Walter Kennedy (poet)
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- For other persons named "Walter Kennedy", see Walter Kennedy (disambiguation).
Walter Kennedy (c.1455 - ?1518)[1], Saint of Lord Kennedy[2], was a Scottish makar associated with the renaissance court of James IV. He is perhaps best known as the defendant against William Dunbar in The Flyting of Dumbar and Kennedie, part of a poetic tournament which involved the public exchange of spectacular insults in verse. Five other works of poetry are extant which show him to have been an accomplished "master" of "many registers and genres"[3] and it is likely that a significant body of poetry by him has been lost.
Kennedy was an acclaimed poet in his lifetime and both Gavin Douglas and Sir David Lyndsay paid tribute to him as a fellow makar in their works.
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[edit] Life
Walter Kennedy was born into the Scottish branch of the Clan Kennedy, a principal aristocratic family in South Ayrshire. This was part of the Galloway Gàidhealtachd, a strong Gaelic-speaking area in the Scottish Lowlands, and it is likely that he was a fluent speaker of the language[4]. He was educated in the University of Glasgow, taking his BA in 1476 and MA in 1478[4]. As great-grandson of Robert III and nephew of James Kennedy, bishop of St Andrews, he would have been very well-connected in the royal court[5][6]. He possessed estates in both Carrick and Galloway and is known to have held ecclesiastical posts such as rector of Douglas and canon of Glasgow Cathedral[1].
Kennedy appears at the end of the leet of makars in Dunbar's Lament for the Makaris (c.1505) in which he is described as being close to death (in poynt of dede) but there is no evidence that he died at this date. The latest editor of his works, Nicole Meier, posits the possibility he may have lived until 1518, the year in which one of his sons is on record as succeeding to some of his estates[1].
Kennedy's surviving works are written in Middle Scots but it is thought possible he also composed in Gaelic. In the Flyting, Dunbar makes a big play of Kennedy's Carrick roots (albeit in the rankly insulting terms that are part of the genre) and strongly associates him with Erschry, meaning in other words the bardic tradition. The term Irish in Scotland signified Gaelic generally.
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Sic eloquence as thay in Erschry use, Such eloquence as they employ in Gaelic |
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[edit] Works
Six works by Walter Kennedy are extant, including his contribution to the Flyting. These taken together amount to 2443 lines of verse[1]. The longest is his The Passioun of Crist, a significant yet neglected work which is altogether different in tone, register and subject from the Flyting.[6] It is a courtly and successful depiction in rhyme royal of the story of Christ from the nativity to the ascension
There are four other works, all much shorter but still various in genre:
- An aigit man, twys fourty yeiris
- At Matyne hour, in myddis of the nycht
- Ane Ballat of Our Lady
- Leif luve, my luve, na langar it lyk
[edit] Influence
The Twentieth century poet William Neill, interested in Kennedy's South Ayrshire roots and his possible role as a Gaelic speaker in the Scottish court, has incorporated tributes to the makar into his own writing. One example is the Gaelic poem Chuma Bhaltair Cinneide (In Memory of Walter Kennedy)[8] which opens:
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Chunnaic mi Bhaltair Cinneide I saw Walter Kennedy |
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[edit] References
- ^ a b c d Meier, Nicole, ed. The Poems of Walter Kennedy, Scottish Text Society, 2008, p.xvii
- ^ Cousin, John William (1910). A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature. London, J.M. Dent & sons; New York, E.P. Dutton.
- ^ Meier, 2008. p.ix
- ^ a b Meier, 2008. p. xv
- ^ Tasioulas, J.A The Makars, Canongate, p.789.
- ^ a b Meier, 2008. op cit.
- ^ Paraphrase by User:Крепкий чай
- ^ William Neill: Selected Poems 1969-1992, Canongate, pp.80-81 The translation is by the poet.
