Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- List of Abbreviations
- Standard editions and conventions
- Introduction
- 1 ‘[T]o whom ought to be gyuen laude and presynge’: Ideas of authorship in print, at court, and in the dream vision
- 2 John Skelton, William Dunbar, and authorial self-promotion at court
- 3 ‘Obscure allegory’ and reading ‘by true experyence’ in the dream visions of Stephen Hawes
- 4 ‘Quod the compilar Gawin D’: Gavin Douglas’s implied authorship
- Conclusion
- Bibliography
- Index
1 - ‘[T]o whom ought to be gyuen laude and presynge’: Ideas of authorship in print, at court, and in the dream vision
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 May 2024
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- List of Abbreviations
- Standard editions and conventions
- Introduction
- 1 ‘[T]o whom ought to be gyuen laude and presynge’: Ideas of authorship in print, at court, and in the dream vision
- 2 John Skelton, William Dunbar, and authorial self-promotion at court
- 3 ‘Obscure allegory’ and reading ‘by true experyence’ in the dream visions of Stephen Hawes
- 4 ‘Quod the compilar Gawin D’: Gavin Douglas’s implied authorship
- Conclusion
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
William Caxton's literary criticism offers an unusually direct, if not always entirely ingenuous, account of ideas of authorship during the final decades of the fifteenth century. The epilogue to Caxton's 1478 edition of Chaucer's Boece (STC 3199, fols 93r–94v) and the proem to his 1483 second edition of The Canterbury Tales (STC 5083, sig. A2r–v) are regularly quoted as evidence of changing attitudes towards Chaucer at the end of the English ‘medieval’ period and the inception of a ‘modern’ idea of English literary history. Less frequently discussed, but demonstrating the plasticity of the concept of authorship in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, is the ending and epilogue to Caxton's 1483 edition of The House of Fame (STC 5087, sig. D4r).
Lyke as ye haue herd me endyte Caxton's text breaks off at line 2094, part-way through the description of the Whirling Wicker. For Chaucer's account of the diverse ‘tydynges’ that multiply within, and the arrival of the enigmatic ‘man of greet auctoritee’ with which Fame ends, Caxton substitutes the following ending and epilogue:
And wyth the noyse of them wo Caxton
I Sodeynly awoke anon tho
And remembryd what I had seen
And how hye and ferre I had been
In my ghoost / and had grete wonder
Of that the god of thonder
Had lete me knowen / and began to wryte
Wherfor to studye and rede alway
I purpose to doo day by day
Thus in dremyng and in game
Endeth thys lytyl book of Fame
Explicit
I fynde nomore of this werke to fore sayd / For as fer as I can
vnderstonde / This noble man Gefferey Chaucer fynysshyd at the
sayd conclusion of the metyng of lesyng and sothsawe / where
as yet they ben chekked and maye not departe / whyche werke as
me semeth is craftyly made / and dygne to be wreton and knowen /
For he towchyth in it ryght grete wysedom & subtyll vnderston
dynge / And so in alle hys werkys he excellyth in myn oppyny
on alle other wryters in our Englyssh / For he wrytteth no voy
de wordes / but alle hys mater is ful of hye and quycke senten
ce / to whom ought to be gyuen laude and preysynge for hys no
ble makyng and wrytyng / For of hym alle other haue borowed
- Type
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- Information
- Ideas of Authorship in the English and Scottish Dream VisionSkelton, Dunbar, Hawes, Douglas, pp. 9 - 34Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2024