"Invidiam Viam Aut Faciam": "I Will Find a Way Or Make One" the Poetic Practice of Political Counsel in the Courts of Elizabeth I and James I
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University of New Hampshire University of New Hampshire Scholars' Repository Doctoral Dissertations Student Scholarship Fall 2005 "Invidiam viam aut faciam": "I will find a way or make one" The poetic practice of political counsel in the courts of Elizabeth I and James I Andrea L. Harkness University of New Hampshire, Durham Follow this and additional works at: https://scholars.unh.edu/dissertation Recommended Citation Harkness, Andrea L., ""Invidiam viam aut faciam": "I will find a way or make one" The poetic practice of political counsel in the courts of Elizabeth I and James I" (2005). Doctoral Dissertations. 285. https://scholars.unh.edu/dissertation/285 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Student Scholarship at University of New Hampshire Scholars' Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized administrator of University of New Hampshire Scholars' Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. NOTE TO USERS This reproduction is the best copy available. UMI Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. '‘Invidiam Viam Ant Faciam”— “I will find a way or make one’ The Poetic Practice of Political Counsel in the Courts of Elizabeth I and James I BY ANDREA L. DARKNESS BA, University of Hawaii, 1987 MA, University o f Washington, 1989 DISSERTATION Submitted to the University of New Hampshire in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in English September, 2005 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. UMI Number: 3183899 Copyright 2005 by Harkness, Andrea L. All rights reserved. INFORMATION TO USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. Broken or indistinct print, colored or poor quality illustrations and photographs, print bleed-through, substandard margins, and improper alignment can adversely affect reproduction. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if unauthorized copyright material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. UMI UMI Microform 3183899 Copyright 2005 by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights reserved. This microform edition is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. ProQuest Information and Learning Company 300 North Zeeb Road P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED © 2 0 0 5 Andrea Harkness Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. This dissertation has been examined and approved. Dissertation Director, Elizabeth H. Hagemen Professor of English Elizabeth J. Bellamy Professor of English c Rachel J. Trubowitz Associate Professor of English Marc L. Schwarz Associate Professor of History Marco L. Domsman Assistant Professor of Spanish Date Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. DEDICATION For Elizabeth McCutcheon IV Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS My work on this dissertation received support through two grants from the Graduate School at the University of New Hampshire. A Summer Fellowship for Teaching Assistants and a Dissertation Fellowship enabled me to do research and write early drafts of this study. I found more support and inspiration in the meetings of the Dissertation Workshop and especially the insights of its director, Susan Schibanoff, who has helped me at important moments with timely advice. Members of my Dissertation committee Rachel Trubowitz, and Jane Bellamy, in English, and Marc Schwarz of the History department were generous with their comments. I want to thank them for their thoughtful suggestions which have only improved this work. Betty Hageman showed me a sustained patience for which I am immeasurably grateful. She gave me hours of work in reading and commenting on every draft. This dissertation would not have been written without her understanding and support, nor would it make as much sense without her expertise and guidance. Many friends supported me in this project. In the early stages Molly Doyle shared her love for reading and research with me for which 1 am grateful. Sarah Allday and all of her family steadied me through much of my graduate studies. Suzanne Wones and Rebecca Dawson Webb each deserve my especial thanks. They have encouraged me steadfastly and never let me cheat myself. They have been my family throughout graduate school and I love being a part of their growing families. Jonathan Paul has V Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. weathered all of the storms of my writing and remained a cheerfiil and helpful support. He has been indispensably encouraging. Catherine Fatina, who has given me long years of support, has helped me to see that there is always a harvest. I also want to thank the members of my Monday night support group who always listen. Lastly, though she was first, I am especially indebted to Elizabeth McCutcheon who urged me to write on Sir Philip Sidney as an undergraduate. She’s been a fiiend and mentor even from very far away. She is a blessing without disguise. VI Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. TABLE OF CONTENTS DEDICATION................................................................................................................. ..iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS........................................................................... v ABSTRACT.................................................................................................... viii CHAPTER PAGE INTRODUCTION...............................................................................................................1 I. IN THE SERVICE OF COUNSEL: SIR PHILIP SIDNEY’S ASTROPHIL AND STELLA............. ............................31 II. HANDMAIDEN TO THE QUEEN: MARY SIDNEY HERBERT’S TRANSLATIONS AS COUNSEL IN QUEEN ELIZABETH’S COURT................................................................... 92 III. IN THE SERVICE OF “FAIRE VIRTUE”: AEMELIA LANYER’S POLITICAL ROLE FOR WOMEN UNDER JAMES I .....................................142 IV. LOVE IN THE SERVICE OF THE KING: MARY WROTH’S PAMPHILIA TO AMPHILANTHUS. .........................187 AFTERWARD...................................... 222 WORKS CITED ............................................................................................................231 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ABSTRACT “INVIDIAM VIAM AUT FACIAM”—“I WILL FIND A WAY OR MAKE ONE”: THE POETIC PRACTICE OF POLITICAL COUNSEL IN THE COURTS OF ELIZABETH I AND JAMES I by Andrea L. Harkness University of New Hampshire, September 2005 In this study I argue that at least four poets: three aristocrats from the Sidney family—Sir Philip Sidney, Mary Sidney Herbert, and Mary Wroth—with a history of service to Tudor monarchs, and one non-aristocratic writer, Aemilia Lanyer, who claimed to be a poetical descendant of a Sidney, responded to the efforts of Elizabeth I and James I to restrict the power of the aristocracy by claiming a right to offer counsel to their monarch. Though no one of them could claim a position from which to offer direct counsel, they each exploited the Petrarchan discourse of love to assert an expanded role for themselves by writing poetry that offers counsel concerning the most intimate aspects of a monarch’s rule—the nature and temper of his or her personal desires—in ways that formal counsel might not. Where they could not claim an intimacy with their monarch, they dramatized the conflicts which the commitments of the monarch’s desires created with their efforts for a just public rule. In his sonnet sequence, Astrophil and Stella, Sir Philip Sidney extends of his more formal counsel to the Queen regarding her affair with vm Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. the Duke of Alencon. I read Philip’s sister, Mary Sidney Herbert, and niece, Mary Wroth, as drawing on Sidney’s idea of fiction to write their own eounsel to the monarch. Philip’s sister Mary began her career as a poet translating Robert Gamier’s play, Marc Antonie, which depicts the finstration of counselors in addressing a monarch’s passions and examines the personal triumphs and public costs of great princes in love. Their niece. Lady Mary Wroth wrote a sonnet sequence, Pamphilia to Amphilanthus, which dramatizes the struggles of King James’ Queen Anne and his favorite, the Duke of Buckingham, to love and serve a man of multiple and wavering affections like the King himself. Aemilia Lanyer, too, borrows fi-om Sidney’s idea of poetry in her collection of poems, the Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum. Writing as a spokesperson for the aristocracy, she identifies a virtue particular to women (’’laire virtue”) without which King James’ rule is not truly Christian. IX Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited