School of Night

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The School of Night ( dt. The School of Night ) is used as a partial "ironically" term for a loose association of men in the second half of the 16th century by Sir Walter Raleigh seen, discussed the scientific and philosophical questions. They were suspected by some contemporaries of atheism (John Parsons 1592: "School of Atheism") and free thinking. The name School of Night dates back to the 20th century.

The term "school of the night"

Excerpt from original text IV, 3 Dear Sorrows and Pleasures, First Folio

The term "The School of Night" as a name for this group was coined by Arthur Acheson in a book in 1903. He was referring to a passage in William Shakespeare 's play Liebes Suffering and Lust, IV, 3 , in which the King of Navarre says:

O paradox, Blacke is the badge of hell ,
The hue of dungeons and the school of night
And beauties crests becomes the heavens well

The context of these lines does not suggest any association or gathering of people. In the Shakespeare scene, the king only seems to refer to the dark hair of his friend Biron's lover. However, various scholars have interpreted this line as an allusion to Raleigh's "School of Atheism" and used the name "The School of Night" for the group. However, such an interpretation is largely rejected today.

Intellectuals, selected members of the progressive nobility and educated citizens including mathematicians, astronomers, travelers of the New World, geographers, philosophers, poets and the like are supposed to join the presumed "secret" association. a. have heard such. B. (next to Raleigh) Henry Percy ("Wizard Earl", Earl of Northumberland), Ferdinando Stanley (Lord Strange, Earl of Derby), Thomas Harriot , William Warner , Christopher Marlowe , George Chapman , Mathew Roydon , Sir George Carey and others. a. who met to discuss scientific, religious, political and philosophical issues. They are said to have met in "Durham House", the London residence of Raleigh, which Queen Elizabeth had expropriated from the Bishop of Durham. However, there are no reliable sources that can prove that all of these people knew each other. There are, however, various sources, as early as the Elizabethan Age, that speculated about connections between various of these people.

The mathematician Thomas Harriot , however, was demonstrably connected to Raleigh in the 1580s and was patronized by Henry Percy.

atheism

Contemporaries raised serious charges of atheism against Raleigh and his circle . To be suspected of atheism at the time was de facto an accusation equivalent to high treason. Since the regent was also the supreme lord of the church, opposition to the church also meant opposing the regent.

Atheism was also practically the same as anarchy and was often used as an accusation against politically unpopular people. Richard Cholmley, an anti-Catholic secret agent for the Privy Council of Her Majesty stressed in a sworn written statement Christopher Marlowe , "the atheist lecture to Sr. Walter Raleigh [and] others," to have held to have therefore held atheistic speeches against Raleigh .

In 1592 the exiled Jesuit Robert Parsons had responded to the "Royal Proclamation" against the Jesuits, probably initiated by Lord Burghley , with his writing "Responsio" , in which he disapproved of the rumor that Raleigh should become a member of the Privy Council and through his mediation "Sorcerers' apprentices" (which probably meant Harriot among others) would bring an "atheistic" policy to England.

swell

  • Arthur Acheson Shakespeare and the rival poet , London: John Lane 1903, Archives
  • Muriel C. Bradbrook, The School of Night: A Study in the Literary Relationships of Raleigh , Cambridge University Press 1936, 1965
  • Susanne S. Webb, Raleigh, Hariot, and Atheism in Elizabethan and Early Stuart England, Albion: A Quarterly Journal Concerned with British Studies, Volume 1, 1969, pp. 10-18
  • Ernest A. Strathmann, The Textual Evidence for "The School of Night", Modern Language Notes 1941
  • Ernest A. Strathmann, Sir Walter Raleigh: A Study in Elisabethan Skepticism, New York Columbia Univ. Press, 1951
  • W. Schrickx, Shakespeare's Early Contemporaries. The Background of the Harvey-Nashe Polemic and Love's Labor's Lost, Antwerpen, De Nederlandsche Boekhandel 1956
  • David B. Quinn, John W. Shirley, A Contemporary List of Hariot References, by Renaissance Quarterly 1969

Web links

literature

  1. ↑ first by Arthur Acheson, Shakespeare and the Rival Poet , 1903. He represents the thesis that George Chapman was the rival poet of the sonnets of Shakespeare. Addressed, among others, in the edition of Love's Labor's Lost by Dover Wilson .
  2. ^ Encyclopedia Britannica, Online , Walter Raleigh
  3. ↑ z. B. listed in Aishwarya Sugandhi, Walter Raleighs School of Night and Mermaid Tavern, Kyoto University, pdf
  4. ^ Samuel Tannenbaum [1928]: The Assassination of Christopher Marlowe (A New View) . The Shoe String Press, pp. 49-50, LCC PR2673.T3 .
  5. ↑ A declaration of great Troubles pretended against the Realme by a number of Seminarie Priests and Jesuits, sent and very secretly dispersed in the same, to work great Treason under a false pretence of Religion, with a provision very necessary for remedy thereof
  6. ↑ quoted by EA Strathmann "John Dee as Raleighs Conjurer". - Elisabethae, Angliae Reginae Haeresim Calviniam Propugnantis, Saevissiumum in Catholicos sui Regni edictum… cum Responsione… per Andream Philopatrum (Augsburg 1592), Huntington Library Quarterly, X (1947)