ENG LYRIC POETRY.pdf - STIBA Malang

PATRIOTIC AND POPULAR POETS
immediately preceding James’s succession, Drayton had received considerable
recognition for the publication of his Heroical Epistles (modeled loosely on
Ovid’s Heroides), a collection of grandly imagined dramatic monologues
delivered by English nobility from the past that ran through five editions
between 1597 and 1602. If nothing else—and echoes from “Matilda” were soon
to be heard in contemporary works like Aemilia Lanyer’s Salve Deus Rex
Judaeorum (1611)—the popularity Drayton won from the publication inspired
him to assume the more boldly Spenserian mantle of the prophet-poet in The
Owle; written apparently before James’s accession, it was first published in 1604
when it went through four editions in that year. In the poem, in the guise of a
popular beast fable reminiscent of Spenser’s Mother Hubbard’s Tale, Drayton
takes it upon himself to advise James of the manifold problems in the realm—
the enclosure of common land, religious deceit, legal mischief, court treachery
(as epitomized even in the “gallant Oke” figuring as Essex), and a weak foreign
policy, especially after the death of the Protestant hero of “Elegance and Act,”
Sir Philip Sidney.
Again, we do not know of any specific response James made to this poem,
but it is not really necessary that we have this information in order to realize
that the king and Drayton were already moving in diametrically opposite
directions. For one thing, the kind of freedom Drayton exhibited in making
veiled references to contemporary events and persons was not likely to win favor
from a king who, a few years earlier, thought Spenser ought to be punished for
slandering (as contemporaries, including James, interpreted it) Mary Queen of
Scots, James’s mother, as the evil Duessa in The Faerie Queene. For another, even
if The Owle represents a pledge of loyalty by the poet to the new king, the poet’s
sympathies for an older kind of militancy, as represented in the lament for
Sidney and embodied in the visionary mode of address, run clearly counter to
the king’s peaceful wishes in matters involving both domestic and foreign policy
but especially the latter, in which James’s pursuit of peace with Spain
represented a radical departure from the more aggressive, globally-conceived,
anti-Spanish activities carried out under Elizabeth. James often behaved foolishly
in appointing court favorites to positions of power, in contrast to the shrewd use
Elizabeth made of her advisors; but he handled his poets very well. Jonson’s gifts
were more suitable to James’s needs at court, just as it was worth his waiting for
Donne to take orders and officially defend the faith. Drayton was not for the
new king.
Nor was James really for Drayton. It would be a mistake to think of Drayton,
like the later Milton, as a participant in an extended and sometimes glorious
struggle with the monarchy. Even if he occasionally voiced veiled criticisms of
the king (who appears unflatteringly as “Olcon” in the eighth eclogue of the
1606 Poems Lyrick and Pastorall) and also included among his friends Protestant
militants like John Reynolds, who actively opposed royal policy by advocating
England’s intervention in the Thirty Years War on behalf of the Protestant cause
(and spent time in prison for having done so), Drayton does not register
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