The Columbia History of British Poetry by Carl Woodring, James Shapiro Page B

and Justice respond with vernacular irritation and Langlandian bad temper, not courtly rhetoric: "Hold thi tonge, Mercy"; "What ravestow?" quod Rightwisnesse; "or thow art right dronke!'' (B.xviii.187). All four sisters then join the audience of the poem to witness Christ's descent into Hell, and his own presentation of the arguments to a diabolic audience. The sisters' dance of reconciliation, the meeting of opposed extremes, is the heart of Langland's experience of God; the poem leads up to and away from precisely this point. In the Court , the story of redemption is instead the essential prologue to the rest of the poem which consists of a detailed and very old-fashioned account of the world of learning: first the dreamer is led by Sapience through the natural world where he sees an orderly array of precious stones, animals, trees, and plants, all characterized by their true properties and essential created natures, drawn from the best encyclopedias; then the dreamer arrives at the castle of Sapience, and is shown all human knowledge summed up in the courtyards of Science, Intelligence and Sapience herself, whose court contains the Seven Liberal Arts, the medieval academic curriculum. It is clear that the poet intended to go on to expound the seven major virtues (four cardinal and three theological) and possibly philosophy, but the poem breaks off abruptly. The poet presents all human knowledge and learning as flowing from a divine pattern; the "wyldernes" of this world conceals it, but a diligent seeker can recover it by proper study. The author even recommends suitable books and authors within the poem.
The Court of Sapience is the quintessential medieval learned poem. The poet works with assurance within an assured universe between the poles of an incomprehensible God, who may yet be glimpsed through revelation and his works, and the wilderness of sin, which may yet be

 

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escaped through diligence and contemplation. He is quite clear of the limitations of his work: allegory presents a certain truth, but is distanced from foolhardy assertion; redemption is like this, but this is only a story. The truth of fiction is here nicely indicated. When the poet gets to the virtue of faith, he repeats the creed for his readers, but points out that the higher mysteries of religion "in Englysshe ought not reherced be." Even the verse is assured beyond the usual competence of the fifteenth century: the Court is well written, with considerable metrical grace; it may only be a fragment, but it is an exceptionally well-built one.
Two other "learned poets," Stephen Hawes and John Skelton, were both members of the court of Henry VII. Skelton was probably the elder of the two and lived longer: he died in 1529. Although Hawes and Skelton are very different, they have some common preoccupations, especially in their concerns with the poet's function. They are both working after the invention of printing: a circumstance that is to have enormous consequences for a literary tradition. Both are learned poets, and both manifest slight signs of the advent of the Renaissance, chiefly with regard to what may be called the inspirational view of poetry.
Five works by Hawes survive, all only in printed copies. Three of them are allegories; the other two are a reproachful address by Christ to those who swear and a conventional celebration of the coronation of Henry VIII. The allegories look back explicitly to Chaucer and Lydgate, but owe an obvious debt to the Court of Sapience , which Hawes attributed to Lydgate.
In comparison with Skelton, Hawes is timid and modest. He declares that all he wants to do is to follow the steps of Lydgate, and he deplores any more frivolous view of poetry. His first known poem, The Example of Vertu (1503-1504), is a dream vision in which the narrator, Youth, is led by Lady Dyscrecyon to a ship; crosses the water of vainglory to an island ruled by Nature, Fortune, Hardynes, and Wysedom; witnesses a dispute amongst