Dear Dr. _____,
Yesterday, I visited the Russell Kirk Library in Mecosta, and used their source-bace on noble correspondence during the early Stuart era, essays by John Dryden, and also their noted Boswell/Johnson collection (Dr. Kirk received his his Doctor of Letters from St. Andrews, and his private library contains much culturally relevant material to early modern and Scottish history). The correspondence tracts alluded to a growing culture of gentility within cavalier military operations of the British nobility during the early Stuarts of the seventeenth century. The word "nobility" appears everywhere during James VI's reception into England and his subsequent military and noble appointments, but during the Spanish/English wars, refined warfare of the "gentleman" dominates cultural rhetoric. Noblesse oblige is now "gentle" and dashing in its own perception, necessary to the cavalier "myth" of Royalism. In Dryden, I'm looking for the development of Royalist Classical literary theory, and its inroads into English social life (Dryden was Charles II's court poet, a Classical translator, and frequenter of coffeehouses in their cultural rise during the seventeenth century). His distinctions between "epic," "tragedy," and "heroic" might possibly connect with the Grameid's Classical heroic projection of Scotland. Johnson claimed Dryden as the "father of English criticism." Johnson was a Royalist in his own right, and his and Boswell's social life in London coffeehouses during the latter eighteenth century might indicate the lingerings of social Jacobitism. I have found a few instances of just such hints to a larger Royalist social following. For instance, Boswell claims that the date of Charles I's martyrdom was still observed with fasting throughout London. As one of my sections to my Thesis outline is entitled "Royalist tavern and coffeehouse club propagation of the martyr pathos," I think I've found a hint here. Now I just need to follow it up with proceedings of Royalist club life. By the way, my thesis is working well with Brown's work on noble power. He claims that until Charles I's death, the Stuarts cultivated a "culture of obedience" among the nobility. This is what I have been saying with Jacobitism!!! Why stop at Charles I?; because with his death, the crown's authority over the Scottish nobility deteriorated, as Brown correctly answers. However, the Stuarts continued the attempt of reforging this "culture of obedience" through the Jacobite effort, even though it failed politically. Because Jacobitism failed, Brown mistakenly does not give it cultural credence. Jacobite historians need to respond to Brown, and I intend to be the first one to do so. My last steps during the remaining semester includes, finishing The Brus, finding Royalist club sources, and reading much of John Milton's criticisms of the martyr "myth." During Christmas break, I need to reread the Grameid, and annotate my way through it. January will commence my writing period. Who should we approach for our committee on this project, and when?
Happy Thanksgiving,
Wesley
P.S. I read Walter Scott's Lord of the Isles. It is the best example of Scott's Romanticism yet.
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