distinct parts. The fi rst is a young girl’s lament for the
death of her pet sparrow, Philip, who was killed by a
cat. Her character is based on Jane Scrope, who was
educated by Benedictine nuns. This background shows
in the way her ELEGY is interspersed with Latin phrases
from various offi ces for the dead, albeit in a garbled
form. In short, rhyming trimeter lines (SKELTONICS),
Jane evokes in simple words the sparrow’s activities
while still alive: His tricks and clever ways, including
his appetite and his fondness for his mistress, are
described in a very vivid manner, so as to make Jane’s
deep feeling of loss comprehensible. This is followed
by a section in which the other birds are called to Phil-
ip’s funeral, and each is assigned a particular task.
Finally, Jane attempts to compose an epitaph for Philip,
exhibiting an astoundingly wide, though not very
deep, knowledge of classical mythology and philoso-
phy as well as of English literature. By these means, the
reader is made to empathize with Jane’s sorrow for the
death of her sparrow, and she emerges as a very engag-
ing personality.
This is clearly also the view taken by the adult male
speaker of the second part of the poem who praises the
maid and her elegy. He specifi cally extols her beauty
by giving detailed descriptions of her physical attrac-
tions, and he does not hesitate to express bodily desire
for her, although allegedly only in his imagination. The
language of this part is more sophisticated, especially
in its rhetorical devices, than the preceding one. The
third part is a later addition (1523) and is evidently a
reaction to adverse criticism of the poem. The speaker,
“Maister Skelton” himself, defends what he has written
by accusing his critics of envy because they are not
able to do what he has done.
There is indeed a known denigrating reference to
“Philip Sparrow” by Alexander Barclay in his transla-
tion of Sebastian Brant’s Ship of Fools (1509), but it is
not clear what exactly he (and probably others)
objected to. The quotations from the burial service
may have been deemed blasphemous in this context,
or possibly the lascivious attitude of the second part
was regarded as offensive. The seemingly innocent
fi rst part is perhaps not free of sexual innuendo either,
since in medieval iconography the sparrow stood for
lechery.
Later critics found the poem badly structured and
incoherent, but, concentrating mainly on the fi rst part,
also applauded its specifi city of detail and its evocation
of childhood. More recent criticism has, in contrast,
tried to show the unity of the poem in its providing
complementary perspectives on life and death on the
one side, and its empowerment of the feminine outlook
on the other. In this view, Jane appropriates the male-
dominated literary tradition and rewrites it to give her
mourning a female voice. Later gender critics, however,
have pointed out that the words are still written by a
man adopting the persona of a woman. These diverse
positions show that the modern reader may still make
surprising discoveries in this outstanding poem.
FURTHER READING
Schibanoff, Susan. “Taking Jane’s Cue: Phyllyp Sparrowe as
a Primer for Women Readers.” PMLA 101, no. 5 (1986):
832–847.
Herbert G. Klein“PHOENIX AND TURTLE, THE” WILLIAM
SHAKESPEARE (before 1601) “The Phoenix and
Turtle” begins with a call to neighboring birds to join a
funeral procession honoring the death of the Phoenix
and the Turtledove, then “commences an anthem” for
the passionate love between the title characters. The
thematic persona Reason, however, cannot compre-
hend the bond that existed between the Phoenix (a
symbol of uniqueness) and the Turtledove (a symbol
of constancy), nor can Reason understand the narra-
tor’s reassurance these two birds continue to love even
in death. The poem concludes with Reason’s lament
for the dead lovers and observation that with the death
of the Phoenix and the Turtledove, “Truth and Beauty
buried be” (l. 64).
“The Phoenix and Turtle” was originally appended
to Robert Chester’s Love’s Martyr (1601), which
included other commendatory poems by John Mar-
ston, George Chapman, and Ben Jonson. It is written
in tetrameter and contains quatrains that rhyme abba,
cdcd, etc., but concludes with rhyming triplets that
make up a threnos, or funeral song—outdated by WIL-
LIAM SHAKESPEARE’s day but still recognizable to an Eliz-
abethan audience.318 “PHOENIX AND TURTLE, THE”