baldwin (individual and self in the late renaissance)

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The Historical Journal, , (), pp. Printed in the United Kingdom # Cambridge University Press INDIVIDUAL AND SELF IN THE LATE RENAISSANCE GEOFF BALDWIN Christs College, Cambridge . This article argues that many traditional historical narratives of individualism have been reproduced in more recent discussions of the self and selfhood, and that attempts to discover a point at which the modern self came into existence have been hampered by such assumptions. To provide an alternative to these approaches, discussions of the self in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries will be examined. Eschewing overarching narratives, the discussion will focus on how neo- stoic sources were employed in the context of challenges to traditional forms of the humanist ethics of office-holding. Such ideas, important in writers like Montaigne, Pierre Charron, and William Cornwallis, have been associated with an idea of new humanism ’, but this article aims to discuss with precision how they relate to early modern ethical discussion. Here an insight can be gained into a particular philosophical development of the idea of the self. This can be more productive than some recent new historicist ’, or sociological, approaches to the literature of this period, which tend to the deconstruction of a particular set of sources through the use of the self as a theoretical heuristic. I Twentieth-century scholarship of the early modern, or Renaissance, period has been dominated by a notion of individualism. After Max Weber posited a link between Protestantism and capitalism at the beginning of the twentieth century, individualism became the focus of much attention from those who wanted to explain what was distinctive about the modern social and political world. The emergence of an individualist society was, for many social historians, the process by which the modern, as opposed to the medieval, came into being. Individualism was linked to capitalism, liberalism, and an incipient industrial revolution, these three together breaking out of a medieval and religious consensus. This trajectory fitted well with the stories that historians on the right, and the followers of Marx, both wished to tell." " Max Weber, The Protestant ethic and the spirit of capitalism, trans. T. Parsons (London, ). R. H. Tawney followed similar lines, focusing on the retreat of theological influence upon economic affairs, where the impersonal market was the realm for individual enterprise ; R. H. Tawney, Religion and the rise of capitalism (London, ). H. M. Robertson questioned the explicitly Protestant nature of capitalism, focusing more clearly upon individualist tendencies within society which forced changes in both Catholic and Protestant theology and morals ; H. M. Robertson, Aspects of the rise of economic individualism (Cambridge, ). Alan Macfarlane argued that English society, uniquely in Europe, had been individualist from at least the thirteenth century, creating ideal conditions for an industrial revolution ; Alan Macfarlane, The origins of English individualism (Oxford, ).

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  • The Historical Journal, 44, 2 (2001), pp. 341364 Printed in the United Kingdom

    # 2001 Cambridge University Press

    INDIVIDUAL AND SELF IN THE LATE

    RENAISSANCE

    GEOFF BALDWIN

    Christs College, Cambridge

    abstract . This article argues that many traditional historical narratives of individualism have

    been reproduced in more recent discussions of the self and selfhood, and that attempts to discover a point

    at which the modern self came into existence have been hampered by such assumptions. To provide

    an alternative to these approaches, discussions of the self in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth

    centuries will be examined. Eschewing overarching narratives, the discussion will focus on how neo-

    stoic sources were employed in the context of challenges to traditional forms of the humanist ethics of

    office-holding. Such ideas, important in writers like Montaigne, Pierre Charron, and William

    Cornwallis, have been associated with an idea of new humanism , but this article aims to discuss

    with precision how they relate to early modern ethical discussion. Here an insight can be gained into

    a particular philosophical development of the idea of the self. This can be more productive than some

    recent new historicist , or sociological, approaches to the literature of this period, which tend to the

    deconstruction of a particular set of sources through the use of the self as a theoretical heuristic.

    I

    Twentieth-century scholarship of the early modern, or Renaissance, period has

    been dominated by a notion of individualism. After Max Weber posited a link

    between Protestantism and capitalism at the beginning of the twentieth

    century, individualism became the focus of much attention from those who

    wanted to explain what was distinctive about the modern social and political

    world. The emergence of an individualist society was, for many social

    historians, the process by which the modern, as opposed to the medieval, came

    into being. Individualism was linked to capitalism, liberalism, and an incipient

    industrial revolution, these three together breaking out of a medieval and

    religious consensus. This trajectory fitted well with the stories that historians on

    the right, and the followers of Marx, both wished to tell."

    " Max Weber, The Protestant ethic and the spirit of capitalism, trans. T. Parsons (London, 1930).

    R. H. Tawney followed similar lines, focusing on the retreat of theological influence upon

    economic affairs, where the impersonal market was the realm for individual enterprise ; R. H.

    Tawney, Religion and the rise of capitalism (London, 1926). H. M. Robertson questioned the explicitly

    Protestant nature of capitalism, focusing more clearly upon individualist tendencies within society

    which forced changes in both Catholic and Protestant theology and morals ; H. M. Robertson,

    Aspects of the rise of economic individualism (Cambridge, 1933). Alan Macfarlane argued that English

    society, uniquely in Europe, had been individualist from at least the thirteenth century, creating

    ideal conditions for an industrial revolution; Alan Macfarlane, The origins of English individualism

    (Oxford, 1978).

    341

  • 342 geoff baldwin

    In literary and artistic criticism a similar trajectory was being forged, which

    drew upon Enlightenment ideas about the unity of particular eras in history

    and the emergence of a valuation of autonomy. Jacob Burckhardt argued that

    individuals only became aware of themselves separately from a general

    category during the Italian Renaissance. His view has not gone unchallenged,

    but the lineaments of his arguments remain a powerful influence on

    Renaissance scholarship.# Ernst Cassirer focused on the philosophical side to

    such a trajectory.$ Historians of philosophy and political theory often accepted

    this picture, supplying histories of thought which showed how a developing

    individualism shaped philosophy and ideas from the seventeenth century

    onwards.% Through their view of the early modern period, these writers

    participated in the wider debates between liberalism and socialism that

    dominated the twentieth century.

    Latterly, the emphasis of historical debate has moved away from such issues.

    This is in part because social historians have focused more closely on questions

    of community and the exercise of power which compromised the image of a

    new era of individual, or bourgeois, liberty coming into being. Historians of

    political thought have also moved toward an appreciation of the variety of

    # Jacob Burckhardt, Die Kultur der Renaissance in Italien (Basle, 1860), trans. S. G. Middlemore as

    The civilisation of the Renaissance in Italy (London, 1878). Burckhardt himself famously later became

    sceptical of this aspect of his description of Renaissance culture, but this did not detract from its

    influence. On Burckhardt see Felix Gilbert, History, politics or culture?: reflections on Ranke and

    Burckhardt (Princeton, NJ, 1990) ; Lionel Gossman, Cultural history and crisis : Burckhardts

    Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy , in Michael S. Roth, ed., Rediscovering history: culture, politics and

    the psyche (Stanford, 1994), pp. 40427 ; for earlier followers, see Norman Nelson, Individual as a

    criterion of the Renaissance, Journal of English and Germanic Philology, 32 (1933), pp. 31634 ; on his

    indebtedness to Hegel, see Ernst Gombrich, In search of cultural history (Oxford, 1969), pp. 1516.$ Ernst Cassirer, Individuum und Kosmos in der philosophie der Renaissance (Berlin, 1927), trans.

    M. Domandi as The individual and the cosmos in Renaissance philosophy (Oxford, 1963). On Cassirer, see

    Walter Eggers, Ernst Cassirer: an annotated bibliography (New York, 1988) ; Cassirers position as a

    neo-Kantian makes one wonder to what extent Kants notion of autonomy has been written back

    into an earlier period. Richard Tuck has argued that Kants rewriting of the history of ethics led

    to the denigrating of Grotius and other natural law thinkers of the seventeenth century: Philosophy

    and government (Cambridge, 1993), p. xv. A modern example is J. B. Schneewind, The invention of

    autonomy: a history of modern moral philosophy (Cambridge, 1998), which rewrites the history of

    seventeenth- and eighteenth-century moral thought as leading to Kantian ideas of autonomy. The

    Renaissance, and certainly any late Renaissance developments, are eclipsed by the need to

    conform to this trajectory.% C. B. Macpherson moulded seventeenth-century thinkers as diverse as the Levellers and

    Hobbes into a schema which portrayed the seventeenth century as the time when politics adapted

    itself to, and eventually guaranteed, individualism; C. B. Macpherson, The political theory of

    possessive individualism (Oxford, 1962). The Marxist assumptions of his approach are more explicitly

    stated in C. B. Macpherson, Democratic theory: essays in retrieval (Oxford, 1973). J. A. W. Gunn

    argued that the idea of public interest served to capture state power for the individual ; J. A. W.

    Gunn, Politics and the public interest in the seventeenth century (London, 1969). Albert Hirschman

    regarded developments in late seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century philosophy and

    psychology as validating the potential social worth of individual passion over abstract reason.

    Albert Hirschman, The passions and the interests (Princeton, NJ, 1977). Richard Tuck has argued

    that the development of a coherent idea of subjective natural rights was one of the most significant

    philosophical achievements of the seventeenth century: Natural rights theories (Cambridge, 1979).

  • individual and self in the renaissance 343

    discourses that can exist within a society, and gained a greater awareness of the

    dangers of following, in a necessarily anachronistic way, the development or

    emergence of an idea.& There has, however, been a development of a new

    subject of inquiry closely analogous to individualism. This has been apparent

    in literary studies, especially the more historicized parts thereof, as well as in

    social histories of the early modern period.

    This subject, the self, has the same chronological parameters, and covers

    much of the same ground as did individualism. Writers of both social and

    cultural history have turned from the individual to the self while preserving

    many of the structures of the former discussion. The heirs of Weber have

    employed the idea of the self as a way of investigating what was significant

    about the literature or society of the past. Indeed, it is the starting point for

    some of the most significant modern contributions to social analysis. Anthony

    Giddens regards the reflexive creation of a self-identity as the subject to be

    studied, and the post-traditional order of modernity to be the context in which

    that endeavour changes its nature. Roy Porter regards the self as an important

    part of any historical understanding of the nature and functioning of language.(

    Charles Taylor, attempting a philosophical understanding of modernity from

    another direction, argues that the modern sense of self is the most important

    ethical achievement of Western thought.)

    The notion of a self or selves as aspects of a text, fictional or otherwise, has

    become the focus for much attention from literary critics. Those who have

    approached such questions have built on ideas of individualism, and have also

    appropriated sociological and historical approaches. Writing in 1976, Patricia

    Meyer Spacks examined the analogues between two emergent genres in the

    eighteenth century: the autobiography and the novel, most often written in the

    form of autobiography.* Questions of authenticity, persuasion, and the nature

    of selfhood were, she argues, common to both. More recently, Michael

    Mascuch has attempted to trace the development of an idea of self through

    autobiographical writing from the sixteenth to the late eighteenth century."!

    & For instance, as a corrective to Macpherson, John Dunn has emphasized the theological

    background to the thought of Locke: John Dunn, The political thought of John Locke (Cambridge,

    1969). John Pocock has resurrected those elements of the thought of the American revolution that

    could not be regarded as being beholden to Locke, or a caricature of his individualism, as a

    progenitor : J. G. A. Pocock, The Machiavellian moment (Princeton, NJ, 1975). Anthony Giddens, Modernity and self-identity: self and society in the late modern age (Cambridge,

    1991). Giddens of course is inspired by and builds upon the work of Durkheim and Weber, whose

    individualist thesis was so influential earlier in the century.( Roy Porter, Expressing yourself ill : the language of sickness in Georgian England, in Peter

    Burke and Roy Porter, eds., Language, self and society (Cambridge, 1991), pp. 27699. Other essays

    in this volume by Daniel Rosenburg and G. S. Rousseau are also of interest.) Charles Taylor, The sources of the self: the making of modern identity (Cambridge, 1989).* Patrica Meyer Spacks, Imagining a self: autobiography and novel in eighteenth-century England

    (Cambridge, MA, 1976)."! Michael Mascuch, Origins of the individualist self: autobiography and self-identity in England,

    (Cambridge, 1997). Mascuch attempts to occupy the difficult space between social

    history and textual criticism. See also Paul Delany, British autobiography in the seventeenth century

  • 344 geoff baldwin

    His work is marked by a debt to modern social theory, and a reluctance to

    designate anything as true autobiography until the terminus ad quem of his

    study James Lackingtons Memoirs of 1791. The changes wrought by Ro-

    manticism obviously had a great effect upon the nature of literary reflexivity,

    and may well be thought to have pushed the self to the centre of literary

    inquiry, but it is in studies concerned with the centuries before this that the idea

    of the self is used most consistently as a hermeneutic device.""

    One of the most influential critics of Renaissance literature has been Stephen

    Greenblatt, who saw a wide variety of texts, from More to Shakespeare, as

    being attempts to construct selves that could function in a literary and fictional

    sphere."# Greenblatts methodological basis in twentieth-century critical

    Marxism, such as that of Althusser, means that the conception of a developing

    individualist, or bourgeois, consciousness dominates his criticism. He writes of

    More and Shakespeare as Macpherson wrote of Hobbes and Locke, the self in

    literary production replacing the individual in political writing. For him, the

    literature of the period is characterized by the creation of literary selves.

    Earlier, Joan Webber had described the seventeenth century as one in which

    the consideration of self defined literary style."$ Paul Oppenheimer went so far

    as to equate a certain sense of self with the modern mind, and to locate the

    development of such in the thirteenth century, when Giacomo da Lentino

    invented the sonnet at the court of Frederick II."%

    It seems that for scholars the inspiration for focusing on the self is very similar

    to that for attempting to demonstrate the rise of something called individualism.

    Both phenomena have their apotheosis after the French and Romantic

    revolutions, and both are threatened by postmodernity or postindustrialism.

    (London, 1969). Autobiography, as an essentially private form of writing, has received attention

    from feminist critics : Shari Benstock, ed., The private self: theory and practice of womens autobiographical

    writings (London, 1988) ; Felicity A. Nussbaum, The autobiographical subject : gender and ideology in

    eighteenth-century England (Baltimore, 1989). These titles are in themselves revealing, the self in

    question often being designated as private, as opposed to public, or linked with the individualism

    that so exercised earlier writers."" Mascuchs distinction between autobiography and autobiographical textuality becomes

    somewhat strained by the starkness of the arrival of true autobiography at the end of the eighteenth

    century. John Lyons goes to some lengths to argue that Montaigne could not count as expressing

    a sense of self, which could only come after the French Revolution had dissolved the constraints of

    the past. John O. Lyons, The invention of the self: the hinge of consciousness in the eighteenth century

    (Carbondale, 1978)."# Stephen Greenblatt, Renaissance self-fashioning: from More to Shakespeare (Chicago, 1980). Maus

    has identified many critics in the New-Historicist mould who deny the possibility of a real inward

    life in the Renaissance period, instead regarding the individual as entirely constructed inter-

    subjectively ; Katherine Eisaman Maus, Inwardness and theatre in the English Renaissance (Chicago,

    1995)."$ Joan Webber, The eloquent I : style and self in seventeenth-century prose (Madison, Milwaukee,

    1968)."% Paul Oppenheimer, The birth of the modern mind: self, consciousness and the invention of the sonnet

    (Oxford, 1989).

  • individual and self in the renaissance 345

    The ideological outlook of both sets of scholars is often similar. It may be

    possible, however, to introduce some greater degree of subtlety into the grand

    literary narratives that have dominated studies of the period, and at the same

    time contribute to more historical debates on the nature of humanism.

    For the historian of philosophy or political thought, it is somewhat difficult

    to know how to contribute to this inquiry into what seems to be a curiously

    persistent way of looking at the early modern period. Methodologically, there

    is a reluctance to employ the idea of the self as a tool to unlock the structure

    either of texts, or of social practices, which do not themselves use such a

    concept. To examine how languages and discourses themselves were employed

    and adapted, to make sense of and influence the world, should be the goal of the

    intellectual historian. There is, however, a clear context for the employment of

    such techniques. At the end of the sixteenth century, some writers and political

    thinkers began to approach problems of rhetoric and personal political action

    in a corrupt world. The solutions they found often used the idea of something

    called the self, which they sometimes rendered as a noun, something which

    could be spoken of as an object for the first time. Those developments that took

    place on the continent were quickly absorbed into English Renaissance writing

    through translation and direct influence on native writers. It seems that there

    was a ready audience for such ideas, and that they represented a development

    of which not sufficient account has been taken in Renaissance studies. It is

    possible to identify a stage in thinking or writing about the self which is not

    identifiable with the Renaissance as a whole, nor indeed with later eighteenth-

    century developments in thinking about autonomy and reflexivity.

    Such an approach could help solve conceptual problems created by the

    intrusion of eighteenth-century ideas into later approaches to the Renaissance,

    which still blurs distinctions important to an accurate story. This article aims

    to examine the sources and structure of a different set of ideas, which do not lie

    primarily in the realm of economics or literature, but in that of politics and

    public service."& It is the ethical and political discussions of those in Britain and

    "& Another obvious place to look for ideas about the individual and self is in religious discourses,

    and one strand of thinking about the individual is focused upon the individuals relationship with

    the divine. However, it seems to me that the reflexivity encouraged by religious feeling is of a

    different order to that which I am discussing, as the self-examination was with specific reference to

    divine providence, and the possible place of that individual within the divine plan. On Protestant

    thought in this area, see William Haller, The rise of puritanism (New York, 1938) ; Herbert Wallace

    Schneider, The puritan mind (Ann Arbor, MI, 1958) ; Edmund S. Morgan, Visible saints: the history

    of a puritan idea (New York, 1963). On the Catholic versions, Henri Bremmond, Histoire litteU raire dusentiment religieux en France depuis la fin de la guerre de religion jusqu a[ nos jours (11 vols., Paris, 191636),vols. iiv ; John Bossy, The English Catholic community, (London, 1979), pp. 10848 ; Rene!Taveneaux, Catholicisme dans la France Classique, (Paris, 1980), pp. 395446 ; Louis

    Cha# tellier, The Europe of the devout, trans. Jean Birrell (Cambridge, 1989), pp. 13654 ; JeanDelumeau, Rassurer et proteUger: le sentiment de seU curiteU dans l occident d autrefois (Paris, 1989) ; RobinBriggs, Communities of belief : cultural and social tensions in early-modern France (Oxford, 1989), pp.

    277338. On Loyolan devotion, see Joseph de Guibert, La spiritualiteU de la Compagnie de JeU sus (Rome,1953) ; Ignacio Iparraguirre, Historia de la praU ctica de los ejercicios espirituales de San Ignacio de Loyola

  • 346 geoff baldwin

    France who reacted to their humanist inheritance, and the nature of politics as

    they saw it, that form the focus of this article.

    By the end of the sixteenth century certain aspects of humanist, political and

    social ideas had gained wide acceptance in both Britain and France, at a

    national and also a local level. Those aspects were not republican constitutions

    such as those of ancient Rome or early modern Florence, but ethical arguments

    about the duties of those who held public office. Humanism could be thought

    of as that part of the Renaissance which emphasized the rhetorical and ethical

    achievements of ancient texts. It answered the need for a language to express

    clearly ideas about public life that grew from the combination of an increasing

    social and political complexity and older practices and institutions. It was to

    some extent a literary activity, concerned as it was with models of how to speak

    and write well. Humanists promoted themselves as secretaries and ambassadors

    because they could write and speak convincingly and persuasively : common

    among their texts is the story of the Athenian ambassadors who so impressed

    the Lacedemonians in negotiating a peace that they wished they had never

    started the war in the first place. They also argued that ancient texts showed

    how to do politics : so they should be appointed as tutors to those who would

    have power thrust upon them. Their students would then learn the skills

    necessary to be successful in public life.

    Texts such as Ciceros De officiis offered ideals of behaviour appropriate for

    those occupying roles in government, both local and national, whether

    executive, advisory, or judicial. Thus the ethical ideas were centred around

    virtue in the public sphere, and the approbation in the form of gloria that would

    follow from recognition of such virtue. Virtues, such as constancy or justice,

    could be expressed in the execution of the duties of some sort of office; an

    enumeration of different offices could be thought of as fully describing an

    individual. Early humanists in northern Europe such as Erasmus, More, Elyot,

    or Bude! discussed and adapted such ideas in the light of different political andreligious contexts. Humanism did not become a standard or stable set of values,

    but was constantly changing in the light of new circumstances.

    II

    By the late sixteenth century, to discuss the functioning of politics was to engage

    with the legacy of humanism, as it provided the guide to appropriate behaviour

    for those who held public office. One of the fundamental political values of

    (Bilbao, 1955) ; Terrence W. OReilly, The Spiritual exercises and the crisis of medieval piety , The

    Way, suppl. 70 (1991), pp. 10113 ; John W. OMalley, The first Jesuits (Cambridge, MA, 1993),

    pp. 3790. Providence has some resemblance to stoic ideas of fate or destiny: contemporaries were

    at some pains to distinguish the two see especially Justus Lipsius, Two bookes of constancie, trans.

    John Stradling (London, 1595), pp. 4256. I shall in any case attempt to argue that the ideas I am

    examining went beyond a repetition of stoic commonplaces.

  • individual and self in the renaissance 347

    humanism, and one which became a commonplace during the Renaissance,

    was that of the ability to convince, and convey the desired impression on an

    audience. The ambiguities and possibilities for deceit in such a rhetorical ethic

    of self-presentation had been targets for criticism since the time of Aristotle, and

    its Renaissance revival led to a similar set of responses.

    The direct relationship between the public exercise of virtue and the glory

    due to the individual was challenged by those who argued that the very

    techniques involved in the exercise of virtue most especially the use of

    rhetoric tended to vitiate the reliability of that relationship. Virtue was in a

    sense performed: in discussing office the metaphor of acting was commonplace

    from Cicero onwards. Whether or not that performance was a fake, it was

    necessarily artificial. The creation of fictive personalities prompted by such

    activity is the focus for literary critics such as Greenblatt, who have identified

    such traits in writers such as More and Shakespeare. The discovery and

    examination of such processes amounts for these critics to a denial of

    subjectivity: the performance is made the defining aspect of human nature.

    I would like to argue that there was, in the later Renaissance, a new

    discussion pertaining to the self which served both to show how problems raised

    by humanist ethics and politics could be limited, or at least circumvented, and

    to demonstrate how the individual could best cope with living within such a

    culture. This involved strategies for understanding the world in which

    appearance differed from reality, and truth differed from what was said, as well

    as living with the psychological strains arising from the presentation of fictive

    personae. These developments raise doubts about the unity of Renaissance ideas

    of self and personality, and to undermine readings based upon such

    assumptions. The negotiation of the boundary between public persona and

    private self had become apparent as one of the criticisms of the functioning of

    a traditional rhetorical humanism. Discussions of virtue and how to survive in

    the public world increasingly appropriated arguments from the Greek and

    Roman stoics which emphasized a sense of detachment from that which was

    subject to fortune. The way in which this inheritance was employed would

    involve discussions of something some contemporaries called the self, a

    construction that would enable individuals to deal with the vicissitudes of life.

    Such notions were strongly at variance with older humanist ideas of public

    virtue and action. There has been some discussion of a new humanism,

    linked to stoicism, and to the rise of absolute monarchies, and the consequent

    destruction of a context within which traditional humanist ideas could find

    their application. Focusing in more detail on ideas of individual action or the

    self may help to clarify its content of such a humanism." Ideas of the self did

    " See for instance Tuck, Philosophy and government ; J. H. M. Salmon, Seneca and Tacitus in

    Jacobean England, in Linda Levy Peck, The mental world of the Jacobean court (Cambridge, 1991) ;

    Peter Burke, Tacitism, in T. A. Dorey, ed., Tacitus (London, 1969), p. 150 ; Alan T. Bradford,

    Stuart absolutism and the utility of Tacitus , Huntington Library Quarterly, 45 (1983), pp. 12751.

  • 348 geoff baldwin

    not constitute an abandonment of such old humanist ideals, but were an

    attempt to make them attainable in circumstances that made their straight-

    forward application impossible. Such developments were highly significant in

    that such themes would recur later in the century during the crisis of political

    authority that began in 1642, and be employed in a fashion that had a dramatic

    impact on the way it was possible to think about politics and political

    reasoning. Ideas about individual judgement and rationality would dominate

    discussion at the foundation of the new state after the execution of Charles in

    January 1649, and in the work of writers such as Hobbes, Milton, and

    Harrington.

    Criticisms of humanism and the functioning of politics were often made by

    citing the mutability of opinion, which the orator or courtier was expected to

    manipulate. Stoic ideas of constancy and independence from the world were

    closely connected to the problem of opinion, both in terms of the individuals

    capabilities and the possibly flawed judgements of the world in general upon

    the individuals actions and worth."( The revival of stoicism was a natural

    starting point for a discussion of such ideas, though the early modern writers

    would go beyond their ancient forebears.

    The earliest manifestation of stoic philosophy in Renaissance England was

    Epictetus Enchridion, the only direct source for the original Greek stoic sect. It

    was translated into English in 1567 by John Sanford from a French translation

    of the Greek.") Epictetus central point is to make a distinction between those

    things that are within our power, Opinion, Endevour, Desire, Eschewing,

    and those things that are without, Body, Possession, Honours, Sovereignties ."*

    To worry about those things that cannot be controlled is foolish and only

    destroys tranquillity. It is natural to enjoy such things, but one should not

    become attached to them. As one can love a pot in the knowledge that it is

    fragile and brittle , and thus likely to break, so one should love everything

    outside ones power, even wives and children.#! The same goes for both

    honour and place, which one should not value but ask Is it in thee to bear

    rule or to be bidden to a banquet? #" Epictetus thus devalues the search for

    public acclamation, and so questions the humanist connection between virtue

    "( The neo-stoic movement was especially strong in northern Europe. For a general survey, see

    Julien Angers, Reserches sur le stoicisme aux XVI et XVII sie[ cles (Hildesheim, Olms, 1976) ; JacquelineLagre! e, ed., Le stoicisme aux XVI et XVIIe sie[ cles actes du colloque Juin (Caen, 1994) ;Jaqueline Lagre! e, Juste Lipse et la restauration du stoicisme (Paris, 1994) ; Gilles D. Monsarrat, Lightfrom the porch: Stoicicm and English Renaissance literature (Paris, 1984) ; Gerhard Oestreich, Neostoicism

    and the early modern state (Cambridge, 1992).") Epictetus was popular in France, appearing in both Latin and Greek editions from the 1520s

    onwards. The Enchridion was translated as Le manuel d EpicteU te by Antoine Moulin in 1544, and asLa doctrine d EpicteU te stoicie by Andre! Rivandeau in 1567. Many of the most significant texts that hadsome stoic inspiration were French, and they often gained rapid popularity in Europe.

    "* Epictetus, Manuell of Epictetus translated out of Greeke into French, and now English, conferred with

    two Latin translations, trans. John Sanford (London, 1567), sig. A, 8r. The spelling in quotations has

    been modernized where possible and appropriate, but titles have been left.#! Ibid., sig. B, 2v. #" Ibid., sig. C, 7r. Banket means banquet.

  • individual and self in the renaissance 349

    and honour, along with the associated ideas of being able to help friends or

    ones country.

    The other ancient source of stoic ideas was Seneca, whose works were

    translated by Thomas Lodge in 1600. Apart from some plays, none of his works

    was published in Latin in England before this, but there were numerous

    continental editions from the late fifteenth century onwards. In Of providence he

    asks, as there is a divine, directing, providence, why do adversities befall good

    men?.## His answer is that God loveth them strongly, and so tests them in

    order to reveal their virtue, rather as wrestlers engage stronger athletes to

    improve themselves.#$ He quotes the stoic Demetrius, who states a central

    paradox, There is nothing, saith he, more unhappy then that man that hath

    never been touched with adversity : for he hath not had the means to know

    himself. #% As well as having shocking effect, this paradox shows the importance

    of knowing that one can be constant in the face of adversity, especially as one

    may be thrust into it at any moment. Seneca asks, How can I know what

    constancy thou hast against ignominy, infamy, and popular hate, if thou grow

    old amidst the applauses of every man?#& To be pampered by fortune is to be

    unsure of ones own virtues or abilities. To be constant, Seneca argues, one

    must bear in mind the same distinction that was central to Epictetus thought,

    that those things which the common people long after, and which they are

    afraid of, are neither good nor evil .#

    One of the most immediate reactions to this inheritance was Guillaume du

    Vairs La philosophie morale du stoX ques of 1585, which was translated by ThomasJames in 1598.#( He argued that the ideal form of life is not to be troubled with

    any passions or perturbations of the mind, despite the fact that one is living in

    a world which would naturally lead one to be so disturbed.#) The solution is

    Epictetus distinction between that which is within our power, and that which

    is not, and the correct use of that which we can control. All circumstances can

    be turned to our joy and contentment through concentration upon the inner

    realm, so that after a time even galley slaves sing as merrily as birds .#*

    Justus Lipsiuss De constantia of 1584 was translated as Two bookes of constancie

    by John Stradling in 1594. The immediate context for this work was the Dutch

    civil wars of the late sixteenth century, which caused so much suffering and

    ## Lucius Annus Seneca, Works, trans. Thomas Lodge (London, 1600), p. 499.#$ Ibid., p. 500. #% Ibid., p. 501. #& Ibid., p. 504. # Ibid., p. 506.#( Guillaume du Vair (15561621) was an advocate active in the Paris Parlement who

    supported Henri de Navarre from 1589 onwards. He wrote a treatise on constancy during the siege

    of Paris in 1590, and in 1596 became governor of Provence, where he was active in intellectual life.

    In 1619, after finding favour with Louis XIII, he was made bishop of Lisieux. On his life, see Rene!Radouant, Guillaume du Vair, Lhomme et orateur jusqu a[ la fin des troubles de la ligue, (Paris,n.d.) ; also Paul Roques, Le philosophie morale des stoiques de Rene! Radouant, Guillaume du Vair ,Archives de philosophie, n.s., 20 (1957), pp. 22638.

    #) Guillaume du Vair, The moral philosophie of the stoicks, trans. Thomas James (London, 1598),

    p. 30.#* Ibid., pp. 107, 109. This example shows du Vair employing the stoic strategy of using a

    shocking paradox in order to arrest the reader and make the point all the more forceful.

  • 350 geoff baldwin

    danger, especially for those involved in public life.$! Lipsius advises constancy

    in the face of these calamities, which he defines as a right and immovable

    strength of the minde, neither lifted up, nor pressed down with external or

    casual accidents .$" These external accidents are false goods and false evils,

    which both distemper the mind.$# He echoes Senecas argument that

    adversity is an important spur to virtue: If all things succeed prosperously and

    happily to a man, there is no place to make proof of his virtue: for the only true

    level to try withal, is aiction. $$ Despite his praise of gardens as places of

    retreat, Lipsiuss constancy is a virtue of active involvement with the world,

    rather than a wholesale rejection of worldly affairs. We cannot just ignore the

    world, as if it be Destiny that this weather-beaten ship of thy country shall be

    saved from drowning, it is destiny withal that she shall be aided and defended,

    so that there is a duty to put to thy helping hand.$%

    One text often cited as dealing with stoic ideas and problems of individuality

    is the Essais of Michel de Montaigne, the third and last book of which appeared

    in 1589.$& John Florios translation of all three books in 1603 spread the

    popularity of this work, which was referred to with admiration by English

    essayists. The impact of this work comes partly from generic innovation and

    also the air of moral scepticism which pervades most of the essays. His Of

    cannibals and the Apology for Raymond Sebond have long been regarded as classic

    expressions of Pyrrhonian scepticism. With this background, he regarded

    constancy, and the stoic inheritance in general, favourably but not uncritically.

    Montaigne follows Epictetus in emphasizing the positive nature of ill

    fortune. He argues that it is not a question of virtue making one happy despite

    suffering, but through it, since difficulties ennoble, sharpen, animate and raise

    that divine and perfect pleasure .$ The problem of constancy is linked to moral

    scepticism, and the difficulty of comprehending motivation in such essays as Of

    the inconstancie of our actions. An advocation of constancy can only ever be a

    partial answer to these problems. In his essay Of constancy Montaigne defined it

    as firmly bearing the inconveniences, against which no remedy is to be

    found.$( He does not aim at the complete serenity of the stoic sage, but

    praises instead the wise Peripatetic , as he doth not exempt him self from

    perturbations of the mind, but doth moderate them.$) Montaigne feared the

    $! See Martin van Gelderen, The political thought of the Dutch revolt, (Cambridge, 1992),

    pp. 1807 et passim.$" Justus Lipsius, Two bookes of constancie, trans. John Stradling (London, 1594), p. 9.$# Ibid., p. 15. $$ Ibid., p. 79.$% Ibid., p. 56. This contrasts with Richard Tucks view of Stoicism as a retreat from a corrupt

    world; Tuck, Philosophy and government, pp. 3164.$& Montaignes fame is such that it would be pointless to attempt to list all works that discuss his

    work. For a biography see Donald M. Frame, Montaigne: a biography (London, 1965) ; see also on

    his works Pierre Villey, Les sources et l eU volution des Essaies de Montaigne (Paris, 1908) ; Donald M.Frame, Montaignes discovery of man (New York, 1955) ; R. A. Sayce, The Essays of Montaigne a

    critical exploration (London, 1972).$ Michel de Montaigne, Essayes, trans. John Florio (London, 1603), p. 31.$( Ibid., p. 21. $) Ibid., p. 22.

  • individual and self in the renaissance 351

    consequences of inconstancy, but was sanguine about the ability of human

    beings entirely to overcome it.

    In On how one ought to govern the will, Montaigne shows how he feels this

    detachment should affect how one lives ones life. He declares I am not

    wedded unto many things, and by consequence, not passionate of them, thus

    rejecting the affections that distract me from my self .$* It is an emotional

    engagement with the public world that Montaigne is wary of, a public world

    which is outside the individuals control. He says of those involved in public life,

    Their faculties are not their own, but theirs to whom they subject themselves ,

    the primary example of such a one being his own father, who as mayor of

    Bordeaux was cruelly turmoiled with this public toil .%! He does not advocate

    a retreat from public life, but a different attitude towards it so that one may not

    be destroyed by that which is inherently outside ones control. Montaigne

    advocates a particular way of becoming involved in public affairs, claiming I

    know how to deal in public charges, without departing from my self the

    breadth of my nail ; and give my self to an other, without taking me from my

    self. Indeed, he that employeth but his judgement and direction is better at

    managing public affairs.%" His formulation is similar to stoic sources, but more

    sophisticated in that he gives a name to that which is defined as under his own

    control : he calls that himself. He creates an idea of a self which can provide an

    anchor and make it possible to remain constant and take part in an uncertain

    public sphere.

    Pierre Charrons De la sagesse, translated by Samson Lennard in 1606 as Of

    wisdome three bookes written in French, aimed beyond a wisdom, discretion and

    advised carriage in a mans affairs and conversation, this being common, as

    respecting nothing but that which is outward and in action.%# Charron argues

    that man is the play-game of Fortune, the image of inconstancy, the example

    and spectacle of infirmity.%$ In response to this, desires and pleasures must be

    governed, and suffering should be welcomed: In these times of prosperity,

    adversity is a medicine, because it leadeth us to the knowledge of our selves. %%

    The fruit of all our labours and studies, the crown of wisdom is to maintain

    himself in true tranquillity of spirit , not involving a retreat or vacation from

    all affairs but an impermeability to the blows of fortune, and to restore

    himself to himself .%&

    Many English writers followed Montaigne and produced volumes of essays,

    $* Ibid., p. 600. %! Ibid., pp. 600, 601. %" Ibid., p. 602.%# Pierre Charron, Of wisdome three bookes written in French, trans. Samson Lennard (London,

    1606), sig. A, 2v. On Charrons life, see Alfred Soman, Pierre Charron: a revaluation, Bibliothe[ qued humanisme et Renaissance, 32 (1970), pp. 5779. On his political significance, Anna Maria Battista,

    Alle origini del pensiero politico libertino (Milan, 1966). See also E. F. Rice, The Renaissance idea of wisdom

    (Harvard, 1958), pp. 178207 ; Richard H. Popkin, The history of scepticism from Erasmus to Descartes

    (Assen, 1960), pp. 5663 ; Anthony Levi, French moralists, the theory of the passions (Oxford, 1964), pp.

    95111 ; M. C. Horowitz, Pierre Charrons view of the source of wisdom, Journal of the History of

    Philosophy, 9 (1971), pp. 44357. %$ Charron, Of wisdome, p. 118. %% Ibid., p. 299%& Ibid., pp. 346, 347.

  • 352 geoff baldwin

    but few discussed constancy or stoic ideas in any detail.% One who did was

    William Cornwallis, whose Essayes was published in 1600. As well as using the

    essay form, he speaks of having common purpose with Montaigne in speaking

    of himself only in order to instruct. While accepting that human beings are

    subject to fate or destiny, he regards it as an excuse for sloth, as these names

    of shelter are but the surnames to our folly , and Our actions are in our own

    hands, to be directed by wisdom and virtue.%( To gain such wisdom and live

    accordingly, it is necessary for the individual to be reflexive: let us begin with

    our selves, and marshal and dispose our own course ; let us determine it, and

    leave nothing to uncertainties, but drawing out our intents regularly, follow

    that delineated and weighed manner: Here lives Happiness, for here lives

    wisdom.%)

    Constancy is necessary to do this, and Cornwallis praises the patience

    necessary to resist calamities, to be shaken with the winds and tempests of

    Chance, and mortality, and yet not to be loosened, nor in danger of falling, is

    the most beautiful, the most happie, and the most renowned blessing of man.%*

    Cornwalliss reflections serve as testimony to the influence of stoic thought in

    England, but also to the complexity of its reception in a country which, while

    at times politically unstable, was not racked by civil war. The stoic virtue of

    constancy made central by the Dutchman Lipsius remains important, but is

    subordinated to other aspects of stoic philosophy and ideas of selfhood.

    Another perspective on the stoic inheritance is provided by the divine Joseph

    Hall, author of Characters of virtues and vices, whose Heaven upon earth, or of true peace

    and tranquillitie of mind was published in 1608. He gives a traditional definition

    of tranquillity, That it is such an even disposition of the heart, wherein the

    scales of the mind neither rise up towards the beam, through their own

    lightness, or the over-weaning opinion of prosperity, nor are too much

    depressed with any load of sorrow; but hanging equal and unmoved betwixt

    both. &! Hall adds Christian ideas of grace to the Senecan method by which one

    may attain tranquillity. Later in the piece he reiterates some of Senecas ideas

    at greater length, for instance the promotion of that wisdom to teach us to

    esteem of all events as they are , that is how they truly relate to ourselves, rather

    than how they seem to affect us.&" Expectation and foresight of suffering are

    also recommended such that troubles are half past in their violence when they

    do come.

    % Francis Bacons Essayes, published in 1597 and later expanded, was perhaps the first.%( William Cornwallis, Essayes by Sir William Cornewalys the younger, knight (London, 1600), sig. B,

    4r. His Discourses upon Seneca the tragedian (London, 1601) were often bound in with the essays, and

    a combined edition was published in 1632. %) Ibid., sig. B, 8v.%* Ibid., sig. E, 5rv.&! Joseph Hall, Heaven upon earth, or of true peace and tranquillitie of mind (London, 1608), pp. 78.

    Joseph Hall (15741656) was famous as a writer of meditative literature. See Richard McCabe,

    Joseph Hall: a study in satire and meditation (Oxford, 1982) ; Frank Livingstone Huntley, Bishop Joseph

    Hall and Protestant meditation (Binghampton, 1981) ; T. F. Kinlock, The life and work of Joseph Hall,

    (London, 1951) ; Audrey Chew, Joseph Hall and neo-stoicism, Proceedings of the Modern

    Languages Association, 65 (1950), pp. 113045. &" Hall, Heaven upon earth, p. 73. Ibid., p. 80.

  • individual and self in the renaissance 353

    The ideal of being independent from the capricious events of the world was

    obviously of great importance to a wide variety of early modern thinkers. The

    virtue of constancy became less associated with the consistent performance of

    duty, and more with an inner state, which, while it helped the individual carry

    out public service, was also intrinsically important. The methods for attaining

    constancy and tranquillity involved a reservation of a part of the individual,

    most often in line with the Epictetian distinction between that which is within

    our control, and that which is not. This did not mean a retreat from external

    events, which were outside the individuals control, but a tendency to devalue

    them so that they lost their power to define the individual.

    III

    Constancy, as described above, was dependent upon a correct discerning of

    what was of value and what was not. A false opinion of where the good lay

    could be extremely damaging, and was identified as an enemy of tranquillity.

    Regarding the external world as inessential to the real well-being of the

    individual involved not merely being impervious to adverse events, but also

    regarding external or general opinion as unimportant. Writers discussing ideas

    of stoicism and the self not only counselled independence from opinion, but

    regarded their ideas, at an individual level, as an antidote to the problems it

    caused.

    For Epictetus, The things do not trouble men, but the opinions which they

    conceive of them, as it is only an opinion that a particular event is harmful, in

    contrast to its true significance which is negligible with regard to those things

    which he regarded as important.&$ Similarly, one should not judge glory by the

    use of opinion.&% In du Vairs version of stoic thought, the desire for riches and

    honour should be resisted, and in this respect one must chase away this furious

    desire far from us, and leaving the foolish opinions of the vulgar sort of

    people .&& The doubt thrown on the link between glory and virtue was the

    result of a scepticism about the value of general approbation, where techniques

    of manipulating that approbation were openly practised. This was especially

    true when a distinction was made between those who could discern such

    manipulation, ideally of course the stoic sage, and those to whom opinion

    provided the only guide. There was no guarantee that virtue would bring

    honour: it would have to be its own reward. To judge by opinion would lead

    to both discontent and potentially immoral action.

    For Lipsius, the intellectual confusion caused by the calamity of civil war is

    a result of opinion. In Two bookes of constancie, the character of Lipsius is in

    dialogue with Charles Langius who attempts to convince him to constancy. He

    describes Lipsiuss present confusion, For these mists and clouds that thus

    compass thee, do proceed from the smoke of opinions. & Opinion is linked to

    &$ Epictetus, Manuell, sig. B, 3v. &% Ibid., sig. B, 4v.&& Du Vair, The moral philosophie of the stoicks, p. 70.& Lipsius, Two bookes of constancie, p. 3. Charles Lange was a humanist and friend of Lipsius.

  • 354 geoff baldwin

    the senses in Lipsiuss physiognomy of thought, as it representeth to the soul

    the shapes and forms of things thorough windows of the senses , and as such

    takes their side and By the means of it wee are troubled with cares, distracted

    with perturbations, over-ruled by vices. &( Later in the work, Langius argues

    that we must not fear circumstances such as poverty, exile, or death, but

    behold them naked without any vestment or vizard of opinions .&) To achieve

    constancy or tranquillity, Lipsius regards a proper appreciation of the dangers

    of opinion as a necessity.

    The figure of the sagacious man figures strongly in Montaignes Essayes, often

    in opposition to common or vulgar thought. He argues that diversity of

    opinions possible upon any event or thing means that any particular opinion

    on pain, poverty, or death is subjectively determined, For if evils have no

    entrance into-us, but by our judgement, it seemeth that it lieth in our power,

    either to contemn or turn them to our good. &* Montaigne thus retains the

    lineaments of the stoic argument, while emphasizing the sceptical element that

    not only contributes both to the necessity of so acting or so thinking, but makes

    it a possibility. In discussing glory, Montaigne expands Epictetus argument

    about public approbation. Taking account of other peoples views, we are

    exposed to a breathy confusion of bruits, and frothy Chaos of reports, and of

    vulgar opinions , especially dangerous as appearances are no clear indication

    of the nature of the event.! Honour is rejected: Let us disdain this insatiate

    thirst of honour and renown, base and beggarly, which makes us so suppliantly

    to crave it of all sorts of people. " Montaignes scepticism with regard to his

    own opinions and the opinions of others has the effect of destroying the

    humanist connection between virtue and glory, and turns opinion into the

    enemy of the wise man rather than the measure of the virtuous.

    For Pierre Charron, opinion was a vain, light, crude and imperfect

    iudgement of things drawn from the outward senses, and common report

    never arriving to the understanding, which is extremely dangerous if it is

    allowed to become settled.# In opposing dogmatists, and such as will govern,

    and give laws unto the world, Charron argues that people are too quick to

    believe what is commonly accepted, thus he regards the whole world led and

    carried with opinions and beliefs .$ Common opinion tends to have a

    snowballing effect, thus which dogma is accepted, or who is regarded as

    virtuous, is for Charron merely a question of fortune.% The state of the world

    is a mass of contradictory opinions, which can only be resolved by subservience

    to custom.

    English writers took up the arguments about opinion with some enthusiasm,

    and indeed this was an aspect of English thought evident before the importing

    of French stoic material. In his Virtues commonwealth of 1603, Henry Crosse

    argued that the problems of poverty and other aictions are bad if judged

    &( Ibid., p. 12. &) Ibid., p. 107. &* Montaigne, Essayes, p. 127.! Ibid., p. 363. " Ibid., p. 611. # Charron, Of wisdome, p. 67.$ Ibid., pp. 159, 157. % Ibid., p. 160.

  • individual and self in the renaissance 355

    only with the eye of common reason, which the wise should ignore to fit

    himself to bear the troubles of this life, with a valiant and immutable

    courage.& He rejected riches, parentage, office, place, dignity as indicators

    of virtue, as they are part of a rotten ladder , dependent on the judgement of

    the opinion of the multitude. He criticizes those who have climbed this

    ladder ; they are in their own opinion very gallant, but in the judgement of

    wise men they are but a blown bladder, painted over with many colours,

    stuffed full of pride and envy.( Opinion has enabled such men to succeed

    thanks to the uncertain nature of success and failure in the public world.

    Cornwallis held that opinion, a monster, half Truth, and half Falsehood,

    is to be rejected even though it is a component of worldly success, as it cleaves

    most to great Fortunes, and yet liveth upon the breath of the vulgar .) This

    illustrates the disjunction between the necessity of courting opinion for

    promotion or honour and its natural falsehood and debasement, accentuated

    by its association with the vulgar people. Those who court popularity Needs

    must they have cunning that deal with this ticklish commodity of the vulgars

    favour, which cunning has the capacity to corrupt the ambitious. It is

    necessary, but as the blossom of the tree of virtue is susceptible to base

    mercenary imitations , as the labour of most men now adayes is not to obtain

    truths, but opinions warrant .* Cornwalliss attitude to opinion is ambiguous,

    distrusting it while recognizing its indispensability. His is a less pressing

    constancy, and also a less pressing rejection of opinion than that which was

    required of the stoic sage.

    Opinion within an individual was regarded as the mistaken estimation of

    both people and things that could do harm by leading one to have a false

    conception of what lay within ones power and what did not, thus disturbing

    the minds tranquillity. Opinion in the world was beyond control, especially as

    it could be consciously manipulated by the unscrupulous, or even by the honest

    man attempting to advance or merely act in the world. To regard such opinion

    as a true measure would lead either to dishonesty or perturbation of the mind,

    or both, and an alienation of the individual from his true worth which could

    not thus be estimated. The discernment of appearance from reality was held to

    be impossible, or at least very difficult, for the vulgar or common sort of people.

    This prejudice favoured those who had read and accepted the sceptical and

    stoic arguments on which it was based; to some extent at least they were able

    to penetrate the mist of opinion with which all knowledge was shrouded. It was

    they, therefore, who could be constant, and who could discern what was, and

    what was not, essential to the self.

    A sense of constancy and independence from common opinion were both

    virtues advised in the ancient texts in pursuit of an ideal of the correct

    & Henry Crosse, Virtues commonwealth: or the high-way to honour (London, 1603), sig. F, 1r, sig. F,

    2r. Ibid., sig. D, 1r. ( Ibid., sig. K, 3v. ) Cornwallis, Essayes, sig. I, 2v.* Ibid., sig. Q, 2vQ, 3r ; sig. Q, 3rv; William Cornwallis, Discourses upon Seneca the tragedian

    (London, 1601), sig. B, 4v.

  • 356 geoff baldwin

    relationship with the political or social world. This to some extent could seem

    to be itself a role to be inhabited, rather than something clearly distinct from

    the ideas of office-holding emphasized by traditional humanism. While seeing

    stoic ideas as a resource in dealing with the problems raised by humanist ethics

    and political life, those thinkers considered here went further. They wished to

    redescribe the relationship that the individual should have with the offices they

    might perform, or the roles they might play. This redescription was not an

    attempt to define a role or set of imperatives, but to create a space away from

    those roles the individual inhabited.(!

    IV

    One way of confronting the problems of action in a world dominated by

    opinion was to give an explanation of individual reason. Explanations of the

    workings of the soul differed in complexity and arrangement and even in the

    number of the various faculties, but the similarity of the arguments that ran

    through a wide variety of texts is striking. The mind was thought to be broadly

    divided into two faculties : the rational and the sensitive, the higher of those two

    being the rational, which in scholastic terms was closer to God. Reason was

    thus in opposition to passions, which demand an immediate and unthinking

    response, and opinion, which is a potential misrepresentation of significance or

    moral value. Reason was therefore necessary to judge the actions of others and,

    perhaps more importantly, to act appropriately and give the correct impression

    to others : in other words, to achieve any degree of worldly success. Many texts

    created an idea of what it was to be rational, defined, to use their most common

    metaphor, in terms of the internal politics of the soul, and against the supposed

    irrationality of the common or vulgar people, who inhabited a world of

    opinion.("

    This could only ever be part of the solution to the problem of being and

    acting in a world which could not be relied upon to display the same

    rationality. As well as following reason, it could be thought necessary to

    reinforce a sense of self, a sense of something reserved, through a process of

    introspection. Stoicism could be seen as creating a sense of self aloof from the

    caprices of fortune, which enabled the individual to cope and remain constant

    despite reversals. Constancy was necessary to any such sense of self, as it had to

    be something that remained the same rather than being at the mercy of either

    circumstance or outward opinion. The reservation of something particular to

    (! There is a desire in authors such as Tuck and Salmon (Philosophy and government and Seneca

    and Tacitus in Jacobean England) to see stoicism as a doctrine of retreat from the world in a

    corrupt time: this provides part of a new humanism which is as a whole to be associated with a

    corrupt political sphere, by contrast to natural law or more modern constructions. The stoic

    inheritance, however, could and was turned in other, more positive, directions, as this article

    attempts to demonstrate.(" For a detailed discussion with reference to the French writers, see Anthony Levi, French

    moralists (Oxford, 1964), pp. 195.

  • individual and self in the renaissance 357

    the individual, or the exclusion of the inessential, was not a simple process. One

    part of that process was the maintenance of the sovereignty of reason within the

    soul or the mind, which enabled correct judgement to be made about the

    nature of that which was presented through the senses. Good judgement could

    therefore be seen as both a product of, and essential to, the self. Self-

    examination was part of this process, both because it could help maintain the

    balance necessary for good judgement, and because it was essential to the

    notion of reservation of something which was particular individual.

    The stoic sources were relatively silent on these issues. Seneca did, however,

    make a strong link between tranquillity and a sense of reservation. In Of

    tranquilitie, he discusses the hazards of the public life, concluding let my mind

    cleave unto himself, let him seem himself : let him not intend no foreign

    businesses, nor any thing that is subject to every mans censure.(# Conversations

    with strangers are dangerous, and we ought to retire our selves very inwardly

    within our selves, for the conversation of those men that are of different humour

    from us, disturbeth those things that are well composed, and reneweth

    affections .($ The idea that exposure to novelty or affections could disturb a

    sense of self was reproduced by du Vair in his account of the passions in The

    moral philosophy of the stoicks. Fear promotes other passions such as hatred of what

    is feared, and carrieth us out of our selves , while jealousy is nothing else but

    a distrust of a mans self, and a bearing witness of him self against himself of his

    small deservings .(% Passion, as taking one away from oneself, or being an

    expression of the fact that one is already alienated from ones essence, is a very

    significant step beyond Epictetus, whose thought du Vair claimed to be

    representing.(&

    Montaigne makes a similar complaint about the affections, that they create

    false imagination in us , which means that We are never in our selves, but

    beyond. ( The soul is unable to remain constant, being always moved and

    tossed, and if she have not some hold to take, looseth it self in it self, and must

    ever be stored with some object, on which it may light and work.(( He claims

    that it is not possible to complain enough about the disorder and unruliness of

    our minde, which is not settled enough to concentrate on itself and thus create

    a settled sense of itself, but will always wander towards new objects.() The

    import of Montaignes answer is that judgement must be turned and focused

    upon oneself if any part of his project is to be realized. An effort must be made

    to create a sense of self that is separated from the external world. In discussing

    solitariness, he argues that it is not sufficient to shift place, a man must also

    sever him-self from the popular conditions, that are in us. A man must sequester

    and recover himself from himself. (* This sequestration requires judgement,

    and makes impartial judgement a possibility. Once achieved, it should be

    (# Seneca, Works, p. 635. ($ Ibid., p. 652.(% Du Vair, Moral philosophy, pp. 90, 1012.(& This has become proverbial ; one still speaks of being beside oneself with anger or fear.( Montaigne, Essayes, p. 5. (( Ibid., p. 9. () Ibid., p. 10. (* Ibid., p. 119.

  • 358 geoff baldwin

    possible for the wise man to wed nothing but himself , despite the huge

    inequality in appearance and reality between individuals.)! In Of exercise or

    practice, Montaigne describes self-examination as essential to this process,

    There is no description so hard, nor so profitable, as is the description of a

    mans own self. )" A conceited consideration of ones life leads to alienation for

    those who build castles in the air ; deeming themselves as a third person and

    strangers to themselves , such that it is essential that good judgement be

    reflexively employed.)#

    Montaigne argues in the same vein when discussing the active life : it is most

    important to avoid becoming a stranger to oneself. In On how one ought to govern

    his will he develops the traditional analogy of the stage as Most of our

    vacations are like plays. Care must be taken when playing a part to maintain

    an appropriate distinction: We must play our parts duly, but as the part of a

    borrowed personage. Of a vizard and appearance, wee should not make a real

    essence, nor proper of that which is anothers.)$

    Such as fail to distinguish the skin from the shirt become inconstant, they

    transform and transubstantiate themselves, into as many new forms and

    strange beings as they undertake charges .)% The primary injunction from

    Montaigne is to avoid this happening, not to give oneself to any party so that

    the understanding is thereby infected.)& The understanding must be

    maintained to retain the sense of something specific and unique. For

    Montaigne, living in the world required the reservation, or even the creation,

    of an idea of the self in order to sustain a proper outward appearance. For there

    to be different parts well played, there had to be an actor capable of judging

    and distinguishing the part from reality : there had to be a self.

    Charron demanded for his wisdom a high status, First, that wisdom which

    is neither common nor vulgar hath properly this libertie and authoritie, Iure suo

    singulari, to judge of all and in judging to censure and condemn common

    and vulgar opinions. ) To judge by ones own rule was a radical solution to the

    problem of scepticism, but was restricted to a relatively small number of people.

    It was dependent upon reason, but, more importantly, on self-knowledge:

    Thou forgetest thy self, and losest thy self about outward things ; thou

    betrayest and disrobest thy self ; thou lookest alwaies before thee; gather thy self

    unto thy self, and shut up thy self within thy self : examine, search, know thy

    self. )(

    Charron here communicates a strong sense of the necessity of reserving and

    keeping something of the self through the process of searching for self through

    introspection. It is easy to know the things which are outwardly adjacent to

    individuals, such as offices, dignities, riches, nobilitie, grace, and applause of

    the greatest peers and common people , but this public carriage is of no

    account ; what is necessary is a true, long, and daily study of himself, a serious

    )! Ibid., pp. 1201. )" Ibid., p. 219. )# Ibid., p. 220. )$ Ibid., p. 604.)% Ibid., pp. 6045. )& Ibid., p. 605. ) Charron, Of wisdome, sig. A, 6v.)( Ibid., p. 2.

  • individual and self in the renaissance 359

    and attentive examination not only of his words, and actions, but of his most

    secret thoughts .)) This is the essence of the wisdom that Charron wishes to

    teach.

    This independence of mind does not imply the ability to ignore accepted

    rules and customs, but while outwardly conforming, the wise man will play

    one part before the world, and another in his mind, which he must do to

    preserve equity and iustice in all .)* Judgement is here preserved in a space

    away from the censure of an unthinking and unreflective world, enabling the

    individual to remain just despite the uncertain value of truth or opinion. The

    elite capable of reservation and judgement must not, however, retreat into their

    gardens to preserve their independence. While we must reserve our selves unto

    our selves , the wise individual must apply himself to public society those

    offices and duties which concern him, but in doing so should not confuse such

    duties with his own self.*! Charron argues : we must know how to distinguish

    and separate our selves from our public charges : every one of us playeth two

    parts, two persons ; the one strange and apparent, the other proper and

    essential .*"

    Knowing how to separate and preserve the proper and essential person is

    the subject of Charrons chapter, Of the justice and duty of man towards

    himself , which he argues is a microcosm of the entire three books. What is

    required is to make a diligent culture of himself , asking himself the reason

    why things have gone either right or wrong. If vices or natural defects are

    found, he must quietly and sweetly correct them, and provide for them. It is

    a process of recovery: He must reason with himself, correct and recall himself

    courageously. *# In Charrons thought the convergence between the ideas of a

    self and ideas about judgement is striking. It is necessary to judge well in order

    to recall oneself well, and to recall oneself well in order to reserve a self that is

    able to judge.

    William Cornwallis is eloquent in recommending the knowledge of the self,

    asking whether can knowledge bend her force, more excellently then, then

    man to look upon man: this knowledge is profitable, for it is for himself . All

    other sorts of knowledge are subordinate to this, as it hunts for light without

    light, in himself he must begin and end, for in himself is the light of reason,

    that discovereth all things else .*$ For Cornwallis knowledge of the self is a

    prerequisite for the acquisition of any type of knowledge, as it shows how it is

    possible to have knowledge at all. It is necessary to have knowledge of how the

    mind can and does know things, and to have a knowledge of the particular

    nature of ones own mind, before knowledge of the world becomes a possibility.

    Judgement is described as the child of this knowledge and reason, and enables

    the individual to be virtuous, especially in the exercise of power. To be taken

    in by deception, especially flattery, is a flaw in knowledge of the self, a false

    reflection of our own thoughts that abuseth us .*% To be absorbed in deception,

    )) Ibid., pp. 5, 6. )* Ibid., p. 233. *! Ibid., p. 251. *" Ibid., p. 252.*# Ibid., p. 425. *$ Cornwallis, Essayes, sig. X, 7v. *% Ibid., sig. Nn, 4r.

  • 360 geoff baldwin

    to be continually practising it, means that a man looseth the use of himself .*&

    Cornwalliss ideas about the self are limited, but the force of his text is to

    attempt to show how it is possible to retain the use of oneself. The prerequisite

    for good judgement in matters of the external world, and the divination of

    falsehood, is a knowledge and examination of the soul.

    The self as an object is elusive, and the closest most authors come to

    describing it is as something which retains its independence and ability to

    judge, despite both the inherent deceptiveness of appearance, and the roles

    which the individual is forced to take up as a matter of course. This involves

    introspection, and a continual assessment of the individuals state of mind, to

    ensure that there is something which remains untouched either by internal

    passions or external perturbations. A language of liberty could be used to

    uphold this conception about how individuals should act with respect to

    themselves and the world.

    V

    Ideas of independence could merge easily with ideas of freedom. If it were

    possible to retain a self that was unaffected by outside events or opinions, then

    that self could be regarded as free. Unfreedom could exist if one were enslaved

    either to passion, the inner motions of an unbalanced soul, or to opinion,

    accepted but untried knowledge. Seneca put his views on fortune in these terms

    in Of tranquilitie, emphasizing that all are subject to her caprice, Some are

    enthralled by their honours, othersome by their base estate. * In Of constancy,

    freedom is equated with that quality, liberty being when we oppose a resolute

    mind against injuries .*( Epictetus put his ideas in terms of freedom,

    commanding He then which will be free, let him neither desire, nor flee any

    thing, which is in an other man his hand, and power, otherwise of necessity he

    shall be constrained to serve. *) Only that which was within the mind was not,

    to some extent, in the power of others.

    Lipsius put the point in a more dialectical fashion when speaking of reason,

    perhaps putting a twist on the common humanist sentiment that to bear rule

    one must learn to obey: To obey it is to bear rule, and to be subject thereunto

    is to have the sovereignty in all human affairs. ** Freedom through subjection

    may appear somewhat paradoxical, but to be rational was a prerequisite of any

    freedom, because it left the judgement free despite the generally evil use of

    power in the world. Lipsius concluded Thy judgement is not restrained, but

    thy acts. "!! Du Vair describes in more detail how a passion, envy, destroys

    freedom by making one chase after false goods such as wealth, which in order

    to gain we have to flatter and cozen as they do, suffer many injuries, and needs

    lose our liberty."!" To be invited to a banquet one must flatter the host, and so

    lose the liberty of expressing an honest judgement. Thus, ideas of liberty

    *& Ibid., sig. Nn, 4v. * Seneca, Works, p. 645. *( Ibid., p. 671.*) Epictetus, Manuell, sig. C, 1v. ** Lipsius, Constancy, p. 11. "!! Ibid., p. 122."!" Du Vair, Moral philosophie, p. 97.

  • individual and self in the renaissance 361

    functioned within these texts in two ways: first, with respect to the way the

    individual should be in order to be capable of freedom, and secondly, how it was

    possible to express that freedom despite the corruption of the world by being

    independent of it.

    The greatest liberty for Montaigne was the contemning of death or any other

    temporal aiction after the stoic manner. He advises the contemplation of

    death such that it loses its strangeness, and argues : Herein consists the true and

    Sovereign liberty, that affords us means wherewith to jest and make a scorn of

    force and injustice, and to deride imprisonment, gives, or fetters."!#

    The readiness to accept aiction is the way to gain independence and

    freedom from the world. Montaigne also values a somewhat similar intellectual

    liberty associated with scepticism. He praises the Pyrrhonians for their extreme

    doubt, They are so much the freer and at liberty, for that their power of

    judgement is kept entire. "!$ It is not only an inner liberty that is valued, but

    a life where that liberty can be given expression. He goes on to condemn the

    favours and obsequies that courtiers have to perform, These favours, with the

    commodities that follow minion-courtiers, corrupt (not without some colour of

    reason) his liberty, and dazzle his judgement. "!% Courtiers are unfree not only

    because they have to subject their own judgement to that of others, but because

    this process leads to the destruction of their original ability to judge. This dual

    liberty, of judgement and expression, is a liberty which Montaigne evidently

    valued and saw as an integral part of ideas about stoicism or the self.

    Charron in his introduction shows how he values self-knowledge, and links

    the fight against passion and opinion to freedom: He that hath an erroneous

    knowledge of himself, that subjecteth his minde to any kinde of servitude, either

    of passions or popular opinions, makes himself partial ; and by enthralling

    himself to some particular opinion is deprived of the liberty and jurisdiction of

    discerning, judging and examining all things."!&

    Slavery is here imagined as occurring within the mind, as lack of

    independence from a particular idea or way of thinking. To remain free in

    himself the individual must examine, and weigh all reasons or opinions, and

    not give up that ability to judge in any sphere, else he will be led like oxen,

    rather than living freely."! The most important opinion to be free of is that

    concerning death or other aictions, and Charron follows Montaignes

    argument about learning to die, the science of dying is the science of

    liberty."!( Death is natural and part of ones own life, and to fear it is to fear

    "!# Montaigne, Essayes, p. 36. "!$ Ibid., p. 291. "!% Ibid., p. 73."!& Charron, Of wisdome, sig. A, 2v. "! Ibid., pp. 230, 233."!( Ibid., p. 329. On attitudes to death, see Philipe Arie s, The hour of our death, trans. Helen

    Weaver (New York, 1981) ; Michel Vovelle, Mourir autrefois : attitudes collectives devant la mort aux

    XVIIe et XVIIIe sie[ cles (Paris, 1974) ; Joachim Whaley, ed., Mirrors of mortality: studies in the socialhistory of death (London, 1981) ; David Stannard, The puritan way of death: a study in religion, culture and

    social change (Oxford, 1977) ; Clare Gittings, Death, burial and the individual in early-modern England

    (London, 1984) ; Michael Neill, Issues of death: mortality and identity in English Renaissance tragedy

    (Oxford, 1997), pp. 148.

  • 362 geoff baldwin

    an opinion. Opinion can also enslave in its manifestation as honour, which,

    being the opinion of others, is in their gift. To follow honour unreservedly is

    voluntarily to renounce his own liberty, because it is to let his own affections

    depend upon the eyes of another , or even the vulgar sort ."!) Thus, Charrons

    wisdom is intended to free the individual from two sorts of slavery; the

    knowledge is necessary to set at liberty, and to free our selves from that

    miserable double captivity, public and domesticall, of another, and of

    ourselves ."!*

    English writers were on the whole less keen to emphasize this aspect of their

    thought, but it did emerge in the writings of Cornwallis. In speaking of

    suspicion he describes how a lack of virtue means liberty is lost, giving liberty

    we loose liberty, and by degrees throwing of the prescribed course of Virtue, we

    fall into the incertainties of passions, and appetites .""! Here liberty is again

    figured in opposition to the internal tyranny of appetites. Later, he puts it in

    terms of pleasure, it is not pleasure to do what wee list, but never to stray from

    what we should.""" In Of natures policy, he links these ideas to a concept of

    policy, which is equivalent to the sovereignty of reason over the childish or

    beastly courses in the soul. Policy is reason writ large, and it too is important

    for the soul, and can contribute to its freedom: and therefore Policy producing

    peace, and peace giving liberty to the souls workings, government and policy

    are the destinated and direct objects of the souls that are yet in bodies .""#

    Cornwallis is interested here in the public conditions necessary for the

    production of peace in the mind, and he concludes that the efforts of those

    minds must be focused on the problem of the public peace. This concurs with

    a more traditionally republican notion of freedom which requires individuals

    to demonstrate virtue to ensure its preservation.

    The idea of intellectual freedom was a highly significant product of neo-

    stoicism or thought concerning the self. While accepting the essentially unfree

    nature of the individuals place within the world, no matter what status he or

    she was accorded, it showed how there was a different sort of liberty that could

    be achieved. It was divided into two parts : first, the ability to judge by virtue

    of the freedom of ones own mind, scorning the interferences of passions ;

    secondly, which was not so easily within grasp, the freedom to express

    judgement, or not to be bound to admitting conventional wisdom, or the

    particular opinion of another. The latter was especially bound up with ideas of

    honour or popularity, which were closely tied to the opinion of others, such that

    not to accept these values was to be free.

    "!) Ibid., p. 79. "!* Ibid., p. 224. ""! Cornwallis, Essayes, sig. C, 5r.""" Cornwallis, Discourses upon Seneca the tragedian, sig. A, 6r.""# Ibid., sig. Aa, 2v, sig. Aa, 3r.

  • individual and self in the renaissance 363

    VI

    This amalgam of liberties points to the confused and at times contradictory

    nature of writings that concerned themselves with the self. What is clear is that

    after the turn of the century there was an explosion of interest in texts which

    had several themes in common, and can be thought of as providing strategies

    for individual survival in a capricious world. These ideas did not provide a

    clear and cogent argument, but rather an association of several different

    concepts, some of them having their origins in newly popular stoic thought. It

    is plausible to group these ideas around the idea of a self, as so many texts used

    this term of analysis, although it was only comparatively rarely that they

    stopped to analyse it in any detail. In order to be able to elude the clutches of

    fortune, it was necessary to be constant, and to disregard that which was

    outside ones control, without at the same time abandoning public duties or

    virtuous effort. Associated with fortune was the opinion of the world, which

    itself was both subject to fortune, and at the same time determined it. To

    disregard the world it was necessary to reserve something that could not be

    harmed or in any way influenced by it.

    Ideas about reason and the functioning of the soul were employed to

    demonstrate how it was possible for an individual to judge, or how it was

    possible to resist either accepted opinion or the sensual urges of the body. The

    ideal of reason could be held up as giving the possibility of the search after an

    impartial truth, and defeating passions which clouded the mind against clear

    sightedness. Judgement made possible the reservation of something which

    could be called the self, away from that which sought either to control or to

    destroy the individual. It is clear that the French writers conceptions of the self

    were far more sophisticated than those of the English, and they were far keener

    to discuss the self as an object. There was a huge demand for this French

    literature, all of the important texts from the French stoic thought being

    translated very rapidly after their composition. The English writers seemed

    keener to emphasize the sovereignty of reason as the most significant product

    of this complex of ideas, and it may be significant that this was the formulation

    farthest removed from the stoic sources. They did not on the whole employ

    these ideas to construct a theory of liberty as did the French. The important

    point is, however, that these ideas were available to Englishmen at the start of

    the seventeenth century, and would be highly influential throughout the whole

    century.

    With the possible exception of William Cornwallis, the English essayists and

    writers were less sophisticated than their French counterparts, and the full

    impact of their ideas would not be apparent from merely studying their

    immediate intellectual heirs. What is very apparent is that both sets of thinkers

    used these ideas to address the problematic relationship between the public and

    private spheres, which traditional humanist concepts were increasingly unable

    to resolve. The valuing of honour and glory as an indication of worth had been

  • 364 geoff baldwin

    questioned by scepticism, and a theory of the self provided a method for

    retaining ideals of public service while accepting the sceptical argument about

    the value of general opinion. In order to present a public persona given this

    atmosphere, it was important not to put ones whole self into this persona, so that

    the individual could not be described by referring to the sum of duties or offices

    held. Something unique had to be retained that could not be crushed, as

    Montaignes father had been crushed, by the destruction of those other persona.

    Not only this, but the self which was reserved had to be capable of judgement,

    so that it could discern the deception of the world and direct the operation of

    one or more persona. This made it possible to act in a flawed world, and remain

    true to oneself and therefore potentially free.

    The sense of self evinced in the texts described above differs from the ideas of

    self which have been used to examine and criticize literary texts. For

    Greenblatt, an artificial self is created by an author for a purpose, in effect, to

    perform an act of communication. It is precisely this process, which is part of

    political as well as literary life, that these writers are protesting against. The

    performance of this act, without any attempt to retain a sense of the essential

    self, is both unsuccessful and damaging to the individual. The resolution of the

    problem of acting in a fluid public sphere, with all the strategies of presentation

    that implies, is the self-conscious fashioning of a real, as opposed to a fictive, self.

    This would make it possible both to understand, and live in, the external world.

    The sense of self which seems to emerge here is one which lies between the

    stereotypical view of Renaissance humanism and individualism in a later

    eighteenth-century sense. These writers did not regard autonomy as the

    defining feature of human existence, and therefore as the basis of ethics, as did

    Kant, for whom each individual must legislate the moral law. Neither did they

    describe the individuals relationship with the political and social world in

    terms of roles to be performed, or offices to be filled. They attempted to offer a

    solution to the problems of a public existence as dramatized by writers like

    More and Shakespeare. There is an analogy between the public ethics of early

    manifestations of humanism in England, such as that of Elyot, and the view of

    the world as inter-subjective held by some literary critics : in both there is little

    space for the self as opposed to a persona. Such an analogy can lead to the

    dangerous error of homogenizing the Renaissance in England, whereas

    reactions to the problems raised by humanist thought constituted a significant

    innovation in effectively and deliberately separating self and persona : an

    enumeration of offices could not describe an individual. Later writers such as

    Hobbes or Spinoza would attempt to base a moral theory, and political

    obligation, on private deliberation. At the beginning of the seventeenth

    century, there was a body of writers who developed ideas of the self which drew

    upon stoicism and ideas of office, but went beyond both of these. They pointed

    forward to more individualistic moral theories, as well as backwards to the

    conception of the individual as a performer of a variety of roles.