Ibi Et Cor Tuum: the Twin Perils of Studium and Otium in English Renaissance Intellectual Culture
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Ibi et cor tuum: The Twin Perils of Studium and Otium in English Renaissance Intellectual Culture By Gertrude Obi A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in English in the Graduate Division of the University of California, Berkeley Committee in charge: Professor Joanna Picciotto, Chair Professor James Grantham Turner Professor Timothy Hampton Spring 2016 1 Abstract Ibi et cor tuum: The Twin Perils of Studium and Otium in English Renaissance Intellectual Culture by Gertrude Obi Doctor of Philosophy in English University of California, Berkeley Professor Joanna Picciotto, Chair My dissertation, “Ibi et cor tuum: The Twin Perils of Studium and Otium in English Renaissance Intellectual Culture,” investigates the ways in which the temptations posed by intellectual labor were conceptualized and navigated by English Renaissance humanists. The competition pitting the vita activa against the vita contemplativa, which every age—including ours—must resolve anew, generated a spate of writings engaging with the mixed legacy of classical and medieval Christian attitudes towards the cultivation of knowledge for its own sake. My first chapter traces the discourse of intellectual labor as leisure from the Aristotelian concept of schole through its transformations in the writings of Cicero, Seneca, Petrarch, and Erasmus. I discuss humanists’ attempts to draw upon traditions of monastic exemption and classical political exemption in order to add cachet and legibility to their “uselessness.” In doing so, I address the difficulties, both ideological and logistical, of integrating intellectual labor into an economic system. Chapter 2 explores the creation of an intellectual realm defined against both the (masculinized) public sphere and the (feminized) domestic sphere in More’s Utopia. On one hand, the humanist who retreats into the intellectual realm runs the risk of opting out of his responsibilities as breadwinner of the oikos without providing any social utility; on the other hand, otium litteratum can be used to serve public as well as domestic interests. Luisa Sigea’s Duarum virginum colloquium de vita aulica et privata (Dialogue of Two Young Girls on Courtly Life and Private Life) treats the activa-contemplativa question from the female perspective; I read this document against the Dialogue of Counsel that takes place in book 1 of Utopia. Chapter 3 on Christopher Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus focuses on what happens when the ends of learning are perverted for personal gain. I argue that the sin Marlowe is most interested in is Faustus's failure as a humanist; in both the production and consumption of knowledge, in the realms of both scholarly engagement and academic collegiality, Faustus is hobbled by his solipsism above all. 2 Chapter 4 examines the challenges that John Milton’s Epitaphium Damonis poses to the assumptions about the connective power of letters and learning that underpinned humanist conceptions of the respublica litteraria (Republic of Letters): relying too much on virtual communities for companionship runs the risk of devolving into solipsism. Milton finds a potential solution to this problem in the unlikeliest of places—Catholic Italy. My discussion concludes with the archetypal example of the perils of intellectual labor—the Fall of Man story as depicted by Milton in Paradise Lost. Milton, extending the work of predecessors in the hexameral tradition such as Guillaume du Bartas and Francis Bacon, places intellectual life at the center of his Paradise; accordingly, his Adam and Eve struggle with the same issues that confounded contemporary humanists—questions of solitude vs. sociability, public good vs. private interest, embodied vs. virtual relationships, and, perhaps most important in Paradise Lost, the role of women in intellectual life. Not even in Paradise can Milton imagine a simple or straightforward resolution to these issues. i Table of Contents Abstract ........................................................................................................................................... 1 Table of Contents ............................................................................................................................. i List of Abbreviations ..................................................................................................................... iii Acknowledgments.......................................................................................................................... iv Chapter One: Introduction ............................................................................................................ 1 1. The marriage of action and contemplation ............................................................................. 6 2. Classical schole in service of the state .................................................................................... 9 3. Monastic retreat .................................................................................................................... 13 4. Redemption of intellectual labor as productive .................................................................... 16 5. Redemption of intellectual labor as sociable ........................................................................ 21 Notes ............................................................................................................................................. 25 Chapter Two: The Instability of Work/Leisure-Related Binaries in Utopia .............................. 41 1. Working to belong ................................................................................................................ 42 2. Perils of compromise, perils of detachment .......................................................................... 47 3. The individuated self in the Utopian collective .................................................................... 54 Notes ............................................................................................................................................. 59 Chapter Three: The End of Learning in Doctor Faustus ............................................................ 67 1. Marlowe’s deviation from his source ................................................................................... 70 2. Improper knowing: Sins of consumption .............................................................................. 71 3. Improper doing: Faustus’s instrumental use of knowledge .................................................. 73 4. Knowledge production and sociability ................................................................................. 79 5. Faustus and Mephistopheles: A failed amicitia .................................................................... 83 6. Final scenes and attempted repentance ................................................................................. 87 Notes ............................................................................................................................................. 91 Chapter Four: Placing Absence in Milton’s Epitaphium Damonis .......................................... 108 1. Amicitia and studia ............................................................................................................. 109 2. Presence of Pastores Thusci and gift-texts as currency ...................................................... 113 3. The virtual hic ..................................................................................................................... 115 4. The risk of solipsism ........................................................................................................... 119 5. Milton’s group insurance policy ......................................................................................... 121 ii 6. The limits (and limitations) of Milton’s “reach” ................................................................ 126 Notes ........................................................................................................................................... 130 Epilogue: Paradigms Lost: The Hermeneutic Trials of Milton’s Eden .................................... 141 Notes ........................................................................................................................................... 151 Bibliography ............................................................................................................................... 155 iii List of Abbreviations CPW The Complete Prose Works of John Milton. Edited by Don M. Wolfe. 8 vols. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1953–82. CWE The Collected Works of Erasmus. Various editors. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1974–. Patr. Lat. Patrologia Latina. Edited by Jacques-Paul Migne. 217 vols. 1841–55. WJM The Works of John Milton. Edited by Frank Allen Patterson. 18 vols. New York: Columbia University Press, 1931–38. Variorum A Variorum Commentary on the Poems of John Milton. Edited by Merritt Y. Hughes. 5 vols. New York: Columbia University Press, 1970–; Pittsburgh, PA: Duquesne University Press, 2009–. iv Acknowledgments This dissertation would not have been possible were it not for the tireless dedication of Joanna Picciotto, the chair of my dissertation committee. I could not have asked for a more engaged, generous reader and mentor.I was also extremely fortunate to benefit from the trenchant insights and suggestions of James Grantham Turner and Timothy Hampton, the