Courtly Letters in the Age of Henry VIII: Literary Culture and the Arts of Deceit (review)

Reviews 269 the clarity of the exposition. The grammarians and their works are treated with respect, rather than condescension, and with an appreciation of the real and practical purposes for which they wrote. As well as deftly and effectively summarising the current state of knowledge, L a w opens up m a n y lines for investigation in the future, especially in relation to the visual presentation of linguistic materials in early medieval manuscripts. This work is indispensable for any serious study and research in this field. Toby Burrows Scholars' Centre The University of Western Australia Lerer, Seth, Courtly Letters in the Age of Henry VIII: Literary Cult and theArts ofDeceit (Cambridge Studies in Renaissance Literature and Culture 18), Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1997; cloth, pp. xiv, 252; 8 b / w illustrations; R.R.P. AUS$95.00. Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde is central to this book, in parti the role of Pandarus. In Chapter One, Lerer notes the latter's 'distinctive blend of advisory tuition and transgressive voyeurism', and stresses that it is the second 'privy' aspect, Pandarus's part as 'an entrepreneur of the erotic...transrnitting private missives, and misreading and misrepresenting female motives and his o w n desires', that 'defines courtly poetics for the Henrician age and, more generally, that shapes the making of the early modern reader'. If these are large claims, they also produce some fruitful, provocative discussion, and some perceptive re-evaluation of a variety of contemporary literary texts, both well k n o w n and less so. Letter writing and letter reading—whether of verse epistle or political correspondence—are Lerer's foci. (It is not surprising that 270 Reviews Lerer draws attention to that aspect of G. R. Elton's Policy and Pol (Cambridge, 1972), concerned with the tensions between private and public behaviour during the Cromwellian 'revolution'.) Chapter Two examines the 'culture of the go-between, the state Pandarism' that was established, Lerer argues, from the early years of Henry VIII's reign. He does so in three ways: by study of literary examples (including the Twelfth Night, 1516, performance of 'Troilus and Pandar'; Skelton's Magnyfycence and Phyllyp Sparowe; Hawes' Pastime of Pleasure and Conforte ofLouers; Leues of a Truelove; the romance of The Squyr of Lowe Degre ('U Youre Dore'), and the Spanish comedy, La Celestina); by exploratio of the details of the lives of the king's courtiers (William Compton, Henry Norris, Anthony Denny) as friends, confidants and pandars; and by analysis of the correspondence about the possible pregnancy of Queen Katherine written by Luis Carroz, ambassador to King Ferdinand of Spain. Lerer draws upon each to comment illuminatingly on the others' 'theatrics of the intimate' at Henry's court. The play, 'Troilus and Pandar', for instance, is considered a story 'not of lovers but of friends' in its concern with 'maxims of male companionship', and thus powerfully associated with the 'theatrics of [Henry VIII's] minion polities'. In Chapter Three, Lerer examines Henry's secret correspondence with Anne Boleyn, adroitly discussing many aspects of these letters—the king's unique signature, his use of French and English, his plays on the language of the body—in careful detail. The roles of the hand—as an instrument of love and tool of violence; as the letters' handler, official or unofficial, discree or unsanctioned; as evidence of authorship, or of royal power, for example—are explored with great skill. (Note of the fact that 'Writtin with m y hand...' was a popular epistolary ending could have helped Lerer's development of this theme.) Reviews 271 In Chapter Four, Lerer moves on to the later Henrician era, the age of Thomas Cromwell, during which 'codes of national loyalty, religious belief, and personal affinity were irrevocably recast', the 'interception of personal correspondence had become a tool of government', and 'informancy and arrest terrorized the gentry'. Lerer argues persuasively that the personal anthologies now compiled—of familiar Pandaric advice, and excerptions from fifteenth-century manuscripts on the 'priuite' of love—were shaped by the 'surreptition and sedition' of these years, since, in removing, breaking up and reassembling pieces from their original contexts, they were similarly preoccupied with acts of...