My Lady Mistress, Dame Philology: John Skelton

Skelton speaks as though some kind of contemporary literary duelist, at once learned yet readily vernacular in turn of expression. Poems like ‘Speke, Parrot’ raise the suspicion that not only is he writing satire of Wolsey and the court but almost wants to throw his poetics in the reader-listener’s face, precisely the ‘ragged, tattered and jagged’ rhyme as he calls it in ‘Colyn Cloute’. His use of collage, and sonics, with ‘Speke Parrot’ the crest, lay plausible grounds for arguing how Skelton attests to the modern.