Jane Griffiths
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- January 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199273607
- eISBN:
- 9780191706301
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199273607.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Early and Medieval Literature
This book is the first book-length study of Skelton for almost twenty years (including the only substantial study to date of Skelton's translation of the Bibliotheca Historica of Diodorus Siculus), ...
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This book is the first book-length study of Skelton for almost twenty years (including the only substantial study to date of Skelton's translation of the Bibliotheca Historica of Diodorus Siculus), and the first to trace the roots of his poetic theory to his practice as a writer and translator. It demonstrates that much of what has been found challenging in his work may be attributed to his attempt to reconcile existing views of the poet's role in society with discoveries about the writing process itself. The result is a highly idiosyncratic poetics that locates the poet's authority decisively within his own person, yet at the same time predicates his ‘liberty to speak’ upon the existence of an engaged, imaginative audience. Skelton is frequently treated as a maverick, but this book places his theory and practice firmly in the context of later sixteenth as well as 15th-century traditions. Focusing on his relations with both past and present readers, it reassesses his place in the English literary canon.Less
This book is the first book-length study of Skelton for almost twenty years (including the only substantial study to date of Skelton's translation of the Bibliotheca Historica of Diodorus Siculus), and the first to trace the roots of his poetic theory to his practice as a writer and translator. It demonstrates that much of what has been found challenging in his work may be attributed to his attempt to reconcile existing views of the poet's role in society with discoveries about the writing process itself. The result is a highly idiosyncratic poetics that locates the poet's authority decisively within his own person, yet at the same time predicates his ‘liberty to speak’ upon the existence of an engaged, imaginative audience. Skelton is frequently treated as a maverick, but this book places his theory and practice firmly in the context of later sixteenth as well as 15th-century traditions. Focusing on his relations with both past and present readers, it reassesses his place in the English literary canon.
David Manning
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195182392
- eISBN:
- 9780199851485
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195182392.003.0086
- Subject:
- Music, History, Western
In making a choral suite out of the poems for the Five Tudor Portraits of John Skelton, Ralph Vaughan Williams ventured to take some liberties with the text. Certain omissions have been made ...
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In making a choral suite out of the poems for the Five Tudor Portraits of John Skelton, Ralph Vaughan Williams ventured to take some liberties with the text. Certain omissions have been made necessary, partly by the great length of the original, partly from the fact that certain passages did not lend themselves to musical treatment, and partly that certain lines that look well when read cannot conveniently be sung. Williams changed the order of the lines; this seems legitimate, as there does not appear to be an inevitable sequence in Skelton's original order. This fusion is, he hopes, justified by the fact that the character who sings the song in the play has immediately before quoted a line from “Jolly Rutterkin.” The setting is for baritone solo and chorus.Less
In making a choral suite out of the poems for the Five Tudor Portraits of John Skelton, Ralph Vaughan Williams ventured to take some liberties with the text. Certain omissions have been made necessary, partly by the great length of the original, partly from the fact that certain passages did not lend themselves to musical treatment, and partly that certain lines that look well when read cannot conveniently be sung. Williams changed the order of the lines; this seems legitimate, as there does not appear to be an inevitable sequence in Skelton's original order. This fusion is, he hopes, justified by the fact that the character who sings the song in the play has immediately before quoted a line from “Jolly Rutterkin.” The setting is for baritone solo and chorus.
Greg Walker
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780199283330
- eISBN:
- 9780191712630
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199283330.003.0002
- Subject:
- Literature, 16th-century and Renaissance Literature
This chapter looks at the rhetorical culture of early Tudor England. It argues that educated English men (and to a lesser extent, women) were used to a degree of intellectual freedom in the 1510s and ...
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This chapter looks at the rhetorical culture of early Tudor England. It argues that educated English men (and to a lesser extent, women) were used to a degree of intellectual freedom in the 1510s and 1520s, allowing the kind of robust intellectual enquiry and argument that was taught in the grammar schools and universities, and which formed the bedrock of the training of the Inns of Court. It charts the decline in the reputation and governmental methods of Henry VIII from the time of his accession, when he was lauded as a liberal scholar’s champion, to the last years of his reign, when he was widely condemned as a tyrant. It shows how, as his reign progressed, his subjects had to learn new ways of thinking and speaking in the face of his government’s oppressive demands.Less
This chapter looks at the rhetorical culture of early Tudor England. It argues that educated English men (and to a lesser extent, women) were used to a degree of intellectual freedom in the 1510s and 1520s, allowing the kind of robust intellectual enquiry and argument that was taught in the grammar schools and universities, and which formed the bedrock of the training of the Inns of Court. It charts the decline in the reputation and governmental methods of Henry VIII from the time of his accession, when he was lauded as a liberal scholar’s champion, to the last years of his reign, when he was widely condemned as a tyrant. It shows how, as his reign progressed, his subjects had to learn new ways of thinking and speaking in the face of his government’s oppressive demands.
Greg Walker
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780199283330
- eISBN:
- 9780191712630
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199283330.003.0018
- Subject:
- Literature, 16th-century and Renaissance Literature
This chapter explores the poetic innovations introduced or imported into England by Wyatt and Surrey in their attempts to discover new ways of writing political verse under Henry VIII’s tyranny. It ...
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This chapter explores the poetic innovations introduced or imported into England by Wyatt and Surrey in their attempts to discover new ways of writing political verse under Henry VIII’s tyranny. It argues that royal oppression not only stifled the traditional forms of literary good counsel that had dominated literary culture for generations, but also prompted the development of newer forms of expression that would come to be seen as characteristic of the Renaissance spirit: individual subjectivity, interiority, a new secular Petrarchan lyric voice, and a variety of new stanzaic forms and metres.Less
This chapter explores the poetic innovations introduced or imported into England by Wyatt and Surrey in their attempts to discover new ways of writing political verse under Henry VIII’s tyranny. It argues that royal oppression not only stifled the traditional forms of literary good counsel that had dominated literary culture for generations, but also prompted the development of newer forms of expression that would come to be seen as characteristic of the Renaissance spirit: individual subjectivity, interiority, a new secular Petrarchan lyric voice, and a variety of new stanzaic forms and metres.
Ernest Campbell Mossner
- Published in print:
- 2001
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199243365
- eISBN:
- 9780191697241
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199243365.003.0018
- Subject:
- Philosophy, History of Philosophy
Throughout the spring of 1749 David Hume remained in London widening his literary contacts. The Philosophical Essays, which Andrew Millar had published, had gone unanswered and seemingly unnoticed ...
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Throughout the spring of 1749 David Hume remained in London widening his literary contacts. The Philosophical Essays, which Andrew Millar had published, had gone unanswered and seemingly unnoticed despite the presence of the inflammatory essay ‘Of Miracles’. Oddly enough it was Hume himself, acting as temporary reader for Millar, who was instrumental in the bringing out of the first refutation in Ophiomaches; or Deism Revealed, an anonymous work in two volumes by an Irish clergyman, the Reverend Philip Skelton. Breaking his journey at Oxford on his way to London to seek a publisher, Skelton was introduced to Dr John Conybeare, the Dean of Christ Church. Conybeare handed him a copy of Philosophical Essays, suggesting that he should introduce into his manuscript some comments on the section ‘Of Miracles’; and Skelton acquiesced. The incident points to the growing intimacy between Hume and Millar.Less
Throughout the spring of 1749 David Hume remained in London widening his literary contacts. The Philosophical Essays, which Andrew Millar had published, had gone unanswered and seemingly unnoticed despite the presence of the inflammatory essay ‘Of Miracles’. Oddly enough it was Hume himself, acting as temporary reader for Millar, who was instrumental in the bringing out of the first refutation in Ophiomaches; or Deism Revealed, an anonymous work in two volumes by an Irish clergyman, the Reverend Philip Skelton. Breaking his journey at Oxford on his way to London to seek a publisher, Skelton was introduced to Dr John Conybeare, the Dean of Christ Church. Conybeare handed him a copy of Philosophical Essays, suggesting that he should introduce into his manuscript some comments on the section ‘Of Miracles’; and Skelton acquiesced. The incident points to the growing intimacy between Hume and Millar.
John Franceschina
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199754298
- eISBN:
- 9780199949878
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199754298.003.0008
- Subject:
- Music, Dance, Popular
Hermes Pan goes to Paramount to choreograph Let’s Dance for Fred Astaire and Betty Hutton before returning to M-G-M to choreograph Three Little Words with Astaire and Red Skelton. He remains at M-G-M ...
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Hermes Pan goes to Paramount to choreograph Let’s Dance for Fred Astaire and Betty Hutton before returning to M-G-M to choreograph Three Little Words with Astaire and Red Skelton. He remains at M-G-M to work with Sally Forest, Ann Miller, Esther Williams, Marge and Gower Champion, and Cyd Charisse in films such as Excuse My Dust, Texas Carnival, Lovely to Look At, and Sombrero. Pan also teaches Cary Grant to dance in Dream Wife and instructs Jean Simmons in period manners for The Actress.Less
Hermes Pan goes to Paramount to choreograph Let’s Dance for Fred Astaire and Betty Hutton before returning to M-G-M to choreograph Three Little Words with Astaire and Red Skelton. He remains at M-G-M to work with Sally Forest, Ann Miller, Esther Williams, Marge and Gower Champion, and Cyd Charisse in films such as Excuse My Dust, Texas Carnival, Lovely to Look At, and Sombrero. Pan also teaches Cary Grant to dance in Dream Wife and instructs Jean Simmons in period manners for The Actress.
Jane Griffiths
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- January 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199273607
- eISBN:
- 9780191706301
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199273607.003.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Early and Medieval Literature
This introductory chapter begins with a brief discussion of the work of John Skelton. It then describes the primary aims of the book, which are to provide a new reading of Skelton's work, and ...
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This introductory chapter begins with a brief discussion of the work of John Skelton. It then describes the primary aims of the book, which are to provide a new reading of Skelton's work, and question whether Skelton is as unassimilable to the English literary canon as has frequently been assumed. It is argued that Skelton's nonconformity has its roots in his confrontation of precisely those questions that exercised the later 16th century too: the purpose of poetry, the social position of the poet, and the relation between external guarantors of the poet's authority and the energy they seek to contain. The views of authority to which Skelton alludes explicitly are only the public face of a private obsession, and Skelton's most radical discussions of the poet's authority are to be found not in his adaptations of established views, but between the lines of his works themselves. An overview of the subsequent chapters is presented.Less
This introductory chapter begins with a brief discussion of the work of John Skelton. It then describes the primary aims of the book, which are to provide a new reading of Skelton's work, and question whether Skelton is as unassimilable to the English literary canon as has frequently been assumed. It is argued that Skelton's nonconformity has its roots in his confrontation of precisely those questions that exercised the later 16th century too: the purpose of poetry, the social position of the poet, and the relation between external guarantors of the poet's authority and the energy they seek to contain. The views of authority to which Skelton alludes explicitly are only the public face of a private obsession, and Skelton's most radical discussions of the poet's authority are to be found not in his adaptations of established views, but between the lines of his works themselves. An overview of the subsequent chapters is presented.
Jane Griffiths
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- January 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199273607
- eISBN:
- 9780191706301
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199273607.003.0002
- Subject:
- Literature, Early and Medieval Literature
Skelton is strongly drawn to define his role in relation to the state. He is equally attracted by alternative formulations of poetic identity: those that locate the poet's authority in his learning, ...
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Skelton is strongly drawn to define his role in relation to the state. He is equally attracted by alternative formulations of poetic identity: those that locate the poet's authority in his learning, his place in a literary tradition, or his claim to divine inspiration. This chapter traces a number of these ideas through analysis of his poetic titles. It will thus identify the two contrasting views that recur throughout Skelton's writing. While the title orator regius locates the poet's authority in his position as the king's spokesman, the titles poet laureate and vates pave the way for viewing the poet's authority as innate.Less
Skelton is strongly drawn to define his role in relation to the state. He is equally attracted by alternative formulations of poetic identity: those that locate the poet's authority in his learning, his place in a literary tradition, or his claim to divine inspiration. This chapter traces a number of these ideas through analysis of his poetic titles. It will thus identify the two contrasting views that recur throughout Skelton's writing. While the title orator regius locates the poet's authority in his position as the king's spokesman, the titles poet laureate and vates pave the way for viewing the poet's authority as innate.
Jane Griffiths
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- January 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199273607
- eISBN:
- 9780191706301
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199273607.003.0003
- Subject:
- Literature, Early and Medieval Literature
Skelton's titles give some sense of the views of the poet available to him, and the way in which he redefines them depends not on theory but on his own practice as a writer. This chapter begins with ...
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Skelton's titles give some sense of the views of the poet available to him, and the way in which he redefines them depends not on theory but on his own practice as a writer. This chapter begins with a re-examination of its implications, focusing on his early translation of the Bibliotheca Historica of Diodorus Siculus (c.1487). Although the Bibliotheca has been neglected critically, it is none the less central to Skelton's understanding of the writer's authority. It provides him with a number of commonplaces on the subject of writing that recur again and again in his later works. More importantly, however, his practice as translator repeatedly demonstrates the extent of the writer's influence over his subject. Where his source-text presents the historian as one whose authority is derived from his material—that is, in the writings of previous historians—Skelton's translation proposes an altogether different relation between the writer and his subject-matter. His source consistently discusses the writer's res (or subject-matter) in classical terms, as independent from the verba (or the words in which it is clothed). Thus, the meaning of the original may be transferred intact, unaffected by its treatment by a new writer or translator.Less
Skelton's titles give some sense of the views of the poet available to him, and the way in which he redefines them depends not on theory but on his own practice as a writer. This chapter begins with a re-examination of its implications, focusing on his early translation of the Bibliotheca Historica of Diodorus Siculus (c.1487). Although the Bibliotheca has been neglected critically, it is none the less central to Skelton's understanding of the writer's authority. It provides him with a number of commonplaces on the subject of writing that recur again and again in his later works. More importantly, however, his practice as translator repeatedly demonstrates the extent of the writer's influence over his subject. Where his source-text presents the historian as one whose authority is derived from his material—that is, in the writings of previous historians—Skelton's translation proposes an altogether different relation between the writer and his subject-matter. His source consistently discusses the writer's res (or subject-matter) in classical terms, as independent from the verba (or the words in which it is clothed). Thus, the meaning of the original may be transferred intact, unaffected by its treatment by a new writer or translator.
Jane Griffiths
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- January 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199273607
- eISBN:
- 9780191706301
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199273607.003.0004
- Subject:
- Literature, Early and Medieval Literature
The Bibliotheca represents an early recognition of the writer's freedom from the authority of the past; while such authority remains something that may be appealed to for rhetorical purposes, the ...
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The Bibliotheca represents an early recognition of the writer's freedom from the authority of the past; while such authority remains something that may be appealed to for rhetorical purposes, the practice of translation proves that such appeals themselves are a matter of form rather than substance. Skelton's awareness of his separation from literary auctores and auctoritates is not wholly liberating; this chapter demonstrates that it also entails a degree of anxiety about the sources and the guarantors of the writer's output. Works such as The Bowge of Court and Magnyfycence confront fears arising from the possibility that words shape matter and that the poet creates as much as he conveys. Yet they also show Skelton beginning to redefine the kind of ‘education’ that the poet is expected to provide in such a way as to take account of this possibility. For his predecessors, such as Lydgate and Hoccleve, advice consists of direct instruction: the skilful rehearsal of consensus and commonplace. But in The Bowge of Court, and still more in Magnyfycence, instruction is shown to rest in the challenge to the reader: to be wary, to read, to interpret, and to take nothing, least of all the commonplace, on trust.Less
The Bibliotheca represents an early recognition of the writer's freedom from the authority of the past; while such authority remains something that may be appealed to for rhetorical purposes, the practice of translation proves that such appeals themselves are a matter of form rather than substance. Skelton's awareness of his separation from literary auctores and auctoritates is not wholly liberating; this chapter demonstrates that it also entails a degree of anxiety about the sources and the guarantors of the writer's output. Works such as The Bowge of Court and Magnyfycence confront fears arising from the possibility that words shape matter and that the poet creates as much as he conveys. Yet they also show Skelton beginning to redefine the kind of ‘education’ that the poet is expected to provide in such a way as to take account of this possibility. For his predecessors, such as Lydgate and Hoccleve, advice consists of direct instruction: the skilful rehearsal of consensus and commonplace. But in The Bowge of Court, and still more in Magnyfycence, instruction is shown to rest in the challenge to the reader: to be wary, to read, to interpret, and to take nothing, least of all the commonplace, on trust.
Jane Griffiths
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- January 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199273607
- eISBN:
- 9780191706301
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199273607.003.0005
- Subject:
- Literature, Early and Medieval Literature
This chapter focuses on Skelton's poem, Speke Parrot. The poem confronts Skelton's concern with the stability of poetic meaning, at a time when the question is given a new urgency by the linguistic ...
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This chapter focuses on Skelton's poem, Speke Parrot. The poem confronts Skelton's concern with the stability of poetic meaning, at a time when the question is given a new urgency by the linguistic issues raised by the ‘Grammarians' War’ (1519-21). In this conflict, concerned ostensibly with the question of whether Latin in schools was best taught by an emphasis on imitation of classical authors or by an emphasis on grammatical precept, Skelton's position is commonly held to have been a reactionary one. Yet, although he supported the traditional faction, a close examination of Speke Parrot indicates that his purposes in doing so were radical, rather than conservative. The chapter shows that the new method of language teaching championed by Skelton's opponents—with an emphasis on imitation rather than grammar—is treated as analogous to Wolsey's appropriation of royal authority: both are viewed as attacks on the poet's traditional freedoms or, in Parrot's words, on his ‘liberty to speak’. Conversely, to teach by grammatical precept becomes the path to the fluent and interpretive reading necessary for a full understanding of the poet's apocalyptic warnings, and thus for the possibility of political change.Less
This chapter focuses on Skelton's poem, Speke Parrot. The poem confronts Skelton's concern with the stability of poetic meaning, at a time when the question is given a new urgency by the linguistic issues raised by the ‘Grammarians' War’ (1519-21). In this conflict, concerned ostensibly with the question of whether Latin in schools was best taught by an emphasis on imitation of classical authors or by an emphasis on grammatical precept, Skelton's position is commonly held to have been a reactionary one. Yet, although he supported the traditional faction, a close examination of Speke Parrot indicates that his purposes in doing so were radical, rather than conservative. The chapter shows that the new method of language teaching championed by Skelton's opponents—with an emphasis on imitation rather than grammar—is treated as analogous to Wolsey's appropriation of royal authority: both are viewed as attacks on the poet's traditional freedoms or, in Parrot's words, on his ‘liberty to speak’. Conversely, to teach by grammatical precept becomes the path to the fluent and interpretive reading necessary for a full understanding of the poet's apocalyptic warnings, and thus for the possibility of political change.
Jane Griffiths
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- January 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199273607
- eISBN:
- 9780191706301
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199273607.003.0006
- Subject:
- Literature, Early and Medieval Literature
Although Speke Parrot raises the possibility of the reader contributing to a work's meaning, it also anticipates the parody of this idea of collaboration in two further late works, A Garlande of ...
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Although Speke Parrot raises the possibility of the reader contributing to a work's meaning, it also anticipates the parody of this idea of collaboration in two further late works, A Garlande of Laurell and A Replycacion. These too combine an intensely serious political message with an element of playfulness in the telling. In all cases, the marginal glosses contribute significantly to the effect. Yet, although the glosses derive from the earliest witnesses to the poems, they have been omitted from the standard edition of Skelton's works, and have attracted little critical attention. This chapter attempts to redress the balance, demonstrating that far from being expendable, the glosses are a self-authorizing strategy central to Skelton's negotiation of a relationship with his readers.Less
Although Speke Parrot raises the possibility of the reader contributing to a work's meaning, it also anticipates the parody of this idea of collaboration in two further late works, A Garlande of Laurell and A Replycacion. These too combine an intensely serious political message with an element of playfulness in the telling. In all cases, the marginal glosses contribute significantly to the effect. Yet, although the glosses derive from the earliest witnesses to the poems, they have been omitted from the standard edition of Skelton's works, and have attracted little critical attention. This chapter attempts to redress the balance, demonstrating that far from being expendable, the glosses are a self-authorizing strategy central to Skelton's negotiation of a relationship with his readers.
Jane Griffiths
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- January 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199273607
- eISBN:
- 9780191706301
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199273607.003.0007
- Subject:
- Literature, Early and Medieval Literature
This chapter focuses on the treatment of the poet's invention and inspiration in Magnyfycence and A Replycacion. A Replycacion has been claimed as the first English formulation of the Platonic theory ...
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This chapter focuses on the treatment of the poet's invention and inspiration in Magnyfycence and A Replycacion. A Replycacion has been claimed as the first English formulation of the Platonic theory of inspiration. Yet, whereas Plato treats inspiration as involuntary possession, for Skelton it is not passively received. Rather, it can be read as characterized by a ‘heat’ and ‘speed’ which strongly recall the terms used to describe the character Fansy in Magnyfycence. Fansy is not only a vice figure, but also a representation of the mental faculty of the fantasy. In the late 16th century this faculty was closely associated with poetic creation, and Skelton's Fansy too proves to be engaged in precisely the kind of improvisatory utterance which Skelton elsewhere treats as the province of the poet. This creates a resemblance between Fansy and the inspiration with far-reaching consequences, suggesting that inspiration is as much the result of, as a spur to, the act of writing. In consequence, A Replycacion moves decisively away from the idea that authority is necessarily derived from a source external to the poet. Instead, like a number of later 16th-century poetic treatises, it raises the possibility that inspiration is connected to the poet's innate powers of fantasy and invention.Less
This chapter focuses on the treatment of the poet's invention and inspiration in Magnyfycence and A Replycacion. A Replycacion has been claimed as the first English formulation of the Platonic theory of inspiration. Yet, whereas Plato treats inspiration as involuntary possession, for Skelton it is not passively received. Rather, it can be read as characterized by a ‘heat’ and ‘speed’ which strongly recall the terms used to describe the character Fansy in Magnyfycence. Fansy is not only a vice figure, but also a representation of the mental faculty of the fantasy. In the late 16th century this faculty was closely associated with poetic creation, and Skelton's Fansy too proves to be engaged in precisely the kind of improvisatory utterance which Skelton elsewhere treats as the province of the poet. This creates a resemblance between Fansy and the inspiration with far-reaching consequences, suggesting that inspiration is as much the result of, as a spur to, the act of writing. In consequence, A Replycacion moves decisively away from the idea that authority is necessarily derived from a source external to the poet. Instead, like a number of later 16th-century poetic treatises, it raises the possibility that inspiration is connected to the poet's innate powers of fantasy and invention.
Jane Griffiths
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- January 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199273607
- eISBN:
- 9780191706301
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199273607.003.0008
- Subject:
- Literature, Early and Medieval Literature
This chapter focuses on Skelton's reception during the century after his death. Taking as its starting-point Skelton's divided reputation in the late 16th century, when he is referred to both as a ...
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This chapter focuses on Skelton's reception during the century after his death. Taking as its starting-point Skelton's divided reputation in the late 16th century, when he is referred to both as a proto-Protestant reformer and as an irreverent figure of a lost merry England, the chapter demonstrates that such apparently conflicting views in fact have more in common than might be expected. Skelton's influence is most immediately obvious in the writing of Protestant Reformers such as Luke Shepherd, Robert Crowley, and the anonymous authors of treatises such as The Ymage of Ypocresy (1534) and Vox Populi Vox Dei (1547). The Skeltonic form comes to be so closely associated with anti-Catholic abuse that Skelton himself is treated as part of the Reforming tradition. This occurs not only in Spenser's Shepheardes Calendar but, more unexpectedly, in works such as Anthony Munday's Downfall of Robert Earl of Huntingdon r (1599) and Ben Jonson's rFortunate Isles r (1624), which seem initially to present Skelton merely as a jester or entertainer.Less
This chapter focuses on Skelton's reception during the century after his death. Taking as its starting-point Skelton's divided reputation in the late 16th century, when he is referred to both as a proto-Protestant reformer and as an irreverent figure of a lost merry England, the chapter demonstrates that such apparently conflicting views in fact have more in common than might be expected. Skelton's influence is most immediately obvious in the writing of Protestant Reformers such as Luke Shepherd, Robert Crowley, and the anonymous authors of treatises such as The Ymage of Ypocresy (1534) and Vox Populi Vox Dei (1547). The Skeltonic form comes to be so closely associated with anti-Catholic abuse that Skelton himself is treated as part of the Reforming tradition. This occurs not only in Spenser's Shepheardes Calendar but, more unexpectedly, in works such as Anthony Munday's Downfall of Robert Earl of Huntingdon r (1599) and Ben Jonson's rFortunate Isles r (1624), which seem initially to present Skelton merely as a jester or entertainer.
Jane Griffiths
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- January 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199273607
- eISBN:
- 9780191706301
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199273607.003.0009
- Subject:
- Literature, Early and Medieval Literature
This chapter presents some concluding thoughts from the author. It argues that contrary to first impressions, Skelton may be viewed as ‘the thing of great constancy’ at the centre of his work. He is ...
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This chapter presents some concluding thoughts from the author. It argues that contrary to first impressions, Skelton may be viewed as ‘the thing of great constancy’ at the centre of his work. He is constant in his adoption of multiple personae, constant in his juxtaposition of different voices, constant too in his questioning of how words mean and what it means to write. His historical period gives these practices a local habitation and a name. Just as his own constant revision of his works reveals his interest in the process of writing rather than in any one final meaning, so he has been given many different identities.Less
This chapter presents some concluding thoughts from the author. It argues that contrary to first impressions, Skelton may be viewed as ‘the thing of great constancy’ at the centre of his work. He is constant in his adoption of multiple personae, constant in his juxtaposition of different voices, constant too in his questioning of how words mean and what it means to write. His historical period gives these practices a local habitation and a name. Just as his own constant revision of his works reveals his interest in the process of writing rather than in any one final meaning, so he has been given many different identities.
Jason Crawford
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- February 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780198788041
- eISBN:
- 9780191833489
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198788041.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, 17th-century and Restoration Literature, Poetry
This book is about the genealogies of modernity, and about the lingering power of some of the cultural forms against which modernity defines itself: religion, magic, the sacramental, the medieval. ...
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This book is about the genealogies of modernity, and about the lingering power of some of the cultural forms against which modernity defines itself: religion, magic, the sacramental, the medieval. The book explores the emergence of modernity by investigating the early modern poetics of allegorical narrative, a literary form that many modern writers have taken to be paradigmatically medieval. In four of the most substantial allegorical narratives produced in early modern England—William Langland’s Piers Plowman, John Skelton’s The Bowge of Courte, Edmund Spenser’s The Faerie Queene, and John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress—allegory is intimately linked with a self-conscious modernity, and with what many commentators have, in the last century, called “the disenchantment of the world.” The makers of these early modern narratives themselves take a keen interest in metaphors and postures of disenchantment. They fashion themselves as skeptics, spell-breakers, prophets against false institutions and false belief. And they often regard their own allegorical forms as another dangerous enchantment, a residue of the medieval past they have set out to renounce. In the context of various early modern crises of historical loss and revolutionary dissent, English poets from Langland to Bunyan become increasingly militant in their skepticism about allegory and about the theologies of incarnation that undergird it. But their self-regard also responds to paradoxes and anxieties at the core of allegory’s medieval poetics, and they discover that the things modernity has tried to repudiate—the old enchantments—are not as alien, or as absent, as they seem.Less
This book is about the genealogies of modernity, and about the lingering power of some of the cultural forms against which modernity defines itself: religion, magic, the sacramental, the medieval. The book explores the emergence of modernity by investigating the early modern poetics of allegorical narrative, a literary form that many modern writers have taken to be paradigmatically medieval. In four of the most substantial allegorical narratives produced in early modern England—William Langland’s Piers Plowman, John Skelton’s The Bowge of Courte, Edmund Spenser’s The Faerie Queene, and John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress—allegory is intimately linked with a self-conscious modernity, and with what many commentators have, in the last century, called “the disenchantment of the world.” The makers of these early modern narratives themselves take a keen interest in metaphors and postures of disenchantment. They fashion themselves as skeptics, spell-breakers, prophets against false institutions and false belief. And they often regard their own allegorical forms as another dangerous enchantment, a residue of the medieval past they have set out to renounce. In the context of various early modern crises of historical loss and revolutionary dissent, English poets from Langland to Bunyan become increasingly militant in their skepticism about allegory and about the theologies of incarnation that undergird it. But their self-regard also responds to paradoxes and anxieties at the core of allegory’s medieval poetics, and they discover that the things modernity has tried to repudiate—the old enchantments—are not as alien, or as absent, as they seem.
Rachel E. Hile
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- May 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780719088087
- eISBN:
- 9781526121073
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9780719088087.003.0003
- Subject:
- Literature, 16th-century and Renaissance Literature
Chapter 2 begins by discussing previous scholarly work on Spenserian satires with reference to the ideas on indirect satire outlined in chapter 1 before moving to an application of these ideas to two ...
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Chapter 2 begins by discussing previous scholarly work on Spenserian satires with reference to the ideas on indirect satire outlined in chapter 1 before moving to an application of these ideas to two Spenserian contexts. First, the chapter considers Spenser’s self-designation as “the New Poet” in The Shepheardes Calender as an allusion that signals satirical intent. Whereas the “Old Poet” referenced is clearly Chaucer, the phrase “new poet” itself serves as an allusion, setting up a satiric genealogy connecting Spenser to John Skelton and, through him, to Catullus (a poet who, though “new” to Cicero, was an “old” poet when the young Virgil briefly imitated him before rejecting his style to form his own). The second half of the chapter examines Spenser’s use of allegorical satire and allegory as satire in Daphnaïda, analyzing the ways that Spenser signals readers to interpret the poem satirically through playful use of allegory and metaphor.Less
Chapter 2 begins by discussing previous scholarly work on Spenserian satires with reference to the ideas on indirect satire outlined in chapter 1 before moving to an application of these ideas to two Spenserian contexts. First, the chapter considers Spenser’s self-designation as “the New Poet” in The Shepheardes Calender as an allusion that signals satirical intent. Whereas the “Old Poet” referenced is clearly Chaucer, the phrase “new poet” itself serves as an allusion, setting up a satiric genealogy connecting Spenser to John Skelton and, through him, to Catullus (a poet who, though “new” to Cicero, was an “old” poet when the young Virgil briefly imitated him before rejecting his style to form his own). The second half of the chapter examines Spenser’s use of allegorical satire and allegory as satire in Daphnaïda, analyzing the ways that Spenser signals readers to interpret the poem satirically through playful use of allegory and metaphor.
Derek Attridge
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- March 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780198833154
- eISBN:
- 9780191873898
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198833154.003.0012
- Subject:
- Literature, Poetry
After noting the evidence for the public performance of poetry in Continental Europe, this chapter turns to the impact of print on English poetry: from the late fifteenth century, the printers Caxton ...
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After noting the evidence for the public performance of poetry in Continental Europe, this chapter turns to the impact of print on English poetry: from the late fifteenth century, the printers Caxton and de Worde gave readers a new way to experience poems. At the court of Henry VIII, Skelton exploited both manuscript and print. The Devonshire manuscript, which circulated around Henry’s courtiers, is discussed, as is Tottel’s 1557 Songes and Sonettes, whose cachet lay partly in its making the private poetry of the elite available to a large public. Another popular collection was A Mirror for Magistrates, in which a gathering of poets impersonating famous tragic victims of the past was staged. Although there were signs of a suppler use of metre, the 1560s and 1570s were characterized by highly regular verse. The most skilled poet of this period, Gascoigne, was also responsible for a pathbreaking treatise on poetry.Less
After noting the evidence for the public performance of poetry in Continental Europe, this chapter turns to the impact of print on English poetry: from the late fifteenth century, the printers Caxton and de Worde gave readers a new way to experience poems. At the court of Henry VIII, Skelton exploited both manuscript and print. The Devonshire manuscript, which circulated around Henry’s courtiers, is discussed, as is Tottel’s 1557 Songes and Sonettes, whose cachet lay partly in its making the private poetry of the elite available to a large public. Another popular collection was A Mirror for Magistrates, in which a gathering of poets impersonating famous tragic victims of the past was staged. Although there were signs of a suppler use of metre, the 1560s and 1570s were characterized by highly regular verse. The most skilled poet of this period, Gascoigne, was also responsible for a pathbreaking treatise on poetry.
Harriet Archer
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- September 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780198806172
- eISBN:
- 9780191844041
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198806172.003.0002
- Subject:
- Literature, 16th-century and Renaissance Literature
The first chapter explores the development of the original collection of Mirror complaints in the voices of late medieval kings and rebels, sometimes known as ‘Baldwin’s Mirror’, from its suppression ...
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The first chapter explores the development of the original collection of Mirror complaints in the voices of late medieval kings and rebels, sometimes known as ‘Baldwin’s Mirror’, from its suppression under Mary I, through its Elizabethan metamorphoses, to its final Jacobean iteration. The chapter aims to reframe discussion of the text together with its recensions, to effect a holistic analysis of the work’s reception and adaptation, instead of perpetuating the structural antagonism between phases in the corpus’s expansion. In particular, it addresses the editorial alterations made during the 1570s, the apex of the collection’s popularity, which shaped the direction in which later additions would develop, and the ways in which the complaints added in 1578, 1587, and 1610 build on Baldwin’s interrogation of historiographical transmission and unreliability.Less
The first chapter explores the development of the original collection of Mirror complaints in the voices of late medieval kings and rebels, sometimes known as ‘Baldwin’s Mirror’, from its suppression under Mary I, through its Elizabethan metamorphoses, to its final Jacobean iteration. The chapter aims to reframe discussion of the text together with its recensions, to effect a holistic analysis of the work’s reception and adaptation, instead of perpetuating the structural antagonism between phases in the corpus’s expansion. In particular, it addresses the editorial alterations made during the 1570s, the apex of the collection’s popularity, which shaped the direction in which later additions would develop, and the ways in which the complaints added in 1578, 1587, and 1610 build on Baldwin’s interrogation of historiographical transmission and unreliability.
Bradin Cormack
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- February 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780226116242
- eISBN:
- 9780226116259
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226116259.003.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, 16th-century and Renaissance Literature
This book investigates the intersection of English law and literature from John Skelton to John Webster. It takes as its subject the cultural meaning of “jurisdiction” during a transitional period ...
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This book investigates the intersection of English law and literature from John Skelton to John Webster. It takes as its subject the cultural meaning of “jurisdiction” during a transitional period when that technical category in law came under peak pressure, in immediate response to specific jurisdictional crises and as part of the long process of centralization and rationalization through which the common law achieved interpretive hegemony. Focusing on law's unstable practices rather than on the image of its stability, the book analyzes the production of English juridical norms in relation to jurisdiction as the administrative principle that orders power as authority by defining the scope of a particular power over a given matter or territory. It develops several theses about the practical life of the law and its relation to English literature such as prose, poetry, and drama, and describes a relatively recent moment in which law and humanistic culture were in a complex but non-oppositional relation to one another.Less
This book investigates the intersection of English law and literature from John Skelton to John Webster. It takes as its subject the cultural meaning of “jurisdiction” during a transitional period when that technical category in law came under peak pressure, in immediate response to specific jurisdictional crises and as part of the long process of centralization and rationalization through which the common law achieved interpretive hegemony. Focusing on law's unstable practices rather than on the image of its stability, the book analyzes the production of English juridical norms in relation to jurisdiction as the administrative principle that orders power as authority by defining the scope of a particular power over a given matter or territory. It develops several theses about the practical life of the law and its relation to English literature such as prose, poetry, and drama, and describes a relatively recent moment in which law and humanistic culture were in a complex but non-oppositional relation to one another.