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Tyranny Condemned: Wyatt's Epistolary Satires

Greg Walker

in Writing Under Tyranny: English Literature and the Henrician Reformation

This chapter looks closely at the trio of anti-curial satires written by Wyatt, possibly during his exile at Allington in 1536: Mine Own John Poins, My Mother’s Maids, and A Spending Hand, ... More

This chapter looks closely at the trio of anti-curial satires written by Wyatt, possibly during his exile at Allington in 1536: Mine Own John Poins, My Mother’s Maids, and A Spending Hand, demonstrating how they transform classical and continental humanist material into reflections on Henry VIII’s domestic English tyranny.Less

Courtliness and laughter

Indira Ghose

in Shakespeare and Laughter: A Cultural History

The world of Baldassare Castiglione's Book of the Courtier (1528) displays a striking affinity with William Shakespeare's Love's Labour's Lost, not only with regard to the courtly arena that both ... More

The world of Baldassare Castiglione's Book of the Courtier (1528) displays a striking affinity with William Shakespeare's Love's Labour's Lost, not only with regard to the courtly arena that both texts present but also because of their shared concern with ideals of courtly behaviour. In Book 2 of The Courtier, the courtiers discuss the prescriptions that govern the proper art of jesting. This chapter looks at the courtly precepts on laughter. At court, hostile jesting was now derided as vulgar. Taste and decorum were the key values. Wit was a technique of self-promotion, a means of displaying one's skill at entertaining one's peers. Laughter was above all a form of pleasant diversion or a lubricant deployed to defuse social tension. Shakespeare adapted these norms for the public theatre and stages them in Love's Labour's Lost. What he also imports into the theatre is the aristocratic notion of play as gratuitous pleasure, serving no other purpose than to entertain.Less

A Cat May Look upon a King: Four-Footed Estate, Locomotion, and the Prerogative of Free Animals

Laurie Shannon

in The Accommodated Animal: Cosmopolity in Shakespearean Locales

This chapter is concerned with the early modern reckonings of tails and feet, noting how an anatomical tail is present in nearly all nonhuman animals. It discusses how the notions of wagging, ... More

This chapter is concerned with the early modern reckonings of tails and feet, noting how an anatomical tail is present in nearly all nonhuman animals. It discusses how the notions of wagging, flicking, trailing punctuate an entire logic of course, direction, and forward motion for animals. The chapter studies how that logic is a rival form of sovereignty to uncaptured early modern beasts by looking at texts such as Castiglione’s Book of the Courtier, in which Castiglione argues that animal motion is liberated from the twists of passion, and is also the shaping force of quiet “judgemente.” The chapter also examines the taunting proverbial expression, “a cat may look upon a king,” which first appeared in John Heywood’s 1562 collection of proverbs, and looks at the profiles of English kings from Willam the Conqueror to Henry VIII in the book A Cat May Look Upon A King (1652).Less

Grace and Favour: Baldassare Castiglione and Raphael

Ita Mac Carthy

in The Grace of the Italian Renaissance

This chapter shows that the life of Renaissance grace begins in earnest with Baldassare Castiglione's Libro del cortegiano (Book of the Courtier, 1516) and Raphael's portrait of Castiglione ... More

This chapter shows that the life of Renaissance grace begins in earnest with Baldassare Castiglione's Libro del cortegiano (Book of the Courtier, 1516) and Raphael's portrait of Castiglione (1514–1516). It does so because preoccupations with grace and its multiple senses are central to both the book of manners and the painting, so much so that Castiglione came to be known as the great theorist of grace while Raphael was identified as its painter. Both have been referred to in countless studies from the sixteenth century to today as the embodiments of Renaissance grace. In addition, the network of interconnections between them makes Castiglione and Raphael a promising point of departure. It is an ideal testing ground for observing how grace behaves in different media and examining the extent to which it can be said to contribute to those interdisciplinary rivalries and friendships that allowed Renaissance learning, literature, and arts to flourish.Less

Rhetorical Dialogues

in Selected Letters, Orations, and Rhetorical Dialogues

This chapter explores Madeleine de Scudéry's rhetorical dialogues and conversations on diverse subjects. Here Scudéry reworks the Renaissance humanist tradition of the dialogue in light of the ... More

This chapter explores Madeleine de Scudéry's rhetorical dialogues and conversations on diverse subjects. Here Scudéry reworks the Renaissance humanist tradition of the dialogue in light of the institution of the salon. She had begun this process in her novels, and many of the conversations are lifted, but with significant revisions, from the novels. The models Scudéry seems to have in mind for her dialogues include not only Baldassare Castiglione's The Book of the Courtier, which set the standard for two centuries of salon conversation but, more broadly, rhetorical dialogues in general, including those of the classical rhetorical theorists: Plato, Cicero, and Augustine. While her conversations encompass many topics, the chapter focuses on those on conversation, wit, and letter writing, where Scudéry develops a theory of rhetoric appropriate to women and the institution of the salon: “On Conversation,” “On Speaking Too Much or Too Little,” “On Wit,” and “On the Manner of Writing Letters.”Less