Stephen Hawes

Coronation of Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon. Woodcut from The Conuersyon of Swerers: A joyfull medytacyon to all Englonde of the coronacyon of Kynge Henry the Eyght by Stephen Hawes (?1474-1523), 1509. Courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

Stephen Hawes (?1474-1523) was an English poet.

Life

Overview

Very little concerning Hawes is known with certainty. He is believed to have been born in Suffolk, and may have studied at Oxford or Cambridge. He first comes clearly into view as a Groom of the Chamber in 1502, in which year he dedicated to Henry VII. his Pastyme of Pleasure, first printed in 1509 by Wynkyn de Worde. In the same year appeared the Convercyon of Swerers: A Joyful Meditacyon of all England (1509), on the coronation of Henry VIII. He also wrote the Exemple of Vertu. Hawes was a scholar, and was familiar with French and Italian poetry. No great poet, he yet had a considerable share in regularising the language.

Youth

Hawes was probably a native of Suffolk, in which county several families of the name of Hawes (variously spelled) are met with; in pedigrees of some of the branches of this family, given by Davy in his Suffolk Collections (Brit. Mus. Addit. MS. 19134), "Stephen" appears as a common christian name.

The poet was educated at Oxford, and afterwards travelled in Europe; he studied English poetry and literature.

Courtier

The knowledge acquired by study and travel seems to have procured him an entry into Henry VII's household, where he became groom of the chamber. In this capacity he obtained in 1502 (on the occasion of the funeral of Henry VII's queen) an allowance of 4 yards of black cloth for mourning. This is the earliest contemporary mention of him known.

While groom of the chamber in 1506, he wrote and dedicated apologetically to the king The Passetyme of Pleasure. On 10 January 1506 the king's private accounts show a payment to Hawes of 10s. "for a ballett that he gave to the kinge's grace." How long he retained the post of groom of the chamber is not known, but his name does not occur among those officers who received mourning on the occasion of Henry VII's funeral (1509).

Henry VIII's coronation took place in 1509, and the event was commemorated by Hawes in A Joyfull Medytacycon.

Henry VIII's household accounts show, under date of 6 January 1521, a payment to "Mr. Hawse for his play" of 6l.13s.4d.

He died before 1530, when Thomas Feylde, in his Conversation between a Lover and a Jay, refers to him as "Yonge Steven Hawse, whose soule God pardon," and as one who "treated of love so clerkly and so well." Bale says that his whole life was "virtutis exemplum."

In the archdeaconry court of Suffolk, under date 16 January 1523, is proved the will (made 2 years before) of a Stephen Hawes, whose property, all in Aldborough, is left to his wife Katharine. It is possible that the testator was the poet.

Writing

Passetyme of Pleasure

Hawes's earliest and most important work, The Passetyme of Pleasure; or, The history of Graunde Amoure and la Bel Pucel, conteining the Knowledge of the Seven Sciences and the Course of Man's Life in this Worlde, was printed by Wynkyn de Worde in 1509. A copy of this edition is at Ham House, Surrey, in the library of the Earl of Dysart. Another edition by the same printer, with woodcuts (a copy is at Britwell), is dated 3 Dec. 1517; J. Wayland printed a 3rd in 1554 (without woodcuts), with the title altered to The Historie of graunde Amoure and la bell Pucel, called the Pastime of pleasure, conteining the knowledge of the seven sciences and the course of man's life in this worlde. This is the earliest edition in the British Museum.

Subsequent editions, with woodcuts, followed by Richard Tottel in 1555, and by John Waley in the same year (cf. Censura Lit. i. 35). The first modern reprint (from Wayland's edition) appeared in Southey's English Poets, 1831. A reprint of Tottel's edition was published by the Percy Society in 1845.

The poem is an elaborate allegory in f46 chapters, each consisting of a varying number of 7-line stanzas rhyming thus a b a b b c c. In caps. xxix. and xxxii. the speeches of a dwarf, Godfrey Gobilyue, are in couplets. The whole consists of about 6,000 lines.

The hero, Grande Amoure, 1st visits the Tower of Doctrine, whose 7 daughters, personifying the 7 sciences of the Quadrivium and Trivium, give him instruction. After sojourns at the Castle of Chivalry, Tower of Chastity, and the like, and encounters with a giant with 3 heads, named respectively Falsehood, Imagination, and Perjury, Grande Amoure reaches the palace of "la Bel Pucell," marries her, is threatened by Old Age, Policy, and Avarice, and dies attended by Contrition and Conscience. Towards the end of the poem are the well-known lines (cap. xlii. st. 10, lines 6, 7):

For though the day be never so long,

At last the belles ringeth to evensong.

The words, although Hawes gave them general currency, may possibly embody an older proverbial expression. A similar adage appears in John Heywood's Proverbes, 1546 (ed. J. Sharman, 141).

In the dedication, and in cap. xiv., Hawes acknowledges much indebtedness to his master, Lydgate, "the chefe orygynal of my learning," and with Gower and Chaucer he was also obviously well acquainted (cap. xiv.). He imitates 2 French fabliaux in cap. xxix., and displays elsewhere knowledge and appreciation of Provençal poetry. The passages relating to the Quadrivium and Trivium prove that he was widely read in the philosophy and science of his time.

The prolixity of the poem makes it, as a whole, unreadable. The allegorical detail is excessive and often obscure; the rhythm is nearly always irregular, and often very harsh. Nevertheless there are many descriptive stanzas which charm by their simplicity and cheerful view of life.

From an historical point of view, Hawes marks a distinct advance on Lydgate. The Passetyme is indeed a link between The Canterbury Tales and The Faerie Queene. Mrs. Browning justly regarded Hawes as one of the inspirers of Spenser, and claims for him true "poetic faculty" (Greek Christian Poets and English Poets, 1863, 122-125). Hallam found a parallel to Hawes's general management of his allegory in Bunyan's ‘Pilgrim's Progress,’ but Hawes's diffuseness hardly admits the parallel to be pressed. The resemblance between him and Spenser is, however, at times undoubted.

Miscellaneous

Hawes's other works are chiefly remarkable as bibliographical rarities. They are: 1. ‘The Conversyon of Swerers,’ Wynkyn de Worde, 1509 (Cambridge Univ. Library and imperfect copy at Britwell). Another edition of this was printed in London by ‘Willyam Copland for Robert Toye’ in 1551; a copy of a third edition, without date (perhaps 1550), printed in London by John Butler, is in the Huth Library. 2. ‘A Joyfull Medytacyon to All Englande’ (1509), Wynkyn de Worde, 4to, n.d. (Cambridge Univer. Library), a single sheet with woodcut of the coronation of Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon. These 2 last-named works were reprinted by the Abbotsford Club under the editorship of Mr. David Laing in 1865. 3. ‘A compendyous story … called the Exemple of Vertu, in the whiche ye shall finde many goodly Storys and naturall Dysputacyons bytween four ladyes named Hardynes, Sapyence, Fortune, and Naturo, compyled by Stephen Hawys, one of the gromes of the most honourable chambre of oure soverayne lorde Kynge Henry VII,’ printed about 1512, apparently by Wynkyn de Worde (cf. imperfect copy in the Pepysian Library at Magdalene College, Cambridge). Another edition by Wynkyn de Worde, dated 20 April 1530, is at Britwell (another copy belonged to Corser). 4. ‘The Comfort of Lovers’ (Wynkyn de Worde), n. d.; a copy is at Ham House. ‘The Temple of Glasse,’ a work in imitation of Chaucer's ‘Temple of Fame,’ which has been ascribed to Hawes, is, as Hawes himself says in his ‘Passetyme’ (cap. xiv.), by Lydgate. Of this rare work editions were printed respectively by Caxton about 1479 (Cambridge University Library); by Richard Pynson about 1500 (Bodleian Library); by Wynkyn de Worde (a copy belongs to the Duke of Devonshire); and by Berthelet (Bodleian Library). The last edition is described as in many places ‘amended,’ and was possibly edited by Hawes.

Bale and his successors also attributed to Hawes works entitled The Delight of the Soul, Of the Prince's Marriage, and The Alphabet of Birds. But nothing further seems known of them.

Critical Introduction

by John Churton Collins

Hawes belongs to the Provençal School. His model and master was, as he is constantly reiterating, Lydgate, though he was well acquainted with the works of Chaucer, whose comic vein he occasionally affects, with the verses of Gower, and with the narrative poetry of France and Italy. His poem is elaborately allegorical, though the allegory is not always easy to follow in detail, and is obviously much impeded with extraneous matter. The style has little of the fluency of Lydgate, and none of his vigour; none of the picturesqueness and brilliance which are characteristic of Chaucer and not less characteristic of Chaucer’s Scotch disciples who were Hawes’ contemporaries. The narrative, though by no means lacking incident, and by no means unenlivened with beauties both of sentiment and expression, too often stagnates in prolix discussions, and wants as a rule life and variety. The composition is often loose and feeble, the vocabulary is singularly limited, and bad taste is conspicuous in every canto. But Hawes, with all his faults, is a true poet. He has a sweet simplicity, a pensive gentle air, a subdued cheerfulness about him which have a strange charm at this distance of dissimilar time. Though the hand of the artist is not firm, and the colouring sometimes too sober, his pictures are very graphic. Take one out of many:—

  ‘The way was troublous and ey nothyng playne,
Tyll at the last I came into a dale,
Beholdyng Phoebus declinying lowe and pale.
With my greyhoundes, in the fayre twylight
I sate me downe.’

His verse is sometimes harsh, but it often breathes a plaintive music, and has a weirdly beautiful rhythm ‘which falls on the ear like the echo of a vanished world,’ and seems to transport us back to the dim cloister of some old mediaeval abbey. One such stanza we give:—

  ‘O mortall folke you may beholde and see
Howe I lye here, sometime a mighty knight,
The end of joye and all prosperite
Is death at last, thorough his course and mighte,
After the daye there cometh the darke nighte,
For though the daye be never so long,
At last the belle ringeth to evensong.’

That couplet alone should suffice for immortality. We may claim also for this neglected poet complete originality at an age when English poetry at least had degenerated into mere translations, into feeble narratives, or into sickly imitations of Chaucer.

But there are 2 other interesting points connected with The Pastime of Pleasure. It marks with singular precision a great epoch in our literature. It is the last expiring echo of Mediaevalism; it is the first articulate prophecy of the Renaissance. It is the link between The Canterbury Tales and The Faery Queen. Hawes is in poetry what Philippe de Commines is in prose: he belongs to the old world and he breathes its atmosphere — he belongs also to the new, for its first rays are falling on him. He connects the 2. The weeds of a time sad and sombre indeed hang about him, but Hope is the refrain of his song.

  ‘Drive despaire away,
And live in hopë which shall do you good.
Joy cometh after when the payne is past;
Be ye pacient and sober in mode:
To wepe and waile, all is for you in waste.
Was never payne, but it had joy at last
In the fayre morrowe.’

The dawn had broken, the morning he felt was near. Again, The Pastime of Pleasure was the precursor of The Faery Queen. The 2 poems are similar in allegorical purpose, similar in the development of their allegory. Some of the incidents, though not identical, are of the same character, and if it would be going too far to say that Spenser was a disciple of Hawes, it would not be going too far to say that Spenser had been a careful student of The Pastime of Pleasure, had been indebted to it for many a useful hint, many a slight preliminary sketch, many a pleasing effect of rhythm and cadence. We have dwelt with some minuteness on Hawes, because of the injustice which all his critics have so inexplicably done him. ‘He is,’ says Scott, ‘a bad imitator of Lydgate, ten times more tedious than his original.’ ‘Even his name may be omitted,’ adds Campbell, ‘without any treason to the cause of taste.’ Our extracts are, we may add, selected from The Pastime of Pleasure: his minor poems are best forgotten.

Recognition

2 of his poems, "The True Knight" and "An Epitaph", were included in the Oxford Book of English Verse, 1250-1900.

Publications

Poetry

• The Conuersyon of Swerers: A joyfull medytacyon to all Englonde of the coronacyon of Kynge Henry the Eyght. London: At the sygne of the Sonne, by Wynken de Worde, 1509; Edinburgh: Abbotsford Club, 1865.
• The History of Graund Amoure and La Bel Pucell, called The Pastime of Pleasure: Conteynyng the knowledge of the seuen sciences, and the course of mans lyfe in this worlde]. London: At the sygne of the Sonne, by Wynken de Worde, 1509; London: W. Copland for Rychard Tottell, 1555;
  • The Pastime of Pleasure: An allegorical poem. London: T. Richards for the Percy Society, 1846.
  • The Pastime of Pleasure (edited by William Edward Mead). London: Humphrey Milford / Oxford University Press, 1928.
• Minor Poems (edited by Florence W Gluck & Alice B Morgan). London & New York: Early English Text Society / Oxford University Press, 1974.

Collected editions

• Works: Facsimile reproductions. Delmar, NY: Scholars' Facsimiles & Reprints, 1975.

Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy WorldCat.

See also

A Joyful Meditation of the Coronation of King Henry the Eighth Stephen Hawes Audiobook Short Poetry

• List of British poets
• Timeline of British poetry

References

•  Stephen, Leslie; Lee, Sidney, eds. (1891) "Hawes, Stephen" Dictionary of National Biography 25 London: Smith, Elder, pp. 188-190 . Wikisource, Web, Jan. 23, 2018

External links

• Hawes in the Oxford Book of English Verse, 1250-1900: "The True Knight," "An Epitaph".
• Hawes, Stephen (ca. 1475-1511) at Representative Poetry Online
• Hawes in The English Poets: An anthology: Extracts from The Pastime of Pleasure: Dialogue between Graunde Amoure and La Pucel, Amoure Laments the Absence of La Belle Pucel, The Character of a True Knight, Description of La Belle Pucel
• Stephen Hawes at PoemHunter (11 poems)

Books

• Works by Stephen Hawes at Project Gutenberg
• Stephen Hawes at Amazon.com

About

• Stephen Hawes in the Encyclopædia Britannica
• Stephen Hawes at NNDB.
• Hawes, Stephen in the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica
• Stephen Hawes in the Cambridge History of English and American Literature

This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain, the Dictionary of National Biography (edited by Leslie Stephen). London: Smith, Elder, 1885-1900. Original article is at: Hawes, Stephen