Early Modern « Writing Privacy

Posts Tagged 'Early Modern'

Karma Chameleon: A Defence of Nigel Smith’s Biography of Andrew Marvell

Published April 22, 2012 Literature , research 4 Comments
Tags: Andrew Marvell, Early Modern, Literature, Nigel Smith, Poetry, Psychology

Nigel Smith, Andrew Marvell - The Chameleon Like most Marvellians, I was both excited and nervous for the arrival of Nigel Smith’s new biography, The Chameleon, in late 2010. There was always going to be a risk that the foundations of my doctoral thesis would end up either covered or incontrovertibly disproved.

Off I went a few months later, in January 2011, to the most important stop of the book’s promotional tour, the Andrew Marvell Centre in Hull, to hear Nigel present on it.

Also in 2011, the Cambridge Companion to Andrew Marvell emerged. And with further co-authored work by its editors, Derek Hirst and Steven Zwicker, due imminently (referenced here), the opportunity for another composite review, or even a review article, has been a strong one. Due to various commitments, this has not yet come to pass, and it seems unlikely now that it will.

But with this site now appearing under the blog results in searches for Marvell (for which, many thanks), it has become a semi-credible platform. And this occurrence is indirectly responsible for what follows. A browse through the other blog-listed material revealed a rather provocative review of The Chameleon by Alan Altimont, an associate editor for the Andrew Marvell Society, which has prompted me to mount a defence.

Continue reading ‘Karma Chameleon: A Defence of Nigel Smith’s Biography of Andrew Marvell’

Agency: Too Much Left Unsaid

Published December 17, 2011 Leicester , Literature , research 1 Comment
Tags: Andrew Marvell, Early Modern, Literature, Poetry, Print Culture, Privacy, Secrecy

What is said, matters. How it is said, matters. To whom it is said, matters. When it is said, matters.

The little nuances of our communication are more intricate and powerful than we often care to believe. How much value do we place on the words ‘Love’ and ‘Hate’? When does ‘never’ mean never? Why does one person’s way of speaking catch our imagination in a different way to another?

After the Fact

I’ve had the privilege of hearing the inspiring Tom Lockwood twice before: at the British Milton Seminar in 2008, and at his Chatterton Lecture on John Donne in 2009 (I’m heard 67 minutes in). His recent presentation at Leicester’s Early Modern Seminar on ‘agency’ presented a particular conundrum which is encountered – as often happens – in study and life combined.

What agency do words have after the fact? If something is said too late, does it matter that it was said at all? What if something is not said, or revealed too late?

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Marvell, Glass, and ‘Upon Appleton House’

Published August 26, 2011 Literature , research 1 Comment
Tags: Andrew Marvell, Art, Dissertation, Early Modern, Ekphrasis, English Revolution, Interregnum, Literature, Mirrors, Poetry, Privacy, Psychology, Seventeenth Century

It is difficult to escape reflection. Mirrors are common enough (and, one might argue, hurtful enough), but windows are often reflectors as well as transparent portals. Personal experience also determines that reflection is there to antagonise the mind as well as to merely display the body. That is the paradigm of glass, a most ambivalent servant.

Ekphrasis becomes a common feature of Marvell’s Interregnum writing, but before it served his Cromwellian verse, these perspective features – of viewing and reflection, of the viewer and beyond – combine in a remarkable way in Marvell’s Upon Appleton House. Marvell’s portrayal of the private Lord Fairfax relies heavily on the construction and reflection of the self through private property and its (often vitrified) representations. Continue reading ‘Marvell, Glass, and ‘Upon Appleton House’’

Privacy and Parliamentary Privilege

Published June 14, 2011 Literature , Politics Leave a Comment
Tags: Andrew Marvell, Censorship, Early Modern, English Civil War, English Revolution, Literature, Politics, Privacy, Public Sphere, Richard Lovelace, Secrecy, Seventeenth Century, Speech-Acts

Parliament in 1647

This recent period has been plagued with privacy issues, the biggest of which, no doubt, has been the issue of super-injunctions.

While it has been good from a ‘subject branding’ perspective to have been asked about this, to be blunt, I simply couldn’t have cared less. About the surface matter, at least. Footballers and their deviance is nothing new. Nor does it matter to the outside world other than as hot gossip. So little of the intrusiveness of private lives gleefully splayed across front pages can be claimed to have significant public interest.

More interesting is the legal implications when thousands of people have denounced privacy laws by flouting collectively. Continue reading ‘Privacy and Parliamentary Privilege’

The Broken Image

Published May 15, 2011 Literature , Politics , research , Television 3 Comments
Tags: Andrew Marvell, Art, Doctor Who, Early Modern, Ekphrasis, Elegy, English Revolution, Icons, Interregnum, Literature, Mirrors, Oliver Cromwell, Privacy, research, Seventeenth Century, Visual Culture

How Doctor Who brings to light one of Andrew Marvell’s most touching moments...

Doctor Who: The Curse of Black Spot #1

There is little more pleasing than the perfect image. There is also real gratification in constructing an image. Over recent months, however, I have come to understand the terrible beauty and power that comes with an image that is broken.

Continue reading ‘The Broken Image’

East Midlands Early Modern Colloquium

Published April 21, 2011 Culture , Leicester , Literature , research 1 Comment
Tags: Censorship, Drama, Early Modern, English Revolution, Icons, Interregnum, John Donne, Kingship, Literature, Print Culture, Public Sphere, Quakers, Religion, research, Self-Discipline, Self-Promotion, Seventeenth Century, Visual Culture, William Shakespeare

Religion, Print and Visual Culture in the Early Modern Period [April 2011].

The second East Midlands Early Modern Colloquium convened at De Montfort University in April 2011 after a three year hiatus. Delegates from Leicester, Loughborough, Nottingham, and Nottingham Trent joined home convenor Siobhan Keenan at the impressive Clephan Building for an equally impressive set of papers. [Full schedule attached here].

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A Long Winter’s Tale

Published April 17, 2011 Leicester , Literature , Politics , research 2 Comments
Tags: Andrew Marvell, Cultural Revolution, Early Modern, English Civil War, English Revolution, Geneva, humour, John Milton, Leicester, Literature, Nigel Smith, Politics, Print Culture, Public Sphere, Reformation, Religion, Seventeenth Century, Teaching

A summary of research activity from January-March 2011. This features a lecture by Nigel Smith at the Andrew Marvell Centre in Hull; a teaching event at the University of York; and the biannual British Milton Seminar at Birmingham Central Library.

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“Life is a Jigsaw”: Literary Shapes and Private Thoughts

Published April 11, 2011 Edinburgh , Literature , research 2 Comments
Tags: Andrew Balfour, Andrew Marvell, Art, Circles, Early Modern, Ekphrasis, Elegy, Facebook, George Puttenham, Jigsaw, John Donne, Literature, Mosaic, Oliver Cromwell, Print Culture, Psychology, Robert Browning, Seventeenth Century, Thomas Salusbury

Several years ago, a phrase came into my head on a dark day: “life is a jigsaw”. It was used for a trail of dark introspective thoughts concerning self-image, but it was clearly an analogy that had plenty more to offer.

The phrase is hardly unique to me; Google will attest to that. But my introspective thought has long revolved around shapes. George Puttenham’s Arte of English Poesie (1569), which describes the properties of shapes, reminds us that the study of literature can transgress disciplines and fuse modes of thought creatively.

Original thought is fun to contemplate. Are our lives the equivalent of average undergraduate essays: recasting what has come before in our own way and offering a mere fraction of originality along the way? What constitutes new ideas? What is a ‘philosopher’, for their own chutzpah? Much which challenges subjective realms of thought must owe itself to literature.

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An MP Turning Down a Secret Bribe? Bipolar Privacy

Published January 22, 2011 Literature , Politics , research 1 Comment
Tags: Andrew Marvell, Early Modern, Literature, MPs' Expenses, Nigel Smith, Politics, Privacy, Restoration, Secrecy, Seventeenth Century

There are two sides to privacy: the bright side and the dark side. It is often politics which brings these to the fore. In 2009, the scandal surrounding MPs expenses showed the ugly art of secrecy breeding secrecy, and the ramifications are only now beginning to take effect.

Yet key public figures constantly find themselves involved with, or victim of, private and secretive practices. The prime minister’s communications chief, Andy Coulson, still suspected by many of complicity in secret phone-tapping, has just resigned. As has shadow chancellor Alan Johnson, citing private issues, after a member of his security team was alleged to have had an affair with his wife.

Mr Brightside

Andrew Marvell was MP elect for Hull for almost two decades from 1659. Interestingly, his inclination towards secrecy and privacy has rarely complicated the view of him as an honest, dedicated, and incorruptible public servant. And I was pleased to recently stumble across an anecdote about Marvell from the mid-eighteenth century that celebrates (as well we might today) the value of an honest politician. It relates to expenses, no less!

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Public Hypocrites and Private Anger

Published December 21, 2010 Politics , research Leave a Comment
Tags: Andrew Marvell, Autobiography, Early Modern, English Civil War, English Revolution, Human Nature, Hypocrisy, Interregnum, Kingship, Literature, Marchamont Nedham, Nigel Smith, Politics, Print Culture, Privacy, Psychology, Public Sphere, research, Secrecy, Self-Promotion, Seventeenth Century, Sleepthief, Thomas May

What grates so much about hypocrisy? Is it observing people changing their mind? Breaking promises? Breaking trust?

To speak in one way and act in another is something almost all of us do. We would be hypocrites ourselves to deny it. Often, it is a tool of diplomacy, of fitting in, even of subjugating oneself. Just like the well-meaning white lie…

Yet, distinct from the more innocent ‘forgetfulness’ or the more calculated and sinister ‘betrayal’, which often uses secrecy as its veil, hypocrisy often bites because it is flagrantly public; it is exuded through public channels, and knowledge reaches us that way. Inconsistencies and reversals are paraded in disregard of those with whom bonds were formed through the old values now abandoned. Worse still is when the hypocrisy seems fuelled precisely by this form of conquest and deliberately targets those left behind, the victims.

Continue reading ‘Public Hypocrites and Private Anger’

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Writing Privacy

Posts Tagged 'Early Modern'

Karma Chameleon: A Defence of Nigel Smith’s Biography of Andrew Marvell

Agency: Too Much Left Unsaid

After the Fact

Marvell, Glass, and ‘Upon Appleton House’

Privacy and Parliamentary Privilege

The Broken Image

East Midlands Early Modern Colloquium

A Long Winter’s Tale

“Life is a Jigsaw”: Literary Shapes and Private Thoughts

An MP Turning Down a Secret Bribe? Bipolar Privacy

Mr Brightside

Public Hypocrites and Private Anger

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