Seven Come Eleven: Gambling for the Laurel in 'The Bowge of Courte'

Abstract

Of the thirty-seven works by John Skelton that are contained in the most recent scholarly edition, twenty-one announce that 'Skelton laureate' is the author.1 One of these poems, Calliope, explicitly concerns Skelton's receiving, or appropriating, the laurel that denotes poetic supremacy. Another, Garlande or Chapelet of Laurell, details with comically outrageous bravado Skelton's elevation to the pantheon of famous poets. Six more works assert Skelton's laureateship either as part of the title or in some prefatory matter. Yet another poem, a relentlessly insulting Latin epitaph on one Adam Uddersale, notes that Skelton is the author but does not mention his laurels, only that he is the Rector at Diss. Only nine works, therefore, are allowed by Skelton (or his early printers) into the world without reference to his name or to the wreath upon his brow.2 One of this minority of uninscribed works is The Bowge of Courte, a poem that, I will argue, explores through its timid protagonist, Drede, the same poetic, psychological, and historical dilemma that besets the bolder, self-advertising 'Skelton laureate'. In overt contrast to his depiction of Drede, Skelton often makes declarations about his accomplished craft, as in these lines from Phyllyp Sparowe: 'Per me laurigerum I Britanum Skeltonida vatem I Hec cecinisse licet I Ficta sub imagine texta' (11. 834-37),3 or in A Replycacion, where the antagonists of the moment, 'certayne yong scolers', are asked the evidently unanswerable question 'Why fall ye at debate I With Skelton laureate?' (11. 300-o0). Based on the abundance of such passages, and on the satirically abusive voices in