Slow reading in Shakespeare's England

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SLOW
READING
IN
SHAKESPEARE’S
ENGLAND

by

Meghan
Davis
Mercer

A
Dissertation
Presented
to
the

FACULTY
OF
THE
USC
GRADUATE
SCHOOL

UNIVERSITY
OF
SOUTHERN
CALIFORNIA

In
Partial
Fulfillment
of
the

Requirements
for
the
Degree

DOCTOR
OF
PHILOSOPHY

(ENGLISH)

May
2015

Copyright
2015

Meghan
Davis
Mercer

ii

Nowadays
it
is
not
only
my
habit,
it
is
also
to
my
taste—a
malicious
taste,
perhaps?
—no

longer
to
write
anything
which
does
not
reduce
to
despair
every
sort
of
man
who
is
“in
a

hurry”…but
for
precisely
this
reason
it
is
more
necessary
than
ever
today,
by
precisely
this

means
does
it
entice
and
enchant
us
the
most,
in
the
midst
of
an
age
of
“work,”
that
is
to
say,

of
hurry,
of
indecent
and
perspiring
haste,
which
want
to
“get
everything
done”
at
once,

including
every
old
or
new
book.

—Friedrich
Nietzsche,
Daybreak
(1881)

iii

Acknowledgments

“A
Dissertation
is
not
a
battle;
it’s
a
war.”
This
was
the
advice
that
Dr.
Dallas
Willard

gave
me
in
May
2009,
as
I
sat
in
his
book-‐stacked
office
and
considered
the
project
that

stretched
ahead.

At
the
time,
I
assumed
that
dissertation
writing
was
a
solitary
act;
I
now
know

otherwise,
and
have
many
people
to
thank.
Without
my
chair,
Heather
James,
I
would
never

have
chosen
the
Renaissance,
a
field
I
love.
Over
the
years
Heather
has
been
my
advisor,

but
also
my
advocate,
rare-‐book
procurer,
editor,
and
friend.
Bruce
Smith
color-‐coded
my

dissertation,
which
was
fitting
because
he
brings
an
artist’s
sensibility
to
everything
he

touches
and
has
inspired
me
to
do
the
same.
Rebecca
Lemon
was
my
first
teacher
at
USC,

and
from
the
beginning
she
framed
the
project
of
academic
writing
as
a
nourishing
and

exciting
endeavor;
I
am
grateful
for
her
rigorous
and
careful
reading
of
my
work

throughout
the
years.
I
am
also
grateful
to
Bill
Handley
and
Joe
Boone,
who
welcomed
me

to
USC,
to
Meg
Russett,
who
mentored
me,
and
to
Peggy
Kamuf,
who
dared
to
ask
the

question,
“Why
does
your
project
matter?”—and
then
helped
me
to
craft
an
adequate

response.
Outside
of
USC,
M.
S.
Stapleton
worked
closely
with
me
on
my
Marlowe
project,

and
Valerie
Wayne
was
invaluable
for
Cymbeline.
The
Early
Modern
Studies
Institute,
with

Amy
Braden
and
Peter
Mancall
at
the
helm,
supports
the
students
of
USC
with
ongoing

fellowships
and
lively
seminars.
Flora
Ruiz
has
supported
me
in
many
a
bureaucratic

emergency,
and
the
librarians
at
the
Huntington
have
created
an
inviting
home
for

scholarship.

iv

I
want
to
also
thank
my
friends
at
USC
for
their
support,
especially
Matthew
Smith,

Elizabeth
Cantwell,
Katie
Zimolzak,
Brandon
Som,
and
Merve
Aktar.
I
also
want
to
thank
the

members
of
my
writing
group,
Ash
Kramer,
Amanda
Gross,
Lauren
Elmore,
and
Megan

Herrold,
whose
notes
and
encouragement
buoyed
me
at
an
important
time.
My

grandparents,
Drs.
William
and
Constance
Walker,
paved
the
way
for
a
scholarly
life,

writing
their
dissertations
by
hand
(and
then
typewriter)
in
a
time
before
computers.
My

grandfather
Robert
Davis
never
missed
a
graduation,
and
though
he
won’t
be
here
for
my

final
one,
that
day
is
all
for
him.
My
parents,
Michael
and
Nancy
Davis,
have
with
their

whole
hearts
supported
me
from
Kindergarten
to
terminal
degree.
My
siblings,
Leighton

and
Michael,
have
come
to
the
rescue
with
babysitting
and
constant
reminders
to
not
take

myself
too
seriously.
My
dog,
Wrangler,
has
literally
stood
(or
sat,
or
lain)
by
me
every
step

of
the
way.
And
on
his
arrival
to
this
planet,
my
son
August
initially
slowed
down
this

project;
he
then
cured
me
of
procrastination
and
filled
my
life
with
unspeakable
and

exhausting
joy,
so
that’s
a
net
gain.

This
dissertation
is
dedicated
to
my
husband
Jason:
we
all
write
for
one
person,
and

in
my
life
that’s
him.

Finally
I
want
to
recognize
the
aforementioned
Dallas
Willard,
who
is
sadly
no

longer
with
us.
I
see
now
that
in
talking
about
writing
as
a
good
fight,
he
was
also
talking

about
life.
Thank
you
for
the
metaphor,
Dallas.

v

TABLE
OF
CONTENTS

Epigraph

ii

Acknowledgments

iii

Abstract

vi

Introduction

1

Chapter
One

“An
Idle
Work
of
Mine”:
King
David,
Exile,
and
the
Problems

of
Leisure
in
Sidney’s
Old
Arcadia

13

Shepherd-‐Warrior-‐Poet-‐Exile-‐King

16

The
Lion
and
the
Bear

20

Two
Renderings
of
Exile,
and
a
Prophetic
Owl

23

Friendship,
Solitude,
and
Isolation
from
Oneself

30

Sidney’s
Contrapuntal
Imagination

37

Chapter
Two

The
Tired
Book:
Poetic
Ambition
and
Exhaustion
in
The

Shepheardes
Calender

48

The
Politics
of
Fashioning
“A
Calender
for
euery
yeare”

51

The
Kingdom
of
our
Own
Language

57

From
the
Margins
of
Empire

63

A
Pretense
of
Vulnerability

71

Spenser’s
Careful
Verse

76

Chapter
Three

“Poore
Schollers”:
Education
and
Frustration
in
Hero

84

and
Leander

Toying
with
Decorum
and
the
“Rudiments
of
Eloquence”

89

Swatting
Away
the
Bookish
Bee

94

Poverty
and
Poetic
Stockpiling

101

The
Ultimate
Suspension
of
Consequences

107

The
Goddess
Ceremony
and
Her
Corrections

110

Under
the
Ocean’s
Surface

114

Chapter
Four

Shakespeare's
"Mistress-‐piece":
Time
and
Textual

121

Violation
in
Cymbeline

“The
Most
Perplexing
Play”:

Critical
Contexts

126

The
“Poem
Unlimited”

132

Preemptive
Misuse

141

Timon
of
Athens
and
the
Founding
Myths
of
Poetry

145

The
“Mistress-‐piece,”
the
“Tender
Air”:
Women
and
Books

151

Works
Cited

156

vi

Abstract

This
project
explores
an
important
but
largely
overlooked
phenomenon
in
Early

Modern
studies:
how
poets,
in
the
midst
of
a
radically
expanding
culture
of
reading
and

print,
chose
to
take
time
with
and
within
English
verse
as
an
act
of
cultural
resistance
for

readers
and
poets
alike.
My
project
looks
at
emblematic
texts,
central
works
of
poetry
and

romance
in
the
period,
as
well
as
models
of
classical
transmission,
education,
and
the

reading
practices
of
Elizabethan
England
to
show
how
key
poets
pit
their
works
against
the

political,
moral,
and
even
practical
ends
that
their
vernacular
literature
was
supposed
to

serve.
Restoring
the
cultural
context
to
this
process
of
“slow
reading”—a
practice

intimately
related
to
the
pastoral
mode—shifts
our
understanding
of
thinkers
whose

writings
are
often
miscategorized
as
escapist
and
politically
disengaged.

To
our
modern
sensibilities,
taking
time
with
literature
might
seem
to
be
a
purely

enjoyable
phenomenon.
Yet
for
the
key
innovators
in
Elizabethan
poetry,
the
proliferation

of
a
relatively
new
technology—the
printed
book—surfaces
within
their
works
as
both
a

site
of
opportunity
and
a
source
of
moral
anxieties
and
political
risks.
Take
for
instance
the

violent
interruptions
of
dilatory
scenes
in
Sir
Philip
Sidney’s
“Old
Arcadia.”
Sidney
wrote

the
bulk
of
this
work
during
a
period
of
rustication
from
Elizabeth’s
court,
and
in
it
he
tests

the
nature
of
leysure
through
two
parables
of
political
withdrawal
within
the
recorded
life

of
King
David.
This,
I
argue,
is
Sidney’s
way
of
revealing
the
political
and
spiritual
dangers

of
“taking
his
time”
as
an
author
and
reader
alike.
Though
numerous
scholars
have

connected
Sidney
to
the
figure
of
David
in
relation
to
the
Sidney
Psalter,
I
am
the
first
to

demonstrate
how
the
direct
transmission
of
Davidic
tropes
into
an
Arcadian
context
results

vii

in
a
dilation
of
a
lyric
space
troubled
by
political
and
spiritual
anxieties;
and
as
such,
it

uniquely
manifests
the
exilic
standpoint
that
Edward
Said
later
theorized.

Edmund
Spenser’s
Shepheardes
Calender
was
dedicated
to
Sidney,
and
in
it
he

continues
to
explore
the
dangerous
potential
energy
within
vernacular
spaces
of
reading.

My
study
breaks
new
ground
in
showing
how
Spenser
uses
contradicting
modes
of
poetic

time,
taken
directly
from
Ovid’s
exile
writings,
to
express
his
political
and
poetic

discontent.
Like
Ovid,
Spenser
boldly
imagines
a
calendar
that
both
predates
and
postdates

the
political
system
that
inspires
his
complaint
and
in
doing
so,
shows
how
the
writing
of

time—especially
during
the
Calendrical
Debates
of
the
late
1570’s—was
intrinsically
tied

to
the
workings
of
empire.
Yet
the
consequence
of
poetic
transcendence
is
the
rapid

senescence
of
the
poet-‐shepherd
figure,
just
as
Ovid
describes
in
his
Tristia:
the
merciless

wearing
away
of
the
poet
under
the
pressures
of
envy
as
well
as
financial,
political,
social,

and
emotional
woes.
Spenser
might
be
able
to
soar
imaginatively
through
the
centuries,
but

he
is
also
very
much
stuck
in
his
own
time;
so
too
is
the
reader
of
his
Calender
suspended

among
conflicting
modes
of
a
poetic
time.
This
reading
sheds
light
on
puzzling
formal

features
of
the
work:
the
many
emblems,
argument,
notes,
and
frames
that
resist
linear

reading
and
narrative
flow
and
that
ultimately
toy
with
matters
of
British
Empire.

If
Spenser
likens
himself
to
a
poor
shepherd,
then
Christopher
Marlowe
incarnates

the
paradox
of
the
“poore
scholler”
who
laments
that
true
learning
and
poverty
are

intrinsically
tied
to
one
another:
“To
this
day
is
every
scholler
poore;/
Gross
gold
from

them
runs
headlong
to
the
boore.”
With
the
aid
of
educational
models,
theories
of
classical

transmission,
and
recent
biographical
studies,
I
examine
how
the
poet’s
frustrations
with

his
social
marginalization
lead
to
an
unceremonious
classicism
that
outright
rejects
the

viii

moral
and
educational
uses
of
poetry.
This
surfaces
in
his
resistance
to
the
practice
of

commonplacing:
the
imaginative
world
of
Hero
and
Leander
is
one
where
the
bee,
long

regarded
as
a
symbol
of
the
sententia-‐collecting
intellect,
gets
swatted
away.
Throughout

the
poem,
Marlowe
invites
the
reader
to
savor
the
lush
descriptions
of
a
reckless
love
affair,

and
he
ends
his
version
of
the
myth
with
no
death,
no
consequences,
no
lesson.
In
this
way,

the
poem
remains,
in
a
sense,
suspended
in
time
forever,
endlessly
drawing
the
reader
back

into
its
beautiful
yet
morally
questionable
(and
hence
non-‐utilitarian)
language.

The
poets
of
this
study,
then,
are
invariably
“slow
readers”
of
their
own
educations,

unearthing
the
politically
and
morally
subversive
ideas
at
the
heart
of
classical
and
biblical

texts
as
they
simultaneously
slow
down
their
own
readers
in
strategic
lyric
deferment.

Perhaps
none
is
more
interested
in
the
problems
of
reading
over
time
than
William

Shakespeare.
In
my
final
chapter,
I
demonstrate
how
Shakespeare
uses
Cymbeline
to
reread

his
earlier
works
of
verse
(the
Sonnets
and
Lucrece
in
particular),
to
imagine
their

transmission,
and—perhaps
even
more
surprisingly
—to
demonstrate
the
their
inevitable

misreading
and
misuse.
Hence
the
most
famous,
most
canonized,
most
enduring
writer
of

the
English
language
suggests
that
if
taking
time
within
literature
can
challenge
the
society

surrounding
the
book,
time
itself
threatens
to
harden
language
into
something

unrecognizable,
a
figure
covered
in
bark
like
Daphne
herself.

1

Introduction

When
Dmitri
Shostakovich
debuted
his
fifth
symphony
on
November
21,
1937,

nothing
short
of
his
life—not
to
mention
his
entire
reputation—was
at
stake.
The
Stalinist

regime
had
criticized
the
dissonance
of
his
recent
works,
and
the
composer
was
under

intense
pressure
to
adapt
his
work
to
heroic-‐classical
models
and
to
uphold
the
tenets
of

Socialist
Realism.
1

By
all
accounts,
the
symphony
was
a
triumphant
success.
The
audience

gave
the
work
a
standing
ovation
lasting
over
an
hour,
and
the
authorities
were
pleased

with
the
vigorous
military
themes
that
animate
the
piece.
While
the
symphony
remains
one

of
Shostakovich’s
most
beloved,
many
still
consider
the
work
a
concession
to
totalitarian

force.
By
this
view,
Shostakovich’s
symphony
seems
to
prove
Igor
Stravinsky’s
claim
that

Soviet
composers
did
not
possess
the
luxury
of
integrity.
2

And
it
is
patently
clear
that
the

finale—with
its
triumphant
shift
to
D
Major—captures
a
mood
of
political
optimism,

especially
when
played
at
the
standard
brisk
tempo.
Yet
the
conventions
of
pacing
and

political
ideology
alike
irritated
one
of
Shostakovich’s
most
brilliant
interpreters,
Mstislav

Rostropovich,
who
opted
to
conduct
the
symphony’s
finale
at
a
startlingly
slow
tempo
that

revealed,
under
the
tonal
brightness,
an
unmistakable
complaint
against
the
oppression
of

Stalinism:
in
Rostropovich’s
rendering,
the
repeated
high
A’s
that
end
the
finale
do
not

sound
life-‐affirming,
but
suggest
instead
the
sound
of
human
cries.

Rostropovich

1
Laurel
E.
Fay,
Shostakovich:
A
Life
(New
York
and
Oxford:
Oxford
University
Press,
2000),
83-‐105.

2
Leonard
Lyons,
“Stravinsky
Is
in
Fine
Spirits
Even
Though
Law
Costs
Money,”
Lawrence
Journal-‐
World,
December
17,
1960,
4.

3
See
Ian
MacDonald,
The
New
Shostakovich
(London:
Pimlico,
2006),
5-‐7.

2
Leonard
Lyons,
“Stravinsky
Is
in
Fine
Spirits
Even
Though
Law
Costs
Money,”
Lawrence
Journal-‐
World,
December
17,
1960,
4.

2

explained:
“Anybody
who
thinks
the
finale
is
glorification
is
an
idiot.”
3

By
deliberately

slowing
down
the
tempo,
Rostropovich
intensified
the
political
complaint
that
was
hiding
in

plain
sight,
as
Shostakovich’s
memoirs
ultimately
corroborated.
4

In
this
sense,
we
might
say

that
the
conductor
slowly
read
the
composer’s
music.

This
anecdote
from
the
annals
of
20
th
-‐C.
music
suggests
how
slowly
evaluating
an

object
of
inquiry—in
this
case
a
piece
of
music—might
be
tied
to
radical
acts
of
cultural

interpretation.
It
also
offers
a
reason
for
turning
to
other,
and
to
earlier,
forms
of

composition
with
questions
about
the
tempo
of
reading.

My
dissertation
investigates

Elizabethan
lyricists
who,
spurred
by
the
radical
expansion
of
print
culture
and
the

unprecedented
poetic
innovation
of
the
period,
began
to
create
specifically
literary

encounters
within
their
works:
meditative
pauses
that
aim
neither
at
spiritual
edification

nor
specific
pedagogical
use,
but
rather
a
pleasure
in
words
that
is
subversive
in
its

resistance
to
the
utilitarian
practices
that
bolstered
both
church
and
state.
British

writers
of
the
mid-‐
to
late
sixteenth
century
were
products
of
an
unprecedented

pedagogical
program
that
combined
the
classical
study
of
logic
and
rhetoric
with
a

theological
survey
of
Protestant
thought,
all
in
the
service
of
Elizabeth
and
the
political
and

religious
order
that
she
represented.
Such
serious
classical
learning,
with
its
emphasis
on

rhetorical
play
and
a
style
of
argumentation
that
attempted
to
think
in
utramque
partem—

3
See
Ian
MacDonald,
The
New
Shostakovich
(London:
Pimlico,
2006),
5-‐7.

4
While
Rostropovich
is
not
the
only
conductor
to
take
the
ending
of
the
finale
at
a
slower
pace,
his

interpretation
of
the
piece
echoes
what
Solomon
Volkov
controversially
interprets
as
Shostakovich’s
take
on

the
symphony:
“What
exultation
could
there
be?
I
think
it
is
clear
to
everyone
what
happens
in
the
Fifth.
The

rejoicing
is
forced,
created
under
threat...It’s
as
if
someone
were
beating
you
with
a
stick
and
saying,
‘Your

business
is
rejoicing,
your
business
is
rejoicing,’
and
you
rise,
shaky,
and
go
marching
off,
muttering,
‘Our

business
is
rejoicing,
our
business
is
rejoicing.’
What
kind
of
apotheosis
is
that?”
On
the
debate
over
Volkov’s

memoir,
see
MacDonald,
The
New
Shostakovich,
1-‐17.

3

through
both
sides
of
a
matter—led
many
thinkers
of
the
time
to
consciously
question

everything,
even
the
value
and
the
use
of
their
humanist
educations
(educations
that,

somewhat
paradoxically,
had
equipped
them
systematically
to
question
things
in
the
first

place).
It
also
led
them
to
investigate
the
tenets
of
their
religious
upbringing
and
in
some

cases,
to
co-‐opt
the
features
of
the
biblical
psalmic
form—the
exilic
standpoint
as
defined

by
Edward
Said,
the
meditative
delay,
and
the
rapid
shifts
of
perspective
that
release
but
do

not
resolve
lyric
tension—to
craft
dilated,
specifically
literary
spaces
that
were
increasingly

secular
and
anti-‐didactic.
(Importantly,
this
questioning/co-‐opting
did
not
necessarily

occur
at
the
expense
of
a
thinker’s
religious
belief;
Edmund
Spenser
and
Sir
Philip
Sidney,

for
instance,
remained
deeply
Christian
thinkers
in
spite
of
their
pagan
literary
revelry.)

The
features
of
the
age,
then—the
deep
inquiries
into
the
nature
of
humanist
education
and

the
process
of
learning,
the
rapid
development
of
print
culture
that
allowed
writers
to

imagine
and
to
consider
a
broad
audience
of
readers,
and
the
development
of
secular

devotional
literary
spaces—help
to
demonstrate
why
it
serves
as
a
particularly
rich

historical
site
for
inquiry
into
the
practices
of
slowly
reading
English
literature.
My
project

reads
the
“negative
spaces”
of
pastoral
lyric
and
romance,
suggesting
how,
through
the
use

of
pleasurable
literary
delay,
such
poets
resist
the
practical,
moral,
and
political
ends
that

their
vernacular
literature
was
supposed
to
serve.
Restoring
the
cultural
context
to
this

process
of
verbal
suspension,
a
practice
intimately
related
to
the
pastoral
mode,
shifts
our

understanding
of
the
poets
and
thinkers
whose
writings
are
often
mis-‐categorized
as

escapist
and
politically
disengaged.

My
research
into
the
nature
of
slow
reading
is
animated
by
the
problem
of
modern

university
students
and
their
common
disenchantment
with
reading
beyond
140

4

characters
at
a
time.
In
the
spirit
of
scholars
as
diverse
as
Peter
Stallybrass,
Jeff
Dolven,
and

Lynn
Enterline,
whose
study
of
Renaissance
pedagogy
and
literature
relates
directly
to

their
own
methods
as
teachers,
I
believe
that
researching
early
modern
reading
practices

has
a
payoff
for
the
modern
university
classroom,
not
simply
because
the
rapid
expansion

of
print
culture
during
the
Elizabethan
period
mirrors
the
media
shift
we
are
now

experiencing
at
the
ostensible
end
of
print
culture.
5

It
is
my
strong
conviction
that
within

today’s
technological
context,
the
study
and
the
teaching
of
slow
reading—reading
that

takes
its
time,
that
delights
in
words,
that
grapples
with
the
problems
of
reading
and

interpretation,
and
that
suspends
questions
of
practicality—can
actually
function
as
an
act

of
productive
cultural
resistance.
That
is,
slow
reading
does
not
simply
teach
students
to

categorically
question
everything
from
a
privileged,
nihilistic
stance—a
critique
repeatedly

lodged
against
university
Humanities
programs
throughout
the
culture
wars
of
the
1980’s

onward.
Instead,
slow
reading
helps
to
cultivate
nuanced
critical
thinking
and
creative

problem
solving,
two
skills
that
seem
to
be
in
desperately
short
supply
in
spite
of
the

nationwide
push
for
educational
“excellence.”
6

Before
returning
to
a
discussion
of
my
project,
I
want
to
discuss
two
common,

contemporary
critiques
of
slow
reading.
Within
university
English
departments,
some

worry
that
slow
reading
is
simply
the
art-‐worshipping,
conservative,
New
Critical
method

of
“close
reading”
dressed
up
in
different
clothing.
Meanwhile,
administrators
and
anxious

5

Peter
Stallybrass
studies
the
early
modern
practice
of
commonplacing,
and
likewise
he
teaches
his

students
to
commonplace
quotes
and
images
as
an
exercise
in
the
collection
and
organization
of
knowledge.

Under
the
conviction
that
reading
and
writing—intimately
tied
to
one
another
in
the
Renaissance—have

become
too
separate,
Jeff
Dolven
teaches
students
to
understand
contemporary
literature
by
imitating
it.

6
Bill
Readings,
The
University
in
Ruins
(Cambridge,
MA:
Harvard
University
Press,
1996),
21-‐43,

especially
24:
“Excellence
is
not
a
fixed
standard
of
judgment
but
a
qualifier
whose
meaning
is
fixed
in

relation
to
something
else.”

5

parents
from
outside
the
domain
of
English
literary
studies
voice
their
concern
that

spending
time
with
literature
is
a
luxury
not
available
to
most
during
a
time
of
educational

crisis.
By
this
view,
the
slow
reading
of
literature
does
not
serve
as
an
efficient
way
to

educate
students
in
desperate
need
of
practical
skills.
Yet
for
all
the
talk
of
“innovation”
and

the
United
States’
considerable
need
for
it
in
a
climate
of
increasing
global
competition,

there
seems
to
be
very
little
understanding
of
how
creative
problem
solving
actually
works.

Neuroscientist
Rex
Jung
has
utilized
recent
breakthroughs
in
brain
imaging
to
explore
the

differences
between
intelligence
and
creativity,
and
to
demonstrate
the
seeming

“inefficiency”
of
creative
thought.
When
it
comes
to
intelligence,
Jung
explains,
“the
back

part
of
the
brain
and
the
front
part
of
the
brain
are
integrated
in
a
way
that
allows

intelligence
to
work
well...more
is
better.
Greater
cortical
thickness,
more
neurons,
higher

connectivity
between
those
neurons,
and
more
biochemicals
subserving
those
neurons
was

almost
invariably
better
for
intelligence.”
With
creativity,
on
the
other
hand,
Jung
expresses

his
surprising
findings
that

in
particular
regions
of
the
brain,
particularly
the
frontal
lobes,
less
was

better.
There’s
a
down
regulation
of
the
frontal
lobes
that
appeared
to
foster

creative
cognition...[this
allows]
a
freer
interplay
of
different
networks
in
the

brain
so
that
the
ideas
literally
can
link
together
more
readily.
So
with

intelligence...the
analogy
I’ve
used
is
there’s
this
superhighway
in
the
brain

that
allows
you
to
get
from
Point
A
to
Point
B.
With
creativity,
it’s
a
slower,

6

more
meandering
process
where
you
want
to
take
the
side
roads
and
even

the
dirt
roads
to
get
there,
to
put
the
ideas
together.
7

Many
who
pursue
creative
work
have
likely
intuited
the
indirect
nature
of
this
process,

which
is
based
on
exploration,
taking
time,
meandering
down
the
“dirt
roads”
of
one’s
mind

in
order
to
happen
upon
a
new
idea.
This
“transient
hypofrontality,”
as
Jung
labels
it,
is

intrinsically
related
to
the
creation
of
metaphors
and
analogies.
It
seems
to
follow,
then,

that
the
careful,
time-‐intensive
exploration
of
literary
objects
could
foster
such
dispositions

of
the
mind.
It
is
crucial,
now
more
than
ever,
that
we
consider
the
benefits
of
pedagogical

activities
that
are
not
directed
toward
particular
ends
but
that
lead
to
habits
of
thought

conducive
to
creative
problem
solving.
The
incipient
stages
of
creative
thought
appear

inefficient
and
indirect:
this
is
their
nature,
even
in
the
brain.
Consequently,
education

“reforms”
that
seek
to
eliminate
all
seemingly
impractical
or
unfocused
approaches
to

learning
do
so
at
great
risk.

Yet
those
within
university
Humanities
departments
who
already
favor
the

“inefficiency”
of
the
learning
process⎯as
opposed
to
end-‐focused
pedagogical

methods⎯are
not
necessarily
in
favor
of
slow
reading
because
of
its
possible
link
to

Formalist
methods
of
the
past.
Numerous
scholars
have
recently
returned
to
the
idea
of

close
reading
in
relation
to
the
so-‐called
New
Formalism,
and
once
again
have

considered/run
up
against
the
ideological
resistance
to
New
Criticism
as
an
interpretive

method
that
tends
to
separate
the
poetic
from
the
political
and
ideological
as
well
as
from

7
Rex
Jung,
“Creativity
and
the
Brain”
(American
Public
Media,
May
2,
2013),
accessed
February
4,

2015,
http://www.onbeing.org/program/creativity-‐and-‐the-‐everyday-‐brain-‐with-‐rex-‐
jung/transcript/5441#main_content.

7

historical
considerations.

8
New
Criticism’s
seemingly
apolitical
stance
is
now
commonly

viewed
as
both
politically
conservative
and
elitist:
one
could
only
tout
art
for
art’s
sake
if

safely
protected
by
white
privilege
and
distanced
from
economic
hardship.
Since
the

partially
concealed
agendas
of
some
New
Critics,
not
necessarily
the
tool
of
close
reading,
is

really
at
issue,
close
reading
as
a
tool
is
still
considered
a
viable
approach
to
literary
study,

but
its
ideological
underpinnings
are
either
too
questionable
or
not
substantial
enough
to

constitute
a
methodology.
By
contrast,
slow
reading
sets
its
focus
on
time
and
its
ability
to

upend
inherited
forms—in
this
way,
it
allows
for
cultural
resistance
that
is
politically

engaged
but
not
politically
specific.
Perhaps
even
more
important,
slow
reading,
as

opposed
to
close
reading,
frees
literary
analysis
from
the
debates
between
aesthetic
and

more
ideologically-‐grounded
camps
in
New
Formalism
because
anything—historical,

theoretical,
aesthetic,
non-‐aesthetic,
musical,
plastic,
literary,
popular—can
be
slowly
read

with
reward.
In
this
way,
it
sidesteps
(at
least
temporarily)
the
ongoing
debates
over
what

constitutes
literature
and
what
deserves
study.

How
exactly
does
slow
reading
constitute
a
necessary
act
of
productive
cultural

intervention?
Friedrich
Nietzsche
considers
reading
as
resistance
in
his
preface
to

Daybreak
when
he
writes,
“It
is
not
for
nothing
that
I
have
been
a
philologist,
perhaps
I
am

a
philologist
still,
that
is
to
say,
a
teacher
of
slow
reading.”
He
continues
by
explaining
his

“malicious
taste”
for
writing
that
causes
the
despair
of
hurried
people
in
an
“age
of
work,”

presciently
linking
the
compulsion
for
frenetic
busyness
and
the
urge
to
“do,”
not
read,

8

Levinson,
Marjorie.

“What
is
New
Formalism?”
PMLA
122.2
(March
2007):
558-‐69.

8

books.
9

Both
the
slow
writing
and
the
slow
reading
of
literature
push
against
the
values
of

efficiency
and
busyness
that,
if
valorized
in
Nietzsche’s
day,
are
even
more
prevalent
today.

As
we
hurtle
into
the
future,
many
are
troubled
by
the
ever-‐increasing
pace
of
life
without

knowing
who
to
blame
or
how
to
resist
it.
Slow
reading
requires
a
generous,
even
lavish

expenditure
of
time,
and
as
such
it
resists
the
widespread
push
towards
empty,
frenetic

activity.
In
this
way
it
serves
as
an
act
of
cultural
resistance
at
the
same
time
as
it
teaches

us,
in
a
sense,
to
resist
our
own
selves.

Counteracting
the
pressures
of
“indecent
and
perspiring
haste,”
as
Nietzsche

describes
it,
is
a
process
that
can
and
must
be
taught,
just
as
one
must
be
taught
the

importance
of
actively
participating
in
a
democratic
society.
If
this
is
not
taught
in
the

university,
where
will
one
learn
it?
Bill
Readings
asserts
that
the
“pedagogical
scene
of

address,
with
all
its
ethical
weight”
serves
as
“a
way
of
developing
an
accountability
that
is

at
odds
with
accounting.”
10

Such
a
“scene
of
teaching,”
as
he
calls
it,
creates
a
“network
of

obligation”
among
students
and
teachers
alike,
shattering
the
Enlightenment
myth
of

radical
individuality.
11

In
my
version
of
the
scene
of
teaching,
students
and
teacher
alike

slow
down
their
analytical
processes
to
the
point
of
discomfort,
opening
up
a
space
of

discovery
in
which,
quite
often,
ethical,
cultural,
political
engagements
are
uncovered
and

9

Friedrich
Nietzsche,
Daybreak,
ed.
Maudemarie
Clark
and
Brian
Leiter,
trans.
R.
J.
Hollingdale

(Cambridge:
Cambridge
University
Press,
1997),
5.
10
Readings,
University
in
Ruins,
154.

11
Readings,
University
in
Ruins,
158.

9

intensified.
Such
activities,
which
serve
to
develop
what
Christopher
Newfield
calls

“cultural
capabilities,”
fall
squarely
within
the
purview
of
the
university.
12

Teaching
cultural
engagement
does
not
mean
corralling
students
into
a
particular

ideological
camp.
In
fact,
Readings
is
adamant
in
his
“refusal
to
make
the
students
into
the

locus
of
a
simple
reproduction,
either
of
the
professor
or
of
the
faithful
servants
the
system

requires.”
13

Likewise,
the
teaching
of
slow
reading,
when
done
well,
leads
to

unpredictability—not
homogeneity—of
student
thought.
Beloved
literature
professor

Reuben
A.
Brower
popularized
his
own
version
of
“slow
reading”
in
the
last
century,

requiring
that
his
students
limit
their
purview
to
literary
arguments
for
which
they
were

able
to
find
convincing
textual
proof.
The
simplicity
of
this
approach
bowled
over
Paul
de

Man,
who
realized
that
while
slow
reading
is
not
free
of
theoretical
concerns,
in
practice,
it

does
tend
to
subvert
ideology:
“Mere
reading,
it
turns
out,
prior
to
any
theory,
is
able
to

transform
critical
discourse
in
a
manner
that
would
appear
deeply
subversive
to
those
who

think
of
the
teaching
of
literature
as
a
substitute
for
the
teaching
of
theology,
ethics,

psychology,
or
intellectual
history.”
According
to
de
Man,
slow
reading
categorically
resists

all
methods
that
seek
to
pre-‐read,
and
hence
to
over-‐simplify,
a
text.
14

Slow
reading
is
not
literary
phenomenology.
It
does,
however,
relate
in
perhaps
a

surprising
way
to
Edmund
Husserl’s
idea
of
“presuppositionlessness,”
an
approach
in

which
a
thinker
examines
how
an
object—in
this
case,
an
object
of
literature—presents

12
Christopher
Newfield,
Unmaking
the
Public
University:
The
Forty-‐Year
Assault
on
the
Middle
Class

(Cambridge,
MA:
Harvard
University
Press,
2008),
21.

13
Newfield,
Unmaking
the
Public
University,
163.
14
Paul
de
Man,
The
Resistance
to
Theory
(Minneapolis:
University
of
Minnesota
Press,
1986),
21-‐26.

10

itself
to
one's
consciousness
without
preconceived
theories
of
what
the
object
will
be.
15

Critics
reproved
Husserl's
system
because
of
its
implausibility:
surely
no
one
could

approach
an
object
of
inquiry
without
any
preconceptions.
Yet
as
an
ideal—an
aim—of

literary
analysis,
Husserl’s
idea
of
returning
“to
the
things
themselves!”
as
he
famously

promoted,
still
holds
significant
promise.
Jean-‐Paul
Sartre
exalted
Husserl’s

phenomenology
for
“restoring
to
things
their
horror
and
their
charm”
in
a
way
that
resisted

the
“digestive
philosophies”
of
the
day.
16

By
focusing
on
an
object
as
it
presents
itself
to

one’s
consciousness,
Husserl
brought
to
light
what
was
dangerous
and
beautiful
about
that

object,
and
his
suspicion
of
reductive
philosophical
systems
bears
surprising
resemblance

to
Elizabethan
writers’
poetic
resistance
to
the
“digestive”
impulses
of
the
Erasmian

tradition.
Thinkers
like
Christopher
Marlowe
likewise
sought
to
restore
the
instability
and

liquidity
and
danger
of
his
classical
sources
“to
their
horror
and
their
charm.”
17

William

Keach
suggests,
for
instance,
how
Marlowe
showed
an
unprecedented
willingness
to
take

up
the
deeply
ambivalent
and
disturbingly
violent
aspects
of
Ovidian
narrative
in
earnest.
18

15
“The
investigations
which
follow
aspire
solely
to
such
freedom
from
metaphysical,
scientific
and

psychological
presuppositions.”
Edmund
Husserl,
Logical
Investigations,
Volume
1,
trans.
J.
N.
Findlay

(London:
Routledge,
2001),
179.

16
“Against
the
digestive
philosophy
of
empirico-‐criticism,
of
neo-‐Kantianism,
against
all

'psychologism',
Husserl
persistently
affirmed
that
one
cannot
dissolve
things
in
consciousness…
Husserl
has

restored
to
things
their
horror
and
their
charm.
He
has
restored
to
us
the
world
of
artists
and
prophets:

frightening,
hostile,
dangerous,
with
its
havens
of
mercy
and
love.”
Jean-‐Paul
Sartre,
“Intentionality:
A

Fundamental
Idea
of
Husserl's
Phenomenology,”
in
The
Phenomenology
Reader,
ed..
Dermot
Moran
and

Timothy
Mooney
(London:
Routledge,
2002),
382-‐83.

17
On
the
digestive
impulses
of
the
Erasmian
tradition,
see
Terrance
Cave,
The
Cornucopian
Text:

Problems
of
writing
in
the
French
Renaissance.
Oxford:
Clarendon,
1979;
and
Thomas
M.
Greene,
The
Light
in

Troy:
Imitation
and
Discovery
in
Renaissance
Poetry.
New
Haven:
Yale,
1982.

18
William
Keach,
Elizabethan
Erotic
Narratives:
Irony
and
Pathos
in
the
Ovidian
Poetry
of

Shakespeare,
Marlowe,
and
Their
Contemporaries
(New
Brunswick,
NJ:
Rutgers
University
Press,
1977),
85-‐
116.

11

We
might
say
that
by
allowing
works
like
those
of
Ovid
to
speak
freely,
Marlowe
slowly

read
his
own
classical
education
and
catalogued
within
his
own
writing
the
ideas—many
of

them
subversive—that
he
discovered
there.

While
I
tend
to
describe
slow
reading
in
generally
positive,
life-‐affirming
terms,
my

research
into
the
literary
attitudes
of
the
late
sixteenth
century
has
uncovered
how
early

modern
lyricists
focused
on
the
anxieties
and
dangers
that
accompany
the
process
of
taking

time
with
books.
In
Arcadia,
for
instance,
Sir
Philip
Sidney
inadvertently
reveals
his
fear

that
the
leisurely
stance
required
to
create
and
to
read
literature
is
actually
idleness,
a
sin.

(While
this
might
seem
laughable,
literary
study
frequently
incurs
the
secular
version
of

the
same
criticism
today,
i.e.
that
it
is
inefficient
and
even
wasteful.)
Edmund
Spenser,

meanwhile,
concerns
himself
with
the
paradox
that
while
fictive
worlds
create
or
suspend

time
for
the
reader,
they
simultaneously
deplete
and
exhaust
the
poet
who
invents
them.
As

already
discussed,
Christopher
Marlowe’s
unceremonious
classicism,
arising
from
long

hours
of
careful
study,
dares
to
question
the
religious,
pedagogical,
and
political
tenets
that

upheld
the
English
empire,
and
in
many
scholars’
opinion,
his
subversive
imagination
may

have
led
to
his
untimely
death.
And
in
his
reflections
on
Marlowe’s
legacy,
William

Shakespeare
suggests
that
being
misunderstood
as
an
artist
is,
in
a
sense,
worse
than

death—yet
in
his
recapitulation
of
his
own
earlier
works
within
the
late
play
Cymbeline,
he

likewise
demonstrates
how
poetic
misrepresentation
after
death
is
inevitable.
Throughout

these
representative
literary
experiments,
such
poets
express
a
profound
ambiguity
about

the
nature
of
reading
as
well
as
the
didactic
potential
of
literature:
it
cannot
teach
one
thing

in
particular,
but
rather
opens
up
a
space
of
inquiry
in
which
readers
augment
their
ability

12

to
think
through
all
sides
of
a
matter.
This
is
cultural
engagement
without
any
specific
end

in
mind,
an
appreciation
(or
fearful
recognition)
of
the
insoluble
enigmas
that
accompany

moral
reasoning
and
poetic
expression.

As
a
contemporary
pedagogical
tool,
slow
reading
likewise
teaches
students
to

tolerate
ambiguity,
which
is
not
the
same
as
teaching
them
to
stand
for
nothing—
in
fact,

quite
the
opposite.
It
means
that
students
learn
to
take
their
opinions
and
beliefs
and
to
vet

them:
to
admit
how
assumptions
can
parade
as
knowledge,
to
face
their
fears
of
the

unknown,
and
embrace
the
nuanced
and
complicated
nature
of
living.
Out
of
this
comes
a

habit
of
mind
in
which
we
learn
to
meander
down
the
dirt
paths
of
our
minds
and
to

happen
upon
new
ways
of
thinking.
The
potential
gains
of
this
process
extend
far
beyond

the
realm
of
specific
ends,
yet
the
side
benefits
of
sharpened
critical
thinking
and
creative

problem
solving
are
certainly
more
crucial
than
ever
within
an
increasingly
divided
and

polarized
political
culture.
Democracy
requires
careful,
capable
communicators,
yet
such

agility
does
not
come
from
one
semester
in
a
writing
class
in
which
a
student
learns
the

form
of
the
argumentative
essay;
it
comes
from
the
ability
to
think
in
a
clear
and
nuanced

manner.
The
practice
of
carefully
reading
literature
without
a
particular
end
in
mind
offers

a
mode
by
which
this
capacity
can
be
fostered.
Even
more
importantly,
such
literary

exploration
holds
the
potential
for
a
resistance
to
the
“age
of
work,”
which
pressures

students
and
teachers
alike
into
lives
of
routine
and
unexamined
busyness.

13

Chapter
1

“An
Idle
Work
of
Mine”:

King
David,
Exile,
and
the
Problems
of
Leisure
in
Sidney’s
Old
Arcadia

In
a
playful
way
that
concealed
the
seriousness
of
the
matter
—“with
suche
an
arte

so
hyding
arte”
(OA,
23)—Sidney
dismissed
the
first
version
of
his
Arcadia
as
an
“idle
work

of
mine…being
but
a
trifle,
and
that
triflinglie
handled.”
19

He
was
presenting
the
work
to

his
sister,
Lady
Mary
Herbert,
while
referencing,
if
not
relishing,
the
casual
circumstances

of
its
production:

Here
now
have
you
(most
deare,
and
most
worthy
to
be
most
deare
Lady)

this
idle
work
of
mine...Your
deare
selfe
can
best
witnes
the
maner,
being

done
in
loose
sheetes
of
paper,
most
of
it
in
your
presence,
the
rest,
by

sheetes,
sent
unto
you,
as
fast
as
they
were
done.
In
summe,
a
young
head,

not
so
well
stayed
as
I
would
it
were.
20

Sidney
here
disregards
the
indolence
that
accompanied
the
creation
of
the
pastoral

romance,
writing
off
his
Arcadian
revelry
as
merely
a
toy
while
reminiscing
over
the

extemporaneous
conditions
by
which
Lady
Mary
Herbert
became
the
unofficial
editor
of

his
work.
And
indeed
the
Old
Arcadia
often
reads
as
a
celebration
of
leisure
and
time-‐

19
Throughout
this
chapter,
I
reference
Sidney's
first
Arcadia
as
the
Old
Arcadia,
though
it
is

alternately
and
confusingly
called
The
Countess
of
Pembroke's
Arcadia.
For
a
brief
yet
helpful
introduction
to

the
textual
problems
presented
by
Sidney's
multiple
Arcadias,
see
Walter
R.
Davis,
A
Map
of
Arcadia:
Sidney's

Romance
in
Its
Tradition
(New
Haven
and
London:
Yale
University
Press,
1965),
1-‐6.

20
This
letter
can
be
found
in
the
prefatory
note
to
the
last
part
of
the
1613
edition,
vol.
II,
page
350.

While
it
was
printed
as
a
preface
to
the
revised
version
of
the
Arcadia,
Albert
Feuillerat
insists
that
it
must

actually
belong
to
the
Old
Arcadia,
especially
considering
Sidney's
circumstances
surrounding
the
production

of
the
first
version.
See
Albert
Feuillerat,
introduction
to
The
Prose
Works
of
Sir
Philip
Sidney,
Vol.
IV

(Cambridge:
Cambridge
University
Press,
1967),
v-‐vi.
All
quotes
from
the
Old
Arcadia
are
taken
from
this

edition
of
the
work
and
are
quoted
by
page
number.

14

taking,
with
its
ambling
plot,
poetic
interruptions,
and
frequent
digressions.
Nearly
all
the

main
characters
suspend
the
forward
momentum
of
their
story
with
the
addition
of
songs,

and
to
add
to
the
effect
of
respite,
a
pause
typically
follows
these
lyrical
outbursts.
21

Arcadia
itself
seems
to
be
a
place
of
"infinite"
contemplations,
a
place
where
shepherds

while
away
their
hours
in
lyrical
expression
(OA,
12).

Yet
the
counterpoint
to
all
this
revelry
is
present
in
Arcadia,
too,
expressed
for

instance
by
Geron,
the
older
shepherd,
who
tells
Philisides
that
“yt
was
very
undecent
a

younge
manns
tongue
shoulde
possess
somuche,
tyme,
and
that
Age
shoulde
become
an

Auditor”
(OA,
67).
Throughout
the
work
are
scattered
numerous
reminders
as
to
the

dangers
of
too
much
solitude
and
time,
and
the
specter
of
“idleness”
haunts
much
of
the

characters’
discourse,
suggesting
that
beneath
Sidney’s
lighthearted,
almost
flippant

discussion
of
his
work,
a
deeper
and
more
conflicted
inquiry
into
the
nature
of
time-‐taking

is
taking
place.
22

Critics
have
noted
this
tension
without
fully
apprehending
its
cause,

referencing
“Sidney’s
famous
restless
energy”
and
seeking
to
connect
the
writer’s
period
of

rustication
from
the
court
of
Queen
Elizabeth
to
the
themes
of
exile
within
the
Old

Arcadia.
23

Others
have
intuited
a
connection
between
the
problems
of
idleness
and
the

21
The
frequency
with
which
characters
pause
after
listening
to
another
character's
song
suggests

that
Sidney
in
part
considered
this
act
of
time-‐taking
simple
courtesy.
For
instance,
after
Cleophila
listens
to

Dorus's
love
song
to
Pamela,
she
responds
with
a
built-‐in
pause:
“Alas,
sayde
Cleophila,
(when
shee
had
a

while
pawsed
after
her
frendes
Musick)...”
(OA,160).

22
For a discussion of just how deceptively un-trivial the poetic toy really is, see Heather James, “The
Poet's Toys: Christopher Marlowe and the Liberties of Erotic Elegy,” Modern Language Quarterly 67:1 (March
2006), 103-128.

23
Richard
A.
Lanham,
The
Old
Arcadia
(New
Haven
and
London:
Yale
University
Press,
1965),
186.

15

force
of
Sidney’s
Protestant
convictions.
24

Still
others
have
sought
to
understand
how
the

figure
of
King
David,
whom
Sidney
terms
a
“holy
poet”
in
his
Defense
of
Poesy,
might
bear

on
the
aspirations
of
the
young
writer
as
an
example
of
moral
courage
teamed
with

political
ambition,
literary
expertise
with
military
skill.
Until
now,
though,
the
direct

connections
between
the
Arcadia
and
the
life
of
David—which
are
too
numerous
and
too

fascinating
to
discount—have
gone
largely
unnoticed.
While
tracing
the
shape
of
these

numerous
allusions
might
be
interesting
in
its
own
right
to
any
student
of
the
Arcadia,
the

larger
payoff
for
such
an
inquiry
is
the
insight
it
offers
us
into
the
life,
the
philosophy,
and

the
writings
of
Sir
Philip
Sidney,
a
central
figure
in
the
English
Renaissance
and
the
most

prominent
poetic
theorist
of
his
day.
25

To
read
the
Old
Arcadia
alongside
the
conditions
of
its
production
is
not
to
read
it

biographically
per
se,
but
to
consider
the
deep
resonance
between
Sidney’s
first
foray
into

literature
and
his
status
as
an
ambitious
young
courtier
driven
from
the
court
of
Queen

Elizabeth.
This
chapter
considers
the
exilic
nature
of
Sidney’s
rustication
at
Wilton
both

historically
and
theoretically,
as
Edward
Said’s
explanations
of
how
the
trials
of
exile

activate
a
textual
tension
that
is
at
once
vexed
and
lyrical
resonate
deeply
within
the

Arcadian
landscape.
For
a
devout
thinker
like
Sidney,
spiritual
exile
(separation
from
God

or
the
Church
because
of
sin,
error,
even
the
moral
dangers
of
classical
otium)
might
be
a

more
troubling
fate
than
political
exile.
Likewise
Sidney’s
numerous
references
to
the
life
of

24
Throughout
this
chapter
I
refer
broadly
to
Sidney
as
a
devout
Protestant
and
not
something
more

specific.
For
a
useful
explanation
of
the
historical
reasoning
behind
this
approach,
see
Andrew
D.
Weiner,
Sir

Philip
Sidney
and
the
Poetics
of
Protestantism:
A
Study
of
Contexts
(Minneapolis:
University
of
Minnesota
Press,

1978),
5-‐18.

25

See
Katherine
Duncan-‐Jones,
Sir
Philip
Sidney:
Courtier
Poet.
New
Haven
and
London:
Yale

University
Press,
1991.
Also
useful
is
Alan
Stewart,
Philip
Sidney:
A
Double
Life.
New
York:
St.
Martin’s
Press,

2000.

16

David
reveal
his
conflicted
ideas
about
spending
time
away
from
the
active
life
of
court,
and

they
point
to
a
profound
and
consistent
tension
surrounding
the
concepts
of
idleness
and

leisure,
a
tension
that
ultimately
speaks
to
the
act
of
writing
itself.
Richard
McCoy
has

suggested
that
as
a
romance,
the
Old
Arcadia
cannot
contain
the
energies
it
seeks
to

explore.
26

As
such,
we
might
understand
this
unstable
energy
as
a
contributor
to
the

outbursts
of
violence
at
the
level
of
the
plot—the
angry
mobs,
the
vicious
beasts,
even
the

considerable
mood
swings
of
the
main
characters.
Through
the
exploration
of
Davidic

tropes
and
exile
theory,
this
chapter
ultimately
suggests
how
Arcadia
erupts
in
violence
at

the
level
of
lyric
through
interruption,
wordlessness,
and
wasted
speech.
To
put
it
another

way,
Sidney’s
relationship
to
the
recorded
life
of
David
is
fraught,
and
this
tension
both

animates
and
threatens
the
creation
of
the
Arcadian
space.

Shepherd-‐Warrior-‐Poet-‐Exile-‐King

Among
studies
linking
Sir
Philip
Sidney
to
the
figure
of
King
David,
critics
typically

focus
on
the
incomplete
Sidney
Psalter,
wherein
the
writer
translated
what
he
believed

were
the
psalms
of
King
David,
and
the
Defense
of
Poesy,
in
which
he
references
David
as
a

divine
poet
and
also,
more
problematically,
as
a
“right
poet.”
27

Chief
among
the
concerns
of

these
critics
is
the
tension
between
sacred
and
profane,
religious
and
secular
poetics

26
“…Sidney’s
fiction
contains
conflicts
and
uncertainties
not
intelligible
on
their
own
terms,
and
his

control
of
these
is
tenuous
and
problematic.
A
determination
to
treat
these
difficulties
as
signs
of
genius
only

conceals
their
true
significance.”
Richard
C.
McCoy,
Sir
Philip
Sidney:
Rebellion
in
Arcadia
(New
Brunswick,

New
Jersey:
Rutgers
University
Press,
1979),
32.

27
Anne
Lake
Prescott
discusses
the
problems
of
Sidney's
fluid
categorization
of
David
within
the

Defense
of
Poesy.
“King
David
as
a
‘Right
Poet’:
Sidney
and
the
Psalmist,”
English
Literary
Renaissance,
19:2

(Spring
1989):
131-‐151.

17

implicit
in
Sidney’s
unique
literary
track.
Richard
Todd,
for
instance,
argues
that
with
its

metrical
variety,
the
Psalter
is
“perhaps
the
richest
example
available
to
us
of
a
late

sixteenth-‐century
humanist
poetics
whose
informing
characteristic
may
be
regarded
as
its

persistence
throughout
Protestant
Europe.”
28

That
is,
Sidney’s
emphasis
on
formal
and

metrical
variety
throughout
the
sacred
work
is
a
hallmark
of
a
species
of
humanist
poetics

that
draws
as
much
attention
to
the
poetic
presentation
of
the
subject
matter
as
to
the

subject
matter
itself.
Roland
Greene
agrees
with
Todd
about
the
particular
literary
value
of

the
Sidney
Psalter
in
addition
to
the
broader
importance
of
the
Book
of
Psalms,
going
so
far

as
to
suggest
that
it
“belongs
with
Petrarch’s
Rime
sparse
as
a
master
text
through
which

the
writers
of
the
age
tested
their
capacities,
in
this
case
not
only
as
worshippers
and

theologians
but
as
poets
and
critics.”
29

Again
his
main
interest
lies
in
the
creative
tensions

between
the
sacred
and
the
profane,
the
ritual
and
the
fictional
(a
distinction
Greene

devotes
a
significant
portion
of
his
argument
to
clarifying),
the
holy
and
the
irreverent
that

arise
from
the
inclusion
of
King
David
within
the
scope
of
Renaissance
humanist
poetics.

Anne
Lake
Prescott
outlines
one
particular
problem
of
Davidic
imitation
for
a
Renaissance

poet:

To
write
divine
poetry
by
following
David
is
to
entangle
oneself
in
a
knot
of

identities,
voices,
selves,
for
which
we
have
no
adequate
vocabulary.
What

imitating
him
does
not
do,
and
here
writing
like
David
is
profoundly
different

28

Richard
Todd,
"Humanist
Prosodic
Theory,
Dutch
Synods,
and
the
Poetics
of
the
Sidney-‐Pembroke

Psalter,"
Huntington
Library
Quarterly,
52:2
(Spring
1989):
274.

29

Roland
Greene,
"Sir
Philip
Sidney's
Psalms,
the
Sixteenth-‐Century
Psalter,
and
the
Nature
of
Lyric,"

Studies
in
English
Literature,
1500-‐1900
,
30:1
(Winter
1990):
19.

18

from
writing
like
Virgil
or
even
Ovid,
is
to
join
a
famous
author
in
a
known

career.
There
is
no
“rota
Davidica.”

If
the
Virgilian
rota
presented
a
clear
sequence
of
genres
for
an
aspiring
poet,
then
the

problem
of
David’s
writing
is
that
it
offers
no
distinct
stages
but
instead
a
jumble
of

multiple
genres,
written
in
a
voice
that
is,
as
Prescott
suggests,
also
“inherently
multiple:

human,
historical,
and
individual,
it
is
also
the
voice
of
Christ
and,
when
recited
or

translated
with
the
grace
of
God,
the
voice
of
the
reader
or
imitator.”
30

For
a
Renaissance

poet
like
Sidney,
the
aspiration
to
translate
or
to
expand
upon
divine
poetry
was
an
act

inherently
torn
between
humanist
ambition
and
Christian
devotion.
And
to
translate
David

was
in
some
way
to
link
one’s
life
to
his,
a
gesture
problematized
by
the
complexity
of

David’s
biography.
Yet
the
varied
nature
of
David’s
career
path
likely
appealed
to
Sidney:

David
began
his
life
as
a
shepherd,
then
became
a
warrior,
then
an
exile,
and
then
a
king.
He

was
also
an
accomplished
harpist
and
writer
of
psalms.
In
some
sense,
Sidney
could
have

likened
his
life,
as
opposed
to
the
sequence
of
his
generic
accomplishments,
to
that
of

David—the
confluence
of
spiritual,
political,
and
artistic
excellence
appealing
to
him.

Like
King
David,
Musidorus
and
Pyrocles
are
at
once
fighters,
rulers,
exiles,

musicians
and
shepherds
(or
faux-‐shepherds,
at
the
very
least).
And
Sidney’s
alter
ego

within
the
work,
the
extremely
unfelicitious
Philisides,
is
a
“straunger
shepherd”—both

shepherd
and
exile.
The
reasons
for
Philisides’
exile
in
Arcadia
are
never
fully
explained,

yet
his
status
as
a
grieving
foreigner
seems
to
speak
to
Sidney’s
time
of
rustication
from
the

court
of
Queen
Elizabeth
in
1979
as
well
as
the
author’s
focus
on
Davidic
banishment.
This

30
Anne
Lake
Prescott,
"Divine
Poetry
as
a
Career
Move:
The
Complexities
and
Consolations
of

Following
David,"
in
European
Literary
Careers:
The
Author
from
Antiquity
to
the
Renaissance,
ed.
Patrick

Cheney
and
Frederick
A.
de
Armas
(Toronto:
University
of
Toronto
Press,
2002),
210.

19

period
spent
at
his
sister’s
estate
at
Wilton
was
likely
brought
on
by
his
outspoken

disapproval
for
the
Queen’s
courtship
with
the
Duke
of
Alençon,
after
which
he
fell
out
of

favor
with
the
court.
Many
critics
consider
this
period
in
the
country
a
de
facto
exile,

though
his
escape
might
also,
as
Robert
E.
Stillman
suggests,
be
thought
of
“as
a
response
to

the
whole
complex
of
public
and
private
misfortunes
to
which
he
had
been
subjected,
and

as
a
result
of
genuinely
appealing
aspects
of
life
at
Wilton.”
31

For
Stillman,
the
rustication
of

Sidney
was
borne
out
of
difficulty
mixed
with
pleasure,
the
troubles
of
his
life
at
court
and

the
appeal
of
his
existence
at
Wilton.
Such
a
view
seeks
to
temper
the
prevailing
notion
of

Sidney’s
time
away
as
exile
and
unmitigated
suffering
which
led,
as
writers
like
A.
C.

Hamilton
suggest,
to
a
shift
in
the
Arcadia
from
“a
light-‐hearted
pastoral
romance”
into
“a

serious
heroic
poem,”
while
also
counteracting
other
critics
like
Neil
Rudenstine
who

depict
the
Old
Arcadia
as
“a
fictional
extension
of
Sidney’s
letters
in
defense
of
relaxation,

reflection,
and
a
life
of
dignified
ease.”
32

Since
Sidney’s
reprieve
from
court
allowed
him
to

discover
literature,
so
to
speak,
determining
the
nature
of
that
reprieve
is
vital
to

understanding
the
textual
output
that
accompanied
it.
The
usefulness
of
Stillman’s
work

resides
partly
in
his
argument
against
simplification:
“An
escapist
fiction,
a
preparation
for

heroic
activity,
a
defense
of
relaxation:
none
of
these
critical
descriptions
does
justice

either
to
Sidney’s
complex
response
to
the
pleasures
and
constraints
of
his
idle
life
or
to
the

artistic
boldness
of
his
pastoral
strategy.”
33

By
insisting
that
we
read
Sidney’s
attitude
to

31
Robert
E.
Stillman,
Sidney's
Poetic
Justice:
The
Old
Arcadia,
its
Eclogues,
and
Renaissance
Pastoral

Traditions
(Lewisburg,
PA:
Bucknell
University
Press,
1986),
36.

32
Neil
Rudenstine,
Sidney’s
Poetic
Development
(Cambridge,
MA:
Harvard
University
Press,
1967),

46.

33
Stillman,
Sidney’s
Poetic
Justice,
37.

20

his
rustication
as
deep
ambivalence,
Stillman
argues
for
a
nuanced
reading
of
the
pastures

of
Arcadia.
This
chapter
agrees
as
to
the
complexity
of
Sidney’s
response
but
seeks
to

emphasize
the
vexation
that
Sidney
reveals
about
his
idle
life.
After
all,
it
is
entirely

possible
to
enjoy
and
to
be
deeply
troubled
by
the
same
activity,
and
this
could
especially

be
true
considering
the
breadth
of
Sidney’s
ambition.
As
A.
C.
Hamilton
writes,
“The
intense

desire
for
worldly
honour
and
fame...marks
most
men
of
the
time.
In
particular,
it
marks
Sir

Philip
Sidney.”
34

For
a
man
with
so
much
restless
energy,
Sidney’s
public
failures
must
have

created
a
sense
of
constraint,
a
sort
of
internalized
exile.
How
else
can
we
explain
the

misery
and
exile
of
Sidney’s
alter
ego,
Philisides?
And
what
are
we
to
make
of
the

consistent
discussion
about
the
nature
of
idleness
and
the
tensions
between
an
active
and

contemplative
life?

The
Lion
and
the
Bear

The
primacy
of
David
as
a
figure
in
the
life
of
Sidney
suggests
that
we
would
find

traces
of
Davidic
influence
in
works
other
than
the
Psalter
and
the
Defence,
and
something

much
more
significant
than
traces
exist
within
the
Old
Arcadia.
But
how
do
the
tensions

that
accompany
Davidic
imitation
in
terms
of
divine
poetry—ambitious
v.
devotional,

pagan
v.
Christian,
humanist
v.
ritual—shift
when
the
life
of
David
informs
Sidney’s
secular

work?
These
pressures
are
still
present,
though
perhaps
in
reverse.
That
is,
if
humanist

poetic
ambition
tends
to
complicate
the
project
of
translating
psalms,
then
a
Protestant

drive
to
work
out
one’s
own
salvation
undercuts
the
pure
pleasures
of
otium
in
a
pastoral

scene.
The
inclusion
of
Davidic
tropes
within
an
Arcadian
space
is
extremely
problematic,

34
A.
C.
Hamilton,
Sir
Philip
Sidney:
A
Study
of
His
Life
and
Works
(Cambridge:
Cambridge
University

Press,
1977),
1.

21

and
like
the
figure
of
Philisides
(who
seems
intent
on
shifting
the
discourse
from
the

pastoral
to
the
elegiac
mode),
complicates
and
subverts
Sidney’s
classical
pastoral

aspirations.

Before
discussing
the
particular
significance
of
these
allusions
with
the
Arcadia,

though,
we
must
establish
their
existence.
Perhaps
the
clearest
reference
to
the
life
of

David
relates
to
the
story
of
Goliath.
In
1
Samuel,
Goliath
is
a
Philistine
warrior
who
taunts

the
armies
of
Israel.
When
David,
a
young
shepherd
who
is
visiting
his
older
brothers
in
the

Israelite
army,
hears
Goliath’s
offensive
speeches,
he
asks
Saul,
the
first
king
of
Israel,
for

permission
to
fight
Goliath.
Saul
dismisses
David,
saying,

Thou
art
not
able
to
go
against
this
Philistim
to
fight
with
him:
for
thou
art
a

boye,
and
he
is
a
man
of
warre
from
his
youth.
And
Dauid
aunswered
vnto

Saúl,
Thy
seruaunt
kept
his
fathers
shepe,
and
there
came
a
lyon
and
likewise

a
beare,
and
toke
a
shepe,
out
of
the
flocke,
And
I
went
out
after
him
&
smote

him,
&
toke
it
out
of
his
mouth:
and
when
he
arose
against
me,
I
caught
him

by
the
bearde,
and
smote
him,
and
slewe
him.
So
thy
seruant
slewe
both
the

lyon,
and
the
beare.
35

To
counter
Saul’s
suggestion
that
David
lacks
military
skill,
the
youth
references
his
time
as

a
shepherd
and
his
experience
with
wild
beasts.
Key
to
his
story
is
the
sense
that
pastoral

solitude
served
as
a
preparation
for
military
prowess,
and
that
the
lion
and
the
bear

function
as
emblems
of
his
maturation
into
a
young
fighter.

35
1
Samuel
17:33-‐36,
in
The
Geneva
Bible:
A
Facsimile
of
the
1560
Edition.
Peabody,
MA:
Hendrickson

Publishers,
2007.
All
subsequent
references
to
the
Bible
are
from
this
edition
and
cited
by
chapter
and
verse.

22

Likewise
in
the
Old
Arcadia,
Pyrocles
and
Musidorus
spend
their
musical
sojourn
in

Arcadia
as
shepherd
types,
pining
over
their
loves
until
the
end
of
the
first
act,
when
out
of

the
forest
emerge
two
vicious
beasts:

sodenly,
there
came
oute
of
the
wood,
a
monsterus
Lyon,
with
a
shee
Beare,

of
litle
less
fercenes,
whiche
having
beene
hunted
in
forrestes
farr
of
had
by

chaunce
come
to
this
place,
where
suche
Beastes
had
never
before
bene

seene
(OA,
42).

That
the
lion
and
bear
“wander”
into
Arcadia
sets
up
a
pattern
wherein
features
of
the
life

of
David
present
themselves
at
unexpected
times
within
the
Arcadia.
The
extraordinary

nature
of
this
sighting
suggests
that
Sidney
is
conscious
of
the
anomalous
nature
of
Davidic

allusion
in
pastoral
romance—that
is,
the
Arcadian
shepherds
flee
in
terror
because
these

animals,
indigenous
to
another
genre,
do
not
belong
in
Arcadia
and
“had
never
before
bene

seene.”
Why,
then,
does
the
writer
choose
to
hybridize
his
pastoral
scene
with
biblical

beasts?
36

Considering
the
literary
link
between
Sidney
and
David
already
established
by

scholars,
the
lion
and
the
bear
may
have
frequented
his
imagination
as
emblems
of
the
life

of
a
poet-‐king.
And
perhaps
like
Edmund
Spenser,
Sidney
drew
inspiration
from
the

productive
tension
between
classical
and
biblical
depictions
of
shepherds
and
their
realm.

But
it
is
the
interruptive
quality
of
the
beasts
that
especially
stands
out,
as
if
they
signal
a

deeper
and
more
threatening
contradiction
within
the
poet’s
mind.

36
Lions
and
bears
feature
significantly
throughout
the
Old
Testament,
for
instance
in
the
stories
of

Samson
and
Elisha
and
the
prophecies
of
Daniel
and
Jeremiah.
See
Judges
13:1-‐14:7;
2
Kings
2:23-‐25;
Daniel

7;
Jeremiah
2:30.

23

Two
Renderings
of
Exile,
and
a
Prophetic
Owl

For
Musidorus
to
bravely
kill
the
bear
and
Pyrocles
to
kill
the
lion
shows
that
these

characters
are
maturing
in
Arcadia:
their
acts
of
valor
symbolize
their
development
into

future
monarchs.
Yet
Arcadia
is
also
a
place
of
spiritual
danger,
and
considering
Sidney’s

rustication
during
his
writing
of
the
romance,
it
is
perhaps
not
coincidental
that
when
it

comes
to
the
theme
of
taking
time
away
from
court,
the
heightened
opposition
of
Sidney’s

imagination
is
especially
pronounced.
This
vexation
surfaces
particularly
through
his

allusions
to
two
epochs
from
the
life
of
King
David
that
involve
spending
a
period
away

from
the
active
life
of
court.
One
is
a
story
of
education,
while
the
other
is
a
cautionary
tale;

one
allows
for
spiritual
and
intellectual
development
while
the
other
leads
to
tragic
loss

and
political
humiliation.
It
is
through
these
opposing
stories,
I
would
suggest,
that
Sidney

reads
his
own
distance
from
active
life
and
his
resulting
idleness
and
“tries
on”
two

versions
of
exile.

The
first
story
of
Davidic
time-‐taking
relates
to
his
time
in
the
wilderness.
After

David
is
anointed
by
the
prophet
Samuel
to
become
king,
Saul,
who
is
described
throughout

1
Samuel
as
a
headstrong
despot,
becomes
jealous
of
David
and
tries
to
kill
him.
With
the

help
of
Saul’s
son,
Jonathan,
who
is
David’s
closest
friend,
David
is
able
to
escape
into
the

wilderness,
where
he
lives,
exiled
from
his
homeland
and
from
the
court
of
Saul,
for
many

years.
David’s
time
in
the
desert
is
replete
with
various
tests,
battles,
and
challenges
and
as

it
is
traditionally
understood,
it
is
through
this
time
in
the
wilderness
that
God
prepares

David
to
become
king,
much
like
the
exilic
episodes
that
occur
in
the
lives
of
Biblical

patriarchs
like
Abraham,
Moses,
and
Joseph.
That
is,
David’s
extended
time
away
from

24

court
and
from
political
power
is
part
of
his
education
and
preparation
for
future

leadership.

Similarly,
Sidney
suggests
that
“so
pleased
yt
God”
to
cause
the
shipwreck
that
leads

Musidorus
and
Pyrocles
to
Arcadia,
a
sojourn
they
themselves
agree
is
beneficial
for
their

education
(OA,
8).
It
is
during
this
foray
into
Arcadia
that
the
two
young
royals
fall
in
love,

as
King
David
similarly
meets
Abigail,
his
future
wife,
while
in
exile.
Most
importantly,

Sidney
suggests
that
this
time
of
pastoral
exploration
and
wilderness
survival
is
key
to
the

development
of
Pyrocles
and
Musidorus
as
future
leaders—as
Philisides
puts
it,
travel

ripens
one’s
judgment
through
“Comparyson
of
many
thinges”
(OA,
313).
Taken
as
such,

this
fruitful
version
of
a
prolonged
distance
from
court
suggests
that
rustication
might
be
a

time
of
preparation
and
learning.
Just
as
Sidney’s
stay
at
Wilton
was
both
pleasant
and

frustrating,
so
Arcadia
is
both
a
golden
world
and
a
“dezart,”
a
place
of
development
and

also
of
testing.
37

One
particular
test
for
David
happens
when,
being
chased
by
Saul
and
his
armies,
he

and
his
men
hide
in
a
cave
in
the
wilderness
of
Engadi.
As
it
so
happens,
Saul
walks
into
the

same
cave
by
himself
“to
do
his
easement,”
leaving
himself
entirely
at
the
mercy
of
David

and
his
men.
David
sneaks
through
the
cave
and
cuts
off
a
piece
of
Saul’s
robe,
but
as

recorded
in
1
Samuel,
is
immediately
filled
with
regret:
“Dauid
was
touched
in
his
heart,

because
he
had
cut
of
the
lappe
which
was
on
Sauls
garment.
And
he
sayd
vnto
his
men:

The
Lord
kepe
me
from
doing
that
thing
vnto
my
master
the
Lords
Anointed,
to
lay
mine

37
Sidney
frequently
refers
to
Arcadia
as
a
“dezart,”
for
instance
when
Basilius
and
Ginecia
dismay

that
“Love
had
purposed,
to
make
in
those
solitary
woodes,
a
perfect
Demonstration
of
his
unresistable
force,

to
shewe
that
no
Dezart
place
can
avoyde
his
Darte…”
(OA,
45).

25

hand
vpon
him:
for
he
is
the
Anointed
of
the
Lord.”
38

A
theme
throughout
the
testing
of

David
and
one
reflected
in
Sidney’s
Arcadia
is
the
sense
of
divinely
authorized
monarchy

that
requires
the
respect
of
its
subjects.
The
cave
is
a
place
where
David’s
respect
for

authority,
even
tyrannical
authority,
is
tested,
and
in
some
sense
he
fails
a
smaller
test
but

passes
the
larger
one.
As
an
isolated
location,
the
cave
allows
for
secrecy
and
serves
as
a

site
of
a
coincidental
meeting.
Similarly,
Pyrocles
(disguised
as
Cleophila)
sits
down
at
the

mouth
of
a
cave,
where
he
sings
a
doleful
tune,
only
to
happen
upon
another
resident
of
the

cave,
similarly
singing
of
the
pains
of
love.
The
cave
is
a
place
of
moral
uncertainty
and

deception
for
Pyrocles:
after
recognizing
an
anonymous
kinship
with
the
benighted
lover,

he
is
unpleasantly
surprised
to
identify
her
as
Gynecia,
after
which
he
hatches
a
plan
to

trick
Basanius
and
Gynecia
into
cheating
on
each
other
with
each
other,
as
it
were
(OA,
169-‐
173).
The
cave
serves
as
a
place
of
testing
for
both
David
and
Pyrocles,
and
to
some
extent

each
character
both
succeeds
and
fails
to
achieve
a
moral
outcome
while
extending
the

narrative
of
their
time
in
the
wilderness.
To
be
sure,
the
cave
as
a
literary
trope
might

speak
to
Plato
and
Homer
and
others
as
much
as
it
resonates
with
the
particular
cave
in
the

Engadi
wilderness;
but
given
the
many
parallels
between
Arcadia
and
the
story
of
David,

Sidney’s
use
of
the
cave
as
a
place
of
moral
testing
is
too
suggestive
to
ignore.

David’s
choice
to
honor
Saul
as
king,
as
illustrated
by
their
interaction
in
the
cave,

was
used
frequently
as
example
in
anti-‐tyrannicide
rhetoric
of
the
early
modern
period.

Even
King
James
mentions
it
in
his
Trew
Law
of
Free
Monarchies:

And
David,
notwithstanding
hee
was
inaugurate
in
that
same
degraded
Kings

roome,
not
onely
(when
he
was
cruelly
persecuted,
for
no
ofence;
but
good

38
1
Samuel
24:6-‐7.

26

service
done
unto
him)
would
not
presume,
having
him
in
his
power,
skantly,

but
with
great
reverence,
to
touch
the
garment
of
the
annoynted
of
the
Lord,

and
in
his
words
blessed
him…
39

Though
David’s
choice
to
spare
Saul’s
life
functioned
as
a
model
of
pro-‐sovereignty

behavior,
it
was
such
a
popular
story
that
Sidney’s
allusions
to
it
must
have
resonated
not

only
with
anti-‐tyrannicide
rhetoric
but
with
the
theme
of
tyranny
in
general.
And
this,

especially
when
taken
with
the
poetic
musings
of
Sidney’s
alter
ego
Philisides,
suggests
a

politically
edgy
aspect
of
the
presence
of
Davidic
tropes
within
Arcadia.
In
the
3
rd

Eclogues,

Philisides
sings
a
strange
song
about
a
group
of
animals
that
want
a
king
to
rule
them.
This

thinly
veiled
narrative
of
tyranny
actually
comes
from
1
Samuel
8,
when
the
elders
of
Israel

ask
the
prophet
Samuel
for
a
king
to
rule
them.
Samuel
warns
the
elders
about
the
threat
of

tyranny
inherent
in
any
monarchy,
but
they
dismiss
these
warnings.
As
a
result,
King
Saul

comes
to
power,
and
it
is
in
response
to
Saul’s
tyranny
that
David
must
flee
to
the

wilderness
to
avoid
his
murderous
jealousy.
In
Philisides’
strange
beast
fable,
it
is
the
owl

that
warns
the
animals
about
the
dangers
of
choosing
a
king:

Onely
the
Owle
warned
them
not
to
seeche

So
hastely
that,
whiche
they
woulde
Repent

But,
sawe
they
woulde,
and
hee
to
Dezertes
went.
(OA,
239)

The
Owle
issues
the
sole
opposition
to
the
beasts’
plan
to
take
a
king,
which
ends
—as
he

predicts
—in
tyranny.
Similarly,
Sidney
had
in
part
fled
to
the
“Dezertes”
of
Wilton
because

of
his
outspoken
disapproval
of
Queen
Elizabeth’s
possible
marriage
to
the
Duke
of

Alençon—her
“taking
a
king,”
as
it
were.
In
this
light,
Sidney’s
rustication
could
be

39
Neil
Rhodes,
Jennifer
Richards,
and
Joseph
Marshall,
ed.,
James
VI
and
I:
Selected
Writings,

(Burlington,
VT:
Ashgate,
2003),
267.

27

considered
constructive,
if
unpleasant,
in
the
sense
that
he
is
a
prophetic
voice,
suffering
in

the
wilderness
for
confronting
a
monarch
with
the
truth.

Yet
the
reason
for
Sidney’s
vexation
is
that,
as
he
well
knows,
an
absence
from
active

life
is
not
always
positive.
Consider
for
instance
Basanius’s
cowardly
decision
to
leave
his

throne
to
seek
shelter
in
Arcadia.
The
life
of
King
David
could
also
be
read
as
a
series
of

victories
until
he
decides
one
spring,
by
this
time
a
well-‐established
king,
to
send
his

armies
off
to
war
while
he
remains
behind
in
Jerusalem,
biding
his
time
by
himself.
During

this
time
of
leisure,
David
eyes
Bathsheba,
the
wife
of
one
of
his
soldiers,
bathing
on
a
roof.

He
sleeps
with
her,
committing
adultery,
and
then
when
he
finds
out
that
she
is
pregnant,

he
has
her
husband
Uriah
killed
in
battle.
What
results
from
this
affair
is
divine
punishment

by
plague
and
an
outbreak
of
violence
within
his
own
family:
loss
and
humiliation.
And

from
a
Protestant
perspective,
David
could
have
avoided
the
entire
catastrophe
by
working

alongside
his
armies
and
avoiding
leisure
and
idleness.

It
is
the
prophet
Nathan
who
condemns
David’s
treatment
of
Uriah
and
Bathsheba

through
a
fable,
and
in
Sidney’s
Defence
of
Poesy,
the
writer
cites
this
confrontation
as
a

particularly
famous
example
of
poetic
imitation:

Nathan
the
prophet,
who
when
the
holie
Dauid
had
so
far
forsaken
God
as
to

confirme
adulterie
with
murther,
when
hee
was
to
doe
the
tenderest
office
of

a
friende,
in
laying
his
owne
shame
before
his
eyes,
sent
by
God
to
call
againe

so
chosen
a
seruant,
how
doth
he
it
but
by
telling
of
a
man
whose
beloued

Lambe
was
vngratefullie
taken
from
his
bosome?
the
applycation
most

diuinely
true,
but
the
discourse
it
selfe
fayned;
which
made
Dauid
(I
speake

28

of
the
second
and
instrumentall
cause)
as
in
a
glasse
to
see
his
own
filthines,

as
that
heauenly
Psalme
of
mercie
wel
testifieth.
40

For
Sidney
to
reference
David’s
adultery
means
that
the
entire
episode
must
have
been

strongly
present
in
his
imagination—in
fact,
he
suggests
that
the
story
is
one
of
two

examples
“so
often
remembred
as
I
thinke
all
men
knowe
them.”
Sidney’s
account
links
the

life
of
David
to
the
act
of
writing
fiction
and
helps
to
justify
the
possible
moral
benefit
of

“fayning
discourse.”
Anne
Lake
Prescott
reads
a
further
political
significance
into
the

confrontation
of
a
monarch,
provocatively
suggesting
that
Sidney
identifies
more
readily

with
Nathan
than
David,
and
that
by
imaginatively
scolding
the
king,
he
momentarily
steps

out
of
the
shadow
of
an
overly
dominant
role
model:

How
satisfying
for
Sidney
to
have
wrested
the
looking
glass
away
from
the

king,
and
not
just
from
any
king,
but
from
David:
the
out-‐of-‐towner
whose

military
prowess
was
the
subject
of
enraptured
female
song,
the
successful

adulterer
who
must
have
had
more
“skill
of
a
sonnet”
than
Astrophil,
the

exiled
courtier
who
did
not
merely
rusticate
and
scribble
elegant
fantasies

but
collected
an
army
and—in
God’s
good
time—replaced
his
politically

powerful
father-‐in-‐law,
the
spiritually
advantaged
harpist
who
was
brought

up
short
by
a
moving
fable
composed
by
an
advisor
seeking
to
save
him
from

the
consequences
of
a
degrading
love
affair.
Poor
Sidney.
41

Prescott
admits
that
this
is
a
reading
of
which
Sidney
would
have
likely
disapproved,
and

considering
his
seemingly
boundless
ambition,
it
is
difficult
to
imagine
him
envious
of

40
Sir
Philip
Sidney,
“An
Apologie
for
Poetrie,”
in
Elizabethan
Critical
Essays,
Vol.
1,
ed.
G.
Gregory

Smith
(Oxford:
Oxford
University
Press,
1964),174.

41
Prescott,
“King
David
as
a
‘Right’
Poet,”
151.

29

anyone.
Yet
Prescott
offers
a
useful
comparison
between
the
careers
of
Sidney
and
David,

demonstrating
the
rich
rhyme
of
their
lives,
and
signaling
the
political
implications
of

following
in
the
poet-‐warriors’s
footsteps.
Within
the
Arcadia,
Sidney
seems
particularly

attuned
to
the
cautionary
tale
of
David’s
adultery,
especially
considering
how
David’s

downfall
was
preceded
by
a
time
of
avoidable
idleness.

Throughout
Arcadia,
examples
of
characters
dangerously
spending
too
much
time

away
from
active
life
abound.
The
disastrous
record
of
Basanius’s
flight
from
court
is
one

case—at
one
point,
the
king
even
admits
that
his
“thoughtes
are
apte
to
too
much
Leysure”

(OA,
208).
But
perhaps
the
most
salient
illustration,
and
one
that
Sidney
removed
in
his

later
version
of
the
Arcadia,
occurs
between
Musidorus
and
Pamela
as
they
are
escaping

Arcadia
in
order
to
elope.
During
a
break
from
their
journey,
Pamela
leans
against

Musidorus
and
falls
asleep.
With
too
much
time
on
his
hands,
Musidorus,
overcome
with

desire,
decides
to
“see
whether
at
that
season
hee
coulde
wynn
the
Bullwarck
before

tymely
help
might
come”
(OA,
190).
In
other
words,
he
attempts
to
rape
Pamela.
What

stops
him
is
a
convenient
mob
of
peasants
who
interrupt
the
scene.
Like
King
David,

Musidorus’s
near
downfall
happens
in
two
parts:
he
distances
himself
from
active
life,
and

then
he
takes
his
time
observing
a
woman
who
doesn’t
know
that
she
is
being
watched.

That
Sidney
later
excised
this
scene
of
near
“vyolence
of
a
frende”
suggests
perhaps

that
he
deemed
it
too
disturbing,
or
that
it
revealed
too
much
of
his
own
anxieties.
42

What

the
scene
intimates
is
the
spiritual
danger
of
leisure,
of
taking
too
much
time
away
from
the

responsibilities
of
one’s
life.
Likewise
Evarchus
decides
to
help
with
Basilius’s
ailing

42
The
history
of
and
differences
among
the
three
main
versions
of
the
Arcadia
merit
a
footnote
that

is
really
a
book
in
itself.
For
a
recent
discussion
(and
useful
intro
to
the
topic
of
Sidney
textual
history),
see

Regina
Schneider’s
Sidney’s
(Re)Writing
of
the
Arcadia.
Brooklyn,
NY:
AMS
Press,
2008,
esp.
1-‐36.

30

kingdom
because
as
Sidney
notes,
“the
treasure
of
those
Inward
giftes
hee
had
were

bestowed
by
the
goddes
uppon
hym
to
bee
beneficiall,
and
not
Idle”
(OA,
335).
The
fear
of

idleness,
of
wasting
one’s
gifts
and
potential
was
a
very
real
one
for
Protestants
like
Sidney

who
placed
significant
emphasis
on
the
working
out
of
their
own
salvation.
In
Christ’s

parable
of
the
talents,
for
instance,
the
lord
condemns
his
servant
for
being
“euyll
and

slouthfull”
because
he
buried
his
money—talents
being
the
Roman
currency—in
the

ground
instead
of
investing
it.
43

And
for
a
many
talented
man
like
Sir
Philip
Sidney,
the

thought
of
wasting
his
gifts
in
idleness—or
perhaps
the
sexual
immorality
brought
on
by

idleness—was
accompanied
by
a
particular
terror.

Friendship,
Solitude,
and
Exile
from
Oneself

One
element
that
separates
the
largely
productive
story
of
David’s
time
in
the

wilderness
from
the
tragic
story
of
his
adultery
with
Bathsheba
is
the
presence
of
strong

friendship.
After
David
kills
Goliath,
1
Samuel
records
how
Saul’s
son
Jonathan
becomes

David’s
extremely
close
friend:

the
soule
of
Ionathán
was
knit
with
the
soule
of
Dauid,
and
Ionathán
loued

him,
as
his
owne
soule...Then
Ionathán
and
Dauid
made
a
couenant:
for
he

loued
him
as
his
owne
soule.
And
Ionathán
put
of
the
robe
that
was
vpon

him,
and
gaue
it
to
Dauid,
and
his
garmentes,
euen
to
his
sworde,
&
to
his

bowe,
and
to
his
girdle.
44

43
Matthew
25:14-‐30.

44
1
Samuel
18:
1-‐4.

31

This
account
of
soul-‐sharing
friendship
bears
resemblance
to
the
Arcadian
friendship

between
Musidorus
and
Pyrocles,
especially
considering
their
ursine
and
leonine
battles

and
their
proclivity
for
switching
garments.
And
throughout
the
Arcadia,
there
resounds
a

message
of
the
spiritual
value
of
friendship.
Musidorus
playfully
tells
Pyrocles,
“I
give
yow

leave
sweete
Pyrocles,
ever
to
defend
solitarynes,
so
longe,
as
to
defend
yt,
yow
ever
keepe

Company”
(OA,
14).
Tom
MacFaul
gleans
from
the
story
of
Musidorus
and
Pyrocles
that
to

Sidney,
“Friendship
saves
the
individual
from
the
perils
of
solitude...Solitariness
is
a
form
of

subjection;
friendly
company
is
therefore
implicitly
a
mode
of
freedom.”
45

The
closeness
of

David’s
friendship
leads
Jonathan
to
counteract
his
father’s
wishes
to
help
David
escape

into
the
wilderness.
And
though
Jonathan
espouses
his
loyalty
to
David’s
future
kingship,
it

is
through
his
and
Saul’s
death
in
battle
against
the
Philistines
that
actually
allows
David
to

rise
to
power.
One
suggestion
from
the
episode
with
Bathsheba,
then,
is
that
it
is
David’s

solitude
(because
of
Jonathan’s
death),
coupled
with
his
idleness,
that
leads
to
sin.

Yet
if
friendship
prevents
the
temptations
of
solitude,
then
it
is
curious
that
Philip

Sidney’s
alter
ego,
Philisides,
stands
apart
as
a
particularly
lonely
soul.
The
unhappy

shepherd
complicates
the
idyllic
pastoral
landscape
of
Arcadia,
a
place
of
“singuler

reputation,
partly
for
the
sweetnes
of
ye
Aire”
as
well
as
the
“moderate
&
well
tempered

myndes
of
the
people”
(OA,
1).
In
this
context
of
general
contentment,
Philisides
stands
out

as
an
outsider,
a
“straunger”
whose
unhappy
and
vexed
demeanor
seems
given
to

extremes,
not
temperance.
Philisides
makes
his
first
appearance
as
a
“younge

Shepeard...who
neyther
had
daunced,
nor
songe"
with
the
other
shepherds
but
instead
“had

all
this
tyme
layen
uppon
the
grounde,
at
the
foote
of
a
Cypres
tree,
(leaning
uppon
his

45
Tom
MacFaul,
“Friendship
in
Sidney's
‘Arcadias,’”
Studies
in
English
Literature
49:1
(Winter
2009):

19.

32

ellbowe
with
so
deepe
a
Melancholy,
that
his
sences
carryed
to
his
mynde
no
delighte
from

any
of
theire
objectes)”
(OA,
67-‐68).

The
cypress
tree,
traditionally
associated
with
Hades

and
grief,
seems
an
apt
location
for
this
distraught
figure,
though
the
exaggeration
of
his

despondency
is
almost
comically
at
odds
with
the
name
“Philisides,”
a
thinly
veiled

transposition
of
the
name
“Philip
Sidney”
and
an
ironic
play
on
the
word
“felicity.”

How
and
to
what
extent
readers
are
supposed
to
connect
the
lot
of
Philisides
to
that

of
Philip
Sidney
is
a
matter
of
some
debate.
When
Geron
issues
a
wake-‐up
call
to
the
silent

shepherd,
hitting
him
upon
the
shoulder
and
urging
him
to
“Upp,
upp
Philisides,
Let

sorowes
goo,”
the
young
man
begins
to
explain
the
source
of
his
troubles,
ostensibly
a
love

affair
gone
wrong,
though
the
language
is
ambiguous.
“Synce
shee
faire
fierce
to
suche

estate
mee
Galles”
(OA,
68)
could
refer
to
love,
but
considering
Sidney’s
outspoken

disapproval
of
Queen
Elizabeth’s
betrothal
to
the
Duke
of
Alençon
and
the
disfavor
that

resulted,
the
source
of
Philisides’
“Galles”
might
be
French,
the
pun
being
a
favorite
of

Edmund
Spenser’s
and
one
that
he
employed
at
roughly
the
same
time
in
his
Shepheardes

Calender.
Richard
McCoy
speaks
for
numerous
critics
when
he
suggests
that
Sidney
“shifts

political
conflict
to
a
covert
psychological
level,”
as
many
have
read
political
angst
into
the

troubles
that
Philisides
relegates
to
the
realm
of
personal
heartbreak
and
lovesickness.
46

In

Eclogue
Three,
for
instance,
Philisides
sings
a
song
that
expresses
how
he
“had
ever

subjected
his
thoughtes
to
acknowledge
no
Master
but
a
Mistrys”
(OA,
237).
Again,
the

language
here
could
refer
to
a
beloved
but
also
to
a
female
monarch,
a
figure
who
either

tyrannizes
his
heart
or
his
station
in
life.
And
indeed,
the
all-‐consuming
nature
of
Philisides’

46
Richard
McCoy.
Rebellion
in
Arcadia,
x.

33

grief
coupled
with
the
fact
that
it
has
led
to
his
mysterious
exile
in
Arcadia
suggests
that
the

shepherd
is
suffering
more
than
the
loss
of
young
love.

So
too
does
the
totalizing
impact
of
Philisides’
sorrow
act
as
an
almost
comic

interruption
within
the
narrative.
We
are
told
that
Dicus
“Desyred
Philisides
(who
as
a

Straunger
satt
amonge
them
Revollving
in
his
mynde
all
the
Tempestes
of
evill
Fortunes

hee
had
passed)...to
singe
one
of
his
Contry
Songes”
(OA,
237).
Philisides
is
alone
in
the

crowd,
obsessively
“revollving
in
his
mynde”
the
details
of
his
misfortune,
which
suggests

that
sorrow—for
Sidney—might
function
as
a
circular,
unrelenting
force:
much
like
the

sestina
form
sung
by
the
Arcadian
shepherds,
grief
or
vexation
works
through
scrambled

yet
insistent
repetition
within
one’s
mind.
Philisides’
appellative
link
with
Philip
Sidney

further
suggests
that
at
the
center
of
the
narrative
flux
of
the
Arcadian
plot
is
some
species

of
inertia
due
to
heartache.
The
stranger-‐shepherd’s
unceasing
melancholy
threatens
to

arrest
even
the
momentum
of
the
eclogues,
which
are
themselves
a
respite
from
the

“tedious”
tale
of
Basanius
and
his
companions.
It
also
sets
Philisides
in
sharp
contrast
with

the
other
shepherds
and
characters
within
the
work.
He
does
not
fit
in
Arcadia,
not
in
its

setting
nor
in
its
plot.
Finding
himself
in
the
pastoral
genre,
he
seems
intent
on
expressing

the
elegiac,
not
the
pastoral,
mode.
And
nowhere
is
this
interruptive
quality
more

pronounced
than
at
the
wedding
of
Kala
and
Lalus.

As
the
narrator
tells
us,
the
glum
Philisides
is
the
only
one
of
the
“Straunger”

shepherds
to
attend
the
wedding
of
Lalus
and
Kala,
and
his
depressed
demeanor
again
sets

him
distinctly
at
odds
with
the
joyfulness
of
the
wedding
party.
When
asked
to
sing
a
song,

too,
his
choice
of
beast
fable—taken
from
First
Samuel,
as
discussed
previously—stands

out
as
a
strange
choice
for
a
wedding
banquet
and
receives
a
mixed
response
(OA,
237-‐42).

34

Barbara
Lewalski
suggests
that
the
varied
reactions
to
the
song
reflect
Sidney’s
admission

that
a
poet
cannot
predict
how
an
audience
will
respond
to
his
work:

The
shepherd
audience
is
moved
to
offer
conflicting
interpretations
and

some
object
vigorously
to
Philisides’
song
as
quite
unsuitable
for
wedding

festivities—highlighting
the
problems
the
poet
faces
when
he
treats
sensitive

political
matters.
He
may
indeed
move
his
audience,
but
cannot
control
how

they
will
understand
or
respond.
47

The
“Strangeness”
of
Philisides’
song
helps
to
set
it
apart
and
to
draw
attention
to
its
story

of
tyranny
at
the
same
time
that
it
pokes
fun
at
Sidney’s
lot
and
his
status
as
an
exile.

Philisides
is
doubly
exiled:
he
has
been
forced
to
flee
his
home
under
mysterious

circumstances,
and
even
within
Arcadia—a
haven
for
exiles
such
as
himself—he
is
an

outsider,
a
lone
prophet
wandering
in
a
“dezart
place,”
a
desolate
figure
distanced
even

from
himself.
(Although
it
is
oddly
touching
that
in
an
attempt
to
address
his
solitude,

Philisides
is
the
only
“straunger”
shepherd
to
make
the
effort
to
attend
the
wedding,
the

awkwardness
that
ensues
suggests
that
the
attempt
is
not
wholly
successful.)
The
contrast

between
inward
and
outward
exile,
too,
clues
reader
into
a
broader
tension
within
the

romance
at
large.

One
possible
reason
that
exile,
both
voluntary
and
involuntary,
resounds
as
a
theme

throughout
the
Old
Arcadia
is
that
for
the
Protestant
Sidney,
distance
from
one’s
home
is
in

a
spiritual
sense
both
a
given
and
a
threat.
It
is
a
given
in
the
sense
that
the
Christian’s
life

on
earth
is
by
nature
temporary,
with
the
housing
of
the
soul
in
a
perishable
“temple”
or

47
Barbara
K.
Lewalski.
“How
Poetry
Moves
Readers:
Sidney,
Spenser,
and
Milton,”
University
of

Toronto
Quarterly,
80:3
(Summer
2011):
759.

35

body.
48

In
this
light,
a
person’s
true
home
is
heaven,
and
life
on
earth
is
a
fleeting
series
of

trials
that
test
and
refine
the
soul.
Such
a
viewpoint
inevitably
separates
the
believer
from

those
in
“the
worlde”
who
understand
human
life
as
limited
to
its
span
on
earth.
As
Christ

explains
in
the
Gospel
of
John,
“If
ye
were
of
the
worlde,
the
worlde
would
loue
his
owne:

but
because
ye
are
not
of
the
worlde,
but
I
have
chosen
you
out
of
the
worlde,
therefore
the

world
hateth
you.”
49

Distance
from
the
world,
then,
and
a
sense
of
not
belonging,
is
the
sign

of
successful
faith.
Whether
this
hatred
from
the
world
translates
into
simply
an
internal

sense
of
difference
from
one’s
community,
or
if
it
leads
to
actual
exile
from
one’s
place
of

origin
seems
to
depend
on
circumstance.
As
mentioned
previously,
David
was
forced
to
flee

the
court
of
Saul
because
of
his
integrity;
similarly,
the
author
of
the
book
of
Hebrews

honors
the
many
nameless
believers
whose
lives
of
faith
led
directly
to
their
physical
exile:

These
all
dyed
according
to
fayth,
not
hauing
receaued
the
promises,
but

seing
them
a
farre
of,
and
beleuyng,
and
salutyng,
and
confessyng
that
they

were
straungers
and
pilgrimes
on
the
earth.
For
they
that
saye
suche

thynges,
declare
that
they
seke
a
countrey.
Also
yf
they
had
ben
myndfull
of

that
[countrey]
from
whence
they
came
out,
they
had
leasure
to
haue

returned:
But
nowe
they
desire
a
better,
that
is,
a
heauenly.
Wherefore
God
is

not
ashamed
of
them
to
be
called
their
God,
for
he
hath
prepared
for
them
a

citie...of
who
the
worlde
was
not
worthie:
They
wandred
in
wildernesse,
and

in
mountaynes,
and
in
dennes,
and
caues
of
the
earth.
50

48
1
Corinthians
6:19.

49
John
15:19.

50
Hebrews
11:13-‐16,
38.

36

Again
we
see
the
connection
between
the
figure
of
the
holy
exile
and
the
cave
in
the

wilderness,
a
trope
that
Sidney
toys
with
ambivalently
throughout
the
Arcadia
and
also,

perhaps,
in
relation
to
his
own
“exile”
to
the
“dezart”
of
his
sister’s
estate.
The
poet
surely

must
have
felt
some
level
of
temptation
to
explain
his
sojourn
at
Wilton
as
a
kind
of

banishment
from
evildoers,
the
sign
of
his
integrity
coming
into
conflict
with
the

principalities
of
“this
worlde.”

Yet
even
within
his
own
theology
there
was
a
counterargument
to
this
theory,
the

sense
that
dismissal
from
a
Christian
community
might
also
be
a
sign
of
error.
The
exile

caused
by
sin,
as
defined
in
the
Pauline
Epistles,
is
not
necessarily
distinguished
by

geographic
displacement,
but
rather
a
split
within
one’s
own
personhood.
The
book
of
First

Timothy
discusses
the
internal
separation
caused
by
willful
hypocrisy,
suggesting
that

those
who
follow
the
“spirits
of
errour”
and
“doctrines
of
deuyls”
have
“burned”
their

consciences
“with
an
hote
yron.”
51

To
distance
oneself
from
one’s
own
conscience
is
to

experience
a
terrifying
exile
from
one’s
identity.
Because
of
his
reformed
theology,
Sidney

was
likely
conscious
of
this
specific
spiritual
danger;
similarly
Philoclea
voices
the
despair

of
someone
who
feels
the
threat
of
exile
from
herself:
“Shall
I
come
home
ageane
to
my
self?

O
mee
Contempned
wretche
I
have
given
away
my
self”
(OA,
199).
52

51
1
Timothy
4:
1-‐2.

52
For
a
compelling
account
of
the
tensions
between
Sidney’s
literary
trifles
and
his
devotion
to
God,

see
Katherine
Duncan-‐Jones,
“Philip
Sidney’s
Toys,”
in
Sir
Philip
Sidney:
An
Anthology
of
Modern
Criticism,
ed.

Dennis
Kay.
Oxford:
Clarendon,
1987.
61-‐80.

37

Sidney’s
Contrapuntal
Imagination

If
Sidney’s
time
at
Wilton
cannot
be
convincingly
termed
a
political
banishment,
it
is

not
unreasonable
to
suggest
that
rustication
could
have
easily
been
understood
as
exile

within
the
mind
of
an
especially
imaginative
writer.
In
addition,
the
dual
exilic
bent
of
the

poet’s
staunch
Protestant
convictions
should
demonstrate
why
exile
was
a
very
real
state

for
him:
as
a
sign
of
either
exemplary
faith
or
terrifying
error,
it
must
have
been
a
condition

he
both
admired
and
feared.
Yet
as
Edward
Said
reminds
us,
there
is
a
stark
difference

between
exile
as
metaphor
to
exile
as
physical
reality.
“Exile,”
he
proposed,
“is
strangely

compelling
to
think
about
but
terrible
to
experience.”
Exile
resounds
through
millennia
of

literature
as
a
richly
suggestive
metaphor,
but
the
actual
loss
of
one’s
home
creates
what

Said
terms
“a
crippling
sorrow
of
estrangement.”
53

Was
exile
a
reality
or
a
metaphor
for

Sidney?
His
writings
during
his
stay
at
Wilton
might
offer
one
clue.
If
one
can
locate
any

benefit
within
the
experience
of
banishment,
Said
suggests
while
most
people
understand

only
one
culture
and
one
home,
exiles
“are
aware
of
at
least
two,
and
this
plurality
of
vision

gives
rise
to
an
awareness
of
simultaneous
dimensions,
an
awareness
that—to
borrow
a

phrase
from
music—is
contrapuntal.”
54

In
other
words,
the
tensions
of
exile
activate
a

polyvocal
interplay
that
is
at
once
vexed
and
lyrical:
the
knowledge
of
multiple
realities

giving
rise
to
the
transaction
of
multiple
voices
within
an
exile’s
writing.

As
a
good
Elizabethan
schoolboy,
Sir
Phillip
Sidney
had
already
learned
to
think
and

to
argue
in
utramque
partem—on
both
sides
of
the
question,
a
“play
of
mind”
which,
as
Joel

53
Edward
Said,
“Reflections
on
Exile,”
in
Reflections
on
Exile
and
Other
Essays
(Cambridge,
MA:

Harvard
University
Press,
2000),
173.

54
Edward
Said,
“Reflections
on
Exile,”186.

38

Altman
suggests,
lent
itself
to
intellectual
flexibility
and
literary
innovation.
55

And
certainly

the
Old
Arcadia
is
a
work
known
for
its
contrapuntal
qualities,
from
the
frequent

arguments
between
characters
to
the
paired
yet
opposing
eclogues
that
punctuate
the

work.
Indeed,
this
is
a
romance
full
of
voices,
many
of
them
sharply
in
disagreement
though

as
Altman
might
suggest,
ultimately
harmonious.
Yet
when
thinking
about
the
idleness
that

accompanies
his
distance
from
court,
Sidney’s
typically
euphonic
style
transforms
into

something
more
terrifying
and
cacophonous.
That
is,
the
political
and
spiritual
uncertainty

incited
by
Sidney’s
absence
from
court
heightens
the
Tudor
play
of
mind
to
a
fever
pitch,

such
that
the
counterpoints
of
his
vexed
imagination
lead
to
lyrical
imbalance
and
even

violence.
This
suggests
that
Sidney
was
prone
to
some
of
the
terror
that
Said
describes,
and

that
exile
was
at
times
a
searing
reality
for
him:
if
Sidney’s
rustication
was
not
exactly
an

exile,
the
possible
immorality
(idleness,
solicitude,
and
lust)
that
might
accompany
his

resulting
literary
experimentation
intensified
his
concerns
over
spiritual
banishment
from

himself,
from
the
church,
and
from
God.

As
the
stories
of
King
David
as
reflected
in
the
Arcadia
demonstrate,
the
act
of
taking

time
away
from
active
life
is
fraught
with
spiritual
dangers
and
political
anxieties,
and

because
of
Sidney’s
unstable
relationship
to
the
court
of
Queen
Elizabeth,
this
distance
was

at
once
theoretical
and
manifest
within
his
own
life.

On
the
one
hand,
his
time
in
the

“wilderness”
might
signal
his
prophetic
insight
into
the
affair
of
court
and
a
necessary
step

in
his
development
as
a
leader.
Pyrocles
suggests
the
benefits
of
leisurely
contemplation

when
he
says
that
“solitarynes
perchaunce
ys
the
Nurse
of
[infinite]
Contemplacyons.
Egles

wee
see
flye
alone,
and
they
are
but
sheepe
wch
allway
heard
together:
Condempne
not

55
Joel
B.
Altman,
The
Tudor
Play
of
Mind
(Berkeley
and
Los
Angeles:
University
of
California
Press,

1978),1-‐7.

39

therefore
my
mynde
some
tyme,
to
enjoy
yt
self,
nor
blame
not,
the
taking
of
suche
tymes

as
serve
moste
fitt
for
yt”
(OA,
12).
Time
away
from
active
life
is
key
for
the
sorts
of
thought

that
separate
eagles
from
sheep,
leaders
from
followers.
But
Musidorus
offers
a

counterpoint
in
short
order.
Sidney
writes
that
Musidorus
recognized
that

Suche
kynde
of
Contemplacyon
[whiche
Pyrocles
defended]
ys
but
a
glorious

tytle
to
Idlenes:
That
in
action
a
man
did
not
onely
better
him
self,
but,

benefitt
others.
That
the
Goddes
woulde
not
have
delivered
a
sowle
into
the

body,
whiche
hathe
armes
and
legges
onely
instrumentes
of
Dooynge,
but

that
yt
were
intended,
the
mynde
shoulde
employ
them,
and
that
the
mynde

shoude
best
knowe
his
owne
good
or
evell
by
practize:
whiche
knowledge

was
the
onely
way
to
encrease
the
one
&
correct
the
other,
besides,
many

other
better
arguments,
whiche
the
plentyfulnes
of
the
matter
yielded
to
the

sharpenes
of
his
witt
(OA,
13).

The
“plentyfulnes”
of
this
matter
is
endless
for
Sidney,
and
the
conflict
at
the
heart
of
it
is

never
settled—it
continues
to
repeat
itself
throughout
the
entirety
of
Sidney’s
Old
Arcadia.

Is
time
away
from
court
a
necessary
and
spiritually
beneficial
step
for
future
leadership,
or

a
devious
turn
to
idleness
and
sin?
The
poet
did
not
know
the
answer,
and
the

circumstances
of
his
literary
exploration
meant
that
he
was
living
out
the
conflict
in
real

time,
as
it
were.

Scholars
have
noted
how
Sidney
uses
his
Arcadia
to
explore
conflicting
ideas
about

idleness,
but
they
typically
underestimate
the
seriousness
of
the
debate.
Robert
E.
Stillman

suggests,
for
instance,
that
“Sidney
is
far
less
concerned
in
The
Old
Arcadia
with
the
conflict

between
action
and
contemplation,
the
heroic
and
the
pastoral
worlds,
than
he
is
with

40

evaluating
distinct
versions
of
the
idle
life
as
competing
models
for
living
justly.”
56

Similarly

Walter
Davis
writes
that
when
considering
the
conflict
between
“the
standard
Stoic-‐
Platonist
view
of
retirement”
versus
“the
Calvinistic
insistence
on
self-‐examination”
(and

the
concomitant
emphasis
on
acts,
not
simply
feelings,
of
faith),

Sidney’s
response
was
to
re-‐evaluate
the
nature
of
contemplative
experience

entirely,
asserting
that
contemplation
was
not
merely
a
retreat,
but
a
trial
of

the
soul
as
well.
Though
the
place
and
the
life
there
induced
rest,
a
hero’s
soul

was
jarred
by
this
unaccustomed
rest
to
examine
and
thus
to
know
itself.
57

Davis
suggests
that
categorizing
the
process
of
contemplation
as
a
spiritually
beneficial

trial
as
opposed
to
a
kind
of
retreat
from
active
life
allowed
Sidney
to
justify
his
time
of

leisure
as
work,
not
idleness.
But
why
was
the
charge
of
idleness
or
laziness
so
powerfully

negative
for
Sidney?
After
all,
he
boasted
of
his
Arcadia
as
an
“idle
work
of
mine,”
and
in
a

famous
letter
to
Languet,
he
suggests
that
the
quiet
life
allows
for
“thorough
self-‐
examination;
to
which
employment
no
labour
that
men
can
undertake
is
in
any
way
to
be

compared.”
Yet
Sidney
follows
this
rationalization
with
a
tongue-‐in-‐cheek
question,
“Do

you
not
see
that
I
am
cleverly
playing
the
stoic?
yea
and
I
shall
be
a
cynic
too,
unless
you

reclaim
me.”
58

While
Sidney
can
at
times
rationalize
an
explanation
for
the
benefits
of
his

retreat
from
active
life,
this
remains
only
theoretical,
a
classical
model
of
otium
at
odds

with
his
Protestant
beliefs,
and
not
a
source
of
security
for
the
young
writer.
For
what
was

56
Stillman,
Sidney's
Poetic
Justice,
22.

57
Davis,
Map
of
Arcadia,
176.

58
Philip
Sidney,
Letter
to
Languet,
March
1,
1578,
in
The
Correspondence
of
Sir
Philip
Sidney
and

Hubert
Languet,
edited
and
translated
by
Steuart
A.
Pears
(London:
William
Pickering,
1845),
143.

41

the
power
of
a
rationalization,
something
Sidney
was
adept
at
spinning,
in
the
face
of

eternal
punishment?

Throughout
his
Arcadia,
Sidney’s
concern
over
the
charge
of
idleness
reveals
itself

as
a
much
more
serious
matter
associated
with
political
irrelevance
and
spiritual

wastefulness.
“[You]
abuse
youre
tyme,”
charges
Musidorus
to
Pyrocles,
suggesting
that
his

infatuation
with
Philoclea
is
beneath
his
station
in
life
(OA,16).
And
throughout
the
Bible,

which
was
a
source
of
both
consolation
and
discipline
for
Protestants
like
Sidney,
countless

verses
extol
the
values
of
hard
work
and
the
dangers
of
idleness.
In
addition
to
the

cautionary
tales
within
the
life
of
David
and
Christ’s
parable
of
the
talents
as
previously

discussed,
the
parable
of
the
bridegroom
suggests
that
eternal
punishment
awaits
those

who
drift
into
idleness
and
spiritual
sleep.
And
the
frequent
condemnation
of
“sleep”
and

“slumber”
throughout
both
Old
and
New
Testaments
speaks
to
both
spiritual
indolence
and

also
one’s
daily
work
ethic:
“if
there
were
anie,
which
wolde
not
worke,
that
he
shulde
not

eate.”
59

It
should
not
make
us
wonder
that
Sidney
can
at
times
explain
away
the
benefits
of

leisurely
contemplation
while
at
other
times,
he
is
deeply
disturbed
by
the
spiritual
side

effects
of
too
much
time-‐taking.
After
all,
it
was
during
his
time
at
Wilton
that
Sidney
began

in
earnest
to
write
literature,
an
act
that
requires
a
great
deal
of
both
solitude
and
time.

And
since
the
status
of
poetry
and
romance
was
exceedingly
unstable
at
the
time,
one
can

understand
why
Sidney
wrestled
with
the
terror
of
spiritual
punishment
for
a
process

considered
by
some
to
be
indicative
of
inaction,
negligence,
and
sloth.
60

59
2
Thessalonians
3:10.

60
In
an
introductory
letter
to
his
Utopia,
Thomas
More
complains
(or
perhaps
boasts)
of
having

“almost
less
than
no
leisure”;
in
order
to
write,
he
claims
to
use
“only
that
time
which
I
steal
from
sleep
and

42

While
Sidney
wrote
the
first
version
of
the
Arcadia,
then,
he
likely
wrestled
with
the

spiritual
and
political
risks
associated
with
the
act
of
writing
itself,
and
this
in
turn
could

help
to
explain
the
seemingly
inexplicable
contradictions
and
oddities
within
the
work.

Richard
McCoy
bucks
the
general
assumption
that

in
his
fiction
Sidney
obtains
the
sense
of
mastery
and
ordered

comprehension
denied
him
in
life.
For
traditional
critics,
this
achievement
is

based
on
a
harmonious
synthesis
of
orthodox
Renaissance
values.
Petrarchan

acceptance,
Neoplatonic
hierarchy,
and
Christian
heroism
are
all
components

of
an
inclusive
doctrinal
order
in
this
scheme;
and
courtly,
political,
and

religious
service
turn
out
to
be
mutually
supportive
virtues.
61

Instead,
McCoy
questions
the
critical
compulsion
to
“sanitize”
ambivalence
and
to
neatly

contain
conflict
under
the
rubrics
of
“paradox,
irony,
and
ambiguity.”
Such
an
“insistence
on

artistic
omniscience”
leads
inevitably
to
critical
distortion
and,
in
some
cases,
cooperates
in

the
posthumous
cultural
lionization
of
Sidney.
Instead,
McCoy
asserts
that
“one
must
see

Sidney’s
literature
in
its
historical
context;
this
connection
is
essential
to
a
more
inclusive

and
realistic
understanding
of
his
fiction's
ambiguities
and
a
clarification
of
their
sources

and
meaning,
their
depth
and
complexity.”
62

In
other
words,
we
as
critics
must
be
open
to

the
possibility
that
the
conflicts
within
Sidney’s
Arcadia
are
not
always
intentional
on
the

part
of
the
author.
I
would
augment
McCoy’s
point
by
suggesting
that
we
can
read
the

formal
anomalies
present
through
the
work
as
signs
of
Sidney’s
life
spilling
into
his
art.
The

meat.”
Letter
to
Peter
Giles,
from
Utopia,
trans.
Ralph
Robinson
(New
York
and
Toronto:
Alfred
A.
Knopf,

1992),
9.

61
McCoy,
Rebellion
in
Arcadia,
28.

62
McCoy,
Rebellion
in
Arcadia,
29-‐32.

43

text
itself
suggests
that
a
divided
mind
breeds
contradictions.
As
an
aside
to
a
discussion

between
Philoclea
and
Pyrocles,
the
narrator
writes
that
“(Suche
Contradictions
there
must

needes
growe
in
those
myndes
whiche
neyther
absolutely
embrace
goodnes,
nor
frely

yeelde
to
evell)”
(OA,
115).

63

In
other
words,
contradiction
is
the
verbal
indicator
of
moral

struggle.
When
Philoclea
asks,
“Shall
I
laboure
to
lay
Coloures
over
my
galled
thoughtes?”

she
too
asserts
the
difficulty
of
finding
beautiful
language
for
the
disorganization
of
internal

struggles
(OA,
115).
Political
uncertainty
also
produces
a
state
of
confused
communication

for
the
characters
within
Arcadia.
As
she
waits
for
her
fate
to
be
determined,
Pamela
writes

that
“In
suche
a
State...I
can
neither
wryte,
nor
bee
silent:
For
howe
can
I
bee
silent,
synce

yow
have
lefte
mee
nothing
but
my
solitary
wordes
to
testify
my
misery?
And
howe

shoulde
I
wryte,
for
as
for
speeche
I
have
none
(but
my
Jaylor)
that
can
heare
mee...”
(OA,

369).
Such
examples
hint
at
Sidney’s
own
internal
struggles
and
the
literary
decisions
that

result.
That
is,
the
writer’s
vexation
and
even
terror
over
the
charge
of
idleness
presents

itself
through
scenes
of
lyrical
interruption,
violence,
and
waste.

The
frequency
of
interruption
throughout
the
romance
suggests
disturbances

surrounding
its
production.
Like
Pamela,
characters
throughout
the
work
explain
how
their

own
private
grief
interrupts
their
ability
to
communicate.
As
Philanax
laments
the
death
of

Basilius,
he
says,
“Alas,
thoughe
I
have
muche
more
to
say,
I
can
say
no
more,
for
my
Teares

&
Sighes
interrupt
my
speeche,
and
force
mee
to
give
my
self
over
to
private
sadness”
(OA,

63
The
profusion
of
parentheticals
within
the
work,
when
considered
with
the
many
poems,
songs,

asides,
and
rambling
philosophical
discussions,
makes
this
pastoral
romance
yet
even
more
leisurely
for
its

reader.
For
a
discussion
of
the
many
ways
that
parentheticals
function
within
Arcadia,
see
Jonathan
Lamb’s

study,
“Parentheses
and
Privacy
in
Philip
Sidney’s
Arcadia,”
Studies
in
Philology
107:3
(Summer
2010):
310-‐
35
as
well
as
Jenny
C.
Mann,
“The
Insertour:
Putting
the
Parenthesis
in
Sidney’s
Arcadia,”
a
chapter
in
Outlaw

Rhetoric:
Figuring
Vernacular
Eloquence
in
Shakespeare's
England
(Ithaca
and
London:
Cornell
University

Press,
2012),
87-‐117.

44

364).
Likewise
the
narrator
tells
us
that
Philoclea’s
“dizeazed”
emotional
condition
leads

her
“to
putt
her
self
into
some
Lonely
place”
(OA,
104).
It
seems
plausible,
then,
that
when

his
own
writing
touches
upon
an
issue
about
which
Sidney
feels
“dizeazed,”
his
response,

likely
unintentional,
is
to
retreat
from
discomfort
by
changing
the
subject.
As
already

discussed,
a
band
of
rioting
peasants
conveniently
interrupts
Musidorus’s
violent
lust

towards
Pamela,
a
near
moral
catastrophe
triggered
by
idleness.
The
frequency
with
which

Philisides
both
interrupts
(as
in
the
case
of
his
bizarre
beast
fable
during
the
shepherd

marriage
celebration)
and
is
interrupted
(for
instance,
whenever
he
tries
to
explain
his

exile)
further
suggests
the
link
between
Sidney
as
writer,
his
pastoral
counterpart,
and
the

narrative
tendency
of
breaking
off
communication
when
it
triggers
too
unpleasant
a

thought.
64

Verbal
waste—the
exercise
of
fruitless
speech—could
be
understood
as
another

response
to
spiritual
or
political
anxieties.
In
reading
the
Old
Arcadia,
readers
are
often

struck
by
the
frequent
examples
of
wordy
speeches
that
do
nothing
to
persuade
the

characters
for
which
they
are
intended.
Key
examples
include
the
opening
and
fruitless

argument
between
Philanax
and
Basilius,
the
long
discussion
in
which
Musidorus

unsuccessfully
tries
to
talk
Pyrocles
out
of
being
in
love,
and
Philoclea’s
long
discussion

with
Pyrocles
regarding
his
attempts
at
suicide.
One
suggestion
for
such
displays
is
that

Sidney’s
mind
is
troubled
into
drawing
“oute
his
eevening
to
his
longest
lyne”—stretching

out
lyrical
and
rhetorical
expression
to
an
extreme,
as
do
the
shepherds
in
their
Arcadian

pastimes,
not
out
of
enjoyment
but
out
of
frustration.
It
might
be
tempting
to
read
the

64
For
more
on
Sidney’s
narrative
strategy,
see
Margaret
Dana,
“The
Providential
Plot
of
the
Old

Arcadia,
83-‐102,
as
well
as
Walter
Davis’s
“Narrative
Methods
in
Sidney’s
Old
Arcadia,”
103-‐123,
both
found

in
Sir
Philip
Sidney:
An
Anthology
of
Modern
Criticism,
ed.
Dennis
Kay.
Oxford:
Clarendon,
1987.

45

songs
of
the
shepherds
as
the
products
of
pure
leisurely
enjoyment,
but
the
example
of

Lalus
counteracts
this.
Tellingly,
the
shepherd
refuses
to
sing
with
Philisides
once
achieving

the
object
of
his
longing:
“Lalus
directly
refused
hym,
sayinge
hee
shoulde
within
fewe

dayes
bee
marryed
to
the
fayre
Kalla,
and
synce
hee
had
gotten
his
desyer,
hee
woulde

singe
no
more”
(OA,
151-‐2).
By
implication,
then,
the
music
of
Philisides
springs
from
a
well

of
unhappiness
and
thwarted
desire.
Likewise,
Sidney’s
wordiness
could
well
be
a
sign
of

thwarted
ambitions
and
internal
discord.

The
ambivalent
nature
of
time-‐taking
throughout
the
Arcadia
is
evident,
finally,

throughout
Sidney’s
erratic
and
unusual
use
of
the
word
“leysure.”
He
often
uses
the
term

in
sentences
where
something
violent
occurs.
Take
for
instance
the
scene
where
Pyrocles

falls
in
love
with
Philoclea
by
seeing
her
picture:
“Then
did
pore
Pyrocles
yelde
to
the

burthen,
fynding
him
self
prisoner,
before
hee
had
leysure
to
arm
him
self,
and
that
hee

might
well
(like
the
Spanyell)
gnawe
upon
ye
Cheyne
that
tyes
him,
but
hee
shoulde
sooner

marr
his
teeth
then
procure
liberty”
(OA,
9).
Here
is
an
imagery
of
imprisonment,
of
the

stifling
force
of
infatuation,
with
Pyrocles
lacking
“leysure”
to
arm
himself.
The
mixture
of

violence
and
indolence
might
be
a
coincidence,
but
a
similar
connection
is
again
made

when
the
lion
bursts
into
Act
1.
In
terror,
Philoclea
falls
upon
Cleophila,
who
is
so
charmed

by
this
unhoped-‐for
intimacy
that
he/she
gives
“leysure
to
the
Lyon
to
come
very
nere

them”
before
he/she
extricates
herself
from
the
“dere
Armes”
of
Philoclea
and
begins
to

attack.
After
a
scene
of
fierce
fighting
and
mutual
wounding,
what
follows
is
an
unusual

mixture
of
violence,
narrative
delay,
and
erotic
longing,
in
which
the
lion

gave
Cleophila
leysure
to
take
of
his
heade,
to
carry
yt
for
a
present
to
her

Lady
Philoclea.
Who,
all
this
while,
not
knowyng,
what
was
done
behynde

46

her,
kept
on
her
Course...her
light
Nimphlyk
apparell
beeyng
carryed
up
with

the
wynde,
that,
muche
of
those
beutyes
shee
woulde
at
an
other
tyme
have

willingly
hidden,
were
presented
to
the
eye
of
the
twyce
wounded
Cleophila:

wch
made
Cleophila
not
followe
her
over
hastely,
leste
shee
shoulde
too

soone
deprive
her
self
of
that
pleasure.
(OA,
43)

The
double
use
of
the
word
“leysure”
in
reference
to
the
violence
directed
both
from
and
to

the
lion
reiterates
Sidney’s
vexed
relationship
to
otium
as
already
suggested.
Emblematic
of

this
charged
treatment
of
the
word
“leysure”
is
the
scene
in
which
Cleophila,
carrying
the

head
of
the
slain
lion
(again
a
reference
to
David’s
triumphant
transport
of
the
head
of
the

slain
Goliath),
delays
his
pursuit
of
Philoclea
so
that
he/she
can
savor
the
appearance
of
her

lightly
veiled
figure
as
she
flees
the
threat
of
the
lion.
65

What
Cleophila
does
here
is
to
delay

the
narrative
for
the
sake
of
voyeurism
and
sensual
pleasure,
an
act
treated
as
ambivalently

as
the
word
“leisure”
throughout
the
passage.
Cleophila,
holding
the
head
of
the
lion
and

hence
the
completion
of
the
“lion”
episode,
takes
his/her
time
in
catching
up
with
Philoclea

so
that
he/she
can
carefully
observe
her
without
her
knowing
that
she
is
being
watched.
In

other
words:
Cleophila
slows
down
the
story
in
order
to
read
Philoclea.

Throughout
the
Old
Arcadia,
then,
Sidney
mingles
the
pleasures
of
slow
reading

with
darker,
often
unintentional
musings
over
the
dangers
of
idleness.
The
author’s
sojourn

at
Wilton
and
the
political
complications
that
accompanied
it
must
certainly
have
fed
his

insecurities
over
his
status
at
court,
and
his
literary
output
offered
both
an
escape
and
a

place
of
expression.
Even
if
only
imagined,
the
trope
of
exile
speaks
to
Sidney’s
political

uncertainties
as
well
as
the
spiritual
concerns
that
his
leisurely
lifestyle
incited.
At
the

65
1
Samuel
17:54.

47

heart
of
his
fears
over
the
dangers
of
idleness
seems
to
rest
a
deep
inquiry
into
the

production
of
literature
and
the
time-‐taking
and
solitude
that
both
writing
and
reading
it

require.
In
our
present
culture,
spending
hours
reading
books,
much
less
writing
them,

tends
to
engender
a
certain
amount
of
respect.
It
is
crucial,
then,
to
remember
that
for

thinkers
like
Sidney,
taking
time
with
books
of
romance
was
not
a
given,
nor
was
it

necessarily
a
good.

48

Chapter
2

The
Tired
Book:
Poetic
Ambition
and
Exhaustion
in
The
Shepheardes

Calender

Goe
little
booke:
thy
selfe
present,

As
child
whose
parent
is
vnkent
66

The
Shepheardes
Calender
opens
with
a
charge
from
Immeritô
revealing
the
New

Poet’s
sense
of
his
“booke”
as
both
objectively
and
geographically
separate
from
himself

and
as
such,
subject
to
the
interpretations
of
a
broad,
anonymous
readership.
Just
as
the

name
Immeritô
equivocally
suggests
both
radical
humility
(“unworthy”)
and
extreme
moral

confidence
(“blameless”),
so
the
opening
address
simultaneously
reveals
the
vulnerability

of
an
orphaned
book
in
danger
of
misjudgment
and
its
attending
ability
to
expose
the

limitations
and
failures
of
its
readers.
From
the
outset,
the
Calender
concerns
itself
with

varying
modes
of
reading
and
presents
itself
as
a
distinctly
challenging
object
of
inquiry—
especially
considering
that
even
in
its
earliest
editions,
the
book
already
bore
the
evidence

of
having
been
pre-‐framed
and
pre-‐interpreted
by
the
solicitous
E.
K.
67

In
his
first
sentence,

E.
K.
links
Spenser
to
Chaucer
and
Virgil,
sealing
the
poet’s
critical
fate
to
be
forever

primarily
tied
to
these
two
loadstars
of
language.
68

Yet
the
work’s
conscious
presentation

66
Edmund
Spenser:
The
Shorter
Poems,
ed.
Richard
A.
McCabe
(London
and
New
York:
Penguin

Books,
1999),
24.
All
subsequent
references
to
The
Shepheardes
Calender
are
from
this
edition
and
cited
by

section
and
line
number.

67
For
more
on
the
early
modern
interplay
between
margins
and
text,
see
Evelyn
B.
Tribble,
Margins

and
Marginality:
The
Printed
Page
in
Early
Modern
England.
Charlottesville
VA:
University
of
Virginia
Press,

1993.

68
“VNCOVTHE VNKISTE, Sayde the olde famous Poete Chaucer: whom for his excellencie and
wonderfull skil in making, his scholler Lidgate, a worthy scholler of so ecxellent a maister, calleth the Loadestarre

49

as
a
work
of
“secret
meaning”
invites
closer
inspection
of
these
linkages,
especially

regarding
a
source
whose
initial
omission
is
suspicious

(Epistle,
178).
The
Tristia
of
Publius

Ovidius
Naso,
written
from
his
exile
in
Tomis,
begins
with
striking
similarity
to
the

Calender:

Parve—nec
invideo—sine
me,
liber,
ibis
in
urbem,

ei
mihi,
quo
domino
non
licet
ire
tuo!
69

E.
K.’s
initial
exclusion
of
Ovid’s
name
is
even
more
suspect
considering
that
the
poet's

Fasti,
also
completed
in
exile,
was
the
only
major
calendar
poem
extant
when
Spenser
was

writing
The
Shepheardes
Calender,
and,
as
Syrithe
Pugh
remarks,
was
“a
work
almost
as

widely
read
in
the
sixteenth
century
as
the
Metamorphoses
itself.”
70

While
readers
are

explicitly
invited
to
connect
Spenser’s
poetic
flight
to
the
track
of
the
Virgilian
rota
and
his

“little
booke”
to
that
of
Chaucer’s
Troilus
and
Criseyde,
then,
the
subtext
of
relegation
and

suffering
conjured
by
Ovid’s
exilic
works
hides
in
plain
sight,
quietly
inviting
the
careful

reader
to
discover
the
reasons
for
its
presence.
71

Deeply
tied
to
the
subtext
of
Ovid’s
later
works
is
Spenser’s
own
sense
of
alienation,

the
study
of
which
has
been
pioneered
by
critics
such
as
Richard
McCabe
and
Pugh.
While

of our Language: and whom our Colin clout in his Æglogue called Tityrus the God of shepheards, comparing hym to
the worthines of the Roman Tityrus Virgile.” Epistle, 1-7.

69

“Little
book,
you
will
go
without
me—and
I
grudge
it
not—to
the
city,
whither
alas
your
master
is

not
allowed
to
go!”
Tristia
I.1.1-‐2.
Unless
otherwise
noted,
this
and
all
subsequent
quotations/translations
of

Tristia
and
Ex
Ponto
taken
from
the
following
edition:
Ovid,
Tristia.
Ex
Ponto,
trans,
A.
L.
Wheeler.
Loeb

Classical
Library
151.
Cambridge,
MA:
Harvard
University
Press,
1924.

70
Syrithe
Pugh,
Spenser
and
Ovid
(Burlington,
VT:
Ashgate,
2005),
18.

71

Interestingly,
this
technique
of
half-‐concealing
a
meaning
for
a
careful
reader
to
find
comes
from

classical
oratory
and
forensic
style
and
is
known
as
“emphasis”;
as
such
it
is
the
opposite
of
the
modern

conception
of
emphasis.
See
Frederick
Ahl,
“The
Art
of
Safe
Criticism
in
Greece
and
Rome,”
The
American

Journal
of
Philology,
Vol.
105:
2
(Summer
1984):
174-‐208,
esp.
176-‐179.

50

this
chapter
is
indebted
to
such
scholars,
it
sets
its
particular
focus
on
how
Spenser

expresses
his
feelings
of
exile
and
personal
loss
through
varying
and
contradictory

structures
of
poetic
time,
and
how
in
turn
these
clashing
views
of
time
express
not
simply

personal
but
political
discontent.
The
project
of
writing
a
calendar
is
incredibly
ambitious,

especially
considering
the
cultural
importance
of
time
and
its
measurement
in
Elizabethan

England.
Seeking
to
help
correct
the
widespread
critical
mischaracterization
of
Spenser
as

conservative
supporter
of
Elizabeth,
my
reading
demonstrates
how
the
poet’s
attempt
to

speak
for
all
time
and
to
create
an
ever-‐repeating
poem
could
be
considered,
similar
to
the

project
of
Ovid's
Fasti,
an
act
of
rewriting
empire:
a
project
that
exceeds
the
traditional

range
of
the
“low”
pastoral
genre.

Yet
as
a
counterpoint
to
this
temporal
ambition,

Spenser’s
calendar
also
records
the
exhaustion
and
the
depletion
that
accompanies—and
in

the
case
of
the
Tristia,
compels—the
work
of
the
poet.
In
the
space
of
a
year,
Colin
Clout

passes
from
youth
to
senescence,
suggesting
that
the
invention
of
lyric
is
so
thoroughly

taxing
that
it
dooms
its
inventor
to
an
early
death.
The
contrapasso
of
this
punishment

seems
particularly
Ovidian,
or
Dantean:
the
poet
can
don
his
colorful
wings
and
fly
through

the
centuries,
but
the
majority
of
his
own
life
is
consumed
within
a
single
year,
and
this
too

functions
as
a
veiled
political
complaint.
This
chapter,
then,
investigates
how
the
subtext
of

exile
animates
two
varying
and
often
contradictory
structures
of
poetic
time,
which
in
turn

reveal
Spenser’s
personal
and
political
discontent
and
complicate
the
act
of
reading
his

“little
booke.”

51

The
Politics
of
Fashioning
“A
Calender
for
euery
yeare”

Why
was
the
project
of
writing
a
calendar
so
ambitious?
One
reason
was
the
timing

of
Spenser’s
work.
Beginning
in
fourteenth
century
iconography,
the
clock
had
stood
as
a

key
symbol
of
humanism:
if
man
was
the
measure
of
all
things,
then
the
clock
offered
a
way

by
which
his
life
could
be
calculated.
72

The
poetry
of
the
Elizabethan
era
continued
the
near

obsession
with
time
and
its
adversarial
or
motivational
relationship
to
the
human,

complicated
further
by
the
fierce
debates
over
Pope
Gregory’s
proposed
calendar
reforms

that
raged
from
1577-‐1582
and
that
questioned
the
nature
of
the
English
calendar
and
its

political
and
religious
significance.
73

With
this
history
in
mind,
Alison
A.
Chapman
argues

that
The
Shepheardes
Calender
deserves
much
more
critical
attention
as
a
calendar,
“a

highly
politicized
reorganization
of
annual
time
published
during
an
era
obsessed
with

time
and
forms
of
time
reckoning.”
According
to
Chapman,
modern
21
st
-‐C.
readers
tend
“to

experience
the
annual
calendar
as
simply
a
neutral
temporal
framework,
as
one
of
the

unquestioned
furnishings
of
quotidian
existence.”
Consequently,
critics
error
in

retroactively
applying
this
“natural”
understanding
of
the
calendar,
neglecting
both
the

relevant
political
debates
of
the
time
as
well
as
the
ongoing
arguments
over
the
liturgical

content
of
the
English
calendar.
While
Chapman
does
not
make
the
crucial
connection

72
"Time
is
a
gift
of
God
and
thus
cannot
be
sold.
The
taboo
on
time
that
the
Middle
Ages
opposed
to

the
merchant
was
lifted
at
the
dawn
of
the
Renaissance.
From
now
on
what
counts
is
the
hour
-‐-‐
the
new

measure
of
life...never
lose
an
hour
of
time.
The
cardinal
virtue
is
temperance,
to
which
the
new
iconography,

beginning
in
the
fourteenth
century,
assigns
as
attribute
the
clock-‐-‐from
now
on
the
measure
of
all
thing."
Le

Goff,
Un
autre
Moyen
Age,
p.
78.
This
passage,
translated
by
Peggy
Kamuf,
is
located
in
a
footnote
in
Jacques

Derrida’s
“The
University
Without
Condition,”
in
his
essay
collection,
Without
Alibi,
ed.
and
trans.
Peggy

Kamuf
(Stanford:
Stanford
University
Press,
2002),
302.

73
During
the
French
Revolution,
the
politics
of
calendars
came
to
the
fore.
For
a
cultural
history
of

time
measurement
and
calendars
up
to
and
through
the
early
modern
period,
see
Sanja
Perovic,
The
Calendar

in
Revolutionary
France:
Perceptions
of
Time
in
Literature,
Culture,
Politics
(Cambridge
and
New
York:

Cambridge
University
Press,
2012),
23-‐52.

52

between
Spenser’s
poetic
project
and
Ovid’s
more
subversive
one,
her
research
helps
to

explain
why
writing
a
calendar
during
the
late
1570’s
was
by
definition
freighted
with

political
import.
74

And
if
any
calendar
written
during
this
era
of
debate
was
daring,
then
Spenser’s

project
is
especially
so
because
it
deliberately
draws
attention
to
the
ways
in
which
time

functions
as
a
religious
and
political
construct.
In
his
general
argument,
E.
K.
explains
that

while
“it
is
wel
known”
that
“the
yeare
beginneth
in
March”
because
it
marks
the
end
of

winter
and
the
beginning
of
spring,
the
calendrical
year
begins
at
a
different
time:

we
mayntaine
a
custome
of
coumpting
the
seasons
from
the
moneth
Ianuary,

vpon
a
more
speciall
cause,
then
the
heathen
Philosophers
euer
coulde

conceive,
that
is,
for
the
incarnation
of
our
mighty
Sauiour
and
eternall

redeemer
the
L.
Christ,
who
as
then
renewing
the
state
of
the
decayed
world,

and
returning
the
compasse
of
expired
yeres
to
theyr
former
date
and
first

commencement,
left
to
vs
his
heires
a
memoriall
of
his
birth
in
the
ende
of

the
last
yeere
and
beginning
of
the
next.
(Generall
Argument,
42-‐43,
51-‐59)

E.
K.
blithely
continues
to
explain
that
while
both
Julius
Caesar
and
the
Hebrews
considered

March
the
beginning
of
the
year,
yet
“according
to
tradition
of
latter
times”
it
has
been

switched
to
January,
“both
in
gouernment
of
the
church,
and
rule
of
Mightiest
Realmes”

(GA,
68-‐70).
What
E.
K.
inadvertently
suggests
is
the
arbitrary
nature
of
the
shift
and
its

reflection
on
the
rule
of
“Mightiest
Realmes.”
This
is
something
that
"heathen"
philosophers

could
have
never
could
have
imagined,
a
religious
and
political
edict
that
rewrites
the

74
Alison
A.
Chapman,
“The
Politics
of
Time
in
Edmund
Spenser's
English
Calendar,”
Studies
in
English

Literature,
42:1
(Winter
2002):
1-‐2.

53

natural
year,
as
it
were
(GA,
53).
From
the
outset
of
his
poem,
then,
Spenser
presents

calendrical
time
as
a
human
construct
inextricably
tied
to
the
political
constraints
of

empire
and
forever
at
odds
with
the
seasonal
year.
To
rewrite
it
is
to
play
with
the

workings
of
sovereignty:
Spenser’s
calendar
draws
attention
to
how
time
can
be

manipulated
by
the
powers
that
be,
and
he
does
his
part
to
manipulate
it
as
well.

Most
readers,
upon
encountering
the
The
Shepheardes
Calender,
recognize
its

strangeness
as
a
text,
especially
in
the
way
that
it
self-‐consciously
presents
itself
as
much

older
work.
Like
many
compositions
of
the
time,
the
calendar
begins
with
a
poem
about
the

poem
and
a
dedication;
but
the
reader
must
then
wade
through
an
epistle
and
a
general

argument
before
arriving
at
“Januarye,”
which
presents
an
emblem
and
then
another

summarizing
argument
before
Spenser’s
poetry
actually
begins.
Perhaps
these
multiple

frames,
layer
upon
layer,
function
as
a
different
sort
of
Spenserian
poetry,
suggesting
that
a

calendar
is
the
accretion
of
many
voices
over
time.
Many
scholars
have
noted
Spenser’s

choice
to
write
in
an
“aged”
version
of
English
that
is
largely
his
invention.
While
the
lion’s

share
of
critical
readings
have
focused
on
the
character
of
Spenser’s
unusual
diction,
I

would
simply
make
the
point
that
it
is
one
method
by
which
Spenser
presents
his
new

work
as
a
much
older
one.
In
addition,
even
the
first
printings
of
the
Calender
demonstrate

the
signs
of
age.
In
the
October
eclogue,
for
instance,
Piers’
sententious
response
to

Cuddie’s
closing
emblem
is
missing
from
all
editions,
though
E.K.
comments
on
it
as
if
he

had
access
to
it.
75

This
could
be
simply
an
oversight
on
Spenser’s
(or
the
printer’s)
part,
but

given
the
extreme
care
by
which
Spenser
seeks
to
control
the
experience
of
reading
his

poem,
it
seems
more
likely
that
this
is
yet
another
method
for
affecting
antiquity.

75
Whom
Piers
answereth
Epiphonematicos
as
admiring
the
excellencye
of
the
skyll
whereof
in

Cuddie
hee
hadde
alreadye
hadde
a
taste"(“October,”
Embleme).

54

Perhaps
the
best
example
of
Spenser's
strategy
for
feigning
the
age
of
his
Calender

can
be
observed
in
the
solicitous,
often
misguided
annotations
of
E.
K.
The
piling
on
of

commentaries,
glossaries,
and
notes
mimics
the
accretion
of
scholarly
exertion
over
time,

and
the
fact
that
E.
K.
also
uses
Spenser’s
pseudo-‐archaic
diction
further
suggests
the

author’s
desire
to
turn
water
into
wine,
as
it
were—to
imbue
a
new
substance
with
the

trappings
and
the
authority
of
age.
76

Michael
McCanles’
work
on
this
subject
is
emblematic

of
scholarship
that
notes
the
calendar’s
intentional
presentation
as
not
simply
a
document,

but
a
monument
or
“pseudo
antique”:
“What
Spenser
published
in
1579
was
not
simply
a

collection
of
pastorals
with
a
commentary
attached.
What
he
published
was
a
fictional

imitation
of
a
humanist
edition
of
classical
texts...the
volume
called
The
Shepheardes

Calender
shows
us
Edmund
Spenser
dressing
up
his
first
publication
by
giving
it
the

trappings
usually
accorded
only
texts
with
a
history
already
behind
them.”
77

Critics
who

treat
Spenser's
poem
as
simply
a
document
or
literary
text
miss
a
key
aspect
of
the
poet's

project,
which
is
to
create
an
object
that
imaginatively
spans
the
past
and
boldly
asserts

itself
into
the
future.
The
commentaries
of
E.
K.,
then,
as
well
as
the
woodcuts
and
other

framing
devices,
the
missing
emblem,
and
the
archaic
diction
of
both
the
“New
Poete”
and

E.
K.
all
add
to
the
illusion
of
age.
Spenser
wants
his
poem
to
appear
to
the
reader
as
an

object,
a
monument,
an
aging
body
(or
corpus)
passed
down
through
the
centuries
with

both
the
wear
and
the
scholarly
accretion
that
accompany
a
time-‐honored
text.

But
what
is
the
purpose
of
this
artificial
antiquing?
It
is
E.
K.
who
observes
that

Spenser’s
use
of
old
or
obsolete
words
lends
“auctoritie”—a
kind
of
written
power—to
his

76
John
2:1-‐11;
the
problem
of
new
wine
in
old
wineskins
is
also
suggestive
here—see
Matthew
9:17.

77
Michael McCanles, "The Shepheardes Calender as Document and Monument," Studies in English
Literature, 1500-1900, Vol. 22:1, (Winter 1982): 6-7, 9.

55

verse
(Epistle,
43).
And
as
Patrick
Cheney
suggests,
Spenser
was
very
much
concerned
with

his
role
as
career
poet,
as
the
author
or
originator
of
works
that
established
his
reputation

and
earned
him
respect
and
compensation.
78

By
feigning
the
age
of
his
poem,
Spenser
both

carefully
and
playfully
positions
himself
on
the
temporal
margins
of
his
own
society,

allowing
him
to
imaginatively
hover
above
the
constraints
of
his
own
time
while
also

speaking
with
the
pretended
authority
of
ancient
wisdom.
In
this
sense,
Spenser
situates

himself
at
odds
with
the
court
and
at
the
edges
of
the
empire
he
is
so
intent
on
helping
to

define,
in
part
because
of
his
lack
of
reputation—he
is
the
“vnkent,”
and
“vncovthe”
poet

who
sends
out
his
book
as
a
proxy
for
himself.
More
broadly,
the
poet
presents
himself
as

distanced
and
at
odds
with
a
political
culture
that
favors
parrots,
flatterers,
and
fools.

He

laments
in
a
letter
to
Gabriel
Harvey,
“Whoever
has
striven
to
please
high-‐ranking
men
has

studied
folly,
for
thus
does
fortune
favour
fools…the
world
is
so
full
of
fools.”
79

Spenser

wrote
this
in
Latin,
such
that
the
mode
of
his
complaint
further
reinforces
his
troubled

identity
as
a
“true
scholar”
in
a
society
that
placed
a
higher
priority
on
loyalty
to
the
state

than
true
intellectual
inquiry.
His
choice
of
Latin
also
hints
at
a
scholarly
remove
from
the

troubling
mishmash
of
the
English
vernacular.
(That
he
chose
to
write
the
entirety
of
his

major
works,
then,
in
English—albeit
his
own
version
of
the
language—suggests
an
Ovidian

relationship
to
his
mother
tongue,
a
mixture
of
compulsion
towards
the
language
itself
and

a
disenchantment
with
the
political
culture
it
represents.)

78
Patrick
Cheney,
Spenser’s
Famous
Flight:
A
Renaissance
Idea
of
a
Literary
Career.
Toronto,
Buffalo,

and
London:
University
of
Toronto
Press,
1993.

79
Taken
from
Edmund
Spenser,
Letter
to
Harvey,
Oct.
16,
1579,
lines
47-‐65,
translated
by
Richard
A.

McCabe,
in
Edmund
Spenser:
The
Shorter
Poems,
ed.
Richard
A.
McCabe,
160.

56

The
strong
suggestion
throughout
all
of
this
is
that
playing
with
time
or
writing
time

is
tied
to
the
workings
of
power.
And
if
Spenser
claims
to
speak
from
the
past,

imaginatively
setting
both
poem
and
poet
outside
of
their
time,
he
likewise
projects
himself

into
the
future
by
boasting
that
his
work
will
last
forever.
Note,
for
instance,
the
bold
claims

of
his
epilogue:

Loe
I
haue
made
a
Calender
for
euery
yeare,

That
steele
in
strength,
and
time
in
durance
shall
outweare:

And
if
I
marked
well
the
starres
reuolution,

It
shall
continewe
till
the
worlds
dissolution.
80

Here
Spenser
is
claiming
to
have
created
an
object
stronger
than
steel
and
more
permanent

than
time,
a
monument
that
will
outlive
the
world
itself.
Yet
the
phrasing
of
the
poet’s
claim

is
intentionally
unclear;
one
might
easily
misread
it
and
assume
that
steel
and
time
will

“outweare”
the
Calender,
and
this
uncertainty
of
syntax
is
heightened
by
Spenser’s

admission
that
the
permanence
of
his
verse
is
contingent
on
“if”
he
correctly
observed
the

revolution
of
the
stars.
The
guarded
ambition
of
the
epilogue
fits
with
Immeritô’s

characteristic
pattern
of
careful
bravado
intrinsic
even
in
the
penname
itself

(unworthy/blameless).
Yet
caveats
aside,
the
claims
of
this
epilogue
are
stunningly
bold:

Spenser
asserts
the
creation
of
an
ever-‐repeating
method
for
both
measuring
and

contemplating
time
that
will
outlast
even
time
itself.
In
one
sense,
we
might
read
this
as
a

commentary
on
the
folly
of
the
calendar
debates
themselves—how
can
anyone
claim
to

speak
for
all
time
without
courting
folly?
Or,
this
could
be
read
as
the
attempts
of
a
new

80
Taken
from
the
closing
“Embleme”
in
the
December
eclogue,
1-‐4.
For
a
discussion
of
Ovidian

boldness
and
how
it
relates
to
Spenser,
see
Heather
James,
“Ovid
and
the
question
of
politics
in
early
modern

england.”
ELH,
70(2)
(Summer
2003):
343-‐373.

57

poet
to
establish
and
to
arm
himself
by
writing
time
and
by
imaginatively
soaring
through

the
centuries.
That
is,
Spenser
ambitiously
casts
his
voice
into
both
past
and
future
in
order

to
establish
himself
within
his
present.

The
Kingdom
of
our
Own
Language

Throughout
his
calendar,
then,
Spenser
works
to
establish
his
poetic
identity
and
to

speak
to
contemporary
political
concerns
(like
the
Calendrical
Debates)
while
also
crafting

what
he
touts
as
an
eternal,
ever-‐repeating
symbol
of
English
literary
achievement.
The

implied
payoffs
of
such
a
strategy
do
not
simply
benefit
Spenser
as
individual
poet,
but
also

the
English
language
and
the
English
identity.
Yet
Spenser's
efforts
to
transform
the
English

vernacular
into
a
more
literary
language
often
get
conflated
with
loyalty
to
the
queen,
and
I

assert
that
a
more
careful
reading
of
his
Calender
among
other
works
is
required
to

disentangle
the
two
impulses.
Richard
Helgerson
famously
worked
outward
from
Spenser’s

question
to
Gabriel
Harvey—“Why
a
God’s
name
may
not
we,
as
else
the
Greeks,
have
the

kingdom
of
our
own
language?”—to
demonstrate
how
the
poet
and
other
writers
of
the

period
strove
to
craft,
through
their
writings,
"a
kingdom
whose
boundaries
are

determined
by
the
language
of
its
inhabitants."
81

Helgerson
focuses
on
The
Faerie
Queene,

but
his
emphasis
on
the
importance
of
the
English
language
as
a
medium
for
Spenser,

something
that
the
poet
consciously
chose
to
shape
and
to
build
as
both
a
political
and

cultural
statement,
is
perhaps
even
more
importantly
applied
to
the
Calender.
In
fact,

Spenser’s
kingdom
of
language
seems
to
take
a
cue
from
Ovid’s
strategy
of
using
the
past
to

interrogate
the
present—evident
especially
within
his
Fasti—which
might
help
to
explain

81
Richard
Helgerson,
Forms
of
Nationhood:
The
Elizabethan
Writing
of
England
(Chicago
and

London:
University
of
Chicago
Press,
1992),
1-‐18.

58

what
E.
K.
explains
as
Spenser’s
labor
“to
restore,
as
to
theyr
rightfull
heritage
such
good

and
naturall
English
words,
as
haue
ben
long
time
out
of
vse
and
almost
cleare
disherited”

(Epistle,
79-‐81).
E.
K.’s
opinions
should
always
be
taken
with
a
grain
of
salt,
but
in
this
case

his
complaint
about
the
mistreatment
of
the
language
aligns
with
Helgerson's
view
of

Spenser's
attitudes
toward
English.
As
E.
K.
explains:

our
Mother
tonge,
which
truely
of
it
self
is
both
ful
enough
for
prose
and

stately
enough
for
verse,
hath
long
time
ben
counted
most
bare
and
barrein

of
both.
which
default
when
as
some
endeuoured
to
salue
and
recure,
they

patched
vp
the
holes
with
peces
and
rags
of
other
languages,
borrowing
here

of
the
french,
there
of
the
Italian,
euery
where
of
the
Latine,
not
weighing

how
il,
those
tongues
accorde
with
themselues,
but
much
worse
with
ours:
So

now
they
haue
made
our
English
tongue,
a
gallimaufray
or
hodgepodge
of
al

other
speches
(Epistle,
82-‐91).

E.
K.
here
laments
the
misguided
assessment
of
English
as
a
language
in
need
of
help
from

other
languages.
But
his
choice
of
the
phrase
“gallimaufray
or
hodgepodge”
is
actually
a

veiled
complaint:
the
“or”
substantiates
his
claim
that
the
English
language
does
not
need

recent
imports
like
the
French
word
"gallimaufray,"
which
was
adopted
into
English

around
1545,
because
it
already
contains
the
word
"hodgepodge,"
a
much
older
word
from

the
Middle
English.
“Gallimaufray”
also
hints
at
one
of
Spenser's
favorite
puns,
gall/Gaul,

which
links
the
bitterness
of
bile
and
the
Queen's
proposed
marriage
to
the
Duke
of

Alençon,
a
union
to
which
he,
like
Sir
Philip
Sidney,
was
opposed.
(Spenser’s
affected

antiquity
allows
him
certain
liberties,
for
instance
his
spelling
of
“gall”
in
Thomalin’s
March

emblem:
“The
Honye
is
much,
but
the
Gaule
is
more,”
which
further
emphasizes
the
acrid

59

connotations
of
French
love!)
Spenser's
consistent
interest
in
the
molding,
the

strengthening,
and
even
the
protection
of
English
from
the
“peces
and
rags
of
other

languages”
was
in
the
late
1570’s
set
him
at
odds
with
the
rule
of
Elizabeth
and
her
desire

to
marry
the
Duke
of
Alençon.
In
fact,
Spenser
portrays
the
potential
marriage
as
a
threat
to

English
identity
and
the
English
language’s
freedom
from
outside
influences,
asserting
that

the
Queen
and
her
language
should
remain
free
of
French
intervention.

As
Virgin
Queen,
Elizabeth
knew
that
the
question
of
her
possible
marriage
was

fated
to
be
fraught,
and
she
generally
understood
how
to
manipulate
these
tensions
to
her

political
advantage.
Yet
her
negotiations
with
François,
the
French
duke
of
Alençon,
which

peaked
in
their
seriousness
between
the
years
1578-‐79,
proved
to
be
particularly

unpopular,
and
Spenser
was
one
of
many
who
strongly
opposed
the
match.
For
her
part,

Elizabeth
hoped
to
marry
a
suitor
who
was
both
French
and
Catholic.
And
though
the
Duke

was
twenty
years
her
junior
and
disfigured
by
childhood
smallpox,
the
queen
seems
to

have
grown
quite
fond
of
him,
nicknaming
him
her
“frog”
and
spending
inordinate
amounts

of
time
with
him
during
his
unofficial
visit
in
1579.
The
Duke
himself
seems
also
to
have

fallen
for
the
Queen,
writing
her
letters
“ardent
enough
to
set
fire
to
water.”
82

And
though

in
the
end
the
match
was
not
a
success
because
of
its
overwhelming
unpopularity
amongst

Elizabeth’s
advisors
and
courtiers,
the
controversy
gave
rise
to
many
interesting
examples

of
literature
as
protest,
some
more
subtle
than
others.
It
was
John
Stubbs
who
famously

published
the
tract
entitled
The
Discovery
of
a
Gaping
Gulf
Whereinto
England
Is
Like
To
Be

Swallowed
by
Another
French
Marriage;
if
the
Lord
Forbid
Not
the
Bans
by
Letting
Her

82
French
ambassador
Castelnau
de
la
Mauvissière,
quoted
in
Martin
Hume,
The
Courtships
of
Queen

Elizabeth:
A
History
of
the
Various
Negotiations
for
her
Marriage
(London:
Eveleigh
Nash,
1904),
213.

60

Majesties
See
the
Sin
and
Punishment
Thereof;
for
their
lack
of
nuance,
Stubbs
and
his

publisher
were
imprisoned
and
had
their
right
hands
removed.
Sir
Philip
Sidney
also
wrote

a
forthright
letter
to
the
queen
in
which
he
condemned
the
marriage.
He
was
fortunate

enough
to
have
kept
both
of
his
hands
but
fell
out
of
the
favor
of
the
court
and
as
discussed

in
the
previous
chapter,
spent
a
period
of
rustication
at
his
sister's
house
(though
the

reasons
for
this
temporary
banishment
appear
more
complicated
in
retrospect
than
the

offense
of
one
letter).
Spenser
was
more
canny;
his
poem
“Mother
Hubbard’s
Tale”
spoke

against
the
marriage
through
allegory,
and
though
the
work
was
confiscated,
Spenser

seems
to
have
not
suffered
further
repercussions.
In
The
Shepheardes
Calender
his

denouncement
of
the
Duke
is
yet
subtler,
such
that
some
critics
read
his
praises
of
“Elisa,

Queene
of
shepheardes
all,”
as
sincere
and
free
from
political
critique
(April,
34).
83

Partially
due
to
the
implied
relationship
between
himself
and
Virgil,
the
Augustan

poet
of
the
court,
and
also
due
to
the
nuance
of
his
complaints,
Spenser
is
often

mischaracterized
as
a
poet
who
functioned
more
as
a
loyal
supporter/toady
than
a
thinker

at
odds
with
Elizabeth's
policies.
For
instance,
while
Allison
A.
Chapman's
historical

contextualization
of
Pope
Gregory's
proposed
reforms
and
their
ramifications
in
England
is

useful,
she
manifests
a
broader
critical
tendency
to
conflate
Spenser's
desire
to
strengthen

the
English
identity
with
an
unqualified
approval
of
Elizabeth
as
monarch.
Chapman

argues,
for
instance,
that
Spenser
uses
the
April
eclogue
to
canonize
the
queen
as
a

Protestant
saint.
84

Yet
throughout
the
Calender
and
even
within
the
encomiastic
“Aprill,”

83
For
a
discussion
of
the
Alençon
controversy,
see
David
J.
Baker,
"Historical
contexts:
Britain
and

Europe,"
published
in
The
Cambridge
Companion
to
Spenser,
ed.
Andrew
Hadfield
(Cambridge:
Cambridge

University
Press,
2001),
47-‐50.

61

Spenser's
feelings
toward
the
monarch
emerge
as
much
more
complicated
than
those
of

sheer
admiration
and
loyalty.
One
reason
for
this
could
be
that
for
the
poet,
nothing
is
ever

simple:
a
monarch
and
her
country
are
two
separate
entities.

Likewise
a
possible

consequence
of
Spenser’s
emphasis
on
English
as
a
very
old
language
through
his

artificially
antiqued
diction
is
that
it
establishes
the
English
identity
as
much
broader
and

more
enduring
than
the
country’s
current
queen.

Like
Chapman,
Stephen
Greenblatt
sees
Spenser’s
commitment
to
the
English

language
and
identity
as
inextricable
from
his
devotion
to
the
Queen.
He
goes
as
far
as
to

suggest
that
Spenser
created
a
great
divide
between
his
art,
which
was
free
to
question

itself,
and
the
“reality
as
given
by
ideology”—the
leadership
of
Elizabeth
and
the
empire

she
represented—which
could
not
be
questioned.
Note
how
Greenblatt
conflates
Spenser's

interest
in
establishing
the
English
language
as
a
source
of
English
identity
with
what
he

perceives
as
blind,
unmitigated
loyalty
toward
Elizabeth:
“For
Spenser
this
is
the
final

colonialism,
the
colonialism
of
language,
yoked
to
the
service
of
a
reality
forever
outside

itself,
dedicated
to
‘the
Most
High,
Mightie,
and
Magnificent
Empresse...Elizabeth
by
the

Grace
of
God
Queene
of
England
Fraunce
and
Ireland
and
of
Virginia,
Defendour
of
the

Faith.’”
85

Yet
surely
the
two
possible
loyalties—toward
the
English
language
and
toward

the
queen,
are
not
by
definition
one
and
the
same.
And
though
Spenser's
critique
of

Elizabeth
and
her
impending
marriage
might
be
subtle,
that
is
very
different
than
it
being

nonexistent.

84
This
conflation
is
especially
evident
in
statements
such
as
this:
"Spenser's
pastoral
implicitly

defines
the
English
nation/flock
as
one
free
from
foreign
influence
and
under
Elizabeth's
protective

sovereignty."
Chapman,
"The
Politics
of
Time,"
11.

85
Stephen
Greenblatt,
Renaissance
Self-‐Fashioning:
From
More
to
Shakespeare
(Chicago
and
London:

University
of
Chicago
Press,
1980),
192.

62

To
confuse
Spenser's
desire
to
shape
the
English
vernacular
into
forms
that
would

ensure
its
increasing
reputation
as
a
literary
language,
then,
with
blind
loyalty
to
Elizabeth

is
to
oversimplify
a
complicated
issue.
While
on
the
surface,
his
Calender
appears
to
praise

the
queen,
most
ostensibly
in
“Aprill,”
the
work
also
suggests
a
subtext
of
political

complaint.
86

Colin's
puzzling
refusal
to
sing
casts
a
pall
over
the
majority
of
the
year.
His

loud
silence
issues
ostensibly
from
a
broken
heart,
but
as
with
many
poems
of
the
period,

the
poet’s
unrequited
love
is
really
a
commonly
used
disguise
for
courtly
frustration
with

Queen
Elizabeth.
His
many
puns
on
gall/Gaule
throughout
the
poem
and
offer
one
specific

reason—the
Duke
of
Alençon—for
Spenser's
dissatisfaction.
More
broadly,
Spenser

repeatedly
uses
the
imagery
of
sheep
and
shepherds
in
conjunction
with
numerous

allusions
to
what
Colin
calls
“ill
gouernement”
(Januarye,
45)
and
Piers
terms
the

“misgouernaunce”
of
inept
shepherds
(Maye,
90).
Throughout
the
poem,
the
reader

encounters
many
suffering
flocks
and
is
ever
reminded
that
sheep
offer
a
visual
cue
of
the

shepherd's
state
of
mind
and
his
(or
her)
ability
to
tend
to
them.
We
might
be
tempted
to

think
of
the
bad
or
the
distracted
shepherd
simply
as
a
symbol
of
emotional
distress—for

instance
with
Colin’s
flock
in
the
month
of
“Januarye,”
which
suffers
just
as
he
suffers
(43-‐
48).
But
the
archetype
of
the
good
shepherd,
referred
to
as
“Pan”
in
“Maye”
(54)
and
then

clarified
by
E.
K.
to
be
“Christ,
the
very
god
of
all
shepheards,”
carries
with
it
heavy

religious
significance.
87

And
perhaps
even
more
importantly,
the
figure
of
the
bad
shepherd

86

On
the
poet’s
refusal
to
surrender
his
poetic
language,
or
flowers,
to
the
Queen
even
in
the
“Aprill”

eclogue,
see
Heather
James,
“Flower
Power,”
The
Spenser
Review
44.2
(Fall
2014).
Accessed
March
31,
2015.

http://www.english.cam.ac.uk/spenseronline/review/item/44.2.30.

87
E.K.’s
note
on
“Maye,”
line
54.

63

has
its
roots
in
Old
Testament
prophecy
and
refers
to
the
misguided
leadership
of
Israel

and
Judah.
That
is,
Spenser's
many
allusions
to
delinquent
shepherding
could
function
as

both
religious
and
political
indictments
of
the
current
regime,
and
likewise,
all
images
of

thriving
flocks
might
also
subtly
critique
the
monarch
in
a
careful
but
not
so
carefully

hidden
complaint.
88

From
the
Margins
of
Empire

Throughout
the
Calender,
Spenser
imaginatively
places
himself
both
at
the
margins

and
the
center
of
current
political
concerns.
If
he
speaks
to
the
calendrical
debates,
the

possible
marriage
of
the
queen,
or
more
generally
to
a
political
climate
that
favors
fools,
he

also
imaginatively
distances
himself
from
Elizabeth's
court
by
pretending
to
speak
from
the

past
and
for
all
time
with
his
ancient,
eternal
poetic
calendar.
These
aspects
of
time-‐play

and
allusion
help
to
substantiate
what
has
been
termed
the
“mood
of
‘internal
exile’”

present
in
the
Calender,
and
yet
as
Syrithe
Pugh
has
noted,
critics
often
fail
to
recognize
the

particularly
Ovidian
nature
of
such
a
stance.
89

Pugh
has
demonstrated
how
Spenser's
calendrical
poem
was
deeply
inspired
by

Ovid's
“unfinished”
calendar—a
connection
that
is
typically
overlooked.

And
though
Ovid's

Fasti
was
nearly
as
popular
as
the
Metamorphoses
during
the
Elizabethan
era,
critics
tend

to
view
the
work
as
a
valuable
source
of
Roman
cultural
history
while
ignoring
the
wily

counter-‐Augustan
narrative
throughout.
Pugh
believably
presents
Spenser
as
a
more
savvy

88
For
more
on
how
Spenser
embeds
his
political
discontent
within
The
Shepheardes
Calender,
see
R.

A.
McCabe,
"'Little
booke:
thy
self
present':
the
Politics
of
Presentation
in
The
Shepheardes
Calender,"
in

Presenting
Poetry:
Composition,
Publication,
Reception,
edited
by
H.
Erskine-‐Hill
and
R.
A.
McCabe
(Cambridge,

1995),
15-‐40.

89
Pugh
is
referring
to
the
earlier
work
of
Richard
McCabe
and
Andrew
Hadfield,
pioneers
in
the

study
of
Spenser
as
a
poet
of
both
geographical
and
"internal
exile."
Pugh,
Spenser
and
Ovid,
2.

64

reader
of
the
work
and
as
an
imitator
as
well.
Just
as
Ovid
used
the
crafting
of
his
own

method
of
time
measurement
as
a
subtle
critique
of
Augustus’
“systematic
appropriation
of

the
Roman
calendar
as
a
personal
ideological
tool,”
so
Spenser
likewise
interrogates
the

“ruling
ideology”
of
Elizabeth
within
his
own
work
through
“strategies
of
oblique
protest

learned
from
Ovid's
Fasti.”
90

She
finds
particular
similarities
in
both
poets’
targets
of

ridicule—as
Ovid
mocks
the
wealth
of
Augustan
Rome,
so
Spenser
satires
Catholic

materialism,
for
instance—which
greatly
substantiate
the
case
for
considering
Fasti
as
a

crucial
source
text
for
Spenser's
pastoral
work.

But
Pugh
does
not
focus
in
particular
on
the
similarities
between
Ovid’s
and

Spenser’s
modes
of
poetic
time,
and
they
are
worth
considering.
Both
poets
play
with
time:

just
as
Ovid’s
work
concurrently
asserts
prehistoric
sense
of
Roman
identity
while

subverting
the
more
recently
established
Julio-‐Augustan
authority,
so
Spenser
feigns
the

age
of
his
calendar
in
order
both
to
distance
himself
from
and
to
critique
the
current

politics
of
Elizabethan
England.
91

In
this
sense,
both
poets
boldly
claim
to
speak
outside
of

their
own
time,
and
to
speak
for
all
time.
Yet
the
ambition
of
Ovid’s
project
is
deeply

undercut
by
the
fact
of
his
sudden
and
permanent
relegation
to
the
distant
shores
of
the

Black
Sea.
Though
begun
long
before
his
exile,
Ovid’s
Fasti
was
the
project
he
furiously

edited
and
rewrote
throughout
his
relegation
in
Tomis
and
up
until
his
death
there.
And

imbedded
in
his
critique
of
Augustan
Rome
is
the
poet's
deep
complaint
of
exile
and
the

twisting
of
that
condition
into
a
power
play:
from
the
margins
of
empire,
Ovid
is
free
to

rewrite
empire.
His
geographic
and
temporal
distance
from
Rome
is
the
source
of
both

90
Pugh,
Spenser
and
Ovid,
18.

91
See
Carole
E.
Newlands,
Playing
With
Time:
Ovid
and
the
Fasti
(Ithaca
and
London:
Cornell

University
Press,
1995).
Newland’s
work
is
discussed
further
on
in
this
chapter.

65

personal
anguish
and
poetic
vigor.
Likewise
Spenser
flouts
his
alienation
from
court
as
a

source
of
poetic
invention:
he
suffers
envy
but
is
free
to
don
his
wings
and
imaginatively
fly

throughout
the
centuries.

The
subtext
of
relegation
that
undercuts
both
poets’
bravado
with
empirical
time

also
influences
their
relationship
to
the
medium
of
language,
as
language
functions
in
time

as
both
a
broader,
older,
and
more
neutral
bearer
of
cultural
identity
but
also
a
reminder
of

the
poets’
link
to
their
current
political
troubles.
Like
Spenser,
whose
E.
K.
laments
how
the

“peces
and
rags
of
other
languages”
(Epistle,
86)
enervate
and
convolute
the
English

language,
Ovid
expresses
a
concern
over
the
“dilution”
of
his
native
tongue—in
this
case

with
“Black
Sea
usage,”
the
Getic,
Sarmatian,
and
hybrid
Greek
spoken
in
Tomis.
92

Throughout
his
exile
in
a
non-‐Latin-‐speaking
city,
the
poet’s
linguistic
link
to
his
beloved

Rome
was
always
in
danger
of
erasure
or
dilution,
which
led
in
part
to
a
charged
and

difficult
relationship
to
Latin:
on
the
one
hand,
the
language
represented
both
the
emperor

who
had
sentenced
him
to
a
living
death
and
the
carmen,
poem,
that
possibly
led
to
that

exile;
in
another
sense,
Latin
was
inextricably
linked
to
Ovid’s
identity
and
served
as
the

only
means
by
which
he
could
find
emotional
and
literary
release.
In
his
Tristia,
the
poet

expresses
his
compulsive
relationship
to
his
language
and
to
the
writing
of
poetry,
for

instance
in
Book
I:11,
ostensibly
written
during
a
storm
on
his
long
journey
to
the
edge
of

the
Roman
Empire:

Littera
quaecumque
est
toto
tibi
lecta
libello,

92
"crede
mihi,
timeo
ne
Sintia
mixta
Latinis/
inque
meis
scriptis
Pontica
verba
legas./

qualemcumque
igitur
venia
dignare
libellum,/
sortis
et
excusa
condicione
meae”:
“O
believe
me,
I
fear
that

Sintic
and
Pontic
language
may
be
mingled
with
the
Latin
in
my
writings.
Such
as
my
book
is,
then,
deem
it

worthy
of
indulgence
and
pardon
it
because
of
the
circumstances
of
my
fate.”
Tristia
(III,14,
49-‐52).
Also
see

A.
J.
Boyle
and
R.
D.
Woodard’s
discussion
of
the
languages
of
Tomis,
“Introduction,”
in
Ovid’s
Fasti,
trans.
and

ed.
by
A.
J.
Boyle
and
R.
D.
Woodard
(London
and
New
York:
Penguin,
2004),
xxv.

66

est
mihi
sollicitae
tempore
facta
viae.

aut
haec
me,
gelido
tremerem
cum
mense
Decembri

scribentem
mediis
Hadria
vidit
aquis;

...saepe
maris
pars
intus
erat;
tamen
ipse
trementi

carmina
ducebam
qualiacumque
manu.
93

While
writing
causes
him
pain,
he
cannot
but
write—in
Latin.
In
fact,
Ovid’s
choice
of
Fasti

as
his
last
song,
carmen
ultimum,
shows
his
continuous
if
conflicted
interest
in
Roman

language
and
culture
right
up
unto
his
death.
94

Likewise,
Spenser
demonstrates
a
near

compulsion
to
write
in
English,
to
create
a
kingdom
of
language
that
predates
and
outlives

his
current
time.

Yet
if
Spenser
opposes
English
as
a
“hodgepodge”
of
other
tongues,
he
shows
no

aversion
to
following
Ovid’s
example
in
Fasti
and
employing
a
motley
combination
of

modes.
A.
J.
Boyle
and
R.
D.
Woodard
characterize
Ovid's
Fasti
as
“modally
complex,”

featuring
the
didactic,
hymnic,
comic,
epic,
tragic,
erotic,
georgic,
narrative-‐idyllic,

precatory,
fabular,
encomiastic,
and
satirical
modes.
95

Likewise,
Spenser
sees
in
the
form
of

the
calendar
an
opportunity
for
a
wide
variety
of
rhetorical
and
modal
strategies
that
often

overlap
and
even
conflict.
In
his
General
Argument,
E.
K.
divides
the
eclogues
into

three
formes
or
ranckes.
For
eyther
they
be
Plaintiue,
as
the
first,
the
sixt,
the

eleuenth,
and
the
twelfth,
or
recreatiue,
such
as
al
those
be,
which
conceiue

93

“Every
letter
that
you
have
read
in
my
whole
book
was
formed
by
me
during
the
troubled
days
of

my
journey.
Either
the
Adriatic
saw
me
writing
these
words
in
the
midst
of
his
waters,
while
I
shivered
in
cold

December...Often
part
of
the
sea
was
within
our
ship;
nevertheless,
with
shaking
hand
I
continued
to
spin
my

verses
such
as
they
were.”
Tristia
I.11.1-‐4,
17-‐18,
trans.
Wheeler.

94
Boyle
and
Woodard,
“Introduction,”
Fasti,
xxviii-‐xxix.

95
Boyle
and
Woodard,
“Introduction,”
Fasti,
xxxvi.

67

matter
of
loue,
or
commendation
of
special
personages,
or
Moral:
which
for

the
most
part
be
mixed
with
some
Satyrical
bitternesse,
namely
the
second
of

reuerence
dewe
to
old
age,
the
fift
of
coloured
deceipt,
the
seuenth
and
ninth

of
dissolute
shepheards
and
pastours,
the
tenth
of
contempt
of
Poetrie
and

pleasaunt
wits.
And
to
this
diuision
may
euery
thing
herein
be
reasonably

applyed:
A
few
onely
except,
whose
speciall
purpose
and
meaning
I
am
not

priuie
to
(General
Argument,
26-‐37).

In
his
characteristically
bumbling
approach,
E.
K.
sets
out
to
clearly
outline
the
modal

differences
between
the
eclogues
and
fails
within
four
lines.
This
is
one
of
many
instances

that
suggest
how
Spenser
employs
the
persona
of
E.
K.
to
poke
fun
at
the
myopic
and

solicitous
approaches
of
scholars
less
gifted
than
him;
in
this
case,
E.
K.
confidently
asserts

an
easy
division
between
eclogues
and
quickly
realizes
that
the
exceptions
outnumber
his

rules.
And
his
careful
classifications
are
comically
rendered
even
more
irrelevant
by
the

passing
statement
that
“a
few
onely
except”
resist
categorization
because
of
their
“speciall

purpose”
to
which
his
is
not
privy.
Why
does
Spenser
make
a
point
of
demonstrating
the

modal
complexity
of
his
calendar?
In
one
sense,
the
variety
of
rhetorical
strategies

employed
within
the
work
allow
Spenser
to
stretch
the
standard
boundaries
of
the

“humble”
pastoral
in
order
to
speak
to
more
epic
concerns—the
building
(or
rewriting)
of

an
empire
through
language,
for
instance,
as
well
as
his
personal
desire
to
“sing
of
bloody

Mars,
of
wars,
of
giusts”
and
to
turn
to
"those,
that
weld
the
awful
crowne,"
as
Piers

suggests
in
the
October
eclogue
(October,
39-‐40).
In
many
ways,
Spenser
uses
his
pastoral

work
to
speak
to
those
wearing
awful
(full
of
awe)
crowns,
and
the
way
he
gets
away
with

this
is
by
casting
his
voice
among
the
cacophony
of
a
fragmented
authorial
persona.
A

68

variety
of
modes,
then,
help
to
further
camouflage
the
more
dangerous
aspects
of
his

complaints.
And
by
modally
aligning
his
work
with
Fasti,
Spenser
allows
the
political

protest
embedded
in
Ovid's
exilic
work
to
echo
within
his
own.

Because
Ovid's
Fasti
only
cover
the
first
six
months
of
the
Roman
calendar,
many

viewed
the
work
as
unfinished.
For
instance,
D.
E.
W.
Wormell
assessed
the
poem
as

“something
of
an
artistic
disaster—an
unfinished
torso
to
which
has
been
added
a

reworked
head
by
the
same
hand.”
96

Yet
recent
criticism
has
shown
that
Ovid’s
revisions
in

Tomis
were
much
more
extensive
than
first
assumed.
And
as
Carole
E.
Newlands
suggests,

the
theory
that
the
incompleteness
of
the
calendar
serves
as
proof
that
“Ovid
realized
he

was
on
the
wrong
track”
and
abandoned
the
work
is
undermined
by
the
fact
that
Ovid

worked
on
this
poem
until
his
death
in
Tomis:
he
never
abandoned
it.
Newlands
asserts

that
the
first
six
books
of
Ovid's
calendar
should
be
considered
a
coherent
unit
of
poetic

accomplishment,
that
the
work
stands
alone
as
a
unified,
if
ludic,
expression
of
Ovid’s

poetic
vision.

97

Boyle
and
Woodard
further
explain
that
this
was
Ovid’s
plan
all
along,
to

refuse
even
recognize
the
two
months,
July
and
August,
that
were
most
important
to
the

present
Roman
authority:
“The
work
is
testimony
to
the
poet's
refusal
to
be
complicit
in
the

Julio-‐Augustan
control
of
time.
Better
to
end
in
silence,
but
a
silence
that
would
always

speak.”
98

This
theory
is
lent
even
more
credence
considering
that
from
a
formal
perspective,

Ovid
often
chose
to
communicate
with
conspicuous
silences
throughout
his
work.
Take
for

96
D.
E.
W.
Wormell,
“Ovid
and
the
‘Fasti,’”
Hermathena,
No.
127
(Winter
1979):
43.

97
Newlands,
Playing
With
Time,
5-‐6.

98
Boyle
and
Woodard,
“Introduction,”
Fasti,
liii

69

instance
his
choice
to
write
all
of
his
works
save
the
Metamorphoses
in
elegiac
couplets.
At

the
beginning
of
his
Amores,
Ovid
comically
explains
that
he
was
intending
to
write
an
epic,

but
love
stole
away
one
of
his
poetic
feet.
This
“missing
foot,”
which
cuts
down
his
epic

hexameters
into
elegiac
couplets
of
alternating
hexameters
and
pentameters,
is
a
formal

absence
that
frequently
toys,
or
undercuts,
the
seriousness
of
his
subject
matter.
The
poet's

mastery
of
epic
meter
in
Metamorphoses
means
that
Fasti
easily
could
have
been
written
in

hexameters
as
well,
but
as
Boyle
and
Woodard
suggest,

Ovid’s
choice
of
elegiacs
is
a
self-‐consciously
provocative
one,
and
one
whose

provocativeness
is
underscored,
whose
creative
transgression
of
Roman

elegiac
boundaries
is
deliberate
and
deliberated.
Throughout
the
poem
a

constant
strain
is
exhibited
on
and
by
the
elegiac
form,
as
tensions
are

exploited
between
the
stereotyped
boundaries
of
the
elegiac
genre
and
the

poem’s
maius
scale
and
subject-‐matter,
apparent
not
only
in
the
proems
to

each
large-‐scale
unit
but
in
the
juxtaposition,
too,
of
the
range
of
tones
and

modes
associated
generically
with
elegy
(erotic,
bawdy,
comic,
funereal)
with

the
didactic
hymnic,
panegyrical,
political
modes
associated,
at
least
ideally,

with
the
“heroic
foot.”
99

It
is
Ovid’s
conscious
choice
to
undercut
the
large
scale
of
his
subject
matter
with
a
meter

often
associated
with
personal
loss
or
bawdy
romance,
a
choice
that
requires
both
political

courage
and
poetic
skill
to
execute.
Likewise,
as
Pugh
suggests,
Spenser
makes
a
show
of

his
“repeated
lapses
from
grand
epic
into
the
amatory
and
pastoral.
Indeed
he
is
supposed

to
have
lapsed
before
he
has
even
started:
already
at
the
beginning
of
the
Calender
Colin

99
Boyle
and
Woodard,
“Introduction,”
Fasti,
xlviii.

70

has
given
up
composing
Virgilian
hymns
to
the
god-‐like
Elisa
in
favour
of
love
laments.”
100

In
the
“October”
eclogue,
too,
Cuddy
laments
that
he
is
unable
to
soar
to
the
level
of
epic:

Ah
Percy
it
is
all
to
weake
and
wane,

So
high
to
sore,
and
make
so
large
a
flight...(October,
85-‐86)

Throughout
his
first
major
work,
Spenser
articulates
this
preemptive
failure
(which
is
a

really
a
refusal)
to
elevate
his
verse
in
the
service
to
the
crown.

Both
Spenser
and
Ovid
obfuscate
the
subtle
difference
between
failure
and
refusal

to
sing
Elisa's
or
Augustus’
praises.
The
Roman
poet
coyly
undermines
the
deviousness
of

his
generic
transgressions
by
feigning
weakness.
“Scilicet
imperii
princeps”
he
asks
in
the

Tristia,
“statione
relicta/
imparibus
legeres
carmina
facta
modis?”
101

Likewise
throughout

the
Calender,
Spenser
presents
a
consistent,
if
fragmented,
poetic
persona
as
weakened
and

deserving
of
pity,
the
poetic
act
as
both
enervating
and
alienating.
And
though
he
invents

eclogues
for
last
sixth
months
of
the
year,
filling
in
Ovid’s
most
glaring
and
politically

charged
omission,
Spenser,
like
Ovid,
communicates
many
of
the
subtler
messages
of
his

work
through
conspicuous
absences.

Arguably
it
is
the
poem’s
leading
voice,
Colin
Clout,
and
his
refusal
to
sing
that
create

the
most
pronounced
and
puzzling
vacuum
within
the
work.
In
“Januarye,”
the
poet

shepherd
first
appears,
“pale
and
wanne”
(8)
accompanied
by
his
“feeble”
and
suffering

flock
of
sheep
(5).
Claiming
a
heart
broken
by
the
unrequited
love
of
Rosalind,
a
fair
“lasse”

(61),
he
breaks
his
oaten
pipe
and
lies
down
on
the
ground.
The
eclogue
closes
with
an

100
Pugh,
Spenser
and
Ovid,
5.

101
“Shouldst
thou,
forsooth,
the
prince
of
the
world,
abandon
thy
post
and
read
songs
of
mine
set
to

unequal
measure?”
Tristia
II.219-‐20,
trans.
Wheeler.

71

image
of
Colin's
weakened
flock,
“Whose
hanging
heads
did
seeme
his
carefull
case
to

weepe”
(78).

In
his
first
note
on
the
Eclogue,
E.
K.
suggests
that
Colin
Clout
is
a
name

“Vnder
which
name
this
Poete
secretly
shadoweth
himself,
as
sometime
did
Virgil
vnder

the
name
of
Tityrus.”
102

That
the
footnote
obliterates
the
secrecy
of
the
poet's
“shadow”
is

somewhat
comic—as
E.
K.
often
inadvertently
is—and
it
forges
a
link
between
Colin
and

Spenser,
albeit
a
suspicious
one.
Throughout
the
poem,
readers
are
half-‐encouraged
to

understand
Colin's
silence
as
Spenser's
silence,
which
allows
the
poet
to
speak
and
to
not

speak
at
once.
Colin's
encomiastic
song
for
Elisa
within
the
April
Eclogue,
for
instance,
is

sung
in
his
absence,
again
evoking
the
grand
silences
of
Ovid's
Fasti
while
providing

Elizabeth
with
the
praise
she
requires.
It
is
only
the
subversively
anachronistic
death
of

Dido
(whom
Virgil
alternately
called
“Elissa”)
for
which
Colin
again
resumes
his
song
in
the

November
Eclogue—again,
the
positive
act
of
singing
coupled
with
the
loud
silence
of
the

dead
queen.

A
Pretense
of
Vulnerability

By
outrageously
and
preemptively
using
his
November
eclogue
to
mourn
the
death

of
Elisa—Queen
Elizabeth,
who
was
very
much
still
alive—Spenser
again
plays
with
time

by
projecting
himself
into
the
future
beyond
the
lifespan
of
the
monarch.
Yet
he
distracts

from
the
boldness
of
this
act,
and
others
like
it,
by
drawing
attention
to
the
weakness
of
the

poet
figure,
Colin
Clout.
In
spite
of
his
reputation
as
a
beloved
bard,
Colin
spends
the

breadth
of
the
Calender
“robbed
of
all
former
pleasaunce
and
delights”—tired,
miserable,

102
E.K.’s
note
on
“Januarye,”
line
1.

72

bereft.
103

And
Colin
is
not
the
only
unhappy
artist:
the
“New
Poete”
continuously
presents

himself
and
the
other
poets
within
the
Calender
as
weakened
and
deserving
of
pity.
Much

like
Ovid
with
his
limping
verse,
Spenser
partially
masks
the
boldness
of
his
complaint

behind
the
facade
of
poetic
exhaustion,
which
is
itself
a
mode
of
complaint.
There
is
an

aspect
of
time-‐play
at
work
within
this
strategy:
just
as
Spenser
used
the
form
and
the

feigned
age
of
his
calendar
imaginatively
to
span
the
centuries
and
to
interrogate
boldly
the

present
political
regime—in
essence,
to
speak
for
all
time—so
he
likewise
plays
with
the

march
of
time
for
the
poetic
figure
himself,
drawing
attention
to
how
quickly
the
poet

wears
away
due
to
the
artistic,
practical,
and
political
pressures
placed
upon
him.

Spenser's
pretense
of
vulnerability
manifests
in
several
ways.
As
previously

mentioned,
the
poem
begins
with
the
figure
of
the
“New
Poete,”
an
anonymous
persona

whose
lack
of
reputation
requires
him
to
send
out
his
“little
booke”
into
the
world
alone.

The
poet’s
appropriation
of
the
penname
Immeritô,
with
its
dual
meaning
of
blameless
and

unworthy,
further
emphasizes
the
newness
of
the
poet
and
his
susceptibility
to
accusation

or
ridicule.
Because
of
his
youth
and
inexperience,
E.
K.
famously
notes
that
the
poet

“shadows”
himself
within
the
identity
of
the
humble
Colin
Clout.
Yet
as
E.
K.
continues
to

garrulously
explain,
this
foray
into
the
pastoral
puts
the
new
poet
in
good
company,
as
all

of
the
“best
and
most
auncient
Poetes”
began
humbly
with
smaller
poetic
flights
before

attempting
more
epic
endeavors:
Marot,
“Boccace,”
“Petrarque,”
Sanazarus,
Theocritus
and

of
course
“Virgule.”
Immeritô
promises
to
soon
rise
to
the
same
level
as
these
greats,
but

not
yet:
“So
finally
flyeth
this
our
new
Poete,
as
a
bird,
whose
principals
be
scarce
grown

out,
but
yet
as
that
in
time
shall
be
hale
to
keeper
wing
with
the
best”
(Epistle,
133-‐58).
It

103
Quote
taken
from
the
January
“Argvment.”

73

might
be
somewhat
easy
to
discount
E.
K.’s
heightened
speech,
especially
because
he

invokes
the
metaphor
of
poetic
flight
so
repetitively
as
to
exhaust
it
of
any
real
meaning.

Still,
the
sense
that
Spenser
chose
to
begin
his
career
“humbly”
in
the
pastoral
mode
as
a

way
of
rhyming
his
life
with
Virgil
and
others
matches
the
rest
of
his
writings
and
the

biographical
information
we
have
about
him.
Because
of
his
ambition
and
because
of
his

perceived
(and
in
retrospect,
undeniable)
poetic
skill,
Spenser
presents
the
figure
of
the

new
poet
as
susceptible
not
only
to
ridicule
or
charges
of
inexperience
but
also
to
envy.

Scholars
are
more
apt
to
read
in
Spenser's
later
complaint
poems
the
politics
and

discontent
that
are
present
from
the
very
beginning
of
the
Calender,
his
first
major
poem.
In

his
opening
charge,
Immeritô
cites
envy
as
a
potential
threat:

Goe
little
booke:
thy
selfe
present...

And
if
that
Enuie
barke
at
thee,

As
sure
it
will,
for
succoure
flee

Vnder
the
shadow
of
his
wing
104

Because
of
the
poet’s
skill,
“Enuie”
is
an
inevitable
danger.
And
the
poet
heightens
his
lofty

expectations
by
his
proposed
escape
“Vnder
the
shadow
of
his
wing,”
as
this
was
the
place

where
the
authorial
figure
King
David
repeatedly
expressed
divine
comfort
within
the

psalms.
105

Considering
Spenser’s
pretense
of
pastoral
humility,
the
aims
of
his
calendar
are,

as
already
discussed,
stunningly
bold.
To
what
extent,
then,
is
the
poet’s
youthful

vulnerability
a
construct
and
to
what
extent
is
it
the
genuine
expression
of
Spenser’s

concern?
Thematically
the
Calender
is
so
deeply
resonant
in
its
treatment
of
envy
with

104
Taken
from
the
Calendar’s
opening
charge,
"To
His
Booke,”
1-‐7.

105
Psalm 17:8; Psalm 36:7; Psalm 57:1; Psalm 63:7.

74

"Muiopotmos:
or
The
Fate
of
the
Butterflie,"
that
the
later
complaint
poem
deserves
some

attention
here.
As
with
the
opening
of
the
Calender,
the
figure
of
the
envious
man
is
the
true

enemy
of
the
scholar-‐poet,
for
only
the
poet
can
wear
Clarion's
colorful
wings,
which
the

butterfly
dons
daily
in
a
mock-‐heroic
arming
scene.
And
the
beauty
of
Clarion’s
gorgeous

and
colorful
wings
attracts
problematic
attention,
much
like
Joseph
in
the
Pentateuch,
who

incurs
the
murderous
jealousy
of
his
brothers
for
wearing
a
multi-‐colored
coat
given
to
him

by
his
father
Jacob.
106

The
suggestion
is
that
Spenser
wants
us
to
read
his
own
plight

inscribed
within
that
of
the
doomed
butterfly,
not
only
because
as
Patrick
Cheney
has

argued,
Spenser
uses
images
of
flight
to
symbolize
his
aspirations
to
fame
and
poetic

transcendence,
but
also
because
like
Joseph,
Spenser
continually
feels
endangered
by

envious
brethren.
107

Spenser
further
reiterates
this
danger
with
a
myth
of
his
own

invention
about
the
origin
of
his
problematic,
colorful
wings.
As
the
tale
goes,
Astery
is
one

of
many
damsels
gathering
flowers
which
with
to
array
Venus's
forehead,
but
as
Spenser

reveals,
Astery
is
“nimbler
ioynted”
and
“more
industrious”
than
the
rest.
108

The
other

nymphs
envy
Astery
so
much
that
they
invent
a
nasty
lie
about
Astery
and
Cupid,
which

angers
Venus
so
much
that
she
turns
Astery
into
a
butterfly,
the
flowers
Astery
so

assiduously
gathered
now
gracing
her
wings.
The
moral
of
the
myth?
Even
if
a
poet
is
not

being
politically
or
morally
subversive
and
is
instead
gathering
flowers
in
service
to
a
great

queen
like
Venus,
or
Eliza,
(with
a
few
stored
up
for
himself),
he
risks
the
envy
of
other

106
Genesis
37:3-‐4.

107
Cheney,
Spenser's
Famous
Flight,
14.

108
Lines
121-‐22.
“Muiopotmos:
or
The
Fate
of
the
Butterflie,“
in
The
Shorter
Poems,
ed.
McCabe.

75

flower-‐gatherers.
Spenser
knows
that
he,
like
Astery,
is
more
“nimbly
jointed”
and
more

industrious
with
his
verse,
and
this
puts
him
in
special
danger.
109

If
Spenser’s
fear
is
the
threat
of
lesser,
envious
minds,
he
knows
that
he
cannot

protect
himself
because
like
Clarion,
he
just
can't
help
being
beautiful.
Instead,
Spenser
can

only
use
the
poetry
that
endangers
him
to
neutralize
his
fears
through
a
sort
of
preemptive

misappropriation.
That
is,
if
his
fear
is
death
by
politics,
he
thinks
through
his
own
death
in

Muiopotmos,
which
begins
with
a
jaunty,
mock
heroic
tone
but
ends
on
a
much
more

serious
note.
And
if
he
is
concerned
with
a
different
sort
of
envy,
the
envy
of
an
academic

towards
Spenser’s
art,
then
the
solicitous
annotations
of
the
Calender,
which
playfully
toy

with
the
parasitic
scholar
who
functions
only
in
the
wake
of
another’s
genius,
seem
to
intuit

and
preemptively
mock
the
sort
of
scholarly
accretion
and
misinterpretation
that
Spenser

knows
his
work
will
attract.
That
is,
the
earnest
yet
ponderous
accumulations
of
E.K.,
which

seem
to
feed
off
of
true
poetic
ingenuity,
might
signify
an
additional
danger
that
skilled

poetry
attracts.

The
calendar
begins
with
concerns
over
the
menace
of
envy,
and
it
also
ends
with

them.
E.
K.
instructs
the
reader
not
to
be
threatened
by
the
boldness
of
the
poet's
closing

verses:
“Therefore
let
not
be
enuied,
that
this
Poete
in
his
Epilogue
sayth
he
hath
made
a

Calendar,
that
shall
endure
as
long
as
time
&c.
folowing
the
ensample
of
Horace
and
Ouid
in

the
like.”
110

Of
course,
to
caution
readers
against
envy
is
likely
to
reap
the
opposite

outcome.
And
E.
K.’s
warnings
against
jealousy
might
actually
be
an
admission
of
it.
Spenser

presents
the
poet
figure
and
his
poem
as
highly
vulnerable
to
the
workings
of
envy
and

109
James,
“Flower
Power.”

110
E.K.'s
notes
on
the
December
“Embleme.”

76

consequently
worthy
of
pity.
This
rhetorical
strategy
by
which
the
poet
simultaneously

boasts
of
his
skill
and
touts
his
humility,
while
also
crafting
a
case
for
why
he
deserves
all

varieties
of
sympathy,
bears
striking
resemblance
to
that
of
“Ouid”
in
his
exile
writings.

Both
Ovid
and
Spenser
send
out
their
books
as
proxies—Spenser
ostensibly
because
of
his

lack
of
reputation
and
Ovid
because
of
his
literal
banishment.
And
the
poet
figures
within

the
Calender
are
harassed
by
grief
akin
to
that
of
an
exile.

Spenser's
Careful
Verse

The
anguish
expressed
in
the
Calender
shares
many
of
the
features
of
exilic

mourning
found
in
Ovid’s
Tristia.
In
the
August
eclogue,
for
instance,
Cuddie
performs
a

sestina
written
by
Colin,
whose
loud
absence
throughout
the
calendar
might
be
read
as
sort

of
self-‐exile.
And
while
the
subject
matter
of
the
song
ostensibly
centers
around
his
recent

heartbreak
about
Rosalind,
the
“heauy
laye”
(149)
seems
to
function
as
a
broader

meditation
on
the
hardship
and
isolation
of
the
poet
figure:

Resort
of
people
doth
my
greefs
augment,

The
walled
townes
do
worke
my
greater
woe:

The
forest
wide
is
fitter
to
resound

The
hollow
Echo
of
my
carefull
cryes...(157-‐60)

Ovid's
“missive
to
you
from
the
world’s
end”
expresses
a
similar
species
of
grief,
as
the

poet's
mournful
meditations
on
the
misery
of
his
exile
repeatedly
focus
on
his
isolation

from
and
dissatisfaction
with
the
people
around
him.

111

Note,
too,
how
Ovid
casts
his
voice:

111
This
phrase
comes
from
Tristia
III.XIV.26:
“diverso
missum
quod
tibi
ab
orbe
venit,”
trans.
Peter

Green.
Ovid’s
The
Poems
of
Exile
(London
and
New
York:
Penguin,
1994).

77

Haec
mea
si
casu
miraris
epistula
quare

alterius
digitis
scripta
sit,
aeger
eram.

aeger
in
extremis
ignoti
partibus
orbis,

incertusqeu
meae
nempe
salutis
eram.

quem
mihi
nunc
animum
dira
regione
iacenti

inter
Sauromatas
esse
Getasque
putes?
(III.III.1-‐6)
112

Like
Colin,
who
passes
along
his
song
to
Cuddie,
Ovid
channels
his
song
through
another

hand
to
reinforce
his
physical
suffering
and
also,
perhaps,
to
act
out
on
small
scale
the

transmission
of
his
orphaned
book
from
person
to
person,
emanating
from
the
isolated

bard.
The
exile’s
work
radiates
out
and
also
circles
inward:
the
choice
of
sestina
for
Colin’s

song,
with
its
rotating
yet
repeated
line
endings,
suggests
that
the
articulation
of
grief

moves
in
a
circular
pattern—repetition
with
difference
(much
like
the
Arcadian
sestinas

and
their
expression
of
repetitive,
circular
sorrow).
Likewise
Ovid’s
exilic
writings

repeatedly
circumnavigate
the
planet
of
his
grief,
returning
again
and
again
to
past
events.

In
the
recollection
of
his
parting
from
family,
Ovid
describes
even
the
process
of
saying

goodbye
as
ineluctably
repetitive:

saepe
“vale”
dicto
rursus
sum
molta
locutus,

et
quasi
discedens
oscula
summa
dedi.

saepe
eadem
mandata
dedi
meque
ipse
fefelli,

respiciens
oculis
pignora
cara
meis.
113

112
“If
haply
you
wonder
why
this
letter
of
mine
is
written
by
another’s
fingers,
I
am
ill—ill
at
the

ends
an
unknown
world,
and
in
fact
I
was
unsure
of
my
recovery.
What
spirit
can
you
think
is
now
mine,
lying

sick
in
a
hideous
land
among
Sauromatae
and
Getae?”
Tristia
(III.3.1-‐6),
trans.
Wheeler.

78

If
for
both
Colin
and
Ovid,
the
manifestation
of
mourning
might
be
likened
to
a
verbal

spiral,
it
also
emerges
as
a
break
or
silence.
Ovid
continues
his
domestic
aubade

by
describing
how
his
sorrow
leads
to
the
cutting
off
of
speech:
“nec
mora,
sermonis
verba

imperfecta
relinquo.”
114

And
as
we
well
know,
Colin's
grief
and
silence
go
hand
in
hand.
The

similarities
continue:
Ovid
presents
the
exilic
figure
as
one
who
is
obsessed
with
the
past,

while
in
spite
of
their
youth,
both
Spenser
and
Colin
orient
their
verse
towards
days
gone

by.
Ancient
Greeks
understood
the
human
experience
of
time
as
that
of
a
person
backing

into
the
future,
facing
the
past;
in
many
ways
this
fits
with
the
Calender,
which
moves

through
the
months
with
its
antiqued
language,
nostalgic
shepherds,
and
a
fixed

orientation
toward
past
events.
115

Though
it
is
the
work
of
a
young,
burgeoning
mind,
the

Calender
maintains
a
melancholy,
exilic
stance
that
evokes
the
Tristia
and
aligns
itself
with

an
older,
world-‐weary
Ovid.

The
most
famous
of
exile
poets
chronicles
his
time
in
Tomis
as
a
sort
of
purgatory
in

which
his
mind
remains
in
the
past
while
his
body
rapidly
deteriorates:

cum
patriam
amisi,
tunc
me
periisse
putato:

et
prior
et
gravior
mors
fuit
illa
mihi.
116

113
“Oft
when
I
had
said
farewell
once
again
I
uttered
many
words,
and
as
if
I
were
in
the
act
of

setting
forth
I
gave
the
final
kisses.
Oft
I
gave
the
same
parting
directions,
thus
beguiling
myself,
with

backward
look
at
the
objects
of
my
love.”
Tristia
(I.3.57-‐60),
trans.
Wheeler.

114
“No
longer
delaying
I
left
my
words
unfinished.”
Tristia
(I.3.69),
trans.
Wheeler.

115
See
Bernard
Knox,
Backing
into
the
Future:
The
Classical
Tradition
and
its
Renewal.
New
York:
W.

W.
Norton,
1994.

116
“When
I
lost
my
native
land,
then
you
must
think
that
I
perished;
that
was
my
earlier
and
harder

death.”
Tristia
(III.3.53-‐54),
trans.
Wheeler.

79

Ovid
continually
returns
to
a
description
of
his
aging
body
to
demonstrate,
like
a
piece
of

performance
art,
the
cruel
treatment
of
Augustus:

Iam
mea
cycneas
imitantur
tempora
plumas,

inficit
et
nigras
alba
senecta
comas.

iam
subeunt
anni
fragiles
et
inertior
aetas,

iamque
parum
firmo
me
mihi
ferre
grave
est.
117

As
already
suggested,
Spenser
correspondingly
plays
with
poetic
time
by
rapidly
aging
his

central
poet
figure,
Colin
Clout.
While
the
opening
line
of
“Januarye”
describes
him
as
“A

shepeheards
boye,”
Colin
begins
the
year
by
likening
his
emotions
to
the
tired
landscape

around
him:

All
so
my
lustfull
leafe
is
drye
and
sere,

My
timely
buds
with
wayling
all
are
wasted:

The
blossome,
which
my
braunch
of
youth
did
beare,

With
breathed
sighes
is
blowne
away,
and
blasted...(37-‐40)

By
December
of
the
same
year,
Colin
describes
himself
as
physically
old,
his
muse
“hoarse

and
weary”
(December,
140)
his
body
ready
for
“timely
death”
(150).
Many
critics
have

noted
Colin’s
descriptions
of
accelerated
senescence,
though
some
such
as
Richard
McCabe

read
simply
as
a
“powerful
metaphor
for
his
emotional
state,”
the
product
of
histrionic

117

“Already
my
temples
are
like
the
plumage
of
a
swan,
for
white
old
age
is
bleaching
my
dark
hair.

Already
the
years
of
frailty
and
life’s
inactive
time
are
stealing
upon
me,
and
already
‘tis
hard
for
me
in
my

weakness
to
bear
up.”
Tristia
(IV.8.1-‐4),
trans.
Wheeler.

80

youth.
118

Harry
Berger
agrees
that
Colin's
deterioration
is
powerfully
metaphoric
but

suggests
that
it
is
not
simply
imagined:

Colin
Clout
is
justly
notorious
for
having
passed
from
youth
to
old
age
in
the

space
of
Spenser's
twelve
Calender
months,
and...the
rhetorical
effect
of
this

achievement
is
to
give
Age
(and
Youth
as
well)
a
particular
symbolic

range...Age
and
youth
signify
two
versions
or
phases
of
the
have-‐not

condition.
119

Whether
Colin
“actually”
ages
or
deteriorates
only
within
his
own
mind,
the
effect
is
to

align
the
poet
figure
with
the
rapidly
aging
Ovid,
to
highlight
the
toll
that
writing
exacts,

and
to
further
reinforce
Spenser's
“mood
of
internal
exile”
that
predates
his
actual

expulsion
from
England.

Throughout
the
Calender,
Spenser
makes
the
case
that
a
skilled
poet
is
by
nature

vexed,
not
simply
because
he
is
hounded
by
envious
others,
but
also
because
he
is

burdened
by
practical
and
political
concerns
and
is
exhausted
by
his
desire
to
write
well.
In

other
words,
he
is
“carefull”—both
exacting
in
his
writing
and
loaded
down
with
cares.
This

connection
echoes
throughout
Colin's
mournful
song
in
the
November
eclogue,
especially
in

his
refrain:

O
heauie
herse...

O
carefull
verse.

118
"As
the
calendrical
form
inevitably
dictates,
[Colin]
is
scarely
a
year
older
than
when
he
began.

His
premature
apprehension
of
senescence
functions
as
a
potent
metaphor
for
his
emotional
state:
what
he

attributes
to
time
is,
paradoxically,
the
product
of
despondent
immaturity."
McCabe,
Notes
to
“December,”
in

The
Shorter
Poems,
571.

119
Harry
Berger,
Jr.,
Revisionary
Play:
Studies
in
the
Spenserian
Dynamics
(Berkeley:
University
of

California
Press,
1988),
416.

81

Likewise
the
October
eclogue
makes
as
its
subject
the
difficult
plight
of
the
poet,
who
is

constrained
by
both
ideological
and
practical
concerns
and
loaded
down
by
cares.
Piers’

question
seems
to
summarize
the
entire
problem
of
the
poet’s
situation
in
one
short
line:

"O
pierlesse
Poesye,
where
is
then
thy
place?"
(October,
79)
Piers
seems
to
uphold
the

established
Elizabethan
conviction
that
poetry
serves
a
specifically
moral,
communal

agenda
by
hiding
its
useful
truths
in
sugar-‐coated
pills,
but
his
question
about
the
“place”
of

poetry
betrays
a
series
of
contradictions
that,
along
with
Cuddie’s
complaints,
undermine

this
program.
After
all,
we
might
read
“pierlesse”
poetry,
when
spoken
by
Piers,
as
poetry

without
“Piers,”
a
poetry
that
alienates
its
own
speaker.
Cuddie's
gripe
about
his
poetic

exhaustion
(“I
haue
pyped
erst
so
long
with
payne…Yet
little
good
hath
got,
and
much
lesse

gayne”
[7-‐10])
lines
up
with
this.
“Pierlesse”
could
also
mean
devoid
of
prophetic
power,
if

we
consider
Piers
Plowman
as
a
text
that
issues
a
complaint
about
the
moral
failings
of
its

time.
120

In
this
sense,
Spenser
seems
to
question
the
role
of
the
poet
as
Biblical
prophet:
if
a

poet
intends
to
involve
himself
in
“holy”
work,
then
Cuddie
complains
that
there
is
no

audience
for
these
more
serious
musings
because
“vertue”
has
“stoupe[d]”
and
his
“Poesie”

is
“forst
to
fayne”
people's
“follies”
(67-‐75).
And
if
true
poetry
is
always
in
danger
of

exhausting
its
maker
and
angering
its
audience,
then
Piers
also
implies
that
when
poetry

excels—when
it
functions
as
the
product
of
a
“peerless”
or
unrivaled
wit—it
risks
being

misunderstood
and
rejected,
without
“place”
because
no
one
understands
its
genius.

120
Puttenham
writes,
"He
that
wrote
the
Satyr
of
Piers
Ploughman
seemed
to
haue
bene
a

malcontent
of
that
time,
and
therefore
bent
himselfe
wholly
to
taxe
the
disorders
of
that
age,
and
specially
the

pride
of
the
Romane
Clergy,
of
whose
fall
he
seemeth
to
be
a
very
true
Prophet."
George
Puttenham's
The
Arte

of
English
Poesie,
published
in
1589,
collected
in
Elizabethan
Critical
Essays,
Vol.
2,
ed.
G.
Gregory
Smith

(Oxford:
Oxford
University
Press,
1964),
64.

82

Finally,
we
might
interpret
“pierlesse”
as
without
peerage,
or
political
advancement.
Hence

peerless
poetry
is
both
excellent
and
troubled—or
as
Colin
might
term
it,
"carefull."
121

Likewise,
Spenser
suggests
that
peerless
poetry
is
by
nature
placeless
poetry:

itinerant,
homeless,
exiled—ever
flapping
its
beautiful,
envied
wings.
But
how
are
we
to

reconcile
this
sense
of
continuous
hovering
with
the
poet's
many
images
of
arrested

flight—the
doomed
Muiopotmos
and
the
daring
bird
in
“A
Theatre
for
Worldlings”
who

flies
too
close
to
the
sun—and
flightless
birds
of
the
October
eclogue,
the
“Peacok”

(October,
31)
and
the
“Swanne”
(90)?
122

Cuddie
explains
that
he
cannot
soar
to
the
level
of

epic
poetry
because
of
the
“peeced
pyneons”
(87)
of
his
muse's
wings,
which
could
be
yet

another
commentary
on
the
corruption
of
English
by
the
“peces
and
rags”
(Epistle,
86)
of

other
languages
(and
French
suitors),
but
more
broadly
resonates
with
the
trope
of
exile.

Ovid
made
many
poetic
flights,
yet
in
the
end,
his
poetry
or
carmine
led
to
his
literal

banishment.
He
describes
his
exile
to
Tomis
itself
as
a
flight,
but
also
reiterates
the
paradox

of
exile
in
that
he
is
both
placeless
and
stuck.
If
Spenser’s
imagery
of
arrested
flight
is
both

spatial
and
allusive,
it
is
also
temporal,
as
in
Cuddie’s
image
of
the
swan.
E.
K.
puzzles
over

this
reference:
"The
comparison
seemeth
to
be
strange:
for
the
swanne
hath
euer
wonne

small
commendation
for
her
swete
singing:
but
it
is
sayd
of
the
learned
that
the
swan
a

little
before
hir
death,
singeth
most
pleasantly,
as
prophecying
by
a
secrete
instinct
her

121
Jenny
C.
Mann's
recent
work
on
the
"carefull
hyperbaton"
in
The
Shepheardes
Calender
and
The

Faerie
Queene
takes
on
a
different
aspect
of
Spenser's
careful
verse,
his
attempts
at
balancing
English
with

classical,
especially
Virgilian,
influence.
Mann,
Outlaw
Rhetoric,
70-‐84.

122
The
“birde
that
dares
beholde
the
Sunne”
resides
in
Sonnet
6
of
Spenser’s
“A
Theatre
For

Worldlings,”
in
The
Shorter
Poems,
ed.
McCabe,
13.

83

neere
destinie."
123

But
for
Spenser,
the
comparison
is
fitting,
especially
because
Ovid
uses

the
image
of
the
swan
to
describe
himself
in
the
final
book
of
his
Tristia:

utque
iacens
ripa
deflere
Caystrius
ales

dicitur
ore
suam
deficiente
necem,

sic
ego,
Sarmaticas
longe
proiectus
in
oras,

efficio
tacitum
ne
mihi
funus
eat.
124

Like
that
of
the
exiled
poet,
the
sweetness
of
the
swan’s
song
expresses
both
geographical

and
temporal
constraints.

This,
then,
is
the
paradox
of
poetic
time
within
Spenser’s
pastoral
vision.
Like
Ovid,

he
boldly
imagines
a
calendar
that
both
predates
and
postdates
the
political
system
that

inspires
his
complaint.
Yet
the
consequence
of
poetic
transcendence
seems
to
be
rapid

senescence,
just
as
Ovid
describes
in
his
Tristia:
the
merciless
wearing
away
of
the
poet

under
the
pressures
of
envy
as
well
as
financial,
political,
social,
and
emotional
woes.

Spenser
might
be
able
to
imaginatively
soar
through
the
centuries,
but
he
is
also
very
much

stuck
in
his
own
time.
And
if
he
is
stuck,
so
too
is
the
reader
of
his
Calender—suspended

between
two
conflicting
modes
of
a
poetic
time.
This
might
help
to
explain
why
the
form
of

the
Calender,
with
its
many
emblems,
argument,
notes,
and
frames,
seems
to
resist
linear

reading
and
narrative
flow.
Spenser
encourages
his
readers
to
get
lost
within
his
poem:
to

feel
the
pain
of
internal
exile,
and
to
read
the
loud
absences
of
his
political
and
social

complaint.

123
E.K.
notes
on
“October,”
line
90.

124
“As
the
bird
of
Cayster
is
said
to
lie
upon
the
bank
and
bemoan
its
own
death
with
weakening

note,
so
I,
cast
far
away
upon
the
Sarmatian
shores,
take
heed
that
my
funeral
rites
pass
not
off
in
silence.”

Tristia
(V.1.11-‐14),
trans.
Wheeler.

84

Chapter
Three

“Poore
Schollers”:
Education
and
Frustration
in
Hero
and
Leander

Inopem
me
copia
fecit.

[My
plentie
makes
me
poore.]

The
tragic
phrase
of
Ovid’s
Narcissus,
translated
by
Arthur
Golding
in
1567,
is

commonly
understood
as
a
reflection
on
the
trials
of
excessive
beauty
teamed
with

excessive
self-‐love.
125

But
for
a
frustrated
Elizabethan
poet,
the
line
offered
an
unusual

consolation.
“Copia”
could
refer
to
an
abundance
of
physical
beauty
but
also
to
rhetorical

abundance
in
an
Erasmian
sense,
such
that
the
“plentie”
of
one’s
intellectual
and

imaginative
gifts
might
be
the
reason
for
one’s
poverty.
126

If
this
particular
incarnation
of

Narcissus’s
lament
echoes
throughout
the
works
of
Edmund
Spenser
as
a
sort
of
mantra,

then
it
is
the
beating
heart
of
Christopher
Marlowe’s
Hero
and
Leander,
which
at
its
core

digresses
into
an
extended
mythic
explanation
of
why
scholars
are
fated
to
be
poor.
The

meandering,
apocryphal
myth
is
just
one
of
the
formal
anomalies
of
the
poem;
readers
have

long
noted
the
tonal
inconsistencies,
fatuous
apothegms,
and
frequent
digressions
that,

taken
with
the
extravagant
yet
inconsistent
beauty
of
the
lyric
line,
leave
many
puzzled.

This
chapter
argues
that
the
misshapen
quality
of
the
poem
is
not
accidental.
Marlowe

125
Ovid,
Metamorphoses,
trans.
Frank
Justus
Miller,
rev.
G.
P.
Goold,
3rd
ed.,
Classical
Library
42

(Cambridge:
Harvard
University
Press,
1916),
I.3.466.
For
Arthur
Golding’s
translation,
see
Shakespeare’s

Ovid:
Being
Arthur
Golding’s
Translation
of
the
“Metamorphoses,”
ed.
W.
H.
D.
Rouse
(1567;
rept.,
London:
De

La
More,
1904),
3.587.

126
Terence
Cave
discusses
the
evolution
of
“copia”
and
its
many
facets.
Cave,
The
Cornucopian
Text,

3–34.

85

expresses
the
paradox
of
scholarly
abundance
through
both
the
radical
accumulation
and

the
burlesquing
of
specifically
scholarly
forms,
and
through
these
plays
on
copia,
he
creates

a
space
of
literary
suspension
and
dilation
that
offers
an
alternative
pace
of
reading
that
is

non-‐utilitarian
and
subversive.

127
In
this
sense,
the
poem
functions
as
a
calculated

expression
of
the
tension
between
copia,
rhetorical
plenty,
and
poverty,
analogous
to
the

lack
of
compensation
and
recognition
that
the
poet
feels
is
due
him.
Similar
to

Shostakovich’s
finale
discussed
in
the
Introduction,
the
surface
of
Hero
and
Leander
is
often

at
odds
with
its
depths,
and
the
unsettling
and
anti-‐institutional
features
of
Marlowe’s

poem
are
inextricably
tied
up
with
his
use
of
time
and
tempo,
speed
and
delay.
For
all
these

reasons,
Hero
and
Leander
presents
itself
a
poem
that
favors
and
rewards
slow
reading.

Without
the
specific
perspective
of
Marlowe
as
a
suffering
scholar,
it
is
difficult
to

interpret
him
as
a
force
behind
Hero
and
Leander.
Much
of
the
critical
discourse

surrounding
the
poem
tends
to
portray
the
writer
as
a
proto-‐Romantic,
glorying
in

subversion
for
the
sake
of
itself,
or
it
reacts
to
such
portrayals
by
reviving
a
more
orthodox

thinker
and
by
seeking
to
retrieve
some
sort
of
moral
or
lesson
from
the
poem,
however

awkwardly.
128

Yet
the
didactic
aims
of
literature
are
exactly
what
Marlowe
pits
his
work

against,
not
because
he
delights
in
nihilism
but
because
to
use
his
work
for
other
ends

would
be
to
further
exploit
a
poet
who
already
feels
impoverished.
There
is
a
scandal
in

this
resistance,
but
not
the
sort
more
frequently
discussed.
By
focusing
on
the
young
lovers’

premarital
tryst
or
the
racy
and
homoerotic
digressions
that
often
seem
more
convincingly

127
Altman,
The
Tudor
Play
of
Mind,
321-‐322.

128
For
a
discussion
of
how
Romantic
influences
have
shaped
the
current
understanding
of
Marlowe,

see
Thomas
Dabbs,
Reforming
Marlowe:
The
Nineteenth-‐Century
Canonization
of
a
Renaissance
Dramatist

(Lewisburg:
Bucknell
University
Press,
1991),
13–23.

86

passionate
than
those
between
Leander
and
Hero,
scholars
are
quick
to
treat
Hero
and

Leander
as
a
poem
chiefly
about
sexual
desire.
129

The
problem
with
such
an
approach
is

that
it
fails
to
account
fully
for
the
oddities
of
the
epyllion.
If
this
is
a
poem,
after
all,
about

the
enticing
beauty
of
Hero
and
that
beauty’s
aftermath,
then
why
does
the
description
of

Hero
deplete
the
environment
around
her,
taking
“more
from
[nature]
than
she
left”

(47)?
130

If
it
is
instead
a
poem
about
the
seductive
powers
of
Leander,
then
why
does

Marlowe
give
him
a
silly
schoolboy
speech
that
takes
up
nearly
one
hundred
lines?
Reading

this
poem
as
a
commentary
on
the
perceived
failings
of
humanist
pedagogy
suggests
that

the
poet’s
digressive
and
dilatory
style
is
not
necessarily
rooted
in
a
resistance
to

patriarchal,
end-‐driven
sexuality,
as
argued
by
Judith
Haber,
nor
can
it
be
fully
explained

within
the
1590s
trend
toward
literary
“shamelessness”
outlined
by
Georgia
E.
Brown.
131

Rather,
Marlowe’s
manipulation
of
particularly
scholarly
forms
(declamation,
description,

and
sententiae)
and
his
resistance
to
the
use
of
his
poetry
for
ends
outside
of
the
poem

itself
directly
issues
from
his
frustration
as
a
scholar-‐poet.

Any
inquiry
into
how
Marlowe
imagined
his
readers
leads
naturally
to
an

investigation
of
the
poet
as
a
reader
himself.
The
textual
and
biographical
evidence
we
have

suggests
that
Marlowe
gravitated
to
the
more
incendiary
aspects
of
the
classical
sources

129
This
is
not
to
disregard
the
connection
between
sexual
desire
and
humanist
pedagogy
as

explored,
for
instance,
by
Alan
Stewart
in
Close
Readers:
Humanism
and
Sodomy
in
Early
Modern
England

(Princeton:
Princeton
University
Press,
1997),
84–121.

130
Hero
and
Leander,
in
The
Complete
Works
of
Christopher
Marlowe,
ed.
Roma
Gill
(Oxford:

Clarendon,
1987),
1:188-‐209.
All
subsequent
references
to
Hero
and
Leander
are
from
this
edition
and
cited

by
line.

131
See
Judith
Haber,
Desire
and
Dramatic
Form
in
Early
Modern
England
(Cambridge:
Cambridge

University
Press,
2009),
43;
and
Georgia
Brown,
Redefining
Elizabethan
Literature
(Cambridge:
Cambridge

University
Press,
2004),
102–16.

87

that
informed
his
education.
132

And
though
the
stated
aim
of
his
Parker
Scholarship
at

Cambridge
was
to
prepare
him
for
the
clergy,
Marlowe’s
writings
reveal
a
tendency
towards

pagan
revelry
without
Christian
recontextualization.
133

In
his
version
of
the
pastoral
mode,

for
instance,
Marlowe
differs
from
Sir
Philip
Sidney
and
Edmund
Spenser
by
resisting
the

Biblical
overlay
of
shepherds
and
sheep
taken
from
the
life
of
David,
the
Psalms,
the

prophecies
of
Isaiah
and
Ezekiel,
and
the
Gospels.
Likewise,
his
Ovid
is
the
author
of
"gods

in
sundrie
shapes,/
Committing
headdie
ryots,
incest,
rapes"
(143-‐144),
not
the
Ovid
edited

for
use
by
Elizabethan
moralists.
134

Instead
of
limiting
classical
sources
within
a
protestant-‐
Christian
framework,
Marlowe
seems
to
have
allowed
writers
like
Lucan,
Ovid,
and
Virgil
to

speak
for
themselves,
thus
unearthing
libertine
and
skeptical
ideas
that
ran
counter
to
the

purported
aims
of
his
educators.
This
is
not
to
suggest
that
Christian
poets
of
the
time
(like

Sidney
and
Spenser,
as
just
discussed)
lacked
their
own
forms
of
subversion,
but
that

Marlowe
took
particular
interest
in
the
places
where
classicism
strayed
outside
the
bounds

of
its
generally
established
limits
within
Elizabethan
society.
In
Hero
and
Leander,
he
hints

at
the
failures
of
his
own
humanist
education—a
counter-‐impulse
that
Jeff
Dolven
identifies

within
the
works
of
Sidney
and
Spenser
in
response
to
the
pedagogical
aims
of
literature—
at
the
same
time
that
he
is
flaunting
the
literary
and
rhetorical
skill
acquired
through
such

132
See
Georgia
Brown,
“Marlowe’s
Poems
and
Classicism,”
in
The
Cambridge
Companion
to

Christopher
Marlowe,
ed.
Patrick
Cheney
(Cambridge
and
New
York:
Cambridge
University
Press),106-‐126.

133
Doctor
Faustus,
which
to
many
functions
as
a
moralistic
tale,
might
be
considered
an
exception.

134
"Through
the
art
of
the
commonplace,
English
readers
bound
the
‘schoolmaster
of
love’
to
their

rules:
they
enjoyed
the
freedom
to
affirm,
discredit,
appropriate,
or
allegorize
Ovid
at
will
and
suffer
no

metamorphosis
at
his
hands."
Heather
James,
“Ovid
in
Renaissance
English
Literature,"
in
A
Companion
to

Ovid,
ed.
Peter
E.
Knox
(Chichester/
Malden,
MA:
Wiley-‐Blackwell,
2009),
424.

88

an
education.
135

Was
Marlowe
a
slow
reader,
exactly?
We
can
only
speculate
about
the
pace

at
which
he
absorbed
the
classical
sources
that
inspired
his
own
writing,
but
in
the
sense

that
he
enjoyed
the
process
of
uncovering
what
was
intended
to
be
hidden
and
to
the

extent
that
his
poetry
takes
up
the
concerns
of
time
as
it
affects
understanding,
we
can

answer
yes.
In
this
light,
Hero
and
Leander
functions
as
a
sort
of
catalog
of
what
Marlowe

was
not
supposed
to
find
but
found
anyway
in
his
long
hours
of
careful
study.

The
requirements
for
“true
learning,”
according
to
Marlowe’s
poem,
leave
the
scholar

in
an
untenable
position.
According
to
the
myth
at
the
center
of
Hero
and
Leander,
scholars,

implicated
by
their
relationship
to
Mercury,
are
cursed
with
a
financial
inequity:
“few
great

lords
in
vertuous
deeds
shall
joy”
but
instead
will
choose
to
“inrich
the
loftie
servile
clowne

/
Who
with
incroching
guile,
keepes
learning
downe”
(479-‐82).

Marlowe
sets
up
this
lofty,

servile
clown
as
the
opposite
of
the
scholar,
meaning
that
what
he
considers
true
learning,

and
by
the
implication
of
the
passage,
true
“vertue,”
must
be
the
opposite
of
all
that
is
lofty,

servile,
and
clownish.
In
other
words,
the
bearers
of
true
learning
locate
themselves
at
the

bottom
of
the
social
order,
suffering
neglect
but
taking
defiant
pleasure
in
that
neglect.
The

teaming
of
loftiness
and
servility,
attributes
that
in
many
contexts
could
be
considered

opposites,
suggests
that
the
“clowne”
is
a
toady:
one
who
puts
on
airs
and
who
advances
in

social
standing
by
saying
or
writing
what
a
“great
lord”
wants
to
hear.
By
comparison,

bearers
of
true
learning
must
avoid
writing
that
is
unnaturally
elevated,
obsequious,
or

compromised
for
the
sake
of
entertainment.

135
Jeff
Dolven,
Scenes
of
Instruction
in
Renaissance
Romance
(Chicago
and
London:
University
of

Chicago
Press,
2007),
10-‐11.

89

Toying
with
Decorum
and
the
“Rudiments
of
Eloquence”

By
manipulating
the
lyric
timing
of
Hero
and
Leander,
Marlowe
questions
the
didactic

aims
of
poetry
while
unearthing
the
more
subversive
aspects
of
his
classical
education.

When
Hero
asks
Leander,
“Who
taught
thee
Rhethoricke
to
deceive
a
maid?”
(338),
her

question
resounds
throughout
the
entire
poem,
with
its
continual
interest
in
the
acquisition

of
rhetorical
skill.
That
the
poet
is
suspicious
of
certain
forms
of
persuasive
speech
and

their
use
suggests
that
he
is
investigating
types
of
scholarly
collection
and
is
testing
their

susceptibility
to
exploitation.
As
William
Weaver
has
recently
suggested,
Marlowe’s
source

material
likely
came
from
a
volume
that
included
the
Greek
text
of
Musaeus’s
Hero
and

Leander
as
well
as
Aesop’s
fables,
the
Hippocratic
Oath,
two
mock
epics,
and
a
grouping
of

maxims.
With
their
varying
styles,
these
possible
sourcetexts
may
seem
to
have
nothing
to

do
with
one
another,
but
as
the
critic
explains,
they
were
collected
for
use
in
grammar

schools
so
that
schoolboys
could
learn
the
art
of
persuasion
by
paraphrasing
and
then

expanding
these
different
tales
through
declamation
and
description.
He
argues
that
these

“rudiments
of
eloquence”
play
a
significant
role
in
Hero
and
Leander,
and
that
the
poet

actually
began
his
poem
as
a
schoolboy’s
exercise,
writing
heroic
couplets
in
order
to

expand
Musaeus’s
myth.
Weaver’s
research
emphasizes
Marlowe’s
deep
interest
in
such

“pedestrian”
material
rather
than
his
expansion
of
it
in
his
poem.
136

Yet
clearly
and

intentionally,
Hero
and
Leander
misuses
or
burlesques
the
practices
of
declamation
and

description.

136
“The
mechanics
of
rhetorical
amplification
in
the
sixteenth
century,
presumably
all
too
pedestrian

for
such
an
ambitious
and
influential
poet
as
Marlowe,
have
been
ignored.”
See
“Marlowe’s
Fable:
Hero
and

Leander
and
the
Rudiments
of
Eloquence,”
Studies
in
Philology
105
(2008):
390,
408.

90

The
poet’s
use
of
declamation,
for
instance,
shows
mastery
as
well
as
revelry
in

beautiful
yet
empty
language,
pleasure
severed
from
utility,
so
that
the
instances
of

speechifying
become
highly
unpredictable
and
often
comedic
events
that
punctuate
the

poem.
Leander
begins
his
first
addresses
to
Hero
by
approaching
her
like
“a
bold
sharpe

Sophister”
(197),
the
latter
term
a
reference
to
a
sophomore
at
Cambridge
or
a
person

given
to
misleading
arguments,
or
both.
137

Timing
makes
his
speeches
comic
instead
of

sinister.
His
prolixity
interrupts
a
scene
of
passionate
yet
wordless
interaction
between
the

lovers,
graced
with
the
narrator’s
insight
that
“True
love
is
mute,
and
oft
amazed
stands”

(186).
Yet
just
twelve
lines
later,
Leander’s
“true
love”
inspires
a
speech
that
with
its
sheer

breadth
takes
up
nearly
100
of
the
epyllion’s
first
300
lines
and
therefore
threatens
to

consume
the
poem
that
frames
it.
The
youth
displays
a
panoply
of
arguments,
proofs,
and

maxims,
seemingly
with
the
purpose
of
seduction.
And
while
he
promises
that
“my
words

shall
be
as
spotlesse
as
my
youth,
/
Full
of
simplicitie
and
naked
truth”
(207-‐8)
his

arguments
are
considerably
complicated,
utilizing
kolakeia,
diallage,
repeated
appeals
to

the
sensus
communis,
and
a
logical
game
about
the
nonexistence
of
virginity:
“Things
that

are
not
at
all,
are
never
lost”
(276).
The
narrator
hints
at
Leander’s
speech,
yet
Hero
never

needed
convincing,
as
the
narrator
admits:
“These
arguments
he
us’de,
and
many
more,

/Wherewith
she
yielded,
that
was
woon
before”
(329-‐30).
The
pursued
herself
agrees
that

her
pursuer’s
speeches
are
not
only
unnecessary,
but
also
unpleasant:
“Aye
me,
such
words

as
these
should
I
abhor,
/
And
yet
I
like
them
for
the
Orator”
(339-‐40).
Marlowe’s
insertion

137
See Oxford English Dictionary (sophister n.3.a).

91

of
lengthy
speeches
into
a
context
where
they
are
not
needed
seems
to
broadcast
their

sheer
pointlessness.
138

Similarly,
Marlowe
amplifies
his
use
of
description
to
the
point
of
absurdity.
The

narrative
begins
with
a
lengthy
depiction
of
“Hero
the
faire,
Whom
young
Apollo
courted

for
her
haire,”
alluding
to
a
myth
of
the
narrator’s
own
invention
that
draws
attention
to

the
excessiveness
of
its
claims.

This
is
just
one
in
a
series
of
such
apocryphal
classical

references:
the
sun
and
wind
so
delight
in
Hero’s
hands
that
they
refuse
to
burn
or
parch

them,
half
the
world
is
black
because
her
beauty
has
exhausted
it,
and
even
blinds
Cupid

himself.
Marlowe
ensures
that
her
dress
is
heavily
allusive
as
well,
featuring
an
ironically

naked
Venus
on
one
so
fully
attired.
And
Hero’s
clothing
is
not
just
figuratively,
but
literally

heavy,
draped
with
rich
fabric
and
a
necklace
not
of
diamonds,
but
“chaines
of
peble
stone”

(25-‐26).
Her
shoes,
with
their
motorized
chirrups,
are
complicated
enough
to
limit
mobility

and
to
lead
the
reader
to
wonder,
idly,
if
she
sits
on
Apollo’s
throne
as
an
object
“for
men
to

gaze
upon”
(8)
by
choice
or
by
constraint.
Throughout
this
opening
passage,
Marlowe
has

his
narrator
push
the
description
to
the
point
at
which
it
threatens
to
collapse
under
its

own
weight,
while
his
heroine’s
surrounding
environment
also
strains
under
the
pressure

of
these
overloaded
surfaces:

So
lovely
faire
was
Hero,
Venus
nun

As
nature
wept,
thinking
she
was
undone;

Because
she
tooke
more
from
her
than
she
left,

138
Leander counterbalances his tedium with an obstinate refusal to provide a speech when the occasion
would seem to demand it. As Warren Boucher observes, Marlowe’s character jumps in the ocean exactly when
oratory is expected of him, subverting generic expectations: “What of the occasions for declamatory heroism as
Leander contemplates the Hellespont?...This is comic relief for the reader expecting a declamation in the style of
Ovid or Boscan.” See “‘Who Taught Thee Rhetoricke to Deceive a Maid?’: Christopher Marlowe’s Hero and
Leander, Juan Boscán’s Leandro, and Renaissance Vernacular Humanism,” Comparative Literature 52 (2000): 40,
11-52.

92

And
of
such
wondrous
beautie
her
bereft.
(45-‐48)

The
object
of
the
joke
is
not
Hero,
but
the
narrator’s
excessive
description,
a
blazon
so

packed
with
myth
and
adornment
that
it
exhausts
nature.
The
poet
may
also
have
been

satirizing
the
officious
schoolmaster
who
impressed
on
him
the
necessity
of
the
decorous

use
of
embellishment
in
rhetoric,
as
Gordon
Braden
and
Warren
Boutcher
suggest
in

opposite
ways.
139

Marlowe
prefigures
and
embraces
the
baroque
by
heightening
the

exaggerated,
absurd
qualities
of
Musaeus’s
original
and
thereby
further
misshaping
the

standards
of
decorum
in
Elizabethan
poetry.

In
Marlowe’s
hands,
even
acts
of
rhetorical
reticence
work
to
problematize

decorum:
the
poet
seems
to
believe
in
the
excess
of
verbal
flourishes
and,
simultaneously,

the
withholding
of
poetic
elements
at
the
moment
they
are
expected.
The
description
of
the

swimming,
naked
Leander,
for
instance,
blissfully
free
of
constraints,
is
one
of
unexpected

reticence:

I
could
tell
ye,

How
smooth
his
brest
was,
&
how
white
his
bellie,

And
whose
immortall
fingars
did
imprint,

That
heavenly
path,
with
many
a
curious
dint,

That
runs
along
his
backe,
but
my
rude
pen,

Can
hardly
blazon
foorth
the
loves
of
men.
(65-‐70)

Here
the
narrator
hesitates,
self-‐consciously
drawing
attention
to
the
places
where
words

cannot
go.
This
seductive
diffidence
is
both
comical
and
peculiar,
for
he
had
no
difficulty

139
See
Braden’s
“The
Divine
Poem
of
Musaeus,”
in
The
Classics
and
English
Renaissance
Poetry:
Three

Case
Studies
(New
Haven:
Yale
University
Press,
1978),
55-‐153,
and
as
a
productive
counterpoint,
Boutcher’s

“‘Who
Taught
Thee
Rhetoricke
to
Deceive
a
Maid?,’”
11-‐52.

93

conjuring
a
massive
blazon
just
ten
lines
before.
Yet
the
two
tendencies
—radical
poetic

accumulation
and
playful
reticence
—both
shirk
convention
by
interrupting
the
flow
of
the

narrative
line
and
by
drawing
attention
to
the
“scaffolding”
of
lyric
expression.

The
polyvocal
cacophony
that
accompanies
Marlowe’s
tools
of
rhetoric
complicates

them
further.
His
description
of
Hero
is
laden
with
other
people’s
voices,
not
simply

through
mythic
allusions
but
also
by
the
weight
of
her
admirers’
opinions:
“Many
would

praise
the
sweet
smell
as
she
past”
and
“Some
say,
for
her
the
fairest
Cupid
pyn’d”
(21,
37).

Similarly,
Marlowe
presents
declamation
as
a
mode
by
which
Leander
can
parrot
the

arguments
of
others,
thinking
through
arguments
without
necessarily
thinking
about
them.

In
both
cases
Marlowe
parodies
the
sensus
communis,
the
“multitude
of
counsellers”
to

which
rhetoric
often
appealed.
140

The
shared
wisdom
of
classical
and
vernacular
texts
was

central
to
Marlowe’s
humanist
education,
yet
he
seems
unable
or
unwilling
to
find
the

common
place
where
these
units
of
cultural
wisdom
transact
their
business.
Leander
jokes

that
“One
is
no
number,
mayds
are
nothing
then,
/
Without
the
sweet
societie
of
men”
(255-‐
56),
but
for
Marlowe,
one
is
the
crucial
number.
Hero
and
Leander
eschews
the
shared

perspective
in
favor
of
the
individual
subject,
which
seems
central
to
the
poem’s
suggestion

that
education
may
frustrate
social
advancement
because
it
is
both
subversive
of
and

threatening
to
the
ruling
class.
Therefore,
those
who
pursue
learning
because
they
may

themselves
be
too
gifted
not
to
recognize
it
risk
leading
lives
that
isolate
them.

140
Proverbs
15:22.

94

Swatting
Away
the
Bookish
Bee

Marlowe’s
resistance
to
subservient
scholarly
forms
suggests
a
particular
wariness
of

the
sententia,
the
moral
maxim.
George
Chapman,
who
supplied
the
most
famous

completion
of
Marlowe’s
poem,
and
who
strove
to
amend
the
indecencies
of
Marlowe’s

original,
represents
the
more
traditional
use
of
sententiae
that
Marlowe
plays
against,
for

instance
in
Chapman’s
Third
Sestiad,
where
the
narrator
compares
Leander
to
the
prodigal

son
and
his
dalliance
with
Hero
to
the
son’s
wasteful
and
premature
accessing
of
his

inheritance.
He

like
a
greedy
vulgar
prodigal

Would
on
the
stock
dispend,
and
rudely
fall

Before
his
time,
to
that
unblessed
blessing,

Which
for
lust’s
plague
doth
perish
with
possessing.

Joy
graven
in
sense,
like
snow
in
water,
wastes;

Without
preserve
of
virtue
nothing
lasts.
(3.31-‐36)
141

Here,
the
verses
discussing
Leander’s
moral
ineptitude
lead
naturally
to
a
conclusion
on
the

value
of
virtue
over
sensual
delight.
The
adage
arises
organically
from
the
text,
yet
it

retains
an
importance
above
the
text
and
carries
with
that
importance
a
sense
of
moral

consequence.
The
sententia
is
portable,
a
take-‐home
truth.
Italic
type,
one
form
of
gnomic

pointing,
sets
it
aside
from
the
rest
of
the
poem,
encouraging
readers
to
pause
and
reflect

on
the
thought
and
to
copy
it
in
their
personal
collection
of
commonplaces.
As
a
form,
it

serves
an
agenda
broader
than
the
poem
itself.
In
this
example,
the
gnomic
statement
pays

141
Chapman’s
continuation
is
taken
from
Christopher
Marlowe:
The
Complete
Poems
and

Translations,
ed.
Stephen
Orgel
(New
York:
Penguin,
2007),
32.

95

obeisance
to
what
Chapman
deifies
as
the
goddess
Ceremony,
the
upholding
of
the
social,

moral,
and
political
order
that,
according
to
Marlowe’s
myth,
neglects
learning
in
order
to

enrich
fools.
142

Another
crucial
aspect
of
sententia
is
its
tendency
toward
anonymity
and
its

emphasis
on
the
group
as
opposed
to
the
singular
author.
Peter
Stallybrass
and
Roger

Chartier
describe
how
commonplace
books
such
as
Bodenham's
Bel-‐vedére
break
down
the

idea
of
the
author
in
favor
of
the
group:
“Although
the
‘authorities’
are
listed
at
the

beginning
of
Bel-‐vedére,
the
radical
fragmentation
of
the
sentences,
together
with
their

anonymity,
worked
against
authorship
as
a
relevant
category,
since
it
broke
poems
and

plays
down
into
the
commonplaces
out
of
which
they
had
been
constructed
in
the
first

place.”
143

Hence
the
form
of
the
sententia
appeals
to
the
group,
threatens
to
dissolve
the

individual
author,
and
encourages
reading
for
use
—especially
moral
use.

Marlowe’s
particular
mistrust
of
the
servile
aspects
of
sententiae
is
evident
in
a

scene
of
misreading
which
occurs
between
Neptune
and
Leander.
When
Neptune
retracts

his
mace,
he
injures
his
hand,
and
what
follows
is
a
moment
of
vulnerability
between

Leander
and
the
ocean
god:

When
this
fresh
bleeding
wound
Leander
viewd,

His
colour
went
and
came,
as
if
he
rewd

The
greefe
which
Neptune
felt.
In
gentle
brests,

142
On
gnomic
pointing,
see
G.K.
Hunter,
“The
Marking
of
Sententiæ
in
Elizabethan
Printed
Plays,

Poems,
and
Romances,”
The
Library,
5th
series,
6
(1951):
171-‐188.
For
a
discussion
of
sententiae
and
their

relationship
to
the
didactic
aims
of
literature,
see
Stallybrass
and
Chartier,
cited
below,
as
well
as
Dolven,

Scenes
of
Instruction,
99-‐133.
The
goddess
Ceremony
and
her
ties
to
church
and
state
can
be
found
in

Chapman’s
continuation,
3.109,
154.
See
Poems,
ed.
Orgel,
34.

143
Peter
Stallybrass
and
Roger
Chartier,
"Reading
and
Authorship:
The
Circulation
of
Shakespeare

1590–1619,”
in
A
Concise
Companion
to
Shakespeare
and
the
Text,
ed.
Andrew
Murphy.
(Malden,
MA:

Blackwell
Publishing,
2007),
48.

96

Relenting
thoughts,
remorse
and
pittie
rests.

And
who
have
hard
hearts,
and
obdurat
minds,

But
vicious,
harebraind,
and
illit’rat
hinds?
(697-‐703)

Seeing
that
Neptune’s
hand
has
been
wounded
by
the
mace
that
was
intended
for
him,
a

hurried
Leander
pauses
at
the
sight
of
a
bleeding
god,
turning
pale
for
just
a
moment.
The

narrator
is
careful
to
note
that
“His
colour
went
and
came,
as
if
he
rewd
/
The
greefe
which

Neptune
felt,”
which
is
not
the
same
as
stating
that
Leander
paled
“because
he
rewd”
such

grief.
The
two
maxims
that
immediately
follow
reinforce
Neptune’s
reading
of
the
scene:
he

thinks
that
Leander
has
paled
because
of
“pittie”
for
him.
The
two
sententiae
precipitate
an

explanation
for
Leander’s
sympathy,
seemingly
engendered
by
his
knowledge
of
letters.

The
formula
offered
is
that
“illit’rat
hinds”
(uneducated
servants)
are
hard-‐hearted
towards

the
suffering
of
others,
while
pity
rests
in
the
softened,
educated
hearts
of
men
like

Leander.
Yet
the
youth
pales
not
out
of
pity,
but
because
he
is
terrified
of
the
potential

ramifications
of
wounding
a
god,
an
oceanic
despot
who
is
used
to
getting
what
he
wants.

In
their
eagerness
to
export
a
moral
from
the
scene,
then,
these
maxims
generate
a
message

that
corroborates
the
despotic
Neptune’s
reading
of
the
situation,
thus
revealing
the

sententia
as
a
compromised
form.
Though
inextricable
from
the
pedagogy
of
young

Elizabethan
scholars
in
training,
then,
such
“wise
sayings”
reinforce
the
institutions
that

impoverish
true
learning.

What
is
curious
about
this
passage,
though,
is
that
we
learn
of
Neptune’s
misreading

of
the
scene
through
another
sententia:
“(Love
is
too
full
of
faith,
too
credulous,
With
follie

and
false
hope
deluding
us)”
(705-‐6).
It
would
be
difficult
to
read
this
maxim
as
anything

but
honest:
it
ties
directly
to
the
plight
of
Neptune,
whom
we
almost
feel
sorry
for
as
he

97

rushes
off
to
find
gifts
out
of
a
desire
he
assumes
will
be
reciprocated,
and
it
expands

Neptune’s
experience
into
a
larger
lesson
that
speaks
to
“us.”
Love
is
a
heightened
state

that
lends
itself
to
misreading,
unfounded
hope,
and
foolishness:
this
life
lesson
does
not

appear
to
be
anything
other
than
straightforward,
substantiated
by
the
narrative
it

modifies.
Yet
strangely,
this
passage
is
immediately
followed
by
yet
another
sententia,

which
again
seems
to
make
a
joke
of
its
form:
“’Tis
wisedome
to
give
much,
a
gift
prevailes,

/When
deepe
perswading
Oratorie
failes”
(709-‐10).
It
might
be
sometimes
true
that
gifts

prevail
where
oratory
fails,
but
this
lesson
has
little
to
do
with
the
context
of
this
story.

Since
Leander
is
in
love
with
Hero
and
not
Neptune,
Neptune’s
gifts
will
likely
not
secure

Leander’s
affections.
And
when
have
we
witnessed
Neptune’s
persuasive
oratory?
Neptune

“persuades”
Leander
with
physical
affection
bordering
on
violence,
and
when
he
speaks,
it

is
not
for
purposes
of
persuasion.
Seen
as
such,
this
final
maxim
seems
oddly,
even

comically,
out
of
touch
with
the
passage
it
modifies.

How
then
are
we
to
understand
Marlowe’s
varying
use
of
sententiae?
He
subverts

many,
but
not
all,
his
uses
of
the
form.
Georgia
E.
Brown
reads
what
some
might
deem
an

inconsistency
as
a
reinforcement
of
coincidence:

In
a
poetic
world
ruled
by
fickle
fate
it
is
hard
to
see
how
anything
of

universal
value
can
be
derived
from
such
flux.
While
the
epic
appeals
to
the

shared
values
of
a
community
it
both
reflects
and
creates,
Marlowe’s
poem

expresses
a
process
of
subjectification
in
its
philosophical
perspective

and…in
its
aesthetic
perspective.
In
Marlowe’s
poetic
world
there
can
only
be

coincidences,
not
commonplaces,
and
Hero
and
Leander’s
inconclusive
and

contradictory
sententiae
undermine
the
existence
of
a
shared
perspective.

98

Moreover,
as
our
choices
are
not
determined
by
the
exercise
of
morality
or

reason,
we
may
legitimately
wonder
whether
there
is
any
point
to

didacticism.
144

Brown
suggests
what
Claude
J.
Summers
has
also
convincingly
argued,
which
is
that
the

world
of
Hero
and
Leander
is
one
where
arbitrariness
dominates.
145

The
question
then
remains:
what
is
a
poet
to
do
with
a
subservient
form,
a
poetic

ornament
that
tends
to
reinforce
the
establishments
of
church
and
state?
After
all,
the

sententia
is
vital
to
copia,
the
rhetorical
“plentye”
that
the
poet
both
flaunts
and
scorns.

Within
the
poem,
Marlowe
does
not
outright
reject
the
use
of
moral
maxims.
He
simply

severs
them
from
the
instructive
qualities
that
would
debase
or
shackle
them.
For
instance,

there
is
the
line
that
Shakespeare’s
shepherdess
Phoebe
in
As
You
Like
It
famously
recalls

as
Marlowe’s
“saw
of
might,”
i.e.,

“Who
ever
loved
that
loved
not
at
first
sight?”
146

This

does
not
teach
anything
in
particular,
but
rather
conjures
the
ravishment
of
the
entirety
of

the
poem,
a
mode
somewhat
distinct
from
the
more
conventional
use
of
sententiae.

Meanwhile,
Leander
subverts
maxims
in
two
senses.
His
moral
lessons
stray
outside
the

bounds
of
propriety
in
Elizabethan
England,
and
when
Leander
uses
his
rhetorical
skill
to

woo
Hero,
he
overdoes
it
with
maxims,
unconsciously
depriving
them
of
their
conventional

decorous
function
by
piling
them
on.
Marlowe
likely
culled
this
technique
from
his

144
Georgia
E.
Brown,
"Gender
and
Voice
in
Hero
and
Leander,"
in
Constructing
Christopher
Marlowe,

ed.
J.
A.
Downie
and
J.
T.
Parnell
(Cambridge:
Cambridge
University
Press,
2000),
153.

145
Claude
J.
Summers,
"Hero
and
Leander:
the
Arbitrariness
of
Desire,"
in
Constructing
Christopher

Marlowe,
ed.
J.
A.
Downie
and
J.
T.
Parness
(Cambridge:
Cambridge
University
Press,
2000),
133-‐147.

146
William
Shakespeare,
As
You
Like
It,
3.5.82-‐3,
in
The
Norton
Shakespeare,
Based
on
the
Oxford

Edition:
Comedies,
2
nd

Edition,
ed.

Stephen
Greenblatt,
Walter
Cohen,
Jean
E.
Howard,
and
Katherine
Eisaman

Maus
(New
York:
W.
W.
Norton,
2008),
668.

99

translation
of
the
Amores,
All
Ovids
Elegies.
In
one
instance,
the
old
woman,
Dipsas,
uses
a

series
of
playful
apothegms
about
female
promiscuity:

Brasse
shines
with
use;
good
garments
would
be
worne,

Houses
not
dwelt
in,
are
with
filth
forlorne.

Beauty
not
exercisde
with
age
is
spent,

Nor
one
or
two
men
are
sufficient.
(1.8.51-‐54)
147

Issued
in
the
form
of
the
commonplace,
these
statements
imitate
and
subvert
the
maxim
as

a
cultural
unit
of
moral
knowledge.
Likewise,
in
Marlowe’s
epyllion,
Leander
uses
a
similar

rhetorical
strategy
to
seduce
Hero:

Like
untun’d
golden
strings
all
women
are,

Which
long
time
lie
untoucht,
will
harshly
jarre.

Vessels
of
Brasse
oft
handled,
brightly
shine,
.
.
.

Rich
robes
themselves
and
others
do
adorne;

Neither
themselves
nor
others,
if
not
worne.
(229-‐31,
237-‐38)

In
both
examples,
the
joke
is
the
same.
These
lists
seem
to
function
as
collections
of
time-‐
honored
proverbs,
yet
their
moral
program
is
deliberately
scandalous.
Yet
Marlowe
does

not
entirely
dismiss
the
maxim
as
a
form.

Every
so
often,
a
sententia
quietly
“happens”
to

align
with
the
text
it
modifies,
for
instance,
at
the
end
of
the
scene
between
Neptune
and

Leander:
“(Love
is
too
full
of
faith,
too
credulous,
/With
follie
and
false
hope
deluding
us)”

(706-‐07).
As
mentioned
before,
this
is
a
sincere
maxim
that,
located
in
parentheses,
treads

lightly
with
its
instructive
message.
And
as
a
caution
about
being
“credulous,”
it
sincerely

undercuts
its
own
sincerity.

147
Gill,
ed.,
Works,
1:24.

100

If
moral
lessons
invite
misuse,
then
so
does
beauty,
as
seen
in
Marlowe’s
play
on
the

trope
of
the
bee,
which
long
served
as
a
symbol
for
the
scholar
who
accrues
knowledge
and

rhetorical
skill
by
collecting
quotations,
flores
poetarum,
from
a
variety
of
classical
sources.

In
his
poem,
the
old
favorite
appears
early
on
in
the
description
of
Hero’s
elegant
clothes:

Her
vaile
was
artificiall
flowers
and
leaves,

Whose
workmanship
both
man
and
beast
deceaves.

Many
would
praise
the
sweet
smell
as
she
past,

When
t’was
the
odour
which
her
breath
foorth
cast.

And
there
for
honie,
bees
have
sought
in
vaine,

And
beat
from
thence,
have
lighted
there
againe.
(19-‐24)

The
craftsmanship
of
Hero’s
veil
is
so
well
executed,
the
flowers
and
leaves
so
realistic,
and

her
breath
so
sweet
that
bees
buzz
over
to
partake
of
honey.
But
why
does
the
gentle
Hero

repeatedly
swat
these
honeybees
away?
We
might
initially
read
this
as
a
joke
about

Marlowe
the
poet
as
bee
who
cozies
up
to
richly
dressed
luminaries
and
is
promptly

dismissed.
However,
it
is
more
likely
that
he
alludes
to
the
schoolroom
custom
of
collecting

commonplaces
as
part
of
the
rhetorical
exercise
of
copia.
As
she
beats
away
the
honeybees,

so
Marlowe
mocks
the
lesser
minds
who
hover
around
his
flowered
verse,
looking
for

something
beautiful
to
collect.
148

And
he
does
so
with
humor,
with
the
comic
image
of
an

iconic
Hero
flailing
about
to
swat
away
a
swarm
of
winged
pests.

148
On
the
more
established
uses
of
commonplaces
and
their
vital
role
in
Elizabethan
culture,
see

Mary
Thomas
Crane,
Framing
Authority:
Sayings
Self,
and
Society
in
Sixteenth-‐Century
England
(Princeton:

Princeton
University
Press,
1993),
39-‐52.

101

Poverty
and
Poetic
Stockpiling

In
order
to
investigate
Marlowe’s
motivation
for
amplifying
the
rudiments
of

eloquence
to
the
point
of
the
absurd,
we
must
shift
into
the
realm
of
biography.
Yet
because

of
the
scarcity
of
biographical
data
available,
Marlowe
scholars
have
shown
increasing

skepticism
about
their
ability
to
conceive
of
Marlowe
as
a
person
outside
of
his
work.

Steven
Orgel
reminds
us
that
“the
trangressive
Marlowe
is
largely
a
posthumous

phenomenon,”
while
Lukas
Erne
criticizes
the
“vicious
hermeneutic
circle”
in
which
“the

play’s
protagonists
are
read
into
Marlowe’s
biography
and
the
mythographic
creature
thus

constructed
informs
the
criticism
of
his
plays.”
149

What
we
do
know
is
that
Christopher

Marlowe
was
the
son
of
a
shoemaker
who
immigrated
to
Canterbury
in
the
1550’s.
Born
to

a
family
of
nine
children,
and
as
the
oldest
surviving
child,
Marlowe
attended
the
King’s

School
in
Canterbury
before
earning
a
Parker
Scholarship,
a
stipend
that
allowed
poor
yet

gifted
students
to
attend
Cambridge
in
preparation
for
the
clergy.
In
his
biography
of

Marlowe,
David
Riggs
portrays
a
man
whose
young
life
was
full
of
long
hours
and
sacrifice,

and
whose
demanding
schedule
stood
in
stark
contrast
with
the
richer
students
who

attended
Cambridge
“not
with
the
intention
to
make
Scholarship
their
profession,
but
only

to
get
such
learning
as
may
serve
for
delight
and
ornament.”
150

Riggs
notes,
“The
poor

scholar
could
not
wear
gorgeous
apparel,
nor
frequent
riotous
company,
nor
make
the

excuse
that
he
was
a
gentleman.
Marlowe's
ilk
was
still
required
to
wear
the
Scholar's
plain

149
Stephen Orgel, "Tobacco and Boys: How Queer Was Marlowe?" GLQ: A Journal Of Lesbian and Gay
Studies 6.4 (2000): 555, and Lukas Erne, "Biography, Mythography, and Criticism: The Life and Works of
Christopher Marlowe," Modern Philology, Vol. 103, No. 1 (August 2005): 28. For a helpful summary of the general
trends in Marlowe studies over the last ten years, see Bruce E. Brandt, "Christopher Marlowe Studies: Bibliography,
2000-2009," Marlowe Studies: An Annual 1 (2011): 193-202.

150
Holdsworth,
"Directions
for
a
Student
in
the
University,"
cited
in
David
Riggs,
The
World
of

Christopher
Marlowe
(New
York:
Henry
Holt
and
Company,
2004),
67.

102

black
gown
and
put
in
eighteen-‐hour
days,
from
four
o'clock
in
the
morning
until
ten
at

night.”
151

So,
while
the
sons
of
rich
and
high-‐ranking
men
spent
their
time
at
university

dabbling
in
the
classics,
Marlowe
was
required
to
clock
long,
grueling
days
of
study
and

menial
labor,
wearing
his
drab
gown,
and
possibly,
like
an
early
modern
Mark
Zuckerberg,

plotting
intellectual
revenge
on
the
gentlemen
who
had
better
lives
than
his.
152

With
this

conception
of
Marlowe,
it
is
easy
to
imagine
a
man
who
took
solace
in
mocking
the

privileged
yet
inferior
minds—the
“lofty
servile
clowne[s]”—who
prospered
while
he

suffered.

But
biographer
Constance
Brown
Kuriyama
has
a
different
conception
of

Christopher
Marlowe.
She
shies
away
from
conjecture
about
“the
transgressive
Marlowe”

and
instead
suggests
that
he
was
not
a
suffering,
impoverished
student
so
much
as
an

industrious
youth
whose
immense
talent
was
recognized
early
on,
leading
him
to
indulge

narcissistic
tendencies.
153

Kuriyama
agrees
with
the
consensus
that
Marlowe
considered

himself
as
a
scholar
throughout
his
(brief)
adult
life,
but
that
his
perceived
lack
of

recognition
arose
from
“his
humanist
education,
privileged
status,
and
competitive
spirit,”

all
of
which
“made
him
too
proud
to
suffer
frustration
and
adversity
patiently.”
154

For

Kuriyama,
Marlowe’s
self-‐recognition
as
a
beleaguered
scholar
was
more
of
an
internal

reality
than
the
external
one
that
Riggs
posits.
Yet
whether
Marlowe
suffered
from
genuine

151
David
Riggs,
The
World
of
Christopher
Marlowe,
69.

152
That
is,
Jesse
Eisenberg's
portrayal
of
Mark
Zuckerberg
in
The
Social
Network.
Directed
by
David

Fincher,
2010.

153
Constance
Brown
Kuriyama,
Christopher
Marlowe:
A
Renaissance
Life
(Ithaca:
Cornell
University

Press,
2002),
31.

154
Kuriyama,
Christopher
Marlowe,
118.

103

or
perceived
lack,
the
result
would
have
been
the
same
within
the
mind
of
the
poet.
In
any

case,
Marlowe’s
plain
black
scholar’s
gown
did
set
him
and
other
fellowship
students
apart

visually
as
especially
capable
students
at
the
same
that
it
also
marked
them
as
distinctly

poorer
than
their
aristocratic
counterparts.
It
was
precisely
this
tension,
this
discontinuity

between
a
profusion
of
scholarly,
literary
skills
and
a
lack
of
recognition,
honor,
and
wealth

that
followed
Marlowe
throughout
his
life.
He
recognized
that
he
was
rich
in
talent,
gifted

with
what
many
call
genius,
and
yet
he
felt,
with
some
bitterness,
that
he
lived
in
a
world

that
did
not
adequately
reward
such
things.
He
had
plentye,
yet
he
was
inexplicably
poore.

Marlowe
makes
this
explicit
in
his
narrator's
digression
about
Mercury
at
the
heart

of
Hero
and
Leander,
a
strange
passage
that
reads
like
an
aside
but
which,
when
taken
with

Georgia
Brown’s
suggestion
that
Marlowe
is
at
his
most
serious
when
he
is
at
his
most

digressive,
offers
a
clue
to
Marlowe's
intentions.
155

As
mentioned
before,
the
myth
tells
the

story
of
how
Mercury
uses
rhetoric
to
seduce
a
maid,
and
how
this
creates
a
domino
effect

by
which
Mercury
accidentally
overthrows
the
rule
of
Jove,
ushering
in
a
short-‐lived
golden

reign
of
Saturn
and
Ops.
This
“blessed
time”
is
abruptly
cut
short
when
the
Destinies,

feeling
manipulated
by
Mercury,
restore
Jove
to
the
throne
and
curse
Learning
with
a
life
of

misery:

…they
added
this,

That
he
and
Povertie
should
alwaies
kis.

And
to
this
day
is
everie
scholler
poore,

Grosse
gold,
from
them
runs
headlong
to
the
boore.

155
"It
is
striking
that
when
Marlowe
undertakes
a
defence
of
the
literary
community
in
the
attack
on

the
perversion
of
reward
that
favours
sycophantic
and
greedy
people
over
the
Muses'
sons
who
should
really

be
the
recipients
of
honour
(469-‐82),
he
does
so
in
a
digression
within
a
digression
within
a
digression."

Brown,
"Gender
and
voice
in
Hero
and
Leander,"
156.

104

Likewise
the
angrie
sisters
thus
deluded,

To
venge
themselves
on
Hermes,
have
concluded

That
Midas
brood
shall
sit
in
Honors
chaire,

To
which
the
Muses
sonnes
are
only
heire:

And
fruitfull
wits
that
in
aspiring
are,

Shall
discontent,
run
into
regions
farre;

And
few
great
lords
in
vertuous
deeds
shall
joy,

But
be
surpris'd
with
every
garish
toy.

And
still
inrich
the
loftie
servile
clowne,

Who
with
incroching
guile,
keepes
learning
downe.
(469-‐482)

According
to
the
myth,
scholars
are
fated
to
live
itinerant,
impoverished
lives;
this
inequity

is
built
into
the
fabric
of
society.
An
obsolete
definition
of
“scholar”
in
the
OED
tells
a
story

similar
to
Marlowe's
myth:
“In
the
Elizabethan
period,
often
applied
to
one
who
had

studied
at
the
university,
and
who,
not
having
entered
any
of
the
learned
professions
or

obtained
any
fixed
employment,
sought
to
gain
a
living
by
literary
work.”
156

What
was
a

scholar
in
a
plain
black
robe
supposed
to
do?
To
start,
he
could
verbally
invent
some
of
the

most
lavish
descriptions
of
beautiful
clothing
in
all
of
English
literature.

Considering
Marlowe's
self-‐identification
as
a
poor
scholar,
the
heaping
up
of
copia

in
his
poetry
reads
as
a
kind
of
poetic
stockpiling,
a
mode
of
complaint
about
the
abundance

of
resources
or
recognition
withheld
from
the
poet-‐scholar,
a
way
of
addressing
a

perceived
lack,
and
a
form
of
artistic
resistance
to
the
practical
and
moral
ends
that
poetry

was
supposed
to
serve.
That
is,
if
Marlowe
thought
of
himself
as
“poore,”
he
could
still

156
See
Oxford
English
Dictionary
(scholar,
n.2.b).

105

amass
“plenty”—copia
—even
though
this
wealth
existed
in
language
and
could
only
be

enjoyed
there.
Marlowe
does
this
to
an
extreme:
his
entire
poem
is
beautifully
useless—
that
is
to
say,
it
categorically
sets
itself
against
the
enrichment
of
the
“loftie
servile
clowne”

whom
it
seeks
to
mock.
But
this
is
not
to
say
that
Marlowe
is
creating
art
for
art’s
sake
as
a

sort
of
elitism
distanced
from
political
and
economic
awareness.
Instead,
I
am
arguing
that

Marlowe's
poem—as
removed
as
it
might
seem
from
practical
concerns—is
in
part
a

commentary
on
class
and
a
complaint
about
his
perceived
lack
of
compensation.
157

In
light
of
the
drab
scholar’s
robe,
the
lavish
clothing
in
Marlowe's
poetry—the

“Corral
clasps,”
“Fayre
lined
slippers
for
the
cold”
and
“buckles
of
the
purest
gold”—might

take
on
new
meaning.
158

So
might
the
puzzling
scenes
of
abundance
and
opulence
within

Hero
and
Leander.
Marlowe
was
not
necessarily
thinking
of
his
drab
scholar’s
gown
when

he
wrote
the
poem,
but
the
robe’s
visual
disjunction
between
plenty
and
poverty
works
as

a
visual
representation
of
the
paradox
of
opulence
within
Marlowe’s
verse.
Throughout
the

poem,
the
poet
depicts
wealth
as
problematic.
As
already
suggested,
the
lavishness
of

Hero’s
dress
depletes
the
environment
around
it,
while
Leander's
extravagantly
long

seduction
argument
warns
against
the
dangers
of
hoarding
wealth:
“Then
treasure
is

abus’de,
/
When
misers
keepe
it;
being
put
to
lone,
/
In
time
it
will
returne
us
two
for
one”

(234-‐236).
If
the
poem
issues
any
sort
of
moral,
it
seems
to
relate
to
the
dangers
of
heaping

157
My
work
on
this
idea
of
lyric
reciprocity
began
with
a
paper
by
Heather
James,
in
which
she

demonstrated
how
the
lists
of
flowers
with
which
Spenser
strews
his
poetry
seem
to
serve
an
encomiastic

purpose
but
actually
function
as
"beautifully
useless"
exercises
of
lyric
virtuosity.
“Aromatherapy:
Political

Discontent
in
Spenser’s
Flowerbeds.”

RSA.

Getty
Center,
March
20,
2009.
This
work
is
part
of
a
chapter
on

Spenser
in
a
forthcoming
book
with
the
working
title,
Taking
Liberties:
Ovid
in
Renaissance
Poetry
and

Political
Thought.

158

“The
passionate
Sheepheard
to
his
love,”
in
Gill,
Collected
Works,
215.

106

up
riches—and
Marlowe
even
obliquely
alludes
to
the
biblical
parables
of
the
talents
and

the
rich
fool
to
reiterate
Leander's
message
of
carpe
diem.
159

Yet
if
the
poem
is
speaking
against
the
rich
and
their
hoarding
of
wealth,
how
are
we

to
explain
the
allure
of
Neptune's
palace?
Upon
mistaking
Leander
for
Ganymede,
Neptune

pulls
him
to
the
bottom
of
the
ocean,
a
hidden
yet
thoroughly
opulent
place:

[Neptune]
puld
him
to
the
bottome,
where
the
ground

Was
strewd
with
pearle,
and
in
low
corrall
groves

Sweet
singing
Meremaids,
sported
with
their
loves

On
heapes
of
heavie
gold,
and
tooke
greate
pleasure,

To
spurne
in
carelesse
sort,
the
shipwracke
treasure.

For
here
the
stately
azure
pallace
stood,

Where
kingly
Neptune
and
his
traine
abode.
(644-‐650)

Is
this
a
scene
of
hoarding,
or
of
use?
The
mermaids
indulge
in
sweet
and
reckless

lovemaking,
the
sort
for
which
Leander
argues
when
he
tells
Hero
that
“vessels
of
brass
oft

handled
brightly
shine”
(231).
Interestingly,
this
love
sport
takes
place
on
“heaps
of
heavy

gold”
which
the
mythical
women
spurn.
And
the
carelessness
with
which
they
are

described
matches
the
“careless”
hair
of
the
country
maid
who
inadvertently
sets
off
the

episode
that
results
in
the
curse
of
Mercury.
What
I
would
suggest
is
that
this
scene
of

shipwrecked
treasure
is
a
picture
of
Marlowe’s
life
as
a
scholar.
We
know
that
he,
along

with
Mercury,
locates
himself
in
“hell,”
“sleeping
with
ignorance”—that
is,
because
of
his

fate
as
a
scholar,
he
must
endure
life
at
the
bottom
of
society,
denied
the
wealth,

recognition,
and
honor
that
his
gifting
merits.
Yet
paradoxically,
the
life
of
the
scholar

159
Matthew
25:14-‐30;
Luke
12:16-‐21.

107

affords
him
all
sorts
of
riches
that
the
“lofty
servile
fool”
can
never
access—the
true

eloquence
acquired
through
long
hours
of
serious
classical
education.
Hence
Marlowe’s

revenge,
his
retribution,
is
to
glory
in
the
wealth
of
his
own
learning,
the
heaping
up
of
his

opulent
verse,
and
then
to
scorn
it.
In
this
way,
Marlowe
creates
a
sort
of
lyric
economy

within
the
bounds
of
his
own
poem
but
seals
it
off
from
anyone
who
might
want
to
“use”

the
riches
of
his
verses
for
any
end
other
than
the
pleasure
of
simply
reading
them.

The
Ultimate
Suspension
of
Consequences

If
Marlowe
perpetually
resists
the
funneling
of
his
lyric
line
toward
the
portable

truths
of
sententiae,
then
he
also
mocks
the
sentence
as
judgment
or
verdict,
as
seen
in
the

description
of
Hero’s
outlandish
power:

Poore
soldiers
stand
with
fear
of
death
dead
strooken,

So
at
her
presence
all
surpris’d
and
token,

Await
the
sentence
of
her
scornefull
eies
(121-‐23)

Though
half-‐oblivious
to
her
power,
the
outrageously
overdressed
Hero
functions
as
a

despot,
determining
the
fortunes
of
her
admirers
on
the
whims
of
her
“favor.”
It
is
Hero’s

eyes
that
dole
out
sentences
of
life
or
death,
and
in
response
to
the
arbitrary
nature
of
her

tyranny,
some
are
even
inspired
to
compose
“sharpe
satyrs.”
In
this
context,
the
“sentence”

of
Hero’s
eyes
is
both
comical
and
absurd,
her
authority
verging
on
the
ridiculous;
this
is

echoed
in
the
seemingly
authoritative
yet
ultimately
meaningless
adage
that
Marlowe

parrots:
“Faithful
love
will
never
turn
to
hate”
(128).
Hero’s
ironic
“sentencing
power”
and

the
meaningless
proverbs
she
leaves
in
her
wake,
then,
make
fun
of
the
sentence
as

108

sentence,
thus
hinting
at
the
poem’s
categorical
resistance
to
judgments,
verdicts,
and

warnings
about
catastrophic
consequences
for
violating
sexual
mores.

Marlowe’s
suspension
of
such
conventional
moralistic
entities
is
also
observable

within
the
details
of
the
plot.
After
Leander
rejects
the
advances
of
an
amorous
Neptune,

the
god
unexpectedly
dismisses
his
violent
rage:

Neptune
was
angrie
that
he
gave
no
eare,

And
in
his
heart
revenging
malice
bare:

He
flung
at
him
his
mace,
but
as
it
went,

He
cald
it
in,
for
love
made
him
repent.
(691-‐94)

Previous
to
these
lines,
the
sea
god
had
just
begun
a
long-‐winded
and
pederastic
tale
of
a

shepherd
and
a
boy
when
Leander,
eager
to
see
Hero,
infuriates
him
by
comically

interrupting
the
story.
Neptune
flings
his
mace
at
the
youth
but
then,
feeling
remorse,

retracts
it
in
repentance.
Such
a
withholding
of
the
expected
divine
punishment
suggests

that
the
animating
force
in
the
world
of
Hero
and
Leander
subverts
the
concept
of

repercussions
for
spurning
the
gods.

It
seems
to
follow,
then,
that
Marlowe
purposely

upended
the
ultimate
mythic
consequence,
the
gods’
revenge
on
the
young
lovers,
as

recorded
in
Musaeus’s
version
of
the
story.
Without
engaging
too
seriously
in
the
ongoing

debate
over
the
intentionality
of
the
poem’s
ending,
I
simply
want
to
set
forth
that

considering
Marlowe’s
continual
avoidance
of
consequences
and
repercussions
within
the

poem,
the
story
may
end
just
as
he
wants
it
to.
The
two
lovers
indulge
their
sensual

passions,
but
no
harm
befalls
them
in
the
end,
which
is,
really,
no
end
at
all.
160

160

“The
poem
ends
in
glorious
and
harmonious
fulfillment—the
apotheosis
of
comedy,”
since
the

couple
ends
up
“on
the
floor
of
Hero’s
bedroom
in
a
triumphant,
happy,
consummated
tangle.”
See
Gill,

“Marlowe
and
the
Art
of
Translation,”
in

“A
Poet
and
a
Filthy
Play-‐maker”:
New
Essays
on
Christopher

109

This
tendency
to
suspend
ends
and
endings
as
well
as
the
consequences
for
his

characters’
actions
is
part
of
the
poet’s
broader
resistance
to
the
didactic
aims
of

literature.
161

It
also
ties
to
the
poet’s
turn
to
the
conditional
mode
as
a
way
of
scandalously

taking
time
as
well
as
simply
being
scandalous.
According
to
Marlowe’s
narrator,
the
short-‐
lived
golden
age
of
Saturn
and
Ops
occurs
because
Mercury
unintentionally
overthrows
the

rule
of
Jove
when
he
seduces
the
careless
country
maid.
Yet
the
poem
subtly
doubles
this

act
when
the
narrator
describes
Leander's
allure:
“His
bodie
was
as
straight
as
Circes

wand;/
Jove
might
have
sipt
out
nectar
from
his
hand”
(61-‐62,
emphasis
mine).
That
is,

Marlowe
makes
the
king
of
the
gods
stoop
to
sip
nectar
from
his
protagonist’s
hand,
which

is
a
transgression
both
mollified
and
enabled
by
the
conditional
mode.
Within
the

suspended
literary
world
of
Hero
and
Leander,
Marlowe
can
overthrow
Jove
and
create
a

short-‐lived
golden
world
that
exists
only
in
verse.
And
this
conditional
space
ties
to

Marlowe’s
use
of
delay
and
literary
dilation.
Since
the
poem
ends
just
as
the
lovers
greet

the
dawn,
they
remain,
in
a
sense,
forever
suspended
in
time,
forever
enjoying
the

afterglow
of
consummated
passion.
Judith
Haber
posits
that
the
pleasurable
delay
of
the

poem
resists
patriarchal
and
teleological
ideologies:
“The
disruption
of
end-‐directed

narrative
is
paralleled
by,
and
indeed
equivalent
to,
the
disruption
of
end-‐directed

sexuality.
Throughout
the
poem
Marlowe
repeatedly
teases
us,
not
only
with
death,
but

also
that
other
foregone
conclusion,
heterosexual
consummation.”
162

Haber’s
reading

Marlowe,
ed.
Kenneth
Friedenreich,
Roma
Gill,
and
Constance
Kuriyama
(New
York:
AMS
Press,
1988),
340;

327-‐42.

161
Brown
suggests
that
the
poem
“is
far
more
interested
in
processes
and
beginnings
than
in

endings.”
See
“Gender
and
Voice
in
Hero
and
Leander,”
153.

162
Haber,
Desire
and
Dramatic
Form,
43.

110

focuses
on
sexuality
as
it
relates
to
form,
but
her
observations
ring
true
in
the
context
of

Marlowe
as
a
subversive
thinker
who
conceived
of
Hero
and
Leander
as
a
literary

suspension,
a
dilation
of
poetic
space
that
encourages
reading
for
pleasure
as
opposed
to

reading
for
use.
163

The
Goddess
Ceremony
and
Her
Corrections

One
question
that
arises
from
this
discussion
of
Marlowe’s
subversive
poetics
is
the

extent
to
which
his
work
is
politically
minded.
Does
his
playful
flouting
of
convention

happen
within
a
stubbornly
private
sphere,
or
does
it
occur
in
direct
response
to
political

concerns?
Georgia
Brown
suggests
that
“Hero
and
Leander
does
do
political
work…Even
if

one
takes
the
narrowest
definition
of
political,
it
resists
the
legitimizing
myth
of
virginity

surrounding
Elizabeth
I
and
the
sublimated
eroticism
that
fashioned
political
transactions

in
her
court.”
164

We
can
see
Marlowe’s
undermining
of
Elizabeth’s
virginity
in
Leander's

many
arguments
about
the
absurdity
of
Hero’s
virginity.
Also,
as
discussed
previously,

Hero’s
outlandish
power
inspires
her
admirers
to
write
“satyres”
in
response
to
her
cruelty,

yet
another
hint
that
Marlowe
is
toying
with
the
image
of
Elizabeth.
For
another

perspective,
we
might
turn
to
Chapman’s
continuation
to
get
a
sense
of
how
Marlowe’s

contemporaries
would
have
understood
the
political
nature
of
his
work.

As
discussed
before,
Chapman’s
continuation
differs
vastly
in
tone
and
message,
but

when
searching
for
the
political
ramifications
of
Marlowe’s
verse,
it
proves
to
be

163
“Espace
dilatoire”
is
a
term
used
by
Roland
Barthes,
S/Z,
trans.
Richard
Miller
(New
York:
Hill
and

Wang,
1974)
and
discussed
by
Patricia
Parker
in
Inescapable
Romance:
Studies
in
the
Poetics
of
a
Mode

(Princeton:
Princeton
University
Press,
1979),
220.

164
Brown,
“Gender
and
Voice
in
Hero
and
Leander,”
150.

111

surprisingly
helpful.
Intent
on
amending
the
moral
failings
of
Marlowe’s
myth,
Chapman

begins
his
third
sestiad
by
invoking
a
“stern
muse”
(III.4)
who
will
help
to
“censure
the

delights,/
That
being
enjoyed
ask
judgment”
(III.8-‐9)
Clearly
Marlowe’s
pagan
classicism

requires
Christian
correction.
But
what
is
exactly
the
problem
with
Marlowe’s
love
story?
Is

it
simply
amoral,
or
did
Chapman
(and
others)
read
it
as
threatening
to
the
state?
I
believe

the
answer
rests
in
Chapman’s
invention,
the
goddess
Ceremony,
whose
presence
stands
a

direct
response
to
the
consequence-‐free
dalliance
of
Marlowe’s
lovers.

Early
in
Chapman’s
story,
Ceremony
appears
to
Leander,
and
what
ensues
is
a

conversion
experience
similar
to
the
conversion
of
Saul
of
Tarsus.
165

Ceremony
is

magnificent,
and
the
divine
and
beautiful
music
that
precedes
her
pierces
Leander’s
ear
“as

never
yet
his
ravished
sense
did
hear”
(III.108).
Even
before
appearing
to
Leander,
then,

Ceremony
threatens
to
outmatch
the
sensual
delights
enjoyed
between
Leander
and
Hero

in
their
unceremonious
(and
hence
fleeting)
encounter.
Chapman
envisions
Ceremony
as

the
leader
of
“Religion”
(III.117),
serving
a
variety
of
moral
and
social
purposes:

Devotion,
Order,
State,
and
Reverence

Her
shadows
were;
Society,
Memory;

All
which
her
sight
made
live,
her
absence
die
(III.120-‐122,
emphasis
mine).

We
see
then
that
Ceremony,
whom
Marlowe’s
characters
have
inadvertently
offended,

serves
not
simply
a
moral
purpose
but
a
political
one.
Chapman
continues
by
explaining

that
Ceremony
orders
“Policy”
(III.130)
and
keeps
“Confusion”
at
bay
(III.133),
which

further
proves
the
political
implications
of
Marlowe’s
love
story.
The
reason
that
Ceremony

appears
to
Leander
is
to
“reprove”
the
“bluntness”
of
his
“violent
love”
for
Hero,
and
tell

165
Acts
9:1ff.

112

him
“how
poor
was
substance
without
rites”
(146-‐147).
As
a
result
of
this
encounter,

Leander
sees
the
folly
of
his
ways
and
decides
to
marry
Hero
at
once.

Chapman’s
strong
correctives
to
Marlowe’s
plot
through
the
goddess
Ceremony
are

invaluable
to
proving
the
politically
threatening
aspects
of
Marlowe’s
poem.
Ceremony
is

the
keeper
of
religious
order
but
also
political
order,
and
the
fact
that
she
holds
a
laurel
rod

in
her
hand
means
that,
according
to
Chapman,
the
poet
should
be
in
her
service.
Chapman

believes
that
one
of
the
poet’s
tasks
is
to
uphold
order
in
service
of
the
state,
and
his

opinion
resounds
with
the
Caesar
of
Ben
Jonson’s
Poetaster,
who
praises
ceremony-‐
enforcing
poetry:

Sweet
poesy…can
so
mould
Rome
and
her
monuments

Within
the
liquid
marble
of
her
lines,

That
they
shall
stand
fresh
and
miraculous,

Even
when
they
mix
with
innovating
dust.
(V.I.
17-‐24)
166

Caesar
likens
the
fluid
beauty
of
poetry
to
“liquid
marble”
which
can
renew
appreciation

for
the
heroes
and
institutions
of
the
Roman
state.
Yet
there
is
a
poet
in
Caesar’s
court

whose
endless
plasticity
of
forms
runs
counter
(or
at
the
very
least,
not
parallel)
to
the

political
purposes
that
Caesar
wishes
to
be
served.
The
liquidity
of
Ovid’s
verse
does
not

spruce
up
the
monuments
of
the
state,
but
threatens
instead
to
melt
them,
as
his

imagination
brings
the
scandalous
stories
of
the
gods
back
to
life.
Marlowe,
like
Ovid,
was

taken
with
the
idea
of
"gods
in
sundrie
shapes,/
Committing
headdie
ryots,
incest,
rapes"

(143-‐144).
And
it
is
Ovid
who
provides
for
Marlowe
the
model
of
what
I
call
"formal

resistance":
the
withholding
of
the
one
poetic
element
that
would
allow
his
poetry
to
serve

166
Taken
from
Michael
Cordner's
edition
of
Ben
Jonson,
The
Devil
is
an
Ass
and
Other
Plays
(Oxford:

Oxford
University
Press,
2000),
66.

113

the
moral,
practical,
political
ends
that,
according
to
Caesar
and
Phillip
Sidney,
poetry
is

supposed
to
serve.
As
mentioned
in
my
previous
chapter,
Ovid
explains
at
the
beginning
of

his
elegies
that
he
was
intending
to
write
an
epic
poem
of
war
and
heroism—a
poem
that

served
the
state—until
something
unexpected
happened:

With
Muse
prepared
I
meant
to
sing
of
arms,

Choosing
a
subject
fit
for
fierce
alarms.

Both
verses
were
alike
till
Love
(men
say)

Began
to
smile
and
took
one
foot
away.
167

Ovid’s
explains
his
elegiac
meter,
what
he
later
terms
his
"limping
meter,"
which
is
an

intentional
withholding
of
a
poetic
foot
for
purposes
of
subversion.
As
Heather
James

explains,
"The
Amores
similarly
resists
the
great
genres
of
state,
such
as
epic
and
tragedy,

which
it
continually
and
irreverently
invokes.
At
the
opening
of
the
Amores,
Ovid
appears

to
depose
epic;
he
was
planning
to
write
one,
he
says,
when
Cupid
stole
a
foot
from
his
epic

hexameter,
leaving
him
with
an
elegiac
distich."
168

Likewise,
Marlowe
uses
Ovid’s
formal

resistance
as
a
model
for
his
own
verse,
in
which
he
withholds
the
sentences,
the

consequences,
and
the
morally
cooperative
commonplaces
that
would
allow
his
poem
to

serve
anything
other
than
his
own
imagination.
Marlowe
invokes
a
particular
Ovid,
the

“wanton”
and
“trifling”
Ovid
of
the
Amores,
and
James
demonstrates
why
and
how
the

seemingly
trivial
genre
of
the
erotic
elegy
occurs
in
direct
response
to
the
politics
of

Augustan
Rome.
Likewise,
I
would
suggest
that
Marlowe’s
invocation
of
this
particular

persona
of
Ovid
could
be
rooted
in
a
specific
political
frustration
or
a
broader
resistance
to

167
Gill,
ed.,
Works,
1.1.5-‐8.

168
James,
“The
Poet's
Toys,”
108-‐9.
See
also
the
introduction
and
essays
in
Paul
Allen
Miller,
ed.,

Latin
Erotic
Elegy:
An
Anthology
and
Reader.
London:
Routledge,
2002.

114

the
institutional
aspects
of
any
state.
So
while
the
extent
of
the
scholar’s
political

engagement
remains
indefinite,
Chapman's
“correction”
of
Hero
and
Leander
does
suggest

the
politically
disruptive
side
of
Marlowe’s
imagination.

Under
the
Ocean’s
Surface

To
say
that
this
poem
heaps
up
poetic
riches
and
resists
moral
consequence
in
order

to
create
a
world
of
dilated
literary
pleasure
is
not
to
ignore
the
distressing
undercurrents

present
throughout
the
work.
The
description
of
Hero
succumbing
to
passion
at
the
end
of

the
poem
troubles
the
reader
with
its
latent
violence:

Even
as
a
bird,
which
in
our
hands
we
wring,

Foorthe
plungeth,
and
oft
flutters
with
her
wing,

She
trembling
strove;
this
strife
of
hers
(like
that

Which
made
the
world)
another
world
begat

Of
unknowne
joy.
(773-‐77)

Is
Hero
birthing
a
new
world
order
free
of
tyranny
and
dogma,
or
falling
victim
to
banal
yet

life-‐ending
violence?
At
the
beginning
of
the
poem,
Hero's
beauty
is
inseparable
from
her

dazzling,
heavily
adorned
clothing,
in
direct
contrast
to
the
simple,
unembellished
beauty
of

the
country
maid
in
the
Myth
of
Mercury
“whose
carelesse
haire,
in
stead
of
pearle
t’adorne

it,/Glistered
with
deaw,
as
one
that
seem'd
to
skorne
it”
(389-‐90).
Hero
has
vowed
chastity

to
the
goddess
of
amorous
love,
an
absurdity
matched
in
her
heavy
clothing
that
featured
a

naked,
seductive
Venus
straining
to
please
the
gaze
of
her
lover
Adonis.
Leander,
falling
for

Hero
while
seeing
her
perform
her
rites
to
Venus,
immediately
understands
the

contradiction,
explaining
to
Hero
that
Venus
delights
not
in
chastity
but
music,
revelry,
and

115

general
sensual
pleasure
(299-‐302).
The
empowering
clothing
of
Hero,
then,
is
depicted
as

nothing
but
contradiction,
even
blasphemy,
and
Leander’s
seduction
of
Hero
is
the
story
of

her
being
stripped
of
her
clothing.
At
the
beginning
of
Marlowe’s
poem,
Hero’s
beauty
is

dependent
on
her
clothes;
by
the
end,
though,
she
is
completely
naked,
unadorned,
even

“Meremaid-‐like”
(799),
which
suggests
that
Leander
has
persuaded
her
into
shedding

artifice
and
embracing
pure
pagan
delight,
becoming
less
like
an
Elizabethan
and
more
like

one
of
the
“gods
in
sundrie
shapes”
(143)
that
decorate
Venus’s
temple.
Yet
if
the
seduction

of
Hero
is
tantamount
to
her
losing
her
beautiful
clothes,
then
this
also
results
in
the

stripping
of
her
power.
When
Marlowe
introduces
Hero
at
the
beginning
of
the
poem,
she
is

magnificent
and
commanding.
As
Leander
confronts
her
with
all
sorts
of
arguments
against

her
chastity,
she
retains
her
honor
while
crying
“a
streame
of
liquid
pearle”
(297).
But
as
he

wears
her
down,
she
reveals
childish
anger
(360),
then
transforms
into
a
“Harpey”
(754),

and
finally
a
“Poore
sillie
maiden”
(770)
who
uses
but
half
her
strength
to
resist
Leander’s

advances.
Underneath
her
sovereign
clothing,
suggests
Marlowe,
Hero
is
just
a
silly
girl.

In
this
context,
what
are
we
to
make
of
the
"bird,
which
in
our
hands
we
wring"?
Is

Hero
the
victim
of
violence
or
a
willing
participant
in
a
dangerous,
heady
sensuality
that

seeks
to
overthrow
an
established
moral
code?
Fred
B.
Tromly
reads
the
poem
as
a
story
of

tantalization,
with
the
potential
for
violence
growing
in
relation
to
the
sexual
and
narrative

frustration
that
builds
up
within
the
text:
“As
its
action
unfolds,
Hero
and
Leander

increasingly
stresses
the
violence
which
is
born
of
frustration…If
the
keynote
of
Leander’s

first
visit
to
Hero
was
his
willingness
to
be
tantalized,
that
of
his
second
is
his

116

aggressiveness,
his
willingness
to
be
violent.”
169

For
Tromly,
the
frequency
of
frustrated

desire
within
the
poem
leads
to
flashes
of
violence
that
erupt
unexpectedly
within
the

poem;
this
violence
often
occurs
to
Hero,
who
in
the
process
of
being
seduced
is
also

commoditized
and
humiliated.
It
would
be
easy
to
read
this
as
either
a
reinforcement
or
an

uncovering
of
misogyny,
except
that
Leander
himself
also
falls
victim
to
sexual
coercion

when
Neptune
"mistakes"
him
for
Ganymede.
What
complicates
this
further
is
the
fact
that

Mercury,
the
god
of
learning,
also
resorts
to
force
when
wooing
the
simple
country
maid

that
ignites
his
desire.
Is
it
possible
that
Marlowe's
subversive
tendencies
go
so
far
as

generally
to
revel
in
violence
and
sexual
brutality?

I
wish
to
return
for
a
moment
to
Sartre's
assertion
that
Husserl's
phenomenology

restored
“to
things
their
horror
and
their
charm,”
as
discussed
in
my
introduction.
170

At
the

risk
of
stating
the
obvious,
the
process
of
slowly
and
carefully
investigating
an
object
of

inquiry
means
that
we
open
ourselves
up
to
the
“horror”
that
that
object
might

demonstrate.
By
approaching
Marlowe’s
poem
without
presuppositions,
for
instance,
we

run
the
risk
of
finding
something
that
we
did
not
wish
to
find,
something
that
runs
counter

to
our
expectations,
something
threatening
and
even
dangerous.
Hence
we
must
allow
for

the
possibility
that
Marlowe's
wild
imagination
strays
into
arenas
that
are
transgressive,

even
morally
offensive
to
some
readers.
Douglas
Bruster’s
work
on
the
reception
of

Marlowe’s
“Passionate
Shepherd”
suggests
a
solution
not
readily
available
within
the
poem

itself:

169
Fred
B.
Tromly,
Playing
with
Desire:
Christopher
Marlowe
and
the
Art
of
Tantalization
(Toronto:

University
of
Toronto
Press,
1998),
158.

170
Sartre,
“Intentionality,”
383.

117

Playwrights
like
Shakespeare
frequently
incorporated
versions
of
Marlowe’s

invitation
in
their
works…[and]
one
can
see
that
playwrights
almost
invariably

connected
this
poem
with
sexual
aggression,
even
violence.
In
many
plays,

characters
attempt
to
seduce
others
with
the
Marlovian
lyric,
then
threaten—and

sometimes
perform—violence
if
the
listener
refuses
the
invitation…[this
suggests]

how
Marlowe’s
contemporaries
and
successors
saw
the
poem
positioned—what

they
felt
about
the
poem’s
orientations
toward
power,
gender,
and
authority.

171

Bruster
suggests
that
Marlowe
uses
the
trope
of
seduction
to
reveal
the
workings
of
power.

While
we
might
tend
to
read
the
invitation
of
“The
Passionate
Shepherd”
as
a
simple

invitation
to
pastoral
revelry,
Bruster’s
research
uncovers
a
truth
that
Elizabethan
readers

recognized,
which
is
that
the
poem’s
speaker
is
positioned
such
that
his
invitation
cannot

be
refused
without
an
aggressive
response.
This
insight
also
speaks
to
the
multiple
scenes

of
seduction
in
Hero
and
Leander
and
their
accompanying
violence.
Before
discussing
this

in
the
context
of
Marlowe’s
humanist
education,
however,
I
want
to
pause
quickly
to
reflect

on
Bruster’s
intertextual
method
of
studying
a
work’s
response
as
it
echoes
throughout

history
instead
of
limiting
a
study
to
the
work
itself.
As
Bruster
explains,
“Other
ways
of

reading
Marlowe
do
little
to
help
us
see
[the
violence
implicit
in
Marlowe’s
pastoral

invitation].
One
could
‘close
read’
this
twenty-‐four
line
poem
dozens
of
times,
for
instance,

and
never
guess
at
its
potential
for
such
a
meaning.”
Bruster
considers
close
reading
a

valuable
tool
in
literary
analysis,
but
points
out
that
in
this
case,
it
does
not
adequately

supply
access
to
the
deeper
truths
of
Marlowe’s
poem.
And
to
link
back
to
our
earlier

discussion
of
method
(as
discussed
in
my
introduction),
one
benefit
of
slow
reading
over

171
Douglas
Bruster,
Quoting
Shakespeare:
Form
and
Culture
in
Early
Modern
Drama
(Lincoln:

University
of
Nebraska
Press,
2000),
7.

118

close
reading
is
that
one
can
slowly
read
anything.
In
fact,
to
say
that
one
reads
the

reception
of
a
poem
throughout
the
ten
or
twenty
years
following
its
publication
might
hit

upon
another
aspect
of
slow
reading,
which
is
reading
over
time.

In
closing,
I
would
like
to
take
up
Bruster’s
method
of
investigating
a
text
by

assessing
a
modern
response
to
Marlowe’s
vision:
Cy
Twombly’s
abstract
painting,
“Hero

and
Leander:
to
Christopher
Marlowe.”
The
artist
completed
the
painting
in
Italy
in
1985,

during
a
period
when
he
was
spending
significant
amounts
of
time
in
the
seaside
town
of

Gaeta,
located
between
Rome
and
Naples
on
Italy's
western
coast.
The
paintings
of
this

period
reveal
an
increasing
fascination
with
water
as
well
as
with
the
myth
of
Hero
and

Leander,
and
Twombly
seems
to
have
immersed
himself
in
various
versions
of
the
story,

painting
several
versions
of
“Hero
and
Leandro”
before
completing
this
particular
painting

which
is
devoted
to
Marlowe.
The
canvas
is
mostly
devoted
to
a
swath
of
undulating

grayish
blue
and
white,
generally
interpreted
as
an
evocation
of
the
sea.
In
the
bottom
left

corner,
a
dramatic
jumble
of
reds,
pinks,
and
grays
interrupt
the
peaceful
scene,
suggesting

violence
and
death
under
the
sea.
Art
critics
are
quick
to
interpret
this
as
a
reflection
on
the

deaths
of
Hero
and
Leander,
failing
to
recognize
that
in
Marlowe's
version
of
the
myth,
the

lovers
do
not
drown.
Instead,
I
would
suggest
that
Twombly,
who
was
well
versed
in
the

many
versions
of
the
story,
was
reflecting
upon
the
life
and
violent
death
of
Christopher

Marlowe,
and
upon
the
violent
classicism
implicit,
not
explicit,
within
his
poetry.

Twombly’s
reading
of
Marlowe
suggests
a
deep
violence
lurking
under
the
blue

waters
of
the
poet’s
lyric—a
beautiful
yet
troubling
juxtaposition
between
the
dazzling

array
of
poetic
forms
spun
from
the
sprezzatura
of
a
young
genius
and
the
undercurrents
of

bitterness
and
protest
that
accompany
the
acquisition
of
poetic
skill.
The
source
of
such

119

frustration
seems
to
be
the
inequity
of
recognition
and
compensation
that
accompanied

scholarly
accomplishment,
as
well
as
Marlowe’s
sense
that
the
institutions
that
promoted

his
scholarship
were
more
interested
in
cleaned-‐up,
“useful”
versions
of
literature
as

opposed
to
the
heady,
subversive
brand
of
classicism
that
ignited
Marlowe's
imagination.

For
him
it
seems
to
be
the
institution—the
submission
of
the
individual
mind
to
the
agenda

of
the
group—that
functions
as
the
enemy
to
free
thought.
Slow
readers
like
Twombly,

readers
who
ken
the
depths
and
not
just
the
surface
of
Marlowe’s
work,
renew
our
sense
of

the
violence
that
the
poet
intuited
within
all
acts
of
collective
thought:
the
violence
that

quells
disagreement,
the
violence
that
underwrites
all
empire,
and
perhaps
also
the

violence
that
ended
the
young
artist’s
life.
Living
in
a
post-‐Romantic
world,
we
may
not
be

shocked
by
the
Marlowe’s
radical
individualism,
but
Stephen
Greenblatt
reminds
us
of

Marlowe’s
prescience:

We
who
have
lived
after
Nietzsche
and
Flaubert
may
find
it
difficult
to
grasp

how
strong,
how
recklessly
courageous
Marlowe
must
have
been:
to
write
as

if
the
admonitory
purpose
of
literature
were
a
lie,
to
invent
fictions
only
to

create
and
not
to
serve
God
or
the
state,
to
fashion
lines
that
echo
in
the
void,

that
echo
more
powerfully
because
there
is
nothing
but
a
void.
172

Greenblatt
might
indulge
in
a
bit
of
overstatement,
yet
the
playful
wit
at
the
heart
of
Hero

and
Leander
demonstrably
resists
the
didactic
aims
of
literature
and
boldly
questions
one’s

relationship
to
the
classical
sources
that
informed
an
Elizabethan
education.
As
such,

Marlowe
presents
himself
as
a
dangerously
careful
reader
of
the
texts
that
helped
to

substantiate
the
power
structures
of
his
day,
and
he
invites
his
own
readers
to
participate

172
Greenblatt,
Renaissance
Self-‐Fashioning,
220-‐221.

120

in
similar
forms
of
reading.
The
extent
to
which
he
intends
such
inquiry
to
be
political

remains
mysterious,
as
do
ultimately
the
violent
underpinnings
that
trouble
the
story
of

the
young
lovers.
The
poem
gives
no
answers,
but
simply
hints
at
the
deep
frustration
that

inspires
this
golden
poetic
world,
a
world
resistant
to
anything
but
the
pleasure
of
reading

it.
In
closing,
I
would
suggest
that
the
“liquid
pearle”
(297)
that
Hero
cries
is
Marlowe’s

poetic
element.
It
is
lavish
and
valuable,
yet
borne
out
the
irritation
of
a
poor
scholar—and,

like
the
liquidity
of
Ovidian
forms,
it
is
endlessly
metamorphic
by
design.
In
creating
a

poetic
world
that
subversively
takes
it
time
and
that
is
forever
suspended
in
time,
Marlowe

leaves
us
as
readers
to
savor
the
fruits
of
his
suffering.

121

Chapter
Four

Shakespeare's
"Mistress-‐piece":

Time
and
Textual
Violation
in
Cymbeline

"The
work
goes
away
from
the
artist
into
a
void,
like
a
message
stuck
into
a
bottle
and
flung
into
the
sea."

-‐Joyce
Johnson

Shakespeare's
Tempest
is
widely
considered
to
be
a
reflection,
near
the
end
of
the

playwright's
career,
on
staged
drama
and
its
potential
for
manipulation
through
artifice.
If

some
contest
the
view
of
the
play
as
a
meta-‐dramatic
farewell
to
the
theatre,
critics

generally
agree
that
Shakespeare
utilizes
tropes
like
the
captive
audience,
the
magical

book,
and
the
fabricated
catastrophe
as
a
means
of
assessing
the
performed
play
as
both

literary
genre
and
means
of
contrived
edification.
173

Likely
the
last
play
that
Shakespeare

penned
by
himself,
The
Tempest
remains
immensely
popular
for
critics
and
playgoers
alike.

Yet
Cymbeline,
written
roughly
one
year
before,
garners
considerably
less
attention.
174

Its

plot
is
notoriously
complicated,
which
makes
staging
difficult.
And
scholars
have
contesting

views
on
the
play’s
“awkward
mixtures
of
sources,
genres,
and
chronology.”
175

Generically

it
is
even
more
of
an
anomaly
than
Shakespeare’s
other
late
plays.
In
the
First
Folio,

Cymbeline
was
listed
as
a
history,
yet
J.
Clinton
Crumley
suggests
the
extreme
peculiarity
of

173
Paul
Yachnin,
“‘If
by
Your
Art’:
Shakespeare’s
Presence
in
‘The
Tempest,’”
English
Studies
in

Canada
14:
2
(June
1,
1988):
120,
and
Stephen
Orgel,
The
Authentic
Shakespeare
and
Other
Problems
of
the

Early
Modern
Stage
(New
York:
Routledge,
2002),
178.
See
also
Douglas
Lanier,
“Drowning
the
Book:

Prospero’s
Books
and
the
Textual
Shakespeare,”
in
Shakespeare,
Theory,
and
Performance,
ed.
James
C.

Bulman
(London:
Routledge,
1996),
187-‐209,
in
which
he
considers
“Shakespeare’s
reflection
upon
and

leave-‐taking
of
his
writing
career”
(196).

174
Scholars
generally
agree
that
Cymbeline
was
written
between
the
years
1609-‐10,
while
the

Tempest’s
range
is
closer
to
1610-‐11.

175
Heather
James,
Shakespeare’s
Troy
(Cambridge:
Cambridge
University
Press,
1997),
151.

122

this
designation
since
the
play
is
more
of
a
romance,
comedy,
and
tragedy
than
anything

else.
176

Thematically
the
play
is
also
problematic:
its
gross
violation
of
the
unities
and

somewhat
happy
ending
in
the
midst
of
loss
help
to
align
it
with
other
late
romances,
but

the
treatment
of
Innogen
and
her
ultimate
disappearance
from
the
play
seems
for
many
an

oddly
damaging—and
likely
misogynistic—choice
for
a
playwright
continually
returning
to

forms
of
redemption
at
the
end
of
his
career.

The
strongest
readings
of
the
play
tend
to

analyze
its
tangle
of
the
political-‐historical
with
the
literary,
and
consistently,
Cymbeline

emerges
as
a
play
obsessed
with
reading
and
its
attendant
misreading.
But
Shakespeare’s

unusual
treatment
of
this
trope
leaves
this
train
of
inquiry
ultimately
suspended
as
well:
to

Sarah
Wall-‐Randell,
for
example,
the
portrayal
of
the
book
throughout
Cymbeline
is

consistent
only
in
its
strangeness,
while
the
historicist
critic
Leah
Marcus
admits
that
“In

some
of
its
episodes…the
play
stubbornly
refuses
to
make
sense
at
the
level
of
Stuart

interpretation.”
177

This
chapter
considers
the
possibilities
that
open
up
if,
in
the
spirit
of
Tempest

criticism,
we
ask
how
Cymbeline
might
function
as
an
extended
meditation
by
Shakespeare

on
his
work
as
poet
and
the
vulnerability
of
his
printed
words.
I
argue
that
this
play
is
a

vehicle
by
which
the
author
performs
an
“audit”
of
his
poetry,
to
use
a
term
from
Act
V,
and

as
he
imagines
how
his
words
might
be
misused
or
misunderstood
in
his
future
absence,
he

176
J.
Clinton
Crumley,
“Questioning
History
in
Cymbeline,”
Studies
in
English
Literature
41:2
(Spring

2001):
297.

177
Sarah
Wall-‐Randell,
The
Immaterial
Book
(Ann
Arbor:
University
of
Michigan
Press,
2013),
47-‐75.

Leah
S.
Marcus,
Puzzling
Shakespeare:
Local
Reading
and
Its
Discontents
(Berkeley:
University
of
California

Press,
1988),
110.

123

simultaneously
reflects
on
poetry
and
its
transgressions
as
a
genre.
178

To
put
it
another

way,
Cymbeline
serves
as
the
playwright's
way
of
looking
back
and
meditating
on
the
scope

and
the
power
of
his
written
words
as
a
poetic
counterpart
to
The
Tempest
and
its

treatment
of
the
theatre.
"Britain,
I
have
killed
thy
mistress-‐piece,"
says
Posthumus
at
the

beginning
of
Act
V.
The
line
is
unusual,
even
a
crux
in
textual
editing,
and
has
generated

critical
debate.

While
the
Folio
prints
the
phrase
as
“mistress
peace,”
the
Oxford
editors

Gary
Taylor
and
Stanley
Wells
read
it
“mistress-‐piece”
and
thus
as
a
play
on
“masterpiece.”

The
pun
mistress-‐piece
thus
suggests
the
consummate
excellence
of
Innogen,
while
it
also

speaks
to
the
whole
of
a
play
that
considers
Shakespeare's
written
"mistresspieces”—i.e.,

feminized
masterpieces—and
their
gendered
vulnerability
to
misreading,

misappropriation,
and
misuse
over
time.
179

In
this
way,
the
playwright
takes
up
the

established
Renaissance
comparison
of
books
to
women
and
overlays
upon
it
the
concerns

for
his
own
authorial
legacy
and
the
fate
of
his
own
poetic
books.
180

In
his
reflections
on
Marlowe’s
short
life,
Shakespeare
suggests
that
being

misunderstood
as
a
poet
is,
in
a
sense,
worse
than
death:
“When
a
man’s
verses
cannot
be

178
“And
so,
great
powers,”
says
Posthumus,
“If
you
will
make
this
audit,
take
this
life.”
V.5.120-‐1.

According
to
the
OED,
the
word
audit
takes
on
the
meaning
“To
make
an
official
systematic
examination
of

(accounts),
so
as
to
ascertain
their
accuracy”
as
early
as
1557.
(See
Oxford
English
Dictionary
[audit
v.1]).

Posthumus
seems
to
be
using
this
accounting
term
as
a
metaphor
for
the
final
examination
of
a
life—in
this

case,
his.
All
quotes
for
Cymbeline
taken
from
The
Norton
Shakespeare,
Based
on
the
Oxford
Edition:
Romances

and
Poems,
2
nd

Edition,
ed.

Stephen
Greenblatt,
Walter
Cohen,
Jean
E.
Howard,
and
Katherine
Eisaman
Maus.

New
York:
W.
W.
Norton,
2008.

179
Cymbeline,
V.1.20.
The
first
use
of
the
compound
listed
in
the
OED
dates
from
1648,
although
not

in
a
context
that
suggests
a
first-‐time
usage:

Lord
Herbert,
in
his
Life
of
Henry
VIII,
remarks
that
“Mistresse

Elizabeth
Blunt…
was
thought,
for
her
rare
Ornaments
of
nature,
and
education,
to
be
the
beauty
and

Mistresse-‐peece
of
her
time.”
See
Oxford
English
Dictionary
(mistresspiece
n.1.a).

180
For
a
discussion
of
how
the
early
modern
“stigma
of
print”
gets
tangled
with
the
rhetoric
of

gender
difference,
see
Wendy
Wall,
The
Imprint
of
Gender:
Authorship
and
Publication
in
the
English

Renaissance.
Ithaca:
Cornell
University
Press,
1993,
esp.
11-‐16.

124

understood…it
strikes
a
man
more
dead
than
a
great
reckoning
in
a
little
room.”
181

Yet
the

poignancy
of
this
is,
as
with
all
Shakespeare,
contrapuntal:
throughout
his
writings,
the

misreading
and
misuse
of
poetry
is
at
once
hilarious,
tragic,
and
entirely
Ovidian.
This
is

famously
the
case
in
A
Midsummer
Night’s
Dream
and
especially
in
the
play-‐within-‐the-‐
play—“The
Most
Lamentable
Comedy
and
Most
Cruel
Death
of
Pyramus
and
Thisbe.”
182

I

propose
that
it
is
equally
the
case
in
Cymbeline,
a
play
that
Shakespeare
uses
to
imagine
his

own
written
works
being
misread,
misused,
and
misunderstood.
His
focus
on
future

readers
links
my
project
to
recent
criticism,
most
notably
by
Patrick
Cheney,
which

considers
Shakespeare's
conscious
crafting
of
an
authorial
persona
and
legacy.
In
my
work,

however,
I
chart
a
markedly
different
course
from
the
path
to
a
secure
form
of
authorship

based
on
fame:
while
my
work
has
everything
do
with
the
figure
of
the
poet,
I
aim
to

demonstrate
how
Shakespeare
is
ultimately
too
intellectually
fluid
and
too
subversive
to

imagine
any
fixed
object,
including
an
idea
of
fame,
enduring
for
any
length
of
time.

Shakespeare
continually
returns
to
the
Ovidian
formula
of
his
books
outliving
empires,
but

he
increases
the
scope
of
Ovid’s
own
forces
of
metamorphosis
such
that
even
the
figure
of

the
author
promises
to
metamorphose
into
something
new,
rich,
and
strange.
Marlowe
was

misunderstood,
and
Shakespeare
implies
very
heavily
in
Cymbeline
that
he
too
will
suffer

this
fate,
but
tragedy
is
too
simple
a
way
to
characterize
the
inevitability
of
future

misrecognition.

181
Shakespeare,
As
You
Like
It,
III.3.9-‐12,
in
In
Norton:
Comedies.
Ed.
Greenblatt
et
al,
664.

182
Shakespeare,
A
Midsummer
Night’s
Dream,
I.2.9-‐10,
in
Norton:
Comedies.
Ed.
Greenblatt
et
al,
383.

125

My
work
recasts
the
commonplace
understanding
of
Shakespeare’s
debt
to
Ovid
in

light
of
the
Roman
poet’s
exilic
writings.

As
is
often
noted,
the
book
that
Innogen
closes
in

one
of
his
last
plays
is
the
same
that
Lavinia
pages
through
in
one
of
his
first:
Ovid’s
most

famous
poem
in
the
modern
world,
the
Metamorphoses,
was
clearly
a
poem
that

Shakespeare
spent
his
life
considering—or
slowly
reading.
What
is
less
recognized
is
how

the
Metamorphoses
was
studied
alongside
of
Ovid's
Fasti
and
exile
poetry
in
the

schoolrooms
of
Shakespeare’s
day,
with
the
consequence
that
Ovid’s
celebrated
claims
to

poetic
immortality
at
the
close
of
Amores
1.15
and
the
Metamorphoses
must
be