January 28, 2006

Robert J. Meyer-Lee, "Laureates and Beggars in Fifteenth-Century English Poetry: The Case of George Ashby," Speculum 79.3 (July 2004): 688-726.

Just as Petrarch fashioned himself heir to Virgil upon receiving the laureate thus elevating himself conceptually to the position of equal to political rulers within the realm of literature (like a ruler is to politics, the laureate is to poetry), early modern British poets tried to do likewise. George Ashby utilized Gower, Chaucer and Lydgate (and not Hoccleve who Ashby repeatedly riffs off of) to legitimize his position and that of his patron Prince Edward's claim to the throne.

Maisters Gower, Chaucer & Lydgate,
Primier poets of this nacion,
Embelysshing oure englisshe tendure algate,
Firste finders to oure consolacion
Off freshe, douce englisshe and formacion
Of newe balades, not vsed before,
By whome we all may haue lernying and love.

Meyer-Lee offers a good explaination of the laureate poetics of the time and its inability "to break loose from the historical circumstances that engender it" (726).