The Elizabethan Era is known for
significant military action and great accomplishments in the liberal arts. When this era is referenced it commonly delves
into Shakespeare’s plays or Queen Elizabeth’s political prowess. But there is an ignored part of this history;
for instance when historians take a look at the French Revolution the mythology,
beliefs, philosophy and religion secure the most attention. They dissect every last “cause and effect”
scenario and publish whole books about their findings and theories. Strangely, only certain eras have merited
this treatment by modern society. One
neglects to dissect the Elizabethan Era.
There are, of course, anthropological studies and other trends in this
era, but the world view or “zeitgeist” has been paid little attention. One writer, Eustace M. W. Tillyard published
a work in 1972 titled The Elizabethan World Picture. In this piece, Tillyard explores the idea of
order in the minds of writers such as Shakespeare, Donne and Milton. Though it is not difficult to find quotes in
these authors that expound their idea of the universe, this book limited itself
to the manifestations of ideas in the poetic minds of the day. It does not consider the common man’s
experience or how these ideas may have shown in the inane and frivolous. Consequently, when one thinks of Queen
Elizabeth’s reign images of writers or explorers flood the mind and satisfy the
historical concepts. There is so much
more left untapped, such as the explorer, poet, statesman, soldier that was Sir
Walter Raleigh (1554-1629). Raleigh
is exemplary of a man who completely reacts instinctually to the tide of the
times while maintaining his own critical thought. This man and his contemporaries were like any
French or American revolutionary; they were beasts of their age. His views as to the order of the cosmos may
have been indispensable from the average Elizabethan. After all, many popular figures in
Elizabethan lore are common men by birth and rose to notoriety based on their
exceptional work. Though it may not seem
so, the Elizabethan Age was dominated by this unique and peculiar design for the
universe and it bleeds from many areas of business. The design is one of Order; the Four Humours
and the Divine right of Kings. The
opposition, like Beatrice Groves, believes otherwise. She asserted in her book Texts and
Traditions: Religion in Shakespeare 1592-1604, that, “Shakespeare does not
commit the same ideological elisions of which many of his contemporaries were
guilty in their discussions of a biblically based government”.[1] Along with Raleigh,
Francis Bacon’s (1561-1626) essays are ripe with data to support the world view
of the Elizabethan. Bacon approaches
philosophically the scheme of this order for which Tillyard so adequately gave
evidence. Finally, Shakespeare
(1564-1616) will also be used as another source to perhaps paint the minds of
the common man. These men, their actions
and their writings should finally reveal what the Elizaethan world view was.
A Measure of
Shakespeare
Who better to approach first than
the undisputed greatest playwright that ever lived William Shakespeare? He was born and baptized in the town
Stratford-on-Avon to a glover, John Shakespeare and his wife Mary Arden in 1564. Living a plain life under plain circumstances
did not prevent Shakespeare from receiving a standard education. It has been supposed that he actively started
pursuing the theater in 1592.[2] His plays have become immortal since then. When one presumes that William Shakespeare
was a real man as opposed to a conspiracy, the question comes: What gave this
man his clairvoyance to pen these masterpieces with only the use of a menial
free education? His plays may answer
this question for us. Stephen Greenblatt
points out that Shakespeare found himself searching for what other playwrights
had not yet done. So he writes of fools
and presumably honorable men getting drunk and disorderly. Greenblatt says of Sir Toby and Falstaff,
“They do for a limited time overturn sobriety, dignity and decorum”.[3] In
Julius Caesar Shakespeare inserts and references classical imagery that
could not have come from a standard education; he obtained this knowledge from
his society. In Act I, Scene iii, Casca,
a conspirator meets Cicero in the
night. He described the setting and
wrote that there should be “thunder and Lightning” as this is what the topic of
the scene required. This use of weather
was not a device to communicate devious behavior, rather it was suggesting that
along with the dialogue that there was a disturbance in the cosmos. Casca says early on, “Either there is a civil
strife in heaven/Or else the world, too saucy with the gods/incenses them to send
destruction”.[4]
Why does this mean anything about
the common Elizabethan world view? Tons
of authors have referenced the gods at one point or another. Elizabethans had a keen sense of hierarchy. In the Monarchy they assert that the king or
queen is God’s Anointed. This is what
Tillyard calls (and used as a chapter title) the chain of being. God delegates power to his subjects, and they
must not be questioned. C. S. Lewis
describes this in his Preface to Paradise Lost saying, “Everything
except God has some natural superior; everything except unformed matter has
some natural inferior”.[5] So, in the case of Julius Caesar, although he
was technically a dictator, qualified as “God’s anointed”; which meant that the
conspiracy caused a storm in the cosmos, creating chaos and disarray. Brutus and Cassius planned to assassinate
Caesar and this was not conducive to a peaceful world. Of course, modern scholars have written of
Shakespeare’s strange representation of political intrigue. The notion of hierarchy is so prominent
amongst Elizabethans that modern sensibilities cannot handle to the
torque. In Taming of the Shrew Katharina’s
eventually submitted and gave a speech that drove modern historians to think that
Shakespeare wrote it ironically.[6] Many strange sights were observed and
reported, such as men walking about engulfed in fire.[7] Casca knew he was up to no good, testing his
boundaries with the questionable Cicero. Casca relates these things to Cassius later
hoping for consolation saying, “But wherefore did you so much tempt the
heavens? / It is the part of men to fear and tremble / When to the most mighty
gods by tokens send / Such dreadful heralds to astonish us”.[8] Tillyard quotes John Fortescue saying, “In
this order hot things are in harmony with cold, dry with moist, heavy with
light, great with little, high with low.
In this order angel is set over angel, rank upon rank in the kingdom of
heaven; man is set over man, beast over beast . . .”.[9] This quote nicely sums up the general thesis
of the Elizabethan era which promotes order and rank (divine right). The humours are mixed in but only appear as a
subset of the over arching order.
One cannot really be sure of what
motivated Brutus to assassinate Caesar, but the fashion that Shakespeare wrote
it was that Brutus was an “honorable man”.[10] He deeply lamented having to put to death his
good friend, but figured the ends justified the means. When Antony
turns the people against Brutus, Cassius, and the rest of the conspirators,
Brutus becomes panicky; he tries to patch things back to normal and justifies
his actions. Of course no matter how
much mental gymnastics he does he is visited in the night by Caesar’s ghost. Being approached by the ghost he says, “I
think it is the weakness of mine eyes . . . art thou some god, some angel, or
some devil?”.[11] This is not merely a send up of Greek
mythology, because if it were Brutus would have spoken of fates, furies and
gods by name. Perhaps, Shakespeare was
following up on Dante Alighieri’s suggestion that Brutus (guilty of regicide)
was a man just as wicked as Judas (Guilty of killing God). These actions are significantly different in
scope, but the suggestion is that they are one and the same.
One major part of the Elizabethan
world view was the four humours. The
general idea was since food was a necessary part of our living, it was integral
to our being. As food passes through our
system it converts to four bodily liquids which were phlegm, melancholy, blood
and choler.[12] All of these corresponded to four elements
which were water, earth, air and fire.
This was the science of the day and this is what was referenced in
matters of health. This is a sub-order
of the grand order of the complete cosmos; it merely has to do with man. In Julius Caesar Antony
speaks of Brutus at the end of the play saying, “His life was gentle, and the
elements / so mix’d in him that Nature might stand up / and say to all world,
‘This was a man!’”.[13] This is a prime example: not only does it
apply to the soft science of the world, but also to a man’s general position of
the cosmos to the point where an anthropomorphized nature speaks well of a man
to have these humours balanced. This is
not merely poetry; this is orthodoxy. Shakespeare
was not a doctor, but a simple man of the theater. One must also notice the fact that the word
“nature” is capitalized.
A Measure of
Francis Bacon
Francis may not be as interesting a
man as Shakespeare was, but he may provide a greater wealth of world view
evidence. He was an informal theologian
who was not all that “churchy” but was willing to defend it mightily. Atheism was at this time gaining believers,
so naturally Bacon stepped in. Tillyard,
in his chapter on sin said, “Atheism not agnosticism was the rule. It was far easier to be very wicked and think
yourself so than to be a little wicked without a sense of sin”.[14] Not only did agnosticism doubt God’s
existence, but it forgot the entire order of the universe and their personal
role inside it. This was socially
unacceptable and so naturally pagans, heathens and atheists were more
acceptable for their mere validity, because they at least had a design. Heathens served a false and valid god while
atheists served the “god self”, which is just as valid as any pagan deity. The acceptance of a grand order to the
universe was incredibly important to the Elizabethan. Still, in the eyes of Bacon, atheists were
sorely mistaken; so much he wrote an essay on atheism. The opening lines go, “I had rather believe
all the fables in the legend, and the Talmud, and the Alcoran, than that this
universal frame is without mind”.[15] Not only is this an apologetic, but this
claim also asserts that order is necessary, and to forget inserting order into
your world view is down right absurd.
Bacon argues from the perspective that Tillyard called the “chain of
being”.[16] He granted that a little philosophy
“inclineth a man’s mind to atheism” but that when one delves deeper into the
whole business he is eventually brought about to religion.[17] Bacon spoke almost directly of the chain of
being saying, “But when it beholdeth the chain of them [events] confederate,
and linked together, it must needs fly to providence and deity”.[18] Simply, he says that when a man does not see
the bigger picture he will not believe in god, but examining his world and his
place inside it he will quickly resort to religion. In hindsight, Bacon points out that
Protestantism fueled the fire for this belief.
He tracks the lack of atheism to a little division in the church; the
Protestant Reformation though large boiled down to two opposing doctrines of
salvation. As the Reformation continues
one notes the amount of division in Protestants, and with much division in
religion atheism gains power. This
perfidiousness of people, mixing in the apparent chaos, gave reason to believe
that there is no god. “Where is he?”
they ask.
As mentioned before Bacon saw order
as necessary, but along with that order came a delightful Elizabethan notion of
hierarchy. Not only hierarchy, but
monarchy was his favorite given that Yahweh is himself a monarch. He said with great Solomonic fervour, “A king
is a mortal God on earth, unto whom the living God hath lent his own name as a
great honor”.[19] He believed in divine right of kings, because
it was another puzzle piece to hold everything together. He did have other instructions for monarchs
but most of all, in a very un-Lockeian way, the king must be obeyed.
To relate this to commoners one
must know that poets were, in fact, the rock stars of that day. Poetry was the easiest means of creating and
sharing art in those times, so naturally poetry circulated in and out of the
courts and into the streets. Sir John
Davies wrote a poem upon seeing the Virgin Queen in her majesty. He was stricken to the point of writing, “Her
brighter dazzling beams of majesty”.[20] Tillyard quoted this poem, but used it in a
different effect. He wanted to point out
the fabled cosmic dance that exemplified itself inside the court. This poetry resonated with the people; not
only did they enjoy the sight of the queen, but they enjoyed the sheer cosmic
order. For one’s country to gravitate
towards prosperity is a good thing, but for there to be no war in heaven is
encouraging to say the least. Hence,
atheism during this time was unfashionable, even if tolerated. Dancing (an ordering of bodily
movements) was a very popular entertainment for Elizabethans, as well. It, like poetry, was easy to accomplish with
minimal resource. Even though Bacon was
not fond of dancing himself said, “Dancing to song, is a thing of great state
and pleasure”.[21]
It should be noted that Francis
Bacon is known as the father of the modern scientific method. Bacon wrote very clearly his ideas on how to
obtain empirical knowledge about our world.
What had inspired him to create this plan of science. The general idea was to let Nature (that is
with a capital “N”) speak and argue for itself.
He considered it conceited to propose a hypothesis and attempt to prove
it. Who was man that he can measure
nature so precisely? Rather, he wanted
man to create a hypothesis and attempt to disprove it. He said in his essay Of Truth:
“Doth any man doubt, that if there were
taken out of men’s minds vain opinions, flattering hopes, false valuations,
imaginations as one would, and the like, but it would leave the minds of a
number of men poor shrunken things, full
of melancholy and indisposition, and unpleasing to themselves?”.[22]
Scientists based their science off of religion. If religion had not been customary advanced
science would have been drastically slowed down. C. S. Lewis points out in his book Miracles
that “Men became scientific because they expected law in nature, and they
expected law in nature because they believed in a legislator”.[23] Lewis suggests that when religion begins to
leave a society science will cease advancing. He also said agreeing with Bacon, “Science
itself has already made reality appear less homogenous than we expected it to
be”.[24] This suggests that human nature tends to
think that there is more order in the universe than for which we have visible
proof. Unknown forces have arranged the
universe.
A Measure of Sir
Walter Raleigh
All this is only a fraction of how
Elizabethans functioned. Of course, when
analyzing the intellectuals of the era there will be different suggestions left
and right. Sir Walter Raleigh, a prime
poster child of the Elizabethan commoner, will shed more light upon the
zeitgeist of the people. Raleigh
was a commoner despite his time as a statesman, soldier, and writer. He was a Protestant born into complete
obscurity as we have almost no information about his early life. What Lewis said about his poetry, the same
may be said about his life that “Raleigh
has happy moments but seldom gets through a longer piece without disaster”.[25] But out of secluded life he came and ascended
into prominence, and noted by Queen Elizabeth.
Loved by the people he had a significant discipleship (ship mates,
mostly) allowing him to settle the Americas
and do a little pirating of Spanish vessels on the side.
He had a significant amount of
poetry to go along with his personality.
He wrote one twelve line poem
titled De Morte which interpreted man’s life as a standard play; this
has underlying tones of cosmic order. In
his Excellent Observations and Notes Concerning the Royal Navy and Sea
Service he mentions to the Queen, whom he was writing to, certain
thanks. He says, “I confess that peace
is a great blessing of God, and blessed are the peacemaker, and therefore
doubtless blessed are those means whereby peace is gained and maintained”.[26] This is not just Raleigh
being devout, but it also is concluding argument to his piece. He appeals to Queen Elizabeth through ethos;
it would be right for her to follow through with Raleigh’s
ideas.
One of the more striking pieces he wrote was
his letter to King James I. Formerly, he
was locked away in the tower for fourteen years for suspected treason against
the king. But he was let out for one
last voyage to Guiana to mine gold. Along the way Spanish ships ambushed him, and
twenty-six of his men along with Raleigh’s
own son were murdered. His men mutinied,
but not against their captain but for the sake of their captain; they knew if
he was to return home then the King would send him to the scaffold. He ended up writing a letter to King James
saying:
“My mutineers told me that if I
returned for England,
I should be undone, but I believed in your Majesty’s goodness, more than in all
their arguments. Sure I am the first that
being free and able to enrich myself, yet hath embraced poverty and peril. And as sure I am that my example shall make
me the last: but your Majesty’s wisdom and goodness I have made my judges, who
have ever been and ever shall be”.[27]
This is a very bizarre statement. First, his mutineers were not revolting
against their captain, but for their captain.
Raleigh manages to convince
them of his world view to let him return to England. These sailors were the “undocumented”
Elizabethan, but they shared a sense of hierarchy and order, however misplaced
that it is. Second, it is important to
remember that the Enlightenment age was imminent. This letter is deeply disturbing for many who
do not share the Elizabethan world view.
Raleigh was so devoted to
the Divine Right of Kings that he submitted himself to someone whom he very
well knew wanted him dead. King James
the First despised Raleigh. The last line of the letter said that he
would forever remain faithful to the cause of the monarch. Lewis describes the matter of degree and
office nicely and gives us a reason why it is important for these men. He wrote, “If you take ‘Degree’ away ‘each
thing meets in mere opugnancy,’ ‘strength’ will be lord, everything will
‘include itself in power’ . . . . The
real alternative is tyranny; if you will not have authority you will find
yourself obeying brute force”.[28] Simply, you either submit willingly, or you
have submission forced on you. This is
what Raleigh’s policy was. In a letter Raleigh wrote to his wife on the
night that he was expecting to go to the scaffold he does the same thing. He praised his God and recommended that his
wife do the same. Lastly, in a letter to
his son he wrote, “Serve God: let him be the Author of all thy actions”.[29]
Perhaps one
of the most significant moments in English history was the Spanish Armada being
destroyed. A decisively embarrassing
event for Spain
and almost quite literally a God send for the English. Raleigh,
after the fact, noted that there were multiple propaganda pieces being put out
by the Spaniards. They attempted to cover up the shame of their loss through
lies and spin. So he counteracted them
and wrote his own account just for the Queen to examine. He began saying, “The Spaniards according to
their vainglorious vaunts, making great appearance of victories, when on the
contrary themselves are most commonly and shamefully beaten and dishonored”.[30] Paraphrased he says, “Let me inform you,
Queen of the truth.” Near the end of the
account he references the storm that occurred and as the world view would have
it, he brought God in to the equation.
He wrote, “Thus it hath pleased God to fight for us . . . . A manifest testimony how unjust and
displeasing their attempts are in the sight of God . . .”.[31] He says this while at the same time he refers
to a traitor in this way, “To be unnatural to his own country that bred
him, to his parents that begat him, and rebellious to his true prince to whose
obedience he is bound by oath, by nature and by religion?”.[32] Raleigh
not only condemns the traitor by his Christianity, but also condemns by the Law
and Order of Nature.
Tillyard
makes it clear through Raleigh’s History
of the World that he was convinced of this order of degrees in God’s
Kingdom. He wrote, “For that infinite
wisdom of God, which hath distinguished his angels by degrees . . . .”.[33] He points towards the cosmic hierarchy in
this as he continues to list the orders of kings, dukes, magistrates and
judges. For such a fantastic description
of the universe Raleigh has an easy
time asserting it. Again it must be
pointed out that Raleigh is a good
measuring stick for how the average Elizabethan thought. He arose out of the people, got fame, got
slandered multiple times, and maintained his firm beliefs all the way up to his
unjustified death; in spite of all the things he was (poet, soldier, statesman,
explorer) he was not a philosopher. Raleigh
was just a man who lived what he believed.
Tillyard said, “Raleigh’s life had been in part as secular as one can
conceive . . . he must have known disorder at its most horrible . . . .Yet it
is the same man who can see the glory of God”.[34]
Raleigh
shared more than tobacco with Francis Bacon (They were, at least,
acquaintances). He wrote of atheism in a
four line poem; the last two lines went, “Raw is the reason that doth lie
within an atheist’s head. / Which saith the soul of man doth die when that the
body’s dead”.[35] This was not enough to keep rumors from
building. Agnes Latham noticed that once a judge had been employed to determine
whether Raleigh was an atheist. The reason might be discovered by an
anonymous comment after his execution regarding his speech, which went, “He
spoke not one word of Christ, but of a great and incomprehensible God, with much
zeal and adoration.” The accusation was
just a case of mudslinging as the judge read his History of the World
and said, “I am resolved you are a good Christian”. [36] Latham said of it, “Raleigh
is concerned with the source of ultimate power and ultimate order rather
than with saving grace, but it is a question of emphasis, not of orthodoxy”.[37]
Conclusion
When one
thinks of the importance of order, hierarchy, and the four humours inside the
Elizabethan era it may seem confusing to those who look forward to the
Enlightenment, the French Revolution and the American Revolution. The Enlightenment claimed to be built for
reason, and about reason; it would trust no other empirical source of truth
other than reason. The French Revolution
was chaotic anarchy devoid of order and the American Revolution was a rebellion
against the “divine right of kings” whether they knew it or not at the
time. One wonders how this shift in
attitude happened so suddenly and that it happened at all. Tillyard wanted his readers to realize that
the Elizabethan era, although short, was the golden age as opposed to his
contemporaries who thought it was the metaphysical poets. He greatly admired the Elizabethans and said
of them, “It is precisely the basic simplicity and strength of the greatest
Elizabethans that we need to perceive if we are not to reduce the norm of their
age to mere pageant-making and minstrelsy”.[38] This age is due more than we give it, and we
neglect several parts of its zeitgeist whether it is in the literature, letters
or essays. The ethos, pathos and logos
comes out of every nook and cranny. It
must not be ignored for long.
Bibliography
1. Tillyard, Eustace M. W. The Elizabethan World Picture.
New York: Vintage Books. Print.
2. Shakespeare, William.
Julius Caesar. London:
Oxford University
Press, 1957. Print.
3. Raleigh, Sir Walter.
Letters, Poems and Essays.
New York: J.M. Dent &
Sons. Print
4. Bacon, Francis. Essays. New York:
The Henneberry Company. Print.
5. Lewis, C. S. Miracles. New York:
The Macmillan Company. Print
6. Lewis, C.
S. Preface to Paradise
Lost. London:
Oxford University
Press. Print
7. Greenblatt, Stephen. Will in the World. New York:
W. W. Norton & Company, 2004. Print.
8. Groves,
Beatrice. Texts and Traditions: Religion in Shakespeare 1592-1604. New
York: Oxford
University Press, 2007. Print.
9. Agnes, Latham. Sir Walter Raleigh. London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1964. Print.
10. Lewis, Clive S. English
Literature in the Sixteenth Century.
Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1954. Print.
[1]Beatrice Groves, Texts
and Traditions: Religion in Shakespeare 1592-1604 (New
York: Oxford
Univeristy Press, 2007.), 183. Groves also argues that Shakespeare was a
closet Catholic. Tillyard who was a
Catholic and co-wrote a book of theological arguents with C.S. Lewis called A
Present Heresy seems to miss Grove’s point in his own research. He seems to believe that Shakespeare was
solely protestant.
[2] Stephen Greenblatt, Will
in the World (New York: W. W.
Norton & Company, 2004).
[3] Greenblatt, Will in the
World, 41
[4] William Shakespeare, Julius
Caesar (London: Oxford University Press, 1957), 16.
[5]C. S. Lewis, Preface.
(London: Oxford University Press, 1946), 72.
[6] Groves,
Texts and Traditions, 154. Groves argues this particular point by
pointing to Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure. She believes that Shakespeare was questioning
the divine right of kings and above all was an early enlightenment figure.
[7] Julius Caesar 1. 3.
15-31. Along with men walking around on
fire there were other oddities that Casca heard reported. There was a slave whose hand burned like
twenty torches and left unscathed, a lion wandering the capitol building and
owls “hooting and shrieking”. Shakespeare
battled the naturalist notion further when Casca warned Cicero
saying, “Do so conjointly meet, let not men say, / “These are their reasons,
they are natural.”
[8] Julius Caesar 1. 3.
51-56
[9] Eustace Tillyard, The
Elizabethan World Picture (New York:
Vintage Books, no date), 26-27.
[10] Julius Caesar 3.
2. 88.
[11] Julius Caesar 5.
1. 275-278
[12] Tillyard, Elizabethan.
69
[13] Julius Caesar 5.
5. 73-75
[14] Tillyard, Elizabethan,
18
[15] Francis Bacon, Essays
(New York: The Henneberry
Company, no date), 68.
[16] Tillyard, Elizabethan,
25
[17] Bacon, Essays, 68
[18] Bacon, Essays, 68
[19] Bacon, Essays, 215
[20] Tillyard, Elizabethan,
105
[21] Bacon, Essays, 146
[22] Bacon, Essays, 17
[23] Lewis, Miracles,
128
[24] Lewis, Miracles,
35
[25] Lewis, Sixteenth Cent.,
519
[26] Sir Walter Raleigh, Excellent
Observations and Notes Concerning the Royal Navy and Sea Service, (New
York: J.M. Dent & Sons, no date), 171.
[27] Sir Walter Raleigh, Return
From Guiana, (New York: J.M.
Dent & Sons, no date), 205
[28] Lewis, Preface, 74
[29] Sir Walter Raleigh, Instructions
to His Son, (New York: J.M.
Dent & Sons, no date), 182
[30] Sir Walter Raleigh, The
Last Fight of the “Revenge” at Sea, (New York:
J.M. Dent & Sons, no date), 73
[31] Raleigh,
“Revenge”, 88.
[32] Raleigh,
“Revenge” ,89.
[33] Tillyard, Elizabethan,
11.
[34] Tillyard, Elizabethan,
24.
[35] Raleigh,
Poems, 59
[36] Agnes Latham. Sir Walter Raleigh. (London: F. Mildner & son, 1964),
32. “Raleigh was interested in the
problems propounded by the nature of God, of creation and of the image of God
in man. . . . It is peculiarly liable to be misconstrued by narrow minds. Raleigh
had a dangerous kind of disengagement, a tolerance when confronted with alien
ideas and an intellectual boldness.”
[37] Ibid., 32
[38] Tillyard, Elizabethan,
108.
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