farce on the stage. These plays were set in private houses, in town halls and at banquets. The Vice (as opposed to vices) now appeared as a central rogue and jester, the predecessor to the Elizabetan clown and gallant. John Heywood created interludes that were close to themes in Chaucer and to the French short narratives, the fabliaux.
The combination of character and type with an abstract folly and vice was already present in the moralities and the playwright could then begin to move out of abstraction into comic reality:
The characters in the moralities, though called by abstract names, are often from life, and each character has a motive of action to distinguish it from the rest … by the greater nearness to actual life, by the concreteness and individualization that the abstractions take on. It is this side of medieval literature that influenced Jonson most strongly in his conception of comedy and of the types appropriate to it.47
The seven deady sins of the sermons, devotional and moral writing, the allegorical way of thinking, provoked a static and clear-cut picture of man and his behaviour and he could become indecorous or humorous if he committed one of the seven deadly sins. Pride, envy, avarice and ire emerged from a choleric humour, the indolence and inactivity of sloth corresponded to a phlegmatic humour, intemperance suggested a sanguine temper and lust, surprisingly, was nearest to a melancholy humour.
THE GREAT CHAIN AND MAN AS MICROCOSM
The hand-coloured map Planisphaerium by Andreas Cellarius Palatinus (1661), showing the structure of the entire world according to Tycho Brahe (1546–1601), with globus terra in the centre, illustrates a fixed Renaissance order compared to the open-ended celestial charts of the galaxies and universe(s) today.48 Cosmologists now grapple with dark energy in an expanding universe and dark matter may continue in an infinite number of universes, not ending in a gigantic circle, but in an eternal inflation and flat expansion without a final edge. Darkness is upon the face of the deep, then and now.
The Chain
Man’s position in the Universe in the Elizabethan age was an integral part of the Great Chain of Being, the world picture inherited from the Middle Ages (derived from Plato and the Old Testament), then adapted in a simplified version by the Renaissance (and not yet overturned by Copernicus), ‘only the earth doth stand for ever still’.49 It is a divinely ordered, theocentric and geocentric Universe, the earth is set in the middle of heaven.
God had created the elements and one element ‘is fastned in that other in such manner one susteyned the other’.50 The elements in the great chain were bound by a strict hierarchy, starting with the cold and dry earth, then the cold and moist water (the sea), the hot and moist air and finally the hot and dry fire (the stars). The elements formed ‘a circle with joined hands, continually kept in motion by their mutual attraction’.51 Everything was included and connected ‘in degree, priority and place’.52 Man was placed next to the angels in a system of gradation, a hierarchy of four progressive classes. The inanimate class was at the bottom of this vertical bond, but there existed, even among inanimate objects, a marked difference in virtue and position. Thus water was of a nobler substance than earth, and gold ranked higher than lead. Indeed, gold was the King of Metals in a perfect balance of the elements. It was suggested that an artery ran down the ring finger of the left hand and a gold ring would carry the positive influence of the metal to the heart.53
The quest of the alchemists was to discover, through successive processes of refinement, the elexir that would turn base metals to gold, while simultaneously restoring the possessor’s health and beauty, and in the full-blown version of the dream, conferring eternal life.54
Thomas More was influenced by the satires of Lucian. When the Anemolian ambassadors arrive in Amaurot, the capital of Utopia, in ‘splendid adornment’ it sets the scene for a reflection on the worth of gold, used in Utopia to make chamber pots:
I never saw a more remarkable instance of the opposite impressions which different manners make on people, than I observed in the Anemolian ambassadors, who came to Amaurot when I was there. Coming to treat of affairs of great consequence, the deputies from several cities met to await their coming. The ambassadors of countries lying near Utopia, knowing their manners – that fine clothes are in no esteem with them, that silk is despised, and gold a badge of infamy – came very modestly clothed. But the Anemolians, who lie at a greater distance, having had little intercourse with them, understanding they were coarsely clothed and all in one dress, took it for granted that they had none of that finery among them, of which they made no use. Being also themselves a vain-glorious rather than a wise people, they resolved on this occasion to assume their grandest appearance, and astonish the poor Utopians with their splendour.
Thus three ambassadors made their entry with 100 attendants, all clad in garments of different colours, and the greater part in silk. The ambassadors themselves, who were of the nobility of their country, were in clothes of gold, adorned with massy chains and rings of gold. Their caps were covered with bracelets, thickly set with pearls and other gems. In a word, they were decorated in those very things, which, among the Utopians, are either badges of slavery, marks of infamy, or play-things for children.
It was pleasant to behold, on one side, how big they looked in comparing their rich habits with the plain clothes of the Utopians, who came out in great numbers to see them make their entry; and on the other, how much they were mistaken in the impression which they expected this pomp would have made. The sight appeared so ridiculous to those who had not seen the customs of other countries, that, though they respected such as were meanly clad (as if they had been the ambassadors), when they saw the ambassadors themselves, covered with gold and chains, they looked upon them as slaves, and shewed them no respect. You might have heard children, who had thrown away their jewels, cry to their mothers, see that great fool, wearing pearls and gems as if he was yet a child; and the mothers as innocently replying, ‘peace, this must be one of the ambassador’s fools’.55
In a scene of artistic freedom and dramatic indecorum Shakespeare lets Bassanio challenge the ‘outward shows’, the deception, vice and falshood, the entrapment and ‘guilded shore to a most dangerous sea’ represented by gold and choose the casket of the ‘meagre lead’56 instead.
The next class in the ladder, the vegetative, contained the qualities of life and growth. Again, the subtle ranking of the objects made each position clear, the oak ranked higher than any other tree. The Lion was the King of Animals and ‘naturally a man is hardy as the Lion’.57
The sensitive class with the higher faculties of feeling and memory led to the rank of Man and the gift of learning and understanding. ‘Man is above all a political animal.’58 Man summed up the universe in himself. ‘Man is called a little world not because he is composed of the four elements … but because he possesses all the faculties of the universe … he possesses the godlike faculty of reason.’59
The spiritual class, represented by the angels, was linked to Man, but had no other links with the classes below. The Great Chain of Being and the elements, hot, cold, dry and moist, interacted and embraced everything:
In this order hot things are in harmony with cold, dry with moist, heavy with light, great with little, high with low. In this order angel is set over angel, rank upon rank in the kingdom of heaven; man is set over man, beast over beast, bird over bird, and fish over fish, on the earth in the air and in the sea … nor from man down to the meanest worm is there any creature which is not in some respect superior to one creature and inferior to another. So that there is nothing which the bond of order does not embrace.60
Design, cosmology and ontology came together.
Microcosm
The
