The end of Yango Varo’s Foreword to Another Now, which gives the date.
As readers we often skip over or neglect the additional material that precedes and follows a text - such as the preface, dedication and acknowledgements. Yet this material can serve an important function in both literally and metaphorically framing a text. For this reason literary theorists have started to take it more seriously, inventing the term 'paratext' to describe it and investigating the ways in which it directs the reader's attention and shapes their reading. In last month's blogpost I focused on the blending of fact and fiction in political texts, setting Yanis Varoufakis's recent work of 'political science fiction', Another Now, alongside James Harrington's The Commonwealth of Oceana of 1656. In texts that blend fact and fiction, paratextual material serves a particularly important function and this is certainly true of Varoufakis's book.
The Foreword to Another Now is signed by the narrator of the work Yango Varo (clearly a fictionalisation of Varoufakis's own name) and is dated 10:05 a.m. Saturday 28 July 2036. This immediately draws attention to the fictional nature of the work and, more specifically, to the fact that it is set in an imagined future. The content of Varo's Foreword introduces the three main characters of the novel: Iris, who we are told in the opening sentence died a year ago; her friend Eva, who we learn was not at Iris's funeral; and Costa, who was present but chose to observe from a distance. Yango, a friend of all three, plays the role of communicator, being the purported author of what follows. He is directed by Iris and Costa to tell the story contained in Iris's diary, which she bequeathed to him before her death. Yet he is also instructed not to reveal any of the 'technical details' it contains. This makes little sense initially, but as the narrative unfolds the meaning of both the 'directive' and the 'injunction' become clear. The Foreword, then, sets up the work both by introducing the characters and plot, but also by posing puzzles or raising questions in the mind of the reader that will be resolved in the main body of the work.
Title page to Oceana including the dedication and epigram. James Harrington’s The Commonwealth of Oceana in The Oceana and Other Works of James Harrington, ed. John Toland (London, 1737). Copy author’s own.
Harrington too framed his text with paratextual material. The main body of Oceana is preceded by an epigram from Horace, a dedication to Oliver Cromwell, an 'Epistle to the Reader', and 'The Introduction or Order of the Work' - which presents Oceana (England) and its neighbours Marpesia (Scotland) and Panopea (Ireland). However, since I have written extensivesly about Harrington's ideas - including his use of literary strategies - I will focus here, instead, on another early modern political text: the 1675 English edition of Niccolò Machiavelli's political works produced by Harrington's friend Henry Neville (The Works of the Famous Nicholas Machiavel, Citizen and Secretary of Florence, London, 1675).
Harrington and Neville had been close friends since before the publication of Oceana in 1656, and they worked together to promote Harrington's constitutional model, particularly during 1659 when implementation seemed most likely. According to a contemporary and friend, John Aubrey, Neville supported Harrington 'to his dyeing day', continuing to visit him even when Harrington's mind was affected by illness (Aubrey, Brief Lives, ed. K. Bennett, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015, I, p. 322).
The third edition of Neville’s translation of Machiavelli’s works. Taken from Wikimedia Commons.
Neville appears to have shared - and even extended - his friend's playfulness. Neville added to his edition of Machiavelli's political works a letter supposedly written by Machiavelli to his friend Zanobius Buondelmontius in which he offered a vindication of himself and his writings. On the surface this was a conventional addition to a scholarly text - it was not unusual at the time to include additional material relating to the author. A more careful reading, however, reveals the letter to be a fraud or joke. In fact, as in Varoufakis's Foreword, even the date on the letter (1 April 1537) is suggestive. April 1st is, of course, April Fool's Day. Moreover, since Machiavelli had died on 21 June 1527, the letter was supposedly written almost ten years after his demise. The letter also refers to John Calvin's flight from Picardy to Geneva which, since it occurred in the 1530s, was something of which the real Machiavelli could not have been aware.
Machiavel’s Letter to Buondelmontius. Taken from the third edition - as previous image.
These features affects how we view the content of the letter, but that content in turn provides a clue to Neville's purpose. The topic of the letter is the corruption introduced into Christianity by the Catholic Church. Neville's 'Machiavel' points out that there is no evidence in the Bible for beliefs central to Catholic doctrine, such as purgatory, the worship of saints and idols, and the inquisition. These 'innovations', he suggests, were introduced by the Catholic clergy to increase their temporal power and to keep the people in ignorance. Using a term that had been coined by Harrington, he blames 'Priest-craft' for much of the current trouble, yet he remains hopeful that God will inspire Christian princes to bring about a return to 'the true Original Christian Faith', reminding them that in order to do so they will have to root out all traces 'of this Clergy or Priest-craft' or their efforts will be in vain.
In tricking his readers by including this fictional letter, Neville was deliberately echoing what he saw as the longstanding and calculated efforts of the clergy to deceive the laity. His aim in doing so was perhaps to draw the attention of his readers to their own foolish credulity, and to inoculate them against future deception. Having been stung by his prank, they would perhaps think more carefully in future about the ideas presented to them by others. Such trickery is less common as a literary technique today, and Varoufakis's Foreword is more deliberately part of his narrative. But, in an age when 'Fake News' has become a political weapon, and conspiracy theories are rife, I would hesitate to suggest that the credulity Neville identified has completely disappeared.