Alastair Fowler-Literary names _ personal names in English literature-Oxford University Press (2014)

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LITERARY NAMES

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Literary Names Personal Names in English Literature ALASTAIR FOWLER OXPORD UNIVERSITY PRESS

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1 Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, ox2 6dp, United Kingdom Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries © Alastair Fowler 2012 The moral rights of the author have been asserted First published 2012 Impression: 1 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, by licence or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above You must not circulate this book in any other binding or cover and you must impose the same condition on any acquirer British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Data available Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Data available ISBN 978–0–19–959222–7 Printed in Great Britain by Clays Ltd, St Ives plc

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For my daughter Alison

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Preface My title Literary Names calls for explanation. The subtitle “Personal Names in English Literature” provides some of this but not quite enough. It gives no hint that while the main focus is on English I have made sorties into Latin, Greek, French, and Italian. This book is an expansion of my 1974 Witter Bynner lecture at Harvard and my 2008 F. W. Bateson lecture at Oxford. Discussion after the Bateson lecture suggested the subject of literary names was far larger than I had grasped, and deserved treatment at book length. Sub- sequent work conﬁrmed this: indeed, it now seems that a single book is hardly enough. The following pages do not amount to a deﬁnitive or systematic trea- tise. I have rather aimed at a series of interrelated essays exploring how names have functioned in literature.The broader chapters (1, 2, 4, 7, and 9) are mixed with others on individual authors who use names in spe- cially interesting ways: Spenser, Shakespeare, Milton, Dickens, Joyce, and Nabokov. I hope these case studies may be found less superﬁcial. Emphasis has fallen on earlier literature, partly because I am less ignorant about it and partly because names mattered more in Renais- sance literature, and more diversely. In pre-Enlightenment literature names loomed large, not least in its hidden levels, in acrostics and anagrams. A book of this sort incurs a mountain of indebtedness—more, prob- ably, than I am aware of, and certainly more than can be adequately acknowledged here. Perhaps the greatest intellectual debt of scholars is to educative conversation with colleagues and friends. In my case this means colleagues at Oxford, Edinburgh, Princeton, Charlottesville, and elsewhere—many of them now gone: F. W. Bateson, Irvin Ehren- preis, C. S. Lewis, Wallace Robson. Among living colleagues at Edin- burgh University, it is a pleasure to acknowledge what I have learned from Michael Bury, Owen Dudley Edwards, Liz Elliott, R. D. S. Jack, Roger Savage, and Susan Shatto (the last almost a collaborator).

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viii preface Others, elsewhere, have corresponded generously:William Bellamy, Eleanor Cook, Jerry Leath Mills, James Nohrnberg, Bernard Richards, Tom Roche, Roger Swearingen, David Vander Meulen, Sir Christo- pher Ricks, and Jack Levenson (who after more than thirty years of contestation has ﬁnally persuaded me that FinnegansWake is immensely enjoyable). On heraldry, I consulted Robin Orr Blair (formerly Lord Lyon King of Arms) and Katy Lumsden of the Genealogical Ofﬁce, Dublin. Former pupils too have instructed me, especially Christopher But- ler, Anne Coldiron,Tom Corns, Peter Field, and Misako Himuro. But debts to pupils remain unknowably vast. Some friends or acquaintances made the sacriﬁce of reading indi- vidual chapters or part chapters in draft: Howard Erskine-Hill, Robert Cummings, Denis Feeney, Juan Pellicer, and Peter Davidson. Others helped on particular points: John Burrow, Martin Dodsworth, Peter France, Christopher de Hamel, Emrys Jones, Aleta Konkol, Norman Kreitman, Michael Lurie, Mark Scowcroft, Karen Thompson, and Robbert Wetselaar. And always the staff of the National Library of Scotland have been unfailingly helpful. It is a particular pleasure to acknowledge the contribution of Professor John Considine of the University of Alberta, who made many learned and valuable suggestions. What I owe to my wife Jenny may be imagined from the fact that she had to talk names every single day for three years. Alastair Fowler Edinburgh, 2011

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Contents x Abbreviations 1 11 Introduction 29 1. Naming in History 53 2. Modes of Naming 75 3. The Faerie Queene 101 4. Hidden Names 125 5. Shakespeare’s Names 141 6. Milton’s Changing Names 171 7. Assumed and Imposed Names 193 8. Thackeray, Dickens, and James 215 9. Arrays of Names 233 10. Joyce and Nabokov 235 Afterword 237 267 Glossary References Index

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Abbreviations 12N Twelfth Night a. adjective Aen. Aeneid AYLI AsYou Like It BL British Library c. approximately CCCHA Colin Clouts Come Home Againe EETS The Early English Text Society e.s. extra series FQ The Faerie Queene HTOED Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary MND A Midsummer Night’s Dream MWW Merry Wives of Windsor n.s. new series N&Q Notes and Queries o.s. original series OCD Oxford Classical Dictionary ODECN Oxford Dictionary of English Christian Names ODN Oxford Dictionary of Nicknames ODNB Oxford Dictionary of National Biography OED Oxford English Dictionary OLD Oxford Latin Dictionary ONC Oxford Names Companion PMLA Publications of the Modern Language Association SC The Shepheardes Calender SEnc The Spenser Encyclopedia STS The Scottish Text Society TLS The Times Literary Supplement Var. Spenser Variorum Spenser wr. written

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Is not my name Sir Bounteous, am I not exprest there? (Thomas Middleton, A Mad World, My Masters 4.3.44)

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Introduction 8 What is it we call a proper name? and how do proper names differ from common nouns? Such questions have long been wran- gled over by philosophers. Some of them consider proper names meaningless, crediting them with unique speciﬁcity of reference, so that “Napoleon’s barber” denotes one man only—as if there were only one Napoleon and he never changed his barber. And how are we to reconcile uniqueness with the thousand George Washingtons in the USA? The comparative uniqueness of proper names goes with the untranslatability W. H. Auden draws attention to.1 Other philosophers regard names as condensed descriptions, the most meaningful of nouns.2 Can one even be sure that proper names are a “subdivision” or “subset of language”, as Laurie Maguire assumes?3 Her view becomes problematic when one reﬂects that any proper name can become a common noun (“a Judas”,“a Hitler”), and conversely that all words— grammatical words as well as nouns—can be names.The Who perhaps thought it would be original to call themselves after a relative pro- noun; but grammatical words have often been used as names: for example From,Thus, How, and And.4 Paul Ziff tries to get out of these thickets by saying that proper names ordinarily are not part of lan- guage at all, and so escape grammatical and linguistic constraints.5 But Ziff ’s extreme measure is unnecessary. One need only be aware of the confusion that easily arises from the ambiguity in Latin nomen (“name”, “noun”), particularly among writers like Thomas Sprat, who identiﬁed names with words and paired words with things.6 The question whether names are meaningful received a classic statement in Plato’s Cratylus. This seminal but often misunderstood

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2 literary names dialogue opposes the onomastic theories of the stylist Hermogenes and the Heraclitean philosopher Cratylus. Hermogenes argues that names are arbitrarily assigned; Cratylus thinks them natural and mean- ingful. Socrates, represented as more of a linguist than either, speaks of names as correct “at the time of utterance”. He overthrows both their positions; which should discourage any simple contrast. But this con- clusion has seldom been drawn: the un-Platonic dichotomy is too convenient. And many suppose the so-called “essentialists” of the early modern period preferred Cratylus’ view (wrongly identiﬁed with Soc- rates’).7 Nevertheless, Anne Barton has shown the usefulness of the terms Cratylic and Hermogenean.They serve as clear labels for con- trasting sorts of name: the ordinary, meaningless name and the mean- ingful, often moral, name, as in Morality plays.8 “Magniﬁcence” is a Cratylic name, “Kermode” is Hermogenean.Thomas Docherty holds that signiﬁcant names restrict the freedom of ﬁction by determining character development.9 But the wide variation in names’ explicitness and plausibility makes this thesis highly debatable. Useful as the terms have proved to be, they are not without difﬁcul- ties. A name may, for example, be hard to place within either category exclusively. After all, every word in literature is supposed to be in some sense apt and meaningful. Not that all literary names need be explicit charactonyms: they can be meaningful in different ways. When Humpty-Dumpty demands what Alice’s name means, she wonders “must a name mean something?” “Of course it must,” says Humpty positively: “my name means the shape I am—and a good handsome shape it is, too. With a name like yours, you might be any shape, almost.”10 “Humpty-Dumpty” was then still descriptive of “a short, dumpy, hump-shouldered person”.11 Alice recognizes Humpty at sight because she has just recited the riddling nursery rhyme and knows, or thinks she knows, the answer is an egg.12 Lewis Carroll, that is, C. L. Dodgson the mathematical logician (two names for two distinct iden- tities), knew that names cannot easily be categorized as meaningful or meaningless. “Alice” and “Humpty-Dumpty” had their histories and meant different things at different times. As we shall see,Victorian writers knew that names like Alice for- merly had meanings. Besides, the most Hermogenean of names may have allusive potential. The original meaning of “Hitler” has become obscure; yet a writer could hardly name a character “Hitler” without intending an allusive type-name. Allusion being a relatively recent

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introduction 3 device in vernacular literatures, early discussions of naming overlooked it. But when Sir Philip Sidney writes of “the Terentian Gnatho and our Chaucer’s Pandar so expressed [represented] that we now use their names to signify their trades”, he shows some awareness of how proper names can become allusive common names.13 More recently, Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) in his attempt to purify the language of the philosophical tribe, subjected naming to determined analysis. But he was not much aware of the historical entanglement of names, the “complex human circumstances under which the naming of persons becomes charged with meaning and power”.14 As Frank Kermode notes, “names can have power, but not always”,15 citing Tempest 1.1: “What cares these roarers for the name of king?” and Coriolanus 5.6.100, where Coriolanus is disallowed the name Martius. Every word, to some degree, retains associations, both individual and communal, which give it meaning. Possessed as he was by his quest for the chi- meric, fundamental particle of reference—the irreducible name— Wittgenstein did not see that associations are ineradicable. A word’s sense, even its sound, adheres to it, whatever its referential function. Philosophers innocent of linguistics tend in their discourse to rely implicitly on the generalizing present tense. Doing so simpliﬁes many philosophical problems wonderfully. It took an Egyptologist, Sir Alan Gardiner (1879–1963), to detect the error of this synchronic approach. Gardiner thought it deplorable that logicians should say “here the word smith . . . is used as a proper name . . . as if the name ‘Smith’ were a fortuitous momentary application, and had not belonged to its owner from the very day of his birth”—or, to put it a little more exactly, from the registration of his birth.16 Few philosophers have joined Saul Kripke in discussing how names are arrived at; and fewer still consider how they change with context. Kripke shows ﬂaws in the simple clus- ter-of-descriptions theory of names. How, for example, are ambiguous references to be explained? (Is “Cicero” a Roman orator or a German spy?).17 But even Kripke cannot be said to explore the temporal dimen- sion very far. Every name changes its meaning over time.The ambigu- ity of “Cicero” did not antedate World War II. Nicknames are particularly mutable.As a medical student I was called Slasher; but few call me that now. Much depends on historical context: “Kevin”, the name of a seventh-century saint of noble Leinster ancestry, became a 1980s type-name for a ﬂashy, lower-class youth. In discussing names, diachronic factors always need to be kept in mind.

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4 literary names Fictional names In real life, ﬁrst names are usually chosen by parents or godparents or—in the case of some nineteenth-century servants—imposed by employers. Births are by statute registered by name at a Registry, and the Registrar may disallow the proposed given name if it seems outra- geously foolish or cruel. Surnames, however, are in Britain part of the inheritance of a child, who bears the name passed on from paternal ancestors, either directly or according to a patronymic rule. But names in literature are not inherited like this: a ﬁctional character’s name must be found or invented—if, that is, the character is to be named at all.The novelist Joyce Cary once told Wallace Robson he thought it a good working rule that characters should not be named unless they play a part in the story. This is a point of some importance: many writers ﬁnd it impossibly difﬁcult to select the right name for a character. For the “true name” must perfectly suit a character who as yet does not fully, or even deﬁ- nitely, exist. To arrive at this right name the writer must relinquish shadowy alternatives—between which there has up till now been secret hesitation—and must embrace one, newly deﬁnite, character. Naming a ﬁctional character thus calls for more knowledge than the writer had when earlier, vaguer drafts were sketched.Yet many writers cannot get started until they have names, however provisional these may be. Kingsley Amis agonized over using “Margaret” (Philip Larkin’s friend’s name) in Lucky Jim.18 He seems to have wanted a real name with associations he knew. J. R. R.Tolkien had similar difﬁculties with The Hobbit; at one stage Bilbo Baggins ran a serious risk of being called “Bingo”. It is understandable, then, that a character’s name may need to be changed. Often such changes are put down to oversight; but they may be the result of deliberate decisions.19 George Bernard Shaw seems to have had an unusual writing practice, in that he drafted dia- logue for anonymous characters.20 To overcome such difﬁculties, many writers select names from some sort of real-life list. Shakespeare drew on William Camden’s essays on names in Remains; Henry Fielding used a subscription list; Henry James collected names from The Times newspaper for future use; Émile Zola studied the Paris Directory; and Irvine Welsh gets his names from the Edinburgh phonebook.21 Charles Dickens has been imagined ﬁnding

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introduction 5 names by chance on posters or vehicles. In fact, as we shall see, he too kept lists of possible names, with many alternatives for the same char- acter.22 Such lists sometimes merit more attention than they have usu- ally received from critics. Another route a writer may follow is to take over a name already selected by an earlier writer. Again, this possibility has not apparently been much explored. Yet it is probably commoner and more signiﬁcant than we realize, if only because the name then comes trailing clouds of associations, good or bad, from previous literary incumbents. In short, it may be an allusive name. Think how often romance heroes have been called Arthur, or Gawain. Samuel Butler’s Hudibras alludes to Spenser’s unwise Hudibras in The Faerie Queene, who in turn alludes to the legendary king in Geoffrey of Monmouth. Similarly, Soames in Galsworthy’s Forsyte Saga may be named after the business manager of Trollope’s Lord Lufton. A sort of literary name almost invariably allusive is the mythological. The names of deities in particular already had rich implications in clas- sical times, and were among the ﬁrst to acquire a similar potency of reference in vernacular literature.They will require separate treatment in discussing literary periods when mythology tended for one reason or another to be taken seriously, as for example with Spenser and Shakespeare. In the Middle Ages, when pagan mythology had to be accommodated through moral or spiritual allegory, the names of dei- ties often served as moral type-names.The Renaissance mythographers still laboured to discover philosophical signiﬁcances in the pagan gods. Thus Natale Conti (c. 1520–82) divides his explanations under the heads historice, physice, ethice, and the like: euhemeristic, scientiﬁc, and moral.23 In popular handbooks these meanings could become starkly simple: in Parnassus Illustratus Diana is said to be “the goddess of hunt- ing and virginity; and she is the moon”. Julius Caesar Scaliger’s Poetice (1561) distinguishes two kinds of numina: one group of powers divine and the other expressing internal experience.24 The habit of ﬁnding moral meanings in all sorts of names led to their being regarded as ideals of behaviour, especially for the bearer of the name. One’s name was to be lived up to, and valued because embodying reputation: it might therefore be of ultimate importance. According to Joseph Addison, “every honest Man sets as high a Value upon a good Name, as upon Life it self ”.25 In an early essay Robert Louis Stevenson focuses on the formative effect of a person’s name,

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6 literary names which “makes itself felt from the very cradle”. Such views on what is sometimes called nominative determinism have been statistically vali- dated: study of American dental rolls, for example, show a signiﬁcant correlation between men called Dennis and men becoming dentists. Stevenson remembers the pride “with which [he] hailed Robin Hood, Robert Bruce, and Robert le Diable as [. . .] name-fellows”, and considers those who have triumphed over the dire inﬂuence of unfor- tunately anticlimactic names such as William Shakespeare Cockerill and John Milton Hengler.26 Notable among these is Dante Gabriel Rossetti, who “dared to translate from his mighty name-father”.27 Ste- venson leaves conspicuously unmentioned here the heavy burden of the name of a famous family of engineers on someone with no voca- tion for engineering. Dickens seems to have been oblivious to such considerations: he named most of his sons (not, signiﬁcantly, his daugh- ters) after writers who were his friends or heroes. He called his ﬁrst son Charles, after himself; his second,Walter Landor afterWalter Savage Landor; his third, Francis Jeffery after the “critic laureate”; his fourth, Alfred D’Orsay Tennyson; his ﬁfth, Sydney Smith Haldimand; his sixth, Henry Fielding; and his seventh, Edward Bulwer Lytton (“Plorn”). Because literature is by deﬁnition reread, names from literature are invariably familiar, or potentially familiar, and have a content of asso- ciations, resembling in this London names for anyone who has visited the places denoted. Peter Lamarque and Stein Olsen make the interest- ing point that names in ﬁction can never be purely denotative, since they cannot be replaced by another formulation of equal truth-value.28 The London in a story is not all London, but only certain aspects of it selected by the author.And one might add that for similar reasons this applies also to mythological names. A mythological name in a literary work does not imply all that the name can mean. Written names When proper names came to be written down, they often presented special difﬁculties of spelling. Except for biblical and classical names, texts or reference books could not be relied on for authoritative precedents. While the culture was still oral, or largely oral, names were given what- ever spelling seemed best to represent their sound. In Chaucer,Arcturus appears also as Arcture and Arctour; Semiramis might be Semyram,

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introduction 7 Semyrame, Semyramis, or Semyramus.29With printed Bibles, and printed lists of names such as those in William Camden’s Remains (1605), stand- ardization gradually advanced; but at ﬁrst printers’ arbitrary spellings increased the chaos.30 Surnames in particular continued to give trouble, as we shall see in chapter 3. The diarist Samuel Pepys (1633–1703) still often spelt surnames as he heard them, putting “Martin” for Merton; “Kerneguy” for Carnegie;“Dancre” for Danckerts;“Harlow” for Harley; “Chevins” for Chafﬁnch; and “Hogsden” for Hoxton. Indeed, he wrote his own name in shorthand as Peps, indicating a monosyllable that might be pronounced Peeps, Peps, or Payps. But he also wrote it in a book, in Greek letters, spelling it Πηπ̑ υς; so he probably pronounced it Peeps.31 In No Bed for Bacon, Caryl Brahms and S. J. Simon make a running joke of the problem, picturing Shakespeare as hopelessly undecided how to spell his own name.Their Shakespeare tries out Shakesper, Shakspere, and Shek- spar, Shakspaw, and Shakeshpeare. “He crossed out Shakespere and wrote Shakspur”; “Shakespur Shakspire Shikspar. He crossed them out. Shacspore he wrote.”32 In real life Shakespeare probably did not use many variants of his name.33 But Anne Hathaway was registered as Anna Hatherrewaye. And Queen Elizabeth herself misspelled Leicester’s name “Leycesterre”. English spelling was relatively ﬂuid during the Renaissance compared with that of the Romance languages, where Latin orthography was more often a reliable guide. The possibilities for ludic variation were endless, foreshadowing the freedoms taken in FinnegansWake. Proper names have continued to present orthographic problems. How, for example, are foreign and classical names to be translated? Elizabethan authors boldly anglicized, as even George Chapman did, writing Biron as “Byron”. By comparisonVictorian writers tried to be more consistent and more correct. Thomas de Quincey (1785–1859) thundered against Walter Savage Landor (1775–1864) for his method of anglicizing classical names: “he insists on our saying—not Heracleidae and Pelopidae, as we all used to do,—but Heracleids and Pelopides”.34 But Landor’s worst “caprice” showed in his treatment of Greek names: Nous autres say “Aristotle”, and are quite content with it until we migrate into some extra-superﬁne world; but this title will not do for him: “Aristoteles” it must be. And why so? Because, answers the Landor, if once I consent to say Aristotle, then I am pledged to go the whole hog; and perhaps the next man I meet is Empedocles,—whom in that case, I must call Empedocle.Well, do so. Call him Empedocle; it will not break his back, which seems broad enough. But, now, mark the contradictions in which Mr Landor is soon landed. He

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8 literary names says, as everybody says, Terence and not Terentius; Horace and not Horatius; but he must leave off such horrid practices, because he dare not call Lucretius by the analogous name of Lucrece, since that would be putting a she instead of a he; nor Propertius by the name of Properce, because that would be speak- ing French instead of English. In the face of custom and history, both writers were pursuing an impossible ideal of consistency. Sometimes the problem resolves itself into one of relative authority. As Walter de la Mare notes, Lewis Carroll “was so little known to the public in his later years that a ‘special correspondent’ in Oxford spelt his name Dogson throughout an obituary article which appeared in a leading London newspaper”.35 It would not have been difﬁcult for an Oxford correspondent to discover the correct spelling. More recently, reference books such as Who’s Who has made spelling of personal names much easier. But journalists, thinking they have no time to con- sult these, and imagining websites will be quicker, still often spell names wrongly. My own name, for example, more often than not appears misspelled. This is not a theoretical book, although occasionally it touches on philosophy or narratology. For a more abstract treatment of names, readers may be referred to such works as WillyVan Langedonck’s The- ory and Typology of Proper Names (2008). Historical changes in naming customs and in the function of naming in literature have determined the arrangement of this book. Chapters 1 and 2 survey the history of real-life names and the function of names in various literary genres. Chapters 3, 5, and 6 are more detailed case studies of Spenser, Shakespeare, and Milton. Chapter 4 surveys the history of hidden names, an important feature of much pre-Enlightenment litera- ture. Chapter 7 treats temporary names such as nicknames and servant names. Chapter 8 focuses on how Thackeray and Dickens varied the naming of characters. Arrays—ordered groups of names from Homer to Pope—are the subject of chapter 9. Finally, chapter 10 studies Joyce and Nabokov, perhaps the two most eminent namers in our literature.36 Notes 1. Auden 1971: 267. 2. See Jesperson 1924: 64–71, esp. 66. 3. Maguire 2007: 4, 58.

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introduction 9 4. White 1857: 525–8. Cf., too, Rudyard Kipling’s poem in “The Elephant’s Child”: “I keep six honest serving-men | (They taught me all I knew); | Their names are What and Why and When | And How and Where and Who.” 5. Ziff 1960: 85–9, perhaps supported by Crystal 1995: 122, where proper names are considered to be on the edge of the lexicon. For a critique of Ziff ’s position, see Kripke 1980: 32–3. 6. See Ferry 1988: 65; Maguire 2007: 22; Sprat 1667. 7. On this error, see Screech 1979: 388; Barton 1984: 356;Vickers 1984: 95–163; Marks 1988: 212, 231 n.1. 8. Barton 1990. 9. Docherty 1983: 45, 49. 10. Carroll 2000: 208. 11. OED 2. “Dumpty”, a by-form of “dumpy”, meant “a very short person”; see Halli- well-Phillipps 1847. “Humpty-Dumpty” may echo “Dump” and “Dumphry”, pet- forms of “Humphrey”. Before the eponymous nursery rhyme, the name had been applied to a cannon used by Royalist defenders at the siege of Colchester, which fell from the wall; whereupon “All the king’s horses and all the king’s men | Couldn’t put Humpty together again.” See Jack 2008: 80–3. 12. Humpty reverses the situation where proper names usually have no obvious meaning, whereas other words usually have generally shared meanings: see Alexander 1951: 551–66; Mare 1932: 57–8. 13. Sidney 1973: 86. 14. Ragussis 1986: 222. 15. Kermode 2001: 195, 197. 16. Gardiner 1954: 6–7. 17. Kripke 1980: 92–4. 18. See Amis 2000: 262, 292. Cf. Lodge 1992: 7–8. 19. See, e.g., Jack 1991: 102. 20. See Watt 1957: 20; Barton 1990: 91–2. 21. James 1987: 57. 22. See Stone 1985: 191–204, and ch. 8 passim. 23. See Seznec 1953: 248. 24. Scaliger 1964: 163 column 2. 25. Spectator 451. 26. Stevenson 1922–3: 25.92. Robert the Devil murdered his schoolmaster; see De Quincey 1896–7: 11.437. 27. Ibid. 95. 28. Lamarque and Olsen 1994: 80–1. 29. See David et al. 1979. 30. See Crystal 1995: 66–7. 31. See Pepys 1970–83: 6.173 n. 1. 32. Brahms and Simon 1941: 13, 19, 22, 42, 226. 33. Only Shakespeare, Shakspeare, and Shakspere; see Schoenbaum 1970: 227. 34. Quincey 1896–7: 11.441. 35. Mare 1932: 28. 36. Ibid. 11. 336.

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1 Naming in History 8 In the course of history, the aptness of names has in general dimin- ished. Sound changes and changes of social circumstances have tended to reduce it. D’Urbervilles have become Durbeyﬁelds: trades- men’s sons do not always follow their father’s trade.1 Besides, successive bearers of a family name are liable to have different occupations and personal characteristics.The limitations of historical knowledge make it impossible to determine quite how far early names were meaningful. Nevertheless, many names originated in nicknames. And there can be no doubt children used often to be given names that might inspire them, names with “good signiﬁcation” that might be “as a thread tyed about the ﬁnger, to make us mindful of the errand we came into the world to do for our Master”.2 As we shall see, recent writers have had to ﬁnd new ways of apt naming. Full names The need to disambiguate reference supposedly led to the develop- ment of fuller names with a particularizing addition: among many Edmunds, Edmund Ironside would stand out, and among Swein, Swein Forkbeard.With the higher population densities of towns and eventu- ally cities it took more than a single name or patronymic to specify individuals. In the centuries after the Conquest, the Normans gradu- ally superimposed a system of surnames that individuated by specify- ing hierarchical places and functions. But this model needs to be modiﬁed to some degree. As Scott Smith-Bannister has shown, the

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12 literary names choice of names came to have other functions besides disambiguation. Perhaps equally important, for example, they belonged to changing patterns of baptismal sponsorship.3 Looking back through history, the hypothetical age when single names were universal tends to recede.4 “Mister” before surnames only came in about 1550; but “Master” with surnames goes back to at least 1297,5 and was still used for ancient writers in the seventeenth century. The accounts for London Bridge list full names, not only for artiﬁcers but even for labourers:William Sporiour, John Archer, Henry Tomson, Thomas Richard, John Crowcheman, John Rowland, and many more.6 These are from the accounts for 1501–2; but already the 1381–2 accounts list John Hoo and Henry Yevele as Keepers of the Bridge, James Rameseye as ﬁshmonger, and Matilda Bray and Richard Albon (tenement holders).7 In literature, Shakespeare gives even the rebel Jack Cade his sur- name. Jean Froissart (and Lord Berners his translator8) already use many full names (Francis Ackerman, Hugh Spencer). And although Orlando Furioso (1532) has some single romance names (Alcina; Marﬁsa), Ari- osto often acknowledges family connections:Astolfo son of King Otto of England is cousin to Orlando and Rinaldo. Ariosto makes sure that real-life contemporaries (Bernardo Cappello; Pietro Bembo) receive their full, two-part names.9 Among the Scottish paladins, many are given Latinized or Italianized forms of their full titles: “Il Conte d’Ottonlei” (Earl of Athol); “Lurcanio Conte, ch’in Angoscia regna” (Earl of Angus); Ariodante, “Duca d’Albania” (Duke of Albany); “Arimano, Signoreggia Forbesse” (Lord of Forbes)—perhaps examples of the untranslatability of proper names. Earlier, Dante already had many full names, for example Sassol Mascheroni and Camicion de’ Pazzi (Inferno 32.66). But his Francesca and Paolo are appropriately the single names of romance. Chaucer uses full names for writers—William Seynt Amour, Tho- mas Bradwardyn—and (prudently) for Harry Bailly. As for Chaucer’s Roman names, they imply the full tria nomina: praenomen, gens name, and cognomen: his “Fabricius” implies Caius Fabricius Luscinus; and his “Affricanus”, a cognomen recalling achievement, implies Cornelius Scipio Africanus. In short, naming practices have been extremely variable. Early surnames might be descriptive in four ways, or a combination of these.10 Many surnames derived from a place or region, like Calder

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naming in history 13 (or Cawdor); Blair (Gaelic blár, “plain, ﬁeld, battleﬁeld”); and Waleys (“foreigner”) as in Thomas Waleys, the fourteenth-century Oxford Dominican commentator on Ovid. Secondly, surnames might derive from a craft: Mason; Cook; Fowler; Smith; and Gow (Gaelic gobha, “smith”); although an occupation might also indicate rank. Occupa- tion and location might coincide, as in Ackerman (“acre-man”), either a topographic name or a mark of status (a feudal tenant employed as a ploughman). A third group of surnames conveyed kinship, the particular relation- ship being ﬁxed by a preﬁx (Mac) or a word ending (-son, -daughter). Hence Johnson; Anderson (“Andrew’s son”); MacNab (“son of the abbot”); Macpherson (“son of the parson”).Where such a patronymic practice was established (as in the west Highlands and Shetland),“sur- names” changed from generation to generation. The son of a John Robertson might be Andrew John-son or Andrew Robertson (if he adopted his father’s patronymic as a ﬁxed surname). Indeed, when pat- ronymic practice interacted with occupational names the range of choice was wider still. In Ireland, patronymic names were forbidden by the 1366 Statutes of Kilkenny, but continued in practice until the nine- teenth century (as indeed they did locally in England and Scotland).11 Such names abound in the historical ﬁction of George Mackay Brown, for example:“Magnus Erlendson” and “Hakon son of Paul” in Magnus (1973); and “Ronald Sigmundson” in Vinland (1992). A fourth group of surnames are evidently from nicknames, like Meikle and Grant (or Grand), “big”. Some of these are insulting, as Anne Barton notices. But apparently descriptive names can be decep- tive. Forward, for example, which may seem descriptive in much the same way as Froward, probably derives from Anglo-Saxon forweard (“swineherd”), an occupational name.12 Meanings became less overt with changes of pronunciation and spelling: the name Mainwaring had more than 130 distinct forms in a single family archive.13 In consequence,Tudor and Stuart orthography offered ample opportunities to stress Cratylic aptness or conceal it. In the Middle Ages the ﬁrst or given name was often that of a saint, although not necessarily the saint celebrated on a person’s natal day. After the Reformation, non-scriptural saints’ names became less popu- lar, perhaps because associated with superstition. Instead, sectarians often supplemented the stock of biblical names with pious inventions. William Camden disapproves of these invented names as “vanitie”:

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14 literary names If that any among us have named their children Remedium amoris, Imago saeculi, or with such like names, I knowe some will thinke it more then a vanitie, as they do but little better of the new names, Free-gift, Reformation, Earth, Dust, Ashes, Delivery, More fruite, Tribulation, The Lord is neare, More triall, Discipline, Joy againe, From above: which have lately beene given by some to their children with no evill meaning, but upon some singular and precise [Puritan] conceit.14 Similar examples in baptismal registers led theVictorian Charles Bard- sley to make the exaggerated claim that “Puritan names were wide- spread from 1560 to 1650 south of the Trent”; only a local prevalence, however, is now accepted.15 And sometimes the invention was not out of whole cloth. “Praisegod Barebone”, the name of a real Puritan (c. 1598–1679 or 1680), seems to extend invention to the family name. But Barebone only modiﬁes his real surname Barbon.16 Nevertheless, almost every Puritan name in Ben Jonson’s Alchemist (1610) came from real life. Zeal of the Land is close to Bardsley’s Zeal for God (with “God” replaced to placate the censors).17 Such names have been regarded as allegorical inventions; but much of life was then allegorical. Camden lists Mauger and Original, besides Faith, Fortitude, Grace, and Temperance, as actually used in the seventeenth century—and some still were, in the nineteenth.18 First names had long been used as surnames, for example Nicholas, and Mitchell (from Michael). But in the sixteenth century, surnames began to be used as ﬁrst names: “in late yeres Surnames have beene given for Christian names among us”.19 Camden approves of this prac- tice as springing from the godfathers’ affection and a wish to propagate the family name.At ﬁrst the practice was mostly conﬁned to the peer- age and upper gentry:20 Bulstrode Whitelocke, for example, was the son of Sir James Whitelocke and Elizabeth Bulstrode. Camden’s exam- ples include “Pickering Wotton, Grevill Varney, Bassingburne Gawdy, Calthorp Parker, Pecsall Brocas, and Fitz-Raulfe Chamberlaine, who are the heires of Pickering”. He may have been wrong in saying such ﬁrst names were found “no where else in Christendom”; a Napoleonic edict later forbade the practice in the Netherlands. This use of sur- names as forenames has literary signiﬁcance, since it lent plausibility to double-barrelled charactonyms like Politic Persuasion and Sir Politic Would-Be. Surname-forenames have ﬂourished in the modern novel, as in real-life social pretension. Somerset Maugham’s The Razor’s Edge (1944) provides an example: it seems almost inevitable that the exqui- site snob who lives for social advantage should bear the name Elliott

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naming in history 15 Templeton.21 Sometimes, too, a forename is chosen because it is an element of the surname (Aulay Macaulay, Dru Drury). A shortage of ﬁrst names also seems to have led to the wide use of variants: short forms, pet forms, and regional and foreign variants. A popular riddle makes fun of the number of diminutives of Elizabeth: Elizabeth, Elspeth, Betsy, and Bess, They all went together to seek a bird’s nest; They found a bird’s nest with ﬁve eggs in, They all took one, and left four in.22 The riddle does not exaggerate: there were as many as forty-four forms of Elizabeth.23 Paucity of Welsh ﬁrst names in the seventeenth century led to frequent addition of middle names.24 In England, by contrast, middle names were rare, except in the peerage, before 1700.25 By then “full names” (two, three, or more) were usual.Yet single names have continued to the present day in special contexts, such as art (Massin), couture (Prada), and celebrity (Madonna). As Derwent May observes, the use of surnames has in recent dec- ades declined.26 From the 1850s to the 1950s, surnames could be used between male friends, even by a wife addressing her husband. And Trollope’s Mrs Proudie is invariably “Mrs Proudie”: the reader is never told whether she had a Christian name. Such factors as relative senior- ity, relative status, and degree of intimacy make the use of surnames between friends a complex matter. Vernacular names in literature The introduction of realistic names into literature was an important threshold. In this the great innovator was Geoffrey Chaucer (early 1340s–1400), who used something like 2,000 names, far more than any of his contemporaries.William Langland’s names are largely personiﬁ- cations; Piers the Plowman (not quite a full name) being the only prominent exception. John Gower (c. 1330–1408) mingles antique and romance names with charactonyms (Nessus; Fals-Semblent), but often makes do without any (“the Kinges moder”; “his Chamberlein”). Chaucer draws his names at will from the Bible, the ancient classics, and from modern romances. But he also introduces vernacular names, probably inﬂuenced in this by his fabliau sources and by Boccaccio

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16 literary names (almost a Renaissance author already). In some ways, however, Chaucer was slow to realize the literary possibilities of naming. His Wyf of Bath is a great character, yet she shares her name Alison with her close friend, not to speak of the Miller’s wife. Similarly with the Wyf of Bath’s ﬁfth husband Jankin (Jenkin, diminutive of John): he has to share this name with his apprentice. The idea of a fully individual name seems hardly yet established. Drama was even slower to introduce vernacular names. For the most part, the liturgical and cycle plays use exclusively biblical names. But there are a few glorious exceptions, such as Noah’s feisty wife in the Wakeﬁeld Noah. In the speech preﬁxes she is merely Uxor. But Noah addresses her as Gil (line 219). Secunda Pastorum (“The Second Shep- herds’ Play”), with its famous comic episode of the sheep-stealer Mak (Gaelic, “son”) and his wife Gyl or Jelott, has long been regarded as a medieval Mystery Play; but the manuscript is of the Marian period, and many now think the play more consistent with a mid-sixteenth- century date.27 Characters in the Morality plays naturally have abstract names such as “Mankind”; although individual character begins with the Vice.28 A full cast of realistic vernacular names did not arrive until the academic comedies of the sixteenth century, such asWilliam Stevenson’s Gammer Gurton’s Needle (1553). Formal realism Ian Watt’s theory of the novel’s “formal realism” implies the model of philosophical realism and progressive individuation.29 He links the “par- ticularizing approach to character” with a circumstantial realism in which full names imply complete identity and a social context. In earlier ﬁctional genres, he argues, authors did not try to establish fully individu- alized characters, preferring types with typic or legendary names— names associated with previous literature rather than contemporary life. The individuating function of proper names supposedly “was ﬁrst fully established in the novel”.30 On this view,early novelists like Henry Field- ing (1707–54) and Samuel Richardson (1689–1761) broke with literary tradition in giving their characters the full names of real life. Until recently Watt’s inﬂuential theory has not been questioned very vigorously.31 But it is now objected that real-life naming was far

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naming in history 17 more heterogeneous than he assumed.32 He exaggerated early novel- ists’ consistency, explaining away Defoe’s single or descriptive names (Roxana; Moll Flanders) as belonging to the underworld milieu. But Fielding too has Cratylic names, such as Allworthy and Sophia, and even Richardson is liable to assign names “subtly appropriate and sug- gestive”: in other words imperfectly Hermogenean.33 Thus the hero- ine of Pamela is named after the proud prisoner in Sidney’s Arcadia, while in Clarissa Lovelace’s name not only suggests the bold love poet Richard Lovelace but also hints at “loveless” and deﬁciency of true love. As for Watt’s historical contrasts, they call for endless qualiﬁca- tions. Greek tragedy’s single names, for example, were just as circum- stantially realistic as the names in modern novels. Ancient Athenians usually had only one name, such as Alcibiades, unless it was qualiﬁed by a patronymic. Again, a century before Defoe, Elizabethan ﬁction quite commonly used full names; while two-part names were possible from the thirteenth century. Watt’s position has been further eroded on another front. For no ﬁrm line can be drawn between “ordinary” names and moral charac- tonyms like Jonson’s Morose, a name hinting broadly enough at his personality. Anne Barton has found numerous Cratylisms in archival records.34 As her excellent books on literary naming show, Aris- tophanes’ descriptive names can be matched in real life, and the same is true of medieval names, even derogatory ones. In the fourteenth century a single English county had six people called Ribald.35 Barton asks whether audiences would have registered such names as ﬁctive. But that may be an inappropriate question, in view of the alterity of medieval realism. Fiction was not then a fully separate category. Any name—real or invented made no difference—might be meaningful. On the other hand, names such as Patience need not always, or prima- rily, communicate a descriptive meaning. However, caution is needed with early names: Ribald may be from Ribault, and Forward, as we saw, may be from OE for (“hog”) and weard (“guardian”). Cratylic names are not entirely a thing of the past: there are Good- mans in the phone book. But their literary application now calls for tactful negotiation between realism and thematic aptness. And the negotiation has continually to be renewed. Anthony Trollope’s Quiver- ful in Barchester Towers (1857) would have been perfectly acceptable in a Fielding novel; but it seemed heavy-handed to Henry James. The conventions of circumstantial realism have narrowed the options for

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18 literary names writers: they have had to ﬁnd new ways to convey meaning through the names of their characters. Social pressures Watt’s formalist theory has also lost ground to Michael Ragussis’ idea of a “family plot”. By this term Ragussis means the effacing of inde- pendent identity, typically the identity of a daughter, by assimilation to her family’s or her husband’s identity. This theory has great explanatory power when applied to early novels such as Richardson’s Clarissa (1748), where naming and un-naming are thematic. Clarissa is judged as to whether she is “worthy of the name of daughter”; and when she is found to be “none of our child” she becomes a “helpless orphan”.36 With genders switched, the Family Plot can easily be seen to operate in Dickens’ Bleak House (1852–3), where Turveydrop allows his son no independent life: “he wouldn’t let his son have any name, if he could take it away from him” (ch. 14). Ragussis shows the Family Plot to be central to the inner structures of Clarissa, Tess of the Durbervilles (1891), and (through “parodic exaggeration”) in Lolita (1955). It is a prominent feature of Wilkie Collins’ No Name (1862). But in approaching Proust, Ragussis has to modify his method drastically. The fact is, family names lost much of their authority in the centuries after Richardson. Family was already of secondary importance in the ﬁction of Tobias Smollett (1721–71); and by 1883 Trollope could blandly generalize that “when a young girl is determined to be married nothing can prevent it”.37 It is no accident that for a modern example of the family plot Ragussis turns to the special case of underage Lolita. By the end of the seventeenth century, as Smith-Bannister’s statistics show, male children of the peerage showed a high incidence of sur- names as given names (30 per cent) and of double given names (9 per cent).38 This pattern is explained by obvious motivations: a wish for the prestige of the family name and (by bonding with godparents) for inheritance of wealth. But class and other social structures have now largely displaced fam- ily as determining factors in naming.The names of poor children espe- cially have long been governed by class considerations.The very poor have even had names directly assigned by institutions other than the family. Nineteenth-century foundlings were often named after the

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naming in history 19 streets where they were found;39 immigrants through Ellis Island lost their own names to the melting pot of American spelling preferences; and in the twentieth century, newborn poor often got their names, for good or ill, from a medical attendant. If a mischievous student attended the delivery, twins might be burdened with the names Ethyl and Methyl. A story is told of an embarrassed stevedore Duke U. Smith trying to hide his middle name, “University”. Such names are touch- ing, amusing, or shameful, according to one’s social perspective. They can also be deceptive. U. T. Miller Summers (wife of the scholar Joseph Summers) was the child of poor parents from the rural south of the USA. Her parents had both at last succeeded in enrolling as mature students in the University of Texas, and gave their daughter (to her subsequent disappointment) the name U. T.“as a reﬂection of how far they had come”.40 A new twist in the Family Plot? The pressures of organizational structures have naturally found reﬂection in novels.A striking instance is Joseph Heller’s Catch-22 with its grotesque satiric names such as Major Major Major Major. In a way, the family name exerts here some of its old force: Major Senior’s secret switching of his newborn son’s ﬁrst name from Caleb to Major is a practical joke played on the family: A lesser man might have wavered that day in the hospital corridor, a weaker man might have compromised on such excellent substitutes as Drum Major, Minor Major, Sergeant Major, or C. Sharp Major, but Major Major’s father had waited fourteen years for just such an opportunity, and he was not a per- son to waste it.41 But in the event an IBM machine promotes the hapless Major Major Major to be Major Major Major Major.That is not so much the father’s plot as Heller’s own—to highlight the absurdities of military hierarchy. The vaudeville routines of outranked COs saying “Yes sir” to a subor- dinate show poor Major Major Major Major to be an “organization man”. He is oppressed not so much by family as by the army.42 Fashions Besides changes in naming conventions, fashion has probably always worked to refresh the stock of available names.This gradual, elusive, yet universal process has striking statistical results. A third of boys and a

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20 literary names ﬁfth of girls are given one of the top ten names for the year of their birth.43 Thus Nicola, Joanne, Helen, Lisa, and Karen, all among the top ten girls’ names of the mid 1970s, gave way by the mid 1980s to Laura, Gemma, Kelly,Victoria, and Katherine. Names are chosen for a variety of conﬂicting reasons: as fashionable; as ordinary; as unusual; as traditional; or for their patriotic or regional associations.They may be avoided, or chosen, as “old-fashioned” (cur- rently Percival; Albert; Maggie; May). Other choices reﬂect the inﬂu- ence of royalty (William; George). Fashions of naming are not just a matter of liking but of class afﬁliation or aspiration. Smith-Bannister’s statistics put the decisiveness of class associations beyond dispute. Even the annual lists of most popular names show this class bias, since their data are derived from birth announcements in national papers. To be freer from bias the lists would have to take into account wider data such as registers of birth, university records, and voters’ rolls. Fashions for particular sources of names have often been inﬂuential. In the sixteenth century Old Testament names enjoyed great popular- ity, and this partly continued in later centuries, especially in the USA. In the late sixteenth century romance names came into vogue, simul- taneously with a taste for chivalry, neo-Gothic houses, and toy fortiﬁ- cations. Some may think of romance as medieval or ancient Greek; but in fact it reached the height of its popularity in the early seventeenth century.44 Many romance names, particularly those of Greek or Persian origin, were too exotic to be much used outside the genre; but the nuclear group at least became fashionable. Names from Italian roman- tic epic were familiar and imitable,especially feminine names in -a and -ia (Sophrosina; Lydia). Romance names such as those listed by Camden45 were actually used in real life, as contemporary sources make clear— Bulstrode Whitelocke’s Diary and the correspondence of Dudley Carleton and John Chamberlain, for example.46 TheVictorian novelist CharlotteYonge commented on a fashion of forming feminine names by changing the termination of a masculine name; and Thomas Colley Grattan wrote about American names end- ing -ia “under the inspiration of the last sixpenny novel”, instancing Sophronia, Amelia, and Phidelia.47 Class aspiration probably informed the preference for romance names. Yonge ridicules Aspasia (Greek, “welcome”), the name of a character in The Maid’s Tragedy (1610): “it has even been heard as a Christian name in a cottage. ‘Her name’s Aspasia, but us calls her Spash.’” Isaac Disraeli deplores all such naming:

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naming in history 21 “The practice of romantic names among persons, even of the lowest orders of society, has become a very general evil.”48 The fashion for romance names has importance for literature because it introduced a new range of associations and allusions, unlike the comparatively ﬁxed meanings of biblical names. In the seventeenth century romance names were so fashionable that they affected English literary naming in a way not possible for Catholic Italians and French, for whom saints’ names were privileged. In England nicknames and pseudonyms such as Orinda and Ephelia derived from actual romance names such as Mabilia and Melicia, Mellicent and Elisena.The roman- tic origin of the English novel can thus be discerned in its naming. In the absence of much English classical tragedy, romance was the best recourse for naming characters of high seriousness.The protagonist of Defoe’s Roxana (1724) may bear a name proximately drawn from Rac- ine’s tragic heroine Roxane, but it derives ultimately from the romances of Alexander, where she is the daughter of the Bactrian Oxyartes and wife of Alexander the Great. (Yonge explains the name as Persian: “Dawn of Day”.) Literary names have always enjoyed prestige. In Ludlow two boys were christened “Tamberlaine” in 1620.49 “Joyce” became popular in the 1860s after Mrs Henry Wood’s East Lynne (1861);“Alice”, follow- ing Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland (1865), reached the top ten by 1900; and “Wendy” quickly gained currency after Peter Pan (1904). (It derived from Barrie’s own early nickname Fwendy-Wendy, used by a child acquaintance Margaret Henley.50) Margaret Mitchell’s Gone with the Wind (1936) made several names popular: not only Rhett (from a Dutch surname) but also Ashley and Scarlett.51 Similarly Jus- tine, a feminine form of Justin, has been current in Britain since the 1960s—prompted by Lawrence Durrell’s novel Justine rather than Sade’s. In the twentieth century a new pattern for naming emerged: stage, ﬁlm, and television celebrity. Not unknown before, it became more salient, and generated the ﬂimsier fame of those known merely for being “icons” or celebrities. Darren, in the top ten in the 1970s, was the name of a character in Bewitched (a 1960s TV series). Julie (a French form of Julia) became popular in the 1960s through the prominence of two ﬁlm stars, Julie Harris (b. 1925) and Julie Andrews (b. 1935).52 And in the 1980s Kylie (Australian, from Kyle or Kelly) gained currency from the fame of Kylie Minogue (b. 1969). Similarly with Marlon

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22 literary names (Brando), Marilyn (Monroe), Cary (Grant), and Elvis (Aaron Presley). Such celebrity-associated fashions, although they can be transatlantic or even global, are by their nature evanescent. In our own time, naming seems to have reached a new depth of irresponsibility. Nothing is too trivial now to be a name. It is easy to suppose the British have become a nation of cruel practical jokers, when a Mr and Mrs Walls call their boy Stone; when the Waters name a daughter Mineral; and when the Castles name a son Windsor. But eccentric, jocular, or merely silly names have always been given, when- ever the registrar or ofﬁciating clergyman has allowed it, or made a mistake (as with James Augustine Aloysius Joyce, christened Augusta). John Ward tells of a drunken mother who persuaded the parson to name her child Incombob instead of Ichabod; while, according to Thomas Beard, a Jacobean atheist who was a witness at a baptism “wished for the infant to be named Beelzebub”.53 Another miserable child was given twenty-six names. Russell Ash has compiled a list of more than 5,000 grotesque names from ﬁve centuries.54 Many of these may seem hilarious; but they also imply culpable insensitivity to the plight of the child burdened with such names as Pervert or Botty. Of course, Ash maximizes the grotesquerie: some of his examples are the result of sound changes.“Fucker”, for example, may have been a vari- ant of “Fugger” (occupational:“shearer”).55 In the late twentieth century a new naming practice has emerged. Apparently as a gesture of political protest or afﬁrmation of ethnic alle- giance, conventional forms and spellings are deliberately transgressed: Malcolm X; Deshawn; Latisha. Histories and glossaries So far we have looked at broad trends and social patterns, naming practices and the pressures on them. But names can also be a subject of enquiry.The thoughtful have probably always reﬂected on whether names have meaning as well as denotative function. As we have seen, Plato’s Cratylus, a seminal text for the history of names, addresses the issue of the correctness or rightness (ὀρθότης) of names. Plato’s Socra- tes moderates between Cratylus’ idea that names have an inherent correctness and Hermogenes’ contrary view of arbitrary names applied by social convention. Socrates qualiﬁes Hermogenes’ scepticism by

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naming in history 23 adducing circumstances that account for many inappropriate names. In the case of the impious son of Theophilus (“Beloved of God”) the patronymic principle explains his continuing to bear his father’s pious name (394). Names originally apt are liable in such ways to lose their former correctness (433–6). In a word, they are subject to change. Nevertheless it is right to give “faire and happie names”, since these inﬂuence the bearer’s life.56 The substantial De Mutatione Nominum of Philo Judaeus (c. 20 bc– ad 50), a Hellenistic Jewish exegete, dominated the theory of naming throughout the Middle Ages and up to the sixteenth century. Philo analyses naming on the basis of Genesis 17: 1–22. To explain the renaming of “Abram” as “Abraham” he relates it to divine agency and the Covenant. Pursuing the theme of multiple naming, Philo explains the signiﬁcance of many other biblical names in terms of Hebrew derivation. From St Jerome onward, Philo’s method continued to be systemati- cally applied to names in the Bible. From about 1230 a standard feature of Latin Bibles was an alphabetical list of over 5,500 place and personal names, with translations of their Hebrew meanings into Latin. This “Interpretation of Hebrew Names” began about 1180–1200 as a sepa- rate compilation, possibly by Stephen Langton (d. 1228), but it proved useful enough to be fairly regularly appended to the Latin Bible.57 For centuries it was a common feature, even surviving the Reformation. The Calvinist Geneva version included “A Brief Table of the Interpre- tation of the proper names [. . .] chieﬂy found in the olde Testament [. . .]”.This was the version often used by Milton, and in its glossary he may have found some of the names of Paradise Lost. Extremely popular too was Robert Estienne’s separate dictionary of names published in 1537, presenting the fruits of his combined biblical and lexicographical studies. Wider exploration of names, ranging beyond their biblical mean- ings, began in the sixteenth century.The decisive ﬁgure was the histo- rian William Camden (1551–1623), whose three highly original essays on names, gathered in Remaines concerning Britaine (1605, 1614) and anonymously published as by M. N., put the study of names on a new footing. Camden starts from the “granted veritie, that names . . . are sig- niﬁcative”.58 But this does not mean he believes all names Cratylic. He understands the need to discover the earlier meanings frequently obscured by “daily alteration of our tongue”—a view of linguistic

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24 literary names decay shared, as we shall see, by Edmund Spenser. Camden grasped the need for a historical approach to names; distinguishing the ancient “hopeful luckie names” (as in Cicero’s bona nomina and in the proverb bonum nomen, bonum omen) from their later forms as falsiﬁed by events or obfuscated by linguistic change. He had learned from St Jerome how nicknames can become regular names. And, in his own age, he observed the distinctively English custom of using surnames as ﬁrst names, as well as the use of double given names.59 Etymological inferences were often sound in the Renaissance: sur- prisingly so in view of the ignorance of sound changes. The great divide in etymology was between medieval and post-medieval periods. Camden, who has been called the father of English lexicography, devoted much of his attention to personal names. Franciscus Junius’ Etymologicum Anglicanum (posthumously edited by Edward Lye) was not published until 1743; but he had many English contacts through his place in the Earl of Arundel’s household, and later lived in Oxford. He knew Gothic and Old English and some Danish and Icelandic. As for Cornelis Kiliaan and even John Minsheu, they belong with mod- ern linguistics far more than with the glossators of the Middle Ages.60 Camden’s lists of “Usuall Christian Names” are glossaries of obvious service to writers. Edgar and Oswald in King Lear are Cratylic names whose interpretation may well have been drawn from Camden.61 And so, possibly, may Ben Jonson’s understanding of “Benjamin”, the name of his ﬁrst son (“Farewell, thou child of my right hand”).62 Camden’s explanations are largely etymological, tracing the “diversity of names, from the originall in divers languages” (53). He argues with some care, multiplying authorities and comparing explanations. On Hebrew names he cites not only St Jerome but Philo’s De Mutatione Nominum and “the common tables of the Bible”. He is particularly impressive on German and Anglo-Saxon origins; bringing to bear—besides his own scholarship—Martin Luther, Petrus Dasypodius (d. 1559), Cornelis Kiliaan (1528–1607), and the humanist Beatus Rhenanus (1485–1547).63 Often he compares alternative etymologies and theories. In any case, his linguistic shortcomings are from the present viewpoint irrelevant: what matters is that writers may have assimilated his glosses in their own naming.64 For centuries after Camden no great advances were made in the study of proper names. Surnames in particular seem to have been a neglected ﬁeld in the English-speaking scholarly world.65 Indeed,

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naming in history 25 Patrick Hanks roundly afﬁrms that “between Camden and the Victo- rians, no name dictionaries were compiled” (127).This is not the case, however: there were quite a few. Among them may be mentioned Richard Rowlands or Verstegan, A restitution of decayed intelligence in antiquities, in the same year as Camden’s Remains.There soon followed John Penkethman, Onomatophylacium; or, the Christian names of men and women, now used within this realme of Great Britaine (1626).Then in 1655 came Edward Lyford’s The True Interpretation and Etymologie of Christian Names, mostly on biblical names. Stephen Skinner’s Etymologicon Ling- uae Anglicanum (1671) has an appendix of names, and so has the anony- mously published (pirated) abridgement and English translation by Richard Hogarth, Gazophylacium Anglicanum (1689).66 These seventeenth-century dictionaries add to Camden’s explana- tions many new etymologies, often unconvincing. Lyford’s Preface emphasizes the social value of good names: “As for the knowing the Etymologies of names, I think it . . . usefull.” “Would it not be a great encouragement and enducement to all youth when they know the sweet . . . etymologies of their happy and hopeful names, to make them walk answerable thereunto.”With all their shortcomings, such special dictionaries would have been useful to writers wishing to ﬁnd apt names for their characters. And even general dictionaries such as Henry Cockeram’s and Edward Phillips’ included proper names, par- ticularly mythological ones.67 As we shall see in chapter 8, it was left to Charlotte Yonge and Charles Bardsley to break new ground, if not always with very scholarly precision. By the twentieth century, advances in linguistics had put etymology on a sounder footing, so that it was possible to compile scholarly dic- tionaries of names.68 Literary critics contributed studies of the func- tions of naming in particular works or even passages. These in turn have been organized in bibliographies.69 And full-length studies of naming in a genre or particular author have begun to appear.70 Notes 1. On “Durbeyﬁeld”, see Weekley 1912: 162. 2. Jenkyn 1652: 7, cit. Smith-Bannister 1997: 11. 3. Smith-Bannister 1997: 17. On the growth of surnames, see Ostler 2007: 43; Crystal 2010: 177.

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26 literary names 4. See Camden 1984: 45; Barton 1984. 5. ONC xi. 6. Harding and Wright 1995: 160. 7. Harding and Wright 1995: 1–2. 8. Froissart 1545. 9. Orlando Furioso 46.15. 10. See Crystal 1995: 148–9; Donaldson 1996; Smith-Bannister 1997: 1–21. 11. See Ostler 2007: 136. On English insistence on surnames and opposition to Irish naming practices, see Spenser, AView of the Present State of Ireland 4852–64, Var. Spenser 10.215, 419–20. 12. Barton 1984: 40 n. 11; ONC 224. 13. Crystal 1995: 148. 14. Camden 1984: 49; cf. Whitelocke, Diary, e.g. Elias Ashmole, Dorcas Byshop, Elisha Crisp,Tobias Crisp, Hezekiah Haynes,Theophilus Bidollphe, Prudence Mostyn, Pru- dence Lumley, Thankful Owen, Theodosia Thynne, Rebecca Whitelocke. See also Barton 1984: 62, 65, noticing “Christian” as common in the Middle Ages and still occurring in the sixteenth century. Cf. OCD, and Yonge 1884: 468 on “Ehrenpreis”. 15. Bardsley 1996: 118; Smith-Bannister 1997: 3–5. Between 1583 and 1589 a Puritan minister called his children Much-Mercy, Increased, Sin-deny, and Fear-not; see ODECN xxix–xxx. 16. See ODNB. Praisegod’s son, Nicholas If-Jesus-Christ-Had-Not-Died-For-Thee- Thou-Hadst-Been-Damned, used only the name Nicholas. 17. Bardsley 1996: 200. 18. Grattan 1856: 435. Cf. Kilvert, Diary 27 Feb. 1870: Mrs Jones the Jockey’s baby is chris- tened “Mahalah” (“tenderness”) after one of Cain’s wives. 19. Camden 1984: 48; cf.Weekley 1912: 159. 20. Smith-Bannister 1997: 7–8; ODECN xxxii–xxxiii. Not only knights, pace Levin 1976: 56. Examples inWhitelocke’s Diary include Marchmont Needham, Sir Dudley North, Sir Seymour Pile, Grindall Sheafe, Sir Burbeck Temple, Willoughby Whitelocke, Heneage Finch, Knollys Kitson, Carnsen Helmes, and Hansard Knowles. 21. Surnames as forenames are now commoner in the USA; see ODECN xxxiii. 22. Opie and Opie 1952: 158. 23. Crystal 1995: 148. 24. Crystal 1995: 148. 25. See Smith-Bannister 1997: 124–5. 26. “Rise and Fall of the Surname”, The Times (3 Feb. 1997) 20. 27. McGavin 2010: 203. 28. See Barton 1984: 61–2. 29. See Watt 1949;Watt 1957: 19. 30. Watt 1957: 18. 31. See, however, Duncan-Jones and Chapman 1950. 32. See Spacks 2006: 3–4. 33. As Watt 1957: 19 concedes. 34. E.g. Barton 1990: 40, 52. 35. Barton 1990: 43. Other instances include Sturdy, Smalfeyth, Drydust, Milkgos, Lytyl- worth, Crakebone, even Cuttepurse, Small-behynd, Fillecupe, Forward, and Froward. 36. Ragussis 1986: 20. 37. Trollope 1946: ch. 45. 38. Smith-Bannister 1997: 126–8. 39. Smith-Bannister 1997: 9, 31. 40. Summers 2007: 20. 41. Heller 1962: 83. On the doubling of the name, see Dexter 2007: 193.

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naming in history 27 42. William Hollingsworth Whyte’s Organization Man (1956) was published a year after the ﬁrst chapter of Catch-22 appeared in New World Writing, and ﬁve years before the American publication of the complete novel. 43. Crystal 1995: 150. 44. See Spufford 1981: 72–3, 233, Index s.v. Amadis de Gaul, Palmerin; Febvre and Martin 1990: 285–7; Hellinga and Trapp 1999: 237; Cooper 2004: 1–44; Hamilton 1982. Despite the conclusive statistics refuting Frederic Jameson in Hamilton 1984, Sharpe and Zwicker 2003: 13 repeat the shibboleth: “the romance, until its full novelization in the eighteenth century (and even then) remained a suspect mode”. 45. Camden 1984: 78,“Tristram, I knowe not whether the ﬁrst of this name was christned by king Arthurs fabler.”Among Camden’s romance names are Guy, Roland, Baldwin, Bevis, Percival, and Polyxena, Sophronia, Sophia. 46. Whitelocke has Sir Launcelot Lake MP; Sir Orlando Bridgeman; Baldwin Hamey; Sophia. Carlteton has Sir Bevis Bulmer. 47. Yonge 1884: 60; Grattan 1856: 434. Although Amelia originated with Fielding’s novel it seems to have been the result of a cross between Latin Emilia and Germanic Amalia. In Louisiana, romance names were especially numerous; including such rarities as Odalia and Odelia. See Kane 1943: 173. 48. Disraeli 1881: 2.71. 49. See Gurr 2009: 75. 50. Hanks 2002: 885. 51. Hanks 2002: 853. 52. Hanks 2002: 797. 53. See Smith-Bannister 1997: 11 and 16. 54. Ash 2007; cf.Ash 2010. 55. See ONC. 56. Camden 1984: 47. 57. De Hamel 2001: 112–13, 123. 58. Camden 1984: 52. 59. Camden 1984: 46, 48. 60. See Liberman 2009: 273–4. On Junius, see Considine 2008, Index, s.v. Junius, Franciscus. 61. So Levith 1978: 21. 62. Jonson, Epigram 45; Camden 1984: 60. Camden, Jonson’s teacher at Westminster School, was with him when he heard of the child’s death. Camden’s Remains was not published for another two years, however: Jonson probably learned the meaning at school, or from the Geneva Bible glossary. 63. Camden 1984: 53, 54, 384. Luther, Aliquot Nomina Propria Germanorum (1570); Dasy- podius, Dictionarium Latino–Germanicum (?1570); Killianus, Etymologicum Teutonicae Linguae (1599). 64. Cf. Cowie 2009: 1.128 on folk etymologies. 65. See Hanks 2009: 125–6. 66. See Smith-Bannister 1997: 10–12; Maguire 2007: 10, 22–3; Lyford 1655: Preface. 67. Henry Cockeram, The English Dictionarie, 1623; Edward Phillips, New World of English Words, 1658. 68. E.g. Chandler 1992;Weever 1988. 69. E.g. Rajec 1978. 70. E.g. Levith 1978; Barton 1984; Maguire 2007; Bliss 2008.

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TpriopaatmrguoalsetmrrbeeuaodmsigmruoisccroiClsaœlstylus28 literary namesgmrailveHissedcsotteoymgqrlbuluiaAsnusdjacuasinuasxssscterudmrus ius laur ur fagus pa s cua baculus Tityrus oMvieslibœus pastor oliosus humilis stylus Figure 1. The Wheel of Virgil from Edmond Faral Les Arts poétiques du 12e et du 13e siècle (Paris 1962) 87.

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2 Modes of Naming 8 Literary names were already correlated with genres in the earlier thirteenth-century rota Vergiliana,“the Wheel of Virgil”, associated with John of Garland. This diagrammatic scheme distributes typical features of literature among three social divisions, modes, and styles.1 To the three style heights gravis, mediocris, and humilis it assigns charac- teristic occupations, animals, tools, places, trees—and names (Diagram 1). In the high style, paradigmatic names are Hector and Ajax: Trojan and Greek heroes in the Troy cycle. Such legendary or historical names characterize ancient epic (Homer’s Iliad, Vergil’s Aeneid ). They also appear in tragedies,2 but would not be appropriate in pastoral. Georgic names The georgic names in the rota are Triptolemus and Coelius. Of these, Coelius (often confused with Caelius) was an ordinary gens name, as in Lucius Coelius Antipater the historian or Lucius Cae(ci)lius Firmianus Lactantius.3 Triptolemus,4 who received the art of agriculture from the goddess in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, may seem legendary; but he was an actual hero of Eleusis. So both the georgic names belong to the ordinary historical world, whatever legendary associations they may also have possessed. Georgic poets use place names freely, particularly in the exotic digressions characteristic of the genre. But they seldom use personal names, since they speak in propria persona. (One might compare lyric, another genre said to be nameless.5) Among the very few names

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30 literary names associated with georgic may be mentioned Hodge. Hodge (earlier Hogge, Hog), a by-form of Roger, seems to have been the early mod- ern type-name for a rustic or agricultural labourer. Thus Robert Greene (1560?–92) contrasts simple rustics with the pastoral Arcadians, who “are given to take the beneﬁt of everie Hodge”.6 In John Piker- ing’s Interlude of Vice (1567), Hodge appears in dialogue with Rusticus; and in William Rowley’s A New Wonder (1631), Hodge is a “clown”.7 But in realistic drama of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries Hodges tended to be urbanized as household servants or drunks or bruisers. One might instance William Stevenson’s Gammer Gurton’s Needle (1553);Thomas Dekker’s The Shoemakers’ Holiday (1599); Henry Porter’s Two AngryWomen of Abington (1588); and Ben Jonson’s The New Inn (1631). Robert Herrick’s Hog is probably rustic as well as drunken; and Peter Pinder’s Hodge is certainly georgic (“No more shall Hodge’s prong and shovel start”).8 B. E.’s A New Dictionary of the Terms Ancient and Modern of the Canting Crew (c. 1698) offers the deﬁnition “Hodge, a Country Clown”. As a name usually implying downgraded rusticity, Hodge was not much used in georgic itself. Indeed, in the nineteenth century protests began at the contemptuous associations of what Paul Alpers calls a “stock name” (instancing Thomas Hardy’s “Drummer Hodge”).9 In Tess of the d’Urbervilles, Hardy goes so far as to deny altogether the very existence of the type in real life.When Angel Clare lodges with a dairy- man he ﬁnds no Hodge:“The conventional farm-folk of his imagina- tion—personiﬁed by the pitiable dummy known as Hodge—were obliterated after a few days’ residence. At close quarters no Hodge was to be seen.”10 A decade earlier, Hardy had written against the stereotype in “The Dorsetshire Labourer”:“we ﬁnd [the farm-labouring commu- nity] to be seriously personiﬁed by the pitiable picture known as Hodge [. . .]. This supposed real but highly conventional Hodge is a degraded being of uncouth manner and aspect, stolid understanding, and snail-like movement. His speech is [. . .] a chaotic corruption of regular language.”11 With this genre history behind him,Tom Stoppard modernizes and ﬁnesses the type-name in Arcadia (1993) when he gives Thomasina Coverly’s tutor the name Septimus Hodge. Is this a conven- tional georgic name? Septimus certainly labours, and in the country; but his work is intellectual, and the country is a country house estate. Another georgic name is Giles. “Farmer Giles” is the stereotypic, commonsensical English farmer,probably derived from Isaac Bickerstaff ’s

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modes of naming 31 comic opera The Maid of the Mill (1765).12 Somewhat different is “Farmer George”, the derisive nickname of George III (1738–1820), who took an enthusiastic interest in the improvement of farming, and contributed pseudonymously to Arthur Young’s Annals of Agriculture. Pastoral names The two pastoral names in the rota, Tityrus and Meliboeus, are from Vergil’s ﬁrst Eclogue.Tityrus (Greek Tίτυρος), a shepherd in Theocri- tus, has sometimes been considered Vergil’s persona (his own father was ejected from his farm near Mantua), while Meliboeus’ location name also suggests dispossession.13 Other Vergilian pastoral names are Alphesiboeus, Corydon, Damoetas, Damon, Lycidas, Menalcas, Moeris, Mopsus, Palaemon, and Thyrsis.14 Subsequently, several hun- dred names accrued to the dramatis personae of pastoral, contributed by Calpurnius, Petrarch, Boccaccio, Mantuan, and others, notably the Neapolitan Jacopo Sannazaro (c. 1458–1530). Sannazaro—magnus vir Sanasarus as J. C. Scaliger calls him—re-emphasized ﬁshing as one of the principal pastoralia. His piscatorial eclogues greatly extended the register of recognizable pastoral names;15 but a nucleus (including Amaryllis, Corydon, Damoetas, Damon, Lycidas, Menalcas, Moeris, Mopsus, Palaemon, and Thyrsis) remained salient. From the early Renaissance onward, these nuclear names were reused repeatedly and came to have fairly stable assocations. Corydon, for example, is gener- ally a rustic, ineffectual in love. Such is his role in writers as various as Theocritus,Thackeray, and Noel Coward.16 The nuclear group of rec- ognizably pastoral names constitute the personae of “pure” or Vergil- ian pastoral.17 Borderline and anomalous instances have troubled the taxonomists. Vergil’s Galathea is not a shepherdess but a sea nymph (Eclogue 9).And in Theocritus, her uncouth lover Polyphemus is a Cyclops despised as lacking the arts of agriculture18—a one-eyed giant who cuts his beard with a georgic pruning-hook and is human only by virtue of suffering unrequited passion. Renato Poggioli sees him as foreshadowing the uncouth swains of much later pastoral.19 However, Ovid’s Polyphemus goes well beyond mere awkwardness: he is savage enough to crush Acis with a rock, much as Homer’s Polyphemus tries to do to Odys- seus.20 In fact,Theocritus’ Idylls often overstep the bounds of what has

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32 literary names become the narrower pale of pastoral. Generic names are seldom dis- tributed neatly. Within the core personnel of Vergilian pastoral, allusion can be richly communicative. When Alexander Pope in his Pastorals gives “Alexis” the ﬂute “which Colin’s tuneful Breath |Inspir’d when living, and bequeath’d in Death”, he is announcing an implicit claim to be Spenser’s successor, with all that entails for his poem. And in Lycidas, when the mourning shepherd doubts Were it not better done as others use, To sport with Amaryllis in the shade Or with the tangles of Neaera’s hair . . . Milton alludes, as John Carey explains, toVergil’s Eclogue 2.14–15 (“was it not better to put up with Amaryllis’ sullen rage and scornful dis- dain”). Carey further notes Vergil’s debt to Theocritus’ Idylls 3 and 4.21 And the name conveys even more. In Idyll 4 it is Corydon’s tactless reference to Amaryllis that renews Battus’ grief. All Theocritus tells about Amaryllis, in fact, is her death.22 So even the thought of earthly diversions—sporting with Amaryllis—leads the poet back to prema- ture death and inescapable mortality. Similarly, Milton’s choice of the pastoral name Lycidas is not a random one. If we recall its association with Theocritus 7.52–60 it implies hopes for the well-being of Edward King,“safe and sound” like Lycidas and Ageanax.23 The pastoral names were almost inexhaustibly allusive—so long as the canon remained familiar. Enlargement of pastoral Whatever the advantages of its familiar names, Vergilian pastoral has from time to time seemed too idealized, too far removed from real life. Dr Johnson, famously attempting to dislodge Lycidas, declares “there is no art, for there is nothing new. Its form is that of a pastoral, easy, vul- gar, and therefore disgusting: whatever images it can supply, are long ago exhausted”.24 Johnson deplores the artiﬁcial accommodation of shepherdly speakers to the heightened senti- ments appropriate to poetry. He found preposterous the expedient of setting them in a Golden Age unreality [. . .]. The Golden Age expedient had the absurd consequence of leaving only the rump of a pastoral canon: about a third of

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modes of naming 33 Theocritus (the rest being too rustic) and two-thirds of Virgil (the rest being too political).25 Various means of renewal have been adopted. First, as we have seen, diversifying the pastoral occupations by returning to the Theocritean model—and sometimes to Theocritean names.The Idylls have a mari- time setting: their world is populated not only with shepherds and cowherds like Menalcas and Daphnis (Idylls 8, 9, 20) but with reapers (Milon and Bucaeus) and ﬁshermen (Asphalion, 21; Cyclopes, 11). Farming is combined with ﬁshing and shepherding with herding of goats and cows (only subsequently to be thought “unpastoral”).The- ocritus’ Idyll 7 is a “harvest home”, Idyll 13 is maritime, and throughout references appear to the Nereides and to Proteus as “shepherd” of Poseidon’s ﬂocks of seals.26 Sannazaro, Phineas Fletcher in Sicelides (1631) and Piscatorie Eclogs (1633), William Diaper in Nereides (1712): all returned to Theocritus’ original variety, developing it into new modalities with pastoral settings distinct from Virgil’s land-bound mise-en-scène. Diaper found four recruits among the thirty-three Nereides in Homer’s Iliad 18;27 his nature is presided over not by Pan but Nereus, Thetis, Phorcys, and Proteus. He drew on Theocritus and Spenser; although he might not have succeeded without Sannazaro’s example.28 In all such neoclassic pastoral a special pleasure is taken in the multiple, often literary, aptness of names. Thus, Melanthius in Sannazaro’s Eclogue 4 is the name of a Tyrrhenian pirate metamorphosed into a dolphin in Ovid;29 while Muraena (lamprey) is the family name of a Roman notoriously fond of this ﬁsh. Piscatory eclogue occasioned the use of many river names. From the ancients Sannazaro took over Tanais (R. Don), Achelous, and Alphaeus; and he originated others, such as “Varus” (R.Var) and “Avar” (R. Saone).30 Ovidian mythologizing of rivers readily took its place as a distinct variant of pastoral alongside Theocritus’ maritime piscatorial. A familiar example is Spenser’s etiological legend of Molanna and Faunus in the Cantos of Mutabilitie, together with its Italian analogues.31 Increasingly, though, rivers came to belong with the topics of geor- gic rather than pastoral. Michael Drayton’s Poly-olbion (1612, 1622), which abounds in mythological personiﬁcations of rivers, is clearly georgic, even if it teaches history and geography rather than husbandry. Drayton’s River Camel, for example, derives from Camelot: its

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34 literary names associations are with history and romance, not pastoral. Besides, his teeming names seldom have the innocent imprecision of pastoral: they follow a well-informed geographical plan. In his enlargement of Ver- gilian pastoral by this second, georgic turn, Drayton learned from Spenser’s river procession in The Faerie Queene, 4.11, in effect a survey of Britain’s material and cultural resources.32 Spenser’s “Dart, nigh chockt with sands of tinny mines” (4.11.31) implies a background of economic geography: the success of Dartmoor tin mining, for exam- ple, and its threatened decline when access to ports diminished because of silting. Conveying concentrated factual information, Spenser’s mise- en-scène departs from the “cartographic ﬁction” of pastoral Arcadias: his names are as much from the map as from literature. In this realistic development, insular pastoral differed from the continental equivalent. Perhaps this was because of Britain’s dominance in the wool trade. For the British, herding sheep and exporting wool were big business. Vernacular pastoral names For a third escape from remote artiﬁciality, some pastoral poets turned to the vernacular names of real-life shepherds. Spenser makes this inno- vation in a consistent, thoroughgoing way: of the eleven speakers in The Shepheardes Calender (1579), not one has a classical name;33 although a few classical names (Pan, Syrinx, Dido) are referred to in passing, or slip into the inset songs.34 This roster strikingly departs from tradition: the shepherds of Alexander Barclay (1475?–1552), however rustic otherwise, all have conventionally pastoral, or at least classical, names: Coridon, Cornix, Codrus, Menalcas,Amintas, Faustus, Fulica.35 For support in this new departure, Spenser turned to the French pastoralists, who (whether from nationalistic or religious motives) had freed themselves from the strict convention of Latin naming.36 Spens- er’s Colin and Thenot had been shepherds in pastorals by the Protes- tant Clément Marot (c. 1497–1544); Perigot recalls the French spelling of Marot’s Margot, Ronsard’s Perrot, or Du Bellay’s Bellot.37 E. K. con- ﬁrms this:Thenot is “the name of a shepherd in Marot his Aeglogues”.38 Spenser gave even Vergilian names vernacular associations. His Tityrus (February 92), like Skelton’s, disguises Chaucer rather thanVergil. Piers (a form of Peter) may now suggest Langland’s Piers Plowman; but Spenser’s earliest readers would probably associate it with the Piers of

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modes of naming 35 Pierce the Plowman’s Crede (1561)—the satiric voice of the people.39 Equally indigenous is Cuddie, a northern shortening of Cuthbert. Others of Spenser’s key names, however, are made up, as we shall see in chapter 3. Spenser’s indigenous naming was imitated by some, disliked by oth- ers.Almost all Drayton’s speakers in The Shepherd’s Garland (1593) have English names: Batte, Borrill, Perkin, Rowland,Winken. Some of them, however, have special associations. Beta, from Elisabeta, is Drayton’s name for the Queen. Batte or Bat, short for Bartholemew (Hebrew, “Son of furrows”), recalls Battus in Theocritus.40 Gorbo and Motto are probably invented, the former on the pattern of Theocritus’ Gorgo.41 And Borrill (“rustic”) is a tag name.42 But Winken once referred to a real person:Wynkyn de Worde, the printer and bookseller.43 And Per- kin (Peter) is also a real-life name, as in Perkin Warbeck.This emergent idiom of indigenous names was notably followed by Ambrose Philips (1674–1749). Philips had various English models: his Colinet and Cud- die, Hobbinol and Lobbin are Spenserian, but Geron (γέρων, “old”, “old man”) and Lanquet derive from Sidney’s Arcadia. Some of Philips’ rustic names are impossibly awkward: it was not difﬁcult for John Gay (1685–1732) to draw out their bumpkin possi- bilities in The Shepherd’s Week (1714). But Philips was a dangerous opponent, so that any criticism had to be carefully disguised. Gay and Pope managed this in part by scrupulously sustained ironies, in part by singling out for ridicule names Philips had taken over from Spenser: Hobbinol, Lobbin, Cuddy, Colin Clout.44 Pope’s ironies in Guardian 40 (1713) were devious enough to deceive even the editor of that Whig- gish journal.45 Gay’s burlesque travesties are broader. He either com- bines incompatible Spenserian names (“Lobbin Clout”) or constructs ludicrous portmanteaus out of innocent materials from Spenser or Philips.“Bowsybeus” is from bowsy (“boozy”,“corpulent”) and ibeus (a Latin location marker, as in Melibeus).46 “Bumkin-et” similarly follows the pattern of Philips’ Colin-et. “Hobnelia”, aimed at Hobbinol, sug- gests the hobnails of rustic boots combined with the romance ending -elia. And “Sparabella” is made up of bella and sparable (“a sort of small Iron nail, which some Country-People wear in their Shooes”47).As for Cuddie, it needed no alteration to trigger anti-Scottish prejudice. The preference for realistic, vernacular names was deplored by neo- classical critics like Nicolas Boileau (1636–1711) and Bernard Le Bovier de Fontenelle (1657–1757).They preferred courtly, idealized shepherds.

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36 literary names Pastoral poetry was to strike a “middle note between the high and the low, éclater sans pompe”. Boileau probably also disliked the higher strain of The Shepheardes Calender October; but mostly he feared the dangers of decline to the language of the village. He opposed any poet “low in style” who Makes shepherds speak a language base and vile: His writings ﬂat and heavy, without sound, Kissing the earth, and creeping on the ground; You’d swear that Randal in his rustic strains Again was quav’ring to the country swains, And changing, without care of sound or dress, Strephon and Phyllis into Tom and Bess.48 Boileau disapproved of Ronsard and other vernacular pastoralists who replaced classical poetic names with ordinary ones: “Et changer, sans respect de l’oreille et du son, | Lycidas en Pierrot, et Philis en Toinon”.49 Translating this passage, Dryden substituted for Ronsard the English name Randal, which Walter Scott read as referring to Thomas Randolph.This has puzzled editors, for Randolph’s eclogues are conventionally Latinate. But Scott’s conjecture makes sense if one thinks of Randolph’s pastoral tragicomedy Amyntas (1638), which clearly belongs to the vernacular movement. Its names are un-classi- cal, even if some can boast Italian pedigrees: Laurinda, Silvio,Amarilli, Mirtillo, and Mopsus (from Sannazaro).50 Randolph’s Claius is from Sidney, his Oberon from Greene, Shakespeare, or indigenous romance. Pope’s Pastorals (1709), although indebted to Spenser, return in the main to the classical roster. His speakers (Aegon, Damon, Daphne, Daphnis, Lycidas, Thyrsis) are all Vergilian except for the Ovidian Daphnis—and even Daphnis, like Aegon and Thyrsis, is Theocritean. Yet Pope’s roster is not without native admixtures: Strephon, though Greek, comes directly from Sidney’s Arcadia; while Alexis, ﬁrmly in the tradition of Vergil and Sannazaro, nevertheless glances as we have seen at his own name Alexander. English pastoral rarely attained the purity of Pope’s youthful work. Theocritus might authorize mixed farming and Vergil admit wood- land ﬁgures like Silvanus, but English pastoral eclogue mostly steered much further than that in the direction of georgic.With wool produc- tion a major industry, the complete innocence of pure pastoral must have seemed inaccessible.51

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modes of naming 37 So too with pastoral drama. Indeed, As You Like It has often been discussed as an example of genera mista.52 Renato Poggioli distinguishes three “levels” in it, roughly corresponding to heroic romance, pure pastoral, and georgic-pastoral:“The ﬁrst level includes the exiled Duke, his retinue, Orlando, Celia, and Rosalind; the second, the shepherds Corin, Silvius, and Phebe; the third, two peasants, Audrey and William.” What Poggioli calls “peasants” are georgic characters doing active work rather than watching sheep in pastoral otium. His three worlds are epitomized by the names: Orlando is from Ariostan romance, just as Silvius (“forest dweller”) recalls Petrarch’s Silvius or Sannazaro’s ath- letic Silvio. Corin derives from conventional pastoral53—although, as Murray Levith notes, in Elizabethan pronunciation it would have sug- gested “corn” and farming. Silvius and Phebe were from Lodge;Audrey was a name favoured by the English poor; and William, of course, was Shakespeare’s own name. Of all the play’s names, Celia is the most neglected. Regarded merely as translating Latin Caelia (“heavenly”), it has been identiﬁed as an amorous type-name common in love poetry, for example Carew’s “The Rapture”, or in satire such as Swift’s “The Progress of Beauty”. But Shakespeare’s names seldom work so simply. Originally Caelia was the feminine of Coelius, the Roman family name associated with farm- ing in the rota Vergiliana. Shakespeare’s Celia takes the name Aliena (“Outsider”), acknowledging her exile; but she remains true to her given, georgic name when—more practical than her companion—she buys “the cottage, pasture, and the ﬂock” (2.4.90). She happily adjusts to country life: it is her alias Aliena that “hath a reference to my state [dignity]” (1.3.123). In fact, her names go beyond the decorum of indi- cating inextricably mixed genres. The representative Celia gestures towards an idealized gentry ready to farm their own estates. Satiric names In satire names are often determined by the satiric vehicle.Thus, mock- heroic needs heroic or at least burlesque heroic names. In The Rape of the Lock Thalestris is named after the Amazonian Queen in Strabo, or else comes from a more proximate source in Butler’s Hudibras (“stout Armida, bold Thalestris”).54 And Ariel, associated with magic in The Tempest and in Rosicrucian literature, may also allude to the heroic

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38 literary names angel in Paradise Lost. Alternatively, satires may exploit extra-literary facts about their targets.Then, the real-life names of the targeted group will be useful. But here one must be cautious. In Aristophanes’ Clouds, for example, the real target is not Socrates but sophists in general: Soc- rates is only a representative ﬁgure. Aristotle’s Poetics, stressing the generality and philosophic truth of ﬁction, on the basis of the New Comedy distinguishes comic type- names (invented, general) from satire’s individual names.55 But the Old Comedy, in Aristotle’s terms satiric comedy, initiated the more endur- ing tradition. It was Aristophanes, father of comic naming, who devised the sort of Cratylic names now especially linked with satire.The Old Comedy abounds with these type-names drawn from life: Lysistrata (“Demobilizer”) and Strepsiades (“Deceitful”) in Clouds.Such descrip- tive names, personiﬁcations, and cod etymologies were a dependable source of wit.56 Later, the Roman satirists made moral naming almost routine. Martial, who withheld true names parcere personis, dicere de vitiis, has Classicus (“Upper class”), for example, and Fidentinus (an assured plagiarist).57 Ambiguous referential status makes these charactonyms interestingly anomalous.They are simultaneously singular and univer- sal, individual and typic, proper and common. Moral naming merged with a strong tradition of allegorizing in late antiquity.58 Later, abstract names of various sorts—moral, psychological, philosophical—abound in medieval drama, satiric sermons, and secular dream visions. And crossover between genres was quite acceptable, so long as it served a didactic purpose. William Langland’s Glottoun and Sloth, for example, soon found their way into homiletic preaching.59 Renaissance satire recovered the pungency of classical naming. So Jonson’s satiric epigrams emulate Martial’s for concision—matched in this, and sometimes overgone, by Herrick.60 Simple instances include Jonson’s Guilty and Surly (“Surly’s old whore in her new silks doth swim”).61 Other Jonsonian names are more tropic, like the lascivious Colt (39) or Cheverel (37, 54), the lawyer as pliant as kid leather. Or Chuff (44), implying “churl”, “miser”, and “chough”, a carrion-eating bird supposed to have a sour disposition. Social types include Playwright (68), Luckless Woo-all (46), and SirVoluptuous Beast (25). Jonson some- times names so directly that he risks breaking satire’s ﬁctive illusion. Several of his encomiastic epigrams focus on the addressee in a way almost peculiar to Jonson.“To Sir HoraceVere” opens with the names that epitomize Jonson’s vision of vera nobilitas:

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modes of naming 39 Which of thy names I take, not onely beares A romane sound, but romane virtue weares: Illustrious Vere, or Horace; ﬁt to be Sung by a Horace, or a Muse as free . . . (Epigrams 91, lines 1–4) And “To William, Earl of Pembroke” shows awareness of names as a feature of genre:“I doe but name thee, Pembroke, and I ﬁnd | It is an epigramme, on all man-kind” (Epigram 102. 1–2). Herrick’s tag names compress and miniaturize even more extremely. Characteristic are Gut; Hog (shortened from Hodge?); and Chub, a type of rustic simpleton.62 Sometimes Herrick’s naming approaches a reductive extreme: Cob and Bice, Buggins and Spokes recall the abstract minimalism of legal ﬁction. In law the names John Doe, John (or Tom) Stiles, Richard Roe, and Richard Miles were used for (ﬁcti- tious) parties in an action. John Doe was often the lessee of the plain- tiff; John Stiles (originally John-a-stiles, “John who lives at the stile”) paired with John-a-nokes (“John who lives at the oak”); and Richard Roe and Richard Miles were defendants. Such names referred to any- one in the situation speciﬁed: they lacked the full referentiality of real- life names. Sir Philip Sidney asks “doth the lawyer lie then, when under the names of ‘John a Stile’ and ‘John a Noakes’ he puts his case? But that is easily answered.Their naming of men is but to make their pic- ture the more lively, and not to build any history: painting men, they cannot leave men nameless.”63 It is much the same with Herrick’s briefest epigrams. Buggins and Spokes hardly qualify as tag names, they have so little descriptive content. Upon Buggins Buggins is Drunke all night, all day he sleepes; This is the Levell-coyle that Buggins keeps.64 (In level-coil the unseated player remained passive until his turn came round again.) “Buggins’s turn” is allotted regardless of character and qualiﬁcation: anyone, Herrick implies, may become a drunkard. No poet was a more important link between Jacobean and Augus- tan satire than John Oldham (1653–83).65 His work shows how prob- lematic Aristotle’s contrast of “comic” and “satiric” can be. From the start he uses real names, both historical and contemporary (Loyola, Hobbes, Gadbury). Sometimes these swarm in considerable numbers, as with the slighted poetry of “ancient time”:

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40 literary names As Pordidg, Fleckno, or the British Prince? [by Edward Howard] Quarles, Chapman, Heywood,Withers had Applause, And Wild, and Ogilby in former days.... (Spencer’s Ghost, lines 98–100) But these mix with type-names, some of them simultaneously literary like “Butler’s Sir Sydrophil” from Hudibras.And some of the real names are representative types: “What Scipio, what Maecenas would’st thou ﬁnd,| What Sidney now to thy great Project kind?” (127–8). Oldham strives for generality, sometimes taking this as far as personiﬁcation: Others Ambition, that imperious Dame, Exposes cruelly, like Gladiators, here Upon the World’s Great Theatre. (Counterpart to the Satyr Against Vertue, lines 78–80) Pope in “The Fourth Satire of DonneVersiﬁed” (1733) shows himself to have learned much from Oldham in these matters. Free to mod- ernize at will, he uses a range of names different from and wider than Donne’s.Where Donne has real names, Pope sometimes leaves them almost untouched: “More than ten Hollensheads, or Halls, or Stows |Of trivial household trash”becomes“Meer HousholdTrash! . . . More than ten Holingsheds, or Halls, or Stows”.66 Sometimes he substi- tutes more recent names: Donne’s “outlie either |Jovius, or Surius, or both together” (lines 47–8) becomes “And Oldmixon and Burnet both out-lie” (line 61). And for Donne’s “linguists” Calepine and Beza (lines 53–9), Pope puts Onslow, Swift, and Ho–––y [Bishop Hoadly] (lines 71–3).This is not mere updating. Pope has learned to work towards generality, leaving Donne’s personiﬁcations, but replac- ing “Calepine’s Dictionary” (line 54) with “the Dictionary” (line 69). He implies Walpole, but leaves him unnamed, as “the Great Man” (line 159). With the real names he juxtaposes literary names such as Panurge (Donne’s Panurgus, line 59, from Rabelais) and Sir Fopling Flutter from Etherege (line 233); key names such as Naso, later Fan- nius (Lord Harvey, line 178); and charactonyms such as Umbra (line 177), often from mythology, like Circe (line 166).67 In To Cobham, similarly, Pope has Helluo (234, Latin “glutton”) and Narcissa (243, a character in Cibber’s Love’s Last Shift). Narcissa was a favourite stage role of Anne Oldﬁeld’s, and so functions simultaneously as a key name.“An Ascapart” makes the allusion to the romance Giant into a general type.

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modes of naming 41 The Renaissance charactonym, sometimes muted and made less implausible in Restoration comedy, was to be subtilized still further. After centuries of realistic ﬁction and ludic name-play by Thackeray and Dickens, it survived, variously disguised, in the modern novel of satiric social observation. Evelyn Waugh relies on it, and occasionally abandons disguise altogether. In Decline and Fall (1928) he uses moral names (the Hon. Miles Malpractice, Margot Beste-Chetwynde),68 together with others, like Fagan, that are openly allusive.Waugh’s most characteristic names have multiple references, as when the large Lady Circumference “wanders from the point”. The relevance of a name may be unobvious and so need highlighting. Waugh achieves this by deliberate error (Pennyfoot for Pennyfeather) or by explicit announce- ment (“‘Viscountess Metroland,’ said Peter. ‘What a name.’”).69 Sur- names with two or more barrels imply negative judgements in Waugh: Alastair Digby-Vane-Trumpington, for example, or Sir Wilfred Lucas- Dochery, or Freddy French-Wise.70 Paul Pennyfeather, the protagonist unburdened with wealth, is a Simplicissimus ﬁgure who discovers the hard way that colleges are liable to collude with moneyed members who behave badly, like the Bollinger (Bullingdon) Club. John Mullan has drawn attention to the brilliance of Martin Amis’ satiric naming:71 “At Fielding Goodney’s exclusive New York tennis club, Self spots the leading players Chip Fournaki and Nick Kareben- kian, as well as the women’s world champion Sissy Skolimowsky. Even the names are muscled. His business partners are Terry Lines and Keith Carburton: matey yet threatening; oikish yet upwardly mobile.” Occa- sionally Mullan overstates: “John Self ? He of course has the name of the very era.”Amis’ success, like Thackeray’s, depends on a scintillating variety of jokes, sharp observation of type, and wild exaggeration of vulgarity: the restaurateur Krud, the ageing porn star Caduta (“Sag- ging”). His clever use of non-standard, sloppy pronunciation opens up possibilities of multiple association:Wayno (“Wino”), Lorne Guyland (“Long Island”).When Amis gives a dentist the name “Frift”, he uses transferred association to suggest a patient trying to speak through mouthfuls of water. Satire has long been given to grotesque names. In the sixteenth-cen- tury controversy over Talmudic literature, Dominican attempts at sup- pression were opposed by Johann Reuchlin in his collection of Letters of Distinguished Men (1514). Promptly, the anonymous Letters of Obscure Men (1515–17),probably by Crotus Rubianus and Ulrich von Hutton,72 coun-

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42 literary names tered with devastating parodies in the mode of confessional satire.The correspondents have cumbersome Germanic names such as Lyra Bunts- chuchmacherius,Mammotrectus Buntemantellus (‘Breast-Feeler Fancy- Cloak’), and Magister Bartholomaeus Kuckuk. (The last was to return as Professor Kuckuk in Thomas Mann’s Felix Krull.) A similarly bizarre quality can be found in Fielding’s Princess Hunca Munca.73 The grotesque name was a favourite device of Charles Dickens (Quilp, Podsnap, Pumblechook). But with Dickens grotesquerie need not serve any ostensible satiric purpose: as we shall see in chapter 8, he collected such names simply for their quiddity. In the twentieth cen- tury, considerations of plausibility tended to constrain grotesque nam- ing. Nevertheless, Nat West has a Miss Lonelyhearts, and Joseph Heller a Major Major Major Major—not to speak of insulting names such as Mudd and Scheisskopf. The distinguished fantasist Mervyn Peake seems to have mastered what may be called Dickensian naming. Yet Anthony Burgess faults Titus Groan (1946) on just this feature: we seem to be given clues directing us towards the daylight of a literary cat- egory, but all the keys change into red herrings.Take the names of the charac- ters, for instance—Nettel (“the octogenarian who lived in the tower above the rusting armoury”); Rottcodd, curator of the Hall of the Bright Carvings; Flay, Swelter, Steerpike, Mrs Slagg, Prunesquallor.These are ﬁtting for a Pea- cock novel, for Dickens or for a comic children’s story.They are farcical, but the mood is not one of easy laughter or even of airy fantasy: the ponderous architectural quality holds everything down, and we have to take the charac- ters very seriously, despite their names.74 In Burgess’ view, Peake’s names fail to fulﬁl the genre expectations they arouse. Romance Great names play an important part in romances.What would the Mat- ter of Britain be without such names as Arthur, Lancelot, and Guine- vere, Tristram, King Lot, and Iseult? But the vast body of ancient, medieval, and Renaissance romances called for a numerous cast of char- acters and corresponding variety of names.Not all of these were famous. Many of the names of Italian romantic epic, however, soon became familiar and were to prove easily imitable. Indeed, some of them resem- ble each other so closely as to be almost mutual anagrams—Orlando:

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modes of naming 43 Rinaldo; Bradamante: Bradimarte: Britomart. The masculine romance names often end in -o, and feminine ones, as we have seen, in -a and -ia. So it was not difﬁcult to invent convincing romance names, both in ﬁction and in real life. Almost any exotic legendary name would do, however implausible—although Dryden’s “Aureng-Zebe” was a real person. Nicknames and pseudonyms like Orinda and Ephelia, which had the authority of the romances, were soon fashionable.The heroines of Daniel Defoe and even of Samuel Richardson, as we saw, were often given romance names. One of the most striking features of romance names is the way in which they are introduced: their delay by the author and their con- cealment by the characters. For it is not only the selection of names that alters with genre but their deployment. Deployment Satire tends to introduce names abruptly, without preamble. As Anto- nio Sebastiano Minturno (d. 1579) notes, in satire “the opening is sud- den”.75 Thus, in Pope’s Epistle to Dr Arbuthnot the very ﬁrst line is “Shut, shut the door, good John”. Pastoral names are brought in infor- mally too, but less abruptly. In the ideal community, informal and inti- mate, shepherds all know each other already: introductions are unnecessary.76 As in the bar in Cheers, where all is ﬁxed in a Golden Age stasis,“everybody knows your name”. The name of a romance protagonist,however,is likely to be deployed in a very distinctive way. Often it will be withheld, perhaps for some considerable time, while the narrative continues anonymously. Chrét- ien de Troyes delays naming Perceval in the Conte del Graal;77 and in Amadis of Gaul, King Perion is nameless until he has fought and killed two vassals of King Garinter and heard the latter’s name. In The Faerie Queene St George goes under the nom de guerre “Red Cross” until book 1 is almost over.78 Similarly Priscilla, who appears at FQ 6.2.16–21, is not named until 6.3.10. Sometimes a knight’s name is unknown even to himself, and his adventure amounts to a search for identity.79 The withholding of a protagonist’s name in romance is of such far-reaching importance that we shall return to it in chapter 7. As a literary device, the withheld name continued in late modulations of romance: it is used to strong effect, for example, in the ﬁrst chapters of Anthony

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44 literary names Trollope’s The American Senator (1877) and George Meredith’s The Adventures of Harry Richmond (1897). Very short genres, even those with no special personnel, nevertheless use names in a characteristic way.Thus, epitaphs and funeral elegies have real names, often those of the deceased.The Earl of Surrey’s epitaph on Thomas Clere is packed and patterned with place and personal names: Norfolk sprang thee, Lambeth holds thee dead, Clere of the County of Cleremont though hight; Within the womb of Ormondes race thou bread, And sawest thy cosine crowned in thy sight. Shelton for love, Surrey for Lord thou chase . . . An even more extreme case of elegiac naming comes in the latter part of “The Lament for the Makars”, William Dunbar’s meditation on death. After surveying categories of the dead, Dunbar increases the poem’s intensity with a catalogue of twenty-four fellow-poets who have been taken: He had done petuously devour The noble Chaucer, of makaris ﬂour, The monk of Bery and Gower, all thre: Timor mortis conturbat me. Alternatively, epitaphs in epigrammatic versions may use “punnable” names that offer opportunities for wit—“Who kill’d Kildare? Who dar’d Kildare to kill? | Death kill’d Kildare, who dare kill whom he will.”80 Lyric, notably love lyric, may dispense with personal names— although Shakespeare’s Sonnets do so deceptively, as we shall see in chapter 4. More usually, however, a sonnet mistress is prominently named. A Renaissance sonneteer may refer to several loves, drawing their names from ancient or neo-Latin love poetry or from romance (Parthenope, Corinna). Such names impart idealization through myth- ological associations (Diana) or by exaltation to the starry heavens (Caelia, Stella).81 Recycling frequently occurs: Delia, for example, a name of Diana occurring in Tibullus, is reused by Maurice Scève (1510–64), Samuel Daniel (1562–1619), and several others, for its implication of purity, and perhaps also as a near anagram of l’idée.82 Caelia (“heavenly”) is a clear favourite, appearing in Hieronymus Angerianus’ Erotopaegnion (1512), William Percy’s Coelia (1594), Sir David Murray’s Coelia (1611), and Thomas Carew’s Poems (1640).83

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modes of naming 45 These “fained” names shared by several poets (Stella, Celia, Rosalind) have naturally provoked speculation about the relation of poetry to life, name to mistress—speculation not always discouraged by the poets themselves.84 The name of a sonnet mistress may be introduced in various special ways: dwelt on with wordplay, insisted on by repetition, or covertly conveyed through anagrams and acrostics.These possibili- ties are explored in chapter 4. Abstract names In the Hesperides of Robert Herrick (1591–1674), names relate to genre in a different way. His mistresses number fourteen, like the lines of a sonnet: some are directly addressed, others named obliquely in poem titles.Victorian critics debated which of them were the most important women in Herrick’s life. But the severe Victorian Edmund Gosse, thinking badly of the seventeenth century’s “false Anacreontic spirit”, is ready to “dismiss Perilla, Silvia, Anthea, and the rest at once, as airy nothings, whom the poet created for the sake of hanging pretty amorous fancies on their names”.85 He takes Julia seriously, however, as having “ruled [Herrick’s] youth” before he took holy orders. On the basis of literalistic interpretation Gosse is able to describe Julia’s physical appearance and character and sartorial taste. More recently, Achsah Guibbory and John Shawcross, rightly in my view, have rejected such biographical fallacies.86 Only by keeping speculation on a tight rein can one hope to be receptive to intimations of the “airy” ideals that sometimes excite Elizabethan poets. That Renaissance love poetry amounts to more than chronicles of philandering seems obvious enough when one considers such docu- ments as Giles Fletcher’s preface to Licia (1593): If thou muse what my LICIA is, take her to be some Diana, at the least chaste, or some Minerva, no Venus, fairer farre. It may be shee is Learnings image, or some heavenlie wonder: which the precisest may not mislike. Perhaps under that name I have shadowed Discipline. It may be, I meane that kinde courtesie which I found at the Patronesse of these Poems, it may bee some Colledge. It may bee my conceit, and portende nothing.87 The possibility that Licia may shadow “Discipline” is interesting in connection with Herrick’s “The Changes to Corinna”, for he advises Corinna to incline “to Discipline”.88 Similar idealization—not

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46 literary names necessarily Neoplatonic—may inform George Chapman’s Mistress Philosophy, Drayton’s Idea, and other sonnet Muses. So, when Guibbory identiﬁes Herrick’s mistresses as personiﬁca- tions of the poems themselves, she may be very near the mark. “The bad season makes the Poet sad”, for instance, laments the difﬁculty of writing in a hostile political climate: Dull to my selfe, and almost dead to these My many fresh and fragrant Mistresses: Lost to all Musick now.89 Even the attractions of Julia may not be altogether sexual:“I must con- fesse, mine eye and heart | Dotes less on Nature, then on Art.” Gordon Braden’s censure of “voyeuristic preference of perception to action”90 is beside the point if Herrick’s passion is for poetry, and necessarily contemplative. The names of Herrick’s “mistresses” may perhaps offer a useful guide.Thus, Dianeme is a simple tag name, made up from the Greek elements Δί, Di, and ’άνεμος, anemos:“Breath of Zeus”,“divine inspi- ration”. Hardly less explicitly, Lucia, from lucis (Latin,“light”), means illumination.91 At least three of the fourteen names speciﬁcally iden- tify Muses. Sappho and Corinna of Tanagra were both among the “nine lyric Muses”,92 unless Sappho, by an alternative reckoning, should count as a tenth Muse.93 And Perilla, Ovid’s stepdaughter, was the Muse of Herrick’s special genre, epigram: Ovid tells a poem it will ﬁnd her sitting “among books and her Pierian maidens [Muses]”.94 Julia, the most often addressed of Herrick’s mistresses, was a great name in erotic poetry after the Julia Monobiblos of Janus Secundus (Jan Everaertes, 1511–36), the Netherlandish love poet. In the ﬁrst book (hence Monobiblos) of his love elegies, Amores, Janus’ Julia had emulated Propertius’ Cynthia and incidentally made famous his own youthful affair with Julia of Mechlin in 1531.95 Herrick’s Julia, how- ever, takes a more ceremonial turn. She is “Flaminica Dialis, or Queen-Priest” and “Pious-Priestesse”,96 wife of the Priest of Jupiter. Herrick’s Silvia, similarly, has religious associations. She is “the patient saint” who makes him holy “circumcrost by her hand”,97 besides being another royal priestess. For, as Rhea Silvia or Ilia, she was anciently regina sacerdos, Vestal Virgin yet also mother of Romulus and Remus.98

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modes of naming 47 Several of Herrick’s names evoke the mistresses of other poets.As Julia was Janus Secundus’, so Corinna was Ovid’s99 and Perilla that of Giovanni Gioviano Pontano (1426–1503) the author of a didactic neo-Latin De Hortis Hesperidum.100 These and others of Herrick’s loves are beneﬁciaries of the advice to Corinna to learn from Ovid’s fate and write purely. Others suffer metamorphosis into trees or stars. Ovid’s incestuous Myrrha is metamorphosed to a tree exuding myrrh, and exhorted to be “like a Virgin full of ruth, |For the lost sweet-heart of her youth”.101 All stelliﬁcations idealize, but these are speciﬁcally Hes- peridean. “Heaven-like Chrystalline” Anthea (’Άνθεια) and “dark- eyed” Electra (᾿Ηλέκτρη, “shining, brilliant”), mother of Harmonia, joined the constellation Pleiades or Hesperides, here multiply rele- vant.102 First, the gardens of the Hesperides lie far in the west, mythologizing Herrick’s own Devon.Then, as a grove, they beﬁt the genre of Hesperides itself—a silva, or collection of apparently miscel- laneous poems.103 Thirdly, the grove contained the tree of golden apples, the object of Hercules’ quest, symbolizing the philosopher’s stone.104 Herrick’s other names need less explanation. Anna Perenna, another Atlantid, personiﬁes the ancient year and so qualiﬁes as Muse of the many calendrical poems.105 Like Oenone (Paris’ ﬁrst, innocent love), she is associated with wine, and so with the poems of intoxication.106 Bian- cha,“White”, refers to the white of innocence (as in “The white Island: or place of the Blest”) and to the whitened spiritualized body of alchemy.107 In a time of civil war, one might expect a martial Muse; but Herrick instead has Irene (εἰρήνη,“peace”).108 In “Upon the losse of his Mistresses”,109 Herrick mourns the loss of seven mistresses corresponding to the genres celebrated in Hesperides. They are only half of his fourteen; yet the poem contrives to seem comprehensive. It deplores the loss, under the Commonwealth, of Julia (religious verse), Sappho (lyric), Anthea, Electra, and Myrrha (meta- morphoses and stelliﬁcation), together with “witty” Corinna and Per- illa (epigram).The loss of all these closes portals to a world of poetic imagination where he had once found the joy in life’s beauty that made life worth living. Now, All are gone; Onely Herrick’s left alone, For to number sorrow by Their departures hence, and die.

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48 literary names Notes 1. See Faral 1962: 87; Fowler 1997: 240. 2. See Aristotle Poetics 9.5–6: “tragic poets keep to real names” (ὀνομáτων). But this is soon qualiﬁed: “in some tragedies one or two of the names are familiar (γνωρίμων) but others invented” (9.7). And he goes further:“in some the names are all invented, as in Agathon’s Antheus”. He might have added that Cratylic names also occur in tragedy: the name Creon (“ruler”) is given to more than one tragic character. 3. See OLD; Ostler 2007: 18n. 4. A name familiar to Spenser, e.g. from Vergil, Georgics 1.19 and Culex 136 (which he imitated as Vergil’s Gnat 207–8: “That Ceres seede of mortall men were knowne, | Which ﬁrst Triptoleme taught how to be sowne”). 5. See Oliver 1970. 6. Menaphon (1589). 7. OED s.v. Clown, 1:“countryman”. 8. Wolcott 1794–1801: 3.350. 9. See Alpers 1996: 301–3; Jefferies 1880. 10. Ch. 18, Hardy 1978: 173. Cf. Jefferies 1880. 11. Cit. Skilton, Hardy 1978: 527. 12. Giles is also the name of the orphan labourer in “The Farmer’s Boy” (1800), a poem by Robert Bloomﬁeld (1766–1823). 13. See Enciclopedia Virgiliana 3.458. 14. On the personal names inVergil’s Eclogues, seeVolk 2008: 73–7; Grant 1965: 67.Vergil shares with Theocritus the names Corydon, Menalcas, and Thyrsis. 15. See Poetice 3.99, Scaliger 1964: 150. Mopsus and Chromis, shepherds in Vergil, are ﬁshermen in Sannazaro. See further Jones 1925; Sannazaro 1966; Hubbard 2007; Cummings 2006; Pellicer 2010. 16. Corydon ﬁrst appears in Theocritus, Idylls 4 and 5, herding cows for a friend,Aegon, against the background of mixed farming and ﬁshing usual on islands such as Cos. Subsequent Corydons/Coridons, shepherds or undifferentiated rustics, reappear in Vergil, Eclogue 2; Calpurnius, Eclogues 1.8; 4; 7; Propertius 2.34.73; Columella 10.298; Juvenal 9.102; Petrarch, Eclogue 6.144; Barclay, Eclogues 1–3; Googe, Eclogues 3, 8;Tho- mas Greene, Ciceronis Amor;Thomas Lodge, Rosalinde; Sidney, Arcadia (1593); Francis Sabbie, Pan’s Pipe (1595) “To the Reader”; Spenser, FQ 6.9 (the jealous shepherd Coridon, whom Chaudhuri 1989 unnecessarily sees as betraying Spenser’s dissatisfac- tion with conventional pastoral); CCCHA, 200, 282; Shakespeare, AYLI; Milton, L’Allegro 83;Thackeray, Vanity Fair 2.12; Jackie Coryton in Hay Fever. For eight exam- ples of Coridons in Elizabethan drama, see Berger, Bradford, and Sondergard 1998: 34. 17. See Fowler 1997: 78–81. On pastoral in general, see Greg 1959; Rosenmeyer 1969; Sambrook 1983; Chauduri 1989. 18. Idylls 6.6, 11.31–2; see Finley 1999: 60, 78. 19. Poggioli 1975: 26, 48, 288. 20. Metamorphoses 13.884; Odyssey 9.537–600. 21. Milton 1997: 248. 22. Neaera may have had similar associations for Milton, in view of G. G. Pontano’s funeral elegy for her in his Amores. But Neaera was also Janus Secundus’ second love, urbana Neaera; Marullus’ Neaera; and before that the faithless Neaera of Horace’s Epode 15. Cf. Fletcher, Licia, 17–19, Fletcher 1964: 90–1, 421, and see Schoolﬁeld 1980: 61–2, 102. See Revard 1997: 182 n. 34. 23. Theocritus 7.55, discussed Cairns 1972: 27–8. 24. Johnson 2006: 1.278–9.

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modes of naming 49 25. Cummings 2006: 197. 26. Idylls 7.59; 8.52; cf. Georgics 4.388; Sannazaro 1966: 175. 27. Diaper 1952: xxvii. 28. Diaper’s Cymothoe, e.g., appears in Iliad 18 and FQ 4.11. On Sannazaro, see Hubbard 2007. 29. Metamorphoses 3.617. 30. Eclogue 5.114–15. 31. FQ 7.6.40–53; see Gottfried 1937: 107–25. 32. See Fowler 1989: 42–4; Fowler 1986: 105–25. 33. Colin, Cuddie,Thenot,Willye,Thomalin, Hobinoll, Palinode, Piers, Morrell, Perigot, Diggon Davie. Morrell or Morel was a diminutive of More or Moore,“dark”. 34. Cf. Harrison 2007: 59 ﬁnding “confrontation between the literary genres of pastoral and love-elegy”. 35. Coridon and Menalcas are from Theocritus andVirgil, Cornix and Fulica from Phae- drus, and Amyntas from Theocritus and Sannazaro. Codrus was an exemplary king of Athens, and Faustus was the son of Sulla. See Cooper 1977: 118. 36. Cf. Cooper 1977: 111. 37. See Chaudhuri 1989: 37–8; Margot shadowed Marguerite d’Angoulême. Colin is a diminutive of medieval Col(le), itself a short form of Nicholas. 38. SC February, 25 gloss. 39. On polemical pastoral, see Jones 2011. 40. Idylls, 4.10. 41. Motto was sometimes spelt Motho; it may hint at Shakespeare’s Moth, also a juvenile. 42. Cf. Spenser, SC July 95, “I am but rude and borrell”: E. K. glosses this as “plain fellow”. 43. See Tillotson and Newdigate’s note to Shepherd’s Garland 4.25, Drayton 1931–41: 5.8. 44. Ibid. 522. 45. See Gay 1974: 2.513–4. 46. Ibid. 532. 47. Philips, cit OED s.v. sparable. Gay mentions the nails again in Trivia 1.263, Gay 1974: 2.528, 555. 48. Boileau,“The Art of Poetry”, tr. Dryden, 248–54, Dryden 1995: 162. 49. Poggioli 1975: 35; Cooper 1977: 134–5. 50. See Greg 1959: 287, 291. 51. See Fowler 1986: 105–25; Fowler 1992: 83–7. 52. E.g. Colie 1974: 245–6; Poggioli 1975: 37–8; Fowler 1984: 1–14. In this connection the motif of names on trees could well be the topic of a separate chapter; see, e.g., Grant 1965; Lee 1977. 53. Cf. MND 2.1.66, from Tottel, “Harpalus’ Complaint”. Lodge’s Rosalynde (1590), a source for AYLI, has a Corydon, drawn in turn from Corin in Sir Clyomon and Sir Clamydes (1570). 54. Strabo 11; Hudibras 1.2.393, Butler 1967: 40. 55. 51 b 11–15; b 29–32. 56. See Barton 1990: 20–7. 57. Epigrams 7.72; 2.69. 58. See Whitman 1987. 59. See Owst 1961: 430, 436 on Piers Plowman A-text passus 5.212–33. Cf. Barton 1990 on examples in drama. 60. Barton 1990: 75. 61. Jonson, Epigrams 30, 38, 82. For bibliography on names in Jonson’s poetry see Don- aldson’s note in Jonson 1985: 647.

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50 literary names 62. Herrick 1956: 327; 326; 327, Herrick 1968: 432; 430; 432. 63. Sidney 2002: 103. 64. Hesperides, no. 1011, Herrick 1956: 311, Herrick 1968: 412. 65. See Hammond 1983. 66. Donne, Satyre 4.97–8; Pope, “The Fourth Satire of Donne Versiﬁed” 130–1, Pope 1961: 34–5. 67. See Erskine-Hill 1983: 93. 68. Highet 1962: 193 suggests “Beast-Cheating”. 69. Waugh 1937: 214. 70. Waugh 1937: 69, 215. 71. Mullan 2006: 275–8. 72. Moss 2003: 242; Highet 1962: 140; Stokes 1925: 72–6. 73. Tom Thumb (1730) Act 2, scene 4; see Highet 1962: 121, 265 n. 69. Hunca Munca is remembered by Beatrix Potter in The Roly-Poly Pudding. 74. Peake 1968: 11. 75. Minturno 1564: 276; see Fowler 1985: 99, 295 n. 28. 76. Cf. Rosenmeyer 1969: 107. 77. See Stevens 1973: 117; Parker 1979: Index s.v. Naming; Fowler 1985: 82. 78. At FQ 1.10.61, although hinted earlier at 1.2.12. See Marks and Gross, SEnc 494 col. 2. 79. See Cooper 2004: 333–4. 80. Grigson 1977: 3. 81. See further in Fowler 1982: 76–7. For Parthenopeus, see Pontanus 1531: 1.31. 82. See Scève 1966: 14–16. Other instances include Marcantonio Flaminio (1498–1550) and Agostino Ricchi (1512–64). 83. See Klein 1984: 2.242. Angerianus was well known in the 1590s, perhaps from Poetae Tres Elegantissimi (Paris, 1582); see, e.g., Fletcher 1964: 418–23 passim. 84. See Hadﬁeld 2008: 13–14. 85. Gosse 1897: 136. 86. Guibbory 1978: 79–87; Shawcross 1978: 89. 87. “To the Reader”, Fletcher 1964: 79–80. 88. Herrick 1956: 96, Herrick 1968: 135. 89. Herrick 1956: 214, Herrick 1968: 284–5. 90. Braden 1978: 223. 91. A further association may be Lucy (patron saint of sight) who was miraculously saved from exposure in a brothel. 92. Greek Anthology 9.26 and 184 (accessible to Herrick in the Planudean Anthology); also Propertius 2.3.21; Stephanus, Dictionarium Historicum s.v. Corinna “quae Lyri- corum principem Pindarum quinquies vicisse, et epigrammatum 50 libros edidissse fertur”. 93. Greek Anthology 9.571. 94. Tristia 3.7.1–4:“inter libros Pieridasque suas”.Aulus Ticidas, contemporary with Cat- ullus, wrote love poems to Perilla; see Poliziano, Nutricia 708, Poliziano 2004: 154. 95. The name Monobiblos was given by Janus’ ﬁrst editor, Filippo Beroaldo (1453–1505). See Schoolﬁeld 1980: 41 and Index s.v. Julia. 96. Herrick 1956: 196; Herrick 1968: 262. In ancient Rome, the Flaminica Dialis was the wife of the Flamen Dialis, the priest performing the ritual of Jupiter. See Ovid, Fasti 6.226, coniunx sancta Dialis. 97. Herrick 1956: 204, 227; Herrick 1968: 272, 300. 98. Ennius, Annales 55; Vergil, Aen. 1.273; Horace, Odes 4.8.22; Tibullus 2.5.52; Statius, Silvae 1.2.243; Dio Chrysostom 354.23. 99. Amores 1.5.9 et passim.

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modes of naming 51 100. Pontano, Parthenopeus 1.31, Pontano 1948: 97.“Ad Perillam Puellam” appears in the Amores 1. 101. Metamorphoses 10.489–518; Herrick 1956: 47, Herrick 1968: 66. George Sandys inter- prets her as “love melancholy”. 102. For Anthea, see Herrick 1956: 11, 34, 59, Herrick 1968: 19, 49, 88; for Electra, Herrick 1956: 34, 154, Herrick 1968: 49, 209. See e.g. Hesiod, Astronomia 1; Apollodorus 3.10.1; Ovid, Fasti 4.31–2; Middleton 1596: sig. D1b. 103. On the Hesperides as gardens, see Moore Smith 1914. On the silva genre, established by Statius and revived by Poliziano, Jonson, and Dryden, see Fowler 1982: 163–80, and cf. Poliziano 2004: ix. 104. See Abraham 2000: 101; Maier 1989. Musgrove 1976: 240–65 traces many alchemic motifs in Hesperides, e.g. 260 “level-coyle”, the alchemist’s horizontal canale serpentium. 105. E.g. Herrick 1956: 67–9, 101, 103, 126, 285, 304, Herrick 1968: 98, 140, 143, 172–3, 376, 400. See Ovid, Fasti 3.654–9. 106. At Anna Perenna’s feast, wassailers were supposed to live as many years as they drank cups of wine: see Ovid, Fasti 3.523ff. For Oenone, see Herrick 1956: 168, Herrick 1968: 226. In Oenone’s case the association was etymological. 107. Herrick 1956: 32, 376, Herrick 1968: 47–8, 497. In the seventeenth century “white” was rich in associations: see OED s.v. White 6–8. On its alchemic senses, see Abraham 2000: 215–17. 108. Herrick 1956: 32, 376, Herrick 1968: 271. See Hesiod, Theogony 902. 109. Herrick 1956: 15–16, Herrick 1968: 25.

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3 The Faerie Queene 8 One of the ﬁrst British poets to give full attention to ﬁctional names was Edmund Spenser (1552–99). Much of his effort must have gone into discovering and selecting names, and enriching them with multiple implications.Very often, indeed, interpreting The Faerie Queene depends on understanding its names. Spenser is brilliant at naming: more so even than Shakespeare, who had commonly to reuse names within theatrical tradition and convention. Among sixteenth- century works The Faerie Queene is unusual in the extent to which it mixes names of different sorts: only the Orlando Furioso stands comparison.1 Variety of types Adonis, Arthur, Britomart, Burbon, Celeno, Coridon, Cymothoe, Florimell, Matilda, Night, Numa, Perissa, Red Cross: these all mingle without discordance, so that the reader easily runs on without stop- ping to reﬂect that some are ordinary real-life names, others allegori- cal, or exotic.They are simply ﬁctional, the names of Spenser’s world. Thus, the ﬁrst Canto introduces Gloriana, Errour, Morpheus, Hecate, and Archimago: a sequence with its own logic. Spenser’s ﬁrst editor, John Upton (1707–60), well recognized this variety in naming: “Spenser varies his names from history, mythology, or romance, agree- able to his own scheme.” The variety has to do with genre. Renais- sance theorists regularly dwelt on epic’s all-embracing, encyclopedic character, claiming it included other genres. So the heterogeneous

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54 literary names names of The Faerie Queene show Spenser attempting to fulﬁl this inclusive aim. Throughout the poem, shifts of mode and mood are signalled, and partly effected, through grouping of generically similar names. Thus, names in the pastoral romance of book VI (Calidore, Corydon) differ from those in the historical chronicles (Brennus, Bellinus) or in the erotic mythology of Busyrane’s tapestry (Cupid, Europa). Overriding such modulations, however, a drive towards syn- thesis can be sensed: towards a single ﬁction, comprehensive and diverse, like the world itself. More than a dozen types of names can be distinguished.2 Most obvious, personiﬁcations: either English or foreign-language abstrac- tions, sometimes complicated by archaistic or signiﬁcant spellings (Shame, Errour, Slowth).Whether in one or more languages, the names may be simple or compound (Una, Corceca, Maleger, Ruddymane). Components may be of classical or biblical or romance origin, or sev- eral of these combined (Furor, Mammon, Amidas, Timias). Different provenances mix freely (Mercilla, Corﬂambo). And mythological names (Proserpina, Proteus) mingle with those from more recent lit- erature (Arthur, Colin, Calidore). Some have a chivalric ring (Red Cross Knight, Squire of Low Degree); others suggest a locally appro- priate genre such as pastoral (Corydon, Meliboe). A structurally sig- niﬁcant type is the family of names, all formed in the same way or with a common pattern of sound (Priamond, Diamond, Triamond). Key names—another type—abound. Some of these were announced by Spenser (Gloriana, Belphoebe); others, recently discovered, are dis- cussed in chapter 4. Of the key names, some are anagrams, others rebuses (Dumarin, Lansack). The last line of the poem as we have it (“O that great Sabbaoth God, graunt me that Sabaoths sight”), playing on different interpretations of the biblical name, depends on another, sacred type.3 Real romance The real-life world has more presence in The Faerie Queene than may at ﬁrst appear. Some of its names, it may naturally be assumed, are invented, while others are not. But determining which are ﬁctional and which extra-ﬁctional proves to be surprisingly tricky, for allegori- cal names were common in Elizabethan times. Scudamour (“Shield of

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THE FAERIE QUEENE 55 love”) seems obviously made up; yet it was a familiar surname in the sixteenth century. Camden, as we have seen, was critical of precisians who named their children with abstractions such as “Reformation”; Bulstrode Whitelocke’s Diary is full of names like “Prudence” and “Thankful”; and many similar examples have been collected from early baptismal records.4 When moral names were part of real life, Spenser’s Maleffort and Despetto, charactonyms as they are, may well have seemed plausibly realistic.To complicate matters further, proper names were still spelt variably enough for meaningful variants to be intro- duced at will. As for classical and mythological names, these were commoner still in everyday life. Sir Julius Caesar (1538–1636) was Queen Elizabeth’s physician; Troilus Atkinson kept the Brazen George at Cambridge;5 and Spenser and Mulcaster each had a son called Sylvanus. Romance names, too, invaded ordinary life, as we have seen.The modern reader may associate Spenser’s Amyas with Amadis de Gaul (as CharlotteYonge did); but Amyas Paulet was Mary Queen of Scots’ gaoler, Amyas Hill founded Michael Drayton’s school, and the name kept ﬁguring in Curia Regis rolls. Drummond of Hawthornden (1585–1649) so han- kered after romance that he inscribed some of his own books “Don Murmidumilla”.6 Such overlaps between the realm of romance and the quotidian world delighted Spenser: his naming spans that uncer- tain border even more often than Ariosto’s. Cratylic names, especially personiﬁcations, are sometimes said to limit character development in ﬁction. But to criticize Spenser’s names as “short-circuiting” ignores their complex purposes. Even after centu- ries of criticism, new implications of his names keep emerging. This started as early as Upton’s great edition of 1758. OnTimon (FQ 1.9.3–5), Upton comments:“by saying that Arthur was nurtured by Timon, alle- gorically he [Spenser] means, that he was brought up in the ways of honour: for so his tutor’s name signiﬁes” in Greek. But already this is sensed to oversimplify, for “in the romance history [. . .] Uther Pen- dragon by the counsel of Merlin delivers the young prince to be nur- tured by Sir Ector”. Behind Spenser’s “old Timon” stands not only Malory’s Ector (the “Faery knight” of FQ 1.9.3 who brought the unweaned Arthur to Timon to be trained in “virtuous lore”) but also Merlin, charged to oversee Arthur’s upbringing and his “discipline to frame” (FQ 1.9.5).The names imply complex issues of nature, nurture, and grace. Occasionally Spenser explicitly acknowledges the Cratylic

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56 literary names relevance of an abstract name; as with Ignaro:“His name Ignaro did his nature right aread”.7 He had learned from his schoolmaster Richard Mulcaster (who expounded both the Cratylic and the Hermogenean theories) “what a cunning thing it is to give right names”.8 Moreover, even the simplest personiﬁcations may be more than bare abstractions. Like emblems, they often come with imagery that con- tributes detailed realization. Spenser’s Gluttony, for example, has a crane’s neck because his name derives from gluttire (Latin, “swallow”). The long narrow neck of the crane was thought to prolong the pleas- ure of swallowing.9 Constructed names Spenser’s charactonyms are often constructed from foreign-language components—generally Latin, Greek, Italian, French, and Irish.10 Latin was the language of academic discourse, quite as familiar to many intellectuals as the vernacular. But this was less true of Greek, which provided the basis of naming in medieval learned allegories by Alanus de Insulis, Bernardus Silvestris, and other Platonic authors.11 Similarly with the humanists:Thomas More drew on Greek for the names in his Utopia (Hythlodaeus,Ademus).12 An important factor here is the com- petitiveness of Renaissance etymological theories. Guillaume Budé, Cornelis Kiel, and others constructed Greek derivations for vernacular words to show them more ancient and biblical than those merely derived from Latin.13 It was the same with Spenser’s most congenial source, the Hypn- erotomachia Poliﬁli (1499) of Francesco Colonna. This long-neglected work, translated into French by Jean Martin in 1546 and into English by Sir Robert Dallington in 1592,14 provided naming models for both Sidney and Spenser.15 Colonna’s compound Greek names, such as Eleuterilyda,“Free-will” (from ἐλευθερία, eleutheria, freedom, generos- ity) and Erotomoride (ἔρωτος, erotos + τιμωρέω, timoreo “Avenger of passion”)—and indeed Poliﬁlo itself—inspired many of Spenser’s, such as Perissa “who in excesse exceeded” (пερισσή, perisse, “excessive”). Colonna’s bizarre style, coupling Italian syntax with Latin and Greek vocabulary, must have been difﬁcult in an almost modernistic way. His allegory of erotic initiation has never been fully explicated, partly because the names are so richly suggestive. Even Poliﬁlo might

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THE FAERIE QUEENE 57 mean “Lover of Polia” or “Lover of many things”. (For the Hypn- erotomachia abounds with attractive things: gardens, clothes, and sensu- ous architecture.) Scores of Colonna’s minor characters—Cinosia the portress,Algerea (“Sorrow-bearer”)—have abstract names shrouded in ambiguity; while others are mythological or allude to Latin erotic poetry: Corinna, Lesbia, Delia, Neaera. Spenser studied Colonna’s names, and directly appropriated “Amorous Phaon” (FQ 2.4).16 The Faerie Queene has more than a thousand names, some of them loaded with implications even richer and subtler than Colonna’s or Sidney’s. As a guide to help readers through this onomastic labyrinth, Spenser often uses a grammar whereby names related in meaning have similar components. Doublets and trios (Marks and Gross’ “serial names”) share a word segment to show their relationship: the sisters Perissa and Elissa; the brothers Bracidas and Amidas; Sansfoy, Sansloy, and Sansjoy; Priamond, Dyamond, and Triamond; and Despetto, Decetto, and Defetto. These formal resemblances, while recalling medieval romance pairs such as Balin and Balan, here indicate sibling relationships, and imply membership of a particular category, moral or psychological, that partly deﬁnes the character’s content. Usually the siblings contrast with each other, or at least are clearly distinct. Thus Perissa (“Excess”) contrasts with Elissa (“Deﬁciency”), and Pyrochles with Cymochles. A parent–child relationship, however, implies causa- tion.Thus Mortdant and Amavia cause the blood-guiltiness of Ruddy- mane. And Night is “Mother of annoyance sad” (FQ 3.4.55) and “mother of dread darknesse (FQ 1.5.44).17 The kindred components in doublets and trios are not put there only for euphony but for meaning. Take the example of Perissa and Elissa sharing the component -issa. Upton regarded Elissa as Italianate: “ἔλλειψις [elleipsis] which the Italians (and Spenser Italianizes many of his words) would call Elissa [elisa, past participle of elidere]; so that we have Spenser’s Elissa. She is deﬁcient and wanting in all good man- ners”.18 Upton here explains more than William Nelson or A. C. Ham- ilton is able to do, by deriving “Elissa” from ἐλάσσων, elasson,“too little [pleasure]”.19 Modern etymologists derive the sufﬁx -ess (denoting a female person) from Greek -ισσα (-issa) through late Latin -issa and Romanic -essa. But Spenser may have thought of “Perissa” as com- posed of Peri (Greek, “beyond measure”) and -issa (a colloquial Latin form of ipse),20 making Perissa “Excess in itself ”. Elissa, by analogy, is “Deﬁciency in itself ” (alluding to Aristotle, hyperbole kai elleipsis kai to

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58 literary names meson,“excess and deﬁciency and the mean”).21 Members of doublets and trios are partly deﬁned by their relations with others in the group, whether of alliance or opposition. Perissa is the opposite “Extremitie” to Elissa, and Medina represents the mean between them. So too with their champions Sansloy, Guyon, and Hudibras. Sansloy (“Lawless”) intelligibly supports Perissa (“Excess, Beyond measure”), whereas the puritanical Hudibras takes Deﬁciency’s side. Guyon tries to maintain a temperate control of appetite for pleasure. “Elissa” also plays on the Phoenician name of Dido in Aeneid book 4.22 “Medina” may simply be constructed from Latin mediana,“situated in the middle”. But in the context of sieges and fortiﬁcations (“the face of golden Meane” is a curtain wall23), “Medina” would suggest the ancient capital of Malta, famously besieged in 1565 by the Saracens. No accident, then, that Perissa’s champion Sansloy is a Saracen.24 The pri- mary implications of Spenser’s names are often supplemented by sec- ondary associations, in a kind of wide-ranging wit that Joyce will later develop in Finnegans Wake. The component -essa seems in The Faerie Queene to have a different implication from -issa. It has usually been linked with esse (Latin, “being”).25 This ﬁts “Duessa” (combining esse with Latin duo or Italian due—“double being”); but it hardly suits “Fidessa” or “Abessa”. Per- haps instead Spenser means us to connect -essa with ἕσσα, hessa (from ἓννυμι, hennumi, “clothe oneself, wear”). Then Fidessa (Latin ﬁdes + esse) will mean “apparent faith”, “seeming faith” rather than “being faith”.26 If so, the component -essa would belong to the evil world of appearances and disguises, as beﬁts Abessa (FQ 2.3.18).“Abessa” could also be construed as Abbess + a (“Abbess”), or even as Ab-esse,“Being absent”—a hit at non-resident clergy. Moreover, the component -essa might suggest a grand Italian title like principessa. The names of The Faerie Queene are not simple. Spenser’s abstract names usually include at least three elements: (1) an English, Latin, or Greek component conveying the primary mean- ing; (2) a romance association, often an Italianate form or an archaic spelling; and (3) further wordplay, contributing supplementary mean- ings. Critics like to disambiguate the names, forcing choices between univocal alternatives so as to reduce Spenser’s names to “mere alle- gory”. But The Faerie Queene is not to be read in the same way as the single-minded pilgrimages of Guillaume de Deguileville or Jean Car- tigny or William Baspoole.27 We should expect Spenser’s personiﬁca-

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THE FAERIE QUEENE 59 tions to present complex associations. Even the simple scheme underlying the Saracen trio Sansfoy, Sansloy, and Sansjoy proves to have complications. At ﬁrst the Saracens seem to represent categories of sin corresponding to Neoplatonic triads such as mens, voluntas, volup- tas and illuminari, purgari, perﬁci.28 In Elizabethan spelling and pronun- ciation, however, the shared component sans fell together with saint.29 Thus the Red Cross Knight has to deal with the disguised trio, St Foy, St Loy, and St Joy. And these had romance associations, both with The Passion of Ste Foy and the “Bryan sance foy” in the romantic play Sir Clyomon and Sir Clamydes (1570).30 Such poetic patterns cannot, of course, be strictly regular. “Brag- gadocchio”, for example, has the Italianate form (occio or ochio), but no Greek or Latin component. Instead, the name has several vernacular associations, almost amounting to a personal portrait. “Braggadoc- chio” is usually related to English brag, braggart, and French bragard. But in his description “avaunting in great bravery | As Peacocke” (FQ 2.3.6),“bravery” means “ﬁnery”. In view of the the Elizabethan swag- gerer’s wide slops, commonly satirized, “Braggadocchio” may also hint at braga(s) (Spanish and Italian, “breeches”.31 And the apt bragado (Spanish,“vicious”) can hardly be excluded. Such wit lies in multiply- ing the name’s resonances, without obscuring the primary meaning. As James Nohrnberg observes, Braggadocchio’s henchman Trompart means not only “Art of the boastful trump” but also “Art of decep- tion” (tromper).32 Cultural associations In the less abstract names of The Faerie Queene, certain preoccupations stand out. Harry Berger wonders “what the poet had in mind when he picked those good humanist names, Calepine and Aldus”.33 and Nohrnberg suggests book 6 introduces “the book-as-subject”, with the hermit tracing the lineage of the Blatant Beast “as in books is taught”; and adds that books “may also appear in some of the charac- ters’ names”. Indeed they may. Ambrogio Calepino (c. 1435–1511) compiled a standard Latin dictionary and Aldus “is the name of the great printer of classical texts whom Erasmus made proverbial for the laborious scholar”.34 Pursuing similar literary associations, Berger and Nohrnberg notice that “Pastorella” calls to mind pastourelle, a subgenre

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60 literary names of erotic pastoral.And they have seized on what turns out to be a very long clue. For throughout The Faerie Queene real-life authors keep appearing. This probably escaped the early commentators because allusion was then a relatively new and problematic device. Some of the allusions, however, are beyond reasonable doubt. Enias (who accompanies Arthur at 6.8.4–30) has been identiﬁed as Aeneas the founder of the Roman dynasty. But in a poem often concerned with origins, “Enias” surely alludes to Ennius (239–169 bc), father of Latin poetry.35 Similarly, the name of Pastorella’s father, Meliboe, alludes to Chaucer, the father of English poetry, who in his own person tells the Canterbury Tale of Melibeus. Other real-life authors include Tryphon the sea-gods’ physician (FQ 3.4.43; 4.11.6);Turpine the Castellan of the Ford (5.4.26);Bonfont,Malfont’s original name (5.9.26);Dony,Florimell’s dwarf (5.2.3); Aladine son of Aldus (6.3.3); Priscilla, Aladine’s mistress (6.3.10); and the Acidalian mount (6.10). Of these, Tryphon was an important ﬁrst-century bc grammarian from Alexandria”;36 Turpin (d. c. 800), Charlemagne’s Archbishop in the Chanson de Roland, allegedly wrote the Chronicle of Pseudo-Turpin;37 Bonfont was Joannes Bonefonius, a prominent neo-Latin poet;38 Dony suggests Antonio Francesco Doni (1513–74), whose Morall Philosophie was translated by Thomas North (1570); Aladine and Aldus allude to Aldo Manuzio (?1450–1515), the humanist printer of the 1499 Hypnerotomachia; Priscilla, diminutive of prisca, “ancient”, may recall Priscian the grammarian (5th–6th century ad, author of a common school textbook); and Acidalia, besides its myth- ological associations, gave its name to the Rudolﬁne poetValens Acidalius (1568–95).39 In short, Spenser’s “ﬁerce warres” are largely culture wars, and his paladins are poets and scholars and patrons. If Red Cross is “the Patron of true Holinesse”, Meliboe is a patron in a more literal sense, being traditionally linked with Sir FrancisWalsingham on the strength of Thomas Watson’s Latin elegy Meliboeus (1590). Watson’s preface calls Walsingham “chief patron of virtue, learning, and chivalrie”.40 The Orlando Furioso similarly introduces writers’ names, as we have seen. But Spenser goes much further than Ariosto, treating poets and patrons as chivalric heroes and even elevating them to be the saints of a new secular calendar foreshadowing Herrick’s “greeny calendar”. In Spenser’s vision, a gentleman was to be fashioned “in vertuous and gentle discipline”41 as much by reading as by ﬁghting. Besides, the age was one of ideological controversy, when writers fought as paladins, heroes, or villains.

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THE FAERIE QUEENE 61 Ancient fame Several of Spenser’s heroes are inaugurators; which relates them to the poem’s broader concern with origins. It reﬂects the early modern fas- cination with discoverers and founders of arts, languages, and institu- tions. Polydore Vergil’s De Inventoribus Rerum (1499) went through thirty Latin editions by 1555 and over a hundred versions in eight lan- guages by the early eighteenth century. An abridged English transla- tion had no fewer than ﬁve editions beween 1546 and 1560. First beginners of all, the father and mother of mankind were thought of as inaugurators of language; interest in the Adamic language before the Fall continued well into the seventeenth century.42 In making their new beginnings,the Elizabethans naturally drew strength from earlier originators,ancient and modern.Similar reasons,in part,stirred their genealogical passions—as witness their search for validating roots and the authority of heralds. A common mural decoration was a family tree, sometimes with its roots planted in enthusiastic ﬁctions. SirThomas Urqu- hart traced his descent back to the red earth from which Adam was formed. And a similar aspiration informs Spenser’s “rolles of Elﬁn Emperours” tell- ing Gloriana’s lineage “Which though from earth it be derived right, |Yet doth it selfe stretch forth to heavens hight” (2.10.2).Throughout the poem priority is honoured: that of Dumarin the ﬁrst conqueror of Munster,43 for example, and that of Numa the lawgiver ruling “without policy”, who “ﬁrst wore crowne of gold for dignitie” (2.10.39). The theme of antiquity is naturally expressed through stylistic archa- isms, a prominent feature of the poem. In an important article, Martha Craig describes Spenser’s archaism and opaque, foregrounded diction as the outcome of a visionary struggle with language.44 Behind a sus- tained etymological effort she discerns the doctrine that words have degenerated throughout history. Spenser’s archaism is thus more than gothic quaintness: it offered a way to rediscover better, truer forms. Spenser’s names thus belong to a “secret wit of reality”,45 their wealth of associations and allusions opening large historical perspectives. Many evoke the world of romance.The feminine names ending in -a or -ia (Mercilla, Phaedria) resemble those of the Amadis (Elisena, Ori- ana, Mabilia, Melicia). Sometimes Spenser reuses an actual romance name. Medina appears in Orlando Innamorato, where Valibruno, Count of Medina, is a Saracen; but Spenser appropriates his location name for

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62 literary names the Christian sister’s charactonym.46 Spenser’s masculine names are often those of ancient kings or heroes such as Arthur (also in Ariosto) and the British king Hudibras (from Geoffrey of Monmouth).47 Argante (FQ 3.7) is Barbante’s father in Boiardo; Brunell (FQ 5.3.5) is a thief in Ariosto.48 Mortdant (FQ 2.2.45) recalls Boiardo’s Mordante (Orlando Innamorato 2.19.17); and Burbon (FQ 5.11) ﬁgures in Orlando Furioso 33–44. Even abstractions can have romance antecedents: Dis- cord (FQ 4.2.1) is prominent in Orlando Furioso 14.76; while Sophy (FQ 2.9.6) is both a personiﬁcation (σοφία,“wisdom”) and the son of King Gurlicke of north Wales.49 “Red Cross” is characteristically many-faceted.50 At ﬁrst (FQ 1.1.2) “Red Cross Knight” may seem simply to refer to the “bloudie Crosse” he wears “on his brest”—the red cross on a white ground actually displayed in the Irish wars by the English; although the Fitzgeralds were entitled to bear Argent a Saltire Gules.51 But later he will become “a Saint, and thine owne nations frend | And Patrone: thou Saint George shalt called bee”—the martial saint familiar as the protector of England,52 whose attribute is a red cross on a white or silver ground. Red Cross’ paradoxical arms, bearing “old dints of deep wounds” yet never wielded, are also, however, the “glorious badge” of Christ put on by the believer. Moreover, John Lydgate, long before Spenser, had taken “George” to signify holiness or knighthood and renown.53 And John Selden, retelling in 1612 how St George delivered a king’s daughter from a dragon, adds that in consequence “some account him an allegory of our saviour Christ”, and that Spenser “hath made him an embleme of Religion”.54 The legends of St George, together with the tradition of patriotic pageants, generate several episodes, such as the battle with the old dragon.At the House of Holiness, Red Cross learns his true name to be Georgos, “farmer, husbandman”: “thee a Plough- man all unweeting fond [. . .] brought thee up in ploughmans state to byde, |Whereof Georgos he thee gave to name” (FQ 1.10.66). The derivation of γεωργός, georgos (from γη̑, ge (“earth”) and ἔργω, ergo (“work”), known from the Legenda Aurea, implied that Georgos cultivated the earth of his own ﬂesh in spiritual improvement—or, in another metaphor, ediﬁcation.55 This agricultural trope recurs in a strand of georgic imagery running throughout the poem, for example in ﬁgures of writing as ploughing and allusions to the par- able of sowing the seed of the gospel.56

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THE FAERIE QUEENE 63 “Guyon” is no less complex. As a romance name it recalls Guy of Warwick and Guy (Gyoun) of Burgundy. A Guyon was Ogier the Dane’s brother, and Gwion was an Arthurian knight.57 But Spenser interweaves religious allusions belonging to a distinct, homonymous name. For the patron of temperance bears the name of a river held to symbolize temperance. From the time of St Ambrose (c. 339–97)—who drew on the ﬁrst-century Philo Judaeus—the four rivers of paradise in Genesis 2: 10–14 were allegorized as the four cardinal virtues. Pison corresponded to Prudence, Tigris to Fortitude, Euphrates to Justice, and Nile or Gihon (Gaeon, Geon, Gyon) to Temperance.58 Guyon’s name generates the plot of book 2, for emblems of temperance are worked into his adventure. Thus, he uses the set-square or “norm of temperance”, a “golden squire [square]” to “measure out a mean” between Mortdant’s ﬂeshly indulgence and Amavia’s self-accusing death.59 Another emblem of temperance was the bridle of restraint,60 realized in the name of Guyon’s horse, “Brigador”, recalling Ariosto’s and Boiardo’s Brigliadoro. But the most fully developed emblem of temperance is the mingling of wine and water. The temperate river Guyon, Gihon, or Geon (Genesis 2: 13) runs from the Fountain of Life to the Bower of Bliss, to enact the mixing of water of baptism with Acrasia’s wine. Acrasia—like Acratia in the Italia Liberata da’ Goti (1547–8) by Giangiorgio Trissino (1478–1550)—is from medieval Latin acrasia (“bad mixture, intemperance”), anglicized to “acrasy” (FQ 22.12 motto).61 Acrasia’s wine is the wine of excess, of the concupiscent human will.62 Mythological names The literary taxonomist J. C. Scaliger (1484–1558) distinguishes between human ﬁctions ( Jealousy, Rumour), given allegorical names,63 and cosmic numina like elements or seasons, “explained” through mythology. To the second group presumably belong the natural fea- tures mythologized in the spousals of Thames and Medway (FQ 4.11). As Gordon Braden shows, the epithets qualifying Spenser’s Nereids improve on those in a translation of Hesiod’s Theogony by the humanist Boninus Mombritius (1424–82), revitalizing meanings inherent in their Hesiodic names.64 Spenser ﬁnds meaning even in a name’s sound: “Maeander intricate” (4.11.21) has itself a convoluted texture, the ntr

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64 literary names of intricate being a near echo of the ndr of Meander.65 Throughout the canto names rise from meanings and give rise to others in happy exchanges between nature and its ﬁctions. The river catalogue approaches pure poetry when it sets aside propositional communica- tion and “thesis yields back all its ground to taxis”.66 The names are listed, Spenser tells us, “in order as they came”; and the ordering is sometimes more interesting than the rivers themselves. There are too many for the modern taste: the demand to encompass so much information can be daunting.Yet such verse gazetteers were once popular. English Renaissance poets were belatedly emulating Continental georgic models: before long Drayton would begin his vast Poly-Olbion (1612, written ?1598–1612). However assiduous it may seem, Spenser’s catalogue is by no means exhaustive.It includes“only what needeth”.Various considerations guide the selection. One is degree of renown: some are “famous rivers” (4.11.20), items on the short list of fame, not the long list of “endlesse memorie”. Another consideration is economic value, as with the ﬁsh of the Darent (4.11.29) and the adamant of the Avon (4.11.31).The Dart is “nigh chockt with sands of tinny mines,” while all “water [. . .] the [. . .] soile” (4.11.30). A third consideration tends now to be overlooked.We think of rivers as symbols of mutability, but forget how much they once counted for stability and order. InTudor times waterways were preferred routes for travel, trade, and communication: they brought civilization. Hence Spenser’s choice of settlements on the rivers, notably the four academic cities.67 He reviews the national resources built up through peaceful communication and Cambina’s historical alliances.68 During the Renaissance great interest was taken in mythological names. Mythographers such as Lilio Gregorio Giraldi (1479–1552) compiled vast catalogues of pagan gods—notably, hundreds of the cult names of Venus. Names and cognomens seemed to offer a key to mythology. Even on a popular level, the mythographer Natale Conti (c. 1520–82) listed names of Diana. One of these is Luna, another Luci- fera—a connection underlying the solar pretensions of Spenser’s Luci- fera.69 Phoebe,another name of Diana,appears in Spenser’s Bel-phoebe, the Diana-like huntress of The Faerie Queene 2.3. The divine names of classical mythology are appropriately reserved for principal characters in the poem. Queen Elizabeth’s various perso- nas, for example, bear the names used in her mythological cults.70 As Spenser tells us in the Letter to Ralegh,

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THE FAERIE QUEENE 65 In that Faery Queene I meane glory in my generall intention, but in my particu- lar I conceive the most excellent and glorious person of our soveraine the Queene, [...].And yet in some places els, I doe otherwise shadow her. For con- sidering she beareth two persons, the one of a most royall Queene or Empresse, the other of a most vertuous and beautifull Lady, this latter part in some places I doe expresse in Belphœbe, fashioning the name according to your owne excel- lent conceipt of Cynthia (Phœbe and Cynthia being both names of Diana). Similarly,“Britomart” expresses Elizabeth’s regal persona as well as her mythological persona, Minerva or Venus Armata. Spenser’s Britomart also calls up Ariosto’s and Boiardo’s Bradamante and Brandimarte.71 But “Britomart” primarily suggests “Brito-Mart”, the British Mars or martial Briton. And besides these associations “Britomart” can be construed as a shortened form of “Britomartis” (whom King Minos attempted to ravish), a name of Diana in the pseudo-Vergilian Ciris.72 British antiquarians claimed that Diana was anciently worshipped in England under this name of Britomartis: a chaste anti-type to Scylla and Myrrha.73 Through Britomartis, Brito- mart’s story relates to a group of mythological narratives of chastity under attack, that include the adventures of Belphoebe and of Florimell.74 “Britomartis” became Brictona Martis . . . ﬁlia in Boccaccio; hence in The Faerie Queene the “martiall Mayd”, “mayd Martiall”, “Briton Maid”, and “bold Britonesse” (Spenser’s coinage).75 The rami- fying allusions in “Britomart” ﬁnd reﬂection in John Selden’s Illustra- tions to Drayton’s Poly-Olbion Song 1, where he speculates that “Βρύτον [Bryton] may be had from ordinary primitive, or else from Βρίθυ [Brithu], ‘sweet’ (as Solinus teaches, making Britomart signify as much as sweet Virgin) in the Cretique tongue”. Selden was too serious a scholar to take such ﬁgurae etymologicae as historical evidence: he adds “but this is to play with syllables, and abuse precious time”.76 The name of Britomart’s nurse, Glauce, is not only the name of the mother of Diana (according to Cicero) but also leads back to Minerva, since Pallas Athene was Glaucopis (“owl-eyed”).77 No English poet before Spenser practised such interweaving of mythological names. Conﬂicting genealogies Most of Spenser’s mythological names occur in genealogical passages, which tend to be read too cursorily—for the genealogies of The Faerie

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66 literary names Queene, like those of Hesiod or Boccaccio, provide the basis of author- ity.The more ancient the ancestor, the stronger the claim.This is made clear enough in Lucifera’s family tree: Of grisly Pluto she the daughter was, And sad Proserpina the Queene of hell; Yet did she thinke her pearelesse worth to pas That parentage, with pride so did she swell, And thundering Jove, that high in heaven doth dwell, And wield the world, she claymed for her syre, Or if that any else did Jove excell: For to the highest she did still aspyre, Or if ought higher were then that, did it desire. (FQ 1.4.11) Lucifera claims, here, that Jupiter is her father. But this claim is imme- diately undermined by an alternative possibility: “Or if that any else did Jove excel”. She vaguely desires to be descended from whoever has the highest authority. Nohrnberg, exploring the deep structure of Spenser’s mythology, draws on The Faerie Queene and other poems by Spenser, together with works by Plato, Claudian, Boccaccio, Cartari, Calvin,Thomas Cooper, and others, to assemble a single pantheon of cosmic powers. It is very doubtful, however, that such a single, coherent system of mythology ever existed. Mythological names belong to myths. And every myth exists as a variety of narratives, each embodied in a text that is more or less discrepant from the others.78 The mythic genealogies in The Faerie Queene are no exception.They present distinct, often incompatible, variants, some of them in Spenser’s view false, others true. It is the reader’s task to distinguish between them, not regard every character as a truth-teller. For example, Duessa, “faire falsehood”, has to be treated as an unreliable witness. She should never be trusted, least of all when she tells her own family history. Spenser includes at least two versions of each cosmogonic myth: one told (with variants) by Archimago, Duessa, Mutabilitie, and their like; the other by Nature and the narrator.These two groups are mutually contradictory. In the very ﬁrst canto,Archimago (yet unnamed) boldly utters words so evil they must not be repeated (“let none them read”): a spell to raise dark spirits. He speaks, that is, the name “Great Gorgon [. . .]| At which Cocytus quakes, and Styx is put to ﬂight” (FQ 1.1.37). It is fatally easy to take these last words as authorial. But they are not: they

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THE FAERIE QUEENE 67 express Archimago’s own expectation of the power of the forbidden name, and the consequences of uttering it. So they imply a false myth. After all, Styx, the “granddame of the Gods” (FQ 4.11.4) would hardly be “put to ﬂight” by the name of her own descendant Demogorgon. Similarly, when Duessa addresses Night— O thou most auncient Grandmother of all, More old then Jove, whom thou at ﬁrst didst breede, Or that great house of Gods cælestiall, Which wast begot in Demogorgons hall [. . .] (FQ 1.5.22) —it would be thoughtless to accept her attribution of seniority to Night, or her account of Night as coexisting with Demogorgon.79 For if Night was “begot in Demogorgons hall” then Demogorgon must belong to an older generation than hers. Instead of being coeval with Night, he is much older, coeval with Night’s parent Eternity. Again, Duessa claims Night is senior (and superior) to Jupiter, whom she (Night) “at ﬁrst didst breede”. But this claim is later undercut when the repentant Aesculapius fears “The wrath of thundering Jove, that rules both night and day” (1.5.42). Aesculapius’ rhetorical question “Can Night defray [bear the charge of] |The wrath of Jove?” implies a negative answer. Duessa has overestimated Night’s authority: Jupiter is senior to Night and has authority over her. Similar issues underlie Mutabilitie’s genealogy. She says that Titan (Saturn) is her “great Grandsire” and that on her mother’s side she is a “daughter” (“descendant”) of Earth, “grandmother of all the gods”.80 On this lineage depends her case against Nature. Moreover, Mutabilitie claims that “Earth (great mother of us all)” is “thrall” (“subject”) to her. But these claims are patently false: Nature, not Earth, is “grandmother of all creatures” (this we have on the author- ity of the poet himself )81 and “far greater [. . .] than any of the gods or Powers on high” (7.7.5). Nature is senior to all the gods and pow- ers she bred, including Earth and Saturn and their offspring—and Mutabilitie. Nature makes this explicit when she calls Mutabilitie “daughter” at 7.7.59. So Nohrnberg’s idea that “Nature and Muta- bilitie are differentiations out of a single theogonic principle” can- not be right—far less that “Nature and Mutabilitie are related to each other dialectically”.82 Nature and her daughter belong to dif- ferent generations—the one on a more fundamental level of reality than the other.

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68 literary names Some of the most interesting discrepancies concern Demogorgon, in Spenser a chthonic power accompanying Eternity and Chaos.83 Nohrnberg, following Boccaccio and the mythographers, identiﬁes Demogorgon either with Eternity or with Chaos—as if the identiﬁca- tion might go either way.84 But Spenser surely means us to think Agape (“Christian love”) more trustworthy than any mythographer. And when Agape goes to visit the Fates “downe in the bottome of the deepe Abysse” she ﬁnds them, she says, sitting Where Demogorgon in dull darkenesse pent, (FQ 4.2.47) Farre from the view of Gods and heavens blis, The hideous Chaos keepes [. . .] Certainly Demogorgon is shrouded here in ambiguity as well as dark- ness. Does Demogorgon, pent, keep (“entertain”) Chaos? Or does Demogorgon keep Chaos pent in darkness? Or is it Chaos who keeps Demogorgon? Spenser evokes in masterly fashion the dubious state of Demogorgon. Nevertheless, Agape in her descent into hell ﬁnds that not even Jupiter can affect the Fates’ spinning of mortal threads, the cosmogonic process. “Not all the gods can change, nor Jove him selfe can free” (4.2.51). Nohrnberg improves on his earlier position in a recent essay,“Sup- plementing Spenser’s Supplement”,85 where he acknowledges that “Nature as a deity is brought to resemble or participate in [God] alone”, and afﬁrms that the Cantos of Mutabilitie forecast the disappear- ance of Nature and “the incipience of Eternity”: “However constant, Nature will ultimately mutate into Eternity”.86 Anything else is only an appearance,“as if Nature were disappearing into the demogorgoni- cal yet maternal cave”. But “mutate” is not an Elizabethan word: Nohrnberg is still in thrall to Mutabilitie, and credits her claims. The beauty of the Cantos of Mutabilitie is indeed sublime; but that does not make Mutabilitie win her case against Nature. Demogorgon The name Demogorgon seems to have originated, appropriately, from the chaos of scribal transmission. In Statius and Lucan he is a powerful god invoked to threaten others. Statius’ Tiresias conjures spirits by the name they dread, the name of “the high lord of the triple world, which

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THE FAERIE QUEENE 69 it is forbidden to know” (triplicis mundi summum, quem scire nefastum).87 The name itself—from γοργός, “terrible”, or γοργώ, Gorgon—is ﬁrst given by a commentator, Lactantius Placidus (ﬁfth or sixth century ad), who may have confused a general magical formula with the name of a speciﬁc deity. Demogorgon is also mentioned by a scholiast on Lucan, Pharsalia 6.742, as the name of one able to look on Gorgon. Probably, then, “Demogorgon” had no original connection with δημιουργός, demiourgos (“magistrate, authority, or creative principle”). In time poets and mythographers such as Boccaccio and Conrad de Mure made Demogorgon a primordial deity, father of the other gods.88 “Demogorgon” was explained as daemonibus terror (“terror to demons”) or terribilis daemon (“terrible demon”) or derived from δαίμων (dai- mon) + γεωργός (georgos, “demon of the earth”). From Boccaccio the name came to Boiardo, whose Orlando makes Morgana swear by Demogorgon the segnore of all fairies, who at dawn drives them from the upper earth.89 Giraldi, who disapproved of the name as a mere textual corruption, was by now in a minority. By introducing the name Demogorgon into English, Spenser raised a spirit that would not soon be exorcised. Subsequently, the unuttera- ble name was much uttered and among lesser poets lost some of its mystery. Abraham Fraunce might claim priority over Spenser on the strength of The third part of the countesse of Pembrokes Ivychurch. Entitled, Amintas dale (1592).90 But his Demogorgon is still in the late medieval tradition of Boccacio, Boiardo, and the dictionaries. In Fraunce the elements cannot function until “sov’raigne God Demogorgon | Ends these broyles, brings peace” (p. 2).91 When Drayton took up the matter, he imagined only a susceptible earth god, who could be disturbed by a deity so junior as Apollo: Great Demogorgon feeles thy might, His Mynes about him heating: Who through his bosome dart’st thy light, Within the Center sweating. (The Muses Elizium (1630), 9.45–8) Drayton’s chthonic power is not indistinct enough to be credibly met- aphysical: Spenser achieves more by deﬁning his Demogorgon less. Later, Milton also makes his description too deﬁnite, locating Demo- gorgon next the thrones of Chaos and Night:“by them stood [. . .] the dreaded name | Of Demogorgon”.92 It must be unwise to have

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70 literary names Demogorgon do anything so visually explicit as stand. But Milton, seldom one to countenance alternative cosmogonic possibilities, was sure of the fated destiny. Not until Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822) was Demogorgon again treated by a poet with a political imagination open enough to reassert the god’s authentic mystery. Prometheus Unbound (1820) recov- ers the terror of undetermined form—“Awful shape, what art thou?” Shelley drew heavily on Spenser for his conception of Demogorgon’s power, as well as for the rhetoric needed to adumbrate abstraction. Shelley, however, now makes for the name a new etymology. He derives “Demogorgon” from demos, “the people”: the god is now a popular, political movement—a historical process—fated to dislodge the divinely ordained establishment represented by Jupiter. When Demogorgon descends from the Car of the Hour and moves on Jupiter’s throne, the tyrant having done his worst gives way.They sink down, “the conqueror and the conquered”, to the “bottomless void” of hell.93 Spenser’s successors have perpetually echoed and transformed his naming inventions. But they owe him much more than that. Their debt is nothing less than the whole idea that names can serve complex associative purposes. The Faerie Queene can be a profoundly elusive ﬁc- tion; so that its names (which are not always equally elusive) offer invaluable assistance to the reader. Before Spenser, characters were named casually, often without much deliberation. But with him the names of English literature came to be used with new sophistication: even his charactonyms are more than mere labels. Without Spenser’s achievement it would be hard to imagine the great names of Dickens and Joyce and Nabokov, far less the ironies whereby the greatness is questioned. Notes 1. On Spenser’s names, see the highly informative entry by Marks and Gross in SEnc 494a–496b with bibliography; Upton 1758; Variorum Spenser ; Nohrnberg 1976; Spenser 2001. 2. See Marks and Gross 1990, SE 494a–496b, with different examples. 3. See Spenser 1758: 2.665; Spenser 2001: 712; Camden 1984: 83 interpreting “Elizabeth” as “Quiet rest of the Lord”. 4. Camden 1984: 49; Bardsley 1996: 200. 5. Parker 1968: 24.

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THE FAERIE QUEENE 71 6. E.g. his copy of The Faerie Queene, Macdonald 1971: 201 item 922; see Fowler and Leslie 1981: 821. 7. FQ 1.8.31; see SEnc 495c–496a. 8. Mulcaster 1970: 168–9; see SEnc 495c. 9. FQ 1.4.21–3; cf. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics 3.10.10, the gourmand who wished his throat were longer than a crane’s. 10. See Borris 2000: 102. 11. E.g.Alanus, De Planctu Naturae, referred to at FQ 7.7.9; Bernardus, Cosmographia, chs. 3 and 12 (Pantomorphos, Urania, Physis), Bernardus 1973: 96, 118. 12. More 1961: 8. 13. See Considine 2008: 279 et passim; Index s.v. Greek language. 14. As The Strife of Love in a Dreame. 15. See Colonna 1999: viii. Sidney’s Arcadia has many names of Greek derivation, e.g. Strephon (στρέϕω, “evade, turn aside”), Klaius (κλαίω, “lament”), Basilius (βασιλεΰς,“king”), and Gynecia (γυνη̑,“woman”). Dallington had meant to dedicate his translation to Sidney. 16. But see Spenser 2001: 193. In the Dictionarium Historicum Poeticum appended to Tho- mas Cooper’s Thesaurus (1565), Phaon is merely “the name of a fayre yonge man”. 17. Cf. Russell 2010: 291 citing Bacon,“every cause is as a parent to its effect”. 18. Upton 1758: 2.440. 19. Spenser 2001: 177 on FQ 2.2.35, citing Nelson 1963. 20. As in Martial 1.109.1. 21. Nicomachean Ethics 1106 b 17: ὑπερβολή και ἔλλειψις και τό μέσον. 22. See Hamilton in Spenser 2001: 177; Nelson 1963: 181. Cooper’s entry (“one of the names of Dido”) shows the familiarity of Dido’s Tyrian name. 23. FQ 2.2 Argument. 24. FQ 1.6.2, 8; 2.2.18; see Bull 1997: 471–2.The lifting of the Siege of Malta was one of the most important events of the sixteenth century. 25. Doubtless on the authority of Cratylus 401C, where ου̉σία (reality, essence) is linked with Doric εσ̉ σία. 26. See, however, Craig 1972: 321. 27. Deguileville 1899–1904; Cartigny 1951; Baspoole 2008. 28. See Fowler 1973: 53–82. Smith 1985: 65 ﬁnds the same triad in St Bonaventura. 29. See Fleming 1918, cit. Variorum Spenser 1.201. The Christian “St George” was pro- nounced “San George”, like the deceptively similar “Sansfoy” the “faithless Sarazin (1.2.12), “Sansloy” the “proud Paynim” (1.3.35), and “Sansjoy” who carries a “hea- thenish shield” (1.4.38). On the triads, see Wind 1968: Index, s.v. Triad; Fowler 1973. 30. See Sheingorn 1955. On romance connections generally, see Barton 1990: 144–5. 31. Cf. Thomas Nashe’s braccahadocheos, from Latin bracca: Nashe 1966: 226; OED s.v. braggadoccio. 32. On multiple derivation of Spenser’s names, see SEnc 494c–495a. 33. “A Secret Discipline”, in Nelson 1961: 171 n. 6, rpt in Berger 1988: 218 n. 5. For Greek derivations of Calepine as “gracious speech” (M. Parker) or “difﬁculty” (Nohrnberg) see Spenser 2001: 622. 34. Nohrnberg 1976: 683 n. 52. 35. Spenser refers to Ennius in Dedicatory Sonnet 1, Spenser 2001: 727. 36. OCD; Cooper 1977; Cook 2006: 36. 37. De Vita et Gestis Caroli Magni. On Turpine as distinct from Terpine, see SEnc, 495a. 38. Jean Bonnefons (1554–1614) of Clermont, author of Pancharis (1592). Jonson told Drummond that Bonefonius’ “Vigilium Veneris was excellent” and that “he imitated the description of a night from it”; see Jonson 1925–52: 1.134, 143. 39. Evans 1973: 148.

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72 literary names 40. Epistle to Lady Frances Sidney (Walsingham’s daughter), Watson 1895: 145. Spenser calls him “the great Mecenas” in Dedicatory Sonnet 12, Spenser 2001: 732. 41. Letter to Ralegh, Spenser 2001: 714. 42. See Fraser 1977; Donawerth 1984. 43. See ch. 4. 44. Craig 1972. 45. Craig 1972: 316, 319. 46. Orlando Innamorato 2.1.14; 2.24.58. 47. Orlando Furioso 45.2; Historia Regum 2.9; FQ 2.10.25.The resemblance to the name of Sir Hugh de Bras, knight of the Round Table, may be coincidental. 48. Orlando Innamorato 2.1.10; Orlando Furioso 3.69. 49. See Poly-Olbion 24.219, Drayton 1931–41: 4.482. 50. Marks and Gross, however, rightly describe the polysemy of the Middle Ages as very different; see SEnc 495a. 51. See Woodcock and Robinson 1988: 66. 52. FQ 1.10.61. See Weatherby 1987. 53. See Hamilton on FQ 1.1.1–6, Spenser 2001: 31. 54. Drayton 1931–41: 4.85. 55. The allegory was based on meanings of the verb γεωργέω,“cultivate, improve”. 56. FQ 3.12.47; 6.9.1; 1.4.42; 1.6.45. See Sessions 1980. 57. SeeYonge 1884: 228. Such romance analogues, however, offer no connection with the virtue of temperance. 58. See further in Fowler 1960; 1960a; 1989: 39–41; Nohrnberg 1976: 304; Scaﬁ 2006: Index s.v. Gihon. 59. Fowler 1960: 143. 60. See Ripa 1976: 509. 61. See OED, prose examples from 1617; Hamilton 2001: 282. 62. FQ 2.2; 2.12; see Fowler 1960a. 63. Scaliger 1964: 163. 64. Mombritius’ translation, ﬁrst printed in Ferrara in 1474, was included in Basel edi- tions of Hesiod’s works. See Braden 1975: 32–3; Var. Spenser 4.274–5; Herendeen 1986. 65. Thomas Thomas (1587) explains the river name Maeander as “a turning or winding: [. . .] a winding in and out of the threds . . . after the manner of a Labyrinth”. 66. Nohrnberg 1976: 683. Cf. Fowler 1964: 182–91 on the catalogue’s numerical ordering. 67. Oxford, Cambridge, London (Inns of Court), and Stamford.The Carmelite houses at Stamford formed a rival university in all but name. Camden records the founding of a university at Stamford in 1333: northern students seceded there until forbidden by royal proclamation. Before 1827 Oxford graduates took an oath not to deliver or attend lectures there. See Var. Spenser 4.459–60. 68. See further in Fowler 1989: 43. 69. See Fowler 1964: 73. 70. On these cults see Wilson 1966;Yates 1975. 71. Ariosto, Orlando Furioso 1.60 et passim; 8.86 et passim; Boiardo, Orlando Innamorato 2.6.23; 1.9.49–64. 72. Ciris 254ff. For narrative connections with Florimell, see Variorum Spenser 3.332–3; Nohrnberg 1976: 446. See also Hamilton in Spenser 2001, on FQ 3.1.8. 73. See Fowler 1964: 162 n. 74. See further in Nohrnberg 1976: 446–7. 75. FQ 3.2.9; 3.3.53; 3.2.4; 3.12.2. See French 1972: 192 and ch. 8 passim on the patriotic antiquarian theories of John Dee, Henry Lyte, and others.

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THE FAERIE QUEENE 73 76. Drayton 1931–41: 4.25. Cf. SEnc 495c. On etymological interpretation of mythology see Morales 2007: 60. 77. Fowler 1964: 126 n., citing Giraldi 1548. 78. Cf. the approach of Morales 2007. 79. Nohrnberg 1976: 739. 80. FQ 7.7.16 ; 7.6.26. 81. FQ 7. 7. 13. 82. Nohrnberg 1976: 741. 83. FQ 2 4.41; 4.2.47. See Russell 2010: 288. 84. Nohrnberg 1976: 739. 85. Nohrnberg 2009. 86. Nohrnberg 2009: 122,123. 87. Statius, Thebaid 4. 516. 88. Boccaccio, Genealogia Deorum Gentilium (?1350–75); Conrad de Mure, Repertorium (1273); see OED s.v. Demogorgon; Starnes and Talbert 1955: 357, 359; Seznec 1953: 312 n. 96. The mythographers made Demogorgon father of the Fates (who were thus almost coeval with the beginning of things, and lived in the cave of Chaos). 89. Orlando Innamorato 2.13.26–9. 90. The passage in Fraunce appeared earlier than the Demogorgon of FQ 4.2.47 but not earlier than the “great Gorgon” of FQ 1.1.37 and 1.5.22. In any case, Fraunce had access as early as 1588 to some of FQ in manuscript; see Ethel Seaton in Fraunce 1950: xl. 91. Cf. Cooper, Thesaurus: “Demogorgus, An inchaunter, which was supposed to bee of such excellencie, that he had authoritie over all spirites that made men afearde”. 92. Paradise Lost 2.963–5. 93. Prometheus Unbound 3.1.

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4 Hidden Names 8 Before title pages came in, writers afﬁrming authorship had to name themselves within the text, openly or in disguise.The usual means of disguise was to disorder their names by anagram; distribute the letters among salient positions by acrostic; separate the syllables; or represent them by rebus. According to Cicero, Ennius used the initial acrostic quintus ennius fecit.1 Cynewulf (c. 900 ad), perhaps the earliest poet in English, gives his name in anagram, putting the runes in reverse order. La3amon, however, begins Brut (c. 1200–20) with his name and address and next of kin:“An preost wes onleoden: La3amon wes ihoten [called] |He wes Leouenaðes sone: Liðe him beo Drihten. | He wonede at Ernle3e.” Like many such afﬁrmations of authorship, this is formally a petition.2 But casting it as a third-person account of the poem’s genesis gives it a ﬁctive quality. By poetic convention the dreamer of a medieval dream vision might share the poet’s own name.3 In The Owl and the Nightingale (thirteeenth century), similarly, the poet Nicholas is named inside the ﬁction and his responsible maturity certi- ﬁed by both the birds. The wren later adds Nicholas’ address, Porte- sham in Dorset, calling it a shame that a man of his calibre should be left to live in the obscurity of a remote country parish. Naming himself in Piers Plowman (B-text, c. 1377–79), William Langland supplies an autobiographical statement which is simultane- ously a rebus or syllabic anagram of his signature: “I have lyved in londe [. . .] my name is longe wille” (i.e. Will Lang Land).4 Almost as plain is the embedded signature of Sir Richard Roos (c. 1410–82): “And up I roos, three houres after twelve.”5

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76 literary names Signatures and rebuses Chaucer names himself several times.6 To the eagle in The House of Fame he is “Geffrey”, and to the disgruntled Man of Law he is “That Chaucer”, who has used up all the good stories.7 John Gower’s Confes- sio Amantis (wr. 1390s) has a similar self-deprecation in his interview with the goddess-patroness: as it were halvinge a game Sche axeth me what is mi name. “Ma dame”, I seide,“John Gower”. “Now John”, quod sche,“in my pouer [power] Thou most as of thi love stonde”. Although “half in jest”,Venus implies Gower has been “halving”, that is, giving only half the service he owes.8 But names could also be conveyed by picturing the syllables of rebuses (non verba sed rebus). In The Book of the Duchess Chaucer refers to several names in this way: “ryche hil” suggests Richmond; “long castel”, Lancaster or Longcastel; “walles white”, Blanche; and “seynt Johan”, John of Gaunt.9 Heraldry made the rebus an extremely famil- iar genre. In the seventeenth century the arms of the poet Charles Cotton (1630–87) included three cotton hanks, and to this day the needle-and-thread ceremony at The Queen’s College, Oxford, com- memorates Robert de Eglesﬁeld (aigle and ﬁls). Early title pages often included printers’ devices in the form of such punning rebuses. Thus Sebastian Gryphius’ device was a frisky grifﬁn, Richard Grafton’s a graft and a tun.10 In the same vein the Scottish Renaissance poet Gavin Douglas (1474?–1522) signs his translation of Virgil with a rebus: To knaw the naym of the translatour The Gaw onbrokyn mydlyt with the Wyne The Dow jonyt with the Glas richt in a lyne: Quha knawis nocht the Translatouris name, Seyk na forthar, for lo with lytill pane Spy weill this verse; men clepis him swa at haym.11 The unbroken gaw, or gall, mixed with wyne makes gawin; the dow or dove joined with glas makes douglas—“As thai war simple as a dow but [without] gall”. (Gall was associated with wine in several bib- lical texts.)12 Douglas’ rebus seems plain enough; but it was lost on a

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hidden names 77 reviewer in The Times Literary Supplement who attributed Douglas’ translation to David Lindsay.13 Authorship might also be afﬁrmed through an acrostic.The ancient rage for ordering letters in acrostics (initial letters of lines or other units), telestichs (ﬁnal letters) or mesostichs (caesural letters) was at ﬁrst a religious convention, ranging from the simple ΙΧΘϒΣ (Iesus CHristos THeos Uios Soter, “Jesus Christ: God, Son, Saviour” ) and the divine monogram IHS14 to the intricate mazes and carpet pages of Publilius Optatianus Porfyrius (third–fourth century ad), the Aenigmata of St Boniface (c. 680–c. 784), and Hrabanus Maurus (c. 780–856). In the seventeenth century various meditations on the name of Jesus contin- ued the tradition, notably George Herbert’s “Jesu”:15 JESU is in my heart, his sacred name Is deeply carved there: but th’other week A great afﬂiction broke the little frame, E’vn all to pieces: which I went to seek: And ﬁrst I found the corner, where was J, After, where ES, and next where U was graved. When I had got these parcels, instantly I sat me down to spell them, and perceived That to my broken heart he was I ease you, And to my whole is JESU. Gillian Wright traces these pictorially based meditations in imitations by William Browne and Edward Benlowes.16 In the later Middle Ages and Renaissance, acrostics were so com- mon that educated readers seem to have traced them almost at sight. Writers such as François Villon (1431–after 1463), Francesco Colonna (1433/4–1527), and Palingenius (Pier Angelo Manzoli)( c. 1500–c. 1543) still signed their works acrostically.17 A prominent English example is John Gower, who gives his acrostic signature in a prologue to book 1 of Vox Clamantis.18 Perhaps they meant by this to perpetuate their fame: authorities on the art of memory sometimes recommended using acrostics.19 Printers too used the device for self-advertisement, as with the initial acrostic robert copeland.20 A more elaborate instance is The Testament of Love by Thomas Usk (c. 1354–88). Here the initial letters of the chapters form the acrostic margarete of virtw have merci on thin vsk.21 Even allowing for different reading habits this must have been a fairly demanding acrostic. But it is a triﬂe by com- parison with Boccaccio’s profoundly concealed 1,501-letter acrostic in

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78 literary names the Amorosa Visione with its doubly secret inner acrostic maria.22 Both these examples suggest something like the secrecy of prayer. Complimentary acrostics More often, acrostics were used to compliment a patron, mistress, or friend.The social verse of Sir Richard Roos is full of acrostic compli- ments to Elizabeth Beaumont (née Phelip) and others: acrostics simple, double, or triple; downward or upward; initial, caesural, or ﬁnal; and anagrammatic (complete or incomplete). The dazzling variety must have presented enough difﬁculty to limit uptake to an in-group.23 Roos’ complex acrostics would be hard to parallel, although the later Denbighshire poet Robert Parry (1564–after 12 February 1613) attempted something similar. Parry’s Posie 4 contains acrostics on john salesbury (1566–1612) his patron (initial letters of the seventh lines of each stanza); on dorothi halsall, Salesbury’s sister-in-law (initial let- ters of each stanza); on fransis wilowbi (initial letters of the second lines of each stanza); and on elizabeth wolfrestone robert parrye (initial letters of lines 3–6 in the ﬁrst eight stanzas).24 More simply, Parry’s Sonetti 16, 17, and 18 have initial acrostics in reverse order: reading up, they spell helena owen, the name of his beautiful patroness. Acrostics of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries are made more obvious. Each of Sir John Davies’ twenty-six Hymns of Astraea has the same initial acrostic, elizabetha regina,25 and this is signalled in the ﬁrst edition (1599) by typographic separation of the initial capitals. Similarly with Andrew Willett’s ﬁgure poems in Sacro- rum Emblematum Centuria Una (Cambridge 1592), such as the piously patriotic double acrostic elisabetham reginam diu nobis servet iesus incolvmem: amen (“May Jesus keep Queen Elizabeth safe, long to reign over us”) and the Puritan compliment to Essex: comiti nobili essexio literato (“To the noble and learned Earl of Essex”).26 Printed acrostics were easier to read, but ran the risk of being too obvious and seeming trivial. As the pace of life quickened, too, the pleasure of tracing loved names through acrostic mazes may have diminished. Samuel Butler (1612–80) deprecates the “Small Poet” who “uses to lay the Outsides of hisVerses even (like a Bricklayer) by a Line of Rhime and Acrostic, and ﬁll the Middle with Rubbish”.27 Before long Joseph Addison will categorize acrostics as “false wit”, and Rich-

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hidden names 79 ard Cambridge ridicule them at length.28 The Enlightenment was turning against the hidden or non-semantic element of literature. Anagrams This was especially true of anagrams. Close study of classical texts in the Renaissance had led to recovery of the embedded anagrams in Virgil, Ovid, and others.29 The ancient practice was understood and emulated by Renaissance poets, and recommended by theorists such as Joachim du Bellay (c. 1522–60). In consequence, a heightened aware- ness developed of texts as precise letter sequences. Nevertheless, ana- gram always belonged in part to the unspoken element of the poet’s craft: it was never assimilated to Renaissance rhetoric. Rhetoricians and theorists in particular passed over embedded anagrams, or sub- sumed them under the head of ﬁgures such as traductio, exergasia, and expolitio.30 The convention was to forbid explicit mention of them. A partial exception to the general obedience to this prohibition is the Delle RimeVolgariTrattato of Antonio da Tempo (d. 1336) with the com- pendium of it by Francesco Baratella. Remarkably, Baratella explains the early Renaissance type of syllabic anagram acrostic. In this, syllables rather than letters are rearranged: do.mi.ne. mar.ga.ri.te. an.to.ni.us. da. tem.po (“Antonio da Tempo to Lady Margarita”).31 The anagram was especially popular in France, where it attracted royal patronage. Du Bellay’s La Défense et Illustration de la Langue Françoise (1549) became a seminal text for the anagrammateur. Unlike da Tempo, du Bellay has no truck with syllabic anagrams. He deﬁnes the anagram as “transposition of letters in a proper name, which bears some device apt to the person”—as in françoys de valoys: de façon suys royal (“Royal in his style”).32 Du Bellay cites ancient precedents: the anagrams of Lycophron (early third century bc) for Ptolemy II Philadelphus (ptolemaius: apo melitos, “of honey”) and his queen Arsinoë (arsinoe: heras-ion, “Violet of Hera”) as well as the Eryth- rean Sibyl’s prophecy iesus christus: servator, crux, supposed to have been used by Cicero to show the Sibyls worked by diligence, not divine inspiration.33 In Britain the anagram had an almost equal vogue. Among Elizabethan and Stuart writers there are many references to the device.34 Anagrams would have been easier to ﬁnd in an age when spelling of proper names was subject to wide variation. Later, when the

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80 literary names spelling of names had become less variable, Addison tells in Spectator 60, a lover spent months on an anagram of his mistress’ name, only to ﬁnd he had the spelling wrong (Bohun, not Boon). Most of what George Puttenham has to say about anagram is in an unpaginated insertion of four leaves after quire N of The Arte of English Poesie (1589).35 Puttenham paraphrases du Bellay, taking over (inaccu- rately) his Lycophron and Valois anecdotes. He thus appeals to French validation of the panegyric anagram. Only then does he add Tudor examples such as elissabet anglorum regina: multa regnabis ense gloria (“By thy sword shalt thou reign in great renown”).36 Putten- ham (like du Bellay) has nothing to say about the function of anagram, beyond suggesting that transposition of letters may reveal a name’s destiny (“fatality”). He concedes anagrams are “courtly triﬂes” but at once takes this back: they are no more vanity than “the most serious studies of man”.37 The Elizabethan writer with most to say about anagram is the his- torian William Camden (1551–1623). Camden beneﬁts from his pred- ecessors: he repeats Lycophron’s anagrams (adding new errors),38 and adds biblical examples of “alphabetary revolution”.39 (This phrase may hint at gematria, the cabbalistic method of interpreting Hebrew scrip- ture by interchanging “equivalent” words whose letters add to the same numerical total.) He attempts to put the anagram fashion into perspective, blaming its excesses on French inﬂuence: “the French exceedingly admire and celebrate this facultie, for the deepe and farre fetched antiquitie, the piked ﬁnes [ ﬁns piquées, pointed conclusions] and the mysticall signiﬁcations thereby”.This last property prompts an afﬁrmation of his own: “names are divine notes [signs], and divine notes do notiﬁe future events; so that events consequently must lurke in names, which only can be pried into by this mystery”.40 Camden by no means aligns himself with the “sour sort” who condemn the ana- gram as “nothing but a troublous toy”, but rather with those “more mild” who grant it to be a “daintie devise”, and allow that “as good names may be ominous [auspicious] so also good Anagrames”. The difﬁculty of anagrams seems to him a point in their favour: difﬁcilia quae pulchra (“difﬁcult things are beautiful”). Above all, the point of a “good anagram” lies in aptness of meaning. In the same essay Camden sets out—perhaps for the ﬁrst time in English—the rules of anagram. He lists all the standard licences: dou- bling of letters; omission of a letter; and substitution of E and AE,

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hidden names 81 V and W, S and Z, C and K. Retention or omission of H is sanctioned on the authority of Lycophron—for whom [h] was indicated only by a breathing, not a letter.41 Drummond of Hawthornden, writing about 1615, added a few other licences.42 One or two repeated letters may be omitted (as with two of the Rs in the famous rose de pindare anagram for pierre de ronsard). Then, a letter may be repeated; diphthongs may be separated; a letter may be changed for another similar letter, as D and T; and a composite letter may be resolved, as Z into S or DS. Drummond thinks an embedded anagram in a sonnet or epigram “ﬁtly cometh in mostly in the Conclusion”: it should not be signalled typographically but appear “of it self naturally”. Camden gives over sixty Latin and Greek panegyric anagrams, sacred, royal, and noble.43 Several praise Queen Elizabeth, such as eliz- abetha regina: angliae hera, beasti (“Mistress of England, you have blessed it”) and elizabetha regina anglorum: gloria regni salva manebit (“the glory of her rule will remain intact”).44 Others are of Mary Queen of Scots, such as maria steuarta: veritas armata.45 Aristocratic names include the Earl of Southampton (henricus wriothesleius: heroicus, laetus, vi virens,“noble, happy, growing in power”).46 The surname of the Earl of Essex yields devereux: vere dux , that of Sir Fulke Greville grevilius: vergilius.47 The anagram for Lord Mountjoy, the Earl of Devon, is embedded in a distich— Carolus Blountus bonus ut sol clarus Tu bonus ut sol clarus, Nil clarius illo Caelo, te melior Carole nemo solo.48 (“You are good, shining like the sun. Nothing is brighter than that sky, and no one, O Charles, is better than you alone.”) —and so are those on Sir Robert Sidney: robert viscount lisle: lo, i born, vertues select He that was borne vertues select, hath got A rare choice gemme; divinest lovers lot. As Camden alerts his reader, the last line here is an anagram of dor- othy vicountesse lisle.49 Camden was apparently the ﬁrst to print the famous anagram of James I, later used, as we shall see, by Jonson: charles james steuart: claimes arthurs seate.50

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82 literary names The vogue for political anagrams was so widespread that whole books of them were published, some “nude” and some embedded in epigrams. Such are William Cheeke’s Anagrammata . . . Regia (1613) and Mary Fage’s Fames Roule (1637). The level of achievement cannot be called impressive: a fair example is Cheeke’s iacobvs primvs: musa, chari, phoibvs. Besides such books there were many broadsheets, often anonymous, like Upon the King’s most excellent majesty: arts, chaste, rule (1660) and the embedded Anagram of his Excellency the Lord Gen- eral Monck in the same year: You Divine Cabalists who raise your Fame By your expounding ev’ry Word and Name; See here’s a Name, makes all the world to Ring! george monck interpreted is come ore king. come ore king Charles, receive your triple Crown . . . The number of such publications suggests that anagram was a habitual mode of reading and writing. Not all were complimentary: Gaspar Scioppius found that his adver- sary scaliger was an anagram of sacrilege. Calvin anagrammatized rab- elaesius as rabie laesus (“Afﬂicted with madness”); Immanuele Tesauro made calvinus into ani ulcus (“Haemorrhoid”); and a 1653 broadsheet made john lilburne exclaim o: i burn in hell. The satiric examples anticipate more recent anagrams, such as william ewart gladstone: wild agitator! means well; disraeli: i lead, sir; tony blair mp: i’m tory, plan b; margaret thatcher: that great charmer or meg, the arch tartar; and shirley williams: i whirl aimlessly.51 The crypto- grammic book title rancid pansies, concealing princess diana, may seem original.52 But the idea of anagram titles was anticipated in the seventeenth century:Joshua Sylvester’s Anagrammata Regia before his 1641 Du Bartas are set in large type, although subsequently embedded: My Liege James stuart A just Master is. And A just Master could my Worke deserve, Such A just Master would I justly serve,. . . Embedded anagrams The practice of embedding names received renewed stimulus from the seminal example of Petrarch’s Canzoniere (wr. before 1374). Petrarch

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hidden names 83 introduces Laura’s name in Canzoniere 5 as a syllabic anagram embody- ing central themes of the sequence: Quando io movo i sospiri a chiamar voi E ’l nome che nel cor mi scrisse Amore, laudando s’ incomincia udir di fore Il suon de’ primi dolci accenti suoi. Vostro stato real, ch’ encontro poi, Raddoppia a l’ alta impresa il mio valore: Ma, taci, grida il ﬁn, ché farle onore È d’altri ómeri soma che da’ tuoi. (When I move my sighs to call you and the name that Love wrote in my heart, the sound of its ﬁrst sweet accents is heard without in lauds. Your regal state, which I meet next, redoubles my strength for the high enterprise; but “talk no more!” cries the ending,“for to do her honour is a burden for other shoulders than yours.”)53 The name device here alludes to Ovid’s myth of Apollo and Daphne, and to the Christian interpretation of it by Petrarch’s friend Pierre Bersuire. In this,“Laureta” is associated with the symbolic laurel wreath of victory. To bring home the blasphemousness of associating Laura and Christ, the “discrepancies between Petrarch’s love for Laura and his love of God” are ampliﬁed.54 Petrarch explores “Laureta” (Laura’s name in Latin) syllable by syllable, dwelling on each in turn to expound its meaning as if divine. The name written in his heart sounds out- wardly in praise (LAUdando); her regal (REale) state redoubles his cour- age for love’s high enterprise; but the last syllable tells him to speak no more (TAci). The early commentaries on the Canzoniere all trace the embedded anagram lau-re-ta.The earliest and most independent Petrarch com- mentator, the humanist Francesco Filelfo (1398–1481), laboriously spells out each syllable (“interpretando la prima syllaba lau . . . per laude”). Others—Alessandro Vellutello (1525), Bernardino Daniello (1549), and Ludovico Castelvetro (1582), for example—take more for granted. All explain that the anagram is repeated with variations in the sestet. Each syllable of Laureta begins the word it is embedded in, and forms a dis- persed anagram’s correctly ordered sequence of letters (lau-, re-, ta-). Petrarch’s institutive sonnet did much to establish the practice of embedding anagrams in sonnets. Du Bellay, for example, took it up in

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84 literary names his Petrarchan sequence L’Olive (1549),where Sonnet 4 recalls Petrarch’s meditation on the name his love shared with the bay tree or laurel (laurea). Du Bellay’s love, too, bears the doulx nom of a tree, this time “L’heureuse branche à Pallas consacrée, | Branche de paix”, the olive.55 “Olive” anagrams the name of du Bellay’s mistress, Mlle Viole.56 In English, Petrarch’s sonnet was anonymously imitated in the anthology Phoenix Nest (1593). And the Scottish poet Sir David Mur- ray of Gorthy (1567–1629) embedded letter anagrams of his mistress’ name in Cælia (1611), Sonnet 3. One of Murray’s anagrams, with letters dispersed but in correct order, is For beauty now faire [Cælia she is cal’d, Whose sight sometimes, as it the gods a]ll thralled [. . .] (Murray, Cælia, 1611) Another, in the ﬁrst of these lines, is compressed within four words, with the letters scrambled (aeical): “For beauty now faire Cæli[a she is cal’]d, . . .”57 In such letter anagrams only initial and ﬁnal letters or letter groups in words or word-parts are admissible. Between Petrarch and Murray, four inﬂuential poets practised embedding of name anagrams: Sidney, Spenser, Shakespeare, and the Scottish court poet William Fowler (1560–1612).58 Fowler, Secretary to Queen Anne and a friend of the King, was the uncle of Drummond of Hawthornden: he studied at St Andrews University, at Padua, and at Paris, where he was infected (as English Camden might have put it) with the French passion for anagram. His papers are full of draft ana- grams, and he published accomplished letter anagrams in Latin dis- tichs, such as: Anagrame Anna Britannorum Regina. In anna regnantium arbor. Perpetuo vernans arbor regnantium in anna Fert fructum et frondes, germine laeta novo.59 Fowler was fond of plays on his own name, such as “then cruell shee sal see |A ﬂouer to perrishe and a fouler dee”.60 He wrote poems to Arabella Stuart (“Belissa”), using embedded anagrams: “My hart her Bell on which Disdayne assayes”.61 He also wrote love sonnets with similar syllabic anagrams to Mary Middlemore, a Maid of Honour to Queen Anne:“My harte as Aetna burnes, and suffers more |Paines in my middle then ever mary proved”.62

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hidden names 85 But it was Sir Philip Sidney (1554–86), “our English Petrarke” as Sir John Harington called him, who best empathized with Petrarch’s confession of his love’s impiety—and followed him too in troping the beloved name. His own pseudonym Astrophil implies he is the lover of “Stella”, and he introduces the poetic name Stella no fewer than eighty-nine times in his sequence Astrophil and Stella (1591), besides referring to “my star”. In the Eighth Song she is “Stella starre of heavenly ﬁer”. Her eyes are “two starres”, “morning starres.”63 Even the stars in Astrophil’s tournament device praise her name: “If I but stars upon my armour beare” (Sonnet 104). Morpheus ana- grammatizes her name, claiming “Sweet stella’s image I do steale to me” (Sonnet 32). Sidney’s Stella married Robert, Baron Rich, occasioning as many as ﬁfteen allusions to her married name. Thus, Sonnet 24 considers the folly of misers in general (“Rich fooles there be”) but dwells on one in particular,“that rich foole, who by blind Fortune’s lot |The richest gemme of Love and life enjoyes”. And in Sonnet 35, “Fame | Doth even grow rich, naming my Stella’s name”. Most explicitly,64 Sonnet 37 tells a “riddle” of Astrophil’s life, how “a Nymph doth dwell: | Rich in all beauties”: Rich in the treasure of deserved renowne, Rich in the riches of a royall hart, Rich in those gifts which give th’eternall crowne; Who though most rich in these and everie part, Which make the patents of true worldly blisse, Hath no misfortune, but that Rich she is. (Astrophil and Stella, Sonnet 37) The riddle was solved by Harington, for his manuscript of Astrophil and Stella is titled “Sonnettes of Sir Phillip Sidneys to the Lady Ritch”.65 Before her marriage in 1581, Stella had been Penelope Devereux, a name that suggested further wordplays. In Certain Sonnets 10 (dated before 1581), Sidney wonders that his heart “Fear’st not a face that oft whole harts devowres”—an anagram of devereux.66 The wordplays on “star”,“Rich”, and “Devereux” raise expectation of similar play on “Penelope”, so that the closing couplet of Astrophil Sonnet 1 attracts attention:“Biting my trewand pen, beating my selfe for spite, |Foole”: an anagram of penelope, given the licence of reusing “p” and “e”.The same name is hidden more elaborately in the “Penelope game” shaping

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86 literary names the sequence, for its 108 sonnets correspond to the stones thrown by Penelope’s suitors in the Odyssey.67 Lesser poets “concealed” names with less subtlety. Typical are Sir John Davies’ acrostic Hymns to Astraea (1599) and his Latin anagrams on the name of his daughter Lucy Davis: Lucida vis oculos teneri perstrinxit amantis, Nec tamen erravit, nam via dulcis erat.68 Here, the anagram outline is [Lucida . . . dulciS].The anagrams include “[lucida da vis oculos teneri perstrinxit amantis]”; “lucida vis: luci davis”; and, more condensed, [da vis ocul].The medial letters -cul- are available since ocul- and -os are distinct word-parts. Spenser’s sonnet “Harvey, the happy above happiest man” to his friend Gabriel Harvey has an unusual anagram acrostic on hobbinol, Harvey’s poetic name.69 In this sonnet, simply to list the initial letters of the lines may at once suggest that the initial letters of lines 1, 3, 9, . . . form a series in which each term, multiplied by three, gives the next term.The initials form an acrostic beginning hob: HiOtannoBllafs 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 1314 The next term, 27, is too large for a sonnet line number; but its digits, 2 and 7, indicate the line initials i and n, bringing the acrostic to hobin.The next term again is 81, whose ﬁrst digit, 8, indicates o.This promisingly brings the acrostic to hobino, but meets a new obstacle: the second digit of 81 is already assigned. But we can substitute 10, on the basis of the arithmological doctrine70 that 10 is equivalent to 1. Making this substitution gives l, and makes the completed acrostic hobinol. Conﬁrming factors are the aptness of Harvey’s poetic name Hobi- nol; the fact that the acrostic begins with the sonnet’s ﬁrst letter; that it observes a rule; and that the rule is the odd-number series, appropriate to Harvey’s interest in Platonic mathematics. Few will regard this acrostic as having occurred by chance, yet it is just the sort of anagram acrostic to arouse the scepticism of critics impressed by the arguments of W. F. and E. S. Friedman.71 Elsewhere Spenser, like Sidney, plays on his lover’s name—most directly in Amoretti 75, where Elizabeth mocks his writing her name on the sand:

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hidden names 87 For I my selve shall lyke to this decay, And eek my name bee wyped out lykewize. Not so, (quod I) let baser things devize ... The words that assert her name will be wiped out are the same words that count against the assertion by anagrammatizing her name.An ana- gram with the letters dispersed but in correct order is “selv[E shall Lyke to thIS decay, | And eek my name BEe wiped ouT]”. And more condensed anagrams with the letters scrambled include “[And Eek my name BEe wyped ouT LykewIZE]” (abetlize: elizabet).72 Shakespeare’s many anagrams in the Sonnets (1609) were lost from view for centuries, until R. H. Winnick’s closely argued article (pub- lished in 2009) startled the scholarly world.73 Winnick’s ﬁnds—embed- ded letter anagrams on wriothesley—are not in themselves conclusively proved.Taken together with their self-referring contexts, however, they are so persuasive as to be beyond reasonable doubt.They have, as Win- nick himself puts it, a “cumulative plausibility”. For example, the fourth line of Sonnet 126—“Thy louers withering,as thy sweet selfe grow’st.”— has all the letters needed to make wriothesley twice over: a remarkable fact whose extraordinary rarity is brought out by cogent statistical argu- ment. And this is by no means the only such instance in the Sonnets. In Sonnet 55 the self-referring couplet again has two anagrams of wriothesley. In the fourth line of Sonnet 17, “Which hides your life, and shewes not halfe your partes:”, an imperfect anagram of wriothesley, is itself “hidden”. Sometimes the aptness of the context is so close that substitution of the name for the anagram is syntactically possible,as in Sonnet 39,lines 9–10:“Oh absence what a torment wouldst thou proue, | Were it not thy soure leisure gaue sweet leaue,”—“Were it not wriothesley gaue sweet leaue”. In the ﬁfth line of Sonnet 1 (“But thou contracted [collected] to thine owne bright eyes,”) ten of the eleven letters of wriothesley are “collected”.74 Here, the example is more tell- ing than Winnick seems to realize, for “thine owne bright eyes” is an anagram not only of wriothesley but of henry wriothesley. All this means much more than identifying Shakespeare’s fair youth as Southampton. As Winnick shows again and again, recognizing the presence of the anagrams improves the sense of many individual pas- sages, even of whole sonnets. If one had to select a single line to sum the sequence, it would be “Your name from hence immortall life shall haue” (Sonnet 81). Shakespeare, the greatest poet of his age, may prove also the greatest anagrammatist.

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88 literary names Anagrams, however, went quite out of fashion by the end of the seventeenth century. Indeed, they became unworkable as a result of profound changes to the language and to the literary artefact. These changes sprang partly from developments in print technology and the decline of manuscript publication. In part, they reﬂected the change in philosophy known as the Enlightenment. And in part they responded to the increasing rigour of Method. At all events, English spelling and grammar were so regularized that anagrams became impossibly difﬁ- cult to compose. Meanwhile the graphemic interface became more transparent, and less noticeable. Much that Mary Hazard has written about in Elizabethan Silent Language disappeared from view, at least so far as ordinary readers were concerned. In future, anagrams would be in the main a matter for specialists such as the mathematician Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (Lewis Carroll). In the nineteenth century there was a resurgence of interest in acrostics, and to a lesser extent in anagrams. But these never recovered their previous status: they were now only amusing puzzles. Besides books of mathematical puzzles, Dodgson composed poems with initial acrostics, notably “A boat beneath a sunny sky” with the 21-letter acrostic read down, alice pleasance liddell) and “Is all our life, then, but a dream” (isa bowman).75 Key names Livres à clef or romans à clef (German Schlüsselromane) may be deﬁned as ﬁctional works whose characters are actual people under invented names. Although sometimes said to originate with Mme de Scudéry’s Le Grand Cyrus (1649–53), earlier exemplars abound, notably Honoré d’Urfé’s L’Astrée (1607), Lady Mary Wroth’s Urania (1621), and John Barclay’s popular Argenis (1621). The latter went through more than thirty editions in the seventeenth century alone. Many of Barclay’s invented names are simple anagrams, such as dereﬁcus for fredericus (Frederick Count Palatine, son-in-law of James I); dunalbius for ubaldinus (Roberto Ubaldini, cousin of Pope Leo XI); and hierole- ander for hieronymus aleander.76 Critics have come to agree that the narrative of Sidney’s Arcadia in all three versions reﬂects contemporary historical situations and per- sonages, and they have made many attempts to establish the details of

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hidden names 89 the reﬂection. Of these the most successful are A. C. Hamilton’s, Kath- erine Duncan-Jones’, and Blair Worden’s.77 Worden, a historian by profession, offers the most valuable historical analysis; although his attunement to literature is less assured. Duncan-Jones offers the most valuable biographical information. But none of the three identiﬁes many of the characters. Indeed, it is not clear how far they regard the Arcadia as a livre à clef . Yet it is highly probable that as a pastoral it would have aroused some such expectation in Renaissance readers. The probability is increased by the existence of a seventeenth- century “Key of Pembroke’s Arcadia”, preserved among John Aubrey’s papers.78 Aubrey had asked one D. Tyndale “conversant amongst his [Sidney’s] relations” for the key. Tyndale modestly insists that “all I know of it is not worth anything”—and certainly the key does not rate very highly as literary criticism. But it is priceless as evidence of real-life associations with the Arcadia names, less than a century after publication and probably drawing on Sidney family tradition. The most obvious association is with “Philisides”, which indeed can hardly be in doubt. It contains Sidney’s name: phili(p) sid(n)e(y) and is also equivalent to Astrophil, “star-lover” (sidus and astrum being Latin for star, and phil- being Greek for love).79 According to Tyndale, “it was thought he meant himself by Amphi[alus]”; which agrees with Ham- ilton’s association of Amphialus with Sidney’s unlucky side.80 It is note- worthy howTyndale sees that the same real-life person may be reﬂected in several different characters—as indeed happens in Spenser’s The Faerie Queene. So he might have accepted Duncan-Jones’ perception of Sidney’s “incautious irascibility” in Pyrocles81—except that he identi- ﬁed Pyrocles (misspelt “Pericles”) as Lord Rich. Similarly, Pyrocles and Musidorus may both reﬂect Sidney, as Gabriel Harvey and Worden agree. For the rest, Tyndale is conﬁdent that Pamela is Dorothy Devereux (daughter of Walter Devereux, and who married Henry Percy to become Lady Northumberland); that Philoclea is Penelope Devereux (Lady Rich); that Miso is Lady Cox and Mopse Lady Lucy “persons altogether unknown now”; and that Musid[orus] is Dorothy Devereux’s husband (Northumberland). He is less certain whether Gynecia is Lettice Devereux, mother of Dorothy and Penelope.82 In verse, key names go back much further. Already in the fourth century ad Servius regarded Vergil’s Tityrus as ﬁguring the poet’s per- sona. Pastoral was often allegorical in this way: as we saw, the location name Meliboeus typiﬁes the dispossessed farmers. Petrarch did more in

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90 literary names the same direction, writing bucolics that criticized prelates at the papal court. Details of his difﬁcult allegories may have bafﬂed Elizabethan poets and critics; but they saw well enough that pastoral eclogues were miniature livres à clef. As Puttenham has it, pastoral was devised not to “represent the rustical manner of loves and communication, but under the veil of homely persons and in rude speeches to insinuate and glance at greater matters”.83 Thus, in Spenser’s The Shepheardes Calender (1579), as we have seen, Piers is a type of the reformer or vox populi. Some resist treating Spenser’s characters as real-life individuals. But key names were a persistent feature of Renaissance eclogue: who can deny that Sannazaro’s Meliseus refers to Giovanni Pontano’s elegy of that name? And Thomas Watson, always a willing cicerone, hands his reader the keys to his Meliboeus (1590) in a Preface: my pastorall discourse to the unlearned may seeme obscure: which to prevent, I have thought good, here to advertise you, that I ﬁgure Englande in Arcadia; Her Majestie in Diana; Sir Francis Walsingham in Meliboeus, and his Ladie in Dryas; Sir Phillippe Sidney in Astrophill, and his Ladie in Hyale, Master Tho- mas Walsingham in Tyterus, and my selfe in Corydon. The Shepheardes Calender must be among the most trenchant works in this mode.84 The March Argument tells us “in the person of Thomalin is meant some secret friend”—misinformation disguising, as we shall see,a highly public ﬁgure. And the January Gloss hints that the“feigned name” Rosalinde is an anagram “which being well ordered wil bewray [betray] the very name of hys love and mistresse”. (rosalinde is a near anagram of irelonde.) The editor “E. K.” compares famous key names such as Ovid’s Corinna and Aruntius Stella’s Asteris and Ianthis: there is a “common custome of counterfeicting [inventing] the names of secret Personages”. Among those averse to political allegorizing of The Shepheardes Cal- ender, Helen Cooper refuses to envisage Pan as Henry VIII or Syrinx as Anne Boleyn: “This is not an historical statement, and the use by Marot and others of ‘Pan’ for the French king is beside the point.”85 But Spenser’s frequent imitation of Marot is beyond doubt; and the magic of Elisa’s mythological generation need not be dispelled by uncovering historical references. Most of Paul McLane’s identiﬁca- tions are now agreed, E. K.’s obfuscations notwithstanding.The January Gloss shifts attention away from ecclesiastical politics by hinting at sexual scandal: under the ﬁctional country name Hobbinol

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hidden names 91 seemeth to be hidden the person of some his very speciall and most familiar freend, whom he entirely and extraordinarily beloved, as peradventure shall be more largely declared hereafter. In thys place seemeth to be some savour of disorderly love, which the learned call paederastice. E. K. insists, however, that only love of the soul is meant.86 The identity of Hobbinol, hinted at in the January and April Arguments and Glosses, is clinched, as we saw, by Spenser’s acrostic sonnet to Harvey.87 Other key names in The Shepheardes Calender depend on syllabic anagrams like those of Petrarch’s satiric eclogues.88 So algrind stands for Edmund grindal,Archbishop of Canterbury, and morrell for John aylmer, Bishop of London. Sometimes the bishops’ sees may be alluded to: thomalin is thomas Cooper, Bishop of lin-coln; and diggon [Welsh,“Richard”] davy is richard davies, Bishop of St davi-d’s.The most deviously witty is roffy for John Young, Bishop of Rochester (Latin roffensis), alluding to Marot’s shepherd Roffy into the bargain.89 Key names in The Faerie Queene From the time of John Upton, The Faerie Queene has been recognized as a roman à clef. Spenser’s Letter to Ralegh says as much, explaining that Queen Elizabeth “beareth two persons, the one of a most royall Queene and Empresse, the other of a most virtuous and beautifull Lady”, expressed in Gloriana and Belphoebe.And some of the other characters, too, bear key names.“Arthegall”, besides obvious romance associations,90 clearly glances at the contemporary Lord Grey of Wilton, Lord Deputy of Ireland and Spenser’s superior.The dependable Upton notes that the ﬁrst syllable of “Arthegall” corresponds to Grey’s given name Arthur. Then, “the arms [. . .] seem devised in allusion to his name, Gray: such bearings [. . .] are called Rebusses. For Griseum in the barbarous Latin age signiﬁed ﬁne fur or ermin [. . .] Gris”. Upton assumes we know that medieval Latin for a greyhound was canis de grecia. Besides the pun on grey/gris, Arthegall’s crest is a “grey-hound” and his shield bears “a crowned little Ermilin [ermine]” (FQ 3.2.25). Spenser mentions only a “couchant Hound”: he doubtless relied on heraldically informed readers catching this hint—and perhaps another, in the last segment of “Arthe- gall” to (γαλη̑ , gale),“ermine”, as well as to egall, “equal”).91 The wordplays on “Arthegall” extend to appearances of Grey’s crest in the narrative. According to Camden, the barons Grey of Wilton

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92 literary names held the manor of Eaton “by the service of keeping one gerfalcon of the King’s; whence that family bears for their crest a falcon sitting on a glove”.92 Hence both Arthegall and his squire Talus are imaged as falcons: “As when a Faulcon hath with nimble ﬂight” (FQ 5.2.54); “A gentle Faulcon sitting on a hill” (FQ 5.5.15). That the falcon is sitting puts the reference beyond doubt. Arthegall’s motto (not the same as Grey’s) is salvagesse sans ﬁnesse (FQ 4.4.39), which has been construed as “wildness without art” or “savagery without reﬁnement”. But Spenser ﬂags the motto as“showing secret wit”; which emboldens the reader to treat the motto anagram- matically. sans ﬁnesse suggests that ﬁnesse (“shrewdness, prudence, sagesse”) should be removed from sa-lva-gesse. This procedure leaves lva or lua—no meaningless syllables but the name of a Roman goddess, cult partner of Saturn.To Saturn and Lua, captured arms were dedicated: Arthegall’s motto well beﬁts a victorious military commander.93 The minor characters bear simpler key names, depending on rebuses or anagrams.They have been treated as mere romance wallpaper; but they are probably all identiﬁable as historical ﬁgures. Consider Marinell’s six co-challengers at the Tournament for Florimell’s spousals: The ﬁrst of them was hight [named] Sir Orimont, A noble Knight, and tride in hard assayes [trials]: The second had to name Sir Bellisont, But second unto none in prowesse prayse; The third was Brunell, famous in his dayes; The fourth Ecastor, of exceeding might; The ﬁft Armeddan, skild in louely layes; The sixt was Lansack, a redoubted Knight: All sixe well seene in armes, and prov’d in many a ﬁght. (FQ 5.3.5) The key name orimont surely masks Thomas Butler, tenth earl of ormond (1531–1614), addressed in Dedicatory Sonnet 7.The thin dis- guise of orimont consists of a gliding vowel i and the substitution of t for d, the same indication of Irishness as Jonson uses in The Irish Masque.94 “bellisont” probably shadows Sir Warham St Leger (1525?–97), Provost Marshall of Munster.95 The ﬁrst component belli- (Latin, “war”) translates the ﬁrst component of his given name war-ham. “brunell” might be Sir Valentine Browne (d. 1589), another key player

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hidden names 93 in the settlement of Munster. In “ecastor”, Upton reasonably saw Arthurian and classical associations; but the Latin element castor (“beaver”) more obviously indicates George beverley,Victualler of Ire- land. Similarly “armeddan” imperfectly anagrams edward denny, another Munster undertaker. And “lansack” must be a rebus for Sir Henry bagnal (c. 1556–98), lan backwards and sack for bag. At least two of these men (Ormond and St Leger) were, like Spenser, “undertakers” in the Munster plantation. All were actors in the Mun- ster scene.96 Ormond, of old English Catholic descent but reared a Protestant, was a powerful, turbulent grandee, an administrator not specially friendly to new English like Spenser or Baron Grey of Wilton. Ormond’s loyalty to his regal cousin Queen Elizabeth was questioned more than once: Grey eventually dismissed him from his Lieutenancy of Munster. As for St Leger, one of Lodovic Bryskett’s friends, he was an unprincipled adventurer without the resources to realize his ambi- tions. As custodian of the rebel Earl of Desmond he cheated him out of his daily allowance. St Leger’s nomination as Lord President of Munster was opposed by Ormond, under whom he served, however, during the second Desmond rebellion.Yet he ﬁgures, with Spenser, as an interlocutor in Ludowick Bryskett’s A Treatise of Civill Life (1606). Bryskett was an Irish Civil Service friend of Spenser, with whom he shared philosophical interests. Bagnal, another greedy adventurer, notoriously quarrelled with the earl of Tyrone (with whom his sister eloped). Marshall of the army, Bagnal was often at loggerheads with Grey. A house divided, then. As usual, alternative identiﬁcations beset the interpreter. Perhaps anagrammatists, mindful of repercussions, valued escape clauses. Here, armeddan might also be robert needham, a successful cavalry ofﬁcer and dedicatee of Spenser’s Amoretti.97 brunell suggests Henry burnell, Recorder of Dublin, of old English Catholic descent. Burnell was cer- tainly “famous in his day”: in the 1580s he had organized opposition to taxes on recusants. He went to London to negotiate, and the composi- tion reached was of his framing. He won the grudging respect of Sir Henry Sidney as “the least unhonest of the three [representatives], and yet he trusted to see the English Government withdrawn”. Burnell as Brunell would imply a wider Irish setting. All six descriptions in FQ 5.3.5 are respectful and complimentary but not without sharper overtones:“Second unto none” is only too apt for the overambitious St Leger. marinell (mal-erin,“troubled Ireland”)

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94 literary names and the six “challenge all in right of Florimell”, that is, of the ideal state. Marinell shows great prowess, but is taken prisoner and has to be res- cued by the sovereign power of Arthegall (FQ 5.3.10–11): together they defeat the rebel “crew” opposing Elizabeth’s sovereignty. Marinell’s knights, helpless without Arthegall, seem to represent discordant cadres of old and new English. As often in The Faerie Queene, the meaning of Marinell himself is implied by his genealogy: he is the “warlike sonne unto an earthly peare [peer], | The famous Dumarin”. dumarin (“Of the Sea”) anagrammatizes raimund, that is, Ray- mond Fitzgerald (Raymond le Gros, d. 1182), in Giraldus Cambrensis a pillar of the Anglo-Norman conquest of Ireland. Marinell must then be of old English descent. His opposition to Britomart on the Rich Stronde and his capture in the tournament suggest that loyal inde- pendence seems to Spenser impracticable for the old English without the assistance of Elizabeth’s representative. Indeed, Marinell’s capture in FQ 5.3 tropes captivation—assimilation into the rebel crew. St Leger was accused, perhaps wrongly, of Roman Catholicism; and even Ormond with his English upbringing was suspected of double loyal- ties. Spenser’s allegory is far removed from any simple confrontation of rebels and loyalists. Satiric key names A chief ancient source of satiric key names was Martial: about half of his names belong to this type. In Elizabethan poetry, Sir John Haring- ton (1561–1612) was the seminal ﬁgure to explore the potential of key names: before Jonson he widened the emotional range of satire beyond Martial’s limits. Harington used key names to disguise ﬁerce attacks on powerful courtiers, refusing the relative safety that membership of one or another of the main factions might have offered. He called himself “neither Papist, Protestant, nor Puritan, but “a protesting Catholicke Puritan”.While not taking up an extreme position, he became one of the most subversive satirists of the period. Among his targets was Sir Walter Raleigh, which he disguised by inappropriately calling him Paulus (“Short”), a name he and Sir John Davies took over from Mar- tial.98 Harington’s targets can sometimes be inferred from the context or from hints in the name itself, as when “Lelia” disguises the acknowl- edged mistress of Elizabeth’s Champion Sir Henry Lee. With more

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hidden names 95 difﬁculty,“Lynus” can be identiﬁed as Thomas Nashe.99 Others remain unidentiﬁed; perhaps these were so dangerous as to call for specially impenetrable disguises. Harington’s fear of discovery shows in the way he distributed presentation copies of his epigrams: the revealing manu- script annotations went to safe recipients only, such as Lady Rogers, his mother-in-law.100 The system of key names may seem riskily transparent as a disguise. Like a simple transposition cipher, it cannot have presented insuperable difﬁculty to a determined enquirer. Perhaps Harington felt this, for he developed additional means of concealment. He generalized the keys by sharing them both with Martial and with contemporary satirists. And he multiplied the names for a single individual, referring to him- self, for example, both as Lepidus and as Misacmos. Alexander Pope used a similar system. But he added a brilliant new device: simulated annotation of the key names. In The Rape of the Lock, “Belinda” might suggest the “gentlewoman” in Etherege’s Man of Mode (1676) or the “affected lady” in Congreve’s Old Bachelor (1693), among others. It was a fashionable name, as well as being one that resembled the actual name of his target,Arabella Fermor.When the Fermors took offence at Pope’s publication of the 1712 Rape of the Lock, he had to work hard to convince Arabella that “the Character of Belinda” resem- bled her “in nothing but in Beauty”.101 Within the close-knit com- munity of the much-intermarried Catholic families, key names were a transparent disguise. But Sir George Browne, the original of Sir Plume, did not wish a wider circle to know him as a fop with “round unthink- ing Face” (4.125): he “blustered” and threatened. Nevertheless Pope felt himself in the right and, far from leaving the matter, he published (pseudonymously) A Key to the Lock (1715).102 A Key generated smokescreens of irrelevant political allegorizing. Prefaced by an elaborate paratext of encomia of the pretended author Esdras Barnivelt and attacks on Pope himself, it constituted a new invention, a creation in its own right.The Dedication to the 1714 Rape of the Lock explicitly identiﬁes Belinda as Mrs Arabella Fermor, but A Key now interprets her as a representation of Great Britain. Her lock of hair is the Barrier Treaty, and Shock the lapdog is Dr Sacheverell.103 To allow Sir George Browne to save face, A Key pretends that more than one gentleman has claimed to be the original of the fashionable Sir Plume: not only “a Roman Catholick Knight” at the Cocoa Tree, but also “a Roman Catholick Lord” atWill’s. Besides drawing attention

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96 literary names away from Arabella’s morals, A Key has the effect of uniting the Catho- lic community against the wild, humorousless notions of the ignorant sectarian Barnivelt.To the satirist, everything is grist to the satiric mill, even the system of key names itself.Yet Pope never allows the relations of real and ﬁctional names to be oversimpliﬁed. In Gulliver’s Travels, Jonathan Swift (1667–1745) describes the meth- ods of interpretation practised “in the kingdom of tribnia, by the natives called langden [britain, england] to discover plots. Two of these “the learned among them call acrostics and anagrams” (book 3, chapter 6). Thus Swift uses anagrams to satirize the anagrammatic method itself. His own key names do not always offer such easy clues to the interpreter. Nineteenth-century ﬁction offers many instances of characters rec- ognizable as representing real individuals. Skimpole in Bleak House (1852–3) clearly glances at James Henry Leigh Hunt (1784–1859); although Dickens denied representing more than Leigh Hunt’s man- nerisms of speech. For a thorough-going livre à clef one needs to turn to Thomas Love Peacock’s satiric Nightmare Abbey (1818), in which Scythrop (“sullen-faced”) represents Shelley, and Flosky Coleridge.An authorial note indicates that Flosky is a corruption of Φιλοσκῐος, Phi- loskios (“Lover of shadows”), suggesting Coleridge’s love of abstraction. But the name may also suggest Floscule (“ﬂower”,“embellishment of speech”), a characteristic of the Flosky who claims “I never gave a plain answer to a question in my life.”104 In the same period Mary Shelley’s The Last Man (1826), although it is hardly a typical roman à clef, has several ﬁctionalized real people, such as Adrian (Percy Bysshe Shel- ley), Lord Raymond (Byron), and Ryland (William Cobbett). The livre à clef ﬂourished well into the twentieth century, especially in satire.Aldous Huxley’s Point Counter Point (1928), which owes much to Peacock, is an essayistic novel of conversation between thinly dis- guised real people such as D. H. Lawrence (“Mark Rampion”) and himself (“Philip Quarles”). And Somerset Maugham’s Cakes and Ale (1930) satirizes the novelist Hugh Walpole as “Alroy Kear”. One should perhaps distinguish instances with no consistent system of key names from thorough-going exemplars of the roman à clef. A recent example of the latter is Joe Klein’s Primary Colours (1996), an account of Bill Clinton’s presidential campaign. Clinton himself appears under the key name Jack Stanton; Orlando Ozio disguises Mario Cuomo; and Henry Burton is George Stephanopoulos. In another direction, the non-

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hidden names 97 ﬁctional novel, or faction, is easily distinguished. Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood (1965), for example, has no disguises: his real people are presented under their own names. Notes 1. De Divinatione 2. 111; see Knox 1924: 3. 2. La3amon 1963: 2; see Burrow 1984: 164–5. 3. Kane 1965: 65; Burrow 1984: 167–8. 4. B-Text 15. 152, Langland 1988: 543; cf. C-Text passus 6. See Burrow 1984: 162; Kane 1965: 32–3. Cf. Kane’s Langland entry in ODNB:“a cryptogrammatic signature in the convention of the genre”; McKinley 1940: 30–1; Kastan 2007: 98–101.The signature is conﬁrmed by a marginal note in Trinity College, Dublin, MS 212: “willielmi de Langlond”. See Middleton 1990;Wallace 1999: 513. 5. The Flower and the Leaf 24, Skeat 1897: 362; see Seaton 1961: 318–19. 6. The House of Fame 729; The Legend of Good Women Prologue G 234–460; The Man of Law’s Tale Intro. 45–50. 7. See Burrow 1984: 174. 8. Confessio Amantis 8. 2316–22, Gower 1980: 469. For the adverbial phrase “halvinge a game” cf. OE healfunga; for the verb, see OED s.v. halve 4. 9. Lines 1318–19; see Williams 2006: 150;Trigg 2006: 301–2. 10. Davies 1935: No. 240 (alluding to James 1: 21, “receive the engrafted word”); see de Vinne 1902: 34–6; Davies 1935: 665; McKerrow 1949 passim;Williams 1954: 314. 11. Douglas 1874: 4. 167. 12. Matt. 27: 34, Mark 15: 23, and Deut. 32: 32. 13. See Reid Baxter 2008: 87. 14. “IHS” was wrongly taken as a Latin abbreviation of Iesus Hominum Salvator. This acrostic name appears e.g. in Langland, Piers Plowman B-text 3. 154 and 16. 144; see OED s.v. IHS. 15. Vendler 1975: 68–9 compares Herbert’s “Love Joy” and its divine initials J. C. 16. See Wright 1998: 272. 17. For other exs. see Turville-Petre 1988: 264–9, esp. 264 on The Destruction of Troy with the acrostic signature “maistur iohannes clerk de whalele”. 18. 1.19–24; see Minnis 1984: 170, 274 nn. 34, 35. Cf. Osbern Bokenham, who states that he has given his name in acrostic form; see Horstmann 1887: 34; Minnis 1984: 193. 19. E.g. D’Assigny 1697, drawing on Guglielmo Grataroli, De Memoria Reparanda (Zürich, 1553). 20. Imitating Pierre Gringore; see Coldiron 2009: 158–61. 21. See Skeat 1897: xix–xx; cf. Burrow 1984: 166, citing Dobson 1976: 327–68 on the practice of locating an author’s name next to a petition for readers’ prayers. 22. In compliment to Maria D’Aquino; see Fowler 2007: 36. 23. See Seaton 1961: 112 et passim. 24. Parry 2005: 167; for biographical context see pp. 2–3, 10–13; Honigmann 1985; Brown 1914. 25. Davies 1975: 71–86. See Fowler 1964: 198–9; Fowler 1996: 101. 26. Moseley 1989: 110–13, 116, 118.An interesting and inﬂuential complimentary acrostic is James VI’s to his second cousin: esmestewartdvike. See James 1955: 40–1. 27. Characters, Butler 1908: 53. For other 16C and 17C complimentary acrostics, see Marotti 1995: 174.

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98 literary names 28. Addison: Spectator 60 (9 May 1711); Cambridge: Scribleriad (1751). 29. For literary anagrams and acrostics ancient and modern, see Williams 1954: 315; Clauss 1997; Knox 1924; Augarde 1984; Ricks 2003; Fowler 2007. Ferdinand de Saussure (PrincetonEnc 69–70) and Ahl 1985 treat the broader topic of words within words; see Starobinski 1971. 30. On Elizabethan consciousness of words as sequences of letters, see Hazard 2000: 47–9; Potter 1989: 50–1; and Ferry 1989: 19–21, 128–33, 195 et passim. 31. Baratella deﬁnes the device as compositio nominis divisim et per sillabas in metris ponendi in capi versibus uel alibi. See Da Tempo: 1869: 172–3 and 230–31 where Baratella and Da Tempo are both printed. I owe this reference to Thomas P. Roche. 32. Du Bellay 1948: 154:“cette inversion de lettres en un propre nom, qui porte quelque devise convenable à la personne”. 33. Included in Eusebius, Life of Constantine; tr. by St Augustine into Latin; see du Bellay 1948: 156. Cicero, De Divinatione 2. 54. 110–12. 34. E.g. Jonson, Epicoene 4. 3. 48, “Make anagrammes of our names, and invite us to the cock-pit”; Shirley 1646: 36,“Anagram upon her Name”. 35. The Arte of English Poesie (1589) 2. 8, STC 20519.5, known from at least ﬁve copies (not only from Jonson’s copy as Frank Whigham and Wayne Rebhorn assert, Putten- ham 2007: 198). See Puttenham 1936: cviii–ix; Puttenham 2007: 71. 36. Puttenham 2007: 197. 37. Puttenham 2007: 198–200. 38. Camden 1984: 143.30–144.16. 39. Camden 1984: 143.25. About the rebus he is somewhat contemptuous; e.g. Camden 1984: 139,“they which lackt wit to expresse their conceit in speech”. 40. Camden 1984: 142.16–21. 41. Camden 1984: 142. Licences not mentioned by Camden but considered valid by others are I and IE for Y, J for I, CS for X, and S for X (and vice versa). 42. “Character of a perfect Anagram”, Drummond 1711: 230–1. On Drummond’s own anagrams, see Masson 1969: 116–17. For other rules or licences, see Puttenham 2007; Knox 1924: 19; Friedman and Friedman 1957: 162 et passim; Augarde 1984: 74;Win- nick 2009: 262–3.The Friedmans’ draconian rules would exclude most well-attested anagram acrostics. 43. Camden 1984: 144–54. 44. Ibid. 147, 148. 45. Ibid. 144. 46. Ibid. 150. 47. Ibid. 151. 48. Ibid. 150. 49. Ibid. 152 (my capitals). 50. Ibid. 145: Jonson 1925–52: 7.223; see 10.514. At the central point of Barriers Jonson conceals another encomium: lines 213–14 name two British heroes, King Richard and King Edward, precedents for Henry since he too showed heroism while “being but prince”. 51. See Augarde 1984: 75. 52. Hamilton-Paterson 2008. 53. Translation adapted from Robert Durling’s, Petrarch 1976. 54. See Roche 1989: 13, 19–25. 55. Du Bellay 1993: 1.18; xxiv. 56. See SEnc 495 col. c; Rigolot 1977: 129–54; Katz 1985. 57. Murray 1823, Klein 1984: 1.448, 2.242–4. 58. For William Fowler, see Sarah Dunnigan in ODNB; Jack 1972; Jack 1986; Petrina 2009; Elliott 2010.

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hidden names 99 59. Miscellaneous Poems, Fowler 1914–40: 1.316. 60. Sonnet 2, Fowler 1914–40: 1.216, signalled “anagramme” in margin. Cf. Tarantula of Love 33 and 67 (“no Fouler cachting bot a Fouler caught”), Fowler 1914–40: 1.162 and 198. 61. Miscellaneous Sonnets 13,“Uppon a Horologe” (1603), Fowler 1914–40: 1.260. 62. Miscellaneous Sonnets 23, Fowler 1914–40: 1.269. 63. Sonnets 26, 48; cf. Sonnet 88, “When Sun is hid, can starres such beames display?”, Sidney 1962: 177–8, 188–9, 223. 64. And probably for that reason omitted from the Briton-Houghton MS. 65. Hughey 1960: 1.254, 2.354. 66. Cf. Song 10: “When I blessed shall devower”; and the similar wordplay in Protha- lamion 153–4: “endlesse happinesse of thine owne name | That promiseth the same” (devereux: devenir heureux,“become happy”. 67. Eustathius, comm. on Odyssey 1.130; cf. Browne 1964: 1.188, “the Proci or Prodigall Paramours disposed their men, when they played at Penelope. For being themselves an hundred and eight, they set ﬁfty four stones on either side, and one in the middle, which they called Penelope, which he that hit was master of the game.” See Fowler 1970: 174–80. The compositional number 108 is given to a different, musicological interpretation in Parker 1998 passim; but the two explanations are not mutually exclusive. 68. Davies 1975: 299. Cf. J.Weever’s syllabic anagram “In Elizabetham”,Weever 1599: B1b, Weever 1987. 69. See Fowler 2007: 38–40. 70. See, e.g., Bungus 1591: 358. 71. In Friedman 1957 they reject all short anagram acrostics as too easily invented by a discoverer. See further in Fowler 2007: 37, 40. 72. With H silent, a common licence.The anagram is signalled by the unusual z spelling. On a possible wordplay on Elizabeth Peace (“Is there no means to purchase Peace”), see Spenser 1929: 198. 73. Winnick 2009. 74. Winnick 2009: 267–9. 75. See Knox 1924; Crystal 1998: 58–9; Humez and Humez 2008: 23;Augarde 1984: 36. 76. Barclay 2004: 46–7. 77. Hamilton 1977; Duncan-Jones 1991;Worden 1996. 78. Aubrey 1898: 2.250–2. 79. Tyndale:“they sayd Philisides was himself to[o], but it was all a guesse.”This conﬁrms Duncan-Jones’ sense (pp.42–3) of “self-projection” in Philisides. Hamilton 1977: 125, Duncan-Jones 1991: 42–3, and Worden 1996: 5, 297, 313 all agree on the identiﬁcation. 80. Hamilton 1877: 139. 81. Duncan-Jones 1991: 21–2, 42–3;Worden 1996: 297, 313, 328. 82. See Aubrey 1898: 2.250–1. Lettice, daughter of Sir Francis Knollys, married Walter Devereux. 83. Puttenham 2007: 128. 84. See McLane 1961; Johnson 1990. 85. Cooper 1977: 155. 86. See Johnson 1990: 110. 87. See Fowler 2007: 39–40. “Hob” was a form of Robin; cf. “Robin Goodfellow”; “Hob-goblin”. 88. E.g. nereus for nero; epy for the papal court, episcopatus. See Cooper 1977: 41–2. 89. See SEnc, Hamilton 1990: 648–9.

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100 literary names 90. See Yonge 1884: 266. Geoffrey of Monmouth writes of a historical “Arthgallo”, a consul attending Arthur; John Hardyng’s 1543 Chronicle of England makes him a knight of the Round Table.As half-brother of King Arthur his name can be taken as Arth-egall, “peer or equal of Arthur”. In the pre-Shakespearean drama Artegal and Elidure, Elidure’s generosity converts his brother Arthgallo from an early cruelty, much as Spenser’s Arthegall changes from his initial savagery. Legally, egall meant “equal”; see OED s.v. Egall, a., quotation of 1594: “Ministers of Justice [. . .] frame their judgments after the square and rule of good and egall”. 91. Leslie 1983: 52, 57, 63. 92. Camden 1970: 280. 93. For Lua, see Servius on Aen. 3.139; Pauly Real-Encyclopädie 13 (2). 1534; Grimal 1987: 262. 94. See, e.g., line 18,“ant” for “and”. See further in Fowler 2007: 40–43. 95. In State Papers sometimes given as “Sentleger”, sent and sont being archaic forms of saint. 96. Satyrane is probably another Munster ﬁgure, Lord Justice Sir William Drury, Presi- dent of Munster 1576–8. 97. See McCabe 2005: 247. 98. See Gerard Kilroy in Harington 2009: 44, 47. 99. See Fowler 2009: 10. 100. See Kilroy in Harington 2009: 74, 71. 101. Dedication to The Rape of the Lock (1714). 102. In the genre of A Key to the Rehearsal (1704), produced by a well-informed member of the Duke of Buckingham’s circle: see Buckingham 2007: 2.334–40. 103. Pope 1936: 185. 104. Peacock 1948: 397; see oed s.v. Floscule 1, 1b.

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5 Shakespeare’s Names 8 In Munera Pulveris (1872), John Ruskin famously remarked, in a monster footnote to a discussion of government, Shakespeare’s names [. . .] are curiously—often barbarously—much by Providence,—but assuredly not without Shakespeare’s cunning purpose— mixed out of the various traditions he confusedly adopted, and languages which he imperfectly knew. Three of the clearest in meaning have been already noticed [Perdita, Cordelia, and Portia]. Desdemona, δυσδαιμονία, “miserable fortune”, is also plain enough. Othello is, I believe,“the careful”; all the calamity of the tragedy arising from the single ﬂaw and error in his mag- niﬁcently collected strength. Ophelia, “serviceableness”, the true lost wife of Hamlet, is marked as having a Greek name by that of her brother, Laertes; and its signiﬁcation is once exquisitely alluded to in that brother’s last word of her, where her gentle preciousness is opposed to the uselessness of the churlish clergy—“A ministering angel shall my sister be, when thou liest howling”. Hamlet is, I believe, connected in some way with “homely”, the entire event of the tragedy turning on betrayal of home duty. Hermione (ἕρμα), “pillar- like” [. . .] Titania (τιτήνη, “the queen”); Benedict and Beatrice, “blessed and blessing”;Valentine and Proteus, enduring (or strong), (valens), and changeful. Iago and Iachimo have evidently the same root—probably the Spanish Iago, Jacob, “the supplanter”.1 Every name is meaningful, some “plain enough”, others requiring etymological clariﬁcation. Ruskin’s approach seems at times simplis- tic, for the root of a name is often less important than its associa- tions. Still, his grasp of the various aptnesses of names—through their contrasts, multilingual meanings, and components—can be impressive.

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102 literary names Etymologies Matthew Arnold, however, rejects the whole substance of Ruskin’s digression (for that is what the footnote amounts to): Now, really, what a piece of extravagance all that is! I will not say that the meaning of Shakespeare’s names (I put aside the question as to the correct- ness of Mr Ruskin’s etymologies) has no effect at all, may be entirely lost sight of; but to give it that degree of prominence is to throw the reins to one’s whim, to forget all moderation and proportion, to lose the balance of one’s mind altogether. It is to show in one’s criticism, to the highest excess, the note of provinciality.2 Arnold concedes Ruskin’s genius, but dismisses the idea of a special signiﬁcance in names. Ruskin’s character was “too febrile irritable and weak to allow him to possess the ordo concatenatioque veri [order and connectedness of truth]”.3 Arnold takes fright at the notion of an ono- mastic method, as if Ruskin had proposed names as the key to all litera- ture. In hinting Ruskin’s etymologies might be questioned, moreover, Arnold betrays not only emulousness but also a provinciality of his own. Ruskin better understood the importance of names in Shake- speare’s world. And his superior historical sense told him the correct- ness of Elizabethan etymologies was irrelevant. In fact, many of Ruskin’s etymologies are sound enough, so far as they go. The derivation of Desdemona (“miserable fortune”) from δυσδαιμονία, “misery” and δυσδαιμονέω, “be wretched, unlucky” is accepted by modern scholars as preferable to that from δεισιδαίμων, “superstitious”. In any case it is wrong to assume, as Arnold does, that etymologies must be correct by the standards of modern philology. Modern etymologies generally have little to do with Shakespeare’s meanings. He would have drawn his meanings from the contemporary etymologies of such as Richard Verstegan,William Camden, and John Florio.4 “Edgar” in King Lear might now be derived from Old English ead (“prosperity”) and gar (“spear”). But Camden’s derivation (“happy or blessed honour”) is far more relevant to Shakespeare’s use of the name. In any case, Shakespeare knew enough to form his names from ancient words, like Sir Philip Sidney and Edmund Spenser before him. Exaggerated inferences have been drawn from Ben Jonson’s remark about Shakespeare’s “small Latine, and lesse Greeke” (a learned quota- tion from the Italian theorist Sebastiano Minturno).5 “Miranda” in The

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shakespeare’s names 103 Tempest is a Latin tag name,as 3.1.37 makes explicit:“Admir’d Miranda”. Moreover, she continually admires Ferdinand and others: “It carries a brave form” (1.2.414),“O brave new world” (5.1.183). Variety of meaning Root meanings belong only to one sort of aptness. Another is direct description of a personal attribute, as with “Aguecheek”, which indi- cates gaunt cheeks. Or the point may lie in associations with previous bearers of the name in history, literature, or the stage. Corin in AsYou Like It had already been a shepherd in Clyomon and Chlamydes (1570, printed 1599).A further aptness of this name, in a play featuring wres- tling, is that legend made Corin the ﬁrst wrestler.6 Many of Shakespeare’s names convey meaning through their form. There may be a relevant association or encapsulated word, as with “Caliban”, an anagram of “cannibal”. Words embedded in names are common, and sometimes relevant, as perhaps with demon in “Desde- mona”, hell in “Othello”, and ass in “Cassio” (said to ﬁt his “ingenuous nature”).7 But Murray Levith sees a different embedding in “Othello”: Oth, the ﬁrst syllable of Othoman (founder of the Ottoman empire).8 More obvious in Shakespeare’s day would have been the anagram of Thorello, the jealous husband in the early version of Every Man in his Humor (1598, printed 1601), in which Shakespeare himself acted.9 Other names are puns, like Jacques and Ajax, both suggesting “jakes”, a dark place then supposed to induce melancholy; or Mistress Quickly (who comes quickly, or offers a quick lay). In Merry Wives, Master Ford’s assumed name Brook is not exactly a pun, but its riverine sense is activated by the ford–brook association, as Harry Levin shows (“Such Brooks are welcome to me, that o’erﬂows such liquor”).10 In Henry VI Part 2 the puns are black: “Suffolk’s duke” will not “be suffocate” but take his death by “water” (Walter Whitmore, his assassin).11 Sometimes Shakespeare’s given and family names contradict each other with ludi- crous effect, as with the timorous Sir Andrew Aguecheek. As Camden notes,Andrew is from Greek meaning “warrior, manly”.12 Specially characteristic of Shakespeare are formal resemblances between the names of principal characters.Thus “Viola”,“Olivia”, and “Malvolio”, as near anagrams, invite formal comparison and contradis- tinction;13 and so do “Rowland”, “Orlando”, and “Oliver” in As You

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104 literary names Like It. Sometimes, as with “Edgar” and “Edmund” in King Lear, like- ness underlines the direct moral contrast.14 Also characteristic is the large group of names—large enough to call for separate treatment— that have mythological associations. Autolycus in The Winter’s Tale is “litter’d under Mercury” and “a snapper-up of unconsidered triﬂes” (4.3.24–6). The geniture implies a Child of Mercury, likely to be involved in business or theft. Some would recall, in this connection, that Mercury, who stole Apollo’s cattle, was the father of Autolycus. Shakespeare has also key names, covertly referring to real individuals. “Polonius” in Hamlet may be one example, and Cymbeline certainly offers another, for Richard du Champ (4.2.377) is a witty, rebus-like disguise for Richard Field, Shakespeare’s friend and publisher.The joke here is that Field liked to play on his own name in this very way: on the title pages of his Spanish publications he called himself Ricardo del Campo.15 Shakespeare’s penchant for multiple relevance may be exempli- fied in his naming of drunkards. “Borachio” (Much Ado) has been associated with Spanish borracha or Italian boraccia, a leather wine- skin or flask; but even before Shakespeare it may also have been good English as a nickname for a drunkard.16 Stephano in The Tempest has been traced to Florio, where Stefano “hath been used in jest for a man’s bellie [. . .] also a garland” (Greek στέϕανος, stephanos “wreath”), the chaplet used by serious drinkers to cool their heads.The Folio spelling “Stephano” favours the second pos- sibility. “Trinculo”, Stephano’s companion, suggests Italian trincare, “to bib or tipple merily” and trinci, “idle ornaments about gar- ments” (both in Florio). Sir Toby Belch in Twelfth Night has an equally complicated name. “Belch”, a common physical accompa- niment of drinking, goes well with “toby” in the sense of posterior (OED sb.1 ), indicating rudeness at both ends; and “toby” in thieves’ slang meant “highway robbery”, relevant to Toby’s fleecing of Sir Andrew.17 “Toby” has anachronistically been linked with the well- known piece of drinking equipment. “Toby jug” is not attested until the nineteenth century, and the object itself was an eight- eenth-century invention. Shakespeare scholarship has fortunately taken Ruskin’s route as often as Arnold’s.18 Levith, for example, devotes much of What’s in Shake- speare’s Names (1978) to tracing derivations. But he focuses specially on “denotative or ‘tag’ names”:“dealing with minor and especially comic

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shakespeare’s names 105 characters and secondary play actions, Shakespeare will single out a vivid attribute and so label a character, either by occupation, physical trait or feature, or some notable aspect of personality”.19 This is a nec- essary and valuable sort of criticism: tag names need not always be obvious. Polixenes, for example, is plausibly enough explained as taken at random from North’s Plutarch to replace the Egistus of Greene’s Pandosto (1588).20 More probably, however, it labels the character as πολιός,“grey-haired” and ξένος,“stranger”. Prevalent as tag names are, relying on them too much may induce a simplistic approach. Shake- speare more often combines direct with indirect, literal with ﬁgurative aptness and association. Changes of name Characters who appear in disguise often adopt false names: Portia becomes Bellario; Master Ford, Master Brook; King Henry, Harry Leroy; Florizel, Doricles; Viola, Cesario; Sebastian, Rodorigo; and Feste, Sir Topas.21 (The last example alludes to Chaucer’s mock- knight, but perhaps also to the jewel topaz, considered a cure for lunacy.)22 As Levin points out, assumed names are sometimes semi- allegorical, adding moral commentary.Thus,Tamora in Titus Andron- icus becomes “Revenge”, and faithful Imogen in Cymbeline becomes “Fidele”.23 Rosalind going into the forest in As You Like It declares she will have “no worse a name than Jove’s own page, | And there- fore look you call me Ganymed” (1.3.120). “Ganymede” may have had ambitious associations, but was also slang for a catamite.24 Celia maintains her rank by choosing the name Aliena (Latin, “foreigner, stranger” or “estranged”). Changes of name are a feature of Shakespeare’s later plays, although disguise was more a speciality of the rival Admiral’s Company.25 The banished Earl of Kent, to continue serving the cause of King Lear, disguises himself as Caius (probus, “parents’ joy”). Similarly Edgar, Gloucester’s true son, takes the name and role of “Poor Tom”, type- name for a mad beggar.26 Edgar’s unprepossessing outer appearance as Poor Tom belies a good inner character—the opposite relation of name and nature to that of his half-brother Edmund. Such symbolic changes of name were to become an important device in Victorian novels, especially in those of Charles Dickens.

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106 literary names Social background At times Shakespeare uses groups of names to adumbrate distinct social milieux.Anne Barton draws attention to how, in the Induction of The Taming of the Shrew, Christopher Sly’s head is crammed with incidental proper names, most of them belonging to people who never appear in the play: “Marian Hacket”, the fat alewife of Wincot, “Cicely Hacket”, her maid,“Stephen Sly and old John Naps of Greece, | And Peter Turph, and Henry Pimpernell, | And twenty more such names and men as these” [. . .]. Absent presences, they are telling all the same against the ele- gant, witty, but also somewhat chilly and inhuman world of that anonymous, upper-class milieu to which Sly ﬁnds himself so inexplicably translated.27 Through Warwickshire associations the names strongly evoke a rural society of the time. Another example is Falstaff ’s gang—Peto, Nym, Bardolph, and Ancient Pistol—whose names are all linked with aspects of thievery. Besides being a Warwickshire family name,“Peto” suggests both Latin peto,“attack, strike, seek to get”,28 and English petard.“Nim” or “Nym” (“steal”) is a tag name, punned on in HenryV 5.2.1 (“I’ll live by Nym”); stealing eventually causes his death, when he is hanged for looting churches.29 Pistol is named after another tool of their trade. And “Bardolph” is close to “bardo” which Florio explains as “light, nimble, saucy, bould”.The whole gang is labelled as bent on a life of crime, violence, and robbery with menaces. In A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the names of the “rude mechanicals” relate to their trades and evoke an entire artisan world.30Thus “Quince” brings to mind quines or quoins, carpenter’s wedges (OED 2); and Snug’s joinery makes all close-ﬁtting (OED Snug 1). “Snout” suggests the spout of a kettle or the nozzle of a pipe or bellows (OED 4a): as Wall in the playlet he is well qualiﬁed to provide its “oriﬁce”. Flute the bellows-mender would repair ﬂute organ stops (worked then with bellows).31 Forms of address reﬂect their social rankings. So it is “Fran- cis Flute, the bellows-mender” and “Tom Snout the tinker” (never just “Tom Snout”). Contrast “Peter Quince” or, if Bottom is speaking, “good Peter Quince” (a courteous form of address to inferiors or superiors).32 Although Puck lumps the six artisans together as “rude mechani- cals”, some are more mechanical than others.They form pairs, with each pair ranked according to their trades’ degrees of dependence

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shakespeare’s names 107 on disegno or intellectual thought. Bottom weaves mechanically, but Starveling the tailor shapes woven cloth into garments. Similarly with Flute and Snout: bellows were indispensable in furnaces and church organs, whereas tinkers mostly repaired kettles (unless called in to help with the occasional organ pipe).33 Again, Quince and Snug both work in wood, but Quince’s skills have wider scope. For carpentry and joinery have radically altered in status since Shake- speare’s time: carpenters then practised every sort of woodcraft, from housebuilding to ﬁne carving.34 In wooden building carpen- ters outranked joiners, whose work was limited to decorative ﬁt- ting. It is Quince’s experience in coordinating many such crafts harmoniously that qualiﬁes him to be bookholder (in modern terms, director) of the inset play. The three pairs make up a com- prehensive representation of the rag trade, building trade, and main- tenance workers. Patricia Parker’s able essay on “Shakespeare’s Joinery” ﬁnds classism implied by the term “mechanicals”: “references to mechanicals in Shakespeare are thus most often the embodiment of a distinct class voice, tied to the attempt to ‘singulate’ or distinguish high from low”.35 But lumping the six artisans together like this misses something of Shakespeare’s subtlety. The “mechanicals” are individuals, and by no means of equal rank. In fact, they compose together a mis-en-abyme of the play’s social hierarchy. Some of the mechanicals’ metaphorical joinery may indeed lay bare “the joints and seams of theatrical spectacle”,36 and show up the “sus- pect joinery and the ending of this marriage play”. But Quince as carpenter is above maladroit joinery. The play he directs may forfeit theatrical illusion through obsessive anxiety about frightening the ladies, but in Shakespeare’s play it works effectively enough to satirize the aristocratic spectators. The attentiveness of the players contrasts tellingly with their audience’s cruel wit. And the dimmer players’ dif- ﬁculties with mythological names can sometimes have satiric edge. Flute simply cannot get his tongue round “Ninus’ tomb”: his “Ninny’s tomb”, taken up by Bottom and repeatedly corrected by Quince, becomes a running joke. Similarly with “Shafalus” for Cephalus, and “Prorus” for Procris, both faithfully followed by Flute. Again, Flute substitutes “paramour” for “paragon” (4.2.112) and Bottom puts “Lemander” for Leander: their minds run on the courtiers’ paramours and lemans (“lovers”).

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108 literary names Nick or Nicholas is no longer thought to have been a type-name for a weaver;37 but “Bottom” obviously refers to the spool or nucleus a weaver’s thread is wound on.38 The surname, obfuscated by schol- arly errors, has been taken to crack a vulgar joke. But in Shakespeare’s time “bottom” did not mean “posterior”. Your arse could be your bum, butt, cheeks, croup, prat, rump, seat, stern, tail, toute, backside, buttocks, hurdies, fundament, or sitting-place; but before about 1794 it was not your bottom.39 Was Bottom not translated to an arse-head, then? No; for “arse” was not yet rude and so never needed to be euphemized to “ass”. That euphemism came after 1860, and mostly in the USA, for example in Morris Palmer Tilley’s invaluable A Dic- tionary of Proverbs in England in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (1950).Tilley was a prissy scholar who couldn’t spell “arse” and con- sistently replaced it by “ass” in his inﬂuential dictionary.40 His prim- ness has seriously distorted modern understanding of Elizabethan literature. So in the present instance we must give up (however reluctantly) the notion of Bottom with his arse where his head should be. Instead, his transformed “scalp” is to be explained in terms of Eliza- bethan proverbial usage whereby “ass-head” meant “fool”.41 In the play, Bottom applies this very insult to Snout: “You see an ass-head of your own, do you?”42 And he uses “ass” again in the same sense when he awakes restored to ordinary humanity: “man is but an ass if he go about to expound his dream”, for the dream has “no bottom”.43 Besides occupational tags the mechanicals’ names present further congruencies.“Snug”, meaning “quiet, secret”,44 suits a player who has no surname, has no speaking part (he confesses he is “slow of study”), and who even roars mildly. The Elizabethan idiom “snug’s the word” resembles our “mum’s the word”.45 Starveling is emaciated for lack of nourishment, as was proverbial of tailors whose bills remained unpaid by courtiers like those who form his audience. And his forename Robin suits too: in Britain the robin is a small bird. Clearly a “thin man part for Sinklo”.46 “Flute” ﬁts a youth with “a beard coming” and a high, unbroken voice.47 Snout, as Levith suggests, may have a large nose. And, for a carpenter and bookholder holding all together, “Quince” is doubly apt: “quoin” could mean “keystone” as well as “wedge”(OED 2 d).

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shakespeare’s names 109 Other groupings Groups of names need not always serve to evoke social backgrounds: they may be more directly thematic.A striking instance is Twelfth Night, where many of the names have calendrical relevance.Toby, Orsino, Feste, Cesario, Antonio, Fabian, Sebastian, Curio, Maria, Andrew, Antonio’s nephew Titus,Valentine: all share the property of being named after a saint whose day falls in the festive season or immediately after. Thus, St Tobias is 2 November; St Ursinus 9 November; Sts John and Festus 21 December; St Caesaria 12 January; St Antony Abbot 17 January; Sts Fabian and Sebastian 20 January; Sts Cyrus and John 31 January; Puri- ﬁcation of theVirgin Mary 2 February; St Andrew Corsini 4 February; St Titus 6 February; St Valentine 14 February. In view of the promi- nence of twins in the play, it may be worth mentioning that four of the saints’ days are of paired saints (Festus, Fabian, Sebastian, Cyrus). What are we to make of this? Should we conclude that Shakespeare used the liturgy as a source of names, as Henry Fielding used a sub- scription list and Henry James TheTimes? By no means. Saints’ days are more relevant than that to Shakespeare’s themes.They must have been important to him, because not all were easily accessible. True, Maria, Titus, Antony, Andrew,Valentine, Fabian, and Sebastian were familiar from the General Calendar of the Catholic church. But for lesser- known saints such as Festus Shakespeare must have gone to such com- pilations as the Roman Martyrology (from 1584), Sanctorum Priscorum Patrum Vitae (1551–60), or De Probatis Sanctorum Historiis (1570–5).48 Many of Shakespeare’s plays were written for particular occasions.49 Their actions were then not only generated by individual motivation but also emerged from associations with the appropriate festal customs or institutional conventions. Leslie Hotson and C. L. Barber have con- nected many topics in Twelfth Night with customs of the Elizabethan festive season, such as riddles; practical jokes; formal praise of folly; and saturnalian revelry.50 “Fabian” was a type-name, almost a common noun, for a roisterer;51 and “Feste” (from Latin festus) was a tag name meaning “festive, merry”.There can be little doubt that Twelfth Night was meant for an Epiphany occasion. The names’ liturgical associations lend support to religious inter- pretations of the play such as Barbara Kiefer Lewalski’s and Marion

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110 literary names Bodwell Smith’s.52 Twelfth Night marked the end of a festive season with several other feasts, notably the Festum Stultorum or Feast of Fools (26 December or sometimes NewYear’s Day). But Shakespeare’s main focus is on Twelfth Night.The play’s melancholy and its atmosphere of transience ﬁt the end of festivity. The following day, St Distaff ’s Day, was supposed to mark a return to ordinary life: Then bid Christmas sport good-night. And next morrow, every one To his own vocation.53 Sir Toby’s untimely revelling puts off this return, and so meets with sharp correction in the denouement. He is brought to his senses so completely that he censures Dick Surgeon as a “drunken rogue”.Vio- la’s assumed name Cesario is particularly appropriate to the time of transition to normality: St Caesaria’s day, 12 January, in 1601 fell on Plough Monday (the ﬁrst after Epiphany), when work was ofﬁcially resumed.54 Epiphany celebrated a divine revelation in Jesus’ humble birth.The First Lesson for Epiphany, Isaiah 60 (“Arise, be enlightened [. . .] ”) has been related to Malvolio’s incarceration. When he complains of his dark prison, Sir Topas (Feste) replies “Madman, thou errest. I say there is no darkness but ignorance, in which thou art more puzzled than the Egyptians in their fog”.55 Feste refers to the plague of palpable darkness in Exodus 10:21, then interpreted as a type of sin: imagery of illumina- tion was ubiquitous in Christmas and Epiphany sermons.56 Moreover, Feste repeatedly invokes Pythagoras (“Thou shalt hold th’opinion of Pythagoras ere I will allow of thy wits”).57 For, in the so-called Minor Epiphany, the journey of the Magi was interpreted as a spiritual pil- grimage, a preparatio evangelii. Syncretists speculated on an oral tradition whereby “Pythagoras had managed to reach the Jews and their doc- trines in Egypt, and knowledge of their sacred mysteries.”58 Names could also be grouped according to any of the traditional schemes of thought that still made up a large part of Elizabethan litera- ture. These were often ridiculed: to Shakespeare himself they were vieux jeu, “right painted cloth”59—opportunities for ﬁnesses now no longer appreciated.An example is the Nine Worthies scheme that pro- vides the culmination of Love’s Labour’s Lost (printed 1598). Properly, the Nine Worthies or Nobles consisted of three gentiles (Hector of Troy, Alexander the Great, and Julius Caesar); three Jews (Joshua, David,

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shakespeare’s names 111 and Judas Maccabeus); and three Christians (King Arthur, Charle- magne, and Guy of Warwick or Godfrey of Bouillon).60 This scheme was almost invariable, except that a modern name would occasionally be substituted in compliment to a local patron.61 As entertainment for the Princess of France, the schoolmaster Holofernes proposes a pageant of the Nine Worthies (5.1.119). Initially, the curate Sir Nathaniel is to represent Joshua; Don Armado, Judas Maccabeus; the page Moth, the infant Hercules; and the clown Cos- tard, Pompey the Great. Already this cast departs from the time-hon- oured scheme. Pompey has displaced his enemy Julius Caesar; Hercules has come from nowhere; and neither is Jewish. Moreover, Holofernes proposes to address the shortage of worthy actors by taking on three parts himself. The pageant itself (5.2.518–660) is prefaced with witty repartee about arithmetic. Costard asks if the “three Worthies” should enter; whereupon the courtier Berowne makes difﬁculties: “are there but three?” Costard explains that “every one pursents [presents] three”; which leads to quibbles about whether “three times thrice is nine” (487–98). This repartee, amusing in itself, has the serious purpose of reminding the audience about the traditional scheme of 3 × 3 Wor- thies. Next, the King of Navarre is given a cast list, and announces that Don Armado will present Hector; Costard, Pompey; Sir Nathaniel, Alexander; Moth, Hercules; and Holofernes, Judas Maccabeus:“And if these four Worthies in their ﬁrst show thrive, | These four will change habits, and present the other ﬁve” (523–4).This provokes further objec- tions by Berowne, who sees ﬁve Worthies, not four. By the time the much-delayed pageant begins, the audience is well primed to expect the familiar grouping of “three times thrice”Worthies (5.2.488, 491). It never eventuates. The sequence actually presented—until the pageant breaks up amid accusations, counter-accusations, and a quarrel fomented by the courtiers—is Pompey; Alexander; Judas Maccabeus; Hercules. Despite careful discrimination between the loyal Judas Mac- cabeus and the treacherous Judas Iscariot, the provincials have forgot- ten the whole point of the Nine Worthies scheme. They begin with two out of three paganWorthies (unless a trace of Julius Caesar remains in his enemy Pompey). But they never get to the three Christian Wor- thies before the pageant breaks up. Despite Costard’s repeated boasts that he is “deemed worthy” to perform Pompion [Pumpkin] the Great, none of the actors represents a Christian champion.62

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112 literary names Mythological names In Shakespeare’s time, textual allusion was relatively new. The textual stability made possible by print was too recent an achievement. Besides, a familiar vernacular canon hardly yet existed.63Verbal allusion in popu- lar drama was therefore scarcely practical, except for a few passages in the Bible, or in the Latin classics read at school.Allusion may be said to begin with names, especially the great names of romance. Chaucer’s extensive use of biblical, legendary, and mythological names had opened up important avenues of possibility. And now Shakespeare’s oeuvre explored these further, exploiting the names’ complex associations. In The Merchant of Venice the names of Shylock’s circle are all biblical and Hebraic:Tubal, Chus, Leah, and Shylock himself, Shalach (“cormorant”) or Sa’lah.“Jessica” may seem invented but is probably from the geneal- ogy in Genesis 11:29. In the King James version she is “Iscah”, in the Bishops’ Bible (1568) “Jischa”, and in Douay (1609) “Jescha”. Mythological names ﬁgure so extensively in A Midsummer Night’s Dream that it calls for particular attention.64 How much does Shake- speare mean “Theseus” to mean? How much narrative do allusions to Theseus necessarily imply? Peter Holland answers this boldly: “the mere presence of Theseus in [A] Midsummer Night’s Dream makes the whole of the Theseus myth available”.65 Holland does not explain how Shakespeare could have known “the whole of the Theseus myth”.Yet this is a strategic question with decisive bearing on Theseus’ reputa- tion, to say nothing of the chances of his marriage with Hippolyta. According to Holland, the play leaves entirely open the question of what the [. . .] outcome of this marriage of Athenian and Amazon will be, describing and blessing the future without directly stating what might or rather will happen (will because it is already accomplished, already ﬁxed unalterably in the Theseus mythography). In any version of the Theseus story Theseus does not stay with his Amazon bride.66 The outcome of the marriage is “entirely open”—except that it is “already ﬁxed unalterably” in the myth. Holland does what he can to resolve what seems a stark contradiction: the triumphant ending of the play, the overwhelming celebration of marriage and blessing that the end of A Midsummer Night’s Dream so fully evokes is set in relation to an individual for whom marriage-vows are transient devices for

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shakespeare’s names 113 satisfying lust and whose career of broken marriage is a pattern of male domi- nance and oppression carried to [an] extreme. To amplify this, Holland blackens Theseus’ character far beyond any- thing in Shakespeare, writing of “Theseus’ promiscuity and his brutal- ity towards his lovers”—on the authority of accusations made during Oberon’s quarrel with Titania. In this scene (2.1.65–80) Titania casts up Oberon’s amours with Phillida67 and with his “mistress” Hippolyta “the bouncing Ama- zon”. Oberon counters by accusing Titania of desire for Theseus. It was she who occasioned Theseus’ inﬁdelity to Aegles, Ariadne, and Antiopa. Holland says Theseus has no excuse for his betrayals; yet Oberon speciﬁcally supplies one, and so exonerates him. The betrayals were Titania’s fault: did she not “lead him” away from Perigouna and “make him [. . .] break his faith” with the others? Titania dismisses these charges as “forgeries [lies] of jealousy” on Oberon’s part; but in Holland’s view the accusations once made cannot be dismissed. Instead, he exaggerates them: “the rapes and seductions [. . .] are not the product of warlike conquest, as with Hippolyta, won by the sword, but of something creeping, deceitful and thief-like”. This false Theseus is “substantially different from the one seen in the play”,68 yet is somehow entailed by the use of his name: “the name cannot choose whether to be allusive”. This position seems to me based on misconceptions about Ren- aissance mythology. To write of the myth of Theseus is misleading: no single, universal myth exists, far less a deep structure or system of global mythology. Myths are known from diverse narrative, vis- ual, and other embodiments, all different and some mutually incom- patible.69 Lilio Gregorio Gyraldi (1479–1552), for example, collected the names of hundreds of distinct Venuses in De Diis Gentium Varia et Multiplex Historia (Basel, 1548). Certain myths tell how Theseus killed the Cretan bull, sire of the Minotaur; certain others tell how, with Ariadne’s help, he killed the Minotaur itself. Some myths give Theseus’ father as Aegeus, others as Poseidon (who visited his mother Aethra on the same night as Aegeus).Thus, in Seneca’s Hip- polytus Theseus’ father is Poseidon :“Neptune great | My Syre”.70 “Everywhere else,” writes Holland striving for system, “Theseus’ father is named Egeus”.71 Not so. Many other poets and mythogra- phers make Poseidon the father: notably Hyginus, and Ovid (for whom Theseus is Neptunius heros).72 These myths were so familiar

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114 literary names that Natale Conti (1520–82) calls them the traditional version: ut traditum est in fabulis.73 In sum, Holland’s portrait of a false, vicious Theseus is far from Shakespeare’s. To authenticate it, irrelevant myths have to be enlisted, such as those about Theseus’ son Hip- polytus, who never ﬁgures in the play.74 Anthony Nuttall, similarly, regards Theseus as a “brutal woman- izer”.75 He calls it “a mistake to suppose that the darker side of the mythical material has been excluded from the play”. Nuttall writes of Shakespeare “retaining in his happy comedy reference to Theseus’ rape of Perigenia (Perigoune)” and reminds us “Shakespeare’s smiling duke has in fact ravished Perigenia”.76 He contrasts Theseus “the ravisher of Perigenia” with Berowne in Love’s Labour’s Lost, who is “intent upon the cognitive power of love, its tender sensitivity”. But the idea of Theseus as ravisher is probably anachronistic. In Elizabethan English “ravish” and “rape” referred to abduction rather than violation.77 Even North’s Plutarch, a hostile witness, says only that Theseus “stale away Ariadne, Antiope, and Anaxo”.78 As for Perigouna, North (Nuttall’s and Bate’s supposed authority for“brutal rape”and“notorious rapist”79) tells how Theseus found her hiding, and “sware by his faith he would use her gently, and do her no hurt, nor displeasure at all. Upon which promise she came out of the bush, and lay with him”.80 Is this brutal- ity? In modern terms such sex would be called consensual.Through- out, Nuttall’s treatment of Theseus is unhistorical.81 In the opening scene of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Nuttall suggests, a properly sensitive Theseus would have said “But I will wed thee in another key, |And humbly sue to earn thy love at last”. Shakespeare’s Theseus, however, has recently been at war with Hippolyta and her Amazons: is he to apologize for defeating her? In the play he comes near to doing just that: “I woo’d thee with my sword, | And won thy love doing thee injuries” (1.1.16–17). Nuttall hears a “domineering tone” in Theseus’ talk of pomp and triumph: others may hear a promise to make amends by giving her a big wedding. Shakespeare’s Theseus is a soldierly leader: even his Master of Revels is Philostrate (“Lover of Armies”).82Yet he is also generous and considerate to the “mechanicals” quite beyond expectation.Against Philostrate’s advice he insists on hearing their play: I will hear that play; For never anything can be amiss When simpleness and duty tender it. . . .

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shakespeare’s names 115 Love, therefore, and tongue-tied simplicity (5.1.81–105) In least speak most, to my capacity. Unlike the jeering Berowne, Theseus is an ideal patron. Yet Nuttall makes him out to be “ungenerous”. In some ways Laurie Maguire’s portrayal of Theseus is even more adverse. To her, Theseus in Chaucer’s Knight’s Tale is “ambiguously presented”,83 although even Holland concedes that “Chaucer sup- presses this [vicious] Theseus in the Knight’s Tale”.84 Since The Knight’s Tale makes Theseus a protector of women—not to say a Boethian sage—Maguire turns instead to Chaucer’s shorter poems, where Theseus is invariably “traitorous, pitiless and false”. (She passes over Anelida and Arcite, which is wholly favourable to Theseus.) It makes most sense, however, to focus on The Knight’s Tale, which is a “clearly deﬁned adequate narrative source” of A Midsummer Night’s Dream.85 Maguire brings in Chaucer’s minor poems to make a case against Theseus. Hoping to cite Shakespeare for the prosecution, she accepts Oberon’s lies despite Titania’s denials, and ignores the charge against Hippolyta that she is Oberon’s mistress. Despite Shakespeare’s casting doubt on Hippolyta’s virtue, all these critics fault Theseus instead. What associations did “Theseus” call up in the early modern period? Some idea of this can be arrived at from seventeenth-century refer- ence books such as Paul Aler’s Gradus ad Parnassum.86 Aler’s recom- mended epithets for Theseus are fortis, superbus, ferox, bellator, perﬁdus, peijurus, inclytus, horridus, ﬁdus, profugus, crudelis, armiger, ingratus (bold, proud, ﬁerce, warlike, false, forsworn, renowned, severe, trustworthy, fugitive, cruel, unpleasant, unacceptable). Perﬁdus yet ﬁdus: a complex reputation, then. But nothing about brutality. How much ﬁre are we to ﬁnd in Oberon’s smoky lies? Perhaps only that Theseus had been sexually active in the past.87 Mythological and fairy modes were often resorted to by Elizabethan poets when touch- ing on dangerous court matters, so that Shakespeare may be glancing at the perennial problem of political leaders with uninhibited sex lives. Even so, Oberon promises to bless Hippolyta’s bride-bed so that “the issue there create | Ever shall be fortunate”. Maguire thinks this offset by the dramatic irony of Hippolytus’ violent end. But Hippolytus was the son not of Theseus and Hippolyta but of Theseus and Antiope.And that is a different myth altogether.

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116 literary names Short of Greek names for A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Shakespeare took several from North’s Plutarch, already his source for several myths of Theseus. Plutarch has a Life of Demetrius, who “only of all the kings in his time, was most detected with this vice of lechery”.88 This may ﬁnd reﬂection in the accusations of Lysander (the subject of another of Plutarch’s Lives): “Demetrius [. . .] that vile name” and “spotted and inconstant man”.89 Theseus’ reply to the last speech (“I must confess that I have heard so much”) suggests Demetrius’ lechery is notorious, just as Plutarch reported it to be. Helena and Hermia have equally thematic names. “Hermia”, from Hermes, is almost a charactonym: she early shows the rhetorical skill one might expect from a child of the eloquent god. Helena is intrigu- ingly referred to as the daughter of Nedar—an anagram of Arden, Shakespeare’s mother’s name.90 Helen, ῾Ελένη, had ominous associations for the ancients, notably the tragedians:91 “etymology” made it imply destruction. In Agamemnon Aeschylus calls her ἑλέναυς, helenaus (“ship-destroying”), inverted by Christopher Marlowe in “the face that launch’d a thousand ships”.92 In homiletic mode, “Helen” could even be connected with “hell”, an association remembered in George Peele’s Edward I 1097:“Hell in thy name, but heaven is in thy looks”.93 For Florio, Helena was “the name of a cursed, dreadfull, and threatening Meteor”.94 Indeed,“Helen” has such bad associations in the sixteenth century as to be, in Maguire’s view, an “onomastic straitjacket from which Shakespeare tries to liber- ate his Helens”.95 There is much in this. Both Maguire and D’Orsay Pearson collect many unfavourable appearances of Helen in English writers.96 And the pedagogic view was no different: Aler’s recom- mended epithets for Helen were formosa, decora, venusta, adultera, infamis, iniqua, perﬁda, lasciva, impudica, rapta, superba, exitiosa, perniciosa (“beauti- ful, charming, attractive, adulterous, ill-famed, discontented, false, unin- hibited, shameless, abducted, proud, fatal, destructive”). But less ominous meanings were possible. Some medieval authors even exonerated Helen as not to be blamed for man’s wickedness.97 ῾Ελένη, Helene meant “torch”, a common emblem for love or pas- sion;98 which may contribute to the name’s associations here. In A Midsummer Night’s Dream Helena experiences passion more than once. First she suffers the passion of unreturned love, then (after Robin’s ministrations) she provokes unreturned love in others.As an object of compassion she recalls Camden’s derivation of “Helen” from ’Ελεεινή,

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shakespeare’s names 117 Eleeine (“pitiful”).99 Shakespeare was always ready to depart from a name’s prevailing interpretation. Deploying a mythological name called for nice judgement. When Philostrate lists possible entertainments for Theseus’ approval—much as the Elizabethan Master of Revels did—the ﬁrst item is “The battle with the Centaurs, to be sung |By an Athenian eunuch to the harp”. The reference is to the battle of Lapiths and Centaurs at the wedding of Theseus’ friend Perithous the Lapith king, a battle Theseus himself had fought in. But he now rejects the recitation: “We’ll none of that; that have I told my love|In glory of my kinsman Hercules”. Doubtless he has boasted about his family connection with the great Hercules more than once, and fears Hippolyta would be bored to hear the story yet again.100 This plausible addition to a Theseus myth is as sophisti- cated as any by Apollonius Rhodius. Elsewhere Shakespeare introduces ﬂeeting hints of motifs from the Theseus cycle, naturalizing and localizing them.The Minotaur’s laby- rinth is echoed in the “nine-men’s-morris [. . .] ﬁll’d up with mud”, and echoed again in the winding tracks of the forest around Athens. And perhaps, as Nuttall and others have suggested, the Minotaur itself is recalled in Bottom’s metamorphosis to ass-man. Names in tragedy The tragedies and history plays gave Shakespeare less freedom to invent names. As Aristotle put it in Poetics 9.6, “tragedians keep to actual, historical names” (γενομένων ὀνομάτων). Following ancient tragedy Shakespeare names protagonists and their famous families according to the mythos or history.Thus, in the Henry IV cycle, the principal names come from Holinshed’s Historie of England, as does the characterization of Hotspur as an impetuous, honour-seeking individual. His age is reduced, however, perhaps to encourage direct contrast with Prince Hal.101 King Lear is like the other tragedies, in that “Lear”, “Goneril”, “Regan”, and “Cordelia” all come from his- torical sources—in this case Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia Regum Britanniae, Holinshed’s Historie, the historians handed down in Spens- er’s The Faerie Queene, and the anonymous The True Chronicle Historie of King Leir (1605).102 With the closely interwoven plot of Gloucester, Edgar, and Edmund, Shakespeare had more freedom. He drew much

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118 literary names of its narrative from The Mirror for Magistrates (1574) and Sidney’s Arcadia (1590), replacing Latinate names (Leonatus, Plexirtus) by English (Edgar, Edmund). Or else he used bare titles, as with the Duke of Cornwall (formerly Coridagus) and the King of France (formerly Aganippus). A remarkable moment of problematic titling occurs in Hamlet at 1.4.44–5, where the prince hesitates over the right form of address to use: “I’ll call thee Hamlet, | King, father, royal Dane”, hoping to induce the ghost to speak.103 Although names in the tragedies were largely determined, history or legend sometimes left room for nuances.As we have seen, Camden explains the Old English derivation of “Edgar”.104 But there is more to naming than etymology. From Holinshed Shakespeare would know of the tenth-century King Edgar’s imperial and maritime aspirations.105 Again, when Camden comments on “Edmund” as auspicious (Saxon Eadmund,“Happy, or Blessed Peace”) he adds “some translate Mund by Mouth”.This may suggest that whereas the words of Edmund’s mouth are peaceful, his nature is anything but. Such ironies are not infrequent in Shakespeare’s naming. Several characters in the tragedies and history plays are identiﬁed by title only. Even Cleopatra is addressed as “great Egypt”, “royal Egypt”, and with the strangely intimate formality of “I am dying, Egypt”.A title, visually conﬁrmed by costume and heraldic accoutre- ments, was then sufﬁcient identiﬁcation. (Internal evidence suggests that crests were used for this purpose in the history plays.106) The his- torical associations of a title would convey almost as much as the full name.Thus, in the sources of King Lear the Duke of Albany (ancient Scotland) is “Maglaunus” (Geoffrey of Monmouth), “Maglanus” (Holinshed), and “Maglan” (Spenser); whereas Shakespeare avoids burdening audiences with the unnecessary personal name.The title of Albany had passed from Darnley to King James himself; perhaps for this reason he turns out well.107 The Earl of Kent is “banish’d Kent”, “good Kent”, or simply “Kent”—in contrast to “Perillus” in King Leir. He is simple, honest, and free from excessive ambition: the last a qual- ity appropriate perhaps for a county where succession was by gavel- kind, not primogeniture. As for the kings, they have representative characters, the King of France being relatively poor and the Duke of Burgundy rich, like their domains. The minor ﬁgures in King Lear have tag names or none at all.Thus “Oswald” is explained by Camden as derived from Old English

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shakespeare’s names 119 “House-ruler” or “Steward”. The unnamed herald, fool, doctor, and gentleman would be identiﬁed by tabard, motley, or other costume. “Curan”, long a puzzle, may not name a character at all, but an actor. The names in Hamlet are as little appreciated as those in any of Shakespeare’s tragedies.108 “Hamlet” and “Gertrude” are from the sources, direct or indirect: Saxo Grammaticus, François Belleforest, and a lost Hamlet play. Already Saxo’s Amleth married Gerutha, daughter of the King of Denmark. Shakespeare probably knew nothing about the Old Norse meaning of “Amleth” (“dim-witted”). But Camden’s derivation of Gertrud from German “All True, and Amiable” may give an idea of how her name would initially have been understood.109 Claudius, named only in his ﬁrst entry-direction and speech-head- ing, replaces Saxo’s and Belleforest’s “Feng” and alludes to a Roman emperor closely associated with corruption. Erasmus refers to Clau- dius in Institutio Principis Christiani (1515) as a typical bad ruler. The Roman Claudius married his niece Julia Agrippina, who (as Harold Jenkins notes) poisoned him and was put to death by Nero (3.2.384–5). For Andrew Fitzmaurice, too, the parallel with Tacitus’ account of Claudius is “unmistakable”.110 Polonius, another invented name, is an obvious tag, Polonia being Latin for Poland. It may also be a key name, referring to the Polish ambassador rebuked by Queen Elizabeth in 1597; or to the Polish statesman Wawrzyniec Goślicki (Laurentius Grimalius Goslicius); or to the loquacious counsellor in Goslicius’ De Optimo Senatore, recently translated as The Counsellor (1598); or to Hen- rik Ramel (Ramelius), a Danish diplomat who headed an embassy to England.111 Several names seem designed to suggest a Danish setting. Rosen- crantz and Guildenstern bear the names of inﬂuential Danish fami- lies: at the coronation of Christian IV (King James’ brother-in-law) a tenth of the 160 nobles in a procession bore one or another of the two names.112 Similarly with the ambassadors to Norway (1.2.34): “Voltemand” is a corruption of “Valdemar”, a name of Danish kings; and “Cornelius” was the name of Dutch incomers settled in Denmark.113 Laertes (Q1 “Leartes”), invented from Odysseus’ father, seems to Jenkins an odd choice for the son of a famous father. But Laertes is after all the son of the wily and sententious Polonius: the association with polytropos Odysseus is there, even if the roles are reversed. Laertes’ sister Ophelia also has a Greek name, generally taken as from ὠϕέλεια (opheleia, “succour”)—hence

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120 literary names Ruskin’s “Ministering Angel”. But how are “succour” or “ministering angel” relevant to the themes of Hamlet?114 It seems more likely that “Ophelia” is from ὀϕείλω, opheilo (“owe”) and ὀϕείλεια, opheileia (“indebtedness”), a common Greek word. This is just what Ophelia represents to Hamlet: an obligation he rejects. Hamlet denies it and precipitates her suicide.115 “Horatio” was a fairly common name in contemporary drama, probably from its use for a loyal friend in The Spanish Tragedy (1587). Levith relates it to the Latin “Horatius”, citing Hamlet 5.2.341, “more an antique Roman than a Dane”. Camden suggests ὅρατος, horatos (“of good eyesight”).116 More simply, ὅρατής, horates means “beholder”, which exactly describes Horatio’s role. Hamlet calls on him to witness the Ghost, and again to witness Claudius’ reaction to the Gonzago play:“observe my uncle” (3.2.80). In fact, Horatio is a beschouwer ﬁgure: a viewer whose looking directs our own.117 The names of the minor characters in Hamlet are mostly labels, like the gravedigger, called Delver at 5.1.14.The agent sent by Polonius to spy on Laertes is “Reynaldo”, a variant of “Reynard”, a quasi-proper name given to a fox.118 Jenkins compares Spenser’s Mother Hubbard’s Tale 917–8, “a Reynold”. And Fortinbras, replacing Saxo’s Coller, is French, fort-en-bras (“Strong arm”).119 But “Osric” is more puzzling. It was Anglo-Saxon, not Danish, and had been used in the recent plays A Knack to Know a Knave (1594) and Osric (1597).120 Jenkins asks why Shakespeare should give such a prominent name to “one who inspires contempt”.The answer may lie in the Q2 spelling “Ostricke”, which is close to “ostrich”, a word then subject to a great many spellings and misspellings. The ostrich was the subject of a familiar emblem, based on its inability to ﬂy: Geoffrey Whitney’s Nil penna, sed usus (“Not the quill, but its use”) with the epigram “As the ostrich spreads its wings but rarely ﬂies, so the hypocrite makes great show of his religion but merely dissembles.” P. S.’s ostrich “makes great ostentation with its feathers and wings”; and George Wither applies it to “men of high birth who do nothing of worth”.121 In short,“Osric” is a tag name for an aristocrat given to idle display. Spenser realized the manifold possibilities of naming; but it was Shakespeare who made name after name icons of the great works they dominate. Hamlet, Cleopatra, Othello, and scores of others: no other English writer save perhaps Dickens has so many evocative names that have become current in the popular imagination.

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shakespeare’s names 121 Notes 1. Ruskin, Munera Pulveris ch. 5: Ruskin 1902–12: 17.257–8. 2. Arnold 1968: 47. Cf. Frye 1957: 9–10,“it is Arnold who is the provincial”. 3. Letter to Jane Martha Arnold Forster, 31 March 1856:Arnold 1996: 336. 4. Verstegan, A restitution of decayed intelligence, 1605; Camden, Remains concerning Britain, 1605, Camden 1984; John Florio, Queen Anna’s new world of words, 1611, Florio 1968. 5. Jonson 1925–52: 8.391, 11.145; see Jones 1977: 4 et passim. 6. Drayton, Poly-Olbion (1612) 1.479, Drayton 1931–41: 4.13. 7. See Levith 1978: 53. 8. F. N. Lees, cit. Levith 1978: 53. 9. Where Thorello corresponds to the Kitely of the 1616 version. 10. MWW 1.1.124; 1.4.33; see Levin 1976: 59.“Brook” was changed to “Broome” in the Folio to avoid offending Lord Cobham; see Levith 1978: 22–3. 11. Levin 1976: 59; Levith 1978: 30. 12. Camden 1984: 58. 13. Cf. Cave 1988: 280. 14. Cf. Levith 1978: 21, 24. 15. See Pitcher 1993: 1–16; Maguire 2007: 35. 16. OED, borachio, citing Florio on boraccia, “a boracho or bottle made of a goates skin such as they use in Spaine.” Florio 1611 also has boracchiare,“to gluttonize”, comparing crapulare,“to surfet or commit excesse in meate and drinke”. 17. See Farmer and Henley; OED s.v. toby sb.2. 18. Among extensive literature on Shakespeare’s names may be mentioned Stokes 1970; Levin 1976; Levith 1978; Calderwood 1979; Barton 1990; Pitcher 1993; Spevack 1993; Davis and Frankforter 1995; Fleissner 2001; Litt 2001; Lucking 2007; and Maguire 2007. 19. Levith 1978: 19. 20. Davis and Frankforter 2004: 391. 21. See Levin 1976: 59–61, 72. 22. See Levin 1976: 60; Levith 1978: 93 citing Leslie Hotson. 23. Levin 1976: 61. On names in Cymbeline, see Pitcher 1993. 24. OED 2, 1603 quotation: “a young beardlesse Ganymede whome he loved”. On Ganymede as a type-name, see Saslow 1986. 25. Gurr 2009: Index, s.v. Disguise. 26. See Davis and Frankforter 2004: 394. 27. See Barton 1990: 103. 28. See OLD s.v. Peto 2, 3, 7. 29. 4.4.70–4; see Levith 1978: 19, 21. 30. Cf. Levith 1978: 77:“Bottom’s gang are named for their trades”. 31. OED, s.v. Flute 2. 32. See OED, s.v. Good A2 and C;Abbott 1883: 26; Onions 1986: 119. 33. See OED, s.v. Bellows 1 b, quotation of 1566 (an organ lacking a piece of lead belong- ing to the bellows). Both trades are represented in Jonson’s Pan’s Anniversarie (1620, ptd 1641). 34. Salzmann 1952: 32, 259. 35. Parker 1996: 86. 36. Parker 1996: 94. 37. See Shakespeare 1994: 147. 38. Questioned by Stroup 1978: 79–82 but reasserted by Willson 1979: 407–8. 39. See HTOED s.v. Buttock(s). The earliest example of “ass” in this sense is 1860. See Montagu 1967: 316.

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122 literary names 40. E.g.Tilley 1950:A 387,“You would lose your Ass if it were loose”. 41. See Tilley 1950:A 388,“An asshead of your own”; F 519,A fool’s head of your own”. See OED, s.v. Ass-head, examples from 1550; cf.Tilley 1950: A 373–9, in all of which “ass” means “numbskull”;Tilley A 348 (As dull as an Ass);Whiting 1968:A 218 (As dull as an Ass); Carroll 1954: 75, 79; Salisbury 1994: 131, 153–4. 42. 3.1.111; cf. 114,“make an ass of me”. 43. 4.1.203–12, from 1 Cor. 2: 9–10 (Geneva version). 44. Cf. OED 6, 7, not attested however before 1687. 45. OED 7, not attested however before 1700. 46. Shakespeare 1994: lxxxii citing Gaw 1926. 47. Harold Brooks takes the “ﬂuty tones” to indicate sexual defectiveness; see Shakespeare 1979: 22. 48. Most likely to Baronius’ scholarly and controversial Annales Ecclesiastici (1588–1607) or his edition of Martyrologium Romanum (1586, 1589). Knowledge of Baronius need not have had any recusant implication. For Sts Titus, Caesaria, Cyrus, Festus, and Ursinus see the Bollandists’ great collection, Bollandus and Henschenius 1643–1867: 1.163; 1.729; 2.769; 2.1080. For Tobias and Ursinus, see Millard 1989. Both Fabian and Val- entine were rare names in the 16C; see ODECN: xxix. On the aptness of the names Shakespeare gives to Franciscans, see Salter 2004. 49. See Nosworthy 1965; Hassel 1979. 50. See Hotson 1954; Barber 1959. 51. OED, s.v. Fabian B 1. From the Fabian priests of Pan at the Lupercalia (15 February). 52. See Lewalski 1965; Smith 1966. 53. Robert Herrick,“Saint Distaffs day, or the morrow after Twelfth Day”, Herrick 1963: 416. 54. See Blackburn 1999: 601–2. 55. 4.2.43–5. See Hassel 1979; Lewalski 1965: 168–81, esp. 176–7; Smith 1966: 112. 56. E.g. Lancelot Andrewes’ Christmas sermon, 1622,Andrewes 1967: 101. 57. 12 N 4.2.58–60. 58. So Pico della Mirandola; see Walker 1972: 50. 59. AYLI 3.2.275. See Carroll 1976: 233–4. 60. OED, s.v. Worthy C. 1. c. For the scheme’s history, see Carroll 1976: 229–41. 61. See Carroll 1976: 233. 62. Carroll 1976: 236 misses the joke: “I have been unable to ﬁnd any other instance in which Hercules is one of the Nine Worthies”. 63. See Fowler 1994: 3–6. 64. E.g. Shakespeare 1994; Maguire 2007; Nuttall 2007: 23, 121–6, et passim. 65. Shakespeare 1994: 151. 66. Shakespeare 1994: 143. 67. Phillida may recall the Phyllis betrayed by Demophon, a son of Theseus, in Ovid, Heroides 2. 68. Holland, Shakespeare 1994: 144. 69. On this point see Morales 2007: 23 et passim. 70. Tr. John Studley, 1581. 71. Holland, Shakespeare 1994: 145. 72. Ovid, Metamorphoses 9.1; cf. Hyginus, Fabulae ch. 37. 73. Mythologiae 7.9, Conti 1979: 386. 74. Holland regards Hippolyta as a “backformation” from Hippolytus; cf. Maguire 2007: 79. 75. Nuttall 1994: 121, 128. 76. Nuttall 1994: 23, 122.

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shakespeare’s names 123 77. OED, s.v. Ravish 1a, 2a, 4b. Maguire 2007: 91 sees that “the categories of rape, abduction,and consensual adulterous sex were not distinct” in Renaissance culture. On the complex semiotics of rape, see Donaldson 1982; Ritscher 2009; Morales 2007: 85–6 and ch. 6 passim. 78. Bullough 1966–75: 1.388. On Shakespeare’s closeness to Plutarch, see now Gillespie 2011: ch. 4. 79. Bate 1993: 136–7. 80. Plutarch 1898–9: 1.42. Plutarch puts it more succinctly but just as favourably:“ When Theseus called upon her and promised he would take care of her honourably and do her no wrong (πίστιν διδόντος ὡς ἐπιμελήσεται καλῶς αὐτης καὶ οὐδὲν ἀδικήσει) she came out and had sexual intercourse with Theseus, and bore him Melanippus (τῷ μὲν Θησεῖ συγγενομένη Мελάνιππον ἔτεκε), and afterwards lived with Deioneus [. . .] to whom Theseus gave her” (Theseus 1.8). 81. Cf. the critique of Nuttall’s approach in Wootton 2008: 10–11. 82. “Philostrate” comes from The Knight’s Tale, where it is Arcite’s assumed name. 83. Maguire 2007: 82. 84. Holland, in Shakespeare 1994: 144. 85. Holland, in Shakespeare 1994: 139. 86. This immensely popular word list by “one of the Society of Jesus” went through at least twelve editions from 1680 to 1749, and another nineteen editions of later revi- sions by Pedro deVille,Thomas Morell, and others up to 1832; see Stray 2010, mini- mizing Aler’s role in the early development of the Gradus. Poole 1677: 197 also gives a mixed view of Theseus: “valiant, magnanimous, couragious, cruel, victorious, undaunted, valorous, attemptive, perjured, perﬁdious, disloyal, faith-breaking, faith- less, unfaithful, ingrateful”. 87. Cf. Gillespie 2004: 397 on Shakespeare’s use of Ovidian materials: “With Theseus and Hippolyta . . . Shakespeare avoids the considerable body of negative associations surrounding the ﬁgures, or else presents the characters as having been educated out of such attitudes towards love”. 88. Plutarch 1898–9: 8.277; cf. 8.289 on Demetrius’ whores and abominable practices. 89. MND 2.2.105–6; 1.1.110. 90. MND 1.1.107, 4.1.130. See Holland, in Shakespeare 1994: 138–9; Hawkes 1992: 11–13, 15, 27. 91. See OCD. 92. Agamemnon 66, “ship-destroying, man-destroying, city-destroying; Doctor Faustus 12.81. Cf. Maguire 2007: 32, 77. 93. Maguire 2007: 77 citing Roberts 1991: 145–7. 94. Cf. OLD:“a form of St Elmo’s ﬁre”; cf. Pliny, Nat. Hist. 2.101,“[stellam] diram illam ac minacem appellatamque Helenam”. 95. Maguire 2007: 119; Maguire 2009 passim. 96. Maguire 2007: ch. 3; Maguire 2009: ch. 4; Pearson 1974: 276–98. 97. See, e.g., Bliss 2008: 70. On the rehabilitation of Helen, see also Maguire 2009: 92, and cf. my review in TLS (6 June, 2008) 22. 98. See Diehl 1986: 208–9 citing Philip Ayres, Otto vanVeen, and Claudius Paradin from among many instances; cf. Chapman, Bussy D’Ambois 5.4.209–10. 99. Camden 1984: 84. 100. Hercules was his cousin on the mother’s side; see Plutarch 1898–9: 8.40. 101. See Stokes 1970: 250.The familiar form “Hal” is dropped on Prince Henry’s succession, except by Falstaff, who presumes on previous intimacy; see Maguire 2007: 29–30. 102. See Bullough 1966–75: 7.269–308; Muir 1977: 196–208.The form “Cordelia” is from FQ 2.10.29. On possible puns with cor,“heart”, however, see Musgrove 1956, Fleiss- ner 2001: 43–5.

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124 literary names 103. See Jenkins, Shakespeare 1982: 211–12; cf. Paradise Lost 7.1–2:“Descend from heav’n Urania, by that name | If rightly thou art called”, using a convention of ancient hymns. 104. Camden 1984: 63. 105. See Pugh 2010: 127 on King Edgar’s imperial rule. On the maritime aspect, see Pepys 1970–83: 6.81. 106. E.g. 2 Henry VI 5.1.202–4 (the wrong crest for Nevil, however; see Barron 1916: 2.90. 107. Cf. Davis and Frankforter 1995: 10. 108. Despite Jenkins’ Herculean efforts. 109. Camden 1984: 84. See p. xxi for his Continental sources, potentially accessible to Shakespeare. 110. Fitzmaurice 2009: 145; cf. Bullough 1966–75: 7.34–6. 111. See Jenkins, Shakespeare 1982: 421–2 on these possibilities and on the change of name to Corambis in Q1. 112. See Jenkins, Shakespeare 1982: 422. 113. See Jenkins, Shakespeare 1982: 163. 114. Jenkins sees the difﬁculty, and suggests confusion with ’Аφέλεια (“Simplicity”, “Innocence”), which, however, is not much better. 115. Cf. 3.2.187–8, “Most necessary ’tis that we forget |To pay ourselves what to our- selves is debt”. 116. Camden 1984: 69. 117. On this visual art convention, see Melion 1991: 8–10; Fowler 2003: 76, 210; Fowler 2010: 343. 118. See OED, s.v. Reynard. 119. On Shakespeare’s multilingual puns, see Levin 1976: 65–8. 120. Also in Thomas Heywood’s Marshal Osric (1602); see Gurr 2009: 104, 227. 121. Whitney (1586) 1969: 51; P. S. 1591: 55;Wither 1635: 36. See Diehl 1986: 157.

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6 Milton’s Changing Names 8 On one count, Milton performs 2,662 acts of naming in Paradise Lost.1 Larry Isitt’s catalogue may be too generously inclusive— counting place names and circumlocutions as well as personal names— but it certainly reveals a major concern of the poem.2 During Milton’s lifetime naming was a signiﬁcant focus of philosophical and scientiﬁc thought.3 It ﬁgured in the various artiﬁcial languages of the time, in the “true names” of Adamic discourse, and in natural history. The assigning and classifying of terms for vast numbers of newly discovered species was a major enterprise that engrossed the efforts of Caspar Bauhin (1560–1624), John Ray (1627–1705), and many others. Paradise Lost reﬂects this in several ways, most obviously in Adam and Eve’s naming of animals and plants.4 Important though they are, such acts are not our present concern. They gave rise to common nouns, not proper names. So far as personal names go, Milton’s naming is simpler than Spenser’s or Shakespeare’s. In Paradise Lost Milton represents only very few aspects of naming. He always focuses on the Fall and the changes it led to. Besides, he opts to use biblical names as much as pos- sible, believing the Bible to be in some sense literally true. Milton’s sources The considerations weighing with Milton in naming the angels of Paradise Lost are illuminated by comparison with those of Cowley in his contemporary epic Davideis (1668). In his notes to book 1, Cowley explains that the Book of Tobias speaks of Seven Angels superior to all

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126 literary names the rest; and this has been constantly believed according to the letter, by the ancient Jews and Christians. He cites Clement of Alexandria on “the Seven that have the greatest power,the First-born Angels”. Among Cowley’s chief texts are Tobit 12: 15 (“I am Raphael, one of the Seven holy Angels, which . . . go in and out before the glory of the Holy one”) and Daniel 10: 13 (“Lo Michael, one of the chief Princes came to help me”). On the question of hierarchy, he reasons that some Angels were under the command of others, may be collected out of Zecharius 2: 3 where one Angel commands another “Run, speak to this young man etc.” and out of Rev. 12: 7, where Michael and his Angels fought with the Dragon and his Angels. [. . .] Three names of these seven the Scripture affords, Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael; but for the other four, Oriphiel, Zachariel, Samael, and Anael, let the Authours of them answer, as likewise for their pre- siding over the Seven Planets.5 Cowley notes that in Luke 1: 19 “Gabriel is called [. . .] he that stands before the face of God.”On Davideis book 2,Cowley explains“Gabriel” as signifying “The Power of God”: I have seen in some Magical Books, where they give barbarous names to the Guardian Angels of great persons, as that of Mathattron to the Angel of Moses, that they assign one Cerviel to David, and this Gabriel to Joseph, Joshua and Daniel. But I rather use this than that Diabolical Name (for aught I know) of an Angel, which the Scripture makes no mention of. Especially because Gabriel is employed particularly in things that belong to the manifestation of Christ, as to the Prophet Daniel, Zacharia, and to Mary.The Rabbis account Michael the Minister of God’s Justice, and Gabriel of his Mercies, and they call the former Fire, and the latter Water.6 Cowley prefers to rely on the Bible where he can, but, failing this, on Rabbinic tradition and “the Magical Books”. He is anxious, we should note, in case he uses a “diabolical” name not in Scripture. Milton, like Cowley, drew most of his angel names from the Hebrew Bible or the Apocrypha.As we saw in chapter 1, the meanings of these names were mostly common knowledge, since a standard feature of Latin Bibles was an alphabetic list of personal names glossing their Hebrew meanings.This “Interpretation of Hebrew Names”, begun as a separate work, later took its place as an appendix to the Latin Bible and for centuries was a regular feature.7 After the Reformation, the Geneva version (often used by Milton) similarly included “A Brief Table of the Interpretation of the propre [sic] names [. . .] chieﬂy found in the olde Testament [. . .]”. In this glossary Milton may have found

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milton’s changing names 127 several angel names, for example Michael (“who is like God?” 1 Chron. 7: 3), Gabriel (“man of God, strength of God”, Dan. 8: 16), and Uriel (“light or ﬁre of God”, 2 Chron. 13: 2). Naming of angels was not to be lightly undertaken. In 745 the Council of Rome recognized only Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael as authentic angel names. Indeed, Zacharias the then Pope explicitly prohibited names not in the Bible to be used for angels.8 Such pro- hibitions were meant to restrain speculative multiplication of angels by the cabbalists, who took any mention of a spiritual work or ofﬁce in the Bible as an occasion for generating by anagram yet another angel name. On the authority of these occultists, Henricus Cornelius Agrippa (1486–1535) included dozens of angels in his magical system. He notices that good angels’ names usually end in el, on, jah, or jod (signifying the divine name). The only angels named as such in the Old Testament are glossed accordingly: GabriEL (Dan. 8: 16,“a man of God” or “the strength of God”), RaphaEL (Tob. 3: 17, 5: 4, “healing of God”), and MichaEL (Dan. 10: 13–21, 12: 1,“who is like God?”). The four Archangels Michael, Gabriel, Raphael, and Uriel tradi- tionally ruled the four corners of the world. But Milton, who applies hierarchic titles elusively, calls only Michael, Raphael, and Uriel Archangels—and Satan.9 Gabriel, although “Chief of the angelic guards” (4.550) is not titled Archangel. “Archangel” sometimes seems to imply mission or ofﬁce, sometimes a leading role.10 Thus Uriel “rules in the power of the meridian sun”.11 Milton accepts the com- mon pre-eminence of four chief angels, and the preference for biblical names. But he needed far more than four Archangels or even seven “eyes of the Lord” (Rev. 1: 4). So for minor characters he quarried the cabbalists and occultists, still using biblical names, but names of men, not angels.The faithful Abdiel, although biblical, occurs there only in human genealogies (1 Chronicles) and in the form “Abdeél, servant of God” (Jeremiah 36: 26).12 He occurs as an angel, however, in The Book of the Angel Raziel.13 Even Uriel (“Light or Fire of God”), the Archan- gel of 2 Esdras 4, is also Uriel of Gibea, father of Michaiah in 2 Chron. 13: 2. Such angel names of human origin are in effect charactonyms. Milton’s wordplays on such etymological meanings have been com- mented on at least since Thomas Newton (1704–82).The more recent notion that Milton was a thorough-going Cratylist stems from misun- derstanding of Plato’s dialogue. And Herbert Marks rightly character- izes as “naïve” the accusation that Milton was an “essentialist”. Marks’

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128 literary names magisterial note on the history of this false idea traces the various atti- tudes to it of Arnold Williams, Christopher Ricks, Stanley Fish, and William Kerrigan.14 Milton names most of the good angels in this way, and some of the rebels too. Abdiel overthrows “Ariel and Arioc, and the violence | Of Ramiel” (PL 6.371–2, all biblical or from the Apocrypha). Here Ariel (“Lion of God” or “Divine light”) comes from the pseudepigraphical Book of Enoch or from Esdras. But other devils are named differently. Some are called after heathen gods such as the Syrian Beelzebub (“Lord of the ﬂies”). This “fallen Cherub” is discovered weltering by Satan’s side, and next him also in power: “Long after known in Pales- tine, and named |Beelzebub” (PL 1.78–81). He is “prince of the dev- ils” (Matt. 12: 24). Milton may here allude to St Jerome’s allegorization of Beelzebub as “Pertinacity”.Thus, Milton’s Beelzebub “never ceases to infect the human race [. . .], to lay now this snare, now that for our destruction”.15 Other devils bear overtly allegorical names. Mammon (PL 1.678–9, 2.228, 291) comes from the New Testament, where his name is an Aramaic abstract noun, “Wealth”: “Ye cannot serve God and Mammon” (Matt. 6: 24, Luke 16: 13). In John 12: 31 Mammon is “prince of this world”. In the Middle Ages Mammon was a Syrian deity, prince of the ninth order of devils;16 but Milton’s devil owes more to Spenser’s Mammon in The Faerie Queene 2.7. From various sources Milton’s Satan collects a band of twelve parodic devil-disciples: Moloch, Chemos, Baal, Ashtaroth, Astarte, Thammuz, Dagon, Rim- mon, Osiris, Isis, Horus, and Belial (PL 1.392–490).The minor devils, being identiﬁed with the pagan gods of classical antiquity, have drawn the latter with them down to hell. Old and new names Milton learned from The Faerie Queene how naming might be made thematic. He took over from Spenser the device of doubled names (Fidessa, Duessa) as well as the idea of true and false genealogies. For example, a false genealogy, immediately corrected, is advanced in PL 1.508–10: The Ionian gods, of Javan’s issue held Gods, yet confessed later than Heaven and Earth Their boasted parents . . .

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milton’s changing names 129 This self-deluding inconsistency recalls those that undercut Spenser’s Night and Mutability. But Milton the historical poet applies the device of paired names on a more diachronic plan. He imagines the Fall as deforming the rebel angels so profoundly that they lose not only their original characters but even their very names. In fact he conceives naming to be a fundamental part of his great argument, the Fall. The naming of Milton’s protagonist goes through three stages. Lat- terly he is Satan, as Raphael instructs us: “So call him now, his former name |Is heard no more in heaven”.17 What was that former name? Before his fall, Satan had been Lucifer: Lucifer from Heav’n (So call him, brighter once amidst the Host Of Angels, then that Starr the Starrs among) Fell with his ﬂaming Legions through the Deep Into his place. (Paradise Lost 7.131–5) “Lucifer” is here almost reduced to an astronomical trope for the angel’s brightness. But in the earlier, infernal books the diminished devil has lost his old bright name without yet having acquired the new name Satan (“Antagonist”). There, the narrator uses the name Satan, but the devils do not.After all, Satan is not their enemy. He himself ﬁrst hears his fallen name when he is brought to Gabriel as an intruder in Paradise: “Why hast thou, Satan, broke the bounds prescribed [. . .]?” (PL 4.478) Later, he exults in the bad name: “I glory in the name, | Antagonist of heaven’s almighty king” (PL 10.386–7). Here the loca- tion of “Antagonist”, beginning the line, gives it a momentary ambi- guity. Is it a capitalized proper name, translating “Satan”? Other devils are named analogously. Beelzebub has at ﬁrst no name at all:to Satan he is merely“one next himself in power”(PL 1.79).As Raphael explains in his narration of the war in heaven, the fallen angels were Cancelled from heaven and sacred memory, Nameless in dark oblivion let them dwell. For strength from truth divided and from just, Illaudable, naught merits but dispraise And ignominy . . . (Paradise Lost 6.379–83) The very word “ignominy”, derived from in- + nomen, meant “nameless”.

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130 literary names Yet Satan’s companion, the narrator of book 1 tells us, was “long after known in Palestine, and named | Beelzebub”.The fallen angels as a group acquired new names from their postlapsarian experience: Princely Dignities, And Powers that earst in Heaven sat on Thrones; Though of their Names in heavenly Records now Be no memorial, blotted out and ras’d By their Rebellion, from the Books of Life. Nor had they yet among the Sons of Eve Got them new Names [. . .] (Paradise Lost 1.359–65) Milton subscribes to St Augustine’s identiﬁcation of fallen angels with pagan gods.18 At ﬁrst the devils all had innocent, original names match- ing their uncorrupted identities—lost names like “Lucifer”. The loss of these names was more than titular, for they meant reputation and standing in the angelic community.To lose them implied loss of hon- our and integrity, loss of character and nature. What the devils had been was gone, forgotten even. No longer knowing his friend Beelzebub’s name, Satan must resort to circumlocution: “Fallen Cherub” (PL 1.157). And for his part Bee- lzebub cannot say “Lucifer” but must address the superior ﬁend as “Leader of those armies bright” (PL 1.272)—“bright” being a remain- ing trace of the former “Lucifer”. This difﬁculty of missing names, repeatedly encountered, partly explains Milton’s “adjectival” style, often remarked by critics. In hell as in the House of Commons—although partly for different reasons—circumlocutory naming is the rule. John Leonard studies Milton’s naming in an incisive book, Naming in Paradise (1990). There he traces the ideological method whereby Milton withholds, assigns, and changes names. Writing on the avoid- ance of “Beelzebub” in Paradise Lost book 5, Leonard draws attention to a great difﬁculty facing Milton: namely, that at the time of Raphael’s narrative the fallen angels had yet to acquire their postlapsarian names. They were not yet “known to men by various names,|And various idols through the heathen world” (PL 1.374–5). Leonard notices the ﬁne decorum whereby in narrating the rebellion Raphael avoids refer- ring to Satan’s “next subordinate” by name (PL 5.670), since that sub- ordinate still enjoys (if only just) “unspoiled innocence”.19 On the other hand, in the history of the war in heaven, Raphael makes free use of the devils’ fallen names: Moloc, Adramelec, Asmadai, Ariel, Arioc,

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milton’s changing names 131 Ramiel. Here, Leonard detects a danger of anachronism: “how can Raphael know these ‘new Names’ when they have not yet been ‘Got’ by their owners?”20 He suggests that Raphael speaks from foreknowl- edge:“Things by their names I call, though yet unnamed” (PL 12.140). Perhaps. But it is simpler to suppose that Raphael’s angelic intelli- gence intuits the fallen names of the devils from their present, corrupt natures. After all, unfallen Adam can apprehend the names of the animals. Why then does Satan fail to recognize, in the portress of hell, his own daughter Sin? Is it because she presents a different, postlapsarian aspect of sin from what he has previously known? At her “birth”, Sin “pleased, and with attractive graces won |The most averse” (PL 2.762–3). But now she is “abhorred” by Satan, ending “foul in many a scaly fold” (2.650–1). In other words, sin seems attractive in pros- pect—“tempting” in fact—but once committed becomes utterly dif- ferent. Guilt and consequences make it repellent. So Sin asks Satan “Hast thou forgot me then, and do I seem |Now in thine eye so foul, once deemed so fair[?]” (2.747–8). Much has been said about “Sin” as a new name, a new word or sign.21 But the naming of Sin seems to me much like the unproblematic naming of the animals. Unfallen angels know about evil as a theoretic possibility, and so can intuit Sin’s nature and name. When Satan in heaven sins, “back they recoiled afraid |At ﬁrst, and called me Sin” (2.759–60): a rational response. With familiarity, however, sin became temptingly attractive—so long as it remained uncommitted. Titles Milton’s God usually refers to the angels by their titles, collectively: Thrones, Princedoms, Powers, Dominions I reduce: (Paradise Lost 3.320) Hear all ye Angels, Progenie of Light, Thrones, Dominations, Princedoms,Vertues, Powers . . . (Paradise Lost 5.600–1) Faithful Abdiel repeats this roster exactly at Paradise Lost 5.840, and Satan, although sardonically, follows it too, at 5.772 and 10.460, on the earlier occasion adding a qualiﬁcation:

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132 literary names If these magniﬁc Titles yet remain Not meerly titular, since by Decree Another now hath to himself ingross’t All Power, and us eclipst under the name Of King anointed . . .22 (Paradise Lost 5.773–7) All these titles, with one apparent exception, are authorized by familiar biblical passages: “For by him were all things created, which are in heaven, and which are in earth, things visible and invisible: whether they be Thrones, or Dominions, or Principalities, or Powers . . .” (Col. 1: 16, Geneva).23 And the Virtues are biblical too, although authorized by different texts: “Vertues that be in heuvenes schulen be movyd” (Mark 13: 25 Wyclif);“Virtutes, quae in caelis sunt, movebuntur” (Vulgate). (In other versions Virtutes is rendered as “Powers”.) The seven angels of the presence are also biblical: the “eyes of the lord” (Zech. 4: 10),“the seven spirits which are before his throne” (Rev. 1: 4, 5: 6, 8: 2). Only one of these eyes or spirits, however, is named in the Bible: Raphael. In Tobit 12: 15 he declares “I am Raphael, one of the seven holy angels, which present the prayers of the saints, and which go in and out before the glory of the Holy One”. And Milton identi- ﬁes Uriel (“Light of God”) as another angel of the presence: Th’Arch-Angel Uriel, one of the seav’n Who in Gods presence, nearest to his Throne Stand ready at command, and are his Eyes That run through all the Heav’ns, or down to th’Earth Bear his swift errands over moist and dry, O’re Sea and Land: him Satan thus accostes: “Uriel, for thou of those seav’n Spirits that stand In sight of God’s high Throne, gloriously bright, The ﬁrst art wont his great authentic will Interpreter through highest Heav’n to bring . . .” (Paradise Lost 3.648–56) Robert West regards the idea of Uriel’s being “Regent of the sun” (3.690) as arcane. But he is named Angel in 4 Esdras 4:1 Vulgate (2 Esdras Geneva) and Archangel (under the form Ieremiel) at 4: 36. And his solar role was standard enough to appear in Pierio Valeriano’s Hieroglyphica, a school textbook.24 InValeriano’s roster, on the authority of “Greek theology”, Sol is assigned to Uriel and Adonis.The cabalists gave Uriel prominence as ruling “in the power of the meridian sun” and as one of the four Archangels ruling the corners of the world.25

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milton’s changing names 133 Elsewhere in Paradise Lost a different roster is to be found. Raphael narrates the journey of Satan with his yet unfallen host: Regions they pass’d, the mightie Regencies Of Seraphim and Potentates and Thrones In their triple Degrees . . . (Paradise Lost 5.748–50) This refers to the nine orders of angels in Pseudo-Dionysius’ Celestial Hierarchy.26 Dionysius’ nine ﬁxed orders were commonly considered as three groups of three, the “trinal triplicities” of The Faerie Queene 1.12.39.Agrippa’s Scala Novenarii gives the complete list of nine orders: Seraphim, Cherubim,Throni, Dominationes, Potestates,Virtutes, Prin- cipatus, Archangeli, Angeli.27 A similar roster is found at Paradise Lost 7.198–9, this time adding Cherubim to the orders attending Messiah’s chariot:“Cherub and Seraph, Potentates and Thrones, | And Virtues”. Other authorities, Rabbinical or later, add individual names.28 Robert Fludd in Philosophia Sacra (1626) 163 gives Zaphkiel seu Oriphiel, angelus Saturni, Zadkiel seu Zachariel Iouis, Samael Martis, Michael Solis, Anael Veneris, Raphael Mercurii, atque Gabriel Lunae. And Petrus Bungus, while agreeing on the others, gives Zaphkiel as Hariphiel, citing his author- ity as Charles de Bovelles or Bovillus (c.1480–1533).29 Milton seems little concerned to deﬁne the angelic caste system in detail; although some apparent vagueness arises from the ambiguity of “Angel” used both for a particular Order and for a member of any Order. He may have thought, as Andrew Willet did, that it was ungodly curiosity to enquire too far into such matters;30 he certainly believed that mystifying “names, | Places and titles” (PL 12.515–16) was wrong. Rather than a ﬁxed hierarchy of being, he imagines an upwardly mobile hierarchy of ofﬁce and merit.31 And he shares Thomas Heywood’s view that “the name of Angell is a word of Ofﬁce, not of nature”. In Paradise Lost book 3, when the “heavenly choir” remains silent, only Messiah volunteers to ransom mankind by becoming mortal.Whereupon God gives him “all power” (217, 317): “under thee as Head Supream | Thrones, Princedoms, Powers, Dominions I reduce:” (319–20). The hierarchy of Milton’s God is mobile and meritocratic. No single, ﬁxed system of angelic titles such as Pseudo-Dionysius’ ever emerges in Paradise Lost. On the other hand, Milton’s angelic titles are more than a species of sonorous music. The many schemes of thought that Milton drew on often authorize features of his angels.Thus Raphael,the most individually characterized,

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134 literary names is Adam’s spiritual guide and counsellor, just as he isTobias’. And when Milton describes Raphael alighting on the eastern cliff of Paradise – Like Maia’s son he stood, And shook his Plumes, that Heav’nly fragrance ﬁlld The circuit wide. (Paradise Lost 5.285–7) —the comparison to Maia’s son Mercury probably alludes to two angelo- logical schemes.One scheme is found in Charles de Bouelles, Petrus Bun- gus, and Reginald Scot’s The Discovery of Witchcraft (1584),32 the other in Robert Fludd’s Philosophia Sacra et Vere Christiana seu Meteorologia Cosmica (1626).33 In both, Mercury is the planet assigned to Raphael.34 Similarly with the description of Michael’s equipment:“by his side | As in a glister- ing Zodiac hung the Sword, | Satans dire dread” (11.246–7). His wearing the zodiac beﬁts his correlation with the sun in many schemes.35 In the angelological schemes, Gabriel (“Strength of God”) was associated with war, making him a suitable choice for captain of the important guard on Paradise, “Chief of the angelic guards” (PL 4.550). When this “warrier angel” (4.946) confronts Satan, his “angelic squadron bright |Turned ﬁery red, sharpening in moonèd horns |Their phalanx”. Here again the phrase “moonèd horns”, vividly descriptive of the squad- ron’s crescent formation, may well allude to the angel schemes, in which the moon is invariably assigned to Gabriel.36 Threatened by Gabriel, an enraged Satan replies in Homeric fashion with insults:“Then when I am thy captive talk of chains, | Proud limitary Cherub”(PL 4.970–1).“Limitary”(OED s.v.Limitary 2) accurately reﬂects Gabriel’s ofﬁce of border guard at the limits of Paradise (4.549); but Satan also implies Gabriel’s responsibilities are subject to limits (OED s.v. Limi- tary 1). Both Gabriel and Lucifer-Satan are Seraphs and Archangels, so that “Cherub” is insulting:37 Cherubs are of a lower rank than Seraphs in the most usual ordering, that of Pseudo-Dionysius.38 Perhaps, too, the Cherubs’ contemplative role would seem to Satan an insigniﬁcant one.39 Hidden names As we saw in chapter 4, it was still common in Milton’s time for poets to sustain a covert level of meaning distinct from the more or less obvi- ous rhetorical sense. On this hidden level, a poem could be given

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milton’s changing names 135 topical applications, and real-life names could be speciﬁed through acrostics, rebuses, and anagrams. Such devices were governed by con- ventions going back to classical antiquity. Even in the longest poems acrostics might be used to emphasize or signpost specially signiﬁcant passages.When the gates of Mars are opened at Aeneid 7.601–4,Vergil makes the initial letters of the lines form the acrostic mars.40 This tradition continued through the Middle Ages and enjoyed a renewed vogue in early modern England and Scotland. So one ﬁnds Milton, almost at the end of the tradition, inserting the initial-letter acrostic satanvs in Paradise Lost at the crucial juncture when Satan disguised as a serpent ﬁrst attracts Eve’s attention: Scipio the highth of Rome.With tract oblique At ﬁrst, as one who sought access, but feard To interrupt, side-long he works his way. As when a Ship by skilful Stearsman wrought Nigh Rivers mouth or Foreland, where the Wind Veres oft, as oft so steers, and shifts her Saile; So varied hee [. . .] (Paradise Lost 9.510–16) MarkVaughn has noticed other instances of acrostic words closely rel- evant to their immediate contexts.41 Most of these, however, do not involve names, which were more often hidden in anagrams. When Raphael addresses Eve with the greeting “Hail” (PL 5.385–92) Milton alludes to a familiar Latin conceit based on Gabriel’s salutation of theVirgin Mary in Luke’s gospel. Ave gratia plena (Vulgate Luke 1: 28) was taken to allude to Mary’s role as the antitype of Eve—ave : eva.42 This conceit has not usually been regarded as an anagram; but it is one—and a palindrome at that.43 This clearly foregrounded anagram is obvious enough. But some of the anagrams in Paradise Lost are much less so. Once a common device, the embedded anagram was already obsolescent. Soon it was to become deeply unfashionable and almost forgotten. Earlier, Ben Jonson had embedded name anagrams, notably in The Speeches at Prince Henries Barriers (1610). There the phrase “claimes Arthurs seat”—a celebrated anagram for charles james steuart— occurs without any signposting.44 In the same entertainment Prince Henry bears his preferred chivalric name Meliadus, alluding to Rus- ticier de Pisa’s romance Meliadus de Leonnoys (1528). But in Teares on the Death of Meliades (1613), William Drummond—a poet Milton admired—gives Henry’s name as Mœliades, which “in Anagramme

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136 literary names maketh Miles a Deo”.45 Despite such high-proﬁle examples, the popu- larity of anagram was waning. Already in 1619, indeed, Jonson told Drummond he was quite uninterested in anagrams and acrostics. He denied having “pomp’d [laboured] for those hard triﬂes,Anagrams” or having“Acrostichs and Telestichs on jumpe [exactly coinciding] names”.46 According to Drummond, Jonson “scorned Anagrams and had ever in his mouth” Martial’s lines about the degrading labour of puerile tri- ﬂes.47 This was possibly disingenuous on Jonson’s part: he was an aggressive talker, and Drummond was an authority on anagrams.48 Besides, Jonson would not want to admit to the laboriousness entailed by his secret work. In any event, the exchange may be a straw in the wind of change away from hidden meanings. Milton was the last great English poet to engage seriously with anagrams. In the Enlightenment, discourse would triumph over pat- tern, as syntax and rhetoric triumphed over schemes. A greater gulf than politics separated Milton and Dryden: namely, their attitudes to hidden orders of letters. Milton still concealed words within words, whereas to Dryden, “mild anagram” was no better than a “peaceful province in acrostic land”, ﬁt for Mac Flecknoe.The older set of mind was on the way out; before long the rules governing embedded ana- gram would be lost. Milton’s circumstances were such as to make disguise of the political content of Paradise Lost a necessity.After the Restoration, when he was ﬁnishing his poem, transparent political allegory would have been sui- cidal for a regicide. (His books were burned on 27 August 1660, and he was released from the Tower only on 15 December.) Nor would an obvious roman à clef have served his purpose best. His plan in Paradise Lost seems to be one of difﬁcult tests of discrimination between com- plex analogies. Hence his use of embedded anagrams. Today, these are obscured by misconceptions about the Civil War. Many modern readers, inﬂuenced by the Romantic radicals, imagine Milton’s Satan as a hero rebelling against the tyranny of Charles I.49 But seventeenth-century Parliamentarians considered Charles to be the rebel. It was Charles I, they thought, who rebelled against the Crown. Both sides in the Civil War claimed to ﬁght for the Crown, that is, the state. So, when Milton’s Satan orders the standard moved to the north (Paradise Lost 5.683–701), the obvious analogy is with the real-life raising of the royal standard at Nottingham on 22 August 1642, not by the rebel Oliver Cromwell but by Charles I. Similarly, Satan is

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milton’s changing names 137 compared to an eastern tyrant (10.431–59), just as Charles is, in Eikono- klastes.50 At ﬁrst Milton shared this Parliamentarian view. Later, how- ever, after Cromwell’s imperialist ambitions became evident, and after the Commonwealth failed, Milton’s political views changed. He now came to oppose rule by any “single person”, Cromwell included.51 It is hardly surprising to ﬁnd anagrams of the names of Charles I (or Charles II) in a Satanic context at salient points in his epic. But when Satan reviews his model army in Paradise Lost 1.535–89, the political ﬁgure anagrammatized is one whose ambition Milton had come to distrust almost as much as Charles I: namely, Oliver Cromwell.Thus, in the passage “Of dreadful length and dazling Arms, in guise | Of War- riers old with order’d SpeaR [. . .]” (1.564–5), prompted by the initial O and the ﬁnal R, it is not hard to see anagrams of oliver. An anagram with letters dispersed but correctly ordered is “[of dreadful length and dazling Arms, in guise | Of Vvariers old with order]’d”, that is, oliver. And a condensed but scrambled anagram can be found in “old vvith order]’d”, that is, olvier: oliver. At Paradise Lost 5.703–5, a crucial passage where the tempter is about to corrupt the angels under his command, anagrams of oliver also occur: To sound [Or taint integritie; but all obey’d The wonted signal, and superioR] . . . Within the frame indicated by square brackets “[Or . . . superioR] may be seen an anagram with letters dispersed but correctly ordered:“[Or taint integritie; but alL obeY’d |The Vvont-Ed signal, and superioR]”. And a condensed, scrambled anagram may be found in “[Vvonted signaL, and supERIOR]”, that is, vlerior: oliver. (Only one R is used, a common licence.) These and similar anagrams, throwing unexpected light on Milton’s political stance, raise new questions. Were they hidden from all but a like-minded inner circle? Or were they obvious to any well-educated reader of poetry? In either case, Paradise Lost appears to have been an even more incautious poem than has been thought—quite on a par with the fearless tract A Ready and Easy Way. But perhaps Milton cal- culated (as Robert Herrick must have done in 1648 when he published his royalist poems) that governments pay little attention to poetry. Poems pose little political threat to a state.

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138 literary names Notes 1. Isitt 2002. 2. Milton’s angels and their names have attracted a considerable but intermittent litera- ture. Ignored in the eighteenth century (e.g. by his editor Richard Bentley) and in recent Milton handbooks, the names have received valuable treatments in Masson 1890, Verity 1910: 680–2, West 1955, Davidson 1971, Leonard 1990, Isitt 2002, and Raymond 2010. 3. On Adamic language and universal or “perfect” languages, see Wilkins 1668; Urqu- hart 1983: 23; Jones 1951; Fish 1971: 107–30; Salmon 1972; Knowlson 1975; Fraser 1977; Donawerth 1984; Leonard 1990: 17; Eco 1995; Poole 2008: 536, 539, with further refs. 4. 7.385–549; 11.273–9. Cf. Donne 1984: 2.78:“Adam was able to decipher the nature of every creature in the name thereof ”. See Gallagher 1990: 39, 57. Ray, e.g., classiﬁed 16,100 species of plants (Scott Mandelbrote’s estimate) or even 18,000 (A.C.Crombie’s estimate); see Fowler 1998: 447. Adam’s own name was sometimes thought Cratylic, implying the universality of the four regions of the world; see Evans 1995: 17–18. 5. Davideis book 1, note 28, Cowley 1905: 273–4. 6. Davideis book 2, note 94, Cowley 1905: 321. 7. See De Hamel 2001: 112–13, 123. 8. See West 1955: 67, 195 n.15. 9. See West 1955: 133–4; Davidson 1971. 10. E.g.“The summoning Arch-Angels” (PL 3.325); see Raymond 2010: 262–3. 11. West 1955: 208 citing Henry More, Psychozoia 3.1. 12. Cf.William Patten, The Calender of Scripture (1575), where Abdiel is glossed “serving God”. 13. See Raymond 2010: 271. 14. See Marks 1988: 212–13, 231. 15. My italics; see Fowler 1998: 65. 16. See West 1955: 157; Fowler 1998: 101. 17. PL 5.658–9; 5.760, 10.425. Cf. Leonard 1990: 86–7, 149. 18. Confessions 1.17: St Augustine 1991: 20; see Fowler 1998: 83. 19. See Leonard 1990: 155–6. 20. Leonard 1990: 80. 21. See Leonard 1990: 120–1, 166–7. 22. On the context of republican titles and on Messiah’s inheritance of power through merit, see Fowler 1998: 332. 23. Cf.Vulgate, sive throni, sive dominationes, sive principatus, sive potestates; King James Ver- sion,“whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers”. 24. Valeriano 1613: 549; see Fowler 1998: 209. 25. See West 1955: 208; Henry More Psychozoia 3.1.5n; Fowler 1998: 209. 26. Pseudo-Dionysius wrote as Dionysius the Areopagite; his De Caelesti Hierarchia, trans- lated from Greek in 860 ad by John Scotus Eriugena, attracted commentaries in the 12th century. But to Francis Bacon he was “that supposed Dionysius”; see Ellrodt 1980: 165. 27. Agrippa 1992: 285–6. 28. Agrippa’s Scala Septenarii names the seven angels who attend before the face of God (septem angeli qui adstant ante faciem Dei) as Zaphkiel, Zadkiel, Camael, Raphael, Hamiel, Michael, and Gabriel; see Agrippa 1992: 282. 29. Bungus 1591: 290. 30. Cf. Raymond 2010: 49. 31. Cf. Raymond 2010: 79.

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milton’s changing names 139 32. Bungus 1591: 289–90; Scot 1584: 400. 33. See Heninger 1977: 156–8 and ﬁg. 92. 34. See Scot 1584: 400. 35. See e.g. Bungus 1591: 290, Fludd 1991: 40. 36. See Agrippa 1992: 286; Bungus 1591: 290; and Godwin 1991: 40. For the crescent formation as a martial tactic, see Fowler 1998: 276. 37. Lucifer was replaced after the Fall by the Seraph and Archangel Michael; see Raymond 2010: 49, 79, 262 quoting PL 1.593, 1.600, 2.750, 6.579, 6.604. Cf. OED s.v. seraphim 2 c. 38. Agrippa 1992: 286; cf. Raymond 2010: 262. 39. Contrast Satan’s deferential address to the Archangel Uriel as “Brighter Seraph” at PL 3.636, 648, 667. 40. Cf. fons in Vergil, Eclogues 1.5–8; see Clauss 1977: 267–87; Klemp 1977: 91–2; Ahl 1985. 41. Notably stars at 3.552–6; why at 9.704–6; woe at 9.1004–6 (when Adam eats); and boat at 12.249–52 (the ark). See Vaughn 1982: 5–8. 42. See Austin, Haec Homo (1637) 182:“Others [ . . .] anagrammatize it from Eva into væ, because (they say) she was the cause of our woe.” See also Willet 1608: 54; Leonard 1990: 49–50; Fowler 1998: 305. 43. See Ricks 2003: 132 citing Robert Southwell: “Spell Eva backe and Ave shall you ﬁnd”. 44. Cf. Jonson, For the Honour of Wales: “EVAN: [. . .] his Madestees Anagrams of Charles James Stuart. JENKIN: I [Aye], that is Claimes Arthurs Seate, which is as much as to say, your Madestee sud be the ﬁrst King of gread Prittan, and sit in Cadier Arthur, which is Arthurs Chaire [. . .] And then your Sonne Master S’hrles his, how doe yow caull him? Is Charles Stuart, cals true hearts, that is, he cals us, the Welse Nation [. . .]” (Jonson 1925–52: 7.323, 509; see Ricks 2003: 113–14).The second embedded anagram charles stuart : cals true hearts, although slightly imperfect, is signiﬁcantly acknowledged by Jonson. 45. See Jonson 1925–52: 10.515. 46. “An Execration uponVulcan”, Under-wood 43, lines 35, 39, Jonson 1925–52: 8.204. For “pomp’d” see OED, s.v. Pump v. intr. 47. Conversations 437–9, Jonson 1925–52: 1.144. See Martial 2.86.9–10. 48. See e.g. his Character of a Perfect Anagram (1711), Drummond 1970: 230. In 1620, enter- taining an exiled friend with anagrams yet dispraising the practice, he cites the same passage in Martial: either he has taken Jonson’s negative view on board or else he too is keeping his secret. 49. E.g. Hill 1977: 367. 50. Cf. Hill 1977: 366, 371; Fowler 1998: 42. For a comparison between the proportion of the angelic host that fell and the proportion of royalist MPs, see Hill 1977: 372. 51. See The Readie and Easie Way (1660), Milton 1953–82: 7.361–2 and n. 23. Cf. Hill 1977: 418.

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7 Assumed and Imposed Names 8 One of the earliest name plays in literature—and one of the earli- est pseudonyms—is found in Homer’s Odyssey. Odysseus, trapped in the Cyclops’ cave, offers to tell his famous name in return for a guest-gift.“Noman—that’s my name. Noman—| So my mother and father call me, all my friends”.1 Or, in Alexander Pope’s version, Thy promis’d boon, O Cyclop! now I claim, And plead my title: Noman is my name. By that distinguish’d from my tender years, ’Tis what my parents call me, and my peers.2 (Odyssey 9.431–4) When the neighbours hear the screams of the blinded Polyphemus, they ask if anyone is oppressing him “by fraud or power”, but he answers “Friends, Noman kills me; Noman in the hour | Of sleep, oppresses me with fraudful pow’r”.They reply that if no man is hurt- ing him but a divine hand has inﬂicted disease, he should resign him- self.They advise prayer, and leave (9.485–8). The joke disappears in translation. When Polyphemus says Outis (ὀύτις, “no man”), he means the name assumed by Odysseus—Οὖτις (changing the accent makes it a proper name). But his friends take him to be saying the common noun ὀύτις, (outis, “no one”). Pope disap- proves of “this piece of pleasantry”: he thinks “the whole to be nothing but a collusion of words, and ﬁtter to have place in a Farce or Comedy, than in Epic Poetry.” In Pope’s view “the whole wit or jest lies in the ambiguity of ὀύτις (outis), which Ulysses imposes upon Polyphemus as his own name, which in reality signiﬁes No Man”.3 Pope, a man of the

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142 literary names Enlightenment, has turned his back on secret anagrams and unsuitable puns. He studiously ignores Homer’s thematic, self-referring word- plays when Odysseus exults in the cleverness of the name trick: “my heart laughed that my name and ﬂawless device (μη̑τις ἀμύμων, metis amumon) had so deceived him” (9.414). Here metis puns on the repeated phrase me tis, “surely no one”, a few lines earlier4—“surely no one is driving off your ﬂocks?” It has been assumed that when Odysseus claims to be Noman (outis) he is giving a false name. But the device is cleverer than that. Odysseus is divided between the necessity of saving his life and the desire to claim responsibility by leaving a boast for posterity. (It is much the same later, when, still within range, he taunts Polyphemus from ship- board.5) Such was Odysseus’ reputation that to reveal his name openly would have alerted even the befuddled Polyphemus. So he hints it in a way too subtle for the Cyclops. He calls himself Outis, “Noman”, a near synonym of Oudeis. For ancient Greek had two ways of saying “nobody”.The one Homer normally prefers is outis (όύτις, “not any- one”); the other way is to say oudeis (οὐδείς,“not one”). Now, Oudeis is an “anagram” of Odysseus. —Or rather an analegomenon of Odysseus, since the Odyssey is oral poetry. We do not know whether Homer was illiterate and dictated his poem, or whether (as Barry Powell holds) the Greek alphabet was invented to record Homeric song.6 If, however, Homer was literate, he almost certainly meant Oudeis as more than a phonetic hint of Odys- seus.Taking into account the spelling Odusseus or Oduseus (24.398), the phonetic equivalence of iota and upsilon, and the dialectal forms that led to Latin Ulysses rather than Ulusses, we can hear the puns and see Oudeis as an anagram of Oduseus.7 In short, Odysseus told his true name. He really was Noman, only with the letters rearranged. Romances Homer’s naming is very different from that of medieval and later romances; but they have at least one feature in common: distrust of anyone without a name. It is better to know who you are dealing with. In literature namelessness has often been mysterious and frightening. It is certainly so in Lewis Carroll’s The Hunting of the Snark, where the Baker, who has forgotten his true name, dreads he will be annihilated:

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assumed and imposed names 143 that he will “softly and suddenly vanish away”—as if a name were essential for existence.8 We noticed in chapter 3 the tendency of romances to delay disclos- ing names. This concern with names and naming was ubiquitous throughout the genre. Jane Bliss, indeed, goes so far as to say that “a large number of medieval romances are explicitly about name, naming, or namelessness”.9 A knight’s namelessness, whether voluntary or not, very often led to a provisional name, as did disguise. Throughout the romances there may be as many pseudonyms—names adopted or arbi- trarily imposed by others—as real names. The nicknames might be speculative, tautological (like “Le Bel Inconnu”), or aptly descriptive.10 Or anagrammatic, like “Tramtris” in the Auchinleck manuscript of Tristram. The motives of pseudonymity are various. Lancelot takes the name Le Shyvalere Ill Mafeete when he is rejected by Guinevere after dis- covery of his affair with Elaine.11 And Amadis de Gaul assumes the name Beltenebros when he receives a cruel letter from his mistress Oriana and retires to a hermitage.Very different is the naming process in the fourteenth-century Libeaus Desconus (corrupted from Le Bel Inconnu, “the Fair Unknown”). Here, the real name of Ginglein (Gawain’s son) is unknown, so he is knighted as “Li Beaus Desconus”.12 Ginglein’s mother gives him the more descriptive byname Beau-fyz, “handsome face”. Again, a true name may emerge through recognition of moral characteristics, through questioning, or after a decisive passage of arms. Bliss’ remarkable book brings out very well the implications of romance naming, both Cratylic and Hermogenean, and the many lit- erary name games they give rise to. She shows romance to be both philosophical and enquiring, even if it is not quite so theoretical a genre as she believes. Central to its concerns are the social functions of naming. Name generally meant reputation. Thus a nameless knight might have to “make a name for himself ”. Or he might secretly bear a great name but choose to conceal it. In an age when kinship was of paramount importance, anonymity could temporarily confer power, or open a way to discover the attitudes of others.An inoffensive pseu- donym like “The Knight of the Black Shield” might be a useful pro- tective device. In Malory’s Sir Garethis Tale, when Arthur asks Gareth his name he replies, ambiguously,“Sir, I can nat tell you”.This surprises Arthur, since

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144 literary names Gareth looks “goodly”. Initially, Gareth asks only one boon: his keep for a year.Arthur gives him the best of the doubt: he is to have “all manner of ﬁnding as though he were a lordys son”. But Sir Kay concludes Gareth’s aspirations are low: he didn’t think to ask for horse and armour because he is basely born. Or illegitimate. (Having no identiﬁable father naturally implies illegitimacy, although commentators seldom draw this inference.) Questioning might lead to the name withheld. So there are many questions.Who is your father? Where are you from? What is your name?These are not only attempts to discover how famous the unnamed knight is.They are also questions about kin. Kay bestows on Gareth the ambiguous nickname “Bewmaynes” (“Fine Hands”). Are Bewmaynes’ ﬁne large hands apt for stealing in the kitchen, or the result of laziness, or a sign of his largesse? Malory indicates that Kay’s scornful jesting is not the way to learn about real- ity: the unknown’s true name, Gareth, has nothing to do with hands.13 Sir Garethis Tale explores the topics of reputation: contributions of nature and nurture, values of titular nobility and noble deeds, and requirements for social advancement. Gareth goes incognito not so much to test others as to pursue an ideal of his own. His aspiration is never to claim respect he has not earned by merit. Thus, in face of Lyonett’s scorn of a mere kitchen boy, he treats her courteously and continues to perform noble deeds. A romance pseudonym may be foregrounded by puns and other wordplays, as in The Romance of Horn. Horn’s evasive self-descriptions keep clear of revealing his family name. So, for example, he says he is called “Y-comen ut of the bote” (lines 201–7).14 Romances reached the zenith of their popularity in the seventeenth century, when romance names, as we have seen, were fashionable in real life. Later still they provided convenient pseudonyms for amorous correspondence. Richard Steele’s lover writing of his affair says: “this Lady has corresponded with me under Names of Love, she my Belinda I her Cleanthes”.15 Here, “Belinda” is what Cleanthes calls a “bor- rowed name”, a pseudonym. In contrast, the malicious Mrs Jane in the same essay merits no such concealment. Romantic pseudonyms were common in the Restoration and the eighteenth century, when a few personas did service for many actual names. Another romantic mask was the initial letter (or letters) with a long dash of omission, a form of blank name not so clearly recognizable before the introduction of printing.

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assumed and imposed names 145 Anonymity The anonymity of much medieval literature may in part have been accidental. Readers may simply have failed to discover assertions of authorship too well hidden in difﬁcult acrostics or anagrams. But this is not very likely so far as the educated elite was concerned: especially in the ﬁfteenth century, the skill of reading sub-verbal patterns seems to have been highly developed.16 Coming to printed literature, one cannot doubt that a large propor- tion was deliberately anonymous on ﬁrst publication. John Mullan draws attention to the vast catalogue of anonymous titles compiled by Samuel Halkett and Rev. John Laing in no fewer than eight volumes.17 Anonymity might be secured by omitting the author’s name altogether or by substituting a reticent descriptive phrase such as “By a lady”.18 Or the anonymity itself might be concealed under a false name, such as the conventional “N.H.” (nat hwilc,“know not what”).The motives of such anonymity are various, and sometimes unsearchable. Mullan’s thoughtful study suggests several main possibilities, such as shame, dif- ﬁdence, and fear of consequences. To these he adds motives of mis- chief, and of gender disguise.19 The desire to hoax, not to speak of the satirist’s fondness for pen names, hardly ﬁts his category of mischief. Admittedly, Pope and Swift must have had fun devising personas such as “Scriblerus”. And in A Key to the Lock (1715) Pope clearly enjoyed the complicated invention of a Dutch author with political motives. But were these devices only mischievous? Surely a fear of consequences entered in too: Pope more than once received threats, and was rumoured to have been actually beaten.20 Literary hoaxes have been going a long time. Indeed, K. K. Ruthven is tempted to regard literature itself as fake.21 Hoaxes often call for false names, as for example in Pope’s manoeuvrings in A Key to the Lock. The author of this spurious work purports to be “Esdras Barnivelt”, a plausible combination of a biblical given name (suggesting Puritan provenance) and a surname with Dutch associations (for example, the statesman Jan van Olden Barneveldt). Swift had occasion to write from behind a number of masks, or “impersonations” as his biographer Irvin Ehrenpreis calls them. Not all of these involved names, but of those that did, Lemuel Gulliver and M. B. Drapier both suggest plain men.22 In The Drapier Letters, written against Walpole and Wood, Drapier’s

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146 literary names initials probably gesture to Marcus Brutus the tyrannicide.23 “Martinus Scriblerus” served as a mask for half a dozen writers of very different character. This group resulted from the merger of two literary sets: a younger, comprising Pope and John Gay, and an older, more experi- enced association of pronouncedTory afﬁliation,namely Swift,Arbuth- not, Parnell, and the Earl of Oxford.24 The Scriblerus project generated many disparate works, including the Dunciad Variorum, A Key to the Lock, and Peri Bathous, or the Art of Sinking in Poetry. Another consortium—including Congreve, Swift, Gay, Pope, and Steele—wrote the Partridge–Bickerstaff papers, under the assumed names of John Partridge and Isaac Bickerstaff.25 The real Partridge was a cobbler who had set up as a serious astrologer and become successful. Swift as Bickerstaff predicted Partridge’s death on 29 March 1708, and followed this with An Elegy on the Supposed Death of Mr Partridge, the Almanac Maker (April 1708), An Account of the Death of Partridge, and A Vindication of Isaac Bickerstaff (April 1709), in which he proves Partridge dead, despite Partridge’s protestation that he is “now alive, and was so on that day”.26 Irvin Ehrenpreis analyses the shades of ﬁctitiousness Swift generated, with some impersonations “ﬂaunting his identity”, others concealing it under deceptive personae: All these acts of mockery only strengthen our sense that the essential person behind them is different from the objects of his satire. Besides being stable where they are changeable, he is impartial where they are prejudiced, rational where they are capricious.27 In the same century the gothic vogue saw several instances of decep- tive authorship, notably James Macpherson’s Fingal (1762), by an “early” Gaelic bard, the legendary Ossian or Oisin. Fingal was accepted as genuine by Hugh Blair, the Edinburgh Regius Professor of Rhetoric and Belles Lettres, and at ﬁrst by David Hume, not to speak of Schiller and Goethe. Dr Johnson meanwhile remained sceptical. It is now thought Macpherson did translate original “texts”, but very freely, sup- plying much from his own invention. His atmospheric pastiche inhab- its a vague province on the distant boundaries of heroic literature. Horace Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto, more completely ﬁctive, was at ﬁrst published (in 1764) as by “William Marshall, Gent. From the Original Italian of Onuphrio Muralto, Canon of the Church of St Nicholas at Otranto”, an imaginary original “printed at Naples, in the black letter, in the year 1529”.Walpole’s Otranto has remained a brilliant

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assumed and imposed names 147 enigma, resembling a monumental fragment saved from some other- wise unknown culture. In 1769 the same Walpole was sent by Thomas Chatterton (1752–70) a “medieval” work allegedly written by a ﬁf- teenth-century monk, Thomas Rowley. The authenticity of Rowley’s poems (mostly published in 1777 after Chatterton’s death) was soon challenged by Thomas Warton and Edmond Malone. But Chatterton’s medieval world is vividly enough imagined to be enjoyed as a gothic fantasia. In the twentieth century the Crabtree hoax had a similarly back- handed success. Joseph Crabtree (1754–1854) is a ﬁctitious poet Sir James Sutherland conjured up in 1954 out of period clichés.The hoax worked so well that it led to a Crabtree Foundation: annual Crabtree lectures were delivered and eventually gathered as The Crabtree Orations 1954–1994.28 Sutherland’s invention was for fun (and perhaps to test the alertness of colleagues); but other hoaxes have had a sharper edge. In 1914 the US poet Witter Bynner and his friend Arthur Davison Ficke wrote and published a volume of quasi-imagist poems purportedly by Emmanuel Morgan and Anne Knish. Bynner himself reviewed this bogus collec- tion in New Republic, describing its authors as members of a “Spectric School”; but he clearly had Ezra Pound’s imagism in his sights. Such spurious reviewing is common enough. David Foster Wallace’s Obliv- ion, for example, was reviewed in Modernism/Modernity (2004) by “Jay Murray Siskind”. Siskind, “Professor at Blacksmith College”, is better known as a character in Don de Lillo’s White Noise (1985). A characteristic of entrapment hoaxes is that they usually depend on being revealed in some dramatic fashion. Yet in the classic example, Kipling’s “Dayspring Mishandled” (1932), exposure never quite takes place.29 This hoax is designed by James Manallace to pay out Castorley, an unpleasant man of letters setting himself up as a Chaucer authority. Manallace wants to revenge an unspeciﬁed offence committed against the woman he loves. So he forges a Chaucer manuscript, contriving to have Castorley “discover” it and believe it to be “the work of Abraham Mentzius, better known as Mentzel of Antwerp (1388–1438/9)”. Ment- zel’s distinguishing characteristics include “a tendency to spell English words on Dutch lines”, as in “Daiespringe mishandeelt”.The 107 new lines at the end of The Parson’s Tale are accepted as genuine by Castorley, who hopes it will bring him inevitable “recognition”. To trap the shallow scholar, Manallace means to reveal exactly how the manuscript was faked. As clinching proof he hides his own name as an

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148 literary names acrostic in the “Monkish Hymn”: ILla |ALma |MAter | ECca |SEcum |AFferens | ME | ACceptum | NIcolaus |ATrib.30 “Read down the ﬁrst and second letters of ’em; and see what you get”.What you get is iames a manallace fecit. In the event, Castorley dies before the trap can be sprung, leaving Manallace with complex problems of guilt and com- plicity in Castorley’s tainted success.The hoax has been too good.31 Several features of Kipling’s story were realized in a real-life hoax by Bevis Hillier.32 In 2006, when Hillier had spent more than twenty-ﬁve years on a magisterial three-volume biography of John Betjeman, the second volume was harshly reviewed by A. N.Wilson. And now Wilson himself was to bring out a rival biography of Betjeman. Hillier carried out a devious revenge. He sent Wilson a letter from France signed “Eve de Harben”, enclosing a love letter allegedly written in 1944 by the mar- ried Betjeman to a colleague, Honor Tracy. When the unsuspecting Wilson used the letter in his biography it was time to spring the trap. Hillier revealed “Eve de Harben” to be no more than an anagram of ever been had. And the sentence initials of her love letter made the acrostic a n wilson is a shit.The hoax is strikingly similar to Manallace’s, with Wilson resembling (at least in Hillier’s view) the villain Castorley. A name was also central to the Botul hoax in 1999. The French journalist Frédéric Pages invented an imaginary philosopher called Jean-Baptiste Botul, supposedly the author of a critique of Immanuel Kant; whereupon the fashionable penseur Bernard-Henri Lévy cited the “School of Botulism” as allies against Kant. Lévy failed to notice the play on “botulism”, and when the trap was sprung he brazened it out: he claimed it made no difference whether the arguments against Kant were Botul’s or Pages’.33 Although Hillier’s amusing deception partly aimed to uphold liter- ary standards, it cannot be called literature of a very high order. But some other hoaxes have had purely literary purposes. An instance is the Bynner–Ficke hoax, which as we saw implied criticism of imagist poetry. Another is the McAuley–Stewart hoax, again aimed at a dif- ﬁcult, innovative poetry movement. In 1944 Max Harris, the Austral- ian poetry editor, published The Darkening Ecliptic, a volume of modernist poems supposedly by Ern Malley but in fact put together by James McAuley and Harold Stewart.They meant to show that dif- ﬁcult poetry is easy to write.The disclosure was sensational: the hoax was taken so seriously, indeed, that it gave rise to talk of a national identity crisis.34

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assumed and imposed names 149 In general, literary hoaxes are aggressive, like other practical jokes. As Kipling’s “Dayspring Mishandled” brings out, they are cruel in themselves and likely to corrupt the perpetrators.35 But sometimes that doesn’t prevent them from being irresistibly funny to all except the victims. Sobriquets “Bewmaynes” is almost what we now call a nickname,“an eke name”. Bynames and nicknames are not given ceremonially, and may change and change again during life. I have had four:Ala and Skinz as a child, Slasher and Al as a medical student. Of these, Skinz and Slasher are nicknames. Given instead of, or in addition to, a proper name,36 nick- names reﬂect a salient aspect of appearance, personality, or achieve- ment.37 So “Monk Lewis” refers to The Monk (1796), a gothic novel that made the reputation of Matthew Gregory Lewis (1775–1818). A nickname may become better known than the proper name and even displace it. So the categories of name and byname overlap. Nevertheless,nicknames fall into fairly distinct groups.Thus Emperor Tiberius (Claudius Tiberius Nero, 42 bc–ad 37) was known for his excesses as Caldius Biberius Mero (“Mulled Wine Drunkard”); and Robert Baden-Powell (1857–1941) was Bathing Towel, from his enthu- siasm for cleanliness. Some nicknames are personally descriptive (Ginger, Four-Eyes); others describe a moral characteristic, as with Jack Dawkins in Oliver Twist (“The Artful Dodger”). Since the nineteenth century, if not earlier, King Ethelred (“Noble Counsel”) has been called “Ethelred the Unready” (redeless,“lacking in good advice”). Descriptive nicknames are as often as not derogatory; hence Steele’s view of them as vulgar “disgraceful Appellations”.38 A surprising number of nicknames are plays on real names—“given in sport” as Puttenham says. So “Chalky” is anyone with the surname White; Chuck goes with Charles; and Nobby goes with Clark (hinting perhaps at the social pretensions of clerks).The protagonist of William Golding’s Pincher Martin, Christopher Hadley Martin, is naval and therefore inevitably nicknamed “Pincher”. Here the association is his- torical: William Fanshawe Martin (1801–95) was a British admiral, notorious for his strictness in having ratings arrested (“pinched”) for trivial offences. Golding’s Pincher Martin—quite unlike Taffrail’s

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150 literary names Pincher Martin—is just the sort of man who would have been pinched by his namesake the admiral. Nicknames of British noblemen are often taken from their courtesy titles (used during their father’s lifetime). ThusVictor Pasmore’s pupil George Alexander Eugene Douglas Haig, second Earl Haig (b. 1918) was known as Dawyck (pronounced Doik): his courtesy title until his father’s death in 1928 had been Viscount Dawick.39 A familiar literary example is “Bridey” in Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited (1945) chapter 4. Lord Brideshead is the courtesy title of Sebastian Flyte’s elder brother during the lifetime of their tru- ant father, Lord Marchmain. Nicknames of literary characters are so numerous as to call for sepa- rate treatment.A few examples may stand for many. Shakespeare’s plays are distinguished by their intimate characterization: no other writer of his time makes more use of nicknames.This applies even to his royals. Thus, Prince Henry is Hal; and Henry VI addresses his queen as Meg (2 HenryVI 3.2.26). For the less exalted ranks in MerryWives ofWindsor, nicknames are still more frequent: Mrs Page is Meg; Ford is Frank (an Elizabethan abbreviation of Francis); Falstaff ’s page is Robin—aptly a diminutive of Rob, from Robert; and the Queen of the Fairies is “sweet Nan”. Caius is apt for a gynaecologist: pronounced as a monosyllable it puns on “keys”, slang for “penis”.40 Dickens knew more than Shakespeare about names and their his- tory. But his nicknames and pet names are often too conspicuous for subtlety. Thus the anti-hero of Great Expectations (1860–61) is Philip Pirrip, nicknamed Pip. The uncommon name alerts the reader to notice the familiar form “Pip”. Once meaning “a very small degree”,41 it may indicate a theme of the book: social mobility. Dickens’ own family environment teemed with associative names: his seventh son, Edward Bulwer Lytton Dickens, had the evolving nickname “Plorn”, “the Plornishgenter”, “Plornishmaroon Tigunter”. Nicknames in modern literature are even more often allusive, sometimes quite obscurely so.The ofﬁcial code name of Ian Fleming’s James Bond, for example, probably alludes to Kipling’s story,“.007”.42 Authorial nicknames Writers’ sobriquets go back to the Middle Ages: St Thomas Aquinas (1225–74) was known as Doctor Angelicus and Roger Bacon (c. 1214–94)

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assumed and imposed names 151 was Doctor Mirabilis. But noms de plume (French noms de guerre) used by the writers themselves only became common with the growth of neo- Latin.A chief occasion for Latin pen names was the printed title page: decorum suggested the author’s name should be in the same language as the title. Familiar Continental examples include “Carolus Stepha- nus” for Charles Étienne and “Nolano” (a location name) for Giordano Bruno.43 Many British names were Latinized by translation, rebus, sim- ilarity of sound, or simply by a change of ending: for example “Boethius” (Hector Boece),“Camerarius” (David Chambers), and the ugly “Sevenochensis” (William Painter).44 The circle of John Donne (“Johannes Factus”) included “Christopherus Torrens”; “Henricus Bonum-Annum”; and “Ignatius Architectus”.45 Other British writers followed the French fashion for anagram disguise:“Rolihayton” ( John Taylor), “Ryhen Pameach” (Henry Peacham), and “Salochin Trebon” (Nicholas Breton).46 A slightly wittier sobriquet was “Voy Sire Saluste” for Joshua Sylvester, translator of Saluste Sieur du Bartas. Many Renaissance poets were known by poetic names.These might allude to their inspirational models, and so help fashion a literary per- sona. Thus Pierre de Ronsard could boast the anagram “Rose de Pindare”.47 On the common model of Virgil’s Tityrus, Clément Marot’s “Colin” and “Thenot” shadow poets; John Skelton’s “Collyn Cloute” is an outspoken satirist;48 and Spenser has another Colin Cloute “under whose person the Author selfe is shadowed”.49 (Helen Cooper suggests Colin may have been a type-name for shepherds— like Robin, Marot’s own pen name.50) Other poets followed suit:Tho- mas Watson with “Corydon”, Michael Drayton with “Rowland”, and Alexander Pope with “Alexis”.The pastoral names of Skelton, Marot, and Spenser implied political stances, even literary manifestos. And so, perhaps, did Spenser’s other sobriquet, Immerito. This is usually trans- lated “Undeserving”; but besides the modest Italian adjective Spenser may intend the Latin adverb, as in Terence, Phormio 290—“Unjustly (accused)”. It was common for writers to have two poetic names, one simple and the other grandiloquently periphrastic. So Walter Raleigh was “Water” (punning on Walter) and “The Shepherd of the Ocean” (Spenser’s invention, later adopted by Raleigh himself ).51 Names such as Immerito and Sidney’s Astrophil (“Stella-Lover”) sometimes distanced the poet, establishing a ﬁctive persona to ward off crude biographical inferences. But in other instances the disguise is so transparent that the pen name suggests witty display rather than

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152 literary names concealment. The poet Sydney Dobell reversed himself as “Sydney Yendys”. Much has been made of writers’ fear of the “stigma of print” as a motive for disguising their names. More often, perhaps, their vul- nerability made them welcome the protection a pen name gave. Sup- porting this point is the special fondness of pen names among satirists, from John Marston (“Kinsayder”52),Jean Baptiste Poquelin (“Moliere”), and François-Marie Arouet (“Voltaire”, anagram of “Arouet l[e] j[eune]”) to Thomas Carlyle (“Teufelsdröckh”,“Devil’s dust”).53 Literary groups naturally went in for proliferating nicknames. Dr Johnson called Topham Beauclerk “Beau”, Boswell “Bozzy”, Bennet Langton “Lanky”, and Thomas Sheridan “Sherry”. Johnson himself was “The Great Cham of literature” and “Ursa Major”.54 He also came to be known as “Dictionary Johnson”, on the model of “Scipio Afri- canus”, just as William Melmoth the younger was “Pliny Melmoth”; Richard Glover,“Leonidas Glover”; and Boswell,“Corsica Boswell”.55 In the nineteenth century, male as well as female writers still some- times valued pen names. Although Jane Austen’s literary identity was known to her family circle, she communicated with the publisher Tho- mas Cadell through her father and brother, and wrote to Crosby and Co. as Mrs Ashton Dennis. Like Scott, she enjoyed the pleasures of notorious anonymity. Elizabeth Gaskell ﬁrst published under the name of Cotton Mather Mills, alluding to the satanic cotton mills of Man- chester. She may have felt the need for a male pen name in view of the political stance of Mary Barton: its social protest called for a good deal of documentary evidence. A few decades ago feminist critics taught that women had to take male names to get their novels published. Almost the reverse was true. The publisher William Howlitt told Gaskell it would be advantageous if her works “were known as the works of a lady”.56 Nevertheless she tried, too late, for the pen name Stephen Ber- wick, and in the event the novel was published anonymously. Gender disguises were so common as to be almost the norm.57 Women writers’ modest wish for anonymity may have been one motive; another, surely, was the desire to compete with male writers on equal terms. Charlotte Brontë published Jane Eyre as by Currer Bell. And the Brontës published Poems (1846) as by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell, retaining each their own initials. All three pen names could be taken as masculine. Mary Ann Evans published the ﬁrst of her Scenes of Clerical Life (1857) anonymously, but later used the pen name George Eliot. She explained the “George” as from Lewes’ given name, and

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assumed and imposed names 153 “Eliot” as a “mouth-ﬁlling easily pronounced word”. Ambitious for the “prestige” of anonymity, she was also defensive: to call herself Cross would have announced she was living with a man not her husband. Female names for male writers are less common.58 But John Keats planned to use the pen name Lucy Vaughan for “The Cap and Bells” (left unﬁnished at his death);William Sharp (1855–1905) used the pseu- donym Fiona Macleod;Victor Purcell’s “The Sweeniad”, a T. S. Eliot parody, was published as by “Myra Buttle”; and Charles Hamilton (1876–1961) published his Bessie Bunter stories as “Hilda Richards”. In the nineteenth century, writers’ pen names and nicknames pro- liferated. Sir Walter Scott (1771–1832) had four, corresponding to phases of his career. His poetry made him “The Ariosto of the North” (Byron’s invention); as the author of Waverley he was “The Great Unknown” (James Ballantyne’s invention); later he became “The Great Magician” (JohnWilson’s invention) and “TheWizard of the North”.59 Thackeray, as a satirist, found a need for many names. At ﬁrst he wore a footman’s disguise, “Charles Yellowplush”. For Catherine (1839–40), satirizing the vogue for criminal biographies, he wrote as “Ikey Solo- mons”, a real-life fence (and model of Dickens’ Fagin). For a review of a National Gallery exhibition he became “Michael Angelo Titmarsh”, an alias he used again for The Paris Sketch Book (1840). Among other acknowledged pen names he used Bashi-Bazouk, Folkestone Canter- bury, George Savage Fitz-Boodle, Dr Solomon Pacigico, and Launce- lot Wagstaffe.60 Dickens was more sparing with names. For contractual reasons he might publish anonymously; and he was “Tibbs” for the twelve sketches “Scenes and Characters” in Bell’s Life in London (1835–6). But for other sketches as early as 1834, for The Pickwick Papers (1837), and for the ﬁrst two issues of Oliver Twist (1838) he was “Boz”. Boz originated as “Moses”, a pet name of Dickens’ youngest brother Augustus, whom he called Moses “in honour of the Vicar of Wake- ﬁeld; which being facetiously pronounced through the nose, became Boses, and, being shortened, became Boz. ‘Boz’ was a very familiar household word to me long before I was an author; and so I came to adopt it”.61 Pen names are sometimes selected for their associative value. Samuel Clemens chose “Mark Twain” for its river association, the call of the leadsman. And in Anthony Powell’s Casanova’s Chinese Restaurant (1960) the violinist’s real name“isWilson orWilkinson or Parker [. . .] something

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154 literary names rather practical and healthy like that.A surname felt to ring too much of plain common sense.”62 In the Bloomsbury circle, nicknames were both abundant and poly- morphous. Virginia Woolf was “the Goat”, “Billy [goat]”, and later “Miss Jan”: Every relationship was deﬁned by her animal-name for herself—Sparroy or Wallaby for Violet Dickinson, Billy or Ape for Vanessa, Goat for Thoby and Emma Vaughan, and, later, Mandril or Marmoset for Leonard. And everyone she knew would be reinvented and taken possession of by a nickname:Vanessa was Tawny or Maria or Marmot, or, more lastingly, Dolphin; Thoby was Gribbs or Grim or Cresty or Thobs; Stella (a nickname apparently originating with Julia) was “The Old Cow”. These nicknames would then in turn be nicknamed, and the animals would reproduce by a literary parthenogenesis into yet more beasts. So “Goat” or “the Goat” becomes Goatus Esq, Capra, Il Giotto; Emma Vaughan’s “Toad” would be “dearest Reptile”, or “Todkins, Toadlebinks, or Todelcrancz; the Ape might be the Apes, or Singe, or the Singes.63 Many modern writers have used pen names: notably the “George Orwell” of Eric Arthur Blair (1903–50), the “James Aston” of T. H. White, the “Rebecca West” of Cecily Fairﬁeld, and the “Victoria Lucas” of Sylvia Plath for The Bell Jar (1963). The “Saki” of Hector Hugh Munro (1870–1916) is from the “Minister of Wine” in The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám, or from the name of a species of monkey, an animal congenial to Munro. In the later twentieth century, however, complete anonymity became less feasible: publishers increasingly obliged writers to participate in selling their books. So pen names held less mystery. They were now no more than labels, in John Mullan’s view, and often indicated the less ambitious part of a writer’s output—romances, crime ﬁction, or science ﬁction.64 Julian Barnes uses “Dan Kavanagh” for his detective stories, just as Edith Pargeter uses “Ellis Peters” and Ruth Ren- dell “BarbaraVine”. Mullan ﬁnds nothing shamefaced in this “gesture”, and he may be right. But in the 1950s, when academics and schoolmas- ters used pen names for their detective stories, they certainly wished to keep their popular writing low proﬁle, in case their salaries were held frozen at the “efﬁciency bar”.Thus C. Day Lewis wrote poetry under his own name, but detective stories as “Nicholas Blake”. Bruce Mont- gomery wrote as “Edmund Crispin”; Glyn Daniel as “Dilwyn Rees”; and J. I. M. Stewart as “Michael Innes” (a pen name not used for his more serious novels).Academic authors did not go in for anagrammatic

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assumed and imposed names 155 pen names. But among other writers, anagrams—retaining at least the letters of their own name—seem to have had a strong appeal. Margue- riteYourcenar, for example, was baptized de Crayencour.65 Multiple pen names are convenient for proliﬁc writers as well as those thought scandalous or subversive. Pornography teems with dis- guised names: “Count Palmiro Vicarion” (Christopher Logue); “Mar- cus van Heller” (John Stevenson); “Greta X” and “Angela Pearson” (John Millington-Ward); “Frances Lengel” (Alex Trocchi); “Henry Crannach” (Marilyn Meestie); “Pauline Réage” (Dominique Aury); and “Felix Salten” (Siegmund Salzmann, who wrote both Bambi and the anonymous Joseﬁne Mutzenbacher, the memoir of a prostitute).66 Mullan attributes pornographers’ use of disguises to motives of shame; but they may as often have been motivated by fear. Before (and even after) the Lady Chatterley’s Lover case in 1960, pornographic ﬁction was liable to prosecution. Type-names Names for social, ethnic, or geographical types include: Jack and Jill (low class), Joan, Jenny, and Hodge (rustic), Geordie (northeast Eng- lish), Biddy, Mick, Paddy (Irish), Jock, Jimmy, Mac, Mack (Scottish), Taffy or Davy (Welsh). Occupational names include Sparks (electri- cian), Chips (joiner or carpenter), Bobby (policeman), Charlie (night watchman),Thomas (tapster), and Nan, Nancy, Moll, Doll, Jenny, and Kate (prostitute). Scots “Cuddy”, from Cuthbert, means a donkey or stupid person, as in Shepheardes Calender February.And Robin was once a name for a fool. Such generic, sometimes allusive names may have quite ordinary beginnings. An early instance is Vergil, Eclogue 3, satirizing the jealous minor poets Bavius and Maevius.67 Apparently real-life individuals, these two became proverbially hypercritical. In The Baviad: A Para- phrastic Imitation of the First Satire of Persius (1791, 1793) and The Maeviad (1795), William Gifford (1756–1826) could still use these names in writing against the Della Cruscans, a late-eighteenth-century coterie producing sentimental poetry.(Their leader Robert Merry had adopted the pseudonym “Della Crusca” after the Florentine academy.) A similarly allusive type is “Farmer Giles”, probably alluding (as we saw in chapter 2) to The Maid of the Mill (1765) by Isaac Bickerstaff

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156 literary names (1733–?1808).The name is obsolescent but survives in J. R. R.Tolkien’s Farmer Giles of Ham (1949). Another such type, John Bull the generic Englishman, was popularized by Pope’s friend Dr John Arbuthnot (1667–1735) in his satire Law is a Bottomless Pit (1712), republished as The History of John Bull, and by George Colman the Younger in John Bull (1805). Its meaning, however, shifts according to the writer’s views. Dickens writes “By some he was called ‘a thorough-bred Englishman’, by some ‘a genuine John Bull’” (Barnaby Rudge ch. 47). J. H. Newman’s meaning is sharper:“Anglo-maniacs or John Bullists, as they are popu- larly termed”.68 And in 1904 George Bernard Shaw explores Irish implications in his John Bull’s Other Island, its title probably modelled on Leon Paul Blouet’s John Bull and His Island. As a common ﬁrst name, John has many representative applications. It is generic for a footman, butler or waiter (OED 1 b). In Jonson’s A Tale of a Tub (1633) John is the type-name for an ofﬁcial:“All Consta- bles are truly Johns for the King, | What ere their names are; be they Tony, or Roger”.69 But John can also be a ponce, or a prostitute’s client (OED 1 c, f ). And “Sir John” in the sixteenth century was a disrespect- ful term for a priest. In legal terminology, John is used for legal ﬁc- tions: Ronald Rubinstein dedicates John Citizen and the Law (1948) to John Doe and Richard Roe.70 Similarly with Jack, a familiar form of John. As early as 1362 Jack was the ordinary, common man, a usage underlying “Iacke the iogelour” in Piers Plowman (A 7.65) and surviving in the idiom “every man Jack” (OED 2c).To Dickens Jack means a serving man or labourer:“Having a chat with the ‘jack’, who [. . .] seems to be wholly incapable of doing anything but lounging about.”71 The generic Jone or Joan (later Jane) as a female equivalent of John is readily documented. In the early Middle Ages Joan (contracted from Old French Jo(h)anne and Latin Joanna) could be a queen’s name; but in the sixteenth century it was applied to female rustics, ordinary or coarse country maids: “many a countrie Jone”; “a homely Joan, a Coarse Ord’nary Woman”;“such a dowdy, such a country Joan”.72 Pro- verbially, Joan was someone at the opposite end of the social spectrum from a lady. So Shakespeare (1595),“Some men must love my Lady, and some Ione”; Shakespeare (1596),“Now can I make any Ione a Lady”; Anthony Munday (1599), “Joan as good as my Lady”; Arthur Dent (1601) and John Day (1606), “Ile teach him to put a difference betwixt Ione and my Ladie”.73 Often the emphasis falls on a common

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assumed and imposed names 157 humanity or sexuality, as in Munday and Henry Chettle (1601), “He is our Ladies Chaplaine, but serves Ione”; Thomas Heywood (1606), “Joan’s as good as this French lady”; John Davies of Hereford (1611), “Ioan in the darke is as good as my lady”; Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher (1616),“When they are drunk, e’ne then, when Jone and my Lady are all one”; Thomas Shelton (1620), “in the night Joan is as good as my lady”; Robert Herrick (1648),“Jone as my Lady is as good i’ th’ dark”; James Howell (1659), “in the dark, Joan is as good as my Lady”; Giovanni Torriano (1666), “Jone is as good as my Lady, in the dark”.74 The stereotype shows up everywhere in character names. In Henry Medwall’s Fulgens and Lucres (1497) Joan is a handmaid to Lucres; in Shakespeare’s 1 Henry VI Joan of Arc is Joan de Pucelle, and Talbot puns on pucelle/puzzel (“maid”, “whore”); in Robert Greene’s Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay (1594) Joan is “a Country Wench”; in Jonson’s Bartholomew Fair (1614) Joane Trash is a gingerbread woman; in Hey- wood’s A Woman Killed with Kindness (1607) Joan Miniver is a country wench; and in William Cartwright’s The Ordinary (1634–5) Joane Pot- lucke is a vintner’s widow, vulgarly genteel. The name was not fully rehabilitated until the twentieth century—as a result, apparently, of Shaw’s St Joan (1924). Slave and servant names From ancient times, slaves and servants usually had single names, per- haps with the addition of their master’s name in adjectival or genitive form: Eros Aurelius (“Eros of the Aurelii”), “Walker’s Ned”.75 Booker Washington claimed not to know his own second name (it was Talia- ferro).76 And the slaves’ single names were more often than not used in shortened, familiar forms: Bob,Tom, and the like.These hypocoristic, diminutive, or pet names took intimacy for granted, without at all negating hierarchy. Servile names seem usually to have been arrived at by one or another of two routes: occupational type-names, or the arbi- trary names often assigned to slaves. By the seventeenth century the class implication of type-names was fairly distinct: William Gouge observed in 1622 that, for gentles, diminutives such as Jack were “unseemly: servants are usually so called”.77 Laurie Maguire, exploring the links between familiar forms

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158 literary names and female domesticity, concludes that “Kate” was “downmarket”.78 That may be too sweeping: allowance needs to be made for the inti- macy of the early modern household. Besides, servant status did not necessarily imply a low rank. Many retainers were gentle: some had houses and servants of their own.79 Besides, status might be sunk, as in 1 Henry IV 2.4, where Prince Henry is “sworn brother to a leash of drawers, and can call them all by their christen names, as Tom, Dick, and Francis”. Diminutives expressed familiarity: they could sometimes be used within the household regardless of rank. Early-seventeenth-century great households were still predomi- nantly male. Except for a few, such as Anne Clifford Countess of Dor- set’s, the only female servants were likely to be a lady’s maid, laundry maids, and occasionally a kitchen maid.80 Later, as the aristocracy and landed gentry declined ﬁnancially, these proportions changed radically, until female servants eventually made up the larger part of a house- hold. Simultaneously, the spread of paid service meant that servants lost status and even individuality. Regulations for the household of the Earl of Cork at Stalbridge (built 1630), specify that “all the Women Servants under the Degree of Chambermaids be certainly known by their names to the Steward, and not altered or changed upon every Occa- sion without the consent of the Steward”.81 In 1669, Samuel Pepys did not know his new middle maid’s name.82 Simultaneously, the names of servants lost status and became less fashionable. As we have seen, Joan had become a rustic name by the sixteenth century. Except as a servant name, it was replaced in the seventeenth century by Jane. Servants’ names sometimes came to be linked to particular household functions or spheres of activity. Thus the Bedford household had an “Alice-about-the-house” and a “Tho- mas-in-the-kitchen”.83 Joan may have been generic for a kitchen maid, as in Shakespeare’s line “While greasy Joan doth keel [cool by stirring] the pot.84 And a type-name for messengers was “How’d’ye” or “Howd’ee”, from the use of the greeting for the message itself.85 More bluntly, the function could be used as a name, as in the sum- mons “Page!” (any page would do). Several characters use this sum- mons successfully in George Etherege’s The Man of Mode (1676).The practice disburdened employers’ memories so conveniently that it survived until quite recently—for example in the “Boots” employed in some hotels.86 (Dickens has a Boots in “The Holly-Tree”.) One should not exaggerate the regularity of system. Some type-names

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assumed and imposed names 159 were customary; others reﬂected the preference of a particular employer (as the head of the household should by now perhaps be regarded). The household roster “Jeames”, an obsolete form of “James”, was fashionable until the late eighteenth century, when it became common. Eventually it served as a name for liveried footmen, as in Thackeray’s The Diary of C. Jeames de la Pluche (1846). Lady Clavering’s footman in Pendennis (1848–50) is also Jeames, and so is Lady Pocklington’s huge footman in Our Street (1848)—not to mention the assumed name of the Earl of Bagnigge in Lords and Liveries (1847). In The Virginians (1857–9) the footman’s doomed race is “passing out of the world where they once walked in glory”. Even so, in 1875 James Grant still writes of “a tall ‘Jeames’ in plush”.87 “James”, however, without the slightly jocular associations of “Jeames”, is Viscount Castlewood’s coachman in Henry Esmond (1852),88 a novel often credited with establishing James as the typical coachman’s name. But that may not be right: Austen uses James for a groom or coachman three times. Exactly when James became the name for a coachman is uncertain. In 1641 the Earl of Bedford’s coachman was Rolles for example, and in 1653 Whitelocke’s coachmen were Edward Ellis and Robert Ash.89 The type-name has outlasted the coach itself in the idiom “Home, James, and don’t spare the horses [more recently ‘horse power’]”, from Fred Hillebrand’s 1934 song. Even in the coaching era, the typecasting of James was never uni- form. None of Dickens’ ten coachmen is a James.To infer that Dickens’ servants are more individualized than Thackeray’s, though, would be unfair:Thackeray uses naming in many different ways—including sat- ire of arbitrary naming. In any case Thackeray too rings the changes: his footmen can be Charles or Jack or John.90 Carey calls “Yellow- plush” stereotypic; but as a surrogate of Thackeray himselfYellowplush is much more. A servant who knows all that goes on, he ﬁgures an amusingly avoided, yet utilized, omniscient author.91 At ﬁrst butlers and stewards (often superior individuals) went by their full names. In 1613 Anne Clifford’s steward was Edward Legge. The Earl of Kent’s steward was John Selden the jurist. Selden was

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160 literary names perhaps the Countess’ lover and secret husband, certainly her heir. Bul- strode Whitelocke’s swanky travelling household in 1653 included two butlers,Thomas Thoroughton and Christopher Hen; his steward, John Walker, was a barrister. In 1681 the Earl of Bedford’s steward was Ran- dolph Bingley. Later, butlers and housekeepers were both regularly called by their surnames (a mark of status rather than distance). In the 1660s the resident housekeeper at Bedford House was “Mrs Bruce”. In ﬁction, the formidable Mansﬁeld Park butler, for example, is “Badde- ley”.92 Sir Leicester Dedlock’s housekeeper in Bleak House (1852–3) is “Mrs Rouncewell”. And the housekeeper in Thackeray’s Bluebeard’s Ghost (1843) is Mrs Baggs.To upper servants Austen gives convincingly plain names (Bingley’s housekeeper is “Nicholls”, the Bennets’ “Mrs Hill”, and the housekeeper of Pemberley “Mrs Reynolds”);93 although several servants in her real-life circle had unusual names (Sackree, Richis, Bigion).94 Exceptionally, the butler in The Alchemist (1610), Face’s persona, goes by Jeremy—perhaps as the familiar ﬁrst name of an accomplice, perhaps as a frequent Puritan name.The butler to the Pendennis family, too, is simply John. Among female names, Abigail was early established as suitable for a waiting-woman or lady’s maid.There was biblical authority at 1 Sam- uel 25: 24–31 and theatrical precedent in the lecherous waiting-woman in The Scornful Lady (1613), Beaumont and Fletcher’s popular play. In the Earl of Bedford’s household “Mistress” Abigail (no surname) was the housekeeper—not yet a housekeeper in the superior sense, since she buys, or sews, shirts for the pages.95 “Abigail” could be used as a common noun: in Congreve’s The Old Bachelor (1693) the pimp Setter says “Thou art some forsaken Abigail we have dallied with heretofore” (3.1.192); and Smollett’s Humphrey Clinker (1771) has “an antiquated Abigail, dressed in her lady’s cast clothes”. In 1849, Bulwer Lytton could still write “the woman was dressed with a quiet neatness that seemed to stamp her profession as that of an Abigail—black cloak with long cape, of that peculiar silk which seems spun on purpose for ladies’ maids”.96 Sally Lunn was a famous pastry cook in Bath in the eighteenth cen- tury; but in the next century the name lost status.Among the hundred or so servants in her novels, Austen uses Sally for a lower servant four times. “Old Sally” was a workhouse nurse in Oliver Twist (1838), and Sally in our alley was the daughter of a cabbage-net maker and a shoelace seller.97 In the same way Betsy, fashionable in the eighteenth

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assumed and imposed names 161 century,98 became common, and relegated to chamber-maid status, before being rehabilitated in the twentieth century. Austen has Betty or Betsy for a maid or kitchen-maid, and Thackeray as many as eight. Betsy is also Mrs Raddle’s maid in Pickwick Papers (1837) and a prosti- tute in OliverTwist (1837–8).Another common maid-servant name was Mary: a Mary is housemaid to Nupkins in Pickwick Papers (1836–7); to the Copperﬁelds (1850); to Wemmick in Great Expectations (1860–1); and to Mrs Brandon in Thackeray’s Adventures of Philip (1861–2). Servant names sometimes offered the resources of literary allusion and ﬁnessed expectations. Thus, “Valentine” (from valens, “healthy, strong”), a name from romance (Valentine and Orson), was given in Elizabethan drama to knights’ sons, foolish gallants, gentlemen, gentle- men attendants, and servants.99 In a high-proﬁle instance, Jonson’s The Case is Altered (1597), Valentine is Colonnia’s stupid servant, a man without skill at cudgels and given to repeating people’s words.Yet in Love for Love (1695) William Congreve makesValentine the master and his witty valet Jeremy (probably after Jeremy in The Alchemist). This inversion, glancing back at the resourceful slaves of Greek New Com- edy, foreshadows P. G. Wodehouse’s omniscient Jeeves and brainless Bertie Wooster. Arbitrary naming Ambitious gentry keen to make a good showing have generally wished their servants to have impressive, or at least not inappropriate, names. In Tudor times, this might be achieved by attracting retainers of good name: in the seventeenth century, when servants came and went more quickly, it was not so easy. (To have someone like John Selden as stew- ard—a celebrated jurist with a mother of knightly family—was then fortunate indeed.) But there was apparently no thought as yet of assigning names to servants as if they were slaves. There were many slaves in Britain then—more than most history books indicate.100 And since Roman times slaves had been named at their masters’ will—almost necessarily so, since African slaves often had names difﬁcult for Western tongues to learn. Most often slaves were given ordinary English names such as servants had. But sometimes they were called Quashee or Quashie, Ashantee or Fantee Kwasi, the name of a Sunday’s child, extended as a type-name for any black. And

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162 literary names sometimes celebrated Republican names like Brutus and Cassius were imposed. Ancient Roman custom forbade slaves to be named after great captains;101 but this was ignored or ﬂouted in Renaissance Eng- land.“Pompey” in Measure for Measure has been regarded as pretentious classicizing, made comical by juxtaposition with the low surname “Bum”. But the tapster was possibly a black slave. Such high-ﬂown names reﬂected a master’s ambition and gave rise to terribly amusing jokes at the slave’s expense. It would be a long time before William Cowper’s slaver reﬂected “I must no more | Carry Caesars and Pom- peys to Sugar-cane shore”.102 The tradition continued, and is referred to by Derek Walcott in Omeros (1990), where Achille and Hector are descendants of slave ancestors. Shakespeare several times used “Balthasar” for an attendant:103 an exotic name that would have had special aptness for a black. In iconography from the late Middle Ages to the baroque the second Magus, Balthasar, was commonly repre- sented as African.104 Similarly, perhaps, with other ostentatious servant names. The connection between slave and servant naming comes out clearly in Robinson Crusoe.When Crusoe saw a savage pursued by can- nibals, “it came now very warmly upon my Thoughts [. . .] that now was my Time to get me a Servant, and perhaps a Companion, or Assist- ant; and that I was call’d plainly by Providence to save this poor Crea- ture’s Life”.When, however, the rescued savage abased himself, this is taken as a “Token of swearing to be my Slave for ever”. Servant, or slave? This ambiguity continues in the naming: “his Name should be Friday, which was the Day I sav’d his Life; I call’d him so for the Memory of the Time; I likewise taught him to say Master, and then let him know, that was to be my Name”.105 Friday, the day of his libera- tion and salvation, is the ﬁrst day of his new life of service (religious overtones can be heard).“Friday” suggests arbitrary naming, and has a jocular ring to the European reader. Crusoe may also have been aware, however, of the West African custom of giving “day-names”, whereby “Friday” was a serious name, quite “suitable” for a servant.106 Defoe’s names have historical implications that anticipate more recent ﬁction. A novelist who outstandingly realizes the literary pos- sibilities of slave naming is Toni Morrison. In Beloved: A Novel (1987), for example, she uses names in a special way to allude to the characters’ racial history. Cynthia Lyles-Scott gives a telling instance:“the D at the end of Paul’s name denotes his being fourth in a succession of male

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assumed and imposed names 163 slaves all named Paul. [. . .] the characters’ names are as much a part of the novel as is the plot”.107 She cites Genevieve Fabre:“Names are an essential part of the legacy (of black people) [. . .] Blacks receive dead patronyms from whites [. . .] names are disguises, jokes, or brand names—from yearnings, gestures, ﬂaws, events, mistakes, weaknesses. Names endure like marks or have secrets they do not easily yield”.108 Servant names During the seventeenth century, in a largely new development, names began to be imposed on servants almost as if they were slaves. For nearly three centuries this custom prevailed: servants might have to relinquish their own names and take instead those associated with their household ofﬁce.They made a sort of altruistic identiﬁcation with the family, in particular with a predecessor in ofﬁce.The existence of arbi- trary naming offers strong evidence in support of Ragussis’ “family plot” theory. The arbitrary names imposed on successive incumbents overwrote individual identity, just as happened with children. Indeed, seventeenth-century servants often were relatives, as with Pepys’ sister. Exactly when arbitrary naming began is hard to determine. The names themselves are but equivocal evidence. In 1653, for example, Bulstrode Whitelocke had a postilion called Aurelius (“Golden”) Newman.The Roman name is clearly an example of fashionable clas- sicizing.109 But was it a nickname, a name given at baptism, or a name imposed on a black slave? Or is this an early instance of arbitrary serv- ant naming? I have found few signs of the practice before the Restora- tion.There is no obvious evidence of it in Bedford household records, for example, although the accounts are full and list many servants’ names, including those of seven or eight women. Arbitrary naming seems to be topical in 1676, the probable date of the ﬁrst performance of Etherege’s The Man of Mode. Sir Fopling Flut- ter does not know (or pretends not to know) the name of his only English footman, and this exchange follows: mrs loveit. What’s your name? footman. John Trott, madam! sir fopling. Oh unsufferable! Trott,Trott,Trott! there’s nothing so barbarous as the names of our English servants.What countryman are you sirrah?

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164 literary names footman. Hampshire, sir? sir fopling. Then Hampshire be your name. Hey, Hampshire! (The Man of Mode, 3.3.304–11) Etherege’s precise target here is not immediately obvious. Servants in Sir Fopling’s social circle seem to be treated as mere instruments and summoned accordingly by a call of “Page!” But replacing “Trott” (the ordinary occupational name for a messenger) by “Hampshire” is pre- sented as a particular affectation. Sir Fopling’s other footmen are all French, with French names—“Champagne, Norman, La Rose, La Fleur, La Tour, LaVerdure”—apparently in imitation of Moliere’s serv- ant names in Les Précieuses Ridicules (1659), Scene 11. Congreve’s com- ment suggests he thought Etherege’s target to be the aping of French customs:“The Ancients us’d to call their Servants by the names of the Countries [counties] from whence they came [. . .] The French to this Day do the same, and call their Footmen Champagne le Picard, le Gascon, le Bourgignon, &c.”110 At any rate, arbitrary naming continued in the eighteenth cen- tury, and was still a target in 1853–5, when Miss Honeyman in The Newcomes “called all her young persons Sally; and a great number of Sallies were consumed at her house”.111 Thackeray’s satire is sharp. Martha Honeyman is charitable, and each “Sally” comes from the workhouse. But the fact that the Sallys do not last long tells against their employer. Henry James seems to give mature consideration to arbitrary nam- ing in “A Bundle of Letters” (1879). There Evelyn Vane writes that “Lady Battledown makes all her governesses take the same name; she gives £5 more a year for the purpose. I forget what it is she calls them; I think it’s Johnson (which to me always suggests a lady’s maid). Gov- ernesses shouldn’t have too pretty a name; they shouldn’t have a nicer name than the family”.112 At ﬁrst this may be taken as yet another instance of James using a traveller as a device to introduce “objective” observations on European mores. But apparently he had in fact newly discovered the institution of arbitrary naming. For in the very same year he explains to his sister Alice (as a new discovery) that “it is part of the British code that you can call a servant any name you like, and many people have a ﬁxed name for their butler, which all the succes- sive occupants of the place are obliged to assume, so that the family needn’t change its habits”.113

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assumed and imposed names 165 James relates here the very conversation from which he divined the code (perhaps not current then in the parts of the USA he knew well): When she [the chamber-maid] came I said—“You had better tell me your name, please.” She. “Well sir, it might be Maria.”“It might be?”“Well, sir, they calls me Maria.”“Isn’t it your name?”“My name is Annie, sir, but Missus (Miss Balls) says that’s too familiar.” So I have compromised and call her Annie- Maria.” Apparently in Miss Balls’ view, servants’ names should not risk suggest- ing the degree of intimacy that had obtained in, say, Elizabethan times. By the end of the nineteenth century more than Henry James were feeling the oppressiveness of the code. Lady Battledown’s £5 suggests as much; and so does the delicacy shown towards renaming by Evelyn Vane’s parents. Mrs Vane had perfect conﬁdence in the new governess Miss Turnover: “it is only a pity she has such an odd name. Mamma thought of asking her if she would mind taking another when she came; but papa thought she might object.” The problem was solved by leaving the governess behind at Eastbourne. Saki’s story “The Secret Sin of Septimus Brope” (1911) brings out the full enormity of imposing names on servants. When Mrs Riv- ersedge accidentally overhears a servant being called “Florrie”, this sharp exchange follows: “Is your maid called Florence?” “Her name is Florinda.” “What an extraordinary name to give a maid!” “I did not give it to her; she arrived in my service already christened.” “What I mean is,” said Mrs Riversedge,“that when I get maids with unsuitable names I call them Jane; they soon get used to it.” “An excellent plan,” said the aunt of Clovis coldly;“unfortunately I have got used to being called Jane myself. It happens to be my name.” As late as 1920, L. M. Montgomery attempted a sentimentalized ver- sion of the renamed servant in Anne of Avonlea.The lonely Miss Lav- endar Lewis, unable “to pay the wages of a grown-up girl” employs successive sisters of the Bowman family as companions, from the ages of thirteen to sixteen. For convenience she names them Charlotta the First, Second, Third, and Fourth. Perhaps Montgomery means gentle satire of the vaunted democracy of the USA, belied by its dynasties of

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166 literary names wealth. In Canada, by contrast, it is the servants, not the rich, who are named like royalty. Unfortunately the numbering of servant genera- tions also recalls the names imposed on slaves. And Miss Lavendar’s make-believe “tea-parties” cannot make up for the suppression, almost eradication, of the Charlottas’ true names:“they all look so much alike there’s no telling them apart”.114 Later, the memory of imposed names blurs into “aristocratic” stere- otypes. In Frank Richards’ story “My Lord Bunter”, Bunter writes “I’ve got a valet here named James. I usually call him George, because I can’t remember that his name is James . . . I can’t be expected to remember servants’ names, being accustomed to such immense num- bers of them”.115 Notes 1. Odyssey 9.364–7, Homer 1996: 151. 2. Homer 1967: 323–4. 3. Pope’s n. to 9.432, Homer 1967: 323–4. 4. Metis could mean a poet’s craft. Other wordplays include the description of the drunken Polyphemus as krateros,“strong” , punning on krater,“wine-bowl”. 5. “If anyone asks who blinded you, say it was Odysseus son of Laertes” (Odyssey 9.502–5). 6. See Powell 1991.The case for Homer being literate is put in Rutherford 1996. 7. A perfect anagram, given the usual licence of treating multiple letters as single. Chronograms and anagrams were used by Euripides in the ﬁfth century bc: see Mar- goliouth 1915. 8. Fit the Third, line 55, Carroll 1939: 687. 9. Bliss 2008: 105; see Parker 1979: Index s.v. Naming; Cooper 2004: Index s.v. Naming. 10. See Bliss 2008: 23, 36, 48–9. 11. See Bliss 2008: 66;Vinaver 1971: Index s.v. Lancelot. More usually Lancelot du Lac, almost a full name. 12. Chaucer’s Lybeux; see Bliss 2008: 48–9, 115; Cooper 2004: Index s.v. Lybeaus Desconus. 13. See Bliss 2008: 16, 93. 14. See Bliss 2008: 89–90, 179–80; Cooper 2004: Index s.v. King Horn. 15. Spectator 272 (11 January 1712). 16. See Seaton 1961:App. C. 17. Halkett and Laing 1926–34; see Mullan 2007: 5, Starner and Traister 2011. 18. See Mullan 2007: 55. Although “pseudonym” is not recorded before 1833, the adjec- tive “pseudonymous” already warrants deﬁnition (“that has a counterfeit name”) in the 1706 edition of Edward Phillips’ The New World of English Words. Earlier still, pseu- donymal is in Blount’s Glossographia of 1656 and pseudonymus (“he that hath a counter- fayte name”) in Cooper 1578 and pseudonimo in Florio 1611. 19. Mullan 2007: 6. 20. See Mullan 2007: 167–8; Mack 1985: 490, 555.

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assumed and imposed names 167 21. See Ruthven 2001; Mullan 2003; Morton 2011 (“Authorship is always, in some sense, a hoax, an adoption of voices and personalities, sometimes indicated by a pseudonym [...] but always with a little tremor of ambiguity.”) 22. The two are compared in Ehrenpreis 1962–83: 3.240. 23. See Ehrenpreis 1962–83: 3.207–8, 291–4. 24. See Scriblerus 1988: 1–22. For other group pseudonyms, such as Smectymnuus and Cabal, see Wilson 1998: 288. 25. See Ehrenpreis 1962–83: Index s.v. Bickerstaff. 26. See Ehrenpreis 1962: 2.197–209; Mayhew 1964. 27. Ehrenpreis 1962–83: 2.417; cf. 2.279, 407. 28. Bennett and Harte 1997. 29. Kipling 1932: 3–33. 30. Kipling 1932: 11–12, 22. 31. Robson 1964: 277 persuasively brings out how the hoax has a corrupting effect on Manallace. 32. See Libby Purves in TheTimes, 29 August 2006; Valerie Grove, TheTimes, 9 September 2006; and Katsoulis 2010, a lively but not very accurate general account of literary hoaxes. 33. See Charles Bremner, in The Times (9 February 2010) 21. 34. See Nolan and Dawson 2004. The Darkening Ecliptic is reprinted in The Penguin Book of Modern Australian Poetry. 35. Cf. Katsoulis 2010: 327–8 on William Boyd’s confession of remorse for his Nat Tate hoax of 1998. “The subject’s name alone should have rung bells for anyone familiar with the two most famous art galleries in Britain”. 36. See ODECN vii; Crystal 1995: 145, 149, 152, 306;Adams 2009 (a critique of Kripke’s causal theory). 37. See Crystal 2010: 180–1. 38. Spectator 244 (10 December 1711). 39. See Trevor-Roper 2006: 28 n. 4. 40. MWW 2.2.142; 2.1.144; 4.4.71; see Levith 1978: 84; Kökeritz 1966: 20. 41. OED 1. b; cf. Middleton, A Chaste Maid in Cheapside (1611) 1.2.63,“He’s but one pip above a serving-man”, not attested after 1693. 42. The Day’s Work (1898). 43. For others see Williams 1954. 44. Others include De Insulis (Lisle); De Fluctibus (Robert Fludd); Junius (PatrickYoung); Benevolus (Edward Benlowes); and Faeni-Lignum (Thomas Heywood). 45. I.e. Christopher Brooke; Henry Goodyear; and Inigo Jones. For others, see Aubrey 1898: 2.50–51. 46. Also ﬁde honor for iohn ford, a perfect anagram. 47. Attributed to Jean Dorat or Daurat (1508–88); see du Bellay 1948: 154 n. 48. See Grifﬁths 2006: 13–14 et passim. 49. E. K., Prefatory Epistle to Gabriell Harvey before The Shepheardes Calender (1579). 50. For his wordplays on Marot/Maro, identifying with Vergil, see Paterson 1987: 110; Rigolot 1977: 66–7. 51. CCCHA 358; he was also Paulus (“Shorty”): see Harington 2009: Index. 52. Probably a rebus-like cryptogram for Mar-stone; see Marston 1961: 265; OED s.v. kinsing. 53. Carlyle Newsletter 9: 31. 54. Coined by Smollett and Boswell’s father Lord Auchinleck respectively; see ODECN. 55. See Boswell 1934: 1.385. William Melmoth (1710–99) is not to be confused with Courtney Melmoth (the pseudonym of Samuel Jackson Pratt), nor with Sebastian Melmoth, Oscar Wilde’s pseudonym after 1895 (Charles Maturin, author of Melmoth the Wanderer, was Wilde’s great-uncle).

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168 literary names 56. Mullan 2007: 76. 57. See Mullan 2007: chs 2–4. 58. But see correspondence in TLS (2 March 2007) 17. 59. See ODECN. 60. Mullan 2007: 248–50. 61. Pierce and Wheeler 1878: 1; Moses is Dr Primrose’s son in Goldsmith’s The Vicar of Wakeﬁeld. 62. Wilson 1998: 289. 63. Lee 1996: 111. 64. Mullan 2007: 287–8. 65. See Harrison 2009: 82. 66. See Meeske 1965; Campbell 1992: 17; Kearney 2008. 67. Eclogues 3.90–1:“Qui Bavium non odit, amet tua carmina, Maevi, | atque idem iun- gat vulpes et mulgeat hircos” (“Let him who hates not Bavius love your songs, Mae- vius; and let him also yoke foxes and milk he-goats”); see Knox 1961: 114 citing Richard Sherry, Rhetorike (1555) on theVergilian lines as an example of astysmus; Min- nis and Scott 1988: 39–40. 68. Lectures on the Present Position of Catholics in England (1851) 25. On John Bull generally, see Miles Taylor’s ODNB entry. 69. A Tale of a Tub 4.1.57–8. 70. Rubinstein 1948. 71. OED 4a; Sketches by Boz (1850) 59. Cf. the use of “jack” for various machines. 72. William Warner, Albion’s England 1586, 1606) 14.91; B.E. 1698; Mary Martha Sher- wood, The History of Susan Grey (1801). 73. Love’s Labour’s Lost (1595) 3.1.207; King John (1596) 1.1.184;Wilson 1970: 412;Tilley 1950: J57; see Barton 1990: 60. 74. Tilley 1950: J57. 75. See Wilson 1998: 25, 311. Occasionally two names are found, e.g.“Dido Belle”, a black slave in the Kenwood household: see Musson 2009: 120; Heller 1987. 76. See Hall 1981: 140. 77. Gouge 1622: 283. 78. Maguire 2007: 123–4. 79. See Mertes 1988: 59;Woolgar 1999;Thomson 1937; Hecht 1980; Heal 1990. 80. In 1653, Bulstrode Whitelocke had three laundry maids. Complete lists of servants have survived for several households; see, e.g., Clifford 1923. 81. Musson 2009: 65. 82. Pepys, Diary, 5–6 April 1669. 83. Thomson 1923: 120–1. 84. LLL (1595) 5.2.919. 85. See e.g. Steele, The Funeral 3.2.5; Tatler 245; Brome, Northern Lass. 86. See OED s.v. Boots.The usage perhaps originated in John O’Keefe’s Jack Boots (1798). 87. One of the Six Hundred (1875) ch. 15. 88. 1.4; also a servant in The Book of Snobs (1846–8) and The Newcomes (1853–55) ch. 58; and a waiter at the “Cave of Harmony” and “A Night’s Pleasure” in Sketches andTravels in London (1847–50). See OED, s.v. James; Pierce and Wheeler 1878; Mudge and Sears 1910: xxiii. 89. Thomson 1923: 52;Whitelocke 1990: 296. 90. The Newcomes (1853–5) ch. 10; The Great Hoggarty Diamond (1841) ch. 13; The Book of Snobs (1846–8); and Mrs Perkins’ Ball (1837).Austen too has a manservant called John; see Austen 2010: 253. 91. Vanity Fair, ed. John Carey (2001), p. xv; Mudge and Sears 1910: 298. 92. For a list of respected housekeepers ﬁctional and real, see Musson 2009: 150.

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assumed and imposed names 169 93. Pride and Prejudice (1813) vol. 1, chs. 11 and 13; Mansﬁeld Park (1814) vol. 2, ch. 1. 94. Richis was a Rowling servant; Sackree was Elizabeth’s maid, and Mme Bigeon was Henry’s Eliza’s maid; see Hodge 1972: 47, 91, 100, 199; Le Faye 2004: 200, 248, 259. 95. See Thomson 1923: 119. 96. The Caxtons (1850) 14.6. 97. Carey 1800? Black Sal was a black-face doll popular in nineteenth-century London, named after Black Sal in Pierce Egan’s Life in London (1821), probably the original of our Aunt Sally. 98. E.g. Pope,“Epistle to Cobham” 247,“Betty—give this Cheek a little Red.” For other instances see Pope 1961: 36–7 n. 99. Berger et al. 1998 lists thirteen examples. 100. See Edwards 1990. 101. For the rule, see Camden 1984: 49. 102. “Sweet Meat Has Sour Sauce”, lines 34–5, Cowper 1934: 375. In Tatler 245 (2 November 1710), “a Black-moor Boy” signing himself “Pompey” complains of his treatment.The Earl of Suffolk had a black running footman called “Scipio Africanus”; see Musson 2009: 121. 103. Much Ado 2.3 (attendant); Romeo 5.1 (servant); Merchant 3.4 (servant). See Levith 1978: 80–1; cf. Barton 1990: 96–7. On the presence of blacks in Britain, see Edwards 1990. 104. Schiller 1971: 1.96. 105. Defoe 1972: 202, 206. 106. E.g. in Akan.Thus Koﬁ Annan’s forename means “Boy born on Friday”. See Wilson 1998: 310; Harrison 2006: 53, “Man Friday is taken on as a servant, not a partner. Crusoe also renames him, that most potent form of possession”. An Italian Appeal Court recently ordered parents to name their son Gregorio instead of Venerdi (Friday): see The Times (19 December 2007) p. 34. 107. Lyles-Scott 2008: 23. 108. Fabre 1988: 108–9. 109. See Wilson 1998: 202–4. 110. Etherege 1982: 281. 111. The Newcomes (1853) ch. 9; cf. ch. 15. 112. James 1999: 507. 113. Letter of 26 March 1879, James 1974–84: 2.224–5. 114. Montgomery 1909: 249. 115. Magnet (11 December 1937) 9.

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8 Thackeray, Dickens, and James 8 In the opening chapter of Waverley (1814) Walter Scott expatiates on his hero’s name, writing about its art to conceal it. He has avoided the chivalrous associations of “Howard, Mordaunt, Mortimer, or Stanley”, being too difﬁdent of “unnecessary opposition to precon- ceived associations”.1 So he has chosen for his hero “an uncontami- nated name, bearing with its sound little of good or evil, excepting what the reader shall be hereafter pleased to afﬁx to it”.2 By “uncon- taminated” Scott seems to mean it bears none of the conventional asso- ciations of existing genres of ﬁction. His examples of sentimental romance names—“Belmour, Belville, Belﬁeld and Belgrave”—had many such associations, besides suggesting other similar names. David Garrick has a “Belville” in Country Girl (1766) and Fanny Burney a “Belﬁeld” in Cecilia (1782): these suggest the “Belford” in Clarissa (1748) and Maria Edgeworth’s Belinda (1801). Scott means to inaugurate a new genre, the historical novel, in which the associations of a hero’s name will not be generically determined but supplied by the reader. Unobtrusive naming Nevertheless “Waverley” is notably Cratylic: it already hints at Waver- ley’s wavering allegiance (made explicit in chapter 25) as he decides where honour lies. Its innovation lies elsewhere, in associations of a new sort, associations of historical context.The name had already been used in Charlotte Smith’s Desmond (1792), which Scott himself describes as written while she had “caught the contagion” of violent

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172 literary names revolutionary ideas. Scott’s Waverley makes an analogous mental jour- ney from the Jacobite sympathizers at Waverley Honour, through the Enlightenment progressivism and Protestantism of Lowland associates, to realization of the cost of progress when he visits the ancient feudal society of the Highlands.“Waverley” epitomizes all this, in that its sali- ent association is with Waverley Abbey in Surrey, familiar as the ﬁrst Cistercian house in England.3 This association, one notices, is historical rather than literary. Scott’s inﬂuential example was to turn ﬁctional naming towards similarly unobtrusive associations. Meanwhile Jane Austen was following a similar method of naming, without writing about it.The names in her novels seldom stand out: far from claiming attention, they are almost self-effacing. The majority are Hermogenean in their ordinary plausibility, as we found with her servants’ names in chapter 7. Only a very few, such as “Mr Knightley”, display any- thing like moral Cratylism. Austen was attuned,however,like other novel- ists after Scott, to the possibility of less obvious congruences. In Northanger Abbey (1818),she may have associated GeneralTilney with GeneralTilly the cruel victor of Magdeburg. And she may mean Colonel Brandon to be associated with the Charles Brandon who is an agent of justice in Shake- speare’s Henry VIII. But such ﬂeeting associations are hardly, for her, the focus of attention. A little more substantially, George Eliot returned to history and to Isaac Casaubon (1559–1614) for the name of her dry, over- ambitious scholar in Middlemarch (1871–2).4 Equally uncertain is the nam- ing of Lord Cumnor’s agent “Sheepshanks” in Elizabeth Gaskell’s Wives and Daughters (1866). It might be thought the duty of Sheepshanks to take up slack in the indulgent Cumnor’s dealings; which would make his name Cratylic. For that is what a sheepshank knot does. Perhaps. But Sheep- shanks happens also to be the family name of the Earls of Southdown in Vanity Fair (1847–8).In such instances,one almost hankers after the simpler aptness of Smollett’s “Bramble” for the prickly protagonist of Humphry Clinker (1771). Anthony Trollope (1815–82) sometimes went back to Fielding for validation of his tag names;5 but he also has names in the newer, unobvious mode.And with Dickens the shift in naming is decisive. Victorian interest in names Many Victorians seem to have had the impulse to explore the history of names. Several substantial articles and even book-length studies

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thackeray, dickens, and james 173 informed a widespread interest in this development. Little progress had been made in onomastics during the two centuries after Camden. Writers such as the antiquary Richard Rowlands (alias Richard Verste- gan) (ﬂ. 1565–1620) supplemented Camden’s lists of names, but often with speculative etymologies less scholarly than his.6 The eighteenth century, however, brought gradual advances in lexicography and stud- ies of contextual associations. In A Classsical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue (1785), Francis Grose (1731?–91) explains eponymous terms like Brown George (“munition bread”), Brown Bess (“ﬁrelock”), and Black Jack (“jug”). Particularly relevant here are studies of slang and thieves’ argot such as those of Grose and John Camden Hotten (1859). They were to prove useful to Victorian novelists as quarries for crimi- nal language and names.7 Nineteenth-century onomastics put less emphasis on etymology and more on putative origins in national mythologies.The most ambi- tious contribution since Camden was Christian Names (1863), a life- long labour of the novelist Charlotte M.Yonge (1823–1901). Drawing on specialists such as the Anglo-Saxon historians Sharon Turner and John Mitchell Kemble,Yonge ranged over a ﬁeld impossibly wide both historically and geographically. She was no very precise scholar, con- ﬂating Martin Luther and Petrus Dasypodius, for example, when she supposes Camden’s etymologies came from “the German author Luther Dasipodius”.8 NeverthelessYonge made a signiﬁcant contribu- tion, especially by relating ﬁrst names to the ethnic literatures in which they had their origins. She begins with the usual glossary listing per- functory meanings. But she goes on to explore the cultural associations of patriarchal, Israelite, Persian, and ancient Greek names, both mytho- logical and abstract. On Roman naming, as might be expected, her treatment is fullest: she explains in detail the system of nomenclature— praenomina, gens names, and cognomina—together with origins in pagan cults and Christian festivals. Under Celtic and Cymric romance she focuses on the names in legends of King Lear and his daughters.Trac- ing stories of Leir and Cordelia through “old ballads”, Shakespeare, and Spenser to Geoffrey of Monmouth, she speculates about possible ori- gins earlier still. Yonge boldly ventures into Celtic, Teutonic, and Scandinavian lit- eratures, taking up anthropological themes of “summer gods and frost powers” in the sagas. A writer’s interests show in her arrangement by genres, distinguishing the heroic Nibelung cycle from the “Karling

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174 literary names romances”. Yonge has most to say about the romances.To take just one example, she relates Astolfo to Orlando, Ottone, Rinaldo, and the Four Sons of Aymon, not forgetting his magic lance in Boiardo nor his visit to the Palace of Lost Things in Ariosto (p. 400). In short, she under- stands “Astolfo” as carrying associations not only with the lexical meaning (“swift wolf ”) but with the literature of romance, with his- torical connections, and with contemporary survivals in the names of modern Lombardy. Similarly, she follows up the Roman gens names through their reapplication as surnames or nicknames “familiar to the readers of Dante” (p. 451). She loves to trace a migrating name such as the Norman-French Drogo,“brought to England by Dru de Baladon” and found again “in Sir Drew Drury, the Keeper of Mary Queen of Scots”. And she detects the consequences of literary fashion:“Romance had some inﬂuence—Orlando, Oliviero, Rinaldo, Ruggiero—and the more remote Lancilotto, Ginevra, Isolda,Tristano, all became popular through literature; and the great manufacture of Italian novels, no doubt, tended to keep others in vogue” (p. 452).The range of Yonge’s interests stands out as almost unique. Most other nineteenth-century writers focused on names that struck them as unusual or “quaint”; or else they had a specialism, like Charles Bardsley in his Curiosities of Puritan Nomenclature (1880). Some of the best general essays on naming appeared in Household Words, the weekly periodical Dickens started in 1850.Thomas Colley Grattan (1792–1864), an Irishman who served as British consul at Boston from 1839 to 1846, met Dickens there and corresponded with him. Grattan’s lead essay, “American Changes of Names”, exposes the frequent practice whereby “the commonest persons” thrust themselves into well-considered families. Grattan cites examples from the records of the Massachusetts legislature, in which undesirable names were modiﬁed; as when Diodate G. Coon became “Diodate Calhoun” (Calhoun being a famous name in politics). Some inventions lacked even the excuse of resembling the discarded name: Caleb C.Woodman quite arbitrarily took the name Emerson Mortimer.9 Grattan also notices the fashion for given names with romantic associations (Sophronia,10 Almira, etc.) as well as the taste for jocular or stupid names (“And”,“Nevertheless”, etc.11). The Rev. James White continued the theme of US name changing in “Family Names” (1857).12 He drew much of his material from Nathaniel Ingersoll Bowditch’s Suffolk Surnames (1857, enlarged 1858),

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thackeray, dickens, and james 175 a gathering of curious, and in some cases grotesque, names such as Aldebarontiphoscofornia, an actual given name.13 Bowditch, son of the celebrated translator, lived in Boston, met Dickens, and sent him copies of his books. In the twentieth century onomastics has developed as a recognized specialism.14 Many historical studies of personal and place names have appeared, together with general essays on literary naming, essays on individual authors, even essays on particular works.15 Henry James Directly and indirectly Henry James beneﬁted from Victorian studies of naming. As William Veeder impressively shows, James’ character names “derive often from the literary tradition”: “‘Roderick’, for example, is highly romantic—with Scott’s gloomy and passionate Rod- erick Dhu, his ‘The Song of Roderick’, Southey’s Roderick, the Last of the Goths, Poe’s Roderick Usher, and Hawthorne’s Roderick Elliston.”16 And “there are at least six names in The Portrait that derive directly from traditions which James knows.” Gilbert Osmond provides a char- acteristic instance. Veeder traces “Osmond” from Osmond, the Great Turk, through Monk Lewis’ The Castle Spectre (with an Osmond, a Gilbert, and a “Portrait of a Lady”); Maria Edgeworth; Charles Brock- den Brown; and Alicia Lefanu’s Lucy Osmond (popular in America); besides Osmond the betrayer of Lucy Leslie in the play of that name. “Gilbert”, similarly, has a lineage extending from Scott to artists such as Gilbert Stuart and the painter Gilbert in The Wide, Wide World.17 To these one might add the well-known architect Gilbert Scott (1811–78). James cultivated an exquisite sense of the associations character names might activate in readers. So as to name his characters appropri- ately, he kept extensive lists of potential names, which can be tracked through his Notebooks.These he collected from many sources, including The Times newspaper.A typical day’s gathering (for 27 July 1891, when he was forty-seven) is as follows: Names.Pickerel–Chafer–Bullet–Whitethorne–Dash–Elsinore (place)–Douce– Doveridge (person or place)–Adney–Twentyman (butler)–Firminger–Wayward (place)–Wayworth–Greyswood (place)–Nona (girl’s name)–Runting–Scruby– Mellifont (a place, or still better, title. Ld. Mellifont)–Undertone (for a

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176 literary names countryhouse)–Gentry–Butterton–Vallance–Ashbury–Alsager–Bosco (person or place)–Isherwood–Loder–Garnet–Antram–Antrim–Cubit–Ambler–Urban (Xtian name)–Windle–Trivet–Middleship–Keep–Vigors–Film–Philmor– Champ–Cramp–Rosewood–Rosin–Littlewood–Esdaile–Galleon–Bray– Nurse–Nourse–Reul–Prestige–Poland–Cornice–Gosselin–Roseabel (Xtian name)–Shor ting–Sire–Airey–Doubleday–Conduit–Tress–Gallup– Farrington–Bland–Arrand–Ferrand–Dominick–Heatherﬁeld–Teagle–Pam– Locket–Brickwood–Boston-Cribb–Trend–Aryles–Hoyle–Flake–Jury–Porches (place)–Morrish–Gole.18 The names (only partly related to current projects) had to satisfy sev- eral requirements: they should be authentic (“of the shade of the real”); they should be slightly unusual (but not too odd); and they should be perceptibly meaningful although not crassly so. James spent much effort collecting names that might never be used, and when used spent more giving them plausible life.The name, for him,“was a character’s foothold on life, and therefore had to come ﬁrst. Seemingly random, a name was the ﬁrst fact from which other details could be elaborated, the germ of all possibilities”.19 James’ notes for The Ivory Tower (1914) give an unparalleled sense of the sort of deliberation he thought it worth recording, about the con- nections of a single name: My Girl, in the relinquished thing, was Cissy Foy; and this was all right for the ﬁgure there intended, but the girl here is a very different one, and eve- rything is altered. I want her name moreover, her Christian one, to be Moyra, and must have some bright combination with that; the essence of which is a surname of two syllables and ending in a consonant—also begin- ning with one. I am thinking of Moyra Grabham, the latter excellent thing was in the Times of two or three days ago; its only fault is a little too much meaning, but the sense here wouldn’t be thrown into undue relief, and I don’t want anything pretty or conventionally “pleasing”. Everything of the shade of the real. Remain thus important the big, the heavy Daughter of the billionaire, with her father; in connection with whom I think I give up Betterman.That must stand over, and I want, above all, a single syllable. All the other names have two or three; and this makes an objection to the Shimple, which I originally thought of as about odd and ugly enough without being more so than I want it. But that also will keep, and while I see that I have the monosyllable Hench put down; only put down for another connection.20 Considerations, qualiﬁcations, and counter-qualiﬁcations follow, seem- ingly without any early conclusion in sight:

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thackeray, dickens, and james 177 On the other hand I am not content with Hench, though a monosyllable, for the dear Billionaire girl, in the light of whom it is alone important to consider the question, her father so little mattering after she becomes by his death the great Heiress of the time.And I kind of want to make her Moyra; with which I just spy in the Times a wonderful and admirable “Chown”; which makes me think that Moyra Chown may do. Besides which if I keep Grabham for my “heroine” I feel the Christian name should there be of one syllable. All my others are of two; and I shall presently make the case right for this, ﬁnding the good thing. (Notes for The Ivory Tower, summer 1914) How conscious and momentous naming was for James. Dickens spent perhaps just as much time ﬁnding the right names for his characters; but one cannot imagine him writing about it in terms such as these. Nor Trollope, certainly. James disliked Trollope’s less traditional names, particularly the abstract and “fantastic” ones (although he admired “Mrs Proudie” and “the Duke of Omnium”). He reserved his main animus for names such as Pessimist Anticant, Mr Stickatit, and the two physicians Mr Rerechild and Mr Fillgrave:“it would be better to go back to Bunyan at once”.21 James was ready to accept “Quiver- ful” for the generative rector of Puddingdale in BarchesterTowers. Field- ing’s precedent authorized such humorous names in the case of a minor character: “it matters little so long as he is not brought to the front”. When, however, Quiverful becomes “an important element”, that changes everything: “the primitive character of this satiric note makes the reader unhappy”. Besides, “a Mr. Quiverful with fourteen children [. . .] is too difﬁcult to believe in.We can believe in the name and we can believe in the children; but we cannot manage the combi- nation.” James may be right in judging Trollope to be sometimes heavy-handed and over-casual in his naming.“Quiverful” may not be the best example, however: it is considered and apt through allusion.22 But James rigorously maintained the rule that face cards, regardless of aptness, must be plausibly named. In the main plot every chief charac- ter should be realistically named, even if a few minor characters are amusingly denominated, in what amounts to a comic subplot. James made little allowance for the possibility of allusive names in previous writers: allusion was indeed relatively new and its uptake unreliable. When Fielding annotated Princess Huncamunca’s speech in Tom Thumb the Great 2.4 (“O Tom Thumb! Tom Thumb! Wherefore art thou Tom Thumb?”) he referred the reader to Otway’s Marius (“Oh! Marius, Marius, wherefore art thou Marius?”).23

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178 literary names William Makepeace Thackeray From James’ viewpoint, “Thackeray’s names were perfect; they always had a meaning”; yet “we can imagine, even when they are most ﬁgurative, that they should have been borne by real people”.24 By “ﬁg- urative”, James seems to imply metaphorical aptness; and by “mean- ing”, Cratylic associations.These associations are extraordinarily varied in Thackeray. He makes naming a medium of sustained suggestion, almost an ancillary chain of discourse. Sometimes sound effects are the main thing: when a bell tolls at Tinkleton church the name advances the narrative and adds a soundtrack, besides suggesting a certain trivial- ity.25 Sometimes descriptive details add political implications, as in “Lord Bigwig”, Lord Tapeworm’s father (Vanity Fair, chapter 63). One suggestion is the large wig worn by men of importance; another is “bagwig”, the older style of wig part-enclosed in an ornamental bag.26 Most often Thackeray’s names are Cratylic “moral names”.27 The syco- phantic Hugby “rose by kindness to the aristocracy”; Guttleton is a “dining-out snob”; Captain Guzzard “has a tremendous bass voice”; Guttlebury is a “student who owes money for dinners”; Gruffanuff a “ﬁerce porter”; and Jawkins “a Club Snob, of great conversational powers”.Thackeray excels at names of ﬁrms, such as Gann and Blub- bery the whale-oil ﬁrm. Elsewhere Thackeray epitomizes (or caricatures) social types, such as the upper-class cadre given family surnames as ﬁrst names. Double sur- naming gave him great scope, both for broad humour and for complex associations. Granby Tufto, a great military snob “too incorrigibly idle and dull for any trade but this”, derives his name from “tufts of the university”, that is, undergraduates who wore the gold tassel distin- guishing noblemen and sons of noblemen.28 Superﬁcially, Granby is an obvious key-name for John Manners, Marquis of Granby (1721–70), a Lieutenant-General and a well-known target of the satirist Junius. But “Marquis of Granby” was a title of all the Dukes of Rutland:Thackeray’s real target is more probably Charles Manners the sixth duke (1815–88), MP 1841–7, a strong protectionist, styled Marquis of Granby until 1857. In Bute Crawley (Rector of Crawley-cum-Snailby) and Sir Pitt Craw- ley (parsimonious and grovelling in his tastes),Thackeray hits at other aristocratic politicians. Usually such names have moral implications too, as in “Sir Huddleston Fuddleston” with its hint of inebriation.

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thackeray, dickens, and james 179 Thackeray can sketch social panoramas with impressive economy, almost it seems through the mere deployment of iconic names. One instantly knows Mrs Kewsy is a barrister’s wife, Lady Kicklebury is aggressive,and SirThomas Kicklebury kicks his heels at the gaming tables of Rougetnoirbourg. Thackeray is particularly good at foreign names: Count Towrowski (Book of Snobs); Madam la Comtesse de Schlangenbad (The Newcomes); and the Schlippenschlopps (Fitz-Boodle Papers).Taken at speed, the associations and allusions may pass unnoticed now; but once they would have had immediate effect. If Thackeray had any predecessor in this, it was Shakespeare, who can call up an entire community through a few names of characters who never appear on stage.29 Thackeray’s unpredictable switching from one semantic ﬁeld to another can produce wildly funny results.Yet it can also be subtle, par- ticularly when he brings together associations from very remote regis- ters—nursery rhymes, say, and the African mission ﬁeld. In such instances the mechanism is subliminal: the “Orthodox settlement in Feefawfoo” suggests bloodthirstiness long before one reaches the explicit phrase “most savage of the Cannibal Islands”.30 This ﬂight of fancy, while hardly PC, is too exaggerated to give serious offence. Amusing as they may be, however, such insinuations run the risk of dehumanizing. Perhaps that is what John Carey means when he writes that Thackeray’s “people remained types, often with type-cast charac- ter-names (‘Yellowplush’ for a footman,‘Deuceace’ for a card-sharper, and so on)”.31 More generally,Thackeray’s rapid indirect communica- tion may be achieved at too heavy a cost of ironic distancing: we don’t empathize with his characters as much as with Dickens’. Hyper-conscious naming also runs a different risk. James praised Thackeray’s names because they “always had a meaning”; but not every reader enjoys such relentless signiﬁcation. In our own century, Thackeray’s brilliant naming has been emulated, as we saw in chapter 2, by Martin Amis, who specializes in names with multiple associations. Money (1984), for example, is full of pretentiously named restaurants like Goliath’s or Assisi’s.32 Charles Dickens: background and preparation Throughout his career Dickens showed a keen interest in the history and curiosities of names and nicknames. Already in Pickwick Papers

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180 literary names (1836–7) Samuel Weller remarks that Job Trotter’s name is “only one I know, that ain’t got a nickname to it”.33 Thematic in Great Expecta- tions (1860–1) is the protagonist’s pet name “Pip”, his infant attempt at both his father’s family name Pirrip and his own given name Philip (chapter 1). Herbert Pocket proposes to call him Handel because he doesn’t like the associations of Philip:“we are so harmonious, and you have been a blacksmith [. . .] Would you mind Handel for a familiar name? There’s a charming piece of music by Handel, called the Har- monious Blacksmith” (chapter 22). Dickens keenly observed naming practices of all kinds. He pub- lished in Household Words Grattan’s essay on the American use of “unmeaning” initials for a ﬁrst name.And in Mrs Lirriper’s Legacy (1864, partly by Dickens himself), Rosa Mulholland’s story features a handi- capped orphan called Teecie Ray. On the important topic of how to address family members, Dickens does full justice to the weightiness of naming.How is Mrs Gradgrind to know what to call her son-in-law?— “I shall be worrying myself, morning, noon, and night, to know what I am to call him! [. . .]Whatever I am to call him, Mr Gradgrind, when he is married to Louisa! I must call him something. It’s impossible,” said Mrs Gradgrind, with a mingled sense of politeness and injury,“to be constantly addressing him and never giving him a name. I cannot call him Josiah, for the name is insup- portable to me.You yourself wouldn’t hear of Joe, you very well know. Am I to call my own son-in-law, Mister! Not, I believe, unless the time has arrived when, as an invalid, I am to be trampled upon by my relations”. (Hard Times (1854), ch. 15) The social implications of forms of address and choices of name weigh heavily on her. Choosing names became an especially public procedure in the case of foundlings.Margaret Reynolds describes how this worked at Coram’s Hospital in London: Many parents left their infants with tokens to assist in later recognition and acknowledgement [. . .] each child was given a new name, his or her previous existence wiped out.To begin with the children were named after the illustri- ous living. Not surprisingly, this began to cause problems. So the process set- tled on names drawn from the illustrious dead—Julius Caesar, Edward Plantagenet, Philip Sidney, Oliver Cromwell, Perkin Warbeck. Or they reﬂected aspirational or moral qualities—Diana Thrifty, Judith Bright, Alice Hope, Eliza Meek, Michael Angel. Otherwise the children were given geo- graphical names, presumably alluding to their beginnings in life—Mary

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thackeray, dickens, and james 181 Islington,Thomas Africa, Frances Ladbrooke. Finally the children were given appropriate names drawn from legend and literature. Of these Moses was immensely popular, but so was Aaron, and there was even an Ishmael and an Epaminondas. There was also a Clarissa Harlowe, a Sophia Western, a John Bliﬁl, a George Allworthy, and—perhaps unsurprisingly—there were several named Tom Jones.34 Several contributions to Household Words, some by Dickens himself, address this topic, notably “Received, a Blank Child”.35 Dickens wrote this essay in collaboration with W. H.Wills, a proliﬁc divine he had great affection for. It explains where the names given to foundlings came from, and how, at group baptisms of foundlings,“per- sons of quality” competed in “honouring the children with their names, and being their sponsors”. Hence the early registers of the London Foundling Hospital “swarm with the most aristocratic names in the land”.The peerage having been run through, names of historical celebrities were used.Then, “celebrated real names having, in process of time, been exhausted, the authorities had recourse to novels, and sent into the world, as serving-maids, innumerable Sophia Westerns, Clarissa Harlowes, and Flora MacIvors.” Finally, the governors were reduced to using their own names,“until some of their namesakes on growing up, occasioned inconvenience (and possibly scandal) by claim- ing kith and kin with them.” Accordingly, “the present practice is for the treasurer to issue lists of names for adoption; in which responsible duty he, no doubt, derives considerable comfort from the Post Ofﬁce London Directory”. Besides reﬂecting Dickens’ interest in the class structure of naming , the essay has a particular bearing on Oliver Twist (1837–8).And its focus (p. 464) on the identity of a foundling called Joe suggests the model for a name in Bleak House, the novel Dickens was writing at the time. To Henry James, Dickens seemed an exuberant writer, and so he was. But when it came to choosing character names he was also a writer who relied on long study and preparation. Like many novelists, Dickens needed to determine the names of characters before he could tell their stories. As Harry Stone puts it, Dickens “felt uncomfortable and inhibited, unable to proceed, until he settled on a name—the right name”. “He agonized especially over the names of his chief characters [...]. Two of the names in Martin Chuzzlewit (1843) went through such intricate changes as Pick,Tick, Flick, Flicks, Fleezer, Sweezer, Sweezleden, Sweezlebach, Sweezlewag, Cottletoe, Sweetletoe, Pottletoe, Spottletoe,

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182 literary names Chuzzletoe, Chuzzlebog, Chubblewig, Chuzzlewig, and Chuzzle- wit”.36 He searched always for the “right name”– “the name that con- veyed the outward show and inward mystery of a character or a book, the name which revealed and yet concealed. Part of a name’s magic lay in this latter property, this ability to be open and yet secretive”. In the course of searching for right names, especially during the decade 1855–65, Dickens wrote a great many memoranda of ideas and names for future use. One list of “Available Names” is divided into the cate- gories: “Girls from Privy Council Education Lists”, “Boys”, “More Boys”, and “More Girls”. Another list begins “Toundling. Mood. Guff.Treble. Chilby. Spessifer.Wodder”, and includes the more pro- ductive “Mrs Flinks”, “Twemlow”, “Rokesmith”, “Magwitch”, “Pod- snap”, “Pumblechook”, “Bofﬁn”, “Wilfer”, “Gargery”, “Riderhood”, “Wopsell”, and “Wegg”.37 In such memoranda David Copperﬁeld appears variously as “Master Copperﬁeld”, “Mr Copperﬁeld”, “Copperfull”, “Brooks of Shefﬁeld”, “Young Innocent”, “Trotwood”, “Trot”, “David”, “Davy”, “Mas’r Davy”, “Doady”, “Copperstone”, “Stonebury”, and “Daisy”. Similarly, Stone traces the evolution of Murdstone from Merdle and Murdle. Some of the variants represent failed attempts at “rightness”; others succeed in capturing distinct fac- ets of the character.38 Dickens’ names, like Thackeray’s, sometimes belonged to real people; a well-known Pickwick, for example, kept the famous White Hart Inn at Bath. But often Dickens drew on lists he had extracted from institutional records, ticking them off as he used them. Books probably also contributed to his name-store. Dickens’ Gad- shill library seems not to have includedYonge’s Christian Names; but it may have been in one or another of his earlier collections. Or his notorious prejudice against female novelists may explain the omission: in all his vast correspondence he only once mentions Yonge. James White’s Household Words article on “Family Names” drew heavily on the ﬁrst edition of Nathaniel Ingersoll Bowditch’s Suffolk Surnames (1857), which appeared in the same year.39 Dickens retained both edi- tions of Bowditch’s book in his Gadshill library, and annotated them.40 His own name features in Bowditch’s category “Names from Ejacula- tions” (“What the Dickens” etc.). Suffolk Names had much to offer Dickens, since he shared Bowditch’s taste for unusual, ﬂavoursome names.Dickens enjoyed things“misshapen or strangely shapen,uncom- mon or grotesque”;41 and, as Grattan observed in his 1856 article in

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thackeray, dickens, and james 183 Household Words, American names showed “a curious taste for gro- tesque”.42 Some critics identify as gothic this taste for bizarre names such as “Quilp”.43 Certainly Dickens’ last and most gothic novel has several strikingly medieval names: “Bazzard”, “Jasper”, and “Drood” itself.44 Dickens’ meaningful names Dickens seems to have regarded names as epitomizing individuality. Occasionally he minimizes their signiﬁcance: a child’s funeral can prompt the reﬂection that in the “same church, the pretty boy received all that will soon be left of him on earth—a name” (Dombey and Son, chapter 18). More often, his remarks about names point in the direc- tion of Cratylism.45 Indeed, he sometimes uses obviously meaningful names such as “Swiveller” or the brand new “Veneerings” (suggesting an upwardly mobile family with a veneer of culture) or “Havisham” (combining have and sham). Much of the tenth chapter of Bleak House amounts to an onomastic theory in miniature. Characteristically indirect in structure, it begins with the enshrining of past history in place names.Thus,“a brook ‘as clear as crystal’ once ran right down the middle of Holborn [origi- nally a river name], when Turnstile really was a turnstile, slap away into the meadows”.The law-stationer’s inscription peffer and snagsby has displaced “the time-honoured and not easily to be deciphered legend, peffer, only”.The once-junior but now sole partner Snagsby “stands behind a desk in his dark shop, with a heavy ﬂat ruler, snip- ping and slicing at sheepskin”.“Sheepskin”, the earlier stage of vellum. All things are palimpsests, ancient, overwritten survivals; so that names display the historical process of their own formation. Mrs Snagsby is ﬁrst heard ﬁnding fault with Guster, “a lean young woman from a workhouse (by some supposed to have been christened Augusta)”: “This proper name, so used by Mr Snagsby, has before now sharpened the wit of the Cook’s-Courtiers to remark that it ought to be the name of Mrs Snagsby; seeing that she might with great force and expression be termed a Guster, in compliment to her stormy charac- ter”. Not a Cratylic name for Augusta herself, then: the workhouse authorities would have assigned it by a thoroughly Hermogenean, randomized procedure.46

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184 literary names In the same chapter, the Writer sought by Tulkinghorn is Nemo. “‘Nemo!’ repeats Mr Tulkinghorn.‘Nemo is Latin for no one.’‘It must be English for some one, sir, I think,’ Mr Snagsby submits, with his deferential cough.‘It is a person’s name.’”47 Tulkinghorn has chambers in a former house of state (modelled on 58 Lincoln’s Inn Fields):48 a building with painted ceilings, where Allegory personiﬁed “in Roman helmet and celestial linen, sprawls among balustrades and pillars, ﬂow- ers, clouds, and big-legged boys”. Here, among his many boxes labelled with “transcendent names”, lives Tulkinghorn. His name, as Snagsby says it, gradually forms itself from its separate components, syllable by syllable: “Tul-king-hor n—r ich—in-ﬂu-en-tial”. The chapter pursues allegorical naming through images, such as Vergil’s Rumor,“a rumour ﬂying among them” and “the many tongues of Rumour”.49 Later the topic is reprised in Krook’s naming of Miss Flite’s birds: “Hope, Joy, Youth, Peace, Rest, Life, Dust, Ashes, Waste, Want, Ruin, Despair, Madness, Death, Cunning, Folly, Words, Wigs, Rags, Sheepskin, Plunder, Precedent, Jargon, Gammon, and Spinach” (chapter 14). Miss Flite (Flight?) shrinks from listing the birds herself, perhaps because they epitomize in abstracto the sad experience of Chancery litigants. As Gary Watt explains, the “insatiable chancery suit” is named Jarndyce and Jarndyce because this “is obviously a pun on the sickness and attitude of jaundice”.Watt ﬁnds an allusion to the Grimms’ tale “Jorinda and Jorindel”, where Miss Flite’s birds also ﬁgure.50 If names are signiﬁcant, altering them becomes a serious matter. In Judaeo-Christian tradition, every believer had an individual name in heaven.51 This special name might be revealed or, at some decisive juncture, changed.Thus the name Abram (“High Father”, Genesis 11: 31) was changed to Abraham (“father of many nations”),52 in recogni- tion of his new identity and covenant with God.And in the same way Saul the persecutor of Christians became Paul the Christian Apostle. Renaming became common in medieval Morality plays—a literary device later exploited by Shakespeare, Jonson, and others. By the end of The New Inn (1629) most of the characters have changed names.53 It is almost a generic requirement of romance that the plot should ﬁnd resolution in discovery of a true name (Spenser’s Redcrosse/St George; Shakespeare’s Cesario/Viola). The romance of identity ultimately belongs to a biblical tradition. But Dickens takes it up for his own purposes, renaming characters in

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thackeray, dickens, and james 185 accordance with newly discovered potentialities. In The Old Curiosity Shop (1840–41) the Marchioness takes on a new identity of class and education when she becomes Sophronia Sphynx (chapter 73). And in Bleak House (1852–3) Esther Summers gradually comes to be recog- nized as Esther Hawdon, daughter of Lady Dedlock and Captain Hawdon. Dickens prepares for this recognition scene by multiplying the pet names Jarndyce devises, to postpone it:“Old Woman, and Little Old Woman, and Cobweb, and Mrs Shipton, and Mother Hubbard, and Dame Durden, and so many names of that sort, that my own name soon became quite lost among them”.54 His nicknames for her allude to “ﬁgures who attend to others or foster them, or [. . .] ﬁgures with prophetic ability”.55 Dickens’ theory of naming is not unlike Henry James’; except that he relates his names to real-life originals more often than to previous literature. James, collecting impressions for Princess Casamassima (1886), visited a prison (and hated doing so); Dickens, with a similar purpose, consulted his own lifelong memories. John Dickens had been impris- oned for debt in the Marshalsea in 1824, where his twelve-year-old son visited him and became comfortably familiar with low life. Later, Charles Dickens the journalist interviewed criminals and learnt their argot, ﬁnding in it a source of suggestion for names that concealed yet revealed appropriate associations. Only familiarity with rhyming slang and similar substitutions, for example, enabled him to hit on such a nickname as “Chops” for the lottery-winning dwarf in “Going into Society”. Chops was wrote up as Major Tpschoffki, of the Imperial Bulgraderian Brigade. Nobody couldn’t pronounce the name, and it never was intended anybody should.The public always turned it, as a general rule, into Chopski. In the line he was called Chops; partly on that account, and partly because his real name, if he ever had any real name (which was very dubious), was Stakes.56 Similarly, in Oliver Twist (1837–8), Bet or Betsy, the companion of Bill Sikes’ mistress Nancy, gets her name from “Betty”, slang for a jemmy or a pick-lock.These meanings are given by Francis Grose, Dr John- son, and Pierce Egan, among others, from 1671 onwards; but Dickens would know them without consulting books. “Fagin” was certainly a personal association, for Dickens’ mentor in the blacking warehouse “was Bob Fagin, and I took the liberty of using his name long after- wards in Oliver Twist.57

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186 literary names Thieves’ argot provided an invaluable aid to naming in Oliver Twist, for Dickens’ artistic preferences were such that the more meaningful a character name, the more determinedly he would conceal it. Oliver’s name may serve as an example.The duller sort of readers are content, like Mrs Mann, to believe Bumble’s boast “I inwented it”. Bumble assigned surnames from an alphabetic list,and in Oliver’s case it chanced to be Twist’s turn, rather than Swubble’s.As we have seen, Dickens and Wills gave a full account of how foundlings were named in an article published two years earlier than Oliver Twist. According to Michael Ragussis, the narrator in Oliver Twist disclaims responsibility for a name “found in the arbitrary order of language”—the social system soon replaced “Oliver” with the offensive class name “orphan”. Such nam- ing, Ragussis concludes, lies at the opposite extreme from Cratylism.58 Dickens’ and Wills’ mention of Treasurers’ lists drawn from the Post Ofﬁce London Directory might be taken to support this view. Still, Mrs Mann’s question to Bumble deserves a fuller answer, taking Dick- ens’ naming practices into account. Both of Oliver’s names turn out to be fully Cratylic in their associa- tions. In the slang of the underworld he would soon enter, “twist” meant “appetite” and “hang by the neck”. So when the pangs of “twist” (hunger) make Oliver ask for more, Mr Limkins predicts “that boy will be hung” (will “twist”). To underline the point, Noah Claypole “announced his intention of coming to see him hung”.59 As for his ﬁrst name Oliver, it meant “sky-lantern”, moonlight as a hindrance to crime.60 And, sure enough, when the alarm is raised at the Maylies’, what should Oliver do but drop his eponymous lantern, fatally hinder- ing the burglary. Ragussis would have society bear responsibility through the names it assigns. But Dickens, never a victim historian, makes Oliver resist such determinism. As a romance of identity, Oliver Twist comes to resolution through the discovery of Oliver’s parentage and his true name, Leeford. Renaming follows, with redistribution of wealth from the haves to the secretly entitled have-nots. Our Mutual Friend Many critics of Our Mutual Friend (1864–5) have gone along with Henry James’ view of it as tired writing, “the poorest of Mr Dickens’ works”, “intensely written, so little seen, known, or felt”: its characters

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thackeray, dickens, and james 187 eccentric, “creatures of pure fancy”, “grotesque creatures” who “have nothing in common with mankind at large”.61 Although James’ review was written at the age of twenty-two, his prejudice against Dickens’ allegory continued in later life. Yet Our Mutual Friend remains in its way one of Dickens’ most brilliant novels. Our present interest is in its highly unusual naming. Some charac- ters bear tag names, like the oily Duke of Linseed; others are identiﬁed through thematic associations, such as “Jonathan of the no surname” (chapter 2.3) and “Bofﬁn”, a name that only the initial consonant dis- tinguishes from “Cofﬁn”).When Wrayburn introduced “Mr Dolls” he had “no idea what his name was, knowing the little dressmaker’s to be assumed, but presented him with easy conﬁdence under the ﬁrst appel- lation that his associations suggested”.62 To understand how valuable Dickens’ names are as guides to interpretation, consider his characteri- zation of Wilfer: He was shy, and unwilling to own to the name of Reginald, as being too aspir- ing and self-assertive a name. In his signature he used only the initial R., and imparted what it really stood for, to none but chosen friends, under the seal of conﬁdence. Out of this, the facetious habit had arisen in the neighbourhood surrounding Mincing Lane of making Christian names for him of adjectives and participles beginning with R. Some of these were more or less appropri- ate: as Rusty, Retiring, Ruddy, Round, Ripe, Ridiculous, Ruminative; others derived their point from their want of application: as Raging, Rattling, Roar- ing, Rafﬁsh. But, his popular name was Rumty, which in a moment of inspira- tion had been bestowed upon him by a gentleman of convivial habits connected with the drug market, as the beginning of a social chorus, his lead- ing part in the execution of which had led this gentleman to the Temple of Fame, and of which the whole expressive burden ran:“Rumty iddity, row dow dow, | Sing toodlely, teedlely, bow wow wow.” (Our Mutual Friend, chapter 1.4) The various expansions of the anything-but-meaningless initial R attempt to penetrate Wilfer’s withdrawn nature with little success: Rumty he is not.63 Although in Our Mutual Friend Dickens has moved away from the novel of Thackeray and James, his writing is far from tired: indeed, it seems inventive and experimental. Dickens carries renaming to Jonsonian lengths and beyond, risking a confusion of merely kaleidoscopic effects. Bofﬁn, who has inherited the Harmon estate through default of the heir John Harmon, transfers it to his secretary Rokesmith (really Harmon) and keeps only the elder

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188 literary names Harmon’s house. This house is ironically called “Harmon’s Jail” or “Harmony Jail” (perhaps alluding to New Harmony, the utopian com- munity) because he disagreed with everyone. Mrs Bofﬁn with a differ- ent irony calls it “Bella’s Bower”. The true heir John Harmon comes to be “John Rokesmith” by way of several changes of name.Travelling to England to inherit,he exchanges clothes and identity with a fellow passenger, George Radfoot, to avoid recognition by the lady his father’s will obliges him to marry. On arrival, however, Radfoot drugs Harmon and attempts to drown him in the Thames, before being himself drowned by his accomplice.When Rad- foot’s corpse is identiﬁed as Harmon’s, the way lies clear for Harmon himself to take a new alias, Julius Handford, and then yet another, John Rokesmith. Through the sinister wordplays “Chokesmith” and “Arti- choke”, Dickens glosses “Rokesmith” as death by suffocation.64 Later, Harmon recapitulates for Bella’s enlightenment the entire sequence Harmon–Radfoot–Handford–Rokesmith (chapter 3.15). At The Six Jolly Fellowship-Porters the solicitor Mortimer Light- wood changes Harmon’s name very differently in his half-sleeping fantasy of “having to dine in the Temple with an unknown man who described himself as M.R.F. Eugene Gaffer Harmon” (chapters 1.12, 13). This improbable name combines four elements: (1) “M. R. F.”, his friend Wrayburn’s usual shorthand for “My Respected Father”; (2) “Eugene”,Wrayburn’s ﬁrst name; (3) “Gaffer” for Jesse Hexam, the waterman suspected of murdering Harmon; and (4)“Harmon” himself. Confusions of relationship resolve themselves when imagined like- nesses emerge as full identities.Thus Harmon, perplexed when he tries to recall the circumstances of his near drowning, “became as like that same lost wanted Mr Julius Handford as never man was like another in this world” (chapter 2.13). (Never, because the resemblance springs from identity, not mere likeness.) “Yet in that same moment he was the Secretary also, Mr Bofﬁn’s Secretary. For John Rokesmith, too, was as like that same lost wanted Mr Julius Handford as never man was like another in this world”. Identity not of this world has a religious sound; and so has Rokesmith’s demand that Bella should “put perfect faith” in him, even when he turns out to be the very Julius Handford suspected of murdering Harmon (chapter 3.12).Throughout Our Mutual Friend renaming draws so much attention to itself that it could be said to incorporate the entire allegory. It is as if Dickens were reaching for a neo-Spenserian version of allegorical romance: a retrospective mode

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thackeray, dickens, and james 189 of ﬁction, manneristic in its authorial interventions. Each renaming brings Harmon a further abasement. The Radfoot role (assumed to deceive Bella) leads to the more degraded Handford role (suspected murderer); and that, in turn, to the humble role of Rokesmith, a mere secretary. ThreeVictorian novelists stand out as especially creative in their nam- ing:Thackeray, Dickens, and James. James himself thought Thackeray’s names “perfect” because “they always had a meaning” although the reader can imagine them as “borne by real people”.That is,Thackeray conceals his art, adhering to the canons of James’ own method of com- position: ars est celare artem.Thackeray’s names are natural and plausible, even when they also suggest relevant associations. His main ﬁgures bear relatively low-proﬁle names (“Becky Sharpe”, “Rawdon Craw- ley”): only his minor satiric ﬁgures bear the self-deﬁning names of charactonyms. By contrast Dickens makes no attempt to hide his art. Indeed he often makes acts of naming explicit, and sometimes explains them in inset essays in his own person—the very device James condemns Trol- lope for, subverting the realistic illusion. Dickens’ names are salient, egregious, gothic icons. A name such as “Pumblechook” makes the reader think it could never occur in real life, even if in fact it did. Dick- ens might satirize the sentimental medievalizing of Mrs Skewton in Dombey and Son, but his own naming is thoroughly exotic, gothic, and romantic. As Chesterton puts it, “Dickens was much more mediaeval in his attacks on mediaevalism than they [the pallid mediaevalists] were in their defences of it.” James has similarly complex interests in naming, which he rigor- ously subdues to the consistency of his art. Gilbert Osmond may have a whole army of medieval and artistic Gilberts behind him; but these associations never become explicit. At times, they seem hardly con- scious. James withdraws, so that readers can have conﬁdence in the ﬁctional reality of the characters, names and all.

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190 literary names Notes 1. E.g.Mortimer Hall (1811);Edward Mortimer [Edward Montague],Montoni,or the Confessions of the Monk of St Penedict.A Romance (1808). See Sadleir 1951, Summers 1938. 2. Scott 1981: 3. 3. Scott 1981: 418–19; see Lascelles 1980: 9–11, 36–41. 4. For the ﬁctional Casaubon’s many resemblances to the historical Casaubon’s biogra- pher Mark Pattison, see John Considine’s ODNB entry. 5. Fielding’s tag names have come to seem less numerous than they did before changes of meaning intervened. Besides obvious instances such as Square and Thwackum there are others. Mrs Slip-slop is a borderline tag name:“slip-slop” perhaps only later came to mean malapropism such as her confusion of “essence” and “incence” (Joseph Andrews ch. 2); see OED s.v. Slip-slop, a., exs. from 1757. 6. Rowlands (R.Verstegan) 1605; Penkethman 1626; Lyford 1655;Anon. 1689. 7. See Coleman 2004. 8. Yonge 1884: v. 9. Grattan 1856: 434. 10. Possibly a source for Sophronia in The Old Curiosity Shop. 11. “Nockemorf ” in Pickwick Papers ch. 38 comes in this category. 12. White 1857: 525–8. 13. White 1857: 527. 14. See, e.g., the journals Names (1953–2008) and Onoma (1950–). 15. For some of these, see Rajec 1978, Barton 1990: 188 n. 13. General studies of naming include Wilson 1998; Ragussis 1986. Dictionaries of names include ONC, ODECN, and Payton 1991. Dictionaries of ﬁctional characters include Freeman 1963, West 1977, Gillespie 1973, Chandler 1992, and Bruce 1999. 16. Veeder 1975: 120; cf. 187 on the associations of “Sloper” in Washington Square. 17. See Veeder 1975: 120–1. 18. James 1987: 60. 19. See Mullan 2006: 277. Plausibility was not without its risks: a person actually called Capadose took offence at James’ “The Liar”. 20. James 1987: 467–8. 21. James 1984: 1344. 22. Ps. 127: 4–5,“As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man; so are children of the youth. Happy is the man who hath his quiver full of them: they shall not be ashamed, but they shall speak with the enemies in the gate”. 23. Gilbert Highet 1962: 265 rightly asks whether Fielding takes the Romeo and Juliet original for granted, or fails to recognize it himself. 24. James 1984: 1344. As critics remark, Thackeray’s names can be unobtrusive: he has many Browns, Joneses, and Smiths. 25. Pendennis ch. 22. 26. OED s.v. Bigwig and Bagwig. 27. The term “moral names” is Geoffrey Tillotson’s; see Thackeray 1963: vi. 28. OED, s.v. Tuft 7 b. 29. Cf. Barton 1990: 104–5. 30. Thackeray 2001: 227. See OED, s.v. Fee faw fum, with quotations from the nursery tale “Jack the giant killer”;King Lear;Dryden’s Amphitryon;a 1711 chapbook;and Macaulay 1854. 31. See Thackeray 2001: xv. 32. Well characterized in Mullan 2006: 275–8. 33. Pickwick Papers ch. 16; see ODECN: xxvii. Did Dickens know that “Trotter” was in fact an occupational nickname?

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thackeray, dickens, and james 191 34. Reynolds 2007: 12–14. On Coram, see ibid. 8–9. 35. Dickens and Wills 1853: 49–53. 36. Stone 1985: 191. 37. Dickens 1981. See John Foster, The Life of Charles Dickens, bk. 9 ch. 7. 38. Stone 1985: 193–8. 39. White 1857: 525–8. 40. The 1857 and enlarged 1848 editions. See Stonehouse 1935: 14–17. 41. Meynell 1917. 42. Grattan 1856: 435. 43. Speculations about “Quilp”—a dog’s name;“quill pen” etc.—are endless. 44. On Jasper as a medieval name, see ODECN. 45. See Clarkson 1999. 46. For real-life originals of “Guster”, see Shatto 1988: 100. 47. For Nobody, cf.“The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices” (HouseholdWords 3 October 1857) by Dickens (as Francis Goodchild) and Wilkie Collins (as Thomas Idle), an account of their north England tour of 1857: “who wanted to see the country? Nobody. And again, who ever did walk? Nobody.” For “Nobody” in Little Dorrit, see e.g. the Plan, Number 8, ch. 26,“Nobody’s state of mind”, Dickens Centenary Cata- logue 1970: 90.White 1857: 528 notices a “Personne (that is, nobody)” who changed his name to Pearson, and compares “the Nemos or Nimmos of Scotland”. Collins’ interest in namelessness is reﬂected in his novel No Name (1862). 48. See Shatto 1988: 101. 49. See Shatto 1988: 99. 50. Watt 2009. The chancery case Dickens probably had in mind was that concerning Peter Thellusson’s will; see Nigel Hall, TLS 11 September 2009. 51. E.g. Rev. 2: 17,“a new name written, which no man knoweth saving he that receiveth it”. Cf. Rev. 3: 1; Luke 10: 20. 52. Gen. 17: 5 Geneva with note,“Not only according to the ﬂeshe, but of a farre greater multitude by faith”. 53. See Barton 1984: 170–93 esp. 179; Barton 1990: 78. 54. See Axton 1966. 55. See Shatto 1988: 83. 56. Christmas Stories (1871). 57. The altered spelling is probably authorial; see Rowland 2011. 58. Ragussis 1987: 36–7. 59. Dickens 1999: 12; cf. 43.The editor Stephen Gill notes over a hundred other examples of thieves’ cant, although not this. See OED, Twist, 18; cf. Farmer and Henley 1974: 7.244–5; Grose 1963 ; Egan 1823. George Cruikshank claimed Dickens overheard a bus conductor mention an Oliver Twist; for this and other real-life possibilities, see Paroissien 1992: 47–8. 60. OED, Oliver, sb3; Farmer and Henley 1974: 7.244–5; Egan 1823. 61. James 1984: 853–5. 62. Chapter 3.10, italics mine. 63. On “rumty” see OED, s.v. Rumti,“commonplace”. 64. For the gallows humour, cf. Robert Louis Stevenson’s June 1864 letter to Henrietta Traquair: “Bryce’s breakfast consisted of an artichoke and oyster (hearty choke and hoister)”, Stevenson 1994: 1.104.

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9 Arrays of Names 8 The so-called Catalogue of Ships in Homer’s Iliad book 2 is one of the most discussed passages of ancient literature; yet until recent decades it has not been much valued by modern scholars. A classic account,T.W.Allen’s monograph of 1926, focused on the archaeologi- cal contexts of its geography, which seemed to need explanation before addressing the catalogue itself.A similar emphasis has persisted in stud- ies by R. Hope Simpson and J. F. Lazenby, G. S. Kirk, Elizabeth Minchin, and others; and in commentaries by Kirk, Peter Jones, and others— without all this leading to reinterpretation of the Catalogue in relation to the Iliad in general.1 Indeed, so many new place-name problems have been encountered that a Russian scholar, L. S. Klejn, has described the Catalogue’s geography as ﬁctitious.2 Homer’s catalogues Cedric Whitman’s Homer and the HeroicTradition (1958) promised a new approach through oral traditions of memorial literature. Whitman’s analysis of the “ring composition” of scenic structures convincingly explains the sequence of parts in book 2: Deceitful dream sent by Zeus Council of chiefs 1 Assembly: deception by Agamemnon 2 Assembly: deception by Odysseus Council of chiefs Sacriﬁce to Zeus and refusal of the prayer.3

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194 literary names Whitman gives a sensitive account of the Catalogue, even if his analysis stops short of a breakthrough: The Catalogue has been most unjustly despised. In its way, it is just as vivid as the famous similes which introduce it. No love is more deeply imbedded in the Greek soul than the love for places in Greece, with their names, the mountains, valleys, nooks, and rivers of the maternal soil. It is more than patriotic; the Catalogue, with its recounting of those place names, their leaders and their legends, has a religious love about it, it is a kind of hymnic invocation. Read aloud, it “seems resistless and inexhaustible, like the movement of an army on the march”: each contingent as it goes by is splendid with the retrospect of home, the continuous surprise of the familiar.At the close of each entry, a stock line gives the number of ships attending the leader, and these lines, varying a little, but all echoing each other, have the incantational validity of a refrain. He compares the structure to that of hymn: “a hymn to a god recounted his deeds; the hymn to an army recounts its constituents”.4 Whitman had little to say, however, about the place of the Catalogue of Ships in the Iliad at large. No progress could be made towards this until the epic catalogue as a genre came to be better understood. Stratis Kyriakidis, for example, found that epic catalogues often have a “centre of density”.This was still very abstract, but it led on to more persuasive accounts. Elizabeth Minchin’s Homer and the Resources of Memory (2001) revises the ethnic geography of the Catalogue in the light of memorial require- ments. Taking up the idea of the geographical order as a periplous or circumnavigation of Greece, she ﬁnds Homer’s review of contingents in geographical sequence suggestive of the “places” in an ars memora- tiva.5 But how does this memorial form relate to the narrative of the Iliad? The same problem arises in Jones’ commentary. At Iliad 2.576, Agamemnon “ﬁnally appears in the catalogue, ninth in the pecking order”. He brings a hundred ships; whereas Odysseus is “a major char- acter, but with only a feeble twelve ships”. On Iliad 2.685 Jones exclaims: “Achilles: at last!” He clearly senses that the Catalogue of Greeks has a structure of its own, distinct from that of the narrative. Perhaps it is not even by Homer? “With Hector heading it up, the Trojan catalogue seems more closely related to the Iliad than the Greek [catalogue is]”.

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arrays of names 195 Comparison with catalogues in modern literature has brought a clearer sense of the structure.6 In particular, the “centre of density” (as Kyriakidis calls it) can be seen as central emphasis.And the item at the centre of a catalogue occupies a place of honour, politically or morally. Critics customarily refer to Iliad 2.494–759 as the Catalogue of Ships. But this convenient shorthand is misleading.What matters in the pas- sage, after all, is not so much ships as leaders: leaders and their contin- gents and the regions (richly evoked) that provide them. In writing “the Catalogue is a simple vision of the Acheaean pano- rama”, Whitman underestimated Homer’s formal sophistication. For the structured array of names may be set out as in Table 9.1. The symmetry of this array is striking.The twenty-nine contingents are drawn up not merely as a muster list, but as an army. Agamemnon and Achilles occupy salient positions; but the most honourable position of all, the central ﬁfteenth place, is reserved for Odysseus, “peer of Zeus in counsel” (Iliad 2.636). The central group represents privileged qualities—legal right (Menelaos, husband of Helen the casus belli), sagacity (Odysseus), and seniority (Nestor)—that offset the ill-directed political power of Agamemnon and the strength of Achilles.The contingents are symmetrically arranged like this: 8|Agamemnon | 5 | Odysseus | 5 |Achilles |8 1–8|Mycenaeans |10–14|Kephallenians |16–20|Myrmidons|22–29 Moreover, the distinct array of forty-four leaders has a similarly bal- anced arrangement: 1–16|Agamemnon |18–25| Odysseus |27–33| Achilles |35–44 16| Agamemnon | 8 | Odysseus | 7 | Achilles |10 – which can also be seen as: 16 | Agamemnon | 16 | Achilles and others. In the ﬁrst part of this array—consisting of thirty-three leaders— Agamemnon holds the sovereign centre place, in accordance with his power. But at Iliad 2.681 (which is generally regarded as marking a division7) there begins another group of eleven leaders, Achilles and others, who challenge Agamemnon. The tally of ships, which scholars have found historically implausi- ble or merely conventional, makes sense in literary terms. The ship numbers have a formal value, in that they repeat and so conﬁrm the

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196 literary names Table 9.1 The Catalogue of Ships Ships Text Contingent Leader(s) 494–510 1. Bœotians 1–5 Peneleos, Leitos, 50 Arkesilaos, 511–516 2. Minyans 6–7 Prothoenor, 30 517–526 3. Phokians 8–9 Klonios 40 527–535 4. Lokrians 10 Askalaphos, Ialmenos 40 536–545 5. Abantes 11 Skhedios, Epistrophos 40 546–556 6. Athenians 12 Aias the Less 50 557–558 7. Salaminians 13 Elephenor 12 559–568 8. Argives etc. 14–16 Menestheus 80 Aias the Greater Diomedes, Sthenelos, Euryalos 569–580 9. Mycenaeans AGAMEMNON 100 (442) 581–590 10. Lakedaimonians 1 Menelaos 60 591–602 11. Pylians 2 Nestor 90 603–614 12. Arcadians 3 Agapenor 60 615–624 13. Epeans 4–7 Amphimakhos, 40 Thalpios, Diores, 625–630 14. Ekhinaians 8 Poluxeinos 40 Meges 1 631–637 15. Kephallenians 2–3 ODYSSEUS 12 (302) 4 638–644 16. Aetolians 5 Thoas 40 645–652 17. Cretans 6–7 Idomeneus, Meriones 80 653–670 18. Rhodians Tlepolemos 9 671–675 19. Sumeans 1 Nireus 3 676–680 20. Kalydnians 2 Pheidippos, Antiphos 30 3 681–694 21. Myrmidons 4–5 ACHILLES 50 6 695–710 22. Phulakians 7–8 Podarkes 40 711–715 23. Pheraians 9 Eumelos 11 10 716–728 24. Meliboians Medon 7 729–733 25. Oekhalians Podaleirios, Makhaon 30 734–737 26. Eurupulians Eurupulos 40 738–747 27. Argissans etc. Polupoites, Leonteus 40 748–755 28. Enienes etc. Gouneus 22 756–759 29. Magnetes Prothous 40 (442)

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arrays of names 197 symmetry of the arrays of leaders and contingents. They form, again, three groups: Up to Agamemnon 442 | Menelaus to Odysseus 302 |Achilles and remainder 442 In 2010, Klejn independently proposed a Catalogue that is informed with a complex symmetry involving geographical and ethnic groupings. But there is little doubt that early modern readers, at least, would have seen the Catalogue more simply as a centralized array of leaders. Alexander Pope (1688–1744) refers to it indeed as a catalogue of dynasties and “princes”, reﬂecting awareness of Macrobius’ comparison of Homer’s and Vergil’s catalogues.8 So the symmetry of leaders that I proposed in 1970 still seems to me the salient pattern.9 Nevertheless, this pattern remains unaddressed by classical scholars. After decades of productive archaeological research, they are understandably more interested in the geography of the Homeric age than in the moral signiﬁcance of the Catalogue. In all probability, however, the central emphasis of Homer’s Cata- logue was still understood in England as late as 1715. George Chapman’s translation of Homer’s Iliads (1598, 1611)10, for example, although making additions, nevertheless retains Homer’s symmetrical design. Moreover, Chapman’s description of Agamemnon implies a central emphasis: and he in triumph then Put on his most resplendent armes, since he did overshine The whole heroique host of Greece in power of that designe. (Homer’s Iliads 2.504–6) Homer has nothing about a triumph: Chapman’s addition shows his awareness of the Catalogue’s symmetry, a regular feature of Renais- sance triumphal forms.11 Pope’s translation also enlarges the geographical and genealogical element of the Catalogue. But again he retains the symmetry, and again he refers to Agamemnon’s triumph: High on the Deck the King of Men appears, And his refulgent Arms in Triumph wears; Proud of his Host, unrival’d in his Reign, In silent Pomp he moves along the Main. (Homer’s Iliad 2.697–700) In case his additions have obscured the Catalogue’s symmetry, Pope makes it explicit by inserting the phrase “in Triumph”. He and his

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198 literary names collaborators have closely studied Homer’s “Catalogue of Greece” (as they call it), for they annotate the geographical descriptions extensively.12 Pope cites Porphyry and Eustathius as evidence that anciently the youth of some nations had to learn the Catalogue of princes by heart. Chaucer and Dryden Much early literature took the form of catalogues, a genre distasteful to many post-Enlightenment critics. Yet it was indispensible in oral literature, and hardly less so in later didactic writing meant to be com- mitted to memory. Kyriakidis has laid the foundation for a history of name catalogues in classical epic.13 The ancient tradition proved useful still in the Middle Ages, as one may infer from the twelfth-century and later lists of curriculum authors surveyed by E. R. Curtius.14 Both Latin and vernacular works generally abounded with catalogues on every scale. Boccaccio’s De Mulieribus Claris (1361–75?) is an ordered series of named exempla,15 and much the same could be said of the Divina Com- media (?1307–20) and the Roman de la Rose (?1270–8). Naturally the degree of order in the catalogues varied. Denton Fox describes Chaucer as “a great master of lists”,16 while Charles Muscatine remarks his “predilection for making lists of things”: In a certain sense the sequence of portraits in Chaucer’s General Prologue (and even the sequence of The Canterbury Tales as a whole) has the form of a cata- logue; it is possible that Chaucer’s liking for this form is related ultimately to the enumerative, processional, paratactic quality that pervades the structure of The Canterbury Tales in large and small.The individual portraits are themselves composed of catalogues of traits.17 One of the better accounts of Chaucer’s catalogues, Stephen Barney’s, emphasizes their origins in oral conventions.18 As Barney observes, characteristic features of the lists—visual realization,“happenings”, and “copious display”—were designed to aid memory.19 He cites Donald Howard’s summary of “the habits of ‘artiﬁcial’ memory—order, asso- ciation, and visualization”.20 Nevertheless, whatever their interest as relics of the age of oral literature, the catalogues have tended to be dismissed as digressive or even dull. C. S. Lewis was unusual in regard- ing them as self-effacing evocations of the narrative’s moral contexts.21

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arrays of names 199 But even this totalizing vindication falls short of doing justice to the catalogues’ communicative functions. Far from being “mere lists”, the best catalogues were structured images of the narrative, and served as supplementary expositions of the theme: in short, they were instances of what modern critics call mis-en-abyme.22 The rich description of Venus’ oratory in Chaucer’s Knight’s Tale presents such a catalogue of qualities, complex enough for its structure to have become unobvious.As Barney observes, it includes both moral personiﬁcations and ﬁgures as abstract as “Thought”.23 First, a mural portrays six experiences “that love’s servantz in this lyf enduren” (1 A 1918–24). Next, the mural sets out an array of ﬁfteen personiﬁed abstractions representing aspects of love: Plesaunce and Hope, Desir, Foolhardynesse, Beautee and Youthe, Bauderie [gaiety], Richesse, Charmes and Force, Lesynges [deceits], Flaterye, Despense [expenditure], Bisynesse [attention], and Jalousye. (The Knight’s Tale 1 A 1925–8) Of these personiﬁcations, Jalousye alone is described in detail: she “wered of yelewe gooldes a garland, | And a cokkow sittynge on hir hand” (lines 1929–30). A further group of six un-personiﬁed “circumstaunces” of love fol- low: feasts, instruments, carol, dances, lust and array [display] (lines 1931–2). Their number is signalled by the conspicuous, self-referring ambiguity “which that I rekned and rekne shal” (lines 1933–4). Next, the dwelling of Venus herself is portrayed “With al the gardyn and the lustynesse” (line 1939). Her mention here thus comes sixteenth in the array of personiﬁcations. Now follow eight more named ﬁgures (lines 1940–6),Venus’“servants” who “caught were in hir las”: 1Ydelnesse her porter | 2 Narcisus | 3 Salomon |4 Ercules |5 Medea |6 Circes |7 Turnus |8 Cresus. These are exemplary ﬁgures, “ensamples oon or two” (line 1953).The Knight next extracts a generalization: six qualities are listed as unable to “holde champartie” withVenus (1947–9): 1 wysdom, 2 rich- esse, 3 beautee, 4 sleighte [craft], 5 strength, 6 hardynesse. Finally he portrays in detail a statue or idol of Venus, with before it her son Cupido. In short, the array of names is a symmetrical structure with central emphasis: 15 personiﬁcations | VENUS |8 servants | 6 personiﬁcations | Cupido

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200 literary names Or: 15 | Venus | 15. The symmetry and central emphasis honouring Venus (line 1937) is clear enough,even if she is mentioned elsewhere,and her statue appears behind Cupid (lines 1955–62), ending and incorporating the whole array.24 Symmetry is not the only means, however, by which the array hon- ours Venus. Unnamed “circumstances” total six both at lines 1920–4 and 1931–2; as do the qualities at lines 1947–9. These repeated sixes remind the reader that Martianus Capella and others assigned this per- fect number to Venus as the product of the ﬁrst male and the ﬁrst female numbers.25 Moreover, the personiﬁcations leading to Venus amount to ﬁfteen, the number of steps or degrees of approach to a throne, and by a familiar symbolism especially signifying ascent to heaven.26 To connect this symbol with a worldlyVenus implies a Chau- cerian irony of the darkest hue. Whatever Venus’ charms, they end in the carnality of Cupido.The only one of her qualities described fully, as we saw, is Jalousye with her cuckoo (1928–30): “the cukkow ever unkynde”.27 The catalogues of murals in the temple of Mars are simpler. Besides, their ordering is blurred by inclusion of unnamed examples and by division into separate scenes. However, nine named qualities stand out, symmetrically disposed about Meschaunce,“amyddes of the temple”: 1 Felonye 2 Ire 3 Drede 4 Contek 5 MESCHAUNCE 6 Woodnesse [madness] 7 Compleint 8 Outhees [outcries] 9 Outrage. As for the oratory of Diana (which has no model in Boccaccio’s Teseide), its catalogue is also simpler than those in the temple of Venus. The array of Diana’s named attendants is as follows: 1 Callisto 2 Daphne 3 Actaeon 4 DIANA 5 Atalanta 6 Meleager 7 Lucina. As with Venus, the number of exemplary ﬁgures is appropriate: seven was associated with Diana and Luna because the moon’s phases last seven days, and because seven is a “virginal” number, having no factors.28

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arrays of names 201 John Dryden’s modernizing refacimento of Chaucer in Palamon and Arcite (1700) is so freely inventive that it raises questions as to how far the structures of the medieval name arrays have been understood. Dryden’s imitation is sometimes close, as with the six experiences of love in The Knight’s Tale, lines 1918–24. The broken sleeps, cold sighs, sacred tears, lamentations, desiring, and oaths become in Palamon and Arcite “broken Slumbers”,“Sighs that smoak’d along theWall” (expand- ing on “cold”), “Complaints”, “hot Desires”, exaggerated “scalding tears that wore a Channel where they fell”. Dryden adds “Prayers that seemed to call for Pity” and enlarges Chaucer’s oaths beyond private “covenants” into “Nuptial Bonds, the Ties | Of love’s Assurance, and a Train of Lies, | That, made in Lust, conclude in Perjuries”.To expose the falsity of ﬁn amor, he enlarges the catalogue from six to eight. Simi- larly, Chaucer’s ﬁfteen personiﬁed aspects become sixteen in Dryden. We may infer that Dryden understood Chaucer’s catalogues well enough, but took a different view of Venus and of marriage from that of Chaucer,“the servant of the servants of love”. In Chaucer, the hero- ism of both Palamon and Arcite is qualiﬁed by irony,29 but Dryden goes further in preferring Palamon’s amorous devotion to Arcite’s mad passion.30 TheVenus Chaucer’s Palamon prays to is a genial, generative force almost as in Lucretius. But Dryden, avoiding the implications of the medieval number symbolism of ascent to a divine throne, substi- tutes catalogues of 8 and 16, suggesting a Renaissance Neoplatonic symbolism of 1:2, the diapason, as the proportion between the rational soul and the concupiscible faculty.31 Moreover, he adds details of occultism, sorcery, and adulterous passion, darkening the associations of Venus and amplifying her need of Diana’s restraint. The Palice of Honour Gavin Douglas (1474–1522) used to be called a “Scottish Chaucerian”, but has long been thought to have followed Chaucer in a very inde- pendent way. The Palice of Honour resembles The Knight’s Tale in relying on arrays of names, although its distinctive structure has a moral emphasis of its own.32 Dream visions generally abound with symmet- rically ordered catalogues of personiﬁcations and exemplary ﬁgures. Such “mere lists” have often been slighted without being very closely examined. But Fox’s account of Douglas is an exception: “The basic

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202 literary names structural device of The Palice of Honour, then, is the list: the different parts of the poem are joined together by simple juxtaposition and these parts are themselves largely made up of catalogues.”33 Fox sees that “Douglas’ catalogues are something more than a medieval vice [. . .] Like Dunbar, who is also addicted to lists, Douglas uses them to group similar or contrasting elements, to balance entities against each other and to freeze them into a comprehensive and rigid rhetorical form” (p. 199). Fox stops short of considering the symmetry of Doug- las’ catalogues, which is unfortunate, since the arrays of The Palice of Honour relate to the narrative, and reward anyone interested in Doug- las’ ideas of honour. When the dreamer comes to Honour’s “riche Castell” he sees Cic- ero strike down three turncoats trying to gain entry: Sinon, Achi- tophell, and Lucius Catiline. Iugurtha and “tressonebill Tryphon” also fall.34 On the wall itself, Lawtie the garitour (“watchman”) is the ﬁrst of the household.Twenty-eight others follow (lines 1784–1825): 1 Lawtie [“Loyalty”]; 2 Patience (porter), 3 Honour (prince); 4 Charity (master of the household), 5 Constance (secretary); 6 Liberalite (treasurer); 7,8 Innocence and Devo- tion (clerks of the closet); 9 Discretion (comptroller); 10,11 Humanity andTrue Relation (ushers); 12–14 Peace, Quiet, Rest (marshals of renown); 15 Temperance (cook); 16 HUMILITIE (carver); 17 VERTUOUS DISCIPLINE (master sewer); 18 Mercie (cupbearer); 19 Conscience (chancellor); 20–23 Science, Prudence, Iustice, Sapience (assessors and auditors); 24–26 Lauborous diligence, Gude warkis, Clene leuing [liv- ing] (out-stewards and caterers); 27 Gude hope (minstrel); 28 Pietie (almoner); 29 Fortitude (lieutenant); 30 Verite (favourite). One might expect Douglas to honour some high-ranking ofﬁce in the central place. And indeed he approaches the centre, like Chaucer in the temple of Venus, by ﬁfteen steps, the number of approach to a throne.35 But the central place is surprisingly assigned, in both the Lon- don and Edinburgh manuscripts, to the two personiﬁcations Humility and Virtuous Discipline. Honour’s porter is Patience, not the Idleness of the Roman de la Rose and Chaucer’s temple of Venus. And the household includes the four Cardinal Virtues and three Theological Virtues.Thus Douglas, as beﬁts the Bishop of Dunkeld, rejects secular views of honour and ensures that in his palace of Honour the ﬁrst shall be last. Behind Chaucer’s and Douglas’ name arrays lie Continental models such as those of Dante, Boccaccio, and Petrarch. Studies by E. H. Wilkins and others show Petrarch’s impact to have operated in three phases:ﬁrst through his Latin works,next the Trionﬁ,and only subsequently

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arrays of names 203 the Canzoniere.The most seminal work, for English and Scottish litera- ture, was his Trionﬁ. Petrarch’s Trionﬁ In the Trionfo della Pudicizia the array of names begins with sixteen virtues.These are not merely listed:Petrarch shows their spatial arrange- ment by many detailed speciﬁcations. Eight virtues go in pairs (teneansi per mano a due a due): 79–84 Onestate e Vergogna Senno e Modestia Abito con Diletto in mezzo ’l core Perseveranza e Gloria Around these (intorno intorno) are four other pairs: 85–90 Bella Accoglienza,Accorgimento Cortesia , Puritate Timor d’infamia, Desio sol d’onore Castità, Beltate. The sixteen (or 42) virtues visibly form a virtuous square.36 Next, Laura subjugates Love and binds him to a column (line 118). Another virtu- ous array, ordered symmetrically, follows: 118–38 1 Laura 2 Love 3 Lucrezia 4 Penelope 5 Verginia 6 Virginio 140–1 142–3 German women 146–7 7 Judith 8 Ippone 148–52 TRIUMPH OF LAURA 152–4 1 Tucia 2 Ersilia 157–93 Sabine Women 3 Dido 4 Piccarda Donati 5 Scipio 6 Spurina 7 Ioseppe 8 Ippolito Or: 8 | LAURA | 8 Lord Morley’s English translation of the Trionﬁ (1554) simpliﬁes Petrarch’s scheme while keeping its central emphasis: Laura follows an array of virtues and precedes another of exemplary ﬁgures.The Scot- tish poet William Fowler (1560–1612), a good Italianist, wrote a more ambitiously faithful translation of the Trionﬁ (dedicated in 1587).37

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204 literary names Table 9.2 The Triumph of Chastity Text Virtues and exemplary ﬁgures 109–10 Honestie; Shamefastnes 113 114 Witt; Modestie 115 116 Delyte; good Behauiour 118 119 Perseverance; Glorye 120 160–67 Entreatie; Goode Advys 178–83 187 Courtesie; Cleneliness 189–91 195–6 Feare of Schame; Desyre of Glore 198–201 203 Chastetie; Beutye 209–56 1 Laura; 2 Cupido 3 Lucretia; 4 Penelope; 5 Virginia; 6 Virginio German dames 7 Juditha; 8 Hippo TRIUMPH OF LAURA OVER LOVE 1 Thucia; 2 Hersilia (Sabine) countrye maids 3 Dido; 4 Picardo Donati; 5 Scipio;6 Spurinna; 7 Hippolite;8 Ioseph Although stylistically immature, Fowler succeeds in making sense of Petrarch’s wittily complex syntax, and arrives at the array shown in Table 9.2. The positions of the virtues are speciﬁed much as in Petrarch. But Fowler introduces military terms appropriate to the martial trope, indicating spatial relations by phrases like “in middle guard” (replacing fuori) and “in arire [rear] guard”. Fowler’s translations of the virtues’ names are well considered.“Entreatie fair” (Bella Accoglienza) recalls the Bel Acœil of the Roman de la Rose. And Senno (“Good Sense”) here becomes simply “Witt”.Whatever ﬁnesses Fowler attempts, he notice- ably adheres to Petrarch’s symmetry and number symbolisms. Milton’s satiric arrays In Paradise Lost, that most retrospective of masterpieces, Milton re- enlivens the traditional name array and gives it new directions. After the Fall, Adam guided by Michael ascends “a hill | Of Paradise the highest” (PL 11.378–9) where he envisions future empires of the world. The name catalogues here have the central emphasis usual with dream

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arrays of names 205 visions—but with a characteristically sharp, satiric difference. For the centres of the arrays are problematic. First comes an array of Asian empires with their rulers’ names or titles. The central position is occupied by “golden Chersonese”, the only empire without a ruler. Flanking this are the “great mogul” and “The Persian”, each with two capital cities, then the “Sinaean kings” with Paquin (Peiping) and the “Russian czar” with Mosco. In the out- ermost positions are pairs of places ruled by the “Cathaian khan” (Cambalu and Samarchand) and “the sultan” (Bizance and Turchestan): RULERS khan | Sinaean king | mogul | –– | Persian | czar | sultan PLACES 2 1 2 CHERSONESE 2 12 In the closely similar array of African empires, introduced by the tran- sitional phrase “nor could his eye not ken” (PL 11.396), the centre is again problematic.The central ﬁfth of nine empires has no incumbent ruler: 1 Negus| 2 King | 3 King |4 King |5 —— |——6 King| 7 King | 8Almanzor| 9 Pope Ercoco Mombasa Quiloa Melind SOFALA Congo Angola Barbary38 Rome “Sofala thought Ophir”, like Chersonese in the Asian array, is the source of Solomon’s gold and refers to the apocalyptic judge “more precious than the gold wedge of Ophir” prophesied in Isaiah 13: 12.39 Thus the vacant thrones imply the absence of just human sovereignty in the corrupt world: they point to the invisible, millenarian sover- eignty of Christ.40 The symmetries of these two arrays correspond to that of Paradise Lost as a whole.41They have also, however, a satiric thrust.The last of the nine African empires is “where Rome was to sway |The world”; so that its placement matches that of Bizance (Byzantium, New Rome) and Turkestan in the previous arrays (PL 11.388–95, 396–406). It thus implies an equivalence between modern Rome andTurkestan, the papal empire and the Saracen. In Milton’s view, true sovereignty lies not in secular power (“sway”), but in Christ’s headship of the “true church”. Anti-Jesuit prejudice may explain Milton’s notorious “error” of treating Cathay and China as two separate empires ruled respectively by “Cathaian khan” and “Sinaean kings” (PL 11.388–90). Milton could claim in this the support of Ortelius’ 1602 Atlas. But the Jesuits Bento de Góis and Martino Martini had since shown conclusively that the

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206 literary names two empires were one and the same, and by 1667 their proof of this was widely accepted.42 T. S. Eliot had his own reasons for wishing to dislodge Paradise Lost from the literary canon: Milton’s authority was a serious obstacle to the modernist movement. Consequently Eliot’s notorious contribu- tion to Essays and Studies in 1936 cannot be regarded as a balanced assessment of Paradise Lost. Motivated by rivalry with Robert Bridges, Eliot strains to compare Milton’s “rhetorical style” to the “later style of Joyce”—while denying “any close parallel” between them. When he writes on the name array in Paradise Lost book 11, Eliot unconvinc- ingly claims to enjoy Milton: I can enjoy the roll of . . . Cambula [sic], seat of Cathaian Can And Samarchand by Oxus,Temir’s throne, To Paquin of Sinaean kings, and thence To Agra and Lahor of great Mogul Down to the golden Chersonese, or where The Persian in Ecbatan sate, or since In Hispahan, or where the Russian Ksar On [sic] Mosco, or the Sultan in Bizance, Turchestan-born . . . and the rest of it, but I feel that this is not serious poetry, not poetry fully occupied about its business, but rather a solemn game.43 What exactly is the “business” of poetry? And didn’t Homer and Mil- ton understand it quite as well as young Eliot? The essayist seems little interested in discovering just what solemn game Milton has played: he never considers the catalogue in detail, never works out its repeated structure (the business, surely, of criticism)—never, indeed, pursues its meaning. Had Eliot done so, he would surely have discovered its mil- lenarian and anti-papal context. He might still have dismissed the pas- sage, but could hardly have denied its seriousness. Other critics and scholars have since gone further down the same road, disparaging not only Milton’s name array but also those of Homer, Chaucer, and Spenser. It seems the ability to enjoy the art of arrays has been lost. Perhaps the catalogue’s games—effortless variety in repetition, digressions into vivid associations, surprises, and secrets—go against the grain of a modernism that is all too “serious”.This is not the same issue as that of Milton’s numerical composition.William B. Hunter, for exam- ple, accepts that the Paradise Lost arrays are structured with central

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arrays of names 207 emphasis,44 but defends Eliot’s position on the ground that explanation after the event can never create appropriate associations in reading.This means in effect that Milton’s epic catalogues can never now be appreci- ated.And Hunter is not alone in this view. Other editors—notably Bar- bara Lewalski and Roy Flannagan—seem to agree with him; for when they annotate the names in the catalogues they ignore the catalogues themselves. In effect they embrace Eliot’s view, preferring not to con- sider the epic catalogue as serious literature.A distinguished exception is Umberto Eco (2009), whose The Inﬁnity of Lists from Homer to Joyce shows keen appreciation of the list as an art form. Pope’s Dunciad Alexander Pope takes up from Milton the satiric application of name arrays. His Dunciad (1728–43) may seem to consist largely of a myriad names: the “dunces”.These are no mere accumulation of writers Pope disapproved of, the enemy “army of midget barbarians” in the Augus- tans’ literary wars (symptoms, in his view, of cultural decline under the Hanoverians). Some of the dunces are included because they had attacked Pope or otherwise become personal enemies. Many were not at all dunces in our sense. “Tibbald” or Lewis Theobald (1688–1744) was a better textual critic than Pope himself; John Dennis was one of the most formidable critics of the age. It is all too easy to accept the poem’s estimates of dunceity. In Pope’s century George Wither was regarded as a feeble poet, a view James Sutherland and Valerie Rum- bold share, in our own. But Wither had been a keen satirist under James I, and later showed himself to be a deep student of the Psalms. Other “dunces” too had their own excellencies, as Pope well knew: his attitudes to them could be ambivalent, even envious. The 1728 Dunciad may at ﬁrst give the impression of an urban throng. It is “crammed with the names of actual persons”45—or at least, half-named persons. Most are designated by an initial letter and a blank, leaving many puzzles to be resolved in the 1729 Variorum Dunciad, which gives most of the names in full.46 The poem seems like some Grub Street Trivia, but with crowds on such a scale as to defy ordered arrangement. In his Chatterton lecture, Emrys Jones identiﬁes a “form- lessness” provoking in Pope both hostility and fascination.47 Chaos, after all, is one of his subjects. Dulness “beholds the Chaos dark and

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208 literary names deep, | Where nameless somethings in their causes sleep”:48 beholds it as a Satan intending further chaos but also as a parodic Christ creating potentialities.49 The impression of formlessness grows with the changes and additions in successive editions of the Dunciad—changes as salient as replacing Tibbald as protagonist by Dennis and Cibber. Perhaps Pope needed a certain looseness of structure to allow room for updat- ing names, whether to keep pace with cultural changes or to respond to shifts in his personal relationships. Subsequent readings modify this initial impression. Topics, rituals, and scraps of narrative emerge: processions, gatherings of books, a sac- riﬁce.This is not to say a fully ordered sequence leaps into view. Nev- ertheless, central emphases assert themselves, even if less boldly than in the medieval and Renaissance arrays discussed earlier. In all the ver- sions of the Dunciad, for example, Dulness is located near the central place of a book or grouping of books. Thus, the line centre of 1728 book 1 is 125–6 of 250; but Tibbald’s address to the goddess begins at 1.133 and he does not formally name her until 1.135. And in the 1729 Variorum Dunciad this becomes line 143 of 260. Or one might consider the centre of the 1728 Dunciad to be the line centre of all three books taken together, that is, 2.210 (the 460th of 920 lines). But the result is little different. Dulness announces the noise-making event at 2.203–4, near the centre but not precisely at it. Did Pope use symmetrical structures merely as scaffolding to be discarded when it had served its purpose? Or did he sense the practice of numerical composition was obsolescent, and aim at a newer, more impressionistic poetic? The changes he made to line numbers, as ver- sion succeeded version, might well suggest as much.50 Static (gothic?) name arrays are abandoned in favour of active processions like those of The Faerie Queene. Critics from Aubrey Williams onward agree that the structural basis of 1728 book 1 is a mayoral procession from Guildhall to Westminster Hall.51 And since the route was also that of coronation processions, Pope’s targets were as much political as literary: the City poets colluding with “Whig tyranny”.52 We may agree in part. Williams convincingly explains the place names as an organizing principle. But references to a procession hardly amount to dynamic narrative: Jones is nearer the mark with his tableau of writers.53 Indeed, Pope entirely omits the mayoral procession itself: it has happened already. “’Twas on the day, when Tho–d, rich and grave, |Like Cimon triumph’d both on land and wave” raises expecta-

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arrays of names 209 tion of a narrative, but none follows. Instead, a single vivid couplet evokes the occasion with images of “glad chains” and “broad banners”, only to announce “the proud scene was o’er” (1.75–6).True, it lives still “in Settle’s numbers, one day more”. But that too is past; for what actually follows is a catalogue of City writers and their dull sources. Pope offers no Spenserian narrative with transitions from one process- ing ﬁgure to the next—“Then came those . . .”;“These after, came . . .”; “Ne thence the Irishe Rivers absent were” (FQ 4.11.36–40). Perhaps such minute narrative had come to seem “dulness”. At any rate, Pope condenses the procession to an array of names, removing several fea- tures of the catalogue—common to Homer, Chaucer, Spenser—until the vestigial narrative becomes one of literary ﬁliations and genealo- gies of imitation: “She saw in N[orto]n all his father shine, | And E[usde]n eke out Bl[ackmore]’s endless line” (1.91–2). Nevertheless Pope retains symmetry and central emphasis, now expressing them exclusively in the sequence of names. At the risk of incurring a charge of dullness, I list the writers in the 1728a Dunciad 1.78–125 in Table 9.3. Table 9.3 The 1728 Dunciad Array Text Name Comment 1.78 Settle 1 1.86 Heywood 2 1.91 Norton Defoe 3 changed to Prynne 1728c-e 1.91 Daniel Defoe 4 1.92 Eusden 5 1.92 Blackmore 6 1.93 Philips 7 1.93 Tate 8 1.94 Dunton 9 changed to Dennis 1728c-e 1.94 Whately 10 1.96 TIBBALD 11 1.111 Ogilby 12 1.112 Newcastle 13 1.116 Wesley 14 changed to Wither 1728c-e 1.116 Watts 15 changed to Quarles 1728c-e 1.116 Blome 16 1.119 Caxton 17 1.119 Wynkyn 18 1.123 de Lyra 19 1.124 Holland 20 1.175 Settle 21

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210 literary names This array of City writers and their sources is framed by double appearances of Elkanah Settle (1648–1724), the time-serving author of City pageants and shows for the Bartholomew Fair. A sometime opponent of Dryden, he was a prominent exclusionist, and organizer of Pope-burnings.54 Within this frame are nineteen names, of which the central eleventh (no surprise) is that of Tibbald, the protagonist: Settle | 9 writers | TIBBALD | 9 writers | Settle. In the 1729 Variorum Dunciad, apart from giving most names in full, Pope made few changes to the array.Norton and Daniel Defoe become Prynne and Daniel; Samuel Wesley is changed to George Wither and Isaac Watts to Francis Quarles.55 More importantly, Dunton and Whately are replaced by John Dennis (1658–1734), a formidable liter- ary critic and a bitter enemy.This reduces the names to eighteen, and puts Dennis and Tibbald at the centre as joint chief dunces: Settle | 7 writers | DENNIS,TIBBALD | 7 writers | Settle. The net result of these changes is to retain the centralized structure. Evidently the central emphasis mattered to Pope. Perhaps Pope found the structure of the 1728 arrays was proving obscure to readers. At any rate, he prefaced the main array in the 1729 Variorum Dunciad with a brief ﬁgure, obviously symmetrical.This minia- ture array, shown in Table 9.4, is easily graspable in rhetorical terms and prepares readers for the more demanding catalogue to follow. Here the symmetry of the array is spelt out almost explicitly. Pope gives the broadest of hints, apostrophizing Swift with the formula “whatever Title please thine ear” to alert the reader to the number of Swift’s avatars, cuing “Settle’s numbers” (1.88), and making much of the centre of the array (1.35–6): “Here stood her Opium, here she nurs’d her Owls, | And destin’d here th’ imperial seat of Fools”. The Table 9.4 The Miniature Array Text Names Comment 1.18 Dean, Drapier, Bickerstaff, Gulliver Swift’s four “titles” 1.19-20 Cervantes, Rabelais two satiric authors 1.32 Poverty, Poetry two shivering sisters 1.38 Curl, Lintot two booksellers 1.44-52 Fortitude,Temperance, Prudence, Justice “Four . . . Virtues”

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arrays of names 211 echo of Paradise Lost in “imperial seat” makes abundantly clear the signiﬁcance this central emphasis is to have. In the 1743 four-book Dunciad, Pope made more radical changes; yet he still preserved the symmetrical structures. Tibbald, although continuing to feature, is displaced as joint chief dunce by Colley Cib- ber (1671–1757), a Whig and enthusiastic supporter of the Hanoverian dynasty. (Tricked into acting a parody of himself in a play written by Gay, Pope, and Arbuthnot, he had not surprisingly retaliated with attacks on Pope.)56 The centre of a very different array is now occupied by two writers: Settle | 7 writers | DENNIS, CIBBER |7 writers | Settle. Dennis and “Bays” (Cibber) now share the dubious honour of chief duncehood. In all the Dunciads, the catalogues of writers amplify their moribund dulness.They are no more than their dead, old, dry-as-dust works and sources: “sav’d by spice, like mummies, many a year” (1728 1.121). To express their lack of wit they do nothing but sleep: “There Caxton slept, with Wynkin at his side”. And to show their substitution of quantity for quality, Pope reduces their characters to the physical qualia of their huge compilations: “One clasp’d in wood, and one in strong cow-hide” and “De Lyra there a dreadful front extends, | And there, the groaning Shelves Philemon bends” (1.123–4). Pope is supposed to have confused Nicholas de Lyra with Nicholas Harpsﬁeld; but perhaps this “error” should be seen as yet another delicious insult, associating Harpsﬁeld with gothic dulness. Does not his very name betray that he plays the same tunes as the dreadful de Lyra? In any event, the dull writers are ﬁgured in the heaped-up, sheepskin-bound works that are all they have to offer. In 1728 and 1729, the top of the heap is Tibbald’s tiny Ajax: he adds only what is found in “a jakes”: crap. Notes 1. Simpson and Lazenby 1970; Kirk 1985;Visser 1997; Minchin 2001; Jones 2003. 2. See, e.g., Simpson and Lazenby 1970: 156; Klejn 2000. 3. Whitman 1958: 261. 4. Whitman 1958: 262. 5. Cf. Simpson and Lazenby 1970: 168. 6. See Fowler 1970; Belknap 2004; Kyriakidis 2007.

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212 literary names 7. E.g. Kirk 1985: 228,“A fresh start is made”. 8. “Observations on the Catalogue”, Pope 1967: 7.173–7. 9. See Fowler 1970: 92. 10. Chapman 1957: 1.504. 11. For other examples of coded language cuing central emphasis, see Fowler 1970: Index, Self-referring passages. 12. Pope 1967: 7.177–85. 13. Kyriakidis 2007. 14. Curtius 1953: 48–51, 247–51. 15. As is Petrarch’s De Viris Illustribus. 16. Fox 1966: 198. 17. Muscatine 1966: 95. 18. Barney 1982. 19. Barney 1982: 200–1. 20. Barney 1982: 301 n. 34. 21. Lewis 1964: 198–200. 22. E.g. Caws 1985: 17, 271 n. 3. 23. See Barney 1982: 200. 24. Cf. Boccaccio, Teseida 7.50–7, where also ﬁfteen personiﬁcations lead to Venus’ tem- ple E ’n mezzo il luogo. 25. Martianus Capella 1977: 280. 26. See Fowler 1997: 173, citing among others Bernard of Clairvaux, Durandus, and Cardinal Bellarmine.The array is Chaucer’s: contrast Boccaccio, Teseida 7. 27. The Parliament of Fowls 358. Cf. Boccaccio, Teseida, 7.59. 28. See Macrobius 1952: 108–15. 29. Reverand 1988: 68. 30. Reverand 1988: 59–60. 31. Pico 1573: 1.79. 32. On Douglas’ debt to Petrarch’s Trionﬁ, e.g., see Jack 1972: 25. 33. Fox 1966: 198. 34. Douglas 2003, readings from the Edinburgh MS. 35. For the ﬁfteen steps, see notes 24 and 26 above. 36. See Fowler 1970: 39. 37. Fowler 1914: 67–76. Jack 1972: 80 describes Fowler’s translation as inexperienced yet inventive. On the virtuous quadrate, see Fowler 1964: Index, Quadrate. 38. The ﬁve kingdoms of Barbary are “Fez and Sus, Maroco and Algiers, and Tremisen” (11.403–4). See further in Milton 1998: 617–20. 39. The just Solomon merits the ﬁfth position among rulers, since the ﬁfth digit was supposed to divide the other digits justly.The “incorruptible” ﬁve in pentagram form is the mystic knot of Solomon; see Fowler 1964: 34; MacQueen 1985: 70. 40. Psalm 45: 9 (“upon thy right hand did stand the queen in gold of Ophir”) was believed to prophesy the majesty of Christ’s millenarian kingdom); cf. Isaiah 13: 12–13,“I will make a man more precious than ﬁne gold; even a man than the golden wedge of Ophir.Therefore I will shake the heavens, and the earth shall remove.” See Loewenstein 1990:117–18 on Adam’s vision of Christ’s secret lordship through the ages. 41. See Milton 1998: 26–9, 617–20. 42. See Chang 1970: 493–8. 43. “A Note on theVerse of John Milton”, rpt. in Eliot 1957: 144. For the details of Eliot’s sordid manoeuvres, see Ricks 2003: 5. Milton was to be ousted to bring down Bridges with his Miltonizing scansion and make room for American ﬂat-liners like Pound and Eliot himself.

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arrays of names 213 44. See Hunter 1984: 58–61. 45. Jones 1980: 615. 46. See Pope 2007: 114. 47. Jones 1980: 620. 48. 1728 Dunciad 1.43–4. 49. Cf. Battestin 1980: 104. 50. See Fowler 1970: 85–8, 121–2. 51. Jones 1980; Brooks-Davies 1985: 108–10; Erskine-Hill 1972: 20; Pope 2007. 52. As Brooks-Davies 1985; cf.Womersley 1968. 53. Jones 1980: 645. 54. See Rumbold in Pope 2007: 415–16. 55. On these changes, already in 1728c–e, see Rumbold in Pope 2007: 31. 56. See Rumbold in Pope 2007: 401–2.

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10 Joyce and Nabokov 8 Few writers after Pope attempted patterned catalogues like those in The Dunciad.The post-Enlightenment poetic shunned such arrays along with the “silent language”1 of acrostics, anagrams, numerical composition—all the invisible architecture represented by schemes of words. As Thomas De Quincey (1785–1859) put it in an ambitious Blackwood’s review, “the rhetorician’s art in its glory and power has silently faded away before the stern tendencies of the age”. He agreed with Richard Whately that Dr Johnson’s style was characterized by “the addition of clauses which add little or nothing to the sense, and which have been compared to the false handles and key-holes with which furniture is decorated”.2 By rhetorical style De Quincey’s edi- tor David Masson took him to mean “rich or ornate style, the art of conscious playing with a subject intellectually and inventively, and of never leaving it till it has been brocaded with the utmost possible amount of subsidiary thought, humour, fancy, ornamentation, and anecdote”.3 The new rhetoric of the nineteenth century by compari- son was more directly declarative, more expressive, more subjective. It pursued “the sense” too seriously to have room for ludic patterns or hidden names. Modernist naming Ludic writing returned with a vengeance in the twentieth century, however, when modernists dissociated themselves in various ways from Victorian ideas of realism. They no longer took for granted old

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216 literary names assumptions about how names should function in narrative.This is not to deny of course that Joyce’s and Nabokov’s naming (for example) had antecedents in earlier ﬁction. Names had long been used to carry meaning, to embody thematic associations. As we have seen, the signiﬁcant names contenting authors from Chaucer to Pope became enriched but also blurred in the ﬁction of Richardson and later of Dickens,Thackeray, and Henry James. Char- acter names gathered complex moral and atmospheric associations; sometimes they pursued the easy appeal of “great names”, sometimes (as in James) the subtleties of literary allusion.Associations could now qual- ify, contest, even override, a name’s explicit meaning.They had become elusive in their subjectivity. As a child, the short story writer Shena Mackay felt “the sound and colour” of “Graham Greene” as “a sort of lovat”; and she felt “Beryl Bainbridge” as brown, not the “green or yel- low gemstone that her parents envisaged when they named her”.4 Modernist naming tended to be unobtrusive: although richly freighted with allusive associations, these were often muted and multi- ple.This cultivation of highly charged names could lead to ambiguity and obscurity.Yet the names are thematic: understanding a modernist work often depends on grasping the force of its names. Robert Louis Stevenson, for example, saw from the ﬁrst the multifarious possibilities of naming. One possibility was allusion. In Treasure Island (1882) the hypocritical Silver may shine brightly but is not true silver:“reprobate silver shall men call them, because the Lord hath rejected them” (Jer. 6: 30). In The Ebb Tide (1894), however, a less obvious symbolism is the order of the day. Does the menacing Attwater stand at the water of baptism? Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886) is even more polyvalent. Readers have continued to ﬁnd new implications in the name Hyde: animal overtones, Jekyll’s attempt to hide his shadow side, the spelling with y that unsuccessfully conceals this concealment. Richly suggestive too is “Utterson”, referring to expression of covert matters, but also to the “uttering” or passing of bad cheques. A signal instance of modernist naming may be seen in Nostromo, the ubiquitous agent of Joseph Conrad’s Nostromo (1904). Nostromo is so serviceable that we come to take his value for granted. When we witness his nocturnal crime, how are we to distance ourselves from it and disown him? After all, he is “our man”. In a broader perspective the rhetoric of the nineteenth century can be seen to have profound consequences for naming in later ﬁction.

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joyce and nabokov 217 Narrative has continued, of course, but no longer as before.Already in George Meredith (1828–1909) the pace of narration was slowing, and giving way to prolonged description or elaborate conversation. Then in late James and in Virginia Woolf the element of story became fur- ther attenuated and (in the latter) merged with lyrical expression of internal experience. Certainly full names—implying as they did a complete social context—were becoming less uniformly expected. By the late twentieth century, indeed, surnames even in real life no longer had quite the same prominence and inevitability. In 1970, Roland Bar- thes announced “what can no longer be written is the Proper Name”.5 Several writers, among them Franz Kafka and Thomas Pynchon, used truncated names (“K”, “V”) without the social implications of a full name.6 David Porush perhaps goes a little far in identifying this formal development as a paranoid response to societies so corrupt as to threaten apocalypse. But he is credible enough when he compares the Russian formalist poetic of “transﬁction” with its confrontation of lit- erary devices in order to shatter the realist illusion of “totalizing novel(s)”.Unfortunately,the strategy of subverting full names descended all too readily into disintegration and nihilism; as when John Barth’s “Bonaparte Bray” believes his books to be plagiarized by—John Barth.7 Nevertheless the change in naming had universal, less deliberately engineered effects on mainstream ﬁction. Not all writers might think disintegration a valid response to the plausible full names of the past. Not all sought to escape the prison house of Victorian realism. But all found difﬁculties with naming. As the literary canon enlarged, allu- sions proliferated and literary associations became unpredictably mul- tifarious, until they threatened to elude the writer’s control.The new complexity of associations everywhere put pressure on traditional methods.This need not call, of course, for disintegration. James Joyce (1882–1941), for example, addressed the problem by using names in novel ways.Turning aside from the direct individuation of theVictori- ans, he made a virtue of the growing burden of association, ﬁnding ways to manage associations through overdetermination. He would conﬂate meanings and archetypes until they acquired a representative, paradigmatic authority. In Ulysses (1922) Joyce interweaves Irish and classical names, some- times with burlesque effect, sometimes with the weight of monumen- tal generality. The selective realism of Irish names evokes bourgeois

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218 literary names social contexts; but this is offset with Homeric analogues universaliz- ing Bloom’s experience. This interweaving, impressively sustained though it is, seldom, however, achieves full integration. Ulysses splits, as it were, between the matter of Rome and the matter of Ireland. The local realism of place and personal names succeeds so well in educing modern society that the half-incorporated ancient names risk seeming merely ironic, or (worse) improbable: The work of salvage, removal of debris, human remains etc has been entrusted to Messrs Michael Meade and Son, 159 Great Brunswick street, and Messrs T. and C. Martin, 77, 78, 79 and 80 North Wall, assisted by the men and ofﬁcers of the Duke of Cornwall’s light infantry under the general supervision of H. R. H., rear admiral, the right honourable sir Hercules Hannibal Habeas Corpus Anderson, K. G., K. P., K.T., P. C., K. C. B., M. P., J. P., M. B., D. S. O., S. O. D., M. F. H., M. R. I.A., B. L., Mus. Doc., P. L. G., F.T. C. D., F. R. U. I., F. R. C. P. I. and F. R. C. S. I.8 In such passages, names and titles do most of the satiric work, as well as carrying the narrative.Thus, a list of wedding guests will abound in apt associations: Lady Sylvester Elmshade, Mrs Barbara Lovebirch, Mrs Poll Ash, Mrs Holly Hazeleyes, Miss Daphne Bays, Miss Dorothy Canebrake, Mrs ClydeTwelvetrees, Mrs Rowan Greene, Mrs Helen Vinegadding, Miss Virginia Creeper, Miss Gladys Beech, Miss Olive Garth, Miss Blanche Maple, Mrs Maud Mahogany, Miss Myra Myrtle, Miss Priscilla Elderﬂower, Miss Bee Honeysuckle, Miss Grace Poplar, Miss O Mimosa San, Miss Rachel Cedarfrond, the Misses Lilian and Viola Lilac, Miss Timidity Aspenall, Mrs Kitty Dewey-Mosse, Miss May Hawthorne, Mrs Gloriana Palme, Mrs Liana Forrest, Mrs Arabella Blackwood and Mrs Norma Holyoake of Oakholme Regis graced the ceremony by their presence.9 The names here satisfy multiple criteria: arboreal or horticultural con- nections (appropriate to the bridegroom’s being “grand high chief ranger of the Irish National Foresters”); class associations; celebrity (like Mimosa San, of The Geisha); nationalist overtones; and erotic suggestions.10 As if this were not enough, Joyce adds parody of Spenser’s catalogue of trees in The Faerie Queene 1.1.7–9 and of newspaper accounts of social events. In Surface and Symbol (1947) Robert Martin Adams argues that Ulysses offers “no proper ﬁctional reason for some of the things that are said and done” in it. He thinks to dispose of the alleged signature acrostic in the list of winners of the Bloomsday bicy- cle race on 16 June 1904 by showing Joyce copied the names from the

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joyce and nabokov 219 Irish Independent. But Adams fails to allow for the possibility that Joyce copied this particular list precisely because the name “J. A. Jackson” made acrostic allusion to “James A. Joyce”.11 Without aiming at an elaborate plot, Ulysses for the most part retains the sequence of events customary in narrative. Even this continuity goes, however, in Molly Bloom’s ﬁnal soliloquy or stream of con- sciousness. Here, the nostalgic array of lovers’ names is what provides the main continuity:“Mulvey and Mr Stanhope and Hester and father and old captain Groves”.12 Finnegans Wake Many readers locate the strength of Ulysses in its Irish realism, not its mythic universality. And this realism may be said to reside largely in the Irish names. Joyce told Cyril Connolly “I am more interested, Mr Connolly, in the Dublin street names than in the riddle of the Universe”.13 Joyce’s Dublin publisher was reluctant to print actual Dublin names, for fear of lawsuits; which provoked a satiric response from Joyce in “Gas from a Burner”, supposedly by G. Roberts the manager of Maunsel & Co.: “I’m damned if I do—I’m damned to blazes! | Talk about Irish Names of Places!”14 Names were Joyce’s way into history and anthropology, into the riddle of his own uni- verse. In Finnegans Wake (1939) he carried this onomastic method further: far more than Ulysses it sums whole cultures in its names. And now the integration becomes more complete. Yet this is achieved at a cost.The names are often unfamiliar, so that their asso- ciations are difﬁcult of access. Readers have to discover the associa- tions through attentive reading, through persistent study, even through research.15 In Finnegans Wake Joyce abstracts the protagonist far beyond the moral and spiritual generality of the medieval Everyman. Earwicker’s universal signiﬁcance is throughout extended through wordplays— sustained ludic devices such as acrostics, acronyms, anagrams, ambigu- ous spellings and invented idioms. The famous opening sentence begins the game: riverrun, past Eve and Adam’s, from swerve of shore to bend of bay, brings us by a commodius vicus of recirculation back to Howth Castle and Environs.

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220 literary names “Howth Castle and Environs”, a geographical and historical expansion of “HCE”, serves as a chorographic exordium to the epic. Embodying the universal male, and being a publican, H. C. Earwicker combines hospitable host with Eucharistic Host.As General Man, his initials can be referred to as a siglum, and Joyce can write of “a pleasant turn of the populace which gave him as sense of those normative letters the nick- name Here Comes Everybody”.16 The initials also imply, however, the disease, pollution, and waste of contemporary mankind: HCE can be expanded as “Heinz cans everywhere” (p. 581). Overwritten by such contemporary associations, historical contexts and exotic analogues can be discerned. HCE may, for example, be thought of as Haroun Childeric Eggeberth (p. 4): Childeric, king of the Franks from AD 458, was an ally of Rome against the Saxons, whereas Egbert (d. 839) was King of the West Saxons, and Haroun, as Caliph of Baghdad, came from outside Christendom altogether. As often, HCE takes all sides at once. A complementary, female principle informs Earwicker’s lover ALP, Anna Livia Plurabelle.17Young Anna is Isabel, old Anna is Kate, so that Anna unites mother and daughter. Her ages are eternally ALIKE (p. 165), an acrostic acronym of Anna Livia Isabel Kate Earwicker.18 Among geographical expansions of ALP, Livia becomes the river Liffey, central to Dublin’s history. The acrostic name HCE is the fountainhead and generative origin of Joyce’s work. It appears as early as the draft of 15 November 1926 sent to Harriet Weaver, before even the version of the ﬁrst paragraph published in the journal transition (April 1927). In the 1926 draft, the ﬁrst sentence is already “Howth Castle & Environs!”.19 Throughout Finnegans Wake these fateful initials generate, by repeated macrologia, both narrative and discursive expansions. The method recalls the “etymological narrative” of early Irish ﬁction, where stories were “spun from [. . .] onomastic speculation”.20 HCE may expand to Henry Childeric Earwicker, or unfold into geography and history, or into Viconian philosophy. Polyphiloprogenitively, it “Haveth Childers Eve- rywhere”.21 HCE produces “Hay Chivychas Eve” (p. 30) as well as “earthside hoist with care” (p. 31), “hod, cement and ediﬁces” (p. 4), “hic cubat edilis”, and much more. Similarly ramifying expansions of ALP engender diverse embodi- ments of the feminine principle Anna Livia Plurabelle. As Anna Livia she personiﬁes the historic River Liffey that meets the tide near

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joyce and nabokov 221 Chapelizod. Her initials ALP, together with the H of HCE, form ALPH, the sacred river. Moreover, the union of ALP and HCE ana- grammatizes CHAPEL; and CHAPEL is the ﬁrst segment of CHAPELIZOD. Again, the sexual union of Anna and Henry produces Isabel, IZzy, or IZOD, the second segment.22 Throughout Finnegans Wake Joyce sustains this method of abbreviation and expansion of rep- resentative initials: they provide Ariadne clues on which the reader’s understanding and enjoyment largely depend. In chapter 2 Joyce explains the signiﬁcance of HCE’s original name: “the genesis of Harold or Humphrey Chimpden’s occupational agnomen (we are back in the presurnames)” period “discarding once for all those theories from older sources which would link him back with such pivotal ancestors as [. . .] the Earwickers of Sidlesham in the Hundred of Manhood”.23 Unlike them, HCE is an Earwicker because of a particular event, which Joyce next recounts.A visit by William IV the sailor king having been announced, Humphrey or Harold,“forgetful of all save his vassal’s plain fealty to the ethnarch . . . stumbled out . . . hast- ing to the forecourts of his public”. His majesty inquired “whether paternoster and silver doctors [dry ﬂies] were not now more fancied bait for lobstertrapping”, and “blunt Haromphreyld [conﬂating “Haro- ld” and “H(u)mphrey” to hedge bets between Saxon and Norman] answered in no uncertain tones very similarly with a fearless forehead: Naw, yer maggers, aw war just a cotchin on thon bluggy earwug- gers”.24 The king,25 turning to two of his retinue, of “a triptychal reli- gious family symbolising puritas of doctrina”, remarked how his red brother William Rufus would fume if he knew we had for bailiwick “a turnpiker who is by turns a pikebailer [turnpike guard] no seldomer than an earwigger”. What is so bad about being an earwigger? The answer lies in the history of “earwig” (OE wicga). In Acts and Monu- ments (1563), John Foxe tells of “the burning of an Herewigge (for so he termed it) at Uxbridge”.26 Foxe puns on “heretic”; but “earwigs of royalty” also meant ear whisperers, ﬂatterers, parasites.27 So Earwicker’s cringing and “surtrusty” ﬂattery disguises his being at heart a heretic. This is clear from “the best authenticated version” of his family history: namely, the DUMLAT, a backward anagram of TALMUD (p. 30).28 Earwicker’s heretical tendencies are inherited by his son Shem.The twin brothers Shem and Shaun together make a couple of incompat- ible, contending principles almost as fundamental as the ones repre- sented by HCE and ALP. As William York Tindall characterizes them,

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222 literary names “Shem is outsider, introvert, artist, and failure. Shaun is insider, extro- vert, bourgeois, and success”.29 Or, Shaun is conformist, Shem rebel- lious. But Shem also ﬁgures as a dictator and advocate of a new order: ingratiating and duplicitous, he is a clever questioner, devoid of sym- pathy.30 He rejects traditional food and drink, preferring “some sort of a rhubarbarous maundarin yellagreen funkleblue windigut diodying applejack squeezed from sour grapefruice”.31 Both Shem and Shaun are writers: Shaun a poet like T. S. Eliot, Shem an unsuccessful man of letters producing unreadable obscurities.32 By turns they change places, like Castor and Pollux in the stellar myth, so that the “successful Shem becomes Shaun, and failing Shaun, Shem”. But this makes the contrast too schematic: each twin has a bit of the other within him.33 Analogously with Shem and Shaun, other complementary couples can be distinguished: twins, conﬂicted siblings, outright enemies. Reshaping idiom—and alluding to literature or biblical history or ancient mythology—these couples adumbrate far-reaching polari- ties: Cain and Abel, Jacob and Esau, St Peter and St Paul, St Michael and Satan (Mick and Nick). From classical antiquity emerge Romu- lus and Remus, as do “castor and porridge” (Castor and Pollux) and “burrous and caseous” (Brutus and Cassius). From modern literature come Swift’s Stella and Vanessa,34 Lewis Carroll’s Tweedledum and Tweedlee, and Mark Twain’s conformist Tom Sawyer and rebellious Huck Finn. It would be facile to assume that all this coupling always amounts to profound philosophical dualities. Some pairings merely help to make extreme compression intelligible: “if you’re not your bloater’s kipper may I never curse again on that pint I took of Jamesons” (p. 305). Here, bloater and kipper, alike yet very different,35 illuminate as they com- press the allusive idiom “am I my brother’s keeper?” (Genesis 4: 9).We are our brothers’ keepers because, however unlike, we are also like them. Similarly “old Battleshore and Deadleconche”, suggesting the game battledore and shuttlecock, frames several wordplays (p. 390). “Battledore”, minimally modiﬁed, helps with the more extensively morphed and therefore difﬁcult “Deadleconche”. No real duality underlies the semantic machinery here—only the association of “-shore” with “-conche” shells and the jingle of “deadle-” with “battle-” (which may leave many “dead”). Pairs based on names, as with “Mick and Nick”, are usually the most persuasive.

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joyce and nabokov 223 The diction of FinnegansWake often becomes opaque through over- loading. Joyce compresses together associations, allusions, words, chains of discourse, and names upon names, superimposing them until they are “overlayered” in a way that recalls overdetermination in dream.36 The excess is deliberate. Over many years Joyce slotted in contribu- tions from others and revisions of his own. These he accommodated not horizontally in the syntax, but rather by adding them paradigmati- cally or (as it were) vertically. They overlay earlier drafts with a port- manteau effect.37 And further condensation is brought about by means of acrostics: those already mentioned and many others like them, such as AGSCL, variously expanded as “Arthur Guiness Sons and Company, Limited”;“Awful Grimmest Sunshat Cromwelly, Looted”; etc.38 Joyce’s acrostics are like—and yet at the same time very unlike— those of medieval and Renaissance literature discussed in chapter 4. They are similar in providing hermeneutic clues, dissimilar in leading to no single expansion. Instead, they generate a great many names whose function is to establish family connections throughout the epic. Joyce makes great play with a compressive device that I have called modiﬁed idiom, whereby a phrase is diverted from its expected completion.39 This occasions ambiguity and consequently enriches the meaning, as when “man of hod” suggests both “man of God” and “hod carrier”. Such morphing need not be conﬁned, of course, to English idioms and collocational norms: Joyce seizes every opportunity to universalize by making new idioms out of foreign imports. Thus, Finnegan’s fall is given as “pftjschute”, where French chute (“fall”) enhances the onomatopoeia. Or phonic resemblance will make good a loose association of names, as when “Browne and Nolan” (the Dublin booksellers) is modiﬁed to “Bruno of Nola” (the sixteenth-century heretical philosopher, burnt “brown” by the anti-heretics).40 Some of Joyce’s portmanteaux or composite words are composed entirely of names, as for example “Mamalujo” (p. 397).This may seem rebarbatively foreign. But Joyce gives it in other, mutually illuminating forms: ﬁrst, “Mat and Mar and Lu and Jo, now happily buried, our four!” (p. 397); then “Marcus” (p. 397) and “M.M.L.J.” (p. 397). In con- text, it is not difﬁcult to make out Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, the four Christian gospels taken to the four parts of the world. In a femi- nized version this becomes “Magda, Marthe, Luz and Joan”.41 Similarly exotic, NATHANDJOE anagrams NATHAN AND JOE as well as

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224 literary names “Dean JoNATHAN” [Swift].42 Macaronic universalizing operates both centrifugally and centripetally, globally and locally. Thus, Irish “Dublin” is doubled by the Dublin in “Laurens County”, Georgia (p. 3) whereas THUART PEATRICK with its rural PEAT and RICK localizes in Ireland the dominical announcement “Thou art Peter” (Matt. 16: 18). Finn Fordham notices more than thirty languages used in compressions, archaisms, and other wordplays. Latin, however, is strategically salient, as in Hic cubat edilis; apud libertinam parvulum (p. 7), cloaking “here sleeps the magistrate with the little freed-girl” in the decent obscurity of a learned language. Finnegans Wake is an immensely onomastic epic. The name of its game, in fact, is names. The short ﬁrst page explicitly or implicitly refers to forty-four names,43 and the next page has far more. Irish names predominate, although Irishness is less salient here than in Ulysses.The names and their hoarded associations reopen entire worlds of Irish and global history and prehistory, to say nothing of contempo- rary politics. The title Finnegans Wake leads one to notice, within the ﬁrst few pages, “Bygmaster [master builder] Finnegan” (p. 4) and sev- eral related names. Most of these—Finnegan and Finnimore and the Scottish Fingal and the diminutive Finucane (“descendant of Finn”)– gesture towards Finn the hero of south Irish legend, the third-century champion against Norse invaders, and the supposed father of the poet Ossian.44 Joyce’s new Ireland will recover Finn’s glory: “Hohohoho, Mister Finn, you’re going to be Mister Finnagain! [. . .] Hahahaha, Mister Funn, you’re going to be ﬁned again!” (p. 5). Finn (Anglicized from Gaelic Fionn,“white”) was also leader of the Fianna, predecessors of the Fenians, the anti-British secret society in Joyce’s time responsi- ble for bomb outrages and the Phoenix Park murders. The Fenians lurk behind many references to Phoenix Park (p. 3) and to the hill next to Howth:45 “Big Méaster Finnykin with Phenician Parkes”.46 Even the malt brewed by arclight is linked to Finn: McGuiness has a variant McGinnis, and “McGinn” is a patronymic from “Finn”.47 On the wider,literary stage Finn forms ramifying polarities when MarkTwain’s disreputable Huck Finn pairs with the bourgeois Tom Sawyer. Names, whether explicit or implied, are the seeds from which the forest of Finnegans Wake grew in the writing and which appear again in the fruits of reading. Joyce’s critics have not much discussed the heuristic function of his names; yet they are obviously the basis of many interpretations and annotations. Both Walt Litz and Christopher

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joyce and nabokov 225 Ricks take for granted the existence of a “basic text” of Finnegans Wake that Joyce at ﬁrst revised and later re- (perhaps over-) revised. His addi- tive method certainly poses problems. And so does his belief that he had discovered a new rhetoric applicable to any topic. As Litz shows, Joyce even boasted his ability to process any material sent him, as if transmuting it by alchemy. He invited Harriet Weaver to order up an episode by sending data to be incorporated in the Wake: one such commission led to the Giant image in the third paragraph.48 Never- theless, Fordham defends Joyce’s accretive revisions against the criti- cism that they fail the Jamesian touchstone test of selection and discrimination. In Fordham’s view the “revisions” must be in continual conﬂict with the versions they replace: it is in this conﬂict, this struggle with language, that Joyce works through his problems.Another defence of the revisionary process might be that Joyce’s macaronic elaborations and “compressional” arabesques are invariably thematic.49 Just as the archaisms in The Faerie Queene attempt to uncover traces of the Fall of man, so Joyce’s composites suggest an earlier wholeness lost by the orthodox and heretical divisions of modern Ireland. Names are strate- gic agonists in this, acting as nodes that gather, combine, and offset associations reaching back into the country’s dark history. Joyce’s use of names has exerted a widespread inﬂuence on writers and artists of many countries. This is acknowledged in the case of Joseph Beuys’ early work, in which Joyce’s examples prompted con- cepts, methods, and even motifs (such as the use of felt).50 Eloquent witness here is the annotated copy of Finnegans Wake in Beuys’ library. In ﬁction even more, the authority and example of Joyce have power- fully affected many, notably Samuel Beckett, Salman Rushdie,Thomas Pynchon,51 and Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977).To Nabokov we may now turn.52 Vladimir Nabokov After Joyce, the most ambitious twentieth-century work based on names is probably Nabokov’s Lolita (1955).This polynomial masterpiece seems to have no rival in either avant-garde or mainstream ﬁction, par- ticularly since its names are plausibly incorporated within a narrative. Nabokov’s previous interest in onomastic wordplay is evinced in Bend Sinister (1947), where Ember suggests that Shakespeare’s Ophelia “quite

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226 literary names possibly is an anagram of Alpheius, with the ‘s’ lost in the damp grass— Alpheus the rivergod, who pursued a long-legged nymph”.53 The example of Finnegans Wake was in various ways decisive for Nabokov.54 Echoes and allusions—such as the reuse of Quilty and of MacCoo(l)— put this beyond doubt.55 Indeed Nabokov himself acknowledged bor- rowing the high-school play in Lolita from “a passage in James Joyce” (in fact from Finnegans Wake chapter 2).56 Nabokov announces the subject of naming in the opening para- graphs of Lolita: “She was Lo, plain Lo, in the morning, standing four feet ten in one sock. She was Lola in slacks. She was Dolly at school. She was Dolores on the dotted line. But in my arms she was always Lolita.”57 At the outset the play on bynames of Lolita encourages read- ers to consider naming a theme of the novel.They are given plenty of material to work on. In fact, they are deluged with name after name, series and groups of names, names real and invented, names allusive and suggestive. Names crowd the novel: names in a class register, motel names, names of writers. So prominent are these lists that Michael Ragussis makes out the subject to be classiﬁcation—classiﬁcation as a means of ordering nature. No accident, then, that the prefatory epistle of Lolita purports to be by John Ray; for Ray was a pre-Enlightenment naturalist who pioneered scientiﬁc classiﬁcation.58 In the narrative itself, however, Humbert ﬁnds that the classes of names confusingly ramify and overlap: he can never quite get sole possession of a uniquely speciﬁed nymphet. Our understanding of the function of biological associations in Lolita was quickened by Diana Butler’s discovery that the motel names in Humbert’s quest match places where Nabokov the professional lepidopterist went on expeditions: where, for example, he caught the ﬁrst known female of Lycaeides sublivens Nabokov, the species that bears his name.59 In some sense, Humbert’s pursuit of Lolita seems to ﬁgure Nabokov’s own search for the rare “nymphet”. One can imagine his excitement at ﬁnding the creature subsequently known by his name: the sublime moment of discovering a new species and so changing the existent order of nature. In the philosophical context of nomenclature, that unique event resembled Wittgenstein’s irreducible act of unique reference. Since Lolita, “nymphet” has come to mean a certain sort of ﬁt pre-woman. But previously it had been a biological term for a transi- tional stage of butterﬂy development. That changed when Humbert

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joyce and nabokov 227 the taxonomist of women deﬁned “nymphet” as a species of maiden between nine and fourteen, “who, to certain bewitched travellers, twice or many times older than they, reveal their true nature which is not human, but nymphic”.60 Lolita, uniting as it does the human and insect nymphets, has signiﬁcance for psychologists and entomologists alike, and so links Nabokov’s two lives. Both sorts of nymphets are rare because of the transitoriness of their deﬁning state. Since the phase passes in months the insect state is a telling symbol of human evanes- cence.The theme of mutability accordingly runs through many of the novel’s names and allusions, for example Quilty’s “To borrow and to borrow and to borrow”. And needless to say it appears in the many instances of “nymphets”,“nymphage”, and the like.61 Nabokov’s intertwining of biology with human sexuality must be deliberate, since “nymphet” had almost exclusively entomological senses until he gave it human meanings.62 It is probably no exaggera- tion to say that for Nabokov much of the interest in writing Lolita lay in the possibility of sustained double entendres and endless, ever sub- tler yet ever more intimate sexual wordplays. Even if biological classiﬁcation were seen as pursuit of a higher order of being, however, one could hardly agree with Eric Naiman’s view that anatomical allegory is the sole substance of Lolita. Its names also point in other directions: pursuit of the romantic sublime, for example, and aspiration to aesthetic heights in art and nature.“Lull” in Lolita’s class alludes to Ramon Lull (c. 1232–1315), another authority on classiﬁcation certainly, but here, signiﬁcantly, the author of The Book of the Lover and the Beloved. And other names on the class register sug- gest movements away from classiﬁcation altogether, to singularity of experience. Some undeniably suggest Neoplatonic aspiration: “Stella Fantasia”, “Anthony Miranda”, and “Viola Miranda”. The repeated “Miranda” surely alludes to Prospero’s innocent daughter in The Tempest. And the motel name “Mirandola” calls up Pico della Mirandola, author of the De Dignitate Hominis.63 Again, the Ramsdale register includes a strong representation of writers, among them (Richard) Sheridan, (Thomas) Campbell, George Fox, (Washington) Irving, Edgar (Allan Poe), (Lord) Byron, and (Walter) Scott. Moreover, several others are familiar literary characters: Shake- speare’s “Viola”, Dickens’ “Edwin” (Drood), Hughes’ “Flashman”, Bar- rie’s “Mary Rose”, and Hardy’s “Angel Clare” in Tess—to say nothing of Gene Stratton-Porter’s Angel in Freckles. And this is not all: quite

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228 literary names apart from the class list, Carl Proffer identiﬁes a further sixty-three writers alluded to.64 Others might be added: notably Charles Maturin, of Melmoth [“sweet moth”] the Wanderer (1820), and again Stratton- Porter (A Girl of the Limberlost).65 Such allusions accord well with Alex- ander Luxemburg’s view that Lolita symbolizes literature itself with all its delights of form, so that her pursuit would be entirely praisewor- thy—indeed, self-justifying for a writer.66 To a similar suggestion, that Lolita recorded the author’s “love affair” with the romantic novel,67 Nabokov responded that “it represented instead his passion for the English language”—a not altogether different idea, since languages are sometimes learned, in part, through their literatures. Nevertheless, Nabokov’s (or Humbert’s) allusions are more elusive than either of these views suggests.And some of them are less ideal and abstract. Quite often, too, they concern distinctly underage child lov- ers. Vanessa and Esther (similarly paired in Finnegans Wake) refer to Jonathan Swift’s “friend” Vanessa, Esther Vanhomrigh (1688–1723), twenty years younger than Swift himself.68 And “Harry Bumper, Sheridan, Wyo” reminds the reader of Harry Bumper in Richard Sheridan’s A School for Scandal, who sings “Here’s to the maid of bash- ful ﬁfteen [. . .] And here’s to the nymph”.69 As Proffer points out (p. 34), the most frequent allusions in Lolita are to “Annabel Lee”, Poe’s ballad of lost childhood love, and “Carmen”, Merimée’s tale of disas- trous passion for a young gypsy. Without doubt, a great many allusions and wordplays in Lolita—how many is debatable—have speciﬁcally sexual implications.These are the basis of Naiman’s argument that Nabokov transforms Lolita “into noth- ing but vulva, a feminine and genitalized version” of Gogol’s “anatomi- cal magniﬁcation” in “The Nose”: that Nabokov “effectively genitalizes not only Lolita but the entire landscape of the NewWorld”.70 In Naim- an’s view virtually every name contains an anatomical wordplay. Thus “Mrs Chatﬁeld” puns on chatte (pussy) and so does every mention of chatting.71 Naiman appropriates Butler’s butterﬂy hunting to support his theory: the “nymphae” become labia minora.72 Thomas Karshan, however, roundly dismisses Naiman’s theory: “By reducing Nabokov’s perversity to a system of hidden dirty words Naiman replaces one liter- alism with another and reduces Nabokov’s protean textual eroticism to something overt, knowable, ﬁxed.”73 Nevertheless, the names encountered during the journey of Humbert and Lolita cannot be denied to have sexual meanings: “Lake Climax”,

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joyce and nabokov 229 “Conception Park”, “D. Orgon”, “Miss Redcock”, and many others.74 So too with the place names that supply much of the narrative. Thus, Humbert registers at 342 motels, and the Haze house is 342 Lawn Street. The repetition of 342 serves to link the other locations with room 342 of The Enchanted Hunters (an anagram of “Ted Hunter, Cane, N H”), where Humbert makes love to Lolita. In such ways, names with ana- tomical associations recur so often that even a normal reader’s responses become quickened and tantalized.75 But to what end? Sustained anatomical and sexual double entendres cannot be said to offer an adequate key to the novel. The complexity of its naming, indeed, supports Karshan against Naiman’s reductive approach. Most of the names combine multiple associative strands. For example, the personal name “Melville” links with the quest for Moby-Dick but also with the place name “Pierre Point” in Melville Sound: topographical “nature” here seems to overgo the art of Pierre: or the Ambiguities, until Nabokov reafﬁrms literature’s superiority by his own art.76 Similarly, the hunt for Quilty leads not only to Lewis Carroll’s The Hunting of the Snark but also to Dodgson’s real-life fascination with nymphets like Alice. And even Naiman concedes that the name “Quilty” is “overde- termined”, associated as it is with the celebrated Cambridge Professor of English, “Q” (Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch). Humbert’s pursuit of Quilty involves much detective work, naturally calling up Agatha Christie, Arthur Conan Doyle, Edgar Allan Poe (the last, in turn, recalling “Annabel Lee”, the archetypic poem of lost childhood love). All this need not lead to a formalist notion of eroticized text—as if Nabokov’s love affair were not with either the literature or the lan- guage, but with an art of ambiguity for its own sake. Lolita is more than a series of ambiguities, more than a chain of sexual or anatomical wordplays. Its wordplays are thematic, and the themes are cultural as well as individual. Nabokov confessed to Edmund Wilson that his mind had “always contained more associations than thoughts”;77 but that need not mean an absence of themes connecting the associations. One such theme is degeneration: the debasement and corruption of love and literature, innocence and beauty. Over and over again in Lol- ita, conﬂicting strands of allusion exemplify this.The names, especially, continually present contrasts and paradoxes: juxtapositions of high and low culture, lofty origins and vulgar degradations. This pattern becomes prominent in the journeys, which occasion surveys of American society. As we saw, Humbert’s sordid, obsessive

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230 literary names hunt from motel to motel is intertwined with Nabokov’s quest for his butterﬂy (a common symbol of Psyche and souls freed from the ﬂesh).78 His selected place names civilize the American landscape, much as Spenser’s or Drayton’s mythologize the British. A paradigmatic instance is “Scotty’s Castle”, built by a Mr Walter Scott of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show, juxtaposed with “R. L. Stevenson’s footprint on an extinct volcano” and “Mission Dolores”.79 The Scott is not the Walter Scott of romance and medieval castles, but the Walter Scott of Wild West shows: Buffalo Bill has declined from heroic frontiersman to circus performer. Elsewhere, romantic Petrarchan or Proustian passions are reduced to the vulgar sentiment satirized in Kipling’s “The Betrothed”—“And a woman is only a woman, but a good Cigar is a Smoke”—and reduced further by the French translation,“une femme est une femme, mais un caporal est une cigarette”.80 Lolita is a supreme example of the sort of naming found in ﬁction of the last century, whereby names are so intimately thematic as to be indispensable to the interpreter of the literary work in which they occur. Nabokov’s naming guides us to see the state of the “ruined” Lolita as summing the predicament of innocence in a society of preco- cious sexuality. His art is one of selection: ﬁnding meaningful names in the manner of “found” poetry. He selects, for example, places with coincidental literary associations, places whose names always point in the same conﬂicting directions. A better linguist than Joyce, Nabokov could see the impossibility of Joyce’s quest for a deep structure of anthropological naming. More realistically, Nabokov expects his read- ers to know as little as his real-life students. So he must repeat the les- son again and again, until repetition puts his satiric meaning beyond doubt. Notes 1. The convenient term used in Hazard 2000. 2. De Quincey 1896–7: 10.97, 128. 3. De Quincey 1896–7: 13.5. 4. Cit. Leatherbarrow 2010: 86 as part of her general synaesthetic approach to words. Cf. Edith Wharton:“an absurd name like Ruby”,Wharton 2007: 84. 5. Barthes 1974: 95, cit. Rimmon-Kenan 1999: 29. 6. See Harder 1987. 7. Porush 1985: 104–5. 8. Joyce 1986: 282.

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joyce and nabokov 231 9. Joyce 1986: 268. 10. See Gifford and Seidman 1974: 289.The Masonic society of Foresters was inﬁltrated by Fenians. 11. Cf. Brooks 1968: 419–40. 12. Joyce 1986: 643, line 1582. 13. Connolly 1963: 271. 14. Joyce 2006: 202. 15. Wayne Booth claimed to ﬁnd Finnegans Wake unreadable in extenso although delight- ful in short passages; see Booth 1961: 301 n. 26. 16. Joyce 1939: 32 (Finnegans Wake page refs. are to this edn). Cf.Tindall 1959: 246. 17. Also “Alma Luvia Pollabelle”, etc. 18. Cf.Tindall 1959: 249. 19. See Litz 1961: 84–5. 20. See Scowcroft 1995: 124. 21. See Tindall 1959: 248–52. 22. From Finnegans Wake Abridged, read by Jim Norton and Marcella Riordan. 23. Joyce 1939: 30; cf. Kitcher 2007: 74–5. 24. Joyce 1939: 31. 25. Presumably “William the Conk”, with whose title Noel-Tod 2008: 85 compares “Alfred the Cake” in 1066. 26. Foxe 1631: 2.12.988, col. 2. 27. OED s.v. Earwig, sb, 1 and 2. 28. See Kitcher 2007: 74 29. Tindall 1959: 246–7. 30. Kitcher 2007: 32–3. 31. Joyce 1939: 171; see Kitcher 2007: 34–5. 32. Cf.Tindall 1959: 247 n. 33. Cf.Tindall 1959: 248, 255 n., 256 n. 34. See Tindall 1959: 247; Litz 1961: 87. 35. Bloaters are soft, half-dried herrings; kippers, cured then smoked dry. See OED s.v. Kipper v1 , Bloat v. 36. Cf. Kitcher 2007: 8, 268. 37. On the revisions, see Litz 1961; Fordham 2007. On contrasting syntagmatic and para- digmatic bases of organization, see Lodge 1966. 38. Joyce 1939: 9; see Tindall 1959: 248. 39. See Crystal 1995: 163. 40. See Fordham 2007: 151; cf. 100 on “eminence [. . .] ambulance [. . .] embolism [. . .]”. 41. See Fordham 2007: 194. 42. See Litz 1961: 87. 43. Adam; Eve; Commodus; Howth; Sir Amory Tristram; Irish Sea; Tristan; Cornwall; Isolde; King Mark; Isthmus of Sutton; Topsawyer’s Rock; Oconee; Dublin, Laurens County; Peter Sawyer; St Patrick; Moses; Peter; Jacob; Esau; Parnell; Isaac Butt; Jonathan Swift; Nathandjoe; Stella;Vanessa; Esther; Nathan;Willie; Jameson; Guinness; Noah; Jhem; Shem;Wall Street; Old Parr; Christy; Finnegan;W. J. Ashcroft; Phoenix Park; Humpty Dumpty; Castleknock; Chapelizod. See McHugh 1980: 3. 44. Finn’s genealogy is treated in drafts of Finnegans Wake, including one as early as December 1936, revised and expanded in BL Add MSS 47479 fols. 189v–195r and 199r–206r. 45. See Tindall 1959: 250. 46. Joyce 1939: 576.28; see Kitcher 2007: 16. 47. ONC s.v. Finn, Guiness. 48. See Litz 1961: 84–5.

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232 literary names 49. See Fordham 2007: 56. 50. See Hayes 2001. 51. See Hurley 2008; Harder 1987. 52. On Nabokov’s relation to Joyce, see Proffer 1968: 132 n. 12. 53. Cit. Levith 1978: 17–18. 54. See Fordham 2007: 20 on the “symbolic power” of Finnegans Wake in contemporary letters “as something to be studiously avoided or surreptitiously drawn on”. 55. See Proffer 1968:10 and, for further debts, Index s.v. Joyce. 56. See Fordham 2007: 237 n. 57. Nabokov 1996: 7. 58. See Ragussis 1987: 256 n. 11. Naiman 2010: 42, however, sees an allusion to John 1: 5–10 with its “emphasis on light”. 59. See Butler 1960: 58–84;Appel 2000: 6. Naiman 2010: 30 emphasizes the genital mean- ing of “nymphae” as labia minora in the edition of Webster’s New International Dictionary used by Nabokov. 60. Nabokov 1996: 14; see OED s.v. Nymphal adj. and sb.; Nymphet sb. 61. See, e.g., Nabokov 1996: 14.10, 30.16, 61.7, and 145 on moths. 62. Cf. Proffer 1968: 133. 63. See Nabokov 1996: 233 n. Nabokov told Alfred Appel that the imaginary Mirandola, NY,“has nothing to do with Pico”. But Pico was a patron of the Modena Commedia dell’ arte, and other motel names—Gratiano and Forbeson—come from the Comme- dia. Nabokov, as often, lied to cover his tracks. 64. See Proffer 1968: 21–3. 65. Nabokov 1996: 162, 264. 66. Cf. Luxemburg 2004–5: 119–34. 67. Haas 2008. 68. See Proffer 1968: 96. 69. School for Scandal 3.3; see Proffer 1968: 14, 96. 70. Naiman 2010: 30–1, 34. 71. See Naiman 2010: 31. 72. See OED s.v. Nymphae, example from 1693: “little pieces of Flesh in a Woman’s Secrets”. 73. Karshan 2011: 3. 74. See Proffer 1968: 96. 75. Cf. Karshan 2011: 3: Nabokov’s “main trait was his passion for tantalization”. 76. See Proffer 1968: 6. 77. Cit. Naiman 2010: 41. 78. See, e.g., Charbonneau-Lassay 1940: 847–51; Impelluso 2004: 330; Cirlot 1962:33–4; Ferber 1999: 37–8. 79. Nabokov 1996: 147 nn. 11, 13–14. 80. Cit. Proffer 1968: 136.

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Afterword 8 These pages address texts so various, ranging over so many periods of history, that to summarize them in general conclusions is hardly possible. Nevertheless, some things stand out. One is the inappropri- ateness of synchronic approaches to literary names. Those who have read the ﬁrst chapter, or the studies of individual authors from Spenser to Nabokov, will, I hope, understand something of how naming has changed in function throughout history: how names have developed from brief descriptions to “full names” ﬁxing places in the family and the larger community. Pride in the family name and its real or imagined links with the “great names” of history and romance supported a belief that the “good name” of the family was of overriding importance. Embodying reputation, honour, perhaps vera nobilitas, names could motivate moral aspiration.They could also, however, be cruelly oppressive, obliterating the individual claims of children, particularly daughters. Such family oppression took an extreme form when arbitrary names were imposed on slaves and servants. Corresponding changes in naming present themselves in literature, even with the names traditionally characteristic of genres.At some times names have been displayed proudly, at others concealed (or half-con- cealed) in acrostics or anagrams disguising the objects of forbidden love. In the Renaissance, when any nomen might hide an omen, interest in ana- grams of destiny became intense. In earlier literature, moreover, names were often treated as things to be arranged in patterned lists.These prac- tices lapsed in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, but have returned in contemporary literature, especially in Joyce and Nabokov.

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234 literary names Spenser and Shakespeare explored a special type of name, the myth- ological, involving well-deﬁned classical associations. In later centuries, with the increase of vernacular literature, the associative content of names has greatly increased. Since character names are usually a matter of authorial decision, these associations make names an important route to the meaning of literary works—for example, with Shake- speare’s Osric and Dickens’ Oliver Twist. Onomastics, previously neglected, is currently proving a vital part of interpretative criticism. It is hard to escape the conclusion that the study of literary names might well be made more central to literary studies. Besides, are names not among the most fascinating of words?

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Glossary Acrostic: a device whereby the letters of a name or other words are dispersed according to a regular pattern, often as the ﬁrst letters of successive verses (initial acrostic). Other options include the last letters (telestich), ﬁrst and last letters (double acrostic), the ﬁrst letters after caesuras (medial acrostic), etc.Acrostics may be thought of as special instances of dispersed anagram: like the anagram, an acrostic may be open—displayed typographically—or hidden. Anagram: words within words.A device whereby the letters or syllables of a word or phrase are rearranged or else dispersed within a larger text. Used to link a name with satiric or eulogistic comment on it (e.g. margaret thatcher: that great charmer). Sometimes combined with acrostic or rebus. Anagrams may be condensed (rearranged within a short text) or dispersed among other letters). Anagrams may be openly displayed or concealed (as when embedded in a longer text). Array: a structured catalogue of names or personiﬁcations. Often arranged symmetrically, with central emphasis. Charactonym: a descriptive name suggesting the physical appearance or moral character of its bearer, as with Ben Jonson’s character Surly. Some- times called tag name. Cratylic (from the character in Plato’s dialogue Cratylus): regarding names as meaningful. Contrasted with hermogenean. Family Plot: referring to a theory of Michael Ragussis, that novels from the beginning have had naming plots. Most often considerations of family name have constrained the individual freedom of children (particularly daughters) and wives. Formal Realism: a mode of ﬁction characterized by the use of full names for the characters. Referring to Ian Watt’s theory that from Defoe onwards novels used full names, implying a realistic social context. Hermogenean (from Hermogenes, the character in Plato’s Cratylus): regarding names as assigned conventionally or arbitrarily. Contrasted with cratylic. Key Fiction or livre à clef, roman à clef, Schlüsselroman: ﬁction presenting actual persons under the mask of invented names.

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236 glossary Onomastics: the study of names (from Greek onoma, name). Patronymic: personal or family name constructed from that of a father or ancestor by adding a preﬁx or sufﬁx to indicate descent. So Anderson implies “descended from Andrew”. Proper Names: words used to refer to particular individual persons, animals, or objects (as in personal names and place names). Contrasted with com- mon nouns. Pseudonym: a false name assumed by an author or a character. Especially a pen name. Rebus: representation of a name or word by pictures or their verbal descrip- tion. The pictures or descriptions suggest syllables of the name through resemblances of sound or meaning. So beckinton might be represented by a beacon and a barrel. Tag Name: see Charactonym.

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Index Abdiel 127–8, 131 Agape 68 Abessa 58 Abigail 160 Agrippa, Henricus Cornelius Abram,Abraham 184 127, 133 Achille 162 Achilles 195 Aguecheek, Sir Andrew 103–4 Acidalia 60 Ajax 103 acrostics 75, 219–25, 235 Albert 20 Alcibiades 17 complimentary 78–9 Aler, Paul 115, 123 n. 86 printed 78 Algrind 91 signatures 75, 76, 219 Alice 2 AGSCL 223 Aliena 105 ALIKE 220 Alison 16 ALPH 221 Allen,T.W. 193 ALP 220 allusion 2–3, 5, 32, 112, 161, 177, Copeland 77 Davies 78 216–30 passim Ennius 75 Gower 77 see also mythological names HCE 219–25 Allworthy 17 Jesu 77 Alpers Paul 30 Joyce 218–19 Alroy Kear (Hugh Walpole) 96 MMLJ 223 Amadis of Gaul 43 Palingenius 77 Amelia 20 Manallace 147–8 Amis, Kingsley 4 Roos 78 Amis, Martin 41, 179 Parry 78 Amphialus 89 Usk 77 Amyas 55 Vergil’s 135 anagrams 75–97, 135–6, Willett 78 Addison, Joseph 5 219–225, 235 Adrian (Shelley) 96 authorship claims 75–7, 219 Aegeus 113 Aesculapius 67 dependent on state of Africanus 12 language 88 Agamemnon 193, 195 sovereign place of 195 embedded 82–8, 135–6 fashion for 88 French inﬂuence 80, 84 history of 79–88, 135–6 how far hidden 137 obsolescent 135–6 political 82

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268 index anagrams (cont.) Ancient Pistol 106 rules 80–1, 97 n. 42 angel names 125–37 scorned by Dryden 136 form of 127 scorned by Enlightenment hierarchy 133–4 88, 136 human origin 127 scorned by Jonson 136 only biblical names syllabic 75, 76, 83, 91 permitted 127 Anne of Denmark 84 Alphaeus 226 see individual names Boyle, Elizabeth 86–7 Anna Perenna 47 Caliban 103 Annan, Koﬁ 169 n. 106 Chapelizod 221 Anne of Denmark 84 Charles I 135–6 anonymity 145–9 Chaucer 76 Arbuthnot, John 156 Colin Clout 151 Archimago 67 Cromwell, Oliver 137 Arcturus 6 Devereux, Penelope 85 Ariosto, Ludovico 12 Douglas, Gavin 76 Aristotle 117 Armeddan (Edward Denny, Robert Elizabeth I, Queen of England 7, 80, 81 Needham) 93 Arnold, Matthew 102 Harben, Eve de 148 arrays 193–211 Henry 135–6 Jonson’s 135–6 art of 206 Langland’s 75 changes to 210 Mars 135 symmetrical 196–7, 202–3, Milton’s, necessary 135–7 Noman 142 208–9 Stuart,Arabella 84 Arthegall 91–2, 94 Meliadus or Mœliades 135 Arthur 54, 55, 60 Middlemore, Mary 84 associations 216–30 Nathandjoe 223 Nedar 116 class 218 Odysseus 141–2 cultural 59–60, 227–8 Ophelia 225–6 Homeric 218 Ralegh, Sir Walter 151 as route to meaning 234 Roos 75 Rose de Pindare 151 thoughts and Rowland, Orlando, and associations 229 Oliver 103 Ashes 14 Satan 135, 136 Aspasia 20 Sidney, Sir Philip 85, 151 Astrophil 85, 89 Spenser, Edmund 151 Aubrey, John 89 Talmud 221 Auden,W. H. 1 Thatcher, Margaret 82 Augustine, St 130 Tramtris 143 Aulay Macaulay 15 Viola, Olivia, and Malvolio 103 Austen, Jane 160, 172 Autolycus 104 Baggins, Bilbo 4 Bainbridge, Beryl 216

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index 269 Balthasar 162 Boyle, Elizabeth 86–7 baptism 12 Braden, Gordon 63 Barber, C. L. 109 Braggadocchio 59 Barclay, Alexander 34 Brahms, Caryl 7 Barclay, John 88 Bramble 172 Bardolph 106 Brandon, Colonel 172 Bardsley, Charles 14, 174 Britomart 65 Barebone, Praisegod 14 Brook 103 Barney, Stephen 198–9 Brown, George Mackay 13 Barnivelt, Esdras (Alexander Pope) Brunell (Valentine Browne, Henry 95, 145–6, 197 Burnell) 92–3 Barrie, James 21 Bryskett, Lodovic 93 Barton,Anne 2, 17, 106 Budé, Guillaume 56 Bauhin, Caspar 125 Bum, Pompey 162 Beatrice 101 Bungus, Petrus 134 Beelzebub 128–30 Burgess,Anthony 42 Belch, Sir Toby 104, 110 Butler, Samuel 5, 78 Belinda 95–6 Belleforest, François 119 “false wit” 78–9 Bellisont (Warham St Leger) 92, 93 Benedict 101 Bynner,Witter, and Ficke,Arthur Berger, Harry 59 Davison 147 Berners, Lord 12 Berowne 114–15 Byron, Lord 96 Bersuire, Pierre 83 Betsy 160–1 Cade, Jack 12 Betty 185 Caius (Kent) 105, 118 Bickerstaff, Isaac 146 Calepino,Ambrogio 59 Bigwig 178 Caliban 103 Blair,Tony 82 Calvin, John 82 Bleak House 18 Cambridge, Richard 78–9 Bliss, Jane 143–4 Camden,William 4, 7–8, 20, 23, Blount, Charles, Earl of Devon 81 Boccaccio, Giovanni 15–16, 198 91–2, 101 anagrams 80–1 acrostics 77–8 etymological explanations 24, Boiardo, Matteo Maria 61, 69 Boileau, Nicolas 35–6 116, 118, 119–20 Bonfont 60 on Puritan names 13–14, 55 Boots 158 Capote,Truman 97 Borachio 104 Carey, John 159, 179 Bottom 107–8 Carleton, Dudley 20 Carroll, Lewis (C. L. Dodgson) 2, 8, not posterior 108 Botul, Jean-Baptiste 148 21, 88, 142, 229 Bovelles, Charles de 133 Cary, Joyce 4 Casaubon 172 Bowditch, Nathaniel Ingersoll Casio 103 174–5, 182 Castorley 147 Catalogue of Ships 193–8 catalogues 193–8 as genre 195

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270 index Catch-22 19 Corin 103 Celia, Caelia 37, 44, 84 Coriolanus 3 Cesario (Viola) 110 Corydon 31, 48 n. 16 Chamberlain, John 20 Cotton, Charles 76 Chaos 69 Cowley,Abraham 125–6 Chapman, George 7, 46, 197 Crabtree, Joseph 147 charactonyms 2, 17, 55, 62 Craig, Martha 61 Cratylic names 13, 17, 55–6, 143 angelic 127 Austen’s 172 opportunities for, in double- Dickens’s 182, 186 barrelled names 14 James’s 175–6 Milton’s 127 subtilized 41 Scott’s 171–2 Charlotta the Fourth 165 Thackeray’s 178 Chatterton,Thomas 147 Cratylus and Hermogenes 1–2, 22 Chaucer, Geoffrey 12, 34, 60, 76, Curan 119 Curtius, E. R. 198 112, 198–201 Cyclops 141–2 new verses by 147 realistic names 15–16 Da Tempo 79 on Theseus 115 Dante 12 Book of the Duchess 76 Davies, Sir John 78, 86, 94 The Knight’s Tale 115, 199–201 Davis, Lucy 86 Cheke,William 82 De Quincey,Thomas 7, 215 Chesterton, G. K. 189 Defoe, Daniel 17, 21, 162 choice of name: reasons for 20 Deguileville, Guillaume de 58 Delivery 14 see names, naming Delver 120 Chops 185 Demetrius 116 Chrétien de Troyes 43 Demogorgon 68–70 Cibber, Colley 208, 211 Clarissa 18 and demiourgos 69 Claudius 119 Dennis, John 6, 208 Clement of Alexandria 126 Cleopatra 118 in central place 210 Desdemona 101–2 Clifford,Anne, Countess of Devereux, Penelope 85 Dorset 158–9 Diana 200 Cockeram, Henry 25 and number seven 200 Cockerill,William Shakespeare 6 Diaper,William 33 Coelius 29 Coleridge 96 Dickens,Alfred D’Orsay Collins,Wilkie 18 Tennyson 6 Colonna, Francesco 56 Dickens, Charles 4, 18, 96, 120, 158, see also “Hypnerotomachia Poliﬁli” 172, 179–91 Congreve,William 161 Conrad, Joseph 216 changes of name 105 coachmen 159 Nostromo 216 collections of names 181–2, 186 Conti, Natale 5, 64, 114 Cratylism 183, 186 Cooper, Helen 90, 151 Copeland, Robert 77

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index 271 foundlings’ names 181, 186 Duncan-Jones, Katherine 89 gothic 183, 189 Dust 14 grotesque names 42, 183 medievalism 189 E. K. 90–1 preparation 179–83 Earth 14 real names 182 Ecastor (Beverley) 93 sons’ literary names 6 Eco, Umberto 207 theory of naming 183–6 Edgar 102, 105, 118 Bleak House 181, 183, 185 Edmund 105, 118 Dombey and Son 183, 189 Egan, Pierce 185 Great Expectations 180 Ehrenpreis, Irvin 145 Hard Times 180 Eliot,T. S. 206–7 Household Words 174, 182–3 Eliott Templeton 14–15 Martin Chuzzlewit 181 Elissa 57 Oliver Twist 181, 185–6 Elizabeth 15, 86–7 Our Mutual Friend 186–9 Elizabeth I 64 Pickwick Papers 179–80 The Old Curiosity Shop 185 acrostic 78 Dickens, Edward Bulwer Lytton 6 anagrams 80, 81 Dickens, Francis Jeffery 6 Elizabethan ﬁction 17 Dickens, Henry Fielding 6 Enias 60 Erasmus 119 Dickens, Sydney Smith essentialism 2 Haldimand 6 Etherege, Sir George 158, 163–4 Ethyl 19 Dickens,Walter Landor 6 Eve: type of Virgin Mary 135 Diggon Davy 91 Discipline 14 Fabian 109 Disraeli, Isaac 20 Fabre, Genevieve 163 Docherty,Thomas 2 Fabricius 12 Faerie Queene,The 5, 53–73, 117 Dodgson, C. L. see Carroll, Lewis Dogson (C. L.Dodgson) 8 constructed names 56–9 Doni,Antonio Francesco 60 cultural associations 59–60 Douglas, Gavin 76, 201–3 genealogies 65–8, 94 grammar of naming 57 Palice of Honour 201–3 grouping by genre 54 Drapier, M. B. 145 mythological names 63–8 Drayton, Michael 33, 35, 46, 64, 65, 69 names of authors 60 Dru Drury 15 names of originators 61 Drummond of Hawthornden 55, real-life names 54 romance associations 59, 62 81, 135–6 schemes of names 59 rules for anagrams 81 triads 71 n. 29 Dryden, John 36, 43, 136, 201 university towns 71 n. 67 Du Bellay, Joachim 79, 83–4 variety of names 54 Duessa 58, 67 Cantos of Mutabilitie 68 Dulness 207–8, 211 Letter to Ralegh 64–5, 91 Dumarin (Raymond Fitzgerald) 61, 94 Dunbar,William 44

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272 index Fage, Mary 82 Weaver, Harriet 220, 225 Fagin 185 Faith 14 see also acrostics, anagrams Fals-Semblent 15 First names, paucity of Welsh 15 family plot 18–19, 235 Fitzmaurice,Andrew 119 Farmer George 31 Fletcher, Giles 45 Feefawfoo 179 Fletcher, Phineas 33 Feng 119 Flite 184 Feste 109 Flannagan, Roy 207 ﬁctional names: difﬁcult to ﬁnd 4 Florimell 92, 94 Florio, John 102 collected from ofﬁcial lists 4, Flosky (Coleridge) 96 181–2, 186 Fludd, Robert 133–4 Flute 106–8 Fidessa 58 Forsyte Saga 5 Fielding, Henry 4, 16, 42, 177 Fortinbras 120 ﬁfteen steps to a throne 200, 202 Fortitude 14 Filelfo, Francesco 83 Fowler,William 84, 203–4 Finnegans Wake 7, 219–25 Fox, Denton 198, 201–2 Franciscus Junius 24 compression 223 Fraunce,Abraham 69 dualities 222 Free-gift 14 Dublin doubled 224 Friday 162 Fenians 224 Friedman,W. F. and E. S. 86 macaronic universalizing 224 Froissart, Jean 12 modiﬁed idiom 223 From Above 14 names of, strategic 225 Fuddleston, Sir Huddleston 178 onomastic epic 224 full names 11–15 portmanteau effects 223 Adams, Robert Martin 218 individuating function 16 Bloom, Molly 219 Browne and Nolan 223 of butlers, stewards, housekeepers 159–60 Chimpden, Harold or Humphrey 221 of writers 12 Connolly, Cyril 219 Gabriel 126–7 Earwicker 219–25 guardian of moon 134 Eggeberth, Harun Childeric 220 Everyman 219 Galathea 31 Finnegan 224 Gamage, Barbara 81 Fordham, Finn 224–5 Gammer Gurton’s Needle 16 Foxe, John 221 Ganymed 105 Litz,Walt 224 Gardiner, Sir Alan 3 McGuiness 224 Gaskell, Elizabeth 152, 172 Mick and Nick 222 Peatrick 224 Wives and Daughters 172 Plurabelle,Anna Livia 220–5 Gay, John 35, 146 Ricks, Sir Christopher 224–5 gematria 80 Shem and Shaun 221–2 Gemma 20 Tindall,William York 221 Geoffrey of Monmouth 5, 117–118

P:286

index 273 George 20, 62 Heller, Joseph 19, 42 George, St 54, 62 Hengler, John Milton 6 Gertrude 119 Herbert, George 77 Gil, Jelott 16 Hermia 116 Gilbert 175 Hermione 101 Giles 30–1 Giraldus Cambrensis 94 Hermogenes: see Cratylus and Gladstone,William Ewart 82 Glauce 65 Hermogenes Gnatho 3 Herrick, Robert 30, 38–9, 45, 137 Goodman 17 Gorgon 66 calendar 60 mistresses 46–7 see also Demogorgon Hesiod 63 Gosse, Edmund 45 Heywood,Thomas 133 Gower, John 15, 76 Hippolyta 113, 115 Hitler,Adolf 1–2 acrostic signature 77 hoaxing 145–9 Grace 14 by Bevis Hillier 148 Grattan,Thomas Colley 20, 174 by Frédéric Pages 148 Greene, Graham 216 Greene, Robert 30 by James McAuley and Harold Greville, Sir Fulke 81 Stewart 148 Grey of Wilton 91, 93 Grose, Francis 173, 185 by Witter Bynner and Arthur Guibbory,Achsah 45–6 Davison Fiche 147 Guildenstern 119 Gulliver, Lemuel 145 Hobbinol 86, 90 Guyon 63 Hodge 30, 155 Gynecia 89 Hogarth, Richard 25 Gyraldi, Lilio Gregorio 64, 69, 113 Holinshed 117–18 Holland, Peter 112–13, 114 Hamilton,A. C. 57, 89 Homer 141–2, 193–8 Hamlet 101, 119 Handford, Julius 188 analogues in Joyce 218 Hardy,Thomas 18 Iliad 193–8 Odyssey 141–2, 195 Hodge 30 Horatio 120 Tess of the Durbervilles 18 Hotson, Leslie 109 Harington, Sir John 85, 94, 95 Hotten, John Camden 173 Harmon, John 187–8 Howard, Henry, Earl of Surrey 44 Harmon, M. R. F. Eugene Hudibras 5 Hume, David 146 Gaffer 188 Humpty-Dumpty 2, 9 n. 11 Harvey, Gabriel 86 Hunt, James Henry Leigh 96 Hathaway,Anne 7 Hunter,William B. 206 Hazard, Mary 88, 215 Huxley,Aldous 96 Hector 162 Hyginus 113 Helen 20, 116 Hypnerotomachia Poliﬁli 56–7, 60 Helena 116 Iachimo 101 Iago 101 IHS 97 n. 14

P:287

274 index initials as ﬁrst name 180 Ulysses 217–19 Isitt, Larry 125 see also “Finnegans Wake” Jacques 103 Julia 46 James 159, 166 Julius Caesar 111 James I 81, 82, 118 James, Henry 4, 17, 164–5, Kafka, Franz 217 Karen 20 175–8, 217 Kate 158 collects names 175–6 Katherine 20 learns British code 164 Kelly 20 on Dickens 186 Kent 118 sensitive to associations 175 Kermode, Sir Frank 3 “A Bundle of Letters” 164 Kevin 3 Notebooks 175–6 key names 40, 88–97 Princess Casamassima 185 The Ivory Tower 176–7 deﬁned 88 Jane and Joan 156–8 means of disguise 95 Jankin, Jenkin 16 early examples 88 Janus Secundus 46 origin 88 Jarndyce 184 Algrind (Grindal) 91 Jeames 159 Astrophil (Philip Sidney) 85, 89 Jeeves 161 Jenkins, Harold 119–20 Barnivelt, Esdras (Alexander Jeremy 160 Pope) 95, 145–6, 197 Jerome, St 24, 128 Jessica 112 Belinda (Arabella Fermor) 95–6 Joanne 20 Johnson 164 Belisont (Warham St Leger) Johnson, Samuel 32, 146, 185, 215 92, 93 nicknames 152 Jones, Emrys 207 Britomart (Elizabeth I) 65 Jonson, Ben 14, 17, 24, 30, Nedar (Arden) 116 Philisides (Philip Sidney) 89 38–9, 102 Plume (George Browne) 95 allusion to 161 Rampion (D. H. Lawrence) 96 anagrams 135–6 Raymond (Byron) 96 renaming 184 Ryland (William Cobbett) 96 The Case is Altered 161 The New Inn 184 Satan (Charles, Cromwell) Joy Againe 14 136–7 Joyce, James 217–25 class associations 218 Shakespeare,William 104 inﬂuence of 225 Skimpole (Leigh Hunt) 96 Irish names 217 Stanton (Bill Clinton) 96 list of guests 218 Kicklebury, Sir Thomas 179 parody 218 Kiel, Cornelis 56 signature acrostic 218–19 Kilkenny, Statutes of 13 Kipling, Rudyard 147–8 Kirk, G. S. 193 Klein, Joe 96 Klejn, L. S. 193, 197 Knightley 172 Kripke, Saul 3

P:288

index 275 La3amon 75 Lovelace 17 Laertes 119 Lovelace, Richard 17 Lamarque, Peter 6 Lua 92 Landor,Walter Savage 7 Lucifera 66 Langedonck,Willy Van 8 Lufton, Lord 5 Langland,William 15 Lunn, Sally 160 Lycophron 79 claim to authorship 75 Lydia 20 Lansack (Bagnal) 93 Lyford, Edward 25 Laura 20, 83, 203 Lynus (Thomas Nashe) 95 Lee, Sir Henry 94 Lyra, Nicholas de 211 legal ﬁction 39 Leicester, Earl of 7 Mackay, Shena 216 Lelia 94 Macpherson, James 146 Leonard, John 130 Macrobius 197 Letters of Obscure Men 41 Madonna 15 Levin, Harry 103 Maggie 20 Levith, Murray 103, 104, 120 Maglan, Maglaunus 118 Lewalski, Barbara Kiefer 109–10, Maguire, Laurie 1, 115–16, 157–8 Maid’s Tragedy,The 20 207 Major Major Major Major 19 Lewis, C. S. 198–9 Mak 16 Licia 45 Malone, Edmond 147 Liddell,Alice Pleasance 88 Malvolio 110 Lisa 20 Mammon 128 Lolita 18, 225–30 Manallace, James A. 147–8 Mankind 16 conﬂicting allusions 229 Mann,Thomas 42 forms of “Lolita” 226 Manuzio,Aldo 6o motel names 226–9 Manwairing 13 names thematic 230 Mare,Walter de la 8 nymphet 226–7 Maria 165 writers alluded to 227–8 Marinell 92, 93–4 Butler, Diana 226 Marks, Herbert 127 Carroll, Lewis 229 Marot, Clément 34 Karshan,Thomas 228–9 Mars 200 Lull, Ramon 227 Martial 38, 94, 136 Luxemburg,Alexander 228 Martianus Capella 200 Melville, 229 Martius 3 Mirandola 227 Mary 161 Naiman, Eric 227–9 Mary, Queen of Scots 81 Neoplatonic aspiration 227 Massin 15 Poe, Edgar Allan 227–8 Masson, David 215 Proffer, Carl 228 Master 12 Q 229 Matthatron 126 Ramsdale register 227 Mauger 14 Scott, Sir Walter 230 Swift, Jonathan 228 Wittgenstein 226

P:289

276 index Maugham, Somerset 14–15, 96 mythological names 5, 6, 63–8, May 20 112–17, 234 May, Derwent 15 McLane, Paul 90 see also allusion Medina 58, 61 Meliboeus 31 N. H. 145 Meredith, George 44, 217 Nabokov,Vladimir 225–30 Methyl 19 Michael 126–7, 134 confession to Edmund Middlemore, Mary 84 Wilson 229 Milton, John 23, 69, 125–37 echoes Joyce 226 alleged Cratylist 127–8 on Ophelia 101, 225–6, 119–20 anti-Jesuit prejudice 205 Bend Sinister 225–6 opposed to rule by single see also “Lolita” person 137 name and noun, ambiguity of 1 namelessness 142–3 sources 125–8 names: abstract 16, 45–7, 58, 62 Lycidas 32 allegorical 5, 54, 184, 188 see also “Paradise Lost” allusive 5, 112 Minchin, Elizabeth 193–4 angels’, form of 127 Minturno, Sebastiano 43, 102 anglicized 7 Miranda 102–3 aptness diminishing 11, 23 Mirror for Magistrates 118 associations 59–60, 62, 153, 171, Miso 89 Mister 12 175, 187 Mitchell 14 biblical 16, 20, 23, 24 Mitchell, Margaret 21 burlesque 35, 37 modern etymologies irrelevant 101 calendrical 108–9 Moll Flanders 17 Montgomery, L. M. 165–6 chosen by parents, employers, Mopsa 89 medical attendants 4, 20 Morality plays 2 More Fruite 14 class considerations 18 More Triall 14 Cratylus and Hermogenes 2 More, Sir Thomas, St 56 Danish 119 day-names 162 Morgan, Emmanuel, and Knish, deﬁned 1 Anne 147 diachronic approach to 3 dictionaries of 25 Morley: see Parker, Henry diminutive 15, 16 Morose 17 disambiguation of reference 11, Morrell 91 Morrison,Toni 162–3 226 epic 29, 37 Mountjoy: see Blount, Charles etymological explanation 101 Mullan, John 41, 145, 154 evocative of communities 106, Murray, Sir David 84 Muscatine, Charles 198 119 Musidorus 89 false 105, 145–9 Mutabilitie 67 family plot 18–19 fashionable 19–22, 42–3 feminine terminations 20 ﬁctional, found or invented 4, 13

P:290

index 277 foreign and classical 7, 127 untranslatable 1 formative of character 6 variant forms 15 foundlings’ 18–20, 180–1 vernacular 16, 34–6 georgic 29–31 Welsh 15 grotesque 41–2, 175, 182, 189 heroic 29, 37 see also acrostics, allusion, hidden 75–97, 134–7 immigrants’ 19 anagrams, choice of name, indigenous 35 individuation 16 Cratylic names, family plot, full inherited 4 jocular 22 names, key names, naming, lists of 4–5, 175–6, 181–2, 186 literary 6, 21, 181 nicknames, patronymics, slave locational 12–13 middle 15 names, servant names, Morality plays 16 Mystery plays 16 surnames, type names. occupational 13 naming 43–5 “ordinary” 17 origins of 11 abrupt in satire 43 pastoral 31–7 Adam and Eve’s 125 personal, rare in georgic 29 anachronistic 131 personiﬁcations 56, 58–9 anticlimactic 6 philosophers’ view of 3 arbitrary 161–6 punnable 44 by institutions 18–20, 180–1, 186 Puritan 14, 174 by medical attendants 19 popular 20, 22 blank names 144 reasons for choice 20 by title 118, 131–5 reputation 5 circumlocutory 130 rivers 34, 64 Roman 12, 173 Dickens’s and James’s romance 5, 12, 20, 21, 42–3, 54 saints’ 13, 109–10, 122 n. 48 theories of 176–7, 183 satiric 37–9, 43 disintegration 217 single 15, 17, 157 erroneous 107, 111 sonnet mistresses’ 45 false 105 spelling of 6–8 French and English 163–4 Spenser’s variety of 53–4 georgic 29 study of, central 234 Greek basis of 56, 71 n. 15 subset of language 1 James’s notes on 176–7 tag names 105, 108, 118, 120, 172, Joyce’s 216 lyric 29 187, 190 n. 5 Milton’s simpler than Spenser’s 125 tragic 17, 117–20 modernist 215–19 uncontaminated 171 moral 38 unique 1, 226 Nabokov’s 216 of angels, restricted by Pope Zacharias 127 piscatory 31, 33, 34, 90 political 22 renaming 105, 174, 184, 186–7 satiric 38–9, 41, 43 scientiﬁc 125 Shakespeare’s, various 103–5 titular 118, 131–5

P:291

278 index naming (cont.) Nicola 20 unobtrusive 171–2, 216 Night 67 upper servants 159–60 Nine Worthies 110–11 withheld in romances 43, 142–4 Noah 16 Nobody 191 n. 47 Napoleon 1 Nohrnberg, James 59, 66–7 Nature 68 nominative determinism 6 Nedar (Arden) 116 Norman Conquest 11 Nelson,William 57 North,Thomas 105, 116 Nemo 184 Nostromo 216 Nessus 15 number symbolisms: Newton,Thomas 127 Nicholas 14, 108 diapason 201 nicknames 3, 11, 13, 149–57 ﬁfteen 200, 202 seven 200 Latinizations 151 six 200 playing on real names 149 sixteen 203 poetic 151 Nuttall,Anthony 114 used by Bloomsbury circle 154 Nym 106 “007” 150 Ariosto of the north 153 Oberon 113, 115 Dickens’s 150 Odysseus 141–2, 195 Esther Summers’s 185 Oldham, John 39–40 Scott’s 153 Oliver 186 Shakespeare’s 150 Olsen, Stein 6 Bathing Towel 149 onomastics, interest in 172–5 Beau 152 Ophelia 101, 119–20 Bozzy 152 Original 14 Bridey 150 Orimont (Ormond) 92, 93, 94 Caldius Biberius Mero 149 Orlando Ozio 96 Chops 185 Osmond 175 Corsica Boswell 152 Osric 120 Dictionary Johnson 152 Ossian 146 Dilwyn Rees 154 Oswald 118 Doctor Angelicus 150 Othello 101, 103 Doctor Mirabilis 150–1 Ovid 113 Lanky 152 Owl and the Nightingale,The 75 Leonidas Glover 152 Monk Lewis 149 Palice of Honour 201–3 Pincher Martin 149–50 throne approached by ﬁfteen Pip 150 steps 200, 202 Sherry 152 Humility and Discipline central 202 The Great Cham of literature 152 Palingenius 77 Pamela 17, 89 The Great Magician 153 Pan 90 The Great Unknown 153 Pandar 3 Ursa Major 152 Wizard of the north 153

P:292

index 279 Paradise Lost 125–37 Hilda Richards 153 allegory 128 Ikey Solomons 153 alluded to 211 James Aston 154 biblical names glossed 126–7 Kinsayder 152 biblical names preferred 125, 127 Lucy Vaughan 153 cabbalists quarried for names 127 Mark Twain 153 central emphasis 204 Michael Angelo Titmarsh 153 devils as pagan gods 130 Michael Innes 154 diabolical names 126 Myra Buttle 153 doubled names Spenserian 128–9 Nicholas Blake 154 hierarchy mobile 133 Rebecca West 154 magical books 126 Saki 154, 164 names lost at Fall 129 Sydney Dobell 152 naming thematic 128 Teufelsdröckh 152 satire 205 Tibbs 153 sources 125–8, 133 Penelope 85–6 symmetrical arrays 204–7 Pepys, Samuel 158, 163 twelve devil-disciples 128 misspellings 7 Percival 20 see also acrosics, anagrams Perissa 57 Parker, Henry, Baron Morley 203 Peto 106 Parker, Patricia 107 Petrarch 82–3, 202–4 Parnassus Illustratus 5 Canzoniere 82–3 Parry, Robert 78 Trionﬁ 202–4 Partridge, John 146 Phidelia 20 patronymics 13 Philips,Ambrose 35 Philisides 89 forbidden in Ireland 13 Phillips, Edward 25 surnames elective 13 Philo Judaeus 23, 24 Peacock,Thomas Love 96 Philoclea 89 Peake, Mervyn 42 Philosophers’ present 3 Pearson, D’Orsay 116 Philostrate 114, 117 Peele, George 116 Pickering Wotton 14 pen names 150–5 Piers the Plowman 15, 75 gender disguises 152–3 Pindar, Peter 30 multiple 154 Pisa, Rusticier de 135 Barbara Vine 154 Plato 1–2 Boz 153 Plorn 6 Charles Yellowplush 153 Plume (George Browne) 95 Cotton Mather Mills 152 Plutarch 105, 115 Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell 152 Poggioli, Renato 31, 37 Dan Kavanagh 154 Politic Persuasion 14 Edmund Crispin 154 Politic Would-Be 14 Ellis Peters 154 Polixenes 105 François-Marie Arouet 152 Polonius 104, 119–20 George Eliot 152 Polyphemus 31, 141–2 George Orwell 154 Fiona Macleod 153

P:293

280 index Pompey 111 Ralegh, Sir Walter 94 Pontano, Giovanni Gioviano 47 Rampion (D. H. Lawrence) 96 Pope,Alexander 31, 35–6, 40, 95, Randolph,Thomas 36 Raphael 126–7, 132–4 145–6, 197–8 political targets of 208 guardian of Mercury 134 processions preferred by 208 salutes Eve 135 scornful of anagrams 141–2 Ray, John 125, 226 A Key to the Lock 95–6, 145 Raymond (Byron) 96 Dunciad,The 207–11 realism 16, 235 Epistle to Dr Arbuthnot 43 Iliad translation 198 critique of formal realism Odyssey translation 141–2 16–17 Rape of the Lock,The 37, 95–6 Porush, David 217 of Irish names 217 Pound, Ezra 147 Victorian 217 Powell, Barry 142 rebus 75, 76, 77, 91, 92, 235 Prada 15 in printers’ devices 76 printers 76 Cotton 76 printers’ devices 77 Gryphius 76 Prometheus 70 Red Cross Knight 43, 62, 184 Proteus 101 Reformation 14 Proudie, Mrs 15, 177 Reuchlin, Johann 41 Proust, Marcel 18 Reynaldo 120 pseudonyms 141–9 Reynolds, Margaret 180 Amadis’ (Beltenebros) 143 Ribald 17 Elizabeth Gaskell’s 152 Richard du Champ (Richard Gareth’s (Bewmaynes) 143–4 Ginglein’s (Li Beaus Field) 104 Richards, Frank 166 Desconus) 143 Richardson, Samuel 16, 17, 18 Horn’s 144 Robson,Wallace 4 Jane Austen’s 152 Roderick 175 Lancelot’s (Le Shyvalere Ill Roffy 91 Rokesmith, John 187–8 Mafeete) 143 romances 5, 12, 20 Odysseus’ (Noman) 141–2 Puttenham, George 80, 90 most popular in 17C 144 Pynchon,Thomas 217 romance of identity 184–5 Pyrocles 89 Ronsard 81 Pythagoras 110 Roos, Sir Richard 75, 78 Rosalinde 90, 105 Quarles (Aldous Huxley) 96 Rosencrantz 119 Quickly 103 Rossetti, Dante Gabriel 6 Quince 106–8 rota vergiliana 29, 37 Quiverful 17, 177 Rowland–Orlando–Oliver 103 Rowlands, Richard [Verstegan] Rabelais 82 Ragussis, Michael 18, 163, 186 25, 173 Roxana 17 Rumbold,Valerie 207 Ruskin, John 101–2, 120

P:294

index 281 Ruthven, K. K. 145–6 King Lear 105, 117–18, 173 Ryland (William Cobbett) 96 Love’s Labour’s Lost 110–11, 114 Measure for Measure 162 saints’ names 13 Merchant of Venice 112 Sally 164 MND 106–8, 112–17 Sannazaro, Jacopo 31, 33, 36, 90 Much Ado 104 Satan 127–8 Othello 101, 103 Sonnets 44, 87 acrostic 135 Taming of the Shrew,The 106 as freedom ﬁghter 136 Tempest,The 104 as Lucifer 129 Twelfth Night 104, 109–10 Saxo Grammaticus 119 Winter’s Tale,The 104 Scaliger, Joseph Justus 82 Scaliger, Julius Caesar 5, 63 see also individual characters’ Scot, Reginald 134 Scott, Sir Walter 171–2 names nicknames 153 Shaw, George Bernard 4, 156 Scriblerus, Martinus 145–6 Shawcross, John 45 Scythorp (Shelley) 96 Sheepshanks 172 Selden, John 62, 65, 159–61 Shelley, Mary 96 Semiramis 7 Shelley, Percy Bysshe 70, 96 servants 157–63 Shylock 112 arbitrarily named 161–6 Sidney, Sir Philip 3, 85 butlers 159 Canadian 165–6 Arcadia 17, 88–9, 118 coachmen 159 Sidney, Robert, Lord Lisle 81 footmen 159 silent language 88, 215 governesses 164 despised during Enlightenment 88, identiﬁable by name 158 ladies’ maids 160 136 named from ofﬁce 158–61 Silvia 46 Simon, S. J. 7 named from place of Sin 131 origin 163–4 Skinner, Stephen 25 slave names 157–63 stewards 159–60 upper, given full names 159–60 arbitrary naming 161 Servius 89 African 161–3 Settle, Elkanah 210 Friday 162 Shakespeare,William 4, 7, 24, single 157 Smith, Charlotte 171 101–23 Smith, Duke U. 19 anagrams 87, 103 Smith, Marion Bodwell 109–10 nicknames 150 Smith-Bannister, Scott 11–12, 18, 20 variety in naming 103–5 Smollett,Tobias 18, 172 AYLI 37 Snout 106–8 Coriolanus 3 Snug 106–8 Hamlet 104, 119–20 Soames 5 Henry VI 103 Henry IV 117 sobriquets: see under nicknames Socrates 2 Sophia 17

P:295

282 index Sophronia 20, 185 conceals art 189 Sophrosina 20 exploits double surnames 178 Spenser, Edmund 24, 33–4, evokes social panoramas 179 identiﬁes types 179 53–73, 86 Vanity Fair 178 anagram acrostic 86 Thatcher, Margaret 82 indigenous names 35 The Lord Is Neare 14 Amoretti 86–7, 93 Theobald, Lewis 207–8 Shepheardes Calender,The 34, 90–1 central place of 210 displaced 211 see also “Faerie Queene,The” The Who 1 Sprat,Thomas 1 Theocritus 31–2, 33, 35 Stanton (Bill Clinton) 96 Theseus 112–17 Starveling 108 associations of 115 Statius 68–9 brutal womanizer 114 Steele, Richard 144 conﬂicting myths of 113 Stella 85 Thomalin 91 Stephano 104 Tilley, Morris Palmer 108 Stevenson, Robert Louis 5–6, 216 Tilney 172 Timon 55 Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde 216 Titania 101, 113 The Ebb Tide 216 titles 118, 131–4 Treasure Island 216 Tityrus 31, 34, 89 Stevenson,William 16 Tolkien, J. R. R. 4 Stone, Harry 181 Tom Thumb 177 Stoppard,Tom 30 Topas 105 Summers, Esther 185 Tribulation 14 Summers, U.T. Miller 19 Trinculo 104 Surnames 3–4, 11–15, 53–74 Trissino, Giangiorgio 63 as forenames 3, 14, 18 Trollope,Anthony 5, 17, 18, descriptive in four ways 12–13 from nicknames 13 43–4, 172 locational 12–13 Henry James on 177 occupational 13 Barchester Towers 177 use of, declining 15 Trott, John 163–4 Tryphon 60 see also patronymics Tufto, Sir George Granby 178 Turpin 60 Surrey, Earl of: see Howard Turveydrop 18 Sutherland, James 207 Twist 186 Sutherland, Sir James 147 type names 5, 155–9 Swift, Jonathan 96, 145–6, 210 ethnic 155 Bavius and Maevius 155 Drapier Letters 145–6 Farmer Giles 155–6 Sylvester, Joshua 82 Hodge 30 Joan and Jane 156 Talus 92 Joan of Arc 157 Temperance 14 Tempest, The 3 Tess of the Durbervilles 18, 30 Thackeray,William Makepeace 159, 164, 178–9

P:296

index 283 John and Jack 156 Waugh, Evelyn 41 John Bull 156 Waverley 171–2 Upton, John 53, 55, 57, 91 and Waverley Abbey 172 Uriel 127 Welsh, Irvine 4 Usk,Thomas 77 West, Nat 42 Utterson 216 West, Robert 132 Whately, Richard 215 Valentine 101, 161 White, James 174–5 Valeriano, Pierio 132 Whitelocke, Bulstrode 14, 20, 54, Vaughn, Mark 135 Veeder,William 175 159–60, 163 Veneerings 183 Whitman, Cedric 193–5 Venus: central place of 199 Whitney, Geoffrey 120 Who’s Who 8 number six assigned to 200 Wilfer 187 oratory as mis-en-abyme 199 Wilkins, E. H. 202 symmetrical array 199–200 Willet,Andrew 78, 133 Vergil: acrostics 135 William 20 wheel of 29 Williams, Shirley 82 Vergil, Polydore 61 Wills,W. H. 181, 186 Verstegan, Richard 102 Winnick, R. H. 87 Vice 16 Wither, George 120, 207 Victoria 20 Wodehouse, P. G. 161 Viola, Olivia, and Malvolio 103 Woolf,Virginia 217 Voltemand 119 Worden, Robin Blair 89 Wriothesly, Henry, Earl of Walcott, Derek 162 Waleys,Thomas 13 Southampton 81, 87 Wallace, David Foster 147 Wyf of Bath 16 Walpole, Horace 146–7 Walsingham, Sir Francis 60 Yonge, Charlotte M. 20, 173–4, 182 Warton,Thomas 147 genre arrangement 173 Washington, Booker 157 romances 174 Washington, George 1 Astolfo 174 Watson,Thomas 60, 90 Drogo 174 Watt, Gary 184 Watt, Ian 16, 18 Zeal for God 14 Zeal of the Land 14 see also realism Ziff, Paul 1 Zola, Émile 4