English 3I06 / The Age of Elizabeth
Lecture Notes
Thomas Nashe, Pierce Penniless and Francis Bacon, Essays
Thomas Nashe, Pierce Penniless
*The situation
*The structure of the Supplication
Begins with a description of vices, who are versions of one of the deadly sins, Avarice: Greediness (61) and Dame Niggardize
What is a Vice?
*a personification of wrongdoing
*usually fashioned after a variation on one of the seven deadly sins
*a type of character often seen in moral interludes in the 16th century
The images of vices below can be found through the Medieval Illuminated Manuscripts pages at the National Library of the Netherlands: http://www.kb.nl/manuscripts/browser/index.html. Browse by clicking through "Abstract Ideas and Concepts" to "Morality" and click on the image link beside "Good and Bad Behaviour, Moral Qualities." Playing around with the different categories can provide you with hours of entertainment.
Gluttony and Hypocrisy
Pride borne by Flattery
Treachery and Calumny borne by Envy
The Seven Deadly Sins
Source: http://www.le.ac.uk/arthistory/seedcorn/faq-sds.html
Pope Gregory the Great (d. 604) described Seven Deadly Sins in his Moralia in Job.
1. Superbia
Pride
2. Invidia
Envy
3. Ira
Anger
4. Avaritia
Avarice
5. Tristia
Sadness
6. Gula
Gluttony
7. Luxuria
Lust
(Moralia in Job, XXXI cap. xlv).
The sin ‘Tristia’ was later replaced by ‘Accidia’, or Sloth (Wenzel (1967), 38). This sin was taken from earlier catalogues of vice, in particular, the eight evil thoughts listed by Evaagrius (346-99), and the eight principal vices proposed by the mid fourth-century writer Cassian (Wenzel (1967), 14-21). Some of the iconography of the Sins was derived from the descriptions of the Battles between the Virtues and Vices in the Psychomachia by the fourth-century poet Prudentius.
The church made a division between sins which were venial and could be forgiven without the need for the sacrament of Confession and those which were capital and merited damnation. Capital or Deadly Sins were so called because they could have a fatal effect on an individual’s spiritual health. British wall paintings stressed the connection between committing the Deadly Sins and ending up in Hell.
A fourteenth-century text, known as Dan Jon Gaytrygge’s Sermon, associated with the Constitutions issued by Archbishop Thoresby for the Diocese of York in 1357, stated:
‘For als the venym of the neddire (adder) slaas manes body, swa the venym of syn slaas manes saule’.
(Perry (1867), 12)
Addendum
In class I mentioned that I had come across an article claiming that the Vatican had recently revised the list of deadly sins. Note that the revision entailed adding seven new deadly sins; not replacing the original seven. So you can still run into trouble by preening, envying, lusting, wrathing, slothing, coveting, or gluttonizing.
You can read the list of new sins here.
An article about the revision can be found here.
A brief commentary by BBC broadcaster William Crawley on the list and probable motivations behind it can be found here.
Some good info on the Bosch painting of the wheel of the seven deadly sins I showed in class can be found here. Includes images of details from the painting and some brief commentary that explains each of the sections. You can look at some of the segments of the wheel closely enough to see the name of the sin written on the picture and see that there are sneaky devils in some of the images encouraging the sinners to keep going.
Pierce Penniless moves on to the remaining six deadly sins:
Pride (64-80)
*The Nature of an Upstart; pg 69 The Pride of Peasants sprung up of nothing; The Pride of Merchants’ Wives; The Base Insinuating of Drudges and their Practice to Aspire (upward social mobility)
*The Prodigal Young Master (off on adventures)
*Pg 68, The Pride of the Learned: “These are but the suburbs of sin we have in
hand: I must describe to you a large city, wholly inhabited with this damnable
enormity.”
*international flavour: Pride of the Spaniard, Italian, Frenchman, Dane!
*pg. 77-8 “the painted faces here at home”: Pride morphing into gender critique
Envy (with a revision to his personification) (80-94)
*pg. 83 “O Italy, the academy of manslaughter…”
*Wrath, in which Pierce Penniless himself gets entangled (84-98)
*The anecdote about the Queen’s Men, 85-6
*89-90 the “Invective Against Enemies of Poetry” – new-fangled verse
Gluttony, including a discourse on drunkenness (88-109)
Sloth, including The Defence of Plays (109-116) – question below
Lechery (116-118)
Constructs a social map of London and the international scene:
To view a large version of this map, click here.
More info on this map and others like it, including others by Sebastian Muenster who made this map of London in 1574, go here.
Francis Bacon, Essays
*reflecting a scholarly rather than a popular perspective on culture
*What does “Of Marriage and Single Life” suggest about Bacon? About the nature of patriarchy in his day?
* “Of Studies” and the humanist ideal
*”Of Masks and Triumphs”
http://www.elizabethancostume.net/masque/index.html
http://www.peopleplayuk.org.uk/guided_tours/drama_tour/renaissance/court_masque.php
Sample Test Questions
Short Questions:
On pages 60-62 of Pierce Penniless, just before the beginning of the section called The Description of Greediness, Pierce states, “I know a great sort of good fellows that would venture far for his freedom, and a number of needy lawyers, who now mourn in threadbare gowns for his thraldom, that would go near to poison his keepers with false Latin, if that might procure his enlargement…” Who is the prisoner in this statement?
On pages 79-80 in Pierce Penniless, Pierce composes a “Commendation of Antiquaries”. He gives (at least) two reasons why Antiquaries are able to convince people to buy old stuff. What are they?
Examining the section on “The Fruits of Poetry” from Pierce Penniless (91-2), name two of the fruits of poetry.
In “Of Plantations”, what does Bacon identify as the main cause of the failure of most colonies?
Medium Questions:
In Pierce Penniless pages 71-2, Pierce describes “The Base Insinuating of Drudges and their Practice to Aspire”. What is a “drudge”? What warning advice does he give to drudges? In one or two sentences, theorize what this advice suggests about the role of women in 16th century society.
Considering the sections on “The Defence of Plays”, “The Use of Plays”, and “The Confutation of the Citizens’ Objections Against Players” in Pierce Penniless, compose three or four sentences about the place of plays and players in the social order.
Using Bacon’s essay “Of Truth”, compose three or four sentences noting his technique(s) for discussing his topic.
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