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SKELTON’S TRIUMPH: THE GARLAND OF LAUREL AND LITERARY FAME
SKELTON’S TRIUMPH:
THE GARLAND OF LAUREL AND LITERARY FAME
Skelton’s Garland of Laurel has received less critical consideration and
praise than his other major works. r Yet the poem deserves attention
because it evaluates, in a lively and imaginative manner, Skelton’s poetic
career and the meaning of literary fame.* Like Chaucer in the HoWe of
Fame, to which the Garland is indebted, Skehon takes a skeptical view of
Fame and her favors; but unlike his master, he finally celebrates his own
apotheosis with the spirit of a Renaissance poet.
The Garfand, as A. C. Spearing has shown, belongs to a tradition of
medieval dream-poetry.3 Skelton finds himself alone in the Forest of
Galtres near Sheriff Hutton castle where he serves as the “clerke” of the
Countess of Surrey. Half-drunk and soaked in mire, he falls asleep and
dreams he sees a wondrously decorated pavilion where a debate ensues
between Pallas, the goddess of wisdom, and the Queen of Fame concerning
the merits of his literary reputation. The question of Skelton’s success at the
court of Fame is not settled, however, until the end of the poem when the
poets laureate judge his poetic “recorde” -in this case a long bibliography
- and enthusiastically receive him into their illustrious company. In
the meantime, Skelton meets the famous poets, including England’s own
Chaucer, Gower, and Lydgate; witnesses the treacherous activities that go
on at the court of Fame; visits the garden of the Muses accompanied by
Fame’s registrar, Occupation; and is welcomed into the household of the
Countess of Surrey. After Skelton’s bibliography is read before the laureate
senate, the poets let out a tremendous cry of triumph that wakes Skehon
from his dream, and the poem closes with two envoys.
That Skelton should write a self-congratulatory poem about his own
laureation seems fitting considering that the degree of poet laureate was
conferred upon him by the three universities of Oxford (1488), Louvian
(1492) and Cambridge (1492-3). In Skelton’s day, poet laureate could
refer to a person who had been given a university degree in grammar,
rhetoric, and versification, or to one who should have been awarded the
degree, such as any of the classical, continental, and English writers who
appear in the Garland and make up the laureate senate.4 Skelton no doubt
considered his laureation a great honor, and the enthusiastic reception he
receives at the end of the Garland might we1 recall an actual ceremony:
At kyng to me myn habyte gave:
At Oxforth, the universyte,
Avaunsid I was to that degre;
By hole consent of theyr senate.
I was made poete lawreate.5
The poet’s self-dramatization in the Garland vacillates between notes of
Neophilologus 68 (1984) 61 l-622