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    Heale On 16th Century Poetry

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    4 The Riverside Gtuer, ed. Lay D, Benson (Oxford: Oxford University Pres, 2988), p83, 4 HLA. ely, Haas and Roms of Tragedy fom Ariale 19 the Mille Ags (Cambridge: Cambridge Unversity res, 1923, p18 5. All Dunbar quotations are from The Pens of Willa Dusar, ed. Priscila Bawout, 2 vols. (Glasgow: Associaton for Scotch Literary Sue, 298) sce “ale, tere sapere, hal, n creme’ ines, and 5 and I secret place this Inyndeie neh lines 34 39,41 and «8. The lewerform "yg bas been sendy sormalzed to 6. ‘Ane excamatioun aganyst detractors, in Ving: Acc Trancate nto Sct Verse by Gavin Dongs, ed. David F.C. Coldwell, «vols, Sesh Tex Soi, thie sexes, 2, 27, 38, 30 (Edinburgh: Blackwood, toy-6a), vol, p93 line 2 ‘Al Douglas quotations ae fom this eto. The leuerform ‘yogh’ has Been slealy normalised t'y Benson (ed), Riverside Cancer. Bid, ps. 9. Alin Charter, ere jlowot the cope of leare whyche mise Aleyn Chater rte to ys brother buns ont of feshe fn to exgheshe (Wester ‘Wiliam Carton, 18) fo. 1o, See ‘OFT Lenten in the ist momyng’, "To sptk of cence, craft or spienc’ "Be mery, man, and tak noc fern my in Baweure (ed), Proms of Wien Dube, pp. 199, 56, 6 1m, Priscila Baweury, ‘New Light on Gavin Dough nA. A. MacDonald, M, Lyn and LB. Cowan (eds), The Renesnce i Seodond Suds a Rees, iotare and Culture Offer Jobe Durkan Laden: B.D, 1992), pp. 9506. 12, Biographical information is from Prislla Baweut, Gavin Douglas: A Crt Siudy Gdinbargh Bdaburgh Univesey Pres, 1975) 1a The Shorey Poens of Get Douglas, ed. Pola Bawcte(Galnburgh: Scotch Text Society, 200). 6 14 ‘Gonelusio'; “‘Discctoun’ Hel the wansltor des ys buke’; uclmaticus’ (Ane cxcamatioun apunse detactouss “The ge, spat and daze’; Virg's epitaph: sce Coldwell (ed), Vig’ Aeneid Trandate. by ‘Gavin Dawg, vo. Bp. 188. 15, Baweus, Gavin Douglas, pp. 102-24 16. “They wise all wth xed face inten, a Henry Howard, Ef Sere: Pe ‘ed, Emrys jones (Oxfort: Clarendon Press, 1964), pp. 35-8. All Surrey quota tion ae from this edon. 12, All quotaons fom Vig, Aen, are fom “uclis' “Are* and ‘Geog of Vegi 4.) B. Greenough (Boston: Ginn & Ca, 90). 18, Benson (), Riese Cheer, . 6 m6 Chapter 7 Sixteenth-century poetry: Skelton, Wyatt and Surrey ELIZABETH HBALE “The early Tudor poets John Skelton (1460-1529), Sir"Thomas Wyatt (¢1303-42) and Thomas Howard, Bazi of Sursey (117-47) span a period of dramatic historical, social and cultural change. Skelton began his career in the service of Henry Vl just after the Battle of Bosworth Field in rand Surrey lost his head for treason days before the death of Henry VII. Under these two centralising ‘Tudor monarchs, policy, prosperity and the increasing influence of humanism caused major social changes. England became a significant European power, and, after Skelton's death, broke away from the Roman Catholic Charch. ‘The ‘work of all three poets is marked by 2 sense of significant cultural change and the need to develop new poetic forms and voices. Above all, each poet's work is, shaped by his uneasy relationship ro a dominant, often tyrannical royal court” ‘The careers ofthe three poets were very diferent. Skelton seems to have tisen through his academic and chetorical abilities, recognised in the academic tile of lasreate, to an early postion as tator tothe infant Henry VILL In 3503, however, he was pensioned off to the rectory of Diss in Norfolk, and spent such ofthe rest of his life crying, largely unsuccessfully, to regain an official post at court as poet and propagandist for the King.* Without a ready-made courtly audience, he made use of the new technology of printing, Wyatt was a courtier and diplomat who eschewed print publication, circulating his verse among an elite readership in manuscript? Twice imprisoned by Henry VIL, he also served as the King’s ambassador at foreign courts. Surrey was an aristocrat, the eldest son of the Duke of Norfolk, faally conscious of his ancestry and its"tradtional privileges, but open, after a year spent at the dlezling coust of France, to new Renaissance forms and models To some extent we stil view all three poets through Elizabethan eyes. The verse of Wyatt and Surrey was printed for the Blizabethans in the highly influential Torel's Miscollany (first printed in 1557). For George Puttenham, ‘writing in u§89, Wyatt and Surrey were worthy antecedents, ‘courly 15 ‘makers. . who hauing trauailed into Italie, and there tasfing] the sweere and sately measures and stile ofthe Italian Poesie.. greatly polished ovr ude & homely maner of vulgar [vernacular] Posse, from that it had bene before’ ‘Skelton, however, seemed neither courtly not polished, but ether a kind of jester, following the publication of apocryphal Menie Tales... Made by Master ‘Shelton in 1367, oF asa proto-Provestant for his anti-ecclesiastical satire, Colin Clout.‘ In Andrew Hadfield’s words, Skelton is ofen seen as ‘half medieval ape and half Renaissance man’? While there are undoubtedly significant differences between the three posts, they also have much in common. All chtee are experimental and innovative poets who ambitiously redefine and expand what can be waitten in English, Allthree create, or import from Latin and Continental models, new genres and verse forms. In particular, all three are interested in developing new kinds of verse in plainer styles that imitate in different ways the natural and dramatic emphases of speaking voices, and for all thre, such voices characterstcally articulate themes of alienation, opposition or disillusion. In the more ambitious work of ll dare, the role of the post is 2 mark of high calling, entailing the responsibility, and providing the rather slippery means, +0 expose vice and encourage virtue. ‘While the work ofeach poet stands out from that oftheir contemporasiesin «erms of range, innovation and ambition, none of the three writes in ielation and Wyat’'s courtly verse in particular needs to be understood in terms ofthe wider practices of his courtly contemporaries. Wherever possible, I signal, ‘within the constraints of space, the relationship of the work of the three authors to other contemporaneous writin, \, Courtly verse ‘hn elevated, ‘aureate’ syle dd ideslsing themes dominated complimentary cout verse at the end of the fifteenth and earl intent centuries. Skaltons conrmiporary Stephen Hawes was master of sch vest ane Skin hinge competent deploy thse, among oes in The Galan of awed printed ‘in 1527 but containing verse from the mid 14908).* The Countess of Surrey, for sample, is adecessed with areate decorum: ‘Afer all daly one obeiance, 7 in humble wyse a low as Inay, / Unto you, madame 1 make recon saunce.” That Skelton seady ound sich astyle potentially absurdissuggested Bris arlesque poem, "Tvauacen acquaint, whch begins by parodying aurea pai of dy "Ofall your fer fvorbl oma ru depen Shxeenth-cenmury poetry am nsaffycyent ro make such enterpeyse ..."The style changes radically in the third star2a, which develops a lew parallel between women and horses: \Wyrh bound and rebound, bounsyngly take up ys jenyl curtoyl, and set nowghe by small aggys! Spur up atthe hynder gyth with, ‘Gup, morell, up With, ‘Jays ye, Jenet of Spayme, for your tay wagays: (i) 8-9 and 15-18) ‘These lines are fall of bestil puns and allusions: ‘cutayl means both “ a horse witha docked tall” anda “nunie"; naggys both “small horses” and (in slang) “the human testiles”'” Morels and jennets are breeds of horse, Along with a rude, plain diction, and a strongly stressed style that imitates colloquial spoech, comes a sardonic view of love and women. ‘The growing taste for plainer, less aureate styles, does notalways take such rade form. Another ofthe complementary lyric in Garlande praises ‘maysttes Margares Hussey’ Miney Margate, As mydvomer flow, Jena as fasecoun (Or hawhe of the towze: ‘With solace and gladne, Moche mirthe and no madnes, All good and no badines, So joyously, Somaydeniy, So womanly Her demenyng (exutoop4) ‘The short lines of five, six and four syllables, with two or three stresses, produce a playfal songelke effect, increased by the repetition of the frst four ines as a refrain, taste for such song lke rhythms and plainer diction, often joined with ess ialising themes, is evident in manuscripts of elite verse from the late fifteenth century, One example, from the ‘Findem' MS, is in the voice of a Whavso men sayn, Love is no pain ‘To them, cerain, Bur vations: For they constrain 1” “Ther hertes t fin, ‘Ther mouthes «plain, ‘Ther displesauns." Soch ‘alets’(songelike stanzaic poems, easily adapred for singing to popular dance tunes) became increasingly popular in courtly circles by the second decade of the sixteenth eentury.* An example from the ‘Henry Vill’ MS (compiled by someone close to the King cists), develops an aggressively masculine ‘erotic hunter’ theme: ‘blow thi homme on hye! / There ys a do [doe} in yonder wode; in faith, she woll noc dy. The poem's ‘wit’ depends on double encendes on homs and arrows as well a on the deer/dear pur: He to go and 10 g0, Bute ran fas afore: ‘had hyenshomt and sik the do, For I myght shott no mere, ‘The penultimate stanza slers the courtly audience, perhaps mixed, to the pocm’s lewd innuendo: ‘Now the construccyon of he same - / What do yow ‘meane or thynk”™ ‘Wyatt's balets dearly belong to this Tudor courtly genre. ‘heir plain speaking and songclke effects are often used to voice scepticism about love ‘and the trustworthiness of women. The balet ‘Lo whaticis ro lovel i typical ‘To love and to be wise! "To rage with good advice! [Now thus, now then, Now off, now on, ‘Uncersain atthe dice! \ Thereitno man ‘Aronce that can ‘To love and to be wise. “The varying three- and two stess lines produce & more diverse and sophist cated songelike effec than either the Findem or erotic hunter bales and point to the great variety of Wyat’ lyric metres and his mastery of ther light but often biting effects. Wyatt sbalets are influenced by courtly Talia songs, such 1 the frotez, designed to be sung to a lute sceampaniment, although ii unlikely Wyatt's were performed inthis way. The fattola typically developed witty and sardonic view oflove and women.” “The insoucant brliance of Wyat’s bales demonstrates the cour ethos of srezzature, a display of excellence that appears effordess and natural, buts Shitcenthcentory poetry in fact careflly cultivated, In his highly influential Libro el Corteglano (1528), Baldassare Castiglione describes the truly accomplished courtier as ane who ‘conceals all artistry and makes whatever [he] says or does seem uncontcived and effortless... rue aris what does not seem to be art."* The poetic formas ‘which Wyatt introduces into English from Italy, such a the frozola the eight line spamBotio and urbane Horatian verse satire, exemplify just sich a combi. ation of apparent spontaneity with subtle alice. This i particularly the case ‘with the Petrarchan sonnet, the most influential of Wyat’'sincroductions. The concentrated fourteen-line sonnet, with its incate stractuze and thyme scheme, is designed to voice, with passionate Nuency, the intense thoughts and emotions ofa first person speaker lover. ‘Who list to hunt, an adaptation of Petrarch’s Rime 190, demonstrates perticulary clearly the power ofthe sonner form and Wat’ distinctive use oft In Petrarch’ original, the lover sees a tantalising vision ofa pure white deer on which he gazes tl tited, he falls in Uhe water and i disappears. Wyatt converts the sonnet into a version of the eros hunt: ‘Whoso list ro hunt, Lknow where isan hind, But as for me, bess, Lmay no more. "The vain travail hath wearied me so so%e, ‘Lam of them that farthest cometh behing. Yer may I by no means may wearied mind Draw fiom the deer, but as she feeth afore Fainting follow. {leave off therefore Sithens in a net sek to hold the wind Who lst her hunt, [par him aut of doubs, ‘As well as I may spend bie time in vai, ‘And graven with diamonds in Ieers plain ‘There is writen her fair neck round about: “Not me anger for Caesar's Lam, ‘And will for to hold though I seem eae. oy ‘Wyat’s “major contribusion’ co the sonnet form which he imports into English isto break the final six lines, which in Petrarch usually rhyme ede, cde, into a quatrain and a couplet, allowing for a climactic ending, or, as is often the ease with Wyatt's sonnets, a final sardonie comment.” This sonnet ends by quoting the enigmatic message written on a collar round the deer’s neck. ‘Noli me tanger’ alludes both to a supposed inscription zound the necks of Caesar's deer, mentioned in the Petrarchan original, and, shockingly, to Christ's words after his resurrection in the Latin Vulgate Bible.* The lady is fora moment associated with something holy, but also, in the second half of the line, with the coins that in the Bible belong to Caesar, a worldly object ‘owned.” In the final line the lady's disturbing otherness, beyond the desiring male grasp is also a sign ofa flirtatious and dangerous female duplicity. ‘Wyatt's sonnes focuses our attension not only on the tantalising desirable snd despised object fthe hunt, butalso on te lover/nter. The quatrars map his shifing moods: he is selfcomtradictory and ambivalent, sguresively masct line, peevish and plaintive. The poem dramaise a spontancous and distnesive voice through plain diction and metres) imeguarty. Such imegulaniy is « <éssineive feamure of Wyatt's sonnets and other shor: forms, such as stramboct and epigrams, and is used to dramsatise the speaking voice, with sessed sylbles and caesurae signaling emphases and changes in pace and tone* In this sonne, the extra mere of line x produces a confident opening invitation which then falters through the varying sess parterns and pauses of the nextseven lines. Not ‘untiline 9 does the speaker resume the buoyantiambics oflne 1, bu this is again hale slmose immediately by the ominous pace of lin with its extra sable, ‘before ending with the couplet, cach of whose lines have only four stresses, ‘eausing thelr stark warnings to seem yet starker “The lover/speaker of ‘Whoso ist to hunt’ may be dsempowered and se ‘contradictory, bu his voice is experty dramatised in a poem that announces its ‘maker's mastery of anew, dificult and glamorous Continental form. Where the aureate verse ofan earlier generation drew attention toits own artifice, the style of _genvlemanly amateurism cultivated by Wyatt and his fellow courtier poets implies rather than daplays its technical sophistication. Instead, the readerlistener’s atrention is drawn to the expressive huency of the speaker, and the emotional drama. The form serves perfealy a competitive, courtly ethos ofsprezzatur, self assertion through the display of apparentiy spontaneous briliance Few of Wyau's contemporaries attempted the sonnet form, but Wyatt's ‘alets were popular and influential, The ‘Devonshire’ and ‘Blage’ manuscrips, containing courtly verse of the 1530s and 540s, make clear the role of verse sich as Wyat’s bales and sonnets in social pastime."‘The courtly women who used the Devonshire manuscript marked poems fr copying orin some cases singing, snd both manuscripts make clear that answering and adapting the verses of others was par ofthe fun. The evident populavty of Wyatt’ verses is undoubt cay partly due to their wit and sil, but their vivid dramatisation of sceptical courlly speakers appears to be part of their appeal. They may be used as a provocative gambie in wity exchange between the sexes, bus they may also figure a more general frustration and disillusion with the pursuit of favour and advancement at coust. Wyatt’ courtly poems negotiate, for himself and others, 2 conflict between gentlemanly seifassertion and courtly serlity, between glamour and the danger of dependence on the great Sixeenth-century poetry “Thomas Howard, Hatl of Surrey, found at the end of his life that he 9, in spite of his eriseocraic birth, had much to fear ftom those at the top of the greasy pole. Elegiac themes ofloss, absence and betrayal recur throughout his ‘poems Surrey was a dose reader and admirer of Wyat’s verse, but his poetry ‘eates significantly different effects, Where Wyat's lovers are selflvided and often disillusioned, Surrey's are grieving and faithful their characteristic ‘made is that of complaint expressed in regular and smusicl metres. ‘Surrey followed Wyatt in translating Pesrarchan sonnets, developing what ‘hecame the dominant English form of three quatrains rhyming abab, add, fe, with a final couplet. Where, however, Wyatt's couplets typically fore cose a fraught narrative with a final stinging comment on the pursuit oflove and women (OF such a root cometh fruit fruitless’, xx), Suerey's lovers are faithful and endusing: For my swete thoughtes sometyme doe pleasure bring, But by and by the cause of my disease Gewes mea pang that inwardly dothe sing, nen that [chine what gree cis agsine live and fake the thing should ridde my paine.” ‘The eleguic resignation produced by Surrey's implied narrative is comple- mented by the smooth rhythms of is vers, emphasised by the repetition of| “by and by’ and the chiming of five an lace" inthe ines quoted above. The bie metre i broken only tn lines 12 and 1, which begin with stressed sylebles.Suceys lovers ind sweetness in ving and lacking Ieis peshaps Surey's interest in the poetry of suffering that atrats him so women's voices ina number of his poems. Writing as his wife mourning the absence of her husband, Surrey develops his favourite themes of feithfulness are los: Good ladies, you that have your pleasure in exyle, Stepp in your foote, come take a place, and mourne with me awhyle; ‘And suche as by their lords do sex but lye pryce, Len them sitesi i sks them nat whae chaunce come on the dye, (00, 24 Lines) ‘The fist line hints that not only isthe speaker's ‘pleasure’ absent, but that absence brings a kind of mournful sweemess. The pain ofthe virmous wives elevates them above their insensible companions. “Good ladies’ is in poulter's measure, altzmating chyming iambic lines of fourteen and twelve syllables, a form that Wyatt had used for a complaint, ‘So feeble isthe thread’ (t2207), but which Surrey made his own. Ungainly a the fotm seems to modern ears, used t0 the dominance of iambic pentameters, Surtey’s poulker’s measure complaints were highly influential on mid-Tudor poets, The form may derive from the ballad measure of fourteeners, and was, certainly thought suitable for singing, adding to the plangency of the form, poem for which music survives, but which also demonstrates the potential of the form co dramatize the emphases and emotions ofa speaking voice, is Ty winters just rename’: ‘And lowd (lat he shryked oft, and ‘Shepard’, gan he cal, “Come, be the(e fast at ones, ane print tin thy art; So thou shalt know, and I shall tell the(e,gtlesse how I sear” (0.16, Tines 38-40) “The lines maintain a balance berween the emphases of adramatised voice and the regular metre, We enter a stylised, literary world of a dying lover lamenting to a shepherd, a world of idealised, albeit tragic, emotions. The emotional pathos of Survey's speakers is quite different from the sardonic {intimacies of Wyatt's songs and sonnets, ‘Skelton, Wyatt and Surrey ll respond to, and develop in innovative ways, the taste for plainer less elaborately courtly styles in the early decades ofthe sixteenth centary, Plain diction and a new metrical flexibility imitate the natural emphases of voices ranging fom the rudeness of Skelon's “Th'auncient acquaintance’ to the elegiac plangency of Surtey's pouiter’s ‘measure complaints. Plain speakers and innovative metsical forms are also used by all three poets to construct powerful satires that exploit, or ‘question, the relationship of plainness to uth : Satires ‘Skelton's preasao anti-courdy satires, The Bowge of Court (24g8) and -Magnyfjeence (probably written c1sr7), treat plain style speakers with consid- erable suspicion, In Bong, for example, the narrator Drede is beset by a group of false courtiers with names like Favel, Suspicion, Dyssymulation and Disceyte, who shift berween different styles and idioms. Pavel, o flattery, addresses Drede with sycophantieaureation: ‘Noo thynge ently that] wonder so sore ‘As of your connynge, that is so excellent; [Depnte to have with us suche one in tore, So vereuously chat hah his dayes pence” (vaa8-51) Sixeenth-century poetsy ‘the contorted syntax, and the refined vocabulary (connynge’ ~ leaming: “deynte’ — pleasing), draw our attention to the atifce of Favel’s rhetoric, When Favel is overheard talking about Drede to another false courtier, suspect, he uses a quite different style "Toys quod Suspecte, “goo plyes hym Ine reef" By Cryst, quod Favell,‘Drede is sleyne freke! What, lete us holde him up, man, fora why.” (ines 186-8) Favel’s colloquial demovic(soleyne freke’ —unsociable fellow; ‘holde..., up’ ~ leave him alone) adds coarseness ro his untrastworthiness. The truth thisplain speaking reveals is thac coursers are inherently duplicitous. A differentkind of plainness is used by another courtier, Dyssymulation: I walde eche man were as playne aL Iisa world, Lsaye, co here of some — That this faynynge,fye upon it, jet ines 46-5) DDyssymullation’s seemingly arcess plainness is, of course, thoroughly arcful; Ihe mimics, in persuasive tones, the style of truth, Skelton associates rhetorical slipperiness with immorality, while demonstrating his own ability to drama- tise, in thyme royal stanzas, a range of spoken idioms. [cis not until the anti-Wolsey satires of 522 and 1523, Collyn Clout and the Juvenalian “Why Come Ye Nat to Courte” that Skelton uses plain-speakers as honest truth-tellers. Even so, they adopt, like the scoundtel Counterfe Countenance in Magnyjjcence, a “bastarde ryme, after the dogrell gyse" (evi4o8). The skeltonie Hine, with its two or three stresses, often using repeated rhymes over a number of lines, is Skelton’s invention, adapting the shorelines of wo seresses and repeated rhymes that could be used for playful eect in “To maystres Margaret Hussey’ (see above), to produce an ‘emphatic accusatory style." The effect is of an energetic and seemingly spontaneous outpouring of blame and ridicule. In Colys Clout, the speaker is ‘rustic figure ia the tradition of Langland’s Piers Plowman (Colin is derived from the Latin colonus farmer, and a clout isa rag or apatch). Collym claims 1 report, reluctantly, the overheard complaints of the common people dicected against che hierarchy of the church, and particularly Cardinal Woley: Shall ell you move? Ye, shal, {am lothe to el all But the commsnalte ye call ‘dolls of Babylon, 3 De tera Zabulon, De tena Nepealy; For you love to go 8ye, Brought up of poore esate, ‘With pryde inordynate, Sodaynly upstare From the donge earte, “The mattocke and the shovll To reygne and to rule (ants) “The language and verse mimic a rude simplicy, but of course, the poem isan artfl construct, The fragmentary biblical snippets are sufficient t0 associate the clergy with the paganism and idolatry of Babylon, Zabulon and Naphta ‘Skelton keeps at two removes from the dangerous accusations voiced by the people and reported by the uneducated Collyn, The satize on Wolsey's prelatical and worldly pre that has forgotten its base origins is, however, ‘unmistakable. The jeering chant ofthe short lines lens the demotic invective an energy and ferocity that makes Skeltons plain speaking skeltonics a satir- ‘cal weapon of great power “The rhetoric of plain-speaking adopted by Wyatt in Mine owne John Poyntz’, recalls that of Dyssymulation rather than Collyn: 1 am not he such eloquence to boast "To make the crow singing asthe swan, [Nor make ‘the lon’ of coward beasts the most "That cannot take a mouse asthe ea cam; (My wit s naught. I cannot lear the way. ‘And mc the less of things that greater be, ‘That askes help of colours of device “To jin the mean with each extremity: ‘With the nearest vem to lal away the vie. (ox 5-6, 57-61) ‘The ‘colour of device’ thatthe speakers unable ro learn is the quintessentially courly figure of paradistole, the misnaming of virtues as vices and vices as As drankenness good fellowship to call "The fiend for with his double face Say be is gentle and courteous therewith; 4 Sotcenth-century poetsy ‘And sy that Pavel hath a goodly grace In dloquence (ines 64-8) “The poem's speaker claims to quit the court of his own free will, disgusted by such duplicity, bu it seems he has had litele choice in the matter; he has ‘aclog ... at my hee!” (ine 86). The allusion seems ro be to Wyatt's own rustication from the court in 1536 following his imprisonment for sup- posed lisison with Queen Anne Boleyn.”* The speaker is thus a version of ‘Wyatt himself, but the poem isin face a highly accomplished translation of «sophisticated Italian original, 2 satire by Luigi Alamanal, writen in a

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