Classical and Christian Ideas

in English Renaissance
Poetry
A Students’ Guide
Second Edition

ISABEL RIVERS

London and New York

 First published in 1979 by George Allen & Unwin (Publishers) Ltd

Second edition 1994

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Rivers, Isabel
Classical and Christian Ideas in English
Renaissance Poetry
1. English poetry—Early modern, 1500–1700—
History and criticism. 2. Christianity and literature
3. Literature and history I. Title 821.′3′ 093 PR538.C/78–40853
Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication Data
Rivers, Isabel
Classical and Christian Ideas in English Renaissance Poetry: A
students’ guide/Isabel Rivers.—2nd ed.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. English poetry—Early modern, 1500–1700—History and criticism.
2. Christian poetry, English—History and criticism. 3. English
poetry—Classical influences. 4. Christianity and literature.
5. Renaissance—England. 6. Classicism—England. I. Title.
PR535.R4R58 1994 821′.3′093–dc20 94–12710

ISBN 0-203-35995-X Master e-book ISBN

ISBN 0-203-37251-4 (Adobe eReader Format)

ISBN 0-415-10646-X (hbk)
ISBN 0-415-10647-8 (pbk)
 Contents

Preface to the Second Edition vii

Preface to the First Edition ix

Introduction: Renaissance Poetry and Modern Readers 1

1 The Golden Age and the Garden of Eden 9
2 The Pagan Gods 21
3 Platonism and Neoplatonism 35
4 Stoicism 45
5 Views of History 55
6 Cosmology 69
7 Reformation and Counter-Reformation 89
8 Protestant Theology 107
9 Humanism 125
10 Biblical Exegesis and Typology 139
11 Theories of Poetry 149
12 Allegory 159
13 Numerology 169

A Note on the Division of Historical Periods 181

Abbreviations 183
References 185
Further Reading 193
Bibliographical Appendix 205
A English Renaissance Authors 205
vi

B Classical, Medieval and Continental Renaissance Authors 206

Author Index 227
(Note: numbers in parentheses in the introductory sections refer to the extracts at the
end of each chapter.)
 9
Humanism

The word ‘humanism’, used first in the nineteenth century, has acquired such a wide
range of potential meanings and is often applied so carelessly that it has lost much of
its original force. Its broad current meaning is a view of life which displaces God and
puts man at the centre. The expression ‘Renaissance humanism’ needs to be used
much more precisely if it is to have any value. Although ‘humanism’ was not a word
current during the Renaissance, ‘humanist’ was. ‘Humanist’ is an anglicisation of the
Italian umanista, meaning a Latin teacher, which in turn ultimately derives from
Cicero’s use of the word humanitas. The Latin humanitas (1) has a double meaning:
first, mankind in a general sense (hence our word ‘humanity’), second, as a
translation of the Greek παιδεία (paideia), culture or liberal education which fully
develops a man (this sense survives in the modern term ‘humanities’). Renaissance
humanism was primarily an educational movement which began in Italy in the early
fourteenth century and reached England at the end of the fifteenth. A humanist was a
classical scholar with two complementary aims: to recover the moral values of
classical life, and to imitate the language and style of the classics as a means to that
end. He hoped to unite wisdom (sapientia) and eloquence (eloquentia).
Cicero was the hero of the humanists for a variety of reasons (13,14). As
politician, orator and moralist he combined action and contemplation, public and
private life, and hence was himself a model of the complete man. His literary style
was for the humanists the embodiment of eloquence. His philosophical works,
especially Of Duties (probably the most widely read classical work in the
Renaissance), gave the humanists their ethics, while his rhetorical works, especially
On the Orator, gave them their educational theory and in effect defined their role.
Two rival systems of education coexisted in classical and Hellenistic Greece: the
philosophical, going back to Plato, which provided a specialised and difficult
intellectual training in mathematics, logic and metaphysics, and the rhetorical, going
back to Isocrates, which was primarily literary in emphasis, taught the art of
declamation, and prepared men for political life. In the Hellenistic world the
emphasis was on rhetorical training, often conceived very narrowly. This was the
kind of education that the Romans borrowed from the Greeks: it provided men with
the skills necessary for success in public life, whether politics or the law courts.
Cicero, who had experience of both kinds of Greek education, tried to bring them
closer together and to transmit both traditions to Rome. In his philosophical works,
126 CLASSICAL AND CHRISTIAN IDEAS IN ENGLISH RENAISSANCE POETRY

such as Tusculan Disputations, On the Nature of the Gods, and Of Duties, Cicero
paraphrased and popularised Greek moral philosophy and theology, while in his
rhetorical works, such as On the Orator and The Orator, he adapted Greek rhetorical
methods for Romans, at the same time attempting to widen the meaning of oratory
(3). Cicero believed that the two kinds of education could not be separated without
damage to both (4). Philosophy without oratory is sterile, while oratory without
philosophy is dangerous. Eloquence and wisdom belong together. Yet in spite of this
belief Cicero belongs ultimately in the camp of the rhetoricians. He has little interest
in logical argument or philosophical problems for their own sake. For Cicero
philosophy really means ethics, defining how men should behave, while oratory
means persuading men to behave in the ways defined by ethics. The orator must
himself be a good man. (This formulation was elaborated by Quintilian in The
Education of an Orator [5, 6], and was repeatedly taken up in the Renaissance [21].)
This belief in the moral and utilitarian function of education and in the social and
political obligations of the man of letters (7) makes Cicero the heir of Isocrates and
of the rhetorical tradition and the father of humanism.
In the medieval period the conflict between philosophy and rhetoric continued,
now one and now the other dominating the educational system. The trivium (grammar,
rhetoric and logic), the first part of the medieval system of the seven liberal arts,
perpetuated both the classical literary and rhetorical tradition and the philosophical
tradition that was temporarily to overthrow it in the thirteenth century. In France in
the ninth and again in the early twelfth centuries we find the elements of humanism:
the copying and reading of Latin poetry, philosophy and oratory. John of Salisbury,
who studied at Chartres in the mid-twelfth century, had an enormous knowledge of
available Latin literature. Yet this humanism was displaced late in the twelfth century
and in the thirteenth by the increasing importance of the study of logic. In the
thirteenth-century universities the arts course was a preliminary to the queen of the
sciences, theology. In the intellectual system known as scholasticism which
dominated medieval education, theology was joined with the more technical and
abstract branches of philosophy—logic, epistemology and metaphysics. The
principal classical author studied was Aristotle (the complete corpus of whose works
was made available in translation via Arabic and directly from Greek by the end of
the thirteenth century), but Aristotle the logician was given primacy over Aristotle
the political theorist and rhetorician. To the schoolmen (as the later humanists
disparagingly called the scholastic theologians) Aristotle was ‘the Philosopher’; when
the humanists attacked Aristotle it was the scholastic application of his work that they
had in mind. Following a three-fold method of question, argument and conclusion (as
exemplified in what was to be the most influential of scholastic works in succeeding
centuries, the Summa Theologiae of Thomas Aquinas), scholastic writing ignored the
rhetorical techniques of persuasion in favour of logical disputation.
It was against this abstract, rigorous and technical educational system, combining
philosophy and theology, that the humanists rebelled. The beginnings of Renaissance
humanism have been detected in Italy in the late thirteenth century, but the chief
spokesman for the new attitudes was Petrarch in the mid-fourteenth century.
 HUMANISM 127

Although Petrarch had much less access to classical literature than later humanists,
and although he could not read Greek, nevertheless he established the principles and
prepared the way for the development of humanism. The international language of
learning in the West throughout the Middle Ages was Latin; it was a living, growing
language, which had developed a sophisticated philosophical vocabulary. Petrarch
repudiated medieval, scholastic Latin, and demanded a return to classical Latin, the
language of Virgil and Horace in poetry and Cicero in prose, a language unable to
accommodate medieval philosophy. For Petrarch medieval Europe had lost the
values with the language and literature of the classical world, and he led the humanist
attempt to revive them. The first step was to recover the texts of classical authors and
to reintroduce the study of Greek in the West. Although humanists tended to
exaggerate the extent to which classical literature was ‘lost’ during the medieval
period (for if medieval monks had not copied classical manuscripts they would not
have survived), nevertheless many important works ignored for hundreds of years were
put into circulation again—for example, Aristotle’s Poetics (available in Latin in the
thirteenth century but not taught), Livy, Tacitus and the complete text of Quintilian.
Knowledge of Greek established itself slowly during the fifteenth century, and
reached its height with Ficino’s translation of Plato and Plotinus into Latin. The
invention of printing towards the end of the fifteenth century greatly helped the
humanists in their task of disseminating classical literature, and some printers, for
example Aldus Manutius of Venice, were themselves classical scholars. By the early
sixteenth century the major Latin and Greek works of oratory, history, political and
moral philosophy and poetry had been put into print by the humanists. Whereas
scholasticism had developed in universities and had been the province of
ecclesiastics, humanism was fostered by courts and princes. Logic, the art of
disputation, had been the weapon of the schoolmen; rhetoric, the art of persuasion,
was the weapon of the new class of humanist administrators. Learning, the humanists
believed, must not be divorced from public life; the humanist regarded himself as a
public servant. In this sense humanism can be regarded as a secularisation of learning.
But humanism was not at all an unchristian movement, although humanists (with
important exceptions, such as the Florentine Neoplatonists) were on the whole
indifferent to theology. Early Christian Fathers such as Jerome and Augustine had
been ambivalent in their attitude to classical letters and the rhetorical tradition: in his
famous Epistle 22 Jerome recounts the dream in which he is accused at the Judgement
of being a Ciceronian, not a Christian, yet in Epistle 70 he defends the Christian use
of classical learning with the biblical example of the taking of a captive wife (Deut.
21:10–13). Most humanists, beginning with Petrarch, attempted to harmonise
classical ethics with the practical Christianity of the gospels (13). This Christian
humanism flourished particularly in northern Europe, and the Dutch humanist
Erasmus was its chief exponent. Erasmus, who was fond of referring to the
schoolmen as ‘barbarians’, attacked scholasticism for its intellectualism, its method
and its (to him) bad Latin. Christianity was for him a matter of conduct not of
speculation, and he believed the pagan moralists, especially Cicero (14), to be closer
to Christ than the scholastic theologians. The philosophia Christi (philosophy of
128 CLASSICAL AND CHRISTIAN IDEAS IN ENGLISH RENAISSANCE POETRY

Christ) that he taught was supported by the classics and the early Fathers, especially
Jerome. Erasmus’ radical act was to apply to the Scriptures the critical textual and
philological methods the Italian humanists had been applying to classical literature.
In 1516 he published the first edition of the New Testament in Greek, with a Latin
translation that corrected the errors in the Vulgate. Erasmus saw himself above all as
an educator in the Ciceronian sense: the pursuit of bonae litterae—‘good letters’,
otherwise known as ‘the new learning’ (the study of classical Latin and Greek, with
Hebrew in addition)—would lead to the practice of the philosophy of Christ.
Erasmus, together with the younger Spanish humanist Vives, was the formative
influence in the development of English humanism. Englishmen had travelled to Italy
in the fifteenth century and taken an interest in Italian humanist scholarship, but the
first important generation of English humanists was that of Colet and More in the
early years of the reign of Henry VIII. Indeed the beginnings of English humanism
can be dated from 1497 when Colet (who had studied in Italy and come under the
influence of Ficino and Pico) began to lecture on St Paul’s Epistles, applying the new
critical methods without reference to scholastic commentaries. Erasmus, who formed
the chief link between Italian and northern humanism by maintaining an enormous
correspondence with fellow humanists and working in different humanist centres
throughout Europe, paid three visits to England, the most important being from 1509
to 1514 on the accession of Henry VIII. Erasmus influenced three aspects of English
humanism, educational, religious and political. Colet’s foundation of the first English
humanist school, St Paul’s, in 1510 was the direct result of Erasmus’ educational
principles: dedicated to the child Jesus, the school aimed to lead its pupils through
good letters to the good life (15). Erasmus’ attacks on scholastic theology,
monasticism and abuses in the church helped prepare the way for the English
Reformation, though Erasmus himself was not a Protestant reformer (see Chapter 7).
In addition, Erasmus helped to strengthen the orientation of English humanists
towards the court and public life. Humanists, who had many enemies in the
universities, looked to the courts for patronage; the accession of three new princes in
the early sixteenth century, Henry VIII in 1509, Francis I of France in 1515, and the
Emperor Charles V in 1518 seemed at first like a golden age for the new learning. In
1516 Erasmus was appointed a councillor to Charles, and addressed to him The
Education of a Christian Prince, a handbook of political and moral behaviour which
belongs in an old tradition of ‘princes’ mirrors’ going back to Isocrates’ To Nicocles
(9). The English work following this tradition most closely is Sir Thomas Elyot’s
Book named the Governor (16). The humanists were anxious to educate a new
generation of courtiers and politicians who would in turn mould their princes
according to the humanist pattern. This idealism was to be severely tested in the
course of the century. One of the important questions raised in Sir Thomas More’s
Utopia (15,16) is whether the man of letters has any obligation to serve the prince,
who is unlikely to follow his advice (12).
By the end of the sixteenth century the humanists had effected important changes
in education. The universities were slow to respond (Milton was complaining about
the scholastic curriculum at Cambridge in the 1620s), but several schools were
 HUMANISM 129

established on humanist principles. Spenser at Merchant Taylors’ under Mulcaster,

Jonson at Westminster under Camden, Milton at St Paul’s under Gill, all received a
humanist training. The gentry were taking an increasing interest in education, and in
this they were following court example. The three children of Henry VIII were
themselves taught by notable humanists Mary by Vives, Elizabeth by Ascham,
Edward by Cheke.
Although humanism did not imply adherence to any particular philosophical or
ethical system, nevertheless we can distinguish certain key concepts. The first is
imitation (19). Humanist educators taught their pupils to imitate closely the style and
language of classical authors—the method is described in Ascham’s The
Schoolmaster (17). At its worst this was an absurd and stultifying exercise (satirised
in Erasmus’ Ciceronianus), divorcing style and content; at its best imitation meant
taking as a pattern not only the style but also the attitudes and conduct of the chosen
model. The second concept is pragmatism. The humanists disapproved of abstract,
theoretical knowledge; they valued knowledge as it could be used to promote the
good life. They believed optimistically that education makes men better; Vives,
Bacon and Milton (18) all express in different ways the view that education removes
the consequences of the fall and restores man, a rational and fully developed
creature, to his Creator. The humanists valued highly those classical ethical works,
such as Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics and Cicero’s Of Duties, that represent man as
a political being who perfects himself in society (Elyot’s Governor, borrowing from
Of Duties I, provided the earliest English account of the four classical cardinal
virtues, justice, prudence, temperance and fortitude). The third key-concept of the
humanists is duty. Plato’s portrait of the education of the philosopherking in The
Republic V—VII tantalised the humanists: on the one hand it was an unattainable
ideal, on the other hand it was an ideal that must be attempted. Hence the fascination
of the relationship between philosophers or men of letters and rulers: Plato and
Dionysius (12), Aristotle and Alexander, Plutarch and Trajan (though the last was
not historical). Erasmus’ relationship with Charles V and More’s with Henry VIII were
consciously in this tradition. Yet the humanist obligation to public service implied
the acquiescence of the prince in his moral education, and princes were not so pliable.
More’s execution by Henry VIII in 1535 for refusing to compromise his ‘good
counsel’ epitomises the tragic tensions inherent in humanism. Because of this tension
the humanists felt strongly the temptation of the retired, contemplative life, of
Horace’s otium (leisure) as against Cicero’s negotium (business); the garden often
seemed a more fitting symbolic setting for the pursuit of wisdom than the court.
Although the humanists were above all concerned with classical literature, and
although the international language of scholarship remained Latin (paradoxically,
humanist insistence on Latin purity helped to render it a dead language), nevertheless
humanist educational methods and attitudes had a profound effect on vernacular
literature. One of the significant humanist achievements was to make the major
works of classical literature available in English translation by the early seventeenth
century: Shakespeare is the most obvious beneficiary. Humanism influenced the
organisation of prose works: because of humanist distrust of abstract logical argument,
130 CLASSICAL AND CHRISTIAN IDEAS IN ENGLISH RENAISSANCE POETRY

digressive and anecdotal forms filled with moral examples were favoured, such as
essays, dialogues, biography and history. Bacon’s Essays and Greville’s Life of Sir
Philip Sidney are examples. In addition, humanist educational methods affected the
way poetry was written: thus Jonson told William Drummond that his master
Camden taught him to write his poetry first as prose, and many of his poems are
imitations, schoolboy exercises transformed. However, the most important influence
was on the way the poet’s role was conceived. Cicero’s and Quintilian’s portrait of
the ideal orator underlay the humanist portrait of the ideal poet. Spenser in the letter
to Ralegh defined the rhetorical purpose of The Faerie Queene as ‘to fashion a
gentleman or noble person in virtuous and gentle discipline’ (Ch. 12.11); on one
level, the poem is a humanist handbook. Jonson, whose notebook Discoveries (11,
21) draws on Quintilian’s The Education of an Orator (5) and Vives’ The
Transmission of Knowledge (10), succeeded best in realising humanist poetic theory.
In this view the poem is an act of persuasion. The intention underlying Renaissance
poems in praise of individuals (which may seem to modern readers very like flattery)
is to provide their subjects with ideal portraits which they are encouraged to imitate
and which will in turn make them worthy patterns for imitation; the poet offers the
promise of fame as a reward. However, the humanist view of poetry needed a prince,
a court and an agreed audience. We can see the conflict between the views of the
poet as orator and the poet as prophet in Milton. Milton’s pamphlet Of Education
(18) is a humanist handbook in the tradition of Elyot, Ascham and Jonson, and in his
early political works Milton perhaps accepted too easily the humanist assumption
that the poet can persuade his audience to virtuous action, that his good counsel will
be profitable. Milton’s career can be interpreted in part as a search for the fit
audience, and a testing of the roles of the orator, who must be heard for his speech to
have meaning, and the prophet, who can speak the truth regardless of hearers.

‘HUMANITAS’

1 Those who have spoken Latin and have used the language correctly do not
give to the word humanitas the meaning which it is commonly thought to
have, namely, what the Greeks call [philanthropia], signifying
a kind of friendly spirit and good-feeling towards all men without distinction;
but they gave to humanitas about the force of the Greek [paideia];
that is, what we call…‘education and training in the liberal arts’. Those who
earnestly desire and seek after these are most highly humanised. For the
pursuit of that kind of knowledge, and the training given by it, have been
granted to man alone of all the animals, and for that reason it is termed
humanitas, or ‘humanity’.
Aulus Gellius The Attic Nights XIII xvii
 HUMANISM 131

CLASSICAL DEFINITIONS OF RHETORIC AND THE ROLE OF THE ORATOR

2 Rhetoric then may be defined as the faculty of discovering the possible
means of persuasion in reference to any subject whatever. This is the function
of no other of the arts, each of which is able to instruct and persuade in its own
special subject; thus, medicine deals with health and sickness, geometry with
the properties of magnitudes, arithmetic with number, and similarly with all the
other arts and sciences. But Rhetoric, so to say, appears to be able to discover
the means of persuasion in reference to any given subject… It is evident that,
to be able to grasp [the proofs of rhetoric], a man must be capable of logical
reasoning, of studying characters and the virtues, and thirdly the emotions—
the nature and character of each, its origin, and the manner in which it is
produced. Thus it appears that Rhetoric is as it were an offshoot of Dialectic
and of the science of Ethics, which may be reasonably called Politics.
Aristotle Rhetoric I ii

3‘Moreover,’ [Crassus] continued, ‘there is to my mind no more excellent

thing than the power, by means of oratory, to get a hold on assemblies of men,
win their good will, direct their inclinations wherever the speaker wishes, or
divert them from whatever he wishes. In every free nation, and most of all in
communities which have attained the enjoyment of peace and tranquillity, this
one art has always flourished above the rest and ever reigned supreme. For
what is so marvellous as that, out of the innumerable company of mankind, a
single being should arise, who either alone or with a few others can make
effective a faculty bestowed by nature upon every man?… For the one point in
which we have our very greatest advantage over the brute creation is that we
hold converse one with another, and can reproduce our thought in word… To
come, however, at length to the highest achievements of eloquence, what other
power could have been strong enough either to gather scattered humanity into
one place, or to lead it out of its brutish existence in the wilderness up to our
present condition of civilisation as men and as citizens, or, after the
establishment of social communities, to give shape to laws, tribunals, and civic
rights?… My assertion is this: that the wise control of the complete orator is
that which chiefly upholds not only his own dignity, but the safety of countless
individuals and of the entire State.’
Cicero On the Orator I viii
4 The older masters down to Socrates used to combine with their theory of
rhetoric the whole of the study and the science of everything that concerns
morals and conduct and ethics and politics; it was subsequently …that the two
groups of students were separated from one another, by Socrates and then
similarly by all the Socratic schools, and the philosophers looked down on
eloquence and the orators on wisdom, and never touched anything from the
side of the other study except what this group borrowed from that one, or that
one from this; whereas they would have drawn from the common supply
132 CLASSICAL AND CHRISTIAN IDEAS IN ENGLISH RENAISSANCE POETRY

indifferently if they had been willing to remain in the partnership of early

days.
On the Orator III xix

5 My aim, then, is the education of the perfect orator. The first essential for
such a one is that he should be a good man, and consequently we demand of
him not merely the possession of exceptional gifts of speech, but of all the
excellences of character as well. For I will not admit that the principles of
upright and honourable living should, as some have held, be regarded as the
peculiar concern of philosophy. The man who can really play his part as a
citizen and is capable of meeting the demands both of public and private
business, the man who can guide a state by his counsels, give it a firm basis by
his legislation and purge its vices by his decisions as a judge, is assuredly no
other than the orator of our quest.
Quintilian The Education of an Orator I Preface (compare 21)

6 Cicero in several of his books and letters proclaims that eloquence has its
fountain-head in the most secret springs of wisdom, and that consequently for a
considerable time the instructors of morals and of eloquence were identical….
This exhortation of mine must not be taken to mean that I wish the orator to be
a philosopher, since there is no other way of life that is further removed from
the duties of a statesman and the tasks of an orator. For what philosopher has
ever been a frequent speaker in the courts or won renown in public assemblies?
Nay, what philosopher has ever taken a prominent part in the government of
the state, which forms the most frequent theme of their instructions? None the
less I desire that he, whose character I am seeking to mould, should be a ‘wise
man’ in the Roman sense, that is, one who reveals himself as a true statesman,
not in the discussions of the study, but in the actual practice and experience of
life…
The orator’ s duty is not merely to instruct, but also to move and delight his
audience; and to succeed in doing this he needs a strength, impetuosity, and
grace as well.
Education of an Orator XII ii

PUBLIC AND PRIVATE LIFE

7 There have been many and still are many who, while pursuing that calm of
soul of which I speak, have withdrawn from civic duty and taken refuge in
retirement. Among such have been found the most famous and by far the
foremost philosophers and certain other earnest, thoughtful men who could not
endure the conduct of either the people or their leaders; some of them, too,
lived in the country and found their pleasure in the management of their private
estates. Such men have had the same aims as kings—to suffer no want, to be
subject to no authority, to enjoy their liberty, that is, in its essence, to live just
 HUMANISM 133

as they please…. Perhaps those men of extraordinary genius who have devoted
themselves to learning must be excused for not taking part in public affairs;
likewise, those who from ill-health or for some still more valid reason have
retired from the service of the state and left to others the opportunity and the
glory of its administration. But if those who have no such excuse profess a
scorn for civil and military offices, which most people admire, I think that this
should be set down not to their credit but to their discredit; for in so far as they
care little, as they say, for glory and count it as naught, it is difficult not to
sympathise with their attitude; in reality, however, they seem to dread the toil
and trouble and also, perhaps, the discredit and humiliation of political failure
and defeat… Those whom Nature has endowed with the capacity for
administering public affairs should put aside all hesitation, enter the race for
public office, and take a hand in directing the government; for in no other way
can a government be administered or greatness of spirit be made manifest.
Cicero Of Duties I xx—xxi

8 I regard as perfect, so far as men can be, those who are able to combine and
mingle political capacity with philosophy; and I am inclined to think that these
are secure in the possession of two things which are of the greatest good: a life
useful to the world in their public position, and the calm and untroubled life in
their pursuit of philosophy. For there are three forms of life, of which the first
is the practical life, the second the contemplative life, and the third the life of
enjoyment. The last, which is dissolute and enslaved to pleasure, is bestial and
mean, but the contemplative life, which falls short in practice, is not useful, while
the practical life, which has no portion in philosophy, is without culture or
taste. One must try, then, as well as one can, both to take part in public life, and
to lay hold of philosophy so far as the opportunity is granted.
Plutarch (?) The Education of Children viii

‘GOOD COUNSEL’

9 Now as to each particular course of action, it is the business of those who are
at the time associated with a king to advise him how he may handle it in the
best way possible, and how he may both preserve what is good and prevent
disaster; but as regards a king’s conduct in general, I shall attempt to set forth
the objects at which he should aim and the pursuits to which he should devote
himself. Whether the gift when finished shall be worthy of the design, it is hard
to tell at the beginning… And yet the mere attempt is well worth while—to
seek a field that has been neglected by others and lay down principles for
monarchs; for those who educate men in private stations benefit them alone,
but if one can turn those who rule over the multitude toward a life of virtue, he
will help both classes, both those who hold positions of authority and their
subjects; for he will give to kings a greater security in office and to the people
a milder government.
Isocrates To Nicocles 6–8
134 CLASSICAL AND CHRISTIAN IDEAS IN ENGLISH RENAISSANCE POETRY

10 You also understand how great is the similarity of gifts in princes and
learned men, so that these are not two different kinds of men, but they are
rather such as should be more friendly to each other and more closely joined than
they are. The one is made strong by the other; they are as it were mutual helps.
Both are given by God to states and peoples, that they may have wise regard for
the common good of the state; the learned by their precepts; princes by their
edicts and laws; both by their examples. Learning requires freedom and
leisure. This can be given by the royal power. In return, princely power will
receive counsel in dealing with the difficult matters of business.
Vives The Transmission of Knowledge Dedicatory Address to King John III of
Portugal

11 Learning needs rest: sovereignty gives it. Sovereignty needs counsel:

learning affords it. There is such a consociation of offices, between the prince,
and whom his favour breeds, that they may help to sustain his power, as he
their knowledge… A prince without letters, is a pilot without eyes. All his
government is groping… The good counsellors to princes are the best
instruments of a good age. For though the prince himself be of most prompt
inclination to all virtue: yet the best pilots have need of mariners.
Jonson Discoveries ll. 81–6, 1525–6, 1539–43

12 More addresses Raphael Hythloday: ‘I must needs believe that you, if you
be disposed and can find in your heart to follow some prince’s court, shall with
your good counsels greatly help and further the commonwealth. Wherefore
there is nothing more appertaining to your duty, that is to say to the duty of a
good man. For whereas your Plato judgeth that weal-publics shall by this means
attain perfect felicity, either if philosophers be kings, or else if kings give
themselves to the study of philosophy, how far, I pray you, shall
commonwealths then be from this felicity, if philosophers will vouchsafe to
instruct kings with their good counsel?’
‘They be not so unkind,’ quoth [Raphael], ‘but they would gladly do it, yea,
many have done it already in books that they have put forth, if kings and
princes would be willing and ready to follow good counsel. But Plato
doubtless did well foresee, unless kings themselves would apply their minds to
the study of philosophy, that else they would never thoroughly allow the
counsel of philosophers, being themselves before, even from their tender age,
infected and corrupt with perverse and evil opinions. Which thing Plato
himself proved true in King Dionysius. If I should propose to any king
wholesome decrees, doing my endeavour to pluck out of his mind the
 HUMANISM 135

pernicious original causes of vice and naughtiness, think you not that I should
forthwith either be driven away or else made a laughing-stock?’
More Utopia I

THE HUMANISTS' CICERO

13 I do not deny that I am delighted with Cicero’s genius and eloquence,

seeing that even Jerome—to omit countless others—was so fascinated by him
that he could not free his own style from that of Cicero, not even under the
pressure of the terrible vision [Epistle 22]… If to admire Cicero means to be a
Ciceronian, I am a Ciceronian. I admire him so much that I wonder at people
who do not admire him… However, when we come to think or speak of
religion, that is, of supreme truth and true happiness, and of eternal salvation,
then I am certainly not a Ciceronian, or a Platonist, but a Christian. I even feel
sure that Cicero himself would have been a Christian if he had been able to see
Christ and to comprehend his doctrine.
Petrarch On his Own Ignorance and That of Many Others

14 Perhaps the spirit of Christ is more widespread than we understand, and the
company of saints includes many not in our calendar. Speaking frankly among
friends, I can’t read Cicero’s Of Old Age, Of Friendship, Of Duties, Tusculan
Disputations without sometimes kissing the book and blessing that pure heart,
divinely inspired as it was.
Erasmus The Godly Feast

HUMANIST EDUCATIONAL THEORY

15 I would there were taught always the good literature, both Latin and Greek,
and good authors such as have the very Roman eloquence joined with wisdom,
specially Christian authors that wrote their wisdom with clean and chaste Latin,
other in verse or in prose; for my intent is by this school specially to increase
knowledge and worshipping of God and Our Lord Christ Jesu and good
Christian life and manners in the children… All barbary, all corruption, all
Latin adulterate which ignorant blind fools brought into this world, and with
that same hath disdained and poisoned the old Latin speech… I say that
filthiness and all such abusion which …more rather may be called blotterature
than literature, I utterly abanish and exclude out of this school and charge the
masters that they teach always that is the best, and instruct the children in
Greek and Latin in reading unto them such authors that hath with wisdom
joined the pure chaste eloquence.
Colet Statutes of Paul’s School ‘What Shall Be Taught’
136 CLASSICAL AND CHRISTIAN IDEAS IN ENGLISH RENAISSANCE POETRY

16 By the time that the child do come to seventeen years of age, to the intent
his courage be bridled with reason, it were needful to read unto him some
works of philosophy; specially that part that may inform him unto virtuous
manners, which part of philosophy is called moral. Wherefore there would be
read to him, for an introduction, two the first books of the work of Aristotle
called Ethicae, wherein is contained the definitions and proper significations of
every virtue; and that to be learned in Greek… Forthwith would follow the
work of Cicero, called in Latin De officiis, whereunto yet is no proper English
word to be given; but to provide for it some manner of exposition, it may be
said in this form: ‘Of the duties and manners appertaining to men.’ But above
all other, the works of Plato would be most studiously read when the judgement
of a man is come to perfection, and by the other studies is instructed in the form
of speaking that philosophers used. Lord God, what incomparable sweetness of
words and matter shall he find in the said works of Plato and Cicero; wherein
is joined gravity with delectation, excellent wisdom with divine eloquence,
absolute virtue with pleasure incredible, and every place is so enfarced [stuffed]
with profitable counsel joined with honesty, that those three books be almost
sufficient to make a perfect and excellent governor.
Elyot The Governor I xi

17 Ye know not what hurt ye do to learning that care not for words but for
matter and so make a divorce betwixt the tongue and the heart. For mark all
ages, look upon the whole course of both the Greek and Latin tongue, and ye
shall surely find that when apt and good words began to be neglected and
properties of those two tongues to be confounded, then also began ill deeds to
spring, strange manners to oppress good orders, new and fond opinions to
strive with old and true doctrine, first in philosophy and after in religion, right
judgement of all things to be perverted, and so virtue with learning is
contemned and study left off.
Ascham The Schoolmaster II

18 The end then of learning is to repair the ruins of our first parents by
regaining to know God aright, and out of that knowledge to love him, to
imitate him, to be like him, as we may the nearest by possessing our souls of
true virtue, which being united to the heavenly grace of faith makes up the
highest perfection.
……
I call therefore a complete and generous education that which fits a man to
perform justly, skilfully and magnanimously all the offices both private and
public of peace and war.
Milton Of Education (see also Prolusion III ‘An Attack on the Scholastic
Philosophy’)
 HUMANISM 137

IMITATION

19 I know nothing can conduce more to letters, than to examine the writings of
the ancients, and not to rest in their sole authority, or take all upon trust from
them… For to all the observations of the ancients, we have our own
experience: which, if we will use, and apply, we have better means to
pronounce. It is true they opened the gates, and made the way, that went before
us; but as guides, not commanders.
……
The third requisite in our poet, or maker [after natural wit and exercise] is
imitation, to be able to convert the substance, or riches of another poet, to his
own use. To make choice of one excellent man above the rest, and so to follow
him, till he grow very he: or, so like him, as the copy may be mistaken for the
principal. Not, as a creature, that swallows, what it takes in, crude, raw, or
indigested; but, that feeds with an appetite, and hath a stomach to concoct,
divide, and turn all into nourishment.
Jonson Discoveries ll. 160–3, 166–71,3056–65
HUMANIST POETICS
20 O blessed letters that combine in one
All ages past, and make one live with all,
By you we do confer with who are gone,
And the dead living unto counsel call:
By you the unborn shall have communion
Of what we feel, and what doth us befall.
Soul of the world, knowledge, without thee,
What hath the earth that truly glorious is?
Why should our pride make such a stir to be,
To be forgot? what good is like to this,
To do worthy the writing, and to write
Worthy the reading, and the world’s delight?
……
Power above powers, O heavenly eloquence,
That with the strong rein of commanding words,
Dost manage, guide, and master the eminence
Of men’s affections, more than all their swords:
Shall we not offer to thy excellence
The richest treasure that our wit affords?
Thou that canst do much more with one poor pen
Than all the powers of princes can effect:
And draw, divert, dispose, and fashion men
Better than force or rigour can direct:
Should we this ornament of glory then
As the unmaterial fruits of shades, neglect?
Daniel Musophilus ll. 189–200, 939–50
138 CLASSICAL AND CHRISTIAN IDEAS IN ENGLISH RENAISSANCE POETRY

21 I could never think the study of wisdom confined only to the philosopher:
or of piety to the divine: or of state to the politic. But that he which can feign a
commonwealth (which is the poet), can govern it with counsels, strengthen it
with laws, correct it with judgements, inform it with religion, and morals; is all
these. We do not require in him mere elocution; or an excellent faculty in
verse; but the exact knowledge of all virtues, and their contraries; with ability
to render the one loved, the other hated, by his proper embattling them…
The poet is the nearest borderer upon the orator, and expresseth all his
virtues, though he be tied more to numbers; is his equal in ornament, and
above him in his strengths.
Jonson Discoveries ll. 1273–85, 3129–33 (compare 5)

22 When the s word glitters o’er the judge’ s head,

And fear has coward churchmen silenced,
Then is the poet’s time, ‘tis then he draws,
And single fights forsaken virtue’s cause.
He, when the wheel of empire whirleth back,
And though the world’s disjointed axle crack,
Sings still of ancient rights and better times,
Seeks wretched good, arraigns successful crimes.
Marvell Tom May’s Death’ ll. 63–70 (May is rebuked
in Elysium by the ghost of Jonson)