Order Number 9S077TS Rhetoric, gender, and property in English Renaissance anatomical and topographical poetry Hinckley, Catherine Chopp, Ph.D. The Ohio State University, 1992 U MI 300 N. Zeeb Rd. Ann Aitoor, MI 48106 RHETORIC, GENDER, AND PROPERTY IN ENGLISH RENAISSANCE ANATOMICAL AND TOPOGRAPHICAL POETRY DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Catherine Chopp Hinckley, B.A., M.A. ***** The Ohio State University 1992 Dissertation Committee: Approved by David 0. Frantz Phoebe S. Spinrad Adviser Christian K. Zacher Department of E| For Jim "You frame my thoughts and fashion me within You stop my tongue, and teach my heart to speak" ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I am grateful to the following sources for the illustrations in my dissertation. The Armada portrait (Plate I) and the frontispiece to De Sphaera Civitatis (Plate II) are from The Riverside Shakespeare. ed. G. Blakemore Evans (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1974). The Ditchley portrait (Plate III) and the Sieve portrait (Plate XVI) are from Elizabeth I by Anne Somerset (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1991). The April eclogue woodcut in Spenser's Shepheardes Calender (Plate IV) is from Renaissance England: Poetry and Prose from the Reformation to the Restoration, eds. Roy Lamson and Hallett Smith (New York: Norton, 1956). Bunting's map of Europe (Plate V) and the "Het Spaens Europa" map (Plate VI) are from The Discovery of the World: Maps of the Earth and the Cosmos by Elizabeth Hale (Chicago: U of Chicago P. 1985). The map "Aspecto Symbolico del Mundo Hispanico" (Plate VII) is from Cartographical Curiosities by Gillian Hill (London: British Museum Publications, Ltd., 1978). The frontispiece to Poly-Olbion (Plate XIV) is from Representing the Enalish Renaissance, ed. Stephen Greenblatt (Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London: U of California P, 1988). The frontispiece to "Hymne" by George de la Mothe (Plate XV) is taken from The Cult of Elizabeth: Elizabethan Portraiture and Pageantry by Roy Strong (London: Thames and Hudson, 1977). The above illustrations were xeroxed from those texts without permission of the publishers, as I was instructed to do by University Microfilms. I have requested and am waiting for permission to use the following engravings from The New Golden Land: European Images of America from the Discoveries to the Present Time by Hugh Honour (New York: Pantheon, 1975): "America" by Etienne Delaune, (Plate VIII); "America" by Philippe Galle (Plate IX); "America" by Jan Sadeler (Plate X); "Vespucci 'Discovering' America by Theodor Galle; "America" by Crispi jn de Passe (Plate X I I ) a n d "America" by Maarten de Vos (Plate XIII). I would like to thank Dr. David 0. Frantz for directing my dissertation and for his support of my project over the years and the miles. I also owe thanks to Drs. Christian K. Zacher and Phoebe S. Spinrad for their careful reading of the many drafts of the dissertation. I am especially grateful to my Loyola Marymount University colleague Dr. Rebecca Rumbo for her good humor and encouragement when the project seemed impossible to finish. I am deeply indebted to all the members of the Chopp and Hinckley families for always believing in me. My greatest debt is to my husband for his love, patience, and sense of humor. Jim, thank you for helping me to persevere. iv VITA February 16, 1962 .................... B o m - Berwyn, Illinois 1984 .............................. .. B.A., English. University of Notre Dame. Notre Dame, Indiana 1984-1987, 1988-1989.................. Graduate Teaching Associate in English, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio 1986 ................................ M.A., English, The Ohio State University. Columbus, Ohio 1987-1988 ............................ Graduate Administrative Associate. Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio 1989-1992 ............................ Visiting Instructor in English, Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles, California FIELD OF STUDY Major Field: English v TABLE OF CONTENTS DEDICATION ................................................... ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS............................................. iii VITA ......................................................... v LIST OF P L A T E S ................................................. viii INTRODUCTION................................................. 1 N o t e s .............................................. 8 CHAPTER PAGE I. "THE BLAZON OF SWEET BEAUTY’S BEST" IN RENAISSANCE ANATOMICAL AND TOPOGRAPHICAL PO E T R Y ...................... 10 The Poetic Blazon in Anatomical P o e t r y .............. 16 The Poetic Blazon in Country-House P o e t r y .......... 49 The Heraldic Blazon in Country-House P o e t r y ........ 82 The Heraldic Blazon in Anatomical Poetry .......... 99 N o t e s .............................................. 109 II. "THINGS GREATER ARE IN LESS CONTAINED": WOMAN AS MICROCOSM OF THE W O R L D ........................................... 116 The Female Body as C o s m o s .......................... 119 The Female Body as Body P o l i t i c .................... 137 The Female Body as Architecture .................... 150 The Female Body as L a n d ............................ 172 N o t e s .............................................. 219 III. "O MY AMERICA, MY NEW POUND LAND": DOCUMENTS OF EXPLORATION AND COLONIZATION OF A FEMALE NEW WO R L D ................... 226 English Imperial ism and the Hakluyt Collections .... 229 The New World as Mother, Virgin, and Mistress.......... 237 The Female Land as Object of the Male G a z e ............ 256 N o t e s ................................................... 279 vi IV. "DISCRIPTION OF THE . EARTH, WITH HER PARTES KNOWEN": SURVEYING AND MAPPING THE FEMALE LA N D ...................... 285 Renaissance Anatomical Ca r t o g r a p h y ...................... 285 A Female America in Renaissance Cartographic Decoration and A r t .................................................. 288 Mapping England: Queen Elizabeth's B o d y ................. 293 Science and Metaphor: Renaissance Cartography and Surveying................................................301 N o t e s .................................................... 318 CONCLUSION........................................................ 324 APPENDICES A. Excursus: Woman as Property in Renaissance England . 330 Notes .................................................. 346 B......... P l a t e s ..............................................350 BIBLIOGRAPHY 367 LIST OF PLATES PLATE PAGE I. The Armada portrait of Queen Elizabeth I. c. 1500. By George Gower.............................. 351 II. Frontispiece to John Case's De Sphaera Civitatis. 1588 .............................................. 352 III. The Ditchley portrait of Queen Elizabeth I, c. 1592. By Marcus Gheeraerts the Younger. 353 IV. Woodcut accompanying the April eclogue in Edmund Spenser's The Shepheardes Calender. 1579..... 354 V. Map of Europe in the form of a virgin from Heinrich Bunting's Itinerarium Sacrae Scripturae. 1581. 355 VI. Map of "Het Spaens Europa." or Europe in the form of a queen. 1598. Artist unknown............ 356 VII. Map of Spanish Empire as a queen. Aspecto Symbol ico del Mundo Hispanico. 1761. By Vicente de Memije. 357 VIII. "America," 1575. Engraving by Etienne Delaune. 358 IX. "America," 1581-1600. Engraving by Philippe Galle. 359 X. "America," 1581. Engraving by Jan Sadeler. after a drawing by Dirk Barendsz............. 360 XI. "Vespucci ’Discovering' America," late sixteenth century. Engraving by Theodor Galle, after a drawing by Stradanus {Jan van der Street)............ 361 XII. "America," early seventeenth century. Engraving by Crispijn de Passe............................ 362 XIII. "America," 1594. Drawing by Maarten de Vos. 363 viii LIST OF PLATES (continued) PLATE PAGE XIV. Frontispiece to Michael Drayton's Poly-Olbion. 1612................................................. 364 XV. Title-page to George de la Mothe's Hymne to Elizabeth I. 1584.................................... 365 XVI. The Sieve portrait of Queen Elizabeth I, c. 1579. By Massys the Younger...................... 366 ix INTRCDUCTION The Renaissance in England witnessed the development of "anatomical" or erotic love poetry, which revels in the female body, and "topographical" or country-house poetry, which celebrates the English country estate. These genres, however, are only superficially disparate; their different subjects belie an affinity of form and idea. Essentially, women and land are perceived and described in similar ways, and the poetry reflects the aggressively masculine, imperialistic tenor of Renaissance England by simultaneously praising and appraising the lady and the landscape. The female body and the land become properties appropriated by the rhetorical discourse of the poetry. My study demonstrates how these genres are integrated by considering the contexts that inform both types of poems. At first, the series of contexts which this study lays forth may seem separate domains: the tradition of the blazon, or the taking control of a woman's body rhetorically through its division into parts; the heraldic display of the English country-house estate; the image of woman as a microcosm of the world; the rise of English imperialism; exploration narratives of a New World gendered as female; the quest for the terrestrial paradise; the development of 1 2 the sciences of cartography and surveying in England; and