Babel 2021

Babel Volume XX

Babel

Volume XX: 2021 Early Modern Studies Student Society University of King’s College

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Babel 2021 Editors-in-Chief Bronwyn Turnquist Sophie Lawall Editors Caroline Belbin Grace Day Neyve Egger Michaela Pennie Lara Van de Venter Layout Editor Sophie Lawall

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We must recognize that all of the work and scholarship at King’s, including Babel, takes place on K’jipuktuk, in the third district of the Mi’kma’ki, which is Eskikekwa’kik. This is the unceded and ancestral territory of the Mi’kmaq people. Additionally, we work in English, a language of colonialism and oppression. The Peace and Friendship Treaties struck in the early modern period between the Mi’kmaq and British Nations are unique in that they grant uninhibited use of land resources to First Nations, rather than outlining a surrender of land. Canada, however, continues to violate the spirit peace and friendship- and the letter -Mi’kmaq access to land and resources- of these treaties.

For more information on these treaties visit www.migmawei.ca/ negotiations/migmaqtreatyrights/ Cover art: Flower Still-Life with Shell and Insects by Balthasar van der Ast. Printed by Etc. Press

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Table of Contents Foreword Sophie Lawall ..................................................................... 5 The Passivity of the Female Body Politic: Shakespeare’s Effeminization of Richard II Charlie Friesen .................................................................... 6 “Living Death” or Divine Enlightenment? A Comparative Analysis of Love and Suffering in the Poetry of Petrarch and Louise Labé Katie Lawrence .................................................................. 15 The Gender Hierarchy in Milton’s Paradise Lost Eliza Wolfe ....................................................................... 21 Rousseauian Influence in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein Mauricio Rico Quiroz ........................................................ 33 Of Reciprocity Graham O’Brien ............................................................... 39 The Infinite and Humanity: An Evaluation of Blaise Pascal’s Pensées Elsy Rytter ........................................................................ 47 “Which is the merchant here and which is the Jew?”: The Asymmetry of Religious Identity in Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice Obinna Esomchukwu ........................................................ 53 Ecology, Mobility, and the Colour Blue in Early Modern England Helen Hillis ...................................................................... 58

“Uneasy Lies the Head That Wears the Crown”: Kingship and Conscience in Shakespeare’s Henriad Lucy Boyd ......................................................................... 68 The Scientific Revolution in Art: Early Modern Anatomical Studies and Naturalism Hayley McStay .................................................................. 77 Afterword Bronwyn Turnquist ............................................................ 89

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Foreword You are holding the twentieth volume of Babel published by the King’s Early Modern Studies Society. In another year, we would have celebrated such a landmark number at the launch party, but this year that is, alas, impossible. However, I encourage you to find some good food and drink for yourself as you peruse this journal.

I doubt that any of the first group of Babel editors would have guessed that their successors would be putting this journal together from three different provinces, at the end of an entire year of remote learning. However, the passion and community of this program have persevered, and this year’s Babel is a testament to that passion and perseverance. Over the course of this year, despite all of the difficulties, King’s students have continued to do work that we can feel pride in, and this journal is a small selection of that work.

This year’s Babel is also a demonstration of the breadth of the Early Modern Studies program and society; we have papers from every year at King’s, from two FYP papers to papers from students in their final year, and our papers cover topics ranging from philosophy to Shakespeare to dye production. The opportunity that this program offers for students to choose topics which interest them is truly one of the program’s great strengths, and I hope that this volume of Babel serves to showcase those diverse interests and that, as you read, you might find some interests—new or old―of your own within these pages.

Sophie Lawall, Co-President of the Early Modern Students’ Society, 2020-2021

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The Passivity of the Female Body Politic: Shakespeare’s Effeminization of Richard II Charlie Friesen

This paper will explore Shakespeare’s effeminate depiction of King Richard throughout Richard II. I will argue that, by using gender to articulate the stark difference between Richard and Bolingbroke, the play comments on the incompetence of female rulers.

Women are traditionally associated with imminence or a stunted and passive relationship to the world around them, men with acts of transcendence or an active ability to alter the world. Imminence is correlated to the body and with nature, while transcendence is associated with freedom and society. I will discuss Richard’s frequent correlation to nature, focusing on the palace garden as a reflection of Eden, and as a microcosm for the fall of England. I will also take up a discussion on reproductivity as a social necessity for manhood.

Further, I will demonstrate how the stereotypes of wastefulness and vanity as female flaws are employed to effeminate Richard. Due to the absence of violence and aggression, as well as Richard's emotional rather than physical turmoil in the surrender of the crown, imminence and passivity are revealed as his dominant reactions.

In the distinction between the body politic (the body the ruler takes on as divinely ordained sovereign) and the body natural (earthly body of the individual), sixteenth century subjects needed to be assured that their sovereign’s body politic was a male body. I suggest that Shakespeare effeminized Richard to reveal his female body politic, demonstrating his view that women are only capable of political roles if they take up a male body politic. This effeminate body

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politic reveals Richard’s inadequacy to his subjects and to Shakespeare’s audience. This supposition aligns intimately with the conception of the divine right of kings, which is necessarily a kingly (or manly) mandate. The maternal role of royalty towards country is an advantageous allegory, but solely if the country itself is seen as the mother and the king/queen as her spousal protector. Though Queen Elizabeth I presented herself as married to England, this must be understood in conjunction with her view that her body politic was a male body: “I may have the body of a weak and feeble woman, but I have the heart and stomach of a king.”1 As Queen Elizabeth I’s experience attests, a female body politic would not have been tolerable in the sixteenth century.

The notion of inconstancy, or variability, as conventionally feminine are traits that Elizabeth rejected. Her motto was “Semper Eadem” — “Always the same.”2 In contrast, Richard is an erratic figure, he is “basely led by flatterers” and thus easily persuaded toward misdeeds.3 Gardens can be viewed as a place of constancy.

They are environments of “ordered peace, insulated from the surrounding turmoil.”4 It is indicative of constancy that the garden in Act Three belongs to York. Though he shifts his loyalty from Richard to Bolingbroke, York is the only character who strives to adhere solely to the will of God. Rather than be swayed by a fleeting desire for a specific ruler, York remains constant in his obedience to the Divine Right of Kings.

Women are theologically associated with enclosed gardens: “You are a garden locked up, my sister, my bride.”5 Garden’s are places of pleasure, subject to change, fruitfulness, and decay—to birth and rebirth.6 They are strongly linked to the mother archetype of Eden and so are necessarily tainted with a sense loss, “whether of self…or of past perfection.”7 The Garden's protective walls allow her occupants to process the realities of the outside world. England, like Eden, was made and ruled by God, and its heirs are products of God’s will. York’s garden, and the garden scene as a whole, are a reflection of Eden and a microcosm for the fall of England. Richard is the unfit gardener of England; he is a waster of paradise.

Gaunt glorifies England as he calls her “this other Eden, this demi-paradise.”8 He employs “‘demi’ in the sense of ‘second’ rather than ‘half’” as “the idea of England as a second, Biblical, paradise” would have been familiar to Shakespeare’s audience.9 Like Eden,

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8 Babel Volume XX England is an enclosed paradise: “This precious stone set in the silver sea, / Which serves it in the office of a wall / Or as a moat defensive to a house.”10 The walls of Eden/England are simultaneously protective and ostracizing. By employing this parallel, Richard can be viewed as the Eve of England, bringing about his own downfall in his submission to immorality. Alternatively, one can view Bolingbroke as the serpent who makes “a second fall of cursèd man.”11 I take the position that Richard is Eve, as I am more compelled by the view that King Richard’s inadequate leadership is the source of his downfall.

York’s garden is a state of paradise, kept by a careful gardener.

Richard has destroyed his garden; England "Is full of weeds, her fairest flowers choked up / Her fruit trees all unpruned, her hedges ruined.”12 He is like Eve who once possessed paradise but was tempted by worldly desires and forsook her vows to God. If Richard’s fall represents the fall of England, then “England that was wont to conquer others / Hath made a shameful conquest of itself.”13 In surrendering his kingship, Richard, like Eve, has broken a covenant with God and is cast out of a former paradise.

If we understand Richard as Eve, Queen Isabel can be understood as Adam. The view of Isabel as Adam further emasculates Richard. Isabel’s experience of the garden is a paradise of fruitful play, of song, of dance, and of sport. But this paradise has now been destroyed by Richard. She laments the delight she once had in her former paradise: “For if of joy, being altogether wanting,/It doth remember me the more of sorrow.”14 Isabel bitterly likens the Gardener to “old Adam’s likeness,”15 as he is the confessor of evil rather than its actor. It is significant that Isabel is the only one to speak of Adam throughout the play. She is like Adam, close in proximity to the source of her own undoing yet somewhat less culpable of The Fall. Isabel suffers banishment because of Richard and is sent to France. The sea that once protected her becomes a barricade to her former life.

Though Eden remains an empty paradise after The Fall, Richard marks England by his failure to tend to the land under his care and is thus cast out. A soldier’s complaint that “The bay trees in our country are all withered” alludes to a lack of fortitude—bay signifies courage and strength in Greek mythology—under Richard’s rule.16 Richard’s weakness is highlighted when the gardener starkly con-

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trasts Richard with Bollingbroke: “The weeds which his broadspreading leaves did shelter; / That seemed in eating him to hold him up, / Are plucked up, root and all, by Bolingbroke.”17 Again, the deceptive nature of King Richard’s flatterers is obvious to all except him. It is clear that the gardeners believe that Bolingbroke possesses the capability to maintain and cultivate England. As Bolingbroke wrenches out the weed of corruption, his active strength conflicts with Richard’s passive apathy. This difference emphasizes the dichotomy of Richard as a fickle effeminate ruler versus Bolingbroke as a stable masculine figure.

The England as Eden analogy is ripe with biblical context.

Christ is himself “the true vine, and [God] is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in [Christ] that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful.”18 Richard is God’s representative on earth through the Divine Right of King’s, yet, he has allowed his kingdom to become unfruitful through neglect. England’s “wholesome herbs / [are] Swarming with caterpillars.”19 Caterpillars are both a pest, and a symbol of transformation through metamorphosis. By “[swearing] to weed and pluck away [the] caterpillars of the commonwealth,” Bolingbroke— now King Henry—vows to transform and rejuvenate England from its decaying state under Richard.19 In a somewhat futile effort to “undeaf [Richard’s ear]” to his counsel, Gaunt uses his last breaths in an attempt to moralize the opulent King.21 Like an overly concerned father, Gaunt counsels on the danger of over-consumption. “Lascivious meters” and sumptuous notions, such as “reports of fashion” from Italy fall upon Richard’s open and persuadable ears.22 Gaunt bemoans Richard’s selfish demeanour and creates a striking image of self-consumption; “Light vanity, insatiate cormorant,/Consuming means, soon preys upon itself.”23 Due to his ‘womanish’ intoxication with pretty things, Richard discovers—upon attempting to gather money for war with Ireland—that the royal “coffers, with too great a court/ And liberal largess, are grown somewhat light.”24 The word “great” here is frustratingly vague, however, we can safely assume that Richard’s carelessly extravagant lifestyle was reflected in the luxuries of his court.

Richard’s wastefulness affects, “not only the land as a physical inheritance, but also the substance of the kingship itself.”25 He decides

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10 Babel Volume XX to “solve this financial dilemma not only by expropriating Gaunt’s wealth upon his death…but also by increasing taxation throughout the realm—actions that contribute to his downfall.”26 Richard intends for this money to be gathered and sent after him and his entourage to “supply [their] wants.”27 This interaction between Richard and his cohorts emphasizes private wants over public needs. It demonstrates Richard’s inability to transcend his immediate situation and to anticipate his country’s necessities. Richard’s inability to conduct war further reduces him to a meek effeminate figure.

Throughout the play, it is clearly demonstrated that “manhood includes violence as revenge.”28 Richard is clearly incapable of violent action.

In a reference to the Greek War God, Gaunt recounts how kings have held onto England—“this earth of majesty, this seat of mars”—through battle.29 Richard fails to organize a front to fight in Ireland and, in England, he cannot mobilize to challenge Bolingbroke in battle. Thinking him dead, all of Richard’s mercenaries flee “…to Bolingbroke, [and are] dispersed.”30 Richard’s passivity “runs counter to his rank and gender, both of which dictate that he should fiercely take action in an attempt to regain” his kingship.31 This passivity is divulged most revealingly in Isabel’s lament: “and wilt thou, pupil like, / Take the correction, mildly kiss the rod, / And fawn on rage with base humility[?].”32 Isabel is clearly disillusioned by Richard’s mild indifference to his fate. His self-deposition is a nonviolent self-conquest that occurs well before King Henry asks for his resignation.33 Richard is emasculated in an extraneous moment of insight into King Henry’s life. Though King Henry’s spouse is never mentioned, King Henry inquires about his son’s whereabouts in Act Five. This disclosure “marks the new king as possessing the reproductive potency that Richard seems to lack.”34 By calling attention to King Henry’s fecundity, Shakespeare highlights Richard as a barren figure, unable to produce an heir. Imprisoned alone at Pontefract Castle, Richard chaotically traces the origin of his thoughts. He refers to his brain as a woman, who is fertilized by his soul and gives birth to his thoughts. Yet these two members struggle to produce anything; “It is as hard [for thoughts] to come as for a camel/ To thread the postern of a small needle’s eye.”35 His failure to procreate is apparent even in his mind, perhaps alluding to his mental inability

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to rule.

Richard is an unsuccessful father, capable of spawning only woe. Queen Isabel is childless, besides the “unborn sorrow” that she feels “ripe in Fortune’s womb.”36 The king’s flatterers stand by as “[midwives] to her woe.”37 Fortune is a powerful symbol here, as King Henry later states that his “fortune ripens” as his influence grows stronger.38 King Henry is posited as the offspring of Fortune and as the only heir that Richard and Isabel can produce. As Richard pitifully mourns for his crown, he says to King Henry “I am too young to be your father/ Though you are old enough to be my heir.”39 By calling attention to the broken lineage between them, Richard’s infertility is highlighted as the source of his inability to lay claim over the crown. He has no heir; he has no claim over the coming generation of England’s Kings.

England is personified by Gaunt as “This nurse, this teeming womb of royal kings”40 and, in parting with her soils, Bolingbroke lovingly salutes her as “My mother and my nurse that bears me yet.”41 In contrast, upon his return from Ireland, Richard greets the soil of England as though he were “a long-parted mother [greeting] her child.”42 Although Richard domesticates himself by assuming a motherly role toward England, he is not her protective spouse or faithful child. Though he claims a procreative and nurturing role over England, he acts as a fruitless gardener.

Though there is very little violence in Richard II, blood metaphors are frequently employed throughout the play. In a foreboding statement, one of Richard’s soldiers warns of the looming tragedy, stating: “The pale-faced moon looks bloody on the earth.”43 The correlation between the moon and the menstrual cycle is mythologically recognized; a new cycle indicates new beginning and new reproductive possibility.

King Henry and Richard both independently engage with blood symbolism: Blood will “[rain] in “showers”44 and “manure the ground,”45 it will “bedew/ [England’s] pastures’ grass.”46 Blood is rain, dew, and fertilizer; it is in possession of natural procreative power. This repetitive analogy depicts blood as the watering-can over the garden of England. King Henry is “[planted as an] unrightful [king]”47 and cultivated by Richard’s blood. Shakespeare ends the play with King Henry’s regret, “my soul is full of woe / That blood should sprinkle me to make me grow.”48 The link between blood

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12 Babel Volume XX and nature is an inherently feminine affiliation. It is significant that Shakespeare uses this imagery in King Henry’s closing statement.

Shakespeare uses gender to underline Richard's incompetence and rationalize King Henry’s right to the throne. Throughout the play, King Henry’s active and transcendent nature is starkly contrasted with Richard’s passivity and imminence. Richard’s effeminacy subtly rationalizes his deposition. His downfall can be understood as a comment on the inadequacy of female rulers.

Notes Carole Levin, “Introduction,” in The Heart and Stomach of a King: Elizabeth I and the Politics of Sex and Power. 2nd ed. (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013), 1.

2 Levin 2.

3 William Shakespeare, Richard II, Barbara A. Mowat and Paul Werstine, eds.

(Toronto: Simon and Schuster Paperbacks, 2017) II.I.252-252.

4 Conal Condren, “Skepticism and Political Constancy: Richard II and the Garden Scene as a ‘Model of State,’” The Review of Politics 78, no. 4 (2016): 635.

5 The Holy Bible, New International Version (Grand Rapids, MI: The Zondervan Corporation, 2002), Song of Songs, 4:12-13.

6 Sue Bennet, Five Centuries of Women and Gardens (London: National Portrait Gallery Publications, 2000), 10.

7 Bennet 10.

8 Shakespeare II.I.47.

9 Clayton G Mackenzie, “Paradise and Paradise Lost in ‘Richard II.’” Shakespeare Quarterly 37, no. 3 (1986): 318.

10 Shakespeare II.I.50-53.

11 Shakespeare III.IV.83.

12 Shakespeare III.IV.47-48.

13 Shakespeare II.I.71-2.

14 Shakespeare III.IV.14-15.

15 Shakespeare III.IV.79.

16 Shakespeare II.IV.8.

17 Shakespeare III.IV.54-57.

18 Holy Bible, John 15:1-2.

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19 20

Shakespeare III.IV.49-50.

Shakespeare II.III.170-171.

21 Shakespeare

II.I.19.

Shakespeare II.I.22.24.

23 Shakespeare II.I.43-44.

24 Shakespeare I.IV.44-45.

25 Dennis R. Klinck, "Shakespeare's Richard II as Landlord and Wasting Tenant," 22

Babel Volume XX College Literature 25, no. 1 (1998): 25.

26 Derrick Higginbotham, “The Construction of a King: Waste, Effeminacy and Queerness in Shakespeare’s Richard II,” Shakespeare in Southern Africa 26 (Jan. 2014): 62.

27 Shakespeare I.IV.52 28 Higginbotham 65.

29 Shakespeare II.I.46.

30 Shakespeare III.II.75.

31 Higginbotham 65 32 Shakespeare VI.I.26-34.

33 Condren 632.

34 Higginbotham 63.

35 Shakespeare V.V.16-7.

36 Shakespeare II.II.10.

37 Shakespeare II.II.65.

38 Shakespeare II.III.50.

39 Shakespeare III.IV.214-215.

40 Shakespeare II.I.56.

41 Shakespeare I.IV.314.

42 Shakespeare III.II.9.

43 Shakespeare II.IV.10.

44 Shakespeare II.III.44-45.

45 Shakespeare IV.I.143.

46 Shakespeare III.III.98-102 47 Shakespeare V.I.64 48 Shakespeare V.VI.45 Bibliography The Holy Bible, New International Version. Grand Rapids, MI: The Zondervan Corporation, 2002.

Bennett, Sue. Five Centuries of Women and Gardens. London: National Portrait Gallery Publications, 2000.

Condren, Conal. “Skepticism and Political Constancy: Richard II and the Garden Scene as a ‘Model of State.’” The Review of Politics 78, no. 4 (2016): 625– 643., www.jstor.org/stable/24890021. Accessed 9 Oct. 2020.

Higginbotham, Derrick. “The Construction of a King: Waste, Effeminacy and Queerness in Shakespeare’s Richard II.” Shakespeare in Southern Africa 26 (Jan. 2014): 59–73. EBSCOhost, doi:10.4314/sisa.v26i1.4.

Klinck, Dennis R. "Shakespeare's Richard II as Landlord and Wasting Tenant."

College Literature 25, no. 1 (1998): 21-34. ProQuest. 9 Oct. 2020.

Levin, Carole. “Introduction.” In The Heart and Stomach of a King: Elizabeth I and the Politics of Sex and Power. 2nd ed. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt5hjkp7.5. Accessed 21 Oct. 2020.

MacKenzie, Clayton G. “Paradise and Paradise Lost in ‘Richard II.’” Shakespeare Quarterly 37, no. 3 (1986): 318–339. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/

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14 Babel Volume XX stable/2870102. Accessed 9 Oct 2020.

Shakespeare, William. Richard II. Edited by Barbara A. Mowat and Paul Werstine, Toronto: Simon and Schuster Paperbacks, 2017.

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“Living Death” or Divine Enlightenment? A Comparative Analysis of Love and Suffering in the Poetry of Petrarch and Louise Labé Katie Lawrence In her introduction to the Complete Poetry and Prose of Louise Labé, Deborah Lesko Baker describes how despite incorporating “many of the conventions, settings, and metaphors standard in Petrarchan practice,” Labé subverts Petrarch’s form with a unique voice that is life-affirming and feminist.1 While in Petrarch’s Canzionere love paralyzes the poet with emotional anguish and causes him to despise life and wish for death, Labé embraces this suffering as an unavoidable component of love, life, and her fate. Throughout Petrarch’s sonnets, his beloved is an untouchable otherworldly entity; however, for Labé it is through harmonious physical contact with the beloved that an individual can experience spiritual transcendence. In Petrarch’s work, religious devotion takes place outside of life whereas for Labé, God can be appreciated through loving his creations and influence on earth. Labé’s persistent affirmation of life and love in her poems and her thoughtful acceptance of emotional torment, especially in comparison to Petrarch’s rejection of both as sources of unbearable emotional hardship, reveal Labé to be a courageous, dedicated, and rational poet. Thus, unlike Petrarch, Labé’s poetry moves beyond mere musings about love to question and contest the gender conceptions of her age and present a nuanced and authentic woman’s voice.

As Baker articulates in her introduction, Labé is not satisfied with “the anticipation of a spiritual release and metaphorical union with the beloved after death,” as envisioned by Petrarch, but instead pursues this union and reciprocity on earth.2 In Labé’s poem “Kiss

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16 Babel Volume XX Me Again,” she describes how she and her lover “sweetly bent on love” will “enter joy through doubleness.”3 Through mutual physical contact and kissing Labé and her lover achieve a spiritual union that transcends their mortal bodies to assume a divine “single self.”4 In opposition, Petrarch sees love as an obstacle to piety. In Sonnet 264, Petrarch states that Love “blocks the path of honour / for anyone who trusts too much in him.”5 He also explains that “to love a mortal thing with such great faith,” is blasphemous as that degree of desire “should be placed in God alone.”6 In Labé’s poetry, the lovers worship God through their burning passion for one another and their full enjoyment and appreciation of life; loving God for Labé is accomplished through loving his creations. In comparison, despite stating that “all things adorning our world with their beauty / came forth in goodness from the Master's hand,” Petrarch’s poetry portrays God as distinct and separate from life, and earthly concerns only confuse and disrupt proper religious devotion.7 In Labé’s epistre to her 1555 volume of love sonnets, Baker explains how the poet “advances one of her essential beliefs: the importance of reciprocity and equality between men and women” especially in “their own mutual relationships.”8 Labé’s poetry strongly reflects this ideology, while Petrarch’s displays a hierarchical gender dynamic. Petrarch describes his beloved as possessing divine qualities, but he is excluded from them and can only experience spiritual transcendence and reciprocal love through worshipping God and going to Heaven. In Sonnet 90, Petrarch presents his beloved as a “godly spirit and a living sun” who walked “not the way of mortals / but of angelic forms, and when she spoke / more than an earthly voice it was that sang.”9 Then, in Sonnet 126, Petrarch asserts that his beloved “was born up there in Heaven” and assumes that maybe he is in Heaven as well if he is witnessing her beauty.10 In these passages, Petrarch speaks of his beloved as being both like an object without any autonomy or individuality and as a kind of heavenly phenomenon that has been misplaced on earth.

Petrarch can only contemplate his beloved’s beauty but never satisfy his heart’s desires like Labé; instead he assumes his wishes will be fulfilled only after life. The conception of reciprocal love detailed in Labé’s poetry is fundamentally egalitarian: both partners engage with one another equally and it is their complete dedication to and care for one another that seals their spiritual union. In contrast, Pet-

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rarch’s most joyful experiences in love are always described as at a distance from his love object, with the poet reduced to a state of awe or even inferiority by his love’s divine beauty.

In the poetry of both Labé and Petrarch, love is not merely experienced positively but also always as a source of great suffering.

Both poets personify or address love as a cruel and powerful god.

Labé explains in her third Elegy “Oh Women of Lyon,” that “if there’s anything imperfect in [her] life; / blame Love,” for he is “the cause of all [her] strife.”11 She then admits that “Death is more compassionate than Love,” because the emotional agony Love forces her to endure lasts “to the very end.”12 Similarly, in Sonnet 134 Petrarch asserts that “Love does not kill,” but rather leaves the poet “lifeless,” thriving on “pain,” and hating himself.13 The experience of unrequited love or unfulfilled desire is torturous for both poets.

In “Long-Felt Desires” Labé states that her pain is “so hard it makes compassionate stars go mad / with pity.”14 She continues, detailing how love “licked [her] again with fire, and stabbed [her] deep / with the violent worst, as awful as before.”15 Then in her poem “Stronger among the Strong,” Labé characterizes Love as poisoning her with “many fires” and never letting her rest “for one single day.”16 Petrarch recounts comparable violence and abuse from love, expressing in Sonnet 132 how love is a “bitter mortal sting” and “living death.”17 Although both poets articulate terrible anguish caused by love, they ultimately come to very different conclusions. By the end of the Canzionere, Petrarch decides to abandon his love of mortal things, which may not return his desire or may die and leave him, to instead focus on loving God. In Sonnet 365, Petrarch states: “I go my way regretting those past times / I spent in loving something which was mortal.”18 Then in Sonnet 311 Love urges Petrarch to turn away from the world as it illustrates to him that “nothing here can please and also last.”19 Petrarch even describes his love as beckoning him to Heaven in Sonnet 346, articulating how all his “thoughts and wishes strain to Heaven” in response to the sound of his beloved “praying that [he] hurry up” and die.20 The love Petrarch’s poetry presents posits meaning outside of life, whereas in contrast Labé’s love is resolutely life-affirming. Interestingly, despite describing his beloved as possessing divine beauty, Petrarch does not find holiness in mortal things, but instead believes that to love

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18 Babel Volume XX God he must abandon the world. Labé instead recognizes that the world and its inhabitants are all God’s creations, and loving them is loving and acknowledging God’s creative power, sovereignty, and generosity.

Labé regards love, however painful it can be, as a necessary and desirable experience of life. In “Soul and Body,” Labé commands her lover to return to her “gently,” despite conceding that his beauty was to her “so cruel before.”21 Then in her poem “The Point of Death,” Labé recounts the terrible suffering love generates in her, only to then assert that she “never [wants] to reach the point of death” unless her spirit is “beating with no more signs of love.”22 Finally, in “Celestial Loves” Labé admits that just as the “heavenly bodies link their different ways” and are connected in “harmony and irrevocable order” like lovers, so too is she fated or destined to suffer this love.23 These passages, especially when compared to the tremendous suffering from love explored in her other poems, reveal that Labé is willing to withstand and accept love’s torture both for the possibility of pleasure and as part of the natural order. While Petrarch dwells in his grief and desperately yearns to be released from life and love’s suffering, Labé regards her misery as an affirmation of life, and thus God, and a testament to the intensity of her love.

In the series editors’ introduction to the Complete Poetry and Prose of Louise Labé, Margaret L. King and Albert Rabil Jr. explain that Labé was writing against a tradition which saw women as incapable of “masculine” virtues such as “courage,” “generosity,” “leadership,” or “rationality” and instead as being susceptible to “inconstancy, deceitfulness, and lustfulness.”24 Interestingly, Labé’s poetry, in comparison to Petrarch’s, more persuasively displays these “masculine” attributes. Labé, unlike Petrarch, has the courage to love again and live on, despite her amorous suffering. While Petrarch speaks about his misery with a helpless or self-pitying tone, noting bitterly that regarding love “Death and Heaven in [his] case were stingy,”25 Labé attempts to rationalize her experiences as fate or an inevitable part of life. Labé recognizes suffering as being a fundamental part of love and life, committing to both through pleasure and pain, whereas Petrarch turns away from love and life when they become arduous. The way in which Labé describes giving her body and soul up to her lover in “Kiss Me Again” illustrates her

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generosity and honesty. In contrast, Petrarch uses jealous words like “hoarding” and “cling” to express how he shares time with his beloved.26 Further, he is never forthcoming about his affections but instead conceals them from his unreceptive beloved, admitting that he “can see how much her eyes disdain [him].”27 Indeed, Petrarch’s work is entirely concerned with himself and is therefore exhaustingly selfish. By inverting the gender expectations of women in her time, Labé bolsters her introductory argument for the equality of the sexes, and unlike Petrarch’s Canzionere, offers a complex subtextual social critique embedded in her personal reveries on love.

The love sonnets of Louise Labé repurpose Petrarchan form and style to transform desire into a positive spiritual force, explore the heartening possibilities of romantic reciprocity, and introduce an authentic and compelling woman’s voice. Petrarch’s Canzionere focuses exclusively on the poet’s internal turmoil, dismisses earthly things, and ultimately pines for spiritual transcendence and eternal peace in Heaven. Labé instead accepts emotional hardship as part of her destiny and integral to love and religious devotion. Baker observes that the beloved in Petrarch’s sonnets is “an abstract catalyst through which he accesses and perpetuates his own psychic struggle,” whereas Labé meets her lover as an equal and finds divine enlightenment in their physical union.28 Unlike Petrarch who regrets his earthly loves and awaits a metaphysical union with his beloved in heaven, Baker notes that “Labé rejects this idea of heavenly escape in favor of concrete scenarios and possibilities” such as “joyful partnership with another loved human being on this earth.”29 Labé’s life -affirming perspective in her poetry and her thoughtful and brave resignation to love’s pain, especially in comparison to Petrarch’s ceaseless complaining, feeling sorry for himself, and eventual abandonment of earthly love, emphasize Labé’s courage, honesty, constancy, generosity, and rationality. By demonstrating her possession of these “masculine” attributes, Labé’s poetry addresses, questions, and contradicts her contemporaries’ misconceptions about gender, and provides a powerful argument for the education of women and gender equality.

Notes Complete Poetry and Prose: a Bilingual Edition, ed. Deborah Lesko Baker, trans. Annie Finch (Chicago: Univer1

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20 Babel Volume XX sity of Chicago Press, 2006), 10.

2 Baker 10.

3 Complete Poetry and Prose: a Bilingual Edition, ed. Deborah Lesko Baker, trans. Annie Finch (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006) 207.

4

Francesco Petrarca, Selections from the Canzoniere and Other Works, trans. and ed.

Mark Musa (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 62.

6 Petrarca 62.

7 Petrarca 37.

8 Baker 7.

9 Petrarca 38.

10 Petrarca 42.

11 Labé 167.

12 Labé 171.

13 Petrarca 50.

14 Labé 177.

15 Labé 177.

16 Labé 179.

17 Petrarca 49.

18 Petrarca 77.

19 Petrarca 69.

20 Petrarca 75.

21 Labé 185.

22 Labé 199.

23 Labé 215.

24 Labé xxvi, xxiii.

25 Petrarca 76.

26 Petrarca 62, 63.

27 Petrarca 52.

28 Baker 9.

29 Baker 10.

5

Bibliography Complete Poetry and Prose: a Bilingual Edition. Edited by Deborah Lesko Baker, translated by Annie Finch. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006.

Petrarca, Francesco. Selections from the Canzoniere and Other Works. Translated and edited by Mark Musa. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008.

Babel Volume XX

The Gender Hierarchy in Milton’s Paradise Lost Eliza Wolfe

John Milton’s Paradise Lost seems as though it was written for the very purpose of a gender analysis. The entire epic, as well as the story it is based upon, the book of Genesis, is about Adam and Eve and their time spent in the garden of Eden. We observe their origin story, their relationship, and their behaviour pre and post Fall. Adam is made in God’s image, and Eve from Adam’s rib, perpetuating the idea that man is godlike and woman serves the purpose of being man’s companion. Eve is lower on God’s list of creation priorities; she is an afterthought. This very notion sets up the gender imbalance that is present in most of western canon. From her inequality to Adam arises jealousy, which leads her to be more easily tempted

by Satan, as he preys on her inequality to get her to eat from the tree of knowledge. In this sense, God punishes Eve both by simply creating her as lesser than Adam, and for eating from the tree, which she is compelled to do because she is inferior to Adam. She is unjustly punished by God. However, different readings of the epic are possible, as Milton occasionally grants Eve agency.

In her article ““Render Me More Equal”: Gender Inequality and the Fall in “Paradise Lost,” Deborah Interdonato illustrates that Eve is hungry for agency throughout the entire poem, despite her alleged happiness with her subservience to Adam. In his article, “Formal Resistance: Gender Hierarchy and Eve's Final Speech in “Paradise Lost”” Patrick McGrath argues that Eve is given agency during her last speech. She is tasked with explaining the concept of salvation, and taking responsibility for both her and Adam’s actions.

The form of her speech, itself, challenges the gender hierarchy

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22 Babel Volume XX through its linguistic virtuosity and prodigious intellect. In her article “'Vain desire', 'perverseness' and 'love's proper hue': gender, sexuality and feminist interest in "Paradise Lost,"” Elspeth Graham calls Milton’s writing “a fruitful ground for feminist examination of articulations of identity, social, political, and psychological, which necessarily involve orderings of sexuality, gendered identity and relationship.”1 She posits that Milton politicizes the intimate by setting his epic in the domestic sphere. Adam and Eve have non-procreative sex which in essence proves that Eve’s purpose is not to bear children. Graham suggests two possibilities; that Milton believes in the highly patriarchal world he is writing, or, he is a proto-feminist in the sense that he rewrote Genesis because he believed it begged for progression. In his article “Wrestling with the Angel: "Paradise Lost" and Feminist Criticism,” William Shullenberger presents a solution to this problem. He holds that simply because Milton writes a world that reveres patriarchy, does not mean he is misogynistic. This essay contends that there is no doubt that Milton wrote Eve as subservient to Adam, but he was doing so not because he believed Eve to be deserving of her inferior status, but to criticize the prescription of gender hierarchy that is present in the Bible, as Milton’s account is a more progressive version, and this is why he grants her occasional agency.

Although Paradise Lost is open to endless interpretations, one of the most persistent themes throughout the novel is that of gender. The first three books of the epic are devoted to Satan and setting him up as the villain of the story. At first, he is not depicted so much as a villain but as the charismatic leader of Hell, and we sympathize for him, which is perhaps a tactic Milton uses to make his reader realize the seductive nature of evil and how difficult it is to resist its appeal. The time Milton spends in setting up context for Satan is not lost because once the protagonist switches in book four to Adam and Eve, mostly Adam, the reader understands Satan’s motivation for wishing to corrupt humankind, as he is envious of how beautiful and shameless they are, walking around naked and tending to the garden. This very envy is a sentiment later mirrored

by Eve when she is jealous of Adam, so there is a sense in which Eve’s behaviour harkens back to that of Satan, which automatically paints her as slightly Satanic. What any astute reader would observe, however, is that all humans are fallen, so all exhibit behaviour of

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Satan, the fallen angel.

Prior to the Fall, Eve speaks to Adam in a way that acknowledges her inferior position to him. “My author and disposer, what thou bidd’st / Unargued I obey; so God ordains / God is thy law, thou mine: to know no more / Is woman’s happiest knowledge and her praise.”2 Adam is closer to God because he was made in his image and, as such, Adam has direct communication with God. “In outward also her resembling less / His image who made both, and less expressing / The character of that dominion giv’n.”3 The difference in Eve’s physicality is typically seen as negative, because it is less godlike. The hierarchy functions by God speaking directly to Adam, and Adam relaying the information to Eve. The only way that Eve can relate to God is through Adam. By making him the messenger of this information, Adam is automatically marked as smarter, more trustworthy, and the authoritarian over Eve. By saying she obeys, and that this system makes her happy, Eve is accepting this as the natural scheme of things. This is further proven when Eve accepts Adam’s warning to not eat from the tree of knowledge, because God told them not to. “O thou for whom / And from whom, I was formed flesh of thy flesh / And without whom am to no end; my guide / And head, what thou hast said is just and right.”4 While it is generally accepted, at least in Christianity, that people should follow God’s orders, Eve is quite literally following Adam’s orders. He could tell her to do anything and she would obey simply because Adam claims he is relaying the word of God. In this sense, Eve puts all her trust in Adam. She is loyal and obedient.

The moment we see this sentiment change in Eve is when she eats from the tree, after having been tempted by Satan. “Why then was this forbid? Why but to awe, / Why but to keep ye low and ignorant, / His worshippers; he knows that in the day / Ye eat thereof, your eyes that seem so clear, / Yet are but dim, shall perfectly be then / Opened and cleared, and ye shall be as gods.”5 He not only appeals to her inequality to Adam, but her inequality to God. This is strategic on Milton’s part, because if one says Eve was tempted because she wanted to be equal to God, then she would simply be exhibiting human greed. However, the reality is sadder than this as Eve does not wish to be God, she does not wish to be that powerful. She simply wishes to have power over Adam, or at least power that is comparable to that of Adam, because she has been subservi-

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24 Babel Volume XX ent for so long and the resentment has caught up to her. Adam’s close proximity to God and the fact that he often plays God over Eve, is evidence that Satan truly is appealing to Eve’s wish to be equal to Adam. Satan calls her low, ignorant and dim. Of course, his temptation is successful, because he alerts her of her unjust position.

And God bestowed this position upon her, which is why it has been accepted and justified that women are exiled to this inferior status, because it is seen as God given. Both the Bible, and Milton, show evidence of Eve’s natural retaliation against this position and, as such, readers should be critical of God’s subjugation of Eve. He is unfairly punishing her, not because he is trying to teach her a moral lesson, but strictly because she is female. In this story, to be female is to be subservient because the female sex is created second.

Once Eve has eaten from the tree, she questions whether or not she should share this information with Adam: But to Adam in what sort Shall I appear? shall I to him make known As yet my change, and give him to partake Full happiness with me, or rather not, But keep the odds of knowledge in my power Without copartner? So to add what wants In female sex, the more to draw his love, And render me more equal, and perhaps, A thing not undesirable, sometime Superior; for inferior who is free?6 Here, Eve is grappling with the conflict of whether or not to tell Adam she has eaten from the tree. In her own phrasing, Eve is acknowledging that keeping this information from Adam would make her a bad partner, exhibiting that she still has a moral compass and is a compassionate partner. Sharing this information would not reinforce her subservience, it would actually make her an equal partner, which is why she opts to do so. Eve assumes agency and it does not render her any less of a partner. She believes that being equal, and possessing more power than before, makes her a more desirable female. She is correct, equality should be desirable to a moral partner. Lastly, Eve acknowledges that it is impossible to be free if one is inferior. Many readers have incorrectly interpreted this passage by thinking it was the fruit and Eve’s sin that caused her to have this realization.

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In her article ““Render Me More Equal”: Gender Inequality and the Fall in “Paradise Lost,” Deborah Interdonato rightly points out that the yearning for equality has existed in Eve from the beginning. Simply because she has sinned, does not make her a different person. Her exclamation “render me more equal,” is said out of pain and desperation, to be more equal. No one wants to be told time and time again that they are lesser than. Interdonato cites Thomas Newton who once wrote that he could not help but think Milton intended “a satirical, as well as moral hint to the ladies, in making one of Eve’s first thoughts after her fatal lapse, to be, how to get mastery over her husband,” suggesting that these thoughts are newly emblematic of her fallen state, and that she never would have entertained them prior to her lapse. However, Interdonato does not think that the episode suggests the Fall effects a radical change from a good Eve to a bad Eve.7 Failing to recognize that Eve had these thoughts pre Fall would be the same failure we see in Adam not appreciating her as a complex person. Naturally, she must have had some resentment towards Adam or else Satan would not have been able to tempt her by using her inequality as bait. She had to know, even subconsciously, that this sentiment existed prior to the serpent speaking to her: Though her reasoning does suggest a selfish desire to gain an opportunistic advantage over Adam, it is a desire that emerges from a seemingly genuine sense of incompleteness and inferiority, and the Eve who ponders her option about whether to involve Adam in her forbidden enterprise is still recognizably the same Eve she was before her act of formal transgression.8 Ultimately, Eve vindicates herself by sharing the fruit with Adam, proving she is a good, honest, partner, and Adam proves himself, as well, by eating from the tree. Yes, he is fallen, we see examples of Adam’s narcissism throughout the book, which could be why he is tempted. However, if he eats from the tree because Eve has, this is an example of love and good partnership, and may be a cry for equality on Adam’s behalf.

Interdonato goes on to say that there is further evidence of Eve’s knowledge of gender imbalance prior to the fall. This is found in book nine when Adam and Eve separate to work individually.

“Assuming, then, as I do, that Eve’s gender based “inferiority com-

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26 Babel Volume XX plex” is rooted in the time before the Fall, it might be suggested that these feelings of gender inequality have informed a state of mind that is implicated in her decision to work apart from Adam.”9 For Interdonato, the fateful construct of gender inequality is reflected in the prelapsarian discourse between Adam and Eve, particularly in the dialogue that precedes the separation. Prior to the Fall, Adam and Eve get into an argument. It is civilized, but their responses to one another portray Eve’s feelings of inferiority and Adam’s sense of superiority. Eve makes the decision, a moment where Milton grants her agency, to separate from her husband. Eve says “…but if much converse perhaps / Thee satiate, to short absence I could yield. / For solitude sometimes is best society, / And short retirement urges sweet return.”10 There is something incredibly progressive about Eve telling Adam that some distance could be good for their relationship. They each have their respective duties, equally as important, and they can carry them out independently. This does not mean that they love each other any less. Yet, Adam disagrees: “…leave not the faithful side / That gave thee being, still shades thee and protects. / The wife, where danger or dishonor lurks, / Safest and seemliest by her husband stays, / Who guards her, or with her the worst endures.”11 Adam is reminding Eve that he is the reason for her existence and, as such, she must stay by his side because without him she is powerless and, without his ‘voice of reason,’ she may do something dangerous or dishonourable. In this sense, the Fall can actually be blamed on gender inequality. One can make that claim if they believe that Eve ate from the tree due to her feelings of inferiority. However, in Interdonato’s account, Adam and Eve would not have been in the correct geographical locations for the Fall to take place, and Eve would not have been alone, rendering her more vulnerable, had it not been for their argument over gender equality, prior to the Fall. This is a very powerful statement on Interdonato’s part. It is most definitely possible that Milton wanted to have this discussion of gender politics.

Patrick McGrath is another thinker who gives Eve agency, insists that she is meant to combat the gender hierarchy, and is a fully formed, complex and intelligent person. He accredits this particularly to how she speaks. He notes that the final words in the epic are spoken by Eve, and she is granted the task of presenting Christian soteriology, namely the concept of salvation, to the world.12

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Eve articulates a version of paradise within. There is powerful messaging in granting Eve the last words of the epic. Some thinkers have put forth that bestowing Eve with such important words gives her agency and undermines the gender hierarchy. Joseph Wittreich notes that Eve takes “the lead in assuring their redemption and recovery.”13 Diane Kelsey McColley and Susannah B. Mintz agree that Eve’s “affirmation of marital companionship disrupts the inequality gender hierarchy presumes.”14 However, McGrath ultimately holds that this challenge to the gender hierarchy can be found in the speech’s form. “Gender hierarchy can indeed accommodate an inferior Eve who is also dynamic and thoughtful. But when Eve’s last speech through allusion, exhausts the connotations of words, and distinguishes her utterance through prosody, her linguistic virtuosity and prodigious intellect question that inferiority.”15 McGrath is using perhaps the best tool in the feminist kit to disrupt gender hierarchy; reminding his reader that women are as rational and intelligent as men. And perhaps women are more moral, as demonstrated by Eve’s moral development through the poem, where Adam’s development is slightly lacking. It is Eve’s choice to eat from the tree, and it is her choice to tell Adam, and accept punishment, showing moral depth. In McGrath’s thesis, Eve is a more powerful linguist than Adam. “While debates about Milton and gender have benefited from any number of critical and theoretical approaches, prosody, lexical choice, and internal allusion are not often foregrounded as vitally important to those debates.”16 McGrath posits that “allusive complexity helps signal the formal ingenuity of Eve’s speech.”:17 Whence thou return’st, and whither went’st, I know; For God is also in sleep, and dreams advise, Which he hath sent propitious, some great good Presaging, since with sorrow and heart’s distress Wearied I fell asleep: but now lead on; In me is no delay; with thee I go, Is to stay here; without thee here to stsay, Is to go hence unwilling, thou to me Art all things under Heav’n, all places thou, Who for my wilful crime art banished hence.

This further consolation yet secure I carry hence; though all by me is lost,

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28 Babel Volume XX Such favour I unworthy am vouchsafed, By me the promised Seed shall restore.18 McGrath posits that Eve’s speech harkens back to that of Adam in the separation scene when he says “Go; for thy stay, not free, absents thee more.”19 He also notes that the rhyming scheme in both speeches is similar, and that both speeches discuss themes of loneliness and solitude. McGrath ruminates on whether or not Eve’s speech signifies an indoctrination of patriarchy, which other thinkers have posited. He concludes that calling Eve a mouthpiece for patriarchy denies her allusion the creative independence that it deserves. Again, McGrath, like Interdonato, is insisting that the reader view Eve as a fully formed, complex person with her own thoughts and intellect, otherwise the reader is no better than Adam in his failing to do so. McGrath also refers to the prosody of Eve’s speech as musicality, marking her as more creative. “The lines achieve euphony by establishing a rhythmic patterning and evenness of pacing through enjambment, caesura, and meter…There is a quite deliberateness, a sense of complete composure, in Eve’s choice of monosyllabic words that causes the rhythm and prosody to correspond in orderly alignment.”20 By dissecting Eve’s speech, McGrath is essentially calling Eve so creatively ingenious and articulate that she has to be Adam’s equal, if not superior. In this sense, Milton is dismantling the gender hierarchy.

Elspeth Graham believes that because Milton himself was a political and literary figure, his implication in the social, cultural and political revolution, suggests his writing offers an invitation to twentieth-century feminist analysis.21 The mantra of second-wave feminism was “the personal is political,” so it is no surprise that there was interest during this time in a writer who “politicises the intimate.”22 Milton sets the domestic sphere as the centre of his “pervasively sexualized cosmos.”23 This poem, at its core, centres a family. It is Adam and Eve’s job to populate the earth. Graham posits that Milton was either an archetypal misogynist, or a protofeminist, and this distinction is difficult to decipher. “The very totalising nature of Milton’s major literary project has led to his being identified with the whole history and system of western patriarchy.

As prime defender of an all-powerful God-the-Father he becomes the ultimate spokesperson for a misogynistic western culture.”24 Although he may have been radicalizing the story, Milton chose to

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write his epic about the beginning of Christianity. Even though there is evidence at times of him granting agency to Eve, he is justifying and legitimizing the gender hierarchy as prescribed by Christianity, by giving it a platform. However, by choosing this story as the topic of his epic, he clearly believed that it begged for reform. This problem presents two schools of thought. One either believes that this tale is about male hegemony, or that it is a story about Eve. Milton informs his reader at the beginning of the epic of Eve’s secondariness to Adam: “Though both / Not equal, as their sex not equal seemed; / For contemplation he and valour formed, / For softness she and sweet attractive grace, He for God only, she for God in him.”25 This passage affirms that Adam is contemplative and Eve is attractive. Adam is godly, as he is almost Eve’s god. Graham also notes Eve’s kinship to Satan, which must mark Milton’s misogyny. However, she also cites Diane McColley, who writes that “Milton narrowed the gender gap considerably, helped to promote sexual liberty, and emphasized traditionally feminine virtues such as gentleness, patience and humility.”26 It is true that Milton places Adam higher on the hierarchy and Eve lower, but they work together harmoniously. Just because Milton creates a gender hierarchy with his words, does not mean he wished for his readers to read these words at surface level. In his construction of Eve, he was most likely saying something deeper in the subtext about her complexity, and by bestowing her with these virtues, he was assuring his reader of her moral superiority. To say nothing of the fact that Adam and Eve have non-procreative sex, which signals that women’s purpose is not, only, to bear children. God may prescribe the gender hierarchy, but he alerts Adam that the reason for Eve’s creation is to foster community. “In solitude / What happiness, who can enjoy alone, / Or all enjoying, what contentment find?”27 Arguably, in community, all members are equal. Milton may say, through the words of God, that Adam and Eve are not equal, but he contradicts himself continually when he reveres Eve, suggesting that they are equal. Different, but equal.

William Shullenberger posits that Milton’s text changes with each generation that reads it. “For even as Milton’s text changes for each generation of readers, so does the text put each reader’s assumptions under challenge, so that she may emerge from a reading with everything she has come to know and believe complicated, en-

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30 Babel Volume XX riched, enlarged, and sometimes transfigured utterly.”28 Shullenberger notes that the takeaway of Milton for women readers is often that Milton’s poetry “constructs its gods and its speech on the bedrock of woman’s silence.” As previously noted, this is seemingly the case. Shullenberger notes that feminist criticism of Milton in recent years has centred around the sexual politics in the poem. No doubt, this topic would require another paper entirely to dissect. Many thinkers use the sexual politics in the poem to inform theses on Milton’s centrality. Shullenberger believes there is “something in Paradise Lost which survives and challenges the developing feminist critique of Milton.”29 He says “it would be fruitless to argue that Milton was not a poet of his age, or that his poetry is not consequently and explicitly patriarchal. He could not be a feminist in any way in which we understand the term, for the way of feminist thinking was at best obscure and marginal in the seventeenth century.”30 However, Milton leaves open the possibility of feminist thinking in his representations of identity, relationship and freedom. For Shullenberger, “the subtext of Paradise Lost encourages and supports feminist reading.” Shullenberger also makes an astute, albeit controversial point. Patriarchal does not equal misogynistic. It is likely Milton held firm in his patriarchal beliefs, he did not simply put them in the poem as a critique. Milton is a Puritan poet and reserves a specific place for women in his Puritan cosmos. Readers who are not able to overlook this fact will miss out on the “obscured elements in the subtext.” These obscure elements, as I have argued, reveal that Milton, himself, does not believe women to be lesser than: He dignifies Eve by assigning her coinheritance with Adam of the divine patrimony of “Truth, Wisdom, Sanctitude severe and pure” (4.293)… He isolates and exposes antifeminist thinking by concentrating it explicitly in the litany of fallen Adam’s diatribes against Eve. (10.897-908). And he diagnoses and purges aberrations of unbalanced masculine “virtue” in the Romantically heroic figure of Satan.31 Milton recounts the word of God as it is portrayed in the Bible, but with his own twist, which involves dignifying Eve as developed and, sometimes, exposing the ways in which Adam and Satan err.

In closing, Paradise Lost is laden with examples of Eve’s subservience to Adam. She can only relate to God through Adam, as he is more godly. Milton openly states, through God’s words, that the

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two are not equal. In this sense, God punishes Eve by making her lesser than Adam, and he punishes her again for eating from the tree, which she only does due to her dissatisfaction with being unequal. This is unfair of God to do, and it has justified the subjugation of women in all of western canon and in the Christian faith. However, as Deborah Interdonato elucidates, Eve does not become more envious of Adam after the Fall. Eve is already jealous of Adam’s superiority, pre Fall. The Fall is merely the result of Eve’s resentment, and this resentment is justified. The Fall also occurs because Adam and Eve choose to separate, after an argument which concerns their gender inequality. In this sense, Milton is highlighting the ways in which this inequality is problematic and can only lead to ruin. Patrick McGrath highlights Eve’s merit as Adam’s creative and intellectual equal and, perhaps, moral superior, by deconstructing her final speech. In granting Eve the last words of the epic, Milton was granting Eve agency. This is an issue both Elspeth Graham and William Shullenberger address as they underscore how Milton may state that Adam and Eve are unequal when he is writing the word of God, but the subtext suggests Milton, in fact, bestowed Eve with immense importance. Graham notes that Milton politicizes the intimate by setting his epic in the domestic sphere. Adam and Eve have non-procreative sex which, in essence, proves that Eve’s purpose is not to bear children. Graham suggests two possibilities; that Milton believes in the highly patriarchal world he is writing, or, that he is a proto-feminist in the sense that he rewrote Genesis because he believed it begged for progression. Shullenberger presents a solution to this problem. He holds that simply because Milton writes a world that reveres patriarchy, does not mean he is misogynistic. To dismiss the text because it upholds the traditional patriarchal values of Christianity would be to miss out on the depth and complexity of Eve as a character, and on what Milton intended by writing her this way. All of the aforementioned interpretations shed light on the beauty of the subtext in this poem and urge readers not to take the epic at face value, but to use Milton to challenge the gender hierarchy that Christianity is predicated upon.

Notes E. Graham, “'Vain desire', 'perverseness' and 'love's proper hue': Gender, sexuality and feminist interest in Paradise Lost,” Critical Survey 4, no. 2 (1992): 133.

1

31

32 Babel Volume XX John Milton, Paradise Lost (New York: Penguin Books, 2000), 4.635-8.

Milton 8.543-5.

4 Milton 4.440-3.

5 Milton 9.703-8.

6 Milton 9.816-25.

7 D. A. Interdonato, “”Render Me More Equal”: Gender Inequality and the Fall in “Paradise Lost,” 9.” Milton Quarterly 29, no. 4 (1995): 95.

8 Interdonato 95.

9 Interdonato 95.

10 Milton 9.247-50.

11 Milton 9.265-9.

12 P. McGrath, “Formal Resistance: Gender Hierarchy and Eve's Final Speech in “Paradise Lost,”” Milton Quarterly 47, no. 2 (2013): 72.

13 McGrath 72.

14 Qtd in McGrath, 72.

15 McGrath 72.

16 McGrath 73.

17 McGrath 73.

18 Milton 12.610-23.

19 Milton 9.372.

20 McGrath 74.

21 Graham 133.

22 Graham 133.

23 Graham 133.

24 Graham 134.

25 Milton 4.295-9.

26 Graham 134.

27 Milton 8.364-6.

28 W. Shullenberger, “Wrestling with the Angel: "Paradise Lost" and Feminist Criticism,” Milton Quarterly 20, no. 3 (1986): 69.

29 Shullenberger 69.

30 Shullenberger 69.

31 Shullenberger 71.

2 3

Bibliography Milton, John. Paradise Lost. New York: Penguin Books, 2000.

Interdonato, D. A. “”Render Me More Equal”: Gender Inequality and the Fall in “Paradise Lost,” 9.” Milton Quarterly 29, no. 4 (1995): 95-106.

McGrath, P. “Formal Resistance: Gender Hierarchy and Eve's Final Speech in “Paradise Lost.”” Milton Quarterly 47, no. 2 (2013): 72-87.

Graham, E. “'Vain desire', 'perverseness' and 'love's proper hue': Gender, sexuality and feminist interest in Paradise Lost.” Critical Survey 4, no. 2 (1992): 133-139.

Shullenberger, W. (1986).” Wrestling with the Angel: "Paradise Lost" and Feminist Criticism.” Milton Quarterly 20, no. 3 (1986): 69-85.

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Rousseauian Influence in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein Mauricio Rico Quiroz

In Mary Shelley's novel Frankenstein, the creature's character evolves following Rousseau's human development description. I will argue that the beast goes through Rousseau's stages in the Discourse on the Origin of Inequality. Thus, I will be drawing a framework from his text and analyzing how its phases and characteristics correspond with the monster's character development. Since Frankenstein is ultimately a work of fiction and not a philosophical treatise, on meticulous examination, both texts' correspondence will not be perfect. Even though every single detail of Rousseau's work will not match with Shelley's account of the monster, the essence of it and his influence will be apparent.

To prove my argument, I will first argue that the monster begins in the state of nature at his inception, i.e. uncorrupted by society and rationality. Then, I will analyze how his contact with society shapes his character and how this relates to Rousseau. Afterward, I will demonstrate that the creature's necessities grow as he discovers human civilization. Next, I will argue that the monster's development reaches its apex with the gradual acquisition of rationality and selfconsciousness. Then, I will argue that rationality is what makes him evil and miserable ultimately. Finally, I will draw these arguments together to study the importance of the similarities between Shelley and Rousseau's texts and suggest that Frankenstein is a detailed analysis of Rousseau.

When the monster is first created, he shows the two characteristics that Rousseau claims belong to humans in the state of nature: the

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34 Babel Volume XX self-preservation instinct and pity.1 First, he demonstrates his innate self-preservation instinct when he says: “Life, although it may only be an accumulation of anguish, is dear to me, and I will defend it.”2 Although the beast seems to have no reason for wanting to preserve his life, he still does. That is because he follows a predetermined instinct. Second, he also displays the faculty of pity. While hiding from the DeLacey family in a hovel, he procures food and wood for them. He explicitly pities their precarious situation: “I [the monster] had been accustomed, during the night, to steal a part of their store for my own consumption; but when I found that in doing this I inflicted pain on the cottagers, I abstained, and satisfied myself with berries, nuts, and roots which I gathered from a neighbouring wood.”3 When his pity conflicts with his comfortability, the former prevails. The monster is disposed to make more significant efforts for his survival to prevent suffering in others. The episodes related above prove the existence of his natural instincts, as he learned neither pity nor self-preservation.

His first contact with society will catalyze changes in his behaviour. The narration of it deliberately uses Rousseauian imagery to hint at a correlation. He describes his first sight of civilization as follows: “I perceived a small hut, on a rising ground, which had doubtless been for the convenience of some shepherd…. I was enchanted by the appearance of the hut: here the snow and rain could not penetrate.”4 The presence of huts is notable, for Rousseau specifically mentions them as a characteristic of societies' early development that brings about an incipient property notion.5 More importantly, they reflect the start of the division of labour and human cooperation. However, the presence of huts might seem trivial, as they abound in the Alps. Still, their ultimate function is to introduce him to society's notion and they do so. They also appear before more developed forms of human cooperation to ensure a gradual transition from the state of nature to a complex society.

Subsequently, he encounters a village that represents a further stage of societal development. He says about it: I had hardly placed my foot [in the village] before the children shrieked, and one of the women fainted. The whole village was roused; some [villagers] fled, some attacked me, until grievously bruised by stones and many other kinds of missile weapons, I escaped to the open

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country…. [In a hovel] then I retreated and lay down, happy to have found a shelter, however miserable, from the inclemency of the season, and still more from the barbarity of man.6 His encounter with humans conveys the corruption of humankind by prejudices, violence, and intolerance. The latter part of the quotation indicates that human society's evilness and corruption might be worse than the perils of more primitive life. His contact with the society also marks the start of his wickedness.

According to Rousseau, the development of rationality creates superfluous necessities.7 The monster develops the artificial need for companionship. When living in the state of nature, he does not show signs of yearning for friendship. However, as he discovers society, new and nonessential necessities appear. Hence, shortly after observing the cottagers, he says: “I longed to join them.”8 Once he becomes aware of his solitude, he despises it and considers himself miserable. His new need makes him unhappier as he becomes aware of why he is ostracized, i.e. he becomes self-conscious of how others will perceive him. He says: I had admired the perfect forms of my cottagers—their grace, beauty, and delicate complexions: but how was I terrified, when I viewed myself in a transparent pool! At first I started back unable to believe that I was indeed I who was reflected in the mirror; and when I became fully convinced that I was in reality the monster that I am, I was filled with the bitterest sensation of despondence and mortification. Alas! I did not yet entirely know the fatal effects of this miserable deformity.9 Before his contact with civilization, the notion of identity was utterly foreign to him. It was unnecessary. For him, self-awareness starts along with human interactions as he grows concerned about how others regard him. Frankenstein's creature builds his identity on what makes him different from humans and considers those differences as something wrong. Therefore, his sense of self-awareness does not come from within but rather from how others perceive him.

His life has become complicated and wretched, and he eventually becomes aware of it. In the text, he reflects on the changes that his perception of reality goes through. He remarks: “Oh, that I

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36 Babel Volume XX had for ever remained in my native wood, nor known or felt beyond the sensations of hunger, thirst, and heat!”10 His account suggests that getting out of the state of nature has made him unhappier. The unhappiness comes from the frustrated desire to fulfill his new nonessential necessities. Nevertheless, even when he can satisfy his needs, the creature enters into a vicious circle since new and more complex needs arise.

Another need that comes from his contact with society is the need to communicate more complex thoughts. Rousseau argues that as human ideas and relations become more complex, the necessity for a more complex language arises.11 The development and acquisition of language is a pivotal concept in Rousseau's philosophy.

Therefore, it is no coincidence that Shelley devotes so much time to explain the beast's language acquisition process. As soon as he decides to learn DeLacey's language,12 his thought's complexity starts to change with every step. He explains that at the beginning of his learning, it was easier to understand words that related to concrete objects, such as “fire, milk bread and wood,” and harder for adjectives, such as “good, dearest, unhappy.”13 Hence, his progress in language learning correlates to a major capacity for abstraction, i.e. rationality.

As he moves away from the state of nature, he does not become lazier instead of what Rousseau described.14 However, the force that drives him and keeps him active is a desire for revenge and pure evilness; readers should not interpret the absence of laziness as a lack of depravity. He says: “I vowed eternal hatred and vengeance to all mankind.”15 His hatred comes from knowledge and from recognizing that he has been abandoned and rejected. He says: “Increase of knowledge only discovered to me more clearly what a wretched outcast I was.”16 Ultimately, there is a correlation between suffering, knowledge, and evilness. The acquisition of rationality makes him miserable and evil. Society has corrupted him, and his evilness has led him to commit atrocious crimes against innocent people, such as William's killing.17 He has lost his mercy.

On the other hand, the monster's death does not lack symbolism as he decides to commit suicide.18 Dying by his hand symbolizes that his corruption and departure from the state of nature are such that he has lost his self-preservation instinct. Furthermore, he has lost both innate characteristics that belong to the state of nature;

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mercy and the self-preservation instinct.

The similarities between the evolution of Frankenstein's creature and Rousseau's human development account are so many that they do not seem to be a mere coincidence. Shelley writes a thought experiment that serves as a guide to the practical implications of Rousseau's philosophy. Therefore, making his philosophy more accessible to the general public and laying out concrete examples serving as precedents for its further discussion. The public must read the novel as a fiction text strongly influenced by an ever-present philosophical framework.

Notes Jean Jacques Rousseau, Fundamental Political Writings, eds. Matthew W. Maguire and David Lay Williams, trans. Ian Johnson (Peterborough, ON: Broadview Editions, 2018) 126-7.

2 Mary Shelley, Frankenstein, eds. D. L. Macdonald and Kathleen Scherf (Peterborough, ON: Broadview Editions, 2012), 118.

3 Shelley 128.

4 Shelley 123.

5 “[Humans] ceased to sleep under the first tree or to withdraw into caverns. He made hatchets of some kind from hard, sharp stones which served to cut wood, dig the earth, and build huts out of branches…. This was the age of a first revolution that led to the establishment and differentiation of families and introduced a form of property….” (Rousseau 138) 6 Shelley 124.

7 “In all the nations of the world the progress of the mind has been exactly proportional to the needs people have received from nature or to those to which they have been subjected by circumstances, and as a result to the passions which encouraged them to supply those needs.” (Rousseau 117) 8 Shelley 127.

9 Shelley 130.

10 Shelley 136.

11 “When men’s ideas began to expand and multiply, and when closer communication was established among them, [humans] looked for more numerous signs and a more extensive language.” (Rousseau 122.)

12 Shelley 129.

13 Shelley 129.

14 “Human industry has taken away from humans the strength and agility that necessity [in the state of nature] obliges [them] to acquire.” (Rousseau 110.)

15 Shelley 153.

16 Shelley 145.

17 Shelley 154.

18 Shelley 221.

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38 Babel Volume XX Bibliography Rousseau, Jean Jacques. Fundamental Political Writings. Edited by Matthew W. Maguire and David Lay Williams. Translated by Ian Johnson. Peterborough, ON: Broadview Editions, 2018.

Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein. Edited by D. L. Macdonald and Kathleen Scherf. Peterborough, ON: Broadview Editions, 2012.

Babel Volume XX

Of Reciprocity Graham O’Brien

The Essays of Michel de Montaigne are both about him and constitute what remains of him; that is to say, the words that comprise an essay, which in turn, form the book, are the literary manifestation of Michel de Montaigne, the once living person. His corpus takes on another “self”, namely, self-reflection. The Essays are Montaigne’s opera of self-reflection which echoes through time.

“If you press me to tell why I loved him, I feel that this cannot be expressed, except by answering: Because it was he, because it was I.”1 This passage hints at an unexplainable reciprocation between these two individuals. Reciprocity thematically echoes throughout the entirety of Montaigne’s essay “Of friendship.” In Montaigne’s thought, reciprocity and friendship are in concert with one another.

Moreover, the ideal friendship, as the essayist presents it, necessitates reciprocity. In this essay, I will define reciprocity and friendreader as a kind of friend. With regard to the lattermost point, I will argue that the relationship between Montaigne and the reader can never fully reach his ideal of friendship. Rather, this relationship can only be an image of that ideal, because the relationship is not successfully reciprocal; in other words, while Montaigne shares his body and soul with us (his readers), in the form of the Essays, we can never share anything with him in return, thus negating any pos-

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40 Babel Volume XX sibility for reciprocity or true friendship.

As I noted previously, Montaigne’s notion of ideal friendship necessitates reciprocity. Jacques Derrida, in his essay “The Politics of Friendship”, links both terms. He writes: “The Greco-Roman model [of friendship] appears to be marked by the value of reciprocity [...] Montaigne (whom we are reading here as an example of a paradigm) doubtless inherits [this].”2 Here, Derrida displays the influence of classical thinkers on Montaigne’s own thoughts regarding friendship and rightly points out the bond between reciprocity and friendship. In this sense, reciprocity, as an aspect of the essayist’s thought, is an inheritance from many Greco-Roman thinkers, particularly Aristotle.3 Furthermore, in “Friendship and Political Philosophy”, James V. Schall notes that, initially, “Montaigne seems to live in Aristotle’s world.”4 In this sense, Montaigne’s debt to past thinkers runs deep and echoes throughout the entirety of his Essays, yet, his conception of friendship remains unique;5 in other words, individual. If Montaigne’s concept of friendship was not individual it could not be ideal, because, individuality is essential to the perfect friendship. He writes: “In the friendship I speak of, our souls mingle and blend with each other so completely that they efface the seam that joined them.”6 Elsewhere, Montaigne says: “he is myself.”7 Friendship, in his sense, must be a harmony between two persons— between two souls—that are individual in-themselves. Once joined in friendship, they share everything, like “one soul in two bodies.”8 quotes the playwright Terence: “We went halves in everything; it seems to me that I am robbing him of his share, [...] ‘he who shared my life is gone.’”9 Montaigne’s lament at the loss of his friend suggests the extent to which their experiences were bonded. This bond is, for both individuals, an equal give and take; that is to say, reciprocal.

Friendship, in Montaigne’s formulation, is not merely a material exchange for a personal gain (as discussing the soul ought to suggest), rather, an individual chooses it for its own sake. Friendship, as a result, cannot exist between fathers and sons, or brothers; that is to say, it cannot be a natural association.10 As the essayist writes: “our free will has no product more properly its own than affection and friendship.”11 In this sense, friendship is an act of the will, but, to what end? As Montaigne writes: “For in general, all as-

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sociations that are forged and nourished by pleasure or profit, by public or private needs, are the less beautiful and noble, and the less friendships, in so far as they mix into friendship another cause and object and reward than friendship itself.”12 Accordingly, a friendship ought to be undertaken for its own sake, rather than any other end.

Despite this suggestion, however, there still is an exchange between the two friends, as Derrida writes: “It resembles an appeal [...]: be my friends, for I love or will love you [...], listen to me, be sensitive to my cry, [...] become the friends to whom I aspire.”13 In this, one friend calls out for recognition from another, and, if they are true friends, the other will reciprocate. As such, Montaigne thinks of friendship as freely chosen and an end-in-itself, one which demands reciprocity. friendship is the model on which Montaigne bases his conception of the ideal friendship. Here, I will turn to elaborating on their friendship in order to show the model for an ideal friendship, illuminate taigne writes: “Our friendship has no other model than itself, and can be compared only with itself [...]: it is a quintessence.”14 any other kind of friendship. As such, it directs all his thoughts in "Of Friendship", and subsequently informs his rejection of all other possible models for friendship. To his mind, because that friendship was perfect and without comparison, he presents it as the definitive model for ideal friendship.

— ”15— ’s Latin satires, writes: “For you, O Montaigne, what has united you to me for ever and in any event, is the force of nature, the most amiable attraction of love, virtue.”16 Montaigne, and held him in equally high regard. Interestingly,

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42 Babel Volume XX ’s influence. It was by the side of such a companion that he had learned to place friendship above all the great sentiments.”17 In this sense, Montaigne’s ideal of friendship, as expressed in the Essays “sacred word, a holy thing.”18 writes: “But the friendship that binds us is little more than a year old and is at its peak, leaving nothing to add. Is this imprudence? At least there is no one [...], knowing both of us and our tastes and morals, [...] who does not heartily applaud so perfect a union. [...] of souls: there are some, once united, that nothing can separate.”19 This passage echoes Montaigne’s ideas of friendship, as I have illus’s prose.”20 stand the perfect friendship as an inseparable union of two souls basis of a true friendship is in mutual respect between equals.21 sentiments that Montaigne expresses in his Essays and that both men understand their union in the same terms.

Recounting what I had said earlier, the project of the Essays of self-reflection. Montaigne’s journey of self-understanding, as a written work, has an intended readership. In “To the Reader” Montaigne notes that he is not (initially) undertaking the Essays to be widely read, or for fame; rather, originally Montaigne’s end was to leave a part of himself behind for his “family and friends” to read after his death.22 This address, written just prior to the Essays first publication, urges unfamiliar readers away, as he writes: “Thus, reader, I am myself the matter of my book; you would be unreasonable to spend your leisure on so frivolous and vain a subject.”23 Despite this protest, however, Montaigne treats those readers (us) with a sense of familiarity, one that grows over the course of the journey.24 This is something many readers have noted in the following centuries. Moreover, many of these same readers have wondered about

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the essayist’s relation to his readers. Phillip A. Wadsworth, in his essay “Montaigne’s Relation to His Readers”, is one such individual.

Essays in general, Wadsworth writes: “The idea of a monument or memorial in honor of his departed friend is often associated with the long’s lifetime and which, since his death, can be kept alive in the essays.”25 As the passage suggests, Montaigne’s project ing why he chose the style of the Essays, over letter writing, he explains: “I would have preferred to adopt this form [letters] to publish my sallies, if I had had someone to talk to. I needed what I once had, a certain relationship to lead me on, sustain me, and raise me up.”26 As this seems to imply, Montaigne saw his reader as a kind of friend. Wadsworth writes: “he suggests strongly that his conception of the perfect reader was not so very different from that of the per”27 as a trusted outlet for communication. In turn, he hopes that in portraying himself entirely “and wholly naked”28 the reader will understand him “truly, without any kind of pretense or disguise.”29 Moreover, his unending desire for intimate communication, between his soul and a friend’s, indicates why the Essays capture his character so extensively. Montaigne, in nakedly exposing his soul, communicates “As he wrote his essays [...] Montaigne was speaking both to himself and to an imaginary audience of kindred souls. He was engaged in an act of friendship.”30 In this sense, the entire project was an act of friendship towards his readers. As I have noted already, Montaigne does treat the reader like a friend by exposing his soul in writing. For this to be an act of friendship, however, there must be reciprocity between the reader and Montaigne.

Is it at all possible for Montaigne’s reader to fully reciprocate with him; that is to say, have an ideal friendship with him? For those who knew Montaigne personally the answer is no. While, as

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44 Babel Volume XX Wadsworth notes, Montaigne welcomed criticism and sought comments on his work,31 32 But, what of the readers Montaigne does not know, who he seems to direct “To the Reader” at, can we have a perfect friendship with him?

Montaigne, likely unintentionally, provides the key to answering this question in a quotation from Aristotle. Derrida, “quoting the quotation of a quotation,”33 writes: “O my friends, there is no friend.”34 In reference to “ordinary and customary friendships,” Montaigne deploys this passage as punctuation.35 To Derrida, this short quotation is of immense importance. He writes: “The general truth of the fact would seem to contradict by an act the very possibility [...] for it to be serious: there must indeed be friends in order for me to address myself to them in this way, if only so as to say to them ‘there is no friend.’”36 The fact, as Derrida puts it, refers to there being no friend. Moreover, the act that contradicts the fact is an act of friendship, of turning to one's friends and addressing them directly. Because of the contradiction between the fact and the act the statement “O my friends, there is no friend” is not a serious one. Rather, this quotation, as Derrida understands Montaigne’s deployment of it, is an appeal (or prayer) for the reader’s friendship.37 Derrida explains prayer as “a discourse (logos), but it is a discourse that, somewhat in the manner of a performative, is neither true nor false.”38 All this is to say that “O my friends, there is no friend”, as an appeal to another, is a one-way performance; that is to say, it has no response, just as God does not (linguistically) respond to a prayer. In other words, Montaigne’s appeal for friendship, while not falling on deaf ears—insofar as we read it in the Essays—does not, and cannot, have a response from his reader. Naturally, we cannot respond because it has been centuries since the publication of the Essays, and Montaigne’s death. In light of this, our relationship with Montaigne, through the Essays In the centuries since Montaigne’s death, countless readers, from Jean-Jacques Rousseau to Virginia Woolf, having looked upon Montaigne’s corpus and read his soul. In him, many have seen themselves reflected.39 To my mind, Blaise Pascal captured this sentiment best when, in the Pensées, he wrote: “It is not in Montaigne,

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but in myself, that I find all I see in him.”40 Perhaps, readers have even seen Montaigne as a friend. In their minds, they may have felt like Montaigne, in his many words, was looking at them as a friend might. Unfortunately, whatever sentiments those readers may feel for the essayist, the friendship they hold in their hearts can never I would never call a friend, I would say: “don’t go home tonight / Come out and find the one that you love and who loves you.”41 Notes Montaigne, "Of Friendship," in The Complete Essays of Montaigne, trans. Donald M. Frame (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1998),139.

2 Derrida, “The Politics of Friendship”, The Journal of Philosophy 85, no. 11 (1988): 643-4, his italics.

3 Derrida 643.

4 Schall, “Friendship and Political Philosophy,” The Review of Metaphysics 50, no.

1 (1996):129.

1

5

Montaigne, “Friendship,” 139.

Montaigne, “Friendship,” 142.

8 Montaigne, “Friendship,” 141.

9 Montaigne, “Friendship,” quoting Terence, 143.

10 Montaigne, “Friendship,” 136.

11 Montaigne, “Friendship,” 137.

12 Montaigne, “Friendship,” 136.

13 Derrida, 635.

14 Montaigne, “Friendship.” 139.

15 Paul Bonnefon, Voluntary Servitude, trans. Paul Bonnefon (Montreal: Black Rose Books, 2007), 34.

16 Bonnefon, , 89.

17 Bonnefon, , 86.

18 Bonnefon, , 77.

19 Bonnefon, , 89.

20 Bonnefon, , 84.

21 See Bonnefon, , 77 and Montaigne, “Friendship,” 136.

22 Montaigne, “To the Reader,” in The Complete Essays of Montaigne, trans. Donald M. Frame (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1998), 2.

23 Montaigne, “Reader,” 2.

24 Wadsworth, “Montaigne’s Relation to His Readers,” South Atlantic Bulletin 35, no. 2 (1970): 24.

25 Wadsworth, 23.

26 Montaigne, “A Consideration upon Cicero,” in The Complete Essays of Montaigne, trans. Donald M. Frame (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1998), 185-186.

6 7

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46 Babel Volume XX Wadsworth, 23.

Montaigne, “Reader”, 2.

29 Wadsworth, 25.

30 Wadsworth, 27.

31 Wadsworth, 25.

32 Montaigne, “Cicero”, 186.

33 Derrida, 632.

34 See Derrida, 632 and Montaigne, “Friendship”, 140.

35 Montaigne, “Friendship”, 140.

36 Montaigne, “Friendship”, 140.

37 Derrida, 635.

38 Derrida, his emphasis, 635.

39 See Donald M. Frame, “Introduction” in The Complete Essays of Montaigne. Trans, Donald M. Frame (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1998), vi and Woolf, “Montaigne,” in The Common Reader, (Adelaide: The University of Adelaide Library, March 04, 2014), paragraph 13.

40 Frame, quoting Pascal, vi.

41 Morrissey, Sheila Take a Bow, Performed by Johnny Marr, Andy Rourke, and Mike Joyce, The Smiths, Recorded Spring 1987, Stephen Street, 1987, CD. 27 28

Bibliography The Politics of tude. Translated by Paul Bonnefon. Montreal: Black Rose Books, 2007.

Derrida, Jacques. “The Politics of Friendship.” The Journal of Philosophy 85, no. 11 (1988): 632-44. http://www.jstor.org/stable/2026938.

Montaigne, Michel de, Donald M. Frame. The Complete Essays of Montaigne. Translated by Donald M. Frame. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1998.

Morrissey. Sheila Take a Bow. Performed by Johnny Marr, Andy Rourke, and Mike Joyce. The Smiths. Recorded Spring 1987. Stephen Street, 1987, CD. Schall, James V. "Friendship and Political Philosophy." The Review of Metaphysics 50, no. 1 (1996): 121-41. http://www.jstor.org/stable/20129989.

Wadsworth, Philip A. "Montaigne's Relation to His Readers." South Atlantic Bulletin 35, no. 2 (1970): 20-27. doi:10.2307/3197004.

Woolf, Virginia. “Montaigne.” The Common Reader. Adelaide: The University of Adelaide Library, March 04, 2014. Accessed April 27, 2019. https:// ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/w/woolf/virginia/w91c/index.html.

Babel Volume XX

The Infinite and Humanity: An Evaluation of Blaise Pascal’s Pensées Elsy Rytter

Blaise Pascal was a mathematician, a theologian and a philosopher. He died quite young at the age of 39, and it has often been assumed that the Pensées’ incompleteness was a result of his death, though this is not true. The Pensées were intended to form an apologetic text, but the project was abandoned and never completed or organized in any form by Pascal himself.1 His family published the work, and they organized it as best as they could,2 though the work is still fragmentary and contains some contradiction in thought. Despite the fragmentary nature of the text, it is still beautifully written, especially in sections that are detailed, such as the wager, and the text is intensely aware of humanity’s psychological struggles. In this paper, I would like to discuss the intention of Pascal’s work as an apologetic and what methods Pascal employs to construct his apologetic, and then evaluate what his Pensées actually accomplish, despite the incompleteness of the work. The work’s accomplishments include a deep and touching understanding of the human mind, a persuasive rhetoric, and the work offers a glimpse at a mind at work. I will also defend the fragmentary nature of the text, as it is not a deficiency but a strength. As Pascal says himself, “[c]ontradiction is not an indication of falsehood and the absence of contradiction is not a sign of the truth.”3 I would like to begin by discussing Pascal’s apologetic intention with this text, and what methods he employed to appeal to his readers. First, what is an apologetic? The intention of an apologetic is not to apologize, but to defend some sort of doctrine. In this

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48 Babel Volume XX case, Pascal defends his view of Christianity and attempts to show his readers the beauty and necessity of faith. Pascal spends a significant amount of time illustrating the beauty and necessity of faith.

His prose is deeply beautiful and striking both because it is well written, and because it tells us something that we already know given back to us in the context of our salvation. For example, All men are in search of happiness. There is no exception to this, whatever different methods are employed. […] However no one without faith, over so many years, has yet achieved that target which everyone constantly aims for. All men complain, princes, subjects, noblemen, commoners, old, young, strong, weak, learned, ignorant, healthy, sick, in every condition. Such a lengthy, continual and universal test ought to convince us of our powerlessness to achieve good through our own efforts.4 It is universally known that humans are always searching for happiness, but building on that statement by adding the religious context of our worthlessness and powerlessness gives the universal statement a new depth; and adds to his argument.

One way in which Pascal is different from other apologetic authors, like Michel de Montaigne, with his essay “An Apology for Raymond Sebond” is due to Pascal’s Jansenist ideology Jansenism was a Catholic movement in the seventeenth century that believed that free will did not exist, that a few people would be saved on the day of judgement, and that justification was through faith alone (sola fide), among other things. The movement was compared to Calvinism, and parts of the theology were deemed heretical by the Vatican.

Because of its movement away from the Catholic church, and because of the enormous power the Catholic church held in France during Pascal’s lifetime, it was a controversial school of thought.5 Pascal is also different from other writers through his use of the void as a concept. This was not something new from Pascal, but the way he uses it is unusual in early modern philosophy. To understand Pascal’s void, take for example this quotation: “[f]or in the end, what is humanity in nature? A nothingness compared to the infinite, everything compared to a nothingness, a midpoint between nothing and everything, infinitely far from understanding the extremes…”6 Pascal introduces the idea of empty space, where no matter exists. Descartes by contrast, believed everything to have

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some matter, even air and empty spaces. Pascal uses the void to make us think about our worthlessness compared to the incomprehensible and infinite nature of God and of time. The infinite concept of the void, which humans cannot picture or truly understand, forces us to consider how infinitesimal we are, and how this life cannot possibly be as important as the next. Pascal makes the point that we should always be contemplating the next life, because of how small this life is to the greater universe. The void represents this insignificance. Besides the terrifying void, Pascal is also different from other apologetic authors as this work was never completed, so the form it exists in now is simply not a true apologetic. It is a jumble of notes and thoughts, sometimes humourous, often with “disturbingly perceptive psychological penetration.”7 This text can still be discussed as an apologetic because of the similarities in methods of writing, and because it is clear from the argumentative and defensive tone of most of the text that Pascal intended to create an apologetic text.

The two main methods Pascal uses to defend his views are as follows: first, Pascal makes sure to appeal to many different kinds of people. He includes meaningful stories, metaphors and images, especially for those who need the religious thought transferred into a more digestible form. For example, the story of the king and his trappings8 is to show how easily we can be tricked, and how useless our human judgement really is. Another group he accommodates is those with more analytical and mathematical tendencies. For them, he includes a mathematical proof of God.9 Finally, for those who love to play at chance, or simply gamble, he includes his famous wager.10 Pascal’s second method is using his fine rhetoric and deep understanding of the human mind to put our wretchedness into our hands, so we can contemplate it and see its true and horrible nature.

The aspect of our wretchedness that Pascal most often returns to in this work is our need for distraction. Pascal most effectively summarizes his thought when he says “[k]ing though he may be, he is unhappy if he thinks about it.”11 Even with everything a kingdom or the world itself could offer, Pascal claims here that humanity is necessarily unsatisfied with everything it could receive. Pascal’s stinging accuracy combined with the question of faith, the answer to which is something either desperately searched for or desperately avoided,

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50 Babel Volume XX makes his prose stand out from other authors and is successful in making us think of how small and unimportant we are. We are only a fraction of a second in the eternal time of the universe and the Creator.

As I have established, this text is a jumble of notes which was intended to be an apologetic. Because of this, the work accomplishes some intentional and unintentional effects. First, the text gives the reader a deep insight into the human mind. Pascal seemed to have naturally been inclined to understand the human condition, and the shocking accuracy of his statements is what makes this particular work so compelling. Another accomplishment of Pascal’s writing is his firmness and authority in his statements. The strength of the statements comes from their insightful comments about the human mind, and the way they are constructed. It is possible, as it is a work in progress, that the statements would have been elaborated into longer thoughts, but the way they remain is very effective because they are like thesis statements. To illustrate what I mean, here is an example: “[l]et us hate ourselves, let us love ourselves. We have in ourselves the capacity for knowing truth and for enjoying happiness, but we have neither a truth which is constant nor one which satisfies.”12 Pascal is concise and poignant, with no room for argument.

Third, another result of this text is how we can see a mind in the process of figuring out its opinions and views. This was not intended as the work would have been completed, and the text would not feel so disorganized. Something similar is achieved with Montaigne's essays, because of his non-linear thinking with many tangents. Pascal's Pensées are different though because no editing was done to Pascal’s satisfaction and some of the ideas do not go further than a tiny fragment, such as, “I too will have thoughts at the back of my mind.”13 This is a sweet and interesting thought, but no one will ever know where Pascal wanted to take it. The Pensées give us a window to a work in progress, and though the structure does not make much sense to us, it is a beautiful and uncommon thing to have and to think about.

Because of the fragmentary and messy nature of the Pensées, Pascal is often criticized for the contradictions in thought that remain in the text. That criticism is absurd to consider, because the text is simply not complete, as it was abandoned so the differing

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opinions that had not been decided upon remain in the text. The Pensées are actually not even in their original form, because they were all separate pages piled on top of one another.14 Also, Pascal did not make any request to have the work published after his death. It is merely chance that we have this text today because his family organized and published it.15 The critique of the fragments and incompleteness of the text is also invalid as both this work and other works that remain abandoned or incomplete still gain fame and notoriety. Many famous works, in literature, philosophy, art, and music remain incomplete, but they are just as important to their genres as completed works are. The same importance applies to Pascal and his Pensées.

Pascal’s Pensées are a beautiful collection of thoughts regarding his view on Christianity, which attempt to enlighten the reader to the beauty of faith. They were originally meant to be an apologetic, which explains Pascal’s use of apologetic methods to show his readers the necessity of faith. However, this work was abandoned, and therefore it only achieves some of its apologetic goals, such as strongly showing his readers their wretchedness and other weaknesses, but it also gains new outcomes, such as having concise and insightful statements that would lose their strength if elaborated into longer points. Another result due to its unfinished state is that the readers are able to see a work suddenly stopped, without the chance for revisiting. Though it is tempting to criticize the Pensées for their contradictions, it must be taken into account that they are incomplete, that the incompleteness did not stop them or any other unfinished work from gaining fame and importance and that this text could not have accomplished so many different things if it had been polished into a finished apologetic.

Notes Anthony Levi, introduction to Pensées and Other Writings xii-xxxvii by Blaise Pascal, trans. Honor Levi (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), ix.

2 Levi vii.

3 Blaise Pascal, Pensées and Other Writings. trans. Honor Levi (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), 61.

4 Pascal 51 5 Encyclopaedia Britannica, “Jansenism,” Encyclopedia Britannica, last modified December 30, 2019, https://www.britannica.com/topic/Jansenism.

6 Pascal 67.

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52 Babel Volume XX Levi ix.

Pascal 14.

9 Pascal 152.

10 Pascal 154.

11 Pascal 45.

12 Pascal 38.

13 Pascal 145.

14 Levi viii.

15 Levi vii.

7 8

Bibliography

Pascal, Blaise. Pensées and Other Writings. Translated by Honor Levi. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995.

Levi, Anthony, introduction to Pensées and Other Writings xii-xxxvii by Blaise Pascal.

Translated by Honor Levi. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995.

Encyclopaedia Britannica. “Jansenism.” Encyclopedia Britannica. Last modified December 30, 2019, https://www.britannica.com/topic/Jansenism.

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“Which is the merchant here and which is the Jew?”: The Asymmetry of Religious Identity in Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice Obinna Esomchukwu Shakespeare's play The Merchant of Venice explores the interpersonal complexities and challenges in a multicultural mercantile society. The play’s language emphasizes the inextricability of cultural identity in human relationships, especially in commercial interactions. Shakespeare creates a Venice where Christianity is the default and dominant identity. Consequently, it seems that the ability to freely participate in Venetian society or commerce is based on an individual’s assimilation of Christian attitudes and more fundamentally an acceptance of Christ. However, in this essay, I argue that while the cost of membership in Shakespeare’s Venice is Christianity, this Christianity is not the pious imitation of Christ; instead, it is a nominal form of Christianity that serves to provide reputational and material benefit. As such, those who are non-Christians in this Shakespearian city are unable to fully express themselves because their society restricts and undermines such self-expression. I support my thesis by first exploring the distinction between a “good” and “sufficient,” person as articulated and demonstrated by Shylock.

Secondly, I will examine the trial scene and discuss the implications of Portia's inability to distinguish between the Jew and the merchant. Lastly, I suggest that Jessica's conversion to Christianity is much more similar to Shylock’s than it might initially appear, and that this outward conversion is the requisite tax exacted for free participation in Shakespeare’s Venice.

The aphorism that “a good name is worth more than silver and gold” is perhaps nowhere more applicable than in business. A

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54 Babel Volume XX good name in a commercial center like Venice must have been a valuable asset, facilitating the acquisition of gold, silver, and ducats.

People like Bassanio, who had no reputation (or no name) among merchants and money lenders, relied on people like Antonio to obtain capital. Therefore, when Shylock describes Antonio as “a good man,” Bassanio should have been satisfied with that response.1 However, Bassanio presses the issue by asking, “[h]ave you heard any imputations to the contrary?”2 An “imputation” against Antonio would suggest that his name is no longer in good standing among his colleagues. Consequently, Bassanio’s probing is to ensure that his surety's name is “good,” at least in the eyes of Shylock, the lender. The quality or meaning of being “good,” i.e., having a good name extends beyond business acumen and reputation – both of which Antonio possesses – and into virtue. Shylock's clarification of Bassanio’s inquiry, “[m]y meaning in saying he is a good man is to have you understand me that he is sufficient,” does suggest a subtle difference between “good” and “sufficient.” But indeed, one would rather be described as a good person than a sufficient one. Shylock finds Antonio deficient in virtue but sufficient in commerce. Elena Ciobanu, observes that “Shylock himself deconstructs, as it were, the other's [Bassanio’s] discourse in order to affirm his way of dealing with things.”3 According to Ciobanu, Shylock employs the distinction between sufficient and good to serve himself in a very subtle way. By reducing Antonio to sufficient, he elevates himself, at least morally; “[t]he semantic reduction of “good” to “sufficient” is the first instance of the effects of the equivocation that governs the whole play.”4 Yet, Shakespeare complicates Shylock’s notion of moral superiority by emphasizing his fixation on revenge. In the trial scene, Shylock again opts for what is sufficient, i.e., a pound of Antonio's flesh instead of the good: accepting three times (or even ten times) the loan's value. Perhaps Shakespeare identifies the limitations of a society that relegates moral virtues (good) and espouses the expedient (sufficient). As Ciobanu suggests, the play is filled with “equivocation,” which reveals the triumph of the expedient over the good. This inversion seems to be necessary or inherent in a multicultural mercantile society.

A peculiar moment in the play occurs in Act IV. Portia, now disguised as Balthasar inquires, “[w]hich is the merchant here and which is the Jew?”5 Portia, a foreigner to Venice, cannot distinguish

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between Shylock and Antonio. Ciobanu notes “that the two men are practically indistinguishable by their outer appearances brings with it a momentary liberal stance that cares nothing for race or class.”6 However, Ciobanu might be too generous in her appraisal of the “liberal stance” which Portia’s question suggests. Although Portia’s inability to separate the plaintiff from the defendant is an indication of the outward similarities between both men, the terms of identification (“merchant” and “Jew”) points to a prejudicial asymmetry towards whomever identifies as the Jew. In the play’s context, a suitable parallel for the term Jew is Christian, and the term merchant corresponds to money lender. However, Shakespeare chooses to set up an uneven parallel, the asymmetry in Portia’s question foreshadows the trial’s unbalanced nature. The dispute between the two men, Shylock and Antonio, is reframed as a trial of their identities, Jew against merchant. Consequently, Portia’s question contradicts Ciobanu’s assessment that “Antonio and Shylock are perfectly equal in the act of justice and both of them bow before and cherish this equality, albeit from very different emotional vantage points.”7 The equality that exists between both men is dependent on the mystery of their identity. Once their identity is determined, the equality ceases to exist, and ethnic or religious biases take precedence over justice. By subordinating justice to identity, Shakespeare highlights the power of the dominant group and critiques the notion of equality in a multicultural society. For Venice to succeed as a commercial center, it must maintain fairness. However, prejudices and biases against individuals like Shylock are significant barriers to achieving justice. So, the unsettling way to resolve the issue is to demand that others (i.e., the minority) become like the dominant culture. This forced assimilation method is ironically applied to achieve a fairer society which is imperative for the success of free trade.

Unlike Shylock, Jessica chooses to become a Christian. Her desire to fully participate in society requires a new identity that is opposed to her father’s. She is willing to pay the high cost of admittance in order to obtain the dominant identity, and she severs familial ties with her father, “...though I am a daughter to his blood, I am not to his manners.”8 Jessica tries to separate Shylock from his identity or “manners.” But this bifurcation is specious. Shylock is who he is because of his identity as a Jew, and any attempt to distinguish him from that identity is a threat to his existence. Notwithstanding,

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56 Babel Volume XX Jessica believes that by denouncing him and marrying a Christian, she can create a more suitable identity. She views her Jewishness as an impediment to her existence and salvation, “I shall be saved by my husband. He hath made me a Christian,” she declares.9 Jessica’s voluntary conversion seems to be in contrast with her father’s forced conversion. However, both conversions are products of the same structure that ignores an inner life separate from what is accepted by the dominant group. Since it must have been unsavory in a multicultural society like Venice to compel every minority to adopt the dominant group's identity, Jessica's conversion identifies a covert technique that is used to propel assimilation and resolve the perceived problem of non-Christians. Another similarity is that both conversions share a facileness that does not correspond to the typical religious transformation. For example, there is no mention of baptism as part of the requirement for their conversion. Rather, Jessica's christening occurs when she decides to steal her father's money to elope with Lorenzo;10 as Ciobanu observes, “The language of profit, trade, and legal contracts is dangerously close to the language of love …”11 There is no suggestion in the text that by becoming a Christian, Jessica is working towards the salvation of her soul. Instead, Christianity is reduced to another commodity that can be bought and sold in Venice's Rialto. This reality emphasizes the superficiality of the version of Christianity that is espoused by the characters in this play.

In conclusion, Shylock and his daughter had to give up essential parts of themselves to exist in their society. Shakespeare uses characters like these to grapple with the meaning and cost of identity in a cosmopolitan society. He points out the hypocrisy of the dominant group in their dealings with minorities and the subjectivity of laws. However, he does not offer any exact resolution to how diverse individuals can equally coexist in a multicultural society without succumbing to cultural assimilation. Perhaps, he tacitly acknowledges the complexity of such societies by leaving such questions unanswered.

Notes William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice, ed. Braunmuller (New York: Penguin Books, 2017), 1.3.12.

2 Shakespeare 1.3.13.

1

Babel Volume XX Ciobanu, Elena, ““A Pound of Flesh as Forfeit”: Deconstructive Patterns in The Merchant of Venice,” Acta Iassyensia Comparationis 3, no. 3 (2017): 2.

4 Ciobanu 2.

5 Shakespeare 4.1.172.

6 Ciobanu 5.

7 Ciobanu 5.

8 Shakespeare 2.3.18-9.

9 Shakespeare 3.5.17-8.

10 Shakespeare 2.6.51.

11 Ciobanu 7.

3

Bibliography Ciobanu, Elena. ““A Pound of Flesh as Forfeit”: Deconstructive Patterns in The Merchant of Venice.” Acta Iassyensia Comparationis 3, no. 3 (2017): 1-9.

Shakespeare, William. The Merchant of Venice. Edited by Braunmuller. New York: Penguin Books, 2017.

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Ecology, Mobility, and the Colour Blue in Early Modern England Helen Hillis

Dyed textiles are a longstanding facet of English material culture. In the nineteenth century, acid-based ‘chemical’ dyes commandeered the English textile industry due to an economy, colour fastness, and simplicity of use relative to their predecessors. The dyes that they replaced – now commonly called ‘natural’ dyes – were extracted from plants and animals. To obtain the dyes from their plant and animal derivatives, dye producers carried out involved processes of growing, harvesting, boiling, and fermentation. Despite the ‘natural’ moniker, not all dyes were ecologically friendly by contemporary standards. Many ‘natural’ dyes, such as woad, required intensive and lengthy fermentations which resulted in localized air pollution. Woad dyeing was undertaken at a large scale at the impoverished outskirts of English towns. The poor working and living conditions of woad cultivators and producers was perpetuated by both the ecological ramifications of their industry as well as the conditions of poverty perpetuated by the structure of the industry itself. The English woad industry of the sixteenth century premonished the ecological and social conditions of the working poor of the industrial revolution.

Woad is one among many natural materials used in the dyeing of textiles. Early modern colonialism saw the import of dyestuffs and dyeing techniques from other parts of the world, oftentimes replacing their counterparts in the European dye industry. Woad was, as William F. Legget writes in his book Ancient and Medieval Dyes, eventually usurped by indigo as a comparatively potent blue

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dye in the seventeenth century, though it maintained preeminence in England for a few hundred years after the introduction of indigo in Europe.1 Woad, Legget writes, is a leafy plant of which is used to produce blue dye.2 According to Legget, the dye was prepared out of fresh woad leaves which were carefully selected and crushed before being placed in small heaps to drain, until they became sufficiently dry to cohere. Then, by means of hand-kneading, they were converted into balls, each about three to five inches in diameter and weighing about five pounds. These balls were then spread on wicker trays and dried for about four weeks in well -ventilated sheds prior to storage in a dry, airy place, pending, gathering, and processing of the entire crop. After this, the complete lot was fermented.3 Legget provides a comprehensive overview of the logistics of the process by which blue dyestuff is obtained from woad. He then goes on to describe some of the intricacies of the fermentation process through which woad is finally refined into a form usable for dyeing. However, Legget does not include a detailed description of the divisions of labour in the dye extraction and dyeing process, nor does he describe the legal statutes controlling the woad industry. This is a significant omission, as legal superintendency was a paramount device by which control was exacted over partakers in the woad industry and which effectively delineated economic and geographic boundaries between licensers, processors, and cultivators as a social hierarchy of participants in dye production.

Woad dyeing was, in large part, controlled by a vast legal oversight. This oversight included both government dominion, as well as industrial authority in the form of patent holders. The industry was fixed by the will of woad patentees who licensed the recipes for and rights to produce woad dye. The operation of the English woad industry was thus bound by large-scale licensing agreements. A 1604 memorandum from a woad patentee entitled Directions given by the patentees, how their compounded stuffe is to be used in dying instructs dyers in the proper – and therefore legal – use of woadderived dyes. While Legget describes the dye extraction process in fairly broad terms, the Directions instructs dyers working with processed dyestuffs. They enjoin dyers to mordant their textiles in “Water in the Lead or Copper, stirring the same continually till it

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60 Babel Volume XX boyle, which it must doe halfe an hower, and then put to the water, twice asmuch Float or liquor of a day old, or a day & a halfe at the most, this liquor must be swéet, and not made upon stale grounds” in preparation for the affixation of already-processed woad dyes.4 They then proceed to instruct the reader to then shoote in your Clothes putting in the saddest Colours first, for example, first a French Russet giuing [1] it 5 or 6 ends over the winche very quicke, Then a Violet giving it one or twoo ends in like sort, Then a Purple &c. when any of the aforesaid Clothes come to their height or sadnes, they must be landed, and very well cooled, continuing the fier till the Lead be ready to boyle.5 These directions explain to the reader how to obtain textiles of particular colours; to dye longer will produce a darker textile, while the use of a different mordant will yellow the blue. These are not, however, instructions which seek to edify the dyer in their craft and ensure their own success, but which safeguard the reputation of the products produced under the patent.

It is important to differentiate between the various occupations within the woad industry. Insofar as the Directions are concerned with the actual affixation of dye to textiles, they are directed to dyer rather than to dye producers, clearly demarking between the two in this address. As described above, the woad industry was controlled by patent holders whose behests controlled industry practices. Second to the patentees were the dyers. In her article “Peacocks and Penguins: The Political Economy of European Cloth and Colours” Jane Schnieder writes that “dyers were the elite of cloth manufacture”, though “woad processing, in particular, involved a host of specialists, mediators, and merchants.”6 The dyer was the person who mordanted, selected the appropriate dyestuff, and ultimately affixed the dye to the textile. As such, the dyer occupied the social position of a tradesperson in English society and ought to be differentiated from the dye producer. Whereas the dyer “enjoyed a favored, if somewhat precarious, position in the political life of medieval towns and kingdoms”, the woad cultivators and producers – those who undertook the growing, harvesting, and fermentation processes – were the poor of English towns.7 In his article “Walter Morell and the New Draperies Project”, Michael Zell writes that the woad industry was sustained by “the scheme to em-

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ploy the poor by cultivating and processing woad.”8 The economic health of the woad industry depended upon an exploitative division of power between patentees, dyers, and cultivators and processors. Far from a system wherein the poor sold their produced dyestuffs to artisan dyers, dyers, cultivators, and woad processors alike were overseen by patentee beneficiaries, while dyers alone enjoyed a modicum of social and financial prosperity.

Though woad production was primarily governed by patentholding industry oligarchs, the English government also commended significant input into its functioning. One notable example of this occurrence is a 1585 edict from Queen Elizabeth I entitled By the Queene: A proclamation against the sowing of woade. In it, Queen Elizabeth orders that no maner of person or persons of what degree soever the same be, shal directly or indirectly after the publication hereof, breake up, or cause to be broken up, any maner of grounde of what nature soever it be, for the use or purpose to sowe or plant woade in, neyther that any person doe continue any grounde already broken up for that purpose to the use of woade, lying within foure myles of any market towne, or other towne occupying the common trade of clothing, or of any citie within this Realme, or within eight miles of any house of her Maiesties reserued for her accesse, upon payne that whosoever shall attempt any thing to the contrary hereof, the persons so doing, and the workemen that therein shalbe imployed, shalbe committed to the next common prison by the next justices of peace, and there to continue, until certificate be made thereof to her Maiesties privie counsayle by such as shall commit them, so as order may be taken for further punishment of the persons offending, according to the qualitie of the offence.9 Implicit in her demand that none shall ‘cause’ woad to be sown is a reproof of patentees licensing the use of woad in an area near enough to Queen’s residence that it might offend her senses. However, Queen Elizabeth’s admonition seems to take a more consistent aim at woad producers, focusing, for the larger part, on those who actually break ground for and cultivate woad. Although the Queen takes aim at both woad patent holders and their contractors in her threats of legal retribution, the brunt of her impending consequenc-

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62 Babel Volume XX es lands upon the cultivators. This is representative of the attitudes of the lower English aristocracy, with which cloth dyers were associated by way of a similar class position While both dyers and patentees have the social and economic mobility to move and work or contract elsewhere, the English poor did not. “From the later Elizabethan decades”, Zell writes, “there is evidence that parish and county elites were increasingly anxious to control- if not totally exclude - the travelling poor from their jurisdictions.”10 In this case, the withdrawal of the woad industry from a geographic region would have proven economically disastrous to an already impoverished demographic. Though dyers did not, by way of their status as tradespeople, experience subjugation in the same right as woad contractors “dyers also had to be controlled, if only because their monopoly of skills gave them latitude to adulterate their work.”11 It is only through the relative capital of skill that sixteenth and seventeenth century dyers evaded complete brutalization by the industry in which they worked.

Crown and industry worked cooperatively to exact both docility and productivity from woad dyers and labourers. The Queen goes on to demand that all persons that have heretofore broken up, and employed their grounds to the use of Woade, shal before the feast of Christmas next, certifie the Sherife of ye countie, or (in places exempted) the principall officers, what quantitie of groundes, and of what nature the same were, and how the same were used before the conversion of them to Woade, and in what parishes they doe lie.12 This is, certainly, an exigency upon land and patent holders. It does not, however, request the desistance of woad dyeing or production in any total sense. It should be noted that Queen Elizabeth I’s distaste for the smell of fermenting woad did little to disrupt the industry in a structural sense; the Directions to licensees of woad was published in 1604, 19 years after the Queen’s edict was published in 1585. Not only do the Directions circumscribe dyeing practices, but they also stipulate the costs of woad-dyed fabric of various final colours.13 Thus, the crown and industry oligarchs operated alongside one another in a collective of legal and financial coercion. Government and patent holders, alike and in partnership, utilized their respective scopes of power to institute geographic and financial pre-

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cincts for lower rung participants in the textile industry.

The poorest woad workers bore the ecological brunt of woad production and had little agency in their industry participation. Zell argues that the poor were involved in the textile industry by way of “make work schemes [which] were established in a variety of towns and parishes in the late sixteenth century, and the more punitive instrument to force the ‘idle’ poor into work.”14 ‘Make work scheme’ is a somewhat erroneous moniker for the fairly insidious usurping of agrarian labour in the obtention of blue textiles. The poor were not put to work cultivating woad in a commendable – if misguided – public effort to prevent idleness as Zell suggests, but to procure an economic benefit for those under whom they worked and for those wealthy enough to afford woad dyed textiles. The woad industry operated on a massive scale and, as Legget writes, “because of its complexity of use, woad, although providing fashionable colours, was never a cheap dye.”15 As in the case of eighteenth century English factory labour, the large scale industrial, economic, and legal control of the labour of the poor discounted the cost of blue textiles in England, all the while enfranchising those who oversaw the exploitation of their labour.

The role of the government and the patentees was thus, to a large degree, devoted to the surveillance of dyers, producers, and cultivators. The licensing of woad patents to dyers was requisite upon the dyers securing local woad producers. Likewise, in the absence of a dyer, woad production was pointless. Interestingly, however, the coercion upon which the woad industry was constructed was complicated by the relegation of woad dyeing outside of population centres due to its effects upon air quality. Schneider remarks that surveillance of dyeworkers was complicated by the location of dyeworks at the edge of population centers, where combustible materials and foul smells were less of a public nuisance. Sometimes, perhaps especially in periods of economic crisis, dyers were distrusted to the point where they were challenged to migrate or were sent into exile. 16 Legal and financial coercion was the operative framework of the sixteenth and seventeenth century English woad dyeing industry, largely in part due to the undesirable nature of the work, and yet that same undesirability served to disrupt coercive practice. The

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64 Babel Volume XX ecological perdition of woad dyers and cultivators thus, perversely, translated variously into an impediment upon their surveillance in the case of sufficient ecological segregation or, in cases wherein surveillance was accessible to the point of nuisance, the withdrawal of the industry from the particular geographic area.

The ecological and social conditions of the poor participants of the woad industry, as well as the nature of their relations with patentees and crown, is equatable to many of the hallmark conditions of the industrial revolution. Figure 1. illustrates the depreciated air quality in industrial revolution era London. Certainly, many of the ecological and social impacts of eighteenth and nineteenth century industry were enabled by technological shifts. However, in the industrial revolution and in the early modern English woad trade alike, labour exploitation and its resultant ecological damages were facilitated by the coercion of the upper classes and of the government. Fig. 1 depicts the chimney stacks of industrial factories, and shows a concentration of air pollution at its output, though the sheer volume of pollutants in the nineteenth century resulted in, as illustrated, more widespread smog.17 In contrast, the air pollution resultant from woad processing was offensive to Queen Elizabeth I only when it was “within eight miles of any house of her Maiesties reserved for her accesse.”18 The population makeups of early modern English towns wherein woad dyeing was present sanctioned the relegation of cultivators and dyers to town outskirts, complicating their surveillance.

Top-down coercion in the woad industry subjected dyers and cultivators to environmental hazards, relative exile from towns, and legal sanctions. Large scale, systemic coercion was necessary in controlling an industry with many and varied participants and ensuring its economic profitability. However, woad workers were, by virtue of their sheer numbers, occasionally able to procure some degree of benefit for themselves. Schneider argues that the introduction of indigo as an imported competitor to woad “caused woad producers all over Europe to organize. Forming syndicates in restraint of trade, they labeled indigo the devil’s dye, a deceitful, devouring, and corrosive substance that they said would ruin fabric.”19 Dyeworkers did, certainly, push back against their coercion, though instances such as this one seem to be infrequent. Here, woad producers secured the continued existence of their work through a collective effort to cul-

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tivate a cultural paradigm of distrust trust in indigo that would maintain the marketability of woad.

This should, however, not be confounded with future unionization movements which sought improved working conditions from employers, as the woad industry did not have clearly defined ‘bosses’. Early modern dyers were not employed by woad patent holders, but rather licensed from them the right to produce and use woad dyes and to sell the ensuant product. Though hierarchical, the woad industry was not structured as an employer/labourer system as were the factories of the industrial revolution. Whereas eighteenth- and nineteenth-century factory owners were – at least theoretically – obligated to their employees by way of promised wages, the woad industry did not formally obligate patentees to dyers in this way. Dyers, conversely, were obligated to ensure “all Colours to be made or finished with the said Stuffe, are to be wrought upon good grounds of Woad, according to the lightnesse or sadnes of the colours that are intended to be made”, and that all products were sold at costs stipulated by the patent holder.20 The dyers’ skill served as a manner of capital by which they could participate in the exchange of coercion with patent holders and crown. However, woad cultivators and processors typically lacked, both collectively and individually, a comparable capital at a scale in which it could be used to their advantage. Zell describes the coerced labour of the poor in the early modern textile industry as an effort on the part of the authorities “to at least control the poor.”21 This is, however, a problematic claim. English authorities did not wish to exact control for its own sake, nor was it exacted to the end that poverty, and the perceived ills of idleness might be alleviated. Rather, the cooperative control of the poor by the government and elite of the textile industry was an effort in procuring cheap labour under threat of punishment.

The English industrial revolution of the subsequent centuries imitated, in broad terms, the socio-economic, legal, and ecological conditions of the sixteenth and seventeenth century woad industry. Both were marked by extreme inequality in class relations, coercive labour practices, a lack of government and industrial accountability, and the displacement of the working poor of textile manufacturing townships to their extremities. It was, in both eras, the wealthy who controlled the industries and were the benefactors of

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66 Babel Volume XX both its income and products, while workers confronted the ecological consequences of both woad and emergent factories in the conditions of their homes and labour. The nebulosity of authority and the pollution of the fermentation process were, for woad producers, small and ironic blessings insofar as they reduced the potential scope of authoritative surveillance. Still, the early modern industry prototyped the reach of government and propertied surveillance of the poor labouring under them, ecological segregation, and economic coercion.

Figure 1: “Improving” Landscapes”, Fun 3(27 March 1878) p.

130.

Notes William F. Legget, Ancient and Medieval Dyes (Chemical Publishing Co., Inc., 1944), p. 41.

2 William F. Legget, Ancient and Medieval Dyes, p. 31.

3 William F. Legget, Ancient and Medieval Dyes, p. 32.

4 Directions given by the patentees, how their compounded stuffe is to be used in dying. (T. Purfoot, 1604).

5 Directions given by the patentees, how their compounded stuffe is to be used in dying.

6 Jane Schneider, “Peacocks and Penguins: The Political Economy of European Cloth and Colors”, American Ethnologist 3(1978): p.

1

419.

7 Schneider, “Peacocks and Penguins”, p. 420.

8 Michael Zell, “Walter Morrell and the New Draperies Project, c. 1603-1631”, The Historical Journal 41(2014): p. 654.

9 Queen Elizabeth 1, By the Queene: A proclamation against the sowing of woade (Christopher Barker, 1585).

10 Zell, “Walter Morrell and the New Draperies Project, c. 1603-1631”, p. 655.

11 Schneider, “Peacocks and Penguins”, p. 420.

12 Queen Elizabeth I. By the Queene.

13 Directions given by the patentees, how their compounded stuffe is to be used in dying.

14 Zell, “Walter Morrell and the New Draperies Project, c. 1603-1631”, p. 655.

15 William F. Legget, Ancient and Medieval Dyes, p. 38.

Babel Volume XX Schneider, “Peacocks and Penguins”, p. 420.

“Improving” Landscapes”, Fun 3(27 March 1878) p. 130.

18 Queen Elizabeth I. By the Queene.

19 Schneider, “Peacocks and Penguins”, p. 434.

20 Directions given by the patentees, how their compounded stuffe is to be used in dying.

21 Zell, “Walter Morrell and the New Draperies Project, c. 1603-1631”, p. 655.

16 17

Bibliography Directions Given by the Patentees, how their Compounded Stuffe is to be Used in Dying. London: T. Purfoot, 1604. https://www.proquest.com/eebo/ docview/2248557445/33143096/10?accountid=10406. Accessed 22 Nov. 2020.

Elizabeth I, By the Queene. A Proclamation Against the Sowing of Woade. London, Christopher Barker, 1585. https://www.proquest.com/eebo/ docview/2240857098/99850584/76FD2825310C4032PQ/2? accountid=10406. Accessed 22 Nov. 2020.

“Improving” Landscapes”, Fun 3(27 March 1878) p. 130. http:// www.victorianweb.org/periodicals/fun/57.html Accessed 30 November 2020.

William F. Legget, Ancient and Medieval Dyes. New York: Chemical Publishing Co. Inc., 1944. https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.28013/page/n3/ mode/2up. Accessed 22 Nov. 2020.

Jane Schneider, “Peacocks and Penguins: The Political Economy of European Cloth and Colors”, American Ethnologist 3(1978): pp. 413-447. www.jstor.org/stable/643750. Accessed 22 Nov. 2020.

Michael Zell, “Walter Morrell and the New Draperies Project, c. 1603-1631.” The Historical Journal 3 (2001) pp. 651–675. www.jstor.org/stable/3133578. Accessed 22 Nov. 2020.

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“Uneasy Lies the Head That Wears the Crown”: Kingship and Conscience in Shakespeare’s Henriad Lucy Boyd

Conscience is central to Protestantism, and for Martin Luther, it represented the inner seat of faith. In Shakespeare’s Richard II, I Henry IV, and II Henry IV, concepts of divine ordination and just rule form a powerful Protestant and Anglo-Calvinist undercurrent.

While characters in the plays grapple with sometimes competing views on the office of the crown––and the monarchs themselves with their own “inner men,” to use Luther’s term––the recurring theme of proper rule underscores how deeply the sacred and secular are entwined. Far from offering easy answers, however, Shakespeare’s histories investigate these complexities and dramatize anxieties attendant to his time. For this reason, the writings of Luther and John Calvin on secular authority offer an illuminating lens through which to situate and read the plays.

The 16th century was a time of great religious and political unrest, and both Luther and Calvin’s writings interrogate the proper relationship between Church and State. In his essay On Secular Authority, Luther justifies earthly governments and argues that while “true Christians” will obey the law out of love for their neighbours, an external power is needed to keep the rest of the population––a largely sinful world––in check.1 Also central to Lutheran thought are his views on conscience and the division between the “inner” and “outer” man. The “outer man” consists of a person’s physical body, while the “inner man,” the conscience, plays a critical role in the individual’s spiritual life.2 Notably, Luther’s conception of conscience makes allowances for secular leaders; as long as their con-

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sciences are clear, they have license to deviate from traditional Christian morality.3 For this part, Calvin expands upon many aspects of Luther’s theology. In Institutes of the Christian Faith, Calvin draws on Divine Right Theory, a view of government that subscribes to the notion that God himself places rulers on their thrones. Civil government, he writes, is not simply a necessary evil, as it keeps fallen humans in check and helps maintain the doctrines of the Church.4 Within this theological framework, Calvin argues that rebellion against divinely ordained rulers both instigates civil unrest and represents a treasonous act against God.5 The plays that comprise Shakespeare’s Henriad are similarly consumed with the issue of legitimate civil authority and haunted by the questions that Luther and Calvin pose. For Richard II, kingship is made legitimate solely by divine right. Over the course of Richard II, he frequently refers to having being “anointed”––the medieval ceremony wherein a secular leader is invested with divine authority.

In Richard’s eyes, no one can strip him of what God has rightfully provided; he responds to Bolingbroke’s challenge to the throne by asserting that “not all the water in the rough rude sea / can wash the balm off from an anointed king.”6 This position is fatally reinforced

by Bishop Carlisle, who tells Richard that he need not take up arms given that God is on his side. “The power that made you king ,” he says, “hath power to keep you king in spite of all.”7 Yet even as Richard is stripped of his title, he nevertheless plays a role in his own undoing. In the first scene of Act IV, he is brought before the victorious Bolingbroke to formally renounce the crown. In characteristically verbose fashion, Richard self-dramatizes his own downfall: Now, mark me how I will undo myself I give this heavy weight from off my head And this unwieldy sceptre from my hand The pride of kingly sway from out my heart.

With mine own tears I wash away my balm.

With mine own hands I give away my crown.

With mine own tongue deny my sacred state.

With mine own breath release all duteous oaths.8 Richard’s renouncing of the crown here is largely symbolic; Bolingbroke has already seized control and is the country’s ruler in es-

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70 Babel Volume XX sence, if not in title. Laura Estill argues, however, that Richard’s role in his own deposition has important consequences for his spiritual self, and his use of anaphora in the passage above highlights all the ways in which his “body natural” is intertwined with his “body politic.”9 By renouncing his kingship, she argues, Richard artificially cleaves the two bodies apart, “an action that is worse” than Bolingbroke’s high treason. “To many Protestant thinkers,” she writes, “including Calvin, Richard’s actions are a sin.”10 As such, through a Calvinist lens, Richard defies God’s will and the natural order, and in so doing “undo[es] himself,”11 both politically and spiritually.

Richard’s self-deposition, furthermore, places his salvation in jeopardy; his name is “marked with a blot, damned in the book / of heaven.”12 Indeed, even as Richard accuses the rebels of sinfulness– –comparing them to Pontius Pilate, in opposition to his soldiers and his Christ-like self––his conscience haunts him: Nay, if I turn my eyes upon myself, I find myself a traitor with the rest, For I have given here my soul’s consent, T’undeck the pompous body of a king.13 Shakespeare’s use of the word “soul” underlines the deep connection between the king’s spiritual and political lives––and between Luther’s “inner” and “outer” man. Richard’s troubled “inner man” finds that he has become a “traitor” who has acted against God. Importantly, he attempts to understand his situation in Act IV’s mirror scene. Ordering a looking-glass to be brought forth, he wants to “see the very book indeed / where all my sins are writ, and that’s myself.”14 Upon looking into the mirror, Richard acknowledges the deception of appearances—“O flatt’ring glass”15––in a profound moment of observation on the hollowness of his reign. Yet divine truth eludes him, and his inability to see clearly in the mirror echoes his inability to predict his afterlife. As Arthur Kinney notes, this scene is reminiscent of 1 Corinthians 13, which claims that our temporal existence consists only of seeing “through a glass, darkly.”16 This observation is reinforced by Bolingbroke, who remarks that “the shadow of your sorrow hath destroyed / the shadow of your face.”17 This inability to access divine knowledge is a point underscored in Protestant thought.18 If Richard’s role in his deposition leaves the state of his eternal soul in question, Bolingbroke too has much to fear as he be-

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comes Henry IV. In Calvinist theology, to usurp a king is to rebuke God’s authority. In Institutes of the Christian Religion, Calvin writes that it is “impossible to despise God’s ministers without dishonouring God himself.”19 To Calvin, even a despot is favourable to rebellion– –in fact, tyrannical rulers are punishments for the subjects of their sins.20 As such, Bolingbroke’s usurpation is in direct opposition to Protestant theology.

Indeed, while it is tempting to read Richard II as a site of conflicting political ideologies (Richard as the divinely ordained king, Bolingbroke as the Machiavellian prince who rises to power through his own scheming and virtu), Shakespeare’s exploration of these themes is complex. Even as Bolingbroke seizes the crown, he cannot elude the guilt accompanying his role in Richard’s deposition and death, and his conscience will haunt him for the duration of his rule. While he is popular with the common people, Henry IV lacks the divine justification of his predecessor, and it is important to note that Richard II ends with his promise to visit the Holy Land “to wash this blood off from [his] guilty hand.”21 While the sincerity of this proposed campaign is open to question—just as Bolingbroke’s motives for seizing power in the first place elude the audience–– there is no doubt that the king’s lingering guilt provides an important backdrop to subsequent instalments of the Henriad.

The opening lines of I Henry IV reveal that the new king is “shaken” and “wan with care”22 in an opening monologue laced with religious imagery, including reference to the “thirsty entrance of the soil”23 and the Cain and Abel story in Genesis 4. Henry IV had also referred to the Biblical murder in the final scene of Richard II, when he repudiated Richard’s killer and commanded him to join Cain in “wander[ing] through shades of night.”24 The allusions to Cain underscore the problem of a guilty rule. What is more, Henry’s opening monologue reveals both a troubled psychological state and disorder in the natural world; the earth is personified as a gaping mouth opening to devour its children25 beneath “meteors of a troubled heaven”26 and the “intestine shock”27 of civil unrest. In the face of this political situation, Henry is unable to complete his pilgrimage and atone for his sins, which further underscores the divine insecurity of his rule.

The writings of Luther and Calvin offer an additional lens through which to read Henry IV’s troubled reign. While Luther of-

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72 Babel Volume XX fers a more open view of rebellion than does Calvin—he accepts popular rebellion if the public’s consciences are violated28—the problem remains that Henry IV’s intentions in seizing the crown remain somewhat unclear. For such an important figure in Richard II, Bolingbroke has relatively few lines (only ninety, to be exact).

Furthermore, even as Luther allows for challenges to traditional morality in On Secular Authority, he asserts that such challenges emanate from a clear conscience in the ruler’s inner man. As the Henriad makes amply apparent, Henry IV is in a state of profound turmoil, and his guilt will follow him to his deathbed, as he gestures toward the “bypaths and indirect crooked ways” that brought him to the “troublesome” crown that sits upon his head.29 Calvin takes a firmer stance against rebellion. For Calvin, the ruler acts on behalf of God, and the people owe obedience to their monarch. An unjust (or simply unpopular) leader like Richard, who excessively taxes his subjects in order to embark on futile wars, is a channel for divine retribution against human sin.30 Therefore, one cannot challenge the king’s rule without going against the ultimate power; Calvin writes that it is “impossible to resist the magistrate without also resisting God.”31 Even so, considering Calvin’s view of history as the working out of God’s plan, it is hard not to see something providential about Henry IV’s rise to power.

While Hal remains a prince up until the end of II Henry IV, we can nevertheless consider conscience in light of his selfconception and his right to the crown. Even as I Henry IV opens with a depiction of the prince as a prodigal son who spends his days drinking, thieving, and carousing, his journey to the crown nevertheless has important theological underpinnings. Central to an understanding of Hal’s conscience is his foil and drinking companion, Sir John Falstaff. While Falstaff’s own lifestyle is certainly not one of traditional Christian morality, his relationship with Hal offers him a unique perspective from which to prick the prince’s conscience. In the opening act of I Henry IV, for example, Falstaff is quick to remind Hal of how his family’s usurpation of power is analogous to thievery. “[S]hall there be gallows standing in England when thou art king?” he asks. “Do not, when thou art king, hang a thief.”32 Often in scenes of jest, Falstaff uses his quick wit to illuminate a political reality.

Falstaff occupies much space, physical and otherwise, in both

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parts of Henry IV. He is very much an embodied creature—made clear through his love of food, drink, and women—and in his perception of the prince he refuses to separate Hal the man from Hal the future monarch. As Ellen Caldwell observes, Falstaff’s awareness of his “good and evil natures” stands in contrast to Hal’s desire to quell this duality “in the making of his royal image.”33 It is useful to consider once again the divisions between the “body politic” and Hal’s physical selfhood. Falstaff blurs the two, often using humour to emphasize his political commentary. In Act I of I Henry IV, Hal’s refusal to join Falstaff in a robbery sparks this response: “There’s neither honesty, manhood, nor good fellowship in thee, nor thou camest not of the blood royal, if thou darest not stand for ten shillings.”34 Even though Hal offers an immediate rebuttal––“I care not”35––Caldwell observes that he does care, and in the soliloquy that closes the scene he addresses Falstaff’s attack on his legitimacy.36 Notably, Hal’s soliloquy harnesses the language and aesthetics of the Protestant Reformation, as he predicts that in his ascent to the throne he will shine “like bright metal on a sullen ground” thanks to a personal “reformation” that will “glitter[] o’er [his] fault.”37 At the heart of the soliloquy, however, lies a fundamental tension; Reformist language is used, but Hal’s reference to throwing off his “loose behaviour”38 suggests a level of calculation and duplicity that undercuts a sense of authentic reform. The prince’s comfort with fabricating appearances suggests that he does not suffer from the same troubled conscience as does his father, yet Falstaff’s provocations prompt him to address the question of his legitimacy early on.

Indeed, the question of Hal’s conscience is much more complex than that of Richard II or Henry IV. The prince has played no direct role in the usurpation of the throne, yet as the son of the king he is positioned to ascend to an uneasy crown. Even years after the deposition of Richard, the political contexts of I Henry IV and II Henry IV remain informed by the seizure of power and form the backdrop against which Hal will ultimately triumph. All of these threads come together in Act IV of II Henry IV. Hal, believing his father dead, contemplates the crown and acknowledges the burdens it has placed upon his father: Why doth the crown lie there upon his pillow,

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74 Babel Volume XX Being so troublesome a bedfellow?

O polished perturbation! Golden care!

That keep’st the ports of slumber open wide To many a watchful night!39 Hal ends his speech by placing the crown upon his head and assuming his father’s cares, with the closing lines reflecting a divinelysanctioned transfer of power: “ Lo, / where it sits / which God shall guard / […] it shall not force / this lineal honour from me.”40 The king wakes and is distressed, thinking that his son cares only for the crown. After Hal puts this assumption to rest, Henry IV blesses his son in a speech that reveals the lasting guilt he feels over Richard’s death: “How I came by the crown, O God forgive / And grant it may in thee with true peace live!”41 The transfer of power from usurper to legitimate heir is thus enacted, with the old king’s tears offering “drops of balm” that “sanctify [Hal’s] head.”42 Ultimately, Hal eludes an easy answer on the question of conscience. He is capable of duplicity and can assume appearances, yet his profound meditation on the burdens of kingship reveals a sincere concern for the struggles of his father. Hal assumes the throne at the end of II Henry IV, and while he is saddened by his father’s death the scene nevertheless offers an optimistic view of his future reign.43 Hal inherits the “cares” of the crown, and his father’s grief lays the foundation of a divinely-favoured rule, to which Shakespeare lends full expression in the providential campaign and miraculous military victory over the French in Henry V. Despite the issue of his lineage, from a theological perspective, Hal’s reign is largely unproblematic; he is the blood heir of the former king.

Shakespeare’s Henriad offers a nuanced examination of several anxieties and questions attendant to civic authority, and in their dramatization of English history, opposing views are sometimes held up in tension with one another. The writings of Luther and Calvin offer an important gloss on the ways in which the history plays interrogate secular authority and its relationship with the divine. In the end, what is most striking in Shakespeare’s presentation of Richard II, Henry IV, and Prince Hal is the dramatic space he lends to their inner consciences, which reveals how faith and guilt are at once profoundly personal and a crucial mirror through which to view the body politic.

Babel Volume XX Notes Martin Luther, “On Secular Authority,” in Luther and Calvin on Secular Authority, edited by Harro Hopfl (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991): 9-14.

2 Luther 25-6.

3 Luther 42-3.

4 John Calvin, “On Civil Government,” in Luther and Calvin on Secular Authority, edited by Harro Hopfl (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 52-4.

5 Calvin 58-60.

6 William Shakespeare, Richard II (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2016), III.ii.556.

7 Shakespeare, Richard II, III.ii.27-8.

8 Shakespeare, Richard II, IV.i.212-9.

9 Laura Estill, “Richard II and the Book of Life,” Studies in English Literature, 15001900 51, no. 2 (2011): 287.

10 Estill 287.

11 Shakespeare, Richard II, IV.i.212.

12 Shakespeare, Richard II, IV.i. 246-7.

13 Shakespeare, Richard II, IV.i.258-61.

14 Shakespeare, Richard II, IV.i.285-6.

15 Shakespeare, Richard II, IV.i.290.

16 Arthur Kinney qtd. in Estil 289.

17 Shakespeare, Richard II, IV.i.303-4.

18 Eire, Carlos, “Calvinism and the Reform of the Reformation,” in The Oxford Illustrated History of The Reformation, ed. Peter Marshall (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), 84.

19 Calvin 53.

20 Calvin 61.

21 Shakespeare, Richard II, V.vi.49.

22 William Shakespeare, Henry IV Part I (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987), I.i.1.

23 Shakespeare, Henry IV Part I I.i.5 24 Shakespeare, Richard II V.vi.43.

25 Shakespeare, Henry IV Part 1 I.i.5-6.

26 Shakespeare, Henry IV Part 1 I.i.10.

27 Shakespeare, Henry IV Part 1 I.i.12.

28 Luther 40.

29 William Shakespeare, Henry IV Part II (New York: Signet Classics, 1965), IV.v.184-186.

30 Calvin 74.

31 Calvin 75.

32 Shakespeare, Henry IV Part 1, I.ii.56-9.

33 Ellen M Calwell, “Banish All the Wor(l)d: Falstaff’s Iconoclastic Threat to Kingship in I Henry IV.” Renascence 59, no. 4 (2007): 235.

34 Shakespeare, Henry IV Part 1, I.ii.130-3.

35 Shakespeare, Henry IV Part 1, I.ii.139.

36 Caldwell 231.

1

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76 Babel Volume XX Shakespeare, Henry IV Part 1, I.ii.207.

Shakespeare, Henry IV Part 1, I.ii.202.

39 William Shakespeare, Henry IV Part II (New York: Signet Classics, 1965), IV.v.20-4.

40 Shakespeare, Henry IV Part II, IV.v.42-5.

41 Shakespeare, Henry IV Part II, IV.v.218-9.

42 Shakespeare, Henry IV Part II, IV.v.114.

43 Shakespeare, Henry IV Part II, V.iii.44-145.

37 38

Bibliography Caldwell, Ellen M. “Banish All the Wor(l)d: Falstaff’s Iconoclastic Threat to Kingship in I Henry IV.” Renascence 59, no. 4 (2007): 219-246. EBSCO. Accessed 6 Oct.2020. https://search-ebscohostcom.ezproxy.library.dal.ca/login.aspx? direct=true&db=aph&AN=27200399&site=ehost-live.

Calvin, John. “On Civil Government.” In Luther and Calvin on Secular Authority, edited by Harro Hopfl, 47-86. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991.

Eire, Carlos. “Calvinism and the Reform of the Reformation.” In The Oxford Illustrated History of The Reformation, edited by Peter Marshall, 76-114. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015.

Estill, Laura. “Richard II and the Book of Life.” Studies in English Literature, 15001900 51, no. 2 (2011): 283-303. Accessed 5 Oct. 2020. https:// www.jstor.org/stable/23028076.

Luther, Martin. “On Secular Authority.” In Luther and Calvin on Secular Authority, edited by Harro Hopfl, 3-43. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991.

Shakespeare, William. Richard II. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2016.

Shakespeare, William. Henry IV Part I. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987.

Shakespeare, William. Henry IV Part II. New York: Signet Classics, 1965.

Babel Volume XX

The Scientific Revolution in Art: Early Modern Anatomical Studies and Naturalism Hayley McStay

Early modern Europe was a time proliferated with empiricist thought which stressed the idea of knowledge through experience.

Such ideas are prevalent in both art and anatomical study; by drawing from life and understanding the inner workings of the human body, artists are better able to depict their human subjects naturalistically. Likewise, early modern anatomists begin doing more dissections on human cadavers, resulting in first-hand observation of the body’s systems and functions. With the increasing interest in anatomical knowledge, many artists and anatomists collaborate on anatomical drawings, resulting in a symbiotic relationship which benefits both parties. Artists gain knowledge of the human body in order to depict it accurately and realistically, while anatomists use these anatomically correct illustrations to share and contemplate the knowledge they gain during dissection and study. In this essay, I will look at such empirical figures as Leonardo da Vinci and Andreas Vesalius in order to highlight this mutually beneficial relationship between art and natural philosophy. In doing so, I will argue that art surrounding the sixteenth century undergoes a scientific revolution in its broadening relationship with natural philosophy.

While this relationship between art and anatomy in the early modern era is not new, advancements in human dissection and anatomical knowledge provide more accurate insight and lead to more accurate depictions of the human form in art. Leonardo da Vinci exemplifies this empirical connection between art and anatomical

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78 Babel Volume XX work in his notebooks by emphasizing the fact that “wisdom is the daughter of experience.”1 Leonardo acknowledges that his own experience with dissection and anatomical study are imperative to the realism of his depictions of people in his art and advise other artists to do the same. In highlighting the importance of understanding the human body and creating anatomical drawings, he anticipates the inclusion of anatomical illustrations in Vesalius’s De humani corporis fabrica libri septem. This extensive medical book describes the layers and systems of the human body accompanied by over threehundred illustrations. Many scholars, such as Katherine Park, claim that Vesalius teamed up with students of Titian to produce accurate illustrations to accompany the text of De fabrica, demonstrating the collaborative nature of art and natural philosophy at the time.2 Though these illustrations function largely as visual epistemological aids, they also stand alone as works of art in themselves. I will place the anatomical illustrations of Leonardo and De fabrica in the context of art history and use them to highlight the artistic adherence to scientific knowledge in the early modern era; therefore, I will use these anatomical sketches as a case study to highlight the scientific and empirical revolution in early modern art. Throughout this essay I will use the terms “natural philosophy” and the modern term “science” interchangeably; as anatomical study was seen as a branch of natural philosophy at the time and our modern definition would consider it a science, I will refer to anatomy as both within the context of this paper.

In order to give context to the culture surrounding early modern medicine and anatomy, it is important to understand the dominant theories surrounding the functions of the human body in Leonardo and Vesalius’s time. Galen is perhaps the most influential figures in the history of anatomical study and reflects the most influential ideas of anatomy that persist into the early modern era; the ancient anatomist is a proponent of humoural theory: the idea that the balance of four different liquids of the human body (phlegm, black bile, yellow bile, and blood) entirely determine its overall wellness.

Additionally, Galen’s guide to dissection entitled On Anatomical Procedures demonstrates his knowledge and experience in anatomical study, and this experience leads him to his tripartite physiological understanding of arteries, veins, and nerves in relation to the heart, liver, and brain respectively. However, his “lack of access to human

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cadavers and his reliance on the bodies of animals, most notably those of apes” results in conclusions that are not entirely accurate when applied to the human body.3 Though Galen remains highly influential in the early modern era, figures such as Leonardo and Vesalius revolutionize anatomy through practicing and recording human dissection through first-hand experience. Therefore, both Leonardo and Vesalius adopt a Janus-faced approach to anatomy by acknowledging the findings and ideas of Galen, whilst progressing anatomical study through their own observations and theories.

Leonardo is often described as a “Renaissance Man” due to the breadth of his knowledge, interests, and skill, including anatomical study. As an art student in the studio of Andrea Verrocchio, he was encouraged to study dissected human bodies and draw from real life, allowing him to practice his observational skills and gain knowledge of the human body. Leonardo places great emphasis on gaining observational experience, claiming that those who only learn by reading of the experiences of others “are not inventors but trumpeters and reciters of the works of others.”4 Although he “learned anatomy initially from the old Greeks and Romans” and “studied Galen as interpreted by Mondino, Avicenna, Magnus, Saxony, and Benedetti,” Leonardo builds on this foundational knowledge with his own experience by performing post-mortem dissections on over thirty human corpses.5 Therefore, Leonardo brings an empiricist approach to the forefront of his work, reflecting the larger early modern attitude towards experience and knowledge. Furthermore, Leonardo highlights experience as a key component in an artist’s training, stating that they should constantly be drawing from life: observe and consider the circumstances and behavior of men as they talk and quarrel, or laugh or come to blows with one another; the actions of the men themselves and of the bystanders, who intervene and look on. And take note of them with rapid strokes thus -- in a little book which you should always carry with you.6 Thus, Leonardo advocates for constant critical observation through which the artist may gain understanding of how the body looks and works.

This act of looking with a critical eye and recording what one sees is precisely how Leonardo approaches his own anatomical study. He claims that “you who say that it is better to watch an ana-

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80 Babel Volume XX tomical demonstration than to see these drawings, you would be right if it were possible to observe all the details shown in such a drawing in a single figure,” highlighting the difficulty and realism of post-mortem dissection; the process of dissection and deterioration of the human corpse makes careful and thorough observation over time difficult “as one single body did not suffice for so long a time.”7 Therefore, accurate artistic representation of the body during dissection becomes a legitimate way of documenting the surgeon’s findings and provides a visual reference after the dissection was finished. When direct observation is no longer available, the anatomical illustrations function as an aid in replacing the actual empirical experience. Furthermore, Leonardo acknowledges how anatomical understanding also benefits the artist’s craft by stating that “the painter who has a knowledge of the nature of the sinews, muscles, and tendons will know very well in the movement of a limb how many and which of the sinews are the cause of it.”8 Thus, Leonardo highlights how an understanding of the inner workings of the human body allows for artists to depict the movement and shape of the body with greater accuracy. By acknowledging both the natural philosophical and artistic benefit to anatomical study and illustration, Leonardo demonstrates the symbiotic relationship between the art and science of the early modern period. Additionally, as he is primarily known as an artist, particularly considering his position of court painter for Ludovico Sforza, the importance he places on the relationship between art and science demonstrates an artistic move to naturalism and requires knowledge of scientific topics such as anatomy; in using scientific knowledge to elevate his artwork, Leonardo exemplifies a scientific revolution in early modern art.

In his essay, “Leonardo da Vinci: The Hidden Father of Modern Anatomy,” Luis H. Toledo-Pereyra notes that “Leonardo was a scientist studying anatomy. Yet Leonardo was also a consummate artist creating magnificent portraits. So Leonardo, the anatomist in his post-mortem dissection laboratory, also breathed life into the inert anatomical form.”9 The accuracy and naturalism of his artistic skill paired with his anatomical study result in Leonardo’s extensive collection of anatomical sketches. Illustrations such as The Muscles of the Shoulder (figure 1) demonstrates this naturalistic style through Leonardo’s use of line and shade to sculpt out each individual muscle and tendon with ink on the page. Leonardo depicts the male shoul-

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der in various positions and angles to give a view of the subject in the round; this thorough documentation of the shoulder using shading and overlapping strokes of ink mold the figure and illustrate the interconnectivity of the shoulder and neck muscles beneath the skin.

In looking at such sketches, it is evident how the creation of illustrations become a methodical way of documenting and observing the human form while also practicing realistic depiction of the human body. The style of Leonardo’s sketches closely resemble the later illustrations included in De fabrica in their use of dynamic poses, realistic shading, and anatomically correct figures; thus, I concur with Luis H. Toledo-Pereyra’s observation that “since his work predated the contributions of Vesalius, Leonardo could be considered the Hidden Father of Modern Anatomy.”10 Although Leonardo’s anatomical studies and writings were never published or released to the public within the early modern period, his artistic approach and interest in the human body anticipate Vesalius’s inclusion of accurate anatomical illustrations in De fabrica and exemplify the rising connection between empiricist art and science in the sixteenth century.

Pamela Smith outlines this connection between the production of art and knowledge in her essay, “Art, Science, and Visual Culture In Early Modern Europe.”11 She notes that through the “social, cognitive, and intellectual processes in producing them, images came to play an integral part in the making of natural knowledge in the early modern period.”12 By including illustrations in their studies, Leonardo and Vesalius include a visual aid to accompany their textual observations, allowing them and their readers to easily digest the information through clear and accurate visual representation. Additionally, as Smith briefly mentions, the methodical process of creating these illustrations may lead to a more thorough understanding of the subject through close observation and the act of transferring this knowledge onto paper. The act of drawing what one sees allows for careful contemplation of form and structure, resulting in accurate depictions and a meditative understanding of the subject. This understanding through depiction is further supported by the rise in the naturalistic style in the early modern period, as “the rise in naturalism in painting brought about the idea that art can be a model of vision and perception. Thus, art gained importance as it came to be seen as a new mode of investigating reality.”13 Therefore, in naturalistically depicting their findings

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82 Babel Volume XX of anatomical study, figures such as Leonardo and Vesalius (in collaboration with an artist) are able to further contemplate their own understanding of anatomy, as well as share their observations through a legible, visual medium.

Vesalius revolutionises the genre of medical books through his inclusion of highly detailed and accurate anatomical illustrations. As Park notes, “the practice of illustrating anatomical texts was not new,” but the pre-existing illustrations lack the realism that provides clarity and demonstrates a thorough understanding of the human body.14 Medieval anatomical illustrations are characterized by a flat, almost cartoonish style; although such basic pictorial form may indicate some understanding of the functions of the body, the oversimplified style lacks an acknowledgement of the intricacies and details of the bodily systems. Additionally, some of Vesalius’s most influential predecessors, Gelan and Mondino, did not include any illustrations in their anatomical treatises.15 Contrastingly, the illustrations that Vesalius includes in De fabrica were “based on the meticulous observations of dissected cadavers, they were much more detailed, and there were many more of them, illustrating every aspect of Vesalius’ discussion.”16 Therefore, Vesalius’s choice to include highly realistic and accurate representations of the human body in De fabrica demonstrates the increasing value placed on images to produce and supplement knowledge.

In the preface to De fabrica, Vesalius exhibits empiricist thought by emphasising knowledge through experience and seeing.

He denounces any supposed “anatomists” who do not perform dissections themselves, claiming that “doctors themselves, by resigning manual operations to others, ruined Anatomy.”17 Similarly to Leonardo, he also criticizes those who rely solely on the observations of others instead of their own experience, particularly those who dogmatically follow Galen who was at times “deceived by his monkeys,” and “never dissected a human body newly dead.”18 Therefore, Vesalius advocates for anatomists to obtain direct knowledge of the human body by actively dissecting human cadavers themselves, without the mediation of a barber to do the manual work.

Vesalius mentions that “the books contain representations of all the parts inserted in the text of the discourse, in such a way that they place before the eyes of the student of Nature’s works, as it were, a dissected corpse.”19 However, he notes that he does not intend for

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the images to outright replace actual dissection, but function as a visual aid for study and contemplation.20 Thus, Vesalius acknowledges the use of “most faithful” images as an important component to the description of the inner workings of the human body while prioritizing the empiricist value of direct experience.21 Though these images cannot outright replace direct observation through dissection, they function as a placeholder and epistomological aid while studying the text of De fabrica.

Although such illustrations serve this epistemological end in relation to Vesalius’s writing in De fabrica, I argue that they also function as works of art in themselves. As mentioned above, scholars believe that Vesalius collaborated with students of Titian in order to produce the extensive collection of anatomical prints. The skill of the artist is prevalent in both the naturalistic style and composition of each image. The artist draws on the artistic tradition of both memento mori and classicism in their depictions of the human body while maintaining anatomically correct representations of the subject. By injecting these flayed human corpses with life through realistic and lively poses, the “body is itself transformed in and through the process of its representation.”22 Harcourt argues that this mediation of artistry through the choice of pose and composition erases the gruesome reality of anatomical dissection and allows the viewer to feel more comfortable studying the human body without acknowledging the former identity of the flayed corpse and the moral intricacies of human dissection.23 Instead, the way in which the artist illustrates the figures allows them to become mere representations of the human body without individual identities attached to them; meanwhile, the artist maintains accurate demonstrations of the bodily structure and systems by molding the figure through the use of realistic shading and cross-hatching. Such a collaboration between artistry and science highlights the symbiotic relationship between the two: the artist makes the harsh truths of human dissection easily digestible through composition and poses, while the anatomical accuracy comes out in the naturalistic style.

The artist’s choice of poses often recall artwork of antiquity and display the humanist sensibilities of many early modern figures.

Such references to antiquarianism are particularly evident in the artist’s various representations of the muscular systems (figure 2).

The artist’s choice to represent the figure in a subtle contrapposto pose

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84 Babel Volume XX and depicting them from both the front and back is reminiscent of classical greek sculptures that would be seen in the round. Clare Guest comments that “the encasing of anatomies in sculptural bodies served various ends. It provided a framing device and a play between the viscera whose rapid decay made them the first parts to be dissected, and the ‘immortality’ of marble-or of print.”24 Thus, the sculptural allusions in the illustrations of De fabrica further emblematize the figures as immortal beings and evoke contemplation of death, decay, and life. Moreover, I argue that using poses that recall sculptures of antiquity in order to display the inner workings of the human body demonstrates a scientific impact on art. The artist is referencing these classical artworks, but flaying the bodies to reveal what lays under the skin in order to contemplate and study the body through early modern anatomical methods; in other words, they are taking the artistic figures of antiquity and placing them in the context of early modern natural philosophy. The collaboration between artist and anatomist results in art becoming scientific while science becomes artistic.

Although the artist negotiates “the difficulties of content inherent in anatomical illustration,” that being the moral implications of post-mortem dissection, they maintain a commentary on the fragility of life through the incorporation of memento mori. In the skeletal illustrations, the artist alludes to the vanitas tradition of still life which presents the viewer with a haunting image of the inevitability of death and futility of pleasure, largely through depictions of skulls; however, Rose Marie San Juan argues that the images of De fabrica almost does so mockingly. In looking at illustrations such as Skeleton and Skull (figure 3), Juan claims that “the substitution of the decomposing corpse for the dried-out but highly animated skeleton signalled a shift in the conception of death from an organic process of deterioration to a controlled undoing of the body” through dissection.25 Post-mortem dissection becomes the controlled undoing instead of the natural decay of the body, while the skeleton remains endowed with life. The cartoonish pose of the lively skeleton contemplating another skull becomes an almost comical allusion to memento mori in its ironic consideration of death. In looking at this illustration outside of the context of De fabrica and as an artwork in itself, it is apparent how a thorough understanding of the human structure augments the narrative and memento mori; the naturalistic

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depiction of the skeleton paired with the artistic composition highlights how scientific understanding can add an element of irony and realism to artwork. While this illustration is comedic, it also carries a haunting weight in its ironic contemplation of death. Thus, the scientific aspect of this illustration adds to its artistic quality and demonstrates how science is used to elevate and add to artwork in the early modern era.

The illustrations of De fabrica represent the collaboration between artist and anatomist as they function as both independent artworks and scientific epistemological aids. In placing them in the context of art history, these illustrations utilise and display anatomical knowledge as an element to comment on the process of dissection as well as highlight the artist’s skill and naturalistic style. While the artist could have simply depicted exactly what is seen during dissection, with the corpse flayed out on the table, they decide to impart life into the subject and include artistic allusions to memento mori and classical art. Not only do the creative and lively poses show the body in motion and display how the muscular and skeleton structures work under the skin, but they also demonstrate the artistry of the illustrations. Harcourt suggests that “the Vesalian illustrations should be seen and understood primarily as artistic rather than scientific documents.”26 In prioritizing the artistic quality, the use of accurate anatomical knowledge becomes an important component to the style and meaning of the image. Therefore, these illustrations demonstrate a scientific revolution within the early modern art world wherein scientific knowledge both inform and shape the style and production of art.

In conclusion, the rise in empiricist thought in early modern Europe influenced both anatomical study and art. The increasing emphasis on naturalistic style in art results in the artists’ turn to the study of natural philosophy in order to better the realism of their work; meanwhile natural philosophers perform more dissections on human cadavers and collaborate with artists to produce anatomically correct illustrations. Thus, science and art enter into a symbiotic relationship where each topic informs and adds to the other. In looking at the illustrations of Leonardo and De fabrica as works of art rather than scientific documentation, the influence of empirical observation and anatomical knowledge becomes apparent. In gaining knowledge of the human body, artists are better able to depict it in

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86 Babel Volume XX proper detail and realistic motion. The influence of art in anatomical study and books such as De fabrica is a testament to the accuracy of the artists’ understanding of anatomy. Furthermore, the artists do not sacrifice the narrative and artistry of their work for pure realism; there is an even collaboration between art and science at play in these anatomical illustrations. Such a collaboration demonstrates how art undergoes a kind of scientific revolution as the rising naturalistic style demands an empirical and observational approach.

Overall, the anatomical illustrations of Leonardo and Vesalius’s De fabrica function as a microcosm for this larger shift to a scientifically influenced art style.

Notes Leonardo da Vinci, Notebooks, ed. by Thereza Wells (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008), p. 7.

2 Katherine Park, Introduction, De Humani Corporis Fabrica, by Andreas Vesalius, (Octavio, 1998), p. 5.

3 Park, About De Humani Corporis Fabrica, p. 3.

4 Leonardo, Notebooks, p. 4.

5 Luis H. Toledo-Pereyra, “Leonardo da Vinci: The Hidden Father of Modern Anatomy,” Journal of Investigative Surgery, 15 (Michigan: Taylor and Francis Ltd, 2002) p. 247.

6 Leonardo, Notebooks, p. 208.

7 Leonardo, Notebooks, p. 114.

8 Leonardo, Notebooks, p. 115.

9 Toledo-Pereyra, “Leonardo da Vinci: The Hidden Father of Modern Anatomy,” p. 247.

10 Toledo-Pereyra, “Leonardo da Vinci: The Hidden Father of Modern Anatomy,” p. 249.

11 Pamela Smith, “Art, Science, and Visual Culture In Early Modern Europe,” Isis vol. 97 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006) pp. 83-100.

12 Smith, “Art, Science, and Visual Culture in Early Modern Europe,” p. 87.

13 Smith, “Art, Science, and Visual Culture in Early Modern Europe,” p. 89.

14 Park, Introduction, De Humani Corporis Fabrica, p. 4 15 Park, Introduction, De Humani Corporis Fabrica, p. 4.

16 Andreas Vesalius, “The Preface of Andreas Vesalius to De Fabrica Corporis Humani,” Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, trans. by B. Farrington (1982), p.

1360.

17 Vesalius, “The Preface of Andreas Vesalius to De Fabrica Corporis Humani,” p. 1362.

18 Vesalius, “The Preface of Andreas Vesalius to De Fabrica Corporis Humani,” p. 1363.

19 Vesalius, “The Preface of Andreas Vesalius to De Fabrica Corporis Humani,” 1

Babel Volume XX Appendix Figure 1 (Left). Leonardo da Vinci. The Muscles of the Shoulder. Pen and ink with wash, over black chalk on paper, c. 15101511. The Royal Collection, London, England. https://www.rct.uk/ collection/919003/recto-the-superficialanatomy-of-the-shoulder-and-neck-verso -the-muscles-of-the

Figure 2 (Right). Anonymous. Muscles from De humani corporis fabrica libri septem by Andreas Vesalius. Woodcut on paper, 1543.

University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada. https://anatomia.library.utoronto.ca/ islandora/object/anatomia%3ARBAI035

Figure 3 (Left). Anonymous. Skeleton and Skull from De humani corporis fabrica libri septem by Andreas Vesalius. Woodcut on paper, 1543. University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada. https:// anatomia.library.utoronto.ca/islandora/object/ anatomia%3ARBAI035

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88 Babel Volume XX (notes cont.) p. 1364.

20 Vesalius, “The Preface of Andreas Vesalius to De Fabrica Corporis Humani,” p. 1364.

21 Glenn Harcourt, “Andreas Vesalius and the Anatomy of Antique Sculpture,” Representations No. 7., (California: University of California Press, 1987), p. 29.

22 Glenn Harcourt, “Andreas Vesalius and the Anatomy of Antique Sculpture,” Representations No. 7., (California: University of California Press, 1987), p. 29.

23 Harcourt, “Andreas Vesalius and the Anatomy of Antique Sculpture,” p. 35.

24 Clare Guest, “Art, Antiquarianism and Early Anatomy," Medical Humanities 40, no. 2 (2014).

25 Rose Marie San Juan, “The Turn of the Skull: Andreas Vesalius and the Early Modern Momento Mori,” Art History, (2012): p. 966.

26 Harcourt, “Andreas Vesalius and the Anatomy of Antique Sculpture,” p. 29.

Bibliography Leonardo da Vinci, Notebooks, ed. by Thereza Wells. New York: Oxford University Press, 2008.

Guest, Clare E L. "Art, Antiquarianism and Early Anatomy." Medical Humanities 40, no. 2 (2014): 97-104. Accessed October 27 2020. doi: 10.1136/ medhum-2013-010419 Harcourt, Glenn. "Andreas Vesalius and the Anatomy of Antique Sculpture."

Representations no. 17. California: University of California Press, 1987. pp.

28-61.

Juan, Rose Marie San. "The Turn of the Skull: Andreas Vesalius and the Early Modern Memento Mori." Art History 35, no. 5 (2012): pp. 958-75.

Park, Katherine. Introduction, De Humani Corporis Fabrica by Andreas Vesalius.

Octavio, 1998. pp. 1-11.

Smith, Pamela H. "Art, Science, and Visual Culture in Early Modern Europe." Isis 97, no. 1 (2006): pp. 83-100. Accessed October 27, 2020. doi:10.1086/501102.

Toledo-Pereyra, Luis H. “Leonardo da Vinci: The Hidden Father of Modern Anatomy.” Journal of Investigative Surgery, 15. Michigan: Taylor and Francis Ltd, 2002. pp. 247-249. Accessed November 15, 2020. doi: 10.1080/08941930290086038.

Vesalius, Andreas. De humani corporis fabrica libri septem. Toronto: University of Toronto Libraries. https://anatomia.library.utoronto.ca/islandora/object/ anatomia%3ARBAI035 Accessed October 29, 2020.

Vesalius, Andreas. De humani corporis fabrica libri septem. Toronto: University of Toronto Libraries. https://anatomia.library.utoronto.ca/islandora/object/ anatomia%3ARBAI035 Accessed October 29, 2020.

Babel Volume XX

Afterword This year has been, for lack of a better term, strange. We have been isolated from one another, as I am writing this afterword, for exactly one year. This isolation and new learning experience has not stopped us; I believe that this journal is proof of that. This is the second publication of Babel that has occurred during the COVID-19 pandemic. The pandemic has given many of us new insight into the realities many experienced during the Early Modern Period. This year we are lucky enough to have papers spanning all academic years and I believe that this journal demonstrates the great work being done by King’s students from FYP onward.

I would like to extend my gratitude to our authors this year, Charlie Friesen, Katie Lawrence, Eliza Wolfe, Mauricio Rico Quiroz, Graham O’Brien, Elsy Rytter, Obinna Esomchukwu, Helen Hillis, Lucy Boyd, and Hayley McStay. Thank you for your submissions and for working with us on this journal. I would be remiss in not recognising our external editors, Lara Van de Venter and Grace Day. We greatly appreciate your hard work and effort in working with us to make this journal.

I owe a lot to my fellow Early Modern Studies Society members for their hard work. Our society was small but mighty this year.

First, I would like to thank my incredible co-president Sophie Lawall, I cannot imagine being co-president with anyone else. Sophie brings so much talent, intelligence, support and love into the society. Thank you Sophie, for always being there to talk through ideas for the society, and for being an incredible friend and support to myself and the rest of the society. I would also like to thank Neyve Egger, our treasurer this year. Neyve stepped in and agreed to help us when we were struggling and has been an invaluable member of the society ever since. Thanks as well to Caroline Belbin our second-year representative, it has been a delight to get to know you and I hope you continue to be involved with the society next year.

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90 Babel Volume XX Michaela Pennie, our communications officer this year, thank you for the enthusiasm you brought to the society. Additionally, I would like to extend a thank you to an honourary member of our society this year, Lucy Boyd. Lucy helped us throughout this year in various ways including helping us plan in the summer and serving as our line of communication into EMSP 4000.

I would like to extend gratitude on behalf of all of us in the EMSS to the faculty and staff of the Early Modern Studies Department who have guided, inspired and supported us as a society as well as students of the department. To the faculty and staff of King’s, thank you for being incredible teachers and mentors.

My final thank you is to you our readers. Thank you for picking up this volume and supporting the hard work done by our authors and editors.

Bronwyn Turnquist Co-President of the Early Modern Students’ Society 2020-21