THE RHETORIC OF RANK IN EARLY MODERN DRAMA FROM 1590 TO 1642 by MATTHEW BURDICK SMITH MICHELLE DOWD, COMMITTEE CHAIR DAVID AINSWORTH LUCY KAUFMAN TRICIA MCELROY CASSANDER SMITH A DISSERTATION Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of English in the Graduate School of The University of Alabama TUSCALOOSA, ALABAMA 2021 Copyright Matthew Burdick Smith 2021 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ABSTRACT My dissertation, “The Rhetoric of Rank in Early Modern Drama from 1590 to 1642,” argues that early modern dramatic works pull from rhetorical theory to shape social status in a period that underwent significant social transformations. Arguing that dramatists use early modern rhetorical manuals to respond to historically specific social tensions, I explore how dramatists use rhetorical figures to comment on social tensions between ranks, define the social role of emergent social roles, and define social values. While I explore the relationship between early modern drama and rhetorical manuals, I situate my analysis alongside the work of social historians to provide a historically situated account. I argue that rhetorical theory plays a central, though underexamined, role in the formation of those emergent social roles—like merchant or factor—and that dramatists dramatize the process of social (trans)formation through rhetorical figures. Furthermore, social formation itself is a process with often contradictory priorities and perspectives, and I show that dramatists use the semantic flexibility of rhetorical figures to support a range of attitudes that are sympathetic, tolerant, or even hostile towards social change, illustrating that social change is not the inevitable product of historical contexts but a process structured in part by rhetoric. My dissertation traces how rhetoric is used to cultivate civic values among ranks with competing interests, a process rife with social tensions that the drama lays bare. ii DEDICATION To Molly, my wife. Thank you for the limitless support and unending patience. You have made this process not only bearable but thoroughly enjoyable. This dissertation took shape in the many conversations to which I subjected you, and for that I am immensely thankful and terribly sorry. Thank you for your help with editing and proofreading as much as for your wisdom and advice. In this next generation as we voyager and discovery together in this enterprise and others, you will always be my deep space nine. To my family. You have all been an inexhaustible resource of support and advice. Thank you for all you have done in this undertaking and all others. Without your guidance and love, none of this would have been possible. Thank you for being a constant, unwavering source of happiness and understanding. To Demi and Rhys, claws and paws. Thanks for being my silent muses. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank my advisor, Professor Michelle Dowd, for her mentorship and guidance. Prof. Dowd, thank you for the hours you spent guiding my direction on this project and for the comments you provided as it gradually took the shape of a dissertation. I thank my committee members, Professors David Ainsworth, Lucy Kaufman, Tricia McElroy, and Cassander Smith. Thank you all for your guidance and for the helpful discussions throughout the process. I appreciate all your training, advice, and support. Thank you all for taking the time to answer questions and for lending your invaluable expertise. I would also like to acknowledge the generous support of the Hudson Strode Program in Renaissance Studies and my colleagues in the program. I would like to thank UA librarians, particularly those in charge of Interlibrary Loans, who no doubt are relieved at the closing of this project. Thanks to the English Department staff and their tremendously helpful assistance. Thanks, too, to the amazing students in my composition and survey courses who reciprocated my interest in rhetoric, rank, and literature. On second thought, perhaps they only endured those discussions, which also warrants fulsome thanks. Above all, I would like to thank my wonderful wife, Molly, who provided an endlessly patient ear, a scrupulous editors’ eye, and unparalleled intellectual and emotional wisdom. This is dedicated to you (whether you would like it or not). iv CONTENTS ABSTRACT....................................................................................................................................ii DEDICATION................................................................................................................................iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS............................................................................................................iv CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION.....................................................................................................1 CHAPTER II: RHETORICAL EDUCATION IN JONSON AND SHAKESPEARE.................20 I. Introduction..........................................................................................................................20 II. Civilizing Humours in Jonson’s Every Man in his Humour...............................................21 III. Hyperbole in Love’s Labour’s Lost...................................................................................46 CHAPTER III: CIVIL RHETORIC IN HEYWOOD AND MIDDLETON.................................77 I. Introduction..........................................................................................................................77 II. Merchant Mobility in Heywood’s If You Know Not Me, You Know Nobody, Part II….....78 III. Paradiastole and Civil Virtue in Middleton’s Michaelmas Term.....................................102 CHAPTER IV: MANNERED RHETORIC IN SHIRLEY AND BROME................................132 I. Introduction........................................................................................................................132 II. Metalepsis and Manners in Shirley’s Lady of Pleasure....................................................138 III. Paranomasia and Syllepsis in Brome’s New Academy....................................................168 CHAPTER V: CONCLUSION...................................................................................................198 REFERENCES............................................................................................................................206 v CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION In the 1593 edition of The Garden of Eloquence, Henry Peacham notes that eloquence allows the rhetorician to become the “emperour of mens minds & affections, and next to the omnipotent God in the power of perswasion.”1 Peacham’s account of eloquence is a far cry from some contemporary humanists’ sympathy toward commoners; in fact, Peacham’s model of rhetorical skill is seemingly monarchical.2 Peacham promotes an absolutist vision of eloquence wherein the rhetorician’s verbal skill leads the auditor’s free will, the auditor becoming subject to the rhetorically skilled speaker. Peacham underlines a central tenet in early modern rhetorical education and the use of rhetoric in everyday life; namely, rhetoric is always a social action. Early modern rhetoricians and dramatists repeatedly underscore the connection between rhetorical eloquence and social status. In his introduction to The Arte of Rhetorique, Thomas Wilson claims that rhetoric caused humans to transform from beasts to civil beings, saying that “where as Menne lyued Brutyshlye in open feldes,” the early poets “called theim together by vtteraunce of speache, and perswaded with them what was good…and after a certaine space, thei became through nurture and good aduisement, of wilde, sober: of cruel, gentle: of foles, wise: and of beastes, men.”3 For both Wilson and Peacham, rhetorical eloquence was instrumental to 1 Henry Peacham, The Garden of Eloquence (London: Richard Field, 1593), A.B.iiiv. Peacham also claims that “eloquence makes savage nations civil, wild people tame, and cruell tyrants not only to become meek but likewise merciful” (Aiir). 2 For a description of how some rhetoricians, such as Vives and Rainolds, embrace of republican humanism, see Marrku Peltonen, Classical Humanism and Republicanism in English Political Thought 1570-1640 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995). 3 Thomas Wilson, The Arte of Rhetorique (London: 1553), Aiiiv. The poet and dramatist George Chapman mused that the poet uses eloquence to tame people and bring them “from the violent current of natural cruelty to affability and courtesy…bringing savage lives in civil chains” (The Poems of George Chapman, ed. Phyllis Brooks (New 1 the early formation of civil society. Likewise, Ben Jonson maintains that “he must have civil prudence and eloquence” when “he will handle business or carry councils…which commonly is the school of men.”4 Jonson points out that to maintain civil society people must interact with a degree of mannered civility, which is promulgated through rhetoric. These examples underscore a pervasive tendency in early modern thought, suggesting that rhetoric is the early foundation of civil society and that rhetoric maintains civil society by teaching both commoners and the elite lessons about obedience, moderation, manners, and duty to society. While Wilson and Peacham underline that rhetoric is the foundation of civil society, Peter Mack has shown how rhetorical manuals provided a treasure trove of moral axioms for the commonplace books of both the elite and the commoners, saying