A Literature Question

by `triptychr

Q: I dread writing a report for my Early British Literature class. Is there a piece I can focus on that will satisfy my professor while still keeping me amused with crude humor?

A: You've come to the right place, friend.

In terms of mixing historical relevance, academic consideration and outright potty humor, one certainly can not go wrong with “The Censure of the Parliament Fart,” a 1607 masterpiece that has been attributed to a number of authors including John Hoskyns, Richard Martin, Edward Jones and Christopher Brooke.

The poem stems from a March 4, 1607 meeting of the Commons in which one Henry Ludlow let loose with a quite audible rip during the reading of a message from the Lords. The fart had the effect of breaking the political hall down into a room of snickering schoolboys, leaving the messenger quite flummoxed.

Like all great moments in history, this was recorded in a poetic form that wafted throughout the populace. Some changes were made over the years, but a sound rendition can be found at the Early Stuart Libels, at www.earlystuartlibels.net. The words “fart” and “farting” occur 14 times within the 50-line poem, providing an official Immature Giggle Ratio (IGR) of  28 percent — quite good.

The poem treats the rear-facing outburst as if it was a motion (legally speaking, as I'm sure most everyone has found a flatulent episode quite moving at one point in their lives), with the other Parliamentary members addressing it as such. A sample:

Quoth Sir Jerome in folio, I sweare by the Masse
This Fart was enough to have brooke all my Glasse
Indeed quoth Sir Trevor it gave a fowle knock
As it lanched forth from his stincking Docke.

Please note ye olde tyme spellinng: big bonus points in academic authenticity. And this piece has indeed been studied with a critical eye by a number of the professorial and research elite — or at least people who've dreamed to have the word “fart” published as many times as possible. I'm not here to split hairs.

In “The English Wits: Literature and Sociability in Early Modern England” (2007, Cambridge University Press), Michelle O'Callaghan notes that “the poem proceeds through prosopopeia, comic impersonation. An embodied mode, it attributes a sociocorporeality to the text in which the writing is analogous to face-to-face interaction.” I honestly have no idea what she means, but “prosopopeia” seemed like a fittingly funny word to use here.

In case you were wondering, there's evidence that Ludlow's poot heard 'round the Parliament was not deliberate, as Robert Boyer, a clerk in attendance that day, wrote that he was not surprised because “his Father Sir Edward Ludloe before a Committee fell on sleepe and sonitum ventre emisit [you can guess what that means]: So this seemeth Infirmity Naturall, not Malice.”