An Explorative Explication of John Skelton’s Depiction of Women
Through use of Narrative Action, Punctuation, Enjambment, and other Formal Elements of Skeltonics, in his poems – “The Tunning of Elinor Rumming” and “The Book of Philip Sparrow”
***Originally submitted 2 March 2020 to Dr Jim Ellis, in part for credit, for ENGL 410: Renaissance Literature and Culture I at the University of Calgary**
***Not only is this essay subject to copyright, but any unauthorized use without citation is considered academic misconduct (plagiarism). You are welcome to consult this paper if you provide the appropriate citation(s)***
Women, as with everything else in 16th century Europe, were defined by a combination of their place on the Great Chain of Being and the scripture of the Holy Bible. This, in conjunction with the revitalization of humanist ideals – which reemphasized the ‘natural order’ of being as a result of scientific inquiry and the “harmonization” of Platonic ideals with Christian beliefs – led to a strict vision of female roles in the period. This ultimately manifested with women being relegated to their traditional role – responsible for housekeeping and childcare – regardless of class. Consistently in the early modern period, women seemingly encountered limited opportunities at every level of society, and in fact the reproductive role of women was seen as increasingly important higher up the social scale due to the need for heirs. This is particularly evidenced in the narrative of “The Book of Philip Sparrow”, and the lighter tone it employs. In contrast, the more misogynistic tone of the “Tunning of Elinor Rumming” seemingly alludes to the Christian belief of matriarchal and female responsibility for expulsion from Eden, for falling from God’s grace: and generally, paints women as ‘submissive’ to the desires of their animal soul, relative to the ‘enlightened philosophical sensibilities of man’. Skelton formalizes these ideas by complimenting his narrative action with specific authorial choices – observed primarily through his narrative action and plot, use of punctuation, enjambment, and other formal elements throughout both poems. Despite both poems employing the same ‘Skeltonic DNA’, there is a nuance in reading how gender roles are depicted in these poems – as innocent, pure, and just in “The Book of Philip Sparrow”, and as misogynistic, impulsive, crude, and sinful in “The Tunning of Elinor Rumming.”
According to Brogan’s Princeton Handbook of Poetic Terms – which itself is drawn from The Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics – “Skeltonic poems are distinguished by their short lines and long stretches of monorhyme, called leashes. End rhymes are not crossed. Lines have between two and five stresses, although three-stress lines occur most frequently. Alliteration abounds [… including Latin and French phrases occasionally as well]. Rhyme, rather than meaning, seems to drive the poems forward” (324). Such aforementioned features are evident in both works – which gives rise to the question: which characteristics remain that allow for such a different tone and affect between the two poems?
Upon a first reading, both poems seem to offer similar tonality as there is unmistakable humour in Skelton’s work. In “The Book of Philip Sparrow”, the young Jane Scrope is figured as a rather nonchalantly innocent character, who’s unmistakable childish antics draws both instinctual fawning and humour. Of course, Skelton concludes by elaborating on Scope’s emerging sexuality and his lustful desire towards her – something that was seen as an homage to the tradition of Philip Sydney’s “Sonnet to a Sparrow”. Yet, the jesting nature in which this is presented seemingly diminishes the explicit boldness of Skelton’s desire. Contrastingly, “The Tunning of Elinor Rumming” finds its humour in the ‘absurd’ and wild escapades of the titular character and her accompanying partygoers. This seemingly draws its humour from the satirical and parody of women’s traditional gender roles and suggests that women may perhaps be susceptible to the desires of their animal souls – a misogynistic albeit ‘humorous’ – at least humorous for the 16th century male.
These narrative ideas are underscored with the formal elements Skelton employs. “The Book of Philip Sparrow” utilizes longer line lengths with ‘couplet-like’ rhymes – or at least, a tumbling rhyme that does not tumble for an entire stanza as “The Tunning of Elinor Rumming” is prone to. Thus, with the shorter line lengths and strong, near perfect and continual tumbling rhymes, “The Tunning of Elinor Rumming” feels much more ‘unhinged’. Complimented by the context afforded of the period, Elinor is then figured as unhinged and tumbling, a ‘disgraceful’ lady, ‘sinful’, and ‘animalistic’ – as it were. The more Latinate and polysyllabic diction employed in “The Book of Philip Sparrow” also affords the poem a more ‘proper’ feel, reading as a poem that is structured and with ‘order’. Such diction also allows for the reader to feel ‘above’ and more mature than Scrope’s character as well – quite literally more experience and responsible compared to the figured child. This is furthered by the allusion or parody of mass, lending some – even if subconscious and borrowed – authority from the Church. The punctuation that frames, controls, and marks each line also allows for a more restrained feel – particularly in rhythm – something that the enjambment of “The Tunning of Elinor Rumming” works contrary to.
Further, “The Tunning of Elinor Rumming” has the reader is drawn along on this tumbling journey, wherein they join in on this ‘grotesque’ display of pleasure and desire. The reader then – particularly a 16th century one – is likely to be disturbed as the women of the household descend into a drunken stupor, ridding themselves of all possessions of value that ‘good women’ must protect and losing all ‘value’ as homemakers. Ultimately this brings the reader to feel a ‘second-hand’ shame for the unscrupulous and unabashed women of the poem.
These feelings are also re-affirmed by the larger structure of each poem. While “The Book of Philip Sparrow” is shorter, focussed, and controlled within the stanzas the poem is framed in. Meanwhile, “The Tunning of Elinor Rumming” is broken into several verse chapters, continues on in significant length, and mirrors the consumptive desire that these women experience – as if refusing to cease. The feet used by Skelton here also mirrors Anglo-Saxon poetry, and thus harkens to a ‘unrefined’ ad ‘uncivilized’ comtitatus. All of which, Skelton concludes by figuring Philip Sparrow as Scrope’s lover – and despite his explicit and unapologetic lust for the young girl, hops around her body while maintaining his innocence. Skelton describes how Philip Sparrow recognizes the inappropriate situation, and thus Skelton sets these expectations only to subvert them. The implication here then, being that man, or even animal, is capable of such restraint whereas women are not.
There is seemingly other literary evidence for this as well, as discussed in Burrow and Munro’s writings. Burrow remarks that, “Skelton addresses Jane Scrope both as ‘sobre, demure Dyane’ and as ‘Dame Venus of all pleasure’, two contrasting names which in this case, however, match the archly equivocal treatment of young Jane throughout the poem” (144). Burrow argues that such pronominations are utilized to “praise or censure” (143). While the aforementioned lines are used to praise Scrope, Rumming is described with features unbefitting of a 16th century lady, eventually compared to the devil, and implied to be of his lineage in “Fit the Seventh”. Thus, her corrupting of the prim, proper, and ‘saintly noble’ lady figures and pro-nominates Elinor as the serpent in Eden – alluding to, and blaming women, for the ‘inability to control the primitive urges of the animal soul’. In Burrow words, Skelton censures Elinor’s character – as her character cannot ‘speak’ for itself, but instead is cast in the shadow of the devil and the allusion to Satan’s antics in Eden. Likewise, the use of Venus and Dyane override Scrope’s own character, albeit to her benefit. Burrow argues this is a common feature of classical texts, and notes Chaucer, Gower, and Skelton all paying tribute to this rhetorical tradition to great effect.
Munro weighs in further, discussing the lasting impact of Skeltonics and the Skeltonic verse on English literary tradition, particularly in cultural critique and literary discourse. Evidently Burrow establishes Skelton himself derived this technique from classical rhetoric, and Munro further highlights how the Skeltonic verse is utilized in key moments in King Lear and other canonical works. She states, “C.S. Lewis argues, in a resonant phrase, in satiric works such as Colin Clout and Why Come Ye Not to Court? “Skelton has ceased to be a man and become a mob: we hear thousands of him murmuring and finally thundering at the gates of Hampton Court” (140). The writer’s individual voice can become the voice of a mul- titude, in spite of – or, maybe, because of – its idiosyncrasies, which leave it open to imitation and redeployment” (341). It is based on this analysis and precedence that provides credence to the reading of the ‘gendering’ of Skelton’s poems – and analyzing them for how the two interpret both gender roles, the role of women, and overall, the Great Chain of Being and ‘natural order’ of all life – as God intended it. For these reasons, I argue that the nuances found within these poems should be read as such and do offer invaluable insight into the ‘gendering’ of these works and their narratives.
From the 16th century, and throughout the Early Modern Period, there is a significant emphasis on the supposed ‘natural’ order of being. Using biblical precedence in Genesis, combined with the established Great Chain of Being allowed for the relegation of women to traditional gender roles in domestic life. These factors combined with the renaissance of humanist and Greek philosophical ideals allowed for pseudo-scientific and ‘rational’ justifications for these beliefs. It is thus, that through the narrative of “The Book of Philip Sparrow” and the “Tunning of Elinor Rumming”, Skelton remarks on the gendering of male and female roles, tendencies, and actions. Skelton reinforces these messages through his narrative action and plot, use of punctuation, enjambment, and other formal elements throughout both poems. It remains clear Skelton unsurprisingly falls in line with his fellow 16th century man in his opinion and value of women. All that remains for scholars in the 21st century and beyond, is to do as Nietzsche forewarns: to stare at the proverbial misogynistic ‘abyss’ until it stares back at us – and to confront whatever we may yet find.
Works Cited
Black, Joseph and Prescott, Anne Lake. “The Broadview Anthology of British Literature Volume 2: The Renaissance and the Early Seventeenth Century – Third Edition.” Edited by Joseph Black, Leonard Connolly, Kate Flint. Isobel Grundy, Don LePan. Roy Liuzza, Jerome J. McGann, Anne Lake Prescott, Barry V. Qualls, and Claire Waters. Broadview Press, vol 2, no. 3, 14 March 2016, pp. XXXV-11.
Burrow, John. “‘Pronomination’ in the Poetry of Chaucer, Gower, and Skelton.” Medium Ævum, vol. 87, no. 1, 2018, pp. 142-150. MLA International Bibliography, ISSN: 0025-8385,
Brogan, T. V. F. The Princeton Handbook of Poetic Terms. Edited by ALEX PREMINGER et al., Princeton University Press, 1986. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt7zv2s9.
Munro, Lucy. “Skeltonics: Jonson, Shakespeare, the Literary Past and Imagined Futures.” Shakespeare Journal, vol. 12, no. 4, 2016, pp. 338–350. Routeledge: Taylor and Francis Group, DOI: 10.1080/17450918.2016.1208671.
