Gavin Douglas

Gavin Douglas (c. 1474 - September, 1522), Scottish poet and bishop, third son of Archibald, 5th Earl of Angus (called the "great Earl of Angus" and "Bell-the-Cat"), was born c. 1474, probably at one of his father's seats.

Literary work

Douglas's literary work, now his chief claim to be remembered, belongs, as has been stated, to the period 1501-1513, when he was provost of St Giles. He left four poem manuscripts:

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

• The Palice of Honour, his earliest work, is a piece of the later type of dream-allegory, extending to over 2000 lines in ninelined stanzas. In its descriptions of the various courts on their way to the palace, and of the poet's adventures--first, when he incautiously slanders the court of Venus, and later when after his pardon he joins in the procession and passes to see the glories of the palace?the poem carries on the literary traditions of the courts of love, as shown especially in the "Romaunt of the Rose" and "The Hous of Fame." The poem is dedicated to James IV, not without some lesson in commendation of virtue and honour. No manuscript of the poem is extant. The earliest known edition (c. 1553) was printed at London by William Copland; an Edinburgh edition, from the press of Henry Charteris, followed in 1579. From certain indications in the latter and the evidence of some odd leaves discovered by David Laing, it has been concluded that there was an earlier Edinburgh edition, which has been ascribed to Thomas Davidson, printer, and dated c. 1540.
• King Hart is another example of the later allegory, and, as such, of higher literary merit. Its subject is human life told in the allegory of King Heart in his castle, surrounded by his five servitors (the senses), Queen. Plesance, Foresight and other courtiers. The poem runs to over 900 lines and is written in eight-lined stanzas. The text is preserved in the Maitland folio manuscript in the Pepysian library, Cambridge. It is not known to have been printed before 1786, when it appeared in Pinkerton's Ancient Scottish Poemanuscript
• Conscience is in four seven-lined stanzas. Its subject is the "conceit" that men first clipped away the "con" from "conscience" and left "science" and "na mair." Then they lost, "sci," and had nothing but "ens" ("that schrew, Riches and geir").
• Douglas's longest, last, and in some respects most important work is his Scots translation of the Aeneid, the first version of a great classic poet in any Anglic dialect. The work includes the thirteenth book by Mapheus Vegius; and each of the thirteen books is introduced by a prologue. The subjects and styles of these prologues show great variety: some appear to be literary exercises with little or no connexion with the books which they introduce, and were perhaps written earlier and for other purposes. In the first, or general, prologue, Douglas claims a higher position for Virgil than for his master Chaucer, and attacks Caxton for his inadequate rendering of a French translation of the Aeneid. That Douglas undertook this work and that he makes a plea for more accurate scholarship in the translation have been the basis of a prevalent notion that he is a Humanist in spirit and the first exponent of Renaissance doctrine in Scottish literature. Careful study of the text will not support this view. Douglas is in all important respects even more of a medievalist than his contemporaries; and, like Henryson and Dunbar, strictly a member of the allegorical school and a follower, in the most generous way, of Chaucer's art. There are several early manuscripts of the Aeneid extant: (a) in the library of Trinity College, Cambridge, c. 1525, (b) the Elphynstoun manuscript in the library of the University of Edinburgh, c. 1525, (c) the Ruthven manuscript in the same collection, c. 1535, (d) in the library of Lambeth Palace, 1545-1546. The first printed edition appeared in London in 1553. An Edinburgh edition was issued from the press of Thomas Ruddiman in 1710.

For Douglas's career see, in addition to the public records and general histories, Bishop Sage's Life in Ruddiman's edition, and that by John Small in the first volume of his edition of the Works of Gavin.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~