View source for Flyting

{{short description|Exchange of insults in the form of verse}}
[[File:The Papal Belvedere.jpg|thumb|upright=1.2|1545 woodcut by [[Lucas Cranach the Elder|Lucas Cranach]] referencing (and possibly illustrating) flyting. German peasants respond to a papal bull of [[Pope Paul III]]. Caption reads: "Don't frighten us Pope, with your ban, and don't be such a furious man. Otherwise we shall turn around and show you our rears."<ref>"Nicht Bapst: nicht schreck uns mit deim ban, Und sey nicht so zorniger man. Wir thun sonst ein gegen wehre, Und zeigen dirs Bel vedere"</ref><ref name="Edwards-2">{{Cite book |last=Edwards Jr |first=Mark U. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=kYbupalP98kC&pg=PA198 |title=Luther's Last Battles: Politics and Polemics 1531-46 |date=2004-11-19 |publisher=Fortress Press |isbn=978-1-4514-1398-4 |pages=199 |language=en}}</ref>]]
[[File:Lokasenna by Lorenz Frølich.jpg|thumb|The Norse gods [[Freyja]] and [[Loki]] flyte in an illustration (1895) by [[Lorenz Frølich]].]]
'''Flyting''' or '''fliting''' ([[Classical Gaelic]]: ''immarbág'', {{langx|ga|iomarbháigh}}, {{lit}} "counter-boasting")<ref>{{Cite book |author=Vivian Mercier |year=1962 |title=The Irish Comic Tradition |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |page=146}}</ref> is a contest consisting of the exchange of insults between two parties, often conducted in verse.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Parks |first=Ward |date=1986 |title=Flyting, Sounding, Debate: Three Verbal Contest Genres |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/1772505 |journal=Poetics Today |volume=7 |issue=3 |pages=439–458 |doi=10.2307/1772505|jstor=1772505 |url-access=subscription }}</ref>

==Etymology==
The word ''flyting'' comes from the [[Old English]] verb {{lang|ang|flītan}} meaning 'to quarrel', made into a [[gerund]] with the suffix -''ing''. Attested from around 1200 in the general sense of a verbal quarrel, it is first found as a technical literary term in Scotland in the sixteenth century.<ref>{{Cite OED|Fliting|71711}}</ref> The first written [[Scots language|Scots]] example<ref>{{Cite web |title=Dictionaries of the Scots Language:: DOST :: flyting |url=https://dsl.ac.uk/entry/dost/flyting |access-date=2023-12-18}}</ref> is [[William Dunbar]], ''[[The Flyting of Dunbar and Kennedie]]'', written in the late fifteenth century.<ref>{{Cite book |chapter=23 The Flyting of Dunbar and Kennedie |url=https://www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com/display/10.1093/actrade/9780198118886.book.1/actrade-9780198118886-div1-24?p1-1=1&p2-1=1&r-1=1.000&t-1=contents-tab&w1-1=1.000&w2-1=0.400&wm-1=1 |access-date=2023-12-18 |via=Oxford Scholarly Editions Online |language=en |doi=10.1093/actrade/9780198118886.book.1 | title=The Poems of William Dunbar | date=1979 | last1=Dunbar | first1=William | isbn=978-0-19-811888-6 | editor-first1=James | editor-last1=Kinsley }}</ref>

== Description ==
{{Quote box
 |quote  = I will no longer keep it secret:<br />it was with thy sister<br />thou hadst such a son<br />hardly worse than thyself.
 |source = ''[[Lokasenna]]''
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{{Quote box
 |quote  = Like ane boisteous bull, ye rin and ryde<br />Royatouslie, lyke ane rude rubatour<br />Ay fukkand lyke ane furious fornicatour
 |source = [[David Lyndsay|Sir David Lyndsay]], ''An Answer quhilk Schir David Lyndsay maid Y Kingis Flyting'' (''The Answer Which Sir David Lyndsay made to the King's Flyting''), 1536
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{{Quote box
 |quote  = Ajax: Thou bitch-wolf's son, canst thou not hear? Feel then.<br />
Thersites: The plague of Greece upon thee, thou mongrel beef-witted lord!
 |source = [[William Shakespeare]], ''[[Troilus and Cressida]]'', Act 2, Scene 1
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Flyting is a ritual, poetic exchange of insults practiced mainly between the 5th and 16th centuries. Examples of flyting are found throughout [[Scots language|Scots]], [[Fili|Ancient]], [[Medieval]]<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.britannica.com/art/flyting|title = Flyting &#124; Scottish verbal contest &#124; Britannica}}</ref><ref name="Icelandic vis-à-vis Irish flyting">{{cite web | url=http://journal.oraltradition.org/files/articles/6i/6_sayers.pdf | title=Serial Defamation in Two Medieval Tales: The Icelandic Ölkofra Þáttr and The Irish Scéla Mucce Meic Dathó | work=Oral Tradition | date=1991 | access-date=2016-03-16 | author=Sayers, William | pages=35–57}}</ref> and [[Contemporary_history|Modern]] [[Celts|Celtic]], [[Old English]], [[Middle English]] and Norse literature involving both historical and mythological figures. The exchanges would become extremely provocative, often involving accusations of [[cowardice]] or [[sexual perversion]].

Norse literature contains stories of the gods flyting. For example, in ''[[Lokasenna]]'' the god [[Loki]] insults the other gods in the hall of [[Ægir]]. In the poem ''[[Hárbarðsljóð]]'', Hárbarðr (generally considered to be [[Odin]] in disguise) engages in flyting with [[Thor]].<ref>{{cite book |last=Byock |first=Jesse |title=Feud in the Icelandic Saga |publisher=University of California Press |year=1983 |orig-year=1982 |location=Berkeley |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=yPUnnVkWf4sC |isbn=0-520-08259-1}}</ref>

In the confrontation of [[Beowulf (hero)|Beowulf]] and [[Unferð]] in the poem ''[[Beowulf]]'', flytings were used as either a prelude to battle or as a form of combat in their own right.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Clover |first=Carol J. |date=1980 |title=The Germanic Context of the Unferþ Episode |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/2847235 |journal=Speculum |volume=55 |issue=3 |pages=444–468 |doi=10.2307/2847235 |jstor=2847235 |s2cid=163023116 |issn=0038-7134|url-access=subscription }}</ref>

In [[Anglo-Saxon England]], flyting would take place in a feasting hall. The winner would be decided by the reactions of those watching the exchange. The winner would drink a large cup of beer or [[mead]] in victory, then invite the loser to drink as well.<ref>''Quaestio: selected proceedings of the Cambridge Colloquium in Anglo-Saxon, Norse, and Celtic'' Volumes 2–3, pp. 43–44, University of Cambridge, 2001.{{ISBN?}}</ref>

The 13th-century poem ''[[The Owl and the Nightingale]]'' and [[Geoffrey Chaucer]]'s ''[[Parlement of Foules]]'' contain elements of flyting.

Flyting became public entertainment in [[Scotland]] in the 15th and 16th centuries, when [[makar]]s would engage in verbal contests of provocative, often sexual and [[Scatology#Literature|scatological]] but highly poetic abuse. Flyting was permitted despite the fact that the penalty for profanities in public was a fine of 20 shillings (over £300 in {{CURRENTYEAR}} prices) for a lord, or a whipping for a servant.<ref name="Hughes" /> [[James IV of Scotland|James IV]] and [[James V of Scotland|James V]] encouraged "court flyting" between poets for their entertainment and occasionally engaged with them. ''[[The Flyting of Dumbar and Kennedie]]'' records a contest between [[William Dunbar]] and [[Walter Kennedy (poet)|Walter Kennedy]] in front of James IV, which includes the earliest recorded use of the word [[shit]] as a personal insult.<ref name="Hughes">{{Cite book |author=Geoffrey Hughes |title=An encyclopedia of swearing : the social history of oaths, profanity, foul language, and ethnic slurs in the English-speaking world |author2=M.E. Sharpe |year=2006 |isbn=9780765612311 |page=175 |publisher=M.E. Sharpe |oclc=827752811}}</ref> In 1536 the poet [[David Lyndsay|Sir David Lyndsay]] composed a [[ribaldry|ribald]] 60-line flyte to James V after the King demanded a response to a flyte.

Flytings appear in several of [[William Shakespeare]]'s plays. [[Margaret Galway]] analysed 13 comic flytings and several other ritual exchanges in the tragedies.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Galway |first=Margaret |date=1935 |title=Flyting in Shakspere's Comedies |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/23684827 |journal=The Shakespeare Association Bulletin |volume=10 |issue=4 |pages=183–191 |jstor=23684827 |issn=0270-8604}}</ref> Flytings also appear in Nicholas Udall's ''[[Ralph Roister Doister]]'' and John Still's ''[[John Still#Gammer Gurton's Needle|Gammer Gurton's Needle]]'' from the same era.

While flyting died out in Scottish writing after the Middle Ages, it continued for writers of Celtic background. [[Robert Burns]] parodied flyting in his poem, "[[To a Louse]]", and [[James Joyce]]'s poem "The Holy Office" is a curse upon society by a bard.<ref>"flyting." ''Merriam Webster's Encyclopedia of Literature''. Springfield, MA: Merriam-Webster, 1995. ''Literature Resource Center''.</ref> Joyce played with the traditional two-character exchange by making one of the characters representing society as a whole.

== Similar practices ==
Hilary Mackie has detected in the ''[[Iliad]]'' a consistent differentiation between representations in Greek of Achaean and Trojan speech,<ref>{{cite book |last=Mackie |first=Hilary Susan |title=Talking Trojan: Speech and Community in the Iliad |publisher=Rowmann & Littlefield |year=1996 |location=Lanham MD |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=A3F_so8HNg4C |isbn=0-8476-8254-4}}, reviewed by Joshua T. Katz in ''Language'' '''74'''.2 (1998) pp. 408–09.</ref> where Achaeans repeatedly engage in public, ritualized abuse: "Achaeans are proficient at blame, while Trojans perform praise poetry."<ref>Mackie 1996:83.</ref>

Taunting songs are present in the [[Inuit]] culture, among many others. Flyting can also be found in [[Arabic poetry]] in a popular form called ''naqā’iḍ'', as well as the competitive verses of Japanese [[Haikai]].

Echoes of the genre continue into modern poetry. [[Hugh MacDiarmid]]'s poem ''[[A Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle]]'', for example, has many passages of flyting in which the poet's opponent is, in effect, the rest of humanity.

Flyting is similar in both form and function to the modern practice of [[freestyle battle]]s between rappers and the historic practice of [[the Dozens]], a verbal-combat game representing a synthesis of flyting and its [[Early Modern English]] descendants with comparable African verbal-combat games such as ''Ikocha Nkocha''.<ref name="rap">{{cite web |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/music/3998862/Rap-music-originated-in-medieval-Scottish-pubs-claims-American-professor.html |title=Rap music originated in medieval Scottish pubs, claims American professor |access-date=2008-12-30 |last=Johnson |first=Simon |work=telegraph.co.uk |publisher=Telegraph Media Group |date=2008-12-28 |quote=Professor Ferenc Szasz argued that so-called [[rap battles]], where two or more performers trade elaborate insults, derive from the ancient Caledonian art of "flyting." According to the theory, Scottish slave owners took the tradition with them to the United States, where it was adopted and developed by slaves, emerging many years later as rap; see also John Dollard, "The Dozens: the dialect of insult", ''American Image'' '''1''' (1939), pp. 3–24; Roger D. Abrahams, "Playing the dozens", ''Journal of American Folklore'' '''75''' (1962), pp. 209–18.}}</ref>

In the Finnish epic ''[[Kalevala]]'', the hero [[Väinämöinen]] uses the similar practice of ''kilpalaulanta'' (duel singing) to defeat his opponent [[Joukahainen]].

== See also ==
*''[[Beot]]''
*''[[Craic]]''
*[[Senna (poetic)|Senna]]
*[[Slam poetry]]
*[[Dozens (game)|Dozens]]
*[[Maternal insult]]
*[[Battle rap]]

== Notes ==
{{reflist|group=Note}}
{{reflist|2}}

==External links==
*{{Commonscatinline}}
*[http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/211736/flyting Flyting – britannica.com]

[[Category:Genres of poetry]]
[[Category:Theatrical combat]]
[[Category:European court festivities]]
[[Category:Competitions]]
[[Category:Verse contests]]
[[Category:Folk poetry]]