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Disparate Measures: Poetry, Form, and Value in Early Modern England"

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Disparate Measures: Poetry, Form, and Value in Early Modern England DISPARATE MEASURES: POETRY, FORM, AND VALUE IN EARLY MODERN ENGLAND by MICHAEL BENNET SMITH A DISSERTATION Presented to the Department ofEnglish and the Graduate School ofthe University ofOregon in partial fulfillment ofthe requirements for the degree of Doctor ofPhilosophy September 2010 11 University of Oregon Graduate School Confirmation of Approval and Acceptance of Dissertation prepared by: Michael Smith Title: "Disparate Measures: Poetry, Form, and Value in Early Modern England" This dissertation has been accepted and approved in partial fulfillment ofthe requirements for the Doctor ofPhilosophy degree in the Department of English by: George Rowe, Chairperson, English Benjamin Saunders, Member, English Lisa Freinkel, Member, English Leah Middlebrook, Outside Member, Comparative Literature and Richard Linton, Vice President for Research and Graduate Studies/Dean ofthe Graduate School for the University of Oregon. September 4, 2010 Original approval signatures are on file with the Graduate School and the University of Oregon Libraries. 111 © 2010 Michael Bennet Smith IV An Abstract ofthe Dissertation of Michael Bennet Smith for the degree of Doctor ofPhilosophy in the Department ofEnglish to be taken September 2010 Title: DISPARATE MEASURES: POETRY, FORM, AND VALUE IN EARLY MODERN ENGLAND Approved: _ Dr. George Rowe In early modem England the word "measure" had a number ofdifferent but related meanings, with clear connections between physical measurements and the measurement ofthe self(ethics), ofpoetry (prosody), ofliterary form (genre), and of capital (economics). In this dissertation I analyze forms ofmeasure in early modem literary texts and argue that measure-making and measure-breaking are always fraught with anxiety because they entail ideological consequences for emerging national, ethical, and economic realities. Chapter I is an analysis ofthe fourth circle ofDante's Inferno. In this hell Dante portrays a nightmare ofmis-measurement in which failure to value wealth properly not only threatens to infect one's ethical well-being but also contaminates language, poetry, and eventually the universe itself. These anxieties, I argue, are associated with a massive shift in conceptions ofmeasurement in Europe in the late medieval period. Chapter II is v an analysis ofthe lyric poems ofThomas Wyatt, who regularly describes his psychological position as "out ofmeasure," by which he means intemperate or subject to excessive feeling. I investigate this self-indictment in terms ofthe long-standing critical contention that Wyatt's prosody is "out ofmeasure," and I argue that formal and psychological expressions ofmeasure are ultimately inseparable. In Chapter III I argue that in Book II ofthe Faerie Queene Edmund Spenser figures ethical progress as a course between vicious extremes, and anxieties about measure are thus expressed formally as a struggle between generic forms, in which measured control ofthe selfand measured poetic composition are finally the same challenge. Finally, in my reading of Troilus and Cressida I argue that Shakespeare portrays persons as commodities who are constantly aware oftheir own values and anxious about their "price." Measurement in this play thus constitutes a system ofvaluation in which persons attempt to manipulate their own value through mechanisms ofcomparison and through praise or dispraise, and the failure to measure properly evinces the same anxieties endemic to Dante's fourth circle, where it threatens to infect the whole world. VI CURRICULUM VITAE NAME OF AUTHOR: Michael Bennet Smith GRADUATE AND UNDERGRADUATE SCHOOLS ATTENDED: University ofOregon Boston University George Fox University DEGREES AWARDED: Doctor ofPhilosophy in English, 2010, University of Oregon Master ofArts in Creative Writing (Poetry), 2004, Boston University Bachelor ofArts in Philosophy and Writing/Literature, 2002, George Fox University AREAS OF SPECIAL INTEREST: Early Modern Literature Poetry PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE: Graduate Teaching Fellow, Department ofEnglish, University ofOregon, 2004-2010 Assistant Director ofComposition, University ofOregon, 2008-2009 Co-chair, Ad Hoc Assessment Committee, Composition Program, 2008-9 Search Committee, Early Modern Literature: 2007-8 VB GRANTS, AWARDS AND HONORS: RudolfEmst Dissertation Fellowship Award, University of Oregon, 2009 Paul T. Hurley Prize in Poetry, Boston University, 2004 Robert Fitzgerald Prize for Poetry in Translation, Boston University, 2004 V111 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I wish to thank George Rowe, who has been my ideal reader and the best advisor one could ever hope for. He has provided generous, kind, and rigorous feedback at every stage ofthe writing ofthis dissertation, and like Arthur in Faeryland, he arrived time and time again to save me from my wanderings. Ben Saunders' work provided a model for my scholarship, and my conversations with him have been invariably encouraging and thought-provoking. Lisa Freinkel has been a friend and a perceptive reader; her enthusiasm and kindness kept me moving forward. Leah Middlebrook was an inspiring, rigorous, and enthusiastic reader. Warren Ginsberg discussed an early version ofChapter I with me, and Tres Pyle provided helpful feedback on Chapter II. My graduate-student colleagues at the University of Oregon have been helpful in countless ways, especially Rachel Hanan and Corbett Upton. I wish to thank all the teachers who led me, in one way or another, to this project, especially William Jolliff, Rosanna Warren, Robert Pinsky, and David Ferry. My parents have been more generous and supportive to me than I could possibly deserve. Thanks to my brothers for the fishing breaks. Finally, I wish to thank my wife and partner, Amy Smith Garofano, without whose love and support I would never have begun this project, much less finished it. IX This dissertation is dedicated to my parents, in love and gratitude. x TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter Page I. DANTE AND THE IDEA OF MEASURE AT THE THRESHOLD OF THE RENAISSANCE 1 II. "SO FAR OUT OF MEASURE": THOMAS WYATT'S LYRIC METER 48 III. TO "MEASURE OUT A MEAN": PHAEDRIA AND THE TEMPTATIONS OF GENRE IN BOOK II OF THE FAERIE QUEENE.............................. 108 IV. "0, MADNESS OF DISCOURSE": PRAISING, PRIZING, AND MEASURE ANXIETY IN SHAKESPEARE'S TROlLUS AND CRESSIDA 152 REFERENCES 191 Xl LIST OF FIGURES Figure Page 1. "Temperance" 17 2. Tottel's Emendation of Wyatt's Meter. 91 1 CHAPTER I DANTE AND THE IDEA OF MEASURE AT THE THRESHOLD OF THE RENAISSANCE It hath been ordained that one measure and one weight should be throughout all this realm ofEngland... Magna Carta As Virgil and Dante enter the fourth circle ofhell in the seventh canto ofThe Inferno, they are accosted by Plutus, the ancient god ofwealth, who clucks at them in a simulacrum ofspeech: Pape Satan, pape Satan, aleppe! These words-approximating real language, but resisting translation-introduce the pilgrims and the reader into the region ofhell reserved for the avaricious and the prodigal, those who mismeasured wealth in their former lives, either by hoarding or by squandering, and are consequently condemned to spend eternity colliding with one another in an indiscriminate, swirling mass. By opening this canto with nonsense words, Dante immediately establishes a connection between measure and language, or, more accurately, between mismeasure and mangled language. This connection-between one's ability to measure wealth and one's ability to speak-is the canto's dominant recurring theme; it is derived in part from an ancient and venerable connection established by Boethius in his commentary on Aristotle's De 2 Interpretatione. All forms ofmeasure in this hell are debased, beginning with economic measure, for money is the ultimate marker ofvalue. 1 In Virgil's words, Tutti quantifuor guerci si de la mente in la vita primaia, che non misura nullo spendio ferci. (40-2) [Every one ofthem was so cross-eyed ofmind in the first life, that no measure 2 governed their spending. ] No misura-measure-governed the spending ofthese souls while they were alive, and in the afterlife their mismeasure is transformed into a world where they must suffer an existence ofextremities, eternally denied the ethical mean that they themselves disdained during their mortal lives. Dante repeatedly relies on the imagery ofextremity to describe their suffering. The sinners swirl between extreme points in the expanse they inhabit, "d'una parte e d'altra" (26), "on one side and the other." From these opposing sides they move da ogne mana a l'opposito punto, "on either hand to the point opposite" (32). Instead ofoccupying the spatial middle ground, the sinners continually return to the extreme ends oftheir hell. They move toward the middle only to encounter violence, smashing into one another with their meaningless burdens. But as much as it is a hell ofextremes, Dante's fourth circle is also a hell of broken language, a region that continually reenacts the moment after the fall ofthe Tower ofBabel. For Plutus' speech is not the only failed language in the seventh canto. As they 1 R.A. Shoafestablishes this connection, noting that "Aristotle [...] insists that 'all goods to be exchanged... should be measurable by some standard coin or measure.' From this need, universally recognized, for a common measure, arises what [I] call the reductive power ofmoney-the power ofmoney to reduce anything and everything to itself" (11). 2 All translations ofDante in this dissertation are from Robert M. Durling's edition. 3 run in their furious circle, holding great weights,
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