Early Modern Literature in History General Editor: Cedric C. Brown Professor of English and Head of Department, University of Reading Within the period 1520 1740 this series discusses many kinds of writing, both within and outside the established canon. The volumes may employ different theoretical perspectives, but they share an historical awareness and an interest in seeing their texts in lively negotiation with their own and successive cultures. Titles include: Anna R. Beer SIR WALTER RALEGH AND HIS READERS IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY Speaking to the people Cedric C. Brown and Arthur F. Marotti (editors) TEXTS AND CULTURAL CHANGE IN EARLY MODERN ENGLAND Martin Butler (editor) RE-PRESENTING BEN JONSON Text, History, Performance Jocelyn Catty WRITING RAPE, WRITING WOMEN IN EARLY MODERN ENGLAND Unbridled Speech Danielle Clarke and Elizabeth Clarke (editors) THIS DOUBLE VOICE Gendered Writing in Early Modern England James Daybell (editor) EARLY MODERN WOMEN S LETTER-WRITING, 1450-1700 John Dolan POETIC OCCASION FROM MILTON TO WORDSWORTH Henk Dragstra, Sheila Ottway and Helen Wilcox (editors) BETRAYING OUR SELVES Forms of Self-Representation in Early Modern English Texts Sarah M. Dunnigan EROS AND POETRY AT THE COURTS OF MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS AND JAMES VI Pauline Kiernan STAGING SHAKESPEARE AT THE NEW GLOBE Ronald Knowles (editor) SHAKESPEARE AND CARNIVAL After Bakhtin James Loxley ROYALISM AND POETRY IN THE ENGLISH CIVIL WARS The Drawn Sword
Anthony Miller ROMAN TRIUMPHS AND EARLY MODERN ENGLISH CULTURE Arthur F. Marotti (editor) CATHOLICISM AND ANTI-CATHOLICISM IN EARLY MODERN ENGLISH TEXTS Mark Thornton Burnett CONSTRUCTING MONSTERS IN SHAKESPEAREAN DRAMA AND EARLY MODERN CULTURE MASTER AND SERVANTS IN ENGLISH RENAISSANCE DRAMA AND CULTURE Authority and Obedience The series Early Modern Literature in History is published in association with the Renaissance Texts Research Centre at the University of Reading. Early Modern Literature in History Series standing Order ISBN 978-0-333-71472-0 (outside North America only) You can receive future titles in this series as they are published by placing a standing order. Please contact your bookseller or, in case of difficulty, write to us at the address below with your name and address, the title of the series and the ISBN quoted above. Customer Services Department, Macmillan Distribution Ltd, Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS, England
Eros and Poetry at the Courts of Mary Queen of Scots and James VI Sarah M. Dunnigan Department of English Literature University of Edinburgh
Sarah M. Dunnigan, 2002 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2002 978-0-333-91875-3 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London W1T 4LP. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The author has asserted her right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published 2002 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS and 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N. Y. 10010 Companies and representatives throughout the world PALGRAVE MACMILLAN is the global academic imprint of the Palgrave Macmillan divison of St. Martin s Press, LLC and of Palgrave Macmillan Ltd. Macmillan is a registered trademark in the United States, United Kingdom and other countries. Palgrave is a registered trademark in the European Union and other countries. ISBN 978-1-349-42369-9 ISBN 978-1-4039-3270-9 (ebook) DOI 10.1057/9781403932709 This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 11 10 09 08 07 06 05 04 03 02
for my mother, Anna, my father, Matthew Amor ch Ancor mi guidi Petrarch, canzone 135
Contents Acknowledgements Note on Texts and Abbreviations ix x Introduction: Amorous Histories from Marian to Jacobean Eros 1 Part 1 The Marian Period 13 1. Feminine Eros: Mary Queen of Scots and the Emergence 15 of Desire 2. Demonic and Angelic Women: The Erotics of 46 Renunciation and Mariology in the Bannatyne Manuscript Part 2 The Jacobean Period 75 3. Fables of Eros: James VI and the Revelation of Desire 77 4. Devotional Artefacts: John Stewart and the Eroticisation 105 of the Courtly 5. Love s Altar: Alexander Montgomerie and the Erotics of 125 Representation 6. Heretical Love-Words: The Poetry of William Fowler 149 Conclusion: Love s End 165 Notes 171 Index 213 vii
Acknowledgements I am indebted to Professor R.D.S. Jack for his inspiration, guidance and kindness throughout the writing of this book and before. Professor Evelyn S. Newlyn has been constant in her support and friendship; I am grateful for all our conversations. Dr Gerard Carruthers generously read and commented on sections. Deepest thanks are given to Dr Emma Sutton, who compiled the index. I wish to record my gratitude to the British Academy for the award of the Postdoctoral Fellowship which enabled me to undertake much of the research and writing of this book; and to Professor Cairns Craigh, Head of the English Literature Department at Edinburgh University. ix
Note on Texts and Abbreviations The poetry of nearly all the writers who form the subject of this book is not available in modern editions. The late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century editions of the Scottish Text Society, with few exceptions, such as David Parkinson s edition of Alexander Montgomerie published in 2000, remain as the standard, mostly authoritative, printed texts of this corpus. The texts of the poetry reproduced here, however, are all based on the original manuscript sources. For ease of reference and accessibility, all quotations are cited by manuscript source, then by the most convenient Scottish Text Society (STS) edition so that a dual form of referencing appears. Punctuation and orthography are almost always derived from the manuscript source with little modernisation; only the long /s/, thorn, and yogh symbols have been modernised, as has the z, which usually represents the phoneme /y/ ; the abbreviated superscript /t/ (for example, w t for with ), and other contractions are mostly retained; in most instances there is no normalisation of /u/, /v/, /w/, and /i/, /j/. Omissions of words or lines are indicated in square brackets. (An explanatory note on citational procedure appears in the first endnote to each chapter.) Abbreviations DOST ELH ELR EUL NLS PMLA SEL SHR SLJ SSL STS Dictionary of the Older Scottish Tongue English Literary History English Literary Renaissance Edinburgh University Library National Library of Scotland Proceedings of the Modern Language Association Studies in English Literature Scottish Historical Review Scottish Literary Journal Studies in Scottish Literature Scottish Text Society x