CENTERS AND PERIPHERIESIN EUROPEAN RENAISSANCE

CULTURE

Essays by East-Central European Mellon Fellows

Edited by

Gyrgy E. Sznyi and Csaba Maczelka

SZEGEDJATEPress

2012

Published by the

Research Group for Cultural Iconology and SemiographyInstitute of English and American Studies

University of Szeged

H-6722 SZEGED, Egyetem u. 2. HUNGARY

The production of this book was supported byThe Mellon Foundation

via the Council of American Overseas Research Centers

and

by the European Union and co-funded by the European Social Fund. Project title: Broadening the knowledge base and supporting the long term

professional sustainability of the Research University Centre of Excellence at theUniversity of Szeged by ensuring the rising generation of excellent scientists.

Project number: TMOP-4.2.2/B-10/1-2010-0012

Cover Design:ETELKA SZNYI

The Authors, 2012 JATEPress, 2012

ISBN 978-963-315-079-5

Gyrgy E. Sznyi & Csaba Maczelka ed. Centers and Peripheries in European Renaissance Culture. Essays by East-central European Mellon Fellows. Szeged: JATEPress, 2012

GYRGY E. SZNYI(University of Szeged; Central European University, Budapest)

Pastoral, Romance, Ritual and Magic in

Shakespeare and The Winters Tale

According to American scholar, Wayne Shumaker, while reading poetical works onecannot feel a major gap between people of the past and today, on the other hand,scientific ideas and texts open an enormous abyss and make us aware that those peoplewere very-very different from us. Magic provides a curious case. It is a kind of scientificdiscourse, and although it has been long invalidated by new paradigms of the naturalsciences, it has not lost appeal and is still appealing to large masses of people in thepostmodern age. Shakespeare himself was influenced by magical notions from astrologythrough alchemy to diabolical practices and these notions have various function indifferent groups of his plays: the histories, tragedies, comedies, or the romancesincorporate magic in their own right. My paper looks at some general characteristics ofhis last plays, paying special attention to the characteristics of the romances, such asritualistic representations. The supernatural and magical elements of the romances willbe analyzed in The Winters Tale as a test case and in its conclusion the paper looks at towhat extent this play balances between the Aristotelian and Platonic ideals concerningliterature: to hold the mirror up to nature versus to apprehend more than cool reasonever comprehends.

What Is Our First Impression of The Winters Tale?

Shakespeares great tragedies usually do not have a simple plot, and disregarding therules of unities they test the attention of the audience with various complexities.Nevertheless they do not perplex with illogical action or unbelievable characters. Thesecret to this is motivation one can say that the tragedies are more or less carefully andwell motivated in respect of action as well as character. In the last plays, however, the

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situation is rather different. Later I will come back to this question in detail, at thebeginning let us just have a look at the plot of The Winters Tale.

There are two kings, Leontes and Polixenes, ruling two countries, Sicilia andBohemia, which are separated from each other by an apparently rather wild sea. Thekings spent their youths together like brothers and now Polixenes visits his pal aftermany years, enjoying also the hospitality of the kings wife, Hermione. When he decidesto take his leave home, Leontes tries to convince him to stay and urges his wife to begthe guest. As he finally reluctantly agrees to stay on a while, Leontes is taken by a fit ofjealousy and becomes convinced that Hermione eloped with Polixenes, what is more,her present pregnancy is due to this adultery.

He goes as far as wanting to have Polixenes murdered, fortunately Camillo, the lordentrusted with this task renounces allegiance and flees with Polixenes to Bohemia. ThenHermione is banished and her new-born baby, Perdita is given to another Lord,Antigonus with the command that he abandons the offspring on the shores of Bohemiato perish where his unlawful father came from. Antigonus carries out the mission andas a reward he is duly devoured by a wild bear while his ship is destroyed in the stormwith all its crew.

To gain final proof, Leontes sends for a judicium to the oracle of Apollo in Delphi,but when the answer arrives claiming that his friend and his wife are innocent, he doesnot believe it. Hermione faints and is reported to be dead by the widow of Antigonus,Paulina, the outspoken critic of the seemingly possessed king. Leontess son also diesout of remorse over the fate of her mother. The king now all of a sudden breaks down,repents, and is ready to repair all his violent transgressions, but this seems to be too late.He does not know that his daughter was found by shepherds in Bohemia and will bebrought up to a happy rural life.

Act IV starts after sixteen years of gap. Perdita is now a beautiful young lady whosecharm has enchanted even the Bohemian kings son, Florizel. The suspecting fatherreveals the budding love and banishes his son because of neglecting his rank. The princerevolts and flees to Sicilia to take shelter in the court of Leontes who is still in deepremorse over his past sins. Most of these complicated events are not shown but revealedin the conversation of two courtiers, while long scenes are devoted to the country fairof the shepherds where Florizel courts Perdita, and where a memorable clown,Autolycus cheats on the naive rustic characters.

Act V brings about the peripeteia and anagnorisis: Leontes recognizes Perdita as his lostdaughter, this fact will lift the barrier from the marriage of Florizel and the princess.Now the arriving Polixenes is also happy and reunites with his old friend and in a semi-miraculous scene even Hermione comes to life. Paulina presents her as a statue andLeontes is taken by the scene, but when he repents for the thousands time, his rewardis complete restitution.

Not much is believable in the play, after all this is a tale. But even then, a lot of thingscan irritate the audience until it is realized that the logic of representation is very

GYRGY E. SZNYI 107

different from that of the great tragedies. Those critics, who have not dismissed the playas a straight failure, have been working hard to reveal the special representational logiccharacteristic for all the last plays of Shakespeare. The interpretive keys seem to be thecultural tradition and literary conventions of pastoral and romance.

Pastoral and Romance in the English Renaissance

One of the most important characteristic features of Renaissance literature in Europe as we all know was the revival of Antiquity: the Latin and Greek languages, theclassical metrics, and the Greek and Roman literary genres. Among these, particularlyimportant was the pastoral mode, with eclogues, pastoral comedies, even with longernarratives. Enough to think of the Neo-Latin poetry of Giovanni Pontano (1426-1503),head of the Academy in Naples; of Janus Pannonius (1434-72), humanist of theHungarian Matthias Corvinus and acknowledged author of vitriolic epigrams andmoving elegies; or Michael Marullus (1458-1500), the offspring of Greek exiles, whoseLatin love poems enchanted among many others Pierre de Ronsard.

Those, who fell under the spell of pastoral, included the Spanish ecloguist, Garcilasode la Vega (1501-36); Arcadian playwrights, such as Torquato Tasso (Aminta, 1573);Gian Battista Guarini (Pastor fido, 1585); or the Spanish pastoral novelists, JorgedeMontemayor (Diana, 1559) and Cervantes (La Galatea, 1585). Greatest and mostinfluential of all, however, was Jacopo Sannazaro (1455-1530), member of the Academiapontaniana, whose Arcadia (1504) set the standards of looking backward to the ecloguesof Theocritus and Virgil, at the same time inserted classical poetry in a novel frameworkof prose narrative.

Sannazaros Arcadia consists of twelve poems embedded in the story of the hopelesslove of Sincero for Phyllis. Like Virgils Gallus, Sincero travels to Arcadia and becomesenchanted by the simple and happy life of shepherds which helps to distract hisattention from his own misery. As John Scott writes, the fiction is transparent, and thepoet certainly has no intention of being bound by simplicity or reality; instead, hesucceeds in creating an artefact, a literary mosaic, which was admired and imitated forwell over two centuries in Western Europe. As we know from William Empson and1

others, pastoral has been a genre, or rather a mode of literary expression which describesthe country with an implicit or explicit contrast to the urban. Its purpose is usuallyescapism from the complicated and tiring world of the city but it also often developspolitical allegory.2

Dr. John A. Scott in Krailsheimer ed., The Continental Renaissance, 1500-1600, 168.1

Some important works on pastoral in English: Empson, Some Versions of Pastoral (1935); Kermode,2English Pastoral Poetry (1952); Williams, The Country and the City (1973); Poggioli, The Oaten Flute: Essays onPastoral Poetry and the Pastoral Ideal (1975); Alpers, What is Pastoral? (1986); Hiltner, What Else is Pastoral?(2011).

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The rise of pastoral in English Renaissance literature is quite an interesting story. Itwas the members of the Areopagus and here it is irrelevant if that was a real or virtualliterary society , Philip Sidney, Edward Dyer, and Edmund Spenser, who put forwarda program of vernacular literature based on classical principles: Greco-Roman metricsand genres, primarily pastoral. As Spenser recalled in his Two Other Very CommendableLetters addressed to Gabriel Harvey, the Cambridge professor and friend, who himselfwanted to be epitaphed as the Inventour of the English Hexameter:3

Now they have proclaimed in their areiT pagT, a generall surceasing and silence ofbalde Rymers, and also of the very beste to: in steade whereof, they haue by authoritie oftheir whole Senate, prescribed certaine Lawes and rules of Quantities of English sillables,for English verse.4

In the annus mirabilis of Elizabethan literature, 1579, Spenser published his TheShepheardes Calender which was meant to be a model work of this program, trying toprove that it is possible to write classical poetry in English with all the characteristics ofeclogues-based pastoral listed above. Around the same year, Sidney wrote his OldArcadia, which also contained eclogues embedded in a pastoral narrative of classicalsimplicity. From the preface to The Shepheardes Calender and from Sidneys theoreticalwork, The Defense of Poesie (1581) it is equally clear, that both authors also being thestudents of the classicist Gabriel Harvey were well aware of the history, typology, andintricacies of the pastoral tradition, still, there are some characteristic divergencies fromthe classical models. Most striking is, that in spite of the proclamation of the Areopagus,Spensers eclogues are not written in classical metres, rather in rhyming stanzas, someof them even recycling Chaucers metrics. Likewise, the eclogues of Sidneys Old Arcadiaare also far from pure, unrhyming classical patterns, what is more the work also containsnon classical genres, from songs to complicated sestinas.

The proposition seems to hold according to which pure literary classicism in theEnglish Renaissance was a short lived theoretical program, soon giving way to a muchmore mixed, contemporary, European, at the same time nationalistic poetics in whichthe home-bread late medieval poetical traditions were as effective as the modern Italianand Spanish models. As the mysterious E.K., Spensers mouthpiece (probably the poethimself) emphasized in the preface to The Shepherds Calender, Chaucer and Lydgateprovided ample artistic strength as the foundation of this new poetry. Then thecommentator added by painting a wide literary landscape:

So flew Theocritus, [ . . . ] Virgile, [ . . . ] Mantuane. So Petrarque. So Boccace; So Marot,Sanazarus, and also diuers other excellent both Italian and French Poetes, whose fotingthis Author euery where followed.5

Gabriel Harvey, Encyclopaedia Britannica (11 edition, 1911).th3

Spenser, Poetical Works, 635.4

Spenser, Poetical Works, 418.5

GYRGY E. SZNYI 109

In The Defense of Poesie Sidney also became less dogmatic about the choice betweenclassical and rhyming verse:

Now, of versifying there are two sorts, the one ancient, the other modern; the ancientmarked the quantity of each syllable, and according to that framed his verse; the modern,observing only number, [ . . . ] the chief life of it standeth in that like sounding of thewords, which we call rhyme. Whether of these be the more excellent, would bear manyspeeches. [ . . . ] Truly the English, before any vulgar language I know, is fit for bothsorts.6

Characteristically, in their later careers both Sidney and Spenser turned back on theirprogram of classicizing English literature. And with this they also abandoned pastoral,or to be more precise, they radically developed it into another mode, the romance. Whenby 1585-86 Sidney reworked the Old Arcadia, the result was a much less structured,infinitely more complicated, darker, adventure- and philosophy-oriented work, ladenwith miraculous and magical motifs. The same characteristic features can be seen in7

Spensers magnum opus, the Faerie Queene (1590, 1596). The tendency from pastoral to romance has been discussed in various ways, referring

either to larger cultural and stylistic trends of the European Renaissance, or to thenationalistic program of the Protestant elite of the Elizabethan literati, the so calledPenshurst-Wilton circle. In 2000, Warren Boutcher, however, called for a moredifferentiated interpretation of English Renaissance vernacular humanism, pointing out,that it was a rather general feature of the period between the 1570s and the 1620s thatthe major European vernaculars collectively played a large role alongside Latin andGreek in private humanist education, especially that provided for gentlemen andaristocrats at Oxbridge, the inns of court, and the court itself. The wide scope and8

versatility of literary interest is clearly obvious in Abraham Fraunces handbook oftropes and figures which in its title delineates his horizon of reference as a veryecumenical pool of literary genres and traditions: The Arcadian Rhetorike: or The praeceptsof rhetorike made plaine by examples Greeke, Latin, English, Italian, French, Spanish, out of HomersIlias, and Odissea, Virgils Aeglogs, [...] and Aeneis, Sir Philip Sydnieis Arcadia, songs and sonets...(1588). A year later, George Puttenhams The Arte of English Poesie (1589) offered similarpan-European, classical and modern references.

In the realm of popular literature from broadsheet ballads through short stories toplays of various genres the above sketched syncretism was even stronger, most of thetime with less complicated concepts and a stronger attention to popular appeal.Shakespeare and his contemporaries were notorious to neglect the much debated rules

Philip Sidney, The Defence of Poesy in Gavin Alexander ed., Sidneys The Defence of Poesy and6Selected Renaissance Literary Criticism (2004); reproduced in Leitch ed., The Norton Anthology of Theory andCriticism, 281.

See Gyrgy E. Sznyi, Lattrait de laventure et langoisse du mysterieux and King, Sidney and7Spenser.

Boutcher, Who Taught Thee Rhetoricke to Deceive a Maid?, 12.8

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of unities and decorum, and forged their successes by concocting whatever was availablearound. We have long ago left behind the image of Shakespeare, the poeta doctus, onthe other hand we even more highly appreciate how skillfully he picked up with hissmall Latine and probably some other small linguistic resources his topics and sujets.

Shakespeare from his earliest years as a playwright was inclined to freely move amongmore classical traditions (for example his recycling Plautus in the Comedy of Errors) orfully exploiting medieval and Renaissance sources chronicles, legends, verse-romances,contemporary short stories, or even plays of earlier and his fellow dramatists to createfrom them innovative and very effective theatrical performances.

Shakespeares Last Plays

In the 1590s he used a lot of pastoral and romance elements in his so called romanticcomedies, which were less satire-oriented, rather, they presented a world, which aftersome disorder, misunderstanding and mismatching can be brought back to harmonyand happiness, concluding usually with multiple marriages. The exemplary model of this9

concept is As You Like It. After the more serious and pessimistic period of his problemplays and the tragedies, in his last years he returned to the syncretic model of pastoraland romance, but with some important modifications. Were these the documents of thesoftening heart and the weakening mind of the elderly playwright, or do they showintriguing new experiments, too? Without wanting to blindly idealizing Shakespeare andsuggesting that whatever he did was perfect, I suggest alongside many critics, that thelast tragicomedies are marked by a special kind of a representational logic which wasinspired by the changes of the cultural trends of the Renaissance world as well as thetheatrical conventions of the English stages challenging Shakespeare to renew his art.10

In 1608 the Globe purchased the Blackfriars which became the first private theaterwhose audience consisted of courtiers not in need of meticulous motivation andcharacter study, rather excitement, surprise and miraculous elements. This demand wassatisfied by Shakespeares contemporaries, John Fletcher (1579-1625), and his occasionalcollaborator, Francis Beaumont (1584-1616), with their hits, such as The Woman Hater,Philaster, and The Scornful Lady. It is almost certain that Shakespeare wanted to competewith this new fashion spilling over from the private theater onto the public stages, too.

On the romantic comedies classic works are Knight, The Romantic Comedies (1932); Pettet,9Shakespeare and the Romance Tradition (1949); Bradbrook, The Growth and Structure of Elizabethan Comedy (1955);Barber, Shakespeares Festive Comedy (1959); Frye, A Natural Perspective (1965); Muir, Shakespeare: The Comedies(1965); Lerner, Shakespeares Comedies (1967); McFarland, Shakespeares Pastoral Comedy (1972); Laroque,Shakespeares Festive World (1991); etc.

It is interesting, that the most important monographs on the representational logic of the romances10were published around the 1970s: Frye, A Natural Perspective (1965); Felperin, Shakespearean Romance (1972);Smith, Shakespeares Romances (1972); Peterson, Time, Tide, and Tempest (1973); Yates, Shakespeares Last Plays(1975); etc.

GYRGY E. SZNYI 111

On the other hand, this new dramaturgy and philosophy could also be congenial withShakespeares changing attitude about the ideals and expectations of the Renaissanceworld picture. His last plays The Winters Tale, Pericles, Cymbeline, and The Tempest(alongside with the also romantic Henry VIII and The Two Noble Kinsmen) tell long andcomplicated stories using a loose dramatic structure. They often capitalize on the lateHellenic novels, such as Pericles following the History of Apollonius of Tyre, or Boccacciosshort stories, as Cymbeline incorporates the romance of Zinevra and Bernabo Lomellini.But behind Shakespeares sujets we also find Longus, Heliodorus, Achilles Tatius; theGesta Romanorum; the Amadis de Gaula, the works of John Gower, Holinsheds chronicles,Robert Greenes pastoral novel (Pandosto) and many other, heterogeneous works, mostof which were available in some English translation or turned into original Englishliterary products.

These last works of Shakespeare are nearest to the tragicomedies defined by JonFletcher in his famous preface to The Faithful Shepherdess as follows:

A tragicomedy is not so called in respect of mirth and killing, but in respect it wants [i.e.,lacks] deaths, which is enough to make it no tragedy; yet brings some near it, which isenough to make it no comedy.11

It is very tempting and easy to talk about the four Shakespeare-romances in relationto each other. All of them are characterized by resigned melancholy. They have artificialhappy endings: children reconcile with their parents, lovers gain each other, belovedpersons considered to be dead miraculously come back to life but all this happens asdeus ex machina, among unbelievable circumstances and without psychological credibility,thus leaving the audience with some skeptical embitterment.

It has been pointed out by Michael OConnell and others, that the romances are12

near to myth-based rituals in which the purpose of representation is to attemptmastering fate and future by means of ceremonies and magic. Such a program demandsgreat faith and empathy, without which the poetry will just make you lull.

Another important motif in the romances is the appearance of young, promisinggenerations, like Miranda and Ferdinand in The Tempest, or Perdita and Florizel in TheWinters Tale. It would be nice to trust in the prospect that they will create a brave newworld when they take the power over from their already shaken parents. After havinggot acquainted with Shakespeares histories and tragedies, one has at least somereservations.

Although The Tempest stands apart from the other three romances with having a strictand unified plot and time structure, there are interesting convergences, too. One suchfeature leads us to the territory of representational logic, which is the emblematic wayof seeing and thinking. The roots of the emblematic epistemology go back to the Middle

John Fletcher, The Faithful Shepherdess (London, 1608), Preface.11

Michael OConnell, The Idolatrous Eye, 279-309.12

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Ages and are best summarized by the well-known poem of the 12 -century Alain deth

Lille:

Omnis mundi creatura Quasi liber et pictura Nobis est in speculum;Nostrae vitae, nostrae mortis,Nostri status, nostrae sortisFidele signaculum.

[All the creatures of the world, as a book and a picture are for us as a mirror. Our life,our death, our condition, our passing are faithfully signified.]13

In the eleventh century Hugo of Saint Victor added another powerful metaphor tothe exegetical understanding of the universe. As he wrote, the world was nothing else,but a book written by the hand of God. The idea of the signatura rerum, that is that the14

things of the world should be read as Gods signs, was not only attractive for the peopleof the Middle Ages but also for those of the Renaissance and the Baroque periods.Salluste Du Bartas, in his Divine Weeks and Works, which was published in English in thesame year as The Winters Tale performed on the stage summarized this doctrine asfollows:

The Worlds a Stage, where Gods Omnipotence, His Iustice, Knowledge, Loue, and Prouidence, Do act their Parts; contending (in their kindes) Aboue the Heavns to rauish dullest mindes.

The Worlds a Book in Folio, printed all With Gods great Works in letters Capitall: Each Creature is a Page; and each Effect, A faire Character, void of all defect. 15

Both in typological symbolism and in emblematic expressions we find an ambitionto reveal some higher truth, moral teaching or universal revelation. It was especially thesensus tropologicus, i.e. the ethical didaxis which fertilized the early modern imagination,including the emblem writers.16

It is possible to argue that late Renaissance drama, including Shakespeares romanceswas heavily emblematic, conveying culturally fixed secondary and tertiary meanings (with

Heninger, The Cosmographical Glass, 180-2; see also Bath, Speaking Pictures, 113-5; Daly, Literature in the13Light of the Emblem, 16; Fabiny, Shakespeare and the Emblem, 293-307.

See Gabriel Josipovici, The World and the Book, passim.14

Salluste Du Bartas, His deuine weekes and workes translated: and dedicated to the Kings most excellent Maiestie15by Iosuah Syluester (London, 1611), 6.

Cf. Schne, Emblematik, 47-8; Daly, Literature..., 48.16

GYRGY E. SZNYI 113

Umberto Ecos term overcoding), relying on the shared knowledge of the interpretive17

community. A simple, but clear example is the speaking names of the young femalecharacters Perdita is the lost child, Miranda is the wonder of education, Marina inPericles is the child of the sea , as we know from the medieval morality plays, speakingnames are an obvious and rather static way of characterization, turning characters toallegorical or emblematic personifications.

If one is used to the emblematic/allegorical way of thinking and seeing, should notbe surprised at Leontes abrupt fit of jealousy, the attack of the wild bear on Antigonus,the artificial pastoral world in which Perdita can easily meet with Florizel, or the stuporthat blinds Leontes to recognize the living creature in Hermione presented as a statue.Critics, socialized among the conventions of the post-Renaissance, naturalistic,photographic theatre have been greatly disturbed by these features of the romances.18

On the other hand, the innovative, re-ritualized, strongly symbolic theatre of thetwentieth century, from Antoine Artaud through Samuel Beckett to Peter Brook andJerzy Grotowski drove the modern audience with a fresh appreciation back to stages inmany way similar to that of the Renaissance.

The Magical World of the Romances

Shakespeares whole oeuvre is characterized by an interest in occult themes andphenomena. The topics of the Western esoteric traditions are wide ranging, fromscience-related astrology and alchemy through beliefs in supernatural ghosts, spirits, andwitches, to complex world models, such as the Great Chain of Being which seamlesslyaccommodated magic power and occult correspondences. In the plays, we can easilyfind examples for all these types, associating to contexts of magic, mythology, scienceand religion.

Astrological determination is a recurring topic, as at the beginning of Alls Well thatEnds Well when Helena tells Parolles: The wars hath so kept you under that you mustneeds be born under Mars (1.1.213). In The Winters Tale Leontes also gives anastrological explanation about the frailty of women: It is a bawdy planet, that will strike/ Where tis predominant; . . . No barricado for a belly (1.2.201-4).

Most of the plays as well as the poems abound in alchemical tropes and figures,sometimes with such technical details that one wonders if Shakespeare had no directcontact with a practitioner, or if he did not read special literature, such as GeorgeRipleys The Compound of Alchemy, originally written in 1471, but printed in 1591. Let us

Eco, A Theory of Semiotics, 129.17

An accurate differentiation of the Renaissance-emblematic and the post-Renaissance photographic18theatre was worked out by Glynne Wickham, see his Early English Stages, vol. 2/1 passim. The dilemmasof verisimilitude and motivation-based critics can be seen in Arthur Quiller-Couchs paper, ShakespearesLater Workmanship, 749-60.

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remember Lady Macbeths image what she uses to describe the desirable effect ofdrunkenness on Duncans guards:

Memory, the warder of the brain,Shall be a fume, and the receipt of reasonA limbeck only. (1.7.66-8)

The reference is to the alchemical vessel, the alembic, this is the brain, in which asCharles Nicholl explains the crude material of sensory data is purified and separatedand its essence collected in the receipt of reason. Alcohol will so befuddle this processthat there will only be crude liquor of experience. The guards will remember nothing ofthe murder of Duncan...19

All of us remember the witches of Macbeth, or the ghosts of Richard III, JuliusCaesar, Hamlet, and Macbeth, but the best examples to demonstrate the complexity ofthe Great Chain of Being, encompassing the whole existence from the elements to thetranscendental spheres are A Midsummernights Dream and The Tempest. The latter remindsus of that special, eery atmosphere of the last plays in which life, dream, and magic arecompletely intertwined.

The Tempest is directed by a real magus, Prospero, a composite character uniting manyRenaissance hermeticist philosopher-scholars, such as the neoplatonist Pico dellaMirandola, the par excellence magus Cornelius Agrippa, the esoteric physician,Theophrastus Paracelsus, or the hermetic engineer, Cornelius Drebbel, who wasShakespeares contemporary and they could even be in personal contact since theDutchman lived in London from 1604 and occasionally was employed by Jamesscourt. Similar doctor-scientists endowed with occult powers are Pericless Cerimon, the20

Paracelsian natural philosopher who brings Thaisa back to life, or Cymbelines Corneliuswho turns Imogen seemingly dead with his drugs.

We should not forget about the fact, that Shakespeare could even personally beacquainted with such contemporaries in real London life, for example themathematician-magus John Dee who astrologically determined Elizabeths day ofcoronation in 1558, and in his older age regularly conversed with angels and spirits; orSimon Forman, the less highly esteemed, still popular alchemist-gynecologist-quack, whocounseled many women, probably fathered a lot of children, and who, according to thehypothesis of A. L. Rowse was the physician of Shakespeares mysterious Dark Lady.21

See Nicholl, The Chemical Theatre, 75.19

On Drebbel (1572-1633) see [access: 2011-11-13] and further literature here. On Drebbel and Shakespeare see Grant,The Magic of Charity, 1-16; Grudin,Rudolf II of Prague and Cornelis Drebbel, 181-205; Mowat,Prospero, Agrippa, and Hocus Pocus, 281-303; Mowat, Prosperos Book., 1-33; Yates, ShakespearesLast Plays, passim.

On Forman the three most important monography are: Kassel, Medicine and Magic; Rowse, The Case21Books; Traister, The Notorious Physician.

GYRGY E. SZNYI 115

The very same Forman, as we know, was a passionate playgoer and he saw The WintersTale on May 15, 1611 and in his diary gave a rather exact plot summary, except that hecuriously forgot to mention the final act with Hermiones miraculous revival. Instead,he elaborated on the cozening activities of Autolycus, finishing his resume with thefollowing moral lesson: Beware of trusting feigned beggars, or fawning fellows.22

The last plays are frequented by supernatural characters, too. Ariel and other spiritsin The Tempest, apparition of ancestral ghosts in Cymbeline, even mythological gods andgoddesses, such as Iris, Ceres, Juno in The Tempest, Diana in Pericles, Apollo and satyrsin The Winters Tale. In this drama Apollos oracle in Delphos is the focal point ofsupernatural forces. What all other human characters know, but Leontes does notbelieve, the soothsayer of the esoteric shrine confirms and thus miraculously stops theotherwise unaccountable rage of jealousy in the king. Ironically, while the jealous king23

does not believe what average humans can clearly see, at the end of the play he will haveto believe what no human reason can comprehend: a statue coming to life. Leontes willneed a leap of faith to grasp the incomprehensible; as Paulina says: It is requird / Youdo awake your faith (5.3.94-95).

The living statue recalls a great number of myths and stories of miracles. On the onehand from Greek mythology one can recall the transformation of Pygmalions ivoryfemale statue; Pandora, the first woman made of clay by Hephaestus at the request ofZeus; the automata created by Prometheus for his workshop; Talos, an artificial manmade of bronze by Hephaestus in order to protect Zeuss lover, Europa. On the otherhand, one can also remember the Corpus hermeticum, according to which the ancientEgyptian priests were supposed to infuse life into the statues of their gods by variousmagical rites, including musical accompaniment. This legend was much discussed in24

the Renaissance and particularly glorified by Giordano Bruno in his Italian dialogues,published in England in the 1580s. Furthermore, as Leonard Barkan has showed, the25

artwork which is so perfect that actually comes to life was also a central metaphor of theRenaissance artists ambition to deify himself with his creative energies. 26

In Loves Labours Lost Berowne speaks about the musical-magical power of love:

Loves tongue . . . as sweet and musical

Formans The Bocke of Plaies (Oxford MS Ashmole 208) was discovered in 1832 and first22published by J. P. Collier in his New particulars regarding the works of Shakespeare in a letter to the Rev. A. Dyce(1836). See Pafford, Simon Formans Bocke of Plaies, 289-291. Formans text is available in mosteditions of the three Shakespeare plays he included in his notebook: Macbeth, Cymbeline, The Winters Tale.

No need to say, many efforts have been made to account for Leontess jealousy. Recently James A.23Knapp has explained it in the context of Levinass philosophy of alterity and Derridas notions ofdeconstruction (Visual and Ethical Truth in The Winters Tale, 253-78).

See Yates, Shakespeares Last Plays: A New Approach, 90-1.24

Especially in Spaccio della bestia trionfante (London, 1584), dialogue 3. See Frances A. Yates, Giordano25Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition, 211-3.

Barkan, Living Sculptures, 639-667.26

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As bright Apollos lute, strung with his hair;And when Love speaks, the voice of all the godsMakes heaven drowsy with the harmony. (4.3.339-45)

Hermiones coming to life is accompanied by music, about whose curative and creativepower testified not only the myth of Orpheus, but also the neoplatonic philosophy ofMarsiglio Ficino, Francesco Giorgi, Pierre de la Primaudaye. Thus music creates life27

and cures old wounds, but also represents the power of love and reconciliation. Paulinecalls her queen as follows: Music, awake her: strike! Tis time; descend; be stone nomore: approach... (5.3.99-100) then to Leontes: do not shun her / present yourhand: / When she was young you wood her; now in age / Is she become the suitor?And then the king exclaims: O! Shes warm. / If this be magic, let it be an art / Lawfulas eating (5.3.105-111).

Although I cannot agree without some reservation, it is still worth quoting FrancesYatess opinion with which she integrated The Winters Tale into her elevated vision ofRenaissance hermeticism: The return of Hermetic, or Egyptian magical religioninvolves, in the hermetic texts and in Giordano Brunos interpretation of them, thereturn of moral law, the banishment of vice, the renewal of all good things, a holy andmost solemn restoration of nature herself. There is perhaps something of this magicalreligious and moral philosophy in the profoundities about nature in The WintersTale.28

Frances Yates definitely wanted to see Shakespeares last plays as testimonies forpeace, reconciliation and harmony. But if we consider a possible alchemical reading ofthe statue scene, we can also perceive Shakespeares subversive and unorthodox attitudeto traditional esoteric ideas. Iin alchemy there are two parallel processes taking place. Onthe one hand the elemental matter is transmuted into gold or elixir, on the other hand,the operator, the alchemist also goes through a spiritual transmutation. The gender29

roles in the process are traditional: the active, male principle is in the focus, representedby the King, the bridegroom, Sun, gold, the lion, and the alchemist himself isinvariably a man. The female principle is also essential in the process as foundation(earth, Nature), or catalyzer (the Queen, the bride, Moon, silver, the virgin, the whore).The most elaborate allegorical narrative of these processes is Johann Valentin AndreaesChimische Hochzeit (1626, English translation by E. Foxcroft, 1690) and Michel MaiersThemis aurea (1618, English translation 1656), but of course, one could also rely on native

On the correspondences of music and magic see Walker, Spiritual and Demonic Magic, 12-30; and27Wuidar ed., Music and Esotericism, especially Amandine Mussou, Le mdicin et les sons: Musique etmagie... (23-45); Marjorie A. Roth, Prophecy, Harmony, and the Alchemical Transformation of the Soul(45-77).

Yates, Shakespeares Last Plays, 91.28

Here I dont want to reflect on the recently ongoing debate whether spiritual alchemy was or was29not part of early modern esotericism. A summary and rebuttal of the sceptical opinions of LawrencePrincipe can be found by Calian, Alkimia Operativa and Alkimia Speculativa.

GYRGY E. SZNYI 117

English alchemical texts, such as Ripleys Compound of Alchemy, [Pseudo] Roger BaconsThe Mirror of Alchimy (1597), and many others later republished in a huge anthology ofElias Ashmole, the Theatrum Chemicum Britannicum (1652). All of these transmitted theabove mentioned traditional aproach to gender hierarchy, and Shakespeare was noexeption when he used alchemical imagery.

It is all the more interesting that on one occasion, in the statue-scene of The WintersTale the Bard radically subverted the traditional understanding of alchemy, similarly tohis usual technique of transgressing tradition-based emblematic imagery. As has beennoticed, he often used the emblematic way of expression, employing well-known imagesin bonam partem and in malam partem. This is how Richard II will be associated with the30

setting sun, or the daughter of Antiochus in Pericles turns from the fruit of a celestialtree and a fair glass of light into a glorious casket stord with ill, not mentioningbeing a fair viol [...] played upon before [her] time, / Hell only danceth at so harsh achime (1.1.22, 76-85).

At the end of The Winters Tale there takes place a magic transmutation of the stonestatue of Hermione into a living being: Who was most marble, there changed colour(5.2.89). There is a certain irony in the situation concerning Leontes, the King/Lion tobe exalted into Sun/Gold when he does not notice the trick played on his senses. Butif we take the emblematic setting seriously, we are satisfied to see that he takes the morallesson:

I am ashamed: does not the stone rebuke me For being more stone than it? O royal piece, Theres magic in thy majesty. (5.3.37-9)

Who is the Royal Piece then, the Magnum Opus? Hermione, the perfect woman whodid not need to change at all, she represented superiority from the beginning. And whois the alchimist then, the operator, who also undergoes spiritual exaltatio? In this sceneof Shakespeare the two functions, the active operator and the spiritually transmutedperson are separated, or doubled. There is the male king who badly needs the renovationand regeneration, on the other hand the operator is again a woman, Paulina. It has beennoticed by several citics, that at the end of The Winters Tale Leontes actually is ratherpushed into the background behind the dignified and celebrated female interactionsamong Paulina, Hermione, and the lost-found Perdita.

*****

The limits of this study urge me to leave the magic of The Winters Tale and come tomy brief conclusion which I offer as a concise comparison between our play and theother romances. Among the last plays The Winters Tale has the strongest inclination for

See Daly, Teaching Shakespeare; Sznyi, Matching....30

118 RENAISSANCE CENTRES AND PERIPHERIES

the pastoral, but it has weaker romance elements than Cymbeline or Pericles and much lesscomplicated magic than The Tempest. The Winters Tale charms rather with its poetry andits dramaturgy, although as we have seen, some associations with alchemy in connectionwith the statue of Hermione are notable.

One should also remember, however, that this dramaturgy shall only work if we havethe proper key to it. Although The Winters Tale and the other romances do not hold amirror up to nature in the sense as Hamlet suggests to the actors, the last plays also tella lot about the nature of time and the nature of man in a way as Theseus sees theworking of the poet: to apprehend more than cool reason ever comprehends. Nodoubt, this is a kind of escapism. But there are personal and social/political situations(in the life of a man growing old and becoming resigned or in times like theuninspiring rule of James I after the untimely death of Prince Henry) in which the bestway seems to take the drug of fantasy, hibernate, and use the magic power of theimagination to regenerate until better times will give a new chance to return to reality.

Postscript. All great art is ambiguous, and subversive to some extent. In The WintersTale the escapist fantasy is counterbalanced and subverted by the cheating and cunningAutolycus and the less than wise shepherds of the somewhat sarcastic Arcadia. Preciselybecause of these elements the play leaves in the audience a feeling of quasi- or unrealsolution. But it is ultimately up to us whether we choose the dreamland or the bitternessof reality.

References

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Barkan, Leonard. Living Sculptures: Ovid, Michelangelo, and The Winters Tale. EnglishLiterary History 48 (Winter, 1981): 639-667.

Bradbrook, M. C. The Growth and Structure of Elizabethan Comedy. London: Chatto & Windus,1952.Calian, George-Florin. Alkimia Operativa and Alkimia Speculativa. Some Modern Controversies

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Eco, Umberto. A Theory of Semiotics. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1976.Empson, William. Some Versions of Pastoral. London: Chatto & Windus, 1935 (New edition: 1986).Encyclopaedia Britannica (11 edition, 1911), , access 2011-10-02.Fabiny, Tibor ed. Shakespeare and the Emblem. Szeged: JATE (Papers in English & American

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. Matching the Falles of Princes and Machiavell: Tradition and Subversion in theHistoriography and Iconography of Shakespeares Histories. In Sznyi & Rowland Wymered., The Iconography of Power: Ideas and Images of Rulership on the English Renaissance Stage (Szeged:JATEPress, 2000, Papers in English & American Studies 8), 5-33.

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Walker, D. P. Spiritual and Demonic Magic from Ficino to Campanella (1958). Pennsylvania StateUniversity Press, 2000.

Wickham, Glynne. Early English Stages. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1966.Williams, Raymond. The Country and the City. Oxford University Press, 1973.Wuidar, Laurence ed. Music and Esotericism. Leiden: Brill (Aries Book Series 9), 2010.Yates, Frances A. Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul,

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Contents

Contents. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Preface. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

CENTERS AND PERIPHERIES: A CASE STUDY. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

MIKE PINCOMBECentre and Periphery in Renaissance Europe:Tudor England in an InternationalContext. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

HUMANISM, CONTACTS, LITERATURE. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

SNDOR BENERenaissance or Medieval Mirror for Magistrates? Andreas Pannonius libelli inVarious Research Perspectives. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29

IVAYLA POPOVAAeneas Sylvius Piccolomini (Pope Pius II) and the Balkans. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47

ANDRS SZABDavid Chytraeus und Ungarn. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59

VIOREL PANAITEA French Ambassador in Istanbul, and his Turkish Manuscript on WesternMerchants in the Ottoman Mediterranean (Late-16th and Early-17th Centuries). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69

PIOTR URBASKIUt Pictura Poesis in Sarbiewskis Theory and Practice. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85

PL CSThe Theory of Soul-sleeping at the Beginning of the Hungarian ReformationMovement. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95

2 CONTENTS

GYRGY E. SZNYIPastoral, Romance, Ritual and Magic in Shakespeare and The Winters Tale. . 105

RELIGION, SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121

DARIUSZ NIEKOThe Familiar and the Foreign in the Universal History (Marcin Bielskis Chronicle ofthe Whole World). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123

TOM NEJESCHLEBAThe Theory of Sympathy and Antipathy in Wittenberg in the 16 century. . . . 135th

HANNA WGRZYNEKMedicine and the Origins of Blood Libel Accusations in Old Poland (mid-16 mid-th

17 centuries). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145th

GBOR BOROSMontaigne and Descartes in Cosmopolis. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153

ILDIK SZ. KRISTFThe Uses of Demonology. European Missionaries and Native Americans in theAmerican Southwest (17-18th Centuries). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161

VISUAL CULTURE. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183

PAVEL KALINAGiovanni Pisano, Ltd.? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185

JERZY MIZIOEKTowards a New Interpretation of Botticellis Primavera . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197

IVAN GERATSaint Anthony the Hermit in the Northern Renaissance Some Aspects of HisPainted Legends. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213

LUBOMR KONECNYThe Poetry of Titians Poesie: The Renaissance View. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223

CONTENTS 3

OLGA KOTKOVWhere did Maerten van Heemskerck create his painting Venus and Cupid inVulcans Forge?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231

TADEUSZ J. UCHOWSKIDie altertmliche berlieferung in den Renaissance-Skulptur-Traktaten. SonderfallMarmoraria.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 239

VA KNAPPGBOR TSKS

The Iconography of King Saint Stephen I in Prints 14501700. . . . . . . . . . . . . 255

ABOUT THE AUTHORS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 275

Preface

The contributions in this volume come from a special group of scholars. Andrew W.Mellon East-Central European Research Fellowships in the Humanities were establishedin 1993 and came to an end in 2010. The programme, which disbursed over 10 milliondollars in funding for over 600 scholars, was administered by the Council of AmericanOverseas Research Centers in Washington under the direction of Dr. Mary Ellen Lane.Initially there were eight European institutes of advanced study receiving scholars on theMellon programme, but over the years the number increased to seventeen and also en-compassed institutes in Israel and Turkey.

The particular focus of the Mellon Program was to provide support to thebeleaguered humanities during a period of profound change in Central and SoutheastEurope and to encourage scholarly exchange. Subjects that had once provided a nichefor intellectuals such as medieval and early modern history, classical studies, neo-Latinliterature, music and art history seemed particularly threatened. The attractiveness ofsmaller subjects in the humanities always suffer in an economic situation whereteachers and university teachers continue to receive low pay while incomes in othersectors rise rapidly. Persuading young people to engage with the humanities was and isa constant struggle. Creating international networks and providing opportunities foryounger scholars to travel and engage in discussions with their counterparts in othercountries is of paramount importance in this effort.

From the outset of the Mellon programme transnational research was seen to be ofparticular significance in helping the humanities in Central and Southeast Europe toengage with and evolve new methodologies and new areas of research. In relation to theparticular historical eras for which the manuscript and rare book holdings of the HerzogAugust Bibliothek are richest medieval and early modern Europe communicationbetween researchers is essential in both directions, for European continental history isa common and enmeshed history dissociated from todays national borders. TheEuropean nature of Humanist and Renaissance sources in Latin knew no receptionboundaries. The expansive nature of the Holy Roman Empire meant that there was noone main centre in which historical sources were concentrated. During the Iron Curtainera scholars working on topics concerning the many former German-speaking areas inthe 15th, 16th and 17th centuries were often not able to gain access to the primarysources reflecting their own histories. The depletion or destruction of historic librariesand archives in Central and Eastern Europe during the Second World War exacerbatedthe situation in many fields.

From the point of view of early modern scholars the Renaissance and Renascencesconference of East-Central European Mellon Fellows held in July 2003 at the University

6 RENAISSANCE CENTRES AND PERIPHERIES

of Szeged in the Conference Centre of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences was a highpoint of the programme. Of the thirty Mellon fellows who attended the conference,eleven had been fellowship-holders at the Herzog August Bibliothek. The conferencewas organized by our former fellow, Gyrgy E. Sznyi, holder of a chair in EnglishLiterature at the University of Szeged. The idea for the meeting came up during a visithe paid to the CAORC offices in Washington and his discussions with Mary Ellen Lane.Professor Sznyis final programme for Szeged brought together an impressive rangeof topics and speakers. The conference also coincided with the 10th anniversary of theMellon Fellowship Programme. For those Mellon Fellows with a research interest inRenaissance studies who may have spent time in London at the Warburg Institute or inFlorence at the Villa I Tatti or at another of the participating institutes this was anopportunity to meet as a group of alumni and present papers. Even those who hadbeen fellows at the same institute in the same year had not necessarily overlapped andmet. The welcoming atmosphere of our hosts in Southern Hungary provided an idealambience for exchange and discussion.

The present volume not only documents studies undertaken by Mellon scholars inthe field of early modern studies, it is a tribute to the work of the Mellon Foundationand above all to the efforts of the administrators of the programme at the CAORC. Inchoosing to focus on centres and peripheries the volume takes as its theme a centralaspect of the Mellon programme a revision of the meaning of borders and boundaries,of geographical and mental mapping and posits the need for experts who can providepermanent historical contextualisation in the face of changing political realities.

Jill Bepler Herzog August Bibliothek,

Wolfenbttel

EDITORS NOTE

There is nothing to be proud of if a volume is published nine years after the conferencethat had inspired its publication. The editors can only console themselves with thesaying: Better later than never. As Doctor Bepler kindly acknowledges in her Preface,the 2003 Mellon Fellows Conference indeed was a success in bringing together East-Central European scholars who had enjoyed the marvellous opportunity of receivinggenerous grants at the leading Renaissance and early modern research centres of Europe.Unfortunately less happy years followed, especially the crisis-ridden turn of the 2010sand the publication was delayed due to financial and organizational problems. A fewmoths ago, however, having heard about the closing of the Mellon East-CentralEuropean Fellows Program, I woke up to the realisation: the almost ready volume

PREFACE 7

cannot go down the sink instead of commemorating and paying tribute to this bene-volent and extremely inspiring Mellon-CAORC initiative.

To add one more saying: alls well that ends well. By now the volume has beentypeset and JATEPress of Szeged is ready to print it without further delay. It happensthat some of the authors have decided to abstain from publication, others have alreadypublished their papers, but kindly agreed to reissue them in this commemorativevolume. Some authors, including myself, have offered new papers, after all, the purposeis to erect a small monument to the Program.

I would like to utilize this moment to thank the participants as well as the supportersof the sunny and cheerful 2003 conference, especially the representatives of three hostresearch institutions: Dr. Jill Bepler from the Herzog August Bibliothek, Wolfenbttel,Dr. Allen Grieco from the Villa i Tatti, Florence, and Dr. Franois Quiviger from theLondon Warburg Institute. The greatest and special thanks are due, of course, to MaryEllen Lane, for her continuous encouragement and CAORCs abundant financialsupport.

For the present publication I owe a great deal of gratitude to my student and co-editor, Csaba Maczelka (himself already a Wolfenbttel alumnus), Jill Bepler for thePreface and Etelka Sznyi of JATEPress, for the production of the volume.

Szeged, June 1, 2012. Gyrgy E. Sznyi

University of Szeged/ Central European University, Budapest