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Bohemia in Early English Literature

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 June 2017

René Wellek
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Bohemia and English literature? Everybody who sees this title will instantly think of Shakespeare's Winter's Tale and the sea-coast of Bohemia there. But has Bohemia been a topic in English literature outside this one instance which is almost tragicomic? For what could be further from the reality of Bohemia than Antigonus’ question to the mariner:

Thou art perfect, then our ship hath touch'd upon

The deserts of Bohemia?

However, Bohemian subject-matter, references and associations are quite numerous in English literature. A collection should throw light on the relations of the two countries: on the conceptions which Englishmen had of a fairly remote, land-locked country, the bits of information they picked up of its geography, history and people, the observations and impressions of English travellers, and the attitude of English writers to the Czech reformation, on their use of Czech names and legends. It will be best to begin with the dawn of history and bring the story down to the Battle of the White Mountain (1620) which submerged the Czech nation in the polyglot Empire of the Habsburgs for almost three hundred years.

Type
Research Article
Information
Slavonic and East European Review American Series , Volume 2 , March 1943 , pp. 114 - 146
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies 1943

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References

1 Shakespeare, Winter's Tale, III, iii, 1–2.

2 Alfred, King, A Description of Europe, ed. Boswortli, J. (London, 1855), V. 2 Google Scholar.

3 Luard, H. R., ed., Matthaei Parisiensis Monachi Sancti Albani Chronica Majora (London, 1874), VI, 79, 81, etc.Google Scholar; also IV, 109, 273. Riley, H. T., ed., Wilhelmi Rishanger quondam monachi S. Albani … Chronica et Annales (London, 1874), p. 5 Google Scholar.

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8 The huge literature on Chaucer can be found listed in Wells's Manual, in Hammond's, E. P. Chaucer: a Bibliographical Manual (New York, 1908)Google Scholar and recently in the Cambridge Killiogrophy of English Literature (Cambridge, 1941), I, 224, 226.

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10 Prologue to The Falls of Princes, 1. 330 ff. on H. Bergen's ed. (Washington, 1923; I, 10).

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14 See especially Odložilik, O., “Wycliffe's Influence upon Central and Eastern Europe,” Slavonic Review, VII (1928–29), 634 ffGoogle Scholar; Poole, K. L., “On the Intercourse between English and Bohemian Wycliffites in the Early Years of the Fifteenth Century,” English Historical Review, VII (1892), 306 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Further discussion of the question of Wycliff and Hus in H. Loserth, V. Novotný, F. M. Bartoš etc.

15 Richard Wyche's letter to Hus in Höller's Geschichlsschreiber der hussitischen Bewegung (Vienna, 1856–66), II, 210. John Oldcastle's letters to Zdislav of Zvířetic and to King Wenceslaus IV in Loserth's, H. Mittheilungen d. Inst. f. österr. Geschichtsforschung, XII (1891), 266, 268Google Scholar.

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23 Ibid. p. 26. The translation is by Thomas Webster, originally published London, 1687.

24 Luther's answer, Contra Henricum VIII Angliae Regem, dated July 15, 1522.

25 Quoted from Works, ed. Campbell, Chambers, Reed (London, 1927), p. 233, 262, 179 181, 254.

26 Parker Society, ed. H. Walter (1850), p. 165–166.

27 From Preface and the Answere to Tyndal's Preface. Quoted from 1532 ed.

28 From The Life of Fisher, transcribed from Ms. Harleian 6382. EETS, Extra Series, XXVII (1921), p. 69. A similar summary of the speech in Hall's Chronicle, 1548, p. 766.

29 “Assertionum Regis Angliae de Fide Catholica adversus Lutheri Babylonicam Cap-tivitatem Defensio,” in John Fisher, Opera (Würzburg, 1547), p. 113, 169. Other passages referring to Hus p. 113, 544, 477.

30 Ellis, F. S., ed., Cavendish, G., Life and Death of Cardinal Wolsey (London, 1899), p. 243 Google Scholar; for original text, cf. id., Kelmscott Press, 1893, pp. 273–274.

31 The Life of Fisher, loc. cit. in n. 28, p. 48.

32 Simpson, Richard, Edmund Campion, London, 1867, esp. pp. 73 ff. and p. 80Google Scholar.

33 The speech in Roberti Turneri… orationum Volumen Secundum … Acceserunt Edmundi Campioni … Orationes, Epislolae etc. (Cologne, 1625), p. 177.

34 Letter to John Bavand, quoted in Simpson, loc. cit. p. 86–87.

35 Ibid., p. 90.

36 Decem Rationes (1581). From Simpson, loc. cit. p. 66.

37 Bale, John, Chronicle of the Examination and Death of Lord Cobham (1544), p. 9–11 Google Scholar. “The Image of Both Churches,” quoted from Select Works, ed. H. Christmas (1849), p. 256; cf. also p. 563. A new discussion of Bale's importance in Protestant historiography see Harris, J. M., John Bale (Urbana, 1941)Google Scholar.

38 “Ex quo novissime aderam fratres in Christo charissimi” from Scriptorum Illustrium majoris Brytannie … Calalogus (Bale, 1557), p. 700. Also in Index Britanniae Scriptorum (Oxford, 1902), pp. 332–333.

39 J. Pratt, ed., Foxe, Actes and Monuments, 8 vols. (1877), III, 58, 64–86, 93–94, 97, 309, 402, 405 ff.

40 E. Burbridge, ed., Remains of the Library of Thomas Cranmer (1892), and Jenkyns, J., ed., Cranmer, Thomas, Remains (Oxford, 1833), III, 308 Google Scholar.

41 Eden, R., ed., Philpot, John, Examinations and Writings (Cambridge, 1842), p. 120 Google Scholar.

42 James Pilkington, Works, Parker Society, 1842, p. 644–645.

43 John Jewel, Works, Parker Society, I, 335, 210, 212, 205. In “A Reply to Mr. Harding's Answer” (1565).

44 “Sermon on Joshua VI, 1–3” (1583), ibid., II, 979.

45 Ibid., IV, 955. Also III, 128, 203, 309, 196.

46 Peraine, J. J. S., ed., Rogers, Thomas, The Catholic Doctrine of the Church of England, (Cambridge, 1854), p. 36, 119Google Scholar; Edwin Sandys, Sermons, 1841, Third Sermon. Whitaker, A Disputation on Holy Scripture, trans. William Fitzgerald (1849), p. 269–270. The original Disputatio de Sacra Scriplura dates from 1588.

47 Printed in Writings of John Bradford, ed. A. Townsend (Cambridge, 1853), p. 158. The letter addressed to August Bernhere, dated December 1554, first published in Coverdale's Letters of the Martyrs (1564), p. 70. Ortwinus Gratius, Fasciculus rerum expetendarum et fugiendarum (1535).

48 Loc. cit. in Bradford. See note 47.

49 The Fyrst boke of the Introduction of knowledge, chapter II. The woodcut representing the Bohemian shows a man making a gesture of refusal and a lady with a flower in her hand.

50 Batman uppon Bartholome, his Booke de Proprietatibus rerum, newly corrected, enaraged, and amended (London, 1582), p. 219.

51 See Wallace, M. W., The Life of Sir Philip Sidney (Cambridge, 1915), pp. 176–179 Google Scholar; also Bradley, W. A., ed., The Correspondence of Philip Sidney and Hubert Languet (Boston, 1912), p. 134 Google Scholar.

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54 The extracts from Folios 325–334 and Folios 539–544 of Ms. in Corpus Christi College, used with permission of the Bodleian Library, where it was in safe-keeping in 1938.

55 William Lithgow, The Tolall Discourse of the Rare Adventures and Painefull Peregrinations of Long Nineteene Yeares Travayles … (1632), p. 367. Also modern reprint, Glasgow, 1906.

56 Lewkenor, Samuel, A Discourse not altogether unprofitable, nor unpleasant for such as are desirous to know the situation and customes of forraine Cities without travelling to see them (London, 1600), pp. 56–59 Google Scholar.

57 Edward III, Act in, scene v. First ed. 1596, e.g., in C. F. T. Brooke's Shakespeare's Apocrypha (Oxford, 1908), p. 89.

58 The Tragedy of Alphonsus, reprinted in T. M. Parrott's edition of Chapman's Plays, I, 403. See. e.g., Act I scene ii. First printed 1654, but acted in 1630; see Bentley, G. E., The Jacobean and Caroline Stage (Oxford, 1941), p. 133 Google Scholar. On date cf. Bowers, F. T., Harvard Studies, XII (1933), 147 ffGoogle Scholar.

59 The Picture, printcd 1630, produced 1629. The source in Bandello I, 21, translated in Painter's Palace of Pleasure (II, 28).

60 Fortunatus, first printed 1600. Act I, sc. i, 11. 211, ed. O. Smeaton (1904), p. 15–16. Cf. Serdonati, Francesco, I casi degl’ Huomini Illustri di messer Ciovan Boccaccio (Florence, 1598, pp. 664, 669Google Scholar.

61 The Masque of Queenes, in Ben Jonson, ed. C. H. Herford and Percy and Evelyn Simpson, VII (Oxford, 1941), 303, 312.

62 Raffaeli Maffei de Volterra, Commentarii urbani (Lyons, 1552); Forcianae qtiaestiones, in quibus Italorum ingenia explicantur…, Authore Philalethe Polytopiensi Cive (Naples, 1536), p. 18.

63 The designs reproduced in edition of the Masque of Queenes, ed. Guy Chapman (London, 1930). No. 20 is the masquer representing Valasca.

64 Loc. cit., n. 61 above. The story derives from Camden's Remains (1605; 1870 reprint, p. 369).

65 List of ladies in Guy Chapman's edition as in note 63.

66 Pandosto. The Triumph of Time, 1588, ed. P. G. Thomas, 1907, p. 3.

67 See articles by Caro, Lippmann, etc. listed in CBEL, i, 574. There is a King Tafinor and a Prince Grasandor in Amadis de Gaul (Southey's translation, IV, 42, 114).

68 Parismus, the renowned Prince of Bohemia, His most famous, delectable, and pleasant Historie (London, 1598); See especially ch. XVIII. Parismenos: the Second Part of the … Historie of Parismus (London, 1599), esp. ch. I.

69 Euphormionis Salyricon (Leyden, 1674), p. 264. There are no copies extant of a reported 1603 edition; cf. Jules Dukas, Elude bibliographique el littéraire sur le Satyricon de Jean Barclay (Paris, 1880). The Emperor Rudolph is called Aquelius in the novel.

70 There is a monograph on Miss Weston in Czech by Antonín Kolář (Bratislava, 1926) and articles by Bohumil Ryba, in Lisly filologické, LVI (1929) and LIX (1932). She is not mentioned in the text of Leicester Bradner's Musae Anglicanae: A History of Anglo-Latin Poetry (New York, 1940), though her books are listed in the bibliography. I have not seen the Poemata, printed in Frankfurt-on-Oder in 1602. The quotation on her linguistic abilities from Opuscula cum Praefatione Joannis Christophori Kalckhoff (Frankfurt, 1723).

71 A list of 11 items in Pollard-Redgrave's Short-Title Catalogue.

72 The ascription to Harrison in Thomas Čapek's Bohemian (Čech) Bibliography (New ork, 1918), p. 34. Mr. Čapek did not see the Ms., as he thinks that it was written for the inter Queen's enlightenment. For Harrison compare the Dictionary of National Biography. The Ms. is in the Harleian collection (No. 4045).

73 All quotations from British Museum Ms.

74 Quoted from original pamphlet (Dordrecht, 1620), 10 pages.

75 Quoted from first ed., also reprinted in All the Workes of John Taylor, The Water Poet Ikondon, 1630). There we find another reference to his Bohemian visit. On p. 110 he speaks of “a street of whores, An English mile in length” which Taylor had seen in Prague, and there's a versified Book of Martyrs which mentions Hus and Jerome (III, 137).

76 Quoted from Word of Comfort to Persecuted Catholics, written in Exile, Anno 1607. Letters from a Cell in Dublin Castle and Diary of the Bohemian War of 1620 by Father Henry Filzsimon. With a sketch of his life by Edmund Hogan (Dublin, 1881), pp. 83 ff. The Latin original was published under the pseudonym Constantius Peregrinus in Vienna, 1621. See DNB.

77 Wotton's letter in Reliquiae Wottonianae (London, 1651), p. 415. Also in Logan Pearsail Smith, The Life and Letters of Sir Henry Wolton (Oxford, 1907), II, 206. Later in his life (1628), in a letter to Sir Thomas Wentworth, Wotton comments in detail on Dubravius and his book De Piscinis, highly impressed by the lucrative fish-raising business of Bohemia (see Smith II, 306). Wotton was, of course, the author of the famous poem on Elizabeth, Queen of Bohemia, beginning, “You meaner beauties of the night… . ” He wrote it in Greenwich Park before starting for Vienna in 1620. It was first printed in East's Six Sets of Bookes, 1624.