Language Features
Love, that doth reign and live within my thought
- The conjunctions align within the structural divisions
- On the volta love flees into the lovers heart
- Personification of love - as a ruler or a lord of some sorts
- ‘Oft in my face he doth his banner rest’ - he is embarrassed, he also is a follower of this and thus displays the symbol of his ruler
- The second quatrain shows what the speaker thinks the lovers response to his overt affection - she does not like this
- The lover has no choice in the matter and obeys orders from love and therefore is in pain
‘Yet’ signifies the resolution of the sonnet along with the rhyming couplet - this cannot be taken for granted and the conclusion must be created by the structure
Themes (also linked to Wyatt)
Early Tudor poets write poetry for pastime, as a private exercise and they did not publish their work for it was beneath their dignity as aristocrats or gentleman`
Puttenham - ‘courtly makers’ - makers of courtly verse
They were significant however for transplanting Continental poetry to England
Studies on the early Tudor era do not focus on authorship or literary career at all but on literary culture which privileged social and political institutions as agents
None of the poets may have reached a popular audience but they habitually address the audience of the court and thus the centre of national power
Four roles under the title of ‘laureate’ or national poet; the poet as maker, lover, counsellor and prophet, or the poet in relation with other poets, with his significant other, with his sovereign and with God
Form
Petrarch, active in the late 14th century, created the sonnet (contemporary of Chaucer, Chaucer translated his work into English)
Petrarchan sonnet - 14 lines divided into a octave (two quatrains) and sestet (quatrain + couplet) with a volta in line 9 separating the two
The volta is the turn of themes in the sonnet
Usually ends on a rhyming couplet - the rhyme scheme is ABAB CDCD EFEF GG
Verse units (the octave and sestet) and sense (thoughts )units - how does the poem align the two
Howard - Petrarchan lyrics, Virginian narratives and devotional poetry
Context
Howard was descend from kings on both sides of his family - dangerous to be a claimant to the throne under Henry VIII
Repeatedly imprisoned for rash behaviour
Secure the release of Wyatt through his first cousin Catherine Howard being queen
He was the last person under Henry VIII to be beheaded
Surrey established a form for Petrarchan sonnets later used by Shakespeare and has become known as the English Sonnet
He was the first English poet to use blank verse
Howard canonised Wyatt in print as England’s national poet through elegies
