Poets and Power from Chaucer to Wyatt

Robert J. Meyer-Lee is Assistant Professor of English at Goshen College.

In the early fifteenth century, English poets responded to a changed climate of patronage, instituted by Henry IV and successor monarchs, by inventing a new tradition of public and elite poetry. Following Chaucer and others, Hoccleve and Lydgate brought to English verse a new style and subject matter to write about their King, nation, and themselves, and their innovations influenced a continuous line of poets running through and beyond Wyatt. A crucial aspect of this new tradition is its development of ideas and practices associated with the role of poet laureate. Robert J. Meyer-Lee examines the nature and significance of this tradition as it develops from the fourteenth century to Tudor times, tracing its evolution from one author to the next. This study illuminates the relationships between poets and political power and makes plain the tremendous impact this verse has had on the shape of English literary culture.

Acknowledgements; Notes on citations; Introduction: laureates and beggars; Part I. Backgrounds: 1. Laureate poetics; Part II. The First Lancastrian Poets: 2. John Lydgate: the invention of the English laureate; 3. Thomas Hoccleve: beggar laureate; Part III. From Lancaster to Early Tudor: 4. Lydgateanism; 5. The trace of Lydgate: Stephen Hawes, Alexander Barclay, and John Skelton; Epilogue: Sir Thomas Wyatt: anti-laureate; Notes; Works cited; Index.