culture and rhetoric of the answer poem 1485-1626

The Culture and Rhetoric of the Answer Poem: 1485-1626

SECTION 1: POLEMIC: FLYTING, LIBEL AND SATIRE

Chapter 1: Responses to Libel and Satire

  1. The Verse Libel
    1. A Sociological Perspective
    2. Verbal Duelling
    3. Proclamatory Answers
  2. The Verse Satire
    1. Self Publicising Tudor Satirists
    2. John Skelton
    3. John Marston

Chapter 2: Domestic and Cross-Cultural Flyting

  1. Cross-Cultural Flyting
    1. Anglo-French Flyting
    2. Anglo-Scottish Flyting
  2. Domestic Flyting
    1. John Skelton and Christopher Garnish
    2. Thomas Smyth and William Gray
    3. Thomas Churchyard and Thomas Camel
    4. John Taylor and William Fennor

SECTION 2: MARRIAGE, FRIENDSHIP COURTSHIP/COURTIERSHIP

Chapter 3: Answer Poetry and Marriage: 1550-1570

  1. Pros and Cons of Marriage
  2. Duties of Husbands and Wives

Chapter 4: Late Tudor Amicable Verse Exchanges

  1. Barnabe Googe
  2. Isabella Whitney
  3. John Donne

Chapter 5: Women's answer-poetry and the female-voiced response

  1. Henrician Answer Poetry
  2. Late Elizabethan and Jacobean Answer Poetry
    1. Elizabeth I
    2. Frances Seymour, Countess of Hertford
    3. Lady Mary Cheke
    4. Lady Mary Wroth



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subjects Thomas Percy, Earl of Northumberland, Scottish, captivity, James Stewart, Earl of Moray, James Douglas, Fourth Earl of Morton, Lord Patrick Ruthven

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108

from a Scottish one (‘The Answeir to the Englisch Ballad’). 199 The English poem reprehends the Scots in general for selling the rebel leader, Thomas Percy, Earl of Northumberland into captivity, claiming that the key malefactors are typical representatives of Scottish treachery: “Murray, Mortoun, and Ruthvenis”, so it is asserted, are “Of that vngracious natioun bred” (l.47 and l.50). 200

The representative of the Scots rejoins in complaint against the blanket condemnation of the Scots which he argues should have rather singled out specific enemies of Mary and the Northern rebels responsible for Northumberland’s arrest. His answer is atypical of flyting. Since he is also a supporter of the rebellion his answer lacks the animosity and aggression that would be expected in a Scotsman’s answer to an Englishman’s polemic against his countrymen and he acts as a mediator between the Scottish and English factions:

Thocht sum have playit Judas pairt
In selling gud Northumberland,
Quhy sould the hoill, for thair desert,
That faine wald haue that fact withstand,
Or yit the countrey beir the blame?
Let thame that sauld him haue the schame. (ll.7-12)

The answer-poet assumes a tenor of levelheaded rationality here, and reproves the English poem mildly for its satirical generalisation rather than returning the insult. The conciliatory tone once again reflects the influence that it was feared ballad propaganda might exert upon public opinion and anticipates that the English libel might provoke unwarranted reprisals against the Scots: “I yow advyise, call in your scroll,/ Yow wait not quho will it controll” (ll.5-6). The poet attempts to bring a sense of proportion to the situation pointing out that France and England also have their own share of traitors, and therefore that the Scottish should not be punished disproportionately

199 Cranstoun ed. (1891), I. pp.240-7.
200 James Stewart, Earl of Moray (regent until 1572), James Douglas, Fourth Earl of Morton (regent 1572-80), and Lord Patrick Ruthven all sided with the Protestant party against Mary, and had conspired together in 1565 to prevent her marrying Darnley.



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