Gavin Douglas

This chapter examines Gavin Douglas’s humanism. To ask whether Douglas was a true humanist is to try to fix the fluidities of a transitional period. And, besides, ‘humanist’ covers as many subtexts as its dictionary definitions betray. Assume a fourteenth- to sixteenth-century scholar of Latin and Greek literature, and Douglas qualifies—although classical studies then were not as now. But, take humanism as a movement away from religious to secular concerns, and Douglas’s humanism is more doubtful. The chapter then looks at mimesis and the rhetoric of ekphrasis in Douglas’s Eneados. The term ekphrasis is commonly defined as ‘description, particularly description of works of art’. But the term is much richer; the verb ekfrazdo means ‘tell, recount, express ornately’. Ultimately, Douglas’s greatest original achievement must be his invention of landscape poetry in English. In addition, Douglas’s Prologues not only use calendar art as a model but have themselves the structure of a calendar.

The Noble Identity of Gavin Douglas

This essay takes up Sally Mapstone’s contention that Scottish Advice to Princes was directed as much to magnates and their supporters as it ever was to the king, and applies it to Gavin Douglas’ Eneados. It considers the manner in which Douglas’ translation represents nobility, national identity, and political violence, with reference to Douglas’ own magnatial identity and that of the poem’s patron, William Sinclair. It considers both the prologues and the translated texts, examining further the relationship between them. In so doing, it places the Eneados in the context of Virgilian criticism as well as Older Scots poetic traditions, and demonstrates parallels in language choices regarding war, government, and rule.