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



Bookmark this page:

StumbleUpon Toolbar Stumble It!

bookmark the culture and rhetoric of the answer poem

CULTURE & RHETORIC HOME | contents | sitemap | | © the culture and rhetoric of the answer poem 2008

subjectsTudor period, John Skelton, libel, satire, Protestantism, propagandists, John Bale, Luke Shepherd, Ben Jonson, Tityre Tu

<< previous   next >>



44

A readymade justification for such a response was available due to the commonly held conviction that libelling and satirising were fractious and antisocial activities responsible for inciting violence and sedition. Thus, respondents could justify vitriolic attacks upon their detractors by depicting them as posing such threats and thereby represent themselves as acting out of civic responsibility. The answer-poet might also undertake such civic duty by responding to anti-government literature on behalf of the authorities.

********

The Verse Answer as Proclamation

The story of verse answering in the Tudor period begins in many ways with one of the most versatile of answer-poets, John Skelton. His work encompasses the entire range of flyting, libel and satire examined in this first section and anticipates many later examples of verse answering. He appears to have been claimed periodically as a spokesperson for Protestantism and as an exemplary patriot, and he was imitated by several Protestant propagandists, including John Bale and Luke Shepherd, who chose answer-poetry as one of their literary mediums. 79 He also provided an archetype for combining licentious scurrility with fervent patriotism, a blend well suited to dressing down enemies of the state and personal rivals alike. Ben Jonson, a prolific answer-poet himself, described him as “The worshipful Poet Laureate to King Harry,/ And the Tityre Tu of those times”. 80 Tityre Tu refers to the members of clubs or fraternities reputed for riotous behaviour. One of the social activities of such clubs seems to have been the waging of

79 See Andrew Hadfield, ‘John Skelton’s Influence on John Bale’, NQ, 239 (n.s. 41), (1994a), 19-20 and Cathleen Hayhurst Wheat, ‘Luke Shepherd’s Antipi Amicus’, PQ, 30 (1951), 58-68 (p.67). See also Bernard Capp’s discussion of his influence upon John Taylor, The World of John Taylor the Water-Poet, 1578-1653 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994), p.88 and Dyce ed. (1843), cxxiii-cxxviii.

80 The Fortunate Isles, and their Union Celebrated in a Masque Designed for the Court on the Twelfth Night, 1624, ll.188-9, in The Complete Masques, ed. Stephen Orgel (London and New Haven, CT: Yale UP, 1969).



<< previous   next >>

Google
 


Find this book at Biblio.com  Betterworld Books