Sir Thomas Wyatt

Shakespeare’s sonnets are so famous it was a bit of a shock when I first heard he didn’t invent the form nor was he the first one who used it to write love poems. It was also a surprise to me that sonnet was not even very English. It came from Italy to the English Court during the 16th Century via a diplomat and poet, one of the morning stars in the Court of Henry VIII’s, Sir Thomas Wyatt.

Sir Thomas Wyatt was born in 1503 and died in 1542, at the age of 39. When he died, poets celebrated his life and work. They wrote poems mourning him, the same way they did for Sir Philip Sidney in 40-something years later.

For readers now from 500 years later, what’s more well-known about Thomas Wyatt is probably his love affair with Anne Boleyn, the second wife of Henry VIII. Thomas Wyatt was imprisoned in the Tower of London when he was 33 for exactly that reason. Rumour had it that he might have even watched her execution from his prison cell. I wonder how he felt, was he really in love with her? How did it feel to watch the execution of the woman you love? To see her head separating from her body? Or was he too frightened to feel anything for her because his head could be the next on the block? Or maybe he didn’t commit adultery with her and wasn’t even in love with her. How would he feel, to lose his life for a lie? But I prefer to think that he did love Anne Boleyn, because it makes reading his love poems more interesting, it gives much more scope for imagination, to quote Anne Shirley. (Also, he wasn’t executed.)

They flee from me

The poem is about him losing it. He was so sought after but maybe because his hair was thinning, he was the favourite no more. This is one of the better-known poems by him, called They Flee From Me. I’ll read it once from the top to the bottom and we’ll look at each section in a bit more detail.

They flee from me, that sometime did me seek
With naked foot stalking in my chamber.
I have seen them gentle, tame, and meek
That now are wild and do not remember
That sometime they put themself in danger
To take bread at my hand; and now they range,
Busily seeking with a continual change.

I like how it’s mostly self-explanatory. The only thing is it’s probably helpful to know ‘sometime’ according to Johnson’s dictionary means ‘once, formerly’. So they, in context, most likely, women, used to come and look for me, they wanted to be close to me. They also didn’t wear shoes and it gives me a cat-like image, don’t know about you. These cat animals women used to be gentle, tame and meek, but they are now wild. They used to put themselves in danger to be able to stay close to him. ‘To take bread at my hand’ gives a bird-like image. These bird women would hop close to him and pick up breadcrumbs. The image is a mixture of risk, vulnerability and trust. But they are now like wild animals hunting at large.

I think it shows more the picture of the Tudor Court than the poet’s personal love life. He doesn’t say if he loves any of them, it’s quite cold and indifferent he just calls them ‘they’ generically. The tone is bitter and regretful, they used to love me, but now they don’t. I used to be the favourite and the centre of attention, but now I’m not.

Thanked be fortune it hath been otherwise
Twenty times better; but once in special,
In thin array, after a pleasant guise,
When her loose gown from her shoulders did fall,
And she me caught in her arms long and small,
Therewithall sweetly did me kiss
And softly said, “Dear heart, how like you this?”

He now looks back at a particular incident. It’s not they and them anymore. There’s a specific ‘she’! I don’t think I need to explain more, it’s plain enough! I wonder who this is and what is ‘this’ when he says “dear heart how you like this”. The explicit description really gives me a John Donne vibe.

It was no dream: I lay broad waking.
But all is turned, thorough my gentleness
Into a strange fashion of forsaking;
And I have leave to go, of her goodness,
And she also to use newfangleness.
But since that I so kindly am served,
I fain would know what she hath deserved.

He stays wide awake thinking about it, this once special, about this dear heart who dumped him. He phrases the situation sarcastically, ‘I have leave to go’. ‘You may go now.’ Norton explains ‘newfangleness’ as fickleness. Or ‘vain and foolish love of novelty’ in Johnson’s dictionary. She desires me no more because she has new toys to play with. ‘I so kindly am served’, I hope she gets what she deserves.

Sonnets

At the beginning of this post I mentioned how I was surprised that sonnet had a life before Shakespeare took hold of it. I’m going to end with a sonnet by Thomas Wyatt. 14 lines iambic pentameter. Notice the common themes between this and They Flee From Me: women’s change of affection and attachment, the court in the background etc. I love the quick mention of his own profession. Being a brilliant poet himself, somehow he knows poems and words are ultimately powerless to win a lover’s heart. The bigger reason why I want to read this is so you can have a feel of this brand new form of poetry at the time, before it was made iconic by Shakespeare.

Divers doth use, as I have heard and know,
When that to change their ladies do begin,
To mourn and wail, and never for to lin,
Hoping thereby to pease their painful woe.
And some there be, that when it chanceth so
That women change and hate where love hath been,
They call them false and think with words to win
The hearts of them which otherwhere doth grow.
But as for me, though that by chance indeed
Change hath outworn the favor that I had,
I will not wail, lament, nor yet be sad,
Nor call her false that falsely did me feed,
But let it pass, and think it is of kind
That often change doth please a woman’s mind.