Hostname: page-component-cb9f654ff-fg9bn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-08-29T10:58:39.165Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Criticizing Kings: Gender, Classical History, and Subversive Writing in Seventeenth-Century England

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

Jamie Gianoutsos
Jamie Gianoutsos*
Affiliation:
Mount Saint Mary’s University
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article provides one of the first studies of two late works by George Chapman, “Pro Vere” (1622) and “A iustification of a strange action of Nero” (1629). Through a close examination of these works, and through situating Chapman’s texts alongside other neglected works of the 1620s that voiced opposition to the Stuart court and kings, the article examines the critical and subversive role that classical history and gendered language played in forging ideological conflict in England during the Stuart period. More broadly, the article seeks to demonstrate the importance of studying imaginative writings for understanding Stuart political culture.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Renaissance Quarterly , Volume 70 , Issue 4 , Winter 2017 , pp. 1366 - 1396
Copyright
Copyright © 2017 Renaissance Society of America

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Aristotle. Aristotles politiqves, or Discovrses of government. Translated ovt of Greeke into French, with expositions taken out of the best authours … concerning the beginning, proceeding, and excellencie of ciuile gouernment. Trans. Loys Le Roy. London, 1598.Google Scholar
Bartlett, Phyllis Brooks, ed. The Poems of George Chapman. New York: MLA, 1941.Google Scholar
Bellany, Alastair. “Libels in Action: Ritual, Subversion and the English Literary Underground, 1603–1642.” In The Politics of the Excluded, ed. Tim Harris, 99–124. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2001.Google Scholar
Bellany, Alastair. The Politics of Court Scandal in Early Modern England: News Culture and the Overbury Affair, 1603–1660. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002.Google Scholar
Bellany, Alastair, and Cogswell, Thomas. The Murder of King James I. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2015.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
B[ernard], R[ichard], and R.A. Davids mvsick: or Psalmes of that royall prophet, once the sweete singer of that Israel: vunfolded logically… . London, 1616.Google Scholar
Bertheau, Gilles. “Jacques I au miroir de la Tragedie Chapmanienne.” Bulletin de la Société d’Etudes Anglo-Americaines des XVII et XVIII Siècles 62 (2006): 193–207.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bertheau, Gilles. “Prince Henry as Chapman’s ‘Absolute Man.’” In Prince Henry Revived: Image and Exemplarity in Early Modern England, ed. Timothy Wilks, 134–45. London: Paul Holberton, 2007.Google Scholar
Bertheau, Gilles. “George Chapman’s French Tragedies, or, Machiavelli Beyond the Mirror.” In Representing France and the French in Early Modern English Drama, ed. Jean-Christophe Mayer, 110–24. Newark, DE: University of Delaware Press, 2008.Google Scholar
Bodleian Library, Oxford, Don b. 8, 183. Anon., “Religione vanâ.”Google Scholar
Braden, Gordon. “George Chapman.” In Elizabethan Dramatists, vol. 62 of Dictionary of Literary Biography, ed. Fredson Bowers, 3–29. Detroit: Gale Research, 1987.Google Scholar
Breitenberg, Mark. Anxious Masculinity in Early Modern England. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
British Library, London, Additional MS 78423, fol. 60v. Anon., “A Libell of K James.”Google Scholar
Bryson, Anna. From Courtesy to Civility: Changing Codes of Conduct in Early Modern England. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Burgess, Glenn. Absolute Monarchy and the Stuart Constitution. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1996.Google Scholar
Burnett, Mark Thornton. “Chapman, George (1559/60–1634).” In Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford, 2006. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/5118.Google Scholar
Casaubon, Isaac. Persius, Satirarum liber. Is. Casaubon recensuit et commentario libro illustravit. Paris, 1605.Google Scholar
Casaubon, Isaac. Auli Persi Flacci Satirarum Liber. Isaacus Casaubonus recensuit, & Commentario Libro illustravit. London, 1647.Google Scholar
Chapman, George. Ovid’s banqvet of sence. A coronet for his mistresse philosophy; and his amorous zodiack. London, 1595.Google Scholar
Chapman, George. Achilles shield. Translated as the other seuen bookes of Homer, out of his eighteenth booke of Iliades. London, 1598.Google Scholar
Chapman, George. The conspiracie, and tragedie of Charles Duke of Byron, Marshall of France. Acted lately in two playes, at the Black-Friers. London, 1608.Google Scholar
Chapman, George. Euthymiæ raptus; Or The teares of peace: with interlocutions. London, 1609a.Google Scholar
Chapman, George. Homer prince of poets: translated according to the Greeke, in twelue bookes of his Iliads. London, 1609b.Google Scholar
Chapman, George. An epicede or funerall song: on the most disastrous Death, of the High-borne Prince of Men, Henry Prince of Wales, &c. London, 1612.Google Scholar
Chapman, George. The reuenge of Bussy D’Ambois. A tragedie. London, 1613.Google Scholar
Chapman, George. Pro Vere, Avtvmni Lachrymæ. Inscribed to the immortal memorie of the most pious and incomparable souldier, Sir Horatio Vere, Knight: besieged, and distrest in Mainhem. London, 1622.Google Scholar
Chapman, George. A iustification of a strange action of Nero; in burying with a solemne fvnerall, one of the cast hayres of his mistresse Poppæa. Also a iust reproofe of a Romane smell-feast, being the fifth satyre of Ivvenall. London, 1629.Google Scholar
Chapman, George. Caesar And Pompey: a Roman tragedy, declaring their warres. Out of whose euents is euicted this proposition. Only a iust man is a freeman. London, 1631.Google Scholar
Chapman, George, Ben Jonson, and John Marston. Eastward Ho. Ed. R. W. Van Fossen. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1999.Google Scholar
Cogswell, Thomas. The Blessed Revolution: English Politics and the Coming of War, 1621–1624. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989.Google Scholar
Cogswell, Thomas. “Politics and Propaganda: Charles I and the People in the 1620s.” Journal of British Studies 29 (1990): 187–215.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cogswell, Thomas. “Underground Verse and the Transformation of Early Stuart Political Culture.” In Political Culture and Cultural Politics in Early Modern England, ed. David Underdown, Mark Kishlansky, and Susan D. Amussen, 277–300. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1995.Google Scholar
Cogswell, Thomas. “Phaeton’s Chariot: The Parliament-Men and the Continental Crisis of 1621.” In The Political World of Thomas Wentworth, Earl of Strafford, 1621–1641, ed. J. F. Merritt, 24–46. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996.Google Scholar
Combe, Kirk. “Clandestine Protest against William III in Dryden’s Translations of Juvenal and Persius.” Modern Philology 87 (1989): 36–50.Google Scholar
Cust, Richard. The Forced Loan and English Politics 1626–1628. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987.Google Scholar
Dolan, Francis E. “Taking the Pencil out of God’s Hand: Art, Nature, and the Face-Painting Debate in Early Modern England.” Publications of the Modern Language Association of America 108.2 (1993): 224–39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dolan, Francis E.. Whores of Babylon: Catholicism, Gender, and Seventeenth-Century Print Culture. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1999.Google Scholar
Dryden, John, trans. and ed. The satires of Decimus Junius Juvenalis. Translated into English verse. By Mr. Dryden and several other eminent hands. Together with the satires of Aulus Persius Flaccus. Made English by Mr. Dryden… . London, 1693.Google Scholar
“Early Stuart Libels: An Edition of Poetry from Manuscript Sources.” Ed. Alastair Bellany and Andrew McRae. Early Modern Literary Studies Text Series 1 (2005): http://purl.oclc.org/emls/texts/libels/.Google Scholar
Fisher, Will. Materializing Gender in Early Modern English Literature and Culture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006.Google Scholar
Foyster, Elizabeth A. Manhood in Early Modern England: Honour, Sex and Marriage. London: Longman, 1999.Google Scholar
Franssen, Paul. “George Chapman’s Learned Drama.” In The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare and Contemporary Dramatists, ed. Tom Hoenselaars, 134–38. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gardiner, Samuel Rawson, ed. Documents relating to the Proceedings against William Prynne, in 1634 and 1637. London: Nichols, 1877.Google Scholar
Gerbier, Balthazar. The None-Such Charles His Character. London, 1651.Google Scholar
Gianoutsos, Jamie. “Gender, Tyranny, and Republicanism in England, 1603–1660.” PhD diss., Johns Hopkins University, 2014.Google Scholar
A godly and profitable treatise, intituled Absolom his fall, or The ruin of Roysters, Wherein euery Christian may in a mirrour behold, the vile and abominable abuse of curled long haire… . London, 1590.Google Scholar
The great eclipse of the sun, or, Charles his waine over-clouded, by the evill influences of the moon, the malignancie of Ill-aspected planets, and the constellations of retrograde and irregular starres. [London], 1644.Google Scholar
Hæc-vir; or The womanish-man: being an answere to a late booke intituled Hic-mulier. Exprest in a briefe dialogue betweene Hæc-vir the womanish-man, and Hic-mulier the man-woman. London, 1620.Google Scholar
Harris, C. R. “The Court and Character of James I.” Notes and Queries 3.5 (1864): 451–53.Google Scholar
Hic mvlier: or, The man-woman: being a medicine to cure the coltish disease of the staggers in the masculine-feminine, of our times. Exprest in a briefe declamation. London, 1620.Google Scholar
Holland, Philemon, trans. The historie of the world. Commonly called, the natvrall historie of C. Plinivs Secvndvs. London, 1601.Google Scholar
Houston, S. J. James I. 2nd ed. New York: Longman, 1995.Google Scholar
Jacquot, Jean. George Chapman (1559–1634), sa vie, sa poésie, son théâtre, sa pensée. Paris, 1951.Google Scholar
James VI and I. King James VI and I: Political Writings. Ed. Johann P. Sommerville. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994.Google Scholar
Juvenal and Persius. Ed. and trans. Susanna Morton Braund. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004.Google Scholar
Kanemura, Rei. “The Idea of Sovereignty in English Historical Writing, 1599–1627.” PhD diss., University of Cambridge, 2012.Google Scholar
Lake, Peter. “Constitutional Consensus and Puritan Opposition in the 1620s: Thomas Scott and the Spanish Match.” Historical Journal 25.4 (1982): 805–25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lake, Peter. “Anti-Popery: the Structure of a Prejudice.” In Conflict in Early Stuart England, ed. Richard Cust and Anne Hughes, 72–106. New York: Longman, 1989.Google Scholar
Lake, Peter, with Michael Questier. Anti-Christ’s Lewd Hat: Protestants, Papists and Players in Post-Reformation England. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002.Google Scholar
Lambert, Sheila. “The Beginning of Printing for the House of Commons, 1640–42.” The Library 6.3 (1981): 43–61.Google Scholar
Larkin, James F., and Hughes, Paul L., eds. Stuart Royal Proclamations. 2 vols. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1973.Google Scholar
Lee, Maurice, Jr. Great Britain’s Solomon: James VI and I and His Three Kingdoms. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1990.Google Scholar
Levin, Carole. Heart and Stomach of a King: Elizabeth I and the Politics of Sex and Power. 2nd ed. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013.Google Scholar
Lockyer, Roger. James VI and I. New York: Longman, 1998.Google Scholar
McRae, Andrew. Literature, Satire, and the Early Stuart State. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Miller, Henry Knight. “The Paradoxical Encomium with Special Reference to Its Vogue in England, 1600–1800.” Modern Philology 53.3 (1956): 145–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Morton, Thomas. A sermon preached before the Kings most excellent Majestie, in the cathedrall church of Durham. Upon Sunday, being the fifth day of May. 1639. By the Right Reverend Father in God, Thomas Lord Bishop of Duresme. Published by his Majesties speciall command. London, 1639.Google Scholar
Nedham, Marchamont. The case of the Common-wealth of England, stated: or, The equity, vtility, and necessity, of a submission to the present government… . London, 1650.Google Scholar
Patterson, W. B. James VI and I and the Reunion of Christendom. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997.Google Scholar
Peck, Linda Levy. “‘For a King not to be bountiful were a fault’: Perspectives on Court Patronage in Early Stuart England.” Journal of British Studies 25.1 (1986): 31–61.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Perry, Curtis. Literature and Favoritism in Early Modern England. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Prynne, William. The vnlouelinesse, of lovelockes. Or, A svmmarie discovrse, proouing: the wearing, and nourishing of a locke, or loue-locke, to be altogether vnseemely, and vnlawfull vnto Christians… . London, 1628.Google Scholar
R.B. The lives of all the Roman emperors, being exactly collected, from Iulius Cæsar, unto the now reigning Ferdinand the second. With their births, governments, remarkable actions, & deaths. London, 1636.Google Scholar
Reeve, L. J. Charles I and the Road to Personal Rule. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[Reynolds, John]. Votivæ Angliæ: or The desires and wishes of England. Contained in a patheticall discourse, presented to the King on New-yeares Day last. Utrecht, 1624.Google Scholar
Russell, Conrad. Crisis of Parliaments: English History 1509–1660. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1971.Google Scholar
Schoell, Franck L. Etudes Sur L’humanisme Continental En Angleterre À La Fin De La Renaissance. Paris: Honoré Champion, 1926.Google Scholar
Schrickx, Willem. “George Chapman in Middelburg in 1586.” Notes and Queries 283.2 (1993): 165.Google Scholar
[Scott, Thomas]. The second part of Vox popvli, or Gondomar appearing in the likenes of Matchiauell in a Spanish parliament wherein are discouered his treacherous & subtile Practises to the ruine as well of England, as the Netherlandes. Faithfully transtated [sic] out of the Spanish coppie by a well-willer to England and Holland. Goricum, 1624.Google Scholar
Shakespeare, William. The First Part of Henry the Sixth. In The Oxford Shakespeare: The Complete Works, ed. Stanley Wells, Gary Taylor, John Jowett, and William Montgomery. 2nd ed. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2005.Google Scholar
Shepard, Alexandra. Meanings of Manhood in Early Modern England. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003.Google Scholar
University of Minnesota Library, Minneapolis, MS 690235, fol. 181. Anon., “A Libell of King James.”Google Scholar
Walker, Garthine. Crime, Gender and the Social Order in Early Modern England. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
White, Michelle A. Henrietta Maria and the English Civil Wars. Farnham: Ashgate, 2006.Google Scholar
Young, Michael B. James VI and I and the History of Homosexuality. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2000.Google Scholar
Zaller, Robert. “‘Interest of State’: James I and the Palatinate.” Albion 6.2 (1974): 144–75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar