Discourses and representations of friendship in Early Modern Europe, 1500–1700

Abstract

Discourses and representations of friendship in Early Modern Europe, 1500-1700, edited by Daniel T. Lochman, Maritere Lopez and Lorna Hutson, Farnham & Burlington, VT, Ashgate, 2011, xv + 275 pp., £60.00 (hardback), ISBN 978-0-754-66903-6In this volume the editors present an eclectic panel of analyses of the current state of research on early modern friendship discourses, as well as their application at various social levels. Discourses and representations are studied in all literary forms, ranging from fictitious or real correspondence to novels, political or doctrinal essays. By showing how conventional and classical patterns of friendship evolve throughout the period and how new ones appear, this interdisciplinary study emphasizes the dichotomy between theories of friendship and their practices.Postulates in recent scholarship are challenged in three parts. First, early modern views on ideal friendship as described in classical texts, such as Aristotle's Nichomachean Ethics and Cicero's De Amicitia, are critically examined as they are shown to be only practicable by rational individuals consciously willing to do so, and not within a society as a whole. Second, a series of essays examine how the antique vision of perfect friendship is shaped so as better to fit everyday friendship experiences in early modern Europe. Finally, the notion of friendship is seen and used not only within the private sphere, but also as a central element in early modern political theory.Among other contributions, the place of friendship in doctrinal texts by reformers is studied by Constance Furey and Thomas Heilke. Furey examines two treatises of the early sixteenth century: Juan Luis Vives' De institutione feminae christianae and Erasmus' Institutio christiani matrimonii. In both treatises, the latter inspired by the first, Furley sees that friendship is viewed as somewhat inferior to the state of marriage, in the sense that marriage represents not only a chosen bond forming a union between two minds, as does friendship, but also holds a (sacred) corporeal dimension of unity. In introducing the notion of likeness within marriage, both authors discuss the contemporary accepted idea of hierarchy between a man and a woman, as likeness presupposes equality. Comparing Anabaptist texts with those of Luther and Calvin, Heilke sees friendship in the light of the two reformers' discourses and their lack of discussion on the subject, as opposed to specific definitions given in Anabaptist doctrines. While the social function of friendship, as a moral achievement, is not explored in the reformers' texts, he observes that Anabaptist theoreticians detail it in both the Schleitheim Confession and the Admonition.Polity is also examined through analyses of texts by John Milton and Thomas More. Hannah Chapelle Wojciehowski examines the triangular friendship between More, Giles and Erasmus when the first was undertaking the writing of his Utopia. Parting ways with recent scholarship on the letters exchanged between the three men, she suggests that despite its absence from Utopia, friendship is, in fact, subconsciously its main subject. While challenging the postulate presenting the letters as genuine tools helping the reader to understand More's writings, she also highlights the underlying tensions between the three men and suggests that those penned exchanges could shed a new light both on More's choice to ignore friendship in his depiction of an ideal society, and on his contemporary interactions with Giles and Erasmus. …