Poetry (2) by Thomas Wyatt

PRIMARY SOURCE: (1557)

1. “If waker care, if sodayne pale Coulor”
2. “They flee from me”
3. “They flee from me” [manuscript]
4. “Mine Own John Poinz”

Context

• Publication: Wyatt was born c. 1503 to a Privy Councillor and Tudor loyalist. Wyatt studied at St. Johns College, Cambridge.  He married Elizabeth Brooke, daughter of Lord Cobham, c. 1520, though he divorced her c. 1525 on charges of adultery--around the same time he seems to have interested in Anne Boelyn. Asked to translate Petrarch in 1527, around the same time Henry VIII was interested in Anne Boelyn. Committed briefly to the Fleet for a brawl with the Sergeants of London in 1534. Imprisoned  to the Tower, probably as an ally of Anne, upon Suffolk's suggestion in 1536. After diplomatic missions 1539-40' is arrested in 1541 for association with Cardinal Pole. After a long life of public office in Kent, Wyatt is seized with fever after hard riding and dies at Sherbone. Wyatt's poetry circulated in manuscript, then published in A Booke of Ballets and Certain Psalms. Richard Tottel published 47 of Surrey's poems alongside 90 by Wyatt in the 1557 Miscellany. EEBO link.
• Scholarship: Scholars have been interested in Wyatt's early adoption of the sonnet, his role in politics, and in his use of heraldry.
• Why I'm reading it: The Canon, the court, sonnets, songs.

Content

• Form:

1. “If waker care, if sodayne pale Coulor”: Roughly a Shakespearean sonnet in iambic pentameter: abbaabbacdcdee
2. “They flee from me”: Rhyme royal (ababbcc), iambic pentameter.
3. “They flee from me” [manuscript]: Rhyme royal, iambic pentameter.
4. “Mine Own John Poinz”: Terza rima, iambic pentameter.

• Genre:

1. “If waker care, if sodayne pale Coulor”: Petrarchan love sonnet.
2. “They flee from me”: Love poem / erotic
3. “They flee from me” [manuscript]: Love poem / erotic
4. “Mine Own John Poinz”: Epistolary poem, Horatian satire.

• Conceit:

1. “If waker care, if sodayne pale Coulor”: The speaker is utterly devoted to Phyllis (totally not Brunet) and looks for signs of Phyllis's love in return.
2. “They flee from me”: The central gag is hunting as seduction. Remember "kind." In the Tottel version, the last line is a question but the penultimate line clarifies that the speaker was treated unkindly.
3. “They flee from me” [manuscript]: The central gag is hunting as seduction. In the Egerton manuscript, the last line is not a question, but the penultimate line is more ambiguous.
4. “Mine Own John Poinz”: In an extended passage, the speaker inventories all the ways he can't lie about human failings, including several references to song, birdsong, and painting.