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Article Excerpt
ONE OF THE DEFINING CHARACTERISTICS of human knowledge is its capacity for growth. As Ben Jonson put it, in a poem of self-examination and self-criticism,
Where do'st thou carelesse lie Buried in ease and sloth? Knowledge, that sleepes, doth die; And this Securitie, It is the common Moath, That eats on wits, and Arts, and [oft] destroyes them both. (1)
In early modern English "securitie" meant "complacency," here the conviction that the knowledge one possesses is adequate, when it may be moth-eaten. History confirms that in the mainstream of human inquiry knowledge has never remained static. New sources come to light, old ones are reinterpreted; new paradigms are proposed, some are disputed but accepted, others are accepted but displaced or superseded, and so on. Historical scholarship uncovers neglected areas of inquiry, revalues issues formerly regarded as settled, and produces new knowledge, the product being the result of a process of inquiry and discovery that is both critical and self-critical. Francis Bacon was the first modern thinker to fully recognize growth as an innate quality of knowledge, outlining his vision in The Twoo Bookes of Francis Bacon. Of the proficience and advancement of Learning, divine and human (1605)--where "proficience" has the older sense of an "Improvement in skill or knowledge; progress." Bacon's dynamic concept of knowledge as something that can be continually extended included every human being's power to improve his or her ability. In his words, the rationem totius or "essence of the whole" is that learning
disposeth the constitution of the mind not to be fixed or settled in the defects thereof, but still to be capable and susceptible of growth and reformation. For the unlearned man knows not what it is to descend into himself or to call himself to account, nor the pleasure of that "suavissima vita, in dies sentire se fieri meliorem" [this most happy state, to feel one's self becoming a better man day by day]. The good parts he hath he will learn to shew to the full and use them dexterously, but not much to increase them, the faults he hath he will learn how to hide and colour them, but not much to amend them; like an ill mower, that mows on still and never whets his scythe: whereas with the learned man it fares otherwise, that he doth ever intermix the correction and amendment of his mind with the use and employment thereof. (2)
By the process of self-examination and self-criticism (to "descend" into oneself), those who approach new discoveries with an open mind can improve their knowledge indefinitely; those who avoid this confrontation remain trapped in a state of ignorance or prejudice. In addition to these two categories of open and closed minds, Bacon diagnosed a third state, where systems, ideologies, or even individuals block the advancement of learning, and "are indeed but remoras and hinderances to stay and slug the ship [of knowledge] from further sailing" (ibid., 198). The "Remora remora," in our terminology, is a pelagic marine fish that uses a sucking disc on top of its head to obtain rides from other animals such as large sharks and sea turtles. In antiquity the remora was thought to attach itself to ships, slowing their progress, and the famous engraved title page to Bacon's Instauratio Magna shows the ship of learning returning successfully from its voyage of discovery, with some remoras observing it disgruntedly. (3)
Historical scholarship of Elizabethan drama made enormous advances over the last century, in particular in clarifying the conditions under which plays were written. When English literary history began to emerge in the eighteenth century, the normal paradigm for literary production was that of a single author, whether as poet, novelist, or dramatist. That had also been the norm for classical antiquity, despite Michel Foucault's bizarre claim that the author was a modern concept. (4) But the single-author paradigm, though appropriate for Virgil and Horace, Spenser and Milton, Fielding and Richardson, does not fit the material conditions under which drama was produced in London between 1579 and 1642. As I have observed elsewhere, the best analogy is with the bottega of the Renaissance painter, bronze-maker, or scupltor, where a group of craftsmen executed a contract specifying the delivery of a given artwork, of an agreed subject matter and dimension, by a specified date. (5) The analogy does not fit completely, of course (analogies are not meant to), for although Philip Henslowe fills the role of the patron who commissioned and paid for the composition, literary production was organized differently. Whereas the bottega was organized around a master craftsman (Filarete for the bronze doors at St. Peter's, Giovanni Bellini, Titian, or Rembrandt with their assistants), no evidence exists that Elizabethan dramatists worked for a dominant figure....
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