I first encountered Sir Walter Ralegh’s The History of the World (1614) as a Visiting Scholar at the Arthur F. Kinney Center for Interdisciplinary Renaissance Studies in 2021-2022. At the time, I was in the process of researching and writing a manuscript/documentary film for a Cambridge University Press Element entitled Teaching Shakespeare’s Theatre of the World (under review). Ralegh’s title page illustration vivified how I was imagining the theatrum mundi, but it also raised questions about what constitutes truth and justice.
The theatre of the world metaphor has circulated for millennia as a figure that invites cosmographical contemplation. For example, at the turn of the Common Era, Plutarch claims “life is a festival,” a temporary foray on earth before humanity faces final judgment at the hands of the Gods. The options for eternity are stark: one either goes ‘up’ to Elysium, or ‘down’ to Hades. Christian theologians later typologized the metaphor. John of Salisbury’s twelfth-century satire Policraticus: Frivolities of Courtiers and Footprints of Philosophers reflects the shift to monotheism and the absolute authority of the Christian God as he reminds mundane monarchs and leaders that they are not exempt from final judgment (Ed. Pike, 1938). But by the time Shakespeare’s Jacques says “all the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players,” the cosmological and theological certainties had become catastrophically fractured (Folger, AYLI 2.7).
The 1572 supernova in Cassiopeia marks a key moment of epistemological disruption. When this new star appeared in November 1572 and shone brightly day and night for weeks, it shook the foundations of mathematics and natural philosophy. What NASA now calls ‘Cass A’ (Chandra; Webb) gave rise to advances in measuring parallax that dissolved Aristotle’s solid spheres and confirmed heliocentrism and infinity. At the same time, Alhazen’s De Aspectibus, or Perspectiva, was republished. Alhazen’s (or Ibn al Haytham) theory of optics fed into questions surrounding epistemology writ large. Broadly speaking, Alhazen proposed a double-scope model of vision that synthesized Aristotelian intromission, a theory by which light passes through an external object and into the eye stimulating vision, and extromission, a theory that posited vision generated by the viewer who emits beams of light (see Anne-Valérie Dulac, “Shakespeare’s Alhazen” in Chiari & Popelard, 2017). This double-scope model, like parallax, requires the measurement of multiple viewpoints to arrive at an understanding of a third term or perceived object. One finds Shakespeare exploring the challenges these ideas raise for the theatre of the world and its associations with divine and mundane justice systems – so too, Ralegh.
As I return to Ralegh’s incorporation of the History of the World into the stage play of life, I’m struck by how it grapples with challenges posed by optics and perspective in relation to sociocultural (including theological) and political constructions of “justice.” Ralegh’s The History of the World was not printed until 1614, well after Elizabeth’s death in 1603 and James I’s accession. Already one may see how the title page disrupts strictly vertical judicial hierarchies even as it conveys Ralegh’s masterfully duplicitous rhetoric. Early iterations of the theatrum mundi allocated the adjudication of justice to the singular “Apollonian Eye” of divinity; each individual gets one trial, and there are no appeals.
Title page of Ralegh’s The History of the World (1614) in the collection at the Kinney Center for Interdisciplinary Renaissance Studies.
Although Ralegh’s title page prominently features what appears to be such a singular eye, Providentia emerges from beams of light generated by the horn of Fama Bona and wafting smoke from that of Fama Mala. These figures mediate information generated from a relatively small rendering of a planetary globe, held for their inspection by Magistra Vitae, or History. History is proportionately larger than the globe she supports, a robust, Amazonian-like figure with the power to crush Death and Oblivion blow.
Like divine Providence, History emerges from double-scope inputs that challenge vertical hierarchies of justice and reflect the challenges that optics pose to epistemology. Flanked by a wizened rendering of Experience and a youthful depiction of Truth sharing her light, Magistra vitae absorbs their beamy contributions before projecting her own light to the world above.
On one level of interpretation, History might be read as a record of God’s providence, and as a caution to readers – including King James who was holding Ralegh prisoner at the time of composition. But History is not objective or unmediated. She is informed by both Experientia (Experience) and Veritas (Truth). The optics here are weird on several levels of interpretation, not least the fact that all three allegorical figures are bare-breasted women. Experience sounds the depths and reports to Magistra Vitae whilst Truth sends light from her palm. Truth is proportionately small, about equal to Experience, but far slighter than History, or the figures of Fame that ultimately report to Providence.
From Ralegh’s perspective outlined here, Fame – Rumor – Reputation: these are humanity’s ultimate rewards. But that’s not what’s shocking. What’s shocking is the fact that Ralegh’s engraver has captured the challenge perspective itself poses to law, equity, and mercy – the elements of justice. Is Ralegh cynical about the role of Truth in a judicial equation? Perhaps so. I think we all are. But as a master rhetor himself, one who repeatedly attempts to rewrite his own story in the world, he reminds his audience that Truth is not absolute. She is part of a complex system. She has the power to illuminate History, but once out into the world, her light is subject to perception. Ralegh’s The History of the World raises a question that is urgent now: Will her light survive the tests put forth by world and time?
—Kristen Abbott Bennett, Associate Professor, Framingham State University & Visiting Scholar, Kinney Center
Sources
Raleigh, Walter. The Historie of the World : In Fiue Bookes. Edited by Renold Elstracke, et al., London, 1621.