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(see E. M. W. Tillyard, The Elizabethan World Picture, Hardin Craig,
The Enchanted Glass, Theodore Spencer, Shakespeare and the Nature of
Man)
There are three metaphors for the order of the universe and man’s dignity within that order:
I. The Great Chain of Being
Five categories or major "links"; each category contains its own hierarchy
| 1. Mere existence |
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a. Members: elements, liquids, metals |
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b. Primates: fire, gold |
| 2. Existence and generation (vegetative soul) |
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a. Members: plants |
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b. Primates: oak, rose |
| 3. Existence, generation, feeling (sensible soul) |
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a. Members: insects, fish, animals. |
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Primates: dolphin, lion (or elephant), eagle |
| 4. Existence, generation, feeling, and understanding (rational soul) |
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a. Member humanity, the microcosm of the created universe |
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b. Primates: king, pope; the elaborated hierarchy includes the "king" of the household (the husband and father) |
| 5. Understanding without physical essence |
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a. Members: the nine orders of angels, hierarchically arrange to
correspond with the nine spheres |
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b. Primate: Seraphim |
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II. Corresponding Planes
Five categories:
1. God and the Angels
2. The Macrocosm (physical universe)
3. The Body Politic
4. The Microcosm (mankind; the physical body)
5. Lower Creation
III. The Cosmic Dance
A sense of universal harmony linked to the idea of the music of the spheres; order results in harmony;
harmony results in an orderly ‘dance’ that is our properly ordered civilization
Shakespeare, from Troilus and Cressida, I.iii.85-118:
The heavens themselves, the
planets, and this centre.
Observe degree, priority, and place,
Insisture, course, proportion, season, form,
Office, and custom, in all line of order;
And therefore is the glorious planet Sol
In noble eminence enthron'd and
spher'd
Amidst the other ....
....O! when degree is shak’d,
Which is the ladder to all high designs,
The enterprise is sick. How could communities,
Degrees in schools, and brotherhoods in cities,
Peaceful commerce from dividable shores,
The primogenitive and due of birth
Prerogative of age, crowns scepters, laurels,
But by degree, stand in authentic place?
Take but degree away, untune that string,
And hark! What discord follows; each thing meets
In mere oppugnancy; the bounded waters
Should lift their bosoms higher than the shores,
And make a sop of all this solid globe;
Strength should be lord of imbecility,
And the rude son should strike his father dead:
Force should be right; or rather, right and wrong
Should lose their names, and so should justice too!
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Other
Study Pages:
Henry
IV main page
Historical
context
Scene
by scene summary
Henry
IV Lecture Notes
The
Ptolemaic Universe
The
humors
Elizabethan
ideas of Order
The
Anatomy of the Soul
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