Cultures of Diplomacy and Literary Writing in the Early Modern World

This interdisciplinary volume explores core emerging themes in the study of early modern literary-diplomatic relations, developing essential methods of analysis and theoretical approaches that will shape future research in the field. Contributions focus on three intimately related areas: the impact of diplomatic protocol on literary production; the role of texts in diplomatic practice, particularly those that operated as 'textual ambassadors'; and the impact of changes in the literary sphere on diplomatic culture. The literary sphere held such a central place because it gave diplomats the tools to negotiate the pervasive ambiguities of diplomacy; simultaneously literary depictions of diplomacy and international law provided genre-shaped places for cultural reflection on the rapidly changing and expanding diplomatic sphere. Translations exemplify the potential of literary texts both to provoke competition and to promote cultural convergence between political communities, revealing the existence of diplomatic third spaces in which ritual, symbolic, or written conventions and semantics converged despite particular oppositions and differences. The increasing public consumption of diplomatic material in Europe illuminates diplomatic and literary communities, and exposes the translocal, as well as the transnational, geographies of literary-diplomatic exchanges. Diplomatic texts possessed symbolic capital. They were produced, archived, and even redeployed in creative tension with the social and ceremonial worlds that produced them. Appreciating the generic conventions of specific types of diplomatic texts can radically reshape our interpretation of diplomatic encounters, just as exploring the afterlives of diplomatic records can transform our appreciation of the histories and literatures they inspired. Cover 1 Cultures of Diplomacy and Literary Writing in the Early Modern World 4 Copyright 5 Acknowledgements 6 Contents 8 List of Figures 10 List of Abbreviations 12 Notes on Contributors 14 Introduction: Literary and Diplomatic Cultures in the Early Modern World 18 LITERARY-DIPLOMATIC CULTURE 18 DIPLO-LITERARY STUDIES AND THE NEW DIPLOMATIC HISTORY 22 LITERARY ENGAGEMENTS 29 TRANSLATION 31 DISSEMINATION 33 DIPLOMATIC TEXTS 35 PART I: LITERARY ENGAGEMENTS 40 1: The Place of the Literary in European Diplomacy: Origin Myths in Ambassadorial Handbooks 42 INTRODUCTION 42 GENTILI ON THE ANTIQUITY OF EMBASSY 44 EUROPEAN CONTEXTS AND COMPARISONS 50 CONCLUSION: CONSCIOUS MYTHMAKING 56 2: Distinguished Visitors: Literary Genre and Diplomatic Space in Shakespeare, Calderón, and Proust 58 INTRODUCTION: ‘MAMAMOUCHI!’ 58 ‘GREAT AMBASSADORS, FROM FOREIGN PRINCES’ 61 ‘AN AMBASSADOR FOR MYSELF’ 65 CONCLUSION: ‘FOR A YOUNG MAN, A MEMORY WORTH KEEPING’ 69 3: Lines of Amity: The Law of Nations in the Americas 71 INTRODUCTION 71 COLONIAL ALLIANCES: DRAKE AND THE CIMARRONS 74 REBELLION AND THE LAW OF NATIONS 77 VITORIA AND COLONIAL ENMITY 79 DAVENANT AND COLONIAL TRAGEDY 82 CONCLUSION: MAROONING THE LAW OF NATIONS 84 4: Diplomatic Pathos: Sidney’s Brazen Fictions and the Troubled Origins of International Laws 86 INTRODUCTION: LAW AND THE LIMITS OF PERSUASION 86 LEGAL IDEALISM AND DIPLOMATIC PRACTICE 88 LEGAL IDEALISM AND PROTESTANT MISGIVINGS IN GENTILI AND SYDNEY 92 LAW, LITERATURE, AND DIPLOMATIC ASPIRATION IN A FALLEN WORLD 97 PART II: TRANSLATION 102 5: Translation and Communication: War and Peace by Other Means 104 INTRODUCTION: MERCURY AND THE PRE-HISTORY OF THE INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY 104 COMMERCIO ET IMPERIO: SELF-INTEREST, COMMUNICATION, AND THE REGULATION OF LIFE IN COMMON 107 POLITICAL AMBASSADORS AND TEXTUAL WARRIORS 110 TRANSLATION AND DIPLOMACY BETWEEN PARTICULARS AND UNIVERSALS 113 CONCLUSION: DIPLOMACY, TRANSLATION, AND GENERIC THIRD SPACES 115 6: The Politics of Translation: The Lusiads and European Diplomacy (1580–1664) 118 INTRODUCTION 118 PHILIP I I AND THE LUSIADS 119 SIR RICHARD FANSHAWE’S ROYALIST TRANSLATION AND ANGLO-PORTUGUESE DIPLOMACY POST 1655 122 CARLO ANTONIO PAGGI’S LA LUSIADA ITALIANA: GENOESE DIPLOMACY AND MERCANTILE AMBITIONS 126 CONCLUSION 130 7: Translation and Cultural Convergence in Late Sixteenth-century Scotland and Huguenot France 132 INTRODUCTION 132 TRANSLATION AND DIPLOMATIC SIGNALLING 135 FORMING A PROTESTANT LITERARY COMMUNITY 141 CONCLUSION 144 PART III: DISSEMINATION 146 8: Books as Diplomatic Agents: Milton in Sweden 148 INTRODUCTION 148 THE EARLY LIFE OF DEFENSIO 148 THE ANGLO-SWEDISH TURN 151 THE IMPACT OF DEFENSIO 157 THE SEQUEL 159 CONCLUSION 160 9: Diplomatic Knowledge on Display Foreign Affairs in the Early Modern English Public Sphere 163 INTRODUCTION: THE ANJOU MATCH PUBLISHED 163 COMPLETE MANUALS OF CRAFT KNOWLEDGE 165 DOCUMENTS AS MANUALS OF CONDUCT 168 THE STAGE AND PUBLIC CIRCULATION 170 THE ENDS OF DIPLOMATIC KNOWLEDGE 174 CONCLUSION 176 10: A Diplomatic Narrative in the Archive: The War of Cyprus, Record Keeping Practices, and Historical Research in the Early Modern Venetian Chancery 177 INTRODUCTION 177 DIPLOMATIC AND SCHOLARLY INFORMATION IN THE VENETIAN SECRET CHANCERY 179 DIPLOMATIC RECORDS AS HISTORICAL SOURCES: THE CASE OF THE WAR OF CYPRUS 182 CONCLUSION 189 PART IV: DIPLOMATIC DOCUMENTS 190 11: Textual Ambassadors and Ambassadorial Texts: Literary Representation and Diplomatic Practice in George Turberville’s and Thomas Randolph’s Accounts of Russia (1568–9) 192 INTRODUCTION 192 TEXTUAL AMBASSADOR: TURBERVILLE’S POEMS AND VERSE LETTERS 195 AMBASSADORIAL TEXT: THOMAS RANDOLPH’S DIPLOMATIC REPORT 199 CONCLUSION 204 12: Diplomatic Writing as Aristocratic Self-Fashioning: French Ambassadors in Constantinople 207 INTRODUCTION 207 DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE AS A SOCIAL PRACTICE 210 THE AMBIGUITIES OF AMBASSADORIAL SELF-FASHIONING 215 CONCLUSION 219 13: Negotiating with the Material Text: Royal Correspondence between England and the Wider World 220 INTRODUCTION 220 EPISTOLARY CULTURE AND THE SOCIETYOF PRINCES 221 THE CEREMONIAL CONTEXT 226 DECORATED TEXTS AND DIPLOMATIC COMMUNICATION 230 CONCLUSION 235 14: Ritual Practice and Textual Representations: Free Imperial Cities in the Society of Princes 237 INTRODUCTION 237 THE SYMBOLIC DIMENSIONS OF RECORDING URBAN DIPLOMACY 240 THE CEREMONIAL RECORDS OF PRINCELY VISITS TO THE IMPERIAL CITIES 249 CONCLUSION 253 Bibliography 256 MANUSCRIPTS 256 PRINTED SOURCES 258 SECONDARY SOURCES 264 Index 288 This interdisciplinary volume explores core emerging themes in the study of early modern literary-diplomatic relations, developing essential methods of analysis and theoretical approaches that will shape future research in the field. Contributions focus on three intimately related areas: the impact of diplomatic protocol on literary production; the role of texts in diplomatic practice, particularly those that operated as 'textual ambassadors'; and the impact of changes in the literary sphere on diplomatic culture. The literary sphere held such a central place because it gave diplomats the tools to negotiate the pervasive ambiguities of diplomacy; simultaneously literary depictions of diplomacy and international law provided genre-shaped places for cultural reflection on the rapidly changing and expanding diplomatic sphere. 0Translations exemplify the potential of literary texts both to provoke competition and to promote cultural convergence between political communities, revealing the existence of diplomatic third spaces in which ritual, symbolic, or written conventions and semantics converged despite particular oppositions and differences. The increasing public consumption of diplomatic material in Europe illuminates diplomatic and literary communities, and exposes the translocal, as well as the transnational, geographies of literary-diplomatic exchanges. Diplomatic texts possessed symbolic capital. They were produced, archived, and even redeployed in creative tension with the social and ceremonial worlds that produced them. Appreciating the generic conventions of specific types of diplomatic texts can0radically reshape our interpretation of diplomatic encounters, just as exploring the afterlives of diplomatic records can transform our appreciation of the histories and literatures they inspired "This interdisciplinary volume explores the relationship between literature and diplomacy in the early modern world and studies how texts played an integral part in diplomatic practice." -- [éditeur] This interdisciplinary edited collection explores the relationship between literature and diplomacy in the early modern world and studies how texts played an integral part in diplomatic practice