27 Thomas Nashe : Unfortunate Traveller

1.0 OBJECTIVE:

This Chapter will discuss briefly the life of Thomas Nashe, a university wit and a contemporary of Shakespeare in the sixteenth century and in more detail about his chief work The Unfortunate Traveller.

1.1 GENERAL INTRODUCTION:

Thomas Nashe (1567- c.1601), a contemporary of Shakespeare wrote during the zenith of the English Renaissance. He is a „minor‟ („major‟ among Elizabethans are Shakespeare, Marlowe Spenser and Johnson), but his achievements exceed his contemporary reputation as a great polemicist. In today‟s world we remember him as the „English Juvenal‟ who „carried the deadly stockado in his pen‟. He donned many hats—a moralist, poet, story-teller, social critic, scholar, preacher, jester, pamphleteer, above all an entertainer. A conscious artist, „his stories are told for pleasure in telling, his jokes are cracked for the fun of them, and his whole style speaks of a relish for living‟.

In 1554, La vide de Lazarillo de Tormes ( The Life of Lazarillo of Tormes doubtfully attributed to Diego Hurtado de Mendoza, in which the knave boy Lazarillo describes his services under seven successive lay and clerical masters, each of whose dubious character is hypocritical) was published in Spain. This novella is credited with founding the genre. It was translated into different languages including English. The Unfortunate Traveller was published in 1594. It is generally considered the earliest example of picaresque novel in England. Written in the first-person narrative, it is pseudo-autobiographical in nature. The episodic narratives of the characters seem typical of the genre of „picaresque novel‟, which comes from the Spanish word picaro, or rogue. Rogue literature‟ was gaining popularity in the jest-books and pamphlets of the early modern Europe. Hence both these texts are regarded as the precursors of picaresque mode of fiction.

1.2 HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

In order to understand the historical context that led to the development of these paradigmatic picaresque novels in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries it is essential to take into consideration the circumstances that led to the development of this kind of novel. The critical debate regarding the specifics of this genre continues. However it is commonly accepted that the picaresque narrative originated in Spain in the 1550s. Picaresque are first-person narratives of a roguish hero, usually of low birth. The picaresque elements which determine the character Lazarillo was present at a nascent stage in early Roman Literature. Petronius‟ Satyricon had picaresque elements in it. Lazarillo has similar traits of Petronius‟ central character Enclopius. The comedies of Plautus were widely read in renaissance Europe. If we go in search of the roots of this picaresque tradition, we find that even in Arabic literature, the literary genre of maqamat in which a vagabond lives on his wits were present. The tales of Chaucer and Boccaccio are replete with picaresque elements. However the modern picaresque begins with the seminal work Lazarillo.

1.3     TEXT:

1.3 1 STORYLINE:

Let us begin with the story. The unfortunate Traveller, relates the lively adventures of the rogue-hero, Jack Wilton, an English page serving in the army of king Henry VIII. He drifts from one place to another, comes across various people— worthy and unworthy and witnesses many kinds of society. He rambles along relating the everyday details of his experiences in autobiographical form. While the English troops are encamped near Turwin in France, Jack pretends that he has overheard the King and his council planning to do away with a certain cider-merchant. He terrifies the alehouse keeper, „ the Lord of misrule‟ into distributing his stores.

It is buzzed in the King‟s head that you are a secret friend to the enemy, and, under pretence of getting a licence to furnish the camp with cider and suchlike provant, you have furnished the enemy, and in empty barrels sent letters of discovery and corn innumerable.

He accepts the ring and the heritage of the Lord of Misrule. Completely fooled the alehouse keeper gives away all of his supplies to the soldiers and begs for the King‟s mercy. The profit is turned to the King‟s advantage. The King enjoys the knavish tricks, whips Jack for his jest and gives the cider merchant a pension. Jack‟s persuasive speeches to his gullible victims are carefully recorded in these early pages of the novel. We have a general feeling that he is addressing an imagined audience of the fellow-pages, which makes it rather interesting.

After this escapade Jack befriends a captain. Jack is forced to help the captain get rich by throwing dice. He persuades the captain to turn spy and seek out information valuable to the King. Completely fooled, the captain enters the French lines. The French army officers discovers him and is almost killed.

Adam never fell till God made fools. All this could not keep his joints from ransacking on the wheel, for they vowed either to make him a confessor or a martyr with a trice.

By the turn of incidents he is hustled back to the English camp.

Jack‟s jest makes him lowered in his own self-esteem He again goes to England. It is peacetime and the duties of a page begin to pall. He now leaves the king‟s palace and chooses to become a soldier of fortune. On his way he crosses the English Channel and reaches the household of the French King. He tries to enter the monarch‟s service against the Swiss. However he is too late in joining. So he travels to Germany, and to his utter surprise finds John Leiden leading the Baptists against the Duke of Saxony. He witnesses a gruesome massacre in which the Baptists are annihilated as they refuse to carry the weapons of war into the battle. Nashe here satirizes the city of Munster, as it became a centre of Anabaptism in the sixteenth century. Anabaptists were Puritans opposed to infant baptism.

Perchance here and there you might see a fellow that had a canker-eaten skull on his head, which served him and his ancestors for a chamber-pot two hundred years……

After the battle, Jack meets the Earl of Surrey, who already knew Jack at King Henry‟s court. He confides to Jack his love for Geraldine, a beautiful Florentine woman. Surrey requests Jack to travel with him to Italy in pursuit of her. Jack immediately consents to accompany the Earl. They proceed southward into Italy. While travelling Surrey proposes to Jack that they exchange identities for the time-being, so that he can move about in a carefree manner. Jack is excited at the prospect of being an Earl. He readily agrees.

Passing through Rotterdam, they meet Erasmus and Sir Thomas More. At Wittenberg they witness an old play Acolastus and also witness the disputations between Luther and Carolostadius. Finally they meet the famous magician, Cornelius Agrippa. When they arrive in Venice, the two travelers are taken up by a courtesan named Tabitha, she tries to kill Jack using the true Earl as her accomplice. Surrey and Jack gets her and her pander executed for attempting to conspire against a life. In the process Jack unknowingly comes into possession of some counterfeit coins. They are detained on charge of counterfeiting coins. Jack and the Earl are taken as prisoners in the master of the mint‟s house and they are joined by the beautiful Diamante, a prisoner also being held on a false charge. Nashe hints at the countless false imprisonment. We have a candid picture of the bourgeois Elizabethan society. She is so beautiful that her fellow prisoners are attracted to her. Jack seduces her by playing upon her personal pride—–she is imprisoned on her husband‟s suspicions of unfaithfulness.

Diamante is often compared with Shakespeare‟s Dark Lady by various critics like Charles Nicholl.

Diamante, Castaldo‟s ye magnifico‟s wife, after my enlargement, proved to be with child, at which instant there grew an unsatiable famine in Venice wherein, whether it were for mere niggardise or that Castaldo still ate out his heart with jealousy, Saint Anne be our record, he turned up the heels very devoutly.

A divorce has to be arranged because Diamante is pregnant. Being out and fully possessed of her husband‟s goods, she invested me in the state of a monarch.

They now adopt the roles of Surrey and Geraldine. Incidentally Surrey catches up with them in Florence. The situation is tense—-we expect an outright confrontation with Surrey. But Surrey is matured enough to handle the situation with gentle humour.

„Ah‟, quoth he, „my noble Lord‟ (after his tongue had borrowed a little leave of his laughter), „ is it my luck to visit you thus unlooked for? I am sure you will bid me welcome, if it be but for the name‟s sake. It is a wonder to see to see two English earls of one house at one time together in Italy.

Surrey is summoned back in England, Jack and Diamante travel to Italy.

The novel now develops a darker side. In Rome, Jack and Diamante fall prey to the villainous duo— Zadoch and Dr Zachary. Juliana enslaves him and keeps him as an object of pleasure in her chamber. This villainous duo plot to slaughter the Christians. This is typical of anti-Semitic tropes in contemporary literature. We have a traveler‟s description of an ancient and venerable Rome. We have a further candid picture of the corrupt Jews during this time. Nashe shows many aspects of suspiciously ambivalent attitude to Catholicism. The characters Zacahary and Zadoch give us a different picture of the Elizabethan times. They are associated with two types of literal anatomization that was prevalent in the Elizabethan world—-medical dissection of corpses and judicial disemboweling of traitors and condemned criminals.

But first I‟ll tell you what betided me after I was brought to Doctor Zacharie‟s. The purblind Doctor put on his spectacles and looked upon me; and when he had thoroughly viewed my face, he caused me to be stripped naked, to feel and grope whether each limb were sound and my skin and not infected. Then he pierced my arm to see how my blood ran; which essays and searchings ended, he gave Zadoch his full price and sent him away, then locked me up in a dark chamber till the day of anatomy.

Luckily Jack and Diamante escape to Bolgona. Zadoch is executed publicly. In Bolgona, they attend another execution, this time that of Cutwolfe. He is the vengeful brother of the accomplice Esdras.. To Esdras the Plague in Rome is a just occasion for rape and murder. He is not moved by the pious appeals of Heraclide when he violated her. Heralclide feels that the Plague is an instrument of Divine justice. However she is raped and commits suicide. Cutwolfe now murders Esdras to avenge the death of his brother Bartoll. He earnestly begs Cutwolfe to redeem his soul before death.

Spare me, spare me, I beseech thee. By thy own soul‟s salvation. I desire thee, seek not my soul‟s utter perdition. In destroying me thou destroyest thyself and me.

Cutwolfe refuse to forgive, For thy sake will I Swear and forswear, renounce my baptism and all the interest I have in any other sacrament. Only let me live how miserable so ever, be it in a dungeon amongst toads, serpents and adders, or set up to the neck in dung. No pains, I will refuse however prorogued to have a little respite to purify my spirit. Oh hear me, hear me, and thou canst not be hardened against me!

Jack compels Esdras to renounce the faith, to blaspheme verbally as well as in writing. He commits his soul to the devil. As soon as he complies, Cutwolfe shoots him in the throat. He annihilates the voice which has destroyed both the body as well as the soul. Cutwolfe is executed for the murder of Esdras. The Earl rescues Jack from the gallows. Jack repents, marries Diamante and leaves Italy. Jack‟s story ends at the camp of the Field of the Cloth of Gold, once again in Henry VIII‟s military camp. He abstains from bloodshed and discovers his real self.

What does the story tell us? Jack is an anti-hero, even if he wins our sympathies, he gains no wisdom, nor is he an agent of change. He sees himself as the clever hero of this narrative, as the victim of hypocrisy or unfavourable situations but the events of his story belie this self-perception. Jack Wilton‟s narrative becomes in effect an ironic or satirical survey of the hypocrisies and corruptions of the Elizabethan society. It also offers the readers a rich mine of Nashe‟s observations concerning people in low or humble walks of life.

1.3 2 CRITICAL ANALYSIS:

In order to understand this perplexing text we need to refer to the dedicatory sentence:

Ingenuous honourable lord, I know not what blind custom methodical antiquity hath thrust upon us, to dedicate such books as we publish to one great man or other. …….Long have I desired to approve my wit unto you. My reverent dutiful thoughts (even from their infancy) have been retainers to your glory. Now at last I have enforced an opportunity to plead my devoted mind.

It is quite evident that Nashe‟s thoughts are irreverent and undutiful to the figures of higher authority. We know that in his actual life Nashe was neither „dutiful‟ nor „reverent‟. The Jack that we meet is an extension of the independent, nonconformist Nashe. Another usage which attracts attention is Nashe‟s use of the word „infancy‟. Infancy is that period of life where a child requires maximum attention, when one is fresh and creative. Indirectly it indicates Nashe‟s own creative ego, when it was at its peak. If we look at the formal structure of the text, then according to Nashe it is not an expression of the realistic world but it is an expression of a fantasized tale. As an infant is dependent, Nashe is dependent on the Earl of Southampton. In a similar way Jack Wilton also needs sustenance from Nashe. Jack is like the leaf on a tree, someone who cannot grow by himself, unless and until he is sustained by his maker Nashe. He is a kind of alter ego or appendix of Nashe. He remains as a page upon which the author expresses his creativity.

If we look at the title of the fiction it immediately associates itself to the Bible, however in a negative form. We can refer to God‟s punishment meted out to the Israelites when they were chased out of their own land and were forced to live in an alien land. Jack accepts the reality and becomes a historiographer of his own misfortunes.

When the story opens we see Henry VIII is at war “against the two hundred and fifty towers of Turney and Turwin”.

It comes to a closure with, And so, as my story began with the King at Tournay and Turwin, I think meet here to end it with the King at Ardes and Guines.

It began and ended with the notion of a chronicle. Interestingly, Nashe the chronicler is invested with the same power as that of a king-maker. His alter-ego Jack plays three roles: he is an infant, a maker or chronicler and a monarch. As an infant, the first jest that he performs, is on a figure of some prestige in the army camp, „a Lord of misrule‟. The opening passage puts Jack as a Lord, not as a Lord of high-minded rule, but a Lord of misrule. The change of rank shows Jack‟s slow descent and a retreat in life. There is no advancement. From the very beginning Jack gulls his victims, in the process he invites his own downfall.

Even in the cider- merchant episode, Jack topples. He tries to steal the limelight as a central figure instead becomes a marginal one. He envisions himself as a monarch but the higher authority compels him to grovel and lick the dust. His enthusiastic endeavours becomes an exercise in vain!. His tricks are all clothed into boastful and defensive euphemisms. His strategies become base and weighs him down. In the episode of the massacre of the Anabaptists it is clearly their pride which is being punished. Like the Titans who tried to overthrow Jupiter the Anabaptists tried to coerce God. This episode forms a prelude to Jack‟s imprisonment in Rome, first on the charge of counterfeiting and secondly for the charge of murder. His descending curve is pre-eminent in an inevitable descent in the episode where he pretends to be a woman in order to gull a, Switzer Captain that was gone for want of the wench……..I came disguised unto him in the form of a half-crown wench, my gown and attire according to the custom then in request.

Jack the knave prepares for his later important fall. He falls into the hands of Zadoch and Dr Zachary. Here beginneth my purgatory.

God plagued me….the worst throw of ill-lucks.

In each of the three precursor episodes Jack becomes the instigator as well as the victim. The cider merchant episode points at the loss of Jack‟s exuberant spirit. The cider merchant as well as Jack survives but with a defeat in spirit. Spirit is also the alchohol that the cider merchant losses. The tag „mechanical‟ is emblematic of the second jest. Mechanical is synonymous with the trades people, it also indicates lack of originality and creativity. Jack becomes mechanical. The third adventure involving the “coystrell Clearkes” shows Jack‟s brush with death. Nash points out the baseness of action of both the coistrel (clerks) and Jack(„s) (scutchery). In fact Jack is tossed into a vicious circle and almost equates himself with the other satanic characters.

Jack‟s journey as an infant becomes insipid, Jack the maker becomes mechanical and Jack the monarch becomes dead. He becomes so satanic that he indulges in stealing from the dead. His pillaging of Juliana‟s property leads to her death. Juliana is no saint, neither is Jack. We can never pardon Jack for his act of robbery. In the jest against the coistrel clerks Jack fails as a leader to provide for his followers. For every act of violence that Jack commits, he becomes the victim and weighs down the perpetrator. And he is punished according to his actions. As the chronicle progresses, Jack becomes more base. He becomes a knave, a false hero, he misleads his followers. He loses not only his spirits but his spirituality too, and this is a case of is a tripartite descent!

With the final episode Jack enters the Inferno. He meets multiple deaths of many other characters and undergoes a series of physical and emotional torture. He now faces the prospect of an actual anatomy at the hands of Dr Zachary.

Not a drop of sweat trickled down my breast and my sides, but I dreamt it was a smooth-edged razor tenderly slicing down my breast and sides…. In the night I dreamed of nothing but phlebotomy, blood fluxes, incarnatives, running ulcers.

Jack is punished for his carnality. At Juliana‟s hands he suffers both emotionally as well as physically. This is in keeping with his seduction of Diamante even when her husband is still alive. His jailhouse seduction is equated with his helplessness of watching Heraclide‟s rape. He becomes an unwilling spectator of this macabre process. He understands the self-destructive nature of revenge. For every guilt, Jack is being punished. Thus ended Jack‟s infancy. He is now immersed in guilt, sinks into hell and waits for the ultimate cleansing of his sins. The mechanical and gruesome deaths make him undergo a metamorphosis. He is amazed at human beings desire and capability for crime and guilt. When Jack began his travels he was eighteen. Three years have passed since, he becomes twenty one. In the eyes of law he is no longer a child. He loses the infantile charm and creativity. His ageing is thus symbolical.

Tracing up and down the city to seek my courtesan till the evening began to grow very well in age…..I fell into it, as a man falls in a ship from the orlop into the hold…

He becomes insecure and worries about his future. He is full of remorse when he recollects how he had misused his secure days with endless jests. The analogy of travel as a state of suffering and bondage is brought forth. At the same time the English man‟s view of travel as view of his wit is also stressed. He utterly fails to exercise his wit into travel. His wit is full of wantonness and he experiences many evils. Jack makes his fortunate travels unfortunate. However as the chronicle progresses we see a setback of pride in Jack‟s wit. His view of wit as a superficial ingenuity slips into a vicious nature of corruption. He encounters one horror after another in his travels. He becomes insolent and ultimately lands in a sea of confusion.

He voluntarily takes an exile from his infancy, chronicling as well as monarchy. His deep introspection makes him leave his stance of superiority. He now assumes the role of a spectator.

His past is shadowed, his future tense. The present damps his spirit, he feels alienated. He becomes a marginal character in this exile. Like a modern city man he suffers from the banes of city life. He becomes a social outcast in a repressive society. Nashe‟s novel almost reads like a post modern novel, though the plot is chaotic and randomly composed. The readers are brought face to face with the thanatoid aspects of the city life where modern man necessarily feels alienated. Jack becomes a silent witness and lives in a war mongering society. He narrowly escapes the gallows. He becomes humble and subdued. Wit which previously was an instrument of pride is now being replaced as an instrument of observation. He becomes a keen observer of things. He returns to the King, the central figure of this chronicle, who is again at war now in a new location. He develops his moral vision and restrains from further evil. The marginal character becomes a moral character. He condemns the desire for revenge and completely dissociates from evil. Nashe‟s technique of telling a story within a story adds to the flavour.

And so, as my story began with the King at Tournay and Turwin, I think meet here to end it with the King at Ardes and Guines. All the conclusive epilogue I will make is this: that herein I have pleased any it shall animate me to more pains in this kind.

Otherwise I will swear upon an English Chronicle

Never to outlandish Chronicler more

While I live. Farewell as many

As wish me well.

We all are unfortunate travellers, Nashe makes travel as a metaphor of human condition. In this travel we all make mistakes, suffer for them, learn from the mistakes and ultimately wait for death.

Let us sum up:

• It is an early example of picaresque novel.
• Jack Wilton is a knave, a rogue who drifts place from one place to another.
• The plot is loosely structured as if randomly composed.
• There is a moral vision at the end.

Reference

• Hibbard, G. R. ed. Three Elizabethan Pamphlets ( includes The Unfortunate Traveller), London, 1951.
• McKerrow, R. B. The Works of Thomas Nashe Oxford, 1958.
• Steane, J. B. Thomas Nashe: The Unfortunate Traveller and Other Works. New York: Penguin, 1972.
• Wells, Stanley ed. Thomas Nashe ( selected works), The Stratford-upon Avon Library, London, 1964.
• Brennecke, Ernest ed. The Unfortunate Traveller (with preface by Michael Ayerton). London: John Lelunann, 1948.
• Gohlke, Madelon. “Wits Wantonnesse: The Unfortunate Traveller as Picaresque.” SP 73 (1976).
• Harrington, Susan Marie and Michael Nahor Bond. ” ‘Good Sir, Be Rul’d by Me’: Patterns of Domination and Manipulation in Thomas Nashe’s The Unfortunate Traveller.” SShF24 (1987).
• Haworth, R.O. Two Elizabethan Writers of Fiction: Thomas Nashe and Thomas
• Deloney. Capetown: University of Capetown, 1956.
• Jones, Ann Rosalind. “Inside the Outsider: Nashe’s Unfortunate Traveller and Bakhtin’s Polyphonic Novel.” ELH 50 (1983).
• Kettle, Arnold. An Introduction to the English Novel. London: Hutchinson, 1957.
• Millard, Barbara. “Thomas Nashe and the Functional Grotesque in Elizabethan Prose Fiction.” SShF 15 (1978).
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• Stallybrass, Peter and Allon White. The Politics and Poetics of Transgression. Ithaca: Cornell University press, 1986.
• Suzuki, Mihoko. “‘Signorie Ouer the Pages’: The Crisis of Authority in Nashe’s
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