Alexander’s failure to draw is illustrative of the depiction of visual representations in many early modern English plays; the unsuccessful process of image-making is on display at least as much as is the image itself, which remains notably incomplete. In early modern England, ‘display’ could mean to ‘unfold’ or ‘expose to view’, but from the late sixteenth century this term also indicated verbal revelation
distinct from the senses in which sixteenth- and seventeenthcentury English people used those terms, as well as from the senses in which the word might be understood in the present. The situation is further complicated by the variety of different understandings of what defined witchcraft in early modern England. Accusations of witchcraft tended to focus on the issue of maleficium – the harm it caused – while theoretical writings on witchcraft were usually more interested in the witches’ supposed pact with the devil. Magical power might be conceived of as inherent in the
decades of intermittent prosecution before decriminalisation, the debates that followed in the decade or so after, and to recognise the continued enactment of popular justice against suspected witches.1 Several collections of essays with an early modern focus have conscientiously included contributions concerning the continued belief in witchcraft and magic.2 Ronald Hutton, an eminent historian of early modern England has, in recent publications concerning paganism, contemporary witchcraft and shamanism, shown how skilled historians can apply their craft and range of
and beyond it. Notes 1 Peter Lake, ‘Anti-popery: the structure of a prejudice’, in Richard Cust and Ann Hughes (eds), Conflict in early Stuart England (New York, 1989), pp. 72–106; Anthony Milton, Catholic and reformed: the Roman and Protestant churches in English Protestant thought, 1600–1640 (Cambridge, 1995), esp. chs 3–5. 2 Alexandra Walsham, Providence in early modern England (Oxford, 1999), pp. 243
syluarum: or A naturall historie (1627), F1r. 7 William Rawley’s preface to the volume explains that, ‘true Axiomes must be drawne from plaine Experience, and not from doubtfull; And his Lordships course is, to make Wonders Plaine’. Bacon, A2r. 8 Bacon, F4r–v. 9 Christopher Marsh considers Bacon’s remarks in the context of earlier music theory, in Music and Society in Early Modern England (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), p. 40. 10 In addition to the examples considered below, see Anon., Costlie Whore, C3v; Michael East, The fourth set of bookes
Patricia Crawford, Women in early modern England, 1550–1720 (Oxford, 2000). But, somewhat contrary to gender norms, London’s women were actively engaged in social life and commerce, for which see Eleanor Hubbard, City women: money, sex, and the social order in early modern London (Oxford, 2012); Tim Reinke-Williams, Women, work and sociability in early modern London (New York, 2014). 7 Alex Gillespie, ‘Social representations, alternative representations and semantic
. Cultural production in early modern England is extensively shaped by the period’s theologically informed concepts of social hierarchy. The concept of representation is founded on the hierarchical relationship between man and God, since creativity is divine, but representation is an imitation of the divine; as Barbara Johnson points out, ‘human language in no way resembles the creative word’. 97 The act of
–45. 54 I regret that in focusing on Clifford I contribute to critical overemphasis on elite examples of female patronage of the visual arts in early modern England. More research is needed on early modern English women patrons below the level of the elite; see Tittler, Portraits, Painters, and Publics , pp. 54
: Sinners and Witches in Puritan New England (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1999 [1997]); Deborah Willis, Malevolent Nurture: Witch-Hunting and Maternal Power in Early Modern England (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1995). 7 One of only a few exceptions is the excellent article by Eva Labouvie, ‘Männer im
Philosophy of Francis Bacon (Chicago, Chicago University Press, 1966), p. 131. 2 Francis Bacon, The Masculine Birth of Time, in Farrington (ed.), The Philosophy, p. 62. 3 Ibid. p. 70. 4 Francis Bacon, Novum Organum, aphorisms I and III, in The Works of Francis Bacon, ed. James Spedding, Robert Leslie Ellis and Douglas Denon Heath, 14 volumes (London, Longman, 1857–74), vol. IV, p. 47. 5 For example, Mark Breitenberg, Anxious Masculinity in Early Modern England (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1996), pp. 69–96; Carolyn Merchant, The Death of Nature: Women, Ecology