SOURCE: Orme, Nicholas. “Alexander Barclay, Tudor Educationist.” In Education and Society In Medieval and Renaissance England, pp. 259-70. London: The Hambledon Press, 1989.

In the following essay, Orme provides a brief synopsis of Barclay's biographical information as well as an analysis of Barclay's translation of The Ship of Fools, focusing on how the work reflects his background and writing style.

Few sixteenth-century Englishmen had such a varied career as Alexander Barclay. By origin a Scot, he spent most of his life in England but also travelled widely on the continent. By career, he was in turn a secular priest in a collegiate church, a monk, a friar, and finally (after the dissolution of the friaries), a secular priest again, this time a parish clergyman. He is best known today as a poet and translator, but he was also an educationist. He held at least two teaching posts, one in...