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South Atlantic Modern Language Association Southeastern Renaissance Conference/1976 Abstracts Source: South Atlantic Bulletin, Vol. 41, No. 3, Program Issue: The Forty-Sixth Annual Convention (Sep., 1976), pp. 39-43 Published by: South Atlantic Modern Language Association Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3198861 . Accessed: 28/06/2014 17:35 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. . South Atlantic Modern Language Association is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to South Atlantic Bulletin. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 185.31.194.141 on Sat, 28 Jun 2014 17:35:56 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

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Page 1: Program Issue: The Forty-Sixth Annual Convention || Southeastern Renaissance Conference/1976 Abstracts

South Atlantic Modern Language Association

Southeastern Renaissance Conference/1976 AbstractsSource: South Atlantic Bulletin, Vol. 41, No. 3, Program Issue: The Forty-Sixth AnnualConvention (Sep., 1976), pp. 39-43Published by: South Atlantic Modern Language AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3198861 .

Accessed: 28/06/2014 17:35

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

.

South Atlantic Modern Language Association is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extendaccess to South Atlantic Bulletin.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 185.31.194.141 on Sat, 28 Jun 2014 17:35:56 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Page 2: Program Issue: The Forty-Sixth Annual Convention || Southeastern Renaissance Conference/1976 Abstracts

SOUTHEASTERN RENAISSANCE CONFERENCE/1976 MEETING

The Southeastern Renaissance Conference held its thirty-third annual meeting at the University of South Carolina, Columbia, on April 10-11, 1976. Officers for the year were President Norman Sanders, University of Tennessee; Vice President Joan Hartwig, University of Kentucky; and Secretary-Treasurer Theodore L. Hugelet, Western Carolina University. At the business meeting, the following new officers for 1977 were elected: Joan Hartwig, President, and Larry Champion, North Carolina State University, Vice President. The 1977 meeting will be held April 1-2, 1977, at the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington.

Below are abstracts of papers presented on the 1976 program: Mutations of Pietas Litterata/William Sessions/Georgia State University

Pietas litterata refers to a special aspect of humanism in northern Europe that produced, often in a Virgilian context, a general method in which exacting devotion to letters was related to theories for the redemption and renewal of society. Unlike the Italian humanists, the method was neither allegorical nor syncretic. On the contrary, Erasmus established an actual system for this kind of piety in the com- munal setting of the grammar schools and introduced materials for these schools. The central emphasis in this method is experience, which becomes the hallmark of Erasmus' Biblical interpretation. Thus Erasmus' text and translation of the New Testament is a product of this method which has immediate social and historical consequences. Proclaiming his allegiance to Erasmus' method, if not to the man, Luther moves from scriptural text to the reformation of political and social realities. His German translation of the Bible epitomizes his perception of the ultimate ramifi- cations of this method, and his very last written words emphasize the relationship of Virgilian letters and the nakedness of experience. Protestant scholars like the younger Scaliger and Causabon develop this methodological basis of verbal reality, and this is the source for the transformation which Francis Bacon effected when he turned this same devout attention to reality from pietas litterata to pietas rerum, a transformation of method which subsequently influenced not only the development of language but also the scientific method.

Cosmic Climax in a Sonnet from Ronsard's Amours: Magnified Echoes of Petrarch's dolce riso/Gregory de Rocher/University of Alabama.

Of the many stylistic virtues Ronsard's poems possess, sonnet CX from his Amours illustrates his remarkable talent at unfolding the material of the sonnet dramatically so that the concluding portion ends in a spectacular fulmination. An examination of the workings of CX leads not only to an understanding of the well- oiled mechanisms of a clever love poem in the Petrarchan tradition, but also to a perception, beneath the configurations of a fixed form of poetic expression, of Ron- sard's exuberant rendering of the emotions love engenders. It becomes evident that through his pleasant treatment of cosmic upset Ronsard translates the profound desire of the lover to transform both interior and exterior reality. The poet doubtlessly feels that the rampant powers responsible for the pleasurable havoc in his personal cosmos must be turned out to perpetrate their exuberance on the vast and more visible theatre of the universe. In this sonnet, the gentle convulsions of the Lady's laughter sung by Petrarch are magnified by Ronsard's imagination until they acquire universal proportions; their marvelous effect on the surface of his soul is expressed by the seismic resurfacing of all Nature. This fantasy can of course be operated temporarily in the imagination, but it can also, as in this case, be wrought perma- nently in poetry through the careful arrangement of the sonnet's rhetorical com- ponents which, set into play by reading, ineluctably stage the cosmic climax.

Neologisms and Style: The Central Dilemman of Sixteenth-Century English Rhetoric/ Anne Drury Hall/University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

In any age, rhetorical rules must control the inevitability of linguistic change at the same time that they avoid the artificiality of rules which are no longer based on spoken usage. In the sixteenth century, the establishment of rhetorical rules was a particularly difficult problem because the need for rules and the need for a larger vocabulary conflicted with each other, the one demanding permanence and the other fluidity. Traditionally, scholars have been interested in the needs of neologizers and the stylistic advantages of neologisms, but they have failed to

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Page 3: Program Issue: The Forty-Sixth Annual Convention || Southeastern Renaissance Conference/1976 Abstracts

appreciate the concerns of the rhetoricians and the stylistic dangers that also accompanied coined words. In regarding the purpose of rhetoric to preserve the language of the center by preserving stylistic norms, the sixteenth-century rhetorician saw in coined words a threat to language as the means by which men can share with each other their understanding of experience.

Bacon's Ethos: The Modest Philosopher/James Tillman/Georgia State University Bacon's persona in his philosophical proposals usually reflects the modest image

advocated by rhetoricians, not just in order to achieve an ethical appeal, but also in order to provide a model character for his new philosophers to emulate. In the Refutation of Philosophies, Advancement of Learning, and Great Instauration Bacon consistently uses a rhetorical image of his own modest character to reinforce his argument that the new scientist, unlike previous philosophers, will advance knowledge by means of humble research, rather than vain speculation. This unusual use of modesty as both an ethical proof and a philosophical exemplum reminds us that self-references in Renaissance prose often depend upon creative uses of conventional rhetorical strategies.

Spenser and the Art of Memory: Faerie Queene, II, ix/Richard Goode, University of Tennessee

The subject of the allegory in Faerie Queene, II, ix and the details and strategies of Spenser's descriptions of Alma's "turret" and its occupants indicate that Spenser was familiar with the classical art of memory as outlined by both Albertus and Aquinas in their discussions of Memory as a part of Prudence. Spenser follows Aquinas by distinguishing between the ethical virtue Temperance and the rational virtue Prudence, and thus when he describes the "turret" of Alma's castle he desig- nates the "three honorable sages" who reside there (usually identified as the Imagi- nation, Reason, and Memory of faculty psychology) as the three elements of Prudence -Foresight, Understanding, and Memory. Details such as Phantastes' melancholic disposition. Understanding's meditation of the murals on the walls of his chamber, and the presence of Anamnestes who aids natural memory (Emnestes) suggest that Spenser was familiar with significant features of artificial memory which, like Aquinas, he associated with Prudence. Finally, the descriptive method of Canto ix follows the classical rules for memory "places" and "images," for Spenser fashions the turret's occupants as striking "imagines agentes" and he provides each of them with a memory "place" furnished with memorable accounterments. Thus in creating his allegoria of Prudence, Spenser assumes the medieval association of artificial memory with Prudence, and he depicts the elements of Prudence according to the rules of the classical art.

The Poems of Donne's Maritime Military Experience/John Idol/Clemson University

Though lacking broad knowledge of the sea and English maritime policies, Donne turned his brief service in the maritime forces of Elizabethan England to good use in his verse. Some epigrams, verse epistles, and elegies written during or shortly after 1596-15,97 clearly reveal a poet in the process of developing his own voice, discovering his own mind, and projecting patterns of thought which ring true of both Jack Donne, rakish sailor, and John Donne, a man soon to become a statesman's secretary and later to find renown as one of England's greatest preachers.

The poems considered are "A Burnt Ship," "Cales and Guyana," "Sir John Wingefield," "To R. W.," "The Storme," "The Calme," "Loves Warre," "Going to Bed," and "Loves Progresse." These pieces are among the earliest Donne wrote. They tell much about the law student who went to sea and give signs of the type of poet and preacher he would one day be. Their value to readers of Donne is, thus, twofold: they hold both a biographical and literary interest.

The "Bona Carmina" of Donna and Horace/Thomas Hester/North Carolina State University

It has been generally acknowledged that English verse satire at the end of the sixteenth century was considerably indebted to the techniques and tones of the Roman satirists in his own five Satyres have been largely neglected. By looking closely at the manner in which Donne modifies and imitates Horace's Satire II.i in his own second Satyre we can see the bases of both Donne's reliance on the classics for his structures and techniques and his own highly individual originality.

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Page 4: Program Issue: The Forty-Sixth Annual Convention || Southeastern Renaissance Conference/1976 Abstracts

Both the classical satire and the Elizabethan poem follow the scheme of a tra- ditional satirical apologia. They begin with disparaging remarks about their own satirical efforts, proceed to examinations of the current state of national letters, and conclude with ironic and ambiguous assertions about the future of their own satire. Donne generally follows Horace's scheme throughout the first two sections of his Satyre; it is in the concluding lines that he reveals a specific indebtedness to the wording of Horace's poem. The conclusion of the Latin apologia is that the satirist should fear no legal prosecution for his verse if it is "bona carmina," that is, if it does not violate the ancient prescriptions against the evil use of powerful incanta- tions or the Lex Cornelia strictures against libellous songs. Donne borrows Horace's distinction and modifies it to fit his own condition. More melancholic than Horace but likewise more concerned with the 'laws' of satire than with the legal status of satire, Donne's satirist concludes that society accepts his "Good wordes" as "good workes," but simply disregards them. Thus, Donne directs attention to the words of Horace in his wry conclusion, but modifies his conclusion so that the disregard of his own satire is viewed as his final proof of the general abuse and disregard of good words and good works throughout England.

Britomart at the House of Busyrane/Robert Wood/Georgia Institute of Technology The plot of Spenser's Faerie Queene is based on two structures, the quest of the

titular knight of each book and the larger quest, Arthur's search for Gloriana. In the fragmentary state of the epic, Arthur's role is incomplete, but is foreshadowed by that of Britomart, whose quest similarly spans several books. Because Britomart is so central to The Faerie Queene, unnecessary complication of her role in the House of Busyrane disrupts our perception of the whole. We must trust to the immediate tone of the whole. We must trust to the immediate tone of the narrative. Scudamour's story of the wooing of Amoret in Book IV cannot be seen as the source of his difficulties in Book III. Neither Scudamour nor Amoret can be blamed for their predicament: Britomart, as Chastity destroys the maleficent aspects of the courtly love tradition itself. Her victory parallels that of Scudamour in the House of Venus and removes the threat of a destructive conflict between the sexes before her own romance begins.

The Image of the Center in Colin Clouts Come Home Again/David Burchmore/ University of Virginia

Among the revisions which Spenser made in the text of Colin Clout between its dedication to Ralegh in 1591 and its publication in 1595 was the insertion of a passage describing Colin's love for a "gentle mayd," presumably Elizabeth Boyle whom Spenser married during this period. Not only is this passage located at the arithmetical midpoint of the poem, but it is encircled by a description, also pre- cisely centered in the poem, of the 12 shepherds and 12 nymphs attendant upon Queen Elizabeth at her court. It is suggested that the structure of the revised poem was intended to be an emblem of Spenser's perfect union with his wife, the circle being a symbol of unity and eternity, and the center, of constancy or rest. The placement of certain discordant elements in the poem suggest a pattern of peripheral disorder and central harmony similar to that found by Baybak, Delany and Hieatt in Book III of The Faerie Queene. It is suggested finally that the virtues ascribed to Colin's lady in the central passage are those associated with the Three Graces in Renaissance mythography, and that her description is thus related to her appearance among the Graces in Faerie Queene, Book VI, where she forms the center of their dance and is said to gather their qualities within herself.

Shakespeare's Balia/Robert Goldsmith/Emory and Henry College In conceiving the characters of Juliet's Nurse and Emilia, Shakespeare followed

a tradition that allowed the nurse-confidante to speak coarsely and give cynical advice to her mistress. Whether or not he knew the balia of the sixteenth century comedia erudita of Ariosto, Aretino, or Cecchi, he certainly knew the type as she appears in Gascoigne's Supposes (1566) or Brooke's Romeus and Juliet (1562). Gascoigne's Balia is a pander to Dulypo, not a mere messenger between the lovers. Shakespeare humanizes and makes credible Booke's Nurse. In creating Emilia, he mingles bawdy good humor, loyalty, and hot indignation in a character that verges on the heroic.

A Case for the Influence of Lady Cary's Tragedy of Mariam on Shakespeare's Othello/Lucy Brashear/Appalachian State University

Abstract: Shakespeare's Othello and the Tragedy of Mariam, by an anonymous E.C., have resemblances in imagery, diction, and characters which indicate that the

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Page 5: Program Issue: The Forty-Sixth Annual Convention || Southeastern Renaissance Conference/1976 Abstracts

Mariam tragedy not only preceded Othello but also influenced it. Since Mariam was published in 1613, nine years after Othello, similarities between the two dramas have never been examined. Critical authorities, today, however, identify E. C. as Lady Elizabeth Falkland and date the play at the time of her marriage in 1602 to Sir Henry Cary, later Viscount Falkland. The writings of the precocious girl were praised by her great-uncle Sir Henry Lee, one of Elizabeth's courtiers and Knight of the Garter, as well as Michael Drayton and later John Davies and John Marston. Since the Mariam tragedy is modeled upon dramas of the Pembroke Circle, Lady Cary had connections with this group also. As her writings circulated, Shakespeare too, who knew the Pembroke Circle through his friendship with the Earl of Pembroke, must have been aware of her work. Although Othello and Mariam differ in plot and intention, both tell the story of a jealous husband who brings about the death of his innocent wife. The unidentified and controversial allusion in Othello's final speech to the "base Indian" or "Judean" who "threw a pearl away" may well be a reference to Lady Cary's Herod the Judean, who also destroyed a jewel. Although certain similarities are Renaissance commonplaces, enough remains to consider the Mariam tragedy a minor but significant source of Shakespeare's Othello.

"And that's true too": Structures and Meanings in The Tempest/Barbara Mowat/ Auburn University

There is a widely-acknowledged lack of congruence between our experience of The Tempest and scholarly interpretations of this play. A careful study of Act III, scene iii reveals that this lack of congruence is no accident, but is the result of the play's unusual complex of structures. Act III, scene iii is governed by at least three structural patterns: the first-the arrangement of modes or presentation-fragments the scene and allows richly associative elements to appear as discrete entities; the second-the arrangement of incidents-serves to embed within the scene the familiar narrative cluster of banquet-Harpy-prophecy, linking The Tempest to epic sea- journeys, calling our attention to the Alonso story-l-ne, and emphasizing the father- son relationship present here as in all the Romances; the third-the structuring which results from Prospero's appearance "on the top"-serves to qualify much of the Alonso-Harpy encounter and to encourage the ideological identification of magic and dramatic art found in so much of the play. As a result of this complex layering of structures, typical of The Tempest as a whole, we tend to respond to the play as a richly complex dramatic experience, but we tend to interpret it in terms of isolated elements or overgeneralizations. Until we become true masters of the struc- tural logic of The Tempest, we, as critics, must learn to be wary of approaches which say "This is what The Tempest is really about."

Pompey the Great in Julius Caesar/George Williams/Duke University Like Caesar's, Pompey's spirit broods over Julius Caesar, ranging for revenge.

Shakespeare recalls Great Pompey in the opening lines of the play, at the climax of its assassination, and at the battle of Phillipi. The spirit of Pompey is present then at the three critical points of the structure of the play. Furthermore, the references to Pompey are associated with the major metaphoric and thematic patterns of the play: the imagery of ascending, of sickness, and of storm; the theme of the desecration of ceremonial. Shakespeare has thought as carefully of Great Pompey as he has of greater Caesar.

Deception Through Words in The Spanish Tragedy/Carol Kay/University of Alabama

In The Spanish Tragedy the normal relationship between language as a symbol and the reality it symbolizes is shattered. The deceptiveness of words is one of the play's major themes, an awareness of which renders comprehensible three of the play's most troublesome aspects: the five contradictory descriptions of Don Andrea's death throughout Act I, the multilingual play-within-a-play, and Hieronimo's biting out his own tongue. The five different versions of the Battle of Alcantara are the results of each teller-save Don Andrea-relating his story in a way calculated to elicit some benefit, either gold, or promotion, or love. Because every scene of Act I centers on these variant descriptions we are well prepared for all the self-serving lies, half-truths and deceptions to come. The confusion and isolation which are inevitable in a society where a man's word is no longer his bond grown unchecked in the remainder of the play. The theme of deception through words culminates in the holocaust of the final scene. Hieronimo's multilingual production of Solimon and Perseda becomes the play's most extreme example of isolation and non-

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Page 6: Program Issue: The Forty-Sixth Annual Convention || Southeastern Renaissance Conference/1976 Abstracts

communication in the midst of speech. The characters' speeches are a bizarre realiza- tion of what people have been doing with language throughout the play, an ulitimate enactment of the results of living by Lorenzo's motto, E quel che voglio io, nessum lo so/Intendo io: quel mi bastera. At this point of ultimate linguistic chaos, Hieronimo and Bel-Imperia take their revenge by killing Lorenzo and Balthazar. When the court fails to listen to Hieronimo's repeated explanations, he denounces the futility of speech with such epithets as "O, good words," and he enacts the final rejection of language by biting out his own tongue. The bleeding, non-speaking figure of Hieronimo becomes an emblem of the final state of man when words no longer have any value beyond the meaningless noise that has gradually engulfed the world of this play.

Dame Pliant, the "Elixir Vitae" of The Alchemist/Katherine James/Carson-Newman College

Ben Jonson's ability to transform a stock character and situation is revealed in his assimilation of the popular widow hunt into the plot of The Alchemist and especially in his use of the widow to point up the theme of alchemy, which is central to the play. Dame Pliant is modeled on the stereotyped widow in that her sexuality and wealth make her the object of pursuit of lecherous, greedy men. Yet when Jeremy gives her to Lovewit in the denoument, he suggests that her value is similar to that of the "elixer vitae" itself, for, like the elixer of life, Dame Pliant will supposedly make her possessor both younger and richer. In associating the value of the widow with that of the "elixer vitae," Jonson gives vitality and an extra dimension to a stock character more remarkable for its sudden emergence in early seventeenth- century drama than for the individuality of specific characters modeled on the stereotype.

The Third Council in Paradise Lost/Nan Morrison/College of Charleston The conversation of Adam and Eve in Book X is the third council in Paradise

Lost. Milton emphasizes the structural significance of this council by inversely paral- leling the structures of Books II and X, by paralleling through similarity and contrast the proposals of the fallen angels and those of fallen man, and by following the earthly council with Books XI and XII which show the results of all three councils. The third council not only provides a crucial balance in structure but it also rein- forces the theme of Paradise Lost, the regeneration of fallen man through the acceptance of freedom and the right use of choice.

On the Ending of Paradise Lost/O. C. Daub/Savannah State College The "peculiar" quality of the ending of Paradise Lost is due to a tone of

ambiguous nostalgia deriving from the juxtaposition of what the principals-Adam, Eve, and importantly, the reader-know to be true with the regret they feel for the past and the fear they feel of the future. This tension between emotion and knowledge can be resolved by all parties only through the exercise of faith. Thus, Milton writes a this-worldly commedia; the language and structure of the closing lines of the poem are predicated on God's promises but permeated by insistence upon living this life with hope, not mystical escape.

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