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Seventeenth Century Childhood Education: Reflections from Venus and Adonis

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 February 2017

Ayers Bagley
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Extract

Venus and Adonis (ca. 1682), said to be the first complete English opera, includes an episode likely to be of more than aesthetic interest to historians of education. For, in addition to the musical and poetic charm of the opera as a whole, a scene in it called the “Cupids' Lesson” reflects some significant features of seventeenth century educational theory and practice. These are clothed in mythical guise, but the opera's first audience would have had no difficulty in recognizing correspondences between the fanciful Cupids' Lesson and what were common teaching-learning patterns. To identify and interpret these correspondences is the purpose of this essay.

Type
Research Article
Information
History of Education Quarterly , Volume 5 , Issue 4 , December 1965 , pp. 224 - 234
Copyright
Copyright © 1965, University of Pittsburgh Press 

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References

Notes

1. Leland Clarke, Henry, “John Blow: A Tercentenary Survey,” Musical Quarterly, XXXV (July, 1949), 414. John Blow (1649-1708), the composer, called his work “A Masque for the entertainment of the King,” but it is generally classified as an opera.Google Scholar

2. Lewis, Anthony, ed., Venus and Adonis (Monaco, Editions De L'Oiseau Lyre, 1949), 53.Google Scholar

3. Ibid., 57-63.Google Scholar

4. Dent, Edward J., Foundations of English Opera (London, 1928), 173.Google Scholar

5. Grout, Donald J., A Short History of Opera (New York, 1951), 137.Google Scholar

6. Dent, loc. cit. Google Scholar

7. Lewis, op. cit., in his Foreword calls it “the Spelling Lesson.” So does Manfred Bukofzer, Music in the Baroque Era (New York, 1947), 190. Grout merely confuses matters when he asserts that the instruction is given “in the form of a spelling lesson.” Op. cit., 137. After all, only one word in the lesson can be said to be taught in the “form” of a spelling lesson.Google Scholar

8. Lewis, , op. cit., 58.Google Scholar

9. Ibid., 55.Google Scholar

10. Ibid., 56.Google Scholar

11. Dent, op cit., 173.Google Scholar

12. According to the earliest extant evidence, the role of Cupid in the original production was performed by Lady Mary Tudor, “Liebeskind” of King Charles II and Mary (Moll) Davies, who played the part of Venus. Since little Mary was born in 1673, and the opera was first performed between 1682 and early 1685, she would have been between the ages of eight and eleven at her debut.Google Scholar

13. Campagnac, E. T., ed., A New Discovery of the Old Art of Teaching Schoole by Hoole, Charles, (Liverpool, 1913), 35; 253.Google Scholar

14. Watson, Foster, The English Grammar Schools to 1660 (Cambridge, 1908), 169.Google Scholar

15. See: Banton Smith, Nila, American Reading Instruction (New York, 1934).Google Scholar

16. Kempe, William, The Education of Children (1588).Google Scholar

17. Campagnac, E. T., ed., Ludus Literarius by Brinsley, John, 1627, (Liverpool, 1917).Google Scholar

18. Hoole, , op. cit. Google Scholar

19. Kempe, , op. cit., cited in Baldwin, T. W., William Shakspere's Petty School (Urbana, 1943), 9–10.Google Scholar

20. Walker, Ernest, A History of Music in England (London, 1924), 168. This statement does not appear in the third edition (1952).Google Scholar

21. Leland Clarke, Henry, John Blow: Last Composer of an Era 1947. Harvard: Unpublished doctoral dissertation, 480.Google Scholar

22. Ibid. Google Scholar

23. Lewis, , op. cit., 54–55.Google Scholar

24. Wright, Lewis B., Middle Class Culture in Elizabethan England (Chapel Hill, 1935), chap. 3.Google Scholar

25. Aries, Philippe, Centuries of Childhood (New York), 383. Aries presents a useful discussion of the various kinds of conduct books.Google Scholar

26. op cit., 18.Google Scholar

27. op. cit., 22. For a list of conduct books, see: Foster Watson, op. cit., 121-126, A more complete bibliography is provided by Noyes, Gertrude E., Bibliography of Courtesy and Conduct Books in Seventeenth Century England (New Haven, 1937).Google Scholar

28. Sloan, William, Children's Books in England and America in the Seventeenth Century (New York, 1955), 116.Google Scholar

29. Clement, Francis, The Petie Schole (1587).Google Scholar

30. Orme, William, ed., The Practical Works of Richard Baxter (London, 1830), XIX, 492.Google Scholar

31. Mather, Cotton, Bonifacius (Boston, 1710), 112.Google Scholar

32. Aries goes so far as to say that in seventeenth century France, “there were no reading restrictions on the reading matter made available to children.” (italics added). Op. cit., 384.Google Scholar

33. Furnivall, Frederick J., ed., The Babees Book (London, 1868). Seager's Schools of Vertue is included in this volume, 335-355.Google Scholar

34. Baxter, Richard, A Christian Directory (London, 1673), Part IV, 44.Google Scholar

35. Ibid. Google Scholar