Courtly Mirrors: The Politics of Chapman’s Drama Shona McIntosh, M.A. (Hons), M.Phil. Submitted in fulfilment of the degree requirements for a Doctorate in Philosophy to the University of Glasgow Department of English Literature, Faculty of Arts November 2008 2 Contents Abstract .................................................................................................. 4 Acknowledgements.................................................................................. 5 Author’s declaration ................................................................................ 6 Abbreviations .......................................................................................... 7 Chapter 1................................................................................................ 8 ‘Spirit to Dare and Power to Doe’: George Chapman at the Jacobean Court ............................................................................................................... 8 Modern Literary Criticism and George Chapman’s Drama .................. 14 General Studies of Chapman’s Drama............................................. 14 Chapman’s Ethics and Philosophy .................................................. 19 Political Readings of Chapman’s Work............................................. 27 Court Masques and Court Politics ................................................... 35 Themes of Sexuality and Gender in Chapman Criticism .................. 36 Text and Canon: Authorship, Dating and Source Material ............... 38 Radical Chapman? the Dramatist as Political Commentator and Patron Seeker................................................................................................ 47 Chapter 2.............................................................................................. 54 Imagining the Nation: Chapman’s Frenchified Englishmen .................... 54 ‘Frenchified Englishmen’: Comic Depictions of English Otherness ...... 59 ‘A Mere Mirror of Confusion’: the French and English Courts in Chapman’s Historical Tragedies ......................................................... 64 Religious Violence and State Authority: The Massacre of St. Bartholomew...................................................................................... 69 French History in England, English History in France ........................ 78 War, Peace and Prince Henry: The Treatment of Military Conquest in the Tragedies and Masques ...................................................................... 84 Chapter 3.............................................................................................103 Chapman and Money: Economic Insecurity at the Jacobean Court.......103 Courtly Wastrels: Knighthoods, Ambassadors and the Devaluation of Nobility .............................................................................................107 Generational Conflict? Debt, Inheritance and Profligate Sexuality......120 ‘These Crownes are sown in Blood’:the Violence of Exchange.............135 Chapter 4.............................................................................................143 Seductive Corruption and Corrupt Seduction: The Perils of Patronage ..143 ‘Sweet Commaunder of my sences, my service, my self’: Chapman’s Widow...............................................................................................145 ‘Hees not base that sights as high as your lips’: Courtship as Social Strategy ............................................................................................149 ‘The Dukes Minion Man’: The Gentleman Usher ................................161 ‘Clermont thy creature comes’: Patronage and Prostitution ................171 Chapter 5.............................................................................................185 Treason and the Perversion of Justice in the French Tragedies .............185 The Monarch as Patron .....................................................................189 The Nature of Treason.......................................................................210 Chapter 6.............................................................................................228 ‘Your True Virtue’s Most True Observer, George Chapman’...................228 ‘Her too much curious vertue wrongs her’: Monsieur D’Olive .............234 The Gentleman Usher: Virtue in Stoic Fortitude or State Espionage?.241 3 The Republican Philosophy of Caesar and Pompey ............................248 Chapman’s Aesthetic: Obscurity as Radical Artistic Theory ...............258 Afterword: ‘The Eternall Victory of Death’ .............................................275 Bibliography.........................................................................................280 4 Abstract This thesis argues that the drama of George Chapman (1559-1634) can be read in light of his deep ambivalence towards the political elite of the Jacobean court. It suggests that Chapman’s lack of success in securing courtly patronage, and his constant battle with indebtedness (which resulted in several court appearances and two imprisonments) left him divided in attitude towards the system of courtly reward – he resented his lack of success but continued to struggle to fit in and gain the approval of the powerful figures of the era. I argue that this gave him a critical perspective on many of the important issues of the time. My work examines the configuration of English national identity in his plays, positing an idea of Englishness which is separate from, and often critical of, the monarchy, and which relies on a structural parallel with the French court in order to imagine English identity. It then considers the ways in which money and debt are dealt with in several plays, arguing that Chapman felt deeply concerned by the perennial indebtedness of Jacobean culture but was also aware of the necessity of maintaining his own credibility and supply of credit. It further examines the representation of patronage, suggesting that Chapman saw the soliciting of aristocratic patronage in distinctly sexual terms, almost as a form of artistic prostitution. It then considers the many situations in the plays where royal patronage towards a favourite breaks down, and argues that this often results in allegations of treason which Chapman shows to originate in the paranoia or suspicions of the monarch. Finally, it looks at the concept of virtue in the plays, arguing that Chapman viewed virtue as fundamentally unsustainable in a corrupt court setting, but that he saw some form of engagement in public life as being a moral obligation on the virtuous man. Throughout I argue that Chapman was deeply radical in his social outlook, critical of inherited privilege and government by personal or absolutist rule. The social tensions and political struggles presented in his plays were to find their full expression in the violence of the Civil War and in the trial and execution of Charles I. 5 Acknowledgements Thanks are due to David Pascoe and Robert Maslen for providing excellent supervision and not losing patience with my inability to write in proper paragraphs. I am also very grateful to the illustrious Bob Cummings for being generous with his time and expertise despite having no official obligation to help in any way. I am also immensely thankful to my examiners, Professors Martin Butler and Willy Maley, for their thoughtful and thought-provoking comments on my work. Thanks also to the English Literature department of Glasgow University, especially to Pat and Anna in the departmental office for always being organised when I am not, and to John Coyle for being generally an excellent HoD and very talented at reading Finnegans Wake . Thanks to the AHRC for funding my research, and to Rona and Andy Braidwood for funding my MPhil degree, without which this project could obviously not have begun. Thanks also to John Paterson for providing me with employment for many of my student years, to Glasgow University Hares and Hounds for always providing someone to go for a run with, and to my friends and family for putting up with me. 6 Author’s declaration I declare that this thesis is entirely my own work, and that all quotations from other people’s research are clearly marked as such and fully referenced. I also declare that I have never submitted any of this work to this or any other institution in fulfilment of any academic qualifications. 7 Abbreviations ELH English Literary History ELN English Language Notes ELR English Literary Renaissance HLQ Huntington Library Quarterly JEGP Journal of English and Germanic Philology JMEMS Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies MP Modern Philology MRDE Medieval and Renaissance Drama in England MLN Modern Language Notes MLQ Modern Language Quarterly MLR Modern Language Review N.&Q. Notes and Queries ODNB Oxford Dictionary of National Biography OED Oxford English Dictionary PMLA Publications of the Modern Language Society of America PQ Philological Quarterly RES Review of English Studies RS Renaissance Studies SEL Studies in English Literature 1500-1900 SP Studies in Philology 8 Chapter 1 ‘Spirit to Dare and Power to Doe’: George Chapman at the Jacobean Court I loth as much a deede of unjust death As law it selfe doth; and to Tyrannise, Because I have a little spirit to dare, And power to doe, as to be Tyranniz’d; This is a grace that (on my knees redoubled) I crave to double this my short lifes gift; And shall your royall bountie Centuple, That I may so make good what God and nature Have given mee