(1400s)
Fostered by the presence of a refined court society, the literature of Scotland in the 15th century experienced a concentrated period of poetic achievement. During this time King James I of Scotland, Robert Henryson, Gavin Douglas, and William Dunbar all produced works that imitated the poetry of Geoffrey chaucer in form, rhetorical style, subject matter, and technique. Some of the works follow Chaucer’s model of parody and the form of his allegorical dream visions (see allegory). For this reason, the poets of this group are often referred to as the “Scottish Chaucerians.” The group is part of a larger tradition sometimes called the “Middle Scots Poets,” a label that often extends back to the 14th century to include John Barbour (1320-95) and the poet known as “Blind Harry,” author of Schir William Wallace (ca. 1450). William Dunbar himself called his contemporaries the “Makars” (makers) in the poem “Lament for the Makars.”
The first remarkable work of the period is the poem TheKingis Quair (sometimes Quhair, 1423), an allegorical dream vision usually attributed to King James I of Scotland. Scholars have interpreted this poem as an autobiographical work in which James I describes his courtship of Jane Beaufort, the daughter of the English earl of Somerset, in 1424. This poem is a prototype of Chaucerian imitation, borrowing both the dream-vision narrative frame and rhyme royal meter from Chaucer. It also makes reference to Palamon and Arcite, two of the central characters in “The Knight’s Tale” from Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales.
Perhaps the most famous of the Scottish Chaucerians, Robert Henryson (ca. 1425-1506) was master of the Benedictine Abbey Grammar School at Dunfermline and a member of the newly founded University of Glasgow. He was the author of a number of fables and several allegorical poems offering moral instruction. His most famous poem, the Testament ofCresseid, often appears in anthologies and offers a type of sequel to Chaucer’s famous Troilus and Creseyde. This poem is harsh and graphic, but not unsympathetic, in its portrayal of Chaucer’s heroine. In it, Henryson paints Cresseid as a faithless lover punished with leprosy and disease but shows her later redemption as she enters a nunnery in repentance for her sins. It is a work grim and serious in tone. However, Henryson displays an ability to produce more cheerful work with poems such as “Robene and Makyne,” a lighthearted parody of the courtly love tradition. This poem reverses the traditional gender roles assigned in courtly love lyrics; here the rustic girl Makyne tries to instruct the shepherd boy Robene in matters of love. He resists her advice, but later he realizes his mistake and returns to seek her counsel, only to have Makyne say that he has waited too long to act. The poem’s theme of carpe diem (“seize the day”) anticipates some of the poetry of the 16th century.
In addition to being influenced by Chaucer, William Dunbar also possessed a fascination with the language of alliterative poetry, a form still popular in Scotland in the 15th century though its popularity had waned in England. Dunbar wrote many occasional poems inspired by events associated with the court of King James IV of Scotland, as well as a number of divine poems and parodies like “The Flyting of Dunbar and Kennedie,” a humorous address to one of his rivals. By contrast, the “Lament for the Makars” is a more serious devotion that contemplates the mortality of the poet and gives tribute to the “brother” poets whom death has claimed: “In Dunfermline he [death] hes done roune / With maister Robert Henrisoun.” Because he offers commentary on both the court and his contemporaries, Dunbar contributes greatly to our knowledge of this period of Scottish literature.
As a member of a prominent Scottish clan, Gavin Douglas (1474-1522) was very well educated, having attended schools at St. Andrews and perhaps Paris. Like his contemporaries, he wrote some works in imitation of Chaucer, such as his early work The Palice of Honour, a long allegorical dream vision based loosely on Chaucer’s House of Fame, but also bearing the influence of Ovid and boccacio. However, Douglas’s translation of Virgil’s Aeneid into Middle Scots, the Aeneis, arguably displays his best work. He divides his translation into 13 books, each with a prologue in which he often discusses subject matter, style, or circumstances of composition. His translation, regarded by many to be one of the best translations of the epic, strikes a balance between Virgil’s classic language and Douglas’s own lively Scots verse. After the passing of Douglas, the power of Scottish poetry would decline until the career of Robert Burns in the late 18th century.
Works by Scottish Poets of the Fifteenth Century
Dunbar, William. William Dunbar: Selected Poems. Edited by Harriet H. Wood. London: Routledge, 2003.
Henryson, Robert. Poems and Fables. Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd, 1958.
A Work about the Scottish Poets
Henderson, T. F. Scottish Vernacular Literature: A Succinct History. Edinburgh: Scotpress, 1988.
