“Myne owne aduenture”: Stephen Hawes and Medieval Romance

Abstract

Stephen Hawes's fusion of romance and allegory has long been recognized as the poet's chief claim to originality. But Hawes's chivalric allegories have often been treated merely as an obscure antecedent to the immersive world of Spenser's Faerie Queene. This article examines Hawes's originality on its own terms, and brings his work back into conversation with the metrical romances, devotional treatises, and dreams of spiritual warfare that shaped his creative aspirations. By analysing Hawes's early dream poem, The Example of Vertu, I argue that the motifs of chivalric romance first entered the poet's work through the back door of homiletic sources. I then explore how Hawes achieved a bolder, more intuitive movement between allegory and romance in his most ambitious work, The Pastime of Pleasure.The poems of Stephen Hawes are some of the sleepiest in English. Whenever the sun sets in The Pastime of Pleasure (1505/06), Hawes's questing protagonist "La Graunde Amour" is to be found dismounting his allegorical horse, taking off his allegorical helmet, and settling down in a "ryall toure vpon a craggy roche" (4161) or simply "vnder an hyll syde" (3464). 1 Sometimes this lovesick knight sleeps "with sorowe opprest" (1908) or with "inwarde trouble" (4716), much like Chaucer's Troilus, but more often than not he is simply grateful of the "softe pylowe" (4714) provided by a host, or the promise of a "good brekefast" (4506) the following morning. His trusty greyhounds "Grace" and "Gouernaunce" ensure that he never oversleeps, and leap on him "ryght meryly" (4503) when the sun rises. During his long and