Show how two of the shorter poems and 'Mine own John Poyntz' address the questions articulated in this excerpt.
That perennial critical question of 'sincerity' is therefore less interesting to me than questions about poems' usefulness and dangers (questions that to my mind are the logical next step after the sincerity question). What coherences do poems make possible for their readers? What commitments or uncertainties do they maintain, initiate, or challenge? How are they persuasive?
Elizabeth Harris Sagaser, 'Shakespeare's Sweet Leaves: Mourning, Pleasure and the Triumph of Thought in the Renaissance Love Lyric' in ELH 61.1 (1994),6.
Renaissance literature shows England to have been a place of complicated political and individual development. Sir Thomas Wyatt experienced this more personally than most, being a member of Henry VIII's entourage and romantically involved with Anne Boleyn. 'Mine own John Poyntz', 'It may be good' and 'The pillar pearisht is' belong to a body of poetry that dared to criticise the status quo, although such audacity did not go unpunished. In her article Sagaser goes on to say that we can only answer the question of "poems' usefulness and dangers" through our own experiences as readers. This is in accordance with the self-consciousness of Wyatt's poetry; he intends to challenge his contemporary readers' perceptions of society and of themselves.
'The pillar pearisht is' is ostensibly a lament for a dear departed, as can be seen by the title it was published under, 'The lover laments the death of his love.' It can also be seen as concerning the fall from favour of Thomas Cromwell, a friend and supporter of Wyatt. Under this scheme it deals with the precariousness of one's social status and the insecurity that is concomitant with a definition of oneself based on one's social circle. The phrase 'myne unquyet mynde' (l. 2) encapsulates Wyatt's recognition both of himself as a loose cannon, a potential dissident, and of his turmoil and danger now that his main supporter no longer holds sway.
His superlative descriptions of Cromwell show how highly his patronage was valued and consequently emphasise the difficulty of Wyatt's present situation:
The lyke of it no man agayne can fynde
From East to west still seking thoughe he went
To myne unhappe for happe away hath rent
Of all my joye the vearye bark and rynde
(ll. 3-6)
The very essence of his spirit is gone with the departed; the narrator is unable to enjoy life any more. Because the writer allowed himself to exist socially through his association with someone else, their fall also precipitates his own obliteration in the eyes of the world. He wishes for death to release him from his suffering, which is an unoriginal sentiment for a lover's elegy, but is a dramatic and extreme expression of Wyatt's despair when taken in its contemporary context.
'My pillar pearisht is' shows an important awareness of the poetic act as a way in which the speaker may comfort himself and pass the time in his diminished state; it is also represented as a natural part of mourning:
My penne in playnt, my voice in wofull crye
My mynde in woe, my bodye full of smart
(ll. 11,12)
This draws the reader's attention to the usefulness of literary culture in self-expression and hence personal development. The conscious, explicit mention of the creative act also encourages the reader not to take the poem at face value and to search for less obvious, more subversive meanings.
The sonnet structure is slightly unusual. The Shakespearian formula had not yet been established, and most educated readers would have been more familiar with the Petrachan sonnet, and with Italian sonnets in general. The English sonnet was therefore still a new and exciting form, and Wyatt creates further interest by deviating from the standard Italian form in the sestet. Rather than running c.d.e.c.d.e 'The pillar pearisht is' has c.d.c.d.e.e. This change not only lends an appropriate finality to talk of death with a rhyming couplet, but surprises a reader familiar with contemporary poetry; it gives him a sense of Wyatt's turmoil, and forces him to think about the perishibility of his own supports. The poem deals with a political subject matter and individual self-perception; it is therefore far more challenging and dangerous than the innocuous love poem that it first appears to be.
'Myn owne John Poyntz' is even bolder in its criticism as it delineates the hypocrisies of court life and sarcastically apologises for not being able to enter into them. The satire - set in terza rima, the traditional form in Italian literature for such censure - is even more cutting and courageous since Wyatt wrote it shortly after one of his spells in prison at the behest of the king. It begins with a attack on 'them, to whom fortune hath lent / charge over us,' (ll. 8,9) that is, those members of court who, through luck or money, are usurping the divine right of the monarch: 'of Right to strike the stroke' (l. 9). Wyatt does not rest at this subtle but still dangerous charge, but goes on to state how and why he dislikes these interlopers:
But trwe it is, that I have allwais ment
less to estime them then the comon sort
off outward thinges that Juge in their intent
Without Regarde what dothe inwarde resort
(ll. 10-13)
He finds them inferior because they do not take account of others' inner being and are unconscious of their own. Classical philosophy and literature, the rediscovery of which prompted the Renaissance to a large extent, placed great emphasis on knowledge of oneself - the inner world - as the key to understanding the outer world.
Having withdrawn from public life, Wyatt is currently engaged in redefining his mental constructs. The majority of the poem is a list of things that he refuses to do or can no longer indulge in; the positive activities with which he is left to forge an identity are very limited. The bitter satire is therefore tinged with regret that he cannot override his principles, but he knows that although hypocrisy would bring him favour and public restitution, it would result in an equally shallow and false sense of self. He instead espouses the wholesome world of nature and takes the time to read and write, and expresses a certain sort of contentment about this restricted lifestyle because his spirit and imagination are not fettered as they would be at court:
And of these newes I fele nor wele nor woo
sauf that a clogg doeth hang yet at my hele
no force for that, for it is ordered so
That I may lepe boeth hedge and dike full well
(ll. 85-88)
Wyatt's criticism of the lies integral to successful public life can be seen as the result of disgust at the damage they cause to mental life. His most vituperative attacks are on flattery and praise of the undeserving since these create in their subjects a disregard for truth and in their objects an inaccurate self-image:
I cannot...
use willes for witt, and make deceyt a plesure
ande call crafft counsell...
(ll. 31-33)
Say he is rude that cannot lye and fayn
the letcher a lover and tirannye
to be the right of a Prynces reigne
(ll. 73-75)
'Myn owne John Poyntz' takes a very negative view of its subject matter and its purpose is to stimulate thought in its readers regarding their own attitude to and complicity in this corrupt system. However, its use of examples drawn from mythology, such as King Midas (ll. 48, 49), and from classical history, such as Caesar and Cato (l. 38), suggests that deceit and sycophancy are inevitable around powerful people. The poem is challenging and threatening to the status quo but it carries the attentuation of its own threat in the admission that corruption is and always has been the corollary of power; in the end it reinforcesthe establishment.
'It may be good' is a complaint in which a often-spurned lover explains why he is unwilling to risk love again. The clue that it is about more than merely love comes in the claustrophobic and despairing imagery of the second seven lines:
imprisoned in libertes
as oon unhard and still that cries
alwaies thursty and yet nothing I tast
(ll.11-13)
Like 'The pillar pearisht is', the conventional poem masks comment on the mutability of social standing, concluding that it is unavoidable but unsettling nonetheless. Wyatt reflects that he has several times put his faith in someone and been let down, perhaps as various patrons have risen to and fallen from favour.
The images of movement - 'for dred to fall I stond not fast' (ll. 7, 14, 21) and 'I tred' (l.8) - convey a sense of giddiness and an erosion of identity in the perpetual need to please, while the overall tone is of hopelessness:
Alas I tred an endles maze
that seketh to accorde two contraries
(ll. 8,9)
Yet despite averring that trusting someone again would be 'great foly' (l. 19) Wyatt concludes that withdrawing oneself emotionally from others is wasting one's life, thereby advocating a return to the public fray. 'It may be good' does therefore end by supporting social order, but not before delivering a strikingly honest commentary on the effects of engaging one's inner self with the outer world, cutting through unconscious constructs to expose the vulnerability and insecurities that are normally hidden.
Wyatt's poetry initiates some very daring questions about self-perception and how that relates to one's dealings with the social world. These ideas are all the more subversive for being contained within traditional poetic genres and forms; even if the poems conclude in favour of the status quo, they contain enough persuasion and challenges to the reader to ensure that independent thought and personal development will continue.
Bibliography
David Norbrook, The Penguin Anthology of Renaissance Verse 1509-1659, (London: Penguin, 1992)
Elizabeth Harris Sagaser, 'Shakespeare's Sweet Leaves: Mourning, Pleasure and the Triumph of Thought in the Renaissance Love Lyric' in ELH 61.1 (1994),6
