Scottish Authors > Robert Henryson Poet c.1425-1500

Little is known about the life of Robert Henryson. He lived in the second half of the fifteenth century, and is thought to have taught at the grammar school attached to the Benedictine Abbey at Dunfermline. He was an educated man, but there is no record of his graduating from a Scottish university, and he may have studied abroad. In 1462 a "master Robert Henryson" was incorporated into Glasgow University as a bachelor in canon law; it seems possible that this was the poet, as is also the case with the notary of the same name who was active in Dunfermline in 1478. From an allusion in a poem by Dunbar we know that Henryson must have died before 1505.

Henryson excels as a narrative poet, although several short poems have been attributed to him. Two interesting but lesser works are Robene and Makyne, a humorous love-debate in the tradition of the French pastourelle, and Orpheus and Eurydice, a moralized interpretation of the classical myth. The Testament of Cresseid, however, is his masterpiece. Although it was prompted be a reading of Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde, it is no mere sequel but a great and original poem in its own right. It tells the "tragedie" of Cresseid, after she has been abandoned by Diomede, and ultimately dies of leprosy. Her physical sufferings are vividly described, but Henryson is most concerned with Cressied's spiritual and psychological development. He interweaves plot, symbol and imagery with great subtlety.

Henryson's most important other work is a collection of thirteen fables, usually entitled The Morall fabillis of Esope the Phrygian. Some of the fables derive, ultimately, from those attributed to Aesop; but others originate in the beast-epic, a medieval cycle of stories associated with Reynard the Fox. Henryson handles the genre brilliantly. His skill at juxtaposing the different worlds of animals and humans is well illustrated in The Two mice. One minute a character is a prosperous burgess, the next she shrinks into a mouse stealing cheese and oatmeal:

The uther mous, that in the burgh can byde,

Was gild brother and made ane fre burges ...

And fredome had to ga quhair ever scholist,

Amang the cheis and meill, in ark and kist [chest].

(Fables, 171 ff.)

In the Middle Ages fables were used for teaching purposes and Henryson was conscious of the need for a "gude moralitie". Several fables receive an explicit spiritual meaning; others, such as The Lion and the Mouse, have veiled political implications. Henryson is a master of easy, colloquial dialogue, dramatic irony, witty proverb-capping, puns and other word play.

Although much admired by contemporaries, Henryson was largely forgotten in Scotland at the beginning of the seventeenth century, but in the twentieth century his reputation has soared.

The Poems of Robert Henryson, ed. Denton Fox, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1981.

John MacQueen, Robert Henryson; a study of the major narrative poems, Oxford, 1967.

Douglas Gray, Robert Henryson, Leiden, 1979.

Priscilla Bawcutt

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