But I am affraide, that ouer many of our trauelers into Italie, do not exchewe the way to CIRCES Court: but go, and ryde, and runne, and flie thether, they make great hast to cum to her: they make great sute to serue her: yea, I could point out somewith my finger, that neuer had gone out of England, but onelie to serue CIRCES, in Italie. Vanitie and vice, and any licence to ill liuyng in England was counted stale and rude vnto them. And so, beyng Mules and Horses before they went, returned verie
********************
Gabriel Harvey's satirical portrait of the Earl of Oxford:
Speculum Tuscanismi
Since Galatea came in, and Tuscanism gan usurp,
Vanity above all: villainy next her, stateliness Empress
No man but minion, stout, lout, plain, swain, quoth a Lording:
No words but valorous, no works but womanish only.
For life Magnificoes, not a beck but glorious in show,
In deed most frivolous, not a look but Tuscanish always.
His cringing side neck, eyes glancing, fisnamy smirking,
With forefinger kiss, and brave embrace to the footward.
Large bellied Cod-pieced doublet, uncod-pieced half hose,
Straight to the dock like a shirt, and close to the britch like a
diveling.
A little Apish flat couched fast to the pate like an oyster,
French camarick ruffs, deep with a whiteness starched to the purpose.
Every one A per se A, his terms and braveries in print,
Delicate in speech, quaint in array: conceited in all points,
In Courtly guiles a passing singular odd man,
For Gallants a brave Mirror, a Primrose of Honour,
A Diamond for nonce, a fellow peerless in England.
Not the like discourser for Tongue, and head to be found out,
Not the like resolute man for great and serious affairs,
Not the like Lynx to spy out secrets and privities of States,
Eyed like to Argus, eared like to Midas, nos'd like to Naso,
Wing'd like to Mercury, fittst of a thousand for to be employ'd,
This, nay more than this, doth practice of Italy in one year.
None do I name, but some do I know, that a piece of a twelve month
Hath so perfited outly and inly both body, both soul,
That none for sense and senses half matchable with them.
A vulture's smelling, Ape's tasting, sight of an eagle,
A spider's touching, Hart's hearing, might of a Lion.
Compounds of wisdom, wit, prowess, bounty, behavior,
All gallant virtues, all qualities of body and soul.
O thrice ten hundred thousand times blessed and happy,
Blessed and happy travail, Travailer most blessed and happy.
****************************************
Comus, Milton
Spir. Ile tell ye, 'tis not vain, or fabulous,
(Though so esteem'd by shallow ignorance)
What the sage Poëts taught by th' heav'nly Muse, [ 515 ]
Storied of old in high immortal vers
Of dire Chimera's and inchanted Iles,
And rifted Rocks whose entrance leads to hell,
For such there be, but unbelief is blind.
Within the navil of this hideous Wood, [ 520 ]
Immur'd in cypress shades a Sorcerer dwels
Of Bacchus, and of Circe born, great Comus,
Deep skill'd in all his mothers witcheries,
And here to every thirsty wanderer,
By sly enticement gives his banefull cup, [ 525 ]
With many murmurs mixt, whose pleasing poison
The visage quite transforms of him that drinks,
And the inglorious likenes of a beast
Fixes instead, unmoulding reasons mintage
Character'd in the face; this have I learn't [ 530 ]
Tending my flocks hard by i'th hilly crofts,
That brow this bottom glade, whence night by night
He and his monstrous rout are heard to howl
Like stabl'd wolves, or tigers at their prey,
Doing abhorred rites to Hecate [ 535 ]
In their obscured haunts of inmost bowres.
****************************************
Mentis Character - Style is the image of man, for man is but his MIND... (Puttenham)
No, I am that I am, and they that level
At my abuses reckon up their own;
I may be straight, they themselves be bevel.
*By their rank thoughts my deeds must not be shown*,
Unless this general evil they maintain:
All men are bad, and in their badness reign.
************************
Hamlet
Fare thee well at once.
The glowworm shows the matin to be near
And gins to pale his uneffectual fire.
Adieu, adieu, adieu! Remember me.
****************
Melville, Billy Budd
Over him but scarce illuminating him, two battle lanterns swing from two massive beams of the deck above. Fed with the oil supplied by the war contractors (whose gains, honest or otherwise, are in every land an anticipated portion of the harvest ofdeath), with flickering splashes of dirty yellow light they pollute the pale moonshine all but ineffectually struggling in obstructed flecks through the open ports from which the tampioned cannon protrude.
***************
Jeff Westoverfatherly bearing towards Billy ironically worsens the foretopman’s position. The Captain’s kindness so flusters Billy, whose excessive desire to display his duty momentarily paralyzes him, that he strikes out not only in defense, but in a hapless,
The Impressments of Billy Budd
For many seamen at Spithead and the Nore, the political and linguistic barriers of literacy entailed a disabling relation of paternalism between the regime with which they negotiated and themselves. In Melville’s novella, Vere’s frequently remarked
The political arbitrations wrought by writing align plebeian illiteracy with regimental paternalism. Paternalism predicates inferiority, and that predication is implemented by an administrative literacy. The same paternalism that Vere shows towardBilly also prevails in a note addressed by one of the mutinous crews at Spithead to the Lords of the Admiralty on August 19, 1795: “the ill-usage we have on board this ship forced us to fly to your Lordships the same as a child to its father. It is
*******************. Since an ideology is “a network of elements whose value wholly depends on their respective differential positions within the symbolic structure” (Tarrying 231), Žižek posits that ideological space is composed of “floating signifiers” whose
Writing Britain: James VI & I and the National Body
Samantha Murphy
(...)Charnes’ description of narrative imperialism, especially in relation to its ability to create an absolute identity which structures the identity of others, is similar to Slavoj Žižek’s notion of the ‘nodal point’ or ‘master-signifier
As my contribution to this discussion of cultural studies and critical literacies, I offer a reading of the nation-building literacies produced during the reign of England’s first Stuart monarch, James I. Beginning a new dynasty with new culturalimperatives, James presided over England during a period of rapid growth and expansion. His vision, expressed through a paternally absolute discourse, sought to redefine England, both to others and herself, as a consolidated Great Britain. Courtier
Crucially, James exhibited his body to his subjects through writing. Textuality, the book to be studied, is as much a means to power as direct political action. Jeffrey Masten cogently describes James’ position as “a figure situated at theintersection of contemporaneous meanings of author: authority, father, instigator, ruler, writer” (66).[2] James recognized that to narrate is not simply to produce words, it is to produce the parameters of being; thus, he used his published material
(snip)The assignment of sole authorship was prescribed by neither law nor custom. Even when individual authorship was claimed, of course, texts did not emerge from a vacuum. As seen by James’ critique of his misreaders, his words do not simply or absolutely
In consistently returning to the dangers of misinterpretation, James displays an understandable anxiety over the possibility of absolute authorship. In the sixteenth- and seventeenth-centuries, collaboration was the prevalent mode of textual production.
How was James’ author/ity effectuated? In his preface to Workes, the Bishop of Winton describes the collection as “divers Off-springs . . . proceeded[ing] from one braine.” He continues that, in re-membering the scattered corpus, Workes “give[s]euery childe [its] owne Father; [and] euery Booke [its] trew Author.” In this, Winton echoes James’ rhetoric of benevolent paternal author/ity. The readers are prepared to view James as the generative father, birthing his textual offspring. As
What James’ work rhetorically reproduces is a hybrid body encompassing himself and his subjects. Agreeing with Peter Sloterdijk’s contention that “[t]o embody a doctrine means to make oneself into its medium” (102), I argue that James sought todiscursively and materially embody the doctrine of paternally generative author/ity. Exhibiting his body through writing, he creates a new literacy—a new common-sense map of meaning that consolidates his vision of absolute monarchy. As part of this
For James, the power relations inherent in patriarchal absolutism demand a hybridized kingly body; one that is antithetical to democratic principles. Acting as a hybridized network composing the body of the state, the king’s body is not only joinedto, but symbiotic with, the body of his nation. All life flows from James, and in him there is all life. In Speach to the Lords and Commons, James states, “For the King that is Parens Patriae, telles you of his wants. Nay, Patria ipsa by him speaks to
*************************
Jeff Westover
The Impressments of Billy Budd
Text as Impress
In concluding his novella with two contradictory reports of Billy Budd’s demise, Melville both explicitly addresses the subjective nature of history and demonstrates the complex character of hegemony. As “an inside narrative,” the novellapresents itself as a framework from which to assess the information in the different texts, even though the ambiguity that permeates the novellas suggest that its textual authority, like that of its concluding texts, cannot prove ultimately comprehensive.
Moreover, to the extent that Melville’s narrative renders “Billy in the Darbies,” both as a scene in its plot and ad the text of the closing ballad, it pre-presents and to some extent repeats the compulsion of impressment. The depictions of Billyin manacles form a composite “imprese,” or emblem, for the novella as a whole. Yet the image of Billy in chains functions as an impress in a more familiar sense, for this iconic posture represents the “characteristic or distinctive mark” of the
That repetition is not a simple matter, however. Although the dominant class of a society asserts its control partly through its recourse to a governing, constitutive ideology, the ascendancy of that class is by no means static and impenetrable. AsRaymond Williams insists, “hegemony is not singular; indeed...its own internal structures are highly complex, and have continually to be renewed, recreated and defended; and by the same token,...they can be continually challenged and in certain
*************************************their company one would be apt to say to another, something like this: "Vere is a noble fellow, Starry Vere. Spite the gazettes, Sir Horatio" (meaning him with the Lord title) "is at bottom scarce a better seaman or fighter. But between you and me now,
Melville, Billy Budd, Ch. 7
With minds less stored than his and less earnest, some officers of his rank, with whom at times he would necessarily consort, found him lacking in the companionable quality, a dry and bookish gentleman, as they deemed. Upon any chance withdrawal from
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