Court politics and culture : their relationship to English and Scottish court literature, 1500-1540

Robinson, Jon (2005) Court politics and culture : their relationship to English and Scottish court literature, 1500-1540. Doctoral thesis, University of Northumbria at Newcastle.

Preview

PDF (PhD thesis) 422446.pdf - Accepted Version Download (18MB) | Preview

Abstract

This thesis examines the ways in which Scottish and English court literature of the early sixteenth century existed within a complex system of entertainment, education, self-fashioning, dissimulation, propaganda and patronage that
circumscribed the production and initial performance of court poetry and drama. Court literature was never autotelic and within the critical idiom of performative
pragmatics selected works are placed under close critical scrutiny to explore the symbiotic relationship that existed between court literature and important sociopolitical,
economic and national contexts of 1500-1540.
The first two chapters discuss the pervasive influence of patronage upon court literature through an analysis of the panegyric verse that surrounded the coronation of Henry VIII. The rhetorical strategies adopted by courtiers within
their literary works, however, differed, depending on whether the writer was, at the time of writing the verse or drama, excluded or included from the environs of the court. The different, often elaborate rhetorical strategies are, through close readings of selected verse, delineated and discussed in chapter three on David Lyndsay and chapter four on Thomas Wyatt and Thomas Elyot.
Wyatt's integrity, his honest persona is, however, in chapter five, shown to have been a facade deliberately and adroitly crafted by the poet that allowed him to survive and flourish within a world of political intrigue at the Henrician court. Literature at times could be appropriated by the sovereign and specifically crafted on his behalf to further national and personal political objectives. The possibilities of this appropriation are explored in the final chapter through a scholarly informed imaginative analysis of the works of Buchanan, Dunbar and Wyatt.

Actions (login required)

View Item

Downloads