theme and imagery are ... determined by the material patterns of
sound.”^66 The excesses of Skelton’s poem may perhaps be seen as a scandal-
ous exposure, rather than an endorsement, of the rhetorical bases of human-
ist oratory, a revelation of its foundations in linguistic violence.
The third andfinal reason why I am reluctant to claim the last word here
is that Skelton does not allow it to himself. Occupation’s catalogue, we
recall, comes to rest on the mysterious“Item Apollo that whirllid up his
chare”( 1471 ). Skelton is“halfe sodenly afrayd”( 1477 ) and asks her to erase
the line, but no–it is subject to the conditions of fame, she says, and what is
once written“must nedes after rin all the worlde aboute”( 1483 ). Editors
have assumed yet another reference to a satirical work now lost, but the line
also, of course, quotes the point at which Chaucer’sSquire’s Taleis inter-
rupted by the Franklin. The poem that supplies such decisive closure to one
Chaucerian text concludes with allusion to another whose digressions and
lacunae suggest, as Elizabeth Scala has persuasively argued, compulsive and
repeated return to an origin“which is barred from signification,”and which,
therefore,“demands construction over and over again.”^67 (The Squire’s last
line before the one Skelton cites, of course, is“And ther I lefte I wol ayeyn
bigynne.”) The gesture reflects Skelton’sfinal bibliography, where works of
instruction and propaganda alternate with low-style verse, obscure hints,
and pieces whose very existence is in question, so that Skelton’s“name”is
founded on an absent text, a catalogue of ghosts. And this disturbance is
mirrored in the end of the dream. When Occupation“ma[kes] rehersall”of
“the laurel”( 1503 ), and theGarlande of Laurellbecomes one with the poem
we read, the poets cry“Triumpha, triumpha!”( 1506 ), but Fame–whether
in approval, irritation or boredom we never know–orders the book to be
“shett fast”( 1510 ), waking the dreamer up. In this laureationinterruptus,
The Garlande of Laurell’s endeavors to erase origin issue in afinal recog-
nition of limit.
Mapping Skelton:“Esebon, Marybon, Wheston next Barnet” 167