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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subjectsProtestant heretic, Catholicism, Pope, Thomas cromwell, reformed Church, patron, servant of the king, broadside, peacemaking, religious uniformity, controversy

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122

the sequence, and it has been suggested both that Gray may have been responsible for this poem or, alternatively, for rebutting it. 215 It appears much more likely that he would defend his erstwhile patron against this Catholic attack. In the poem Cromwell seems to be pilloried as a Protestant heretic by a conservative libeller who interprets the reformed Church as simply Catholicism without the Pope:

Thou dyd not remembre, false heretyke,
One God, one fayth, and one kynge catholyke
For thou hast bene so long a scysmatyke. (St. 7)


This poem is rebutted by A Balade agaynst Malycyous Sclaunderers, and followed by one or more lost invectives. 216 In the next extant contribution Smyth attempts ostensibly to defuse the debate: “I entende not to trolle, to take any parte/ Diuisyon to encreace, it nedeth nothyng” (A Lytell Treatyse agaynst Sedicyous Persons, ll.22-3). 217 Smyth's attempt at peacemaking and encouraging religious uniformity seems to have provoked further controversy, and the next extant broadside is an angry rejoinder by himself against Gray. 218 By now the poems have moved into the familiar territory of disputing which of the protagonists is the most loyal servant of the king. Gray finishes his reply to Smyth’s treatise with an envoi insisting that he “wolde be the kynges seruante as fayne as you”. 219

naught by no man nor no man by him. Troll with is he that no man shall know the seruaunt from ye Maister... Troll hazard of trace is he that goeth behynde his Maister as far as he may see hym... Troll hazard of tritrace, is he that goeth gaping after his Master.



215 See Dormer (1923), pp.26-7 and Susan Brigden, London and the Reformation (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989), pp.322-3.

216 STC 1325.5. See Livingston (1991), pp.822-3.

217 STC 22880.4.

218 A Treatyse Declarynge the Despyte of a Secrete Sedycyous Person, that Dareth not Shewe Hym Selfe (printed by John Redman, 1540), STC 22880.6.

219 An Answere to Maister Smyth Seruaunt to the Kynges Most Royall Maiestye. And Clerke of the Quenes Graces Counsell, though Most Vnworthy (printed by Rychard Bankes, 1540), STC 12206a.3.



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