Scottish Chaucerian - William Dunbar

Scottish Chaucerian,William Dunbar,The Freiries of Berwick,The Goldyn Targe,The Lament for the Makaris,

Scottish Chaucerian -  William Dunbar

William Dunbar is generally given the highest position among the Scottish Chaucerians. Of his personal history, only a few facts are known. Though originally a Franciscan, he became, in course of time, the poet-laureate of the Scottish King's court.

William Dunbar, as a poet, is definitely much more prolific and proficient than James I or Henryson. The strength of the Chaucerian tradition in Scottish poetry is evident more enough in him. About a hundred of his poems are extant, and they are definitely original in the diversity of subjects and the mastery of technique. In fact, Dunbar's literary fertility bears no resemblance to Lydgate's prolixity. After all, his poetry reveals him as an artist, even a great artist, among the Scottish Chauceriaris. Despite his limited scope, caused by the medieval framework of his works, he displays a commendable literary sense in his conception of the theme and command over technique.

Dunbar's works include The Goldyn Targe, The Thrissil and the Rois, The Freiries of Berwick, Tidings from the Session, The Dance of Sevin Deidlie Synnis, Flyting of Dunbar and Kennedie, The Lament for the Makaris, and so on. These are mainly allegorical, although some of them have some occasional episodes as the motif.

Of Dunbar's poem, The Goldyn Targe has a special claim as a highly allegorical work. The poem is patterned in the conventional medieval dream poem. The allegorical content is the poet's vain effort to resist the arrows of beauty by means of the shield of gold of reason. The allegory is plain and didacticism is not intense. The Thrissil and the Rois is also a dream-poem that represents the marriage of James IV and Margaret Tudor, daughter of the English King Henry VII. The poem serves to symbolize the union of England and Scotland in that marriage. The poem has a dramatic potency and well bears out the poet's technical mastery. The Dance of the Sevin Deidlie Synnis has something fantastic in which different sins are represented to whirl in a Satanic dance, but it well bears out his realism and literary skill to suit the verse to the sense.

Dunbar is found to follow Chaucer's simple narrative manner in The Freiries of Berwick, dealing with the old theme of a false wife, caught in her own wiles. The Tretis of the Tua Mariit Wemen and the Wedo, another work from him, echoes Chaucer's The Wife of Bath, with greater freedom. The lines here are quite antique and alliterative. What is, however, remarkable here is the consciously satiric note, expressed with much craftsmanship. Dunbar's satirical power is also marked in The Tidings from The session, in which an attack is made on the function of law courts. In his Flyting of Dunbar and Kennedie, Dunbar reveals his sense of wit, although there is much scurrility in it. The Lament for the Makaris, however, is a more serious poem, that reflects on the transitoriness of human efforts and attainments. In his Satire on Edinburgh, another satirical work, he exposes and denounces the filthy condition of the capital.

Among the Scottish poets of the time, Dunbar is definitely outstanding. He shows much of Chaucerian traits in him in his verse narrative, sense of wit and humor, and art of versification. He is often characterized as the Scottish Chaucer, and this is indicative of his success in imitating and following the great English master.