Marquette University e-Publications@Marquette Dissertations (2009 -) Dissertations, Theses, and Professional Projects Argument in Poetry: (Re)Defining the Middle English Debate in Academic, Popular, and Physical Contexts Kathleen R. Burt Marquette University Recommended Citation Burt, Kathleen R., "Argument in Poetry: (Re)Defining the Middle English Debate in Academic, Popular, and Physical Contexts" (2014). Dissertations (2009 -). Paper 366. http://epublications.marquette.edu/dissertations_mu/366 ARGUMENT IN POETRY: (RE)DEFINING THE MIDDLE ENGLISH DEBATE POEM IN ACADEMIC, POPULAR, AND PHYSICAL CONTEXTS By Kathleen R. Burt, B.A., M.A. A Dissertation submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School, Marquette University, in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Milwaukee, Wisconsin May 2014 ABSTRACT ARGUMENT IN POETRY: (RE)DEFINING THE MIDDLE ENGLISH DEBATE POEM IN ACADEMIC, POPULAR, AND PHYSICAL CONTEXTS Kathleen R. Burt, B.A., M.A. Marquette University, 2014 The core problem that drives my dissertation is to find a definition for what has been called Middle English “debate poetry” that accounts for the wide variety of themes, topics, and styles which poems labeled as ‘debates’ cover. The limitations of overly focused and restrictive definitions of the term ‘debate poetry’ encountered by previous scholars illustrates the initial problem of using a generic term that lacks a common vocabulary or framework for discusison. The result has been that each scholar who investigated a poem linked to this tradition used a different definition suited to his or her particular text(s) of interest. In order to address this confusion, I apply the contexts provided by a variety of intellectual, cultural, and material rhetorical practices. I examine academic disputation and commentary practices, the textbooks that present the grammatical and poetic strategies which contributed to them, medieval sermon and preaching manuals, and the mystery plays. All of these rhetorical situations are formats for presenting a persuasive interpretation of a given text that require the use of authoritative evidence and interpretive strategies. In addition to the theoretical and literary background, I also include the physical evidence preserved in the manuscripts. Codicology presents a way to analyze how the poems were viewed when recorded, as well as how that perception changed over time. Such contextual clues give insight into how authority and persuasion is assumed or manipulated within the texts. The solution that I propose presents two possible models that take their definitive characteristics from wide-spread methods of persuasion and argument from the medieval period: the academic disputation and commentary, and the medieval sermon. Each model contains features that distinguish ‘debate’ poetry from other genres that employ dialogue and argumentation, and features that are shared. I apply the resulting models to multiple poems to illustrate how definitive traits transfer to the ‘debate poem’. In my conclusion I present some final examples of how my two-pronged system can be applied to both medieval and modern texts. TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS…………………………………………………………...i ABBREVIATIONS……………………………………………………………………ii CHAPTERS I. Definition and Deliberation of ‘Debate’…………………….........................1 II. Foundations of Argument: The Logic of Poetry and Grammar……………50 III. Models of Argument and Narrative Authority in the Popular Tradition….112 IV. Physical Contexts and Interpretive Possibilities…………………………..173 V. Conclusion………………………………………………………………….229 APPENDICES Appendix 1……………………………………………………………….…...255 Appendix 2…………………………………………………………….….…..258 Appendix 3i…………………………………………………………………...261 Appendix 3ii…………………………………………………………………..262 Appendix 4…………………………………………………………………....264 BIBLIOGRAPHY…………………………………………………………………….271 i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Kathleen R. Burt, B.A., M.A. I would like to thank all of the teachers and mentors I have had over the years for all of their invaluable support and advice on learning how to appreciate language and literature. For teaching me how to write and think like an academic, I would especially like to thank Dr. Karen Cherewatuk at St. Olaf College and Dr. Timothy Johnson at the University of Florida. For helping me grow as a scholar of literatures in English, I would like to thank the English department faculty, graduate students, and staff at Marquette University, too many to name individually. For all of their advice, encouragement, critique and support, my director and committee members deserve special thanks. Over the course of many drafts, Dr. John Curran, Dr. Tim Machan, and Dr. M.C. Bodden have all been invaluable resources in improving and refining my work. I thank the Smith family, whose generosity allowed me the opportunity to visit the libraries which hold many of the medieval manuscripts that preserve my texts of interest. I also wish to thank the staffs at the Newberry Library in Chicago, the British Library in London, the Bodleian Library at Oxford, the Wren Library at Trinity College Cambridge, and Cambridge University Library for all of their assistance. Thanks to all my friends and family who supported me during this endeavor. I would like to thank my mother, my father, and my brothers who always encouraged me to read and think for myself. Special thanks to Aunt Dorothy who knew before anyone else that this project would someday materialize. ii ABBREVIATIONS Add./Addit.: Additional BL: British Library CCCM: Corpus Christianorum Continuatio Mediaevalis C/S: Copeland, Rita, and I. Sluiter. Medieval Grammar and Rhetoric: Language Arts and Literary Theory, AD 300-1475. New York: Oxford University Press, 2009. Print. CUL: Cambridge University Library DIMEV: Digital Index of Middle English Verse EETS: Early English Text Society LLT-A: Library of Latin Texts-Series A MED: Middle English Dictionary OED: Oxford English Dictionary TCC: Trinity College, Cambridge 1 Chapter 1: Definition and Deliberation of ‘Debate’ A literature often referred to as ‘debate poetry’ was at its peak in popularity and versatility in Middle English between the late twelfth century and the sixteenth century, but the form has not been studied in modern scholarship as a unified general phenomenon.1 This scholarly gap has been noted by studies on the subject as problematic yet the issue persists.2 Academic interest suggests the recognition of the debate poem form as unique and worthy in its own right,3 yet the concept of a Middle English “debate poem” remains nebulous. Assembling a more systematic framework with set of criteria to distinguish these poems from other similar genres and styles will enable not only more productive discussion of the medieval literatures in question, but also present opportunities for exploring how the various forms and styles may have been passed down to later eras. In this project, I will explore how “Middle English debate poetry” might be more comprehensively outlined and discussed through a set of distinguishing characteristics. I 1These dates correspond roughly with the composition of The Owl and the Nightingale, and William Dunbar’s poetry. I am using the term ‘form’ in place of ‘genre’. Davenport discusses the problem of generic labels (23-35). He specifically notes the convenience factor (24) and that medieval narrative theory found in the handbooks goes back to Ciceronian discussion of the term narratio and his divisions of narrative based on action into the categories of historia, argumentum, and fabula (9-13). 2For example, Conlee refers to the imprecise nature of the debate as a medieval genre (x), and Fletcher (2005) notes that there is a substantial amount of variation within the category (241). 3There have been many discussions (some still ongoing) of individual poems or themes that reoccur with regularity, and some studies of the form in other languages (namely Medieval Latin and French). For example, see Corinne Denoyelle’s 2010 work on French dialogue verse, concentrating on romance. She does not directly focus on debate, however her analysis French verse romances does include considerations of complaints, which have close associations with debate poems. For another example, Emma Cayley considers epistolary exchange and the verse debate traditions in late medieval France. The major study of the form in Latin is Das Streitgedicht in der lateinischen Literatur des Mittelalters (1920) by Hans Walther. A more recent example concerning a Latin debate poem is Neil Cartlidge’s article, "In the Silence of a Midwinter Night: A Re-Evaluation of the Visio Philiberti".Medium Ævum. 75.1 (2006): 24-45. 2 will need to consider whether the form is a distinct, self-contained genre or a set of rhetorical devices commonly used together. In addition, analyzing what distinguishes the rhetorical and formal features of the verse debate from other types of writing based on dialogue will provide information regarding which tropes are shared and which are unique to ‘debate’. The intellectual, cultural, and material contexts I consider are the academic and folk traditions, and the manuscripts which record the poems. I will construct an argument by examining what scholarship has been produced on the subject roughly over the past fifty years, how textbooks and handbooks might have influenced the form and content of the poetry, what academic and popular rhetorical applications of dialogue suggest, and what a variety of examples of arguments in verse reveals about the form. All of these different