English Mercuries: Soldier Poets in the Age of Shakespeare

217 Pages·2009·9.165 MB·English

by  Adam N. McKeown

English Mercuries
Soldier Poets
in the Age of Shakespeare
Adam N. McKeown
English Mercuries

English Mercuries
Soldier Poets
i
n the Age of Shakespeare
Adam N. McKeown
Vanderbilt University Press
Nashville
© 2009 by Vanderbilt University Press
Nashville, Tennessee 37235
All rights reserved
First printing 2009
This book is printed on acid-free paper
made from 50% post-consumer recycled content.
Manufactured in the United States of America
Frontispiece: Emblem 13 from H.G. [Henry Goodyere?], The
Mirrour of Maiestie, or The Badges of Honor Conceitedly
Emblazoned (London: 1618). Reproduced with the permission
of Rare Books and Manuscripts, Special Collections Library,
Pennsylvania State University Libraries.
Designed by Dariel Mayer
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
McKeown, Adam (Adam N.)
English mercuries : soldier poets in the age of Shakespeare / Adam
N. McKeown.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
isbn 978-0-8265-1662-6 (cloth : alk. paper)
isbn 978-0-8265-1663-3 (pbk. : alk. paper)
1. English poetry—Early modern, 1500–1700—History
and criticism. 2. War in literature. 3. Soldiers’ writings,
English—History and criticism. 4. Churchyard, Thomas,
1520?–1604—Criticism and interpretation. 5. Donne, John,
1572–1631—Criticism and interpretation. 6. Gascoigne, George,
d. 1577—Criticism and interpretation. 7. Harington, John,
Sir, 1560–1612—Criticism and interpretation. 8. Jonson, Ben,
1573?–1637—Criticism and interpretation. I. Title.
pr535.w3m35 2009
821’.3093581—dc22
2008045732
To the memory of 1st Lt. Brandon R. Dronet
and the marines of Heavy Helicopter Squadron 464,
for whom it will always be Christmas Eve 2005

Contents
List of Illustrations ix
Preface xi
Ecole Lemonier: An Introduction 1
1 English Mercuries 21
2 Men, Money, Iron, and Bread 43
3 Thomas Churchyard’s “Valiant Soldiers”
and the “Public State” 63
4 A Tale of Two Cities: George Gascoigne’s
Antwerp and 83
Alarum for London
5 John Donne’s Emblem of War 102
6 John Harington’s Journey Home 125
7 Remembering Soldiers: Ben Jonson 144
Notes 165
Works Cited 181
Index 195

Illustrations
Figure 1: The door of the Ecole Lemonier, the
schoolhouse aboard Camp Lemonier, a forward
antiterrorism base in Djibouti (2006) 3
Figure 2: First page of , an apocryphal
The English Mercurie
Elizabethan newspaper fabricated by Philip Yorke, second
Earl of Hardwicke, in the eighteenth century 22
Figure 3: Engraving of Adlington Hall, Cheshire,
from Joseph Nash’s
The Mansions of England
(1869–1872) 26
in the Olden Time
Figure 4: Engraving of a fireplace in a gatehouse in
Kenilworth, Warwickshire, from Joseph Nash’s
The
(1869–1872) 27
Mansions of England in the Olden Time
Figure 5: Sketch of the Swan theater by contemporary
observer Johannes de Witt (1596) 29
Figure 6: Nineteenth-century woodcut, after
the lost original, of George Gascoigne with the
motto “Tam Marti quam Mercurio” 33
Figure 7: Engraving of Walter Raleigh with the
motto “Tam Marti quam Mercurio,” by Robert
Vaughn after Simon de Passe (1614) 33
Figure 8: “The Plat for Incamping,” from Thomas
Styward’s (1582) 55
The Pathway to Martial Discipline
Figure 9: Engraving by William Marshall of John
Donne in military garb, dated 1591. Frontispiece
to the 1635 edition of . 103
The Poems
Figure 10: “Ex Bello, pax,” an emblem from Geoffrey
Whitney’s (1586) 109
Choice of Emblems
ix