Ayodeji Malcolm Guite: Ph.D Thesis, 1993
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Ayodeji Malcolm Guite: Ph.D Thesis, 1993. The Art of Memory and the Art of Salvation: A study with reference to the works of Lancelot Andrewes, John Donne, and T.S. Eliot Abstract This thesis seeks first to demonstrate the centrality of memory as a theme in the sermons and meditations of Andrewes and Donne; secondly, to show the hidden influence of rhetorical arts of memory on the form and content of their sermons; and thirdly, to explore the extent of their influence, particularly that of Andre wes, on the treatment of memory in T.S. Eliot's poetry. Chapter One analyses the background of biblical, classical and patristic teaching about memory, emphasising the importance of Augustine's christianising of Platonic doctrines of recollection as a means of access to eternal truth. Chapter Two surveys the large body of teaching on the rhetorical art of memory, that is, the development of systems of imagined places and images through which the memory of the orator is assisted. There is a consideration of Frances Yates's pioneering work in this field, and an attempt to apply and develop her work specifically to the memory training of the Renaissance preacher, Chapters Three and Four are a detailed analysis of how all the foregoing material surfaces in the sermons of Andre wes and Donne. First, studying the way in which their own teaching reaffirms and develops the biblical and Augustinian inheritance, arguing that for both of them the exercise of memory is centrally bound up with the process of salvation; secondly, seeking to demonstrate the clear influence of formal arts of memory on the structure and imagery of their sermons, which were for the most part delivered memoriter. Chapter Five considers the influence of the memory tradition on Andrewes's Preces Privatae and Donne's Devotions and Divine Poems, and then gives an extended survey of the way in which their teaching and emphasis on the spiritual importance of memory re-emerges in the poetry of T.S.Eliot. The Art of Memory and the Art of Salvation: A Study with Reference to the Works of Lancelot Andrewes, John Donne, and T.S. Eliot. by Ayodeji Malcolm Guite The copyright of this thesis rests with the author. No quotation from it should be published without his prior written consent and information derived from it should be acknowledged. A thesis presented to the University of Durham for the degree of Ph.D., after research conducted in the School of English of the same university. 1993. ,..1 22 SEP 1994 CONTENTS Chapter One. Memory: The Great Tradition. A) The Biblical Background 1 i) Old Testament 1 it) New Testament 15 B) The Classical Background 20 i) Plato's Doctrine of Recollection 21 ii.) Memory in the Thought of Aristotle 30 iii) Memory in the Thought of Plotinus 32 C) The Theological Background 38 i) St Augustine 39 it) St Thomas Aquinas 45 Summary 50 Notes 50 Chapter Two. Training the Memory 53 A)Classical Rhetoric and the Training of Memory 53 i) The Classical Art of Memory 56 ii) The Development of the Art of Memory in the Sixteenth Century 67 B) Memory and the Making of a Preacher 83 i) Memory and Rhetoric in the Elizabethan Grammar School 83 ii) Rhetoric, Memory, and the Art of Preaching 93 Notes 107 Chapter Three. The Theme of Memory in the Sermons of Andrewes 109 A) Background 109 i) Andrewes as a Preacher 109 ii) The Text of Andrewes's Sermons 110 B) The Orphan Lectures: The Genesis of Andrewes's Thought on Memory 113 C) The Festival Sermons: Memory and Memorials 120 i) Nativity Sermons 121 ii) Sermons Preached on Ash Wednesday and in Lent 123 iii) Sermons Preached on the Passion 130 iv) Sermons on the Resurrection 133 v) Pentecost Sermons 139 vi.) The Conspiracy Sermons 147 D) Andrewes and the Art of Memory: Elements and Influences 150 i) Divisio and Structure 152 ii) Emblems as Mnemonics 157 iii) Con cetto Predicabile 160 E) 'Remember Lot's Wife': A Memorable Sermon on Memory 162 Summary 170 Notes 172 Chapter Four. The Theme of Memory in the Sermons of Donne 175 A) Background 175 i) Donne as a Preacher 175 ii) The Text of Donne's Sermons 179 B) A Thematic Survey of the Sermons as a Whole 181 i) Memory as a Faculty 181 ii) Memory and the Holy Spirit 186 Memory and Scripture 190 iv) Memory and Preaching 199 v) Memory and Sacraments 203 C) Art of Memory Motifs 207 i) Divisio and Mnemonic Loci 209 ii) Emblems and Mnemonic Imagines 217 D) Two Sermons 226 Summary 242 Notes 242 Chapter Five. Memory, Meditation, and Poetry 245 A) Memory and Meditation 245 i) General Background 245 ii) Andrewes's Preces Privatae 254 iii) Donne's Devotions upon Emergent Occasions 258 B) Memory and Poetry 274 i) The Art of Memory in Donne's Religious Poetry 274 li) T.S. Eliot 285 a) Past and Present for Eliot as Reader and Poet 286 b) Eliot on Andrewes 295 c) Sympathies and Similarities of Approach 298 d) Echoes and Allusions 300 Conclusion 313 Notes 315 *********** Declaration No part of this thesis has previously been submitted for a degree in the University of Durham, or any other university. The entire work is the candidate's own contribution. Copyright The copyright of this thesis rests with the author. No quotation from it should be published without his prior written consent, and information derived from it should be acknowledged. Chapter One. Memory: The Great Tradition The purpose of this chapter is to set out the background of scriptural and philosophical traditions about memory in which Andrewes and Donne worked. These can be divided into three main groups: biblical, classical, and theological. The biblical and theological reflection are in some respects more important, since they can be shown to have been more directly influential on the formation of Donne and Andrewes's thought. Nevertheless, I have deemed it necessary to rehearse some of the classical doctrines here, because even though the direct influence of thinkers like Plato and Plotinus on Andrewes and Donne is fairly slight (in spite of the so-called Platonising tendency of some B.enaissance theology), the influence of their thought indirectly, through the mediation of Augustine, is very considerable. Clearly the three sources are cumulative and inter-related, since the patristic writers in their theology and psychology of memory drew on ideas in both Scripture and classical philosophy. Plato, Aristotle, and Aquinas each had a special influence on the development and adaptation of ancient mnemonic systems which formed the medieval and renaissance ars memorativa traditions which are examined in the second chapter of this thesis. In this chapter therefore I will be dealing only with their ideas about 'natural' memory, as contrasted with systematised or artificial memory. Consideration of their teaching on mnemonics and the art of memory will be reserved for separate treatment in Chapter Two. A) The Biblical Background i) Old Testament The faculty of memory and the act of remembering is one of the absolutely central themes of the Old Testament, and indeed of the Page 1 entire Jewish religious experience. The Scripture itself serves primarily as an aid and stimulus to memory, and becomes a means whereby acts of memory become sacramental, become an entry into the divine presence through a ritualised re-enaction and participation in the divine acts of creation and redemption, which Scripture enshrines for the memory. Old Testament cultic worship has been described as 'sacred memory becoming sacred reality and life for the participants.' (1) The theme of memory runs right through the Old Testament, but it is especially vivid and prominent in D-eAtteronomy, the Psalms, and Isaiah. A complete analysis of the place of memory in the Old Testament would require fuller treatment, but in this brief introduction I shall concentrate on the ways in which the Creation and the Exodus, two biblical themes especially dear to both Donne and Andrewes, have been treated as objects of memory in the Psalms and Isaiah. I have selected those particular texts, both because in them the Old Testament psychology of memory is given its richest and most fruitful expression, and because they were texts which called forth some of the best insights from Andrewes and Donne. Before turning to the texts themselves it is worth examining briefly the Old Testament use of the verb zakhar (to remember), and the range of meanings it came to acquire. In this brief lexicographical analysis we will be following the path and method of Andrewes himself in his deep interest in the Hebrew language and his extensive work in helping to prepare the Authorised Version of the Bible. Brevard Childs gives an analysis of all the noun and verb forms of zkr in his 'Memory and the Tradition of Israer.(2) For the verb in the Qal form he gives an initial range of meaning over its one hundred and sixty-nine occurrences in the Old Testament as follows: Page 2 1) to call to mind 2) to keep in mind or consider 3) to remember for good or evil 4) to commemorate. He also comments at length on the fact that in the Hiphil form the word acquires two specific technical meanings: in a cultic context it means to name the Name, in the juridic context to make an accusation of sin. In both cases it is an act of utterance. What is significant is that in all but the first of these categories of meaning, the act of remembrance is indissolubly linked with a direct action or motion of the will, in other words with direction, intention, and commitment, rather than passive reflection.