I just don't see how the preceding paragraphs lead to the penultimate one. I'm not a Sidney scholar, but it seems to me that the whole of Mary Sidney's life of letters up to that point is fascinating and generally accepted with occasional disagreements over print shop gossip. On the other hand, the notion that Mary took the unprecedented step of assuming the pen name of Shakespeare (who later turns up as a real person who apparently decided to assume that name as well) in order to write a riposte to all those back stage Tommy's in the figure of Venus and Adonis, well, that seems a bit of a stretch to me. Especially when the similarity to Hero and Leander is considered. Mary got her name into print well before 1593, so no real reason why she couldn't address the matter in person. I do not accept the notion that stooping to humble Nashe, Daniel, Greville or Florio would have been so beneath her that the Shakespeare ruse was necessary or even useful. I'd like to see some more support of the need for or utility of this disguise if it's available. Similarly, I continue to find a substantial disconnect between the known work of Lady Pembroke and the poem Venus and Adonis. Meanwhile, what have you to say about Harvey's allegation in L'Envoy, the tag to his Gorgon, or That Wonderful Yeare, that "The hugest miracle remains behind / The second Shakerley Rash-Swath to bind"?
As for the "substantial disconnect" between Mary's known work and Venus and Adonis, you will have to clarify for me to answer. Assuming Doleful Lay is correctly attributed by Spenser, she had already written a memorial for her brother in the same verse form. Fraunce establishes that she encouraged Ovidian stories of transformation in his honor, it is hardly a stretch to suggest she might have written one herself. Arefin et all (2014) places Mary's Psalms among the closest works to Venus and Adonis based on word usage despite the difference in genre (see here: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0111445)
Harvey suggests that the miracle or singularity which he associates with his Gentlewoman would have happened in 1588 but was delayed until 1593. Mary spent two years in seclusion at Wilton after her brother's death before triumphantly rejoining the court in 1588 as part of the coronation day procession celebrating the defeat of the Armada. Harvey may mean that she intended to publish her writing then but deferred because of the Armada, he suggest she will be recognized after the publication of V&A in 1593. An alternative reading concerns Harvey's brother Richard's prediction of a cataclysm based on astronomical alignment (something Nashe ridicules elsewhere). In any event I don't see how Harvey could be referring to Marlowe in light of the disparaging remarks you make in your next comment.
Peter, I never said Nashe called her “spear shaker”, that is your invention. Nashe called her a “second Minerva, whom our Poets extoll as the Patronesse of their inuention; for in thee, the Lesbian Sappho with her lirick Harpe is disgraced, & the Laurel Garlande which thy Brother so brauely aduaunst on his Launce, is still kept greene in the Temple of Pallas.” Pallas Athena is the martial incarnation of Minerva, the one associated with the epithet “Spear shaker.” He is not simply recognizing her as patron or muse, but as a poet who disgraces Sappho by comparison. He does invoke a spear with the mention of Philip’s lance. Others do so more explicitly, Harvey speaks of “that fair body of the sweetest Venus in Print, as it is redoubtedly armed with the complete harness of the bravest Minerva. - When his necessary defence hath sufficiently accleared him, whom it principally concerneth to acquit himself: She shall no sooner appear in person, like a new Star in Cassiopeia, but every eye of capacity will see a conspicuous difference between her and other mirrors of Eloquence.” The arms of Minerva are of course her spear, which somehow is supplied to the forthcoming “sweetest Venus in Print”, which will reveal a conspicuous difference between Mary and other mirrors of eloquence.
In his dedication of Cleopatra to Mary, Samuel Daniel invokes pens like swords, “Now when so many Pennes (like Speares) are charg’d, To chase away this tyrant of the North; Grosse Barbarisme, whose power grown far inlarg’d Was lately by thy valiant brothers worth First found, encountered, and provoked forth:” a sentiment echoed in Jonson’s “shake a lance As brandish't at the eyes of Ignorance”
As for the reference to V&A in Hero and Leander,
“The men of wealthy Sestos every year,
For his sake whom their goddess held so dear,
Rose-cheek'd Adonis, kept a solemn feast.
Thither resorted many a wandering guest
To meet their loves; such as had none at all
Came lovers home from this great festival;
For every street, like to a firmament,
Glister'd with breathing stars, who, where they went,
Frighted the melancholy earth, which deem'd
Eternal heaven to burn, for so it seem'd
As if another Pha{"e}ton had got
The guidance of the sun's rich chariot.”
Is clearly a reference to the first line of Shakespeare’s poem, and certainly seems to connect both to the gathering described by Abraham Fraunce in Ivychurch.
I think I mostly answered this in the comment on the previous post. The whole of Mary's life of letters up to this point constitutes the published translations of Antonie and Mornay, her Psalms, a couple short masques or dialogues attached to a presentation version of the Psalms apparently intended for the Queen (and possibly performed at some point), a translation of Petrarch's Triumph of Death which survived in second hand manuscript and a pair of memorial poems for her brother "to the Angel Spirit" and "the Doleful Lay of Clorinda" attached to Spenser's Colin Clout Comes Home Again. Nearly all of this work appears to have been completed in the years immediately following her brother's death, before Mary turned 30. There is no evidence that her interest in writing stopped at that time and her biographers note references to a substantial body of work beyond the ones listed which is somehow lost.
At least my reading of Harvey constitutes fairly direct testimony that Mary was the author of the Gentlewoman Poems which attacked Nashe, and I believe the textual links to Nashe's dedication to Astrophel and multiple references to Mary as Pallas and her spear constitute a compelling reason why the name William Shakespeare would immediately suggest her role in the work. With respect to an actual person name William Shakespeare (or Shakspere) the easiest explanation was that the man from Stratford was an actor associated with the company which suggested the name (or he was in fact the writer of the canon writing on behalf of Mary). I do not believe either of these are likely given the absence of evidence of such an actor or of connection to Stratford. I believe that the references to Shakespeare connected to the company are all to the pseudonymous writer who is most likely Mary and the connection to Stratford was made only after Shakspere's death by insertion in his will and placing the monument after the Folio was published. I don't understand your notion that "he turns up as a real person" if by that you mean as I think you suggested in your previous comment that he joined after the publication of Venus and Adonis as some sort of business manager.
My reading of Hero and Leander is that Marlowe acknowledges Venus and Adonis as a distinct work by a different author, also in honor of Philip Sidney. I do not see how one could be adapted from the other, or why, or why Marlowe would add a nod to the finished work to the abandoned one.
Nashe never called her spear shaker. That is your invention. No reason to assume that Nashe meant anything more than what he plainly said, Mary supported poets and her brother's legacy. There is no reason why Mary would choose a pseudonym, no reason why she would choose such a name as Shakespeare. You choose to believe this, with emphasis on choose. I certainly understand your reasons better than you explain Mary's. As for your "reading" of H&L, kindly provide the text where Marlowe addresses V&A as a completed text. You might also address the direct borrowings by V&A from H&L, or vice versa, if you wish.
I just don't see how the preceding paragraphs lead to the penultimate one. I'm not a Sidney scholar, but it seems to me that the whole of Mary Sidney's life of letters up to that point is fascinating and generally accepted with occasional disagreements over print shop gossip. On the other hand, the notion that Mary took the unprecedented step of assuming the pen name of Shakespeare (who later turns up as a real person who apparently decided to assume that name as well) in order to write a riposte to all those back stage Tommy's in the figure of Venus and Adonis, well, that seems a bit of a stretch to me. Especially when the similarity to Hero and Leander is considered. Mary got her name into print well before 1593, so no real reason why she couldn't address the matter in person. I do not accept the notion that stooping to humble Nashe, Daniel, Greville or Florio would have been so beneath her that the Shakespeare ruse was necessary or even useful. I'd like to see some more support of the need for or utility of this disguise if it's available. Similarly, I continue to find a substantial disconnect between the known work of Lady Pembroke and the poem Venus and Adonis. Meanwhile, what have you to say about Harvey's allegation in L'Envoy, the tag to his Gorgon, or That Wonderful Yeare, that "The hugest miracle remains behind / The second Shakerley Rash-Swath to bind"?
As for the "substantial disconnect" between Mary's known work and Venus and Adonis, you will have to clarify for me to answer. Assuming Doleful Lay is correctly attributed by Spenser, she had already written a memorial for her brother in the same verse form. Fraunce establishes that she encouraged Ovidian stories of transformation in his honor, it is hardly a stretch to suggest she might have written one herself. Arefin et all (2014) places Mary's Psalms among the closest works to Venus and Adonis based on word usage despite the difference in genre (see here: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0111445)
Harvey suggests that the miracle or singularity which he associates with his Gentlewoman would have happened in 1588 but was delayed until 1593. Mary spent two years in seclusion at Wilton after her brother's death before triumphantly rejoining the court in 1588 as part of the coronation day procession celebrating the defeat of the Armada. Harvey may mean that she intended to publish her writing then but deferred because of the Armada, he suggest she will be recognized after the publication of V&A in 1593. An alternative reading concerns Harvey's brother Richard's prediction of a cataclysm based on astronomical alignment (something Nashe ridicules elsewhere). In any event I don't see how Harvey could be referring to Marlowe in light of the disparaging remarks you make in your next comment.
Peter, I never said Nashe called her “spear shaker”, that is your invention. Nashe called her a “second Minerva, whom our Poets extoll as the Patronesse of their inuention; for in thee, the Lesbian Sappho with her lirick Harpe is disgraced, & the Laurel Garlande which thy Brother so brauely aduaunst on his Launce, is still kept greene in the Temple of Pallas.” Pallas Athena is the martial incarnation of Minerva, the one associated with the epithet “Spear shaker.” He is not simply recognizing her as patron or muse, but as a poet who disgraces Sappho by comparison. He does invoke a spear with the mention of Philip’s lance. Others do so more explicitly, Harvey speaks of “that fair body of the sweetest Venus in Print, as it is redoubtedly armed with the complete harness of the bravest Minerva. - When his necessary defence hath sufficiently accleared him, whom it principally concerneth to acquit himself: She shall no sooner appear in person, like a new Star in Cassiopeia, but every eye of capacity will see a conspicuous difference between her and other mirrors of Eloquence.” The arms of Minerva are of course her spear, which somehow is supplied to the forthcoming “sweetest Venus in Print”, which will reveal a conspicuous difference between Mary and other mirrors of eloquence.
In his dedication of Cleopatra to Mary, Samuel Daniel invokes pens like swords, “Now when so many Pennes (like Speares) are charg’d, To chase away this tyrant of the North; Grosse Barbarisme, whose power grown far inlarg’d Was lately by thy valiant brothers worth First found, encountered, and provoked forth:” a sentiment echoed in Jonson’s “shake a lance As brandish't at the eyes of Ignorance”
As for the reference to V&A in Hero and Leander,
“The men of wealthy Sestos every year,
For his sake whom their goddess held so dear,
Rose-cheek'd Adonis, kept a solemn feast.
Thither resorted many a wandering guest
To meet their loves; such as had none at all
Came lovers home from this great festival;
For every street, like to a firmament,
Glister'd with breathing stars, who, where they went,
Frighted the melancholy earth, which deem'd
Eternal heaven to burn, for so it seem'd
As if another Pha{"e}ton had got
The guidance of the sun's rich chariot.”
Is clearly a reference to the first line of Shakespeare’s poem, and certainly seems to connect both to the gathering described by Abraham Fraunce in Ivychurch.
I think I mostly answered this in the comment on the previous post. The whole of Mary's life of letters up to this point constitutes the published translations of Antonie and Mornay, her Psalms, a couple short masques or dialogues attached to a presentation version of the Psalms apparently intended for the Queen (and possibly performed at some point), a translation of Petrarch's Triumph of Death which survived in second hand manuscript and a pair of memorial poems for her brother "to the Angel Spirit" and "the Doleful Lay of Clorinda" attached to Spenser's Colin Clout Comes Home Again. Nearly all of this work appears to have been completed in the years immediately following her brother's death, before Mary turned 30. There is no evidence that her interest in writing stopped at that time and her biographers note references to a substantial body of work beyond the ones listed which is somehow lost.
At least my reading of Harvey constitutes fairly direct testimony that Mary was the author of the Gentlewoman Poems which attacked Nashe, and I believe the textual links to Nashe's dedication to Astrophel and multiple references to Mary as Pallas and her spear constitute a compelling reason why the name William Shakespeare would immediately suggest her role in the work. With respect to an actual person name William Shakespeare (or Shakspere) the easiest explanation was that the man from Stratford was an actor associated with the company which suggested the name (or he was in fact the writer of the canon writing on behalf of Mary). I do not believe either of these are likely given the absence of evidence of such an actor or of connection to Stratford. I believe that the references to Shakespeare connected to the company are all to the pseudonymous writer who is most likely Mary and the connection to Stratford was made only after Shakspere's death by insertion in his will and placing the monument after the Folio was published. I don't understand your notion that "he turns up as a real person" if by that you mean as I think you suggested in your previous comment that he joined after the publication of Venus and Adonis as some sort of business manager.
My reading of Hero and Leander is that Marlowe acknowledges Venus and Adonis as a distinct work by a different author, also in honor of Philip Sidney. I do not see how one could be adapted from the other, or why, or why Marlowe would add a nod to the finished work to the abandoned one.
Nashe never called her spear shaker. That is your invention. No reason to assume that Nashe meant anything more than what he plainly said, Mary supported poets and her brother's legacy. There is no reason why Mary would choose a pseudonym, no reason why she would choose such a name as Shakespeare. You choose to believe this, with emphasis on choose. I certainly understand your reasons better than you explain Mary's. As for your "reading" of H&L, kindly provide the text where Marlowe addresses V&A as a completed text. You might also address the direct borrowings by V&A from H&L, or vice versa, if you wish.