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A Critical Edition of George Whetstone's 1582 An Heptameron of Civil Discourses
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eBook - ePub
A Critical Edition of George Whetstone's 1582 An Heptameron of Civil Discourses
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About This Book
Published in 1987: This edition seeks to make available, for the scholar and the student of Elizabethan literature, an accurate text of an Heptameron of Civill Discourses.
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EXPLANATORY NOTES
Works Frequently Cited
Full bibliographic citations are given below, or in the Explanatory Notes, only for works that are not listed in the bibliography. Classical references in the Notes are to texts in the Loeb Classical Library; Biblical references are to the Geneva Bible (1560; facsimile rpt. Madison: Univ. of Wisconsin Press, 1969).
Whetstoneâs Works:
Bacon | A Remembraunce of Sir Nicholas Bacon (1579) |
CLS | The Censure of a Loyall Subject (1587) |
Dier | A Remembraunce of Sir James Dier (1582) |
EM | The English Myrror (1586) |
HRS | The Honorable Reputation of a Souldier (1585) |
MMC | A Mirour for Magestrates of Cyties (1584) |
PC | Promos and Cassandra (1578) |
RR | The Rocke of Regard (1576) |
TT | A Touchstone for the Time (1584) |
The Bestiary | T. H. White, trans., The Bestiary; A Book of Beasts, 12th Cent. (New York: Putnams, 1954). |
Cartari | Vincenzo Cartari, The Fountaine of Ancient Fiction, trans. Richard Linche (London, 1599). |
Castiglione | Baldassare Castiglione, The Book of the Courtier, trans. Sir Thomas Hoby, 1561 (London: Dent, 1928). |
Cooper | Thomas Cooper, âDictionarium Historicum et Poeticumâ in Thesaurus Linguae Romanae et Britannicae (1565; facsimile rpt. Menston, Eng.: Scolar Press, 1969). |
Du Verdierâs Mexia | Pedro Mexia, Les Piverses Leçons dâAntoine du Verdier ⊠suivans celles de Pierre Messie (Lyon, 1592), as quoted in Izard (see below). |
Gascoigne, | The Adventures of Master F.J In A Hundreth Sundrie Flowres, ed. C. T. Prouty (Columbia: Univ. of Missouri, 1942). |
Grugetâs Mexia | Pedro Mexia, Les Diverse Leçons de Pierre Messie, trans. Claude Gruget (Lyon, 1592). |
Harl.M | A True Description and Direction of What is Most Worthy to be Seen in All Italy, c. 1600, Harleian Miscellany (1810; rpt. New York: AMS, 1965), V, 1-41. |
Izard | Thomas C. Izard, George Whetstone, MidâElizabethan Gentleman of Letters (1942; rpt. New York: AMS, 1966). |
Lyly | John Lyly, Euphues: The Anatomy of Wit; Euphues and His England, ed. M. W. Croll and H. Clemons (1916; rpt. New York: Russell, 1964). |
Montaigne | Michel de Montaigne, The Diary of Montaigneâs Journey to Italy in 1580 and 1581, trans. E. J. Trechmann (New York: Harcourt, 1927). |
ODEP | The Oxford Dictionary of English Proverbs, 3rd ed., rev. F. P. Wilson (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1970). |
OED | The Oxford English Dictionary, ed. Sir J. A. H. Murray et al., 12v. and Suppl. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1933, 1972). |
Ovid Met. | Metamorphoses, trans. F. J. Miller, 2v. (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ. Press, 1921). |
Painter | William Painter, The Palace of Pleasure, 1566-67, ed. Joseph Jacobs, 3v. (1890; New York: Dover, 1966). |
Pliny | Natural History, trans. H. Rackham, 10v. (London: Heinemann, 1938-62). |
Tilley | Morris Palmer Tilley, A Dictionary of the Proverbs in England in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (Ann Arbor: Univ. of Michigan Press, 1950). |
Topsell | Edward Topsell, The Historie of Foure-footed Beastes (London, 1607), STC 24123. |
Topsell, Serpents. | The Historie of Serpents (London, 1608), STC 24124. |
Title Page
1.1 An Heptameron] A work divided into seven days. From Greek áŒÏÏᜱ (hepta) = seven, and ጠΌÎÏα (haemera) = day. Whetstone is undoubtedly echoing the title of Marguerite de Navarreâs framed collection of tales published in 1559, LâHeptamĂ©ron, which in turn is modelled on Boccaccioâs Decameron. In both the HeptamĂ©ron and the Decameron, a group of people entertain themselves, in times of flood and of plague respectively, by narrating a series of novellas or tales on successive days. The OED suggests that Boccaccio may have entitled his work on the analogy of the Hexameron, an account by Ambrose of the six days of creation -- a work which inspired many imitations in the Renaissance. The fact that the word âhexameronâ became current in English after 1573 testifies to the popularity of this type of writing in Whetstoneâs time. For a discussion of other framed novellas, see Introduction, p. lxxvi.
1.2 Civill Discourses] Entertaining discussions appropriate to a refined society; also, discussions on social questions. As T. F. Crane has pointed out in his Italian Social Customs of the Sixteenth Century, such discussions were a popular social game imported from Italy into England in the late sixteenth century. The word âcivillâ includes the connotations of âeducated,â âwell-bred,â âpolite,â and âpolished,â and is derived from the Renaissance ideal of civility, of the civil life (see Introduction, p. xxxix). it might also suggest a type of exposition, civil narration, which deals with âfacts in controversy.â (Richarde Rainolde, A Booke Called the Foundacion of Rhetorike, 1563, as quoted by W. G. Crane in Wit and Rhetoric in the Renaissance, (p. 66). Crane also mentions (p. 124) that âdiscourseâ was âa word much in vogue at that timeâ -- that is, in 1577.)
Both âCivillâ and âDiscoursesâ are words that appear frequently in the titles of Renaissance books. Examples that Whetstone may have known are Fentonâs Certaine Tragicall Discourses (1567), Lodowick Bryskettâs A Discourse of Civill Life (written about 1582 but published 1606), Pettieâs translation of Guazzoâs Civile Conversation (1581), and the anonymous Cyvile and Uncyvile Life (1579).
Thus, Whetstoneâs title sets up definite expectations: a Renaissance reader would expect his book to be a pleasant series of debates on some topic or topics (in this case, marriage) appropriate to, and of interest to, a polite social gathering, set within a framework of seven days, and including some novellas.
1.4 well Courted] Well behaved in a courtly manner. The phrase originally meant âof the court,â but Whetstone uses it to refer to gentlemen rather than to courtiers.
1.6-8 the better sort ⊠the Inferiour] Superior or inferior in rank or station, in social standing. These phrases are not to be interpreted in an absolute moral sense; however, since social rank and proper conduct were often linked in the Renaissance, Whetstone is probably suggesting some moral judgment.
1.8-9 Civil Government] Well-bred, polite behaviour.
1.16 Civyll Pleasure] Pleasure appropriate to wellâbred, cultured persons.
1.17 Morall Noates] Observations of a moral, as opposed to a ribald, nature that are worthy of notice. Whetstone makes the common Renaissance claim that his work combines pleasure and profit -- a claim derived ultimately from Horace, Ars Poetica, 343: Omne tulit punctum, qui miscuit utile dulce (so quoted on the title page of Pettieâs Petite Pallace of Pettie His Pleasure, 1576, and in Timothy Kendallâs Flowers of Epigrammes, 1577, sig. a4v).
1.20 Formae, nulla fides.] Latin, âBeauty is not to be trusted.â Whetstone also used this motto at the end of his poem in The Paradise of Dainty Devices (1578) and on the title pages of The Rocke of Regard (1576), A Remembraunce of George Gaskoign...
Table of contents
- Cover
- Half Title
- Title Page
- Copyright Page
- Original Copyright Page
- Table of Contents
- Prefatory Note
- CRITICAL INTRODUCTION
- TEXTUAL INTRODUCTION
- AN HEPTAMERON OF CIVILL DISCOURSES
- EXPLANATORY NOTES
- LIST OF WORKS CONSULTED