Benn, Lisa Elizabeth
(2025)
Print and performativity: courtly literature during the Union of the Crowns.
PhD thesis, University of Nottingham.
Abstract
Courtly literature remains the subject of much scholarly debate. Anglo-Scottish courtly literature at the turn of the seventeenth century is further complicated by the Union of the Crowns. Scottish writers seeking to achieve or maintain access to the court had to consider removal to England, whilst English writers were required to navigate a new monarchy with quite different cultural expectations. This thesis examines how writers used literature and circulation to achieve or establish position in this changing political landscape.
The fields of book history and seventeenth century literary studies have been enjoying greater academic attention in recent years. This thesis responds to existing scholarship by combining these principles in case studies that establish texts as courtly performances, expanding on Stephen Greenblatt’s model of self-fashioning. These case studies demonstrate the varied types of engagement with print and courtly literary culture, considering both the content and circulation of texts to understand their performativity in a court context. They focus primarily on Scottish writers, albeit with some English inclusions, including James VI, William Alexander, Alexander Montgomerie, Fulke Greville, William Drummond, Robert Allyne, John Burel and Robert Ayton. Each case study consists of textual analysis exploring the shared vocabulary of courtly writing in the period and any (in)consistencies in imagery or trends that illustrate a commonality in courtly performativity. They also establish circulation and readership, through examinations of the textual lives and afterlives of each text, considering how, where, when and by whom each was printed. Each case study develops a broader understanding within the thesis of the text as a performance of Jacobean court culture.
With these studies, this thesis firstly establishes the parameters of courtly literary culture in the years immediately preceding and following the Union of the Crowns by defining courtliness by proximity and access to the monarch. Consequently, the thesis demonstrates layers of courtly performativity: firstly, that of the monarch; secondly, courtiers; and thirdly, writers seeking courtly patronage. The thesis secondly studies how texts can either perform the existing courtliness of their writers, or perform the writer’s capacity for position or patronage. It establishes how the monarch disseminated literature in print as a performance of monarchical authority. It also establishes traditions of addressing the court or, more specifically, the monarch, considering both the genre and the content of circulated texts to understand how writers sought monarchical or courtly advancement or patronage. It addresses the content of advice-to-princes material and occasional verse, alongside the circulation and audience, to understand how writers exhibited their capability to act in a courtly context in the content of their texts. Furthermore, book history demonstrates how writers engaged with print culture, or not, to undertake such performances, and how this choice was impacted by courtly access. In turn, this thesis examines the impact of print on writers and texts in their lives and afterlives. It particularly considers whether, by circulating in print, texts could lose their performativity with a readership beyond the court.
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