Paper 105: Self-Fashioning and the Birth of Modern Identity: Humanism, Power, and Performance in the English Renaissance.
Assignment of Paper 105: History of English Literature – From 1350 to 1900
Self-Fashioning and the Birth of Modern Identity: Humanism, Power, and Performance in the English Renaissance.
Academic Details:
- Name: Chetna J. Bhaliya
- Roll No.: 03
- Enrollment No.: 5108250003
- Sem.: 1
- Batch: 2025-27
- E-mail: bhaliyachetna4112@gmail.com
Assignment Details:
- Paper Name: History of English Literature – From 1350 to 1900
- Paper No.: 105
- Paper Code: 22396
- Unit: 1
- Topic: Self-Fashioning and the Birth of Modern Identity: Humanism, Power, and Performance in the English Renaissance.
- Submitted To: Smt. Gardi, Department of English, Maharaja Krishnakumarsinhji Bhavnagar University
- Submitted Date: 10-11-2025
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This essay examines self-fashioning in the English Renaissance as a formative moment in the emergence of modern identity, exploring the interplay of humanism, power, and performance. Drawing on Greenblatt’s theory and subsequent scholarship, it argues that Renaissance individuals constructed their identities through negotiation with political authority, religious discipline, and social norms. The study highlights how humanist education, courtly rituals, and Reformation morality fostered a reflective, performative self, while gender, class, and language shaped access to self-expression. Theatre, soliloquy, and rhetoric are analyzed as technologies through which the self was both displayed and disciplined. The essay also traces the continuities between Renaissance self-fashioning and contemporary practices, from social media to professional branding, demonstrating that visibility, surveillance, and curated identity remain central to modern subjectivity. By situating Renaissance self-fashioning within a genealogy of the modern self, this study underscores the enduring tension between freedom, conformity, and creativity that defines human identity across time.
Keywords
Self-Fashioning; Modern Identity; Renaissance Humanism; Power and Authority; Performance and Theatricality; Gender and Class; Surveillance; Cultural Poetics; Hybridity; Genealogy of the Self; Agency and Constraint; Subjectivity; Ideology; Discourse and Semiotics; Reformation and Moral Discipline; Courtly Culture; Literary Selfhood; Psychological Introspection; Identity Politics; Digital Selfhood.
Research Question
How did Renaissance self-fashioning, shaped by humanism, power, and performance, lay the foundations for modern identity as a performative, socially mediated, and historically contingent construct?”
Hypothesis
Renaissance self-fashioning, as theorized by Stephen Greenblatt and expanded through the works of Strier, Baldwin, Montrose, Howard, Schönle, Martin, Hirsh, Harman, and Waage, constitutes the foundational process through which modern identity emerged. This process demonstrates that the self is neither innate nor static but is historically, culturally, and socially constructed. By mediating humanist ideals, structures of power, and performative practices, early modern individuals negotiated autonomy, conformity, and visibility, producing a dynamic and reflexive subjectivity. The Renaissance self, shaped by gendered, classed, and political constraints, exemplifies the paradox of freedom under authority—a paradox that continues to inform contemporary identity formation in psychological, sociocultural, and digital contexts. Therefore, modern identity is best understood not as a fixed essence but as the ongoing product of self-fashioning, a performative negotiation between personal agency and societal expectation across historical and technological transformations.
1. Introduction: The Concept of Self-Fashioning and the Question of Modern Identity
1.1 Defining Self-Fashioning
The concept of self-fashioning, as theorized by Stephen Greenblatt in Renaissance Self-Fashioning: From More to Shakespeare (1980), represents a turning point in understanding identity and subjectivity within literary and cultural discourse. Greenblatt redefined Renaissance culture as an arena in which the self was not discovered but constructed—a product of power, language, and performance. He proposes that in Tudor and early Stuart England, identity ceased to be perceived as divinely ordained and immutable. Instead, it emerged as a performative construct shaped by social, religious, and political forces. Individuals learned to “fashion” themselves according to the dominant codes of conduct and the ideological pressures of their time (Strier).
This idea transformed the way scholars interpret early modern culture. The self, far from being stable or innate, became a dynamic construct—a site of negotiation between private aspiration and public expectation. In this sense, self-fashioning is simultaneously an act of agency and a form of submission, as it requires aligning one’s persona with the disciplinary structures of church and state. The self, therefore, is both a mask and a mirror: it reflects authority even as it expresses individuality. The study of self-fashioning allows modern scholars to trace how early modern individuals navigated emerging modernity—a world increasingly defined by surveillance, moral control, and performance.
1.2 The Emergence of the Modern Self
The Tudor period was characterized by immense social, political, and intellectual transformations. The consolidation of monarchical power, the rise of humanist education, and the moral reorganization initiated by the Reformation created the foundations for a new kind of self-awareness. As Geoff Baldwin notes, the Renaissance man was “newly conscious of selfhood” yet remained “bound by the constraints of civic and religious discipline” (Baldwin). The Renaissance self, then, embodies a central paradox: it experiences intellectual and emotional liberation even as it submits to institutional authority.
This tension is key to understanding the genealogy of modern identity. The emerging Renaissance subject was reflective, self-critical, and performative—qualities that prefigure modern notions of autonomy and authenticity. Yet this freedom was always mediated by cultural power. As Louis Montrose famously described, the Renaissance subject is “the product of culture even as it seeks to produce culture” (Montrose). The modern self, with its inner consciousness and awareness of social context, thus finds its origins in this Renaissance dialectic between creation and control.
1.3 The Thesis and Scope
This essay argues that Renaissance self-fashioning—mediated through humanism, power, and performance—marks the birth of the modern identity. Drawing upon the works of Greenblatt, Strier, Baldwin, Howard, Montrose, Schönle, Martin, Hirsh, Harman, and Waage, it explores how cultural poetics and disciplinary mechanisms shaped the early modern individual. The argument unfolds through six sections:
- The historical and intellectual foundations of self-fashioning;
- The intersections of power, ideology, and identity;
- The role of gender, class, and performance in shaping subjectivity;
- The paradoxical relationship between humanist freedom and social control; and
- The enduring legacy of self-fashioning in modern identity formation.
Ultimately, the essay contends that self-fashioning is not merely a historical phenomenon but a genealogical principle—a model through which modern identity, from the Renaissance to the digital age, continues to define itself.
2. The Historical and Intellectual Context of Renaissance Self-Fashioning
2.1 Humanism and Classical Models of the Self
Renaissance humanism redefined the relationship between man, morality, and intellect. Rooted in classical antiquity, it placed human potential and rationality at the center of moral and educational thought. Thinkers such as Erasmus, Pico della Mirandola, and Thomas More emphasized virtus, civility, and eloquence as the hallmarks of human excellence. Baldwin asserts that “humanist pedagogy encouraged a reflective interiority that prioritized self-discipline over divine determinism” (Baldwin). The Renaissance classroom—grounded in Latin rhetoric, moral philosophy, and classical imitation—became the training ground for the new self.
Yet humanism was not purely emancipatory. As Montrose argues, the very discourse that celebrated individuality also “situated the subject within networks of authority and control” (Montrose). The ability to fashion oneself as a virtuous citizen depended upon access to education, patronage, and literacy—resources limited to elite men. Thus, humanism both expanded and constrained the notion of selfhood. It granted the capacity for self-definition but tied it to conformity with social hierarchy and decorum. The Renaissance humanist subject is, therefore, simultaneously autonomous and regulated.
2.2 Tudor Power and the Construction of Subjectivity
The political climate of Tudor England intensified this paradox. Henry VIII’s break from Rome redefined not only the structure of power but also the interior life of his subjects. Loyalty and belief became performative acts of obedience. Richard Strier observes that “identity in Tudor England was a political function, a visible performance of loyalty and belief” (Strier). Royal image-making, elaborate court rituals, and codes of dress turned the self into an ideological instrument—a display of allegiance to the crown.
Andreas Schönle, comparing Greenblatt’s cultural poetics with Lotman’s semiotics, highlights that the Renaissance self was both “a semiotic product of the social order and an agent capable of rewriting its codes” (Schönle). Subjects learned to navigate power through symbolic gestures—speech, costume, art, and literature—where conformity and creativity coexisted. The construction of identity under Tudor rule thus exemplifies a fundamental modern tension: the individual as both product and producer of authority.
2.3 The Reformation and Moral Discipline
The English Reformation added a spiritual dimension to this transformation. The dismantling of Catholic confession and monastic life internalized the mechanisms of control. John Martin writes that the Reformation “invented sincerity as a moral ideal and prudence as a political strategy” (Martin). Faith became a matter of interior conviction rather than external ritual, turning self-surveillance into a Christian virtue.
This moral introspection produced what later thinkers would call the inner self. The Protestant emphasis on conscience and personal responsibility fostered a new sense of individuality grounded in guilt, reflection, and spiritual accountability. The Reformation thus prefigures the modern subject described by Michel Foucault—an individual who polices themselves through internalized norms. The result was a culture in which freedom and control became indistinguishable: self-fashioning became the performance of sincerity under watchful authority.
3. Power, Culture, and the Making of the Self
3.1 The Cultural Poetics of Power
Montrose’s notion of “cultural poetics” emphasizes the reciprocal relationship between literature and ideology. Renaissance texts do not merely depict power—they produce it. Greenblatt’s analysis of More, Wyatt, Spenser, and Shakespeare demonstrates that writing itself is a form of self-fashioning, where authors align personal ambition with political decorum. As Montrose explains, “literature is not outside power but one of its instruments” (Montrose).
Poetry and drama became spaces for negotiating identity. Wyatt’s Petrarchan sonnets, for instance, reveal how poetic language mediates between private desire and public restraint. Similarly, Shakespeare’s Richard II dramatizes the tension between royal authority and personal agency, exposing how speech and ritual construct both sovereignty and subjectivity. Through such texts, the self becomes visible as both an ideological construct and a creative act of negotiation.
3.2 Social Power and Individual Agency
Schönle (2001) deepens this analysis by reconciling Greenblatt’s cultural determinism with Lotman’s semiotic flexibility. While Greenblatt presents identity as culturally scripted, Lotman’s model allows for “semiotic rupture”—moments when the individual reinterprets cultural codes to assert agency (Schönle). The Renaissance self thus oscillates between subservience and resistance.
Writers like Marlowe and Spenser exemplify this tension. Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus dramatizes the desire to transcend human limits—a form of self-fashioning that ends in damnation. Spenser’s The Faerie Queene constructs moral allegories that discipline the imagination even as they celebrate its creative power. Such examples reveal that the Renaissance self is not merely a puppet of ideology but a participant in its own scripting—a dynamic interplay that foreshadows postmodern theories of identity as performance.
3.3 The Gendered and Classed Self
Jean E. Howard’s The Cultural Construction of the Self in the Renaissance exposes the exclusions built into the discourse of individuality. The Renaissance “individual,” she argues, was implicitly “male, educated, and elite” (Howard). Women, servants, and lower classes were denied full access to self-fashioning because their social roles were pre-scripted by patriarchal and class hierarchies. Yet Howard also identifies subversive possibilities: women characters in Shakespeare’s plays—such as Portia in The Merchant of Venice or Viola in Twelfth Night—use disguise and rhetoric to manipulate gendered expectations, fashioning temporary identities that subvert authority.
These performances of disguise and reinvention demonstrate that even within rigid structures, there were moments of agency. Renaissance identity was not uniform but stratified, contingent, and contested—shaped as much by exclusion as by self-expression.
4. The Performance of Self: Theatre, Language, and Surveillance
4.1 Theatricality and the Renaissance Psyche
Barbara Leah Harman situates the Renaissance self within the metaphor of theatre. The Elizabethan court, she argues, was “a stage on which authority and identity were continuously rehearsed” (Harman). Court pageantry, rhetoric, and public ceremony cultivated an aesthetic of visibility being seen became synonymous with being powerful. Shakespeare’s plays both reflect and critique this culture of display.
In Hamlet, the soliloquy functions as a window into the modern psyche: the character’s self-conscious performance of thought marks the birth of interior subjectivity. Frederick O. Waage observes that solitude in Shakespeare “translates the medieval withdrawal from the world into a new form of self-reflection” (Waage). This theatrical introspection transforms performance into psychology. The stage becomes a mirror of the self—a place where identity is both invented and revealed.
4.2 Language as a Tool of Fashioning
James Hirsh’s study of “self-address fashioning” in Renaissance writing reveals how language itself is performative. Letters, confessions, and soliloquies are not transparent reflections of the self but acts of identity construction (Hirsh). The written or spoken word becomes the medium through which the self is rehearsed and stabilized. Harman extends this insight by noting that “literature fashions the very conditions of its authorship” (Harman). The author, in writing, becomes the product of their own discourse.
Language in the Renaissance thus functioned as both a technology of control and a vehicle of creativity. It inscribed the subject within cultural hierarchies while also allowing for subtle self-definition. The eloquent self, trained in rhetoric, learned to navigate truth, persuasion, and performance—a skill essential for both courtly survival and personal expression.
4.3 Surveillance and the Politics of Expression
The Tudor regime perfected the politics of visibility. Censorship, religious inquisition, and espionage rendered self-expression both dangerous and strategic. As Strier notes, “the ruler’s image was replicated within the subject’s self-representation” (Strier). Power operated not only through punishment but through the internalization of authority.
Writers responded with coded language, allegory, and irony—tools that allowed dissent to coexist with decorum. This culture of self-surveillance anticipates Foucault’s idea of power as productive rather than merely repressive. The Renaissance subject internalized the watchful eye of authority, turning self-fashioning into an act of both obedience and cunning.
5. The Paradox of Freedom: Humanist Individuality and Social Constraint
5.1 The Myth of Autonomy
The rhetoric of Renaissance humanism often celebrated the self as free and rational, but this freedom was largely rhetorical. John Martin’s “Inventing Sincerity, Refashioning Prudence” exposes the double bind of Renaissance individuality: moral virtue and political prudence demanded conformity, not rebellion (Martin). Richard Strier similarly highlights “the coercive underside of Renaissance individualism,” noting that the apparent autonomy of the self concealed deep ideological discipline (Strier).
Thus, the Renaissance self’s freedom was performative—a carefully managed illusion sustained by obedience to decorum and morality. This myth of autonomy became a central paradox in the genealogy of modern subjectivity, where freedom is continually defined through structures of control.
5.2 Hybridity and Ambivalence
Recent scholarship, particularly Renaissance Self-Fashioning After 44 Years (Cambridge University Press, 2024), reexamines Greenblatt’s thesis through the lens of hybridity. It argues that early modern identity was not purely European or homogeneous but shaped by cross-cultural encounters—conversos, colonial subjects, and religious converts. These hybrid figures destabilize the idea of a unified Renaissance self. Instead, identity appears as fluid, mobile, and relational—a precursor to today’s globalized identities.
Such hybridity also reveals the ambivalence of self-fashioning: it could serve both imperial domination and cultural negotiation. The Renaissance self, far from being purely humanist or Western, was already entangled in the early formations of global modernity.
5.3 Agency within Constraint
Despite pervasive systems of control, Renaissance individuals found ways to assert agency. Schönle’s concept of “semiotic transformation” captures this: individuals could reinterpret dominant signs to articulate subtle resistance (Schönle). Similarly, Shakespeare’s subversive characters—like Iago, Rosalind, and Falstaff—demonstrate the creative manipulation of identity within restrictive norms.
Judith Butler’s later theory of performativity resonates here: repetition within social scripts can generate spaces for resistance. The Renaissance subject, therefore, anticipates the postmodern condition of identity as both socially constructed and self-authored—a performance of compliance that conceals creativity.
6. Toward the Modern Self: Continuity, Hybridity, and Afterlives
6.1 The Renaissance as the Genealogy of Modern Identity
Baldwin concludes that “the Renaissance invention of the individual is an ongoing process of self-invention” (Baldwin). The inward turn of conscience, the emphasis on authorship, and the centrality of performance established the intellectual foundations of modern subjectivity. Greenblatt’s insight that identity is produced through discourse prefigures Foucault’s understanding of power as internalized within the modern subject. In both frameworks, freedom is inseparable from control.
The Renaissance thus marks not merely a historical period but the inception of modernity’s central contradiction: the desire for authenticity within systems of surveillance and representation.
6.2 From Renaissance Performance to Modern Psychology
The theatrical and rhetorical practices of the Renaissance evolved into modern forms of psychological introspection. Shakespeare’s soliloquies prefigure the self-examining consciousness of modern literature—from Milton’s Satan to Freud’s patients. Harman’s claim that “to refashion the Renaissance is to recognize our theatrical modernity” (Harman) suggests that our sense of individuality remains grounded in performance. The theatre of the court has become the theatre of the mind.
This continuity extends into modern psychology, where the self is still conceived as layered, conflicted, and performative. The Renaissance stage, with its masks and mirrors, becomes a metaphor for the modern unconscious.
6.3 The Legacy of Self-Fashioning in Contemporary Discourse
Contemporary identity politics, media culture, and digital life continue the logic of Renaissance self-fashioning. Social media profiles, online avatars, and professional branding are modern iterations of the same performative selfhood Greenblatt identified in the sixteenth century. The mechanisms differ, but the principles remain: visibility, conformity, and the constant negotiation of authenticity under surveillance.
Just as the Renaissance subject balanced sincerity and display, the digital individual curates their persona for an invisible audience. The Renaissance thus inaugurated not only the modern self but also the technologies of identity that define our age—performance, image, control, and the perpetual remaking of the self.
7. Conclusion: Self-Fashioning as the Genealogy of Modern Subjectivity
The English Renaissance represents a pivotal moment in the evolution of human identity. Through the intertwined forces of humanism, power, and performance, individuals learned to construct themselves within ideological systems. Greenblatt’s theory, expanded by Strier, Howard, Montrose, Schönle, and others, reveals that self-fashioning is both an act of creation and submission—a process in which freedom and conformity coexist.
This paradox defines modern subjectivity. The Renaissance subject’s struggle between autonomy and authority prefigures our contemporary negotiation between individuality and social expectation. In an age of global surveillance and digital self-presentation, we continue to reenact the Renaissance drama of self-fashioning. The art of constructing the self—within, against, and through power—remains humanity’s enduring legacy from the English Renaissance to the modern world.
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