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Verse satire in England before the renaissance
Verse satire in England before the renaissance Author:Samuel Marion Tucker Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER VI Social Satire, 1520-1550; Satire Of The Reformation Social changes under Henry VIII.—Social satire.—Nowadays.—Manner of the World Nowadays.—Treatis... more »e of this Gallant.—The Ruin of a Realm. —Dissolution of the monasteries.—" The Pilgrimage of Grace."—An Exhortation to the Nobles and Commons of the North.—Social satire under Edward VI.—Vox Populi, Vox Dei.—The Satire on Woman.—The Proud Wives Pater Noster.—The Satire on Rogues.-—Cocke Lorells Bote.—The Hye Way to the Spyttell Hous.—Other Satires on Fools and on Rogues.— Relation of such satire to that of the later Moralities.—The Satire of the Reformation.—Its varieties.—Its general lack of literary merit.—Tyndale's New Testament.—The Replycacion.—Rede Me and Be Not Wrothe.—Its form, tone, and subject-matter.—Its value as a Satire.—A Proper Dialogue. —Doctor Double Ale.—The Image of Hypocrisy.—John Bon and Mast Person.—The Conservative side.—Its Satires.—A Poor Help.—Growth of the Reformation under Edward VI.—A Ballad of Luther, the Pope, etc.— Little John Nobody.—General character of the Reformation Satire. There was ample material for social satire during the reign of Henry VIII and of his son and successor, Edward VI. It was a period of social, political, and religious change, a period crowded with momentous events. The Reformation; the decay of the old nobility; political follies and crimes, such as the systematic debasement of the currency; the dissolution of the monasteries, casting eighty thousand people adrift without means of subsistence—all this and more furnished material for the social satirists, and it is not strange that the social satire of the period echoes with complaints and with calls for reform. The old Norman nobility were decaying, their castles falling into neglect. The King's extravagance...« less