Elizabethan Court Fiction: George Gascoigne and John Lyly

First published anonymously in 1573, Master F. J. is a semi-scandalous memoir of a courtier who may be a disguised version of one of Gascoigne's companions at Elizabeth's court--or of himself. It plays with courtly romance conventions and satirizes social pretension. Its structure is strikingly [post-] modern: it is 'authored' by the printer, the middleman, the compiler/editor, and the putative writer, Master F. J. As the compiler/editor explains, the text is a melange of types "wherein you shall find a number of Sonets, layes, letters, Ballades, Rondelets, verlayes and verses, the workes of your friend and myne Master F. J. and divers others, the which when I had with long travayle confusedly gathered together, I thought it then Opere precium, to reduce them into some good order." The book does indeed contain all this, plus letters between F. J and his mistress Elinor, events and dialogue reported by F. J to the compiler/editor, and the latter's commentary on these matters.

F. J first declares his love in a letter stuffed with Petratchan cliches: "I must say that I have found fire in frost . . . I feele a continuall frost, in my most fervent fire." Elinor is appropriately modest in response:

[S]he bashfully began to declare unto him, that she had read over the writinge, which he delivered unto hir, with like protestation, that (as at deliverie thereof, she understode not for what cause he thrust the same into hir bosome) so now she could not perceyue thereby any part of his meaning, neverthelesse at last semed to take uppon hir the matter, and though she disabled hir selfe, yet gave him thankes as &c.

The free indirect discourse, sexual comedy, and stilted dismissal provide a wonderful contrast to F.J.'s courtly pretentions.

Their first sexual encounter continues to mine the ironic potential of Gascoigne's style. Paying her a visit, "taking his night gowne, [he] did under the same convey his naked sword." The episode proceeds, first invoking conventional 'moonlight romance' description:

The Moone was now at the full, the skies clear, and the weather temperate, by reason whereof he might the more playnely and with the greater contentation behold his long desired joyes, and spreding his armes abrode to embrace his loving Mistresse, he sayd: oh my deare Lady when shall I be able with any desert to countervayle the least parte of this your bountiful goodnesse? The dame (whether it were of feare in deede, or that the wylynes of womanhode had taught her to cover hir conceites with some fyne dissimulation) stert backe from the knight, and shriching (but softly) sayd unto him. Alas servaunt what have I deserved, that you come against me with naked sword as against an open enimie.

But why hold I so long discourse in discribing the joyes which (for lacke of like experience) I cannot set out to ye full? Were it not that I know to whom I write, I would the more beware what I write. F. J. was a man, and neither of us are sencelesse, and therfore I shold slaunder him (over and besides a greater obloquie to the whole genealogie of Enaeas) if I should imagine that of tender hart he would forbeare to expresse hir more tender limbes aginst the hard floore.

The suggestion of sexual violence--only partially a consequence of the 'armed knight' image--becomes more obvious as their affair progresses, but when Elinor is the aggressor F. J. actually faints in his bed. Then, "returning to life, the first thing which he felt, was that his good mistres lay pressing his brest with the whole weight of hir body, and biting his lips with hir friendly teeth." They subsequently quarrel when F.J. accuses Elinor of infidelity (she is, after all, a married woman), and she denies it, reproaching him instead:

. . . the which did so enrage F.J. as that having now forgotten all former curtesies, he drew uppon his new professed enemie, and bare hir up with such a violence against the bolster, that before shee could prepare the warde, he thrust hir through both hands, &c, where by the Dame swoning for feare, was constreyned (for a time) to abandon hir body to the enemies curtesie.

Such ugly encounters, narrated with a care for controlling tropes that only reinforces the brutally carnal nature of this 'courtly love,' have no place in John Lyly's Euphues: The Anatomy of Wit (1578). Lyly is best known for his ornate rhetoric, which has given us the word 'euphuism.' (We use 'euphumism' to mean a pretty or neutral phrase for an unpleasant thing, whereas 'euphuism' refers specifically to Lyly's style, an elaborate architecture of balanced and antithetical phrases, illustrative paradox, and resolving chiasmus.) The plot concerns Euphues' change from prodigal to paragon, a change enacted in a language that sets forth alternatives and consequential progressions so that they can be resolved epigrammatically. A short example should suffice; the following speech by Euphues concerns what to do about his love for Lucilla, who is also involved with his friend Philautus:

Shall I not hazarde my lyfe to obtaine my loue? And decieue Philautus to receiuve Lucilla? Yes Euphues [this is a soliloquy]. Where loue beareth sway, friendshippe can haue no shew: As Philautus brought me for his shadowe the last supper, so will I vse him for my shadow til I haue gayned his Saint. And canst thou wretch be false to him that is faithfull to thee? Shall hys curtesie be cause of thy crueltie? Wilt thou violate the league of fayth, to enherite the land of folly? Shall affection be of more force then freindshippe, loue then law, lust then loyaltie? Knowest thou not that he that looseth his honestie hath nothing else to loose?

Despite the stylistic and attitudinal differences between Gascoigne and Lyly, they are similar in their focus on love-adventure among (relatively) high-born heterosexuals. In that way, they are progenitors of the domestic novel of manners (e.g. Richardson, Burney, Austen).

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