Visualizing Marvell

2019 ◽  
pp. 243-262
Author(s):  
Katherine Acheson
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Visual Culture ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Critical Reception ◽  
Visual Features ◽  
Plastic Arts ◽  
Visual Evidence ◽  
The Many

Marvell’s poetry is distinguished by its preoccupation with forms, practices, and theories of the visual and plastic arts. Among the many fields of visual culture in which Marvell’s imagination played is that of print itself. This chapter focuses on visual features of print that might contribute to our understanding of Marvell’s identity as a poet within the culture in which his work circulated. First, the chapter considers Marvell’s early printed elegies and commendatory verses and how their layout represents the early modern poet in print. Second, the chapter considers the frontispiece portrait of Marvell printed in Miscellaneous Poems in the context of seventeenth-century portraits of poets and in relation to critical reception of his work in more recent times. The chapter demonstrates how visual evidence can lead to deeper understanding of how poets imagined themselves and their work in relation to their audiences, their genres and modes, and their peers.

scholarly journals THE INNER LIVES OF EARLY MODERN TRAVEL

2018 ◽  
Vol 62 (2) ◽  
pp. 349-373 ◽  
Author(s):  
MARK R. F. WILLIAMS
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Material Objects ◽  
Grand Tour ◽  
Cultural Engagement ◽  
The Family ◽  
The Many ◽  
Long Eighteenth Century

AbstractThis article assesses the role of memory, interiority, and intergenerational relations in the framing of early modern experiences and narratives of travel. It adopts as its focus three generations of the Clerk family of Penicuik, Scotland, whose travels through Europe from the mid-seventeenth century onward proved formative in the creation of varied ‘cosmopolitan’ stances within the family. While such widely studied practices as the ‘Grand Tour’ have drawn on discourses of encounter and cultural engagement within the broader narratives of the ‘long’ eighteenth century, this article reveals a family made deeply anxious by the consequences of travel, both during and after the act. Using diaries, manuscript correspondence, memoirs, and material objects, this article reveals the many ways in which travel was fashioned before, during, and long after it was undertaken. By shifting focus away from the act of travel itself and towards its subsequent afterlives, it explores the ways in which these individuals internalized what they experienced in the course of travel, how they reconciled it with the familiar, quotidian world to which they returned, and how the ‘cosmopolitan’ worldviews they brought home were made to inform the generations that followed.

To Sleep or Not to Sleep—Is it a Question?

2019 ◽  
Vol 45 (2) ◽  
pp. 121-139
Author(s):  
Joan Faust
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
The Many

Amidst the many trials Donne experienced during his 1623 illness recounted in his Devotions upon Emergent Occasions are bouts of insomnia introduced in Devotion 15 and implied in Devotions 16–18 with the unceasing tolls of bells in the nearby church commemorating the dying and dead. Donne’s agonized longing for the comfort of sleep as he lay day after day and night after night for fourteen days to the disease’s crisis, then over three months of slow recuperation, hits readers where they live: in all probability, all of us have tossed and turned on long sleepless nights. But is Donne preoccupation with sleep an anomaly among seventeenth-century writers, peculiar to his 1623 illness, and another example of Donne’s excessive focus on his own body, or did other Early Modern writers and theorists demonstrate an obsession with sleep? And more importantly, was insomnia a hindrance to his creativity before, during, and after his illness? A look at Donne’s Devotions in light of Early Modern theories of sleep and “not to sleep” indicates that Donne’s work not only documents his own personal sufferings and anxiety about liminal states but also illustrates Early Modern beliefs about insomnia, its causes, and even its benefits. Insomnia was not a temporary and isolated stage of Donne’s 1623 illness but a burden throughout his life, possibly serving as a source of his creativity and linking him to other sleepless writers of his time and beyond.

A lost cartulary of St Albans Abbey

1993 ◽  
Vol 22 ◽  
pp. 253-279 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simon Keynes
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
Fair Proportion ◽  
Historical Texts ◽  
The Battle Of Maldon ◽  
John Selden ◽  
The Many ◽  
King Alfred

It would be a truism among Anglo-Saxonists to say that we depend for our knowledge of a fair proportion of pre-Conquest literary and historical texts on the labours of scholars active in the sixteenth, seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. Among the many important texts which were casualties, for example, of the Cotton fire on 23 October 1731, and for which we now depend on early modern transcripts and printed editions, one thinks immediately of Asser's Life of King Alfred and of the poem on the battle of Maldon (in Cotton Otho A. xii), of manuscript G of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (in Cotton Otho B. xi), and of Ealdorman Æthelweard's Chronicle (in Cotton Otho A. x). Should one choose to venture into the realm of Anglo-Saxon charters, the importance of antiquarian transcripts of manuscripts now lost becomes ever more apparent. The most spectacular addition to the corpus of charters made since the publication of Professor Sawyer's catalogue in 1968 arose from the examination of a sixteenth-century cartulary of Ilford Hospital preserved at Hatfield House, which proved to contain the texts of eleven pre-Conquest charters derived ultimately from the archives of Barking abbey in Essex; of course this manuscript is an ‘original’ cartulary, as opposed to an antiquarian transcript, but it serves here as a salutary reminder of the treasures which may lurk as yet unidentified in libraries and archives throughout the country. Other ‘discoveries’ include a seventeenth-century copy of a charter by which King Edgar granted an estate at Ballidon, in Derbyshire, to his thegn Æthelferth, Sir Henry Spelman's extracts from a lost cartulary of Abbotsbury abbey, and notes made by the jurist John Selden from a charter-roll formerly preserved in the archives of St Paul's Cathedral in London.

Muscovy and the "General Crisis of the Seventeenth Century"

1998 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 156-180 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert O. Crummey
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Modern World ◽  
Demographic Trends ◽  
Historical Experience ◽  
The Troubles ◽  
General Terms ◽  
The Many

AbstractThis article discusses the applicability of the concept of the "general crisis of the seventeenth century" to Russia. The author begins by reviewing the literature on the "general crisis," particularly the contributions that potentially throw the most light on Russia's historical experience. Jack Goldstone's new book, Revolution and Rebellion in the Early Modern World, receives particular attention. The author argues that Goldstone's multi-causal, but ultimately new-Malthusian model is not helpful in explaining Russian developments: insofar as historians understand them, demographic trends in seventeenth-century Russia do not support Goldstone's arguments. In more general terms, the author concludes that a number of contributions to the debate on the "general crisis" do help to explain Russian events. In fact, Russia had two profound crises that display important parallels with simultaneous events elsewhere in Europe- the Time of the Troubles (1598-1613) and the crisis of 1648-49. The former was the most severe of the many European crises of the 1590s. The latter was, in essence, a revolt of taxpayers against the rapidly increasing demands of an absolutist state. Although the rebels did not overthrow Tsar Alexis' regime, his government, in response, took important steps toward more effective absolute rule, most importantly the full enserfment of the manorial peasantry.

scholarly journals SPIRITED METALS AND THE OECONOMY OF RESOURCES IN EARLY MODERN EUROPEAN MINING

2020 ◽  
Vol 39 (2) ◽  
pp. 371-388
Author(s):  
TINA ASMUSSEN
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Economic History ◽  
Mineral Resources ◽  
Mineral Matter ◽  
Mining Sites ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Many ◽  
Mechanical Arts ◽  
Mining Regions

ABSTRACT This article examines the perception and valuation of mineral resources in sixteenth and seventeenth-century European mining regions. It aims to critically review the utilitarian and anthropocentric view of mining and mineral resource production, circulation and consumption that is shaped by a long tradition of economic history and history of technology. To understand human relation to the underground and its resources only in terms of innovation and rationalization means to ignore the many different layers by which resource landscapes affected the miner’s perception of nature and mineral matter. The literary, material and visual culture of sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century central European mining sites proves to be fruitful ground for historicizing the interplay between manual labor, mechanical arts, natural resources and religion in mining landscapes. This paper aims to connect the material and immaterial or the physical and symbolic dimensions of human-nature entanglement in early modern mining and suggests a way to locate human and geological agency within the context of a divine oeconomy.

Conclusion

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laurence Lux-Sterritt
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Spiritual Life ◽  
Society Of Jesus ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Many

This book highlights how the English Benedictine nuns lived their faith in convents where they obeyed the same Rules as their European counterparts, and served the same Church. Like other Continental convents, they were influenced by the disputes that divided the early modern Church, particularly with regards to the influence of the Society of Jesus. They embraced the missionary spirit and the devotional fervour which has been noticed as the trademark of seventeenth-century Catholicism. But beyond similarities, English convents also display features which are quite specific of the English monastic experience in exile, and which are not found in the cloistered communities of Spanish, French or Italian nuns. The social profile of Benedictine monasteries, their finances, their recruitment, the local success of their settlement, and the many facets of their spiritual life, were deeply influenced by the circumstances of English Catholicism and of the English mission; they mirrored, in microcosm, the circumstances, strengths and flaw-lines of both their national and international contexts.

Health Hazards

2019 ◽  
Vol 95 (2) ◽  
pp. 115-133
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Currie
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
Good Health ◽  
The Body ◽  
Modern Period ◽  
Visual Evidence ◽  
Ideal Body ◽  
The Many ◽  
Medical Treatises

Studies of early modern dress frequently focus on its connection with status and identity, overlooking clothing’s primary function, namely to protect the body and promote good health. The daily processes of dressing and undressing carried numerous considerations: for example, were vital areas of the body sufficiently covered, in the correct fabrics and colours, in order to maintain an ideal body temperature? The health benefits of clothing were countered by the many dangers it carried, such as toxic dyes, garments that were either too tight or voluminous, or harboured dirt and diseases that could infect the body. This article draws on medical treatises and health manuals printed and read in Italy and England, as well as personal correspondence and diaries, contextualised with visual evidence of the styles described. It builds on the current, wider interest in preventative medicine, humoral theory, health and the body in the early modern period by focusing in depth on the role of clothing within these debates.

Money and Future in Late Ming China

2019 ◽  
Vol 45 (1) ◽  
pp. 50-70
Author(s):  
Weiwei Luo
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
Moral Order ◽  
Historical Process ◽  
Modern Period ◽  
Late Ming ◽  
The Many ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Globalized World

Chinese imperial dynastic time represented the cyclical change of regimes with a naturalized moral order. A linear lineage time and synchronic communal time were often eclipsed by the more ritually visible and well-documented cyclical imperial time. The dawn of China’s “silver century” (1550–1650,) however, disrupted the cyclical temporality of the dynasties and revealed other time-orders that had been usually subsumed under the dynastic time. Late Ming China (fifteenth to early seventeenth century), like many parts of Europe in the early modern period, experienced commercial accumulation, competitive consumption, desire for capital, reformulation of norms and traditions, bringing China into a globalized world historical process. This change in economy brought to the fore the many layers between imperial dynastic time and that of the individual. Money also influenced existing philosophies of past and future, as well as techniques of prognostication. Manipulation of the future often took the form of calculation of good deeds inspired by accounting. In short, money transformed what we can call “the practice of future” in two ways. First, it reemphasized the importance of linear lineage time instead of dynastic time through emphasizing the longevity of descendants and fortunes in the afterlife. Second, through the discussion of capital acquisition and the popularization of accounting, it also introduced “balance” into temporality through the discourse of just and unjust accumulation, allowing a synchronized and more egalitarian communal time to disrupt lineage time.

“All in a Garden Green”: Shakespeare's Staging of Garden Imagery

2019 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 227-252
Author(s):  
Deborah Solomon
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Literary Tradition ◽  
The Public ◽  
The World ◽  
Audience Interaction ◽  
The Many ◽  
Green World

This essay draws attention to the surprising lack of scholarship on the staging of garden scenes in Shakespeare's oeuvre. In particular, it explores how garden scenes promote collaborative acts of audience agency and present new renditions of the familiar early modern contrast between the public and the private. Too often the mention of Shakespeare's gardens calls to mind literal rather than literary interpretations: the work of garden enthusiasts like Henry Ellacombe, Eleanour Sinclair Rohde, and Caroline Spurgeon, who present their copious gatherings of plant and flower references as proof that Shakespeare was a garden lover, or the many “Shakespeare Gardens” around the world, bringing to life such lists of plant references. This essay instead seeks to locate Shakespeare's garden imagery within a literary tradition more complex than these literalizations of Shakespeare's “flowers” would suggest. To stage a garden during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries signified much more than a personal affinity for the green world; it served as a way of engaging time-honored literary comparisons between poetic forms, methods of audience interaction, and types of media. Through its metaphoric evocation of the commonplace tradition, in which flowers double as textual cuttings to be picked, revised, judged, and displayed, the staged garden offered a way to dramatize the tensions produced by creative practices involving collaborative composition and audience agency.

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