Lclttrs, pp. 239-42. 106. Dt Tri51itia, p. 253. See the remark of G . E. Haupt: "It is not too much to sny that to some extent More sees Christ in his own image or at least emphasizes those aspects of the life of Christ which ore most relevant to his own situation. There can, for instMce, bo little doubt that Ml>re is n"'uch more intete:,ted in the mental anguish of Christ in the garden than

in the crudfJxion itself" (Treatise ou tile Pnsslou, Treatise ou lite Blessed Body, l11St111clions and Prayers, in Complet• Works 13[1976], p. clxxvii). 107. Sec Louis 1,.. Martz, "Thomas More: The Sacramental Life," Tlta11gltl 52 (1977), pp. 3Q0-318. Chapter Two 1. John Foxe, Acts and Monuments 4:702. The account of Boinham's martyrdom OttUrS on pages 697-706. On Foxe's book, see William Haller, Tht Eitel Notion: lir< Mtaning and Rtlroa/let of roxt's " Book of Martyrs·· (New York: Harper & Row, ~). 2 . Tlrt Apology< of Syr liromas More, K11yglrt, ed. Arthur I. Taft (London: Early English Text Society, 1930), p. llOOCv. In this work of 1533 More specifically denies some of the charges of maltreatment of heretics that are repented in Foxe's account, but More docs not deny the imprisonment of heretics in his Chelsea house. 3. R. W. Chnmb!.'ts' translation in Tlromns Mort (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1935). P• 286. 4. Confutation, p. 16, More speaks of r lilton ,1s "the devU's stinking martyr of whose burning Tyndale mnketh boast" (p. 17). On More as persecutor, see Leland Miles, "Persecution and the Dlnlog11e of Comfort: A Prcsh l.ook at the Charges Agninst Thomas More," Joumal of British Sl11dics s (1965), pp. 19-30. 5. Ch>mbers, p. 178. See the account of john Tewkesbury's imprison· ment in Foxe, 4:689. 6. Roper, p. 238. 7. Collfu!gfiorr, p. no. 8. Foxe, 3:730. 9. Foxe, 3:281. Foxe says he is using Tynd•le's edition. On the conduct of heresy investigations in the fifteenth and early sixteenth centwy, see John A. F. Thomson, Tlu Later Lollnrds, 14H- 1520 (London: Oxford University Press, 1965), pp. 220-38. On Thorpe and enrly Lollordry, see K. B. McFarlane. fo!ru Wycliff• and tire Bcgi111riugs of E11glis/r Nollconformity (London: English UniveiSities Press, 1952). 10. Poxe repeatedly refers to the a.r chbishop of Canterbwy, Thomas Aru ndul, ns °Cn iaphasn; for example, see 3:326, w here he is described ns "sit ting in Cilaphas's room."

Nofes to Po~ts 78-82

11. Foxe, 3:334-35. n,e primary thrust of Oldcastle's gesture is against lhe so-called worship of images, bul the heretical posi tion frequently contains the related sense of the presence of lhe sacred in the everyday. Thus in 1509 John Blomslone was accused of asserting "that it •vas foolishness to go on pilgrimage to the image of our lady of Doncaster, Walsinghom, or of the Tower o( the city of Coventry: for a man might as well worship the blessed Yil:gin by the fire-side in t he kitchen, as in the aforesaid p laces, .,nd as weU might a man worship lhe blessed Virgin, when he sccth his mother or sister, as in visiting the images; because they be no mo,·c b u l d ead stocks and s to nes" (Foxe, 4:133). 12. l'oxe, 3:542. 13. So1 sirnilnrly, cerl{lin radicals in our century have wQIC'Omcd nnd even attempted lo induce repressive violence as proof th:~t stnlc ln~ :stitut inl'l$ fl::l!iiCl.-t not 0 11 d~lllOCX~li\: COt~l"nl l>u l V II (uu,:t:.

14. See l(obcrt J. Lifton, Thoughl Reform and the Psychology of 'lola/ism (New York: Norton, 1961). l..ilton 's subject is bra inwashing in C hina; there nrc, of course, in the West ample scriptur;tl nnd patristic sowces justifying lhe persecution or heretics. 15. Quoted in Henry Kamen, Th< Rise of Toltratioll (l..ondon: Weidenfeld &
"You should not consider this constraint in its.clf, but the quality of the object to which one is conslrnincd, whether it is good or bad. It is not that a man can become good in spite of himself, but th e (ear of suffering which he hMcs either makes him th row aside the obstinacy which he ld hi "' back. or hel p~ him to recognize the trutl, be did not r<><:ogn17.c. Consequently, Ihis fenr leads him to rejecllhe falsehood he chnm pioncd 0 1· to Heck the truth he did not know ; thus he w ill come to nllnch hi mscll voluntarily to ''rhat he (j rst re jected." Quoted in j oseph Lecler, Toleratio11 a11d /he Refonunlioll, trans. 1'. L. Wcslow, 2 vols. (New York: Association P ress, 1960}, 1:56. 16. Michell'oucault, Disciplillt and Pu11islt: Tile Birllr of tire Priso11, trans. Alan Sheridan (New York: Pantheon, 1977), p . 29. 17. For the theatricality of executions, see Samuel Y: Edgerton, Jr., "Manitra and the MamrniD: Decorum and Decapitation in the Sixteenth Century," in 'nit Mtamng of MQI111trisrn, ed~ Franklin W. Robinson and Stephen G. Nichols, Jr. (Hanover, N.li.: University Press of New England, 1972), pp. 67-103. 18. See Nicolas Perella, Tl~e Kiss. Sacred a11d Pro{a11r (B~rkeley: University of C•lifomi• Press, 1969). 19. Both sides frequently died 2 Cor. U ·14: "(or Satan him.clf is lronsfom>cd into an " ''!l•l of light "The notion tha t the rcli);IOUf• community is threntcncd by whe~t Pct~r Bmwn co1lls ··., •1i ,, istt..orl JnllfJt'l_<:ltn,~··r" has been tl'dced bnck 10 lh<' IJcotd Sc,, Scroll•;sr.c llrown,IIIIN'""'" of lltpfltl (Uctkclcy: UnivNslty 11f Colllfon•l.l I'I'Oss. 1%'1), I' 21.1, '""' W II , C. Frcncl ,

269

210

NoltS

to Pages 92-85

Martyrdom and Ptrseculion i111he liarly Church (Oxford: BlockweU, 1965), p. 61. 20. The setting-a warehouse 10 Bow-lane-suggests not only the secrecy of the conventicle, but the important connection between the early Protestant community in England and the merchnnt clnss through whose

lntemational ties prohibited books could be smuggled ((om the conti nent.

2"1. Foxe, 5:421. 22. Thene is not enough evidence about the letters Balnhnm wrote at the time of his public return to heresy to be very clear about their part in this process: perhaps he felt that ,, lettec to the bishop was necessary to cancel his written abjwation. But he also 'vrote to his brother, apparently in bold. even reckless, terms: at the second interrogation, Bainham retracted

certain things be hnd written to his brother, saying "he did it by ignor.,nce. otrtd he did nnt- nvf"l"fU'P hi~; IPttPrs" (4:703). There nrc two ways to interpret this ret-raction: elt·h er Bainham was once more wavering be-

tween saving his life and defending his Protestant convictions or, l)ftermltcly, he had, in the grcot cn'lolional release of his 11 rclopsc/' wril'ten and snid things to which he did not, in his more Sol>cr moment-s, sub·

scribe. In this case, u,e denials ot the second interrogatory must be seen not as hopeless attempts to s;we himself, but as attempts to state with precision just what he 6nnly believed in and was willing to die for; i.e. to distinguish, in the manner of Frith, between necessary dogma and ndinphora. 23. Sigmund Freud, " Inhibitions, Symptom and Anxiety" (1926), in Sltmdard E;ditiotr of lite Complttt Works, trans. James Strachey, 24 vols. (London: Hogarth Press, 1959), 20:119. See also "Notes upon a Case of Obsessional Neurosis" (1909), Stmulard lidilion 10:235-36. 24. lndeed, as Freud's reference to magic suggests, it seem• likely thnt l~r developed the concept of undoing at least partly from nnologous symbolic processes in religion; i 1- would S«:m difficult to tum tU'I analogy drawn from a phenomenon into an axplann.tion of thnl phenomenon. 25. Seymour Bymnn, "Ritualistic Acts and Compulsive Behavior: Th~ Pattern of Tudor Martyrdom," Amtricon Historical Rcvitw 3 (1978), p. 627. Much of what Byman diet; as evidence of""compulsive behavior" seems to me quite unconvincing. Thus where Foxc writes that after dlnner Ridley ''usod to sit an hour or thereabouts, talking. or playing at the chess," 6yman comments that "in order to cope with doubt, Ridley carefully scheduled even his che55 games" (631). 26. See Thomas N, Tentlcr, Si11 nml Cor~fessiotr ou tire Eve of lite !lefomw Nou (Princeton: P rinceton Univcrsily Press, 1977). Tentler's fi n ~ book has lnrscly superseded Henry Charles lea's A History of Aurlculnr Co11{essio11 imd ludulgclfccs i11 lite Latin Clurrclt, 3 vols. (Philadelphia: Le• llrothers, 1896), still useful, however, (or its massive detail. There are powerful speculations upon the imponance of this material in Michel Foucault, La volonti dt sauoir (P•ris: G•lhmnrd, 1976). 27. Tltt Obedience of n Cltri
Notes to J'ttgcs 85-87

Trenti""s o11d l11troductions to Different Portio11s of The Holy Scriptures, ed. Henry Walter (Cambridge; Parker Society, 1848), p. 263. More quotes this passage in the Confutation and remarks that ''luther, that wos Tyndale's master, as lewd as he is, played never the blasphemous fool against confession so fnr yet •• Tyndale doth. For luther, •I be it he would make every man, and every woman loo, sufficient and meetly to serve for a confe~r. yet confesscth he that shrift is vel}' necessary, and doth much good, and would in no wise have left it" (Confutation, p. 89). ,\II ci tations of the Obedieorce are to the Parker Society text. 28. There nrc, of course, exceptions Qf which the most famous is Luther's autobiosrnphic.>l remarks which he published ns a Preface to the Wittenber11 cclition of his Latin works. Byman (p. 633) cites an account of the practice of the Marian martyr John Bradford: ''He used to mnke unto him:;clf nn cphemc•·io or _, joumnl, in which he w;cd to wri.t c AU Guch

notable things as w ither he might see in that book the signs of his smitten heart" (TI>omJS Sampson, Preface to Bradford, Ttvo Notnble Sermo11s Made by That Worthy Martyr of CJrrist Master fotm Bradford (London, 1574]). 29. "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction," in Illuminations, ed. linnnah Arendt, trans. HUJ}' Zohn (New York; Schocken, 1969). pp. 217-51. On the significance of the printed book, see especially Elizabeth l. Eisenstein, The Printing Prrss as an Agent of Cha11ge: Comlluwications nud C11llural Transfomrations itt Early Modtrn Europ~. 2 vols. (New York: Cambridge UnjveJ'Sity Press, 1972). 30. It is tempting to speculate that these works may have been read silently far more often than othc.r booKs and manuscripts; after all, o ne must e'<ercis~ extreme caution with prohibited books. I( this were so, it migh t give renders stiiJ more of the sense thou the bQoks were occurring deep w ithin their own minds, away from aUextem i1l manifestation. There is, howe ver, no su bstnntial ev(clence for such silent rending, nnd we must recall the importnnce for someone like Bainham of his fellow believers. 31. Thus the Protestants could accept, in a sense, the CMholic symbolism of the names of ll>e auto-da-f~ as symbolic of hell, but reinterpret this descent into hell as the prologue to an ascent to henvcn . 32. See, lor example, Confutation, pp. 22-23: "Another is there also, whom his (Tyndole's] unhappy books have brought unto the fire, Thomas Bilney." In the heretic Tewkesbwy's house, More writes. "was found Tyndale"s book of Obedience ... and his wicked book also of The W1cked Mammom." More claims that TewkesbuJ}', who was burned at Smithfield during More's choncellorship, would not have become a heretic "if Tyndale's ungmc:ious books had never come in his hand. For which the poor wretch lieth now in hell and crieth out on him, ond Tyndnle, Jf he do not amend in tirnc, ... is like to find him when they come together, an hot firebrJ nd burn ins at his b.>ck. that all the water in the world wrll nevrr be nble to quench" (Collftttation. p. 22). 33. Tyndnlc's .outhon.hip of th~ l!nglish Erwltirnlw11 i• UIICcrtnln; sco Anne O"J;lonncll, "A Crltlc••l lldltlnn of lht• 1534 llngllsh 'l'r.m61,1t lon o r llmsm uo· llnchlrldlarl mllltis Ch rlstinnl'' (l'h 1), "" ""·· Y.>lt• University,

Notts to Pages ss...g3

272

1972), pp. 51-58. I am indebted for this reference and for other bibliographical assistance to Professor DorLlld ]. Milius of Coastal Carolina College. According to Norbert Elias's remarkable study of the development of manners, T/Je Civilizing Process (trans. Edmund jephcott [New York: Urizen Books, 1978]), Emsmus's "'o:lt lnfh>entlal work of this kind, a nd o ne of the most- important in the period, was the De civUitntc momm puerilizwr. 34. Ltctures on Gcur.sis Jl, 65; quoted in William J. Bouwsmi\, "Anxiety nnd the Formation of early Modern Culture;' unpublished. 35. See Lawrence Stone, Tire Causes of tl~e English Rtvolution, 1529-1642 (New York: Harper & Row, 1972); Immanuel Wallerstein, T/1< Modem

World-System: Capitalist Agncultur< and the Ongins of the Europra11 WorldEcoJJomy in the Sixtee11/h Ct11/ury (New York: Academic Press, 1974); Eric Kerridge, Tl.- Agricultural Revolution (New York: A. M. Kelley, 1968); a Anxiety." 36. In Arthur F. Kinney, cd., t;;lizabetllan Backgrou11ds: Historical OocumeJJis of /Ire Age of Eliznl1etlr 1 (I-Inmden, Conn .: Archon, 1975), p. 63. 37. ) . j. Scarisbrick, Hmry VIII (London: Penguin, 1968), p. 325. 38. In the first edition of the £XJ1osiliou of !Jolw, Tyndnlc even went so far as to hint tl10l the king had contracted syphilis; sec Donald Milius, "Tyndole on the First Epistle ofSaintjohn," Moreana 13 (1976), pp. 40-41. 39. Tit£ exposition of llr< Fyrstc Epistle ofsey~tlllron, toitlr a Prologgc befor. il: by W. T. {Antwerp: M. de Keyser, 1531), p. Fl'. 40. J1re Parable of llrt Wicktd Mammon (1527), in Ooctmrnl Trtalises, p. 42. 41. E;q1osilion of lire Fyrslt Epistle of seynt lhou, p. El'. Tyndale can, however, counsel his readers, in t he prologue to the 1525 New Testament, to "counterfeit Christ" (Doctriual Treatises, p. 20), 42. This evaluation of Tyndnlc may be traced a t least as Iar back as Abednego Seller's /lis/ory of Passive Obedie11U sine< lire Reformation (Arnstcrdarn: Theodore joh nson, 1689), p. 20. For • useful discussion of 1he distinction between conservative and radical Protest3nts, see Quentin Skinner, Tire Foundalious of Modem Political Tltonglrt 2:7~1. 43. More, Dialogue Conctnring Tyndale, in Tire E.nglislr Works of $1r Tlromas Mo" 2:257. See 0/Jedr
Rnn~ma.

commandments rcpugn not ngninst the commandment of God; and then,

ho" (in Oocfri11al Treatises, p. 25). 44. ''A Table, expoundinu certain words in the 'Pir$1 Book of Moses1 called Genesis/' in Doctn'nal Treatises, -p. 407. 45. lt is nonetheless si&nificont lhal when he turns to someone for help. Tyndale finds Humphrey Monmouth, a wealthy cloth mcrchont, who supplies him with food, • pl•ce to Jive, and money. Still , Jhis does not mean that Protestantism JS the "party" of the middle cla~s; the issue is clearly much more complicated. See Stone, Causes of llrr Engli
Notf'S to Pogl!s !i..J-86

lion, pp. 58-117; Christopher Hill, Society and Puritanism in Prc&volutionory Englond, 2d ed. (New Yod<: Schocken Books, 1967); Michael Walt?.er, Tltt Rc110/ution of tht Saints (Cambridge, Moss.: Hatvard University Press, 1965); Skinner, Foundations, vol. 2. 46. Di•logtu Cottetmittg Tyndole, p. 112. 47. "A Pathway into the Holy Scripture," in Doctrinal Trttllists, p. 17. The "Pathway" is a revised version, published separately, or the 152.5 Prologue; the following quotations are from the original version. CI. Luther, De servo orbit rio (On tl~e Bondage of tire Will) I 15251, in Lrttltrr and £rosmrts: free Will 111111 Solvation, ed. E. Gordon Rupp et al. (r'hlladelphia: Westminslc1· l"'ress, 196<1).

·18. Dinlo,~ue Concer1ting 1'yndole, pp. 206-11. 49. Quoted in W. Schwarz, Pri11Ciples and Pt'ob/cms of 1Jiblicn/7'mnslallon (Cambddgc. C..tml1J iJ~t: Uni'v\!L:tily Pa~:,S, )955), f.'· 10.

50. It is worth notin& perhaps that Tyndale apparent ly took to heart More's criticism o( hjs rendering of presbyter i'SScrrior; in Inter editions or the New Testilmcnt, the '"''ord js changed to elder. 51. J. F. Mozlry, William Tyndole (London: Society for Promoting

Christinn Knowledge, 1937), pp. 147-50. The story is related in Hall's Clrrorriclt. 52. "Prologue to the Book of Genesis," in Doctrinal Trcotik$, p. 40.5. The figure of 50,000 copies is that of R. W. Hoare, Our Englislt Biblt, rev. ed. (London: john Murray, 1911), p. 161; see also ArthurS. Herbert, Historical Cntalogut of Printed Editions of tire Ettglis/J Biblt: 1525-196/ (London: British and Foreign Bible Society, 1968). 53. This effect must have been heightened by the fact that children first learned to rend from LaUn primers and hence "must hove thought o{ reading, from lhe very beginning, as something tutificial, ttet apnrt in n

realm of its own" (Sus011 Noakes, "The Fifteen Ocs, the Dfstidta Ctllonis, Marculfius, and D ick, Jane, and Sally," in Tl.e Universit,v of Chkttgo Library 2 [19771, p. 7). 111c vernacular U1cn may have been powerfully linked to lhe earliest experiences of lnngungc.

In a remarkable work in progress, Walter Kerrigan is exploring the psychosexual implic.1t ions ror l iterature of Latin as the "father tongue" and English as the "mother tongue" (forthcoming in Psychiatry and the Humanitits, ed. joseph Smith, vol. 4). 5-I. In Doctnnal Trtoti~s, p. 400. The Scripture is not only a defense; God's word, writes Tyndalc in the preface to Tltt Parablt of tht Wicktd Mammon, "is the ri&ht weapon to slay sin, vice, and all iniquity" (in Doctrinal 'frrntiSts, p. 41). 55. For the royal proclamations asainstT}'Tldale's translation , see 'f11dor Royttl Proclttmntio115 1:181-86, 19:>--97. The latter proclumation, 22 Henry VIII (1530), declares "that having respect tO the mali&nily or this present time~ w-Jth the incU nation of people to erroneous opinions, the lransl\ltion of the New TcstJtncnt and the Old into the vulgnr tongue of Bngllsh should rnthc1· be tho OCCllSlon of cont·inuanc~ or incrcas~ of C'rrOJ'ti .1mons lhu tW id (Jcur>ll' lfultl tmy benefit or commodity tqwnrd Uw wL~nt c)( thoh·

273

274

Nol.s lo Pa.~es 97-l/9

souls, and that it shall now be more convenicnllhat tho same people have the Holy Sc:ripture expounded to lhem by prea
English, bul shall ruther exhort every person to read I he same wllh great humility and reverence as lhe very lively word of God and the special food of man's souls ...." lf'udor Royal Proclamatrons 2:119). 61. Quoted in Thomas l.aqucur, "The Cultural Origins of Popular Literacy in england, 150()-1850," Oxford Review of educntion 2 (~976),

p. 262. 62. Laqueur, p. 262. 63. John Bunyan, Crace Abounding to lire Cllief of Sinners (1666), ed. Roger Sharrock (London: Oxford University Press, 1966), p. 32.

64. Foxc, 3:719-20. In the Histoire de Ia mnppemonrle papislique (Ceneva, 1567), the Lyons engraver Pierre Eskrich depicts Protestant pastors

breaking down lhe walls of lhe papal city with books (see Natalie Zemon Davis, "The Sacred nnd lhe Body Social in Sixteenth-Century Lyon(' fo rthoomins). 65. For lhe laxger argument of sola script urn vs. sola ecclesja, see Ceorge H. Tavard, Holy Writ or Holy Clrurch: 11rt Cnsis of tltt Protes!anf Reformaliou (London: Bums&: Oates, 1959). 66. See john 5. Coolidge, Tire Ptwlirre Rcrlhissancc irr C11gland: Purifauism nnd tire Bible (Oxford: At lhe CliU'endon Press, 1970). The principle of "feeling faith," so confidently affirmed by the Obtditne<, would soon be at the cent or of the debate over the precise nature of rei igi.ous observance

that raged for decades between the Puritans and the Anglican establish· ment. The breadlh and vagueness or lhc fonnulation in Tyndale &uggests that he, nt least, did not intend it to sugge5t that only those actions may be undertake•' that have explicit sanction in the Bible. Notwithstanding his insiste nce on covenanl and contrtlcl, he does no t solely or even priln11rily tum to Sc:ripture in the manner, for e>
Notes to Pagrs 99-110

67. Dinlosur Cotrrcmi11g Heresits, 2:112-13. 68. Atr Answer to Sir 71Jomtl5 More's D•alogue, ed. Henry Waller (Cam· bridge: Parker Sociely, 1850), p. 49. 69. Confutation, p. 723, i'O. Erasmus, Etrcllirid10n Mi/itis Christintri: Tl~e Manual of tilt Cllri$1ian Knigllt, lr.lns. WiUiam Tyndale? (London: Methuen & Co .• !90S), p. 146. One should nolc lhallhe issues involved in lhe inletpretation of the Bible are by no menns new in the Re!onnationi for medieval otrguments, see especiaUy M.-D. Chenu, Nature, Ma11, ami Society i11 tl1c Twelfth Centun;, trans. jerome Taylor and Lester K. Little (Chicago: University of 01icngo Press, 1957), 71. Confutnlinll, pp. J6!Hi6. It should be noled thnl Tyndnle is only granting for tho Sbkc of argument the notion that cougtcgtlliou is a more sen~roJ tenn thnn clmtclt. 72. Confutntion, pp. 220..21. 73. Quoted from TIJC English Hexnpla (London: Samuel Bngster & Sons, 1848). This is lhe most convenient starting point for comp3rtltive analysis of early English translations. 74, "A Prologue Upon the Epistle of St Paul to the Romans," in Doctrinal TuatiSts, p. 505. 75. Con{utal1011, p. 9. 76. "Prologue to Genesis," Doctrinal TrtatiSts, p. ~()4. 77. Quoled in F. F. Bruce, History of tile Bible 111 English, 3d ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1978), p. 20. 78. "Preface to the Five BOoks of Moses" (1530), in Doctrinnl 'Trtatists, p. 395. 79. Quoted In Robert Demaus, William Tindale, pop. ed .. revised by Richnrd Lovell (London: The Religious Tmct Sociely, 1925), pp. 357-58. 80. Foxc, 5:1 17; I have followed Oemous and Mozley in altering the indi rect discourse given in foxe to direct discoLLrsc~ 81. Tl1e Pnrt~clcsis, trnns. John C. Olin, in Ernsmus, CIJristinn Humau;sm and tile Reformation; Selected Writings, ed. Olin (New York: Harper & Row, 1965), p. 97. 82. "l11e Parable of the Wicked Mammon," in Doctrinal Treatises, p. 37. 83. Quoted in Mozley, William Tynda/e, p. 250. 84. It is not known for whom Phillips was working; see Mozley, William Ty11dale, pp. 294-342. 85. Mozley, William Tyndnle, p. 334. 86. Ibid., p. 339. 1!7. Foxc. 5:127. 88. See William A Clebsch, England's Earliest Protestants, 1520-1535 (New I Iaven : Y~le University Press, 19M), p. 191; L. j. Trlnterud, "A Reappr>isal of Wllllnnt Tyndole's Debt lo Martin Lulhcr," Clmrc/1 History 21 (1962), pp. 24~1s. 89. Dorlrinal 'l'rtnti5<'S, p. 13. 90, "On I fiR: Own J·~norunC!c.• nnd rrhnl nt M.my Ot lwn•• u tnl 11~. Hnn!t Nnt!hOdr in •tJtr l
275

276

Notes to

Pages JlJ-115

Oskar Kristeller, ond john Herman Randall, Jr. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1918), p. 105. 91. Doctrinal Tmrtiscs, p. 403; sec Clebsch, E11gla11rl's Ea.•/lest Prolestants, p.l82. 92. C. S. Lewis, English Literature 111 the Sixteenth Century, Excluding Drama (Oxford: At the Clorcndon Press, 1954), p. 190. 93. 'fire Parable of the Wicked Mannnon, in Doctrinal '/'realises, p. 103. 91. Obtdimce, p. !61. 95. "A Table," in Doctrinal Treatfsts, p. 407. 96. Expositions ami Noles 011 Sundry Portions of Tire Holy Scriptures, to· gcthcr with ~Ire Practice of Prelates, ed. Henry Walte r (Cambridge: Parker Society, 1849), p. 268. 97. Arrswcr to Sir 71somas More's Dialogue, p. !57; see also pp. 166, 188, 193. Chapter Three 1. Sec E. G. Rupp, Studies itr tire Making of tire E~rglislr Proteslmrt Tradi· liotr (Maillly in tire Rcig11 of Herrry Vl11) (Cam b ridge: Camb ridge University Press, 1947), p. 132: "Excerpts from an heretical Pcimer were condemned by the bishops in 1530 because 'he pullilh in the book of the vii Psalmes, b ut he lcvcth owl the w hole Litany, by which apperith his erronyous opyn_yon agen.st praying to saints lat.:Hlie: ... 1'his ag1:ccs w:ilh M ore's statement about }oye's Primer 'wherein the Seven Psalms be set in witho ut the Litany and the Oirige is left."' Rupp notes further that "the 6rst publica lion to bear Luther's name and authority had been his ed ition of these Seven Penilcntial rsulms1 and all that we know o f thls Primer suggests contact with the doctrines of the Reformers." 2. O n Protestantism and Wyatt's version of the psalms, see especially H. A. Mason, Hrmrtmism 111rd Poetry itr tire Early Tudor Period (london; Routledge & Kegon Paul, 1959), pp. 209-21; Robert G. Twombly, ' 1'11>omas Wyatt's Paraphrase of the Penitential Psalms of David," in Ttxos Studies iu Latrgrrage a11d Literature 12 (1970), p p. 34;;-80. 3. Psalm 51, lines 503-5. Wyatt h nd sim ilarly ad ded the p hrasc " the heart's forest'' to his translation ol Petrarch, "The long love thnt in my thought doth horbor." Line numbers for Wyatt's poetry refer to those given in Collertetl Poems of Sir 'l'lrorrras W yall, ed. Kcn11eth Mui t• and Patricia Thomson (Liverpool; Liverpool University Press, 1969). For a book-length critique of this cdi· tion, see H. A. Mason, Editing Wyall (Cambridge: Cambridge Quarterly Pu blkatlons, 1972). r have consulted Richa rd Harrier, Tire Cmrou of Sir Tlromas Wyatt's Poetry (Cnmbridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1975), and Sir Tlromas Wyatt: Col/ecttd Poems, ed. Joost Oaalder (London: Oxford University Press, 19?5). 4. Bo th Aretlno and Camp~n sis stress at this pointth nl o utward deed~ arc signs o f the inner state of contri tion (see Collccttd Pomss, Commentary, p. 378); though he elsewhere concurs, Wyatt lakes this opportunity to infuse his version w ith t he spirit of Luther's fnmo us Prolog11e to Romans,

Notts to Pogts 116-20

l77

as I ranslated by Tyndnle: "If the law we-e fleshly, and but man's doctrine, it might be satisfied, nnd s tiUed with outward deeds. llut now is the law s hostly, and no man futrllleth it, except that nil that he doth spring of love from the bottom or the heart." Good works spring naturally h·om faith, but they may not by themselves be taken as the assurance of anything; everything depends upon the state of the hcnrt which in tum depends upon the will of God. (Cf. Mason, Humn11ism Dlld Poetry, pp. 215-19.) 5. Apart from the Judea-Christian West, we should recall, moS1 of the grent civilizations of the world have placed overwhelming emphnsis not on the isolated member but on the conformity of every element to its role in the sodety; the dominrant Ideology of Hinduism, for exttmplc, begins from the standpoint or the total hie..rarchicnl structure and then moves to the pnt'l'icular, constituent parts. See l,.ouis Dumont,

Homo Hiernrclu'cus:

The C11slc System and It ~ lmplicntiorr.:tr trn.ns. Mark Soi.nsbu.t y (Ch.ieoso:

University of Chicago Press, 1970), p. 4. 6 Rkoeur, 17re Symbolism of Evil, pp. 103-4. 7. In Medieval Handbook< of Ptllance, trans. and ed. John). McNeill and Helena M. Gamer (New York: Columbia University Press, 1938), p. 315. Sec Oscar D. Watkins, A History of Pella/Ice, 2 vols. (London: longmans, 1920), 2:58. 8, See Thomas N. Tcntlor, Si11 a11d Confession 011 til< Eve of tile Rc{ornlll· lion (l'dnceton: Princeton Unive1-sily Press, 1977), pp. 1&-27; john Bossy, "The Social History of Confession in the Age o f the Reformatio n," Trans· actions of the Royal Historicnl Society, 5th ser., 25 (1975), pp. 21-38. 9. "Treatise Concemtng' the Fruitful Sayings o£ David the King and Prophet in the Seven Penitential Psalms," in 17tt E11glislt Works of joltrt Fisher, Bishop of Roclttstu, ed. John E. B. Mayor (London: Early English Text Society, 1876), p. 24. 10. "Bst autem mu ltit; modis huis Ps.nlmi cognitio tum nece~arin lum ulili s: Conlinel enim doct-rlnam de praccipuis nostrae Religionis capiHbus, de Poenitentia, de Pectato, de Gratia, ct justificatione, Item du

Cultu quem nos pracstare debemus/~ Quoted in Mason, Humnnism nud Pottry, p. 217. II. The point is worth emphasizing because the hard-won and precious bourgeois myth that the inner life is somehow divorced &om the legiti· mate exercise of power hi\$ been read backwilrd into history so th11t the Spanish lnqujs-ition o r the Puritan -witch trjaJs hnvc seemed only obscene nbcn·nti.ons. The fourteenth-century lcg islnt ion that decf
278

t'\orts to P11gd 12Q-124

tl:>e total discursive field constituted by other versions of the psalms and by related doctrinal and devotional treatises. If the distinctive voice seems intenn ittcnt, the failure is nol caused by the dead wcighJof uimpcrsonal" convention, but by the inadequacies of a poetic technique still in the early stages of development. As his contemporaries understood, Wyatt had virtually to invent for English poetly a language suited to his expressive ends; those ends are "his own" precisely by virtue of the power of the convention. H. Raymond Southall, I./tern/we an(l tlrc Rise of Capitalism (London: U>wrence & Wishart, 1973), p. 22. 15. Mason, Hrgery here md at lines 345-48 refiects the horror of tho,;e who witnessed the "first deadly onslaughts" of syphrlis; if so, the physical revulsion has been absorbed into the depiction of a moral state. It i~ adulterous sexual desire thnt is l\sclf the disease, the lillh that must be purged by suffering. 18. Cl. Luther o n the will: "Thus the human will is .. . liken benst of burden. If Cod rides it, it wills and goes where God wills .... If Satan rides it, it wiUs and goes where Satan wills; nor c-an it choose to run to ejther o( the two riders or to seek him out, but the riders themselves contend for the possession and control of it" (Lilllrtr and Erasm11s: Fru Will and Salvation, trans. and cd. E. Gordon Rupp [London: The Libr•ry of ChriRtinn Classics, 1%9'1, p. itJO). Sec also Wynll to his son, " the chie(est and inf.,llible ground [of virtue] is the drcnd and Reverence of God," in /Jfe and Leiters of Sir Tlromns W_valt, ed. Kenneth Muir (Liverpool: l..iver· pool Univer:sity Press, 1%3), pp. 38-39. 19. Mourice Medeau-Ponty, The Primacy of Ptruplion, ed. james M. Edie (Evnnston: Northwestern Univer:sity Press, 1964), p. 5. 20. In lrying to grasp the origins of this pervasive suspicion of the body, ills tempting to invoke the stat
Notn to Pagts 1Z4-JJ2

23. For powerful reflections upon perception and the sense of the body, sec Michael Fried, "The Beholder in Courbet: His Early Self-Portraits and Their Place in His Art," Glyph 4 (1978), pp. 84-129. 24. See Wyatt tQ his son: ''God hath of his goodness chastised me and not cast me clean out of his favor" (Life and Letters, p. 40). 25. Life and Letters, p. 35. 26. Donald Friedman, "The ··n,ing' in Wyatt's Mind," Ess~tys irr Crill· cism 16 (1966), p. 377. The satires echo as well the contrast behveen outward Md inward: see, for example, "Mine Own John Poins," lG-13. 27. "Mine Own john Poins," 76. One should note that the negation is qui.'IUfied by the rhetorical insistence on the! spe<'~Jcer's inability, on what he

,·nnuot do. 28. Thus for Wyatt it is not Cod but " fortune" that hos given rulers the r-isht "to olrike t.h c ntroko, '' while subm.i10S'ion in tho psnlms has no rcl<'r ..

ence to secular authority. 29. IU Wyatt's early ninet..,nth-century editor, George Frederick Nott, observes, these lines arc imitated and enlarged from Persius's third Satire (Wyatt: 11•e Crlfical Herilngt, pp. 71- 72). 30. Seneca, Letters from 11 Stoic, trans. Robin Campbell (London: Penguin, 1969), Letter 65, p. 124. "I am too great," Seneca writes, "wns born to too great • destiny to bo my body's slave. So far ns I am concerned that body i• nothing more or l~ss than a fetter on my freedom. I plnco H squarely in the path of fortune, Jetting her expend her onslaught on it. not allowing any blow to get through it 10 my actual self. For that body ts all that is vulnerable about m• within this dwelling so liable to injury th~re Jives a spirit that is free" (123). S... Wyatt's sonnet, "Farewell, love, and all thy Jaws forever," in which the speaker invokes "Senec and Plato" as his guides in the passage from the bondage of the body to the liberty of the mind. Wyatt urged his son to s tudy Seneca's morol philosophy (Life and Leiters, p. 43). 3'1 . )iiigen Habermns, Knotvlcdge and H11111all l11tcrcsts, trans. j eremy). Shapiro (Boston: Beacon l'rc>s, 1971), p. 282. 32 Daniel )avitch, Pottry and Co11rlli11t.SS in Renai55nnct England (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1978), pp. t19-40. 33, W. ). Courthope, in Wyatt: The Critical Htrltagt, p. 104. 3<1. Ibid., pp. 44, 71, 1().1, 165. See, too, Patricia Thomson, Sir Tlromns Wyatt mrd His Backgra11111f (Stanford: Stanford University Press, L964), p. 270: "There is no reason why both his amorous and his satirical poetry • hould not be enjoyed. llut li J were called, ns in an examination, to admire one at the expense of the other, I should look askance at the love poetry, as Yeats did at his 'Stolen Child': 'that is not the poetry of insight and knowledge but the poetry of longing and complaint: And certainly th~ !~:!tires .ue Wyatt's greatest achievement in the poetry of insight ~nd ~nowk-dge. In the long run courtly wisdom was a richer sour.:e of in· spiratlon than courtly low." 35. l~,,ymond Williams, Co1mtry mrtl 1/11• City (New York: Oxford University Press, 1973), p. 54.

·n,.

280

Notet to

Png~s

135-140

36. Edward Hall, Chronic/• (l.ondon: J. johnson, 1808), p. 597. 37. In 1517 Brian, whom Cromwell nicknamed "vicar of hell," had married a wealthy widow (as he wns to do again later ln his career). He furthered the interests of his cousin, Anne Boleyn (cf. Wyatt, "A Spend· ing Hand," Une 63), then upon her fall, hastened to protect his position by

working zealously for her conviction. 38. Sir Thomas Wy1111 am! His B<~ckgroullll, p. 185. 39. W.vatt; The Crillctrl Heritage, p. 25. 41). Ibid., p. J
en~L"my

of ,;cnuinc poetic

activity, but one o f its essential ingredients. 43. C. S. Lewis, English Literature in lhe Sixteenll• Century, Excluding Dr•mo (Oxford: At the Clarendon Press, 1954), p. 230. TI1e influence of the court has been treated more seriously and probingly by Patricia Thomson, Sir Tltonras Wyall alld His Background, and by Raymond Southall, 71,. Courtly Maker (Oxford: Blackwell, 1964). 44. For what bizarre social ocpsion was Henry VIJI himself supplying material when he proudly displa)•ed a "tragedy" he had written on the subject of the ad ultery and fall of Anne Boleyn? 0- J. Scarisbrick, Htnry V1U [l.ondon: Penguin, 1968), p. 455). Was this meant to be a grand show of indifference? an aesthetic triun1ph over the pain and humiliation of betrayal? was it an attempt to make sense of the horrifying tum of events, to impose the coherence .md dignity of tragedy upon them? was it a demonstration of prescience and power, n magicnl i\ssertion that- he himself had "written" the whole history? Henry apparently told the bishop of Cru-lisle, to whom he showed his "tragedy," that he had long expeded the present tum of events. The tragedy has not survived, but the anecdote is haunting: it sugsests a far different and more d isturbing rnnge of possibilities for the f1Jnctions of court art thnn is suggested by after-dinner music. 45. Harrier, Canon, pp. 37-38, thinks it unlikely the poem is by WyatL I use the Devonshire manuS
Not<S to Pas« 141-HS associated with the Contine nl. in three quite distinct cultu ral fom1s: for More, h umnnism; for Tyndale, the Reionnntion; and for Wyatl, courtli .. ness. These cultures overlapp~ in important respects, but they were far more strikingly al each other's throats. This is most evident in the struggle between More und Tyndale, but they in tum were both set passionately ngn.inst the world in which Wyatt participated, Europe in what we may call, after Pocock~ its q uJntesscntiaJiy Machil.wcl)jan moment. 51. The nature of the relation between the prince·s body and the power of the state is, of course, extremely complex~ see Ern.s t H. Kantorowicz, Tl~e King's Two Bodits: A Stutly in Media.,a/ Political Thtology (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1957): "[tis evident that the doctrine of theology and canon Jaw, teaching lhat U1e Church .-.nd Christian society in general, was ~ 'cnrpus mysticum the head of \Vhich is Christ' has been transferred by the juri:;t:. !tuiH lht= Lheolo&ica.l :.phe..-e to thnt of the etato the head of which is the king" (pp. 15-16). See aJso Georg Rusche .,nd Otto 1Grchhcimer, Pmrishmtul and $o(inl S tmclt1re (New York: Columbia University Press, 1939); john Bdlamy, Crime and Public Order i11 Englnud ;, /Ire Later Middle Ages (t..ondon: Rout· ledge & Kegan Pau I, 1973); Foucault, Discipline nnd Pmrls/r. 52. Louis Dumont, from Mandeville to Marx: Tire Genesis a11d Triumph of Economic ldtology (Chicago: University ol Chicago Press, 1977), p. 35. 53 ...1 find no peace and all my war: is dont!," 11; the poem is a transln~ tion of Petrnrch, Rime cxxl
c:nusm' teJntion

Slresso et amo :sllrui." Onttmight add that in Wyatt's psalms, when King David turns his love to God, he does so by removing il from Bathsheba and abasing himself. Indeed if Renaissance diplomacy may be usefully invoked in a reading of the love lyrics, it has an equal bearing upon the penitential psnJms, which nrc penneated with 1-he spiriL or subi·Je, devious negotiations wiU'I an overpowering, imscible, a11d dangerous ally. 54. l t is doubtful thai this poem, which nppew:s in the Biage manuscript, is by Wyatt. 55. Quoted in Garrett Mattingly, Rertaissartu Diplomacy (Baltimore: J>enguin, 1964), p. 95. Compare Bemard d u Rosier's treatise on diplo· mac)', wTilten In 1436: "The business o f an ambassador is peace . ... An ambassador labors for the public good .... An ombassador is sacred because he acts for the general welfare" (quol~ in Mattingly, p. 42). 56. Quoted in Hugh Trevor-Roper, "The Intellectual World of Sir Thomas More," Americau Scholar 48 (1978/79), p. 28. 57. Life a111l Lcllers, p . 157. 58. Tot·tel, all too typically, wrecl<s tho effect of the poem by ent itli ng it, ''Complaint (or tJ1Je Jove unrequited ... 59. Ufe artd ulltrs, p. 135. 60. Mattingly, Rertaissnuu Otplomacy, p. 217 61. Ibid., p. 186. 62 . l'erhnp~ Charles crQa tcd lhe stir uh<>ul the wortl Nlmply lo nvol(l tolking about Brnncelo ur (though he did ht1 by th~ t!nd olllu.• convcrs.'l

281

Notes to

282

Past~

146-155

tion). Both Henry VIU and Cromwell chose to interpret the diJcussion of the word, however, ns an assertion o( precedence over both the E.ngUsh and French kings; ilt least they tried to use the emperor's words to sow djssension between l'lm and Frond$ I (Ufc ami Letters, p. 139). 63. The restraint extends even to the choice of"And" in line 11 instead of ''For'' as a lead·in lo the description o£ the collar. If For" would have presented the final lines as a clear explanation of the poet's situation; "And" invites the reader to draw his own conclusion. 6-1. See Richard Bemheimer, Wild Mtll m lilt Middle Agts: A Study ilr Art, Sentiment, n11d Otmo11ology (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1952); The Wllrt Man Wit/rill: All Image in Western Thon~rllt from tire Renaissance to Ronumticism, ed. Edward Dudley and Maximillian E. Nova!< (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsbmgh l' rcss, 1972). 65. Thus Pctr~rch's .,stanchi di mhar, non sazi~' is not bO much conlritdict~d A!f

conlinncd by Wy.,tt'c "Th«! vain t:ra_v:aiJ h:t.th

wo~ried

me

q)

sore/' while Petrarch's ''liberau becomes Wyatt's "'wild." 66. "The Mind in the Poem: Wyatt'< 'They Flee from Me,"' Studks in English Uteralurc 7 (1967), p. 4. 67. See also Michael McCanlos, "Love and Power in the Poetry of Sir Thomas Wyntt.'' Mod<m Language Quarterly 29 (1968), pp. 14HO. My view of Wy;~U is close to McCanJes•s, pnrticularly to h.i~ suggestion in_-a footno te that "il could be shown thai the overriding concem of all WyaH's poetry, including the Satires and the translation of the Psalms, is adjustment to a court and to :J society in which the drive to power is dominant'' (p. 148, n. 4). 68. Friedman, 'The Mind in the Poem," p. 9. 69. "A Letter on Art in Reply to Andre Daspre," in Lenin and Plulosophy a11d Otlrer Essays, trans. Ben Brewster (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1971), pp. 222-23. 70. Surrey, in Wyalt: Tlie Critical licritage, p. 31. 71. Life and l..ctters, pp. 198-99. Wyatt remarks, "Because I am wont sometime to r>p out an oath in an earnest talk, look how craftily they have put in an oath to the matter to make the matter seem mine." 72. Mason, Humanism und Poetry, pp. lCJG-91: "We have a number of poems in Wyott's own hand and some of these contain Wyatt's second and even third thoughts. These 'corrections,' taken by and large, show· that, as he worked over them, Wyatt made his lines more 'n1ssed,' 'difficul t.' and less like Surrey's o r the 'l'ottcl version." It is temptins, following the lead of Christoph~r Caudwell, to see Wyatt's poetic technique as a direct outcome of his social pos!tlon: "This 'individualism' of the bourgeois, which is born of the need to dissolve the restrictions of feudal society, causes a tremendous and ceaseless technical advance in production. In the same way it causes in poetry a tremendous and ceaseless adv.mce in technique" (I/111sion nnd Reality [New York: lnternation nl Publishers, )9371, p. 60). From this perspective, the seizure of Church land~ nnd treasure and tho development of 11ew poctlc ter.~­ niques nre both manifestations of uprlm itive accumulation,'' the earlies-t stag~ of capit111ism.

NotH to Pages 155-162

The dirficuhics inherent in such an interpretation outweigh the' advan·

tages. It lakes considenble sleight of hand to present Wyatt as a typical representative of the bourgeoisie, his acquisition of monastic lands does nol have.., dear relation to his political let alone poetic career# the invoc-a· lion of capiMiism in a description of the 1530s require• an oct of faith I personaUy shrink from. But the Marxist interpretation has the virtue of insisting lhnt Wyatt's life is not rigidly compartmentalized, insisting, as I have argued through this chapter, that poetry and power are deeply intertwined. I believe it is fundamentally correct to link the drive toward technicl\1experimentation and mastecy in Wyatt with his manifestatio n of iod ividual ily .,nd thls individuality in tum with fundamental historical and economic developments of the period: Henry VIII's aonbitions, the accumu lnt·ion o f weo1th, the d"'anges in 1'udo1· governme nt that moved Eng:l•·u'ld decisively nwny from (eudoliam t.md townrd lhe ruodem dlatc. Por an ilttcmpt to construct a Marxist reading o( Wyntl, sec R~ymond

Southall, Li1cra/01re mod 1/~e Rise of Capitalism, chap. 2. 73. "So Unwarely Was Never No Man Caught," 3-1. Chapter Four 1. Natalie Zemon Davis, "The Sacred and the Body Social in

Sixteenth-Century Lyon." 2. We ~hould alo;o remind ourselves that the fuU integration of public career and writing, such as we described in More or Wyatt, may be viewed in > figure like Ralegh, while the Tyndalean rituals o( disobedience and absolute submission to the Word continue in the Jives and deathft of nonconfonnisls LiKe Henry Barrow.

3. jacob Burckhardt, Tloe Ciuilizatio11 of tloe Rcomissn11ce ;, ltnly (l860). For critlcism of Burckhardt, see Wallate Ferguson, Tire Rcn11issnnce in His· loricnl Tloon,~lol (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1948), chaps. 7- Ll. 4. Sec Paul 0. Kristeller, Rennissance Tho~tglot: The Clnssic, Scllo/nstic, mrd Nomonotisl Strains (New York: Harper & Row n-tnrper 'rorc:hbooks], 1961); Hnnnn H. Cray, "Renaissance Humanism: The l'ursuit of Elo· quence," in Rennissnroce Essays, ed . Kristcller nnd PhilipP. Wiener (Ne;v York: li orper & Row [Harper Torc:hbooks], 1968). pp. 199-216. On relations between rhetoric and other fields, see Rosemond Tuvc, Eli:obethan mod Mtlapllysica/ lmaguy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1947); jerrold Seigel, Rltttoric and Philosoplty Ur Renaissanu Humnm$m (Prince-ton: Princeton University Press, 1968); Nancy S. Slreuver, 77rt Larrguagt of History i11 lht Rtnaossnnct (PrinCss, 1944). 5. On th<- theatricaHty of Renaissnnce culture, Set! Jean Duvignaud,

Saciologre tlu vcrsit.1irct~

1/of~tre:

de

P r~\nte,

Essar "" Its ombres collt-cliv••• (l'nrl•: Presses Uni· 1965).

6. Soc Norl::!crt Ell.,$, 7'/rc Civlll;r;ior!: l'r"t><'rS>, p. 73. " l'lw problem of be· hovio•· In r.oclciy had obviously token on rnoch ln\pPII•onro• loo I hi• pm'lod lhnt oven people of e•tr.>nrdlnory j,lf,•oo1 .oo~
283

Nole< Jo Pag" 16.1-166 concern themselves with it .... Erasmus" treatise [De civilitalt mornm

ptterlUrmr j com ~s at a time of socinl regrouping. It is the expression or the fruitful transitional period alter the loosening of the medieval social hierarchy and befo re the stabilizing of the modem o ne." 7. Tile Covrtc o{ Civ/11 Courlesic ... O ur of ltaliatr by S. R. G•"' (London, 1577). The lull title is revealing: "Fitly furnished with a pleasant port of stately phrases and pithy precepts: assembled in the behalf of all young Genllc men. and o thers, thnt a-rc desirous to f:rnme their behnvior ncc:ording to U1eir estates, at till times and in all companies: the reby to purchnse worthy praise of their inferiors, and estimation ~nd credit among their betters."

8. Stephen Cunzzo, The CivUe Couversntiorz, trans. George Petti~ and Bartholomew Young, ed. Sir Edward Sumvan, 2 vols. (Lo ndon: Con· stable, 1925), 1:86ff; Castiglione, 11rt Book of II" Co11rtier, trans. ChMies S. Singleto n (New York: Ancho r, t9:;9), p . 2~. 9. l'hiJi bert de Vie nne, Tl~e 1'/Jilosopher of llw Court, trans. George North (London, 1575), p. 13. See C. A. Mayer, "L'Honnele Homme. Mol i ~re and l'hilibcrl de Vienne's 'Philosophe de Court,"' MLR 46 (1951), pp. 196-217, and Pauline Smith, T1te APJH-Cimrtier Tremt iu Sixteenth CeufrmJ Frcuclt Uteralurt (Geneva: Drot, 1966). 10. Philibert's Court Philosopher commends to his readers "the under· standing of all Arts and libernl Sciences, whereby we becon1e right Cour· tiers" (p. 29). We m ust be skilled in music, d~ncing, >nd poetry; we should have '"some pretty sprinkled judgment in the commonplaces and practices of all the liberal sciences, chopped up in hotchpot together" out of wh ich we m\ly s tock our co nvcrsatjon; likewise, we should have "store of histories, to pass the time meet for any company" or, what is just as good, "certain sudden lies and inventions of our o'vn forging" (p. 30). 11. Cf. MachiaveUi, Tlte Prince: "if o ne COltld chnnge o ne's nature with time and circumstances, fortune would never change" (p. 93). For Proteus, see A. BartJettCiomatti, "Proteus Unbound: Some Versions of the Sea Cod in the Re naissance," in Tlte Discip,Jint5 of Criticism. cd. Peter Demctz, Thomas Greene, and l..owry N elson, Jr. (Ne w Haven: Yale Uni·

versity Press, 1968), pp. 437-75. 12. Daniel jovitch, "TI•e Pllilosopller at Court: A French Satire Mis· understood," Cmparntiue Literllluru 23 (1971), pp. 97-124. There is similar ambiguity about Robert Laneham's Le!ltr (1575), ed. f. J. Furnivall (New York: Duffield, 1907). 13. Q uoted In Stephen J. G rccnblall, Sir Walter Ralegh: Tile Rewussauce Man am/ His Rolts (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1973), p. 24. The official occasion for this effusion is a leller to Robert Ce<:il about bills for the coals of the Q ueen's G uards. 14. Quoted in Green blatt, Sir Waller Ralcgll, pp. 76-77. 15. Mtmoirs of the Uft of Robert Cary. ed. John, Eon of Corke and Orrery (London: R. & J. Dodsley, 1.759), p. 103. 16. "On the l'ortuoate Memory o( Elizabeth Queen ol England," trnns. james Spedding, in 11tc Works of Francis 8ncon, ed. Spcdding and Robert Ellis. 1~ vols. (London; Longman, 1857-74), 6:317.

Nolt'S lo Pdga 166·169

17. S<>C David M. Bergeron, frrglish Civic Pagtnrrtry, 1558-1642 (London: Ed word A mold, 1971); Frances A. Yates, !\strata: 'flte Imperial Theme w tlr< Sixtcrrrllr Cerrtnry (London: Routledge & T
20. The religious clement emerges most clearly in Elizabeth's con· servative stance in the Vcstarian Controversy. 21. Quoted in J. E. Neale, fliznbtll! I and Htr Pnrlrnmtnl$, 1584-1601. 2 vols. (London: jonathan Cape, 1965), 2:119. Referred to in text as "Neale." 22. Cod frey Goodman, llishop of Gloucester, 77re Court of King fames tlrt First, ed. J. S. Brewer, 2 vols. (London; R. Bentley, 1839), 1:163 (italics 1n i1'\e). We would do well to remember that in ·1588, with widespread leal' of assossination auempts, any royal appearance before a crowd wns n cour~geous

acL

23. Tht Qucms moi.slif< passage llrrouglr /Ire cirit of London to West· minsltr the day befort her c•ronacion [1559), ed. james M. Osborn (New !Iaven· Yale University PreS!!, 1%0), pp. 28, 46. On Queen Mary's sion, see Tl~e Orronicle of Queen fane and of Two Ytnrs of Queer! Mary, ed

•=•·

john G. Nichols, Camden Society, 48 (London: Royal Historical Society. 1850), p. 1'1: "'The Queen'fi Grace stayed at Allgatc Street before the stage wh~l'(! the poor children stood, and heard an oration that one made. bul she said nothing to them."

or th~rn

24. Yates, 1\sfrneo, con>n,ents, "The bejewelled nnd painted images of the Virgin Mary had been cast out of churches and monasteries but another bejeweUed and painted image was set up 01t court, and went in progress through the land for her worshippers to adore" (p. 79). 25. Ralcgh, "Now we h•ve present made," in Walter Oakeshott, flrr Qucerr and Ill< Poet (l.onclo!1! Fober, 1960), p. 205. See Roy Strong, Tile Cull of Elizn/rcllr and T/re Pqrlrnils of Qrtew £/itn~etlr I (Oxford: At the Clnrcn· do11 Press, 1963); E. C. Wi lso11, £ngU.nrl's £1hn (Cambridge, Mnss.: li M· vard University Press, 1939). The richest compilation of materials remains The Progresses and Publir ProC't~sions of Quttll EU:dl,ctll. ed. john Nichols, 3 vols. (London:). Nichol•, 1823). 26. Tire ILIIers of l'.prgr""'' of Sir fo!rn HlfnfiJifOfl ed Norman E McClun> (Phil.1delphia: University of Pcnnsylvonr., Pr''"• 1930), p. 122. 27. Tl~t• Book oft/,.. Ctwrlwr, p. 29-1 28. l..dh'rs, P· 125. ,.• write ftom

Wtllh.ll..~r olflll

.tfff•cllon," he romnl'l-a. (p.

126). 29 We mn)r nolc th1\l lu l5HQ (llw d1ll'-1 t1f lht• ltlllt~r}, l{,lll'f{h is JWrlMflll

Nolts to Pagd 170-!80

286

the supreme example in England of a gentleman not bom but fashioned. 30. Paul J. Alpers, Tht Poetry of "T11e Fatrie Quune" (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1967), and uHow to Read 71•r faeri~ Qllttne/' in Essays in Criticism 18 (1968), pp. 429-43. 3L C. S. Lewis, Tire Allcgon; of Love (New Yor·k; Oxford University Press [first published 19361), p. 332. Lewis's description o f the Bower has been discussed by Graham Hough, A Preface to "Tirt Faerie Q11eene" (New York; Norton. 1963). 32. Essays a111f lrrttodllcliOIIS (London: Macmillan & Co., 1961), p. 370. 33. N. S. Brooke, "C. 5. Lewis and Spenser: Nat•crc, Art and the Dower of Bliss." in Essential Articles for fire Slrufy of Edmrmd Spe11ser, cd. A. C. Hamilton (Hamden, Conn.: Archon Books. 19n), p. 28. Typical of much recent criticism is the obseevation by M. i'ouline Parker that the Bowcc's "pa inted golden ivy is used where the real plant could have grown and sho uld

h<:~v.:

g •own/' jndecd Lhc ivy ic "nUvo only wlth

th~

hnrrlb1e en·

ergy of corruption" (The Afltgory of"Tire Faerie Qllttne" (Oxford: Oaren· don, 1960], pp. 42, 152). 34. See especially Merritt Y. Hughes, "Spenser's Acrasia and the Cin:e ol the Renai•snnce," Jo•mtnl of lite History of Ideas 4 (1943), pp. 381-99; Robert M. Durling, "The Bower of Bliss and Armida's Palace,'' Compnm· live Literature 6 (1954), pp. 335-47; james Nohmberg. 1,,. AJtalogy of "Tire Foenc Queerrt" (Princeton: Pnnceton University Press, 1976), pp. 490-513. 35. Sigmund Freud, Civilization and Its Disconttrrls, trans. )ames Strnchey (New York: Norton, 1962), pp. 44, 51. 36. For modem version.s , see Samuel Z. Klausner, "A CoUocalion o l Concepts of Self-ConiTOI," in Tire Quest for Srlf-Conlrol: Clnssicnl Plrilosoplries and Scimtific Restarch, ed. Klausner (New York: Free Press, 1965), pp. 9-48. 37. Natalie Zemon Davi$,

101

Women's t-l istory• in Trtmsition: Tho Euro-

pean Case," Feminist Sl11dies 3 (1976), p. 89 and the refs. in note 31. 38. Guido CaJabresi and Philip Bobbilt, Tragic Oroicts (New York: Norton, 19'78), p. 195. 39. Clifford Ceertz, "Art os a CuJtural System," Modenr Language NoltS 9't (1976), pp. 147~99. 40. Christopher Columbus, founra/s n111/ 01/rer Documwls, p. 287. 41. Tasso, Cerusalemmt Lrbtrnta (book 15, stanzos 28ff.), relates the quest for the realm of Armida to Columbus's voyages. Spense(s Maleger carries IUTOWS "Such as the lwlians in their quiuers hide" (2.11 .21). Be mol Diaz del Castillo r-ecalls the first reaction to lhe sight of the Aztec copltol in T1rr Conqii<SI of New Spni11, trans.) . M. Cohen (Baltimore: Penguin, 1963), p. 214. On Spenser and the New World, see Roy Harvey Pearce, "Primitivi stic lde"s in the Fncrit Qutttrt, ., Jounral of English and Ctmumk Philology 45 (1945), pp. 139-51; A. Bartlell G iamatti, "Primitivism ""d the Pr·oc~ss of Civility in Spenser's Faerie Qucene," in l'lrsllmnges of llmt•rlrll: Tltt Impact of lltt New World on lire Oft/, ed. Fredi Chiappelli, 2 vols. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1976), 1:71-82. 42. Ralegh, Tire Discoutry of Cuiarw, ed. V. T. HMlow (London: Argonaut Pross, 1928), p. 42.

Nol~s

to

Pag~s

181-JBS

43. Peter Martyr, Tht Dteadts of the Nm1 World, trnns. Michaellok, Ln A Selection of Curious, Rnr~, and Early Voyages aud Histories of ltrlcrtstitJ,f Dlscovcms chiefly pub/is/red by Hak/uyt .•. {London: R. H . Evans and R. Priestly, 1812), p. 539. ·14 . Ibid ., p. 530. 45. Of t/to newe lnrrdcs, in The F'irst Three Errgli•lt Books 011 Amtrica, ed. Edward Arber {Binningham: Turnbull and Spc~l'>, 1885), p. xxvii; d Wilbcrfon:e Eames, "Description of a Wood Engraving 11lustrating the South American fndlans (1505)," Bulletin of tlrt Nttv York Public Ubrnry 26 (1922), pp. 755-60. 46. Eli>.nbeth Story Donno, ed., Alt Eliznbetha11 in !582: The Dinry of Rfcl:nrd Mndox, Fellow of All So11/s, Hakluyt Society, Second Series, No. 147 (London: Hakluyt Society, 1977), p. 183. 1'hc editor notes that "in the o lder mops t.hc mount.-.in ~ of lhc moon t'igurv ~'~range, e.xtendine ~rrn~~ the con tinent from Al>yssinia to t he Gulf of Guinea." 47. At 6.8.43, the cannibals who capture Serena consider raping her, but they are stopped by their priests. 48, Compare Redc:rossc who, when he dallies with Ouessa, is described as "Pourd out in loosnesse on the grassy grownd, I Both carelesse of his health, and of his fame" (1.7.7). 49. O n vagabonds, see Pr.1nk Aydelotte, Eliznbethau Rogues and Va.~· nbouds (London: Frank Cnss & Co., 1913). 50. Martyr, Decodes. p. 628. O.n charges of idleness, see Edmund S. Morgan, American Slavery, American Freedom: Tltt Ordeal of Colonial Vir· ginin (New York: Norton, 1915). 51. Cortes "had ordered that all houses should be pulled down and burnt and the bridged channels filled up; and what he gained each day was t hus consolidated. He sent an o rder to Pedro de Alvarado to be sure that we never crossed n bridge or gap in the causeway without first blocking it up, and to pull down and bum every house" {Bernal Oiaz, Conq11cs1, p. 369). 52. I om indebted here to Richard Slotkin, Rcgtlltralioll lhrouglt Vlo· /enu: Tht Mytlrology of lite American Frontitr, 1600-!860 (Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan University Press, 1973). 53. Bernal Diaz, Conq:ust, p. 60. 54. A Vtttv of tlte Pres.,tt State of h·eland, ed. W. 1... Rem.;ck (Oxford: Cl,,cndon, 1970), pp. 48, M, 65. Our primary purpose is to explore as· pccts of Eliznbetlmn polioy in Ireland as a reitcrnl ion of a characterist lc cultural pallem rather t·han to detail U1e direct influence of Ireland upon ll:r Faerie Queene; for the laller, see M. M. Gray, ...n , e Influence of Spen•er's Irish Experiences on Tlte Faerit Quunc," Review of Engflsl• Studits 6 (1930), pp. 413-28; Pauline Henley, Sptmtr lrr Ireland (Folcroft, l'o.: Folcroft Press. 1920). 55. Ibid .. p. 67. C(. Loui!i-ft•ltn Calvet, Lm,r.:mstrtlttt tl ,·olo,ialisme: Prtit trnltl liv slottoplwgle (!'oris: P.1yut, t974) ,md Stcph•n ), Greenblatt, ''Lcnrnlng to Cu.rsc: Aspt!C'1 4• 11f l,ingulstlc Culnnlulillm In th~ Sb:tcenth C'<•nhu'y," In f'irstlrtrttgt•s nft)nll'rfCtt 2:561 lltl, Sh. Vti'UI, J"P· 67-68 Chlldn••, "dr.Hvt•th 'ntu tlwrnHt•lvt•" tos.;cthcr with

287

288

Nott~s

to Pagtts 185-189

thcir suck, even the nature and disposition of their nurses, for the mind followeth much the tempernture of the body; and also the words are the i mage of the mind, so as they proceeding from the mjnd, the mind must be needs effected with the words" (p. 68). 57. Yeats, Essays and lntroductioiiS, p. Jn. 58. R. Dudley Edwards, /relmtd i11 the Age of the Tudors: The DtstmcttOII of Hibw ro·Normmt Civiliznlio11 (London: Croom Helm, '1977); Nlcholns P. Canny, Tltt ElizabellulJt Conquost of lrela11d: A l'allem Estoblislted, 1565- 76 (Hassocks, Sussex: Harvester Press, 1976); David Beers Qumn, 17t< Eliznbutlrans arrd tire Trislt (Ithaca: CorneU University Press, 1966). For an apologetic account of Spenser's involvement, see Pauline J'renley, Spensu in lrtl•11d; for an enigmatic indication of Spenser's personal profit from the Smcnv-ick massncre. see Anna Maria Crinb, <~La Relaz.ionc 83rducdUhaldinl sull'lmpresa d'lrla.nda (1579-1581)," £rtglfsll Misccllmty 19 (1968), pp.339-67. 59. AleJCander C. Judson, The Uft of Edmtmd Spettstr (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1945), pp. 107-8. 60. Ibid., p. 116. The reference to the " fcnnes of Allan" in 2.9.16 in· dicates that it was written after Spenser acquired New Abbey, n ruined

Franciscan friary in County Kildare, in 1582 (see Josephine Waters Ben· nett, Tire Evolrtlion of "'flte Fnerio Queme" [Chicago: Univel'Oity qf Chicngo Press, 1942), p . 13ln .). 61. It has been frequently noted that Maleger and his band resemble accounts in Spenser's v;rw and in other reports on Ireland of Irish kerns. 62. We should perhaps note in this connecHon that Guyon lenvcs the Bower immediotely after its destruction: "Dut let vs hence depart/' says the Palmer, "whUest wether serues and wind" (2.12.87).

63. Quoted in Philip Hughes, Tl~e Refonnatiou rn England, 3 vols. (New York: Mncmitlnn, 1954), 3:408. 64. john Venn, John Caius (Cambridge : C.mbridgc Unjversity Press, 1910), p. 37. In a letter of the vice-chancellor, Dr. Byng, to the chancellor, Lord Burghley, dated 14 December 1sn, the "trumpery" is catalogued "vestments, nlbcs, tunicles, s-toleN, moniclcs, corpoms clothes, wHh the pix and sindon, and canopie, besides ho ly water stoppes, with sprinkles, pax, sensars, superaltaries, tables of idoUes, masse bookcs, portuises, and graillcs, with ot·her such $tuife as might have (urnished divers massers at one instant." The Latin account is fi'Oin John Caius, Tile Amurls ofCcmville

and Caius Colltgt, cd.John Venn, Cambridge Antiquarian Society Octavo Series no. 40 (Cambridge, 1904), p. 185. Caius adds that iconoclasts used hammers to smash certain objects. 65. Q uoted in john Phillips, Tire Reforrnation oflmnges: Dcstnrction of Arl itt England, !535-1660 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1973), p. 80. 66. Keith Thomas, R(ligion mrd lha Decline of Magic (London: Wcidcn· feld and Nicolson, 1971 ), p. 69. 67. Tht Book of tht Courlicr, trans. Singleton, p. 43. On spruzaturo, "''" Wayne A. Rebhom, Courtly Perf(lrmtmces: Mn:;kiug ami F£slivil.'l in Caslix·

Notts ro Pages 190-194

289

liour's "Book of tile Courtitr" (O•·cntice-Hall , 1975). pp. '1 0~33. We may observe that Spenser seems on occasion to invoke posi .. tive versions of self-concealing 01rt:

Then came the Bride, the louely Metlua came, Clad in a veslure of vnknowen geare~ And vncouth fashion, yet her well be<:ame; That seem'd like silucr, sprinckled hcxc and theare With glittering spongs, thaldidlikc starrcs nppeare, And wau'd vpon, like \•hllcr Chamelot, ' l'o h ide the metall, which yet cuery where Bowtayd it self~. to

'•"I mPn plninPiy wnt,

It was no mortall workc, that seem'd and yet was not. (4.11.45)

Spenser's suspicions of aesthetic concealment can be allayed by its use in a virtuous context, but we mighl also note that in this instance the device both hides and does not hide its ow-n artifice. The nrt is designed to seem nntural and yet at the same time to let men plnlnly know, through a kind of "sl.!lf·betrayal," that it is not natural. For conOicti11g arguments on I he.

stntus of artiJice in Spenser, see C. S. Lewis, 1'/Jc Allegory of Love, pp. 326-33, and Hans P. Cuth, "Allegorical Implications of Artifice in Spenser's Fauit Quwrt," Publication of lilt Modtnl umguagt Association 76 (1961), pp. 474-79. 69. Keith Thomas, R.tigion aud the Decline of Magic, p. 275. 70. Sec Gershom Scholcm, Sabbctai Sevi (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1973). 71. J. H. Elliott, Tltc 0/r/ World aud U1e New, 1492-1650 (Cambridge: Cnm bl'idg• Un iversily Press, '1970). 72. Pau I Alpers, "Narr.~tion in Tltt Fact·ic Quuuc," Euglisll Lilernry His· lary 44 (1977}, p. 27. Chapter Five 1. "The voyage set out by the right hnnour,,blc the Earle or Cumber· lond, in the yere 1586 .... Written by M. John Sarrocoll marchanl in the snme voyage," in Richard Hakluyt, ed., 1'/tc Priucipnl Nn·vigatious, Voy· ages. 'J'raffiques & Discoverl.:s of tile Englisll Natlou, 12 vols. (Glasgow: James MacLchose & Sons, 1903-5), 11:206-7. On the Bngiish in Sien·a Leone prior to this voyage, sec P. E. H. liair, ~~Protestants as Pirn1cs1 Slavers, and Proto-missionaries: Sierra L<.>one 1568 .>nd 1582," Joumal of £crltsiaSiical History 21 (1970), pp. 203-24. On the region in this period, oee Waltcx Rodney, A Hi•tory of tile Upptr Gumta Coast, 1545-1800 (Oxford: At the Clarendon Pre-., 1970) 2. AI the opel'ling o( Tttmlmr/alur lhcre I,; a wry rt.1mlndcr of how CXOI IC l.iuropo would appcn 1· ton Pc1~it.n~ "GrifHJJI'~ wlhtl(' thl• S~n" darer. sc01rc:c •lppcnr. f for fa-eez.ins lnt.'ICOtf4 nnd congf'rtl•·tl n1ftl" (I .,.,,, 1.1.1 8 JC)),

Notes to

Pog~s

195-197

Quotations of Mntlowe's plays with the exception of Doctor Faustus, arc modernized from The Works of Cllristoplrcr Marlowe, cd. C. F. Tucker Brooke (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1910). Quotations of Doctor Faustus are modernized from the A text of W. W. Greg's Marlowe's "Doctor Fa .. stus" 1604-1616: Para/It/ T"rt• (Oxford: At the Clarendon P ress, 1950). My own rCJding of the play supports recent arguments for the SUpldivid11al a>1d th~ Cosmos in Renaissauct Pili· losophy, trans. Mario Domand.i (New York: Barnes & Noble, 1963), esp. chap. 1, "Nicholas Cusanus." ln Doctor Faustus Marlowe plays upon the residual rcligious symbolism of the Elizabethan stage (though this Is more true of the 8 text than the A text). but he docs so only to subvert it, locating hell psychologically rather Ihan spatially. On maps in Morlowe, see Ethel Seaton, "Marlowe's Map," Essnys and $tmlies by Membus of tire English Association 10 (1924), pp. 13-35; Donald K. Anderson, Jr., "Tamburlaine'• 'Perpend icular' and the T-in-Q Mnps," Notes and Querits 21 (1974), pp. 284-86. 4. Here, as elsewhere in my discussion ol Doctor Faustus, t am indebted to conversalions wlth Edward Snow and to his cssny, "Marlowe's Doctor Fauslfl.s and the Ends of Desire/' in Two Reuaissauce Mylluuakers: Chri$l· opl1er Marlowe nnrl Be11 /OIISOTI, cd. Alvin B. Koman (Baltimore: John• Hopkins University Press, 1977), pp. 70-110. 5. The ogreernent depends, in part, on the pun on Ayell (the latter is tht• reading of the A and B texts). "Experient1!" may ruso have the sense ol "experiment," ~-.s if F-austus's whole future were il t~st o£ the proposition IIMt hell is a fable. 6. Sec R1chard Madox's Diary for H December 1582: "Although th•· soldiers nrc strong and suff)ciently courageous, they are utterly inepL>t t,..ding and the c•plodng of unknown lands. Because, indeed, bein11 always among enemies nnd in • hostile place, they believe they are [here) exposed to U1e uf\ual dangers; for this reason they can never enter i n Ul dealings with others without suspicion. Suspicion, however, breedtt

hatred and hatred open war, and thus those they ought to attract and nllach to themselves by human klndness and clemency, they frighten oft by impudence and malice, and in this way all low perishes. Especially because of ignomncc of languages, each ,. a barb.>rian to the other" (Au

Notts to Psgrs 197-200

£/iznl1tllran in 1582, ed. Donno, p. 186). In the light of this passage, perhaps the odd conjunction of odmiration and destructiveness in Snrracoll's account may be trnc~d to the dlfferencc between the merchnnes vieW of the town and t.hc view (and consequent ocHons) of the soldiers who were wilh him. 7. Snow, "Marlowe's Doctor Fnu.slus ill1d the Ends of Desire," p. 101. 8. The futility of naming dties after oneself was a commonplace in the period; see, for example, Ralegh's Hislory of tlrt World (161
9. The cutting edge of this career was the conquest of the New World where fertile lnnds, rich mines, and w hole peoples were consumed in a lew generations. Jt is eslio1.1ted that the Indian population of New Spain (Mexico) feU from approximately 11 million in 1519 to approximately 1.5 million in 1650, and there are similarly horrifying 6gures for Brazil . In 1583 a jesuit, Jose de Anchiet'\, observed of the latter that "the number of people used up in this place from twenty years ago until now seems a thing not to be believed" (quoted in lmmi1J1uel Wallerstein, Thr Modrrn World·Sy$/em [New YorK: Academic Press, 1974), 80, n. 75); appropriately, it Is on this great enterprise (among others) that the dying Tomburlaine, with in(inite pathos, reflects.

10. B. E. Evans-Pritchard, Tlr< Nrttr (Oxford: At the Clarendon Press, 1940), p. 103; quoted in E. P. l11ompson, "Time, Work-Discipline, and

Industrial Capitalism," Past otrd Prtsmt 38 (1967), p. 96. 11. See Keith Thomas, Rtligion and lht Dulinr of Mogic (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1971), p. 621; likewise. Christopher HiD, So<:itly o11d Prmlamsrn in Pre-Rrvolutio11ary E11glarrd, 2d cd. (New York: Schockcn, 1967), chap. 5. 12. Sec Natalie Zernon Davis, "Some Tasks and Themes in the Study of Populnr Religion," in T!Jc Purs11il of Holiness iu tate M;:dieval and Reunis· sa tree Religio11, eds. Charles Trinka us and Hciko A. Obennan (Lciden: E. J. Brill, 1974), pp. 307-.36. I am oiso indebted to Professor Davis's essay, "Ghosts, Kin and Progeny: Some Feotures of Fomily Life in Early Modem Fronce." Datdalrrs 106 (1977), pp 87-114. 13. On time in Dodor Faustu~~ sec Max Blul'stonc. ,.Ad~ptive Time tn Doctor ftulstus," in From Stnrv to SiC!Nt! T11r Dr~~m,,ti( t\tlal'latio" of Pro5t' r-irtlou ;,, the P~riotf of Sltakt1.'iptttrt' mul Jus Cmrlt'IIIJIOrrrrlt•s (Sttul~t:s in Euglf81r Wrtlllur<·. n. 70) (The tl nguc: Mcouton, 1974), I'P· 2<14 52; IJnvid Knuln,

291

292

Nolf< to Pagts 201-204

"Time and the Timeless in Everyman and Dr. Faustus," Colltge Englislt 22 (1960), pp. 9-14. 14. C. L. Barber, '"The form of Faustus' fortunes good or bad,'" Tulane Drama &view 8 (1964), p. 99. 15. For a typical expression of this view, see Ralegh's History: "The same just God who liveth and govemeth all things fo r ever, doth in these our lim~s give victory, courage and discourage, raise and thro\Y down Kings, Estates, Cities, and Nations, for the same offences which were committed of o ld, and are cornmitted in lhe pres<mt: for w hich reason in these and other the afflictions of lsratl, illways t'he causes are set down, that they might be as precedents to succeeding ages" (U, xix, 3, pp. ~9). 16. Sc>c, for example, the Edwnrdian proclamntions: #287 nnd #313, in Tudor RDynl Proc/amnlions, 1:393-403, 432-33. 17. This characterization of the period's legal procedure is Christopher Hill's: ''The Many-11cndcct Monster In t..1lc Tutlu• ond Corly Stuart Political Thinking," in From l11e Relfaissance to llle Carmter-Refomtalion: Essays irr Honor of Carr
293

Notts to P•gN205-liO

tion of the relation between Morx's essay and Marlowe's play, see Stephen j. Grecnblott, "Marlowe, Marx, •nd Anti-Semitism," Critical Inquiry 5 (1978), pp. 291-307. 24. G. K. Hunter, "The Theology of Marlowe's '1'/rt Jew of Malta," Jour· nal of tl~e Warburg and Cotulnuld lru;lilule 27 (19M), p. 236. 25. Shylock attempts to make thib • similarly centro! issue in lhe trinl scene, but, os we might expect, the attempt fails (Mcrcltanl of Vtnict, 4.1.90-100). 26. For a modem ron.finnation of such a view, see Frederic C. lane, Vmict and History (Baltimore: johns Hopkins University Press, 1966). 27. For the jew as devll, sec joshua Trachtenberg, Tilt Devil and tire /ews: Tlte Medieval Concepllon of the few and Its Rclntiotr to Modem Antisemitism (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1943). 26. rn 0 :!ICOSC, MN"Iowe usea hio hero vi.lbim:: .l.C G(\tirict EigutO$! ho hi\iii them expose the viciousness of the world and then reveals lhe extent to which they are no different from what they attack. RecaU Duke Senior to Jaques: Mos mischievous foul sin, in chiding sin, For thou thyself host been a libertine, As sensual as lhe brutish sting itself; And all th'embossed sores and headed evllR That thou with license of free foot hast caught, Wouldst thou disgorge into the general world. (tis You Uke If, 2.7 .~)

29. Sec Georg luk~~. History and Closs Con$CiOusness, trans. Rodney Livingstone (Cambridge, MnS>.: MIT Press, 1971), p. 15. The founlainhetld o£ all modem speculntion Jlong these lines i~ Vico's Ne7.t.' Scienrc. 30. Eigillwulr Brumnire, In TIJC Marx-Engels Reatler, ed. Robert C. Tucker (New York: Norton, 1972), p. 437. 31. See C. L. BarbeJ, "'TI·w form of Faustus' fortunes good or bad,'u esp. p. 107. This does not, however, establish Holy Communion as the healthy, proper end that Faustus should be pursuing; on the contrary, Marlowe may hove regarded Holy Communion as itself perverse. There are, in Dodor Fnushrs and throughout Marlowe's works, the el.-ments of a radical critique of Christianity, a critique similar to Lhnt made with suicidal dar· in~; In 1584 by Giordano Brun<)'s Expul$ion of lite 1'rimnplrnnt Beast (Lo spncclo de In bestirrtrionfnute). I lerc, in a scarcely veiled satirical allegory of Ihe life of Christ.. the Greek t;ods, sensing a wanins; o( their reputation on cnrth, decide to send Orion 10 restore their credit among men. This Orion knows how to perfom1 miracles. and .. can walk over the waves of the sea. without ~inking, \Vithout welting his feet, and with this, consequontly. will be oble to perform many other f'ine acts or kindnc.,~. Let us send htm ~mHmg men, and let u ~ see to it that ht."' givt• them to undel'."tlolllt-1 .til th.11 I \'lilnt .md like them to und..rst.mtl: th~oll whlh• 1~ bl.u:k, th,1t the i~ ~l!t!lt1f\ CX·

humlin Intellect, thrm1Jih whkh they 'lt.•urn to so,• best, hllnd i'ICSS, o1nd tJmllholl whh.•h tiCn-,nltnfi h,,l tl'olNUn

294

Nolr$ to PtJgts 210-275

ceUent, good, and very good, is vile, criminal, and e~trcmely bad. I wont them to understand that Nature is a whorish prostitute, U1at natural law is ribnldry, thnt Nnh.trc and Divinity cannot concur in one and the same good end, and that

the justice of the one is not subordinate to the justice of the other, but that they arc controries, as ore shadows and light .... With this lle [Orion] will persuade them that philosophy, all contemplation, and all magic that could make them simllac to us, are nothing but follies, that every heroic act is only cowardice, 4lnd lhat ignorance is 111e best scier'lce in the world been use it is acquired without labor and docs not cause the mind to be affected by melancholy. (Exl'u/siou, trans. and cd. by Arth ur D. lmerti [New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1964], pp. 255--56.) 32. On the materialism ot pe:asana cuhurc:, sec Carlo

c; l'~7.hurg,

II for-

mllggio ( i vcnui: l1 rosmo d; un mugunio dtl '500 (Torino: Einaudi. 1976). 33. William !Jacket, quoted in Richard Bauckham, T11dor Apocnl)/pse [Courtenay Library ol Reformation Classics SJ (Sutton Courtenay Press, 1978), p. 203. 34 . See C. L Barber, "The Family in Shakespeare's Development: The Tragedy of the Sacred," a paper delivered at the English Institute, September, 1976; also Peter Laslett, Tire World Wt HnPt Losl (New York: Scribner's, 1965). 35. Tl~e City of God, trans. Henry Bcuenson (London: Penguin, 1972), II, Jdi, 26, p. 506. See Georges Poulet, Studies itl Huma11 Time, trans. Elliott Coleman (Baltimore: johns Hopkins University Press, 1956), p. 19. 36. Cf. Julian Pitt-Rivers, "Honour and Social Status": "The victor in any competition for honour finds his reputalion enhanced by the humil i· ation of the vanq uished .... It was believed at one time in Italy by the common people that one who gave on insult thereby took to himself the reputation o£ which he deprived lhe other. The Church of England hymn puts the pont succinctly: Conquering King• thoi r titles take From the foes they captive make" (In J. C. Pcristi,my, ed,. Ho11our oml Sltnme, p. 24.) 37. The Vulgate is worth quoting for its subtle play on cons11mmo. "Postet1 sciens lesus quia omnia consummata

~Wlt,

ut consumrnarctur

Scriptura, ruxit: Sitio. Vas l!rgo erat positum accto plenum; illi autcm sponginm plenam ace[o hyssopo circumponentes obtulcru.nt ori elus. Cum ergo ao:episset lesus acetum, dixit, Conswnmntum c.st. Et inclinuto capite, tr.adidil spiriturn. 11 38. See Mario Untersteiner, Til~ Sophists, trans. Kathleen Freemon

(Oxford: Blackwell, WS-4), p , 106. Untersteinds account of the placo of tragedy in Corgi as has considerable resonance for a student of Marlowe II Being and knowledge are tragic, life will be tr.lgic The most universal form of art wW l>e that w hich by mcnns ol "docep· lion'' cnn ~~ivc knowl~dgc of the lr..,gic element revealt.od by

NottS to P11ges 21~218

ontology nnd epistemology. The J'l'rlect fonn of art will be, therefore, tr.Jgctionally communicable: the effect of this condltional knowledge of the unknowable and of this partial communication of the in· communicable is pleasure. (Pp. 187-88) 39. Kathleen Freeman, A11cilln to the Pre-Socratic Philo5opil
tr.Jgedy "solves the most difficult problem of Platonism: thnt of discovering whether Individual things have their own Idea and their own Essence. And the reply which it gives reverses the order in which the question is put, since it shows thnt il i.s only when what is jndividuaJlhnt is to say, n particular livi r1g individual-is carried to its final limits and possibilities that lt conforms to the Idea and begins really to exist." (Thr Hiddtn God, tr.>ns. Philip Thody [london: Routlc
43. Gilles Deleuze, Diffhmce et ripililio11 (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1968), p. 96. The idea seems to originate with Hume. 44. In the very moment of Tamburlnlne's triumph, a gnp is opened between the self and its obJect, indeed n gap within both self and object . Similarly, when one of his odmircrs says that Tamburlainc is " In every part proportioned like the man, I Should make the world subdued to Tamburlni11c'' (1 Tam 2.1.483-84), his words inadvertently touch off a vertiginous series of repetitions ond differences. 45. Richar:d ~looker, Of thr lAws of Ecclesinstical Polity, 2 vols. (London: j. M. Dent [Everyman's Library], t907), 1:1, xi, •l, PP• 257-58: For man doth not seem to rest satisfied, either with fruition of that wherewith his life Lc; preserved. or with pcrfom1ance of such actions as advance him most deservedly in estimation; but doth further covet, yea oftentimes milnifestly pursue with grc~t sedulity nnd eamestncs.s, thot whkh c.lni,Ol stnnd him

in any stead for vital use; that which exceedeth the reoch of sense; ye\1 somcwhnt o1bovc the CJf'~lchy of teliSOn1 somewhat

divine and benvcnly, which with hidden ••xult.1tion II .-.th~r :;.oml'\Yholl il ">t.-t'kt•lh. ,1nd what thot Is directly It knowoth nc>t, y11t •••ry lnh•nllv~ rrc thereof doth so incite it. th.11 nil other ~now11 dclllthl• nntl

surmiseth than ronc('aveth;

295

Nolu lo Pagu 218--7..24

pleasures arc laid nside, they give place to the search of this but only suspected desire.. . . For although the beauties, richc_s, honours, sciences, virtues, and perfections of all men Jiving, were in the present possession of one; yN somewhat beyond and above all this there would still be sought and earnestly thirsted for. Giordano Bruno, Tire Heroic Frct~zies, trans. Paul £!. Memo, j r., University of North Carolina Studies in Romance languages and Litemtures, no. 50 (1964}, pp. "128-29: Whatever species is represented to the intellect and comprehended by the will, the intelled concludes there is another species above it, n greate1· and tllill gTeater one, and con ~ sequcntly it is always impelled toward new motion and abstraction in a ccrtilln f;~shion. For it ever realizes that everything ll

pos~cl:isc:t i& il

limited thing which for that n"':tson

cannot be sufficient in itse1f, good in itself, or beautiluJ in itself, because the limited thing is not the universe and is not the absolute entity, but js contrncted to this nature, this species or this form represented to the intellect and presented to the soul. As a n>sult, from that beautiful which is comprehended, and therefore limited, ond consequently beautiful by participation, the intellect progresses toward lhal which is truly beaut ilul without limit or circumspection whatsoever.

There are strikingly sin,ilnr passages in Cusa nnd Ficino. The philosophical origins of all these e><pressions are to be found In :Plato and Augustine.

46. Kenneth Burke, Tl1t Rhetoric of Religio11 (Berkeley: Universily of California Press, 1961), p. 69. 47. Erich Auerbach, Mimesis, trans. Willnrd R Trask (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1968 ed.), p. 311. The relevance of this passage to lhe present context was suggested to me by my colleague Paul Alpers. 48. Paul Val~ry. Leo11ardo Poe Mallann~, trans. Malcolm Cowley and james R. l-awler (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1972) (vol. 8 of T/11: Co/lecterl Works of Paul VaMry, ed, j ackson Mathews, Bollingen Series 45], p. 93. Chapter Six 1. On the feudal revivol, see Arthur B. Ferguson, 17tt Indian Summtr of c11glisli Cilivalry (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1960), Frances A. Yat
2'17

Notrs to Pages 224-231

chapter 5, note 2, above. For the par>llcls between Spenser and Marlowe, sec also Ot~rlcs Crawford, "Edmund Spenser, 'l..ocrine,' and 'SeUmus,"' Notts and Qutrits (9th ser.) 7 {1901), pp. 61~, 101-3, 14244, 2~5, 261-63, 324-25, 384-86. 4. O>nicl Lerner, Tile Pnssi11g ofTrntlitioHal Society: Modentizing lite Middl< EnS/ (New York: Free l'ress, 1958; rev. ed. 1964), p. 49. 5. The figures are from Sherburne Cook and Woodrow W. Borah, Essays in Population History: MtKico and tltt Caribb.an {Berkeley: University of Califomj• l'ress, 1971), pp. 376411. 6. Peter Martyr (Pietro Mnrtire d' Anghiera), Do Orl>e Novo, trans. !Ill. Lok, p. 623. The Seventh Decade was finis hed in the m iddle of 1525. On l'eter Martyr, see Henry R. Wagner, "Peter Martyr and ffis Works," Pro· «
{New York: Putnam's, '1.912). 7. Jt is the essence or spreuatura to create the impresslon of a spontane· ous improvisation by means of careful rehearsals. Similarly, the early English dramo often s trove for this eHed; see, for example, Fulgens mtd tucres where lhe seeming ly incidental conversation of n Au and

uu•~

is

fully scripted. 8. Immanuel Wallerstein, rite Modrm World System. 9. Roy Strong, 17~e C11/t of £1izDbtth: £1iubelltnn Portraihtrt and Pagean· try, p. 153. 'lO, As an CXi!mple o( the operation o£ dispJacemcnl in the visual arts, one may consider BreughC!I's f.hrist Bcnrb1g U1e Cross, where the mourning

figures from Van derWcydcn's great Desceut from !Itt Cross arc pushed out to the margin of the canv..- and the swirling, festive crowd all but obscures Christ. Similarly, for absorption we ntay invoke Durer's self· portrait of 1500, where the rigidly frontolized, vertict~lized, hierntic figtrre has taken into itself the Chdst Pantocrntor.

11. Joel B. Altman, Tltc T11dor Play of Mi11d. See also jackson I. Cope, Tlte nltaltr and lilt Drtam: From Mdaphor lo Fon11 in Rtrtaissanct Drama (Bal·

timore; The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1973), esp. chaps. 4-6. Cope nrg-ues brillianlly for the c~nt ral importance of improvisation in the drama of the Renals5nnce, but for hi m improvisaUon is in the selVice finally of"a real coherence" of "the eternal order'' or the myths of renewal (p. 210}. One passes, by means or an apparent randomness, c1 chaotic: flux, to a buried but nll·powerful foml. [mprovisation is the mask of providence, Cope concludes h is study with a discussion of Tlte Tcmpes/ as a "mythic play'' of nacur,,l r~surrection itnd Chrlsth\1'1 doctrine. I would orgue that the final effect of improvisation in Shakespeare is the reverse: we always begin with a notion of the incscapability of form, a sc:nsc that there are no surprises, thilt norrativc triumphs over the appnn:nt d is· t'upHons, lhot even tho disruptions servc nnrrnllvc by confirming the presence of the artist Ml a version of llw pll!.!tl'11CC of God. And through improvjsation we pass, only partially ,,nd lt'nt.,hvt•ly, to a ~·n~c thnl in

''"d

the very actq of homage to th(• gre.1t rorn~~tll'itrurhm.''t, tJwrc Optln up small

Notes lo Pogts 231-236 but constant glimpses of the JimHations of those structur~s, of their insecurities, of the possibility of their collapse. 12. Confutation, 8:1, pp. 90-92. My attention was drawn to this passage by Professor louis l . Mart% who discussed it in a lecnue at the Folger conference "Thomas More: The Man and His Age.'' On More's "art of improvisationu see Martz. "The Tower Works/' in St. Thomas Mort: Action and CtmlemplaHon, pp. 63-65. 13. Richnrd III virtually dedores htmself an improviser: "I clothe my naked villainy I With odd old ends stol'n forth of holy wri ~· (1.3.335-36). He gives n fine demonstration of his agility when he turns Matgaret's curse back on hersclf. Behind thi s Irick perhaps is the fact that there were in the popular culture of the Renaissonce formulaic curses and satirical jigs into which Any names could be fitted; see Charles Read 13askcrvill, TlrP F.liznbtllran fix and Rela~d Son,~ Drama (Chicago: University ol Chicago Press, 1929), pp. 66-67. 14. All citations of Othtllo are to the Arden edition, ed. M. R. Ridley (Cambridge, Mass.: 1 lnrvard University Press, 1958). logo's d escription of Cnssio, "a Iinder out of occasions" (2.1.24~1), is a fnr more apt descrip· lion or himself as an improviser. 15. This interpretation is atgued powerfully in an unpublished essay, "On the Language of Sexual Pothology in Ollie/to,'' by Edward Snow of George Mason University. A similar c:ase is mnde by Arthurl
Nolos 10

Pnges 236-237

l99

as you are Roderigo, I Were I the Moor, I would not be lago." One imagines that Rodcrigo would unconsciously touch himself ot this point to make sure that he is Rodcriso. !ago is a master of the vertiginous confounding of self and other, being and seeming: Men s hould be what they seem, O r those thot be not, would they might seem none. (Dl, iii, 13()...31) He's that he is; I may not breathe my censure, What he might be, if, 115 he might, he is not, l would to he~ven he were! (IV, i,

267-~\9}

20. See, for example, Thcodor Lipps: The specific characteristic of esthetic pleasure has now been defined. It consists in this: that it is the enjoyment of an object, which however, so far as it is the object of errjoymerll, is not an object, but myself. Or, it is the enjoyment of the ego, which however, so fo r as it is esthetically enjoyetl, Is not myself but objective. Now. all this is included in the concept empathy. It constitutes the very meaning of this concept . Empathy is the fact here established, that the object is myself and by th e very same token litis self of mine is the object. Empathy Is the fact that the antithesis between myself and the object disappears, or rather does not yet exist. ("Empathy, Inner lmitation, and Sense-Feelings,'' in A Modem /look of Esthetics, eel. Melvin Rader [New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1960), p. 376.) To establish this "fact," Lipps must posit a wholly esthetic dimension and what he calls an " ideal," as opposed too "practical" self. In 01/~tflo there is no realm of the purely esthetic, no space defined by the intersection of negative capability and the willing suspension of disbelief, and no separation or an '"ideal .. from a "pmctical" self. 21. To complicnte matters fu rther, both declarations occur in a cunning performance for his dupe Roderigo; that is, logo is saying what he presumes Roderigo w~nts to believe. 22. Thus !ago invokes henven as the judge of his self-interested hypocrisy, for self and hllorast as s table entities both rely ultlmntely upon an absolute Being. 23. Elsewhere too, Othello speaks as if aware of himself as a character: "Were it my cue to fig ht," he tells the incensed Brabantio and his own followers, "I should have known it, I Without a prompter" (1.2.83-84). His acceptance of the commiS>ion to fight the lurks is likewise couched in an inflated diction that SUI)flc
·n,c tyrant custom, most gri\v(" tl~n;~t()l11, Hath made the flinty .md steel cuuch o{ \YM

My thrice-driven bed of down I do ·'II"'"' II n,tuml and prompt ••l11crity

j

Notts to Pages 2.37-240

300

1 find in hardness, ond would undertake This present wars against the Ot-tomites. (1 .3.229-34)

24. Emmanuel Lc Roy Ladurie, Monloillou: Tlte Promised Ln11d of Error, trans. Bnrbarn Bray (New York: Braziller, 1978), pp. H. Inn review essay, Natalie Zemon Davis calls attention 10 the narrative structure o( lhe testimony, n structure she nttributes no t t.o the pressure of the Inquisition

bul to the form of village cuhure: "Some of these details were probably remembered over the decndcs-good memories arc part of oral culturebut most fonn a reconstructed past: from n general memory of om event, a nnJ'fi'ltivc is created that tells with verisimilitude how the- events couJd have unfolded. The post is o story" ("Les Conteurs de Montaillou," An11ales: Economies, Sociills, CivUisatio11s 34 [19791, p. 70). On udiTD.tivity oac., mode, ~Q'(' l.nuis Marin, UtopiqucS: jeux rl'esptrcas; Svctlana Alpers, "Describe or Narrate? A Problem in Realistic Representation," Ntw l.iltrary History 7 (1976-77), pp. 15-41; Leo Bersani, "The Other Freud," Hurnanitiu in Socitty l (1978), pp. 35-49. 25. Tile Aeneid of Virgil, trans. Allen Mandelbaum (New York: Bantam Books, 1972), bk. 1, lines 1049-51.

26. I very reluctantly accept the Q uarto's siglrs !or the Folio's ktsses; the latter need not, as editors sometimes claim, suggest an improbable im· modesty but rathe r may express Othello's perception of Desdemona's nature, hence what he.r love has given him. Moreover, the frank e:rot.iclsm of kisses is in keeping with Desdemona's own speeches; il is Othello who

cmphasi:oes a pity thotshe voices nowhere in the play itself. On the other hnnd,sig!Js ndmits n simpler rending and by no means excludes the erotic. There is another interpretive problem in this speech lhat should be noted: the lnst t\vo Jines are usually taken ns a continuation of Des·

demona's actual response, as recalled by Othello. Bulll>ey may equally be his interpretation of her feelings, in which ca.se they may say far mortl about Othello than about Desdemona. A competent actor could suggest e ither possibility, There is a further ambiguity in the htr of "made her such a man''; I hear /rer as accusative. but the dative cannot be 1'U!ed out. 27. William Tyndale, Obedimce, p. 171, and .tbove, chapter 2 .

28. lloth the Folio and the Second Qunrto rtlad "You nre the Lord of duty," but the paradox of an absolute duty that must nevertheless be divided is suggestive. 29. lago is improvising on two earlier remarks o( Braba.ntio:

and she, in spite ol n01turc, Of years, of country, credit, everything. To faU in love with wh at sh e fear'd to look o n? (1.3.96-98)

nnd Look to her, Moor, hove a quick eye to see: She has deceiv'd her fa ther, may do t·hec. (1.3.292-93)

Notts to P•ges 140-142

In a society deeply troubled by clandestine marriage, the circumstances o f Desdemona's union already brand her as faithless, even at the moment

O thello stakes his life upon her faith, while, q uite apart from these cir· cumstnnces, H would seem (o r the male psyche de picted in the play thnt

the very act o( leaving her fa ther borders obscurely on sexual betrayal. 30. Sec George K. Hunter, "Othello and Colour Prejudice," Proctedlngs of tilt Britisl• Acndemy 1967 53 (1968), pp. 139-93; Leslie A. Fielder, Tilt Strangtr in Sllukespeort (New York: Stein k Day, tm), chap. 3. A measure of the complex significance of Othello's blackJless may be taken from a glance at the competing interpretive possibilities of Des· demo na's ''I saw O thello's visage in his mind" (1.3.252): ~' Do

not be surprised that I have married nn older black mnn

who looks to you grotesque and terrifying. I have married no t n lace:,

11

compJe,don, b u til mind; :t rer.olu tc, C hri 'ti ~ n mind."

''I saw OtheUo's valuation of himself, hi~ internal image, the picture he has in his mind o£ his own face. J saw how much he had at stake in his narrative sense of himself, how much his w ho le existence depended upon this sense, and I was deeply

drnwn to this 'visage."' 11

1 saw Othello's visngc-hi s blackness, his o thcmess-in his

rn.i nd .1s weU as his complexion: there is a unity in his being. I nm subdued to precisely this quality in hlm ."

31. Ridley, in the Arden edition, adheres to the Quarto's "calmness" at line 185. Most editors prefer the Folio's "calms." 32. Ephesians 5.28-32, as cited in the mnrriage liturgy (Tht Book of Commo11 Prayer 1559, ed. j ohn Booty [Cbnrlottesvillc: University of Vir· ginin Press, 1976], p . 297). Th~ passnge is q uoted by Arthur Kjrseh, "The Pol lll:'izt~tion of Erotic Love ln Olludlo," p. 721, who dr.;1ws conclusions d osely J'nrallel to sonte o( my own, thoug h he d irfcrs in emphases and methodology. 33. Beron and Gouge arc dtcd in William and Mallcville Haller, "The Puritan Art of Love," Huntington Ubrary Qunrltrly 5 (1941-42), pp. 44-<15, 46.

34. From its inception, Christianity competed fiercely with o therS
de savoir. 35. Tllr Cily of God. trnns. Marcus Dods (New York: Modem LibrMy, 1950), bk. 14, chap. 24, pp. 473-75 36. for the inherent violt'nce of sexuality, sec Lucretius, 111~ Natuu of lilt U11ivcrse, trans. Ronald LJih•m (Baltimore Penguin, 1951): "Loven;' p.lSSion b s torm-tossed, CVt•n In the mom(•nt o l rruition, by waves or delusio n and i ncertitude. They c-.mnol m.tkl• IIJ• tlw1r mind w hat to enjoy lir• t with eye o r hand. 'l"hcy clnsp the object nl th, •lr lun~lng so tightly thn l

301

302

Nott< to

Pog.s 243-247

the embrnc:t! is painfuL They kiss so fiercely that teet h are driven into lips. All this becau!<e their pleasure is not pure, but they are goaded by an underlying impulse to hurt the thing, whatever it may be, u,al gives rise to these budding shoots of madness" (pp. 1@-64). 37. Richard Onorato has called my attention to the way !ago, who is wotching this scene, subsequently uses the word content. 'nothlng can, nor shnll content my soul," he tells him~clf, '~"rill I am even wtth him, wife, for wife" (2.1.293-94). Later, when under his iniluoncc Othello has bade "farewell content" (3.3.354), !ago proffers the consoling words, "Pr1>y be content" (3.3.457). 38. When Othello asks Desdemona to leave him a li!Ue to himself, she rcpUes, "Shall I deny you? no, forcwcU, my lord" (3.3.87). 39. "Prithee unpin me'' requires that the actress, as she speaks these words, call at1entio1, to Desdemona's erotic submission to Othello's violence. 40. As Gabrielle Jackson pointed out to me, Emilia feels that she must explain bel' _refusal to observe her husband's commands to be silent and go home: Cood gentlemen, Jet me hnve lcnve to speak, 'Tis proper I obey him but not now: Perchance, lago, I will ne'er go home. (5.2.196-98)

The nloment is felt tJS a Hbernting gesture and redeems her ca.rlic.r, compliant theft of the handkerchief, but it is both too lnte and fo tal. The piny does not hold out the v..'iJe's disobedlcncc as., way of \\verting tragedy. 41. Jacques Lacan, Tire /..Jmguagt of the Stlf: The Function of Lmrgungc ;, Psydroa,alysis, trans. Anthony Wilden (Ualtimorc: The johns Hopkins Un iversity Press, 1968), p. 11. 42. In effect, Othello invokes larger and larger spheres of selffashioning: Othello to Desdemona, Othello to Desdemona and Brnbantio, Othello to the Senate, Othello to heaven. We might add thai the narrative element in formal auricular confcssiol\ may hnve been heightened by the fact thnl confessors were instructed not to interrupt the penitent but to let him begin with a full and circumstantial account. 43. The word confession and its vnriants (coufess'd, corzftssiotrs) is re· pealed eighteen limes in the course of the play, more often than in any other play in the canon. 44.. See Thomas N. Tentler, Sill Olld co..ftsSion 011 the Ev~ of lire Rcformation, and chapler 2, above. 45. This is a frequent response in the literature of colonialism; we have encountered it in Spenser's Vitw of lhc Stale of Ireland, w here he sees the Irish as living in certain ··espccts as the English did before the civilizing inAuence of the Norman Conquest. 46. Tenlle.r, p. 229. 11le En,ditorlum pi!uiumll'nle. points o ut that in cnses o( necessity it is possi,ble to kill or steal justifiably, ·~ut no one may fornicate knowmgly without committing a mortal sin:" Ten tier obsel'ves, ~1Th is kind of thinklng is an cxagger~,Lion even of med1eval puritanism.

p,...,,,

Nota to

Pages 247-248

Yct-il is also ln re that the eli male of relig ious opinior1 allowed and perhnps

even encouraged such exaggerations." Cl. Francis Dillingham, CIJristian Oeco,omy or Household Govemmmt (London: john Tapp, 1609): "Julius Caesar made a law that if the husband or the wHe found either in adultery. il should be lawful for the husband to kill the wife or the wife the husband. Death then by the light of nature is lit punishment for adullurers and adulteresses" (p. 13). 47. George joye, A Cou/rn,ye (to o ccrtnyue mnuis} Cousultaciou: Tllnt Adulterers ought to be punysllrd wyth deatlle. Wylll tire solucious of his argumentrs for tht contrary< (London: n.p., 15597), pp. G4•, A4•. 'The S.l· cred integrity therefor~> of this Christ's holy church, the inviolable honor of holy matrimony ordained of God, the preservation of the private and public peace. all honesty, godly zeal to virtue, to the salvntion of our souls nnd to God's story

~hould

constrain evory Christian h(l:"rt tn rnunf>Pl, In

exhort and to excite aU Christian magistr.1tes to cut off this contagious canker of adultery from among us, lest in further creeping, .. . it daily corruptcth the whole body of this noble realm so that it else be at last so incurable that . ,. neither the vice nor yet the just remedy will be suffered" (A6•). The death penalty for adulterers was brieny adopted by the Puritan Parliament in the seventeenth century; see Keith Thomas, 'The Puritans and Adultery: the Act of 1650 Reconsidered," in Puritans and Reoolu· lionaries: Essays in Seocnleeut/t·Century History, ed. Donald Pennington nnd Keith Thomas (Oxford: At the Clarendon Press, 1978), pp. 257-82. 48. WOllam Perkins, A Godly mrd Leanred E;:rpositiorr of Clrrists Scrrrrorr irr tire Mount (Cambridge: Thomas Pierson, 1608), p. 111. See Robert V. Schnucker, "1..1 position puritaine 3 l'~gard de l'adult~re." AnnaltS: £cOtrornies, Sociflis, Civilisations 27 (1972), pp. 137~. 49. Quoted, \Vith a mass of s upporting m ..,tcrial, injoh11 T. Noonan, Jr., Corrtracepti01r: A History of Its 'frcatmerrt by lire Cotlro/ic 1'/rcologfmrs arrd Corrorrists (Can1bridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1966), p. 80. The Stoic marital doctrine, Noonan observes. "joined the Stoic distrust of pleasure and the Stoic insistence on purpose" (p. 47); early Christians embraced the doctrine and hardened its formulation In combatting the g r'IOSt-ic SCCI'$.

50. Noonan . p. 47. 51. john C'lvin,lnslilutrs of tlrt Clrrislian Rtligion, bk. 2, chap. 8, se<:tion 44, quoted in Lawrence Stone, 7111! Family, Stx and Marriagt i11 E11glat1d 1500-1800, p. 499; Tire King's Book, or a NtetS$ary Doctrine and Erudiuon for Any Christian"""" (1543), eel. T. A. Lacey (london: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1932), pp. 111-12. See likewise Jo hn Rogers, Tlrl' Glrrsse of Cod/y Lo11• (1569), cd . Frederick J. fumivall, Now Shakespenro Society, ser. 6, no. 2 (London: N Tr:Ubner, 1876), p. 185:

Also there ought to be a tcmper.mcc between man and wire, for God h01th orduined nwn i.tgc (or ,, n,mcdy or med icir'IC, to assungc lhc hcMI ~>r tl'w burning Om1h, an d

fol' procr~J:,tion, 11nd nol bc~·111 y fm tu fulnll 1h1• whnJc

lust.s or the devilbh mint! und wh~··d tle• h; lor , though

303

304

Noh'S 10 l'ages 248-249

yc have r'l promise that the net jn marriage is not sin ... yet if ye take ex..,ss, or use it beastly, vilely, or i"· ordinately, your mistcmperancc makes that ill which is good (being righUy used), and that which is clean, yc deAle through your abusing of it.

In tile seventeenth C
52. LeRoy Lad UI'ie, Molllail/ou, p. 15l.ln fnct the priest, who was, in Le Roy Uldurie's words, 11 an energetic lover and incorrigible Don Juan" (p. 154), held a somcwh::tl diiJcrenL posltlon. "One womtm 's j\1st likP another," he told CtaZide's mother, J'lhe sin is the same, whether she is married or not. Which is as much as to say that the re is no sin about it at all" (p. 157). Le Roy ladurie interprets his views on love as fo llows: "Starting from tile Cathar proposition that 'any sexual net, even between m.>rried persons, is \VTOng,' he applied it to suit himself. Because everything was forbidden, Ol\e act was no worse than another" (pp. 1~9). 53. 1.5.107. LeRoy !..1durie quo tes from theBrloairt tfamour: "A lady who s leeps with a true lover Is purified of all s ins .. . the joy of love makes the act innocent, for it proceeds from a pure heart" (p. 159). See Friar Laurel\ce's warr\ings to Romeo i'lbout excessive love: These violent delig hts have violent ends And in their triumph die, like. fire and poWder, Which 1 as they kiss, consume . ... Therefore love moderately: long love doth so. (2.6.9-14) 54. TcnUer, p. 174. 55. Tentler, p. 181: "hoc est in executione ipsius actus nuUa voluptntis delcctatione tenentur." 56. TenUer, p. 183. According to tile Kiug'• Book, over tllose who have violated married chastity, " the Devil hath power, as the angel Raphael said unto Thobit, They that marry in such wise that they exclude God out of their hearts, and give themselves unto their own camal lusts, as it '"ere an hors~ or a mule, which have no reason; upon such persons ll'le Dev il h ath power" (p. 112). For a humanist•s version of these notions* see the following aphoris1ns fron1 junn luis Vives's lutrorlucrio tid 5apif ulmm The p leasure of the body is, like tile body itself, vile and brut1ll. Sensual delectation bores tile soul and benumbs the intellect. Sensual delectation is like robbery, it vilifies the soul . This is the reason why even the most corrupted man seeks secrecy and i~b h ors wilnesl1CS.

Notts to

P«g~

249-250

Sensual pleasure is fleeting and momentan~us# totally beyond ilny control and always mixed with (ruslratlon.

Nothing debilitates more the vigor of the our intelle<:t than sexual pleasure. (Carlos C. Norei\a, Juan Luis Vives [The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 19701, p. 211) For an attenuated modern version, see the first televised speech dcHv·

ored from the Sistine Chapel on 27 August 1978 by Pope John Paul I; the pope prayed that fnmilies "may be defended from the destructive attitude of sheer plcasurc·seeklng, which snuffs out life" (S.F. Clrroniclc, 28 August 1978, p. 1). 57. In l'hc ctrrly seventeenth ccn~ury, Samuel Hicron counsels m01rricd couples to recite tho following prayer before going to bed: "Allay in us all sensual nnd brutish love, purifying and sa,,c.lifylng our Jrrections o ne townrds l'lnOther, lhat we may in nothjng d ishonor this honorable st01tc,

nor pollute the bed of marriage ... but may use this thine ordinance in lhe holy sort, Lhal carnol lusts may be slaked and subdued, nor increased or inflamed thereby" (A H
59. William Whately, A Bride-bush (London, 1619), quoted in frye, p. 156.

60. Noonan, p. 79. 61. A major tcxtunl crux, and I have taken the Uberty, ror the sake of

clarity and brevity, to depart from Ridley's reading which i~ as follows: the yow>g affects

In

my dc(unct1 unci proper satisf
As Ridley says, "after· all the dJscussion, Othello's meaning Is moderately clear. l ie is too moture to be subjugated by physical desire"; but he goes o n to read proper as "justifiable," where I would read it us "my own." Ridley's modrrntely should be emphasized.

62. Yet another crux: lhe Quarto reads "very quality" instNd of "ut· most pleasure." I find the latter more powerl'ul and persuasive, particularly in the rontext of Desdemona's further mention (1. 255) of "The rites (or \'lhich I love him.'' lago twice cc:hoes Desdemona's declaration: "It wt~s a violent commencement in her, and thou shalt see an answerable sequestration"

(1.3.342-43) and again "'Mark me wilh what violence she farst loved the Moor" (2.1.22 1). 63, Dcsdcmon~1 is, in cf(cct kind of mirror rt\VCN~tl o( Ccll'd(.•lia: where U>e latter i~ doomed In the fi rst oct of th~ J>l•y by h~r rofuNol Lo dcclnre her 1 "

love. the forme I' Is doomed pre!!iS<:Iy for ttu(lh ,, duclluo~tiun. Profcsnor Spivnc.k, nlong with m('fst critJ011 nf tht• pll1y, tlt'!'t-i lngo us tlw

305

Nores to Pages ZSl-252

enemy of the religious bond in maniage (pp. 4~50); I would argue that it is precisely the nature of this bond, as defined by rigorists, thattonnents Othello. 64. On "property" see Kenneth Bu.rke,ll Grammar of Mot1ues (Berl<eley: University of California Press, 1969): "logo may be considered 'con· substantial' with Othcllo in that he represents the principles o[ jealousy implicit in Othcllo's delight in Desdemona as a private spiritual posses· sion. Iago, to arouse OtheUo, must talk a language that Othello knows as well as he, a language implicit in the narure of Othello's love as the idealization of his private property in Desdemona. This language is the dialectical opposite of Oth.e llo's; but it 50 thoroughly shares a common ground with Otheoo•s lnnguage that its insinuations are never for one moment irrelevant to Othello's thinking. lago must be cautious in leading OtheUo to belle"'t: them ~G true· hut Othcllo never for .1 moment doubts them as values" (p. 414). As 50 often happens, I discovered that Burke'> brilliant sketdl had anticipated the shape of much of my argument. Burl<e has an essay on the ritual structure of the play in Hudson Rcuitw 4 (1951), pp. 16S-203. 65. I have read two powerful unpublished essays that analyze the male sexual anxieties in the play at a level prior to or bene.lth the social and doc:trinal one discussed here: Edward Snow, "On the Language of Sexual Pathology in Othtllo" and C. L. Barber, "'I'll pour this pestilence into his ear'; Olhtllo as a Development from Hamlet" 66. In art~. OtheDo had first thought of pou;oning Desdemona and then was persuaded by Ia go to "strangle her in her bed, even the bed she hath contaminated" (4.1.2o:>-4). The blood he funtasizes about later may be simply an expression of violence (as he had earlier declared, "I will chop her into messes" [4.1.J96]), but il is tempting lo see it as a projection of the blood that marl<ed her loss of virginity and heme<>, in his disturbed formulation, :.s "lust's blood." For a sensitive exploration o! the anxiety over virginity, staining, and impotence in Othello, see Stanley Cavell, "Epistemology and TragedY'" A Reading of Otlle/lo," Daedalus 108 (1979), pp. 27-43. 67. Like Oedipus, Othello cannot escape the fact that it is he who has commiued the crime and must be punished. We should, in all fairness. call attention to the fact that Othello in the end views his wife as "chaste," but the language in whkh he does 50 relnforces the orthodox condemnation of pleasure: cold, cold my girl, Even like thy chastity. (5.2.276-77)

Indeed the identification of the coldness of death with marital chastity seems to me a confir.,atiou of the necrophilic fantasy. 68. Shakespeare's talent for entering into the consciousness of others and giving supreme expression to incompatible perspectives h~ been a

Nol~

lo P"Sts 252-254

major preoccupation of criticism since Coleridge and Kcuts. For a recent C/Cploration, see Nonnnn Rabkin's concept of "complementarity": Slwkc· sprnrc and tire Commou U!Jderslnnding (New York: Free P1ocss, 1967). In Tilt Anricty of Influence (New York: Oxford University Press, 1973), Harold Bloom n.>marks, "Shakespeare is the largest instance in the language of a phenomenon that stands outside the concern of this book: the absolute absorption of the precursor" (p. 11). 69. "Of Repentance.'' in Tize Complete Essays of Monlnigne, tnms. Oonold M. Frome (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1958), pp . 610-ll. It is hardly irrclcvnnt for our purposes that Mon taigne describes this method in an essay in which he rejcds the confessionnl system. 70. On pleasure and the threat to established order, see Georges Bolaille, Deal/! and St11suality: A Study of Eroticism and the Taboo (New York: Walker & Co., 1962), dtu.l Ml~hoil Dakhtin1 Rnbcltu:~ and Hi:; \-Vorld, tr.ms. Helene Iswolsky (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1968). See olso Herbert Marcuse, Eros mul Civilization (New York: Random House, 1955); Michel Foucault, Discip/iue n11d Pwlislt; l-eo Ilersani, A I'll· ture for Asyanax: Cluzracler and Dtsirt in Literaturt (Boston: Little, Brown •nd Company, 1976). In work in progress, jonathan Crewe of Berkeley is investigating rompnrnble issues in the work of

•

Thom~s

Nashe .

307

Index

Aeneas, 194, 237 Allen, Peter R.. 263 n. 39 All>ers, l'au l, 170, 192,286 n . 30, 269 n, 72 Alpers, Svetlano, 300 n. 24 Althusser, Louis, 153, 192,282 n . 69 Altman, joel, 23G-3l, 263 n. "37 lunndiso{GR11Ir, 180 Ambrose, Saint, 249-50, 3().ln. 51 Ames, Russell, 263 n. 42 A110morphosis, 18-23,61,228,261 n . 20 Anchieta, jose de, 29 1 n. 9 And~rson, Donald K.,Jr., 290 n. 3 Angtican Church, 12, 68. 70,230, 248, 274 n. 66 Anglo, Sydney, 285 n. 17 Antichrist, 9, 65, 79, 82, 9Q-91, 159 Aquinas~ tl'lomrts, 73 Are lino, Pietro, 12G-21, 276 n. 4 A riosto. Lodovico, 173 Aristotle,109, 215 Arundel, Thomas, 268 n. 10 Asch.•m. Roger, 228 A ucrbach. Erich, 219, 296 n . '17 Augustine, Saint, 2, 77, 80,110,218, 2'12, 248,258 n. I, 269 n. "15, 2~4 n . 35, 296 n. 45, 304 n. 51 i\vineri, Shlomo, 245 n 58 Aydelotte, Frank, 287 n. 49

ll<>eon, Sir Francis. 166, 173, 284 n. 16 Richard, 220 lloinham, }amos, 74-87, 92- 110 pnssimf 119,268 11. 1, 270 n. 22, 2?ln. 30 Bakhtin, Mikhail, 307 n. 70 Baldwin, T. W., 283 n. 4, 290 n. 2 Ball, john, 27 B•ltru~itis, )urgis, 260 n. 8 Barbaro, Ermolao, 142 Barber, C. 1.., 20G-201, 292 n . 14, 293 n . 31, 294 n. 34,306 n. 65

U~ines,

llarrow, H~nry, 283 n. 2 llask~rvill. Charles R~ad, 298 n. 13 Bataille, Georges, 3(17 n. 70 Batmanson, john, 66 Bauckham, Rich ard, 294 n. 33 Baxondall, Michael, 261 n. 17 Bccon, T homas, 24 1,301 n . 33 Bellamy, john, 281 n. 51 Benj>min, W>hcr, 86,271 n. 29 Bennett, josephine Waters, 288 n. 60 Bergeron, David M .• 285 n. 17 tlc.'rgson. Hrnri, 195, 235 llemnrdino ol SlcM, Saint, 46 IIL·n•hclmcr, Rlchal"d, 282 n . 64 llt••"S•lni, 1""', J(MI n 24,307 n. 70 llcv•n(;ton, 1>.1v1d M , 263 n • .W 1111>1<• ·" .>uthoruv 1S-24, 93-1 H.

310

IN o ex

159,273 n. 56,274 n. 64 , 27'} Bowen;. Fredson, 290 n. 2 n. 66; English translation ol, 93Bradford, John, 271 n . 28 Brancctour, Robert, 14<1-4.5, 281-82 109,273 n. SO, 274 n . 52,273 n. 53,273-74 n. 55,274 n. 60,275 n. 62 n. 71,275 n. 73; Emsmus's Brandon, Charles (duke of Suifolk), translatiOI\, 60; Geneva tr;:msla .. 127 tion, 3; interpretation of, 26, Braud~l. Femand, 41 62-{;3, 93-104,275 n . 70; King Breughel, Pieter, Lhe elder, 207,260 James version, 2, 103; New Tesn. 13, 297 n. 10 Brian, Sir Francis, 133-35,280 n. 37 tament, 3, 74,93-97,100, 1041 205; Old Testament, 104, 214; Brooke, N. 5., 286 n. 33 Pentnteuch, 100; Vu l ~;ate, 95, Urown, Peter, 258 n. 1, 269 n. 19 115, 14$, 294 n. 37; Wycliffite Browning, Robert, 152 Bruce, F. F., 275 n. n translation • of, 103,105 -book> of: Corinthians, 3, 100,269 Bruno, Giordano, 218, 293-94 '' · 19; Oeu tQronomy, 189; Ephen . 31,296 n. 45 sians~ 301 n. 32; Genesis, 24-1; Bude, William, J'l, 263 n. 43 Isaiah, 97;job, 2, 258 n. 3; John, Bunyan, john, 85, 98,274 n . 63 148, 213-14; Luke, 77, 98, 102-3; Burckhardt, jacob, 1, 46,161.-62, Matthew_.. 77, 821 98; Psa1nl5, 52, 283n. 2 '115-28, 214, 276 n. 1, 276 n . 2, llurke, Kenneth, 296 n. 46, 306 n. 6.J 276-n n. 4, 2n n. 10, m-78 n. 13 (see n/s~ Penitential Psalms Bum s, E'Jizilbeth, 292 n. 18 [Wyatt's translation]); Romans, Bush, Douglas, 190 n. 2 2; Timothy, 108 Busleyden, Jerome, 34 Byman, Seymour, 270 n. 25, 271 Bilney, Thomas,60, 97,271 n. 32, n. 28 274 n. 56 Bleich, David, 259 n. 4 Bloom, Harold, 307 n. 68 Caius, John, 288 n. 64 Calab1·esi, Guido, 178,286 n. 38 Bluestone, Max, 203, 291 n. 13,292 Calvet, Louis-jean, 287 n. 55 n. 20 Colv in, John, 118,248, 303 n. 51 Bobbitt, J>hlJip, 178, 286 "· 38 Boley'Il, Anne, 68, 89, 121, 124,127, Campensis, Johannes, 276 n . 4 146, 280 n . 37, 280 n. 44 Conny, Nicholas P., 288 n. 58 Carey, Sir Robert, '165-66, 284 n. 15 Bolt, Robert, 75 Cnrthusian monks, 71 Book, 8, 9, 81,142, 271 n. 29, 271 Cassirer, Ernst, 174, 195, 290 n. 3 n. 30; and form of Utopin, 57; Catholic Chun:h, 17, 126, 248-49; power of in Protestantism, 76. 84-86,96,119,159 a n d More, 25-2(>, 52, Go-66, 7o-71, 75, 231-32; .1nd Refom>aBook of Common Prny~r. 301 n. 32 tion, 17, 60, 79, 81, 112, 157-59, "Book ol Martyrs," Sul'oxc, jo h n, 188, 230-32, 271 n. 31 Acts mrd Monuments Boon, jnmes, 4, 259 n. 9 Caudwell, Christopher, 282 n. 72 Cavell, Stanley, 306 n . 66 Bomh, Woodrow W., 297 n. 5 Borscs, jorge Luis, 238 Covendish, George, 265 n. 63 Cecil, Robert, 165, 284 n. 13 Bossy, John, 2n n. 8 Chambers, R. W., 54, 69, 75,262 Bourdicu, P ierre, SO Bouwsma, WWiamj., 265 n. 55, n.33 272n. 34 Charles I, 141, 166 Charles V, 17,140, 144,281-82 Bower of Bliss, The. See Fatrit Qttuue, Tlrt, book 2 n. 62

lndn

Charterhousc. The (London), 16, 157 C haucer, Geoffrey, 1, 2,155 C hcnu, M,·D., 275 n. 70 Ch<.:W1 Sl.lmttel C~~ 292 n. 19 Christ, 148, 2U, 213-14,293-94 n. 31,294 n. 37,297 n. 10; imita· tion of, 2-3, 52, 77-78, 83, 272 n. 41; and More, 52, 64, 72,268 n. 106; and Reformation, 76, 82, 94-95, 110, 159 Cioran, E. M., 65, 267 n. 87 Clark, johfl, 83 Clcbsch, William A., 275 n. 88,276 n. 91 Clement VII (pope), 140 Clifford, George (earl of Cumberl.lnd), 193 Coke, Sir Edward, 167 Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 307 n. 68 Colct, john, 109 Colonialism, 9,173-74, 179-M, 193-94, 22&-29, :;!33-34, 246,254, 291 n. 9, 302 n. 45 Columbus, Christopher, 6-1. 150, 267 n. 86, 286 n. 41 Confession, 46, ss-86, 91, 117-19, 2•1s-47, 249,302 n. ~2. 302n. 43, 302-3 n. 46. Su also Penitence Convoc.1tion of C.mtcrbury1 70 Cook, Sherburne, 297 n. 5 Coolidge, JohnS., 274 n. 66 Cope, Jackson 1. , 297 n. 11 Cortes, Heman, 180, 184, 287 n. 51 Courthope, W. ).,131, 279 n. 33 Court o{Ci11il Court<Sy, Tllf, 163,

284n. 7 Crawford, Charles, 297 n. 3 Crewe, jonathan, 307 n. 70 Crino, Anna Maria, 288 n. 58 CromweU, Thomas, 67, 69, 70, lOS, '143, 280 n . 37, 282 n. 62 Cumberland, earl of (CCO'l\C Oilford), 193 Cusa, Nicholas of, 25,261 n. 23, 261 n. 24, 296 n -l5 Dalaber, Antony, 82-83 David (king),118-26 pa..im. 281 n. 53 Dnvls, Natalie Zemon. ~ 3, 261

311

n. 26, 264 n. 52,264 n. 53, 274 n. 64, 283 n. 1, 286 n. 37,291 n. 12,300 n. 24 Deleuze, Gilles, 217,295 n. 4:) Oemnus, Robert, 275 n. 79, 275 n. SO DesmarJis, John, 34 Diaz del Custillo, Bernal, 184,286 n. 41,287 n. 51 Dillinghnm, Francis, 303 n. 46 Dinleville, Jean de, 17-22 Diplomncy, 8, 17, 49, 140-~5 Doc/or f'art.
Eames, Wilberforce, 287 n. 45 Edgerton, S.unuel Y., Jr., 260 n. 9. 269 n. 17 Edward II, 196, 203, 2U, 213; nnd homosexuality, 209, 220; and repetition, 200, 217 Edwards, R. Dudley, 2B8 n. 58 Eisenstein, Elizabeth L, 271 n. 29 Elias, Norbert, 2n n. 33,283-84

n. 6

Elizabeth I (q ueen of England), 192; and Bible, 274. n. 60; and force, 169, 186; Md religious symbolism, 178, 230, 285 n. 20, 285 n. 24; and role-playing, 16&-69, 285 n . 17 Elliott, J. H .. 191, 289 n. 71 Elton, C R., 21, 66, 261 n. 18, 262 n 37, 2b7 n 90, 267 n. 91 Emp.othy. l2'i, 227-28,235-36, 25~ 6fo\~ll1Utl: .tnd C'On!oll'OSUS, 60 6 1,

312

IND.IIX

266 n. 75; and humanism, 12; and Mo n~ , 16,32, 33, 34, 55, 60-61, 75, 109, 262 n. 36; and Reformation, 159; on scriptur;t1 interpretation, 1(X)-101; and stole service, 36

-Works: De civilitate '"onun puerilium, 272 n . 33,284 n. 6; Euchiridiou militl$Chrislitmi, 87, 10()-101, 271 n. 33,275 n. 70; Episllts, 262 n. 36; Pnracluis, 106, 275 n. 81; I'raise of Folly, 16, 32, 63, 262 n. 36, 267 n. 63

Erudilori11111 peuileulialc, 247, 302-3 n. 46 E.sknch, l'1errc1 274 n. 64 Ev<~ns-Pritchord, E. E., 199, 29t

n. 10

faerie Queene, 71•e, 201-2 -bookl, 179,223,287 n. 48; -book 2: Cave of Mammon in, 172-73, 163; in criticism. 17()-73;

destruction of Bo~ver in, 170-73,

175,177-78,183-84, 188-89,250; l!J\d iconoclnsm. 188-90;
More, 16, 31-32; in Obcdieuce, 89-92, 110, 239; in OIIJelio, 239-40, 246-52; in Reformation, 82-83, 88; in Renaissr.nce, 42-44,

241, 246-50; and •cl!-fashioning, 6; and Spenser, t84-85; in Utopia, 42-44, 47-51; and Wyatt, 12<1, 133. See 11lso Sexuality Federico da Montefeltro, 261 n. 18 Fender, Stephen, 292 n. 21

Fenton, Edwnrd, 181 Fenton, Geoffrey, 186 Ferguso.,, Arthur 0., 296 n. 1 Ferguson, Wollace, 263 n. 3 Ficino, Marsilio, 18,260 n. 9, 296 n. 45 Fiedler, Leslie A., 301 n . 30 Fish, Stanley, 261 n. 20 Fisher, john (bishop of Rochester), 115,118,119,277 n . 9 Flauber1, Gustave, 220 Florio, John, 46 Foucault, Michel, 80, 269 n. l6, 270 n. 26,281 n. 51,301 n. 34,307 n. 70 Fnx. George, 85 Foxe, john: nnd Acts 1111d MOIIU· mwls ("Book of Martyrs"), 79, 81-82, 266 n. 73, 268 n. 1, 275 n . 80; on llainbnm, 74, 76, 81, 95, 268 n. 1; on Elilney, 97; on OaJabcr, 83; o n lmagcs, 269

n. 11; on More, 60, 74-75, 268 n . 2; on printing, 98-99; on religious dissent_ 77, 93; on Ridley, 270 n. 25; on Taylor, 267 n. 102; on Tewkesbwy, 268 n. 5; on Thorpe, 268 n. 9, 268 n. 10; on Tyndale, 106 Francis I, 140, 282 n. 62 Freeman, Kathleen, 295 n. 39 Prend, W. tl. C., 269-70 n. 19 Freud, Sigmund, 6, 286 n- 35; on rcpressio•'l nnd colonialism, 173-74, 180; on "undoing/' 83-84, 270 n. 23, 270 n. 24 Fried, Michael, 279 n. 23 Friedman, Donald, 151, 279 n. 26, 282 n. 66 Frith, jo hn, 76, 107, 270 n. 22 Froben, John, 34 Geertz, Clifford, 3, 4, 179, 255, 258 n. 6, 259 n. 9, 286 n. 39 Gerson, Jean, 73 Giamatti, A. Bartlett, 281 n. ll, 286 n. 41, 289 n. 68 Giles, Peter, 34, ·133 Gilman, Emest 8., 260 n. 7 Ginzburg, Carlo, 291 n. 32 Goldmann, lucien, 295 n. ol2

lndtx

Goodman, Godfrey, 167, 285 n. 22 Gorges, Sir Arthur, 165 Gorsias, 215, 217, 29•1-95 o. 38 Couge, William, 241, 301 n. 33 Cray, Hanna li., 283 n. 4 Cray, M. M., 287 n. 54 Greenblatt, Stephen, 284 n. 13, 287 n. 55, 293 n. 23, 295 n. 41 Greene, Robert, 252 Greene, Thomas, 258 n. 3 Greg, W. W., 290 n. 2 Grey, Arthur (Boron Grey de Wilton), 185, 188 Cuozzo, Stephen, 163, 2M n. 8 Guerrero Gonzalo. 184 Culllen, Oaudio, 260 n. 9 Cuth, Hans P., 289 n. 68 l~abennas, Jiirgen, 130, 279 n. 31 H11ir, P. E. H., 289 n. 1 llaU, Edward, 67, 71, 262 n. 31, 273 n. 51, 280 n. 36 Hailer, William, 268 n. 1 Harington, Sir jo h n, 168-69, 285 n. 26, 285 n. 28 I larps6eld, Nich olns, 30-31, 52, 262 n. 34 Horrier, Richard, 276 n. 3, 280 n. 45 Hnupt, G. E., 268 n. 106 Hny, Douglas, 292 n. 17 Hnzlitt, William, 171 I lcadley, joh n, 266 n. 75 Ncisch, Allison, 285 n. 18 Heise, Carl Georg, 260 n. 7 Henley, Pauline, 287 n. 54., 288

n.SS

Henry vm, 142, 248; and Anne Boleyn, 68, 89, 146, 280 n. 44; as nutocrat, 15, 11 6, 136-37, 140, t69, 278 n. 16; court of, 116, 120, 136-37; a nd diplomacy, 17, 143-44-, 281-82 n. 62, 283 n. 72; and display, 2&-29, 39; and divorce, 67~; and humanism, 261 n. 18; and More, 21-22, 36, 68; and royal suprcmncy, 12, 68, 70, '109; and Tyndalc, 89-90, 92, 106, 108; nnd Wyatt, 12'1-22, 146, 15•1 Herbert, ArthurS., 273 n. 52 Heretics, 268 n~ 11; as Olhet, 9, 269-70 n. 19; and More. 25. 5&-J6

313

passim, 158, 231-32, 266 n. 77, 267 n. 81, 268 n. 2, 268 n. 4; persecution of, 79-81, 88, 268 n. 9, 269 n. 14, 269 n. 15; and Roper, 52-53. See also Luther; Protestantism, Tyndalc Hervey, Mary F. 5., 18, 19, 259-60

n. 7 Hcxter, j. H., 37, 42, 261-62 n. 27, 263 n. 41, 26.l n. 42, 26<1 n. 45 Hill, Christopher, 273 n. 45, 291 n. 11, 292 n. 17 Hilton, Thomas~ 268 n. 4 Hoare, W. H., 273 n. 52 I lolbein, Hans (the younger), 17, 21, 22, 25, 260 n. 11, 260 n. 13; and ''1'he Ambnssndors," 17-27, 57-58, 259-60 n. 7, 260 n. 8, 260 n. 9, 260 n. 10, 260 n. 11, 260 n. 13,260 n. 14, 26(H;l n. 16,261 n. 17 Hollander, john, 260 n. 14o Homily 011 Obedreuce, 89 Hooker, Richard, 218, 295-96 n. 45 Horace, 134 llough, Graham, 286 n. 31 I lughes, Merrill Y., 286 n. 34 Hughes, Philip, 288 n. 63 Huizinga, )ohon, 259 n. 5, 261 n. 22 I lumanism, 34, 174, ~5 n. 56; and More, 15, 21, 109-10, 174, 280-81 n. 50; Md play, 24; ond reform, 12, 15; nncl rhetoric, 102, 162; and right living, 109-10; and stoicism, 71; andTyndale, 109-10 Hume, David, 295 n. 43 Hunt, David, 258 n. 4 Hunter, George K., 293 n. 24, 301 n. 30 Hus, john, 93 llutcen, Ulrich von,' 32 llyman, Stanley Edgar, 298 n. 18 Iconoclasm, 78, 85,179, 18&-90, 269 n. 11, 288 n. 64 Identity. Su Self-fashioning Jrnprovisotlon: dcflncd, 227-28; nrH:I Ma:dowc, 224; "nd More, 2~ 31, 67, 262 11 . 33, 262 n. 36, 298 n 12; .1nd Oldc
INUIIX

314

La J'rima udnye, Pie rre de, 258 n. 3 Laqueur, Thomas, 274 n. 61 L.1slett, Peter, 294 n. 34 Latimer, Hugh, 97, 189, 274 n. 56 Len, Henry C harles, 270 n. 26 Leder, joseph, 269 n. 15 l.cc, E(l ward, 66 Leeman, fred, 260 n. 11 Lelnn d, john, 136 leonardo do Vinci, 195 Lcmc.r, Daniel, 224-25, 227, 23&-36, 253, 297 n. 4 ]arne. I, 166 le Roy l.adurie, Emmanuel, 237, Jameson, Frederic, 263 n. 41 241H9, 300 n. 24, 301 n. 34, 304 Javitch, Daniel, 279 n. 32, 284 n. 12 n. 52, 304 n. 53 jerome, Saint, 77, 248 Jtw of Malta, Tloc, 19-1,203 -10, . 1-"vao. Ronald, 261 n. 24 21&-17; anti·Semitism In, 203-9; Levey, Michael, 260 n. 7, 260-()J. and anxiety, 197; Christianity in, n. 16 20&-7; a nd deception, 21&-16; Lewis, C. S., 112, 136, 138, 170-71, and homelessness, 196; money 276 n. 92, 2SO n. 43, 286 n. 31, in, 204-5, 214-15, 217; proverbs 289 n. 68 in, 207-8; repetition in, 200, 217; Lifton, Robc1-l ] ., 269 n. 14 Lipps, Theodore, 299 n. 20 vio le nce in, 206 Uvy, Titus, 101 john Paul I (pope), 305 n. 56 lollardy, 77-78, 93. 268 n. 9. Su Jo nson, Ben, 233 )oye, George, 76, 107,247,276 n. 1, 11/so I leretics 303 n . 47 Lucretius, 210, 301- 2 n. 36 Lukacs, Georg, 209, 293 n. 29 Judson, Alexander C., 186, 288 Lupset, Thomas, 34, 263 n. 43 n.S9 jump, john 0_., 290 n. 1 Lulher, Ma•·lln, 17, 52, 266 n. 79, 271 n. 28, 273 n. 47, 278 n. 18; Kafka, Franz, 179 nnd t\n:dety, 88, 272 n. 34; on Catholic Chun:h, 64-65; and Kamen, Henry, 269 n. 15 Kanlorowic:z, Ernst, 166-67, 281 fai th, 60, 95, 115, 276-.n n. 4; o. 51 and More, 53, 58-«l, 62-65, 7 I, 231, 266 n, 79, 27(}.71. n. 27; nnd Kauln, David, 291-92 n. 'JJ penance, 85, 118-19; on psalms, Kcals, John, 307 n. 68 119,276 n. 1, 2n n. 10; and TynKerridge, Eric, 272 n. 35 Kerrisan, Walter, 273 n. 53 da.le, 94, 103, 107, 109, 275 n . SS Killisrew, Williom, 165 Luthernnis:m, 25, 52, ?'6, 109. See also Heretics; Prolestanlism; King's Book, Tht, 304 n. 56 Tyndnle Kinney, Arthur F., 272 n. 36 Kirsch, Arthur, 298 n. 15, 301 n. 32 Lynd, Helen Merrell, 265 n. 62 Kirschheimer, O tto, 281 n . 51 Klausner, Samuel Z., 286 n. 36 McCanles, Michael, 282 n. 67 Kornn, 202, 292 n. 19 McCutcheOI>, Eliubeth, 23, 261 Krisleller, Paul 0., 283 n 4 n. 19, 261 n. 20 Kurinma, Constance Brown, 290 Mncfarlane, Alan, 26~ n. 44 n.2 McFarlane, K. 8., 268 n. 9 Machiavelli, Niccolo, 139; (lnd de· Lacan, Jacques, 244-45, 302 n 41 cept-ion, 14, 20; and politics, 15, L.nnc, Fred eric C., 293 n. 26 n. 14, 30(}-301 n. 29; and Remus·

s-ancc culture,

22~32;

and Sh~kespearc, 252-54, 297-98 n. ll, 298 n. 13. Ste also Roleplaying; Self-fashioning Inquisition, 2n n, 11; procedures of, 7b-81; and Ulopia, 56; and Wyatt, 124 J,ventarirmr mommu:utomm superstitiotris, 188

lnde~

259 n. 3; and n,t Prine£, 14~ 37, 224, 259 n. 3, 284 n. 11 Macltiavellionbm, 209, 263 n. 40, 281 n. 50 Mack, Maynard, 298 n. 18 Macpherson, C. 6., 38, 263 n. 44 Madox, Richard, 181, 2f57 n. 46, 291l-91 n. 6 Malden, William, 98 Marcuse, Herbert, 307 n. 70 Marin, Louis, 23, 261 n. 21, 263 n. 41, 300 n. 24 Marius, Rkhnrd, 266 n. 75 Marlowe, Christopher, 7, 161, 192, 193-221. 290 n . 3, 293 n. 28; nnd admonitooy riction. 201-3, 209, 253; and oulhorhy, 9, 203. 209-12, 222; and Christianity, 199-200, 202. 206-7, 210, 213-14, 219, 293-94 n. 31; and play, 219-21; and repetition compulsion, 200; and seli-fashioning, 8, 201, 203, 212-14, 217, 219; and Spenser, 222-24, 290 n. 2, 2%-97 n. 3; and tragedy, 202, 219, 295 n. 42 -Works: Dido Q11wo of Cartloage, 212; Hero amll.MIItlcr. 170; Works (ed. Tucker Brooke), 290 n. 2. Sec also Doctor rnuslus; Edward II; few of Millin, TIIC; Tmuburlt1ine M~rri age. See Family; Sexuality Mart yr, Pct~r. 18'1, 183, ~6-29, 287 n . 43, 297 n . 6 Martz, l.ouis L., 268 n. 107, 298 n. 12 Marx, Karl: and art, 4, 282-83 n. 72; and emancipation, 54; ;,md rev· olution, 27, 298 n. 17; -Works: Economic and Plrilosophical Mmmscnpts, 37; Eiglrtunlh

Brumnirt of Louis Bo,npartt, 209-10, 293 n. 30; Cro11drisse, 4, 259 n. 8; /twislt Q11tstio11, 011the, 204-7, 292-93 n. 23 Mary Tudor (queen of England), 124, 168, 285 n. 23 Mason, H. A .. 121,136-37, 139,280 n. 42, 282 n. 72, 276 n. 2, 276 n . .3, 277 n. 4, 278 n. 1,7 Mattingly, G.m·oJt, 144-45, 281 n. 55

Mayer, C. A., 284 n. 9 Meditation, 24, 45-46, 8S Mcdwall, Henry, 262 n. 33, 297n. 7 Merleau-Ponty, Mouri«, 278 n. 19 Mermel, Jerry, 263 n. 40 Michelangelo, 195 Michelet, Jules, 1 Miles, Leland, 268 n. 4 Milius, Donald J., 272 n. 33. 272 n.3S Mirror for Magi;tralts, A, 292 n. 18 Mohammed, 202 Monmouth, ~lumphrcy, 272 n. 45 Montaigne, Michel de, 46, 87, 219~ 252- 53, 265 n. 56, 307 n. 69 More~ MnrgaJ'ct. Sec Roper, Margaret More More, Sir Thomas, ll-73, 74-77, 118, 133, 137, 166; career of, 7, 11-12,15-16,21-22,29-30,33-34, 36, 45, 49, 52, 55, 66-67, 96, 143, 262 n. 37, 263 n. 40, 265 n. 57, 268 n. 2, 283 n. 2; and Catholic Church, 25, 52, 61-66. 70-71, 75. 99, 111, 266 n. 76; and consensus, 60-65, 69-70, 79, 104, 116, 157, 266 n. 75; and contro· versy with Tyndale, 33, 58, 60, 65, 71, ffl, 92, 95, 99, '10.1-5, 10814, 219, 222-23, 231-32, 263 n. 38, 266 n. 76, 271 "· 27, 271 n. 32, 271 n. 33, 273 11. 50; ond Erasmus, 16, 32, 36, 55, 6o-61, 63, 109, 262 n. 36, 266 n. 75, 267 n. 83; and heresy, 12, 25, 52-53. 58-71, 74-76, 81-82. 119, 158, 203, 266 n. 77, 267 n. 81, 267 n. 83, 268 n. 2, 268 n. 4, 271 n. 32, 276 n. 1; >nd humanism, 12, 15, 21,34. 71. 109-10.~ n. 50; and humor, II, 12, 16. 22, 26-28, 33, 63, 66. 71-73, 265 n. 68; and self·cancellaUon, 131 16, 32, 42, 45, 54, 57-58; and self-fashioning, 13, 31-34, 36-38, 57-58, 67, 72-73, 112, 127, 143, 157-61, 231-32, 262 n. 33, 262 n. 36; and theatrical metaphor, 13-14, 27-29, 31, 35 -Works: 1\uswt't lo lJ PniS(Wt'll Book, 267 n. B'I ;AJIOiogy. 104,26$ n. 2; Collcrlo•tl Work~ (t•d . llMtcll),

315

316

I N 0

68; Compltu Works (Yale ed.), 259 n. 1; Confutation o{Tynd•lr's An· SWat, 102, 104, 112, 231-32, 263 n. 38, 266 n. 76, 266 n. 77, 267 n. 83, 268 n. 4, 271 n. 32; Con'c· spondttlcr, 267-68 n. 103; De Tristllin, 72, 268 n. 104; Dialogue Concrmin11 Hertsies, 60, 266 n. 74; Dialogue of Comfort, 11-14, ~26, 45-46, 259 n. 1; £uglis/J Works (ed . Campbell), 265 n. 64; Four Last Tl•i11g~. 26, 262 n. 28; Latin Epigrams, 21'r27, 232 n. 30; Lellu to Dorp, 66; Letter to Lee, 66; LtHtr to • Monk, 66; Letters, 6'7, 69, 7li-'I L, 266 n. 6~. 2GS n. 105; lift of l'ico, 52, 265 n. 64;

ux

27o-71 n. 27, 274 n. 66; attacks Catholic Church, 90-91, U2-13; and auricular c:onfe&Sion, 85-86, 91; counsels disobedience, 88-89, 92-93, 272 n. 43; as fash.ioner of identity, 84-38, 105, 120, 128, 239: on scriptur,,l inler· prctation, 10Q-J02 O'Donnell, Anne, 271 n. 33 Oldcastle, Sir John (Lord Cobham), 78-79, 269 n. 11 Orgel, Slephe n, 285 " · 17 Othtllo, 160, 170, 225, 232-54, 298 n , 1~, 298 n. 16,298 n. 18,298-99 n. 19, 299 n. 21, 299 n. 22, 300 n . 26, 300 n ?R, 305 n . 62,306 n. 64; and Chl'istianity, 234, Prrtyt•r Book, 265 n. 65; Respous;o 241-43, 24S-52, 302 n. 42, 302 n. 43,305-6 n. 63; a nd col· ad Luthenl/11, 5~. 266 n. 71; llic/mrd Ill, 13, 15, 66, 259 n. 2; onhtJisnl, 233-34; and empathy, Selected Letters, 265 n. 68: Tower 225, 235-36, 254, 299 n. 20; im· Works, 72-73; Translations of Luprovisation in, 227, 232-33, 235, ciau, 262 n. 29; TrcaUse 011 the 237,246,25:1,298 n , 14, 30Q-301 Passion, 268 n. 106; Utopia, n. 29,306 n. 66,306 n. 67; and 33-58, 261-62 n. 27 (see also norr,,livity, 234-38, 243-45; a nd Utopia); Works (1557), 262 n. 28 self-fashioning, 5, 234-39, 244-45,299-300 n. 23, 302 n. 42; MorgM, Edmund S., 287 n. 50 sexual anxiety in, 8, 233, ~1 4, Morton, John (canlinol), 12, 29, 66, 231 247-52,298 n. 15,300-301 n. 29, Mozley, j. F., 273 n. 51, 275 n. 84 305 n. 61,306 n. 66,306 n. 67; and >ubmission, 234, 237, Muir, Kenneth, 278 n. 18 239-10,243-44,252,254 Mukaster, Richard, 258 n. 4 Mulryne, J. R., 292 n. 21 Muntzer, Thomas, 92, 113 Panofsky, Urwin, 260 n. 9, 260 n. 15 Papacy, 64, 65, 88,107, t89. See a/Sf' Nngel, Alan P., 261 n. 21 N.,she, Thomas, 216, 295 n. 41, 307 Catholic Church n. 70 Parker, M. Pauline, 286 n. 33 Neole, J. E., 168, 285 n. 21 Paul, Saint, 62, 76, 100, 108, 114, 241 Nlccolcs, Alexander, 249, 305 n. 58 Nichols, John, 285 n. 23, 285 n. 25 Pearce, Roy 1-tarvey, 286 n . 41 Penilenc:e, 51-52, lll'r19, 231. Ser N icolaus o( Ausimo, 2•19 Nielzsche, Friedrich, 220 also Confession; Penitenl inl Psalms Noakes, Susan, 273 n. 53 P~1\itcntial Psalms (Wyatt's tl:'
317

lnd~x

Perell~. Nicolas, 269 n. 18 l'eristiany, j. C., 50,265 n. 59 Perkins, William. 247,303 n. 48, 304 n. 51 l'crsius, 279 n. 29 Peter, Saint, 62, 83, 87, lOS Petrarch, l'rancesco, 110, 145--16, 141!-50, 166, 2T;r-76 n. 90, 276 n. 3, 281 n. 53, 282 n. 65 Philibert de Vienne, 1~, 284 n 9, 284 n. 10 l'hillip>, Henry,108, 275 n. 84 Phi lli ps, john, 288 n. 65 Pi co della M irando la, 36, 51-52, 258 n. 3 Pinea), Rainer# 266 n. 75 Pill-Rivers, julian, 265 n. 59, 29~ n. 36 Plato, 36, 42, 44, 58, 109, 164, 215, 217, 279 n. 30, 296 n. 45 Plowden, Edmund, 167 Pocock, J. C. A., 28'1 n. 50 Poin~, john, '129-32 p.1 s~lm Poulc t, Georges, 294 n. 35 Prevost, Andre, 266 n. 75 Protesl.mtism, 17, 113,126, 141,276 n . 2; and authority, 98-99; ~nd Bible, 93-94, 96-99; and Cotholic ritual, 60, 230,271 n. 31; and community, 82-83, 159; cmpha· s is o n inwatdne$sof,52, 78,115, 156; iconoclasm in, 85. 179, '188 90; a nd ma rtyrdom, 74-84; and penitence, 115, 118-19; rc· jection ol pu.rgatory in , 200; ond sexuality, 247-49; and SOCii'll clnos, 270 n. 20, 272-73 n . •15. Sec also Heretics; luther; Puritanism; Tyndale Pscudo·Dionysius, 101 Pu rit.1nism, 171, 199,248, 249,274 n. 66, 2n n. 11,303 n. ·17 Pu ovcy, j ohn, 105 Puttcnhrun, George, 136 Pynson. Ricllard, 59

Qutnn, David Beers, 288 n. 58

168-69, 180, 278 n. 16,283 n. 2, 285 n. 25, 28!Hl6 n. 29,286 n. 42, 290 n. B, 292 n. 15 Rastell, Willi om, 68 Raymond ol l'enaforte, 248-49 Rebhom, Wayne A., 288-59 n. 67 Regino (monk), 117,277 n. 7 Rhetoric, 2S3; and Bible transla· lion, 102-5; Gorgias's conception of, 215; in humanist education~ 162 Rich , Richard, 68, 262 n . 37 Richard Il l, 13, 124 Ricoeur, Paul, 265 n. 62 Ridley, Nirholo•. 270 n . 25 Rodney, Woller, 289 n. 1 Rogers, John, 303-4 n. 51 Role-playing: ond colonialism, 228; in court ol Henry VIIL 28-29; in life of More, 13-14,26--27,29-31, 36--37,72, 112,158,160, 231; in Othello, 235; nnd Wyatt, 129-30, 161. Set: 11lso lnlprovisntion; Self-fas hioning Roper, Margaret More, 16, 31, 45, 52, 72, 268 n. 105 Roper, William, 21, 29--30, 32, 45, 52-53, 55. 67, 70, 75, 231, 259 n. 4, 26-1 n. 53 Rosen meyer, Thomas G., 295 n. 110 Rosier, llcmord du, 281 n . 55 Roy, Wi llinm, 107 Royal ShnkcspeMe Company, 2.0•1, 207 Rupp, ll. G., 276 n. 1 Rusche, Georg, 281 n. 51 Russell, Sir John, 140 Sampson, Thomas, 271 n. 28 Samuel, Edg.u R., 260 n. 10 San dys. Edwin (archbishop), 3 Sarrocoll, john, 193-91, 198, 289 n. 1, 291 n . 6 Satires (Wyatt'•). 116,127-35,279 n. 29; odmired, 131,279 n . 3-1; "Mine Own John Poins," 128-30, 132-33, 279 n. 26, 279 n. 27, 279 n. 28; ..My Mothur'!t Maids,"

R41binow, Pnul, 4, 259 n. 9 Rabkin , Norman, 307 n. 68 R.od~ lnow ocz, leon, 277 n. I I Rnlcgh, Sh' Walter, 121, 140, 11>5,

128-2'1, ill 32,279 n. 29; nCfJ·I tlon in, 127 2H, 27~ n. 27; nt lltutlt•lt>wMtl l>oworln, 127-28, 130, 1.12 1~.17<1n. 28;olllllutlt•

JN OI!:X

318

toward sexuolily in, U9, 132, 161; occasion fo1·, 127; "A

Shakespoare,7-8,161, 192,203,298 n. 17; ..-.nd im_provisotion, 252- 54,297-98 n. 11,306-7 n. 68; Spending Hand," 133-35.280 n. 37 -Wod<s: Anton.v and Cleopatra, 195; As You Like II. 232,254, 293 Scarisbrick, ). ) .. 262 n. 32, 272 n. 37, 280 n. 44 n. 28; Coriolamts, 212; Hamlet, 87; 1 Henry IV, 195; King Lear, 134 , Schnucker, Robert V., 303 n. 48 305 n. 63; Mercltanl of Vtntet, Schocnreich, Georg. 290 n. 2 203, 293 n. 25; Otltttlo, 5, 8, Scholem, Gershom, 289 n. 10 Schwarz, W .• 273 n. 49 225-27,232- 54,298 n. 14 (see Seigel, jerrold, 283 n. •I also Othello); Richard 111, 232, 298 n. 13; Romeo amlfultct, 249, 3Q.I SeJf~Cashioning: and aulo nomy, I, 6-7,256-57;defined, l-9;and n. 53; 11~e Tempest, 297 n. U; Tile Faerie Quec11e, 2, 169, 175 , Timon of AtlleUS, 254; ve,lt$ anti 177- 79, 222- 24; and Marlowe, Adonis, 170 SJwtclmu ArucJt. 274 n. 66 201,2Uo,2 t2- t4,217,219. Sidney, Sir Philip, 238, 292 n . 'Ill 222-24; .md mobility, 7, 224-25, Skinner, Quentin, 262 n. 27,272 252-53; and Montnigne, 252-53; and More, 13,31-34,36-38, n. 42, 273 n. 45 57- 58,67,72- 73,112,127,143, Slatkin, Rich ard, 287 n. 52 Smith, james L., 292 n. 22 157-61,231- 32,262 n. 33,262 n, 36; • nd 'file Obedie11ce of a Smith, Pauline, 284 n . 9 Clrrislitt11 Mn11, 84-88, 105, 120, Snow, Edward, 290 n. 4, 298 n. 15, 128, 239; andOIIte//o, 5, 234-39, 306 n. 65 2•14-45. 299-300 n. 23,302 n. 42; Socrates, 109, !64 Sophocles, 6 and Queen £!Iizabeth, 165-69; Southall, Raymond, 278 n. H, 280 nnd Renaissance culture, 87-88~ 161-65; and Shakespeare, 252- 54; n. 43, 283 n. 72 and Tyndale, 2, 8, 105-7, 112, Spenser, Edmund,l61, 194, 158-61; and Wyntt, 116,120, 156, 2'16-17; and altitude towJrd power, 173-74, 191-92,201-2, 159-61 ~ See nlso Improvisation; 222-24; a nd distrust of sprezzaRole-playing Selincou rt, E. de, 259 n. 10 tura, 189-90, 289 n. 68; nnd SeUer, Abednego. 272 n. 42 iconoclasm, 18&-92; tll'\d Ireland, 179, 18-1-88,287 n. 54,287-88 Selvc, Georges de, 17, 20, 21 n.56, 288 n, 58, 288 n. 60, 288 Seneca, 36, 129, 248,279 n. 30 n. 61; and Marlowe, 192,222-24, Sexuality,l29, 303 n. 49,304 n. 52, 304 n. 53; and adultery, 9, 42-43, 290 n. 2, 29&-97 n . 3; a nd New 47, 233, 246-52,303 n, 46,303 World, 179-84, 190-92,286 n. 41; n. 47,303 n, 48,303-4 n . 51; nnd s~lf- fashioning, 2, 7-8, 169, 175,177-79.201-3 Christi,on view of, 1.22-23, 125-26, 241-42, 246-50,301 n. 34, -Works: Amorelli, 2, 258 n, 2; 303 n. 49,303-4 n. 51,304-5 Faerie Qnerne, 71rt. 2, 169-92,258 n. 56; and 11te Foerie Quewc, n. 2 (sec also Fncrie Que..e11t•); '17Q-?3,175-79, 181-821 and "Letter to Rillegh," 2. 169, 175, 223; Poetical Works (ed. Sm ith), Marlowe, 201,209,211,217, 220; 258 n. 10; Vi~wof tltt Prestn/ ;n 0 1111•1/o, 8. 233,238-44,247- 52, 298n. 15, JOQ-301 n. 29,305 Stole of lrdtmd, 18-H!8, 287 n. Sol, n. 61,306 n, 66,306 n. 67; in 287-88 n. 51>, 288 n. 61,302 n . 45, Utopia, 42-43, 47-18; and vioWorks (Variorum), 258 n . 2 Spivnek, Betndrd, 298 n . 16, 305-1> lence, 242, 252, 301-2 n. 36; and Wyatt, 122-26, 129, 132, 137-56 n. 63

319

l•da

Stapleton, Thom.lS, 265 n. 57 Stccvcns, John, 296 n. 2 Stoicism, 46, 71, 127, 129, 247-48, 279 n . 30, 303 n. 49 Stone, l.awrence, 42,264 n. 49,264 n. 50, 272 n. 35, 272-73 n. 45, 274 n. 59,303 n. 51 Streuver, Nancy S., 283 n. 4 Strong, Roy, 259 n . 6, 285 n . 17,285 " · 25,296 n. 1 Suffolk. duke of (Charles Brandon), 127 Supp
n

!:llurtz.~

t.dward, .!04 n . 4!:5 Sylvester, Ri~hard, 259 n. 4

TMt, Arthur 1., 268 n. 2 T•mburl•ine the Cre•l, 195, 198,209, 21S..16, 289 n .2, 291 n. 9, 295 n. 44; a.nd admonitory fictions,

202; desire in, 194, 196,199, 217-18; and miltcrinlism, 21()...12; and .elf-fashioning. 197, 213; ond v iolence, 194,197-98,215, 223-24 Tasso. Torquato, 110, 180,286 n. 41 T3vard, George H., 274 n. 65 Taverner, Richard, 3, 258 n. 5

Tay lor, Rowland, 267 n. 102 Tcntler, Thomas N .. 270 n. 26, 277 n. 8, 302 n. 44, 302-3 n. 46 T~wkesbwy, john, 268 n. 5, 271 n. 32 Theatricality. Stt Improvisation; Self-fashioning, Role-playing Thcmsccke, Georges de, 3-1 ·n,omas, Keith , 190, 268 n. 66, 291 n. 11,303 n. 47 Tilompson,E. P. 291 n. 10 Thomson, john A. F.,268n. 9 Thomson, Patrici>, 136,279 n. 34, 280n. 43 Thorpe, WiUia m , 77-78, 268n. 9 T illyMd, E. M. W., 13'1 To ttcl, Richard, 281 ll . 58, 282 n. 72 Tmchtcnberg, Joshua, 293 n . 27 Tr~n t, Council of, 95 Trevor-Roper, liugh, 281 n. 56 Trinterud, l. J., 275 n 88

1'rJdor Royal Proclamations (ed. Hughes a nd lurkin), 264 n. 47, 273-74 n. 55, 27~ n. 60,292 n. 16 Tunstall, Cuthbert, 33, 96, 105, 107, 158 Turner, Victor, 4, 259 n. 9 Tuve, Rosemond, 283 n. 4 Twombly, Roben G., 276 n. 2 Tyndale, Willium, 74-114, 133, l1~20, 157, 239, 247,268 n. 9, 260-81 n. 50,283 n. 2; and Bible, 93-114.,154-55,273 n. 50,273-74 n. 55,274 n. 66,275 n.71 ; on confession, 85, 91, 118-19; and controversy with More. 33, 58, 60, 6.5.. 7l, 87, 92, 95, 99,104-5, 108-14,219,222-23, 231-32,263 n. 38.266 n. 76,271 n. 27,27 1 n. 32,271 n . 33,273 n . 50; a nd Luther, 95,103, 107,109, ll5, 227 n. 4; and secular authority, 88-93,106,108,110,123,272 n. 42; and self-foshioning. 2, 7-8,

105-7,112,116, 158-6J,203;on works of imaginalion, 33, 88,

112-14 - Works: A1rswcr to Sir Tltomns Mort's Dialogue, 99, 263n. 38, 275 n. 68; Doclri11al Tre•tises (ed. Walter), 270-71 n. 27; Enchiridio11 (trans.), 87; Epistle to tl~e CorintldllnS (tra ns.), 3; Epistle lo Rouums (trans.), 2; E..t'PosUfaus ami Noll'S (cd. Wnlter), 276 n. 96g Exposition of I )olm, 90,2.72 n. 38, 272 n. 39; New Ttslament (trans.), 94, 100; Obtditllet of • Christia11 Mau, 84-114,270-71 n. 27 (sec 01lso Obed;euce of a CIJTistimr Man); Pqrnble of tire Wicke
320

l

N D G"X

n. 44; Works (ed. Russell), 263 n . 38 Ungarelli, jacobus, 249, 251 Unlerstciner, Mario, 294-95 n. 38 lllopia, 32-58, 111-13 passim, Ul, 133. 157, 26J..Q2 n. 27,263 n. 40, 263 n. 42,264 n. 46, 292 n. 17; and anrunorpho•is, 21-26, 57-58, 261 n. 20, 261 n. 21; nssault on individuation in, 37-47, 5(_1_, 157; communism in, 36-39,41,47, Si1; family in, 42-14, <17, 49-51; guJil in, 51 -53, 56; pleasure in, 43-15, 264 n. 51; on problem of counsel, 3•~17, 7l . 133; on reli11ion, 15, 26, 53-56, 64, 261-Q2 n. 27, 266 n. 70, 267 n. 86; role ofHythlodocus in, 23, 27, 3>-36, 5-I, 58-59,66, 70-71, 73i role of Monts in,2J, J.l, 66-Q7, 71, 73; shame and

honor in, 17-56,265 n. 59; slav· ery in, 39-40,47,264 n. 47,265 n. 58; as split in polcrnknl works, 59-QO, 62-Q6, 71, 73; structure of, 22,37

Valery, Paul, 219,296 n. 18 Van den Berg, J. H., 280 n. 48 Van dcrWcyden, Rogier, 297 n . 10 Vaughan, Stephen. 105-Q Venn, Jo hn, 288 "· 64 Vespasiano dn Bisticd, 261 n. 18 Vico, GimnbntlistD, 293 n.29

Virgil, 174, 300 n.25 Virgin, cult of the, 139,169,285 n. 24 Vivcs,Juon Luis, 30/k-5 n. 56 Wagner. llenry R., 297 n. 6 Wallerstein, lmmanuct 229, m n. 35 \'Villsingham, Sir Francis, 220 Waliter, Michael, 273 n. 45 Warton, Thomas, 131 Walkins, Osenr D.• 277 n. 7 Walkins, W. B. C .. 290 n. 2 Whately. William, 305 n. 59 Williams, Raymond, 132,279 n. 35 William of Rcnnes, 248 Wjlson, r:.. C., 285 n. 25

Wolsey, Thomas (cardinal), 11-13, 28-30,39,45,51,140,157 Wyatt, SirThon»s,157, 220,280 n. 42, 282-113 n. 72, 283 n. 2; ln court of Henry vm. J16, 121-22, 136-39,142-13, 146, 1.53-56, 159-Ql , 280 n. 43, 280-81 n. 50; and diplomacy, 7, 139-45, 152, 281 n. 53; nnd inwardness, 115-16,119,125-28,131-32,156, 277-78 n. 13; and J!Ower, 124-27, 133,135,139-45,151-53,278 n. 20, 279 n. 28; and Protestant· ism, 115-16, 118-20, 123, 125-26, 152,276-77 n. 4; and setr. fa
203; and sexuality, 116,138.141, 151- 56, 160-Ql, 280 n. 46; and translation, US, 120, 14.5, 149,

276 n. 3, 281 n. 53, 282 n. 65 -Works: BlageMS,280n. 45,281 n, 54; Collected Poe111S (ed. Muir and Thomson), 276 n. 3, 276 n. 4; Collected Pa.ms (ed. Daalder), 276 n. 3; Devonshire MS, 137, 280 n. 45; "Farewell, Love.'' 279 n . 30; " 1Am As I Am,"28l n. 5-1; "ll:ind No Peace/' 281 n. 53; Leiters, 124,279 n. 2•1, 279 n. 30, 282 n. 71; l..ellers (cd. Muh'), 278 n. 18; "The Long Love," 276 n. 3; "Madnm, Withouten Many Words,"155; Pen itential Psalms, 115-18 (see also l'cnitential Ps,tlms [Wyatt's translation]); Satires, 127-36 (see also So tires rwyall]); "So Unwarely Was Never No Man Caught," 283 n. 73; ..They Flee From Me," 150-54,156; "To Wei Your Eye Wilhouten Tear," 137-39, 280 n. <15; "What'vailelh 1"rulh," 143; "Who ListHisWeallh and Ease Retain," U4; uWhoso Us I to Hun t," l
Index

Yates, Frances A., 259 n. 6, 285

n.l7,285n . 24,296n.l Yeats, William Buller, 171,185, 279 n. 34, 286 n. 32

•

Zimmermann, T. C. J>rice, 264 n. 5-l Zwingli, Ulrich, 118

321