ELIZABETH MELVILLE’S ANE GODLIE DREAME: A CRITICAL EDITION by KAREN RAE KECK, B.A., M.A. A DISSERTATION IN ENGLISH Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of Texas Tech University in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Approved Marjean Purinton Chairperson of the Committee Marliss Desens Ed George Constance Kuriyama Accepted John Borrelli Dean of the Graduate School May, 2006 Copyright 2006, Karen Rae Keck ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Thank you to my committee: Dr. Marjean Purinton, Dr. Marliss Desens, Dr. Edward V. George, and Dr. Constance Kuriyama of Texas Tech University. Dr. Donald Rude, Professor Emeritus at Texas Tech University, suggested the project. Dr. Julie Nelson-Couch of Texas Tech University and Dr. Jeffrey Huntsman of Indiana University referred me to resources for learning about medieval literature in English. Dr. Emmanuel Mickel, Jr., also of Indiana University, forwarded titles on French versification, and Dr. Christopher Smith of the Texas Tech University School of Music supplied titles on music in Scotland. Professor Keith M. Brown of St. Andrews University recommended readings in Scots history, and Dr. Joseph Howe of Texas Tech University assisted with the Latin translation. The staffs of the British Library, the National Library of Scotland, the Bodleian Library, the Wren Library at Lincoln Cathedral, and the Huntington Library were gracious and assisted in the bibliographic portion of this project. The staff of the Texas Tech University library has been helpful throughout the project. My friends and colleagues have been overwhelmingly supportive, and to name all of them would occupy much space. Special thanks are due to Diane Curtis, Linda Koutoulas, Christopher Gosey, Mary Rose Doughtery, Mary Frances Heinsohn, Delores Duboise, and Amy Wells Lynn. The communities of Holy Trinity Orthodox Church and St. Andrew Greek Orthodox Church have also been supportive, as have the monks of St. Gregory Palamas monastery. My mother, Lois Chalfant, has provided both emotional and financial support. My husband, Norman Redington, encouraged me throughout my graduate career. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS List of Figures v CHAPTERS: I. Early Modern Scotland 1 II. Elizabeth Melville: A Brief Life 12 III. Poetic Form and Structure 38 IV. Literary Sources and Influences 51 V. Ane Godlie Dreame: A Protestant Polemic 64 VI. Publication History and Bibliographic Descriptions 73 VII. Textual Notes 103 VIII. Other Poems by or attributed to 128 Elizabeth Melville IX. Textual Variants 130 Selected Bibliography 140 Appendix I: Glossary 151 Appendix II: Translations 167 Appendix III: "Of the fals fyre of Purgatorie" 186 ii ABSTRACT Early modern Scotland had a culture distinct from that of England, and upper class women in the medieval society of Scotland enjoyed privileges Englishwomen did. The poet Elizabeth Melville (fl. 1603) was a well-educated woman whose Ane Godlie Dreame protestantizes the imagery and teachings of medieval dream vision poetry. The poem, which survives in six extant copies comprising four editions, contains echoes of the Bible and some patristic writings, including The Shepherd of Hermas. Further, the poem continues the tradition of The Gude and Godlie Ballats, an attempt to instill Calvinist doctrine through poetry. iv LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1: Elizabeth Melville’s Family Tree 37 v 1 CHAPTER 1 EARLY MODERN SCOTLAND Noble women in early modern Scotland might be astonished to find themselves recast in later centuries as voiceless victims of a patriarchal society which would not allow them to attend university or to enter a profession; these women "could enjoy all the corporate privileges of their rank, and some of the honorific privileges in the absence of male heirs, including succeeding to a higher title like an earldom depending on the terms of the patent."1 Custom privileged men in many ways, but married Scots women did by custom retain their birth names. Married women were not the property of their husbands, and couples held property jointly, even if the man brought it into the marriage. These people constituted a courtly and leisure class; their culture was still Medieval, social, and public.2 Noble families educated both male and female children, but the role of education in their lives was different from that of modern university education. Also, the role of religion in Scotland at that time was more similar to that of the Roman Catholic Church in the Middle Ages than it was to the optional role religion has in post-industrial societies. However, the Kirk of Scotland in early modern Scotland was different from the medieval church in two significant ways: it was a prophetic church, not an established priestly institution,3 and it was a national church, not a universal one. As such it offered expanded roles 1 Keith M. Brown, Noble Society in Scotland: Wealth, Family and Culture from Reformation to Revolution, (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2000), p. 7. 2 The 1637/8 National Covenant, according to historians, marks the end of Middle Ages in Scots society. 3 Early chapters of Max Weber's The Sociology of Religion develop the distinction, and I will be relying on his thinking, as well as on discussions among the sociologists in my family, which took place over the past 30+ years. 2 for women and for laity generally.4 In this environment, women work differently, and to understand their writing in their own context, instead of the contemporary context, may require the unwillingly suspension of cherished assumptions about the roles and writings of women in the past.5 Among the seeming peculiarities of Scots culture is the custom of women retaining their birth names, even after marriage. Travelers, says Keith Brown, found it odd that Scots women did not subsume their identities into their husbands' and change their names when they married.6 No one knows the origins of this practice, although John Buchan in "Some Scottish Characteristics," suggests that it reflects the clannishness of the Scots, who believe that "blood is thicker than water" and who "count cousins far afield; and people who to everybody else would be strangers are to us blood relations, bound by the tie of a remote but indissoluable common origin."7 Historian Gordon Donaldson also comments that "'the kin'---blood relationship---has always been a potent element in Scottish life."8 For some people, like the poet William Drummond of Hawthornden (1585-1649), this emphasis on blood relationship led to a pride of family. He was descended from the family of Annabella Drummond, wife of Robert III (c. 1340-1406), so family loyalty demanded that he support Charles I during his conflicts with the 4 Nancy van Vuuren, The Subversion of Women as Practiced by Churches, Witch-hunters, and Other Sexists. (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1973), p. 47. 5 See Erica Longfellow, Women and Religious Writing in Early Modern England (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2004) and Patricia Fara, Pandora's Breeches: Women, Science and Power in the Enlightenment (London: Pimlico, 2004). 6 Brown, Noble Society in Scotland, op cit., p. 138. 7 John Buchan, "Some Scottish Characteristics," The Scottish Tongue: A Series of Lectures on the Vernacular Language of Lowland Scotland Delivered to the Vernacular Circle of the Burns Club of London, William Craigie, et al., (London and New York: Cassell and Co., Ltd, 1924), p. 68. 8 Donaldson, Gordon. Scotland: Church and Nation through Sixteen Centuries, (London: 3 Presbyterians and the Puritans.9 For others, family loyalty is more local. Buchan tells the story of a man whose unmarried sister lived with the couple. The sisters-in-law fought constantly; the man rejected a suggestion that he might ask his sister to leave. He could not, he responded, turn his sister out "for a strange woman."10 One's birth family comprises one's closest ties and constitutes a part of one's identity, even for distant degrees of relationship and even after marriage. In spite of, or perhaps because of, this emphasis on kinship with one's family of origin, marriage in early modern Scotland was a partnership, although it was not always a completely equal one.11 The Kirk of Scotland encouraged companionate marriage,12 as did the Protestant church generally.13 However, Scots men did assume authoritative roles in marriage, but, as Brown notes, men do not seem to have shared the English anxiety about women's dormant powers.14 He adds that few works in Scots literature or popular culture center on role reversals. Instead, husbands sought their wives' counsel and apparently found it good since many seem to have respected their wives;15 they trusted their wives to run their estates while they were away. Both spouses in noble families worked inside the home, and it would be hard to determine how SCM Press, Ltd., 1960), p. 43. 9 David Allan, "'What's in a Name?: Pedigree and Propaganda," in Edward J. Cowan and Richard J. Finlay, eds., Scottish History: The Power of the Past (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2002), pp. 149-50. 10 Buchan, op cit., p. 11 Brown, Noble Society in Scotland, op cit., p. 136. 12 Ibid.; also, see Margo Todd, The Culture of Protestantism in Early Modern Scotland (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2002). Chapter Six concerns marriage and family life, but Todd's emphasis is on the lower classes. 13 Kenneth Charlton, Women, Religion, and Education in Early Modern England, (London and New York: Routlege, 1999), p. 36. 14 Brown, Noble Society in Scotland, op cit., p. 138. 15 Ibid., p. 142. 4 active women might have been in the normal running of estates. Since historians rely on written records, most of the available materials come from periods when husbands were away from home, and it would be very hard to assess what happened under usual circumstances because few people at this period kept diaries of their lives outside their spiritual struggles.