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An Edition of the Tragedie of Cleopatra, by Samuel Daniel

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An Edition of the Tragedie of Cleopatra, by Samuel Daniel An Edition of The Tragedie of Cleopatra, by Samuel Daniel Dorothy Heather Bowles A thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy School of English August 2020 Volume 1 Abstract Although highly regarded – and much published – in his lifetime, the poet, literary critic and historian, Samuel Daniel is now overshadowed by his contemporary, William Shakespeare. Interest in this late Elizabethan / early Jacobean writer has been restricted by the lack of a complete critical edition of Daniel’s works, a gap which no single thesis could attempt to fill. One problem facing prospective editors has been Daniel’s propensity for amending pieces as they went through successive editions. An additional difficulty for an editor is that few of his works were presented in a stand-alone format even in their initial presentation to the reading public. This thesis offers a scholarly edition of one of Daniel’s earliest pieces, The Tragedie of Cleopatra. It argues that Cleopatra transcends the label ‘closet drama’ that is often attached to it which has overshadowed recognition of its literary merits and the political, philosophical and religious concerns of its period which it addresses. In addition, Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra, written more than a decade later, has captured the attention of critics and audiences. Whilst I acknowledge these points, I position Cleopatra as an important work from the late Elizabethan period. By including an overview of related works and paratextual material by Daniel, I provide insight into his life and a context for the play. I consider also the source material available to Daniel and detail how he was influenced by and utilised Plutarch’s Lives. It is my intention that through this thesis, The Tragedie of Cleopatra will become available as a resource for both students and scholars. The copytext for my annotated edition of the tragedy is the Blickling Hall copy of The works of Samuel Daniel newly augmented (London, 1601) and I include variants from those editions of the tragedy which were published in the period 1594–1605. Contents Volume One List of Illustrations Acknowledgements General Introduction 1 Chapter One: Daniel’s life through his own words 4 Chapter Two: Daniel the writer 52 Chapter Three: Introduction to The Tragedie of Cleopatra 82 Chapter Four: Daniel’s sources 114 Chapter Five: The Tragedie of Cleopatra 141 Volume Two Annotations to the Text 217 Variants 268 Appendix A: Plutarch 283 Appendix B: Choruses 292 Appendix C: Works of Samuel Daniel (published in his lifetime) 293 Appendix D: Occasional Verses by Samuel Daniel 296 Bibliography 298 List of Illustrations 1. Wilton House, West front. © Dorothy Bowles 15 2. ‘Mary Herbert, Countess of Pembroke’ by Simon de Passe, line engraving, © National Portrait Gallery, London 16 3. Wilton House, Motto above Main Entrance, East front, © Dorothy Bowles 20 4. ‘Anne, Countess of Pembroke’ (Lady Anne Clifford) by Robert White, © National Portrait Gallery, London 25 5. Daniel Mytens (1590–1648), Portrait of William Herbert 3rd Earl of Pembroke (1580–1630), from a private collection on display at Audley End House, Essex 32 6.‘Samuel Daniel’ by Thomas Cockson after Unknown artist, line engraving, © National Portrait Gallery, London 45 7. Bust on pediment, memorial to Samuel Daniel, (c. 1650), St. George’s Church, Beckington, © Dorothy Bowles 51 The following are reproduced by kind permission of the National Trust 8. Flemish tapestry, one of five ‘Antony and Cleopatra’ tapestries held by the National Trust at Sizergh Castle, © Dorothy Bowles 113 9. Decorative headpiece from title page of The Tragedie of Cleopatra, The works of Samuel Daniel newly augmented (London:1601), sig. [ Evr], held by the National Trust at Blickling Hall. © Dorothy Bowles 147 10. Decorative frame surrounding ‘Argument’, The Tragedie of Cleopatra, The works of Samuel Daniel newly augmented (London:1601), sig. Fiir, held by the National Trust at Blickling Hall. © Dorothy Bowles 154 11. Decorative frame surrounding ‘A’ at the start of the Argument, The Tragedie of Cleopatra, The works of Samuel Daniel newly augmented (London:1601), sig. Fiir, held by the National Trust at Blickling Hall. © Dorothy Bowles 222 Acknowledgements: Members of the School of English, University of Sheffield, in particular Dr Tom Rutter and Dr Emma Rhatigan John Gandy, librarian at Blickling Hall, National Trust Tim Pye, National Trust Libraries Curator Peter Moore, Curator of Collections & Interiors, English Heritage Steve Tabor, Curator of Rare Books, The Huntington Library Samuel Wylie, Reference Services Assistant, The Huntington Library Lakeland Arts Trust This thesis was made possible by access to Early English Books Online, now part of Early Modern Books 1 General Introduction The main purpose of this thesis is to present an edition of the 1601 Tragedie of Cleopatra (held at Blickling Hall) together with annotations and variants. Cleopatra has not appeared in print for over fifty years, even then it was neither annotated nor the 1601 version.1 I argue in this thesis that The Tragedie of Cleopatra marked a turning point in Daniel’s life. As his early versifying matured into an individual and confident style and successive and diverse works reached print, he became an established literary figure. Whereas in the Dedication of Cleopatra Daniel acknowledged the talents of ‘great SYDNEY & our SPENCER’, two years later Thomas Nashe coupled Daniel’s name with those whom he had praised: ‘the famous Schollars of our time … S. Philip Sidney, M. Watson, M. Spencer, M. Daniell’.2 In support of my claim for the significance of Cleopatra in Daniel’s writing career, the first two chapters are a biographical account of Daniel and a critical account of a selection of his works. My research sheds light on Daniel’s life from a perspective that other Daniel scholars have not adopted up to now, providing a firm foundation for a reappraisal of this neglected author. In the course of this research I identified many ‘occasional’ verses by Daniel, several of which have not received scholarly attention; these should be included in any future ‘Collected Works’.3 By using his own words and those of his contemporaries as recorded in his and their published writings I have discovered insights into Daniel ‘the man’ in addition to Daniel ‘the professional writer’, which increase our knowledge of him and the milieu in which he moved. Daniel was not the only well educated gentleman seeking to make a living with little else but a well trained mind. Richard Helgerson has described the effects of an expansion of humanist education in the mid to late sixteenth century: The extraordinary recourse of gentlemen’s sons to the seats of learning …had… an unforseseen result. It quickly saturated the offices of state with men trained in good letters, leaving few openings for those who came behind. So in order to support themselves in as gentlemanly a fashion as possible and to catch the attention of potential benefactors, they turned to writing.4 1 Geoffrey Bullough, ed. Narrative and Dramatic Sources of Shakespeare (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1964), V, The Roman Plays: Julius Cӕsar, Antony and Cleopatra, Coriolanus. 2 Samuel Daniel, Delia and Rosamond augmented. Cleopatra (London, 1594), sig. [H7r]. Thomas Nashe, Have with you to Saffron-Walden (London, 1596), sig. V2r. 3 See Appendix D for a list of occasional verses. 4 Richard Helgerson, The Elizabethan Prodigals (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1976), p. 23. 2 In my biographical account of Daniel it is possible to trace this mode of behaviour. Working from material which has survived for four hundred years will inevitably introduce some distortion either from the absence of pieces now no longer extant or the presence of matter which when written was regarded as ephemeral; however I am confident that the process is a valuable addition to traditional biographical tools. Whilst earlier biographers of Daniel have relied on physical evidence of his life such as administrative records or mentions of him in contemporary correspondence, my information has been accessed digitally from books and leaflets published in late sixteenth / early seventeenth centuries. Year on year Daniel produced items for publication and these have been an amazingly productive resource for information about him and his associates. This thesis will counter the lack of attention which Daniel has received. In recent years studies have concentrated chiefly on individual works or specific themes. By linking Cleopatra to some of Daniel’s other pieces I will present a major and more nuanced appraisal of his achievements. His writing career extended over three decades, but the works which I examine in Chapter Two date within a few years of Cleopatra and are linked to it by both physical proximity in his volumes and by context. They thus demonstrate the trajectory his career subsequently followed. In the third chapter I discuss the political and religious background within which Daniel was working and also the print history of the play. Yasmin Arshad’s work on Cleopatra provides an insight into Daniel’s 1607 version of the tragedy, a play which differs significantly from earlier printings as I will discuss later.5 Literary criticism has viewed Cleopatra from the perspectives of her race, sex or royal status, as an example of a tragic heroine or as the epitome of feminine power. I discuss historical and Renaissance literary portrayals of her in my review of Daniel’s sources in Chapter Four. By making a detailed comparison of Daniel’s text with historical and fictional accounts of Cleopatra’s last days I can firmly identify Daniel’s main source as Plutarch’s Lives as translated by North.6 The text of Cleopatra which I have used as copytext is from a volume of The works of Samuel Daniel newly augmented (London, 1601) held by the National Trust at Blickling Hall.
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