Song, Eric B.

Modern Philology

English

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Swarthmore College Works English Literature Faculty Works English Literature 11-2017 Review Of "The Elizabethan Country House Entertainment: Print, Performance, and Gender" By E. Z. Kolkovich Eric B. Song Swarthmore College, esong1@swarthmore.edu This work is brought to you for free and open access by . It has been accepted for inclusion in English Literature Faculty Works by an authorized administrator of Works. For more information, please contact myworks@swarthmore.edu. Follow this and additional works at: https://works.swarthmore.edu/fac-english-lit  Part of the English Language and Literature Commons Let us know how access to these works benefits you  Recommended Citation Eric B. Song. (2017). "Review Of "The Elizabethan Country House Entertainment: Print, Performance, and Gender" By E. Z. Kolkovich". Modern Philology. Volume 115, Issue 2. E118-E120. DOI: 10.1086/693150 https://works.swarthmore.edu/fac-english-lit/332 BOOK REV IEWThe Elizabethan Country House Entertainment: Print, Performance, andGender. Elizabeth Zeman Kolkovich. Cambridge:CambridgeUniversity Press,2016. Pp. xiv1243.The introduction to this book adroitly explains the ﬁrst two terms in thesubtitle, Print, Performance, and Gender. Kolkovich studies the country enter-tainments presented to Elizabeth I as site-speciﬁc events performed underthe pressure of various needs. This book then considers how these perfor-mances assumed alteredmeanings in print. Less clear is why gender shouldbe the third essential term. Gender is certainly relevant whenever Eliza-beth is involved; especially revealing are occasions when women playedroles in hosting and staging entertainments. Yet gender does not unifythe ensuing study, which is bifurcated into sections on performance andon print. Gender is just one of the important concepts that the ensuingstudy covers, alongside regional versus national interests, and domesticinterests in relation to foreign policy. “Genre” might have better servedas the third term linking the other two. The author argues that the Eliza-bethan country house entertainment—“long unrecognized as a literarygenre”—is a genre by asserting that it is one (2). A discussion of genre asa bounded but ﬂuid category might have clariﬁed how the oscillation be-tween particular political needs and a shared literary vocabulary gives riseto a distinctive Elizabethan genre, at once transient and durable.The overarching principle of theﬁrst section onperformance is that en-tertainments negotiate particular interests with the need to afﬁrm Eliza-beth’s sovereignty. The ﬁrst chapter discusses entertainments at the Theo-balds estate of WilliamCecil, Lord Burghley, in 1571 and in the 1590s; andthe 1575 entertainment at Kenilworth Castle, hosted by Robert Dudley,Earl of Leicester. The 1571 Theobalds entertainment heralds Elizabeth’sModern Philology, volume 115, number 2. Published online June 22, 2017For permission to reuse, please contact journalpermissions@press.uchicago.edu.E118This content downloaded from 130.058.107.059 on December 05, 2018 13:37:17 PMAll use subject to University of Chicago Press Terms and Conditions (http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/t-and-c).supreme ownership of the country estate; Leicester’s prominence and am-bitions in foreign policy express themselves through a tenser negotiationof the Crown’s control and the earl’s prerogative at Kenilworth. The 1590sentertainments at Theobalds reﬂect the aging Burghley’s need to consol-idate his family’s status while still afﬁrming Elizabeth’s power.Gender comes into sharper focus in chapter 2, which examines Pe-trarchan appeals in country entertainments. The primarily examples arethree1592performances atBishamAbbey, SudeleyCastle, andRycote Park.These entertainments “build political alliances among household womenand Elizabeth” by imagining alternatives to Petrarchism as a language ofmale courtiership (52). Kolkovich’s analysis of these fascinating entertain-ments is hindered by recourse to a simpliﬁed binary between heterosexualPetrarchan desire and female identiﬁcation. In the 1592 entertainment atSudeley Castle, the Ovidian Daphne (possibly performed by the Brydges’eldest daughter, Elizabeth) requires the queen’s intervention to defendher chastity. A consideration of the prominence of the Daphne myth inPetrarchism and the subject/object reversals involved might have ex-plained more convincingly how the queen’s defense of chastity forges abond with Elizabeth Brydges while still presenting the latter as a “youngwoman ready for marriage” (74). Kolkovich argues that “Daphne under-stood” what conventionally Petrarchan male suitors did not: “the desire to‘winne a maidenhead’ was inappropriate in a political climate that valuedfemale chastity” (77). Yet writings such as Walter Raleigh’s 1595 Discoveryof Guiana reveal this to be a misleading claim.Chapter 3 introduces a new keyword: hospitality—and, speciﬁcally, thetension between free hospitality and gift giving as a demand for reciproc-ity. Entertainments at Elvetham (1591), Mitcham (1598), and Hareﬁeld(1602) respond to Elizabeth’s promotion of hospitality as a corrective torural poverty and to theﬂight of wealthy aristocrats to London. Yet if coun-try entertainments perform hospitality, they are also gifts that seek favors.The Hareﬁeld entertainment shows how this kind of dynamic could fostera “queen-housewife analogy” that curries favor by casting the queen as asavvy and hospitable sovereign (118).The overarching principle of the section on print is that publishers allseek proﬁt but otherwise have divergentmotivations. Richard Jones’s 1576octavo The Princelye Pleasures, at the Courte at Kenelwoorth serves as the ﬁrstexample in chapter 4. Kolkovich argues that Jones aimed to produce an“elite literary text” by emphasizing the “literary aspects of the Kenilworthperformance” (131, 134). The reader must infer what “literary” means.The next major example does not offer a useful nonliterary contrast butrather the production of a “publisher of elite, regional material”—the Ox-ford University printer Joseph Barnes (147). In 1592, Barnes printed theonly Elizabethan entertainment book to emerge outside of London.Book Review E119This content downloaded from 130.058.107.059 on December 05, 2018 13:37:17 PMAll use subject to University of Chicago Press Terms and Conditions (http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/t-and-c).Kolkovich argues that this provenance heightens tensions between ruralcenters and Elizabeth’s national sovereignty.Chapter 5 turns to the real alternative to “literariness”: publications in-tended as news—and, speciﬁcally, as news for a national readership. Yetcontext threatens to become the argument: printers who generally spe-cialized in news likely intended entertainments to be consumed as news.Compelling details become subordinated to this premise. In 1591, for ex-ample, William Wright and Thomas Scarlet published the text of an en-tertainment hosted by ViscountMontague, “themost public of Elizabeth’sCatholic supporters” (156). Kolkovich argues that the extant versions ofthis text suggest a revised edition. These revisions downplay Montague’sCatholicism to promote national unity. All of this conﬁrms (and is con-ﬁrmed by) the bookseller Wright’s “interests in timely news and nation-building” (165). At the end of chapter 4, Kolkovich observes that her read-ing of Barnes’s Oxford publication “supports the claims” of scholars whoemphasize regionalism in early modern England (154). In the ﬁnal para-graph of chapter 5, Kolkovich asserts that her reading of entertainments asnational news “extends the claims of Richard Helgerson, Andrew Had-ﬁeld,” and others who have focused on Elizabethan nationhood (191).While these chapters present useful evidence for the tension between lo-cal interests and national ones, no single, original argument is advancedhere.The ﬁnal chapter shifts emphasis further away from performance, awayfrom shared political concerns, and toward literary authorship. Kolko-vich examines William Ponsonby’s printing of Philip Sidney’s “The Ladyof May”—originally composed for a 1578 entertainment. Published afterSidney’s death, “The Lady of May” speaks less to topical interests than toSidney’s poetic authorship.Mary Sidney’s “ADialogue BetweenTwo Shep-herds, Thenot and Piers” was written for an entertainment that never tookplace. Its inclusion in a 1602 volume afﬁrms the Sidney legacy at the ex-pense of praise of Elizabeth.This book resists straightforward synopsis because it lacks a single uni-fying argument. Yet its virtue is that it assembles such a wide array of ma-terials that Kolkovich has researched comprehensively. This monographwill appeal to readers with interests in performance studies, print history,gender politics, and the uneven development of English nationhood. Abrief epilogue speaks further to why the Elizabethan country house enter-tainment is worthy of study: this genre (or subgenre) would shape the con-ditions for the rise not only of the Jacobean country entertainment butalso the courtly masque and the country house poem.Eric SongSwarthmore CollegeE120 M O D E R N P H I L O L O G YThis content downloaded from 130.058.107.059 on December 05, 2018 13:37:17 PMAll use subject to University of Chicago Press Terms and Conditions (http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/t-and-c).

Review Of  The Elizabethan Country House Entertainment: Print, Performance, and Gender  By E. Z. Kolkovich

Swarthmore College 
Works 
English Literature Faculty Works English Literature 
11-2017 
Review Of "The Elizabethan Country House Entertainment: Print, 
Performance, and Gender" By E. Z. Kolkovich 
Eric B. Song 
Swarthmore College, esong1@swarthmore.edu 
Follow this and additional works at: https://works.swarthmore.edu/fac-english-lit 
 Part of the English Language and Literature Commons 
Let us know how access to these works benefits you 
 
Recommended Citation 
Eric B. Song. (2017). "Review Of "The Elizabethan Country House Entertainment: Print, Performance, and 
Gender" By E. Z. Kolkovich". Modern Philology. Volume 115, Issue 2. E118-E120. DOI: 10.1086/693150 
https://works.swarthmore.edu/fac-english-lit/332 
This work is brought to you for free by Swarthmore College Libraries' Works. It has been accepted for inclusion in 
English Literature Faculty Works by an authorized administrator of Works. For more information, please contact 
myworks@swarthmore.edu. 
BOOK REV IEW
The Elizabethan Country House Entertainment: Print, Performance, and
Gender. Elizabeth Zeman Kolkovich. Cambridge:CambridgeUniversity Press,
2016. Pp. xiv1243.
The introduction to this book adroitly explains the first two terms in the
subtitle, Print, Performance, and Gender. Kolkovich studies the country enter-
tainments presented to Elizabeth I as site-specific events performed under
the pressure of various needs. This book then considers how these perfor-
mances assumed alteredmeanings in print. Less clear is why gender should
be the third essential term. Gender is certainly relevant whenever Eliza-
beth is involved; especially revealing are occasions when women played
roles in hosting and staging entertainments. Yet gender does not unify
the ensuing study, which is bifurcated into sections on performance and
on print. Gender is just one of the important concepts that the ensuing
study covers, alongside regional versus national interests, and domestic
interests in relation to foreign policy. “Genre” might have better served
as the third term linking the other two. The author argues that the Eliza-
bethan country house entertainment—“long unrecognized as a literary
genre”—is a genre by asserting that it is one (2). A discussion of genre as
a bounded but fluid category might have clarified how the oscillation be-
tween particular political needs and a shared literary vocabulary gives rise
to a distinctive Elizabethan genre, at once transient and durable.
The overarching principle of thefirst section onperformance is that en-
tertainments negotiate particular interests with the need to affirm Eliza-
beth’s sovereignty. The first chapter discusses entertainments at the Theo-
balds estate of WilliamCecil, Lord Burghley, in 1571 and in the 1590s; and
the 1575 entertainment at Kenilworth Castle, hosted by Robert Dudley,
Earl of Leicester. The 1571 Theobalds entertainment heralds Elizabeth’s
Modern Philology, volume 115, number 2. Published online June 22, 2017
For permission to reuse, please contact journalpermissions@press.uchicago.edu.
E118
This content downloaded from 130.058.107.059 on December 05, 2018 13:37:17 PM
All use subject to University of Chicago Press Terms and Conditions (http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/t-and-c).
supreme ownership of the country estate; Leicester’s prominence and am-
bitions in foreign policy express themselves through a tenser negotiation
of the Crown’s control and the earl’s prerogative at Kenilworth. The 1590s
entertainments at Theobalds reflect the aging Burghley’s need to consol-
idate his family’s status while still affirming Elizabeth’s power.
Gender comes into sharper focus in chapter 2, which examines Pe-
trarchan appeals in country entertainments. The primarily examples are
three1592performances atBishamAbbey, SudeleyCastle, andRycote Park.
These entertainments “build political alliances among household women
and Elizabeth” by imagining alternatives to Petrarchism as a language of
male courtiership (52). Kolkovich’s analysis of these fascinating entertain-
ments is hindered by recourse to a simplified binary between heterosexual
Petrarchan desire and female identification. In the 1592 entertainment at
Sudeley Castle, the Ovidian Daphne (possibly performed by the Brydges’
eldest daughter, Elizabeth) requires the queen’s intervention to defend
her chastity. A consideration of the prominence of the Daphne myth in
Petrarchism and the subject/object reversals involved might have ex-
plained more convincingly how the queen’s defense of chastity forges a
bond with Elizabeth Brydges while still presenting the latter as a “young
woman ready for marriage” (74). Kolkovich argues that “Daphne under-
stood” what conventionally Petrarchan male suitors did not: “the desire to
‘winne a maidenhead’ was inappropriate in a political climate that valued
female chastity” (77). Yet writings such as Walter Raleigh’s 1595 Discovery
of Guiana reveal this to be a misleading claim.
Chapter 3 introduces a new keyword: hospitality—and, specifically, the
tension between free hospitality and gift giving as a demand for reciproc-
ity. Entertainments at Elvetham (1591), Mitcham (1598), and Harefield
(1602) respond to Elizabeth’s promotion of hospitality as a corrective to
rural poverty and to theflight of wealthy aristocrats to London. Yet if coun-
try entertainments perform hospitality, they are also gifts that seek favors.
The Harefield entertainment shows how this kind of dynamic could foster
a “queen-housewife analogy” that curries favor by casting the queen as a
savvy and hospitable sovereign (118).
The overarching principle of the section on print is that publishers all
seek profit but otherwise have divergentmotivations. Richard Jones’s 1576
octavo The Princelye Pleasures, at the Courte at Kenelwoorth serves as the first
example in chapter 4. Kolkovich argues that Jones aimed to produce an
“elite literary text” by emphasizing the “literary aspects of the Kenilworth
performance” (131, 134). The reader must infer what “literary” means.
The next major example does not offer a useful nonliterary contrast but
rather the production of a “publisher of elite, regional material”—the Ox-
ford University printer Joseph Barnes (147). In 1592, Barnes printed the
only Elizabethan entertainment book to emerge outside of London.
Book Review E119
This content downloaded from 130.058.107.059 on December 05, 2018 13:37:17 PM
All use subject to University of Chicago Press Terms and Conditions (http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/t-and-c).
Kolkovich argues that this provenance heightens tensions between rural
centers and Elizabeth’s national sovereignty.
Chapter 5 turns to the real alternative to “literariness”: publications in-
tended as news—and, specifically, as news for a national readership. Yet
context threatens to become the argument: printers who generally spe-
cialized in news likely intended entertainments to be consumed as news.
Compelling details become subordinated to this premise. In 1591, for ex-
ample, William Wright and Thomas Scarlet published the text of an en-
tertainment hosted by ViscountMontague, “themost public of Elizabeth’s
Catholic supporters” (156). Kolkovich argues that the extant versions of
this text suggest a revised edition. These revisions downplay Montague’s
Catholicism to promote national unity. All of this confirms (and is con-
firmed by) the bookseller Wright’s “interests in timely news and nation-
building” (165). At the end of chapter 4, Kolkovich observes that her read-
ing of Barnes’s Oxford publication “supports the claims” of scholars who
emphasize regionalism in early modern England (154). In the final para-
graph of chapter 5, Kolkovich asserts that her reading of entertainments as
national news “extends the claims of Richard Helgerson, Andrew Had-
field,” and others who have focused on Elizabethan nationhood (191).
While these chapters present useful evidence for the tension between lo-
cal interests and national ones, no single, original argument is advanced
here.
The final chapter shifts emphasis further away from performance, away
from shared political concerns, and toward literary authorship. Kolko-
vich examines William Ponsonby’s printing of Philip Sidney’s “The Lady
of May”—originally composed for a 1578 entertainment. Published after
Sidney’s death, “The Lady of May” speaks less to topical interests than to
Sidney’s poetic authorship.Mary Sidney’s “ADialogue BetweenTwo Shep-
herds, Thenot and Piers” was written for an entertainment that never took
place. Its inclusion in a 1602 volume affirms the Sidney legacy at the ex-
pense of praise of Elizabeth.
This book resists straightforward synopsis because it lacks a single uni-
fying argument. Yet its virtue is that it assembles such a wide array of ma-
terials that Kolkovich has researched comprehensively. This monograph
will appeal to readers with interests in performance studies, print history,
gender politics, and the uneven development of English nationhood. A
brief epilogue speaks further to why the Elizabethan country house enter-
tainment is worthy of study: this genre (or subgenre) would shape the con-
ditions for the rise not only of the Jacobean country entertainment but
also the courtly masque and the country house poem.
Eric Song
Swarthmore College
E120 M O D E R N P H I L O L O G Y
This content downloaded from 130.058.107.059 on December 05, 2018 13:37:17 PM
All use subject to University of Chicago Press Terms and Conditions (http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/t-and-c).


Eric Song

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<i>The Elizabethan Country House Entertainment: Print, Performance, and Gender</i>. Elizabeth Zeman Kolkovich. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016. Pp. xiv+243.

https://works.swarthmore.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1331&amp;context=fac-english-lit

Review Of The Elizabethan Country House Entertainment: Print, Performance, and Gender By E. Z. Kolkovich

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