This electronic thesis or dissertation has been downloaded from Explore Bristol Research, http://research-information.bristol.ac.uk Author: Williams, John Harry Mc Title: 'Who would write?' : Andrew Marvell and the act of writing General rights Access to the thesis is subject to the Creative Commons Attribution - NonCommercial-No Derivatives 4.0 International Public License. A copy of this may be found at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/legalcode This license sets out your rights and the restrictions that apply to your access to the thesis so it is important you read this before proceeding. Take down policy Some pages of this thesis may have been removed for copyright restrictions prior to having it been deposited in Explore Bristol Research. However, if you have discovered material within the thesis that you consider to be unlawful e.g. breaches of copyright (either yours or that of a third party) or any other law, including but not limited to those relating to patent, trademark, confidentiality, data protection, obscenity, defamation, libel, then please contact [email protected] and include the following information in your message: •Your contact details •Bibliographic details for the item, including a URL •An outline nature of the complaint Your claim will be investigated and, where appropriate, the item in question will be removed from public view as soon as possible. 'Who Would Write? ': Andrew Marvell and the Act of Writing by John Harry McWilliams A dissertationsubmitted to the University of Bristol in accordance with the requirements of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Faculty of Arts August2003 77,582words Abstract This thesis explores Andrew Marvell's career-long preoccupation with the act of writing, and arguesthat, for Marvell, writing was not just the medium in which he worked, but was itself a topic for careful attention. Chapter 1 presentsthe current, highly politicised, state of Marvell criticism, and argues that this critical orthodoxy needsrevising. Chapter 2 offers a survey of Marvell's considerations of writing, arguing for a consistently questioning attitude towards his medium. The chapter also places Marvell's preoccupation in the context of the radical changesto writing which occurred in his lifetime. Chapter 3 looks at some of Marvell's writings which respond to the English Civil War and its aftermath, suggesting that these writings show a particularly troubled and problematic relationship to the written word. Chapter 4 examines two poems which Marvell published in explicitly Royalist contexts just after the Civil War, and reads them as commentaries on issuesof writing and publication which beset Royalists at this time. Chapter 5 charts Marvell's most important literary relationship-that with John Milton-and the chapter culminates in a detailed reading of `On Paradise Lost', a poem in which Marvell's questioning reticence about writing meets Milton's terrifying confidence head-on. Chapter 6 provides a new reading of `An Horatian Ode upon Cromwell's Return From Ireland', looking at that poem-which starts with the writerly figure of the `forward Youth'-as Marvell's most troubled but brilliant meditation on the act of writing. 2 Acknowledgements My first thanks must go to the official advisors to this project, John Lyon and John Lee, who have been stimulating, generouswith their time, and, above all, tirelessly helpful. I would also like to thank George Donaldson who, although not officially involved in this project, has been a great source of intellectual stimulation, as well as in being very kind and helpful over the years: he has played a big part making my For initial studies at Bristol as interesting and enjoyable as they have been. the impetus to do literary researchat all, I owe a debt to Peter McDonald, Carol Meale For help and John Lyon, all of whom provided inspirational undergraduateteaching. with Latin and Greek translations at various times during my postgraduatecareer (some of which are used in this thesis), I am grateful to Elizabeth Archibald, Myra Stokes, Ad Putter, Tim Saundersand Nick Jardine, and I also owe thanks to Nick, and to William Teale, for helpful discussions of science and the history of science. For reading and commenting on parts of this thesis I would like to thank Ellen McCarthy, Ed Jack, Lotta Walker, and also Phillipa Hardman, who, as a copy editor for my article on Lachrymae Musarum, made many useful suggestionsand set new standardsfor presentation and accuracy. I would also like to thank my two readers for `upgrade' from MLitt to PhD status: both Lesel Dawson and Tom Mason made helpful suggestionsand provided much appreciated encouragement.I owe a lot to friends and family in Cambridge and in the east of England-in particular Carl, Abi, Brian, Fiona, Philip and Nena, Lyn and family, Morgan, Lotta, William and Ceri- who have made my visits home such a pleasure over the last few years. My greatest debt is to my mother, Brenda McWilliams, who has been incredibly kind and supportive over the years, and, at the final stagesof this thesis, generously lent some copy editing expertise. Special thanks must also go to Richard Meek who, as well as reading this thesis in various stagesof completion and making excellent suggestions, has been a great discussion companion and friend. For the love of Ellen McCarthy, I feel more lucky and grateful than I can say. I must also mention a recent encounter with an outstanding Marvell scholar. At a late stage in the researchfor this thesis I met Nigel Smith, who hasjust completed work on an edition of Marvell's poems that will set new standardsin the field. I owe him 3 my sincerestthanks for his encouragementof this and other projects, and his generosity both in reading portions of my work, and in allowing me to read some of his work prior to publication. Financial support was given first by the University of Bristol (in the form of an MA scholarship), and then by the AHRB (who awarded me a full PhD scholarship): for both of these I am enormously grateful as without such support this project could not have happened.I am also grateful to the Bristol University Alumni Foundation and to the Department of English at Bristol for funding a trip to give a paper at the International Milton Symposium in Beaufort, USA in June 2002. This trip gave me the invaluable opportunity to test some of the ideas here in the company of some of the best seventeenth-centuryscholars in the world. A version of Section 3 of Chapter 4 has been published as "`A Storm of Lamentations Writ": Lachrymae Musarum and Royalist Culture After the Civil War' in Yearbookof English Studies33 (2003),pp. 273-289. I would like to dedicate this thesis to the memory of my father, Bill McWilliams, to whom I owe so much of my early interest in thinking about and discussing books and ideas of all kinds. 4 Author's Declaration I declare that the work in this dissertation was carried out in accordancewith the Regulations of the University of Bristol. The work is original except where indicated by special reference in the text and no part of the dissertation has been submitted for any other degree. Any views expressedin the dissertation are those of the author and in no way representthose of the University of Bristol. The dissertationhas not beenpresented to any other University for examination eitherin the United Kingdom or overseas. Lr öo `k SIGNED: ºl1, -,. wj DATE: 0b/ 00/°3 5 Table of Contents Chapter 1-Introduction `The State of Play: page 7 Problems with the "Contextual Revolution"' Chapter 2 '"Those that take upon themselves to be Writers": 31 Marvell, Writers, and Writing' 1. Marvell, Art, and Writing 31 2. Marvell Against Writing 38 3. Marvell and `Gazet' Writing 53 4. Marvell and His Own Writing 63 Chapter 3 `"Our Civill Wars have lost the Civicke crowne": 73 Marvell, Writing, and the Civil War' 1. The Civil War 73 2. Civil-War Writing 77 3. Marvell and Cromwell in the Interregnum 91 4. Marvell as Civil War Historian 99 Chapter 4 `"And Art indeed is Long, but Life is short": 111 Print, Royalism, and the Act of Writing' 1. Marvell and Royalism 111 2. Lucasta, Royalism, and Print After the Civil War 114 3. `Upon the Death of Lord Hastings', Lachrymae Musarum, 130 and Mourning after the Civil War Chapter 5 '"No Room is Here for Writers Left": 149 Marvell "On Paradise Lost"' 1. The Critics on Marvell on Milton 149 2. Marvell and Milton: A Literary and Political Friendship 152 3. `Thy Verse [... ] Needs Not Rhyme': Marvell, Milton, and the 157 Question of Rhyme 4. `MisdoubtingHis Intent': The Attack on Milton 162 5. Marvell on Milton 174 Chapter 6 'Marvell's "Horatian Ode" and the Act of Writing' 177 1. `An Horatian Ode'-the Centre of the Marvell Canon 177 2. `The forward Youth that would appear': Poetry, the Classics, and 183 Writing after the Civil War. 3. Writing, Cromwell, andthe Regicide 196 4. Civil War, Regicide,and the Uncanny 207 5. Conclusions 220 Bibliography 223 6 Chapter 1-Introduction The State of Play: Problems with the `Contextual Revolution' Writing in 1978, Philip Larkin said that `much of modem Marvell criticism has a curiously inhibiting effect on one's ability to read the poems,just as a description of ' a chair in terms of whizzing molecules would make one afraid to sit down on it'. He was complaining about critics who, as he saw it, over-read Marvell, turning his poems into etymological playgrounds which then failed to work as poems. The general result, according to Larkin, was that Marvell came to be viewed as a poet `of enigma, of concealedmeaning, of alternative explanation, of ambiguous attitude' (p.