The Dramatic Voice of William Dunbar

Summary

The records charting early Scottish drama are thin. Indeed, the first recognisable play, in modern classification terms, is Sir David Lyndsay's mid-sixteenth-century Ane Satyre of the Thrie Estaitis. This is, however, to think generically. In an age when aurality ruled, a more flexible, ‘vocal’ means of distinguishing different kinds of literature is profitable. In these terms the narrative, lyrical, and dramatic voices are distinguished one from the other, with the last comprising works which were designed to be acted or read aloud to a defined audience.

It is in this sense I wish to consider the dramatic voice of William Dunbar, senior poet at the ‘golden’ court of King James IV of Scotland. As Gordon Donaldson notes, the King was master of six languages other than Scots. He also ‘had an enquiring turn of mind particularly suited to a period when geographical discovery and developments in arts of every kind were immensely widening men's horizons’. Dunbar himself describes a lively performance culture at James's court in ‘Aganis the Solistaris in Court’, where: ‘Sum singis, sum dances, sum tellis storyis, | Sum lait at ewin bringis in the moryis’. In ‘Schir, 3e haue mony seruitouris’, assessing how many demands are made on the King's purse, he includes his own skills as poet as worthy of financial support but goes on to provide a long list of others, from musicians to masons, from goldsmiths to astrologers, all petitioning the King for money or advancement. Taken together these poems demonstrate just how committed James was to financing a brilliant court.

As senior poet in that court Dunbar is a particularly promising focus for ‘performance’ verse. Celebrating the arrival of royalty or great men was one occasion of this sort. A good example of the latter kind is Dunbar's ballad welcoming to Scotland Bernard Stewart, third Seigneur d'Aubigny and captain of Charles VIII's Scots Guards. A complex stanza form and a conclusion which spells out the new arrival's name in acrostic form decorously marks the achievements of this grandson of Sir John Stuart and Louis XII's ambassador to Scotland. The use of anaphora also makes the poem suitable for declaiming, …