John Skelton

John Skelton

John Skelton (* around 1460 ; † June 21, 1529 in London ) was an English writer during the time of Henry VII and Henry VIII.

Education and early career

The exact place of birth of Skelton is as unknown as his year or date of birth; he was likely born in the early 1460s. He came from a Yorkshire family and attended the University of Cambridge and then the University of Oxford , which gave him a comprehensive humanistic education. William Cole mentions a "Schkelton" who passed a Master of Art in 1484 and who is likely to be Skelton. He must have emerged with his poetic talent early on, because in 1488 he was awarded the title of “poet laureate” by the University of Oxford, and in 1492 the University of Leuven honored himwith this title, which also joined the University of Cambridge in 1493. So Skelton's fame had already spread beyond the borders of England. King Henry VII took the young man into his service as a rhetorician and translator in 1488. William Caxton , England's first printer, praised his translations by Diodorus and other ancient writers in 1490 . In the service of the Tudors, Henry VII's mother Margaret Beaufort was one of his supporters, he wrote a number of works that still give little inkling of his later poetry, which critically illuminates the circumstances at court. Of the death of the noble prince Kynge Edwarde the forth is an elegy on the death of Edward IV and also on Henry Percy , the rebel under King Henry IV , he wrote an elegy in 1489. He also translated, Of Mannes Lyfe the Peregrynacioun, a work by the French poet Guillaume de Deguilleyule .

In court service

In the 1490s he was appointed tutor of Prince Henry, who later became King Henry VIII. To him he dedicated the Speculum principis in 1501 , a now lost educational prince's mirror . At the same time he also took over church offices, was ordained a subdeacon, a deacon and in 1498 a priest. Erasmus of Rotterdam praised him in 1500 as "unum Britannicarum literarum lumen ac decus". Obviously, after 1500, Skelton's critical and satirical attitude, for which he would later become famous, also became increasingly apparent. He was arrested in 1502, although the exact background remains unclear. He may have had a clash with his intimate enemy, Thomas Wolsey , at this point . In any case, around 1504 he retired from court service and took a position as pastor in the small town of Diss in Norfolk , a beneficiary position that he received as a reward for his court service. He stayed there until 1512 and began to write his more famous works.

Satirical works

He proved his satirical talent in 1505 with Phyllyp Sparrowe , where he made a young lady mourn in courtly style over the loss of her little sparrow. The 1,400 line long poem, influenced by Catullus , lets the protagonist Jane Scroop, a Benedictine from Norfolk, use all her literary erudition for her mourning for the bird; Chaucer, Gower and Lydgate are used and the text indulges in a multitude of digressions and is kept in a capricious meter, the two- and three-part Skeltonic short verse, for which the poet subsequently became known. He continued to write panegyric works for the Tudors, such as 1509 A Lawde and Prayse Made for Our Souereigne Lord the Kyng for the new King Henry VIII and, at the request of the Abbot of Westminster in 1512, an elegy on the deceased Henry VII. In 1512 Skelton returned to the London court back and now begins the phase of his ongoing struggle against the hustle and bustle of court society, which he is targeting. He himself is viewed critically, since his way of life as pastor of Diss was obviously not perfect; Anthony Wood stated that he was more suitable "for the stage than for the church chair and pulpit". He is said to have secretly married a woman and he made enemies of the Dominicans with a satire, whereupon Bishop Richard Nix stepped in and temporarily relieved him of his pastor. The collection The Merie Tales of Skelton with farces and sometimes rough narratives is likely to date from this time, but Skelton's authorship has been questioned in some of the stories. With the Boke of the Three Foles , Skelton creates a kind of adaptation of Sebastian Brant's ship of fools , where he later takes up the theme again in The Bowge of Court and populates the ship with allegorical figures such as "contempt", "riot", "suspicion" and others that give him the opportunity to let his criticism run wild. With his satires and sarcastic attacks, Skelton quickly created other enemies, including Sir Christopher Garneys , Alexander Barclay , William Lilly and the French-born Robert Gaguin . As orator regius , however, he was favored by the king. He knew how to win this for himself by poetically immortalizing his victories over the Scots and the French.

At the same time, however, he did not spare criticism of the courtly system, albeit subliminal. Magnyfycence , his best-known stage work, created in 1516 , is initially also read as a kind of ruler's prize in allegorical form, which is formally linked to the medieval drama of morality . Henry VIII is unmistakably portrayed in the figure of the "ruler size" (Magnificence); but the allegorical representation also gives Skelton the opportunity to depict corruption and gluttony without having to name names; However, it was clear to the initiated who was hiding behind the characters “folly”, “pretense”, “cunning” and “intrigue”, who threatened the king’s rulership, but whom Skelton also thought of the characters “bliss”, “freedom” and “ Moderation ”opposed as a representative of the sensible, humanist party at court, to which, besides Skelton himself, above all the Duke of Norfolk can be attributed. As in the medieval drama, good triumphs over evil, "hope", "conversion" and "steadfastness" prevent the great rulers from suicide at the last moment, but this play is no longer about the turn of the modern age the salvation of the soul on the other side and the Christian message, but rather about earthly concerns and about correct governance. The current reference is also evident in the fact that Skelton refers to contemporary people such as King Ludwig XII. of France points out. At the center of the criticism is Wolsey, cardinal since 1515 and the most powerful man at the English court. This is also the target of the following works. In 1521, Skelton Speke, parrot , wrote a bitter reckoning with the high clergy in England, whose pompousness, political intrigues and moral depravity he did not give a good hair.

Cardinal Wolsey

In Colyn Cloute , written around 1522, he lets a naive man from the people speak and puts his biting criticism into his mouth. Again the clergy appears as thoroughly depraved, the prelates exploit the common people in their addiction to power without hesitation, run after women's skirts and forget about their duties as teachers and preachers of God's word; so Colyn Cloute can be seen as the English counterpart of the letters to dark men that had recently appeared in Germany . It is an expression of a humanistic, anti-clerical zeitgeist, although Skelton, like most other humanists, shows little sympathy for the new Lutheran teaching. The institution of the church is fundamentally defended by Skelton. Skelton is more about showing how the old order is endangered by the lack of stability and recklessness of characters who, in their awareness of power, seem more Machiavellian and "modern". In Why Come Ye Not to Court? (1522) the subject of the royal court is again. Skelton no longer bothered to disguise his criticism of Wolsey in any way. The book was promptly banned, but there appeared to be many copies circulating in England proving that Skelton hit the right nerve. Skelton avoided the risk of being arrested again by seeking asylum at Westminster Abbey with Abbot John Islip, who subsequently defended him against the cardinal.

Death and aftermath

In 1523 Skelton draws a kind of stocktaking of his work with The Garland of Laurel . Here, like in a wreath, he once again lists his most important works and also gives autobiographical references and an apology for his satirical attitude. However, he apparently made peace with Wolsey towards the end of his life. However, he has never completely given up his oppositional stance, as his Replycacion written in 1527 shows, in which he attacked two of his fellow students from his time in Cambridge. Skelton died in his late 60s in London, allegedly in his asylum at Westminster Abbey, but this presumption cannot be substantiated. He is buried in St Margaret's Church in Westminster . A number of other famous English poets such as Milton and Pepys are also buried there. As a satirist, Skelton initially remained without a pupil and is unique as a chronicler of customs at the Renaissance court of the Tudors. A comparably critical and satirical spirit can basically only be found again in English literature with Dryden, Swift and Pope. Maurice Evans rates Skelton as follows: "He is perhaps the most important poet between Chaucer and Spenser and appears at the interface between medieval and humanistic traditions."

literature

• IA Gordon: John Skelton, Poet Laureate , Melbourne / London, 1943.
• AR Heiserman: Skelton and Satire , Chicago, 1961.
• M. Pollet: John Skelton, Contribution à l'histoire de la prérenaissance anglaise , Paris, 1962.
• E. Schulte: La poesia the John Skelton , Naples 1963.
• Maurice Evans: John Skelton and early Tudor Poetry , New York, 1967.
• Anthony Edwards: John Skelton: The Critical Heritage , London, Boston, 1981.
• Edda Höltl: Idea and reality of society in the work of John Skelton . Roderer, Regensburg 1991, ISBN 3-89073-535-5 .
• Howard Norland: Skelton's "Magnificence" , Lincoln (Nebraska), 1995.

Web links

• Biography and text samples on www.luminarium.org (English)