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First published in 2004. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.
- Sales Rank: #4915032 in Books
- Published on: 2003-11-20
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 8.25" h x 5.25" w x .25" l, .44 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 142 pages
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Gramatolls, Nodipolls, Pendugum and Waterlag
By J C E Hitchcock
John Skelton, who lived from around 1460 to 1529 and was probably from Norfolk, is something of an isolated figure in the history of English literature. He appears to have been a prolific poet, but many of his works have been lost. He officially held the position of Rector of Diss in Norfolk, but from what we know of his character does not appear to have been suited to priestly office, and spent much of his time at Court, where he held the position of tutor to Prince Henry (afterwards Henry VIII).
Skelton has the rare distinction among English poets of having a verse-form named after him, the "Skeltonic", consisting of short lines normally of six syllables each, although they can vary in length. They are normally arranged into rhyming couplets, but Skelton sometimes rhymes three or four consecutive lines together. Of the three complete long poems contained in this volume, two, "Philip Sparrow" and "The Tunning of Elinour Rumming", are written in Skeltonics, a form which Skelton used primarily for satirical or bawdy verse.
For most of its length "Philip Sparrow" is a mock-serious lament for a dead pet bird, supposedly spoken by a girl named Jane Scrope, and then towards the end turns into a declaration of the poet's own desire for the young woman, even though as a pre-Reformation priest Skelton would have been bound to celibacy. The theme may have been suggested by the Roman poet Catullus, who also wrote an account of his girlfriend grieving over a dead sparrow, but Skelton's poem is far longer, running to some 1,250 lines. He finds room for numerous digressions, including Jane's supposed opinions- probably Skelton's own- on literature, especially Chaucer, Gower and Lydgate. It is a measure of how quickly the English language was changing during the Early Modern period when we read his verdict that:-
"Gower's English is old
And of no value told",
especially when we consider that Gower had only died about fifty years before Skelton's birth.
"The Tunning of Elinour Rumming" is a scurrilous description of a female innkeeper from Leatherhead in Surrey and her customers, of whom Skelton clearly had a low opinion, describing them as not only drunken but also dirty and promiscuous. He also had an equally low opinion of Elinour's home-brewed ale, which he describes as "pig's piss", but her clientele will do anything to obtain it, even though it is brewed in the most insanitary conditions. Elinour attributes its fine flavour to her chickens, which roost above her fermentation tank and drop their excrement into it. Skelton's satire here has something in common with that of Chaucer, although it is much coarser and more vituperative.
The third long poem published here in its entirety is "Speak, Parrot". It is mostly written in the seven-line "rhyme royal" stanzas favoured by Chaucer, although Skelton sometimes varies his rhyme scheme. It is supposedly the sayings of a pet parrot at Court who simply repeats what he has heard- not only in English but in a variety of other languages, including Latin, French, Greek, Spanish, Dutch and Welsh. The poem has been described as a satire on Skelton's bête noire Cardinal Wolsey, although many passages are obscure in meaning. Only in the last few stanzas, when Parrot speaks out loudly against the condition of contemporary England, does Skelton's satire become effective, painting a picture of a land ruined by the excesses and misrule of a corrupt, vainglorious, paranoid and tyrannical royal favourite. Skelton also took the opportunity to attack the growth of Protestantism in England, something to which he was firmly opposed.
Excerpts from two other long poems, "The Bouge of Court" and "The Garland of Laurel" are also included here. (There are also four short poems, but nothing from the satires "Colin Clout" and "Why Come Ye Nat to Court?"). The first is Skelton's version of the common mediaeval idea of the "ship of fools", influenced by the German poet Sebastian Brant's "Das Narrenschiff". Skelton's ship is crewed by characters personifying various virtues and vices; his hero is named "Dread", a word here signifying "modesty" or "carefulness" rather than "fear" or "terror", and there are also characters named "Suspicion", "Riot", "Deceit", "Disdain", and so on. "The Garland of Laurel" is essentially Skelton's own proud summary of his own literary career, although it also contains verses in praise of several women who had taken his fancy, including Lady Elizabeth Howard, mother of Anne Boleyn. (Skelton's praise is sometimes double-edged; he compares Lady Elizabeth to Chaucer's beautiful but faithless heroine Cressida). The title derives from the laurel wreath with which poets were traditionally crowned; Skelton frequently referred to himself as Poet Laureate, although this was not an official position in his day.
My main complaint about this volume is that the editor, Gerald Hammond, although he modernises Skelton's orthography, does not do enough to assist the modern reader. Both the editorial notes and the glossary are inadequate. This is particularly true of a notoriously obscure poem like "Speak, Parrot", which contains not only many recondite references to the Bible and Classical mythology but also what are presumably allusions to topical events, most of which are left unexplained. Although the poem contains words such as "gramatolls", "nodipolls", "pendugum" and "waterlag", none of these appear in the glossary; presumably Mr Hammond thought that their meaning was too obvious to require a translation.
Many of the leading fifteenth-century poets writing in English were from Scotland, and in my view Skelton's verse does not compare with that of his great Scottish contemporary William Dunbar. Both men, certainly were capable of writing bitterly satirical invective, but Dunbar was also able to write in a much greater range of styles and could pen more elegant verse; Skelton's although sometimes effective, often descends into doggerel.
Skelton's reputation declined in the decades after his death; by the end of the sixteenth century he was regarded as something of a buffoon, and for about three centuries thereafter he was largely neglected. His stock began to rise again in the twentieth century, possibly because of perceived similarities between his poetry and that of the Modernists. (Hammond compares him to T.S. Eliot). There is, however, little in this selection to contradict my suspicion that Skelton has been elevated to the status of major poet principally in order to help fill that rather embarrassing gap in the history of English poetry between the age of Chaucer and Gower in the late fourteenth century and that of Wyatt and Surrey in the 1530s and 1540s.
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