Poem On The Evil Times of Edward II

Poem on the Evil Times of Edward II, also known as The Simonie and Symonie and Couetise, is a Middle English poem in three distinct versions probably composed and modified over a century by anonymous authors. The original poem, perhaps not exactly reproduced by any of the surviving texts, has been dated to 1321 by Thomas Wright (1839), to 1327 by J. Aberth (2000), and to 1322-30 by Dan Embree and Elizabeth Urquhart (1991).

Version A is in Edinburgh, National Library of Scotland, MS Advocates 19.2.1. It is 476 lines long, breaking off in mid-stanza. It can be s dated to the 1320s or 30s.

Version B is in Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Bodley 48. It is 413 lines long, but 216 lines have been cut from the manuscript. It can be dated to the 1320s

Version C is in Cambridge, Peterhouse MS 104. It is 468 lines long, apparently complete. It might be dated to any point up to the date of the manuscript itself -- 1375-1425.

The three versions vary radically from one another -- much more extensively than is usual for a text that has been merely copied and much more chaotically than is plausible for a text revised by its author. Each version has unique inclusions and omissions; only 35 percent of the lines in A are shared by B and C.

It was a "social protest" poem that arose in the aftermath of the Great Famine of 1315-1317. It clearly targeted the negligences and vices of specific social groups, such as the clergy and nobility, within the context of the failures of the Great Famine and wars of the early 14th century. The tradition of social protest poems in England would later culminate with Piers Plowman – see Piers Plowman tradition for further discussion.

Famous quotes containing the words poem, evil, times and/or edward:

    The poem has a social effect of some kind whether or not the poet wills it to have. It has kinetic force, it sets in motion ... [ellipsis in source] elements in the reader that would otherwise be stagnant.
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    If woman alone had suffered under these mistaken traditions [of women’s subordination], if she could have borne the evil by herself, it would have been less pitiful, but her brother man, in the laws he created and ignorantly worshipped, has suffered with her. He has lost her highest help; he has crippled the intelligence he needed; he has belittled the very source of his own being and dwarfed the image of his Maker.
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    Any time you’ve got nothing to do—and lots of time to do it—come on up.
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