Marenbon, John. Boethius. New York: Oxford University
Press, 2003.
Lisa L. Borden-King
CONSTABLE, HENRY (1562–1613) Henry
Constable earned a B.A. from Cambridge in 1580. He
then served briefl y as an English secret agent until
being accused of treason due to his Roman Catholic
faith. Spurned and bitter, Constable became an agent
for the pope and the king of France. He was captured
and sent to the TOWER OF LONDON in 1601/2, where he
remained until 1604. Upon his release, Constable
returned to France. He died in Liège in 1613.
Many scholars believe Constable’s poetry crucial to
the development of the SONNET tradition, having a par-
ticularly strong infl uence on WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE.
Constable’s SONNET SEQUENCE Diana, published in
1592, relies on the PETRARCHan tradition but is also
indebted to contemporary French poetry (particularly
that of Desportes). The result is a unique fusion of cul-
tures. Constable’s sonnets are often considered to be
measured responses to beauty, rich with images of fi re,
color, and nature. Rapture is also a central concern of
Constable’s work, which includes Spiritual Sonnets, a
PASTORAL version of Venus and Adonis presented as a
CANZONE; the song “Diaphenia”; and four sonnets dedi-
cated to the soul of SIR PHILIP SIDNEY, which were
attached to an edition of his DEFENSE OF POESY.
See also “TO ST. MARY MAGDALEN.”
FURTHER READING
Grundy, Joan, ed. The Poems of Henry Constable. Liverpool.
U.K.: Liverpool University Press, 1960.
CONTEMPT FOR THE WORLD (CON-
TEMPTUS MUNDI) Contempt for the world, or
the contemptus mundi, is a tradition and a literary theme
that originated in Latin religious writing but became a
signifi cant presence within VERNACULAR poetry. The
name contemptus mundi is derived from the conjunction
of the Latin terms contemno, meaning “to disdain” or “to
hold in scorn,” and mundus, denoting “the world.” Orig-
inally, the form explored the dilemma faced by the
Christian living in the world. On the one hand, the
world was to be esteemed as God’s creation, but on the
other it was held as suspect because it was the zone
humans were cast into following Adam and Eve’s Fall
from Grace. Contempt for the world eventually came to
be a mainstay of the MIDDLE ENGLISH penitential lyric,
exhorting the sinner into shame and contrition.
The contemptus mundi focuses on particular themes,
typically the moral and physical decrepitude of man,
the fi ckleness of FORTUNE, and the corruption of the
fl esh. These phenomena were inevitably traced back to
Adam and Eve’s disloyalty to God and the transmission
of Original Sin to their descendants. In Old English
poetry, “The WANDERER” and “The SEAFARER” are exam-
ples of this concept. A famous, but lost, Middle English
example is GEOFFREY CHAUCER’s claimed translation of
Pope Innocent III’s De miseria humanae conditionis (On
the Misery of the Human Condition).
Expressions of the contemptus mundi include the UBI
SUNT (literally, “where are they?” in Latin), the timor
mortis (fear of death), and the memento mori (reminder
of death). The fi rst takes the form of a rhetorical style of
questioning, which serves to expose the transience of
created things. The timor mortis extends a meditation
on the sobering aspects of death. The memento mori,
meanwhile, warns of the inevitability of death and the
decay of the human body. This motif is aptly illustrated
in “ERTHE TOC OF THE ERTHE WITH WOH.”
See also MIDDLE ENGLISH LYRICS AND BALLADS; “OLD
MAN’S PRAYER, AN.”
FURTHER READING
Delumeau, Jean. Sin and Fear: The Emergence of a Western
Guilt Culture, 13th–18th Centuries. Translated by Eric
Nicholson. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1990.
Innocent III. On the Misery of the Human Condition (De mise-
ria humanae conditionis). Translated by M. M. Dietz. India-
napolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1969.
Robin GilbankCORONA In the 16th century, a corona (from the
Latin for “crown”) was a SONNET SEQUENCE featuring
interlocking SONNETs—the last line in one sonnet
becomes the fi rst line in the following sonnet and so
forth. The fi nal line in the entire sequence then repeats
the fi rst line of the fi rst sonnet, completing the circle.
The result is a crown of glory for the poet and a crown
of love for the beloved. Corona sonnets were oftenCORONA 127