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John Lyly, Robert Greene, and Shakespeare

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John Lyly, Robert Greene, and Shakespeare University of Warwick institutional repository: http://go.warwick.ac.uk/wrap A Thesis Submitted for the Degree of PhD at the University of Warwick http://go.warwick.ac.uk/wrap/2340 This thesis is made available online and is protected by original copyright. Please scroll down to view the document itself. Please refer to the repository record for this item for information to help you to cite it. Our policy information is available from the repository home page. The Art of Dissembling in Three Elizabethan Writers: John Lyly, Robert Greene, and Shakespeare by Ayako Kawanami A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in English University of Warwick, Department of English and Comparative Literary Studies November 2006 Contents Acknowledgments Abstract Introduction Chapter I Lyly and Greene's Romances 18 Chapter 11 Greene's Social Pamphlets 65 \ Chapter III Greene's Plays 91 Chapter IV Love's Labour's Lost 130 Chapter V The Winter's Tale 175 Bibliography 215 Acknowledgments Amongst other things, my deepest thanks go to Professor Jonathan Bate. Over the period of my research on this topic, a period from my involvement in the Directed Research MA in Liverpool to the completion of this thesis in Warwick (via a transfer of University together with him), he has continuously encouraged and stimulated me ý,vith sensible suggestions and smart ideas. My scholarly debt is, as my bibliography and footnotes to two his books: Ovid The Genius show, of -5hakespeareand and of Shakespeare. Especially in writing two Shakespeare chapters, the former book has been a critical (and metamorphic) inspiration. I hope that my argument in this thesis will be considered to be an expression of my appreciation of his invaluable comments and his every encouragement. For his comments on earlier versions of some of my chapters, I would like to thank Dr Nick Davis in Liverpool University. During my research, in particular, two conference opportunities were very useful for improving my ideas. In 'Renaissance lZhetoric, Gender and Politics' (Glasgow, 2003) and 'Tudor Symposium' (Kingston, 2004), 1 am especially indebted for valuable comments to Dr Robert Maslen and Professor Michael Pincombe respectively. For their generous support and perfect understanding, I cannot exhaust my words of gratitude to all of my family-my late father Watari, my mother Sachie, my brother and his family Kazuhisa, Hisako, Sakiko, Akiyuki, and my sister Fukiko. The most difficult time during this research was when I heard about my father's terminal illness and his death. My father was the first to invite me to the world of English literature, especially the theatrical world of Shakespeare. While my father was fighting with the illness, I tried to be focused on my research so that I could show him my completed work in time. But he had to yield to the illness without seeing my work finished. I have since then written my chapters, especially the Shakespearechapters, with our good rnemories of sharing many theatrical experiences in my mind. I will dedicate this work to the continuing memory of my father. I declare that this thesis has been written entirely on my own, and is intended to be submitted for a PhD in English at the University of Warwick. Abstract 'Dissembling', derived from courtiers' practice of sprezzatura. has the rhetorical ability to present one ostensible meaning/intention while simultaneously harbouring another meaning/intention. In this thesis, I suggest that three Elizabethan ,,ýTiters- Lyly, Greene, and Shakespeare have selected this deceptive act as a means to amplify their writing. Lyly exerts the art of dissembling with the intention of enriching his writing verbally. The art enables him to write fiction of love, while he presents his works as either didactic treatises or encomiastic writings. As far as Greeiie's art of dissembling is concerned, it is a class-conscious one. In his courtly love romances, Greene explores both strengths and weaknesses of women as a way of reflecting his interest in both of the two different social positions of courtiers and shepherds. In his social pamphlets where he depicts middle-class traders in the framework of the prodigal son story, Greene attempts to marry the uneducated with the learned. Greene's tries at theatrical devices with the intention of lifting the boundary between reality and illusion in his plays help Shakespeare to gain an insight into the attainment of dramatic moments in his plays. Shakespeare, by dint of his art of dissembling, takes to multiplying the dissembling of the courtly and the lowly, the elite and the non-elite, reality and illusion which Greene has achieved throughout his career. In Shakespeare's good hands, Greene's art of dissembling is enriched by a movement towards 'bafflement' in both poetic and dramatic terms. An exploration of the way in which the art of dissembling is handed down from Lyly through Greene to Shakespeareencourages us to reconsider a connection between courtly culture and popular culture, the significance of Greene on the F,lizabethan literary scene, a most neglected of the major Elizabethan writers, and the relationship of Shakespeareto Greene. Introduction The is for discussion: thesis concerned with three topics firstly, it explores the ,viti. N way in which three Elizabethan writers, John Lyly. Robert Greene. and William Shakespeare,amplify their writing by dint of the art of dissembling: secondly. it attempts to reconsider the part which Greene has played on the Elizabethan literary scene,the most prolific yet the least studied of the major Elizabethan writers-,thirdly. it proposesto revise the view of the relation between Greene and Shakespeare,a bitter rivalry on account of the notorious invective against Shakespearein Greene's *upstart-crow' passage. I shall start with the second point. Greene is well known for the first professional writer in England, so to speak, a manual labourer who earns his livelihood by his pen.' During the period between the 1560s and the 1580s in Elizabeth's reign, a number of youths, educated in universities and in the Inns of Court to become civil servants, were more or less involved in poetic writing. What sets Greene apart from such elite writers, in spite of his education at both Cambridge and Oxford, is his lack of a history of service at court. Hence the characteristics of Greene's works are easily associated with the 'popular' taste of ordinary readers.' From the beginning of his career, Greene produces the kind of work to cater for a female readership. In his first romance Mamillia: A Mirrour or Looking-glasse.for Me Ladies of Englande (1580-3), for example. he urges For accounts of the figure of Greene being a professional writer, see Edwin Haviland Miller, The Prolessional Writer in Elizabethan England: A Studv of Nondramatic Literature (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univcrsity Press, 1959), Phoebe Sheavyn, The Literary Profession in the Elizabethan Age, 2"d edn. (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1967); Sandra Clark, The ElLabethan Pamphleteers: Popular Wralistic Pamphlets 1580-1640 (Rutherford, NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson Universitý Press, 19831). 2 Books devoted to surveys of Greene's literary career tend to emphasise 'popular' elements in his \,vorks above all else. See. for example, John Clark Jordan, Robert Greene (New York: Columbia University Press. 1 1915). Rený Pruvost, Robert Greene ct ses Romans (1558-1592) (Paris: Belles Letters, 1938). A possible exception is Crupi's. see Charles NV. Crupi, Robert Greene, T%vayne's English Authors Series (Boston: T%vaytie, 1986). gentlemen readers to consider -how unmeete women are to have such reproches layed uppon them, as sundrye large lipt felowes have done'? This attitude of Greene leads to his reputation for being a writer to cater to the vulgar taste of uneducated female readers. He is famous as a prolific writer too. In his defence of the dead Greene against Harveý, Thomas Nashe says: 'In a night and a day, would he have yarkt up a Pamphlet as well as in seavenyeare, and glad was that Printer that might bee so blest to pay him clearefor the very dregs of his wit'. ' Nashe praises Greene's facility for writing, albeit in a suppressed manner; but his words are cited as indicative of Greene's unscrupulous way of exploiting the lucrative print market by churning out the poor kind of reading. Greene's pamphlets largely consisting of a number of worn-out topics and phrases are considered to be proof of his obsequious attitude towards an undemanding readership.' Amongst other things, his confession of repentance in his quasi-autobiographical repentance pamphlets at the later stage of his life and his untimely death in penury and despair serve to generatean impression that his career venture has ended up in failure. Historians and literary scholars have been made alert to the relation between 'elite' culture and *popular' culture since Peter Burke's ground-breaking Popular Culture in I Robert Greene, A4amillia: A Alirrour or Looking-glasse for the Ladies of Englande in The Life and Complete Works in Prose and Verse of Robert Greene, M. A. in Fifteen Volumes, ed. by Alexander B. Grosart (New York: Russell & Russell), vol. 11,106. All the references to Greene's non-dramatic works are to this edition, hereafter parenthetically specified with volume and page number in the text. For an carly account of a connection between the female taste and Greene's readership, see Louis B. Wright, Afid(fle-Class Culture in Elizabethan England (1935; reprint, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1958). especially chapter XIII, 'The Popular Controversy over Women', 465-507. Suzanne Hull points out that A4amillia is the first English romance with only a woman's name in its title.
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