Boldness of tongue permitted

There's no such thing as free speech, and it's a good thing, too," argued Stanley Fish not so long ago, pointing out that a transcendent, inalienable, ahistorical right to speak freely does not exist, and reminding us that we need to be aware of history when considering what this concept might mean. David Colclough's book on early modern considerations of free speech takes up Fish's directive, and his exhaustive work on a variety of tropes and institutions during the period bears interesting and provocative fruit.

"Free" speech during the early Stuart period entailed a multitude of things, but what it clearly did not mean was anything like the concept that we might recognise as enshrined in a variety of 20th-century acts, bills and amendments. Freedom of speech is fundamentally important to early modern parliaments and to emergent ideas of the civic subject, but Colclough usefully reminds us not to assume that such freedoms are consonant with our contemporary concerns. Furthermore, we need to be careful when analysing historical manifestations of familiar ideas that we do not describe a teleology of rights, seeing too easily the origin of contemporary freedoms in earlier debates.

He opens with a discussion of the rhetorical figure of parrhesia ( licentia in Latin), a kind of "boldness" or direct speech: "May I speak freely?" This kind of natural straight-talking is deployed to suggest honesty in the speaker or a kind of flattering connection between addressor and audience.

Contemporary examples of parrhesia abound, particularly as used by direct, unvarnished speakers such as no-nonsense John Prescott, the Deputy Prime Minister, or folksy simple President George W. Bush. Truth is often associated with this direct speech, yet there is a danger of this characteristic being manipulated. How can we know that the speaker is being honest? If this is a rhetorical trope, it can be feigned and learnt to gain the speaker credibility. So in its origins, free or direct speech as a means of counsel contains a certain anxiety. It is also something that is in some ways granted to speakers through their relationship with a complicit and comprehending audience.

Colclough studies the figure of parrhesia in learned depth, demonstrating how it is at root a democratic and republican concept drawn from classical debate, but how this then became refigured and reworked in later periods.

He traces the origins of this speaking freely to demonstrate how early modern ideas of counsel drew on these theories of direct, free speech.

Advisers must be prepared to speak directly and unflatteringly, and they must in some ways be protected from any consequences of their rough counsel. This type of rhetorical tradition helped to emphasise the role of free speech in the formation of the active citizen.

This is a detailed and scholarly work that makes its points clearly. The conclusions drawn are enlightening and will provide a useful conceptual framework for work on this period.

Jerome de Groot is lecturer in Renaissance literature and culture, Manchester University.