History of English Literature from "Beowulf" to SwinburneLang, Andrew
History
History of English Literature from "Beowulf" to Swinburne
Lang, Andrew
English literature -- History and criticism
Hawes is all for allegory and moral instruction in his long poem,
misleadingly entitled "The Passetyme of Pleasure". All the old formulæ
of the Romance of the Rose are retained, and the castles of Rhetoric,
Logic, and the whole curriculum of Learning are not much more joyous
than the den of Bunyan's Giant Despair. Even combats with seven-headed
monsters fail to excite pity and terror, for Hawes has seen, in a work
of art, his own future, and we know beforehand that Grand Amour married
La Bel Pucell.
Hawes was born about 1475, was over-educated at Oxford, and was
Groom of the Chamber to Henry VII. He made the words of a ballet
for the Court in 1506 (ten shillings) and, for Henry VIII. (1521)
a play, now lost, (£6 13s. 4 d.). He also wrote "The Example of
Virtue," and several poems, some of which have not been found in
print or manuscript. The "Passetyme of Pleasure" is of 1506. It is
in rhyme royal, with more or less humorous interludes concerning the
facetious Godfrey Gobelive, a dwarf who tells tales against women, in
rhyming "heroic" couplets. "The Example of Virtue," another moral and
allegorical poem, is in the same measures. Spenser may have known the
works of Hawes, there are coincidences in the allegorical details of
both which can scarcely be all accidental. Hawes, in a sense, would
"have raised the Table Round again," if he could I He knew Malory's
great prose work, the "Morte d'Arthur," and would fain have restored
ideal chivalry.
But chivalry died at the burning of Jeanne d'Arc, under the eyes of
"the Father of Courtesy," the Earl of Warwick. The Flower of Chivalry
was sacrificed like Odin, "herself to herself" (1431).
Hawes was a chaotic versifier: it is not easy to guess how he scanned
many of his own lines. In the "Passetyme" the words of the hero's
epitaph are probably a versified proverb,
For though the day be never so longe,
At last the belles ringeth to evensonge.
Long were the poems, and long the day of the followers of Chaucer. Now
for its even song the bells were rung.
CHAPTER XII.
LATE MEDIAEVAL PROSE.
As far as literature is concerned the poetry of the period which we
have been considering is infinitely more important than the prose.
For most prosaic purposes, Englishmen still wrote in Latin: Richard
Rolle, that eccentric hermit, and Wyclif, the premature Reformer, were
even more prolific in Latin than in English. Prose was used in writing
of science, as in Chaucer's treatise concerning the Astrolabe; for
translation out of Latin, as in Chaucer's translation of Boëthius,
and Trevisa's rendering of Higden's chronicles; in sermons, and by
Wyclif and his followers for their tracts against the rich; against the
Friars; against the endowments of the Church (constantly threatened in
Parliament); and against the Catholic doctrine of the Eucharist; and
for their translations from the Latin Bible.
Wyclif.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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