SOURCE: Brownlow, F. W. “Speke, Parrot: Skelton's Allegorical Denunciation of Cardinal Wolsey.” Studies in Philology 65, No. 2 (April 1968): 124-39.

In the following essay, Brownlow argues that Skelton uses the allegory of Speke, Parrot to attack Cardinal Wolsey, often in a subtle and cryptic manner.

Skelton's satire Speke, Parrot is not the complete mystery that it once was; indeed we now know a great deal about the poem. It is generally accepted that it was written in 1521, and that it is for the most part an attack upon Cardinal Wolsey for his foreign, ecclesiastical, and educational policies, and for his influence on the King.¹ Nonetheless, recent exegeses suggest that as far as the poem's form and art are concerned, there is still much that is not known. The reasons for our difficulties are not hard to find. First, the poem seems to belong to a kind of cryptic satire intended...