Paying £s to Gain Pounds: James, Feasting, and Morality

One article that I just thought was so interesting today was Leah Sinanoglou Marcus’s “The Occasion of Ben Jonson’s Pleasure Reconciled to Virtue.” Admittedly, I think that part of the reason why I enjoyed this article so much was because it talked a lot about food: specifically, about how lavish food was during James I’s reign. Courtiers would frequently spend £1000 or more for a feast (287), which is incredible! Marcus uses food as an example of the way that James I actually encouraged temperance from his court: in the way of food, James urged them to dine moderately. “Let all your food bee simple, without composition or sauces,” he urges Charles (288). Nevertheless, his courtiers continued to spend lavishly (288). In her article, Marcus examines this and a few other examples in order to show how the debauchery of James I’s court was, in many cases, not his fault. James I attempted to walk the line of virtue, and he wrote documents such as The Book of Sports in order to explain acceptable pastimes in terms of good, Protestant values (277). Despite these, he was villainized by people on both sides of the religious spectrum. The premise of Marcus’s article is that Jonson’s masque, Pleasure Reconciled to Virtue, was a celebration of James I’s actual, moralistic policies, but that nobody appreciated Jonson’s message—not even James himself.

This article is an interesting contrast to the thesis I am trying to build, which is that James I’s image was not strong enough to define a confident morality, so others stepped in and tried to define their own—especially writers. In this article, Marcus is arguing that Jonson used masques like Pleasure Reconciled to Virtue to celebrate James I’s morality: thus, an artist trying to build up the morality of the king. The question is, why didn’t this work? Was it, as Marcus suggests, because Jonson overestimated his audience (293)? Was it because James’s persona was not brave and chivalrous enough to claim respect from his citizens? Was it because courtiers simply weren’t interested in being moralized to? Again, I think of The Knight of the Burning Pestle, which was not successful because its satire rested confusingly on its audience. While they do not appreciate being moralized to in play format, they do appreciate and respect sermons, such as Donne’s. This makes me wonder about artists and their claiming of morality, especially in conjunction with the Puritan takeover later in the century. Is it the clash between these claims to morality that necessitate the closing of the theaters? What is the public opinion of the people toward artists claiming morality, the king claiming morality, and religious preachers claiming morality? I personally know that I will be examining these questions more fully as I continue to work on this paper.

Caleb, if you’re still working on masques and antimasques, I would recommend this article if you want to read a discussion about where James I stood on religious festivals or luxurious feasts. I’m leaving the citation information below. To everyone else: happy researching!

Marcus, Leah Sinanoglou. “The Occasion of Ben Jonson’s Pleasure Reconciled to Virtue.” Studies in English Literature (Rice) 19 (1979): 271-293. Ebsco. Web. 25 April 2015.

Herbert, Donne, and Humility

One article I really enjoyed this weekend was Sidney Gottlieb’s “Herbert’s Political Allegory of ‘Humilitie.’” In this article, Gottlieb closely examines one of Herbert’s lesser-analyzed poems, “Humilite,” and considers how Herbert uses the poem to show the breakdowns of virtue in the English court, particularly in patronage. In the poem, the Vertues all sit on a throne together, and each (except Humilitie) is given a different gift. The gifts are all body parts, a fact that Gottlieb argues highlights the cut-throat, non-loving nature of patronage (472). The fact that the Vertues need gifts also shows that the Vertues are no longer self-sufficient (473). This fits in well with the idea that, in this time period, the responsibility for morality shifted from the monarch/court to the artists, which is the basis of my thesis. Because the king/court (symbolized by the Vertues receiving gifts upon a throne) are no longer self-sufficient, the responsibility for defining virtue must come from somewhere else. As Herbert writes this poem to point out the problem, it can be argued that he is coming forward to point the way to true morality, as many writers (Donne, Hobbes, etc.) attempt to do during this time period. I believe that it is also relevant that, in a court that used to value sprezzatura, true morality is seen increasingly not as being good at everything without trying, but instead in trying: in demonstrating good, hard work. Instead of all of the Vertues working together to make the perfect kingdom, as might have been in an earlier poem, Humilitie is the best Vertue which saves the others—temporarily—from total destruction (475). It is not necessarily being good at everything, but being good at one particular thing, that can spell morality in seventeenth-century England.

Donne’s “Meditations” can be related to my theme/thesis in a similar way. As I argued in class, Donne’s “Meditation 4” is a study in self-insufficiency: by referencing the Physician, Donne is fundamentally arguing that humankind cannot take care of itself (Norton 1420). While Elizabethans projected sprezzatura to show their own larger-than-life-ness (and, in some cases, to claim divine qualities), Donne shows that man can never reach the realm of God: in fact, he is always in need of God to save him from himself. Instead of being proud of themselves for all of their talents, Donne would likely argue that the greatest quality is humility before God. Like Herbert, Donne is an artist who is claiming a different understanding of morality than the court’s, a message that was ripe for the time, especially since the court was seen as so immoral during James I’s rule.

I thought this article was fascinating, and I would recommend it as background reading for anyone who is planning on using Herbert in their paper. Gottlieb also talks a bit about Herbert as writing “poetry of criticism” and about Herbert’s work as structurally arguing that morality can only come to someone while apart from the court. You should check it out!

Gottlieb, Sidney. “Herbert’s Political Allegory of ‘Humilitie.’” Huntington Library Quarterly 52.4 (1989): 469-480. JStor. Web. 25 April 2015.

Elizabeth's Complicated Self-Portrayal: Music Edition

Katherine Butler’s Music in Elizabethan Court Politics was published sometime in the last four months, and is exactly geared toward what I’m writing my paper about, thus validating my research and my life. I still feel like I should write about it here because there are plenty of things within the book that may apply to other people in the class, especially those focusing on Elizabeth’s self-portrayal. There is a section in this book that talks about Elizabeth’s reputation as a musician and her portrayal as such in a royal portrait. In it, Elizabeth carries a lute, and is in fact actively playing it – extremely unusual for a portrait of an upper-class woman. Apparently, this would generally be used to portray a prostitute or otherwise wanton character, but in this instance, with Elizabeth’s high-necked gown and the throne rising up behind her, it seems instead to connote political harmony. It’s just fascinating.

Perhaps even more fascinating is the fact that this painting – a miniature – was not for the public eye, but was instead a private gift to a friend, who likely had the pleasure of hearing Elizabeth play the lute in person many times. This complicates Elizabeth’s self-portrayal. Here, she is not just presenting herself as a talented musician to the public, but is instead weaving a political statement inside of a personal gift.

While I’ve read arguments over and over about how Elizabeth uses the culture of music to portray herself in a certain light, and essentially manipulates her courtiers and musicians to also portray her political power, I have not previously read a detailed argument about the political power this also gave the court. The court, Butler argues, is also empowered by music – a courtier may use music to suck up to Elizabeth (i.e. portray her in a certain light), but on the other end, he is also using it for his own political gain.

Butler’s research covers such political games of courtiers, uses for music, and self-portrayals and outside representations of Elizabeth. Music is, she argues, much more complicated politically than other research leads us to believe. 

Butler, Katherine. Music in Elizabethan Court Politics. Woodbridge: The Boydell Press, 2015. Print. 

We Want War!: Why Nobody Liked Poor, Peaceful James I

I’ve been really excited by this online resource that the library has—it’s an e-book called Court Culture and the Origins of a Royalist Tradition in Early Stuart England. Because I’ve been studying court culture and James’s identity construction, this book’s focuses seem very relevant to me. One chapter that has been particularly useful this far has been the second chapter, “The Stuarts and the Elizabethan Legend.” This chapter outlines some of the distinctive factors of Elizabeth’s identity construction and explains why the Stuarts weren’t able to use the same methods that Elizabeth used. In particular, the author—Malcolm Smuts—is very insistent that the largest problems the Stuarts had were related to their religious wars. Elizabeth, he argues, became “the chief symbol of a cultural tradition embodying the aspirations, the religious values, and the patriotism that grew out of the lengthy victorious struggle against domestic and foreign enemies” (15). The people loved that she stood for a Protestant kingdom, and they used warrior-like, chivalric imagery to connect her with the legacy of a defender. On the other hand, James sought peace with Spain, something that many found offensive. As Smuts notes, “the Jacobean please probably served the nation’s best interests and undoubtedly saved the crown from insolvency, but James’s pacific and pro-Spanish policies nonetheless provoked considerable discontent” (25). With his peaceful goals, James could not utilize the images that Elizabeth used as defender and crusader, and the images had to be reinterpreted for him. For instance, while Queen Elizabeth was compared to the chivalric King Arthur, James was compared to King Arthur as a keeper of the peace (25). In general, then, the most important difference between Queen Elizabeth and King James’s identity construction was related to the Wars of Religion—Queen Elizabeth was seen as a defender, while James was seen as weak and unable to follow in Elizabeth’s footsteps. It does not matter if these accusations are unfair or if James was making the best decisions for England at the time: that is still how these views are broken up.

This idea fits really well with The Knight of the Burning Pestle. While the actors are more interested in telling the story of an apprentice and his master's daughter, Nell and George demand a tale of high chivalry. They, like the general public in England at the time, wanted the medieval myth of honor, and they were peeved at James I for instead seeking peace with Spain. Even more tellingly, Nell and George demand that Rafe goes off to battle at the end of the play. They are calling for war, showing that the middle class at the time wanted the glory that comes with war, not the safety that comes with peace. In a context like this, James's policies would not go over well, even if they were good policies.

This is a really great resource so far, and it touches a lot on the role of religious wars in James I's and Charles I's reigns. If anyone is writing about the perception of religion and war in this time period, I would highly recommend this resource to you. It also does a great job of showing the transition between Elizabeth I's persona and James I's, if that sound interesting.

Happy researching, everyone!

 

Smuts, Malcolm. Court Culture and the Origins of a Royalist Tradition in Early Stuart England. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1999. ProQuest. Web. 2 April 2015.

Base Trade: Theater as Prostitution

In the article “Base Trade: Theater as Prostitution,” Joseph Lenz explores contemporary criticisms of Elizabethan and Jacobean theater in the analogy of theater as prostitution. This article was immensely helpful for my paper since it shows that it was not only Puritans, but the general public and political leaders who were critical of theater. I think the article can also help illuminate the satire in The Knight of the Burning Pestle. While the citizen George and his wife Nell are not necessarily puritans, they still voice outwardly their dissatisfaction with performances who satirize citizens of London.

Lenz argues that the Lord Mayor, along with the general public, became aligned with thinking of the theater as prostitution, firstly because of the physical proximity of the theater to brothels. Lenz cites Ann Cook, who asserts that the theaters even operated as an extension of a brothel because they brought clients and prostitutes together, where men could satisfy their “appetites” through more than spectatorship or visual entertainment. Furthermore, there was an “inn” called the Little Rose which was a site for prostitution. In 1586, the Little Rose “lent its grounds, its name, and, evidently, its reputation” to Philip Henslowe who “established the place of the stage on common ground with the brothel” (837-838).  Eventually the Privy Council began restricting the number of theaters to the Fortune and the Globe in 1600 in response to the concern for immoral behavior.

While theaters might have received a reputation for lechery and debauchery because of physical proximity to prostitution, does this really mean that theater, as a form of art and entertainment, is inherently immoral?

Puritans would argue indeed, the very nature of theatrical performances resembled the actions of prostitution. Critics of theater, such as John Northbrooke, claims “our eyes are as windows of the mynde”  and that theater is “the beginning of whoredome” (840). Scripture gives evidence that one can commit sin merely by sight: “whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart” (Mat 5:28).

Theater’s response to such criticism comes by redirecting the reproach in the form of satire. In The Knight of the Burning Pestle, George and Nell are also the source for much of the bawdy humor and covert lechery. In the introduction of the play the Prologue says to the audience: “Fly far from hence/ all private taxes, immodest phrases…thus much for that we do, but for Rafe’s part you must cope.” The prologue suggests that the immorality contained within the play are not inherent to the performance, but are instead extraneously, and even unconsciously projected onto theater by spectators. George and Nell applaud the changes they make, which include bawdy jokes and sexual innuendos. The immorality contained within The Knight is refocused by satirizing the citizens of London. 

If you would like to read more of this article, here's the citation:

Lenz, Joseph. “Base Trade: Theater as Prostitution.” ELH 60.4 (1993): 833-855. JSTOR. Web. 24 Apr 2015.

"Instruments" of Satire

In the article “Reading Between the Acts,” Joshua Smith argues that a look at the references to music and the performances during the interludes of the play The Knight of the Burning Pestle can be a key to understanding the satire of conventions of theater and class culture. Smith takes a close look at the cultural context behind musical instruments described in the play as well as the function of the May Day celebration at the end of the play.

Smith outlines the social status of the Citizen, George, and his wife Nell. In the sixteenth century, guilds of the working class became split into two sub-classes: the livery (ruling minority of successful craftsmen) and the yeomen (majority of less successful craftsmen). George proclaims his social status on stage as a freeman and a grocer, a citizen on London who is successful enough to have an apprentice, Rafe, and who is wealthy enough to attend a private theater.

However, Nell and George commit several faux paus and reveal that she is not accustomed to the conventions of private theaters. When Nell equates fiddles to rebecks in interlude 1, she exposes the fact that she cannot tell the difference between instruments; violins were popular among private theaters and elite entertainment, while rebecks had fallen out of popularity by the end of the sixteenth century. In the same act, when George requests shawms, he reveals he is more accustomed to the loud instruments of the street musicians and public theaters rather than private theaters. In Act 2, when Nell requests drums and trumpets to accompany Rafe, she recognizes that such instruments were used to accompany military scenes, but are more suited to the open air of the battle field or public theater instead of enclosed private theaters. Nell and George may be satirized by their lack of instrumental knowledge; however their position on stage and their critiques causes them to assume the position of a patron or a wealthy, high class citizen.

When Rafe adopts the role of May Lord act IV, Smith asserts Rafe’s lines and Nell and George’s commentary satirizes the aristocratic classes. The instruments, the morris dance, and the festivities were all common elements of the May Day festivals and dances. Originally the festivals were held in the thirteenth century when people would travel from towns to the country, gather greenery, return to the town and decorate streets, then commence in dancing.  Though Queen Elizabeth I attended May dances, such festivals were criticized by aristocrats because authorities condemned these festivities because of disorder and even fatal accidents. The morris dance which Nell calls for might have actually been a controversial dance if performed since it was banned in some parts of England in 1571.  

In Smith’s conclusion of his article, he asserts that Nell and George might have actually been the instruments as well as the object of satire; though they possess outdated and lower class knowledge and commit laughable faux paus, they also serve to remind the elite that they are, perhaps, equally ridiculous and have neglected their duty to the lower classes. 

Source: Smith, Joshua S. "Reading between the Acts: Satire and the Interludes in The Knight of the Burning Pestle." Studies in Philology 109.4 (2012): 474-495. Academic Search Complete. Web. 23 Apr. 2015.

Here's the link to the article online:

http://198.29.3.5:2048/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=85404145&site=ehost-live 

Lactation and Plague...?

I found this marvelous book called Medieval and Renaissance Lactations. So first things first, go to Amazon and stock up on a few copies for baby showers.

I'm using one chapter of this book for my research called "Mother London and the Madonna Lactans in England's Plague Epic," by Rebecca Totaro and it's full of great stuff. It talks a lot about the decreasing frequency of plague outbreak right at the end of the 16th century, and the few really bad years of plague right after James' accession (1603-11). His coronation was literally postponed because there was a really bad plague outbreak in London in the summer of 1603.

The reactions people had were pretty understandable. They felt like they'd been making a lot of medical and religious progress during Elizabeth's reign, and for the plague to come back in full force right after her death and James' accession really rattled everyone. They thought a lot about whether England's religious reforms might be wrong, and that God was angry with their belief that they could even attempt to assign scientific meaning to the plague.  

Totaro explains the artistic reaction to these feelings: the "plague epic." What she calls the plague epic, is a versified account and exploration of plague epidemics. Compared to 16th century representations, which were mainly prosaic and focused on documentation, the plague epic is set in heroic verse that mourns England's losses. A prominent figure in many of these works is Mother London, "a new kind of hero, a model for how to suffer through and survive the plague" (151). She is designed (according to Totaro) to represent all Christians and to posit moral reform, and the destruction that will result if no reform is made.

Totaro then compares this image of Mother London to the Catholic iconography of the Virgin Mary breastfeeding (the Madonna Lactans). This link is really interesting, because it expresses all the doubt that the English people suddenly felt about Protestantism, and the resurgence of some Catholic ideas as a result.

Anyway, super interesting essay. This is a great book, and she makes all sorts of references to Elizabeth's self-fashioning, legislative history, etc. A lot of the other essays deal with wider European issues, but this one has some killer footnotes on all sorts of things, so let me know if you want to take a look.

Totaro, Rebecca. "Mother London and the Madonna Lactans in England's Plague Epic." Ed. Jutta G. Sperling. Medieval and Renaissance Lactations: Images, Rhetorics, Practices. Burlington, VT: Ashgate Limited, 2013. 147-64. Print.

The Country as Metaphor

An article I read this week that I found interesting was “Caroline Culture: Bridging Court and Country?,” by J.C. Robertson from Washington University, St. Louis. In this article, Robertson strives to challenge the ways that scholars have traditionally looked at Jacobean culture. Robertson argues that, while many see Jacobean culture as insulated and alien from the “country” culture of the common man, in fact court culture found its way into more of the mainstream than scholars might like to admit (404). Similarly, he argues that the “country house” poem, the greatest indication that scholars have for an innocent, unpolluted English Presbyterian countryside, does not really support anything of the sort (392). Firstly, Robertson cites, these country house poems are free from agricultural labor and “demonstrate … their own distance from the countryside” (392). Secondly, they “defined such households’ virtues less through contrasts with urban standards than against the actions of more exploitative estate-owners: the idealized country houses were exceptional” (292). These observations, added with the fact that James I actually encouraged his courtiers to spend extended amounts of time in the countryside (393), discredit the idea that there was a huge split between “court” culture and “country” culture: those who wrote about the country spent much time at court, and those who wrote about court spent much time in the country. It is only natural that the two would blend a little bit.

This article made me think a lot about Amelia Lanyer’s “To Cookham,” an example of a country house poem. In class, we discussed how Lanyer’s poem is different from many other country house poems because of the way that it does not praise Cookham outright for most of the poem, and also because it vacillates between prelapsarian and postlapsarian views of Cookham. Something about this entire poem is melancholy—even when Lanyer is praising Cookham at the very beginning, she brings up Philomela in the 31^st line, a symbol of an experience gone wrong (1437). We spoke in class about Lanyer using the melancholy tone to communicate that some of her memory is leaving her, but I wonder if her use can also be seen as a realization that the country life is not as perfect as it may be portrayed to be. While Lanyer might not have meant to discredit the country and the peace it was supposed to bestow, the fact that she uses in the country in her poem in this complex, imperfect way shows that she is more focused on communicating her own experience than extolling the graces of the country. The country is merely a backdrop for her point. In “To Cookham,” then, the country is used more as a symbol to play with and use, not an actual place to be praised literally. Similarly, perhaps other country house poems like “To Penshurst” are more about the idea of a perfect, Edenic location than the actual existence of a morally superior countryside. This is certainly what Robertson is arguing when he says that the authors of country poems showed that they never actually understood the countryside (392). Their writing was never about the place, really—it was about a place being used as a symbol. Thus, perhaps those divisions between "court" culture and "country" culture, as shown in literature, aren't about the court and the country at all. If so, though, why are these tropes being used? What purpose do they serve?

This article has certainly been useful to my own thinking, and I would say that it would be useful for anyone who was trying to get a nuanced sense of what the Jacobean relation between the court and the countryside really looked like, perhaps if they were looking at rhetoric. I am not sure that that is true for anyone else, however. At any rate, I’ll attach the bibliography information below for anyone who might be interested.

 

Robertson, J.C. “Caroline Culture: Bridging Court and Country?” History 75.425 (1990): 388-416. EBSCOHOST. Web. 2 April 2015.

Henry VIII is to Henry Frederick as Henry VIII is to James I as Henry VIII is to Elizabeth I...

While I was researching this weekend, I came across an interesting article, entitled Henry VIII, Shakespeare, and the Jacobean Royal Court. This article, written by James Madison University professor Mark Rankin, is an analysis of the ways that Henry VIII’s image was used in plays to give legitimacy to James and James’s son, Henry Frederick. One play is by Samuel Rowley and is entitled When You See Me, You Know Me: this play, Rankin argues, explicitly connects Henry VIII with Henry Frederick, utilizing such language as: “Now [Jane Seymour] God bring me but a chopping boy, / Be but the Mother to a Prince of Wales / Ad a ninth Henrie to the English Crowne, / And thou mak’st full my hopes” (353). James’s son, Henry Frederick, was the Prince of Wales as well, so the connections between the two Henrys would have been very apparent to any modern-day audience. In the second part of his argument, Rankin connects the image of Henry VIII in Shakespeare’s Henry VIII to James I: instead of focusing on doctrine, Henry VIII instead focuses on the supreme religious authority of kings and on factional disputes in the kingdom, both ideas that harken neatly back to James (360).

I think Rankin's point is especially interesting because it is useful to consider how much authority can be given someone by harkening back to the past. In class, we spoke a lot about how much Chaucer enjoyed projecting his own knowledge by using fake etymologies and studding his writing with Greek and Roman references. Furthermore, we talked most recently about neo-classicism in poetry, like Ben Jonson’s “To John Donne,” which makes claims to authority by bringing in references to Phoebus and artistic muses and by privileging intellect over emotion (1541). The Greeks, of course, similarly prized reason over all else in their work. It’s not unusual, then, to see artists harkening back to the past to lend legitimacy to James and his son. What is interesting is that they chose Henry VIII as their past figure. Even though Elizabeth’s legacy was still being cemented in this time period, she was not seen as a suitable figure for comparison. Is this because she was a woman, because she was too recent, or because her image simply wouldn’t have worked for James and Henry Frederick? Similarly, Elizabeth herself harkened back to her father’s reputation when she first took the throne. Could this set Elizabeth and James up instead as parallels, as two great legacies that would stem from the same progenitor?

At any rate, I think that this article could be useful for anyone who is trying to dissect the rhetoric of James I’s reign or anyone who is looking at the legacy of Henry Frederick, which I personally find fascinating. I am going to keep my eyes out for more ways that Henry VIII is elicited in our texts from this time period or more ways that James is depicted, so that I can compare Rankin’s articles to those depictions.

Thanks, everyone!

 

Rankin, Mark. “Henry VIII, Shakespeare, and the Jacobean Royal Court.” Studies in English Literature 1500-1900 51.2 (2011): 349-366. Print.

 

Courtly Rhetoric, Elizabeth's Holiness, James's Failures, and a Great EEBO Source!

One resource that I found while researching for our first paper (and that has been really helpful while I've been revising) was an article from the EEBO called “An Oration Made to the Queenes Maiestie, at Sandwiche, the First of September, the Yere of Our Lorde, 1573.” (You can find it by searching the “Elizabeth I—Orations” tab on EEBO.) Hannah Cobb and I were actually studying/writing our papers at the same time, and I was reading the article out loud because that’s just a lot easier with EEBO resources. Anyway, Hannah overheard some of the content and asked if she could use the essay, too. It’s really interesting…it’s a speech that some people (I’m not sure what their station is, exactly) made to Elizabeth to ask her to increase the influence of their town. Spicer of course praises Elizabeth a lot—because  he’s trying to get her to do something for him—but the speech shows how Elizabeth wanted to be perceived and how her people were told to perceive her. It’s especially religious and contains a lot about her virtue and her position as “defender of the faith.”

One thing that I’m thinking about doing for my next paper is comparing Elizabeth’s construction of identity with James I’s and kind of analyzing why Elizabeth’s was so much more effective. I think that this article is especially good at showing how one must speak to get any respect in government. Even though the oration was given by a subject, he had to speak with elevated language, making religious allusions and praising a higher power (in this case, Elizabeth), in order to get what he wants. Similarly, Elizabeth also speaks with elevated language and praises a higher power (in her case, God). This practiced humility compounded with obvious oratorical ability gives a lot of credence to the Renaissance figure. I really get the impression that James isn’t good at this, though. Doug mentioned in our conference that James used to walk around the castle in his underwear, which would definitely undermine any pretensions to sophistication that he might have. James also, judging by the letters this week, wasn’t very good at humbling himself. In his letters to Elizabeth he isn’t particularly praising ("I rue my sight that views the evident spectacle of a seduced queen" (375)) and when he does invoke God, he seems to do it as a total afterthought (the only time he mentions God is the penultimate sentence, "I commit you ... to the holy protection of the Almighty" (377)). After someone like Elizabeth, who so perfectly emulated courtly rhetoric, James wouldn’t be impressive at all.

I suppose I got a little off-topic there, but in this EEBO article, Spicer is definitely emulating a lot of things that could be useful in a lot of different papers, whether someone is talking about Elizabeth’s fantastic virtue, Elizabeth’s proficiency at projecting her image to her audience, or the courtly rhetoric that everyone was expected to use during the Renaissance. I highly recommend everyone to check this source out.

 

Spicer, Richard. “An Oration Made to the Queenes Maiestie, at Sandwiche, the First of September, the Yere of Our Lorde, 1573.” 1573. EEBO. Web. 26 Feb. 2015.