The Flyting of Dumbar and Kennedie
Encyclopedia
Flyting
Flyting or fliting is a contest consisting of the exchange of insults, often conducted in verse, between two parties.-Description:Flyting is a ritual, poetic exchange of insults practiced mainly between the 5th and 16th centuries. The root is the Old English word flītan meaning quarrel...
genre in poetry. The genre takes the form of a contest, or "war of words", between two poets, each trying to outclass the other in vituperation and verbal pyrotechnics. It is not certain how the work was composed, but it is likely to have been publicly performed, probably in the style of a poetic joust
Jousting
Jousting is a martial game or hastilude between two knights mounted on horses and using lances, often as part of a tournament.Jousting emerged in the High Middle Ages based on the military use of the lance by heavy cavalry. The first camels tournament was staged in 1066, but jousting itself did not...
by the two combatants, William Dunbar
William Dunbar
William Dunbar was a Scottish poet. He was probably a native of East Lothian, as assumed from a satirical reference in the Flyting of Dunbar and Kennedie , where, too, it is hinted that he was a member of the noble house of Dunbar....
and Walter Kennedy, before the Court of James IV of Scotland
James IV of Scotland
James IV was King of Scots from 11 June 1488 to his death. He is generally regarded as the most successful of the Stewart monarchs of Scotland, but his reign ended with the disastrous defeat at the Battle of Flodden Field, where he became the last monarch from not only Scotland, but also from all...
.
There are clues in the poem that suggest some of the features that the show must have contained. Each of the combatants had a commissar, both of whom are named in the work and sometimes directly addressed by the performers. These are (respectively) Sir John the Ross for Dunbar and Quentin Shaw for Kennedy, both of whom were actual persons. Shaw (certainly) and Ross (probably) were also poets, and it seems possible that they played some material part in the performance.
Ross, Shaw, and Kennedy are all three named as a group in the closing stanzas of Dunbar's Lament for the Makaris
Lament for the Makaris
I that in Heill wes and Gladnes, also known as The Lament for the Makaris, is a poem in the form of a danse macabre by the Scottish poet William Dunbar...
.
Outline and performance
In the poem as it survives, there are two exchanges. Dunbar opens with a three-stanza address to his commissar which pours lofty scorn on the poetic pretensions of Kennedy and his commissar, describing what must happen if their self-promotion should move him to reluctantly unleash his own far superior powers; which boastHubris
Hubris , also hybris, means extreme haughtiness, pride or arrogance. Hubris often indicates a loss of contact with reality and an overestimation of one's own competence or capabilities, especially when the person exhibiting it is in a position of power....
Kennedy answers, also in three stanzas, with a direct, highly personalised address to Dunbar, knocking his claims down to size and commanding him to bide his wheesht
Shut up
Shut up is a slang term meaning "be quiet". Referring to "close your mouth", it is usually considered to be rude. It may also refer to:*"Shut Up ", a single by Sin With Sebastian*"Shut Up"...
. Needless to say, Dunbar does not obey the injunction and a sustained poetic attack follows (25 stanzas) which Kennedy matches with a longer and equally sustained reply thirteen stanzas longer again (38).
In keeping with the genre
Literary genre
A literary genre is a category of literary composition. Genres may be determined by literary technique, tone, content, or even length. Genre should not be confused with age category, by which literature may be classified as either adult, young-adult, or children's. They also must not be confused...
there is a great show of outrageous verbal dexterity and invention by both combatants. Each makar eventually closes their performance with a showy verbal climax
Climax (figure of speech)
In rhetoric, a climax is a figure of speech in which words, phrases, or clauses are arranged in order of increasing importance. It is sometimes used with anadiplosis, which uses the repetition of a word or phrase in successive clauses.Examples:*"There are three things that will endure: faith,...
involving doubling and tripling of rhymes and much-intensified alliteration
Alliteration
In language, alliteration refers to the repetition of a particular sound in the first syllables of Three or more words or phrases. Alliteration has historically developed largely through poetry, in which it more narrowly refers to the repetition of a consonant in any syllables that, according to...
.
Character assassination
Character assassination is an attempt to tarnish a person's reputation. It may involve exaggeration, misleading half-truths, or manipulation of facts to present an untrue picture of the targeted person...
, from the low scatological to the high political. Many accusations involve the capital crimes of theft
Theft
In common usage, theft is the illegal taking of another person's property without that person's permission or consent. The word is also used as an informal shorthand term for some crimes against property, such as burglary, embezzlement, larceny, looting, robbery, shoplifting and fraud...
, treason
Treason
In law, treason is the crime that covers some of the more extreme acts against one's sovereign or nation. Historically, treason also covered the murder of specific social superiors, such as the murder of a husband by his wife. Treason against the king was known as high treason and treason against a...
, and heresy
Heresy
Heresy is a controversial or novel change to a system of beliefs, especially a religion, that conflicts with established dogma. It is distinct from apostasy, which is the formal denunciation of one's religion, principles or cause, and blasphemy, which is irreverence toward religion...
, which, at moments (especially if the context was the royal court
Royal court
Royal court, as distinguished from a court of law, may refer to:* The Royal Court , Timbaland's production company*Court , the household and entourage of a monarch or other ruler, the princely court...
), add a potentially dangerous sense of political frisson (Kennedy goes so far as to describe the Dunbar coat of arms
Coat of arms
A coat of arms is a unique heraldic design on a shield or escutcheon or on a surcoat or tabard used to cover and protect armour and to identify the wearer. Thus the term is often stated as "coat-armour", because it was anciently displayed on the front of a coat of cloth...
as being a noose
Noose
A noose is a loop at the end of a rope in which the knot slides to make the loop collapsible. Knots used for making nooses include the running bowline, the tarbuck knot, and the slip knot.-Use in hanging:...
with "Hang Dunbar" written underneath). Both combatants took great relish in describing the terrible punishments that would be meted out upon their opponent and the pictures evoked imply the proximity of instruments of execution in the medieval landscape as bleak as that in many images of the time in art.
Most of the insults thrown by Dunbar are returned or matched in kind by Kennedy, which gives the poem a balance in overall structure. The insults are graphic and personal, and were not necessarily arbitrary. Dunbar characterises Kennedy as speaking a barbarous Highland dialect, as being physically hideous and withered like a sort of living memento mori
Memento mori
Memento mori is a Latin phrase translated as "Remember your mortality", "Remember you must die" or "Remember you will die". It names a genre of artistic work which varies widely, but which all share the same purpose: to remind people of their own mortality...
, as being poor and hungry, and of having intercourse with mare
Mare
Female horses are called mares.Mare is the Latin word for "sea".The word may also refer to:-People:* Ahmed Marzooq, also known as Mare, a footballer and Secretary General of Maldives Olympic Committee* Mare Winningham, American actress and singer...
s. Kennedy, by contrast, suggests that Dunbar was descended from Beelzebub
Beelzebub
Beelzebub -Religious meaning:Ba‘al Zəbûb is variously understood to mean "lord of flies", or "lord of the dwelling". Originally the name of a Philistine god, Beelzebub is also identified in the New Testament as Satan, the "prince of the demons". In Arabic the name is retained as Ba‘al dhubaab /...
, is a dwarf
Dwarfism
Dwarfism is short stature resulting from a medical condition. It is sometimes defined as an adult height of less than 4 feet 10 inches , although this definition is problematic because short stature in itself is not a disorder....
, and has no control of his bowel movements (to the point of almost sinking a ship in which he is travelling). Both cast doubt on the other's poetic skill; Kennedy states that while he ascends Mount Parnassus
Mount Parnassus
Mount Parnassus, also Parnassos , is a mountain of limestone in central Greece that towers above Delphi, north of the Gulf of Corinth, and offers scenic views of the surrounding olive groves and countryside. According to Greek mythology, this mountain was sacred to Apollo and the Corycian nymphs,...
to drink of the insiprational waters of the Castalian Spring
Castalian Spring
The Castalian Spring, in the ravine between the Phaedriades at Delphi, is where all visitors to Delphi — the contestants in the Pythian Games, and especially suppliants who came to consult the Delphic Oracle — stopped to wash their hair; and where Roman poets came to receive poetic...
, Dunbar goes "in Marche or Februere" to a farm pond and drinks the frogspawn. The satire
Satire
Satire is primarily a literary genre or form, although in practice it can also be found in the graphic and performing arts. In satire, vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, and society itself, into improvement...
may perhaps give us caricature
Caricature
A caricature is a portrait that exaggerates or distorts the essence of a person or thing to create an easily identifiable visual likeness. In literature, a caricature is a description of a person using exaggeration of some characteristics and oversimplification of others.Caricatures can be...
impressions of the physical appearance and moral vulnerabilities of the two men, even if no actual portraits of either man are known to have survived.
Anthologies often print Dunbar's contribution alone, but the contest was evenly matched; Dunbar may seem stronger on "fireworks", but Kennedy employs greater tonal subtlety.
George Bannatyne
George Bannatyne
George Bannatyne , collector of Scottish poems that were very dramatic and emotional, was a native of Newtyle, Angus. He became an Edinburgh merchant and was admitted a burgess in 1587. Some years earlier, in 1568, when the "pest" raged in the capital, he retired to his native county and amused...
, in his manuscript copy, added the postscript Iuge ye now heir quha gat the war.
Though Dunbar uses the standard eight-line ballade
Ballade
The ballade is a form of French poetry. It was one of the three formes fixes and one of the verse forms in France most commonly set to music between the late 13th and the 15th centuries....
stanza for his major attack, his opening stanzas use the variant rhyme scheme ababbccb, and it is this variant that Kennedy employs throughout in both of his replies. The lines are pentameter
Pentameter
Pentameter may refer to:*the iambic pentameter of the modern period*the dactylic pentameter of antiquity...
.
Influence
Kennedy and Dunbar's Flyting seems to have been a popular and influential poem and was almost a de rigueur inclusion in Scottish anthologies of verse for the next two centuries. It was one of the earliest works to be printed by Chepman and Myllarhttp://www.nls.uk/firstscottishbooks/ after they were granted the King's license to operate as printers in EdinburghEdinburgh
Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland, the second largest city in Scotland, and the eighth most populous in the United Kingdom. The City of Edinburgh Council governs one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas. The council area includes urban Edinburgh and a rural area...
(1507). The bardic bout seems to have inspired a legacy of similar contests, most famous of which are the Flyting between Lyndsay
David Lyndsay
Sir David Lyndsay of the Mount, was a Scottish Lord Lyon and poet of the 16th century, whose works reflect the spirit of the Renaissance.-Biography:...
and King James V
James V of Scotland
James V was King of Scots from 9 September 1513 until his death, which followed the Scottish defeat at the Battle of Solway Moss...
(c. 1536), and the Flyting of Montgomerie
Alexander Montgomerie
Alexander Montgomerie , Scottish Jacobean courtier and poet, or makar, born in Ayrshire. He was one of the principal members of the Castalian Band, a circle of poets in the court of James VI in the 1580s which included the king himself. Montgomerie was for a time in favour as one of the king's...
and Polwarth
Polwarth
Polwarth may refer to:*Polwarth , a breed of sheep*Polwarth, Edinburgh*Polwarth, Scottish Borders*Patrick Hume of Polwarth, makar in the court of James VI of Scotland*Electoral district of Polwarth in the Parliament of Victoria, Australia...
(c. 1598).
Nineteenth- and 20th-century commentators tended to be less favourable towards the poem. The makar and critic Tom Scott
Tom Scott (poet)
Tom Scott was a Scottish poet, editor, and prose writer. His writing is closely tied to the New Apocalypse, the New Romantics, and the Scottish Renaissance.- Bibliography :...
regarded it as a crude and offensive work unworthy of critical attention.