Abstract
Egypt’s Cleopatra and England’s Kent: both appear in late Elizabethan drama as stage ciphers wherein alien and domestic identities mingle. Encounters between native and foreign representations of imaginary selves did not necessarily produce a singular resolution of native identity defined against a clearly differentiated ‘Other’. Instead, characters are fields of play for native identities under pressure, and rather than clarifying and defining a static, consensual group norm, they express dynamic discourses in which social and political identities may become destabilised by volatile and ambiguous figurative environments. In both cases, metaphorical geographies are made available for dramatic embodiment; Egypt, the dark ‘Other’, becomes Cleopatra, and Kent, the ‘best of English’, may become a variety of characters onomastically tagged with this regional identity. The translation of geography into character is a form of synecdoche, translating a generalised foreign or native identity into a local, embodied instance. The role of the audience or reader is to read this translation as analogue, recognising in these characters aspects of their own identities.
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Notes
Jean de Chassanion, The Theatre of Gods Iudgements: or, a collection of histories out of sacred, ecclesiasticall, and prophane authours concerning the admirable iudgements of God vpon the transgressours of his commandements, trans. and augmented by Thomas Beard (1597), Book 1, Chapter 2, sig.B2r. Hereafter cited as Beard.
Richard Johnson, The Most Famous History of the Seauen Champions of Christendome (1596;Part 2 in 1597;Parts 1 and 2 in 1608). See Naomi Conn Liebler, ‘Bully St. George: Richard Johnson’s Seven Champions of Christendom and the Creation of the Bourgeois National Hero’, in Early Modern Prose Fiction: The Cultural Poetrics of Reading, ed. by Naomi Conn Liebler.
Anon (attrib. Antony Bacon), The State of Christendom, written in the 1590s but first published in 1657. For the attribution to Bacon, see Alexandra Gajda, ‘The State of Christendom: History, Political Thought and the Essex Circle’. Edwin Sandys, A Relation of the State of Religion (1605).
Torquato Tasso, Godfrey of Bulloigne, or the recouerie of Hierusalem. An heroicall poeme written in Italian by Seig. Torquato Tasso, trans. by Richard Carew (Books 1 to 5) (1594). Torquato Tasso (Gerusalemme liberata), Godfrey of Bulloigne, or The recouerie of Ierusalem. Done into English heroicall verse, by Edward Fairefax Gent. trans. by Edward Fairfax (1600). See Richard Helgerson, ‘Tasso on Spenser: The Politics of Chivalric Romance’.
Thomas Heywood, The Foure Prentises of London, with the conquest of Ierusalem (1615).
Francis Beaumont, The Knight of the Burning Pestle (1613), IV.47–50.
Martin Luther, On War Against the Turk (1529), quoted by Daniel Vitkus, Turning Turk: English Theatre and the Multicultural Mediterranean, 1570–1630, p. 50. See also George W. Forell, ‘Luther and the War against the Turks.
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George Peele, The Tragicall Battell of Alcazar in Barbarie with the death of three kings, and Captaine Stukley an Englishman (1594). The edition used here is that edited by Frank Sidgwick for the Malone Society (1907).
George Peele, A Farewell. Entituled to the famous and fortunate generals of our English forces: Sir Iohn Norris & Syr Frauncis Drake Knights, and all theyr braue and resolute followers (1589), sig.A3r, lines 20–5.
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James VI and I, By the King although we haue made it knowen (1603).
Thomas Kyd’s The Spanish Tragedy appeared in 1592, 1594, 1599, 1602 and 1603.
Thomas Heywood, 1 If You Know Not Me, You Know No Bodie (1605). The edition used here is 1 If You Know Not Me, You Know Nobody, ed. by Madeleine Doran for the Malone Society (1934/5). Part One was registered with the Stationers’ Company on 5 July 1605 for Nathanial Butter, and printed the same year. Subsequent editions appeared in 1606, 1608, 1610, 1613, 1623, 1632 and 1639.
Thomas Heywood, 2 The Second Part of, If You Know Not Me, You Know No Bodie: with the building of the Royall Exchange: and the Famous Victorie of Queene Elizabeth in the Yeare 1588 (1606). The edition used here is 2 If You Know Not Me, You Know Nobody, ed. by Madeleine Doran for the Malone Society.
Andrew Hadfield, Shakespeare and Republicanism, p. 40, on English interest in Venetian republicanism as reflected by Gaspar Contarini’s De Magistratibus et Republica Venetou (1543), translated by Lewis Lewkenor as The Commonwealth and Government of Venice (1599).
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Robert Bellarmine, Matthaie Torti, presbyteri & theology papiensis, repsonsio ad librum inscriptum, Triplici nodo, triplex cuneus, sive apologia pro iuramento fidelitatis (1608).
James VI and I, An Apologie for the Oath of Allegiance … Together with a Premonition of His Maiesties to All Most Mightie Monarches, Kings, Free Princes and States of Christendome (1609).
Thomas Dekker, The Whore of Babylon as it was Acted by the Princes servants (1607). The edition used here is The Dramatic Works of Thomas Dekker, ed. by Fredson Bowers, vol. 2. Thomas Dekker and John Webster, The Famous History of Sir Thomas Wyat, with the Coronation of Queen Mary and the Coming in of King Philip (1607). The edition used here is The Dramatic Works, ed. by Fredson Bowers, vol. 1.
John Taylor, Heauens blessing and earths ioy (1613).
Zachary Lesser, Renaissance Drama and the Politics of Publication: Readings in the English Book Trade (2004) describes very particular links between printers, productions, and niche marketing.
Ovid, Metamorphoses (1589). Field’s Latin edition was originally prepared by Andrea Navagero and Victor Ghislain and first appeared in Venice early in the sixteenth century. It was produced by the Plantin press in Antwerp in 1582 and in a final westward migration was reprinted by Field for the English market.
Justus Lipsius, Sixe Bookes of Politickes or Civil Doctrine (1594).
Lorenz Codomann, Chronographia (1590).
Jean Calvin, Aphorismi doctrinae Christianae (1595), its English translation Aphorismes of Christian religion (1596), and the Spanish translation of Calvin’s Institucion de la religion christiana (1587). Field’s commitment to Protestant publishing seems to have been strong: he also published William Perkins’s sermon on Catholic reform for distribution in Spain, Catholico reformado (1599). See also Martin Luther, A Commentarie of M Doctor Martin Luther vpon the Epistle of S Paul to the Galathians (1602).
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Both anon (possibly by William Cecil): Bref discours (1589) and Cord verhael om te vreden te stellen vernoegen alle de gene (1589).
Clive Griffin, The Crombergers of Seville, p. 25. See also Dennis B. Woodfield, Surreptitious Printing in England, 1550–1640, p. 35.
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Vautrollier had the licence to print this work from the 1570s, and after his death editions appeared first under his wife’s and then Richard Field’s name. See Martin Luther, A Commentarie of M Doctor Martin Luther upon the Epistle of S Paul to the Galathians, first collected and gathered word by word out of his preaching (Vautrollier, 1574, 1577, 1580, 1588;J. Vautrollier for Richard Field, 1588;Richard Field, 1602).
Lancelot Andrewes: Selected Sermons and Lectures, notes p. 404, quoting from John Chamberlain, The Letters of John Chamberlain ed. by N. E. McClure, I, 30 December 1609, Letters, I, pp. 292 and 295.
Lancelot Andrewes, A Sermon Preached Before the Kings Maiestie at White-Hall, on Munday the 25. of December, being Christmas day, anno 1609. By the Bishop of Elie His Maiesties almoner (1610).
Martin Luther, A commentarie … Galathians, (1602), sig B1r and B1v. See also Lila Geller, ‘Cymbeline and the Imagery of Covenant Theology’.
Martin Luther, A commentarie … Galathians (1602), sig B2r.
Edward Dowden, the editor of the first Arden edition of Cymbeline in 1903, suggested that ‘rock’ here might be a misprint for ‘locke’, suggesting a wrestling hold. See Martin Butler, Cymbeline, footnote p. 236. I would suggest that at this point in the story, it might be considered indecorous for Posthumus and his newly reconciled wife to engage in a wrestling competition.
Sandys, Preface to Luther’s Commentary … Galathians (1602), sig.A2r.
Raphael Holinshed, The first and second volumes of Chronicles (1587), Book 3, Chapter 18, p. 32, sig.C4v.
William Perkins, Lectures Upon the Three First Chapters of the Reuelation (1604), sig.6T.
Franciscus Junius, Apocalypsis: A Briefe and Learned Commentarie upon the Reuelation of Saint John the Apostle (1592), reprinted as The Revelation of Saint Iohn the Apostle and Euangelist (1594).
Giovanni Boccaccio, The Decameron containing an hundred pleasant nouels. Wittily discoursed, betweene seauen honourable ladies, and three noble gentlemen (1620). See also Mary Augusta Scott, ‘Elizabethan Translations from the Italian: The Titles of Such Works Now First Collected and Arranged, with Annotations: I Romances’; Herbert G. Wright, ‘How did Shakespeare Come to Know the Decameron?’, and Boccaccio in England: From Chaucer to Tennyson.
Francis Douce, Illustrations of Shakespeare and of Ancient Manners, with Dissertations on the Collection of Popular Tales Entitled Gesta Romanorum (1839), p. 383, quoted by A.C. Lee, The Decameron: Its Sources and Analogues, p. 50.
See the recent bibliography ed. by Pettegree et al., French Vernacular Books: Books Published in the French Language before 1601, Vol. 1, pp. 177–8. At least twenty-six editions of this work were printed in the sixteenth century, appearing consistently in every decade except the troubled 1580s (the height of the disruptions caused by the French wars of religion). The British Library catalogue holds nine sixteenth-century French editions, including two editions of 1597 from Lyons and Amsterdam: BL Integrated Catalogue shelfmarks 1074.a.19 and 1074.a.20.
Fernand Braudel, La Méditerranée et le monde méditerranéen à l’époque de Philippe II (1949), trans. by Siân Reynolds, The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II.
Carmine di Biase, ‘Ovid, Pettie, and the Mythic Foundation of Cymbeline’. On Ovid’s more general influence on Shakespeare, see Jonathan Bate, Shakespeare and Ovid (1993).
See Ann Moss, Ovid in Renaissance France: A Survey of the Latin Editions of Ovid and Commentaries Printed in France before 1600 (1982).
Publius Ovid, The xv Bookes of P Ovidius Naso, entytuled Metamorphosis, trans. by Arthur Golding (1567). Raphael Lyne, Ovid’s Changing Worlds, p. 28, argues that Golding’s translation is a midway point between the moralisé tradition and a purist approach to translation. Heather James, ‘Ovid and the Question of Politics in Early Modern England’, p. 343, argues convincingly that ‘Ovid exempted himself from the public poetry associated with the rise of Augustus Caesar’, and provided Renaissance writers with literary tropes that could be used as figures of resistance to tyrannous over-mighty monarchs. Liz Oakley-Brown discusses the contemporary politics associated with successive translations of Ovid’s work in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries: see Ovid and the Cultural Politics of Translation in Early Modern England.
Heather James, ‘Ovid and the Question of Politics’, pp. 344–5 and 366–7, quoting Thomas Elyot, The Boke Named the Governour (1531), sig.E2r and Stephen Gosson, The Schoole of Abuse (1579), sig.A5v.
William Shakespeare, Lucrece (1594), sig.B1v, lines 16–18.
Thomas Robson, The British Herald (1830), p. 183.
Peter W.M. Blayney, The Bookshops in Paul’s Cross Churchyard (1990), map at p. 2. The Stationers were in St Peter’s Hall at the corner of St Paul’s Yard until 1606, when they relocated to Abergavenny Hall further down Ludgate. See Cyprian Blagden, The Stationers’ Company: A History, 1403–1959, pp. 212–15.
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© 2011 Jane Pettegree
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Pettegree, J. (2011). English Christendom: Metonymy and Metalepsis. In: Foreign and Native on the English Stage, 1588–1611. Early Modern Literature in History. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230307797_4
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