ABSTRACT
Some critics have limited themselves to the artificial, aureate images in William Dunbar's courtly poems such as “The Goldyn Targe” or “The Thrissil and the Rois;” some have neglected the subject entirely. Dunbar draws on an enormous variety of literary sources–the Bible and the liturgy, the lapidary, the bestiary, and heraldic lore–but in the colloquial and satirical poems it is perhaps to be expected that the naturalistic images derive mainly either from direct observation of everyday life or from popular tradition. In some of Dunbar’s shorter poems a single image serves as the organizing principle of the whole poem. It is more profitable, however, to consider Dunbar’s frequent use of groups or clusters of images. A poet’s handling of images is of a piece with his handling of language in general, and Dunbar has a craftsman’s care for the choice and placing of his words.
