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.150 Cullen cites one letter fromJames Howell to a “Dr.Weames” in which he praises “Weames’s” daughter’swork and quotes the commendatory poem he wrote for it, along with another letterfrom Howell to Pierrepont in which he discusses royalist politics and asserts thatPierrepont’s house “may be called a true academy,” while Pierrepont himself is“the capitol of knowledge, or rather an exchequer, wherein there is a treasureenough to give pensions to all the wits of the time.”151 Cullen adds that“Pierrepont’s ‘academy’ may be only an epideictic metaphor, but Howell seems tobe alluding to the existence of an interregnum royalist academy, or salon, withPierrepont as its focus.”152 Thus, however loosely formed, Weamys’s circle wasapparently a cluster of writers or “wits” with royalist sympathies.The dialogue between Weamys’s and Sidney’s texts especially reflects theirconcerns about ruling powers during their respective times.Although Weamyswrites during the interregnum, in an England quite different from that of Sidney’sday, connections both literary and historical link their circles.Clearly, Sidney’s romance, with its critique of kingly and princely behavior, would appeal to thedaughter of a staunch royalist.Political interests aside, Cullen also points out that Weamys’s father’s friend Howell “knew Robert Sidney, [Sidney’s younger brotherand Wroth’s father] for whose embassy to Denmark he was secretary,” as well as147Helena writes to Philoclea, 36; Philoclea writes to Amphialus (Weamys, 45–50).148 Cullen gives a detailed discussion of the royalist politics associated withWeamys’s literary circle, xxii–xxx.149 Jones,Currency of Eros, 65.150 Cullen,xxiii.151 Cullen,xxvii.152 Cullen,xxvii.192Literary Circles and GenderBen Jonson.153 The literary connections blend with historical ones as Howell serves as the link between the Sidney and Pierrepont circles.Weamys, as it were, reachesback in time to pick up the thread of Sidney’s discourse and creates her ownresponse to it in a project that would easily win the approval of a royalist audience.That audience’s terms of approval, however, provide a defense of Weamys’swriting that proves Woodbridge’s theory that “Renaissance attacks on women aremore congenial to modern feminism than are Renaissance defenses of women.”154In this case, the interregnum writers defending Weamys’s reputation as a womansuggest, metaphorically, that her virtue is secure because she did not actually write the romance herself; rather, she channeled Sidney.Paradoxically, theirexplanations for Weamys’s success reflect Joanna Russ’s theories of techniques forsuppressing women’s writing, especially that of “denial of agency.”155 T.H.,probably Thomas Heath,156 writes “Marvel not to find heroic Sidney’s renownedfancy pursued to a close by a feminine pen: rather admire his prophetical spiritnow as much as his heroical before.”157 He also suggests that Sidney’s soul hastransmigrated into Weamys’s.Thus, a woman, and, in his opinion, a “virago,” suchas Weamys writes so well because the spirit of a man writes through her.Howellsuggests that:If a male soul, by transmigration, canPass to a female, and her spirits man,Then sure some sparks of Sidney’s soul have flownInto [her] breast.158These defenders of Weamys’s romance suggest metaphorically that, “she didn’twrite it, he did,” as Russ puts it.159 Their praise illustrates the literary circle members’ preoccupation with traditional idealization of women, and their heartyadmiration of Sidney indicates their affinity for the world he illustrates in theArcadia.This evidence of her literary circle’s characteristics helps to explain why, instead of engaging with Sidney’s text in a debate about the state of women orPetrarchan love traditions, Weamys’s text reflects his traditional Renaissanceideological stances.Yet, it does so in the context of illustrating how a newgeneration of noble and royal leaders may, through successful marriage alliancesand careful military maneuvers, bring about a peaceful and strong monarchy.She153 Cullen,xxv–xxvi.154 Woodbridge,8.155 Russ,20.156 Cullen,xxi.157Heath, quoted in Weamys, 4.158Howell, quoted in Weamys, 10.159 Russ, 21.Wroth, too, was praised for her connections with Sidney, especiallyregarding her poetry.See comments by George Chapman and Joshua Sylvester in Roberts, introduction to The Poems, 18.Querelle Resonance193especially emphasizes the power of youth and new political alliances, as she hasKing Basilius’s authority replaced by that of Musidorus and Pyrocles and Strephonchosen as a husband for Urania instead of the elderly Claius.160Regarding traditional defenses of women and portrayals of Neoplatonic love,Weamys describes relationships between the valorous men and virtuous women ofher Continuation in terms that echo Sidney’s.About Erona’s beauty andcaptivation of Plangus, she writes, “Now Erona’s beauty had grounded such animpression in his heart that no other thought but of her perfections could enter into his.She was his image, her he worshipped, and her he would forever magnify.”161Of Urania, Strephon says that she “is compounded so artificially [artfully] as shecannot be paralleled nor described” and that “for Platonic courtiers, her heavenlymodesty is a palpable witness of her innocency.”162 In Weamys’s work, the goodwomen are perfectly good, and even the bad women are redeemable.We are toldthat Basilius “lovingly condol[es] Gynecia “for her former sufferings,”163suggesting that she has duly repented of her inappropriate passion for Pyrocles, and even Artaxia, after she is conquered, confesses that she has “infinitely wronged”her cousin Plangus and pledges to be his “trusty deputy” until he returns fromArcadia, after which, she will quietly “end [her] life in widowhood.”164 Redeemedor not, however, the polarized split between women with wayward passions andwomen who are unswervingly virtuous remains, with Pamela and Philoclearesiding in the latter camp.In Weamys’s romance Musidorus and Pyrocles are still consummate Petrarchanlovers who extol the virtues of their beloveds, also know as “the Paragons of theWorld.”165 Their interactions with Pamela and Philoclea at the time of theirweddings reflect the culmination of attraction and courtship outlined in theparadigm for wooing between the ideal Courtier and Lady discussed in theCourtier.Magnifico explains:Because if the beauty, behaviour, cleverness, goodness, knowledge, modesty, and the many other qualities that we have given the Lady, are the cause of the Courtier’s love for her, the end of his love will necessarily be worthy, too: and if nobility, excellence in arms and letters and music, if gentleness and the possession of so many graces in speech and conversation, be the means whereby the Courtier is to win the lady’s love, the end of that love must needs be of like quality with the means whereby it is attained.166160 Weamys,77–103.161 Weamys,20.162 Weamys,75.163 Weamys,40.164 Weamys,62.165 Weamys,13.166 Castiglione,224.194Literary Circles and GenderIn the Continuation, Weamys provides the fitting ending for the princes’ virtuous wooing—a wedding scene in which the brides are so spiritually pure that their feetbarely tread the ground
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