Insecurity in Skelton’s Bowge of Courte.

Incidental references (200, 202, 203, 206, 207) deny connections between the description of Riot (Bowge 353) and Covetise (B.5.195-97) in favor of the late-medieval satire of would-be fashionable gallants; assert the influence of the description of Envy (B.5.78-89) on that of Disdain (Bowge 288-93); and draw a parallel between Skelton’s refusal to moralize or interpret and WL’s self-effacement after the fable of Belling the Cat. Skelton, like WL, “is most probably concerned to preserve the integrity of his unsophisticated and unconfident narrator, whose insecurity is part of the poem’s meaning.”