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The Stylistic Influence of the Alliterative Tradition on the Poetry of William

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The Stylistic Influence of the Alliterative Tradition on the Poetry of William THE S1TLISTIC INFLUENCE OF THE ALLITERATIVE TRADITION ON THE POETRY OF WILLIAM DUNBAR By N. LINDSAY MCFADYEN A DISSERTATION PRESENTED TO THE GRADUATE COUNCIL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA 1975 TO MY PARENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank my director, Dr. Richard H. Green, for teaching me a great deal about Medieval literature, for once hinting that William Dunbar might be a good dissertation topic, and for allow- ing me almost complete freedom in developing my approach to Dunbar's poetry. I would also like to acknowledge my gratitude to the other members of my supervisory committee. Dr. Kevin M. McCarthy, for his careful reading of the manuscript and many helpful suggestions, and to Dr. D. Gary Miller, for the many comments and discussions to which my investigation of Dunbar's prosody ovres so much. Finally, I would like to give very special thanks to Dr. Marie Nelson and to Dr. Norman Fry for patience, help, and encouragement far above and beyond the call of duty. Ill TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Ill ABSTRACT CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION. 1 Notes .... 10 II THE AUREATE STYLE 12 Notes .... 61 Ill THE COMIC STYLE . 64 Notes .... 99 IV THE PLAIN STYLE . 102 Notes .... 118 V PROSODY 120 Notes .... 159 LIST OF WORKS CITED . 165 IV Abstract of Dissertation Presented to the Graduate Council of the University of Florida in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy THE STYLISTIC INFLUENCE OF THE ALLITERATIVE TRADITION ON THE POETRY OF WILLIAiM DUNBAR By N. Lindsay McFadyen December, 1975 Chairman: Richard H, Green Major Department: English Writing in Scotland around the beginning of the sixteenth century, William Dunbar was one of the last poets to work in the tradition of English alliterative verse. The purpose of this dissertation is to investigate his use of that tradition, paying particular attention to his handling of alliteration itself, and his use of traditional alliter- ative formulas. The poems are considered in three groups--the aureate, or high, style, the comic style, and the plain style. In the aureate poems, such as "The Golden Targe," "The Thistle and the Rose," or "Ane Ballat of Our Lady," Dunbar uses alliteration to augment the effect of formal decoration produced by the Latinate diction. In these poems, the alliteration is frequently used as a linking device, and is often patterned to serve as a complement to meaning. Dunbar demonstrates his debt to the alliterative tradition most clearly, however, in the comic poems. He uses the unrhymed alliterative long-line in "The Tretis of the Tua Mariit Wemen and the Wedo," and rhymed alliterative verse in "The Flyting of Dunbar and Kennedy." In the dance poems, "Of a Dance in the Quenis Chalmer" and "The Dance of the Sevin Deidly Synnis," he uses alliterating sounds both to help characterize the dancers, and to create dance- like rhythmic patterns. Dunbar uses alliterative formulas for comic effects by placing tradi- tional formulas into unexpected, and sometimes bizarre, contexts. Since for Dunbar the alliterative tradition is primarily a source of ornamentation, the tradition is least influential in the least deco- rated poems, those of the plain style. Even when alliteration is used frequently in one of these poems, as it is in "The Petition of the Gray Horse, Auld Dunbar," it lacks the careful patterning found in the other styles. The most common use of alliteration in these poems is to con- trast a brief alliterating passage to the simplicity of the poem in which it appears. This technique is used, for example, in "Meditatioun in Wyntir" and "To the King That He War Johne Thomsounis Man." The final chapter is a study of Dunbar's prosody, using Morris Halle's and Samuel J. Keyser's theory of iambic verse, and Paul Kipar- sky's theory of morphophonemic variation in poetry. The purpose of this chapter is two-fold. First, it attempts to demonstrate that in some passages Dunbar uses iambic verse to produce metrical effects reminiscent of the alliterative long-line. Second, the chapter attempts to demon- strate that an adequate theory of prosody must take into account not only, as Halle and Keyser do, metrical complexity, the degree to which a line deviates from the "normal" iambic pattern of unstressed-stressed, but also the linguistic complexity, the deviations from the spoken norm which are permissible in poetry. Linguistic complexity is explained in terms of what Kiparsky calls the "metrical range," that is, the linguistic VI options open to the poet in placing a line of poetry into a metrical form. Dunbar's metrical range includes options permitting him to ignore unstressed vowels in certain environments, and to give some nominal and verbal suffixes syllabic value. In addition, Dunbar has the poetic option of rendering some lexical stresses metrically insignificant, and of placing stress on normally stressless syntactic dependents, such as prepositions and auxiliary verbs. Chairman VI 1. CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION A little more than sixty years after the death of William Dunbar, King James VI turned his attention to the instruction of Scottish poets. One bit of royal advice makes an excellent starting point for this inves- tigation of Dunbar's poetry: "Let all zour verse be Literall , sa far as may be quhatsumeuer kynde they be of, ... By Literall I meane, that the masit pairt of zour lyne, sail rynne vpon a letter." To "rynne vpon a letter" is, for King James, to alliterate. King James's advice clearly implies that a tradition of alliteration had permeated every form of Scottish poetry. The purpose of this dissertation is to examine Dunbar's use of alliteration throughout his work, and to relate his use of this device to the tradition of alliterative poetry. Before considering Dunbar's debt to the alliterative tradition, a brief survey of criticism is in order. Critics have generally found three strands of influence in Dunbar's work- -the fourteenth century southern poetry of Chaucer and Lydgate; French poetry, especially Villon; and finally the native alliterative tradition. The fifteenth century Scottish "Makars" have been traditionally termed "The Scottish Chaucerians. " While Dunbar specifically acknowl- 2 edges his debt to Chaucer in "The Golden Targe" (11. 253-261), this traditional label implies a much greater influence than anyone has been able to prove. William Mackay Mackenzie is certainly right in his sug- gestion that any "Chaucerian" influence on Dunbar is to be found in the general style of all southern poetry: 3 ^ What appeals to Dunbar, however, is Chaucer's treatment of "oure rude langage," out of which he had contrived some- thing that was really literature. In this achievement he associates Gower, not undeservedly, and Lydgate. It is the style of these writers, as we should say, that primarily appeals to him. The nature and extent of this stylistic influence is difficult to define, and John Speirs is disinclined to admit any substantial Chaucerian influ- ence on Dunbar: "To Dunbar Chaucer has become the 'rose of rethoris all'; the phrase is sufficient to awaken doubt as to the substantiality of Dunbar's appreciation of Chaucer. An examination of his poetry reveals that as a poet he is in fact as different from Chaucer as it was possible for another medieval poet to be." Denton Fox echoes Speir's opinion, but continues to point out that despite his differences, Dunbar owed much to Chaucer: First, it seems clear that Dunbar and Chaucer are about as unlike as any two poets can be. Chaucer's poems are typi- cally narrative, philosophical, richly suggestive, and lengthy; Dunbar's poems are just the opposite. Secondly, it seems clear that Dunbar is immensely indebted to Chaucer. His debts are of two kinds, neither of which is very susceptible to measurement. On the technical level, Dunbar's sophisticated metrics, rhetorical devices and diction surely descend, in part, from Chaucer. The question here is not so much of Chaucer inventing new techniques as of his naturalising some of the graces of Continental verse and of his emphasizing, and so strengthening, certain features of the native tradition. One could be precise, and point to certain words and stanzaic forms which Dunbar borrov/ed from Chaucer, or very often from Lydgate, but the more important part of the debt is more intangible: Dunbar's prevailing syllabic metrics, for instance, and his willingness to accept into his poetry rhetorical figures and learned words. Fox's "yes and no" attitude toward Chaucerian influences on Dunbar is unsatisfying, but very sensible. In his tremendous versatility, Dunbar seems to have plundered virtually every stylistic tradition available to him, so that it is difficult to sort out threads of influence, and to prove influence in any particular instance. Fox is also quite correct in another point which is frustrating to anyone attempting to show a poetic influence in Dunbar: the most important influences are likely to be intangible. Dunbar's verbal gift could take another poet's tech- niques and put them to use in poems which seem uniquely "Dunbarian." If a direct link between Chaucer and Dunbar is difficult to prove, another approach is to find an intermediary. Pierrepont H. Nichols sug- gests that the most direct influence on Dunbar was not Chaucer, but Lyd- gate, and that Dunbar might more properly be called "a Scottish Lydgatian. Nichols points out that both Dunbar and Lydgate wrote a number of moral didactic poems, while Chaucer produced only one, and in examining the moral poems of Lydgate and Dunbar, concludes that Dunbar's poems "were strongly influenced by the vast array of Lydgate' s sententious moral verse.
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