Transitions: After the Fifteenth Century

Abstract

AbstractThis chapter considers the works of poets Gavin Douglas, Alexander Barclay, Stephen Hawes, and Robert Copland, placing them in the context of the political, cultural, religious, and technological changes of the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. It suggests that their works witness a variety of experiments with poetic form and voice in response to these changes. It argues that each engages with overlapping questions about how to formulate the position of the poet at court, the position of the poet in the text, and the potential of print to reshape the way the poet envisages both his work as writer and the physical manifestations of that work. It further demonstrates that their shared vernacular poetic heritage is central to their thinking about these questions.