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E211: British Literature to 1760 Sir Thomas Wyatt Study Questions Alfred Drake | Uni Hall 329 | W 3-4 | ajdrake@ajdrake.com General Questions: 1. After reading the three poems referred to below, what sense do you get about the speaker's view of court life? 2. Again, after reading the three poems, what can you say about Wyatt's attitude towards women? By what means does he construct images of females in each poem? "The Long Love That in My Thought Doth Harbor" 3. What is the basic conceit, or extended metaphor, of this poem? 4. Now examine the conceit more closely; is it more than just a one-dimensional emblem for a physiological reaction? Follow the conceit through line 11--what does it reveal about the speaker's psyche? 5. Put the speaker, the "I," of the poem into some relation with the "warrior" of the conceit. What does this relationship reveal about the speaker? Lines 12-14 are important here. 6. What sense do you get of the female in this poem? What sort of character would you say she has? 7. What are the laws of love referred to in the first line? Does this idea that love has "laws" get contradicted in this poem and elsewhere? "My Galley" 8. Explain the poem's conceit. For example, what is the ocean? What is the galley? What are the stars mentioned at the end of the poem? 9. How is this poem typical of Wyatt's love poems in its handling of the speaker's expectations and assumptions? "Madam, Withouten Many Words." 10. How does the poem contrast words and acts within the rituals of courtship? 11. In line 4, what does the word "wit" mean? What exactly is the lover asking for? How does he try to protect himself? 12. What view of courtly love emerges from this poem? Describe it. "Whoso List to Hunt" 13. Study the handout that contains Petrarch's "Una Candida Cerva" and the passage from The Gospel of Saint John. Compare Wyatt's adaptation to its parent, Petrarch's poem. In bold terms, what is the difference between Petrarch's "white deer" and Wyatt's "hind?" 14. Describe the attitude of each sonnet's speaker towards his predicament and towards his "deer." How does each speaker characterize himself? 15. Despite the seeming worldliness of Wyatt's sonnet, how might his religious allusions be important to our reading? "My Lute, Awake!" 16. What is the function of the speaker's address to his lute? Who else does he address? 17. How is the poem an attempt to bring order to the passions? "They Flee from Me" (See also "The Lover Showeth...") 18. Consider this poem's twists and turns on the basis of the opposition "aggression/passivity" or "domination/submission." How do images of the speaker and his female companions change through each stanza? 19. What mental process would you suggest that the poem's speaker is undergoing? How does he capture the psychology of the lover? 20. How does the twisting quality of this poem relate to the matter of the speaker's reflections? 21. How do you interpret the phrase, "strange fashion of forsaking" as well as the poem's final two lines? Is the speaker challenging Petrarchan handling of the female? "Divers Doth Use" 22. How does the speaker's attitude differ from what you have observed in other Wyatt poems? Does his presentation of the female beloved differ? Explain. "Blame Not My Lute" 23. In what way is lute-playing metaphorical? What is the speaker suggesting about the source of courtly poetry and of its significance? "Forget Not Yet" 24. What is the irony of this poem--what does "forget not this" refer to? 25. How does the poet place the writing of verses among the tasks proper to a lover? "V. Innocentia Veritas Viat Fides..." 26. How does this poem resemble a psalm? 27. What is its purpose in light of the circumstances to which it refers? What lesson does the speaker draw from his predicament? "Mine Own John Poins" 28. How would you characterize the speaker's state of mind, his feelings about being separated from the courtly world? And what view does the speaker offer regarding the monarch, center of the courtly sphere? 29. What contrast between seeming and being does he make? And what contrast between the active and contemplative life do you find? Edition: Abrams, M.H. et al. The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Vol. 1B. 7th. edition. New York: Norton, 2000. ISBN: 1B = 0393975665.
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