Thanks, Bryan, very much for this message. I thought your observation
on the ambiguity of the title is interesting. I have been finding
echoes of it in what's now sometimes called Germania Latina. I can't
quite get a focus of Elizabeth's possible take on a "poeta regius,"
which is why I put the question up on the Spenser list.
Best,
Lee
On Feb 7, 2004, at 7:59 PM, Bryan John Lowrance wrote:
> Lee,
>
> I can’t speak for continental courts during the period, but your poet
> certainly had precedent in the Tudor tradition. Several continental
> poets
> petitioned both Henry VII and Henry VIII for patronage. A French monk
> named Bernard André held a prominent place at the court of Henry VII,
> and
> was actually officially designated poet laureate by Henry (a title of
> some
> ambiguity: it could signify a rhetorical degree from a major
> university,
> or have the meaning more familiar to us – Skelton, I think,
> demonstrates
> an anxiety over this movement that propels his recurrent preoccupation
> with the laureate title). Other continental writers and scholars who
> presented themselves and their work to the English court under the
> earlier
> Tudors include Filippo Alberici and Pietro Carmeliano. David Carlson
> has
> a very useful and interesting study of this called English Humanist
> Books,
> Writers and Patrons, Manuscript and Print, 1475-1525. I hope such
> historical antecedents are of some help.
>
> Best,
>
> Bryan Lowrance.
>
|