Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Acknowledgements
- Editorial Principles: Towards the Ecocritical Editing of Renaissance Texts
- Introduction
- PART I Cosmologies
- PART II The Tangled Chain
- PART III Time and Place
- Seasons
- Country Houses
- Gardens
- Pastoral: Pastures, Meadows, Plains, Downs
- Georgic: Fields, Farms
- Forests, Woods, Parks
- Heaths, Moors
- Mountains, Hills, Vales
- Lakes, Rivers, Oceans
- PART IV Interactions
- PART V Environmental Problems in Early Modern England
- PART VI Disaster and Resilience in the Little Ice Age
- Appendix A Industrialization and Environmental Legislation in the Early Anthropocene: A Timeline
- Appendix B Further Reading: A Bibliography of Environmental Scholarship on the English Renaissance
Country Houses
from PART III - Time and Place
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2019
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Acknowledgements
- Editorial Principles: Towards the Ecocritical Editing of Renaissance Texts
- Introduction
- PART I Cosmologies
- PART II The Tangled Chain
- PART III Time and Place
- Seasons
- Country Houses
- Gardens
- Pastoral: Pastures, Meadows, Plains, Downs
- Georgic: Fields, Farms
- Forests, Woods, Parks
- Heaths, Moors
- Mountains, Hills, Vales
- Lakes, Rivers, Oceans
- PART IV Interactions
- PART V Environmental Problems in Early Modern England
- PART VI Disaster and Resilience in the Little Ice Age
- Appendix A Industrialization and Environmental Legislation in the Early Anthropocene: A Timeline
- Appendix B Further Reading: A Bibliography of Environmental Scholarship on the English Renaissance
Summary
In July 1575, the Earl of Leicester hosted one of the most famous royal entertainments of Elizabeth's reign at his Warwickshire estate. In addition to a bear-baiting (see Part iv), he hired the poet George Gascoigne to prepare a series of al fresco interludes. In this scene depicting a wild man kneeling before the queen, Gascoigne performs the subjection of the landscape and its resources to the monarch on her progress through the realm (Montrose, Yoch). Unlike Spenser's “April” eclogue and the other country-house poems in this section, a live open-air performance can be an unpredictable affair. Constant rain cancelled many of the pageants. When the wild man uprooted a sapling as a club and threw it down as a token of submission, it landed near the queen's horse, causing it to buck and bolt. While some found this mishap the best part of the show, the moment also undercuts the text's proclamation of royal authority, revealing the unruly agency of the non-human environment in outdoor performances.
Source: Whole Works (1587), A6v–A7r.
Herewith he fell on his knees and spoke as followeth:
O Queen, I must confess it is not without cause,
These civil people so rejoice that you should give them laws. °
Since I, which live at large, a wild and savage man,
And have run out a wilful race since first my life began,
Do here submit myself, beseeching you to serve,
And that you take in worth my will, which can but well deserve.
Had I the learned skill which in your head is found,
My tale had flowed in eloquence where now my words are drowned.
Had I the beauty's blaze which shines in you so bright,
Then might I seem a Falcon fair, which now am but a Kite.
Could I but touch the strings which you so heav'nly handle
I would confess that fortune then full friendly did me dandle.
O Queen without compare, you must not think it strange,
That here amid this wilderness your glory so doth range;
The winds resound your worth, the rocks record your name.
These hills, these dales, these woods, these waves,
These fields pronounce your fame.
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- Literature and Nature in the English RenaissanceAn Ecocritical Anthology, pp. 217 - 231Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2019