As I was researching yesterday, I ran across a lot of really wonderful sources. One in particular was the article "James I and the Theater of Conscience," by Jonathan Goldberg. In this article, Goldberg pulls on a few threads that many other critics also carry forward, and I believe that there is a good chance that his basic premise may become one of the main underlying ideas of my paper.
In a nutshell, Goldberg argues that James I was caught between two ways of understanding kingship, and that he couldn't make a decision for himself which one he preferred. One way was based in Stoicism. This image was linked with a "transparent, knowable" king, who can be understood by his subjects (380). This theory of selfhood promotes equality of all souls, and as a Christian monarch it is important for him to appear this way (381). However, this Stoic philosophy also encourages rebellion when individual consciousness demands it (381). Because of this, James I also required another identity construction: that of the "misread king," the king who is far beyond his subjects' understanding. This king has his basis in Roman law (380). To this end, James I emphasized his Divine Right, which both set him up as a ruler who could not be questioned and a ruler who owed all of his acts to God (382). Both the Stoic and the Roman perceptions of kingship were important for James to create the identity that he desired, but they also undercut each other in damning ways (382).
This idea is especially interesting in light of all of the discussion we have had about Elizabeth. As I argued in my previous paper, Elizabeth I's consolidation of contradictory opposites is what gave her so much power, and yet James I's opposites created inconsistency and instability. Why is this so? I think that the answer to this question will be my thesis, but it's worth thinking about the extent to which James was actually free to define himself during this time period. While Elizabeth managed to define for herself what right government should look like, James I's reign featured a great many poets, writers, and theorists believing that they had a right to a governmental voice: Hobbes, Filmer, Milton, and Jonson are just a few examples of poets who begin to claim to understand true morality during this time period. In fact, the treatises by Filmer and Milton that we read for class on Thursday comment directly on the two different constructions of identity that James I utilized during his reign. Milton, who believes that "all men naturally were born free" (1847), aligns with the Stoic side of James's identity: Filmer, who believes that monarchs are necessary because the history of patriarchs in the Bible (1844-1846), aligns with the Roman side. In both cases, writers feel totally justified in weighing in on political issues and claiming a knowledge of morality. Additionally, other sources in my research (specifically The Stuart Court Masque and Political Culture, by Martin Butler) have shown that masques, or art forms, were used to teach moral lessons to the royal Prince Henry. When masques are used to dispel morality to princes and poems claim to have a moral truth, it is clear that the role of prose and poetry have shifted from venerating Elizabeth and cleverly promoting one's own agenda to actually explicitly asserting one's own right to governance. Perhaps this also works with Debora Shuger's mirror article in Renaissance Culture and the Everyday, in the idea that consciousness becomes more focused on the self than the other. If one trusts the self, one is more likely to assert what the self wants.
For anyone who is researching masques/antimasques, James I's identity construction, or the shifts of mind and consciousness during the time period, this article is really quite fascinating, and I recommend it highly. Otherwise--happy researching!
Goldberg, Jonathan. "James I and the Theater of Conscience." ELH 46.3 (1979): 379-398. JStor. Web. 25 April 2015.
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