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The Castalian Band is a modern name given to a grouping of Scottish Jacobean poets, or makars, which is said to have flourished between the 1580s and early 1590s in the court of James VI and consciously modelled on the French example of the Pléiade. Its name is derived from the classical term
Castalian Spring The Castalian Spring, in the ravine between the Phaedriades at Delphi, is where all visitors to Delphi — the contestants in the Pythian Games, and especially pilgrims who came to consult the Delphic Oracle — stopped to wash themsel ...
, a symbol for poetic inspiration. The name has often been claimed as that which the King used to refer to the group, as in lines from one of his own poems, an epitaph on his friend Alexander Montgomerie: The notion of the 'Castalian band' in 20th-century scholarship derives in the main from a 1969 book by Helena Mennie Shire. It was H. Mennie Shire and her collaborator Kenneth Elliot – who had produced ''The Music of Scotland'' (Cambridge 1964) – who drew particular attention to the verse lines by James, remarking that "It has been well suggested that King James' name for his poets at court, or their name for themselves, was 'the brethren of Castalian band.'" However, apart from this verse, no scholar has produced any clear evidence for any such self-aware grouping. Nevertheless, other writers (and numerous websites) have seized on the concept. In a celebrated article from 2001, the literary scholar Priscilla Bawcutt examined the claims closely, and – in the opinion of most modern authorities – demolished them. However, the persistence of the idea of the Castalian Band has its own interest – as Bawcutt noted, suggesting that it is grounded in a desire to identify a strong Scottish Renaissance culture. Poetry, and more especially song, had suffered as a result of the Reformation of the Scottish Protestant church concluded in 1560, and it may have seemed desirable to offer a more positive image for the later 16th century. Whether or not there ever was such a Court grouping as the Castalian Band, it seems likely that there were cultivated circles of educated gentlemen in Scotland at the time. The King wrote a detailed treatise intended to establish a standard of practice in Scots poetry – his '' Reulis and Cautelis'' – and there may well have been gatherings of poets at James' court. The activities of some of the poets recognized to be working in Scotland at the time are known to a limited extent. The principal literary figure to be directly associated with the court was Alexander Montgomerie. Music may also played an important part in performances; some of the poems of Montgomerie and others are known to have been set as
song A song is a musical composition intended to be performed by the human voice. This is often done at distinct and fixed pitches (melodies) using patterns of sound and silence. Songs contain various forms, such as those including the repetiti ...
.


"Brethren" of the Castalian Band

The circle of poets with known connections to the Scottish court include: *King James VI * Alexander Montgomerie (c. 1544–1598?) * Patrick Hume of Polwarth (c. 1550-1609) *
Alexander Hume Alexander Hume (1558 – 4 December 1609) was a Scottish poet who served as Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland in the early 17th century. Life He was born in 1558 the son of Patrick Hume (d.1599). The brother of Patri ...
(c. 1557–1609) the younger brother of Patrick Hume * William Fowler (1560–1612) *
John Stewart of Baldynneis John Stewart of Baldynneis (c. 1545–c. 1605) was a writer and courtier at the Scottish Court. he was one of the Castalian Band grouped around James VI. He was the son of Elizabeth Beaton, a former mistress of James V, and John Stewart, 4th Lo ...
(c. 1567–1605) * Thomas Hudson (d. 1605) * Robert Hudson, brother of Thomas Membership was supposedly fluid and some figures, such as Montgomerie, were already established poets. French influences were particularly important for the King. James himself made translations of work by the Gascon soldier-poet
du Bartas Guillaume de Salluste Du Bartas (1544, in Monfort – July 1590, in Mauvezin) was a Gascon Huguenot courtier and poet. Trained as a doctor of law, he served in the court of Henri de Navarre for most of his career. Du Bartas was celebrated acr ...
, and du Bartas in return translated James's own '' Lepanto''. Du Bartas himself visited the Scottish Court on a diplomatic mission in 1587 during which time James unsuccessfully attempted to persuade him to stay. Other 'Castalian' makars produced translation as well as original works. William Fowler, whose original poetry includes the sonnet sequence ''The Tarantula of Love'', made translations from
Petrarch Francesco Petrarca (; 20 July 1304 – 18/19 July 1374), commonly anglicized as Petrarch (), was a scholar and poet of early Renaissance Italy, and one of the earliest humanists. Petrarch's rediscovery of Cicero's letters is often credited ...
, while John Stewart produced an abridged translation of
Ariosto Ludovico Ariosto (; 8 September 1474 – 6 July 1533) was an Italian poet. He is best known as the author of the romance epic ''Orlando Furioso'' (1516). The poem, a continuation of Matteo Maria Boiardo's ''Orlando Innamorato'', describes the ...
's ''Orlando Furioso''. Many Scots translations predated first translations of the same works in
England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe ...
. Chief among the circle was arguably the soldier, courtier and makar Alexander Montgomerie. He had achieved celebrity after victory over Patrick Hume in ''The Flyting Betwixt Montgomerie and Polwart'' (c.1583). His many works include public poems such as ''The Navigatioun'', a long allegory called ''The Cherry and the Slae'', some devotional poems, and a large number of personal court lyrics sometimes modelled on poets such as Ronsard. Sonnets on various themes include an autobiographical sequence that deftly charts frustration with "the law's delay". Even when Montgomerie came to be politically excluded from the court sometime in the mid-1590s as a result of his Catholic sympathies, he appears to have retained the affection of the King. The court also attracted figures from furth of Scotland. The brothers Thomas and Robert Hudson from the
North of England Northern England, also known as the North of England, the North Country, or simply the North, is the northern area of England. It broadly corresponds to the former borders of Angle Northumbria, the Anglo-Scandinavian Kingdom of Jorvik, and the ...
, were appointed as by James not only as poets but as court musicians helping to lead the musical "revival" he regarded as going hand-in-hand with his literary programme. Thomas produced translations as well as original work. Under James' patronage he was another translator of du Bartas. Names on the fringes of court literary circles include: *
William Alexander, Earl of Stirling William Alexander, 1st Earl of Stirling (c. 1567 in Menstrie, Clackmannanshire12 February 1640) was a Scottish courtier and poet who was involved in the Scottish colonisation of Charles Fort, later Port-Royal, Nova Scotia in 1629 and Long Isla ...
(1567–1640) *
Robert Aytoun Sir Robert Aytoun or Ayton (1570–1638) was a Scottish poet. Biography Aytoun was the son of Andrew Ayton of Kinaldie Castle, in Fife, Scotland, and Mary Lundie. Aytoun and his elder brother John entered St Leonard's College in St Andrews i ...
(1569–1638) * Christian Lindsay Alexander and Ayton later represented a more
anglicised Anglicisation is the process by which a place or person becomes influenced by English culture or British culture, or a process of cultural and/or linguistic change in which something non-English becomes English. It can also refer to the influen ...
stream of Scottish writing. They came to prominence more properly after the
Union of the Crowns The Union of the Crowns ( gd, Aonadh nan Crùintean; sco, Union o the Crouns) was the accession of James VI of Scotland to the throne of the Kingdom of England as James I and the practical unification of some functions (such as overseas dip ...
. Ayton was one of the first Scottish poets to have written explicitly in English, while Alexander wrote rhymed
tragedies Tragedy (from the grc-gre, τραγῳδία, ''tragōidia'', ''tragōidia'') is a genre of drama based on human suffering and, mainly, the terrible or sorrowful events that befall a main character. Traditionally, the intention of tragedy ...
in a genre sometimes referred to as ''
closet drama A closet drama is a play that is not intended to be performed onstage, but read by a solitary reader or sometimes out loud in a large group. The contrast between closet drama and classic "stage" dramas dates back to the late eighteenth century. Al ...
'' and assisted the King in his metrical translations of the
Psalms of David The Book of Psalms ( or ; he, תְּהִלִּים, , lit. "praises"), also known as the Psalms, or the Psalter, is the first book of the ("Writings"), the third section of the Tanakh, and a book of the Old Testament. The title is derived f ...
.


Verse drama

Although there is no direct record of Scottish court drama in the late 16th century, one verse play in Scots does intriguingly survive from the period, an eminently performable comedy of love, '' Philotus'', which is known today only from an anonymous edition published in London in 1603. Its well-developed structure and language as theatre may suggest that our picture of literary activity in the Scottish court of James is not complete. The exact identity of the dramatist is open to speculation.


Context and legacy

Scottish Jacobean writers have largely been overshadowed by the contemporaneous literary scene in London in the age of
Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...
. Their appreciation also has been coloured by the debatable historical view that their work marked a decline and end to the tradition of the
makar A makar () is a term from Scottish literature for a poet or bard, often thought of as a royal court poet. Since the 19th century, the term ''The Makars'' has been specifically used to refer to a number of poets of fifteenth and sixteenth ce ...
s. The
modernist Modernism is both a philosophy, philosophical and arts movement that arose from broad transformations in Western world, Western society during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The movement reflected a desire for the creation of new fo ...
Scots poet Hugh MacDiarmid, one of their detractors, dismissed their legacy in his terms as
royalist A royalist supports a particular monarch as head of state for a particular kingdom, or of a particular dynastic claim. In the abstract, this position is royalism. It is distinct from monarchism, which advocates a monarchical system of gov ...
and
episcopalian Anglicanism is a Western Christian tradition that has developed from the practices, liturgy, and identity of the Church of England following the English Reformation, in the context of the Protestant Reformation in Europe. It is one of the ...
and described their work as "circumscribed in outlook". More recent critics and scholars have attempted to demonstrate the injustice of such prejudicial factors and seek a more favourable appreciation of their work. The full range of their prolific output has never properly been represented in modern publication and much in their writing, situated in a continuous tradition from the period of earlier writers such as
Dunbar Dunbar () is a town on the North Sea coast in East Lothian in the south-east of Scotland, approximately east of Edinburgh and from the English border north of Berwick-upon-Tweed. Dunbar is a former royal burgh, and gave its name to an ...
, prefigures the
metaphysical poets The term Metaphysical poets was coined by the critic Samuel Johnson to describe a loose group of 17th-century English poets whose work was characterised by the inventive use of conceits, and by a greater emphasis on the spoken rather than lyrica ...
in England. Not only are the 'Castalians' of interest in their own right as the last court poets in a purely Scottish context, but at their best, and especially when their language is correctly appraised, their proficient use of sometimes highly mannered verse forms to express complex ideas and personal emotion can stand with later popular works of figures such as Donne, Herrick and Marvell.


''Reulis and Cautelis''

King James VI's conscious desire to determine continuity in the Scottish literary tradition is evident from his 1585 prose treatise, the '' Reulis and Cautelis'' (''Rules and Cautions''), a
treatise A treatise is a formal and systematic written discourse on some subject, generally longer and treating it in greater depth than an essay, and more concerned with investigating or exposing the principles of the subject and its conclusions." Tre ...
on Scots prosody written when he was 19. Casting himself, accurately, as an
apprentice Apprenticeship is a system for training a new generation of practitioners of a trade or profession with on-the-job training and often some accompanying study (classroom work and reading). Apprenticeships can also enable practitioners to gain a ...
in the art of poetry, his intent was to describe the tradition and set general aesthetic and linguistic standards for Scots poetic composition. As he was well aware, his own ancestor,
James I James I may refer to: People *James I of Aragon (1208–1276) *James I of Sicily or James II of Aragon (1267–1327) *James I, Count of La Marche (1319–1362), Count of Ponthieu *James I, Count of Urgell (1321–1347) *James I of Cyprus (1334–13 ...
, was a principal figure in that tradition. Some of the specific tenets of the royal treatise were not always observed by the Castalians, but its focus on language was a defining aspect for the group. James wrote elsewhere that it "best became a king" to "make famous his own tongue", and the ''Reulis and Cautelis'' seems principally designed to serve that aspiration. Yet James at the same time conscious of his increasingly likely future accession to the English throne also gave his publisher, Robert Waldegrave, permission to anglicise his Scots manuscripts when going to press for consumption in England.N Rhodes, J Richards, J Marshall (eds). ''King James VI and I: selected writings''. Ashgate, Aldershot. 2003. p.2


See also

* Pléiade *
Metaphysical poets The term Metaphysical poets was coined by the critic Samuel Johnson to describe a loose group of 17th-century English poets whose work was characterised by the inventive use of conceits, and by a greater emphasis on the spoken rather than lyrica ...
*
Cavalier poets The cavalier poets was a school of English poets of the 17th century, that came from the classes that supported King Charles I during the English Civil War (1642–1651). Charles, a connoisseur of the fine arts, supported poets who created the art ...
* Cultural depictions of James I of England


Notes


References

* * {{Authority control Literary circles Renaissance literature Scots Makars Middle Scots poets