satire, Roman satirists, sixteenth century, literature, satirical, personas, detractors
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dedications to detraction) in order to lure others into literary debate in a way not dissimilar to Ralegh’s using the model of formal duelling to attract controversy in his satire ‘The Lie’. Furthermore, whereas several of the answer-poets considered so far might be seen as state propagandists, these are freelance self-propagandists who, like the Roman satirists, present themselves as obtrusive personalities in their own work. Such writers are conspicuous in sixteenth century literature, although they are unfortunately scarce. Skelton, who fits into the categories of both state and self-propagandist, is one among these provocateurs and at the other end of the century a number of the late-Elizabethan satirists, including John Marston and Joseph Hall, are also keen self-publicists. What these writers share, that intermediary verse satirists such as William Baldwin and Robert Crowley do not, is their neoclassicism and irascibly rebellious spirits. From the precedent of the classical satirists’ combative temperaments they conceive of their satirical personas as dialectically engaged and draw their understanding that a legitimate and successful satirist needs detractors with whom to fight.
Both Skelton and the late-Elizabethan satirists became victims of their own success at generating controversy. The formal verse satirists manufactured a series of defamatory controversies so conspicuous that it contributed towards the outlawing of satire in 1599. Similarly, Skelton suffered for his outspokenness and achieved a notoriety for controversy that in at least one instance became a threat to his personal safety. Maurice Pollet, in an examination of Skelton’s audacious independence from temporal authority in his later work, observes that he is “bold to the point of rashness” and suggests that shortly after writing his most explicit attack upon Cardinal Wolsey, Why Come Ye nat to Courte? (1522), he rusticated himself at Sherriff Hutton in Yorkshire in order to escape the Cardinal’s wrath.
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119 Maurice Pollet, John Skelton, Poet of Tudor England, trans. John Warrington (Dent, 1971), p.187 and p.135. The poem is not given by Dyce. See instead, John Skelton: The Complete English Poems, ed. John Scattergood (Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin, 1983), pp.278-311.
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