The famous Thomas Wyatt was known for writing the earliest sonnets in English. Sir Thomas Wyatt is one of the most recognized and gifted poets in English Renaissance poetry. Born in 1503, the Son of Henry Wyatt and Anne Skinner discovered his passion in poetry after taking place in King Henry’s the eighth court in 1516.
Thomas Wyatt like other poets the likes of William Shakespeare and Edmund Spenser found his inspiration from his life as most of his poems were a reflection of his failed love. After his divorce with Elizabeth Brooke in 1525, Thomas Wyatt’s poems portrayed his understanding of love speaking of sorrows and disappointments but with a promise to finding better love. Known works such as The Long Love, Whoso List to Hunt, and They Flee from Me all display the mastery and ingenuity of Sir Thomas Wyatt and his experience with love after his estranged marriage to his first love Elizabeth Brooke.
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In his poem “Long Love the in My Thought Doth Harbor Sir Thomas Wyatt” Sir Thomas Wyatt applies various devices which reveal his confidence in poetry. Wyatt followed the traditional form of Italian poetry which when combined with his suitability in English, portrayed his competence. In the poem, Thomas Wyatt integrated numerous Petrarchan themes to show an obsessed lover who undergoes various hardships in his love for women and must endure acute pain to win her love. In the first stanza of the poem, love through an inanimate thing is personified to be a knight who sought refuge in the speaker’s heart and uses the speaker to express his feelings and thoughts. Thus, Thomas Wyatt makes the knight to express his deep-seated emotions through the face of the speaker. Sir Thomas Wyatt uses his indifference to separate love from the lover. The two aspects are perceived as different entities implying that the lover was held hostage by love.
The use of imagery in this particular poem is evident as the speaker views love to be an entirely different and separate entity from the lover. Love is personified in the poem giving it its mind. Thus, instead of the lover controlling the emotion of love, love is presumed to be the force that compels the person to act and speak in certain ways. From his words, ‘Love harbors in thoughts, resides in the heart, and appears on face’ portrays love to be animated and to possess the ability to decide and control the person autonomously. Thomas Wyatt also uses imagery to show how the woman whom the speaker talked about caused him sufferings and taught him, love. The woman who is also assumed to be the one who broke the speaker’s heart is viewed to be a heartless individual who uses the knight, love, to manipulate and control the speaker. The poet says that “wherewith love to the heart’s forest he fleeth” which gives an image of love leaving the face of the speaker and moves into the heart which is depicted as a forest where the person would be vulnerable to pain and tears.
Consequently, in the poem ‘They Flee from Me’ Sir Thomas Wyatt uses the first-person voice. Instead of himself, Wyatt uses a rather dramatic character whose impressions and traits attract the reader’s attention. In the opening stanza, Wyatt applied one of the commonly used techniques amongst other poets in the 16th century which was borrowed from the sonnets in an early 14th century. The line contains a metaphoric image that portrays the beloved as a deer. Sir Thomas Wyatt compares the persona who is a woman in the poem to a deer. Wyatt explains that the deer that is the woman took a risk and feed from the poet’s hand. The particular line was symbolic showing that the poet had complete and utmost control over the woman who grew tame under the hospitable nature of the poet. However, despite the gentle nature of the poet and his charitable acts to feed the deer, Wyatt says that the deer still went into the wild to seek for other sources of ‘food.’ The statement as used by the poet is symbolic of the woman’s unsatisfied nature. Therefore, despite the poet being welcoming to the woman she was still unfaithful and promiscuous.
The second paragraph of the poem, the poet uses a wistful tone taking the reader down memory lane on how his beloved acted indifferently to him. The poet reminisces on the many occasions the woman sought him out and actively seduced him in the act of love. The tone used in the line is used to depict desire and passion for his beloved. Using imagery to bring out the actions of the woman, the poet describes the scenes in a rather vivid and sensual manner. Sir Thomas Wyatt even uses a direct quote of the specific words that she used on him which were undoubtedly playful and seductive in nature. In a twist of event, the poet also describes the wicked ways in which his beloved changed towards him. He explains that her actions symbolized an awakening from a dream which he had been in for a long time. The words of the poet signify a rude awakening to reality which is that his beloved was a promiscuous woman who looked for love in other many places. Despite being the one who sorts the poet out, the woman still leaves him in the end.
In ‘My Lute Awake’ Sir Thomas Wyatt uses symbolism considerably all through the poem. The lute in the poem is used to symbolize different functions. The lute is first depicted as just that and not the real intended purpose that is unrequited love. The speaker thus hides his real motives from the woman until when he finally feels ready to talk about his feeling to her. The lute is used to represent the love of the speaker for the woman. The technique applied was known as metonymy. In the poem, the speaker tells the woman that both his lute and he were tired. The latter implied that the speaker was tired of using his lute and artistry to impress the woman who did not seem to appreciate any of his efforts. The poet also uses various metaphors in the poem to describe the complicated situation between the speaker and the woman. Like in the other poem, Thomas Wyatt personifies love in the poem too by evoking an image of a person with a bow and arrow, the famous Cupid.
The gifted poet, Sir Thomas Wyatt, has integrated the use of various poetry devices in his poems that have managed to not only make his artistry unique from the rest of the poets in the 16th century but also ensured that his legacy lives on. The various works of art by the poet such as Long Love the in My Thought Doth Harbor, They Flee from Me, and My Lute Awake have displayed an excellent and instead genius use of poetry devices by the poet. In all his poems, Wyatt uses symbolism and imagery to give the reader an accurate description of the events in the poem while giving the characters distinct features. Sir Thomas Wyatt speaks of love in all his poems as they are a reflection of his love life and disastrous marriage to his ex-wife Elizabeth Brooke.
