Wyatt, Surrey and the English sonnet tradition

Carlo M. Bajetta Universita' della Valle d'Aosta - Université de la Vallée d'Aoste

What do these two have in common?

Lady Gaga performing at the Toronto stop of The Monster Ball Tour on March 12, 2011 Source - talktomegaga Author Gn!pGnop

Sir Thomas Wyatt by Hans Holbein the

Younger, Royal Collection, Windsor Castle.

Why is she called ‘Gaga’?

• Influenced by David Bowie, Michael Jackson, Madonna …and Queen.

 She took her name from their hit song ‘Radio Gaga’ (wr. By Roger Taylor)

Influence rocks! (and rocked)

Both Gaga and Sir Thomas Wyatt were ‘influenced’ by some other authors Influence is at work in our time as much as it was in the Renaissance – even if with some important differences

Influence then and now

• Today we look for originality (even if we seem much into remakes…) • In the Renaissance ‘originality’ was not a problem. Starting from a well-know model was a key element in literature, and especially in poetry.

Inventio, imitation and experience

‘ Starting from a well-know model ’ –> classical rhetoric stressed that invenire, finding, such a good model was the first step to write, for example, a good speech, a good essay, or a good poem Inventio (with

dispositio, elocutio, memoria,

and pronuntiatio) was crucial to one’s own literary creation  But what about one’s personal experience, (facts, feelings, sensations…) ?

Experience…

Madam, withouten many words Once I am sure ye will or no… And if ye will, then leave your bourds* *jokes And use your wit and show it so, And with a beck* ye shall me call; *beckoning gesture And if of one that burneth alway Ye have any pity at all, Answer him fair with yea or nay.

If it be yea, I shall be fain; If it be nay, friends as before; Ye shall another man obtain, And I mine own and yours no more.

Apparently a true-to-life poem… with a clear message

Personal experience?

Madonna non so dir tante parole o uoi uolet' o no se uoi uolete oprat' al gran bisogn' il uostro senno che uoi saret' intesa per un cenno & se d' un che semp' arde al fin ui duole un bel si un bel no mi rispondete se sar' un si un si scriuero 'n rima se sar' un no amici come prima uoi trouerret' un' altr' amante & io Non potend' esser uostro sar[ò] mio Dragonetto Bonifacio, (from Le Dotte, et Eccellente Compositioni de i Madrigalli ... a Cinque Voci, 1549, p. 16).

So… inventio rocks!!!

• • • This poem appears ‘realistic’ and unaffected, very direct - perhaps much more than a description of one’s one (bad? painful? disappointing?) real experience.

Still, it is a almost a translation (did you note the differences? See e.g. ‘se sar' un si un si scriuero 'n rima’ / ‘If it be yea, I shall be fain’) in Renaissance terms, it is an imitation, a sort of competition with the original.

Finally, a sonnet!

Who so list to hounte I know where is an hynde; But as for me, helas, I may no more: The wayne travaill hath weried me so sore, I ame of theim that farthest cometh behinde; Yet I by no meanes my weried mynde Drawe from the Diere; but as she fleeth afore Faynting I folowe; I leve of therefore, Sithens in a nett I seke to hold the wynde, Who list her hount I put him owte of dowbte, As well as I may spend his tyme in vain: And graven with Diamondes in letters plain There is written her faier neck rounde abowte: ‘Noli me tangere for Cesars I ame, And wylde for to hold though I seme tame.’ (Text from

Tottel’s Miscellany, 1557)

Sir Thomas Wyatt (1503-1542)

• • • • • • • Educated at Cambridge; court service since 1516 - Probably intimate with Henry (NB: hunting together?) Married by 1520, soon separated from his wife, whom he accused of adultery Romantic involvement with Anne Boleyn At the time of Boleyn’s fall in 1536, imprisoned Released & restored to favour, but imprisoned again after the execution of his patron, Thomas Cromwell (1540) Released and restored to court service – ambassador to Charles V Dies of a fever on a diplomatic mission (on his way to Falmouth, England, to greet the emperor’s ambassador).

O Dear, O Deer…

Who so list to hounte I know where is an hynde; But as for me, helas, I may no more: The wayne travaill hath weried me so sore, I ame of theim that farthest cometh behinde; Yet I by no meanes my weried mynde Drawe from the Diere; but as she fleeth afore Faynting I folowe; I leve of therefore, Sithens in a nett I seke to hold the wynde, Who list her hount I put him owte of dowbte, As well as I may spend his tyme in vain: And graven with Diamondes in letters plain There is written her faier neck rounde abowte: ‘Noli me tangere for Cesars I ame, And wylde for to hold though I seme tame.’

Una candida cerva sopra l'erba verde m'apparve, con duo corna d'oro, fra due riviere, all'ombra d'un alloro, levando 'l sole a la stagione acerba.

Era sua vista sí dolce superba, ch'i' lasciai per seguirla ogni lavoro: come l'avaro che 'n cercar tesoro con diletto l'affanno disacerba.

‘Nessun mi tocchi - al bel collo d'intorno scritto avea di diamanti et di topazi - : libera farmi al mio Cesare parve’.

Et era 'l sol già vòlto al mezzo giorno, gli occhi miei stanchi di mirar, non sazi, quand'io caddi ne l'acqua, et ella sparve.

Pertarch, Canzoniere (Rerum Vulgarium Fragmenta), no. 190

Caesar???

Fra Angelico [Beato

Angelico], (Guido di Pietro) (c. 1400-55).

Noli Me Tangere

1440-41 (190 Kb); Fresco, 180 x 146 cm; Cell 1, Convent of San Marco, Florence

Dear Deer…

• ‘In rete accolgo l'aura, e 'n ghiaccio i fiori’, Petrarch RVF, 239 (NB: not a sonnet…) • Etsi multa non querenti obveniant — quis enim amicitiarum commoda atque oblectationes enumeret? —, caritas tamen stimulos non requirit, se se contenta est, ipsa sibi calcar et premium; siquid uberius obtigerit, non amicitie laus fuerit sed fortune. Sicut non melior piscator est sed fortunatior, cui in visceribus capti piscis iaspis inventa est, nec venator fuit melior qui avorum temporibus sub arthoa plaga, si tamen vera fama est, cervum torque aureo circa collum cepit, in quo, ut perhibent, vetustissimis literis scriptum erat «Nemo me capiat» quem Iulius Cesar liberum esse iussit.

Petrarch, Familares, XVIII, 8.5

Read this again…

Who so list to hounte I know where is an hynde; But as for me, helas, I may no more: The wayne travaill hath weried me so sore, I ame of theim that farthest cometh behinde; Yet I by no meanes my weried mynde Drawe from the Diere; but as she fleeth afore Faynting I folowe; I leve of therefore, Sithens in a nett I seke to hold the wynde, Who list her hount I put him owte of dowbte, As well as I may spend his tyme in vain: And graven with Diamondes in letters plain There is written her faier neck rounde abowte: ‘Noli me tangere for Cesars I ame, And wylde for to hold though I seme tame.’ (Text from

Tottel’s Miscellany, 1557)

Who so list to hounte

• • • • The poem plays on a numebr of parallelisms, similes and oppositions, plus with multiple sources, e.g.: dear / deer + Caesar / religious overtones Inventio / real life Translation but also ‘traslatio’ of a real situation into a fictional reality Contemplation / hunting Petrarch’s sonnet is here assimilated, transformed: Erasmus (in England at various times 1499, 1500s, a friend of Henry VIII’s courtiers such as Lord Mountjoy and Sir Thomas More) used a metaphor for this, that of chewing, digesting

Sonnet and form

2 ways or reading this rhyme scheme: a) Petrarchan octave + sestet: ABBA ABBA CDD CEE b) Sonnet of the new ‘English’ type: ABBA ABBA CDDC EE Emphasis on the last couplet, which is the only phrase not ‘by’ the narrator (‘Noli me tangere for Cesars I ame, / And wylde for to hold though I seme tame.’) The last quatrain, however, does not stand alone  it ‘hesitates between alternatives’ (Falconer, 2003: 182). But this is precisely the problem of the lover in such a complex situation...

Poetic form can be in itself significant – and Wyatt knew this... See the next poem here...

Running away from me??

They fle from me that sometyme did me seke With naked fote stalking in my chambre. I have sene theim gentill tame and meke That nowe are wyld and do not remembre That sometyme they put theimself in daunger To take bred at my hand ; and nowe they raunge Besely seking with a continuell chaunge . Thancked be fortune, it hath ben othrewise Twenty tymes better ; but ons in speciall In thyn arraye after a pleasaunt gyse When her lose gowne from her shoulders did fall, And she me caught in her armes long and small ; Therewithall swetely did me kysse, And softely saide 'dere hert, howe like you this? ' It was no dreme: I lay brode waking. But all is torned thorough my gentilnes Into a straunge fasshion of forsaking; And I have leve to goo of her goodenes, And she also to vse new fangilnes. But syns that I so kyndely ame serued, I would fain knowe what she hath deserued.

• Running away from me??

Aestus erat, mediamque dies exegerat horam; adposui medio membra levanda toro.

pars adaperta fuit, pars altera clausa fenestrae; quale fere silvae lumen habere solent, qualia sublucent fugiente crepuscula Phoebo, aut ubi nox abiit, nec tamen orta dies.

illa verecundis lux est praebenda puellis, qua timidus latebras speret habere pudor.

ecce, Corinna venit, tunica velata recincta, candida dividua colla tegente coma— qualiter in thalamos famosa Semiramis isse dicitur, et multis Lais amata viris.

Deripui tunicam—nec multum rara nocebat; pugnabat tunica sed tamen illa tegi.

quae cum ita pugnaret, tamquam quae vincere nollet, victa est non aegre proditione sua.

ut stetit ante oculos posito velamine nostros, in toto nusquam corpore menda fuit.

quos umeros, quales vidi tetigique lacertos!

forma papillarum quam fuit apta premi!

quam castigato planus sub pectore venter!

quantum et quale latus! quam iuvenale femur!

Singula quid referam? nil non laudabile vidi et nudam pressi corpus ad usque meum.

Cetera quis nescit? lassi requievimus ambo.

proveniant medii sic mihi saepe dies! 5 10 15 20 25 (Ovid, Amores I, 5) Need a Translation ?  

Ovid, Amores I, 5

• Then comes Corinna with her tunic unbelted, her hair spilling to either side of her white neck. […] I tugged at her tunic. It was so thin that it hid little, but nevertheless she struggled to keep it on. Protesting like one who doesn't really want to be listened to, she finally surrendered the garment not unhappily. […] But why do I describe individual beauties? I saw nothing that was not worthy of praise, and I pressed her naked body to mine http://david-drake.com/ovid/amoresI-4.html (NB: careful with this translation…)

They flee from me…

3 x n stanzas = essential, basic, form of a ballad  a ballad tells a story (PS: this will be what the Romantic ballad is meant to do… remember Coleridge’s

The rime of the ancient

mariner ? It is no coincidence the title has an archaic spelling…)

• • •

Sonnets and poetic form

Form is an integral part of poetic meaning – it is a choice on the part of the author.

Going back to ‘Whoso list to hunt’, one may at this stage realize that choosing the sonnet form is for Wyatt is a way to transform his dangerous contents into an example of otium, an elegant cultural exercise. It is a way to discuss his theme within a ‘lyric’ framework, to claim that this is a fictional story, not reality. Still, a sonnet is, above all, a love poem... So...

Qui habet aures audiendi audiat!

Sonnets and poetic form

• This is, however, not always easy… and it can be a rather dangerous game, especially if your king happens to be as nice-tempered as Henry VIII...  • Let us see how Wyatt and his fellow courtier poet did to one of Petrarch’s poems, ‘Amor, che nel penser mio vive et regna’, (RVF, 140)

Wyatt (from

Tottel’s miscellany

)

Petrarch, RVF 140

The longe love, that in my thought doeth harbar And in myn hert doeth kepe his residence, Into my face preseth with bolde pretence, And therin campeth, spreding his baner.

She that me lerneth to love and suffre, And willes that my trust and lustes negligence Be rayned by reason, shame and reverence, With his hardines taketh displeasur.

Wherewithall, vnto the hertes forrest he fleith, Leving his entreprise with payn and cry; And ther him hideth, and not appereth.

What may I do when my maister fereth But in the feld with him to lyve and dye?

For goode is the liff, ending faithfully.

Amor, che nel penser mio vive et regna e 'l suo seggio maggior nel mio cor tene, talor armato ne la fronte vène, ivi si loca, et ivi pon sua insegna.

Quella ch'amare et sofferir ne 'nsegna e vòl che 'l gran desio, l'accesa spene, ragion, vergogna et reverenza affrene, di nostro ardir fra se stessa si sdegna.

Onde Amor paventoso fugge al core, lasciando ogni sua impresa, et piange, et trema; ivi s'asconde, et non appar piú fore.

Che poss'io far, temendo il mio signore, se non star seco infin a l'ora extrema?

Ché bel fin fa chi ben amando more.

Surrrey (from

Tottel’s miscellany

)

Petrarch, RVF 140

Love that doth raine and liue within my thought, And buylt his seat within my captyve brest, Clad in the armes wherein with me he fowght, Oft in my face he doth his banner rest. But she that tawght me love and suffre paine, My doubtful hope & eke my hote desire With shamfast looke to shadoo and refrayne, Her smyling grace convertyth streight to yre. And cowarde Love, then, to the hart apace Taketh his flight, where he doth lurke and playne His purpose lost, and dare not shew his face. For my lordes gilt thus fawtles byde I payine; Yet from my lorde shall not my foote remove: Sweet is the death that taketh end by love.

Amor, che nel penser mio vive et regna e 'l suo seggio maggior nel mio cor tene, talor armato ne la fronte vène, ivi si loca, et ivi pon sua insegna.

Quella ch'amare et sofferir ne 'nsegna e vòl che 'l gran desio, l'accesa spene, ragion, vergogna et reverenza affrene, di nostro ardir fra se stessa si sdegna.

Onde Amor paventoso fugge al core, lasciando ogni sua impresa, et piange, et trema; ivi s'asconde, et non appar piú fore.

Che poss'io far, temendo il mio signore, se non star seco infin a l'ora extrema?

Ché bel fin fa chi ben amando more.

Surrey 1517-1547

• • • • Member of one of the most important families in England - son of the Duke of Norfolk.

Close companion of Herny VIII illegittimate son, Henry Fitzroy, Duke of Richmond Involved in dangerous political maneuvering An alteration in his coat of arms was interpreted (quite correctly…) as a claim of royal descent  Tried for trason (cf. Braden 2005: 66)

Rhyme scheme

• Petrarch: octave + sestet: abba abba cdc cdc • Wyatt: abba abba cdc cdd • Surrey: abab cdcd efef gg

Incidentally…

Poetic competition? Not necessarily, but one has to remember the circulation of poetry ‘collections’ such as the Devonshire MS (BL MS Add. 17492 – which has been called ‘the Facebook of the 16th century’ – [Ray Siemens]), which includes poems by Wyatt and others.

 Long before their appearance in print, many poems by W & S (and others) circulated, were read, and were commented at court.

 Not ‘private’ poetry… which is important…

‘Traduttore, traditore…’

• • Wyatt: ‘For goode is the liff, ending faithfully’  Loyalty to love = absolute moral value Surrey: ‘Sweet is the death that taketh end by love.’  Love = aesthetic experience [Camaiora 1993: 47-8] Wyatt: pardoned Surrey: not quite… Words matter !!!

Sonnets and poetic form

words matter, but also form matters Wyatt and Surrey (re-)introduced the sonnet (which was known in England before them...) + provided a model for the use of the iambic pentameter Surrey  verse translations from Virgil  blank Wyatt  experiments with accentual metre / syllabic system (ever since his stay in Italy, 1527)

Rather than forty shillings…

• W + S were dead by the time of the publication of Tottel’s Miscellany (1557) – but the book was immensely popular and went through numerous reprints down to the 1580s • ‘I had rather than forty shillings I had my Book of Songs and Sonnets here’ (Shakespeare, the Merry Wives of Windsor, I.1,182)

Sonnets and poetic form

• Words matter, but also form matters Form is significant at all levels, including prosody (rhythm) Cf., e.g., the opening of Shakespeare’s sonnet 12 and 18 below. Try to scan them… When I do count the clock that tells the time...

Shall I compare thee to a Summer’s day?

Sonnets and poetic form

When I do count the clock that tells the time

Regular iambic pentameter: ˘ / ˘/ ˘/ ˘/ ˘/ regular stess + allitteration  Ticking of the clock

Sonnets and poetic form

Shall I compare thee to a Summer’s day?

Thou art more lovely, and more temperate Need to change the rhytm -> substitute foot ˘ / ˘/ / [+pause?] ˘ ˘/ ˘/ The most important element in this line, and in the whole poem, becomes central also in terms of rhythm

And now, a quick test...

Do not panic

Now try this one and see how you can scan it…

OK, panic…

Sonnets and poetic form Loving in trueth, and fayne my love in verse to show, That the deere Shee, might take some pleasure of my paine: Pleasure might cause her reade, reading might make her know, Knowledge might pittie winne, and pittie grace obtaine.

I sought fit wordes, to paint the blackest face of woe, Studying inventions fine, her wittes to entertaine, Oft turning others leaves, to see if thence would flowe, Some fresh and fruitfull showre, upon my Sunne-burnt braine.

But wordes came halting out, wanting inventions stay, Invention Natures childe, fledde Stepdames studies blowes: And others feete, still seem'de but straungers in my way, Thus great with Childe to speake, and helplesse in my throwes, Byting my tongue and penne, beating my selfe for spite: Foole saide My muse to mee, looke in thy heart and write.

Sir Philip Sidney, Astrophil and Stella, 1

Tricky…

‘And others feete, still seem'de but straungers in my way’  NOT an iambic petameter but a 12-syllable line (Alexandrine, typical of the French poets of the Pléiade - such as Pierre de Ronsard, Joachim du Bellay)

The sonnet rocks!!!

Surrey said that Wyatt had ‘taught what might be said in rhyme’ (epitaph for Wyatt, l. 13) Sidney, Shakespeare, and the Elizabethan learned from Wyatt and Surrey (and others after them…) to bend the rules of English prosody, to get the best out of the clash between meaning and form

Works cited

• Braden, Gordon (ed.) 2005. Sixteenth-Century Poetry: An annotated anthology (Oxford: Blackwell). • Camaiora, Luisa, [1990] 1993. The Arts of Culture:

Essays on Wyatt and Surrey, Gray. Goldsmith and

Keats (Milan: Europrint). • Falconer, Richard, [2000] 2003. ‘A Reading of Wyatt’s 'Who so list to hunt'’ in A Companion to English Renaissance Literature and Culture ed. Michael Hattaway (Oxford: Blackwell).