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"Opening Fire" Long Sleeve T-shirt

From power trip.

Black Gildan Ultra Cotton Brand long sleeve t-shirt. 3-color silkscreen on front, 2-color silkscreen on right sleeve, 1-color silkscreen on left sleeve. Includes unlimited streaming of Opening Fire: 2008-2014 via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

More merch from POWER TRIP

Opening Fire: 2008-2014 – Limited Edition Coke Bottle Vinyl

Opening Fire: 2008-2014 – Limited Edition Mustard Yellow Vinyl

Opening Fire: 2008-2014 – Compact Disc

Hornet's Nest (Single) – Limited Edition Picture Flexi 7"

V/A "It Came From the Abyss" Vol. 1 compilation LP (feat. Power Trip, more)

"Opening Fire" Short Sleeve T-Shirt

"Hornet's Nest" Short Sleeve T-Shirt

"Opening Fire: 2008-2014" Limited Edition Skate Deck

Opening Fire: 2008-2014 – Opening Fire: 2008-2014 LP (ICE BLUE Vinyl)

Opening Fire: 2008-2014 – Opening Fire: 2008-2014 LP (PURPLE VEIN Vinyl)

Opening Fire: 2008-2014 – Limited Edition Purple Rain Vinyl LP

Opening Fire: 2008-2014 – POWER TRIP "Opening Fire: 2008-2014" LP (CLEAR Vinyl)

Opening Fire: 2008-2014 – POWER TRIP "Opening Fire: 2008-2014" LP (GOLD Vinyl)

Opening Fire: 2008-2014 – Opening Fire: 2008-2014 LP (TEST PRESS Vinyl)

"Split" – Limited Edition Red Vinyl 12" (Split with Integrity)

"Split" – POWER TRIP & INTEGRITY "Split" LP - limited edition CLEAR vinyl

"Split" – POWER TRIP & INTEGRITY "Split" CD (out of print)

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Things to do at NU: May 8 to 14

• Student Experience

We hope you’re finding some time in the last few weeks of the quarter to get outside and get social (and maybe even take a trip downtown)! Here are a few chances to do just that.

Have an art party

Artica’s largest annual event, PARTica, offers free art activities, including tie-dying, canvas painting, paper flower making and more! Attendees are welcome to bring their own shirts to tie-dye, and bandanas will be available.

The event starts at 11 a.m. on Thursday, May 9, on the Norris South Lawn, 1999 Campus Drive, Evanston.

Northwestern at the Art Institute

Faculty, staff, students and their guests can enjoy free admission to the Art Institute of Chicago on Thursday. Visitors can present their Wildcard at the Northwestern welcome desk at the Michigan Avenue entrance to receive their tickets.

The event begins at 2 p.m. on Thursday, May 9, at the Art Institute of Chicago, 111 S. Michigan Ave., Chicago. No RSVP required. More information here .

Spring serenade

The Alice Millar Chapel Choir and Baroque Music Ensemble come together to perform two cantatas by Johann Sebastian Bach for the Alice Millar Spring Festival Concert.

The concert is at 7 p.m. on Saturday, May 11, in Alice Millar Chapel, 1870 Sheridan Road, Evanston. Admission is free.

Lake Show begins tournament play

Northwestern lacrosse has earned their second consecutive No. 1 overall seed in the NCAA Tournament and will host the winner of Denver and Stanford in a second-round matchup Sunday, May 12, at Martin Stadium.

The second-round game is at 1 p.m. Get tickets now via NUsports.com .

The power of housing

Join the Northwestern Prison Education Program for a panel on how access to stable housing can break the cycle of recidivism, promote rehabilitation and empower individuals. Panel includes members of the Illinois Justice Project, Northwestern Prison Education Program Justice Fellow Javier Reyes and Northwestern professor Mary Pattillo.

The panel is at 6 p.m. on Monday, May 13, in Strawn Hall, 375 E. Chicago Ave., Chicago.

Share your story

One Book One Northwestern welcomes students, faculty and students, as well as members of the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute, to the annual intergenerational storytelling event, a unique opportunity for senior adults and young adults to share their stories.

The event starts at 5 p.m. on Tuesday, May 14, in Room 208, Deering Library, 1937 Sheridan Road, Evanston. Register here .

Editor’s Picks

Redevelopment of Norris University Center’s East Lawn to begin this summer

‘the night watchman’ named next one book selection, six northwestern faculty named 2024 guggenheim fellows, related stories.

Things to do at NU: May 1 to 7

The waa-mu show will take you away, things to do at nu: april 24 to 30.

Russia's Nuclear Deterrent Command Center Imperiled by Winter Freeze—Report

A Russian nuclear deterrent command center in Moscow has been imperiled by power outages that have impacted more than one-quarter of the region's cities amid freezing temperatures, a Russian Telegram channel has reported.

The VChK-OGPU outlet, which purports to have inside information from Russian security forces, reported that the 820th Main Center for Missile Attack Warnings—part of the Russian Space Forces, a branch of the country's Aerospace Forces—near Solnechnogorsk in Moscow is without power.

It serves as the space forces early warning network against potential ballistic missile attacks.

The development comes as Russians are reported to be suffering from power outages in their homes in the Moscow region caused by technical issues at plants amid subzero temperatures.

On January 4, a heating main burst at the Klimovsk Specialized Ammunition Plant in the town of Podolsk, which is about 30 miles south of central Moscow. Since then, tens of thousands of Russians are reported to have no heating in their homes.

Affected areas include the cities of Khimki, Balashikha, Lobnya, Lyubertsy, Podolsk, Chekhov and Naro-Fominsk, a map published by a Russian Telegram channel and shared on other social media sites shows.

Other Russian media outlets reported that in Moscow, residents of Balashikha, Elektrostal, Solnechnogorsk, Dmitrov, Domodedovo, Troitsk, Taldom, Orekhovo-Zuyevo, Krasnogorsk, Pushkino, Ramenskoye, Voskresensk, Losino-Petrovsky and Selyatino are also without power.

The Telegram channel said that at the 820th Main Center for Missile Attack Warnings, "the crew...is on duty around the clock."

"It is here that the decision on a retaliatory nuclear strike is executed," the channel said.

Newsweek could not independently verify the report and has reached out to the Russian Defense Ministry by email for comment.

Power outages have also been reported in Russia's second-largest city, St. Petersburg, in the country's western Voronezh region, in the southwest city of Volgograd, and in Rostov, which borders Ukraine, a country that Russia has been at war with since February 24, 2022.

On Sunday, two shopping malls in St. Petersburg were forced to close because of problems with light and heating, reported local news outlet 78.ru. Hundreds of other homes in the city have had no electricity, water or heating for days amid temperatures of -25 C (-13 F).

Russian authorities have also been forced to compensate passengers of a train that ran from Samara to St. Petersburg (a 20-hour journey) without heating during -30 C (-22 F) temperatures. Videos circulating on social media showed carriage windows frozen over. A passenger also said the toilet didn't work during the trip because of frozen pipes.

Do you have a tip on a world news story that Newsweek should be covering? Do you have a question about the Russia-Ukraine war? Let us know via [email protected].

Related Articles

• Russia Maps Show 25% of Moscow Without Power Amid Winter Freeze 'Emergency'
• Serbian Mercenary Turns on Russian Leaders: 'They Treat Us Like Cattle'
• Winter Freeze Threats Come Back To Bite Russia As Power Outages Spread

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40 Facts About Elektrostal

Written by Lanette Mayes

Modified & Updated: 02 Mar 2024

Reviewed by Jessica Corbett

Elektrostal is a vibrant city located in the Moscow Oblast region of Russia. With a rich history, stunning architecture, and a thriving community, Elektrostal is a city that has much to offer. Whether you are a history buff, nature enthusiast, or simply curious about different cultures, Elektrostal is sure to captivate you.

This article will provide you with 40 fascinating facts about Elektrostal, giving you a better understanding of why this city is worth exploring. From its origins as an industrial hub to its modern-day charm, we will delve into the various aspects that make Elektrostal a unique and must-visit destination.

So, join us as we uncover the hidden treasures of Elektrostal and discover what makes this city a true gem in the heart of Russia.

Key Takeaways:

• Elektrostal, known as the “Motor City of Russia,” is a vibrant and growing city with a rich industrial history, offering diverse cultural experiences and a strong commitment to environmental sustainability.
• With its convenient location near Moscow, Elektrostal provides a picturesque landscape, vibrant nightlife, and a range of recreational activities, making it an ideal destination for residents and visitors alike.

Known as the “Motor City of Russia.”

Elektrostal, a city located in the Moscow Oblast region of Russia, earned the nickname “Motor City” due to its significant involvement in the automotive industry.

Home to the Elektrostal Metallurgical Plant.

Elektrostal is renowned for its metallurgical plant, which has been producing high-quality steel and alloys since its establishment in 1916.

Boasts a rich industrial heritage.

Elektrostal has a long history of industrial development, contributing to the growth and progress of the region.

Founded in 1916.

The city of Elektrostal was founded in 1916 as a result of the construction of the Elektrostal Metallurgical Plant.

Located approximately 50 kilometers east of Moscow.

Elektrostal is situated in close proximity to the Russian capital, making it easily accessible for both residents and visitors.

Known for its vibrant cultural scene.

Elektrostal is home to several cultural institutions, including museums, theaters, and art galleries that showcase the city’s rich artistic heritage.

A popular destination for nature lovers.

Surrounded by picturesque landscapes and forests, Elektrostal offers ample opportunities for outdoor activities such as hiking, camping, and birdwatching.

Hosts the annual Elektrostal City Day celebrations.

Every year, Elektrostal organizes festive events and activities to celebrate its founding, bringing together residents and visitors in a spirit of unity and joy.

Has a population of approximately 160,000 people.

Elektrostal is home to a diverse and vibrant community of around 160,000 residents, contributing to its dynamic atmosphere.

Boasts excellent education facilities.

The city is known for its well-established educational institutions, providing quality education to students of all ages.

A center for scientific research and innovation.

Elektrostal serves as an important hub for scientific research, particularly in the fields of metallurgy, materials science, and engineering.

Surrounded by picturesque lakes.

The city is blessed with numerous beautiful lakes, offering scenic views and recreational opportunities for locals and visitors alike.

Well-connected transportation system.

Elektrostal benefits from an efficient transportation network, including highways, railways, and public transportation options, ensuring convenient travel within and beyond the city.

Famous for its traditional Russian cuisine.

Food enthusiasts can indulge in authentic Russian dishes at numerous restaurants and cafes scattered throughout Elektrostal.

Home to notable architectural landmarks.

Elektrostal boasts impressive architecture, including the Church of the Transfiguration of the Lord and the Elektrostal Palace of Culture.

Offers a wide range of recreational facilities.

Residents and visitors can enjoy various recreational activities, such as sports complexes, swimming pools, and fitness centers, enhancing the overall quality of life.

Provides a high standard of healthcare.

Elektrostal is equipped with modern medical facilities, ensuring residents have access to quality healthcare services.

Home to the Elektrostal History Museum.

The Elektrostal History Museum showcases the city’s fascinating past through exhibitions and displays.

A hub for sports enthusiasts.

Elektrostal is passionate about sports, with numerous stadiums, arenas, and sports clubs offering opportunities for athletes and spectators.

Celebrates diverse cultural festivals.

Throughout the year, Elektrostal hosts a variety of cultural festivals, celebrating different ethnicities, traditions, and art forms.

Electric power played a significant role in its early development.

Elektrostal owes its name and initial growth to the establishment of electric power stations and the utilization of electricity in the industrial sector.

Boasts a thriving economy.

The city’s strong industrial base, coupled with its strategic location near Moscow, has contributed to Elektrostal’s prosperous economic status.

Houses the Elektrostal Drama Theater.

The Elektrostal Drama Theater is a cultural centerpiece, attracting theater enthusiasts from far and wide.

Popular destination for winter sports.

Elektrostal’s proximity to ski resorts and winter sport facilities makes it a favorite destination for skiing, snowboarding, and other winter activities.

Promotes environmental sustainability.

Elektrostal prioritizes environmental protection and sustainability, implementing initiatives to reduce pollution and preserve natural resources.

Home to renowned educational institutions.

Elektrostal is known for its prestigious schools and universities, offering a wide range of academic programs to students.

Committed to cultural preservation.

The city values its cultural heritage and takes active steps to preserve and promote traditional customs, crafts, and arts.

Hosts an annual International Film Festival.

The Elektrostal International Film Festival attracts filmmakers and cinema enthusiasts from around the world, showcasing a diverse range of films.

Encourages entrepreneurship and innovation.

Elektrostal supports aspiring entrepreneurs and fosters a culture of innovation, providing opportunities for startups and business development.

Offers a range of housing options.

Elektrostal provides diverse housing options, including apartments, houses, and residential complexes, catering to different lifestyles and budgets.

Home to notable sports teams.

Elektrostal is proud of its sports legacy, with several successful sports teams competing at regional and national levels.

Boasts a vibrant nightlife scene.

Residents and visitors can enjoy a lively nightlife in Elektrostal, with numerous bars, clubs, and entertainment venues.

Promotes cultural exchange and international relations.

Elektrostal actively engages in international partnerships, cultural exchanges, and diplomatic collaborations to foster global connections.

Surrounded by beautiful nature reserves.

Nearby nature reserves, such as the Barybino Forest and Luchinskoye Lake, offer opportunities for nature enthusiasts to explore and appreciate the region’s biodiversity.

Commemorates historical events.

The city pays tribute to significant historical events through memorials, monuments, and exhibitions, ensuring the preservation of collective memory.

Promotes sports and youth development.

Elektrostal invests in sports infrastructure and programs to encourage youth participation, health, and physical fitness.

Hosts annual cultural and artistic festivals.

Throughout the year, Elektrostal celebrates its cultural diversity through festivals dedicated to music, dance, art, and theater.

Provides a picturesque landscape for photography enthusiasts.

The city’s scenic beauty, architectural landmarks, and natural surroundings make it a paradise for photographers.

Connects to Moscow via a direct train line.

The convenient train connection between Elektrostal and Moscow makes commuting between the two cities effortless.

A city with a bright future.

Elektrostal continues to grow and develop, aiming to become a model city in terms of infrastructure, sustainability, and quality of life for its residents.

In conclusion, Elektrostal is a fascinating city with a rich history and a vibrant present. From its origins as a center of steel production to its modern-day status as a hub for education and industry, Elektrostal has plenty to offer both residents and visitors. With its beautiful parks, cultural attractions, and proximity to Moscow, there is no shortage of things to see and do in this dynamic city. Whether you’re interested in exploring its historical landmarks, enjoying outdoor activities, or immersing yourself in the local culture, Elektrostal has something for everyone. So, next time you find yourself in the Moscow region, don’t miss the opportunity to discover the hidden gems of Elektrostal.

Q: What is the population of Elektrostal?

A: As of the latest data, the population of Elektrostal is approximately XXXX.

Q: How far is Elektrostal from Moscow?

A: Elektrostal is located approximately XX kilometers away from Moscow.

Q: Are there any famous landmarks in Elektrostal?

A: Yes, Elektrostal is home to several notable landmarks, including XXXX and XXXX.

Q: What industries are prominent in Elektrostal?

A: Elektrostal is known for its steel production industry and is also a center for engineering and manufacturing.

Q: Are there any universities or educational institutions in Elektrostal?

A: Yes, Elektrostal is home to XXXX University and several other educational institutions.

Q: What are some popular outdoor activities in Elektrostal?

A: Elektrostal offers several outdoor activities, such as hiking, cycling, and picnicking in its beautiful parks.

Q: Is Elektrostal well-connected in terms of transportation?

A: Yes, Elektrostal has good transportation links, including trains and buses, making it easily accessible from nearby cities.

Q: Are there any annual events or festivals in Elektrostal?

A: Yes, Elektrostal hosts various events and festivals throughout the year, including XXXX and XXXX.

Elektrostal's fascinating history, vibrant culture, and promising future make it a city worth exploring. For more captivating facts about cities around the world, discover the unique characteristics that define each city . Uncover the hidden gems of Moscow Oblast through our in-depth look at Kolomna. Lastly, dive into the rich industrial heritage of Teesside, a thriving industrial center with its own story to tell.

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an essay on english renaissance

Renaissance love poetry.

English renaissance.

The English Renaissance was a cultural and artistic movement in England dating from the late 15th to the early 17th century. It is associated with the pan-European Renaissance that is usually regarded as beginning in Italy in the late 14th century. Like most of northern Europe, England saw little of these developments until more than a century later. The beginning of the English Renaissance is often taken, as a convenience, to be 1485, when the Battle of Bosworth Field ended the Wars of the Roses and inaugurated the Tudor Dynasty. Renaissance style and ideas, however, were slow to penetrate England, and the Elizabethan era in the second half of the 16th century is usually regarded as the height of the English Renaissance.

Queen Elizabeth I standing on a map of England

The English Renaissance is different from the Italian Renaissance in several ways. The dominant art forms of the English Renaissance were literature and music. Visual arts in the English Renaissance were much less significant than in the Italian Renaissance. The English period began far later than the Italian, which is usually considered to begin in the late 14th century, and was moving into Mannerism and the Baroque by the 1550s or earlier. In contrast, the English Renaissance can only be said to begin, shakily, in the 1520s, and continued until perhaps 1620.

England had a strong tradition of literature in the English vernacular, which gradually increased as English use of the printing press became common by the mid 16th century. By the time of Elizabethan literature a vigorous literary culture in both drama and poetry included poets such as Edmund Spenser, whose verse epic The Faerie Queene had a strong influence on English literature but was eventually overshadowed by the lyrics of William Shakespeare, Thomas Wyatt and others. Typically, the works of these playwrights and poets circulated in manuscript form for some time before they were published, and above all the plays of English Renaissance theatre were the outstanding legacy of the period.

The English theatre scene, which performed both for the court and nobility in private performances, and a very wide public in the theatres, was the most crowded in Europe, with a host of other playwrights as well as the giant figures of Christopher Marlowe, Shakespeare and Ben Jonson. Elizabeth herself was a product of Renaissance humanism trained by Roger Ascham, and wrote occasional poems such as On Monsieur’s Departure at critical moments of her life. Philosophers and intellectuals included Thomas More and Francis Bacon. All the 16th century Tudor monarchs were highly educated, as was much of the nobility, and Italian literature had a considerable following, providing the sources for many of Shakespeare’s plays. English thought advanced towards modern science with the Baconian Method, a forerunner of the Scientific Method. The language of the Book of Common Prayer , first published in 1549, and at the end of the period the Authorised Version (“King James Version” to Americans) of the Bible (1611) had enduring impacts on the English consciousness.

Criticism of the idea of the English Renaissance

Edward Herbert, 1st Baron Herbert of Cherbury, circa 1610-14

The notion of calling this period “The Renaissance” is a modern invention, having been popularized by the historian Jacob Burckhardt in the 19th century. The idea of the Renaissance has come under increased criticism by many cultural historians, and some have contended that the “English Renaissance” has no real tie with the artistic achievements and aims of the Italian artists (Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Donatello) who are closely identified with Renaissance visual art. Whereas from the perspective of literary history, England had already experienced a flourishing of literature over 200 years before the time of Shakespeare, during the last decades of the fourteenth century. Geoffrey Chaucer’s popularizing of English as a medium of literary composition rather than Latin occurred only 50 years after Dante had started using Italian for serious poetry, and Chaucer translated works by both Boccaccio and Petrarch into Middle English. At the same time William Langland, author of Piers Plowman , and John Gower were also writing in English. In the fifteenth century, Thomas Malory, author of Le Morte D’Arthur , was a notable figure. For this reason, scholars find the singularity of the period called the English Renaissance questionable; C. S. Lewis, a professor of Medieval and Renaissance literature at Oxford and Cambridge, famously remarked to a colleague that he had “discovered” that there was no English Renaissance, and that if there had been one, it had “no effect whatsoever.”

Historians have also begun to consider the word “Renaissance” as an unnecessarily loaded word that implies an unambiguously positive “rebirth” from the supposedly more primitive Middle Ages. Some historians have asked the question “a renaissance for whom?,” pointing out, for example, that the status of women in society arguably declined during the Renaissance. Many historians and cultural historians now prefer to use the term “early modern” for this period, a term that highlights the period as a transitional one that led to the modern world, but attempts to avoid positive or negative connotations.

Other cultural historians have countered that, regardless of whether the name “renaissance” is apt, there was undeniably an artistic flowering in England under the Tudor monarchs, culminating in Shakespeare and his contemporaries.

Major English Renaissance authors

The major literary figures in the English Renaissance include:

• Francis Bacon
• Francis Beaumont
• George Chapman
• Thomas Dekker
• John Fletcher
• Christopher Marlowe
• Philip Massinger
• Thomas Middleton
• Thomas More
• Thomas Nashe
• William Rowley
• William Shakespeare
• James Shirley
• Philip Sidney
• Edmund Spenser
• John Webster
• Thomas Wyatt
• William Tyndale
• English Renaissance. Provided by : Wikipedia. Located at : https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=English_Renaissance . License : CC BY-SA: Attribution-ShareAlike
• Image of Queen Elizabeth I. Authored by : Marcus Gheeraerts the Younger. Located at : https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Queen_Elizabeth_I_(%27The_Ditchley_portrait%27)_by_Marcus_Gheeraerts_the_Younger.jpg . License : Public Domain: No Known Copyright
• Image of Edward Herbert. Authored by : Isaac Oliver. Located at : https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Edward_Herbert_1st_Baron_Herbert_of_Cherbury_by_Isaac_Oliver.jpg . License : Public Domain: No Known Copyright

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Renaissance

By: History.com Editors

Updated: August 11, 2023 | Original: April 4, 2018

The Renaissance was a fervent period of European cultural, artistic, political and economic “rebirth” following the Middle Ages. Generally described as taking place from the 14th century to the 17th century, the Renaissance promoted the rediscovery of classical philosophy, literature and art.

Some of the greatest thinkers, authors, statesmen, scientists and artists in human history thrived during this era, while global exploration opened up new lands and cultures to European commerce. The Renaissance is credited with bridging the gap between the Middle Ages and modern-day civilization.

From Darkness to Light: The Renaissance Begins

During the Middle Ages , a period that took place between the fall of ancient Rome in 476 A.D. and the beginning of the 14th century, Europeans made few advances in science and art.

Also known as the “Dark Ages,” the era is often branded as a time of war, ignorance, famine and pandemics such as the Black Death .

Some historians, however, believe that such grim depictions of the Middle Ages were greatly exaggerated, though many agree that there was relatively little regard for ancient Greek and Roman philosophies and learning at the time.

During the 14th century, a cultural movement called humanism began to gain momentum in Italy. Among its many principles, humanism promoted the idea that man was the center of his own universe, and people should embrace human achievements in education, classical arts, literature and science.

In 1450, the invention of the Gutenberg printing press allowed for improved communication throughout Europe and for ideas to spread more quickly.

As a result of this advance in communication, little-known texts from early humanist authors such as those by Francesco Petrarch and Giovanni Boccaccio, which promoted the renewal of traditional Greek and Roman culture and values, were printed and distributed to the masses.

Additionally, many scholars believe advances in international finance and trade impacted culture in Europe and set the stage for the Renaissance.

Medici Family

The Renaissance started in Florence, Italy, a place with a rich cultural history where wealthy citizens could afford to support budding artists.

Members of the powerful Medici family , which ruled Florence for more than 60 years, were famous backers of the movement.

Great Italian writers, artists, politicians and others declared that they were participating in an intellectual and artistic revolution that would be much different from what they experienced during the Dark Ages.

The movement first expanded to other Italian city-states, such as Venice, Milan, Bologna, Ferrara and Rome. Then, during the 15th century, Renaissance ideas spread from Italy to France and then throughout western and northern Europe.

Although other European countries experienced their Renaissance later than Italy, the impacts were still revolutionary.

Renaissance Geniuses

Some of the most famous and groundbreaking Renaissance intellectuals, artists, scientists and writers include the likes of:

• Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519): Italian painter, architect, inventor and “Renaissance man” responsible for painting “The Mona Lisa” and “The Last Supper.
• Desiderius Erasmus (1466–1536): Scholar from Holland who defined the humanist movement in Northern Europe. Translator of the New Testament into Greek. 
• Rene Descartes (1596–1650): French philosopher and mathematician regarded as the father of modern philosophy. Famous for stating, “I think; therefore I am.”
• Galileo (1564-1642): Italian astronomer, physicist and engineer whose pioneering work with telescopes enabled him to describes the moons of Jupiter and rings of Saturn. Placed under house arrest for his views of a heliocentric universe.
• Nicolaus Copernicus (1473–1543): Mathematician and astronomer who made first modern scientific argument for the concept of a heliocentric solar system.
• Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679): English philosopher and author of “Leviathan.”
• Geoffrey Chaucer (1343–1400): English poet and author of “The Canterbury Tales.”
• Giotto (1266-1337): Italian painter and architect whose more realistic depictions of human emotions influenced generations of artists. Best known for his frescoes in the Scrovegni Chapel in Padua.
• Dante (1265–1321): Italian philosopher, poet, writer and political thinker who authored “The Divine Comedy.”
• Niccolo Machiavelli (1469–1527): Italian diplomat and philosopher famous for writing “The Prince” and “The Discourses on Livy.”
• Titian (1488–1576): Italian painter celebrated for his portraits of Pope Paul III and Charles I and his later religious and mythical paintings like “Venus and Adonis” and "Metamorphoses."
• William Tyndale (1494–1536): English biblical translator, humanist and scholar burned at the stake for translating the Bible into English.
• William Byrd (1539/40–1623): English composer known for his development of the English madrigal and his religious organ music.
• John Milton (1608–1674): English poet and historian who wrote the epic poem “Paradise Lost.”
• William Shakespeare (1564–1616): England’s “national poet” and the most famous playwright of all time, celebrated for his sonnets and plays like “Romeo and Juliet."
• Donatello (1386–1466): Italian sculptor celebrated for lifelike sculptures like “David,” commissioned by the Medici family.
• Sandro Botticelli (1445–1510): Italian painter of “Birth of Venus.”
• Raphael (1483–1520): Italian painter who learned from da Vinci and Michelangelo. Best known for his paintings of the Madonna and “The School of Athens.”
• Michelangelo (1475–1564): Italian sculptor, painter and architect who carved “David” and painted The Sistine Chapel in Rome.

Renaissance Impact on Art, Architecture and Science

Art, architecture and science were closely linked during the Renaissance. In fact, it was a unique time when these fields of study fused together seamlessly.

For instance, artists like da Vinci incorporated scientific principles, such as anatomy into their work, so they could recreate the human body with extraordinary precision.

Architects such as Filippo Brunelleschi studied mathematics to accurately engineer and design immense buildings with expansive domes.

Scientific discoveries led to major shifts in thinking: Galileo and Descartes presented a new view of astronomy and mathematics, while Copernicus proposed that the Sun, not the Earth, was the center of the solar system.

Renaissance art was characterized by realism and naturalism. Artists strived to depict people and objects in a true-to-life way.

They used techniques, such as perspective, shadows and light to add depth to their work. Emotion was another quality that artists tried to infuse into their pieces.

Some of the most famous artistic works that were produced during the Renaissance include:

• The Mona Lisa (Da Vinci)
• The Last Supper (Da Vinci)
• Statue of David (Michelangelo)
• The Birth of Venus (Botticelli)
• The Creation of Adam (Michelangelo)

Renaissance Exploration

While many artists and thinkers used their talents to express new ideas, some Europeans took to the seas to learn more about the world around them. In a period known as the Age of Discovery, several important explorations were made.

Voyagers launched expeditions to travel the entire globe. They discovered new shipping routes to the Americas, India and the Far East and explorers trekked across areas that weren’t fully mapped.

Famous journeys were taken by Ferdinand Magellan , Christopher Columbus , Amerigo Vespucci (after whom America is named), Marco Polo , Ponce de Leon , Vasco Núñez de Balboa , Hernando De Soto and other explorers.

Renaissance Religion

Humanism encouraged Europeans to question the role of the Roman Catholic church during the Renaissance.

As more people learned how to read, write and interpret ideas, they began to closely examine and critique religion as they knew it. Also, the printing press allowed for texts, including the Bible, to be easily reproduced and widely read by the people, themselves, for the first time.

In the 16th century, Martin Luther , a German monk, led the Protestant Reformation – a revolutionary movement that caused a split in the Catholic church. Luther questioned many of the practices of the church and whether they aligned with the teachings of the Bible.

As a result, a new form of Christianity , known as Protestantism, was created.

End of the Renaissance

Scholars believe the demise of the Renaissance was the result of several compounding factors.

By the end of the 15th century, numerous wars had plagued the Italian peninsula. Spanish, French and German invaders battling for Italian territories caused disruption and instability in the region.

Also, changing trade routes led to a period of economic decline and limited the amount of money that wealthy contributors could spend on the arts.

Later, in a movement known as the Counter-Reformation, the Catholic church censored artists and writers in response to the Protestant Reformation. Many Renaissance thinkers feared being too bold, which stifled creativity.

Furthermore, in 1545, the Council of Trent established the Roman Inquisition , which made humanism and any views that challenged the Catholic church an act of heresy punishable by death.

By the early 17th century, the Renaissance movement had died out, giving way to the Age of Enlightenment .

Debate Over the Renaissance

While many scholars view the Renaissance as a unique and exciting time in European history, others argue that the period wasn’t much different from the Middle Ages and that both eras overlapped more than traditional accounts suggest.

Also, some modern historians believe that the Middle Ages had a cultural identity that’s been downplayed throughout history and overshadowed by the Renaissance era.

While the exact timing and overall impact of the Renaissance is sometimes debated, there’s little dispute that the events of the period ultimately led to advances that changed the way people understood and interpreted the world around them.

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The Renaissance, History World International . The Renaissance – Why it Changed the World, The Telegraph . Facts About the Renaissance, Biography Online . Facts About the Renaissance Period, Interestingfacts.org . What is Humanism? International Humanist and Ethical Union . Why Did the Italian Renaissance End? Dailyhistory.org . The Myth of the Renaissance in Europe, BBC .

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A Beginner's Guide to the Renaissance

What was the renaissance.

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The Renaissance was a cultural and scholarly movement which stressed the rediscovery and application of texts and thought from classical antiquity, occurring in Europe c. 1400 – c. 1600. The Renaissance can also refer to the period of European history spanning roughly the same dates. It's increasingly important to stress that the Renaissance had a long history of developments that included the twelfth-century renaissance and more.

There remains debate about what exactly constituted the Renaissance. Essentially, it was a cultural and intellectual movement, intimately tied to society and politics, of the late 14th to early 17th centuries, although it is commonly restricted to just the 15th and 16th centuries. It is considered to have originated in Italy. Traditionally people have claimed it was stimulated, in part, by Petrarch, who had a passion for rediscovering lost manuscripts and a fierce belief in the civilizing power of ancient thought and in part by conditions in Florence.

At its core, the Renaissance was a movement dedicated to the rediscovery and use of classical learning, that is to say, knowledge and attitudes from the Ancient Greek and Roman eras. Renaissance literally means ‘rebirth’, and Renaissance thinkers believed the period between themselves and the fall of Rome, which they labeled the Middle Ages , had seen a decline in cultural achievement compared with the earlier eras. Participants intended, through the study of classical texts, textual criticism, and classical techniques, to both reintroduce the heights of those ancient days and improve the situation of their contemporaries. Some of these classical texts survived only amongst Islamic scholars and were brought back to Europe at this time.

The Renaissance Period

“Renaissance” can also refer to the period, c. 1400 – c. 1600. “ High Renaissance ” generally refers to c. 1480 – c. 1520. The era was dynamic, with European explorers “finding” new continents, the transformation of trading methods and patterns, the decline of feudalism (in so far as it ever existed), scientific developments such as the Copernican system of the cosmos and the rise of gunpowder. Many of these changes were triggered, in part, by the Renaissance, such as classical mathematics stimulating new financial trading mechanisms, or new techniques from the east boosting ocean navigation. The printing press was also developed, allowing Renaissance texts to be disseminated widely (in actual fact this print was an enabling factor rather than a result).

Why Was This Renaissance Different?

Classical culture had never totally vanished from Europe, and it experienced sporadic rebirths. There was the Carolingian Renaissance in the eighth to ninth centuries and a major one in the “Twelfth Century Renaissance”, which saw Greek science and philosophy returned to European consciousness and the development of a new way of thinking which mixed science and logic called Scholasticism. What was different in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries was that this particular rebirth joined together both the elements of scholarly inquiry and cultural endeavor with social and political motivations to create a much broader movement, albeit one with a long history.

The Society and Politics Behind the Renaissance

Across the fourteenth century , and perhaps before, the old social and political structures of the medieval period broke down, allowing new concepts to rise. A new elite emerged, with new models of thought and ideas to justify themselves; what they found in classical antiquity was something to use both as a prop and a tool for their aggrandizement. Exiting elites matched them to keep pace, as did the Catholic Church. Italy, from which the Renaissance evolved, was a series of city-states, each competing with the others for civic pride, trade, and wealth. They were largely autonomous, with a high proportion of merchants and artisans thanks to the Mediterranean trade routes.

At the very top of Italian society, the rulers of the key courts in Italy were all “new men”, recently confirmed in their positions of power and with newly gained wealth, and they were keen to demonstrate both. There was also wealth and the desire to show it below them. The Black Death had killed millions in Europe and left the survivors with proportionally greater wealth, whether through fewer people inheriting more or simply from the increased wages they could demand. Italian society and the results of the Black Death allowed for much greater social mobility, a constant flow of people keen to demonstrate their wealth. Displaying wealth and using culture to reinforce your social and political was an important aspect of life in that period, and when artistic and scholarly movements turned back to the classical world at the start of the fifteenth century there were plenty of patrons ready to support them in these endeavors to make political points.

The importance of piety, as demonstrated through commissioning works of tribute, was also strong, and Christianity proved a heavy influence for thinkers trying to square Christian thought with that of “pagan” classical writers.

The Spread of the Renaissance

From its origins in Italy, the Renaissance spread across Europe, the ideas changing and evolving to match local conditions, sometimes linking into existing cultural booms, although still keeping the same core. Trade, marriage, diplomats, scholars, the use of giving artists to forge links, even military invasions, all aided the circulation. Historians now tend to break the Renaissance down into smaller, geographic, groups such as the Italian Renaissance, The English Renaissance, the Northern Renaissance (a composite of several countries) etc. There are also works which talk about the Renaissance as a phenomenon with global reach, influencing – and being influenced by – the east, Americas, and Africa.

The End of the Renaissance

Some historians argue that the Renaissance ended in the 1520s, some the 1620s. The Renaissance didn’t just stop, but its core ideas gradually converted into other forms, and new paradigms arose, particularly during the scientific revolution of the seventeenth century. It would be hard to argue we are still in the Renaissance (as you can do with the Enlightenment), as culture and learning move in a different direction, but you have to draw the lines from here back to then (and, of course, back to before then). You could argue that new and different types of Renaissance followed (should you want to write an essay).

The Interpretation of the Renaissance

The term ‘renaissance’ actually dates from the nineteenth century and has been heavily debated ever since, with some historians questioning whether it’s even a useful word anymore. Early historians described a clear intellectual break with the medieval era, but in recent decades scholarship has turned to recognize growing continuity from the centuries before, suggesting that the changes Europe experienced were more an evolution than a revolution. The era was also far from a golden age for everyone; at the start, it was very much a minority movement of humanists, elites, and artists, although it disseminated wider with printing. Women , in particular, saw a marked reduction in their educational opportunities during the Renaissance. It's no longer possible to talk of a sudden, all changing golden age (or no longer possible and be considered accurate), but rather a phase that wasn't entirely a move 'forward', or that dangerous historical problem, progress.

Renaissance Art

There were Renaissance movements in architecture, literature, poetry, drama, music, metals, textiles and furniture, but the Renaissance is perhaps best known for its art. Creative endeavor became viewed as a form of knowledge and achievement, not simply a way of decoration. Art was now to be based on observation of the real world, applying mathematics and optics to achieve more advanced effects like perspective. Paintings, sculpture and other art forms flourished as new talents took up the creation of masterpieces, and enjoying art became seen as the mark of a cultured individual.

Renaissance Humanism

Perhaps the earliest expression of the Renaissance was in humanism, an intellectual approach which developed among those being taught a new form of curriculum: the studia humanitatis, which challenged the previously dominant Scholastic thinking. Humanists were concerned with the features of human nature and attempts by man to master nature rather than develop religious piety.

Humanist thinkers implicitly and explicitly challenged the old Christian mindset, allowing and advancing the new intellectual model behind the Renaissance. However, tensions between humanism and the Catholic Church developed over the period, and humanist learning partly caused the Reformation . Humanism was also deeply pragmatic, giving those involved the educational basis for work in the burgeoning European bureaucracies. It is important to note that the term ‘humanist’ was a later label, just like “renaissance”.

Politics and Liberty

The Renaissance used to be regarded as pushing forward a new desire for liberty and republicanism - rediscovered in works about the Roman Republic —even though many of the Italian city-states were taken over by individual rulers. This view has come under close scrutiny by historians and partly rejected, but it did cause some Renaissance thinkers to agitate for greater religious and political freedoms over later years. More widely accepted is the return to thinking about the state as a body with needs and requirements, taking politics away from the application of Christian morals and into a more pragmatic, some might say devious, world, as typified by the work of Machiavelli. There was no marvelous purity in Renaissance politics, just the same twisting about as ever.

Books and Learning

Part of the changes brought by the Renaissance, or perhaps one of the causes, was the change in attitude to pre-Christian books. Petrarch, who had a self-proclaimed “lust” to seek out forgotten books among the monasteries and libraries of Europe, contributed to a new outlook: one of (secular) passion and hunger for the knowledge. This attitude spread, increasing the search for lost works and increasing the number of volumes in circulation, in turn influencing more people with classical ideas. One other major result was a renewed trade in manuscripts and the foundation of public libraries to better enable widespread study. Print then enabled an explosion in the reading and spread of texts, by producing them faster and more accurately, and led to the literate populations who formed the basis of the modern world.

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In This Article Expand or collapse the "in this article" section English Renaissance Drama

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English Renaissance Drama by David Bevington LAST REVIEWED: 05 May 2021 LAST MODIFIED: 10 May 2010 DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780195399301-0051

The drama of Renaissance England was truly remarkable and not just because William Shakespeare wrote during that era. Among his colleagues as dramatists were Christopher Marlowe, Thomas Kyd, Ben Jonson, Thomas Middleton, and John Webster, all of whom wrote plays of lasting greatness. Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus and Edward II ; Kyd’s The Spanish Tragedy ; Jonson’s Volpone, The Alchemist , and Bartholomew Fair ; Middleton’s A Chaste Maid in Cheapside and Women Beware Women ; and Webster’s The White Devil and The Duchess of Malfi , to name only some of their accomplishments, are plays deserving of serious comparison with the best of Shakespeare. Then, too, the era produced such brilliant plays as Thomas Dekker’s The Shoemaker’s Holiday , Francis Beaumont’s The Knight of the Burning Pestle , Thomas Middleton and William Rowley’s The Changeling , Philip Massinger’s A New Way to Pay Old Debts , and John Ford’s The Broken Heart . Still other dramatists flourished, the most important of whom, such as John Lyly, Robert Greene, George Peele, and George Chapman, appear in the bibliographical lists below. All this happened within a span of roughly forty years, from the late 1580s to about 1630. Shakespeare, then, was not an isolated phenomenon; he thrived upon the intellectual excitement of the period, the extraordinary success of a popular theater able to accommodate large and eager audiences, the innovative growth of the English language, and the expanding consciousness of the English as a nation of people rediscovering their potential for cultural innovation. Today, Shakespeare is too often read outside of this context. The present bibliography explores the dimensions of an achievement in dramatic art the likes of which the world has seldom seen. Indeed, the phenomenal success of theater during the English Renaissance asks the question “Why did it occur then, and in that place?” The present entry is devoted to this remarkable achievement.

Bergeron 1972 and Ribner and Huffman 1978 are offered here as supplements to this entry for contributions through the 1970s. For more recent studies, see the annual Modern Language Association International Bibliography .

Bergeron, David M. Twentieth-Century Criticism of English Masques, Pageants, and Entertainments: 1558–1642 . San Antonio, TX: Trinity University Press, 1972.

Part of the series Checklists in the Humanities and Education. With separate chapters on Jonson and on Milton’s Comus as well as a supplement on folk-play and related forms.

Modern Language Association International Bibliography .

Lists and indexes more than sixty-six thousand books and articles annually in all genres and periods; available online and in print.

Ribner, Irving, and Clifford C. Huffman. Tudor and Stuart Drama . 2d ed. Goldentree Bibliographies in Language and Literature. Arlington Heights, IL: AHM, 1978.

With bibliographies on dramatic companies, critical and historical considerations, and the major dramatists, up to 1978.

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Word and Image in the English Renaissance

Claire Preston is Professor of Early Modern Literature at the University of Birmingham. She has published widely on early modern topics (including the literary-scientific, word and image studies, and Renaissance rhetoric) and on American Gilded Age fiction (including Edith Wharton, Theodore Dreiser, and William Dean Howells). Her recent work includes essays on Spenser and the visual arts, seventeenth-century scientific correspondence, the Renaissance reception of classical scientific and speculative writing, and the poetics of early modern drainage; her recent books include Thomas Browne and the Writing of Early-Modern Science (Cambridge University Press, 2005), Bee (Reaktion, 2006), and (with Reid Barbour), Sir Thomas Browne: The World Proposed (Oxford University Press, 2008). She is completing a study of literature and scientific investigation in the long seventeenth century, and is general editor of the Oxford complete works of Sir Thomas Browne (8 volumes, forthcoming 2015–18), a project for which she currently holds major AHRC funding. She is the recipient of the British Academy's Rose Mary Crawshay Prize, a Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship, and a British Academy Research Development Award.

• Published: 06 February 2017
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The rich and expanding rhetorical universe of the English Renaissance annexed the expressive possibilities of painting and the plastic arts using a variety of figures and tropes. These— ekphrasis (intense description), blason (anatomizing description), paragone (the contest between the arts), and emblems and imprese (formal verbal-visual symbols)—allowed English writers to press the visual into the service of the verbal, creating powerful rhetorical tools and distinctive literary expression. This article describes the development of these verbal-visual tools from the late medieval period through the early seventeenth century by Italian art theorists and in the exemplary works of Sidney, Spenser, and Shakespeare.

Introduction

In his revised Arcadia (ca. 1585), Philip Sidney pictures a comic moment:

Basilius … having combd and trickt himself more curiously, then at any time fortie winters before, comming where Zelmane was, … and loth to loose the precious fruite of time, he presented himselfe unto her, falling downe upon both his knees, and holding up his hands, as the old governesse of Danaë is painted, when she sodainly saw the golde[n] shoure, O heave[n]ly woma[n], or earthly Goddesse (said he) let not my presence be odious unto you, nor my humble suit seeme of small weight in your eares. 1

Basilius, the foolish senex who little realizes that his daughter Philoclea is the object of the beautiful Amazon Zelmane’s attentions, does not detect that “Zelmane” is the disguise of the heroic young Prince Pyrocles. That Basilius is in love with a cross-dressed man (in a plot familiar from Shakespeare to Some Like It Hot ) occasions the usual comedy of errors, but Sidney thickens the generic brew with his Danaë reference. In the myth, Danaë’s father is told by an oracle that he will be killed by the son of his daughter; accordingly he incarcerates her in a tower to keep her childless and avoid this fate, but Zeus appears to Danaë in a shower of gold and impregnates her with her son, Perseus. Basilius, too, is responding to an oracle prompting him to seclude his daughters, a protection penetrated, in less Zeus-like fashion, by Pyrocles and his cousin Musidorus (see Figure 1 ).

Abraham Bloemart, Danaë

The Danaë incident was a popular theme in sixteenth-century art: it was painted by, among others, Titian, Tintoretto, Artemisia and Orazio Gentileschi, and Goltzius, all of whom include a wizened maid (not mentioned in Ovid) who is reaching for or pointing at the falling shower, which is sometimes depicted as gold coins. It hardly matters which painted version of the myth Sidney is referring to—with his wide continental experience it is likely he saw more than one—because he refers here and elsewhere to pictures as if they were standard, easily recognized images. The rhetorical deployment of a well-known pictorial referent—by which he invokes a mental picture that is specified as a particular painting or type of painting—allows him to imply and emphasize quite a lot about the local situation in Arcadia. His prompt urges us to recall such a picture so that we can visualize the scene and decode the analogy between the Arcadian and the mythic narrative.

This deft, almost casual, allusion is not expanded upon or investigated, but instead works as a kind of shorthand for a culturally specific universe in which Ovidian stories are interpolated by Renaissance artists with grasping crones confronted with unexpected opportunities for gain. Basilius, analogized with the eager old woman whose active gesture (in the paintings) is always distinctively contrasted with the passive, exposed, often slumbering Danaë, is bathetically likened to the imposed, risible servant. She is greedily intent on the gold, not the Jovian miracle; likewise, Basilius’s December-May infatuation with Zelmane is unseemly and ridiculous in an elderly married king, whose Petrarchan gesture of supplication is debased by the comparison.

Sidney uses more than twenty such iconographic analogies in the revised Arcadia , almost all from classical mythology or history. This kind of referential pictorialism is joined by many more pictorial passages in which images are devised and heavily inventoried with thick descriptions that create, rather than simply refer to, pictures. His persistent use of verbs of display— show forth, figure forth, set forth, paint, represent, witness— in Arcadia indicates this pictorial intention. Deployed also by Skelton, Spenser, Shakespeare, and many more sixteenth-century writers, such pictorialism is one of an arsenal of tropes and figures by which the writer appropriates certain features of the visual or questions the distinctive and possibly competing properties of the verbal and the visual.

When Sidney defends poetry as “a perfect picture, able to strike, pierce, [and] possess the sight of the soul” above all other modes of human discourse, he notifies us of the radical proximity, in Renaissance thought, of the image and the word. 2 This conjunction of categories perceived as ontologically distinct is at once wholly conventional and highly daring. 3 Sidney’s classic formulation of poetry’s “feigned image” and “speaking picture” insists that the verbal can visually represent or “figure forth” its objects as well as, and indeed better than, pictorial or plastic representation. With this claim he collapses the distinction between the poet and the painter, between the ear and the eye. This was a bold move in the 1580s, one that would retrospectively become bolder still as iconophobic expressions of sectarian belief gathered force in the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. 4 And yet Sidney was merely philosophizing about an engrained trend in medieval and early Renaissance assumptions and practice, one inherited from a venerable and hardy classical tradition. In this tradition, from Plato onward, the pictorial in imaginative writing reflects the recognition that the human mind processes a great deal of received information in images. The pictorial claim by poetry, like the similarity of the verbal and the visual, is both commonplace and audacious: that poetry has the power to feign “notable images” is celebrated and reviled by Sidney’s contemporaries, but is never denied.

So venerable and so contentious a claim is a central feature of any literary discussion of the Renaissance image, and that Gordian verbal-pictorial conjunction in English Renaissance literature is the subject of this article. It is a conjunction that enjoins us to think about a complex and varied array of literary-pictorial practices, practices that were significantly determined by concurrent technological, philosophical, and theological developments. Within such a discussion might be found, for example, book illustrations and pictorial title pages, the rising art of natural-historical illustration, and the theological reaction to images in the form of iconophobia and iconoclasm, all of which have bearing on pictorialism as a literary practice; however, my discussion of early modern word and image relations is limited to the purely rhetorical practices and the consequences of specifically verbal-visual conjunctions in several tropes and figures: the paragone (the formal contention between poetry and painting), ekphrasis (the rhetorical figure of intense visual description), the blason (the pictorial list of parts), and emblems and imprese (conjoined words and real pictures). In each case, the symbiotic, contentious, and dangerous relation between the word and image is foregrounded and considered as a pragmatic and necessary relationship for the advancement of moral and philosophical understanding; simultaneously, each trope or figure explicitly or implicitly questions hierarchies of expression and knowledge.

Picta Poesis : Verbal-Visual Theory

The pictorial universe of late medieval and early modern England was both impoverished and rich. In mainly illiterate pre-Reformation England, the images in churches—wall paintings, statues, shrines, stained glass—depicted events in the Bible, and especially in the New Testament, that the congregation could not have read about for itself, either in Latin or English, but to which it could have direct access by looking. The advent of the printing press, and of Reformation disparagement of images, effaced the frescoed church walls and replaced them with illustrated Bibles, cheap emblem books, and later, illustrated ballads and broadsides that for the first time provided ready pictorial material to a non-elite audience that had never had access to illuminated manuscripts and had all but lost its devotional visual gallery (see Figure 2 ). 5

Bernard Salomon, The Fall of Eve ( Métamorphose Figurée , Lyon, 1557)

Developments in the theory and techniques of painting in France and Italy, and the simultaneous boom, both domestic and continental, in illustrated books, affected later sixteenth-century English thinking: the first emblem-books were introduced to a general readership and the culture of imprese to elite, courtly actors in the reign of Elizabeth; broadside sheets and cheap pamphlets with crude woodcuts were on the market, especially in the later sixteenth century, and continental artworks using almost miraculous chiaroscuro and linear perspective were being brought to a country whose vernacular drawing style was inherited from manuscript illumination. 6 Learned treatises on painting and philosophical comparisons between pictures and poems, starting with Alberti, were translated throughout the sixteenth century. Even the decoration of houses enjoyed a proliferation of images in royal, noble, and even some lesser households, in the form of narrative tapestries from northern France and the Low Countries, walls ornamented with grisaille work and emblematic bosses, carved chimneypieces, decorated earthenware, and (late in the century) engravings from Amsterdam and other Dutch centers. 7

Familiarity among major English writers like Edmund Spenser and Ben Jonson with the patronly households of the aristocratic elite had an especially profound effect on English letters, and this access to works of art, illustrated books, and noble collections of art objects belonging to, for example, the Tudor and Stuart monarchs, whose tapestry collection was spectacular, to the Sidneys, and to the Earl of Leicester, shaped the way in which images were produced and represented in imaginative literature 8 (see Figure 3 ).

Perseus and Andromeda (Johannes Postius, Germersheimii Tetrasticha in Ovidii Metam. lib. XV , Frankfurt, 1569) (woodcut, Virgilius Solis)

Spenser’s Colin Clout articulates the vividness of such decorations (probably tapestries or frescoes with Ovidian themes) when he describes his otherwise rather disappointing visit to the Elizabethan court:

Love most aboundeth there. For all the walls and windows there are writ All full of love, and love, and love my deare, And all their talke and studie is of it. 9

In addition to domestic decorations, the emergence in the mid-sixteenth century of natural histories, herbals, apothecarial works, and natural-philosophical and medical treatises demanded a verbal-visual armamentarium that included precise visual description and pictorial illustration.

As encounters with images both crude and sophisticated ceased to be a prominent feature of spiritual life, they became a regular secular experience for a significant and growing proportion of the population. Literary reference to and use of images, in illustrations, by verbal rendition of the pictorial, or by allusion to well-known images or types of image, became in this period one of the most powerful rhetorical items in the early modern writer’s technical array.

That writing might attempt the pictorial, or have some ontological relationship to it, is an ancient idea. Although Plato says that poets are like painters, this is severe criticism: he associates the illusionistic qualities of poetry and painting with deception and lies and excludes them both from the republic because they are merely records of a perceived reality that is itself only imitative of the exalted realm of forms. 10 Aristotle seems to liken plot in tragedy to design in painting, and dramatic character construction to distinctive portraiture. 11 The Alexandrian and Roman writers misunderstood or overemphasized this analogy and also cited the famous formulation pictura loquens, poesia tacens , attributed by Plutarch to Simonides of Ceos: painting is mute poetry and poetry a speaking picture. 12 Horace’s apparent verbal-visual aphorism ut pictura poesis (“as a painting is, so poetry”) is above all accountable for that pictorial-poetic analogy. 13 In short, although the antique authority on which Renaissance theorists based their verbal-visual analogies and doctrine was insecure, the misprision was fortuitous. 14 Like early modern misunderstanding of the linguistic structure of Egyptian hieroglyphs, which proved so fertile a ground for various moral and mystical symbolisms, the verbal-visual “tradition” of the ancients yielded to Renaissance theorists a fascinating sense of the modal likeness between the arts that poets would refer to and use repeatedly.

Samuel Daniel, speaking of the impresa and its codependently paired word and image (of which more below), says: “to represent unto the sence of sight the forme or figure of anything, is more natural in act, more com[m]on to al creatures then is hearing.” 15 The figure that formalizes the debate between word and image is the paragone .

From the Italian paragonare (“to compare”), the paragone is an argument or contest between two or more arts, at first between visual arts like painting and sculpture, but later on between the arts and nature, and eventually between the visual and the verbal. Although the specialist meaning of the term itself was not yet in use in England, 16 the most common and important paragone that concerns the literary in late Renaissance writing is the one between poetry and painting. Plato and his inheritors had asserted the primacy of vision in the hierarchy of the five senses; art theorists accordingly gave painting dominion over poetry, which must rely on the lesser, auditory sense. But medieval and Renaissance approaches to this valorization of the visual were not straightforward, partly because artists were regarded as mechanics and craftsmen, and visual technologies such as the invention of linear perspective, developments in pigment chemistry and improvements in woodcutting, etching, and engraving had not yet elevated them beyond this status; and partly because the rise in literacy from the early sixteenth century meant that the literary was more widely apprehended through the eye than it had been in the preliterate and more typically oral culture that preceded it.

The inherently dialogic paragone was particularly attractive to dramatists. John Lyly’s entertainment at Mitcham for Queen Elizabeth in 1598 is a paragone between a painter and a poet who are preparing for the arrival of the queen and quarreling about which art—a portrait or a panegyric poem—can best express her superlative virtues. The entertainment ends in an ontological coup when the queen herself, whose “perfection admitteth no coloring,” enters the scene and obviates both verbal and visual representations of her. They agree that “as hard it wilbe for thee to sett downe her vertues, as for mee her beawtye: the one not coming within the compass of Art, nor the other of imagination.” 17 Her entrance is a coup that frames the epistemology of many of the verbal tropes discussed below.

Defending painting in the fifteenth century against charges of blasphemy and moral degeneracy not unlike those against poetry that Sidney dismisses in the sixteenth, Leon Battista Alberti had claimed that painting is the “mistress” of all the arts; 18 Leonardo says in the Trattato della Pittura that poetry is man-made and inferior, an invention of language that renders nature in a version much more remote from the depicted object. 19 But painters, more than any other creative artist, are nipoti a dio , the grandchildren of God, godlike in their ability to create a second nature with their use of light, space, and color. 20 Sidney claims this power for poets when he says that “the heavenly maker of that maker … [has] set him beyond and over all the works of that second nature: which he showeth in nothing so much as in poetry.” 21 The familiar snobbery against toil that dirties the hands gradually faded away, especially as new techniques and styles, and the artists themselves, were imported to England from the continent. At the same time, attacks on poetry as corrupt, full of false images that poison the reader, evoked by Sidney and others, attempts to justify a morally unimpeachable and powerful poetic art worthy of conveying the highest thoughts. 22 The social taint in the visual arts diminished as confidence in English as a literary vehicle also gathered momentum.

Leonardo reflected current thinking about the relation of the visual arts to other disciplines, but his Trattato della Pittura was not published for more than a century. Other Italian art theorists were more directly influential in England, and their paragoni are not so absolute as Leonardo’s. Although Lodovico Dolce agrees with Leonardo that painting is nothing other than the imitation of nature and brings mankind closer to perfection and mastery, he allows that this is also true of poetry and poets: if the painter imitates the lines and colors detected by the eye, the poet can represent phenomena as they offer themselves to the intellect. 23 And does the distinction matter, he asks, when painters and poets are always borrowing from each other? Raphael was inspired by Ariosto for his Vatican frescoes, and Michelangelo read Dante for the Last Judgment in the Sistine Chapel. 24 In 1584 Paolo Lomazzo was also conciliatory, annexing the traditional virtues of poetry as those of painting: “Nor yet does painting only express the outward Forms of things; but also discourseth certain inward passions—painting, and as it were, laying before our eyes the affections of the mind.” 25 The debate about representability is especially germane to the study of a number of sixteenth-century English writers, who strove for something like painterliness but simultaneously recognized the difference “betwixt reporting and representing,” that “many things may be told which cannot be showed.” 26 Painters and poets in the period consistently appropriated the strength of the rival art as their own.

Poets and painters used the representative strengths of their respective arts to make certain self-serving claims: Petrarchan poets could say that although the beauty of the beloved is blinding to mortal eyes, poetry safely transmits its idea ; painters could, by the same token, argue that their powerful portrayals reproduce in the viewer the experience of the lover. This particular contention is exemplified in the revised Arcadia , when Prince Musidorus is introduced to the house and art gallery of the Arcadian grandee Kalander. Among the pictures he sees

a large table, which contained a comely old man, with a lady of midle age, but of excelle[n]t beautie; & more excelle[n]t would have bene deemed, but that stood betweene the[m] a yong maid, whose wonderfulnesse tooke away all beautie from her, but that, which it might seeme she gave her backe againe by her very shadow … it seemd the skill of the painter bestowed on the other new beautie, but that the beautie of her bestowed new skill of the painter. 27

This ekphrasis of Basilius, Gynecia, and their daughter Philoclea is remarkable in telling us nothing definite about Philoclea’s beauty, much about its effect. Musidorus is arrested by the picture and might be expected to fall in love with Philoclea on the strength of its extraordinary power. But the case is stranger. His cousin Pyrocles afterward sees the picture while Musidorus explains it to him. At this point, Pyrocles is fascinated by the story but appears to make little of the painting itself. Later, however, he admits to Musidorus in the depths of his lovesickness, “[t]here were mine eyes infected, & at your mouth did I drinke my poison,” 28 explaining that once he sought Kalander’s corroboration of Musidorus’s account, he was conquered by love. Although he sees the picture, it is only when he hears verbal accounts of Philoclea that he is afflicted by love. He is pining for a woman he has never seen and whose picture does not strike him as forcefully as his cousin’s words about her.

The Platonic intensity of this incident—one that prompts a prince to fall in love almost with an idea—is purely Sidneian, a sort of accommodation or compromise between the arts in which the painting itself and Sidney’s own initial narratorial ekphrastic description of it become the subject of a secondary explanation that yields calamitous consequences. It exemplifies Sidney’s own contention that poetry, precisely because it is ultimately abstract rather than embodied and concrete, can appeal to the mind rather than to the senses and produce such effects. This implicit paragone dismisses the painting itself (and possibly even the embodied Philoclea) from any functional role in affecting Pyrocles.

Sidney is also an adept formal paragonist, and he uses the figure in the Defence between poetry (or “fiction”) and personifications of philosophy and history, against whom he claims the joint powers of poetry and painting when he compares rich poetic images to the dry discourse of philosophy, which with “sullen gravity … [is] rudely clothed for to witness outwardly … contempt of outward things,” and ideal poetic forms to the musty and burdensome materials of history, “mouse-eaten records” that are “a wonder to young folks and a tyrant in table talk.” 29 However, “[t]he peerless poet giveth a perfect picture … for he yieldeth to the powers of the mind an image of that whereof the philosopher bestoweth but a wordish description, which doth neither strike, pierce, nor possess the sight of the soul.” 30 This is virtually the same argument Leonardo had used to exalt painting and the same power that captivates Pyrocles.

The paragone remained vibrant beyond the sixteenth century. Ben Jonson’s notorious quarrel with Inigo Jones, the designer of Jonson’s masques, is summarized in the title page of their 1631 publication of Love’s Triumph through Callipolis , in which the two “inventors” are listed with Jonson’s name before Jones’s. 31 This particular paragonal quarrel, in effect one-sided because there survives no formal response from Jones to Jonson’s squibs and epigrams, vividly displays one of the penalties of the visual: as “mute poetry,” art has no clear-cut polemical voice. The superb theatrical effects created by Jones’s spectacular art are merely ephemeral, as Jonson is quick to observe; text, however, has an afterlife. Jonson had already staked the claim of word over image, as we see in his couplets accompanying the Droeshout portrait of Shakespeare, included in the First Folio of 1623:

This figure, that thou here seest put, It was for gentle Shakespeare cut; Wherein the graver had a strife With nature, to out-doo the life: O, could he but have drawne his wit As well in brasse, as he hath hit His face; the print would then surpasse All that was ever writ in brasse. But since he cannot, reader, looke Not on his picture, but his booke. 32

For the Italian theorists and practitioners, the art/poetry paragone was a contest of relative brilliance, and they would very likely have allowed that images, either verbal or visual, conduce to contemplation and reflection, especially on higher, divine things. This was the standard argument, too, for various contemporary liturgical and decorative practices in the Roman Catholic church, in which statues, frescoes, ceremonies, and the sacraments themselves were a set of visual mnemonics for believers. But to the northern European theorists such claims were not straightforward: Protestants were uneasy about the use of many kinds of visual items and worried that images distracted, deceived, and obstructed contemplation of the word of God. Indeed, the early modern phenomenon of iconoclasm—the wrecking of images, particularly in churches, to prevent idolatry—can partly be explained in terms of the word-image dialectic inherited from Plato. English iconoclasts are always Protestant, and their distrust of images—of crucifixions and last judgments and Holy Virgins—is a version of the paragone in which the Word is not merely the primary and superior vehicle of faith, but the only permissible one. 33

Notionally, the advantage of the poetic image is that it is virtual and lacks the tempting physicality of the visual. But as W. J. T. Mitchell observes, “poetry is the scene of struggle between iconoclastic distrust of the outward image, and iconophilic fascination with its power, a struggle which manifests itself in [the] practice of proliferating visual images in order to prevent readers from focusing on any particular picture or scene.” 34 Poetry, as even Sidney admits, has the power to deceive.

When Renaissance writers imagined that the resources of the visual could enrich and empower the peculiar strengths and deficiencies of the verbal, they were assisted by the figure of ekphrasis , an iconic description, a verbal representation of the visible. 35   Ekphrasis is the most powerful rhetorical tool of the literary-pictorial.

In the best hands, ekphrasis is a self-conscious and self-advertising trope, a figure in which mediocre writers show off their painterly flourishes, and in which great ones manipulate our reading habits and our understanding of their art. A contested term, ekphrasis in post-Enlightenment definitions is limited to verbal descriptions of real or imaginary works of art, but this does not sort with actual early modern practice, which observed no such constraint. 36 Under the broader dispensation that actually prevailed in the period to 1600, ekphrasis is a figure that in the act of describing converts the described into an art object, or (to refine the definition) into any object that invites our interpretive scrutiny in the way that an art object might do. 37 The critical argument about the definition of ekphrasis is in some ways salved by W. J. T. Mitchell, Leonard Barkan, and D. P. Fowler, for whom the figure is more important as a literary mode, a narrative structural device, an ideological contention, a struggle for dominance, or a rhetorically slippery figure. As Leonard Barkan says, ekphrasis is “not about words versus pictures but words as pictures.” 38

It is, however, important to distinguish ekphrasis from other kinds of intense description. Ekphrasis is the verbal description of any physical object, artifact, physical condition or symptom, scene, or individual that intends to put before the imagination an image of such exact and convincing clarity that the act of reading it is like the act of looking at a picture. That last phrase is important, because in being “like looking at a picture,” ekphrastic description is differentiated from the merely arresting. When we look at a picture or a sculpture, we are looking at a man-made object that was produced in order to elicit an interpretive response from us, and we are likely to pause, to admire, and to decode it in some way. The same is not normally true of natural phenomena like sunsets and landscapes and beautiful women, or even battles, and yet the power of ekphrasis is to treat even these as pictorial, as meaningful, as if they were artificial and designed for our critical, interpretive inspection. Ekphrasis insists that we impute meanings to things.

We can think of the spectrum of practices (of which ekphrasis is one) along the verbal-visual axis as “literary pictorialism,” of which there are two mains strands in Renaissance literature. Sometimes we can make absolute identifications between a literary “picture” or a recognizable type of picture, and known artifacts and symbolic traditions (as, for example, in Sidney’s Danaë reference, but also in Shakespeare’s emblem-making fishermen in Pericles , and of course in the much later example of Keats’s Grecian urn). Such iconographic identifications appear to be common in the classical use of ekphrasis and have led to much sleuthing, especially among Renaissance art historians. 39 But most Renaissance ekphrasis is not so exact, and the more interesting strand is iconologic, producing pictures in the mind’s eye that function like pictorial artifacts in expecting the reader to gaze and interpret as if before an artwork. The iconologic mode enjoins us to consider the imagined “seen” as interpretable objects that are like artworks but do not refer to any work existing outside the poet’s imagination.

Well-known pictorial moments, such as Enobarbus’s mesmerizing description of Cleopatra’s entry by barge into Alexandria, exemplify this ekphrastic conversion of natural into artificial. 40 That passage is striking in its length and in its musical rhythm and cadence, features that set it apart from the choppy, tetchy badinage among the triumvirs that precedes it. The nervy action of Rome and Romans is lulled by the incantatory power of Enobarbus’s report. The fact that the speech is a report, not a direct narration or representation of an immediate moment, emphasizes the contrast with the urgent, present politicking of Caesar and Lepidus and the kind of febrile dramaturgy that goes with it. The narrated Cydnus passage enforces attention in a way quite different from dramatically represented action, a technique Shakespeare uses frequently, almost against the impulses of the theater, as if to arrest attention at dramatically important moments. Like Edgar’s rendition of a nonexistent clifftop view, Gertrude’s account of Ophelia’s death, and Cleopatra’s own vision of Antony as a colossus, the Cydnus speech works almost as if the scene could be painted and hung on the wall. It is at the very least a mental canvas in which we observe the machinations of the artful Egyptian queen, who has devised a self-spectacle for the consumption of her Roman visitor.

The river spectacle that Enobarbus delivers rhetorically is gorgeous and painterly, full of colors, textures, glitter, and shine. Crammed with mythological allusions (to Cupid, Venus, nereids), it seems to gesture to other paintings of the period. Indeed, Enobarbus tells us that Cleopatra “o’erpictures” a painting of Venus that itself outdoes nature, in a complex recursion of visual references: the event is transformed into an image that “beggars” description by outdoing an unspecified, possibly imaginary, painting that is better than anything we could hope to see for ourselves in the real world. It is a series of retreats into the impossible or the unimaginable, framed as a reportable, ekphrastic image. Like many such passages (whether in drama, prose romance, or poetry), this one brings the main action to a halt. As Cleopatra in Alexandria “made a gap in nature,” so the Cydnus passage makes a gap in the progression of the play—prickly negotiations are interrupted by a descriptive hiatus that arrests the ongoing business of the story by looking backward in time in a compelled stasis. When the description ends, the business of Rome and the play go forward again. In this play the static spectacle of Cleopatra operates almost like a paragonal example in a contest between the visual suspension of action and the narrative force of action itself. 41 It is a powerful advertisement of Shakespeare’s poetic power.

Ekphrastic command of the movement of narrative is a structural command, but ekphrasis has equally important thematic power. In Cymbeline this pictorial ability to control or even to overcome the movement of narrative is found again in Iachimo’s rehearsal of the art objects in Imogen’s chamber, objects (including a tapestry of Antony and Cleopatra) that are used to authenticate with visual evidence the fictive sexual adventure that will secure him Posthumus’s wagered diamond. Iachimo disrupts and deflects the natural movement of the story with his deceptive visualizations and demonstrates at the same time that ekphrasis is inescapably a figure of evaluation. Iachimo alludes to that evaluative function when he describes Posthumus as a man whose virtues he can “table” or write down as if in an auction catalog, and when he baldly refers to Imogen’s art objects as “moveables.” 42 The fiction of ekphrasis , as well as its frank appraisal of objects, is exposed by Iachimo in his vague “such-and-suches” as he regards the items in Imogen’s chamber; that vagueness is later converted with suspect precision into a tapestry, a pair of firebrands, and a silver basso-relievo with material value and mythographic heft. Of course, no room or objects could deliver messages about infidelity and betrayal as accurately as those insinuated by Iachimo’s descriptions of them, and Posthumus is as culpable in believing that they can as Iachimo is of fraud. Those ekphrastically reported objects do not of course exist on stage, nor should they: their only reality, like that of Dover Cliff and Cleopatra’s barge, is in the imagination of the speaker and the auditors. Iachimo, like all ekphrasticians, knows that word pictures are superior to actual pictures because they can make pictures in words of things that could never actually exist, or could never be noticed, in the world or in plastic renditions of the world. Literary pictorial iconology encourages, as Walter Ong formulates it, “the habit of seeing the intelligible in the visible.” 43

As Iachimo’s ekphrastic habits show, tropes of assessment in early modern writing are often bound up with visual tropes—the paragone weighs up the relative merits and value of competing arts, and ekphrasis allows ambitious poets as well as evildoing stage villains to demonstrate, note, evaluate, and even sell using particulate descriptions that have the effect of breaking down things that are whole into constituent parts. The blason also fractures (usually) female beauty by rhetorical assessment in the register or catalog. 44 The poetic blason is closely related to the heraldic blazon , or enumerative account of genealogy and honors represented in a coat of arms. Heraldic signs are an unusually simplified and denotative pictorial code that refer to exact relationships and hierarchies and are possibly a unique system of precise “figurings forth” of abstract individual identity. In an imaginative extension of the technical heraldic practice, Olivia in Twelfth Night declares that Viola’s tongue, face, limbs, actions, and spirit “do give [her] five-fold blazon,” 45 a sentiment that divides Viola into anatomical elements. The blason , like the heraldic blazon, descriptively lists parts. Inherited in the English Renaissance from Alexandrian and late Roman examples via Petrarch, the blason allows the poet to praise his beloved extravagantly by comparing each part of her body to delightful natural or precious substances—fruit, flowers, jewels, and metals—as in Campion’s “Cherry- Ripe.” Sidney’s clerkly shepherds, Strephon and Claius, praise their muse, the shepherdess Urania, in pastoral topoi (eyelids like two white kids, breath like a gentle southwest wind, herself a “best builded fold” to contain “unspeakable virtues”). 46 Colin Clout similarly describes Cynthia in the terms of Virgilian georgic, her words like flowing honey, her acts like grapes ripe for pressing into wine, and her looks like the morning sun on grazing cattle. 47 Elsewhere in the same poem, finding her “glorie greater than my simple thought,” he renders her more typically as a catalog of flowers. 48

The blason is a type of meronymy—the list or register. Meronymy can be diversely deployed, in library or shopping lists, in anaphoric descriptions (like Smart’s “Cat Jeoffry” sequence in Jubilate in Agno ), in ekphrastic accounts like Homer’s description of the shield of Achilles, and in natural-historical lists of plant onomastics and morphology, to suggest only a few of its uses. The list or register is, in other words, an essential descriptive tool in poetic, empirical, and utilitarian writing. The blason is a troubling and troublesome example, however, because it lacks the ordinary rhetorical neutrality of the list. Seen as a species of meronymy, the blason ’s most important feature, and one that in the hands of some poets and in the view of some critics explodes its own power and meaning, is its dispersion of a whole into its parts: the visualized woman of the blason can never be seen in the round, only as a collection of separate, discrete elements whose aggregation is contingent not upon the autonomous object but rather upon the will of the describing poet. 49 It is a celebration not of the poet’s beloved but of the poet’s skill. The meronymic blason rhetorically scatters and deposes the coherence of its object; she is unpacked, fragmented, anatomized, even dismembered, by the poetic act.

The blason is additionally troubling because, although its analogies between the parts of the body and delightful or precious substances and property (e.g., lips and cherries, breasts and hills, teeth and pearls) are formulaic and conventional, it radically joins unlike things as a way of invoking straightforward visual referents that are in fact impossible to imagine or to gather together into a coherent whole. In other words, although it is hardly difficult to imagine the blue of sapphires or the red of roses, as an aggregation of alien, often inorganic metaphors, they become strange, inconceivable, and even grotesque. Arcimboldo, in literalizing the blason conceit in his fruit and vegetable portraits, shows exactly how bizarre such collocations are; likewise, the poetically emblazoned woman is difficult to picture. If the blason ’s Petrarchan heritage initially suggests the conventional relation of the supplicant male poet and the praised and unattainable female beloved, the word-image relation in the blason is, like the more neutral ekphrasis , also poetically self-advertising, and is freighted with a peculiar self-canceling visuality that heightens the power of the poet over the power of the woman. It is a pictorial figure that devisualizes and diminishes.

The blasonneur often acknowledges the insufficiency of his figure to make adequate representation of the woman, but that failure can go in two directions. Spenser’s Colin Clout articulates the difficulty of making a blason of Cynthia when he confesses that

Such gretnes I cannot compare to ought: I would her liken to a crowne of lilies.

By resorting to the conventional flower catalog and to the conditional “would,” Colin emphasizes not only his shepherdly incapability, but the incapability of words ever to perform the denotative ekphrastic deed upon an incomparable being; she cannot be “paragoned”:

But vaine it is to thinke, by paragone Of earthly things, to judge of things divine: Her power, her mercy, and her wisedome, none Can deeme, but who the Godhead can define. 50

The humility of Colin Clout is more subtly articulated by Petrarch, who admits the impossibility of description, either in words or in paint, when he praises Simone Martini’s portrait of Laura as one that could only be executed in heaven. On earth, “le membra fanno a l’alma velo” (the body is no more than the veil of the soul). 51 But equally the anatomically specific blason that visualizes and analogizes the woman in a panegyric that dismembers her in a series of ironically incomprehensible descriptions is a figure of domination such as Donne uses in Elegy XIX or Spenser in Sonnet 25, in which the praised woman is a conquerable dominion or merchandised as a trader’s warehouse of exotic imports. Nancy Vickers has described this more earthbound quality of the blason as the language of salesmanship, a quality that connects it with the wily ekphrasis of Iachimo. 52 The motives of blason are thus at best questionable: “I will not praise that purpose not to sell,” Shakespeare warns in Sonnet 21, a sentiment that would be opaque to Colin Clout but not to Iachimo.

This dangerous, almost economical, quality of the blason (which advertises the worth of the poet and might be used to convey the price of the woman) is explicitly discussed by Iachimo and Posthumus in Cymbeline . The wager they make on Imogen’s virtue is eventually won by Iachimo, who uses, among other things, ekphrastic evidence to “prove” that he has enjoyed her favors. The wager itself (a thousand ducats against a diamond ring) is concluded in a conversation that is all about the problems of assigning price to priceless women by tropic conversion or similitude. Iachimo has already been thinking about Posthumus as if he were about to make a blason of him: “[T]he catalogue of his endowments had been tabled by his side” he says, “and I … peruse him by items.” 53 Thereafter, his diction of valuation and itemization assigns or quibbles with “hand-in-hand comparisons” such as the diamond and Imogen’s virtue. Posthumus argues that such a woman, unlike a diamond, cannot be priced, but Iachimo scoffs at this “unprizable estimation” as the buying of “lady’s flesh at a million a dram.” True virtue should defeat language altogether by defeating similitude or estimation—this is Colin Clout’s Petrarchan view—but the blason acknowledges no such thing, and by converting women into the gorgeous symbolic substances of a courtly conceit, Iachimo, like Arcimboldo, literalizes that conversion by reducing Imogen’s reputation to a very marketable jewel.

In Sonnet 106 (which is not a blason but is about blasons ), Shakespeare suggests what all blasonneurs would prefer to forget: that language, no matter how figurative and inventive, is ultimately at a loss to speak of true beauty. Instead, poets risk cheapening both the lady and the language of praise in attempting to do so; they “have eyes to wonder, but lack tongues to praise.” 54 The dangerous linguistic fault lines of the blason can be referred back to the paragone between the visual and the verbal.

Emblem/ Impresa

The verbal-visual devices discussed so far in this article are virtual because they are rhetorical: there is no physical image displayed in ekphrasis , the paragone , and the blason . The emblem culture of the sixteenth century (and its associated form, the imprese ) is, by contrast, an actual concatenation of word and image. Walter Ong places emblems and imprese in the broader scenario of the quantification and spatialization of thought in the post-Gutenberg era, when print culture overtook the aural as the prevalent organizational mode. The powerful, pervasive phenomenon of word-image relations in the form of the emblem in the early modern period from about 1530 was thus in some respects inevitable. 55 The emblematic habit of mind long predates the Renaissance, but the explosion of emblematic practices in the early modern period was made possible by the invention of print, which allowed both words and images to be reproduced easily. More profoundly, print culture prompted extensive thought about the nature of language itself as a connotative and possibly as a denotative form.

The Neoplatonic search for a divine universal code that operated outside the corrupting intermedium of language—unreliable and artificial as it could not but be—was focused on a pure relation between ideas and things. Although the wide medieval and Renaissance discussion of the universal “ensignment” 56 that would underpin the discovery of a universal language is outside the bounds of this discussion, it forms the background of two key events. 57 One was Aldus Manutius’s publication of Hieroglyphica in 1505. This was an edition of a hieroglyphical manuscript purportedly by Horus Apollo (Horapollo), discovered in 1419 at Andros and thought to contain pre-Mosaic Egyptian ideograms of priestly wisdom in which each symbol was ascribed an abstract, transcendent meaning; the lexicon of such hieroglyphs might thus belong to a universal language that could overcome the corruption of languages after Babel. 58 The other was the appearance of Emblematum Liber in 1539 by Andreas Alciati (or Alciato), a book of emblems that began a fad that lasted for the next one hundred years and went through 150 editions in that period. These two events roughly mark the beginning of a specifically early modern address to verbal-visual relations.

Renaissance theorists suspected that hieroglyphs and picture writing might be denotative—inherent rather than conventional bearers of meaning. Hieroglyphs appeared to operate at the boundary between the verbal and the pictorial and were thought by paragonists like Paolo Giovio to be wholly “unartificial.” 59 Guillaume de la Perriere observed: “[W]here oftentimes feeling and effectual words, though never so sensible, do pass the reader without due consideration, pictures which are discerned by the sense are such that they make words as it were deeds, and set the whole substance of that which is offered before the sight and conceipt of the reader.” 60 The emblem, consisting of mutually reinforcing word and image, satisfied that need for a wordish deed.

An emblem is an epigrammatic metaphor illustrated by a picture that embodies it in conventional signs. The typical Renaissance emblem consists of three parts: an inscription or motto (usually a commonplace), a symbolic picture, and an explanatory subscription. The emblem did not begin this way. Alciati’s emblems were purely rhetorical rather than pictorial, and the original edition of his emblems offered no woodcuts. Instead, the motto and subscription functioned as a simple ekphrasis , hinting at a picture but not producing it. The Alciatian emblem was meant to provide inspiration for hat badges and other ornaments, which might declare personal beliefs; it also supplied conceits for craftsmen producing bed hangings, shields, ceiling bosses, windows, and architectural ornament, and this purpose is elaborated by the mythographers Cartari and Ripa, who use Ovidian material to construct their emblems, specifically to assist poets and painters or to adorn great persons. The moral and natural histories of Plutarch and Pliny, as well as material from the Bible, the Greek anthology, and collections of sententiae , were other sources of emblems.

The emblem selects the best or most essential part of the represented object and meanings to produce a microcosm of wit. Thus small or single things like the beached dolphin or the grafted vine might metonymically express large, complex, and abstract ideas through a conscious process of decipherment, a process that sets the emblematic apart from the more broadly symbolic (see Figure 4 ).

Alciati, Emblematum Liber (Augsburg, 1531), Emblem 75

In eum qui truculentia suorum perierit Delphinium invitum me in littora compulit aestus, Exemplum infido quanta pericla mari. Nam si nec propriis Neptunus parcit alumnis, Quis tutos homines, navibus esse putet?

The emblem might function as the illustration of a well-known epigram, or it might use natural or pictorial signs on which it imposes meaning. 61 However it works in any single instance (and both are present in early modern usage), it marries verbal content in the form of a thought with equivalent illustrative pictorial content in the form of a woodcut (later an engraving). Thus a thesaurus of verbal-visual referents became a conventional, and largely popular, currency that found its way into the literary productions of the period. When the homespun fishermen in Pericles moralize about the saltwater foodchain, they speak in well-known emblems:

THIRD FISHERMAN: Master, I marvel how the fishes live in the sea. MASTER: Why, as men do a-land; the great ones eat up the little ones: I can compare our rich misers to nothing so fitly as to a whale; a’ plays and tumbles, driving the poor fry before him, and at last devours them all at a mouthful.’ 62

Spenser’s Shepheardes Calender (1579) organizes each eclogue as a picture-subscription-motto, in which the poem itself is the explanatory gloss (see Figure 5 ). The February eclogue, for example, which retails the fable of the oak and the briar, closely resembles Alciati’s “ Amicitia etiam post mortem durans ” (see Figure 6 ), as does Wyatt’s lament for Thomas Cromwell, in which he casts himself as ivy supported by the pillar that had also supported Henry VIII. 63

Spenser, “Februarie Æglogue” ( The Shepheardes Calender , 1579)

Alciati, Amicitia etiam post mortem durans ( Emblematum Libellus , 1536).

Sidney, likewise, uses emblematic shorthand to make narratorial points. When the lovelorn Musidorus and Pyrocles (disguised as an Amazon) commiserate, Sidney places them “under a fewe Palme trees, (which being loving in their own nature, seemed to give their shadow the willinglier, because they held discourse of love)” 64 (see Figure 7 ).

Jacob Cats, Vivite Concordes ( Emblemata , 1618).

In the emblematic lexicon, palm trees refer to married love (because some palm species are dioecious—each plant is either male or female), and Sidney covertly adds to the ongoing comedy of mistaken sexual identity at the expense of his heroes, who are emblematically cast as a loving couple. He uses such material more obviously when he describes a brooch worn by Zelmane, “a very riche jewell: the devise wherof … was this: a Hercules made in little fourme, but a distaffe set within his hand as he once was by Omphales commaundement with a worde in Greeke, but thus to be interpreted, Neuer more valiant. ” 65 This emblem consists of picture and motto and directly refers, as an Alciatian emblem might do when transformed into a badge or brooch, to Pyrocles’s effeminization by love.

In the emblem, the word and the image are mutually supporting, but in theory each could function coherently without the other; the fully developed verbal-visual emblem is essentially pleonastic. The emblem, moreover, deals in the locus communis or the sententia , in already-known cultural données . It transmits tradition and universal truths rather than new or unique ideas. Nothing about an emblem is novel; it is always recognizable and universally available to the understanding. Thus, as with Sidney’s uxorious palms, the emblem comments on a narrative situation by alluding to a well-known analogy.

A related emblematic device, the impresa , is a coterie version of the emblem and differs markedly in being unique to its bearer and to the occasion. Unlike emblems, which were constantly recycled by authors and printers, 66 many imprese (from the Italian imprendere , to undertake) could be used only once and by one person, because they expressed “our disposition, either to Love, Hatred, Clemencie, Justice, Pietie , our Victories, Misfortunes, Griefes , and the like: which perhaps could not have beene openly, but to our praejudice revealed.” 67 They are, in other words, occasional and refer to personal identity; they are not “common,” as emblems are. The impresa is characteristic, both in real life and in literature, of early modern courtly behavior, where it was closely associated with the ceremonial display of armorial bearings and advertised the individuality of its bearer rather than the commonality inherent in emblems; it “exposeth the rare conceipts and gallant resolutions of its Author, far more perspicuously, and with more certainty, then Physiognomy can.” 68

The impresa also differs structurally from the emblem in conjoining word and image contingently: neither has any meaning if divorced from the other. The structure of the impresa appealed, for this reason, to notions of wit and functions as a type of conceit—not one in which unlike things are yoked together, but rather where word and sign become almost indistinguishable as distinct categories. Francesco della Rovere’s well-known impresa showing a palm tree with a branch weighted down by a stone and the motto Inclinata resurgit refers to the flexibility of palm fronds, able to snap back into their former place and shape (a piece of natural knowledge of an exotic plant that was reserved to the elite and the learned), a flexibility that in turn alludes to the ready ambitions of the Duke of Urbino (also a reserved sphere of information) 69 (see Figure 8 ). Although the weighted palm is a common symbol of patience, here its significance for the individual bearer is both veiled and exposed by the “word” accompanying it.

Inclinata resurgit ( impresa of Francesco Maria della Rovere) (Girolamo Ruscelli, Le Impresi Illustri , Venice, 1565)

Sidney’s own imprese were celebrated: speravi [“ I used to hope ”] was a rebus written on his shield in a tournament that occurred shortly after key dynastic births had displaced him as the heir to the titles of his Warwick and Leicester uncles, and could only have been intelligible to those who knew the history of and recent change in his status and could construe the Latin. 70 In these high courtly circles, wit governed the construction of imprese , so much so that the structural contingency of word and image could not be separated. Sidneian heroes and antiheroes wear imprese on their armour that refer to their private feelings and their intentions, and even disclose at times their disguised identities.

The verbal-visual relations that deeply interested early modern English writers were those that offered them technical resources in the form of rhetorical figures, each a tour de force that, in apparently appropriating the powers of the pictorial, allowed them to display their skill. The virtuosic quality of pictorial writing is itself part of the texture of sixteenth-century English literature, but that pictorialism is heavily informed by a moral-aesthetic philosophy that required imaginative writing to justify its sensory delights and a theological climate in which the pictorial capabilities of the word might supply the delightful images of divine instruction that had supposedly become debased in the pre-Reformation church. The paragone established the terms of reference for that league of the verbal and the visual; two rhetorical figures, ekphrasis and blason , furnished the poet with tools to make advantage from that league; and the emblem and impresa developed as practical arts for the display of the abstract in the pictorial, and were in turn the subject of many ekphrastic descriptions. Above all, the persistent early modern discussion of word and image was informed by developing theories of language and the triumph of English itself as a language of art.

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Horace. Ars Poetica or “Epistle to the Pisos”. In Horace: Satires, Epistles, Ars Poetica . Trans. H. Rushton Fairclough Cambridge, MA: Loeb Classical Editions, 1926 .

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Jonson, Ben . “To the Reader.” In Mr William Shakespeare’s Comedies, Histories, and Tragedies (1623), vol. V in The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Ben Jonson , edited by James Knowles Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2012 .

King, John N.   English Reformation Literature: The Tudor Origins of the Protestant Tradition . Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1982 .

Krieger, Murray . Ekphrasis: The Illusion of the Natural Sign . Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992 .

Krieger, Murray . “Ekphrasis and the Still Movement of Poetry; or Laokoön Revisited.” In The Poet as Critic , edited by Frederick P. W. McDowell , 3–26. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1967 . Reprinted in Murray Krieger, Ekphrasis: The Illusion of the Natural Sign (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992), 263–288.

Lee, Rensselaer . Ut Pictura Poesis: The Humanistic Theory of Painting . New York: W. W. Norton, 1967 .

Leonardo da Vinci. Trattato della Pittura . In The Literary Works of Leonardo da Vinci , edited by Jean Paul Richter and Irma Richter . 2 vols. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1939 .

Lomazzo, Paolo . A Tracte Containing the Artes of curious Paintinge Carvinge & building . Translated by Richard Haydocke . London, 1598 .

Lyly, John . Queen Elizabeth’s Entertainment at Mitcham: Poet, Painter, and Musician. Attributed to John Lyly . Edited by Leslie Hotson . New Haven, CT: Elizabethan Club/Yale University Press, 1953 .

Mendelssohn, Leatrice . Paragoni: Benedetto Varchi’s “Due Lezzioni” and Cinquecento Art Theory . Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1982 .

Mitchell, W. J. T.   Iconology: Image, Text, Ideology . (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986 .

Mitchell, W. J. T.   The Language of Images . Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1974 .

Ong, Walter J., SJ . “ From Allegory to Diagram in the Renaissance Mind: A Study in the Significance of the Allegorical Tableau. ” Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 17, no. 4 ( 1959 ): 423–440.

Ong, Walter J, SJ . Ramus, Method, and the Decay of Dialogue: From the Art of Discourse to the Art of Reason . 2nd ed. New York: Octagon, 1974 .

Peacham, Henry . Minerva Britanna, or a Garden of Heroical Devises. London, 1612 .

Perriere, Guillaume de la . The Theater of Fine Devices, containing an hundred morall Emblemes . Translated by Thomas Combe . London, 1614 .

Petrarcha, Francesco . Petrarch’s Lyric Poems: The “Rime Sparse” and Other Lyrics . Translated and edited by Robert M. Durling . Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1976 .

Phillips, John . The Reformation of Images: The Destruction of Art in England, 1535-1660 . Berkeley: University of California Press, 1974 .

Plato. Republic . Translated by H. D. P. Lee . Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin, 1955 .

Plutarch. De Gloria Atheniensium . In Moralia , vol. 4, edited by Jeffrey Henderson . Cambridge, MA: Loeb Editions, 1936 .

Praz, Mario . Studies in Seventeenth Century Imagery . London: Warburg Institute, 1939 .

Preston, Claire . “Ekphrasis: Painting in Words.” In Renaissance Figures of Speech , edited by Sylvia Adamson , Gavin Alexander , and Katrin Ettenhuber , 113–129. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2007 .

Puttenham, George . The Arte of English Poesie . Edited by Gladys Doidge Willcock and Alice Walker . Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1936 .

Rosand, David . “ Troyes Painted Woes: Shakespeare and the Pictorial Imagination. ” Hebrew University Studies in Literature 8 ( 1980 ): 77–97.

Ruscelli, Girolamo . Le Imprese Illustri . Venice, 1580 .

Seznec, Jean . “ Art and Literature: A Pleas for Humility. ” New Literary History 3, no. 3 ( 1972 ): 569–574.

Shakespeare, William . William Shakespeare: The Complete Works . Edited by Stanley Wells and Gary Taylor . Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986 .

Sidney, Philip . The Countesse of Pembrokes Arcadia. London, 1590 .

Sidney, Philip . A Defence of Poetry . In The Miscellaneous Prose of Sir Philip Sidney , edited by Katherine Duncan-Jones and Jan van Dorsten . Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1973 .

Simpson, James . Under the Hammer: Iconoclasm in the Anglo American Tradition . Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010 .

Smith, Mack . Literary Realism and the Ekphrastic Tradition . University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1995 .

Spenser, Edmund . Spenser: Poetical Works . Edited by J. C. Smith and E. de Selincourt . Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1912 ; repr. 1979.

Spitzer, Leo . “ The ‘Ode on a Grecian Urn’, or Content vs. Metagrammar. ” Comparative Literature 7, no. 3 ( 1955 ): 203–225.

Steiner, Wendy . The Colors of Rhetoric: Problems in the Relations between Modern Literature and Painting . Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982 .

Steiner, Wendy . Pictures of Romance: Form Against Context in Literature and Painting . Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988 .

Thorne, Alison . Vision and Rhetoric in Shakespeare: Looking Through Language . Houndmills, UK: Macmillan/New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2000 .

Trimpi, Wesley . “The Meaning of Horace’s Ut Pictura Poesis .” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 36 ( 1973 ): 1–34.

Vickers, Nancy . “ Diana Described: Scattered Woman and Scattered Rhyme. ” Critical Inquiry 8, no. 2 ( 1981 ): 265–279.

Wells-Cole, Anthony . Art and Decoration in Elizabethan and Jacobean England: The Influence of Continental Prints . New Haven, CT: The Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art/Yale University Press, 1997 .

Whitney, Geoffrey . A Choice of Emblems . London, 1586 .

Wyatt, Thomas . Sir Thomas Wyatt: Collected Poems . Edited by Joost Daalder . Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1975 .

Philip Sidney, The Countesse of Pembrokes Arcadia (1590) , bk. 2, ch. 16, 174.

2 Philip Sidney , A Defence of Poetry , in The Miscellaneous Prose of Sir Philip Sidney , ed. Katherine Duncan-Jones and Jan van Dorsten (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1973), 85 .

3 W. J. T. Mitchell , in Iconology: Image, Text, Ideology , however, argues that the distinction between word and image is really only a practical rather than a metaphysical one (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986), 69 .

4 See Patrick Collinson , From Iconoclasm to Iconophilia: The Cultural Impact of the Second English Reformation (Reading, UK: University of Reading, the Stenton Lecture, 1986) ; and Margaret Aston , England’s Iconoclasts: Laws Against Images (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988) .

5 Catherine Belsey observes that “the rich visual culture of early modern English households still goes widely unacknowledged” in “Invocation of the Visual Image: Ekphrasis in Lucrece and Beyond,” Shakespeare Quarterly 63, no. 2 (2012): 180 . This is the argument implied by, among others, Lucy Gent , Picture and Poetry, 1560–1620 (Leamington Spa, UK: James Hall, 1981) ; and Alison Thorne , Vision and Rhetoric in Shakespeare: Looking Through Language (Houndmills, UK: Macmillan/New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2000) . It is doubtless the case in the later early modern period, less so in the earlier. See Anthony Wells-Cole , Art and Decoration in Elizabethan and Jacobean England: The Influence of Continental Prints (New Haven, CT: Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art/Yale University Press, 1997) ; and Tara Hamling , Decorating the “Godly” Household: Religious Art in Post-Reformation Britain (New Haven, CT: Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art/Yale University Press, 2010) . See also John Phillips , The Reformation of Images: The Destruction of Art in England, 1535–1660 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1974) ; and Norman K Farmer Jr. , Poets and the Visual Arts in Renaissance England (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1984) . On English Bible illustration, see John N. King , English Reformation Literature: The Tudor Origins of the Protestant Tradition (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1982), 152 .

Gent notes that “the English tradition has no place, no words, for artistic drawing, for composition, perspective, design and chiaroscuro” ( Picture and Poetry , 21).

7 On the influence of printing and continental painting in England, see Arthur Hind , Engraving in England in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1952) ; Edward Hodnett , Image and Text: Studies in the Illustration of English literature (Menston: Scolar Press, 1982) ; and David Bland , A History of Book Illustration: The Illuminated Manuscript and the Printed Book , 2nd ed. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1969) . On the Dutch centers of painting and engraving, see Svetlana Alpers , The Art of Describing: Dutch Art in the Seventeenth Century (Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin, 1983) ; and Wells-Cole, Art and Decoration in Elizabethan and Jacobean England , 9–125.

8 On the Tudor tapestries, see Thomas B. Campbell , Henry VIII and the Art of Majesty: Tapestries at the Tudor Court (New Haven, CT: The Paul Mellon Centre for the Study of British Art/Yale University Press, 2007) . On Leicester’s collection of art, see Elizabeth Goldring , Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, and the World of Elizabethan Art: Painting and Patronage at the Court of Elizabeth I (New Haven, CT: Paul Mellon Centre for the Study of British Art/Yale University Press, 2014) . See Hamling, Decorating the “Godly” Household , and Wells-Cole, Art and Decoration in Elizabethan and Jacobean England , for abundant examples of pictorial domestic items. See also Belsey, “Invocation of the Visual Image: Ekphrasis in Lucrece and Beyond,” 182–183.

9 Edmund Spenser , “Colin Clouts Come home againe” (1590), in Spenser: Poetical Works , ed. J. C. Smith and E. de Selincourt (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1912; repr. 1979), 544, lines 776–780 .

10 Plato , Republic , trans H. D. P. Lee (Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin, 1955), bk. 10, sec. 605 (382) .

11 Aristotle , Aristotle’s Poetics , ed. and trans. James Hutton (New York: W. W. Norton, 1982), sec. 7 (53), sect 15 (61) .

12 Plutarch , De Gloria Atheniensium , in Moralia , trans. Jeffrey Henderson (Cambridge, MA: Loeb Editions, 1936), 4:501 .

13 In fact, Horace is actually noting that some poetry, like some paintings, bears repeated readings. Ars Poetica or “Epistle to the Pisos,” in Horace: Satires, Epistles, Ars Poetica , trans. H. Rushton Fairclough   rev. ed . (Cambridge, MA: Loeb Classical Editions, 1926), 480 .

14 On this early modern misreading and the subsequent discussion it engendered, see Clark Hulse , The Rule of Art: Literature and Painting in the Renaissance (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990), 16–62 ; Laura M. Sager Eidt , Writing and Filming the Painting: Ekphrasis in Literature and Film (Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi, 2008) 12 ; Thorne, Vision and Rhetoric in Shakespeare , 32–33, 57–58; Robert Campo , Ronsard’s Contentious Sisters: The Paragone between Poetry and Painting in the Works of Pierre de Ronsard (Chapel Hill: North Carolina Studies in the Romance Languages and Literature/University of North Carolina Department of Romance Languages, 1998), 57–84 ; and Wesley Trimpi , “The Meaning of Horace’s Ut Pictura Poesis ,” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 36 (1973): 1–34 .

15 Samuel Daniel , “To the Reader,” in The Worthy Tract of Paulus Jovius (1585), A1v .

Paragone , until the end of the seventeenth century, meant a comparison or competition, but was not used to refer to the contest between the arts. The debate was a recognized topos, however, and is alluded to by early modern writers as a standard theme of disputatio .

17 John Lyly , Queen Elizabeth’s Entertainment at Mitcham: Poet, Painter, and Musician. Attributed to John Lyly , ed. Leslie Hotson (New Haven, CT: Elizabethan Club/Yale University Press, 1953), 23–24 .

18 Leon Battista Alberti , Della Pittura (1435), bk. 2, ch. 26, in On Painting , rev. ed., trans. John R. Spencer (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1966), 64 .

19 Leonardo da Vinci , Trattato della Pittura, in The Literary Works of Leonardo da Vinci , ed. Jean Paul Richter and Irma Richter , 2 vols (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1939), 52 . See also Thorne, Vision and Rhetoric in Shakespeare , 44.

Leonardo, Trattato , 58. The inventor, investigator, and scientific theorist likens painting to scientific method: it explores and reproduces nature in order to understand it, making disciplined observations and records of it. The visual artist is a kind of empirical investigator, whose work can bear empirical scrutiny and authorize empirical conclusions as an observational substitute for nature itself. The Trattato (before 1519) remained in manuscript until 1651, so it cannot have directly influenced any other theorists at the time.

Sidney, Defence , 79.

The Defence may have been a riposte to Stephen Gosson’s School of Abuse (1579) , although there is no certainty about this. Sidney’s primary defense is of fictionality and the potentially idolatrous and deceiving mental images it prompts; he is also justifying the technical capabilities and merits of vernacular English imaginative writing.

23 Lodovico Dolce , Dialogo della Pittura [known as Aretino] (Venice, 1557) , in Dolce’s “Aretino” and Venetian Art Theory of the Cinquecento , ed. and trans. Mark Roskill (Toronto: University of Toronto Press/Renaissance Society of America, 2000), 96 .

Dolce, Dialogo della Pittura , 169.

25 Paolo Lomazzo , A Tracte Containing the Artes of curious Paintinge Carvinge & building , trans. Richard Haydocke (1598), 95 .

Sidney, Defence , 114.

Philip Sidney, The Countesse of Pembrokes Arcadia (1590) , bk. 1, ch. 3, 10–11.

Arcadia , bk. 1, ch. 13, 57.

Defence , 83–84. One of many ironies in Sidney’s delivery of the argument is that even dessicated philosophy and earthbound history are fictionalized as personages, another point scored for poetry.

Defence , 85.

31 Ben Jonson , Love’s Triumph through Callipolis (1630), in The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Ben Jonson , ed. James Knowles (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2012), VI:331 .

32 Ben Jonson , “To the Reader,” in Mr. William Shakespeare’s Comedies, Histories, and Tragedies (1623), vol. V of The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Ben Jonson , ed. James Knowles (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2012) .

33 See Ernest B. Gilman , Iconoclasm and Poetry in the English Reformation: Down Went Dagon (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986), ch. 2 ; and James Simpson , Under the Hammer: Iconoclasm in the Anglo American Tradition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), chs. 2 and 3 .

Mitchell, Iconology , 36.

35 “Iconic” in this sense is Hagstrum’s term; see Jean H. Hagstrum , The Sister Arts: The Tradition of Literary Pictorialism and English Poetry from Dryden to Gray (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1958), 18 .

36 See Leo Spitzer , “The ‘Ode on a Grecian Urn,’ or Content vs. Metagrammar,” Comparative Literature 7, no. 3 (1955): 203–225 ; James A. W. Heffernan , Museum of Words: The Poetics of Ekphrasis from Homer to Ashberry (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993), 3 ; and Murray Krieger , Ekphrasis: The Illusion of the Natural Sign (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992), 8 ; see also Page Dubois , History, Rhetorical Description and the Epic: From Homer to Spenser (Cambridge, UK: D. S. Brewer, 1982), 3 ; Belsey, “Invocation of the Visual Image: Ekphrasis in Lucrece and Beyond,” 176; John Hollander , “The Poetics of Ekphrasis,” Word and Image 4, no. 1 (1988): 209 ; Hagstrum, Sister Arts , 18n34. On the recent development of this definition of ekphrasis , see Mack Smith , Literary Realism and the Ekphrastic Tradition (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1995), 12 ; Campo, Ronsard’s Contentious Sisters , 39; Jaś Elsner , “Introduction: The Genres of Ekphrasis,” Ramus 31, no. 1/2 (2002): 1–2 .

37 My definition of ekphrasis as prompting us to read descriptions like pictures even if the object is not a work of representation goes against much current writing about early modern ekphrasis , but there is no evidence to support the limitation in early modern or classical practice to the description of artworks, which is merely a subset of the ekphrastic. Further limitations are ahistorical: it must be intended as an ekphrasis ( Heffernan, Museum of Words , 4); it must be spoken by a work of art ( Hagstrum, Sister Arts , 18n34). More accurate treatments include John Bender , Spenser and Literary Pictorialism (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1972), 40–57 ; and Claire Preston , “Ekphrasis: Painting in Words,” in Renaissance Figures of Speech , ed. Sylvia Adamson , Gavin Alexander , and Katrin Ettenhuber (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 115–117 .

38 Leonard Barkan , Mute Poetry, Speaking Pictures (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2013), 20 ; Mitchell, Iconology , 5–28; and D. P. Fowler , “Narrate and Describe: The Problem of Ekphrasis,” Journal of Roman Studies 81 (1991): 25 . See also Wendy Steiner , Pictures of Romance: Form Against Context in Literature and Painting (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988), 13–14 . Synopses of the competing critical analyses of ekphrasis are found in Eidt, Writing and Filming the Painting , 13–15; and Heffernan, Museum of Words , 1–7.

39 See, for example, Jean Seznec , “Art and Literature: A Pleas for Humility,” New Literary History 3, no. 3 (1972): 569–574 . Since few classical paintings survive, it is impossible to judge when classical ekphraseis are iconographic.

40 William Shakespeare, Antony and Cleopatra , 2.2.197–224 (references are to act, scene, and line), in William Shakespeare: The Complete Works , ed. Stanley Wells and Gary Taylor (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986), 1137–1138 .

41 On the ekphrastic pause, see Kreiger , “Ekphrasis and the Still Movement of Poetry; or Laokoön Revisited,” in The Poet as Critic , ed. Frederick P. W. McDowell (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1967), 3–26 ; C. S. Baldwin , Medieval Rhetoric and Poetic (New York: Macmillan, 1928), 19 ; Heffernan, Museum of Words , 5, Fowler, “Narrate and Describe,” 25.

Shakespeare, Cymbeline 2.2.29 (1285).

43 Walter J. Ong , Ramus, Method, and the Decay of Dialogue: From the Art of Discourse to the Art of Reason , 2nd ed. (New York: Octagon, 1974), 91 .

There are a few male blasons , such as Cleopatra’s of Antony. Antony and Cleopatra 5.2.78–91 (1162).

Shakespeare, Twelfth Night 1.5.282–283 (786).

Arcadia , bk. 1, ch. 1, 2.

Spenser, “Colin Clout,” 542, lines 600–607.

Spenser, “Colin Clout,” 540, lines 343–349.

49 The power to fragment has been read as a form of dominion, even as a species of patriarchal, sexual, and colonial control over a female subject, and as a form of rhetorical rape. See, for example, Nancy Vickers , “Diana Described: Scattered Woman and Scattered Rhyme,” Critical Inquiry 8, no. 2 (1981): 265–279 ; Elizabeth Cropper , “The Beauty of Woman: Problems in the Rhetoric of Renaissance Portraiture,” in Rewriting the Renaissance: The Discourses of Sexual Difference in Early Modern Europe , ed. Margaret Ferguson et al. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986), 175–190 ; and Heffernan, Museum of Words , 70–79.

Spenser, “Colin Clout,” 540, lines 344–347.

51 Petrarcha , Petrarch’s Lyric Poems: The Rime Sparse and Other Lyrics , trans and ed. Robert M. Durling (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1976), sonnet 77, lines 176–177 .

Nancy Vickers regards such meronyms as indications of spiritual and moral indescribability. “Diana Described,” 97.

Shakespeare, Cymbeline 1.4.5–6 (1280).

Shakespeare, sonnet 106, lines 13–14 (866).

55 Walter J. Ong , “From Allegory to Diagram in the Renaissance Mind: A Study in the Significance of the Allegorical Tableau,” Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 17, no. 4 (1959): 425 . Ong links the emblem to allegorical tableaux that include much later examples, such as the title page of Hobbes’s Leviathan , on which the motto (the title) yokes together the figure of the giant comprising a multitude of men and the city above which he towers.

56 Edmund Bolton , Elements of Armouries (1610), 7 .

57 See Ernest B. Gilman , The Curious Perspective: Literature and Pictorial Wit in the Seventeenth Century (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1978), 76 .

58 Horapollo was in fact teaching at Constantinople in the fifth century AD, and the “ideograms” were actually phonetic. See Rosemary Freeman , English Emblem Books (London: Chatto and Windus, 1948), 40 ; and Peter M. Daly , Literature in the Light of the Emblem: Structural Parallels between the Emblem and Literature in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (Toronto: Toronto University Press, 1979), 11–16 . Emblems long predate Renaissance humanism, of course—the Alexandrian writers had used them. Mario Praz , Studies in Seventeenth Century Imagery (London: Warburg Institute, 1939, 25) .

59 Paolo Giovio , The Worthy Tract of Paulus Jovius , trans. Samuel Daniel (1585), A1v .

60 Guillaume de la Perriere , The Theater of Fine Devices, containing an hundred morall Emblemes , trans. Thomas Combe (1614), A5r-v .

There is a long-standing debate originating with Praz and Freeman in the 1940s (almost a paragone , indeed) about the verbal versus the visual impulses of the emblem. Praz argues that verbal material (e.g., epigrams) was illustrated to produce emblems; Freeman, against this, prefers visual (including natural and pictorial) phenomena and objects that were moralized in words ( Praz, Studies in Seventeenth Century Imagery , 25–26; Freeman, English Emblem Books , 28). Sidney appears to support Praz: the poet “doth not learn a conceit out of a matter, but maketh matter for a conceit” ( Defence , 99).

Shakespeare, Pericles , scene 5, lines 67–73 (1068).

63 Andreas Alciati , Emblematum Liber (Augsburg, 1531), [A6r] ; Thomas Wyatt , “The Pillar perished is whereto I leant,” in Sir Thomas Wyatt: Collected Poems , ed. Joost Daalder (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1975), poem 160 (203) .

Arcadia , bk. 2, ch. 2, 103.

Arcadia , bk. 1, ch. 12, 50.

Geoffrey Whitney’s Choice of Emblems (1586) , the first English emblem book, was completely unoriginal—the plates were borrowed from works by Junius, Sambucus, Paradin, and (natural) Alciati ( Freeman, English Emblem Books , 56).

Henry Peacham, Minerva Britanna, or a Garden of Heroical Devises [1612], A3v.

68 Henri Estienne , The Art of Making Devises , trans. Thomas Blount (1646), 14 .

69 Girolamo Ruscelli , Le Imprese Illustri (Venice, 1580), II:209 . The impresa is also found in Giovio, Worthy Tract of Paulus Jovius , trans. Daniel, E2r-v.

70 Katherine Duncan-Jones , “Sidney’s Personal Imprese ,” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 33 (1970): 323 . Rabelais mocked and disparaged such rebuses (e.g., a duck [“annadino”] as a plea to a mistress to refuse another suitor [“Anna di no”—“Anna, say no”]; a capital “S” to denote generosity [“largesse”]). François Rabelais , The Histories of Gargantua and Pantagruel , trans. J. M. Cohen (Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin, 1955), 58 ; Lodovico Domenichi, Ragionamento (1559), cited in Praz, Studies in Seventeenth Century Imagery , 63.

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