Robert Henryson

Seminar paper from the year 2012 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 2,3, Free University of Berlin (Institut für Englische Philologie), course: Medieval English Literatures II, language: English, abstract: “Music, through the sweetness of its melody, brings pleasure and comfort to the soul.” This citation by Nigel Wilkin in “Music in the Age of Chaucer” ascribes a special own form of power to music; the power to affect someone’s soul. Also in the poem of Orpheus and Eurydice by the Scottish poet Robert Henryson , music plays a decisive role and implies a special power to the protagonist. The poem, which approximately was written in the late fifteenth century, leans on the Greek myth of Orpheus. King Orpheus, who is introduced as the grandson of Memoria and Jupiter, the son of the “michty god Phebuss“ and the muse Caliope, “that madin mervalouss,/ The ferd sistir, of all musik maistress“, gains his bond to music through his mother’s milk, quod vide “gart him souk of hir twa paupis quhyte/ The sueit lecour of all musik perfyte“. Henryson describes Orpheus as “fair and wyse,/ Gentill and gud, full of liberalitie”. His “noble fame“ was extensive, so that the queen of “Trace”, called Eurydice, heard about him, too. They get married and live their life full of happiness, pleasure and enjoyment.

Exploring the relation between sexuality and cosmology in a variety of literary texts from the tenth to the sixteenth centuries, the essays reveal that medieval authors, whether lay or religious, Christian or Jewish, were grappling with the same sets of questions about sexuality as people are today.

This study offers the Henryson scholar and the student of literary theory a challenging consideration of the poet's conception of tragedy. Dr. McKenna interprets Henryson as decidedly radical in orientation toward the nature of tragic action and the nature of the tragic protagonist. The poet portrays these figures as having essentially heroic status despite their obvious sins and villainy. The general approach of this study is an evaluation of Henryson's exploration of the hero's confrontation with the existential horror of reality and the extent to which mythological constructs provide tragic action a measure for collective humanity by which meaning can be sought.