Robert Henryson

Originally published in 1926 as part of the Cambridge Plain Texts series, this volume contains the full text of The Testament of Cresseid by fifteenth-century Scottish poet Robert Henryson. A short editorial introduction is also included. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest in Henryson and Scottish poetry.

Though definitive information about the fifteenth-century Scottish poet Robert Henryson remains elusive, the quality of the poetry that bears his name is self-evident: consistently achieving what David J. Parkinson describes as “a rhetorical ideal of brevity replete with significance,” these Middle Scots works possess an interpretive richness, knowledge of classical and medieval authorities, and command of multilingual vocabulary befitting Henryson’s title of “master.” Composed amid Middle Scots’s consolidation into Scotland’s official language in the late Middle Ages, Henryson’s poetry reflects in language and theme this pivotal moment in Scottish history. This edition collects all works attributed to Henryson, including his adaptations and interpretations of Aesop’s Fables; his The Testament of Cresseid, an epilogue to Geoffrey Chaucer’sTroilus and Criseyde; Orpheus and Eurydice; and twelve shorter poems grouped by the available evidence for their attribution to Henryson, all accompanied by glosses, explanatory and textual notes, and a guide to Henryson’s language.

The greatest of the late medieval Scots makars, Robert Henryson was influenced by their vision of the frailty and pathos of human life, and by the inherited poetic example of Geoffrey Chaucer. Henryson's finest poem, and one of the rhetorical masterpieces of Scots literature, is the narrative Testament of Cresseid. Set in the aftermath of the Trojan War, the Testament completes the story of Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde, offering a tragic account of its faithless heroine's rejection by her lover, Diomede, and of her subsequent decline into prostitution and leprosy. Written in Middle Scots, a distinctive northern version of English, the Testament has been translated by Seamus Heaney into a confident but faithful idiom that matches the original verse form and honors the poem's unique blend of detachment and compassion. A master of high narrative, Henryson was also a comic master of the verse fable, and his burlesques of human weakness in the guise of animal wisdom are delicately pointed with irony. Seven of the Fables are here sparklingly translated by Heaney, their freshness rendered to the last claw and feather. Together, The Testament of Cresseid and Seven

The greatest of the late medieval Scottish makars, Robert Henryson wrote in Lowland Scots, a distinctive northern version of English. He was profoundly influenced by Chaucer's vision of the frailty and pathos of human life. His greatest poem, and one of the rhetorical masterpieces of the literature of these islands, is the narrative Testament of Cresseid, set in the aftermath of the Trojan War, which completes the story of Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde, offering a grim and tragic account of its faithless heroine's rejection by her lover Diomede, and her decline into prostitution and leprosy. A work of unreconciled Shakespearean intensity, the Testament has been translated by Seamus Heaney into a confident and yet faithful modern English idiom which honours the poem's unique blend of detachment and compassion.A master of narrative, Henryson was also a comic master of the verse fable; his burlesques of human weakness in the guise of animal wisdom are traced with delicate comedy and irony. Seven of the Fables are here sparklingly translated; their burlesque freshness rendered to the last claw and feather. Seven Fables and The Testament of Cresseid is an extraordinarily rich and wide-ranging encounter between two poets across six centuries.

Robert Henryson (?-1508) is the greatest of the English fabulists. His master may have been Aesop, but the voice that speaks the Moral Fables is distinctively that of his place — Scotland — and his chosen tradition. His debt to Chaucer, from whom his best-known work, the 'Testament of Cresseid' clearly derives, is a large one, and he acknowledges it generously. But it is a positive debt, not the kind that might have stifled his native originality. He is as distinctively himself as his contemporaries Dunbar and Douglas are. Little is known of Henryson's life but much can be surmised about his human vision from the poems, particularly the Moral Fables. He is the most approachable and benign of the Scottish poets of his time. In this selection of the best of Henryson's work W.R.J. Barron, Senior Lecturer in English Language at the University of Manchester, includes a full introduction and notes.

This is the first serious attempt to produce a critical text for all Henryson's poems. The text is based on all available material. There is a commentary and a glossary, and an introduction discusses Henryson's life and the sources of his poems.