John Skelton

Many of his works lost during the Great Fire.

Skelton lingers as a figure whose one step is right on the medieval era and the other is right on the
pre-Renaissance times.

His birth date is not clear, he died around 1529.

Erasmus defined him as ' one of the lights, jewels of English Literature. ‘

His definition is not weak, because although Skelton’s real value is acknowledged around the 20th
century, his contemporaries because there was a shipped from medieval understanding to the early
renaissance understanding, his real value has been acknowledged by 20th century authors like
Robert Graves, W.H. Auden.

Especially for the 20th century modern poetry, Skelton’s works have been praised a lot.

His style seems similar to Latin Verse.

The first work of him is an Elegy (ağıt). It’s about Edward IV. Elegy is about a moaning, a kind of a
commemoration about the bitter sad ending of any person.

Woefully arrayed is similar to that. That’s a very passionate poem after the death of Jesus Christ.
This is also a great depiction of the scene where the Roman soldiers crucified him, tortured, killed
him.

Suggestion: the passion of Jesus Christ by Mell Gibson.

Short Bio

Poet laureate: He works for the King, getting paid by King or Queen.

King’s Orator: he was the man who was giving speech on behalf of King: Henry the VIII.

For the 18th century, it was the time of great changes in England and we know that mostly these
changes continued and that have a kind of an instability throughout the kingdom whereby only
Elizabeth and later on Queen Victoria could restore some kind of stability towards the meet of 19th
century England.

Within these years, England wasn’t the favourite country of the Popes. Because they were not
Catholic mostly, they were Protestant and Puritan: one of the denominations of Protestantism.

As a matter of fact, changes and religious up-hills occurred a lot in England. For that reason, Most of
the times, poets, authors, philosophers, these were the people who were leading and changing the
direction of the society. Most of the time, they were under the influence of King or the Queen since
English society, English crown had a difficult relationship with the Pope. There were lots of twists and
changes in the direction with the Catholic church and the Britain.

Therefore, then King Henry VIII established the Anglican Church in order to show that they are
ready to break the chains with the Catholic Church.
In that respect, Pope showed most of his gratitude over the French nation rather than British. Then,
There came, the 100 years of wars. Many clashes within the history of both Britain and France.

That’s the exact time when Jesus Christ as the part of the holy trinity, the Holy God, Godfather and
the son, Jesus Christ paid for the sins of humanity.

In Catholic churches, presenting wine and a piece of bread, they say wine is the blood of Jesus Christ
and bread is his flesh.

Holy Bible was written nearly 400 years later after the death of Jesus Christ by St. Paul.

After the death of Jesus Christ, there were the 12 apostles. They continued to spread his words, his
belief, his teachings to humanity.

There was yet the 13th apostle: Judas. He was Jewish. He was the person mentioned in the line:
Beguiled and betrayed by Judas’ false treason:

Jesus Christ knew that Judas was going to betray him. Though he knew what is going to happen to
him, he was willing to bear the torture that was going to cost upon him.

Going back to the Genesis, the original scene of Man, where both Adam and Eve repelled and went
against the promise that they have to God.

Because of their original scene, Jesus Christ paid back to God. : that explains when the Catholic
Christians are born, they are baptized, put into the holy water and washed. They believe that the
blood of the womb when they born is the blood of Jesus Christ. Thus you have to be baptized as a
Catholic infant, new-born to be clean.

This poem creates the main argument and the belief of Catholic Christian Dogma. Every single
stage of this torture can be seen in the poem.

One of the words he repeats: Thorn – Crown / For the Roman mayor, who definitely rejected Jesus
Christ’s being a prophet to the God

Because Romans were not Christians and since Jewish people complained about the coming of
Jesus Christ and the put the blame on him as a blasphemist who is set to be revealing a fake God, a
fake religion because if the Jewish people were to expect Jesus Christ’s coming, then they had to
denounce their religion as well. They had to become a Christian.

Jesus Christ was also a Jewish origin person, he was speaking in Hebrew. He was one of them but
later on he became the new prophet of the new belief.

With the complains of Jewish people, Romans had to caught him, torture him and crucify him.

Crucification was one of the basic tortures that was practiced back in those days especially for
blasphemists and for the people who are charged with treason.

For this reason, Cross also became one of the symbols of Christian people. It showed how Jesus
Christ suffered for the Christian people.

The thorn was one of the mocks. The Roman soldiers were mocking him. : You’re the King of these
people, here is your crown. And they installed these thorns to his forehead by using also nails. To
his elbows, to his knees.
Even the title tells us very clearly the unbearable torture which is arrayed.

This death seen and the torture scene is exactly the same with in the Greek mythology, what happen
to Prometheus.

Zeus gave exactly the same torture to Prometheus when Prometheus saved humanity when he
brought fire to humanity. Prometheus is equal to Jesus Christ in terms of what they did for
humanity.

Especially in Renaissance and afterwards, most of the English poets were trying to equate or match
Jesus Christ and Prometheus.

John Skelton warns us about the real reason why people shouldn’t live the path of Jesus Christ. He
suffered for humanity, thus humans should never leave the true path of God.

That explains why Skelton was highly critical about the Church because

Jesus Christ is known as the shepherd of humanity. William Blake(romantic period) defines him as a
lamb because he was sinless.

Jesus Christ was married to Mary of Magdalena and she wasn’t a very acknowledged, very well-
known person in her past life because of the fact that she was a prostitute. Jesus Christ, by simply
marrying her showed these people the greatness of forgiveness due to the sins of people.

He didn’t have any money, he had only one usual ordinary white rope and his followers.

The Last Supper by Da Vinci is another great example. In this Last Supper, Judas was there, it was the
moment when Judas betrayed him. He knew that it was going to be his last supper and he continued
to act as if he knew nothing. He was festinate to receive this monsters’ torture in order to pay the
sins of humanity.

This is what we can get out of thumanit

He was named, he was nailed, John Skelton has another depiction. Today, some of us might have
great positions, might be very powerful, rich, but when you die like the way you’re born, you’ll be
totally naked. You’ll be put into this coffin in exactly the way you were born.

He says in a way: Thus you came naked, you shall go naked / Thus naked am I nailed, O man, for thy
sake.

That’s also why we see Jesus Christ was a very modern man in that sense, he didn’t care about
richness, money, anything. He only cared about teaching the truth to people. He tried to lead them.

KPSS INFO

Skeltonics, that term comes from John Skelton. That means, short verses of an irregular meter much
used by the Tudor poet John Skelton. The verses have two or three stresses arranged sometimes in
falling and sometimes in rising rhythm. They rely on such devices as alliteration, parallelism and
multiple rhymes and are related to doggerel. Skelton wrote his verses as works of satire and protest,
( starts with elegy, then satire(taşlama) and protest, he is protesting the Church) and thus the form
was considered deliberately unconventional and provocative.
What is ALLITERATION?

In English language, we can see this rhyme. Example

from Shakespeare: When I do count the clock that tells the time

What is PARALLELISM?

Slight variation in meaning like : ready man, full man, exact man. They have some similarities but not
the true exactness in meaning but parallelism.

**Skelton was provocative in his poems. Skeltonics. Parallelism, Alliteration, how the early Christian
belief regarding Jesus Christ affected medieval poetry.