Poets and Power from Chaucer to Wyatt

by Robert J. Meyer-Lee

• ISBN13: 9780521863551
• ISBN10: 0521863554
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2007-02-05
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

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 style and subject matter writing 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 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 developed 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.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	p. ix
Notes on citations	p. xi
Introduction: Laureates and beggars	p. 1
Backgrounds	p. 13
Laureate Poetics	p. 15
The First Lancastrian Poets	p. 43
John Lydgate: The Invention of the English Laureate	p. 49
Thomas Hoccleve: Beggar Laureate	p. 88
From Lancaster to Early Tudor	p. 125
Lydgateanism	p. 131
The Trace of Lydgate: Stephen Hawes, Alexander Barclay, and John Skelton	p. 174
Epilogue: Sir Thomas Wyatt: Anti-laureate	p. 220
Notes	p. 233
Works cited	p. 278
Index	p. 293
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