Henryson, Robert | Denton Fox (essay date October 1972)
Denton Fox (essay date October 1972)
SOURCE: Fox, Denton. “Henryson's ‘Sum Practysis of Medecyne.’” In Studies in Philology LXIX, no. 4 (October 1972): 453-60.
[In the essay that follows, Fox examines the context and structure of Henryson's lesser-known “Sum Practysis of Medecyne.”]
On folios 141v-2v of the Bannatyne MS, which was completed in 1568, there exists a curious and cryptic poem which carries the title, Sum practysis of medecyne, and the colophon, “quod Maister robert Henrysone.”1 I would like to make here some suggestions about the tradition behind this poem, and about the poem's structure: it seems to me, on the one hand, that the disreputable genre Henryson was working in has some pedigree; and, on the other hand, that although the poem is certainly filled with puzzles, its overall structure is clearer than has been recognized.
The poem has been...
[The entire page is 3839 words long]
Navigate
