Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 November 2018
In a recent essay on new historicism Louis Montrose is concerned that “the terms in which the problem of ideology has been posed and is now circulating in Renaissance literary studies—namely as an opposition between ‘containment’ and ‘subversion’—are so reductive, polarized, and undynamic as to be of little or no conceptual value. A closed and static, singular and homogeneous notion of ideology must be succeeded by one that is heterogeneous and unstable, permeable and processual.“ Montrose's critique and recommended solution seem both valid and commonsensical, yet they are infrequently practiced, perhaps nowhere more hegemonically than in discussions of Renaissance elite ceremonies.
I would like to thank the following people for their comments on earlier versions of this essay: Thomas M. Greene, G. K. Hunter, Jill Kraye, and J. B. Trapp. I shall use the following abbreviations in the notes: CSPD = Calendar of State Papers, Domestic and HMC = Historical Manuscripts Commission.