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Ok, so the actual session title invokes only Sidney, but I'm here for the paper on Cavendish. Evidently the theme of my session choices so far is "topics potentially relevant to the LHMP." Listening to the opening remarks of the session, it sounds like the Sidney Society is a fairly tight-knit group where everyone knows each other. It's quite possible that I'm the only "outsider" attending this session. It makes me wonder how many essentially independent communities gather here.
For relevant background, see Arcadia, Mary Wroth, Margaret Cavendish.
Session 352: New Circles/ New Voices
Sponsor: International Sidney Society
Organizer: Nandra Perry
Presider: Kathryn DeZur
Affectionate Judgment: Gender and Forgiveness in Philip Sidney's Old Arcadia - Tommy Pfannkoch, Texas A&M Univ.
Sidney's work as a "blend" of genres and themes that challenge contrasting binaries. This paper looks at what this approaches accomplishes, rather than what it consists of. Reader's uncertainty of characters' motivations and actions requires generosity and forgiveness. Pyrocles' friend advises him against the cross-dressing strategem as it will turn him womanish and he will become the thing he desires (and emulates). Pyrocles argues he's not inspired by carnal passion, but by Philoclea's virtues as depicted in the portrait he fell in love with. When Pyrocles challenges his friend on this he demands understanding and a more charitable view of his desires and actions. This is the first incident where a superficial understanding that gives rise to a negative judgment is challenged and a more generous understanding gives rise to forgiveness and a more positive spin.
Pfannkoch makes a connection with early modern Protestant philosophy and the nature of Christ's forgiveness and charity toward sinful man. Contrasts two types of immature attitude toward the wrongs other people do: those who see everything in the worst possible light; those who view their own sins as minimal because they can identify much worse actions done by others. Pyrocles' friend follows the first, putting the worst plausible spin on Pyrocles' plans. There is no doubt that Pyrocles' cross-dressing is "wrong", but the question is whether it does or does not deserve a charitable interpretation.
The Arcadia can be read as taking a similar view on charity in considering a too-great adherence by authority to the details of law as becoming "tyranny". The theme of uncertainty (in motivation and fate) as being a motivating basis for charitable interpretation and forgiveness by the law is another consistent theme.
[Interesting: despite the central theme of Pyrocles' cross-dressed and therefore superficially same-sex courtship, the paper focuses entirely from the male point of view and considerations of that the act means to the men involved.]
Wroth and Ovid: Constancy in a Changing World - Thomasin Bailey, Univ. of Warwick
Mary Wroth wrote sequence of sonnets invoking variety of authorities including Ovid. Mary Wroth was niece of Sidney. The paper looks at how such authority is used to create an image of literary continuity, even in the face of innovation. "In this strange labyrinth, how shall I turn?" Does the poet (in the persona of Pamphilia) identify with Ariadne or with Theseus? Or possibly as the Minotaur? Or is the reference simply to the concept of the labyrinth with no specific character-identification at all? The poem uses repetition of choice-language to evoke the attempt to find a path through the maze.
Wroth's Pamphilia diverges from Theseus as a model in having the virtue of constancy and finding her way through the maze to true and faithful love. In multiple poems, Pamphilia seems to have the role of "correcting" the moral lessons of the Ovidian stories into which she intrudes. E.g., in a poem invoking the story of Io and Echo and Juno's jealous punishment. But Pamphilia takes on the role of Echo and subverts the original role as an empty babbling tale-teller. Pamphilia then moves on to the role of Narcissus and again redeems the original narrative by self-understanding of the nature of the original-reflection relationship. The poet is herself a reflection of Classical sources, and then reflects them back in her work. Poetic imitation becomes a dead-end of reflection, while self-knowledge results in remaking the self and the poetic output. Through all the "metamorphoses", the persona of Pamphilia simultaneously remains constant (in virtue) while transforming.
Margaret Cavendish's The Convent of Pleasure as Parody of Sir Philip Sidney's Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia - Chelsea Franco, Florida International Univ.
Cavendish expressed the opinion that novels such as Sidney's Arcadia led women into unrealistic expectations of love and marriage. This suggests that the parallels between the cross-dressing romance of Pyrocles and Philoclea, and the all-female community of Lady Happy in Cavendish's Convent of Pleasure (which is infiltrated by a cross-dressing suitor in order to win Lady Happy's love) is intended as a satire specifically on the Arcadia. Although the suitor is eventually successful, the process of the courtship is derided. Lady Happy begins as an outspoken separatist, rejecting [heterosexual] marriage and courtship. But when tricked into falling in love with a (disguised) mad, she gradually falls silent, losing her "voice" and becoming a passive marital commodity, acquired by the man.
The two cross-dressing male suitors are treated in roughly parallel fashion, but scholarship rarely looks at the parallels, focusing instead on the differences due to the gender of the authors as reflecting in the portrayals. (There is a survey of various scholarly takes on the Convent of Pleasure and its relationship to the author's religion and the socio-religious context in which it was written.)
Franco spends some time establishing the plausibility that Cavendish was familiar with the Aracdia. And then touches on the possibility that Cavendish's husband may have written the concluding parts (possibly relevant to the erasure of Lady Happy's agency?). In both stories there is a secondary character who first is suspicious of the gender of the cross-dressed character, but where issues of jealousy (either the 2ary character's desire for the infiltrating man, or for the friendship of the female object of the courtship). One contrast (that suggests satire) is the ease with which Pyrocles (portrayed as a youth) passes as a woman, while Lady Happy's suitor notes the implausibility of passing due to his age (voice, etc.) and needs to find another angle. At multiple times during the courtship of Lady Happy, her suitor plays the role of [a woman playing the role of] a man within in-story theatricals. This creates a context for Lady Happy to be vulnerable to a romantic address within a heteronormative script. In both cases, the object of courtship is first persuaded to accept the harmlessness of being in love with a woman, and only later informed that the love she's accepted is that of a man.
Lady Happy's actions and reactions are most consistent if she is viewed as a primarily satirical figure, skewering the model of romance and marriage that women are pressured to accept, as well as the expectations of a successful courtship.
For relevant background, see Arcadia, Mary Wroth, Margaret Cavendish.
Session 352: New Circles/ New Voices
Sponsor: International Sidney Society
Organizer: Nandra Perry
Presider: Kathryn DeZur
Affectionate Judgment: Gender and Forgiveness in Philip Sidney's Old Arcadia - Tommy Pfannkoch, Texas A&M Univ.
Sidney's work as a "blend" of genres and themes that challenge contrasting binaries. This paper looks at what this approaches accomplishes, rather than what it consists of. Reader's uncertainty of characters' motivations and actions requires generosity and forgiveness. Pyrocles' friend advises him against the cross-dressing strategem as it will turn him womanish and he will become the thing he desires (and emulates). Pyrocles argues he's not inspired by carnal passion, but by Philoclea's virtues as depicted in the portrait he fell in love with. When Pyrocles challenges his friend on this he demands understanding and a more charitable view of his desires and actions. This is the first incident where a superficial understanding that gives rise to a negative judgment is challenged and a more generous understanding gives rise to forgiveness and a more positive spin.
Pfannkoch makes a connection with early modern Protestant philosophy and the nature of Christ's forgiveness and charity toward sinful man. Contrasts two types of immature attitude toward the wrongs other people do: those who see everything in the worst possible light; those who view their own sins as minimal because they can identify much worse actions done by others. Pyrocles' friend follows the first, putting the worst plausible spin on Pyrocles' plans. There is no doubt that Pyrocles' cross-dressing is "wrong", but the question is whether it does or does not deserve a charitable interpretation.
The Arcadia can be read as taking a similar view on charity in considering a too-great adherence by authority to the details of law as becoming "tyranny". The theme of uncertainty (in motivation and fate) as being a motivating basis for charitable interpretation and forgiveness by the law is another consistent theme.
[Interesting: despite the central theme of Pyrocles' cross-dressed and therefore superficially same-sex courtship, the paper focuses entirely from the male point of view and considerations of that the act means to the men involved.]
Wroth and Ovid: Constancy in a Changing World - Thomasin Bailey, Univ. of Warwick
Mary Wroth wrote sequence of sonnets invoking variety of authorities including Ovid. Mary Wroth was niece of Sidney. The paper looks at how such authority is used to create an image of literary continuity, even in the face of innovation. "In this strange labyrinth, how shall I turn?" Does the poet (in the persona of Pamphilia) identify with Ariadne or with Theseus? Or possibly as the Minotaur? Or is the reference simply to the concept of the labyrinth with no specific character-identification at all? The poem uses repetition of choice-language to evoke the attempt to find a path through the maze.
Wroth's Pamphilia diverges from Theseus as a model in having the virtue of constancy and finding her way through the maze to true and faithful love. In multiple poems, Pamphilia seems to have the role of "correcting" the moral lessons of the Ovidian stories into which she intrudes. E.g., in a poem invoking the story of Io and Echo and Juno's jealous punishment. But Pamphilia takes on the role of Echo and subverts the original role as an empty babbling tale-teller. Pamphilia then moves on to the role of Narcissus and again redeems the original narrative by self-understanding of the nature of the original-reflection relationship. The poet is herself a reflection of Classical sources, and then reflects them back in her work. Poetic imitation becomes a dead-end of reflection, while self-knowledge results in remaking the self and the poetic output. Through all the "metamorphoses", the persona of Pamphilia simultaneously remains constant (in virtue) while transforming.
Margaret Cavendish's The Convent of Pleasure as Parody of Sir Philip Sidney's Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia - Chelsea Franco, Florida International Univ.
Cavendish expressed the opinion that novels such as Sidney's Arcadia led women into unrealistic expectations of love and marriage. This suggests that the parallels between the cross-dressing romance of Pyrocles and Philoclea, and the all-female community of Lady Happy in Cavendish's Convent of Pleasure (which is infiltrated by a cross-dressing suitor in order to win Lady Happy's love) is intended as a satire specifically on the Arcadia. Although the suitor is eventually successful, the process of the courtship is derided. Lady Happy begins as an outspoken separatist, rejecting [heterosexual] marriage and courtship. But when tricked into falling in love with a (disguised) mad, she gradually falls silent, losing her "voice" and becoming a passive marital commodity, acquired by the man.
The two cross-dressing male suitors are treated in roughly parallel fashion, but scholarship rarely looks at the parallels, focusing instead on the differences due to the gender of the authors as reflecting in the portrayals. (There is a survey of various scholarly takes on the Convent of Pleasure and its relationship to the author's religion and the socio-religious context in which it was written.)
Franco spends some time establishing the plausibility that Cavendish was familiar with the Aracdia. And then touches on the possibility that Cavendish's husband may have written the concluding parts (possibly relevant to the erasure of Lady Happy's agency?). In both stories there is a secondary character who first is suspicious of the gender of the cross-dressed character, but where issues of jealousy (either the 2ary character's desire for the infiltrating man, or for the friendship of the female object of the courtship). One contrast (that suggests satire) is the ease with which Pyrocles (portrayed as a youth) passes as a woman, while Lady Happy's suitor notes the implausibility of passing due to his age (voice, etc.) and needs to find another angle. At multiple times during the courtship of Lady Happy, her suitor plays the role of [a woman playing the role of] a man within in-story theatricals. This creates a context for Lady Happy to be vulnerable to a romantic address within a heteronormative script. In both cases, the object of courtship is first persuaded to accept the harmlessness of being in love with a woman, and only later informed that the love she's accepted is that of a man.
Lady Happy's actions and reactions are most consistent if she is viewed as a primarily satirical figure, skewering the model of romance and marriage that women are pressured to accept, as well as the expectations of a successful courtship.
