Ane Satyre Of The Thrie Estaitis

Sir David Lindsay

2012-06 · Canongate Books

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The Thrie Estaitis was first performed in the mid-sixteenth century to an audience of royalty and commoners alike. With its high style and penetrating political satire, it pressed for reform in Church and State and even in kingship itself with a hilarious masque of vice and corruption in high places. Sir David Lindsay's great play is a milestone in world drama. After almost 400 years it was revived by Tyrone Guthrie in a famous production for the Edinburgh Festival of 1948. Ever since then this masterpiece has been recognised as a key text in the resurgence of political theatre in modern Scotland and it appears as irreverent today as it was in Lindsay's troubled times.

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Sir David Lindsay of the Mount was born in about 1485. The son of a Fife laird, Lindsay served for most of his life at the Scottish court, as usher to the young James V, as Snowdon Herald, and eventually as Lyon King of Arms. His earliest surviving poems come from from the end of the king's minority: he was already voicing strong criticism of the abuses of the contemporary Church. This is developed into a sustained attack in three later works: The Tragedie of Cardinall Betoun (1547), Ane Dialog of Experience and ane Courtier (1552) and The Three Estaitis (1552). While the nature and extent of Lindsay's commitment to Protestantism is a matter for debate, there is no mistaking the vigour of his condemnation of ecclesiastical misconduct, or the dramatic skill with which he brings his arguments to life.