English Language and Literature ETDs

Publication Date

12-4-1973

Abstract

In its broadest sense the term "flyting" means any wrangling or contention. Generally the term is used some­what more narrowly to refer to battles of wits in which contestants try to excel ea.ch other in imaginative abuse. The contest aspect of the flyting excludes from its definition asides or one-sided taunts. The emphasis on imaginative abuse delivered for its own sake distinguishes flyting from the debate, which is concerned with issues, and also from satire, which usually has as its aim the reformation of an opponent. Games of abuse have been pervasive, there are battle flytings, court fly1cings, festival flytings, literary flytings. Not surprisingly, flyting shows up in drama, making its noisy appearance at the beginnings of that genre. This discussion deals with dramatic flyting in England during the golden age of the tradition--the Renaissance.

First, however, drama-tic flyting is examined in a group of representative plays extending in time from the medieval mystery plays to Gammer Gurton’s Nedle in an attempt to find out what flyting is doing in the drama. These verbal battles are discussed in terms of the characters who engage in them, their coherence with thematic or structural goals, and their language. Flyters share a number of characteristics (energy, intelligence, egotism) which remain throughout the period studied; one important change which does occur is that the flyters, who begin by being noticeably frail (Noah's wife) or downright evil (Herod's soldiers, devils, vices), gradually lose their connections with evil until their energy and volubility matter more than their morality. This process, of course, coincides with the growing secularization of the drama. Similarly, the flytings begin as demonstrations of primitive oppositions--life and death, affirmation and negation--where the insult is used magically and. as they become more sophisticated, lose some o:f: their primitive power, but take on the energies and enchantments of game. The language of the flytings remains throughout spontaneous, colloquial, energetic, and earthy.

When Shakespeare came to the tradition, he picked up on the game characteristics of' flyting and used it as play in such works as Henry IV, Part One and Much Ado About Nothing. There he developed what had been inchoate before, flyting. used so often to generate and reflect heat he used--through the generous. competitive, happy spirit of play--to portray warmth. By means of their flyting, Falstaff and Hal, Beatrice and Benedick transform aggression, tension, even hostility, into friendship. Their flytings allow Falstaff and Hal to raise and dispel conflicts in play, so that these will not overwhelm them in "real life," Beatrice and Benedick use the give and take of the wi.t combat to forge the reciprocal relationship they desire and fear.

In Ben Jonson flyting is turned upside down. Jonson uses his flyting scenes to emphasize moments when his char­acters collide but do not interact; his flytings are games in the worst sense of that word--they are a waste of time and are played to promote self-interest rather than to encourage mutual benefit; the flytings are a result of a lack of self-knowledge and postpone attaining that knowledge; and, finally, the language of a Jonsonian flyting contains little wit, humor, or energy. These ideas are explored in Bartholomew Fair, the play in which Jonson most fully develops his use of the flyting and in which he acknowledges his place within the tradition of dramatic flyting and pays a backhanded tribute to that tradition.

Degree Name

English

Level of Degree

Doctoral

Department Name

English

First Committee Member (Chair)

Edith Buchanan

Second Committee Member

David Carlton McPherson

Third Committee Member

Katherine Gauss Simons

Language

English

Document Type

Dissertation

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