-
The Historical Journal, 44, 2 (2001), pp. 341364 Printed in the
United Kingdom
# 2001 Cambridge University Press
INDIVIDUAL AND SELF IN THE LATE
RENAISSANCE
GEOFF BALDWIN
Christs College, Cambridge
abstract . This article argues that many traditional historical
narratives of individualism have
been reproduced in more recent discussions of the self and
selfhood, and that attempts to discover a point
at which the modern self came into existence have been hampered
by such assumptions. To provide
an alternative to these approaches, discussions of the self in
the late sixteenth and early seventeenth
centuries will be examined. Eschewing overarching narratives,
the discussion will focus on how neo-
stoic sources were employed in the context of challenges to
traditional forms of the humanist ethics of
office-holding. Such ideas, important in writers like Montaigne,
Pierre Charron, and William
Cornwallis, have been associated with an idea of new humanism ,
but this article aims to discuss
with precision how they relate to early modern ethical
discussion. Here an insight can be gained into
a particular philosophical development of the idea of the self.
This can be more productive than some
recent new historicist , or sociological, approaches to the
literature of this period, which tend to the
deconstruction of a particular set of sources through the use of
the self as a theoretical heuristic.
I
Twentieth-century scholarship of the early modern, or
Renaissance, period has
been dominated by a notion of individualism. After Max Weber
posited a link
between Protestantism and capitalism at the beginning of the
twentieth
century, individualism became the focus of much attention from
those who
wanted to explain what was distinctive about the modern social
and political
world. The emergence of an individualist society was, for many
social
historians, the process by which the modern, as opposed to the
medieval, came
into being. Individualism was linked to capitalism, liberalism,
and an incipient
industrial revolution, these three together breaking out of a
medieval and
religious consensus. This trajectory fitted well with the
stories that historians on
the right, and the followers of Marx, both wished to tell."
" Max Weber, The Protestant ethic and the spirit of capitalism,
trans. T. Parsons (London, 1930).
R. H. Tawney followed similar lines, focusing on the retreat of
theological influence upon
economic affairs, where the impersonal market was the realm for
individual enterprise ; R. H.
Tawney, Religion and the rise of capitalism (London, 1926). H.
M. Robertson questioned the explicitly
Protestant nature of capitalism, focusing more clearly upon
individualist tendencies within society
which forced changes in both Catholic and Protestant theology
and morals ; H. M. Robertson,
Aspects of the rise of economic individualism (Cambridge, 1933).
Alan Macfarlane argued that English
society, uniquely in Europe, had been individualist from at
least the thirteenth century, creating
ideal conditions for an industrial revolution; Alan Macfarlane,
The origins of English individualism
(Oxford, 1978).
341
-
342 geoff baldwin
In literary and artistic criticism a similar trajectory was
being forged, which
drew upon Enlightenment ideas about the unity of particular eras
in history
and the emergence of a valuation of autonomy. Jacob Burckhardt
argued that
individuals only became aware of themselves separately from a
general
category during the Italian Renaissance. His view has not gone
unchallenged,
but the lineaments of his arguments remain a powerful influence
on
Renaissance scholarship.# Ernst Cassirer focused on the
philosophical side to
such a trajectory.$ Historians of philosophy and political
theory often accepted
this picture, supplying histories of thought which showed how a
developing
individualism shaped philosophy and ideas from the seventeenth
century
onwards.% Through their view of the early modern period, these
writers
participated in the wider debates between liberalism and
socialism that
dominated the twentieth century.
Latterly, the emphasis of historical debate has moved away from
such issues.
This is in part because social historians have focused more
closely on questions
of community and the exercise of power which compromised the
image of a
new era of individual, or bourgeois, liberty coming into being.
Historians of
political thought have also moved toward an appreciation of the
variety of
# Jacob Burckhardt, Die Kultur der Renaissance in Italien
(Basle, 1860), trans. S. G. Middlemore as
The civilisation of the Renaissance in Italy (London, 1878).
Burckhardt himself famously later became
sceptical of this aspect of his description of Renaissance
culture, but this did not detract from its
influence. On Burckhardt see Felix Gilbert, History, politics or
culture?: reflections on Ranke and
Burckhardt (Princeton, NJ, 1990) ; Lionel Gossman, Cultural
history and crisis : Burckhardts
Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy , in Michael S. Roth,
ed., Rediscovering history: culture, politics and
the psyche (Stanford, 1994), pp. 40427 ; for earlier followers,
see Norman Nelson, Individual as a
criterion of the Renaissance, Journal of English and Germanic
Philology, 32 (1933), pp. 31634 ; on his
indebtedness to Hegel, see Ernst Gombrich, In search of cultural
history (Oxford, 1969), pp. 1516.$ Ernst Cassirer, Individuum und
Kosmos in der philosophie der Renaissance (Berlin, 1927),
trans.
M. Domandi as The individual and the cosmos in Renaissance
philosophy (Oxford, 1963). On Cassirer, see
Walter Eggers, Ernst Cassirer: an annotated bibliography (New
York, 1988) ; Cassirers position as a
neo-Kantian makes one wonder to what extent Kants notion of
autonomy has been written back
into an earlier period. Richard Tuck has argued that Kants
rewriting of the history of ethics led
to the denigrating of Grotius and other natural law thinkers of
the seventeenth century: Philosophy
and government (Cambridge, 1993), p. xv. A modern example is J.
B. Schneewind, The invention of
autonomy: a history of modern moral philosophy (Cambridge,
1998), which rewrites the history of
seventeenth- and eighteenth-century moral thought as leading to
Kantian ideas of autonomy. The
Renaissance, and certainly any late Renaissance developments,
are eclipsed by the need to
conform to this trajectory.% C. B. Macpherson moulded
seventeenth-century thinkers as diverse as the Levellers and
Hobbes into a schema which portrayed the seventeenth century as
the time when politics adapted
itself to, and eventually guaranteed, individualism; C. B.
Macpherson, The political theory of
possessive individualism (Oxford, 1962). The Marxist assumptions
of his approach are more explicitly
stated in C. B. Macpherson, Democratic theory: essays in
retrieval (Oxford, 1973). J. A. W. Gunn
argued that the idea of public interest served to capture state
power for the individual ; J. A. W.
Gunn, Politics and the public interest in the seventeenth
century (London, 1969). Albert Hirschman
regarded developments in late seventeenth- and early
eighteenth-century philosophy and
psychology as validating the potential social worth of
individual passion over abstract reason.
Albert Hirschman, The passions and the interests (Princeton, NJ,
1977). Richard Tuck has argued
that the development of a coherent idea of subjective natural
rights was one of the most significant
philosophical achievements of the seventeenth century: Natural
rights theories (Cambridge, 1979).
-
individual and self in the renaissance 343
discourses that can exist within a society, and gained a greater
awareness of the
dangers of following, in a necessarily anachronistic way, the
development or
emergence of an idea.& There has, however, been a
development of a new
subject of inquiry closely analogous to individualism. This has
been apparent
in literary studies, especially the more historicized parts
thereof, as well as in
social histories of the early modern period.
This subject, the self, has the same chronological parameters,
and covers
much of the same ground as did individualism. Writers of both
social and
cultural history have turned from the individual to the self
while preserving
many of the structures of the former discussion. The heirs of
Weber have
employed the idea of the self as a way of investigating what was
significant
about the literature or society of the past. Indeed, it is the
starting point for
some of the most significant modern contributions to social
analysis. Anthony
Giddens regards the reflexive creation of a self-identity as the
subject to be
studied, and the post-traditional order of modernity to be the
context in which
that endeavour changes its nature. Roy Porter regards the self
as an important
part of any historical understanding of the nature and
functioning of language.(
Charles Taylor, attempting a philosophical understanding of
modernity from
another direction, argues that the modern sense of self is the
most important
ethical achievement of Western thought.)
The notion of a self or selves as aspects of a text, fictional
or otherwise, has
become the focus for much attention from literary critics. Those
who have
approached such questions have built on ideas of individualism,
and have also
appropriated sociological and historical approaches. Writing in
1976, Patricia
Meyer Spacks examined the analogues between two emergent genres
in the
eighteenth century: the autobiography and the novel, most often
written in the
form of autobiography.* Questions of authenticity, persuasion,
and the nature
of selfhood were, she argues, common to both. More recently,
Michael
Mascuch has attempted to trace the development of an idea of
self through
autobiographical writing from the sixteenth to the late
eighteenth century."!
& For instance, as a corrective to Macpherson, John Dunn has
emphasized the theological
background to the thought of Locke: John Dunn, The political
thought of John Locke (Cambridge,
1969). John Pocock has resurrected those elements of the thought
of the American revolution that
could not be regarded as being beholden to Locke, or a
caricature of his individualism, as a
progenitor : J. G. A. Pocock, The Machiavellian moment
(Princeton, NJ, 1975). Anthony Giddens, Modernity and
self-identity: self and society in the late modern age
(Cambridge,
1991). Giddens of course is inspired by and builds upon the work
of Durkheim and Weber, whose
individualist thesis was so influential earlier in the century.(
Roy Porter, Expressing yourself ill : the language of sickness in
Georgian England, in Peter
Burke and Roy Porter, eds., Language, self and society
(Cambridge, 1991), pp. 27699. Other essays
in this volume by Daniel Rosenburg and G. S. Rousseau are also
of interest.) Charles Taylor, The sources of the self: the making
of modern identity (Cambridge, 1989).* Patrica Meyer Spacks,
Imagining a self: autobiography and novel in eighteenth-century
England
(Cambridge, MA, 1976)."! Michael Mascuch, Origins of the
individualist self: autobiography and self-identity in England,
(Cambridge, 1997). Mascuch attempts to occupy the difficult
space between social
history and textual criticism. See also Paul Delany, British
autobiography in the seventeenth century
-
344 geoff baldwin
His work is marked by a debt to modern social theory, and a
reluctance to
designate anything as true autobiography until the terminus ad
quem of his
study James Lackingtons Memoirs of 1791. The changes wrought by
Ro-
manticism obviously had a great effect upon the nature of
literary reflexivity,
and may well be thought to have pushed the self to the centre of
literary
inquiry, but it is in studies concerned with the centuries
before this that the idea
of the self is used most consistently as a hermeneutic
device.""
One of the most influential critics of Renaissance literature
has been Stephen
Greenblatt, who saw a wide variety of texts, from More to
Shakespeare, as
being attempts to construct selves that could function in a
literary and fictional
sphere."# Greenblatts methodological basis in twentieth-century
critical
Marxism, such as that of Althusser, means that the conception of
a developing
individualist, or bourgeois, consciousness dominates his
criticism. He writes of
More and Shakespeare as Macpherson wrote of Hobbes and Locke,
the self in
literary production replacing the individual in political
writing. For him, the
literature of the period is characterized by the creation of
literary selves.
Earlier, Joan Webber had described the seventeenth century as
one in which
the consideration of self defined literary style."$ Paul
Oppenheimer went so far
as to equate a certain sense of self with the modern mind, and
to locate the
development of such in the thirteenth century, when Giacomo da
Lentino
invented the sonnet at the court of Frederick II."%
It seems that for scholars the inspiration for focusing on the
self is very similar
to that for attempting to demonstrate the rise of something
called individualism.
Both phenomena have their apotheosis after the French and
Romantic
revolutions, and both are threatened by postmodernity or
postindustrialism.
(London, 1969). Autobiography, as an essentially private form of
writing, has received attention
from feminist critics : Shari Benstock, ed., The private self:
theory and practice of womens autobiographical
writings (London, 1988) ; Felicity A. Nussbaum, The
autobiographical subject : gender and ideology in
eighteenth-century England (Baltimore, 1989). These titles are
in themselves revealing, the self in
question often being designated as private, as opposed to
public, or linked with the individualism
that so exercised earlier writers."" Mascuchs distinction
between autobiography and autobiographical textuality becomes
somewhat strained by the starkness of the arrival of true
autobiography at the end of the eighteenth
century. John Lyons goes to some lengths to argue that Montaigne
could not count as expressing
a sense of self, which could only come after the French
Revolution had dissolved the constraints of
the past. John O. Lyons, The invention of the self: the hinge of
consciousness in the eighteenth century
(Carbondale, 1978)."# Stephen Greenblatt, Renaissance
self-fashioning: from More to Shakespeare (Chicago, 1980). Maus
has identified many critics in the New-Historicist mould who
deny the possibility of a real inward
life in the Renaissance period, instead regarding the individual
as entirely constructed inter-
subjectively ; Katherine Eisaman Maus, Inwardness and theatre in
the English Renaissance (Chicago,
1995)."$ Joan Webber, The eloquent I : style and self in
seventeenth-century prose (Madison, Milwaukee,
1968)."% Paul Oppenheimer, The birth of the modern mind: self,
consciousness and the invention of the sonnet
(Oxford, 1989).
-
individual and self in the renaissance 345
The ideological outlook of both sets of scholars is often
similar. It may be
possible, however, to introduce some greater degree of subtlety
into the grand
literary narratives that have dominated studies of the period,
and at the same
time contribute to more historical debates on the nature of
humanism.
For the historian of philosophy or political thought, it is
somewhat difficult
to know how to contribute to this inquiry into what seems to be
a curiously
persistent way of looking at the early modern period.
Methodologically, there
is a reluctance to employ the idea of the self as a tool to
unlock the structure
either of texts, or of social practices, which do not themselves
use such a
concept. To examine how languages and discourses themselves were
employed
and adapted, to make sense of and influence the world, should be
the goal of the
intellectual historian. There is, however, a clear context for
the employment of
such techniques. At the end of the sixteenth century, some
writers and political
thinkers began to approach problems of rhetoric and personal
political action
in a corrupt world. The solutions they found often used the idea
of something
called the self, which they sometimes rendered as a noun,
something which
could be spoken of as an object for the first time. Those
developments that took
place on the continent were quickly absorbed into English
Renaissance writing
through translation and direct influence on native writers. It
seems that there
was a ready audience for such ideas, and that they represented a
development
of which not sufficient account has been taken in Renaissance
studies. It is
possible to identify a stage in thinking or writing about the
self which is not
identifiable with the Renaissance as a whole, nor indeed with
later eighteenth-
century developments in thinking about autonomy and
reflexivity.
Such an approach could help solve conceptual problems created by
the
intrusion of eighteenth-century ideas into later approaches to
the Renaissance,
which still blurs distinctions important to an accurate story.
This article aims
to examine the sources and structure of a different set of
ideas, which do not lie
primarily in the realm of economics or literature, but in that
of politics and
public service."& It is the ethical and political
discussions of those in Britain and
"& Another obvious place to look for ideas about the
individual and self is in religious discourses,
and one strand of thinking about the individual is focused upon
the individuals relationship with
the divine. However, it seems to me that the reflexivity
encouraged by religious feeling is of a
different order to that which I am discussing, as the
self-examination was with specific reference to
divine providence, and the possible place of that individual
within the divine plan. On Protestant
thought in this area, see William Haller, The rise of puritanism
(New York, 1938) ; Herbert Wallace
Schneider, The puritan mind (Ann Arbor, MI, 1958) ; Edmund S.
Morgan, Visible saints: the history
of a puritan idea (New York, 1963). On the Catholic versions,
Henri Bremmond, Histoire litteU raire dusentiment religieux en
France depuis la fin de la guerre de religion jusqu a[ nos jours
(11 vols., Paris, 191636),vols. iiv ; John Bossy, The English
Catholic community, (London, 1979), pp. 10848 ; Rene!Taveneaux,
Catholicisme dans la France Classique, (Paris, 1980), pp. 395446 ;
Louis
Cha# tellier, The Europe of the devout, trans. Jean Birrell
(Cambridge, 1989), pp. 13654 ; JeanDelumeau, Rassurer et proteUger:
le sentiment de seU curiteU dans l occident d autrefois (Paris,
1989) ; RobinBriggs, Communities of belief : cultural and social
tensions in early-modern France (Oxford, 1989), pp.
277338. On Loyolan devotion, see Joseph de Guibert, La
spiritualiteU de la Compagnie de JeU sus (Rome,1953) ; Ignacio
Iparraguirre, Historia de la praU ctica de los ejercicios
espirituales de San Ignacio de Loyola
-
346 geoff baldwin
France who reacted to their humanist inheritance, and the nature
of politics as
they saw it, that form the focus of this article.
By the end of the sixteenth century certain aspects of humanist,
political and
social ideas had gained wide acceptance in both Britain and
France, at a
national and also a local level. Those aspects were not
republican constitutions
such as those of ancient Rome or early modern Florence, but
ethical arguments
about the duties of those who held public office. Humanism could
be thought
of as that part of the Renaissance which emphasized the
rhetorical and ethical
achievements of ancient texts. It answered the need for a
language to express
clearly ideas about public life that grew from the combination
of an increasing
social and political complexity and older practices and
institutions. It was to
some extent a literary activity, concerned as it was with models
of how to speak
and write well. Humanists promoted themselves as secretaries and
ambassadors
because they could write and speak convincingly and persuasively
: common
among their texts is the story of the Athenian ambassadors who
so impressed
the Lacedemonians in negotiating a peace that they wished they
had never
started the war in the first place. They also argued that
ancient texts showed
how to do politics : so they should be appointed as tutors to
those who would
have power thrust upon them. Their students would then learn the
skills
necessary to be successful in public life.
Texts such as Ciceros De officiis offered ideals of behaviour
appropriate for
those occupying roles in government, both local and national,
whether
executive, advisory, or judicial. Thus the ethical ideas were
centred around
virtue in the public sphere, and the approbation in the form of
gloria that would
follow from recognition of such virtue. Virtues, such as
constancy or justice,
could be expressed in the execution of the duties of some sort
of office; an
enumeration of different offices could be thought of as fully
describing an
individual. Early humanists in northern Europe such as Erasmus,
More, Elyot,
or Bude! discussed and adapted such ideas in the light of
different political andreligious contexts. Humanism did not become
a standard or stable set of values,
but was constantly changing in the light of new
circumstances.
II
By the late sixteenth century, to discuss the functioning of
politics was to engage
with the legacy of humanism, as it provided the guide to
appropriate behaviour
for those who held public office. One of the fundamental
political values of
(Bilbao, 1955) ; Terrence W. OReilly, The Spiritual exercises
and the crisis of medieval piety , The
Way, suppl. 70 (1991), pp. 10113 ; John W. OMalley, The first
Jesuits (Cambridge, MA, 1993),
pp. 3790. Providence has some resemblance to stoic ideas of fate
or destiny: contemporaries were
at some pains to distinguish the two see especially Justus
Lipsius, Two bookes of constancie, trans.
John Stradling (London, 1595), pp. 4256. I shall in any case
attempt to argue that the ideas I am
examining went beyond a repetition of stoic commonplaces.
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individual and self in the renaissance 347
humanism, and one which became a commonplace during the
Renaissance,
was that of the ability to convince, and convey the desired
impression on an
audience. The ambiguities and possibilities for deceit in such a
rhetorical ethic
of self-presentation had been targets for criticism since the
time of Aristotle, and
its Renaissance revival led to a similar set of responses.
The direct relationship between the public exercise of virtue
and the glory
due to the individual was challenged by those who argued that
the very
techniques involved in the exercise of virtue most especially
the use of
rhetoric tended to vitiate the reliability of that relationship.
Virtue was in a
sense performed: in discussing office the metaphor of acting was
commonplace
from Cicero onwards. Whether or not that performance was a fake,
it was
necessarily artificial. The creation of fictive personalities
prompted by such
activity is the focus for literary critics such as Greenblatt,
who have identified
such traits in writers such as More and Shakespeare. The
discovery and
examination of such processes amounts for these critics to a
denial of
subjectivity: the performance is made the defining aspect of
human nature.
I would like to argue that there was, in the later Renaissance,
a new
discussion pertaining to the self which served both to show how
problems raised
by humanist ethics and politics could be limited, or at least
circumvented, and
to demonstrate how the individual could best cope with living
within such a
culture. This involved strategies for understanding the world in
which
appearance differed from reality, and truth differed from what
was said, as well
as living with the psychological strains arising from the
presentation of fictive
personae. These developments raise doubts about the unity of
Renaissance ideas
of self and personality, and to undermine readings based upon
such
assumptions. The negotiation of the boundary between public
persona and
private self had become apparent as one of the criticisms of the
functioning of
a traditional rhetorical humanism. Discussions of virtue and how
to survive in
the public world increasingly appropriated arguments from the
Greek and
Roman stoics which emphasized a sense of detachment from that
which was
subject to fortune. The way in which this inheritance was
employed would
involve discussions of something some contemporaries called the
self, a
construction that would enable individuals to deal with the
vicissitudes of life.
Such notions were strongly at variance with older humanist ideas
of public
virtue and action. There has been some discussion of a new
humanism,
linked to stoicism, and to the rise of absolute monarchies, and
the consequent
destruction of a context within which traditional humanist ideas
could find
their application. Focusing in more detail on ideas of
individual action or the
self may help to clarify its content of such a humanism." Ideas
of the self did
" See for instance Tuck, Philosophy and government ; J. H. M.
Salmon, Seneca and Tacitus in
Jacobean England, in Linda Levy Peck, The mental world of the
Jacobean court (Cambridge, 1991) ;
Peter Burke, Tacitism, in T. A. Dorey, ed., Tacitus (London,
1969), p. 150 ; Alan T. Bradford,
Stuart absolutism and the utility of Tacitus , Huntington
Library Quarterly, 45 (1983), pp. 12751.
-
348 geoff baldwin
not constitute an abandonment of such old humanist ideals, but
were an
attempt to make them attainable in circumstances that made their
straight-
forward application impossible. Such developments were highly
significant in
that such themes would recur later in the century during the
crisis of political
authority that began in 1642, and be employed in a fashion that
had a dramatic
impact on the way it was possible to think about politics and
political
reasoning. Ideas about individual judgement and rationality
would dominate
discussion at the foundation of the new state after the
execution of Charles in
January 1649, and in the work of writers such as Hobbes, Milton,
and
Harrington.
Criticisms of humanism and the functioning of politics were
often made by
citing the mutability of opinion, which the orator or courtier
was expected to
manipulate. Stoic ideas of constancy and independence from the
world were
closely connected to the problem of opinion, both in terms of
the individuals
capabilities and the possibly flawed judgements of the world in
general upon
the individuals actions and worth."( The revival of stoicism was
a natural
starting point for a discussion of such ideas, though the early
modern writers
would go beyond their ancient forebears.
The earliest manifestation of stoic philosophy in Renaissance
England was
Epictetus Enchridion, the only direct source for the original
Greek stoic sect. It
was translated into English in 1567 by John Sanford from a
French translation
of the Greek.") Epictetus central point is to make a distinction
between those
things that are within our power, Opinion, Endevour, Desire,
Eschewing,
and those things that are without, Body, Possession, Honours,
Sovereignties ."*
To worry about those things that cannot be controlled is foolish
and only
destroys tranquillity. It is natural to enjoy such things, but
one should not
become attached to them. As one can love a pot in the knowledge
that it is
fragile and brittle , and thus likely to break, so one should
love everything
outside ones power, even wives and children.#! The same goes for
both
honour and place, which one should not value but ask Is it in
thee to bear
rule or to be bidden to a banquet? #" Epictetus thus devalues
the search for
public acclamation, and so questions the humanist connection
between virtue
"( The neo-stoic movement was especially strong in northern
Europe. For a general survey, see
Julien Angers, Reserches sur le stoicisme aux XVI et XVII sie[
cles (Hildesheim, Olms, 1976) ; JacquelineLagre! e, ed., Le
stoicisme aux XVI et XVIIe sie[ cles actes du colloque Juin (Caen,
1994) ;Jaqueline Lagre! e, Juste Lipse et la restauration du
stoicisme (Paris, 1994) ; Gilles D. Monsarrat, Lightfrom the porch:
Stoicicm and English Renaissance literature (Paris, 1984) ; Gerhard
Oestreich, Neostoicism
and the early modern state (Cambridge, 1992).") Epictetus was
popular in France, appearing in both Latin and Greek editions from
the 1520s
onwards. The Enchridion was translated as Le manuel d EpicteU te
by Antoine Moulin in 1544, and asLa doctrine d EpicteU te stoicie
by Andre! Rivandeau in 1567. Many of the most significant texts
that hadsome stoic inspiration were French, and they often gained
rapid popularity in Europe.
"* Epictetus, Manuell of Epictetus translated out of Greeke into
French, and now English, conferred with
two Latin translations, trans. John Sanford (London, 1567), sig.
A, 8r. The spelling in quotations has
been modernized where possible and appropriate, but titles have
been left.#! Ibid., sig. B, 2v. #" Ibid., sig. C, 7r. Banket means
banquet.
-
individual and self in the renaissance 349
and honour, along with the associated ideas of being able to
help friends or
ones country.
The other ancient source of stoic ideas was Seneca, whose works
were
translated by Thomas Lodge in 1600. Apart from some plays, none
of his works
was published in Latin in England before this, but there were
numerous
continental editions from the late fifteenth century onwards. In
Of providence he
asks, as there is a divine, directing, providence, why do
adversities befall good
men?.## His answer is that God loveth them strongly, and so
tests them in
order to reveal their virtue, rather as wrestlers engage
stronger athletes to
improve themselves.#$ He quotes the stoic Demetrius, who states
a central
paradox, There is nothing, saith he, more unhappy then that man
that hath
never been touched with adversity : for he hath not had the
means to know
himself. #% As well as having shocking effect, this paradox
shows the importance
of knowing that one can be constant in the face of adversity,
especially as one
may be thrust into it at any moment. Seneca asks, How can I know
what
constancy thou hast against ignominy, infamy, and popular hate,
if thou grow
old amidst the applauses of every man?#& To be pampered by
fortune is to be
unsure of ones own virtues or abilities. To be constant, Seneca
argues, one
must bear in mind the same distinction that was central to
Epictetus thought,
that those things which the common people long after, and which
they are
afraid of, are neither good nor evil .#
One of the most immediate reactions to this inheritance was
Guillaume du
Vairs La philosophie morale du stoX ques of 1585, which was
translated by ThomasJames in 1598.#( He argued that the ideal form
of life is not to be troubled with
any passions or perturbations of the mind, despite the fact that
one is living in
a world which would naturally lead one to be so disturbed.#) The
solution is
Epictetus distinction between that which is within our power,
and that which
is not, and the correct use of that which we can control. All
circumstances can
be turned to our joy and contentment through concentration upon
the inner
realm, so that after a time even galley slaves sing as merrily
as birds .#*
Justus Lipsiuss De constantia of 1584 was translated as Two
bookes of constancie
by John Stradling in 1594. The immediate context for this work
was the Dutch
civil wars of the late sixteenth century, which caused so much
suffering and
## Lucius Annus Seneca, Works, trans. Thomas Lodge (London,
1600), p. 499.#$ Ibid., p. 500. #% Ibid., p. 501. #& Ibid., p.
504. # Ibid., p. 506.#( Guillaume du Vair (15561621) was an
advocate active in the Paris Parlement who
supported Henri de Navarre from 1589 onwards. He wrote a
treatise on constancy during the siege
of Paris in 1590, and in 1596 became governor of Provence, where
he was active in intellectual life.
In 1619, after finding favour with Louis XIII, he was made
bishop of Lisieux. On his life, see Rene!Radouant, Guillaume du
Vair, Lhomme et orateur jusqu a[ la fin des troubles de la ligue,
(Paris,n.d.) ; also Paul Roques, Le philosophie morale des stoiques
de Rene! Radouant, Guillaume du Vair ,Archives de philosophie,
n.s., 20 (1957), pp. 22638.
#) Guillaume du Vair, The moral philosophie of the stoicks,
trans. Thomas James (London, 1598),
p. 30.#* Ibid., pp. 107, 109. This example shows du Vair
employing the stoic strategy of using a
shocking paradox in order to arrest the reader and make the
point all the more forceful.
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350 geoff baldwin
danger, especially for those involved in public life.$! Lipsius
advises constancy
in the face of these calamities, which he defines as a right and
immovable
strength of the minde, neither lifted up, nor pressed down with
external or
casual accidents .$" These external accidents are false goods
and false evils,
which both distemper the mind.$# He echoes Senecas argument
that
adversity is an important spur to virtue: If all things succeed
prosperously and
happily to a man, there is no place to make proof of his virtue:
for the only true
level to try withal, is aiction. $$ Despite his praise of
gardens as places of
retreat, Lipsiuss constancy is a virtue of active involvement
with the world,
rather than a wholesale rejection of worldly affairs. We cannot
just ignore the
world, as if it be Destiny that this weather-beaten ship of thy
country shall be
saved from drowning, it is destiny withal that she shall be
aided and defended,
so that there is a duty to put to thy helping hand.$%
One text often cited as dealing with stoic ideas and problems of
individuality
is the Essais of Michel de Montaigne, the third and last book of
which appeared
in 1589.$& John Florios translation of all three books in
1603 spread the
popularity of this work, which was referred to with admiration
by English
essayists. The impact of this work comes partly from generic
innovation and
also the air of moral scepticism which pervades most of the
essays. His Of
cannibals and the Apology for Raymond Sebond have long been
regarded as classic
expressions of Pyrrhonian scepticism. With this background, he
regarded
constancy, and the stoic inheritance in general, favourably but
not uncritically.
Montaigne follows Epictetus in emphasizing the positive nature
of ill
fortune. He argues that it is not a question of virtue making
one happy despite
suffering, but through it, since difficulties ennoble, sharpen,
animate and raise
that divine and perfect pleasure .$ The problem of constancy is
linked to moral
scepticism, and the difficulty of comprehending motivation in
such essays as Of
the inconstancie of our actions. An advocation of constancy can
only ever be a
partial answer to these problems. In his essay Of constancy
Montaigne defined it
as firmly bearing the inconveniences, against which no remedy is
to be
found.$( He does not aim at the complete serenity of the stoic
sage, but
praises instead the wise Peripatetic , as he doth not exempt him
self from
perturbations of the mind, but doth moderate them.$) Montaigne
feared the
$! See Martin van Gelderen, The political thought of the Dutch
revolt, (Cambridge, 1992),
pp. 1807 et passim.$" Justus Lipsius, Two bookes of constancie,
trans. John Stradling (London, 1594), p. 9.$# Ibid., p. 15. $$
Ibid., p. 79.$% Ibid., p. 56. This contrasts with Richard Tucks
view of Stoicism as a retreat from a corrupt
world; Tuck, Philosophy and government, pp. 3164.$&
Montaignes fame is such that it would be pointless to attempt to
list all works that discuss his
work. For a biography see Donald M. Frame, Montaigne: a
biography (London, 1965) ; see also on
his works Pierre Villey, Les sources et l eU volution des
Essaies de Montaigne (Paris, 1908) ; Donald M.Frame, Montaignes
discovery of man (New York, 1955) ; R. A. Sayce, The Essays of
Montaigne a
critical exploration (London, 1972).$ Michel de Montaigne,
Essayes, trans. John Florio (London, 1603), p. 31.$( Ibid., p. 21.
$) Ibid., p. 22.
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individual and self in the renaissance 351
consequences of inconstancy, but was sanguine about the ability
of human
beings entirely to overcome it.
In On how one ought to govern the will, Montaigne shows how he
feels this
detachment should affect how one lives ones life. He declares I
am not
wedded unto many things, and by consequence, not passionate of
them, thus
rejecting the affections that distract me from my self .$* It is
an emotional
engagement with the public world that Montaigne is wary of, a
public world
which is outside the individuals control. He says of those
involved in public life,
Their faculties are not their own, but theirs to whom they
subject themselves ,
the primary example of such a one being his own father, who as
mayor of
Bordeaux was cruelly turmoiled with this public toil .%! He does
not advocate
a retreat from public life, but a different attitude towards it
so that one may not
be destroyed by that which is inherently outside ones control.
Montaigne
advocates a particular way of becoming involved in public
affairs, claiming I
know how to deal in public charges, without departing from my
self the
breadth of my nail ; and give my self to an other, without
taking me from my
self. Indeed, he that employeth but his judgement and direction
is better at
managing public affairs.%" His formulation is similar to stoic
sources, but more
sophisticated in that he gives a name to that which is defined
as under his own
control : he calls that himself. He creates an idea of a self
which can provide an
anchor and make it possible to remain constant and take part in
an uncertain
public sphere.
Pierre Charrons De la sagesse, translated by Samson Lennard in
1606 as Of
wisdome three bookes written in French, aimed beyond a wisdom,
discretion and
advised carriage in a mans affairs and conversation, this being
common, as
respecting nothing but that which is outward and in action.%#
Charron argues
that man is the play-game of Fortune, the image of inconstancy,
the example
and spectacle of infirmity.%$ In response to this, desires and
pleasures must be
governed, and suffering should be welcomed: In these times of
prosperity,
adversity is a medicine, because it leadeth us to the knowledge
of our selves. %%
The fruit of all our labours and studies, the crown of wisdom is
to maintain
himself in true tranquillity of spirit , not involving a retreat
or vacation from
all affairs but an impermeability to the blows of fortune, and
to restore
himself to himself .%&
Many English writers followed Montaigne and produced volumes of
essays,
$* Ibid., p. 600. %! Ibid., pp. 600, 601. %" Ibid., p. 602.%#
Pierre Charron, Of wisdome three bookes written in French, trans.
Samson Lennard (London,
1606), sig. A, 2v. On Charrons life, see Alfred Soman, Pierre
Charron: a revaluation, Bibliothe[ qued humanisme et Renaissance,
32 (1970), pp. 5779. On his political significance, Anna Maria
Battista,
Alle origini del pensiero politico libertino (Milan, 1966). See
also E. F. Rice, The Renaissance idea of wisdom
(Harvard, 1958), pp. 178207 ; Richard H. Popkin, The history of
scepticism from Erasmus to Descartes
(Assen, 1960), pp. 5663 ; Anthony Levi, French moralists, the
theory of the passions (Oxford, 1964), pp.
95111 ; M. C. Horowitz, Pierre Charrons view of the source of
wisdom, Journal of the History of
Philosophy, 9 (1971), pp. 44357. %$ Charron, Of wisdome, p. 118.
%% Ibid., p. 299%& Ibid., pp. 346, 347.
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352 geoff baldwin
but few discussed constancy or stoic ideas in any detail.% One
who did was
William Cornwallis, whose Essayes was published in 1600. As well
as using the
essay form, he speaks of having common purpose with Montaigne in
speaking
of himself only in order to instruct. While accepting that human
beings are
subject to fate or destiny, he regards it as an excuse for
sloth, as these names
of shelter are but the surnames to our folly , and Our actions
are in our own
hands, to be directed by wisdom and virtue.%( To gain such
wisdom and live
accordingly, it is necessary for the individual to be reflexive:
let us begin with
our selves, and marshal and dispose our own course ; let us
determine it, and
leave nothing to uncertainties, but drawing out our intents
regularly, follow
that delineated and weighed manner: Here lives Happiness, for
here lives
wisdom.%)
Constancy is necessary to do this, and Cornwallis praises the
patience
necessary to resist calamities, to be shaken with the winds and
tempests of
Chance, and mortality, and yet not to be loosened, nor in danger
of falling, is
the most beautiful, the most happie, and the most renowned
blessing of man.%*
Cornwalliss reflections serve as testimony to the influence of
stoic thought in
England, but also to the complexity of its reception in a
country which, while
at times politically unstable, was not racked by civil war. The
stoic virtue of
constancy made central by the Dutchman Lipsius remains
important, but is
subordinated to other aspects of stoic philosophy and ideas of
selfhood.
Another perspective on the stoic inheritance is provided by the
divine Joseph
Hall, author of Characters of virtues and vices, whose Heaven
upon earth, or of true peace
and tranquillitie of mind was published in 1608. He gives a
traditional definition
of tranquillity, That it is such an even disposition of the
heart, wherein the
scales of the mind neither rise up towards the beam, through
their own
lightness, or the over-weaning opinion of prosperity, nor are
too much
depressed with any load of sorrow; but hanging equal and unmoved
betwixt
both. &! Hall adds Christian ideas of grace to the Senecan
method by which one
may attain tranquillity. Later in the piece he reiterates some
of Senecas ideas
at greater length, for instance the promotion of that wisdom to
teach us to
esteem of all events as they are , that is how they truly relate
to ourselves, rather
than how they seem to affect us.&" Expectation and foresight
of suffering are
also recommended such that troubles are half past in their
violence when they
do come.
% Francis Bacons Essayes, published in 1597 and later expanded,
was perhaps the first.%( William Cornwallis, Essayes by Sir William
Cornewalys the younger, knight (London, 1600), sig. B,
4r. His Discourses upon Seneca the tragedian (London, 1601) were
often bound in with the essays, and
a combined edition was published in 1632. %) Ibid., sig. B,
8v.%* Ibid., sig. E, 5rv.&! Joseph Hall, Heaven upon earth, or
of true peace and tranquillitie of mind (London, 1608), pp. 78.
Joseph Hall (15741656) was famous as a writer of meditative
literature. See Richard McCabe,
Joseph Hall: a study in satire and meditation (Oxford, 1982) ;
Frank Livingstone Huntley, Bishop Joseph
Hall and Protestant meditation (Binghampton, 1981) ; T. F.
Kinlock, The life and work of Joseph Hall,
(London, 1951) ; Audrey Chew, Joseph Hall and neo-stoicism,
Proceedings of the Modern
Languages Association, 65 (1950), pp. 113045. &" Hall,
Heaven upon earth, p. 73. Ibid., p. 80.
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individual and self in the renaissance 353
The ideal of being independent from the capricious events of the
world was
obviously of great importance to a wide variety of early modern
thinkers. The
virtue of constancy became less associated with the consistent
performance of
duty, and more with an inner state, which, while it helped the
individual carry
out public service, was also intrinsically important. The
methods for attaining
constancy and tranquillity involved a reservation of a part of
the individual,
most often in line with the Epictetian distinction between that
which is within
our control, and that which is not. This did not mean a retreat
from external
events, which were outside the individuals control, but a
tendency to devalue
them so that they lost their power to define the individual.
III
Constancy, as described above, was dependent upon a correct
discerning of
what was of value and what was not. A false opinion of where the
good lay
could be extremely damaging, and was identified as an enemy of
tranquillity.
Regarding the external world as inessential to the real
well-being of the
individual involved not merely being impervious to adverse
events, but also
regarding external or general opinion as unimportant. Writers
discussing ideas
of stoicism and the self not only counselled independence from
opinion, but
regarded their ideas, at an individual level, as an antidote to
the problems it
caused.
For Epictetus, The things do not trouble men, but the opinions
which they
conceive of them, as it is only an opinion that a particular
event is harmful, in
contrast to its true significance which is negligible with
regard to those things
which he regarded as important.&$ Similarly, one should not
judge glory by the
use of opinion.&% In du Vairs version of stoic thought, the
desire for riches and
honour should be resisted, and in this respect one must chase
away this furious
desire far from us, and leaving the foolish opinions of the
vulgar sort of
people .&& The doubt thrown on the link between glory
and virtue was the
result of a scepticism about the value of general approbation,
where techniques
of manipulating that approbation were openly practised. This was
especially
true when a distinction was made between those who could discern
such
manipulation, ideally of course the stoic sage, and those to
whom opinion
provided the only guide. There was no guarantee that virtue
would bring
honour: it would have to be its own reward. To judge by opinion
would lead
to both discontent and potentially immoral action.
For Lipsius, the intellectual confusion caused by the calamity
of civil war is
a result of opinion. In Two bookes of constancie, the character
of Lipsius is in
dialogue with Charles Langius who attempts to convince him to
constancy. He
describes Lipsiuss present confusion, For these mists and clouds
that thus
compass thee, do proceed from the smoke of opinions. &
Opinion is linked to
&$ Epictetus, Manuell, sig. B, 3v. &% Ibid., sig. B,
4v.&& Du Vair, The moral philosophie of the stoicks, p.
70.& Lipsius, Two bookes of constancie, p. 3. Charles Lange was
a humanist and friend of Lipsius.
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354 geoff baldwin
the senses in Lipsiuss physiognomy of thought, as it
representeth to the soul
the shapes and forms of things thorough windows of the senses ,
and as such
takes their side and By the means of it wee are troubled with
cares, distracted
with perturbations, over-ruled by vices. &( Later in the
work, Langius argues
that we must not fear circumstances such as poverty, exile, or
death, but
behold them naked without any vestment or vizard of opinions
.&) To achieve
constancy or tranquillity, Lipsius regards a proper appreciation
of the dangers
of opinion as a necessity.
The figure of the sagacious man figures strongly in Montaignes
Essayes, often
in opposition to common or vulgar thought. He argues that
diversity of
opinions possible upon any event or thing means that any
particular opinion
on pain, poverty, or death is subjectively determined, For if
evils have no
entrance into-us, but by our judgement, it seemeth that it lieth
in our power,
either to contemn or turn them to our good. &* Montaigne
thus retains the
lineaments of the stoic argument, while emphasizing the
sceptical element that
not only contributes both to the necessity of so acting or so
thinking, but makes
it a possibility. In discussing glory, Montaigne expands
Epictetus argument
about public approbation. Taking account of other peoples views,
we are
exposed to a breathy confusion of bruits, and frothy Chaos of
reports, and of
vulgar opinions , especially dangerous as appearances are no
clear indication
of the nature of the event.! Honour is rejected: Let us disdain
this insatiate
thirst of honour and renown, base and beggarly, which makes us
so suppliantly
to crave it of all sorts of people. " Montaignes scepticism with
regard to his
own opinions and the opinions of others has the effect of
destroying the
humanist connection between virtue and glory, and turns opinion
into the
enemy of the wise man rather than the measure of the
virtuous.
For Pierre Charron, opinion was a vain, light, crude and
imperfect
iudgement of things drawn from the outward senses, and common
report
never arriving to the understanding, which is extremely
dangerous if it is
allowed to become settled.# In opposing dogmatists, and such as
will govern,
and give laws unto the world, Charron argues that people are too
quick to
believe what is commonly accepted, thus he regards the whole
world led and
carried with opinions and beliefs .$ Common opinion tends to
have a
snowballing effect, thus which dogma is accepted, or who is
regarded as
virtuous, is for Charron merely a question of fortune.% The
state of the world
is a mass of contradictory opinions, which can only be resolved
by subservience
to custom.
English writers took up the arguments about opinion with some
enthusiasm,
and indeed this was an aspect of English thought evident before
the importing
of French stoic material. In his Virtues commonwealth of 1603,
Henry Crosse
argued that the problems of poverty and other aictions are bad
if judged
&( Ibid., p. 12. &) Ibid., p. 107. &* Montaigne,
Essayes, p. 127.! Ibid., p. 363. " Ibid., p. 611. # Charron, Of
wisdome, p. 67.$ Ibid., pp. 159, 157. % Ibid., p. 160.
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individual and self in the renaissance 355
only with the eye of common reason, which the wise should ignore
to fit
himself to bear the troubles of this life, with a valiant and
immutable
courage.& He rejected riches, parentage, office, place,
dignity as indicators
of virtue, as they are part of a rotten ladder , dependent on
the judgement of
the opinion of the multitude. He criticizes those who have
climbed this
ladder ; they are in their own opinion very gallant, but in the
judgement of
wise men they are but a blown bladder, painted over with many
colours,
stuffed full of pride and envy.( Opinion has enabled such men to
succeed
thanks to the uncertain nature of success and failure in the
public world.
Cornwallis held that opinion, a monster, half Truth, and half
Falsehood,
is to be rejected even though it is a component of worldly
success, as it cleaves
most to great Fortunes, and yet liveth upon the breath of the
vulgar .) This
illustrates the disjunction between the necessity of courting
opinion for
promotion or honour and its natural falsehood and debasement,
accentuated
by its association with the vulgar people. Those who court
popularity Needs
must they have cunning that deal with this ticklish commodity of
the vulgars
favour, which cunning has the capacity to corrupt the ambitious.
It is
necessary, but as the blossom of the tree of virtue is
susceptible to base
mercenary imitations , as the labour of most men now adayes is
not to obtain
truths, but opinions warrant .* Cornwalliss attitude to opinion
is ambiguous,
distrusting it while recognizing its indispensability. His is a
less pressing
constancy, and also a less pressing rejection of opinion than
that which was
required of the stoic sage.
Opinion within an individual was regarded as the mistaken
estimation of
both people and things that could do harm by leading one to have
a false
conception of what lay within ones power and what did not, thus
disturbing
the minds tranquillity. Opinion in the world was beyond control,
especially as
it could be consciously manipulated by the unscrupulous, or even
by the honest
man attempting to advance or merely act in the world. To regard
such opinion
as a true measure would lead either to dishonesty or
perturbation of the mind,
or both, and an alienation of the individual from his true worth
which could
not thus be estimated. The discernment of appearance from
reality was held to
be impossible, or at least very difficult, for the vulgar or
common sort of people.
This prejudice favoured those who had read and accepted the
sceptical and
stoic arguments on which it was based; to some extent at least
they were able
to penetrate the mist of opinion with which all knowledge was
shrouded. It was
they, therefore, who could be constant, and who could discern
what was, and
what was not, essential to the self.
A sense of constancy and independence from common opinion were
both
virtues advised in the ancient texts in pursuit of an ideal of
the correct
& Henry Crosse, Virtues commonwealth: or the high-way to
honour (London, 1603), sig. F, 1r, sig. F,
2r. Ibid., sig. D, 1r. ( Ibid., sig. K, 3v. ) Cornwallis,
Essayes, sig. I, 2v.* Ibid., sig. Q, 2vQ, 3r ; sig. Q, 3rv; William
Cornwallis, Discourses upon Seneca the tragedian
(London, 1601), sig. B, 4v.
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356 geoff baldwin
relationship with the political or social world. This to some
extent could seem
to be itself a role to be inhabited, rather than something
clearly distinct from
the ideas of office-holding emphasized by traditional humanism.
While seeing
stoic ideas as a resource in dealing with the problems raised by
humanist ethics
and political life, those thinkers considered here went further.
They wished to
redescribe the relationship that the individual should have with
the offices they
might perform, or the roles they might play. This redescription
was not an
attempt to define a role or set of imperatives, but to create a
space away from
those roles the individual inhabited.(!
IV
One way of confronting the problems of action in a world
dominated by
opinion was to give an explanation of individual reason.
Explanations of the
workings of the soul differed in complexity and arrangement and
even in the
number of the various faculties, but the similarity of the
arguments that ran
through a wide variety of texts is striking. The mind was
thought to be broadly
divided into two faculties : the rational and the sensitive, the
higher of those two
being the rational, which in scholastic terms was closer to God.
Reason was
thus in opposition to passions, which demand an immediate and
unthinking
response, and opinion, which is a potential misrepresentation of
significance or
moral value. Reason was therefore necessary to judge the actions
of others and,
perhaps more importantly, to act appropriately and give the
correct impression
to others : in other words, to achieve any degree of worldly
success. Many texts
created an idea of what it was to be rational, defined, to use
their most common
metaphor, in terms of the internal politics of the soul, and
against the supposed
irrationality of the common or vulgar people, who inhabited a
world of
opinion.("
This could only ever be part of the solution to the problem of
being and
acting in a world which could not be relied upon to display the
same
rationality. As well as following reason, it could be thought
necessary to
reinforce a sense of self, a sense of something reserved,
through a process of
introspection. Stoicism could be seen as creating a sense of
self aloof from the
caprices of fortune, which enabled the individual to cope and
remain constant
despite reversals. Constancy was necessary to any such sense of
self, as it had to
be something that remained the same rather than being at the
mercy of either
circumstance or outward opinion. The reservation of something
particular to
(! There is a desire in authors such as Tuck and Salmon
(Philosophy and government and Seneca
and Tacitus in Jacobean England) to see stoicism as a doctrine
of retreat from the world in a
corrupt time: this provides part of a new humanism which is as a
whole to be associated with a
corrupt political sphere, by contrast to natural law or more
modern constructions. The stoic
inheritance, however, could and was turned in other, more
positive, directions, as this article
attempts to demonstrate.(" For a detailed discussion with
reference to the French writers, see Anthony Levi, French
moralists (Oxford, 1964), pp. 195.
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individual and self in the renaissance 357
the individual, or the exclusion of the inessential, was not a
simple process. One
part of that process was the maintenance of the sovereignty of
reason within the
soul or the mind, which enabled correct judgement to be made
about the
nature of that which was presented through the senses. Good
judgement could
therefore be seen as both a product of, and essential to, the
self. Self-
examination was part of this process, both because it could help
maintain the
balance necessary for good judgement, and because it was
essential to the
notion of reservation of something which was particular
individual.
The stoic sources were relatively silent on these issues. Seneca
did, however,
make a strong link between tranquillity and a sense of
reservation. In Of
tranquilitie, he discusses the hazards of the public life,
concluding let my mind
cleave unto himself, let him seem himself : let him not intend
no foreign
businesses, nor any thing that is subject to every mans
censure.(# Conversations
with strangers are dangerous, and we ought to retire our selves
very inwardly
within our selves, for the conversation of those men that are of
different humour
from us, disturbeth those things that are well composed, and
reneweth
affections .($ The idea that exposure to novelty or affections
could disturb a
sense of self was reproduced by du Vair in his account of the
passions in The
moral philosophy of the stoicks. Fear promotes other passions
such as hatred of what
is feared, and carrieth us out of our selves , while jealousy is
nothing else but
a distrust of a mans self, and a bearing witness of him self
against himself of his
small deservings .(% Passion, as taking one away from oneself,
or being an
expression of the fact that one is already alienated from ones
essence, is a very
significant step beyond Epictetus, whose thought du Vair claimed
to be
representing.(&
Montaigne makes a similar complaint about the affections, that
they create
false imagination in us , which means that We are never in our
selves, but
beyond. ( The soul is unable to remain constant, being always
moved and
tossed, and if she have not some hold to take, looseth it self
in it self, and must
ever be stored with some object, on which it may light and
work.(( He claims
that it is not possible to complain enough about the disorder
and unruliness of
our minde, which is not settled enough to concentrate on itself
and thus create
a settled sense of itself, but will always wander towards new
objects.() The
import of Montaignes answer is that judgement must be turned and
focused
upon oneself if any part of his project is to be realized. An
effort must be made
to create a sense of self that is separated from the external
world. In discussing
solitariness, he argues that it is not sufficient to shift
place, a man must also
sever him-self from the popular conditions, that are in us. A
man must sequester
and recover himself from himself. (* This sequestration requires
judgement,
and makes impartial judgement a possibility. Once achieved, it
should be
(# Seneca, Works, p. 635. ($ Ibid., p. 652.(% Du Vair, Moral
philosophy, pp. 90, 1012.(& This has become proverbial ; one
still speaks of being beside oneself with anger or fear.(
Montaigne, Essayes, p. 5. (( Ibid., p. 9. () Ibid., p. 10. (*
Ibid., p. 119.
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358 geoff baldwin
possible for the wise man to wed nothing but himself , despite
the huge
inequality in appearance and reality between individuals.)! In
Of exercise or
practice, Montaigne describes self-examination as essential to
this process,
There is no description so hard, nor so profitable, as is the
description of a
mans own self. )" A conceited consideration of ones life leads
to alienation for
those who build castles in the air ; deeming themselves as a
third person and
strangers to themselves , such that it is essential that good
judgement be
reflexively employed.)#
Montaigne argues in the same vein when discussing the active
life : it is most
important to avoid becoming a stranger to oneself. In On how one
ought to govern
his will he develops the traditional analogy of the stage as
Most of our
vacations are like plays. Care must be taken when playing a part
to maintain
an appropriate distinction: We must play our parts duly, but as
the part of a
borrowed personage. Of a vizard and appearance, wee should not
make a real
essence, nor proper of that which is anothers.)$
Such as fail to distinguish the skin from the shirt become
inconstant, they
transform and transubstantiate themselves, into as many new
forms and
strange beings as they undertake charges .)% The primary
injunction from
Montaigne is to avoid this happening, not to give oneself to any
party so that
the understanding is thereby infected.)& The understanding
must be
maintained to retain the sense of something specific and unique.
For
Montaigne, living in the world required the reservation, or even
the creation,
of an idea of the self in order to sustain a proper outward
appearance. For there
to be different parts well played, there had to be an actor
capable of judging
and distinguishing the part from reality : there had to be a
self.
Charron demanded for his wisdom a high status, First, that
wisdom which
is neither common nor vulgar hath properly this libertie and
authoritie, Iure suo
singulari, to judge of all and in judging to censure and condemn
common
and vulgar opinions. ) To judge by ones own rule was a radical
solution to the
problem of scepticism, but was restricted to a relatively small
number of people.
It was dependent upon reason, but, more importantly, on
self-knowledge:
Thou forgetest thy self, and losest thy self about outward
things ; thou
betrayest and disrobest thy self ; thou lookest alwaies before
thee; gather thy self
unto thy self, and shut up thy self within thy self : examine,
search, know thy
self. )(
Charron here communicates a strong sense of the necessity of
reserving and
keeping something of the self through the process of searching
for self through
introspection. It is easy to know the things which are outwardly
adjacent to
individuals, such as offices, dignities, riches, nobilitie,
grace, and applause of
the greatest peers and common people , but this public carriage
is of no
account ; what is necessary is a true, long, and daily study of
himself, a serious
)! Ibid., pp. 1201. )" Ibid., p. 219. )# Ibid., p. 220. )$
Ibid., p. 604.)% Ibid., pp. 6045. )& Ibid., p. 605. ) Charron,
Of wisdome, sig. A, 6v.)( Ibid., p. 2.
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individual and self in the renaissance 359
and attentive examination not only of his words, and actions,
but of his most
secret thoughts .)) This is the essence of the wisdom that
Charron wishes to
teach.
This independence of mind does not imply the ability to ignore
accepted
rules and customs, but while outwardly conforming, the wise man
will play
one part before the world, and another in his mind, which he
must do to
preserve equity and iustice in all .)* Judgement is here
preserved in a space
away from the censure of an unthinking and unreflective world,
enabling the
individual to remain just despite the uncertain value of truth
or opinion. The
elite capable of reservation and judgement must not, however,
retreat into their
gardens to preserve their independence. While we must reserve
our selves unto
our selves , the wise individual must apply himself to public
society those
offices and duties which concern him, but in doing so should not
confuse such
duties with his own self.*! Charron argues : we must know how to
distinguish
and separate our selves from our public charges : every one of
us playeth two
parts, two persons ; the one strange and apparent, the other
proper and
essential .*"
Knowing how to separate and preserve the proper and essential
person is
the subject of Charrons chapter, Of the justice and duty of man
towards
himself , which he argues is a microcosm of the entire three
books. What is
required is to make a diligent culture of himself , asking
himself the reason
why things have gone either right or wrong. If vices or natural
defects are
found, he must quietly and sweetly correct them, and provide for
them. It is
a process of recovery: He must reason with himself, correct and
recall himself
courageously. *# In Charrons thought the convergence between the
ideas of a
self and ideas about judgement is striking. It is necessary to
judge well in order
to recall oneself well, and to recall oneself well in order to
reserve a self that is
able to judge.
William Cornwallis is eloquent in recommending the knowledge of
the self,
asking whether can knowledge bend her force, more excellently
then, then
man to look upon man: this knowledge is profitable, for it is
for himself . All
other sorts of knowledge are subordinate to this, as it hunts
for light without
light, in himself he must begin and end, for in himself is the
light of reason,
that discovereth all things else .*$ For Cornwallis knowledge of
the self is a
prerequisite for the acquisition of any type of knowledge, as it
shows how it is
possible to have knowledge at all. It is necessary to have
knowledge of how the
mind can and does know things, and to have a knowledge of the
particular
nature of ones own mind, before knowledge of the world becomes a
possibility.
Judgement is described as the child of this knowledge and
reason, and enables
the individual to be virtuous, especially in the exercise of
power. To be taken
in by deception, especially flattery, is a flaw in knowledge of
the self, a false
reflection of our own thoughts that abuseth us .*% To be
absorbed in deception,
)) Ibid., pp. 5, 6. )* Ibid., p. 233. *! Ibid., p. 251. *"
Ibid., p. 252.*# Ibid., p. 425. *$ Cornwallis, Essayes, sig. X, 7v.
*% Ibid., sig. Nn, 4r.
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360 geoff baldwin
to be continually practising it, means that a man looseth the
use of himself .*&
Cornwalliss ideas about the self are limited, but the force of
his text is to
attempt to show how it is possible to retain the use of oneself.
The prerequisite
for good judgement in matters of the external world, and the
divination of
falsehood, is a knowledge and examination of the soul.
The self as an object is elusive, and the closest most authors
come to
describing it is as something which retains its independence and
ability to
judge, despite both the inherent deceptiveness of appearance,
and the roles
which the individual is forced to take up as a matter of course.
This involves
introspection, and a continual assessment of the individuals
state of mind, to
ensure that there is something which remains untouched either by
internal
passions or external perturbations. A language of liberty could
be used to
uphold this conception about how individuals should act with
respect to
themselves and the world.
V
Ideas of independence could merge easily with ideas of freedom.
If it were
possible to retain a self that was unaffected by outside events
or opinions, then
that self could be regarded as free. Unfreedom could exist if
one were enslaved
either to passion, the inner motions of an unbalanced soul, or
to opinion,
accepted but untried knowledge. Seneca put his views on fortune
in these terms
in Of tranquilitie, emphasizing that all are subject to her
caprice, Some are
enthralled by their honours, othersome by their base estate. *
In Of constancy,
freedom is equated with that quality, liberty being when we
oppose a resolute
mind against injuries .*( Epictetus put his ideas in terms of
freedom,
commanding He then which will be free, let him neither desire,
nor flee any
thing, which is in an other man his hand, and power, otherwise
of necessity he
shall be constrained to serve. *) Only that which was within the
mind was not,
to some extent, in the power of others.
Lipsius put the point in a more dialectical fashion when
speaking of reason,
perhaps putting a twist on the common humanist sentiment that to
bear rule
one must learn to obey: To obey it is to bear rule, and to be
subject thereunto
is to have the sovereignty in all human affairs. ** Freedom
through subjection
may appear somewhat paradoxical, but to be rational was a
prerequisite of any
freedom, because it left the judgement free despite the
generally evil use of
power in the world. Lipsius concluded Thy judgement is not
restrained, but
thy acts. "!! Du Vair describes in more detail how a passion,
envy, destroys
freedom by making one chase after false goods such as wealth,
which in order
to gain we have to flatter and cozen as they do, suffer many
injuries, and needs
lose our liberty."!" To be invited to a banquet one must flatter
the host, and so
lose the liberty of expressing an honest judgement. Thus, ideas
of liberty
*& Ibid., sig. Nn, 4v. * Seneca, Works, p. 645. *( Ibid., p.
671.*) Epictetus, Manuell, sig. C, 1v. ** Lipsius, Constancy, p.
11. "!! Ibid., p. 122."!" Du Vair, Moral philosophie, p. 97.
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individual and self in the renaissance 361
functioned within these texts in two ways: first, with respect
to the way the
individual should be in order to be capable of freedom, and
secondly, how it was
possible to express that freedom despite the corruption of the
world by being
independent of it.
The greatest liberty for Montaigne was the contemning of death
or any other
temporal aiction after the stoic manner. He advises the
contemplation of
death such that it loses its strangeness, and argues : Herein
consists the true and
Sovereign liberty, that affords us means wherewith to jest and
make a scorn of
force and injustice, and to deride imprisonment, gives, or
fetters."!#
The readiness to accept aiction is the way to gain independence
and
freedom from the world. Montaigne also values a somewhat similar
intellectual
liberty associated with scepticism. He praises the Pyrrhonians
for their extreme
doubt, They are so much the freer and at liberty, for that their
power of
judgement is kept entire. "!$ It is not only an inner liberty
that is valued, but
a life where that liberty can be given expression. He goes on to
condemn the
favours and obsequies that courtiers have to perform, These
favours, with the
commodities that follow minion-courtiers, corrupt (not without
some colour of
reason) his liberty, and dazzle his judgement. "!% Courtiers are
unfree not only
because they have to subject their own judgement to that of
others, but because
this process leads to the destruction of their original ability
to judge. This dual
liberty, of judgement and expression, is a liberty which
Montaigne evidently
valued and saw as an integral part of ideas about stoicism or
the self.
Charron in his introduction shows how he values self-knowledge,
and links
the fight against passion and opinion to freedom: He that hath
an erroneous
knowledge of himself, that subjecteth his minde to any kinde of
servitude, either
of passions or popular opinions, makes himself partial ; and by
enthralling
himself to some particular opinion is deprived of the liberty
and jurisdiction of
discerning, judging and examining all things."!&
Slavery is here imagined as occurring within the mind, as lack
of
independence from a particular idea or way of thinking. To
remain free in
himself the individual must examine, and weigh all reasons or
opinions, and
not give up that ability to judge in any sphere, else he will be
led like oxen,
rather than living freely."! The most important opinion to be
free of is that
concerning death or other aictions, and Charron follows
Montaignes
argument about learning to die, the science of dying is the
science of
liberty."!( Death is natural and part of ones own life, and to
fear it is to fear
"!# Montaigne, Essayes, p. 36. "!$ Ibid., p. 291. "!% Ibid., p.
73."!& Charron, Of wisdome, sig. A, 2v. "! Ibid., pp. 230,
233."!( Ibid., p. 329. On attitudes to death, see Philipe Arie s,
The hour of our death, trans. Helen
Weaver (New York, 1981) ; Michel Vovelle, Mourir autrefois :
attitudes collectives devant la mort aux
XVIIe et XVIIIe sie[ cles (Paris, 1974) ; Joachim Whaley, ed.,
Mirrors of mortality: studies in the socialhistory of death
(London, 1981) ; David Stannard, The puritan way of death: a study
in religion, culture and
social change (Oxford, 1977) ; Clare Gittings, Death, burial and
the individual in early-modern England
(London, 1984) ; Michael Neill, Issues of death: mortality and
identity in English Renaissance tragedy
(Oxford, 1997), pp. 148.
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362 geoff baldwin
an opinion. Opinion can also enslave in its manifestation as
honour, which,
being the opinion of others, is in their gift. To follow honour
unreservedly is
voluntarily to renounce his own liberty, because it is to let
his own affections
depend upon the eyes of another , or even the vulgar sort ."!)
Thus, Charrons
wisdom is intended to free the individual from two sorts of
slavery; the
knowledge is necessary to set at liberty, and to free our selves
from that
miserable double captivity, public and domesticall, of another,
and of
ourselves ."!*
English writers were on the whole less keen to emphasize this
aspect of their
thought, but it did emerge in the writings of Cornwallis. In
speaking of
suspicion he describes how a lack of virtue means liberty is
lost, giving liberty
we loose liberty, and by degrees throwing of the prescribed
course of Virtue, we
fall into the incertainties of passions, and appetites .""! Here
liberty is again
figured in opposition to the internal tyranny of appetites.
Later, he puts it in
terms of pleasure, it is not pleasure to do what wee list, but
never to stray from
what we should.""" In Of natures policy, he links these ideas to
a concept of
policy, which is equivalent to the sovereignty of reason over
the childish or
beastly courses in the soul. Policy is reason writ large, and it
too is important
for the soul, and can contribute to its freedom: and therefore
Policy producing
peace, and peace giving liberty to the souls workings,
government and policy
are the destinated and direct objects of the souls that are yet
in bodies .""#
Cornwallis is interested here in the public conditions necessary
for the
production of peace in the mind, and he concludes that the
efforts of those
minds must be focused on the problem of the public peace. This
concurs with
a more traditionally republican notion of freedom which requires
individuals
to demonstrate virtue to ensure its preservation.
The idea of intellectual freedom was a highly significant
product of neo-
stoicism or thought concerning the self. While accepting the
essentially unfree
nature of the individuals place within the world, no matter what
status he or
she was accorded, it showed how there was a different sort of
liberty that could
be achieved. It was divided into two parts : first, the ability
to judge by virtue
of the freedom of ones own mind, scorning the interferences of
passions ;
secondly, which was not so easily within grasp, the freedom to
express
judgement, or not to be bound to admitting conventional wisdom,
or the
particular opinion of another. The latter was especially bound
up with ideas of
honour or popularity, which were closely tied to the opinion of
others, such that
not to accept these values was to be free.
"!) Ibid., p. 79. "!* Ibid., p. 224. ""! Cornwallis, Essayes,
sig. C, 5r.""" Cornwallis, Discourses upon Seneca the tragedian,
sig. A, 6r.""# Ibid., sig. Aa, 2v, sig. Aa, 3r.
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individual and self in the renaissance 363
VI
This amalgam of liberties points to the confused and at times
contradictory
nature of writings that concerned themselves with the self. What
is clear is that
after the turn of the century there was an explosion of interest
in texts which
had several themes in common, and can be thought of as providing
strategies
for individual survival in a capricious world. These ideas did
not provide a
clear and cogent argument, but rather an association of several
different
concepts, some of them having their origins in newly popular
stoic thought. It
is plausible to group these ideas around the idea of a self, as
so many texts used
this term of analysis, although it was only comparatively rarely
that they
stopped to analyse it in any detail. In order to be able to
elude the clutches of
fortune, it was necessary to be constant, and to disregard that
which was
outside ones control, without at the same time abandoning public
duties or
virtuous effort. Associated with fortune was the opinion of the
world, which
itself was both subject to fortune, and at the same time
determined it. To
disregard the world it was necessary to reserve something that
could not be
harmed or in any way influenced by it.
Ideas about reason and the functioning of the soul were employed
to
demonstrate how it was possible for an individual to judge, or
how it was
possible to resist either accepted opinion or the sensual urges
of the body. The
ideal of reason could be held up as giving the possibility of
the search after an
impartial truth, and defeating passions which clouded the mind
against clear
sightedness. Judgement made possible the reservation of
something which
could be called the self, away from that which sought either to
control or to
destroy the individual. It is clear that the French writers
conceptions of the self
were far more sophisticated than those of the English, and they
were far keener
to discuss the self as an object. There was a huge demand for
this French
literature, all of the important texts from the French stoic
thought being
translated very rapidly after their composition. The English
writers seemed
keener to emphasize the sovereignty of reason as the most
significant product
of this complex of ideas, and it may be significant that this
was the formulation
farthest removed from the stoic sources. They did not on the
whole employ
these ideas to construct a theory of liberty as did the French.
The important
point is, however, that these ideas were available to Englishmen
at the start of
the seventeenth century, and would be highly influential
throughout the whole
century.
With the possible exception of William Cornwallis, the English
essayists and
writers were less sophisticated than their French counterparts,
and the full
impact of their ideas would not be apparent from merely studying
their
immediate intellectual heirs. What is very apparent is that both
sets of thinkers
used these ideas to address the problematic relationship between
the public and
private spheres, which traditional humanist concepts were
increasingly unable
to resolve. The valuing of honour and glory as an indication of
worth had been
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364 geoff baldwin
questioned by scepticism, and a theory of the self provided a
method for
retaining ideals of public service while accepting the sceptical
argument about
the value of general opinion. In order to present a public
persona given this
atmosphere, it was important not to put ones whole self into
this persona, so that
the individual could not be described by referring to the sum of
duties or offices
held. Something unique had to be retained that could not be
crushed, as
Montaignes father had been crushed, by the destruction of those
other persona.
Not only this, but the self which was reserved had to be capable
of judgement,
so that it could discern the deception of the world and direct
the operation of
one or more persona. This made it possible to act in a flawed
world, and remain
true to oneself and therefore potentially free.
The sense of self evinced in the texts described above differs
from the ideas of
self which have been used to examine and criticize literary
texts. For
Greenblatt, an artificial self is created by an author for a
purpose, in effect, to
perform an act of communication. It is precisely this process,
which is part of
political as well as literary life, that these writers are
protesting against. The
performance of this act, without any attempt to retain a sense
of the essential
self, is both unsuccessful and damaging to the individual. The
resolution of the
problem of acting in a fluid public sphere, with all the
strategies of presentation
that implies, is the self-conscious fashioning of a real, as
opposed to a fictive, self.
This would make it possible both to understand, and live in, the
external world.
The sense of self which seems to emerge here is one which lies
between the
stereotypical view of Renaissance humanism and individualism in
a later
eighteenth-century sense. These writers did not regard autonomy
as the
defining feature of human existence, and therefore as the basis
of ethics, as did
Kant, for whom each individual must legislate the moral law.
Neither did they
describe the individuals relationship with the political and
social world in
terms of roles to be performed, or offices to be filled. They
attempted to offer a
solution to the problems of a public existence as dramatized by
writers like
More and Shakespeare. There is an analogy between the public
ethics of early
manifestations of humanism in England, such as that of Elyot,
and the view of
the world as inter-subjective held by some literary critics : in
both there is little
space for the self as opposed to a persona. Such an analogy can
lead to the
dangerous error of homogenizing the Renaissance in England,
whereas
reactions to the problems raised by humanist thought constituted
a significant
innovation in effectively and deliberately separating self and
persona : an
enumeration of offices could not describe an individual. Later
writers such as
Hobbes or Spinoza would attempt to base a moral theory, and
political
obligation, on private deliberation. At the beginning of the
seventeenth
century, there was a body of writers who developed ideas of the
self which drew
upon stoicism and ideas of office, but went beyond both of
these. They pointed
forward to more individualistic moral theories, as well as
backwards to the
conception of the individual as a performer of a variety of
roles.