Date/Time
Date(s) - 10 May 2016
5:30 PM - 5:30 PM
Location
Columbia University Faculty House
Category(ies) No Categories
The Columbia University Seminar in the Renaissance will have its fourth meeting of the academic term on Tuesday, May 10th at 5:30 PM at Faculty House. The Faculty House located at 64 Morningside Drive, can also be reached by the gate at 501 W. 116th St. We will hear a paper by Alan Stewart, Columbia University entitled
” Thomas Whythorne: a Tudor musician’s life-writing in songs and sonnets “.
Abstract:
In 1955, Major H. C. H. Foley took a box of manuscripts from his Herefordshire family seat at Stoke Edith to be appraised at Sotheby’s. Among the papers was a substantial folio manuscript entitled ‘A boke of songs and sonetts’ (now Bodleian MS Eng.misc.c.330) which turned out to be a remarkable piece of autobiographical writing, ca. 1576, by the musician, composer and poet, ‘Thomas Whythorne, Gent.’ Trained by the poet-playwright John Heywood, Whythorne (1528-1595) spent much of his life as a music tutor, but traveled widely in Europe, and became master of music to the archbishop of Canterbury. In the ‘Boke’, Whythorne claims to tell his life-story through the lyric verse he has composed. He experiments with highly personalized ways of writing his life, creating his own ‘new Orthografye’, developing his own scheme of the ‘ages of man’, and using portraits to track his ageing; at the same time, however, his life-writing owes much to the shared commonplace wisdom of proverbs. This paper offers an analysis of the ‘Boke’, and asks what and how it tells us – and refuses to tell us – about the life of Thomas Whythorne.
Following the talk, at 7 pm, you are invited to join the speaker and other members of the Seminar to continue our discussion over dinner in Faculty House ($25 by check only, payable to Columbia University).
Please make sure to notify our Rapporteur, Marilyn Bowen <[email protected]>, ten days before the meeting if you plan to attend and, especially, if you plan to dine with us. There is no need to contact the Rapporteur if you do not plan to attend.