POETS AND POWER FROM CHAUCER TO WYATT

In the early fifteenth century, English poets responded to a changed climate of patronage, instituted by Henry IV and successor monarchs, by inventing a new tradition of public and elite poetry. Following Chaucer and others, Hoccleve and Lydgate brought to English verse a new style and subject matter to write about their king, nation, and themselves, and their innovations influenced a continuous line of poets running through and beyond Wyatt. A crucial aspect of this new tradition is its development of ideas and practices associated with the role of poet laureate. Robert J. Meyer-Lee examines the nature and significance of this tradition as it develops from the fourteenth century to Tudor times, tracing its evolution from one author to the next. This study illuminates the relationships between poets and political power and makes plain the tremendous impact this verse has had on the shape of English literary culture.

ROBERT J. MEYER-LEE is Assistant Professor of English at Goshen College, Indiana.

CAMBRIDGE STUDIES IN MEDIEVAL LITERATURE

General editor
Alastair Minnis, Yale University

Editorial board
Zygmunt G. Barański, University of Cambridge
Christopher C. Baswell, University of California, Los Angeles
John Burrow, University of Bristol
Mary Carruthers, New York University
Rita Copeland, University of Pennsylvania
Simon Gaunt, King’s College, London
Steven Kruger, City University of New York
Nigel Palmer, University of Oxford
Winthrop Wetherbee, Cornell University
Jocelyn Wogan-Browne, University of York

This series of critical books seeks to cover the whole area of literature written in the major medieval languages – the main European vernaculars, and medieval Latin and Greek – during the period c.1100–1500. Its chief aim is to publish and stimulate fresh scholarship and criticism on medieval literature, special emphasis being placed on understanding major works of poetry, prose, and drama in relation to the contemporary culture and learning which fostered them.

Recent titles in the series
Nick Havely, Dante and the Franciscans: Poverty and the Papacy in the “Commedia”
Siegfried Wenzel, Latin Sermon Collections from Later Medieval England
Ananya Jahanara Kabir and Deanne Williams (eds.) Postcolonial Approaches to the European Middle Ages: Translating Cultures
Mark Miller, Philosophical Chaucer: Love, Sex, and Agency in the Canterbury Tales
Simon Gilson, Dante and Renaissance Florence
Ralph Hanna, London Literature, 1300–1380
Maura Nolan, John Lydgate and the Making of Public Culture
Nicolette Zeeman, Piers Plowman and the Medieval Discourse of Desire
Anthony Bale, The Jew in the Medieval Book: English Antisemitisms 1300–1500
Robert J. Meyer‐Lee, Poets and Power from Chaucer to Wyatt
A complete list of titles in the series can be found at the end of the volume.

POETS AND POWER FROM CHAUCER TO WYATT

ROBERT J. MEYER-LEE

CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS
Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, São Paulo

Cambridge University Press
The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge cb2 8ru, UK

Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York

www.cambridge.org
Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9780521863551

© Robert J. Meyer-Lee 2007

This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press.

First published 2007

Printed in the United Kingdom at the University Press, Cambridge

A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library

ISBN-13 978-0-521-86355-1 hardback
ISBN-10 0-521-86355-4 hardback

Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

For my family: Elaine, Gabriel, Jackson, and Lucas

Contents

Acknowledgments

Individuals to whom I am indebted for reviewing drafts of portions of this book, in their various incarnations, include Seeta Chaganti, Valerie Garver, Matthew Giancarlo, Elizabeth Fowler, Kathryn Kerby-Fulton, Lezlie Knox, Traugott Lawler, Michael Leslie, Pericles Lewis, Maura Nolan, Jill Mann, Cynthia Marshall, Deborah McGrady, David Mengel, Jimmy Mixson, Annabel Patterson, Larry Scanlon, James Simpson, Ramie Targoff, and Karen Winstead (with apologies to anyone inadvertently left off this list). Lee Patterson was the original guiding beacon for the project and has since been a constant source of help and encouragement. Derek Pearsall introduced me to medieval literature, and I hope this book repays, in a small way, that marvelous initiation. Alistair Minnis and my anonymous readers for Cambridge University Press – one of whom since revealed himself as John Thompson – provided excellent feedback. Julie Bruneau supplied crucial assistance in the final pass through the typescript. The book’s remaining faults no doubt lie in those places I failed to heed my many readers’ advice. Linda Bree and her associates at Cambridge University Press have been wonderful to work with.

The libraries of the University of Notre Dame and Yale were essential in completing this project; I owe thanks to their canny collectors of material on late medieval English literature and culture. Thanks are also due to the libraries of Cambridge University and Trinity College, Cambridge for granting me access to Ashby’s manuscripts.

I am grateful to Rhodes College for granting me a leave, Goshen College for a reduced teaching load and research funding through the Mininger Center, and the Medieval Institute at the University of Notre Dame for an appointment as visiting scholar, all of which greatly facilitated the writing of this book. And, in the place of honor, I owe more than can be said to my parents, siblings, in-laws, and, above all, to those who sacrificed most: Elaine, Gabriel, Jackson, and Lucas, to whom this book is dedicated.

Portions of this book adapt previously published work of mine:

“Laureates and Beggars in Fifteenth-Century English Poetry: The Case of George Ashby,” Speculum 79 (2004), 688–726.

“Lydgate’s Laureate Pose,” in John Lydgate: Poetry, Culture, and Lancastrian England, ed. James Simpson and Larry Scanlon, Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2006. © 2006 University of Notre Dame.

I thank the publishers for their permission to incorporate this material.

Notes on citations

All citations of the works of Chaucer are from The Riverside Chaucer, ed. Larry D. Benson, 3rd edn, Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1987.

Citations of Lydgate’s poetry are from the following editions:

The Minor Poems of John Lydgate, Part I: The Religious Poems, ed. H. N. MacCracken, EETS o.s. 107, London: Oxford University Press, 1911, referenced as MP I.

The Minor Poems of John Lydgate, Part II: The Secular Poems, ed. H. N. MacCracken, EETS o.s. 192, London: Oxford University Press, 1934, referenced as MP II.

Poems, ed. John Norton-Smith, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1966.

A Critical Edition of John Lydgate’s Life of Our Lady, ed. Joseph A. Lauritis, Ralph A. Klinefelter, and Vernon F. Gallagher, Pittsburgh: Duquesne University, 1961.

Siege of Thebes, ed. Axel Erdmann and Eilert Ekwall, EETS e.s. 118, 125, London: Kegan Paul, Trench and Trübner, 1911, 1930.

Troy Book, ed. Henry Bergen, EETS e.s. 97, 103, 106, 126, London: Kegan Paul, Trench and Trübner, 1906–1935.

The Fall of Princes, ed. Henry Bergen, EETS e.s. 121–24, London: Oxford University Press, 1923–27.

Citations of Hoccleve’s poetry are from the following editions:

Thomas Hoccleve: The Regiment of Princes, ed. Charles R. Blyth, Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Publications, 1999.

Thomas Hoccleve’s Complaint and Dialogue, ed. J. A. Burrow, EETS o.s. 313, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999.

“My Compleinte” and Other Poems, ed. Roger Ellis, Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 2001, for all poems besides the Regiment, Complaint, and Dialogue.

All verse, except where noted, is cited by line number and, where appropriate, book or fragment. Editorial diacritics, emendation brackets, and indications of expansion are not reproduced, and I have at times modified or added punctuation.

The following abbreviations are used:

Biobib for Pearsall, Derek, John Lydgate (1371–1449): A Bio-bibliography, Victoria: University of Victoria, 1997.

EEBO for Early English Books Online, Ann Arbor: Bell & Howell Information and Learning, 1999–.

EETS o.s. for Early English Text Society, original series.

EETS e.s. for Early English Text Society, extra series.

MED for Kurath, Hans, Kuhn, Sherman M., and Lewis, R. E. (eds.), A Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1952–2001.

STC for Pollard, Alfred W., et al., A Short-Title Catalogue of Books Printed in England, Scotland, & Ireland and of English Books Printed Abroad, 1475–1640, 2nd edn, London: Bibliographical Society, 1976–1991.

ThomasH for Burrow, J. A., Thomas Hoccleve, Aldershot: Variorum, 1994.

Except where noted, translations are my own.