Early Tudor poetry, 1485-1547

Front matter

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Introduction

When a writer offers a new work on an old subject, the scholarly public rightly demands both fresh handling of the old material and fresh material itself. True as this is as a general proposition, it is still more applicable in the case of Early Tudor literature, because here the subject itself is usually considered to lack interest. That the authors, whose works form the subjects for the following discussions, are unread is evident, because there are few modem editions, and those few in the publications of learned, or antiquarian, societies inaccessible to the general public. There is fashion in scholarship, just as there is in everything else. The drama of the sixteenth century has been elaborately studied. To the nineteenth century, the most fascinating writer in Uterature was probably Shakespeare. Any fact, any book, however remotely connected with his work, was valued. This interest embraced his contemporaries, his predecessors, and the predecessors of his predecessors, until the whole development of the drama in England has been extensively studied. For this reason the dramatic problems are omitted in this work, except as they appear in connection with the poetry. The case of the poetry, on the other hand, is quite different. Spenser, intangible, incomprehensible and very diffuse, has never proved so interesting a protagonist. Much less so his predecessors. It sounds a paradox when I affirm that the period is interesting!

This paradox is apparent only. Interest may arise from many causes; here the interest b not in the Uterature of the age so much as in the succeeding literature of the time of Elizabeth, which it conditioned. That is regarded as one of the great periods. To imderstand it is the function of the scholar, and to appreciate it is the privilege of the reeider. But its roots lie back in the first half of the century. When Spenser was going to college in 1569, Hawes was one of the great English poets with two editions in 1555, Skelton's works had just been coUected in 1568, Barclay had his collected edition in 1570, and Heywood was alive, the Dean of English literature. Tottel's Miscellany, from its first

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INTRODUCTION appearance in 1557, had eight editions before the close of the century. Students that begin EngUsh literature with the accession of EUzabeth act upon the illogical assumption that those writers had no literary past. As Mr. Colby wittily expresses it: "They have no patience with development or kindliness for beginnings; they would condemn every tadpole as a sort of apostate frog." That the tadpole is a tadpole must be frankly reaUzed. I wish to protest against the sentimentalism which finds undiscovered "beauties of our worthy" in work which the world has agreed to forget. Dr. Johnson with good common sense protests to the effect that life is surely given us for other purposes than to gather what our ancestors have wisely thrown away and to appreciate work that has no value except that it has been forgotten. On the other hand, aesthetic appreciation is heightened by intellectual comprehension. Your enjoyment of a symphony is increased by the knowledge of the effects the musician is trying to produce. Your appreciation of the power of an artist is supplemented by an understanding of the limitations under which he produced his masterpiece. Knowledge is the handmaiden of appreciation. But such knowledge is acquired only at the cost of studying much admittedly inferior work. The moment that such work is placed in the scheme of things, that it is seen in relation to work admittedly superior, it gains a reflected interest. As in a great poem Ars est celare artem, the earlier, cruder work shows traits which in the masterpiece have defied your analysis. Pope misjudged Shakespeare, not because he did not know Shakespeare, but because his ignorance of pre-Shakespearean dramatists prevented him from understanding the canon of the Elizabethan drama and by so doing he was unable to perceive the finesse of Shakespeare's art. Yet the plays of Peele and Greene and Kyd are scarcely exhilarating reading. So with Spenser. Many of the modern criticisms of the Faerie Queene would surprise no one so much as the poet himself. He is praised for what he did not do and blamed for what he conscientiously tried to do. Surely the first objective in good criticism is a realization of the writer's aim. And that realization must come from a careful study of the preceding writers. To this extent the period may be said to have interest. To claim interest for one period solely because of its relations to another period is to damn with faint praise. It is a negative

INTRODUCTION ix

advantage. Before the student takes up the study of Early Tudor literature with enthusiasm something positive must be shown him. To do this requires a discussion of the nature of literature. That is psychological. As the writings of an individual are indications of his mental processes, so the writings of an age combine to give an impression of the mental life and outlook of that age. This is the reason for the well known phenomenon that the literature of a given period can all be recognized as belonging to that period by the possession of common characteristics. The Hero and, Leander is as definitely Elizabethan, as the Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot is definitely Augustan, or as In Memoriam is definitely Mid- Victorian. In other words, if Tennyson had lived two hundred and fifty years previously, or Marlowe a hundred and fifty years later, they would have written, if at all, in quite a different manner. A battahon moves as a single unit only because the separate personalities composing it have surrendered the initiative. But in the army of literature that condition does not hold. Each writer proudly proclaims the fact that he is captain of his soul, that he writes as seems to him good, that he is a conscious innovator turning his back on the past, — ^and behold! each fits into his place in the great procession, the text-books label him Elizabethan, Jacobean, Restoration, or what not, exactly as though his one desire had been perfect conformity, and in a survey of literature as a whole, it is possible to speak of the Augustan Age, the Romantic Movement, etc., and to have studies on the Elizabethan Drama, the development of the novel, the Georgian poets, etc. But for this undoubted fact there must be some explanation. Brunetiere explains it by applying the Darwinian doctrine of natural selection. But what is the survival of the fittest in hterature.? Is there a struggle between books? Joseph Andrews was conceived in ridicule of Pamela and yet both are still read. Is it possible to imagine two authors whose appeal is more opposite in kind than Dumas and Jane Austen? Yet The Three Musketeers and Pride and Prejudice, — ^the same person enjoys them both. At the mid-century romance seemed dead. Dickens and Thackeray and Trollope charmed by drawing pictures of modem life. Heigh-ho comes Stevenson and we all hunt pirates or engage in Scottish brawls. Although the doctrine of evolution seems inappUcable, yet there must be some explanation.

X INTRODUCTION

If we start de novo, then, there are three factors which combine to condition a writer's work: the literary past as known to him, the present state of thought in his particular world, and his own personality. These are the three unknown factors in the equation. He is conditioned by the past, because we inherit both our language and our forms of expression. Surely it is the use only of the language that is personal; few men have invented even a single word, and the expression "to choose your words" means merely to select from your pitifully small proportion of the three himdred thousand words in the New English Dictionary the best words at your command. The choice of what language shall be your mother tongue is as far from your power as is the selection of your grandparents. But on the other hand, just as you are you and not the incarnation of any grandparent, the fact that your speech is inherited does not prevent you from expressing your own personality in your use of it. Quite the contrary in fact, since in your conversation you give your past, your education, your home surroundings and your character, and in thus expressing your own individuality, you yet necessarily speak the language of your epoch. The English of today is not the English of Shakespeare, of Dryden, of Addison, of Wordsworth, or of Tennyson; nor is it the English to be used in the year 2000. The change in language is slow, but certain.

If this be true of language, the material of Brhich literature is compounded, it is also true of the forms through which it finds expression. Verse forms, such as the rime-royal, the sonnet, the rondeau, etc., are rarely the invention of one man. The form, as we know it, is the result of indefinite modifications and combinations and is the product of many hands. Even back of the Spenserian stanza, for example, are numberless poems in the seven-Une rime-royal and the ottava rima of eight lines. Tradition required that Spenser should use a stanza for the type of poem he contemplated. By combining these two well-known stanzas and by adding an alexandrine his supreme metrical genius evolved a new form. But to assume that Spenser in conceiving his stanza was unconscious of the past and forgetful of what others had done before him is illogical. His stanza, however original, is yet the outcome of other stanzas. The same reasoning applies to the form of the poem as a whole. The type of poem was naturally thoroughly well-known

INTRODUCTION xi

to him as it existed both in England and in Italy. The chivalric element, the allegorization and the political allusion were not new. In writing a poem in which they figure, he felt that he was following traditional lines, — ^as he was. And, to repeat the illustration used before, our difficulty in judging the Faerie Queene is due largely to our ignorance of the literary past as known to him. A great deal of the unfavorable criticism directed against his work is due to a failure to recognize the peculiarities and the Kmitations of the type. The critic must bear in mind the aim of the artist. The first question is, then, to what extent has he succeeded in accomplishing what he set out to do. The second is to what extent is that aim laudable. Otherwise criticism becomes merely the expression of personal preference, and one is brought to the blank wall of De gustibus non est disputandum. And unless the particular problem of the artist is clearly recognized, intellectual anarchy results. The delicate frescoes of Julio Romano in the Palazzo del Te are discussed in the terms suitable for Leonardo's Last Supper. The problem of Puvis de Chavannes in covering the blank spaces of a wall requires utterly different treatment from that in painting an easel portrait. I am using illustrations borrowed from Art because the truth of the position becomes obvious from the mere statement. In the allied art of literature, unhappily, the same truth is not so universally accepted. The generaUzations that a writer is conditioned by the type of work he has chosen and that the chosen type is conditioned by the literary past are still tacitly ignored by many critics. And to accept them as truths is not an easy matter, since such acceptation requires a withholding of judgment until a well-rounded understanding of previous work as known to the author has been gained. The first requirement for the critic is not taste, not appreciation, however valuable and desirable they may be, — ^it is a knowledge of literary history.

But if a knowledge of the literary past of an author is essential in judging his work, so also is a knowledge of his Hterary present, his literary environment, so to speak. Each man is in essentials a product of his age. Our mental point of view is affected necessarily by our physical surroundings. Modem sanitation and privacy make for a higher sense of modesty and decency; increased facihty in transportation gives us a wider outlook and an interest in world affairs. The American bom in 1900, by that fact, has more varied xii INTRODUCTION

interests than the American bom in 1800. Judged according to absolute standards he may be better, or he may be worse; that is not the point at issue. He is different from his forefathers, not through any quaUty inherent in him or for which he deserves either praise or blame, but because of the accident of the date of his birth. The same condition applies equally to the intangible intellectual factors. Certain conceptions characterize any given epoch. For example, it is impossible to over-emphasize the doctrine of evolution as originated with Darwin and amplified by Herbert Spencer. It affects our ideas on every subject. Again the outlook on hfe of the man of 1900 differs from that of the man of 1800 because he was bom a hundred years later. This difference may seem more marked in the contrast between some epochs, but it always exists to some extent. The son is never identical with the father. The literature of every age, therefore, exhibits the peculiarities of its time.

It follows from such reasoning as that in the preceding paragraph that he who most thoroughly expresses the desires and longing of his own age is the writer most popular in his own age. This can be tested by the selling power of the book. From one point of view, literature may be regarded as a marketable commodity. A man buys a poem because there he finds expressed emotions of which he is conscious in himself, but which in himself are inarticulate. As a man is said to be known by his friends, so also is he known by the books he reads. Curiosity may account for the momentary success of a piece of work; enduring popularity must be ascribed to other factors. For a month the Hymn of Hate was probably the most widely read poem in England and America, but the explanation of that popularity was due to purely temporary conditions. When those conditions changed, the poem lost its interest to the reading public. Or, the large sale of a book may be due to clever exposition of a pohtical situation, due to the use of personal references, scandalous or otherwise. Momentary popularity, then, the best-seller of the age, does not predicate literary immortality; it means only that for that particular moment men found the work of interest. On the other hand, enduring literary reputation means that many men throughout the centuries find the book of interest. Clearly the chances are better for an author to arouse the interest of the men of the future ages, whom he does

INTRODUCTION xiii

not know, if he can arouse the interest of the men of his own age, whom he does know. As human nature changes slowly the intensity of the interest will be about proportionate. This may of course be upset by local conditions. A man may be publishing fine work at a time when the whole strength of the nation is devoted to ends the reverse of literary. Herrick's Hesperides appeared in 1648, when the nation was distraught with political dissension, the year before the execution of the king. Naturally the book found few readers and was lost in the confusion. Or a writer for any given reason may be out of the current of his age. Milton retired to the country for six years to surrender himself to a study of classic models. For an age that wished short poems exhibiting intellectual agility, he wrote long poems, slow in movement. Naturally he found comparatively few readers. In an age which believed in authority, he wrote a poem in which his sympathy, certainly, is with rebelUon. Again, naturally, he found few readers. But, in general, in spite of the common view to the contrary, the writer whose work posterity acclaims, has been accepted as great by the men of his own generation. Chaucer, Shakespeare, Dryden, Pope, Wordsworth, Tennyson, Browning, each before his death was accepted as a great poet. Scott, Dickens, and Thackeray, — ^no one can question their contemporary popularity. Each was regarded by his age as being a chosen interpreter. The converse of the proposition is that the historian of hterature, who expects to interpret the age, must go back to those writers particularly who ia their time were popular.

Theoretically, then, if the past and the present of any writer be known, by subtraction we should be able to understand what was his contribution to the hterature of the nation. Today such an operation is exceedingly difficult. Knowledge is so widely diffused, books of all types are so accessible, libraries are so numerous, that the past of any individual writer is almost beyond conjecture except what may be deduced from his work. And equally his reception, except in a very few cases, is a matter of doubt. As Brander Matthews says somewhere, it is no longer a question of a reading pubhc, but reading publics. A piece of work may be very popular in one locality and fail completely in another. The whole woof of modem society is so complex that it is very difficult to see the pattern. Still more difficult is it to estimate correctly xiv INTRODUCTION

what elements will be chosen as valuable by the succeeding' ages. Therefore, although the generalization appUes now as it has applied in the past, to illustrate it one must go back to the past. For this purpose the literature of the first half of the sixteenth century is peculiarly happy. The hterary past of the men is made comparatively simple since there is a partial break in the continuity, due to the Wars of the Roses and a modification of the language. In this part of our literature, consequently, the problems are simple and it is possible to arrive at definite solutions. And those solutions are important because upon them will rest the interpretation of the great Uterature of the age of EUzabeth. The following work aims by analysis to give an intellectual comprehension of the conditions which caused the various authors to write as they did. The question always before the reader is not. How did they write, but. Why did they write in such a form. Surely the second question is clearly answered, if he can be given a comprehension of their aims and their limitations; if he can be put back to a state analogous to that of the author's time, he can read his work with a fullness of emotional sympathy otherwise impossible. And with the knowledge thus gained he may turn to Elizabethan poetiy with the same fullness of understanding that a friend of the parents brings to the son.

So the interest which the reader is invited to find in this period is two-fold: first, because one sees here the beginnings of great work; second, because, owing to the partial break with the past, the separate strains in the Uterature, more easily than in other periods, can be submitted to analysis. This view has been criticised adversely as "mechanical". I confess that I do not see the justice of the criticism. History, if the study of it has any value whatsoever, teaches that the individual is merged in the many. It is not the biography of great men; it is the record of great movements. The history of England is not in the Uves of her kings and queens; it is in the development of the EngUsh people, in which very often the great man has not been on the throne. To apply this view to literature can, surely, be neither new nor startling. It does, however, bring writers into fresh juxtapositions. For instance, Heywood as a follower of the Medieval Tradition, or Skelton as a Medieval Latinist, may cause surprise. On the other hand, if by such juxtaposition the significance of the work be-

INTRODUCTION xv

comes more clearly evident, the method is justified. To what extent such fresh interpretation is sound, the reader must decide. Since the purpose of the book is to give an understanding of the literary forces in the first half of the sixteenth century and how each force affected the individual writer, I have allowed myself the privilege of abundant quotation. Such excerpts are in the nature of documents in evidence. They are the facts which support the reasoning, and, as such, must be known to the reader. I have had the less hesitancy in doing this, however, because many of the books from which the quotations are taken are not easily accessible ; sometimes, even when the books are accessible, in the effort to make my position clear, I have quoted passages, instead of merely giving the references, in the behef that the time of the student will be saved thereby. For the same reason I have omitted a general bibliography, which seems to me both pedantic and futile. In a subject such as this, which includes renaissance works in six languages, it would be easy to create the impression of great learning. On the other hand, the title of a book or article is deceptive. It may contain nothing but age-old surmises and misinformation; or it ma,y be the most profound treatment of the question. And the unhappy student dares not run the risk of neglecting it. Therefore, I have tried to indicate in my notes what particular value each work possesses. And, although I would not wish to make the assumption that I know all the work done in my field, — ^humanly speaking that is impossible, — ^the works noted are merely a fraction of what I have read, the ones most helpful to me. As such I offer them as a guide to the student. My great fear is that I have used work and have not acknowledged it. After years of reading along certain lines, the mind forgets the source of a thought or fact, and so assimilates the idea that it seems original. I am afraid that such a condition has occurred in my work; I can only plead that I am the first reader to be deceived and that corrections will most gratefully be acknowledged. There is one more point to be added, before I finish this explanation of the mechanism of the book. I have divided it into six monographs, each one distinct and able to be read as a whole. The gain here is that a student of a particular movement will find that treated without having to wade through a mass of preliminary matter; the corresponding loss, however, is that a certain amount of repetition is unavoidable.

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I have tried to reduce the amount as much as possible by means of cross-references and a full index both of the work and to the notes.

Now I come to the pleasant task of acknowledging the very great help I have received from many quarters. The particular places where aid has been rendered will, I trust, be found recorded in the notes. Here I wish to confess to a debt of a different nfl,ture, general rather than specific. Many of my friends have given me the advantage of airing my positions before them, of exposing my ignorance to their knowledge. To over-estimate the gain to this work from such contact would be impossible; to acknowledge it is mere honesty. On the other hand, it must be as clearly stated that the responsibility for the various heresies contained in the following pages is my own; sometimes I misunderstood their reasonings, sometimes I dared to disagree. With this clear understanding that the guilt is mine, I take pleasure in thanking Professor Keller for his suggestions on the sociological part of the work. Professor GoodeU for helping me with the Greek, and Professor Morris and Professor Hendrickson for their untiring kindness in discussing with me the Latin background. To these last gentlemen I owe much more than mere scholastic gratitude for the warmth of the encouragement. Professor Luquiens must have a feeling of accomplishment on seeing this work completed, since he has put so much of his energy into it. For such kindness I cannot adequately phrase my sense of indebtedness. In conclusion I must express the recognition of my obligation to Mr. Keogh and the officials of the Yale Library who put the resources of that great institution personally at my disposal. Professor Bolton of Syracuse has verified my references, Mr. Raymond Jenkins read part of the manuscript, and Miss Underwood with most gracious patience has revised the proof. I hope that they realize how grateful I am.

Finally in a separate paragraph I must confess that from the first page of the manuscript to the last page of the proof this work has passed beneath the scrutinizing eye of my dear wife. That there are not more errors in diction is due to her persistency. But she should receive no credit. Is it not her book?

J. M. B.

Yale University.

CHAPTER I The Backoround to the Literatttrg 1

Foiir main Factors — (1) Humanism — ^The contrast between the Christian and the pagan philosophy of life — Its effect in art — On living conditions — In entertainments — On dress — On jewelry — On dining — On morality — On the attitude toward children — On the attitude toward marriage — (B) The Copemican system — ^The medieval conception of the supernatural— ^The medieval attitude toward nature — Sanitation of old London — Disease — ^Remedies — Cheapness of death — (3) The geographic discoveries— The desire for communication with the Far East — The diffusion of this idea — The extension of it in practice — Its effect upon literature — (4) The invention of printing — Fifteenth century England — Scanty population — ^Two planes of literature — ^The political situation — Henry Vn — ^The problems arising from his accession to the throne — ^The personality of Henry VHI.

CHAPTER II T^E Medieval Tradition 48

The effect upon literature of the historical situation — ^The change in pronunciation— The difficulty in writing — Chaucer surviving largely by his content — Lydgate the great source of inspiration — ^The formal literary tradition — Its characteristics — The Flower and the Leaf — The Assembly of Ladies — The Court of Love — Its language — Its content — Stephen Hawes — ^His theory of poetry — ^The Example of Virtue — The Pastime of Pleasure— ^The similarity between them — The sources — ^The Godfrey GcAelive ejnsode — ^The romantic elements — The Comfort of Lovers — Hawes verse experiments — ^His reputation — Skelton — ^The Bowge of Court — Its con- / creteness— Its satire — His relation to Barclay — The interpretation of the allegory — ^Heywood — ^The Spider and the Flye — Its characteristics — Its interpretation — The use of comic detail — ^The use of the dilemma — The use of alliteration — Pseudo-Chaucerian influence.

Chapter III

The dominance of the Church — The familiarity with Medieval Latin — ^Its extensive use — ^The medieval poetics — Influence on English for the form only — ^The Colores — In arrangement of words — Latin tags — ^The effect xviii CONTENTS

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upon English vocabulary — ^The rithm — The stanza forms — ^The Notbrmvne Mayde — Skelton — His reading — His humanism — His lyrics — His use of Latm — The Skeltonic verse — Its origin — His satires — The problem ; of dating— His loyalty— CoKn Clout— ilia attack upon Wolaey— Why Come Ye Not to Court?- The continuation of Colin Clout— The ReplycaeUm — ^The theory of poetry — Its dedication — Polemic dialogues — A Proper Dialogue— Rede Me and Be nott Worthe— Phillip Sparrow — Elynour Rummyng — Skelton and the Humanists — London Lickpenny — Cocke LorreUes Bote — The Eye Way to the Spittal Houa — Realism.

Chapter IV

The connotation of Humanism — Its gradual growth — Skelton as a Humanist— Italy the pioneer — Humanism in England — Alexander Barclay — The Eclogues — Ship of Fools — Mirror of Good Manners — Henry Bradshaw — ^JohnHeywood — Humanism of the Oxford group — Its artificiality — Its morality — Its relation to the Reformation — Sir Thomas More — Utopia — Its modernity — Its criticism — Its intellectuality — Erasmus — His feeling toward England — ^His popularity — His morality — ^His rationalism— CoUoquia — His attitude toward reform — Humanism versus Scholasticism in education — ^The aim — The three great theorists — ^The growth of the movement in England — The aim — Physical exercise — Classic heroes — Expurgations — ^The effect upon English literature — ^The effect on teaching — On the vernacular — Education of Women — English Verse — TotteVa Miscellany — Wyatt — Uncertain Authors — Nicholas Grimald — His pedantry — Origin of blank verse — ^Ascham the theorist and Grimald the exponent.

Chapter V

The effect of Spanish upon English — Celeslina — Lord Berners — Golden Book — Its popularity — ^Ita content — Image of Governance — Sir Francis Bryan — Dispraise of the Life of a Courtier — Germany — ^Trade relations — Reformation — ^The Assertio — Situation in England — Literary results — Tyndale's New Testament — Supplicacyon for the Beggars — More's reply — The polemic dialogue — Rede me and be not vyrothe — Coverdale — Stemhold — ^The jest books — Salomon and Marcolphus — Van Doesborgh — ^Laurens Andrewe — Parson of Kalenborowe — Tyll Howleglas — Realism — Prance — The effect upon the language — Castle of Labour — Colyn Blowbol's Testament — Jyl of Brentford's Testament — Ballade — Rondeau — Clement Marot— The Court— Tottel's Miscellany— Wyatt— Ita,\y—^ya.n— Uncertain AiCChars — The prose — Morte Darthur — Froissart — Huon of Burdeaux — Kalendan/T (Jshyppards.