[In the following essay, McCain argues that even though many of Heywood's writings display his formal training in rhetoric and logic, the dramatist was adept at transcending rhetorical arguments to make his work aesthetically pleasing.]

The formal learning of the Middle Ages included oratory, rhetoric,¹ and logic. These three subjects, the terminology of which was intricate and complex, were not always exclusive of one another; and all three were overformalized before the dawn of the Renaissance in England.

Deriving much of her culture from the Roman Empire and her Christianity from Rome, England naturally took over much of the scholasticism and formalism of the mediaeval schoolmen who—under the sponsorship of the Church of Rome—kept the lamp of learning aglow during those dark centuries after there came down upon Rome from the North a flood of conquering barbarians. It has long been customary to refer to the Middle Ages as the Dark Ages; but in spite of their enthusiastic reverence for dubious authority, their inbreeding of ideas, and a rigid formalism that too often crushed the creative spirit, the “fathers” would have given us much of value even if they had done nothing more than keep alive the faith of men in things of the mind and spirit.

With the rise of the universities in England, the spread of formal Christianity, and the development of the ancient art of oratory in the vernacular, it was inevitable that there would be numerous outcroppings of the formal learning of the schoolmen and the old Romans in English literature. Nor did John Heywood escape the impact of these streams of formal and traditional learning.² As was the case with his master, Chaucer,³ Heywood's works contain some of the phraseology of such formal lore.

The fact⁴ that on the thirtieth of September, 1553, Heywood made an oration in Latin and English for Queen Mary implies that he was well trained and well reputed⁵ in “demonstrative” oratory.⁶ Here he was following an ancient tradition, using his oratorical skill in praise of a distinguished person. It was probably Queen Mary herself who conferred upon him this particular distinction of addressing her during her public procession, the day before her coronation.⁷

Another instance of his success as an orator was the occasion in 1544 when with a “deliberative”⁸ oration Heywood made a public Recantation⁹ and saved his head from the penal judgment for treason “for denying the Kings Supremacy.”

The word orator was employed in several significations in sixteenth century England, one of which was simply a “petitioner.” Thus at the end of his first letter to Lord Burleigh, dated 18th April, 1575, the old Catholic exile signs himself “Your honors most hombell orator as he ys greatly bowden—Jhon Heywood.”¹⁰

With these biographical facts in mind, one turns to Heywood's literary works for reflections of his knowledge of oratory¹¹ in general, and of the “disputation”¹² in particular. It is not within the scope of this study to discuss the influence of rhetoric upon Heywood's style, his purpose in writing, or his theory and practice of literary criticism. It is appropriate, however, to point out that at least half of the chapters in The Spider and the Flie are influenced by the formalities of “judicial” oratory; that the abstract polemic on justice (“Cap. 7”) is what the author calls it, a formal “oracion” of the Flie; that when the Flie craved the Spider's pardon for any rude speech or behavior that might occur in his pleading for his liberty (“Cap. 9”), Heywood utilized the method of “deliberative” oratory; and that the disquisition on whether or not the Flie entered the cobweb with or against his will (“Cap. 15”), the Ant's oration (“Cap. 57”) on the moral of the poem,¹³ and such legal quibbling as chapter thirty-three are other illustrations of the formal style of “judicial” oratory.

It should not be inferred, however, that by using such formal learning to his purpose, Heywood was entirely blinded to the fundamental weaknesses of such oratory. Indeed his description of the council (“Cap. 64”) is not only an appropriate line for his context, but it is a sort of subtle condemnation of the over-formalized oratory of the rhetoricians: “Many words, little matter and to no purpose.” Although he did use the formalized methods of argument, he gave all of his orations a specific local application and avoided the extensive use of the more technical terminology of the rhetorics. In fact a good many words listed below were fairly well known to laymen not trained in the intricate formalities of rhetoric or logic, and often occurred in non-rhetorical contexts.

These terms from Wit and Folly remind one of the formal treatises: degre cōparative, degre posytyve, degre sewperlatyue, ensampyll, fancy,¹⁴a fayer fygewre of ynduckshyn, imagynacyon, invent, invention, resonabyll manns imagnashyon, resonyd, wherforse, and yf.

John Heywood's other plays derive very little from the formal treatises. Love contains a few such terms: comparyson, confuted, denyeng your pryncyple (i.e., denying your premise), ensaumple, fancy, symylytude, and ymagynashyon. In Wether we find fansyes, I deny your pryncupyll, and a playne induccyon. Only enduccyon and ymagynacyon appear in The Foure PP.

As has been pointed out, The Spider and the Flie makes considerable use of the principles of formal rhetoric; but the use of formal terminology is not extensive: alligoricall, chop logike, condiscion, confute my conclusion, digressing, ergo, exposicion, iteracion, oracion, definition of a parable, present tence, presept, preter tence, prose, put the case, rime, scand, scanner, sentence, and souostrie (sophistry).

Heywood made further use of such formal learning in John Heywoodes Woorkes (1562). For example, in “The Preface” he said: “This write I not to teach, but to touch.”¹⁵ Written for his Woorkes, this statement is equally true of his plays. Although The Spider and the Flie was full of lessons, there is no doubt that nearly all of Heywood's literary output was intended to please, touch, or move, rather than to teach; and his best service to literature consists in this shift of emphasis in the old rhetorical formula.

This survey of Heywood's interest in the formal learning of his day shows that he made extensive use of the principles of rhetoric, and had a working knowledge of some of the rhetorical terminology, but that he did not overburden his arguments with the crystallized phrases of the formal treatises.

Notes

1. In the formal schools of Heywood's England, “rhetoric” included “oratory.” Leonard Cox (The Arte or Crafte of Rhethoryke, ed. by Frederic I. Carpenter, Chicago, The University Press, 1899, p. 26) gives this interesting definition of rhetoric: “Rhethoryke is a scyence to cause another man by speche or by wrytynge to beleue or to do that thynge whyche thou woldest haue hym for to do.”

2. Aside from his own reading, Heywood may have gained this knowledge through university training (if the tradition of his going to Oxford be correct) or his relations with literary men like Sir Thomas More, or with John Clement, who was a lecturer on rhetoric at Oxford.

3. John M. Manly has given an excellent review of Chaucer's knowledge and use of mediaeval rhetoric, in “Chaucer and the Rhetoricians,” Proceedings of the British Academy, XII (1926), 95-113.

4. See R. W. Bolwell's The Life and Works of John Heywood, New York, 1921, p. xiii of the “Chronological Table.”

5. Sir Thomas More, Heywood's close friend, was also highly regarded as “an eloquent and ready-witted orator.” See J. J. Jusserand, Literary History, II, 103.

6. Following Quintilian, Thomas Wilson explained the chief types of orations as (1) demonstrative, (2) deliberative, and (3) judicial (Arte of Rhetoric, pp. 11, 29, and 86).

7. See Robert Bell, ed., Songs from the Dramatists, 2nd edition, London, J. W. Parker, 1855, p. 21.

8. The second type of oration mentioned by Thomas Wilson is “deliberative,” which is used to persuade or dissuade, to entreat, exhort, dehort, etc. Here Heywood was successfully entreating for a full pardon from the King.

9. The text of this recantation is in British Museum MS Lansd. 980, folio 34 (or 37?), with this clear caption: “Recantatio factu publice emissa per Johem Heywoods die dominica texta videl die Julii Anno MDXLIV.” The speech was in concise English.

10. Reed, “John Heywood and His Friends,” The Library, VIII (1917), 249.

11. As an orator, in the main Heywood rejected the elaborate ornamentations of style, and leaned toward the more practical aspects of the art.

12. In his disputations in The Spider and the Flie, Heywood utilizes the traditional nomenclature of judicial oratory, such as had been current in the Latin rhetoricians as they were represented by Cox in The Arte or Crafte of Rhethoryke. See his section on legal disputation (pages 71-72 and 84) and compare with the oration of the flie (“Cap. 7”) and the ant's oration (“Cap. 57”).

13. In his Introduction (p. xx) to the Spenser Society reprint of The Spider and the Flie, A. W. Ward says that “The Ant's speech in this chapter is not unworthy of Menenius Agrippa,” and conveys the moral of the poem as it were “in nuce.”

14. Fancy also occurs in Love and in “Green Willow.”

15. Cicero's threefold purpose of rhetoric was to teach, to please, and to move. Nearly every rhetorician after him for centuries used some variant upon this statement. In Heywood's day Thomas Wilson (Arte of Rhetoric, p. 12) states that three things are required of an orator: “To teach, to delight, and to perswade.”