Lecture Notes, Tuesday, June 24: Unfortunate Traveller Part 1

24 June 2008
English 3I06 / The Age of Elizabeth

The Unfortunate Traveller, Part One

*genre: picaresque
*the anti-hero
*the culture of jest


The picaresque
(This and the Leiden info from Wikipedia)
“The picaresque novel (Spanish: "picaresca", from "pícaro", for "rogue" or "rascal") is a popular subgenre of prose fiction which is usually satirical and depicts in realistic and often humorous detail the adventures of a roguish hero of low social class who lives by his or her wits in a corrupt society. As indicated by its name, this style of novel originated in Spain and flourished in Europe in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and continues to influence modern literature.”
*records historical events, like the sweating sickness, 273+

*John Leiden sequence, 277+
Background info:
Raised a bastard and dogged by poverty, young John became a charismatic leader who was widely revered by his followers. According to his own testimony, he went to the German city of Münster, arriving in 1533, because he had heard there were inspired preachers there. He sent for Jan Matthys, who had baptized him, to come. After his arrival Matthys - recognized as a prophet - became the principal leader in the city. Following a failed military attempt on Easter Sunday 1534, in which Matthys died, John of Leiden became King of Münster until its fall in June of 1535. He set up a theocracy in Münster and led a communalistic and polygamous state. Some sources report that John of Leiden took sixteen wives. He publicly beheaded one of his wives after she rebelled against his authority.

The army of Münster was defeated in 1535 by the prince bishop Franz von Waldeck, and John of Leiden was captured. He was first taken to a dungeon in Dülmen, then brought back to Münster. On January 22, 1536, along with Bernhard Krechting and Bernhard Knipperdolling, he was tortured and then executed. Each attached to a pole by an iron spiked collar, their bodies were ripped with red-hot tongs for the space of an hour, then each was killed with a dagger thrust through the heart. Their bodies were raised in three cages above St. Lambert's Church, the remains left to rot. Their bones were removed about 50 years later, but the cages have remained into the 21st century.

*Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, 286+
*Erasmus and Thomas More, 290-91
*Agrippa, who conjures Tully 297-8, and Geraldine
*Nine Worthies
Pagan:
Hector
Alexander the Great
Julius Caesar
Jewish:
Joshua
David
Judas Maccabeus
Christian:
King Arthur
Charlemagne
Godfrey of Bouillon


The anti-hero
*doesn’t necessarily get away with everything he tries – see the result of his jest against the camp tapster, pg. 261: “Then was I pitifully whipped for my holiday lie, though they made themselves merry with it many a winter’s evening after.”
*his view of his own role, 271 “I was ordained God’s scourge”
*his view of religion, during the John Leiden sequence, 280+

The culture of jest
*the plot against the tapster
*the plot against “Monsieur Capitano”, 263+ - his argument to send him into the French court, 265-66
*mocking oratory of scholars, 291-2; and others, 293