Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- 1 Homo Viator: Guillaume de Deguileville's Pèlerinage de vie humaine
- 2 Chivalric Transformations in Fifteenth-Century France
- 3 Stephen Hawes: The Secularised Quest
- 4 Stephen Bateman: The Apocalyptic Quest
- 5 William Goodyear: Everyman's Quest
- 6 Lewes Lewkenor: The Humanist Quest
- 7 Edmund Spenser: The Poetic Quest
- Coda: Reflections on the Unfinished Quest
- Bibliography
- Index
3 - Stephen Hawes: The Secularised Quest
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 February 2013
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- 1 Homo Viator: Guillaume de Deguileville's Pèlerinage de vie humaine
- 2 Chivalric Transformations in Fifteenth-Century France
- 3 Stephen Hawes: The Secularised Quest
- 4 Stephen Bateman: The Apocalyptic Quest
- 5 William Goodyear: Everyman's Quest
- 6 Lewes Lewkenor: The Humanist Quest
- 7 Edmund Spenser: The Poetic Quest
- Coda: Reflections on the Unfinished Quest
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Stephen Hawes's three major works all derive from the fundamental pattern of Deguileville's Vie, but substantially alter the terms of the allegorical journey's significance. Even if it is impossible to establish Hawes's debt to Deguileville definitively, circumstances weigh heavily in favour of Hawes's direct knowledge of the Vie in particular, and possibly the Âme. It was demonstrated in Chapter 1 that Deguileville's works enjoyed a marked popularity within Henry VII's court: Vérard's 1499 print of the prose Vie, illuminated by hand, must have entered the Royal Library in the same year or soon after that, and the Royal Library also held a copy of Jean Gallopes's prose reworking of Âme that must have been acquired between 1499 and 1506. Hawes's fellow poet and rival John Skelton claims to have translated the Vie himself, presumably during the period of about 1496–1501. Hawes, as groom of the chamber of Henry VII, was certainly in a privileged position to obtain access to the works in the Royal Library, which also held a chivalric miscellany prepared for Edward IV containing, among other items, the sole surviving copy of Jean de Courcy's Chemin de vaillance studied in Chapter 2. The volume, a lavish Flemish production, also contains copies of Christine de Pizan's Epistre Othéa la déesse à hector, and a French translation of Raymond Llull's Livre de l'ordre de chevalerie. All of these works may have evoked Hawes's interest, particularly within the context of the dominant neo-chivalric Burgundian fashion at Henry's court.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Allegorical Quests from Deguileville to Spenser , pp. 74 - 96Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2012