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Robert Henryson C Robert Henryson c. 1425 - 1490 Contents: Biography.................................................................................................................................................................Page 1 Contexts..................................................................................................................................................................Page 2 Moral Fables ..........................................................................................................................................................Page 3 Testament of Cresseid........................................................................................................................Pages 4 - 15 Further Reading / Contacts.......................................................................................................... Pages 15 - 18 Biography: Robert Henryson (c. 1425 - 1490) : lived in the second half of the 15th century and is said to have taught at the Grammar school connected to the Benedictine Abbey at Dunfermline. Though there is no record of Henryson obtaining a university degree, he was an educated man. In 1462 a “master Robert Henryson” was incorporated into Glasgow University as a bachelor in canon law; it seems possible that this was the poet, and it could also have been the notary of the same name who worked in Dunfermline in 1478. There is an allusion in one of Dunbar’s poems which tells us that Henryson must have died before 1505. Even though several short poems have been attributed to Henryson, he is more of a narrative poet. His masterpiece is The Testament of Cresseid, prompted by a reading of Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde, it is an original piece in its own right. His most important other work is a collection of thirteen fables, usually entitled The Morall Fabillis of Esope the Phrygian, party drawn from Aesop, partly from a medieval cycle. One famous example is the fable of “The Two Mice”. Henryson used the fables’ traditional didactic function for religious, political, and social commentary with wit and word play. Largely forgotten for centuries, Henryson’s work has been much appreciated again in the 20th century 1 Copyright © 2003 Scottish Literary Tour Trust. All Rights Reserved. Robert Henryson c. 1425 - 1490 Contexts: Along with William Dunbar and Gavin Douglas, Robert Henryson is one of the three great Makars of Scotland’s pre-Renaissance age. This is considered to be the golden age of Scots poetry before the country and its language really began to fall apart and fracture into fi efdoms and principalities. Language generally across the whole of Europe was transforming, gradually evolving into the modern versions that we use, more or less, today. Reading Henryson, we’re still a good way off the recognisably modern Scots of Fergusson and Burns, but if you have a peek at John Barbour’s The Bruce, written one hundred years earlier, you quickly realise that Scots had evolved considerably in that time. In fact the Scots of Henryson is regarded as the purest example we have of the language. True, to our eyes and ears his vocabulary is a bit strange, but the grammar is less Germanic and reads more closely to modern Scots. He still uses –is to form plurals and third person singular where we would simply have –s; past tense verb endings are written –it instead of our modern –ed, as in blastit for blasted or purifyit for purifi ed. The word can appears before a verb to form a past tense. He also uses different spellings such as quh- rather than wh- as in quhisling for whistling and quhen for when in which we can recognise today in the pronunciation of some Scots dialects. In fact in a great number of his unusual words we can recognise their modern equivalents if we say them aloud: traistit becomes trusted, desyrit becomes desired, etc. This was not a great time politically for Scotland, but culturally things were on the up and up, particularly in education – three of Scotland’s most ancient universities were founded during, or slightly before, Henryson’s lifetime (St Andrew’s in 1411, Glasgow in 1451, and Aberdeen in 1495 – Edinburgh didn’t get going until 1583). Little is know about Henryson’s life, but it is thought that he may have attended Glasgow University in about 1462, which would have made him 12 years old, an unusual age for a boy to attend university . the typical age was 13. Dunbar, Douglas and Henryson represent the greatest poetry of that time and many believe that Henryson wrote the best of it. Henryson, like so many of Scotland’s great artists, was neglected for centuries but in the last 150 years or so has enjoyed a huge comeback and in some quarters he is even regarded as Scotland’s greatest ever poet. But this has probably more to do with academics locking horns than anything we can use in attempting to understand Henryson’s work – for our purposes the three of them are equally great but in different ways. The question here is: why should we bother? Why should we be interested in anything a man from the 15th century has to say? Let’s look at the work. Henryson is famous for two main bodies of work: the Moral Fables and The Testament of Cresseid. 2 Written by Colin Clark Copyright © 2003 Scottish Literary Tour Trust. All Rights Reserved. Robert Henryson c. 1425 - 1490 The Moral Fables: What we like about Henryson is his purity of mind. As the political situation worsened and Scotland plunged deeper into chaos, Henryson was able to keep his head clear of all that was going on around him and reach deep into the moral core of humanity. He was a religious man, it is believed he was a teacher at a school associated with the Benedictines in Dunfermline. His work combines great poetic skill with a kind of theological truth – much as John Barbour saw his role as poet being to deliver a kind of historical truth. During Henryson’s time, morality plays (like Everyman) where audiences went along to hear a sermon dressed up as entertainment, were all the rage. Also, his readers would certainly have been acquainted with the fables of Aesop, who used animals in various dramatic situations to illustrate the condition of human beings and provide lessons to be drawn from them. For example, in the famous tale of The Ant and the Grasshopper we hear of a happy-go-lucky grasshopper who sings and fools around all summer while the ants toil industriously collecting food and preparing their shelter. Come winter, the grasshopper fi nds he is starving and cold, while the ants are snug (and maybe a wee bit smug, too) in their nest having put in the work to see them through the dark and diffi cult days of winter. The tales all provide a moral which is made explicit at the end of the tale. In this case the moral would be: Work hard today for the needs of tomorrow. As well as the tales of Aesop, Henryson drew on the medieval beast epics – long stories involving animals in human situations, which had all the hallmarks of epic narrative such as hero, villain, victim etc. One of the most famous characters of these beast epics was Reynard the Fox. These tales often satirised various aspects of human life such as the courts, the church, the rich, etc. and picked out specifi c human failings like hypocrisy, greed, laziness etc. One of the advantages of centring his tales around the antics of animals is that he takes things out of the local, specifi c circumstances of life in Dunfermline or Edinburgh in the 15th century and gives his stories a more universal meaning. Some of the underlying realities of his poems may refl ect contemporary life, but arguably that cannot be avoided – where Henryson succeeds is in disregarding the many political changes and disputes raging on around him to focus on the uniquely human forces which move and shape us and which challenge us constantly to life a good life. Written by Colin Clark 3 Copyright © 2003 Scottish Literary Tour Trust. All Rights Reserved. Robert Henryson c. 1425 - 1490 The Testament of Cresseid: Ane doolie sessioun to ane cairfull dyte Doolie sessioun: doleful season; cairfull dyte: Suld correspond and be equivalent: sad poem; Suld: should Richt sa it wes quhen I began to wryte Richt sa it wes: That’s just how it was This tragedie; the wedder richt fervent, Wedder: weather Quhen Aries, in middis of the Lent, Middis of the Lent: middle of spring Schouris of haill gart fra the north discend, Schouris: showers; gart: came That scantlie fra the cauld I micht defend. Scantlie: scarcely Yit nevertheles within myne oratur Oratur: study I stude, quhen Titan had his bemis bricht Titan: Greek god; Bemis: beams Withdrawin doun and sylit under cure, Sylit under cure: put it away under cover And fair Venus, the bewtie of the nicht, Venus: 2nd planet from the sun, the bright- Uprais and set unto the west full richt est in our sky; Uprais: rose up Hir goldin face, in oppositioun Of God Phebus, direct discending doun. Phebus: Apollo, Greek sun god The poem begins with a bit of scene setting. In the fi rst few verses Henryson employs pathetic fallacy – a common literary device where agents external to the narrator infl uence the narrator’s mind – usually weather. So in the fi rst verse we’re told that it’s a dismal season - sometime in the middle of spring; the weather is ‘richt fervent’, sending showers of hail from the north that he can barely defend himself against. What state of mind is our narrator in? But verse 2 sees the skies clearing – enough for him to see Venus rising in the west, and the sun going down in the east. He’s a studious man, our narrator. Look at the company he keeps: Queen Aries, Titan, Venus, Phebus. He might be religious too – an ‘oratur’ can be a prayer room as well as a study. Throwout the glas hir bemis brast sa fair Throwout: through; glas: window; brast: burst; That I micht se on everie syde me by; Se: see The northin wind had purifyit the air And sched the mistie cloudis fra the sky; Sched: cleared The froist freisit, the blastis bitterly Freisit: froze Fra Pole Artick come quhisling loud and schill, Schill: shrill And causit me remufe aganis my will.
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