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Representations of Counsel in Selected Works of Sir Philip Sidney Representations of Counsel in Selected Works of Sir Philip Sidney The Harvard community has made this article openly available. Please share how this access benefits you. Your story matters Citation Henson, Marie Celeste. 2015. Representations of Counsel in Selected Works of Sir Philip Sidney. Doctoral dissertation, Harvard University, Graduate School of Arts & Sciences. Citable link http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:17467248 Terms of Use This article was downloaded from Harvard University’s DASH repository, and is made available under the terms and conditions applicable to Other Posted Material, as set forth at http:// nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:dash.current.terms-of- use#LAA Representations of Counsel in Selected Works of Sir Philip Sidney A dissertation presented by Marie Celeste Henson to The Department of English in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the subject of English Harvard University Cambridge, Massachusetts May 2015 © 2015 Marie Celeste Henson All rights reserved. Dissertation Advisor: Professor James Engell Marie Celeste Henson Representations of Counsel in Selected Works of Sir Philip Sidney Abstract This dissertation addresses the historical, political, and literary-rhetorical framing of counsel in selected works of Sir Philip Sidney: his Letter to Queen Elizabeth (1579), The Old Arcadia (1580), the first two books of The New Arcadia (1585), and the strikingly different final book of The New Arcadia. In these works, Sidney makes resourceful and varying use of the topos of the mirror. First, I show in what ways Sidney serves as the Queen’s mirror in advising her against the marriage to the Duke of Alençon. In the Letter, Sidney gathers, shatters, and distorts aspects of Elizabeth’s image; he multiplies reflections to discredit arguments of his political opponents and reconstitutes Elizabeth in an imperial, Protestant image. Turning to The Old Arcadia, I argue that, through the presentation of Gynecia, Sidney broadens the conventions of the genre familiarly known as the mirror for princes. Gynecia’s complexity and moral ambiguity complicate the traditional generic categories of virtue to be emulated and vice to be avoided. She serves as both an object in, and a reader of, the mirror for princes text and becomes a means for Sidney’s commentary on the genre and the moral questions it raises. By inviting the reader into an active experience of the mirror’s pedagogical enterprise, Sidney tests and refines the reader’s assumptions and moral judgments. In Books I and II of The New Arcadia, Sidney presents and interrogates poetry as a strategy for overcoming limited human agency and imperfect knowledge, limitations that appear in deployments of the mirror that show stasis and in images of the maze to indicate blocked access and thwarted mobility. By questioning poetry’s capacity to uncover and represent truth, iii Sidney holds the mirror up to himself. Book III of The New Arcadia restores the mirror as the productive mode of counsel in a mirror for princes text that instructs on a central theme of the Renaissance debate on counsel: discerning the flatterer. Sidney’s New Arcadia in its entirety offers an exemplary mirror of the self-scrutiny that leads to self-knowledge and the consequent authority to offer counsel of worth. iv Table of Contents Acknowledgments .......................................................................................................................... vi Chapter 1 Counsel in Sir Philip Sidney’s Letter to Queen Elizabeth (1579) .................................. 1 I. Framing and Uniting: The Gathering Mirror ...................................................................... 6 II. Reflecting: Shattering and Shattered Mirrors ................................................................. 12 III. A Multiplicity of Competing Reflections ...................................................................... 20 Chapter 2 Sidney’s Old Arcadia as a Mirror for Princes .............................................................. 40 I. Gynecia Introduced .......................................................................................................... 59 II. Gynecia’s Monologue ..................................................................................................... 72 III. Gynecia and Cleophila: Mirrored Princes ..................................................................... 85 IV. Verses on the Lute ......................................................................................................... 90 V. Object of Deceit .............................................................................................................. 98 VI. Moral Mirror to Basilius .............................................................................................. 102 VII. The Fall of a Princess ................................................................................................. 113 VIII. Conclusion ................................................................................................................ 117 Chapter 3 The Mirror, the Maze, and Poetry as Strategy: Counsel in Books I and II of The New Arcadia ...................................................................................................................... 120 I. The Mirror ...................................................................................................................... 123 II. The Maze ....................................................................................................................... 136 III. The Poetry .................................................................................................................... 143 Chapter 4 The Mirror in Book III of The New Arcadia .............................................................. 164 Bibliography ............................................................................................................................... 189 Primary Works ................................................................................................................... 189 Secondary Works ............................................................................................................... 191 v Acknowledgments I record with profound gratitude my debts to the people who have made this project possible. To James Engell, Gordon Teskey, and Barbara Lewalski, I owe incalculable thanks. In studying the exemplary mirrors of Sidney’s texts, I needed only to look up from my books to the counselors guiding my steps to see Sidney’s depicted ideals in practice. Thank you for your unwavering faith in me over the course of many and varied circumstances, for challenging and inspiring me, and for being models of the excellence and graciousness to which I aspire. My heartfelt thanks for the opportunity to be a part of the Harvard English Department and for the generosity of the many faculty members in the Department who have encouraged me over the years. My appreciation to Sacvan Bercovitch, Marjorie Garber, Derek Pearsall, David Perkins, Elaine Scarry, and Helen Vendler. Conversations with Wallace MacCaffrey formed my introduction to the Elizabethan era. Thank you for opening the door. For the financial assistance that allowed me to pursue graduate studies and to complete the dissertation, I am thankful to The Mellon Foundation and The Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. A term-time fellowship from the English Department’s Annie Dexter Fund allowed me to continue my studies at a crucial time. I am indebted to Gwen Urdang-Brown for warm, cheerful, and capable assistance in navigating innumerable Departmental matters, and to Karen Dasey, Kathy Hanley, and Olivia Whalen for resolving administrative situations with memorable kindness. Thank you to all those who have helped me at the Harvard University van service, for brightening my daily journeys over these years with conversation and care, supporting me in countless logistical ways, and for becoming my campus family: Jack Aylward, Denise Byrne, Dennis Callanan, Bob Cassidy, Dave vi Harris, Bonny Louison, Arthur Luongo, Bob Moran, Davette Roundtree, Mark Shine, Joanne Smith, Dolly Pacheco, Carolyn Pisarczyk, Carl Tempesta, Jonathan Werner, and Jim Woods. My thanks to the friends who sustained me throughout the project with steadfast support and generous hearts: Audrey Amerski, Eileen Sirica Cardillo, Michele Mulholland France, Deidre Veronica Hill, Gigi Gannon McClure, Colleen Brogan McEvoy, and Daniel Melamed. For immeasurable patience and perspective, and an inexhaustible fund of compassion and moral support, my thanks to Alex Milroy. I thank James Reardon for his meaningful support over many years and his ability to strategize around obstacles in the path. For invaluable technical help and rescue at the finish line, my thanks to John Morris. I could not have completed this dissertation without the cheerful forbearance of my family. I dedicate this dissertation to the memory of my foster parents, John and Margaret Maas, and to my parents, Donald and Mathleen Henson, with infinite gratitude and love. vii Chapter 1 Counsel in Sir Philip Sidney’s Letter to Queen Elizabeth (1579) On November 10, 1579, Protestant England’s Virgin Queen announced her intention to marry. Her choice was a man half her age, reputed to be ill with syphilis, and heir to the throne of one of the most Catholic kingdoms in Europe. Historians still debate whether Elizabeth truly gave her heart to Francis, Duke of Alençon
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