Merry Christmas!

Best of luck with your revision and exams!

Have a wonderful Happy Christmas everyone!

picture from EEBO

Adam and Eve

Here are two images of Adam and Eve, one by Dürer and one by Rembrandt. How do you think they differ in their approach to the temptation scene? What might be each artist's viewpoint on Eden and the Fall? Which drawing you think is closer to Milton's representation of the couple?

Adam and Eve, 1504, Albrecht Dürer

Adam and Eve, 1638, Rembrandt

Apart from Adam and Eve in Paradise Lost, Milton in his closet tragedy, Samson Agonistes (1671), re-imagines the relationship between another biblical couple, Samson and Dalila. How are gender relations represented in this extract from the tragedy spoken by the Chorus?

From Samson Agonistes (ll.1025-1060)

Is it for that such outward ornament
Was lavish't on thir Sex, that inward gifts
Were left for haste unfinish't, judgment scant,
Capacity not rais'd to apprehend
Or value what is best
In choice, but oftest to affect the wrong?
Or was too much of self-love mixt,
Of constancy no root infixt,
That either they love nothing, or not long?
What e're it be, to wisest men and best
Seeming at first all heavenly under virgin veil,
Soft, modest, meek, demure,
Once join'd, the contrary she proves, a thorn
Intestin, far within defensive arms
A cleaving mischief, in his way to vertue
Adverse and turbulent, or by her charms
Draws him awry enslav'd
With dotage, and his sense deprav'd
To folly and shameful deeds which ruin ends.
What Pilot so expert but needs must wreck
Embarqu'd with such a Stears-mate at the Helm?
Favour'd of Heav'n who finds
One vertuous rarely found,
That in domestic good combines:
Happy that house! his way to peace is smooth:
But vertue which breaks through all opposition,
And all temptation can remove,
Most shines and most is acceptable above.
Therefore Gods universal Law
Gave to the man despotic power
Over his female in due awe,
Nor from that right to part an hour,
Smile she or lowre:
So shall he least confusion draw
On his whole life, not sway'd
By female usurpation, nor dismay'd.

Read again Book IX after Eve’s fall. How do you understand Adam’s decision to fall with Eve? What do you make of these lines: ‘How art thou lost! How on a sudden lost, / Defaced, deflowered/ and now to death devote!’ (IX. ll. 902-3)

What do you think is the purpose of ‘their vain contest’ at the end of Book IX? If this was a staged tragedy, what would the impact of this scene be?

Prophecy and Gender

Apart from the women you have to study for this week's seminar, Lady Eleanor Davies is also a very interesting example of a female prophet of the Civil War period. Lady Eleanor prophesized only in print - illegally.

Here is an extract from her work, A Warning to the Dragon and All his Angels (1625),
where the relationship between God and the believer is fashioned as the relationship between a jealous husband and his wife. Can you find other examples in women prophets's writings where marriage is a metaphor for piousness?

 

‘Suppose a man after his Marriage to a young Virgin, should say, my experience is more then yours, I cannot always walke hand in hand with you, neither may I keepe you in a Cloister that will not be for your health or my profit, neither must you forget your Covenant to bee subject to my desires not tending to the harme of either of us; I love you as mine own Body, if I should not love you, I should not love my selfe, you are tender and faore without blemish or blot, so I would have your minde also without spot or wrinckle like your face, many stangers will strive to bee your Servants; not all for your beautie but some for malice and envie to me;

Though your intent be good in all things, yet because I am very jealous of mine honor, entertaine none in tht manner; though they be silent for a time, and conceale themselves; in the end they will draw your affection from me; Besides, much resort thee be never so chaste, is dalliance the marke of a knowne Harlot, which sort of women I would have you differ from, and no marke I know more fit to put a difference betweene you then this; for much entertainment will not only waste our substance, better imployed upon more necessary occasions, but consume in unprofitable idlenesse.

Is there no consequent, yes doutblesse, I am the Lord thy God, thou shalt have no other Gods but me; thou shalt not make images of any likenesse to bowe or humble thy selfe before them; for of my honor I am a jealous God, you are mine, I bought you to enjoy the libertie of my service; I brought yee out of the house of bondage, which no other God could doe; thou shalt love the Lord thy God, and keep his charge and his Statues.'  (pp. 94-95)

Image from EEBO

Popery, Monstrosity, and the Body

In the reading for this week, Peter Lake provides us with a brief explanation of popery: 'for Protestants popery had allowed merely human authorities, traditions and practices to take over the Church. the most obvious of these was the pope's usurpation of Chritst's role as the head of the Church. Once established, the authority of the pope was used to set up and confirm in the Church a whole series of ceremonies, forms of worship and beliefs which were of entirely human origin.' (p. 74)

Anti-popery and anti-Catholic sentiment were well served by the press. In the 1570 edition of Acts and Monuments, John Foxe writes:

'Printing came of God [...] that either the Pope is Antichrist, or else that Antichrist is near cousin to the Pope, and all this doth, and will hereafter more and more appear, by printing'.  

Below are some examples of how printing and especially images were enlisted in the Protestant cause. Reading these examples next to material for this week, you might want to consider how the body became the site for religious disputation.

Samuel Clarke's A Generall Martyrology was first published in 1651 and was very much written in the style of John Foxe's Acts and Monuments (1563). Clarke's tract included images of the types of torture that those persecuted by Catholicism had to endure. The full tract and more images are available on EEBO.

In the years following the Reformation, Rome was often alluded to in print as the Whore of Babylon (see for instance Thomas Dekker's play) and was depicted as a monstrous female figure.

Albrecht Dürer,  The Whore of Babylon, from The Apocalypse, 1498

"Albrecht Dürer: The Whore of Babylon (18.65.8)". In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000–. http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/18.65.8 (October 2006)

from Hugh Broughton's A Concent of Scripture (1590)

Anon, The Popes Pyramides (1624)



Here is a comment on the first engraving:

'Dürer's representation of the Whore of Babylon inscribes political and religious differences in and through particular bodies: female, monstrous, angelic, heroic. The body of the Whore is itself an allegorical text to be deciphered and read. Her lavish clothing, jewelry, and gem-crusted crown mark her as a prostitute , one who has enriched herself on the trade and exchange of others: the elaborate chalice that she holds aloft conceals the wine of her (economic) fornication. The true monstrousness of the seemingly beautiful woman is revealed by the beast upon which she rides, with its grotesque heads of goats, asses, and birds, its monstrously scaly skin, its distended claw-feet, and its twisting tail... In the Dürer engraving, female and bestial bodies emblematize the corruption of pagan Rome.’

Laura Lunger Knoppers, '"The Antichrist, the Babilon, the great dragon": Oliver Cromwell, Andrew Marvell, and the Apocalyptic Monstrous' in Monstrous Bodies/ Political Monstrosities in Early Modern Europe, ed. by Laura Lunger Knoppers and Joan B. Landes (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2004), pp. 93-126 (p.104)

The City of Venice

As mentioned in Week 2, Thomas Coryat visited different European countries and published his travelogue Coryat's Crudities in 1611.

One of the places he visited and wrote extensively about was Venice, the setting for Volpone. Although Jonson's play predates Coryat's Crudities , the travelogue is useful in understanding representations of Venice that the English people would encounter in travel writing. Jonson's audience would be familiar with depictions of Venice as described in Coryat's text.

Have a look at the text here and consider Coryat and Jonson's representation of Venetian gentlemen, gentlewomen, and courtesans.

Consider also what Fynes Moryson's Itinerary (1617) has to say about Venice and the law in these pages (163-5)

Volpone and the Beasts

Volpone 's 'Persons of the Play' list suggests that most of the characters are given names that betray the animal nature that each of these characters exemplifies in the play: Volpone (the fox), Mosca (the parasite), Voltore (vulture), Corvino (crow), Corbaccio (raven), Sir Politic Would-be (parrot), Peregrine (hawk).

The influence of beast fables on Jonson's play has been discussed by Brian Parker and David Bevington, the editors of the Revels Student Edition of the play (Manchester University Press, 1999). One of the prominent sources they idenitified for Volpone is the medieval tale of Reynard the Fox, which you can read here.

Image from EEBO

Image from EEBO

Consider whether we are meant to read Jonson's characters as humans exhibiting animal instincts, vices, and behaviour, or whether we should perceive them as animals exhibiting human characteristics in an allegorical tale.

What might the proximity of man to animal and animal to man tell us about the human and its limitations?

Here's an important passage from Erica Fudge's Perceiving Animals: Humans and Beasts in Early Modern English Culture (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 2000), pp. 7-8:

'If anthropocentrism - placing the human and human vision at the centre - leads, as I have argued, to anthropomorphism- seeing the world in our own image - and anhtropomorphism allows for the animalisation of humans then anthropocentrism paradoxically destroys anthropos as a category. By centralising the human, making the human vision the only vision, the separation of species is impossible. At the heart of the debate about animals lies a debate about humanity which has social and political ramifications. If an animal can beg, then is a (human) beggar also an animal? The implications of this question are plaued out in the sense that in order to assert human status writers have to make exclusions. Some humans are aligned with animals: in fact, some humans are not human at all.'

Portraits of Elizabeth I

A feast for the eyes!

Do click here and spend some time considering these portraits of Elizabeth, at the bottom of the page you can find links to even more portraits from her early years and from her final years, too. Here's the famous Ditchley Portrait c. 1592 to inspire you!

Here's Hans Eworth's Elizabeth and Three Goddesses (1569), which is a reworking of the popular 'Judgement of Paris' subject (examples from Botticcelli and Rubens given below). The apple has been transformed into the Sovereign's Orb. Elizabeth's posture when facing Juno, Minerva, and Venus is authoritative and commanding as opposed to the crouching Paris.

Hans Eworth, Elizabeth and Three Goddesses (1569)

Peter Paul Rubens, The Judgement of Paris (1638-9)

Hans von Aachen, Le jugement de Paris (1588)

Sandro Botticelli, Juicio de Paris (1485-88)

Representations of the King

The lecture discussed Holbein's Portrait of Henry VIII (1536-7) as a powerful display of masculinity.

Here's a much later engraving of Henry VIII by Peter Isselburg that appeared in 1646. Consider the representation of the king in this as well as in this extract from Henry's biography from ODNB.

'The most important consideration in this final decade was the king's increasing age and ill health. Henry was putting on an enormous amount of weight: his chest measurement reached 57 inches and his waist 54 and eventually he had to be moved around his palaces in a ‘trauewe’, a sort of carrying chair. He also suffered enormous pain from a chronic leg ulcer which produced dangerous attacks of fever. The cause was not syphilis (voluminous medical evidence proves that his doctors never treated him for this well-recognized condition) but either varicose veins or osteomyelitis, and the ulcer was made much worse by Henry's insistence on riding. He could become black in the face with pain.'



Hero and Leander

Marlowe's 'Hero and Leander' (1598) is about physical love, sexual discovery, and desire. How many instances of desire can you identify in the poem? Think of how desire is articulated, think of the subject and object of desire and what the consequences of desire are in each case.

• Look at Rubens' painting below based on Musaeus' account (partly based on Ovid) of the Hero and Leander myth. How is the body depicted? Why? How stable and fixed are the bodies in the painting?   (For more information on the painting you can read this article online here)

Peter Paul Rubens, Hero and Leander I

Read again lines 663-676 from 'Hero and Leander' and think about bodies and fluidity of gender.

The god put Helle's braclet on his arm,
And swore the sea should never do him harm.
He clapped his plump cheeks, with his tresses played,
And, smiling wantonly, his love bewrayed.
He watched his arms, and as they opened wide,
At every stroke betwixt them he would slide
And steal a kiss, and then run out and dance
And, as he turned, cast many a lustful glance
And throw him gaudy toys to please his eye,
And dive into the water and there pry
Upon his breast, his thighs, and every limb,
And up again and close beside him swim,
And talk of love. Leander made reply,
"You are deceived; I am no woman, I."

• The extract below is from Ben Jonson's comedy Bartholomew Fair  (1614). Hero and Leander's story is reenacted in a puppet show. How does the stage's treatment of the story differ to Marlowe's poem? (You can find the whole play here)

Cok. Well, we have seen't, and thou hast felt it, what- soever thou sayest. What's next? what's next?    Lea. This while young Leander, with fair Hero is drink- <! hypen dropped down to underline position >   ing,  and Hero grown drunk, to any mans thinking! Yet was it not three Pints of Sherry could flaw her,  till Cupid distinguish'd like Jonas the Drawer, From under his Apron, where his lechery lurks,  put love in her Sack. Now mark how it works.    Puppet  Hero. O Leander Leander, my dear my dear Leander, I'll for ever be thy Goose, so thou'lt be my Gander.    Cok. Excellently well said, Fiddle, she'll ever be his Goose, so he'll be her Gander: was't not so?    Lan. Yes, Sir, but mark his answer, now.    Puppet Leander. And sweetest of Geese, before I go to Bed, I'll swim o're the Thames, my Goose, thee to tread.    Cok. Brave! he will swim o're the Thames, and tread his Goose to night, he says.    Lan. I, peace, Sir, they'll be angry, if they hear you eaves-dropping, now they are setting their match.    Puppet Leander. But lest the Thames should be dark, my Goose,       my dear Friend,          let thy Window be provided of a Candles end.    Puppet Hero. Fear not, my Gander, I protest, I should handle       my matters very ill, if I had not a whole Candle.    Puppet Leander. Well then, look to't, and kiss me to Boot.

Chetham's Library this Wednesday!

Our next Material Culture Day is this Wednesday (17/10/2012) at Chetham's Library in the city centre, please get there for 1pm, you'll get to see a seventeenth-century printing press in action! Chetham's is 'the oldest public library in the English-speaking world' and it is a real gem: http://www.chethams.org.uk/

Here are some comments from some of the students that attended the first Material Culture Day in the John Rylands Library at Deansgate.

'The dark, gothic, original part of John Rylands Library at Deansgate contrasts magnificently with the ultra-modern white walls and glass of the reception. Although architecturally, these two parts of the library could not be any more different, they allow the centuries old books be read in reading rooms built in 1900 yet still feel contemporary and relevant in cosmopolitan Manchester.  On first being introduced to archivist Fran Baker it was very clear that her enthusiasm for John Rylands’ many collections was infectious. Undoubtedly the tome from the selection of leather bound books which first caught my eye was the Second Folio, a collection of Shakespeare’s works. Its majestic presentation, with gold edged pages, set the volume proudly in its Elizabethan context in a way that an e-book or Norton edition cannot hope to do. The most crucial point I took away from the visit was that the library is for using. It is an extremely accessible place, as long as you make the effort to access it. '

Charlie Rayner

'The library visit to the John Rylands in Deansgate was extremely useful and encouraged much enthusiasm.  The range of beautiful books and archives we were shown displayed the endless amount of resources we have at our finger tips, enabling us to research in an entirely new way.  The trip introduced us to the material culture of early modern culture, and the importance of this.  It gave me many ideas for an essay, as well as inspiring me due to the library’s beautiful interior.'

Kate Pleydell

'The trip to the John Rylands library in Deansgate was important in showing how texts in their earlier forms can change the way we read and interpret them. The librarian, Fran Baker, showed us a selection of archival documents to highlight the importance of seemingly mundane (at the time) artefacts such as shopping lists and diaries that are so precious now in providing context to people’s lives and times that are so distant to and different from our own. The tutors- James Smith, Naya Tsentourou and Bill Hutchins- then also showed us a variety of texts relating to their own expertise and gave us brief insights into the reasons why looking at these texts in their original form rather than modern interpretations creates a deeper understanding of the texts as cultural artefacts. These workshops were overall to show us that, as undergraduates, we are so lucky to have the opportunity to use this resource and look at these beautiful books and that it would be a real shame to waste it. '

Annie Muir

Biblical Women in Women's Writing and Painting

From Aemilia Lanyer's Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum(1611):

To the Virtuous Reader (p.328 in the anthology)

'Especially considering that they have tempted even the patience of God himself, who gave power to wise and virtuous women to bring down their pride and arrogance. As was cruel Cesarius by the discreet counsel of noble Deborah, judge and prophetess of Israel, and resolution of Jael, wife of Heber the Kenite; wicked Haman, by the divine prayers and prudent proceedings of beautiful Hester; blasphemous Holofernes, by the invincible courage, rare wisdom, and confident carriage of Judith; and the unjust judges, by the innocence of chaste Susanna; with infinite others, which for brevity's sake I will omit.'

Lanyer references the biblical women above as ideal models of female virtue and as examples of God's high respect for women. Their overpowering of male authority figures, always achieved with divine inspiration and protection, made them exemplars not only of  female chastity and piety, but also of a religious and polemical identity. Why do you think these biblical women serve as appropriate models for Lanyer?

(You can always look up biblical passages here http://www.biblegateway.com/ , a very useful resource)

Artemisia Gentileschi was the most important female painter of the early modern period. She was the only female follower of Caravaggio and she was attracted to the powerful female models available in the Bible. Have a look at some of her paintings and think about the representation of women, both in writing (eg in Lanyer) and in the visual arts.

Susanna and the Elders (1610)

Schloss Weissenstein, Pommersfelden, Germany

Susanna and the Elders (1622)

The Burghley House Collection,
Stamford (Lincolnshire) 

Jael and Sisera (1620)

Szepmuveszeti Museum, Budapest

Judith Slaying Holofernes (1612-13)

Museo di Capolodimonte, Naples

Kate's Speech in The Taming of the Shrew

from Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew (1590-1):

Thy husband is thy lord, thy life, thy keeper,
Thy head, thy sovereign; one that cares for thee,
And for thy maintenance; commits his body
To painful labour both by sea and land,
To watch the night in storms, the day in cold,
Whilst thou liest warm at home, secure and safe,
And craves no other tribute at thy hands
But love, fair looks and true obedience-
Too little payment for so great a debt.
Such duty as the subject owes the prince,
Even such, a woman oweth to her husband:
And when she is froward, peevish, sullen, sour,
And not obedient to his honest will,
What is she but a foul contending rebel
And graceless traitor to her loving lord?
I am ashamed that women are so simple
To offer war where they should kneel for peace;
Or seek for rule, supremacy and sway,
When they are bound to serve, love and obey.
Why are our bodies soft and weak and smooth,
Unapt to toil and trouble in the world,
But that our soft conditions, and our hearts
Should well agree with our external parts?
Come, come, you froward and unable worms,
My mind hath been as big as one of yours,
My heart as great, my reason haply more,
To bandy word for word and frown for frown;
But now I see our lances are but straws,
Our strength as weak, our weakness past compare,
That seeming to be most which we indeed least are.
Then vail your stomachs, for it is no boot,
And place your hands below your husband's foot.
In token of which duty, if he please,
My hand is ready; may it do him ease. (V.ii.146-179)

Print and the Women Debate

The anthology only gives us some short passages from Rachel Speght's A Muzzle for Melastomus (1617). If you have a look at the printed records on EEBO (Early English Books Online) you can read the whole tract. You will also notice that between the preface (addressed to Joseph Swetnam) and the main body of the text appear two poems 'In Praise of the Author and her Worke'. What qualities of Rachel Speght do these poems choose to praise? How are these qualities reflected in Speght's text?

Image from EEBO

Image from EEBO

Have a look at the two title-pages below from two different editions of Joseph Swetnam's The Arraignment of Lewd, Idle, Froward, and Unconstant Women, the first from the first edition in 1615 and the second from 1637 (both available on EEBO). What has changed? How do the two editions communicate to their readers their content and the controversy they are part of?

Image from EEBO

Image from EEBO

The Ewaipanoma and the Body

'On that branch which is calles Caura are a nation of people whose heads appear on their shoulders; which though it may be thought a mere fable, yet for mine own part I am resolved it is true, because every child in the provinces of Aromaia and Canuri affirm the same. They are called Ewaipanoma; they are reported to have their eyes in their shoulders, and their mouths in the middle of their breasts, and that a long train of hair groweth backward between their shoulders.....Such a nation was written of Mandeville, whose reports were holden for fables for many years; and yet since the East Indies were discovered, we find his relations true of such things as heretofore were held incredible. Whether it be true or no, the matter is not great, neither can there be any profit in the imagination; for mine own part I saw them not, but I am resolved that so many people did not all combine or forethink to make the report...' (from The Discovery of the Large, Rich, and Beautiful Empire of Guiana, p. 353 in your anthology)

Have a look at Mandeville's book that Raleigh is here referring to on EEBO (http://eebo.chadwyck.com/home)
and think of  the importance of the body in discourses of difference and its role in establishing a national identity. You might also want to look at John Bulwer's Anthropometamorphosis: Man Transform'd: Or, The Artificiall Changling (1653).

Image from EEBO

Also, based on Raleigh's passage above, think about the reliability of the authors of travel narratives.

Discovery in The Fairie Queene

The second book of Edmund Spenser's The Fairie Queene (an allegorical epic poem in praise of Elizabeth I, and published in 1590) begins with references to England's recent colonial enterprises. Read the passage and think how the rhetoric of discovery and knowledge serves here Spenser's purposes and how the expansion of the empire was celebrated in the literature of the period. You might also want to read more on Spenser, his friendship to Sir Walter Ralegh, and his colonial endeavours in Ireland.

But let that man with better sence aduize,
   That of the world least part to vs is red:
   And dayly how through hardy enterprize,
   Many great Regions are discouered,
   Which to late age were neuer mentioned.
   Who euer heard of th'Indian Peru?
   Or who in venturous vessell measured
   The Amazon huge riuer now found trew?
Or fruitfullest Virginia who did euer vew?
Yet all these were, when no man did them know;
   Yet haue from wisest ages hidden beene:
   And later times things more vnknowne shall show.
   Why then should witlesse man so much misweene
   That nothing is, but that which he hath seene?

Full preface and Book 2 here: http://www.luminarium.org/renascence-editions/queene2.html

Julius Caesar at the Lowry

Power, identity, violence, disorder, anxiety: everything you heard in yesterday's lecture captured in one play. William Shakespeare's Julius Caesar is the perfect example of how drama interrogates power.
The production comes to the Lowry for just a few days next week (2nd-6th October), tickets are still available, some as cheap as £5, hurry!

http://www.rsc.org.uk/whats-on/julius-caesar/

Mary Stuart on Radio 3

We will be talking about politics and monarchy in week 5, but here's a fantastic chance to prepare in advance with little effort!

 

Schiller's play Mary Stuart available on BBC Radio 3 for six more days

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01msj6x

 

'One of European theatre's major plays, Friedrich Schiller's Mary Stuart is a thrilling account of the extraordinary relationship between England's Elizabeth I and her rival cousin, the imprisoned Queen of Scots. '

 

A perfect evening of Power and Gender, enjoy!

More and Religion

- Here is an extract from Sir Thomas More's biography, written by his son-in-law, William Roper, and published in 1626 under the title The mirrour of vertue in worldly greatnes, Or The life of Syr Thomas More Knight, sometime Lo. Chancellour of England (available on EEBO).

'This Lord Chancellour (Sir Thomas More), although he was well knowne, both to God and the world to be a man of most eminent Vertue, though not so considered of every man; yet for the avoyding of singularity would he appeare to the eye of the world no otherwise then other men, as well in his apparell, as behaviour. And albeit he appeared outwardly Honourable, like to one of his Dignity & Calling, yet inwardly did he esteme all such thing for meere vanity: for next to his naked body he wore almost continually a shirt of hayre; the young Gentlewoman, named M. ^rs More, by chance one day spying as he sat in his doublet & hose at dynner in the sommer tyme, and seemed to smile therat, his daughter Roper perceiving the same (being not ignorant of this his austerity) gave him private notice thereof, and he did presently amend the fault, seeming withall sorry, that she had seene it. He also wore another playne course shirt without ruffe or collar, vpon his shirt of hayre; And many tymes he likewise punished his body with whips, made of knotted cordes; the which thing was only knowne to his daughter Roper, who for her secresy, aboue all the rest he especially trusted, for that as need required she did alwayes wash & mend his shirt of hayre, which he would not discover vnto any other whatsoever.' (pp. 78-9)

Self-flagellation and hair shirts: How does this complicate your view of More as a humanist scholar?

An engraving of self-flagellation  

- Read again Chapter 9 of Book 2 of Utopia in your anthology, esp. pp. 60-1, and the extract below from Roper’s text (you might also want to read the ODNB entry on Thomas More).  Think of Utopia’s celebration of religious tolerance and its contradiction by More’s later life: does Utopia truly advocate toleration or are there hints in the text that betray More’s personal views?

'It happened, before the matter of Mariage brought in Question, that M. Roper being one day in discourse with Syr Tho. More, did with a kind of joy, congratulate with his said Father, for the happy Estate of the Realme that had so Catholique a Prince, as no Heretique durst shew his face, so vertuous and learned a Clergy, so graue and sound a Nobility, and so loving and obedient Subiects, all on one fayth agreeing togeather. Troth, it is so indeed, Sonne Roper (quoth he:) and then commended all degrees and estates of the same, far beyond M. Roper. And yet Sonne Roper (quoth he) I pray God, that some of vs (as high as we seeme to sit vpon the Mountaynes, treading Heretiques vnder our feete like Ants) live not to see the day, when we gladly would wish to be in league and composition with those whome you call Heretiques, & to let them haue their Church quietly to themselues, vpon condition, that they would be content to let vs haue ours, quiet to our selues.' (pp. 55-6)

 

Perspective in Utopia

Hans Holbein the Younger, 'The Ambassadors' (1533)



New Historicist critic Stephen Greenblatt has suggested that Utopia's ‘subtle displacements, distortions, and shifts of perspective are the close equivalent in Renaissance prose to the anamorphic virtuosity of Holbein’s art. Like “The Ambassadors”, Utopia presents two distinct worlds that occupy the same textual space while insisting upon the impossibility of their doing so. '  (Renaissance Self-Fashioning: From More to Shakespeare, 1980, p.22)

The skull in Holbein's painting requires the spectator to stand at a specific position to the painting. What positions/perspectives does More's text allow to the reader? If Utopia was a Holbein painting, what image do you think would take the place of the skull? 

Welcome!

Welcome to the Power and Gender blog!

This blog is designed as an additional resource to the course and it aims to enhance your knowledge and understanding of the early modern period. By bringing to your attention images/ ideas/ texts not discussed in class due to time restrictions, the blog will hopefully encourage you to think of set texts in a wider cultural context and it will inspire you to consult a variety of primary and secondary sources for your independent research.

I want this to be a creative space outside the seminars, so feel free to post your own contributions in the comments or to email me at panagiota.tsentourou@manchester.ac.uk anything early modern (an engraving, a pamphlet, a biographical clue, a title page, etc) or regarding the early modern (an exhibition, an article, a play, etc) you might find interesting, bizarre, hilarious, shocking!

Looking forward to meeting you all next week!