William Dunbar
born
1460/65, Scotland
died before 1530
Middle Scots poet attached to the court of James
IV who was the dominant figure among the
Scottish Chaucerians (see makar) in the golden
age of Scottish poetry.
He was probably of the family of the earls of
Dunbar and March and may have received an M.A.
degree from St. Andrews in 1479. It is believed
that he was a Franciscan novice and travelled to
England and France in the King’s service. In
1501 he was certainly in England, probably in
connection with the arrangements for the
marriage of James IV and Margaret Tudor, which
took place in 1503. In 1500 he was granted a
pension of £10 by the King. By 1504 he was in
priest’s orders, and in 1510 he received, as a
mark of royal esteem, a pension of £80. In 1511
he accompanied the Queen to Aberdeen and
celebrated in the verse “Blyth Aberdeen” the
entertainments provided by that city. After the
King’s death at the Battle of Flodden (1513), he
evidently received the benefice for which he had
so often asked in verse, as there is no record
of his pension after 1513.
With few
exceptions the more than 100 poems attributed to
Dunbar are short and occasional, written out of
personal moods or events at court. They range
from the grossest satire to hymns of religious
exaltation. Of his longer works, some are
courtly Chaucerian pieces like the dream
allegory The Goldyn Targe, which wears its
allegory very lightly and charms with
descriptive imagery. The Thrissill and the Rois
is a nuptial song celebrating the marriage of
James IV and Margaret Tudor.
In a
quite different vein, the alliterative Flyting
of Dunbar and Kennedie is a virtuoso
demonstration of personal abuse directed against
his professional rival Walter Kennedy, who is,
incidentally, mentioned with affection in The
Lament for the Makaris, Dunbar’s reminiscence of
dead poets. Dunbar’s most celebrated and
shocking satire is the alliterative Tretis of
the tua mariit Wemen and the Wedo (“Treatise of
the Two Married Women and the Widow”).
Dunbar’s
versatility was astonishing. He was at ease in
hymn and satire, morality and obscene comedy,
panegyric and begging complaint, elegy and
lampoon. His poetic vocabulary ranged through
several levels, and he moved freely from one to
another for satiric effect. He wrote with
uncommon frankness and wit, manipulating old
themes and forms with imagination and
originality. Like other Scots poets after
him—notably Robert Burns—he was a vigorously
creative traditionalist. In artistry and range,
though not in humanity, he was the finest of
Scotland’s poets.
