Poetry Explication on Sir Thomas Wyatt the Poem Farewell Love - Research Paper Example

Poetry Explication on Sir Thomas Wyatt the poem Farewell Love The poet in the poem “Farewell Love” bids adieu to the rules personified Love. He challenges that the ‘baited hooks’, will not be able to stop him from walking away. He says that, he is called away for Love of knowledge by Seneca and Plato to reach the apex of wit and intellect. The author then gives a changing thought to his heart, when he emphasizes that the cruel words of Love pricked him when he made certain mistakes. He says escape was in his favor since freedom was his lever. In the final deliberation, the poet takes leave saying that Love no longer has authority over him and it be directed towards ”younger hearts”. Farewell Love is a work that carries a poignant mood of the poet, composed in England during the Renaissance period, especially with the idea of love in court at the time of Tudor monarchy. According to the poet, he has lost most of his valuable time over Love, although he will not let it affect him anymore. The popular theme of the poem can be cited to be elements of cynicism, anger and regretful sentiments towards lost love. Wyatt used dynamism and vitality in the context of Love in his poem “Farewell Love”. Love is used as an object personified. The poet’s love poem as this, Farewell Love, has a bitter edge, typifying his sentiment of lost love with skepticism. Wyatt’s use of punctuation was limited. The poet claims rejection in renouncing the worldly pleasures associated with the ‘laws of love’. He rejects the rules of courts and society as well the intense emotional effects caused by relationships and emphasizes that such emotional dilemma will not affect his thought. Here, ‘baited hooks’ is used as an allegory, as ‘bait’ being the pleasure and ‘hook’ being the painful consequences of the pleasure as explained by the poet in the line, “Thy baited hooks shall tangle me no more” (Wyatt). However, his mind is pre-occupied with the philosophies of Seneca and Plato, which is cited to be the elixir of life, to focus on the perfect harmony of wit and intellectual wealth. Seneca was commonly studied in University Tudor, whose advocating philosophies guided on the choices of how to live. In this context, the poet remembers, that in the past he has been forced to make poor choices blindfolded by love. The poet was subjected to cruel insults. The poet frees himself from the bond of love as he emphasizes that freedom has acted as a lever. He speaks of Love to seek out for younger innocent hearts which not yet have found the reason to be cynic. Therefore he says that, love does not have an authority over him anymore –“And in me claim no more authority” (Wyatt). The line “Me luseth no longer rotten boughs to climb” shows that in the process of pursuing pointless objectives, the author has shelved away most of his vital time and so he regrets at this hour, hence bids a final goodbye to love. Sir Thomas Wyatt (1503-1542) was known to be the “Father of English Sonnets”. He was one of the first who introduced Italian forms in English Sonnets. “Farewell Love” was written during the Renaissance period in England. The work by Wyatt’s, holds a significant aspect of the contemporary historical period and social context in relation to the events as enumerated in the poem. Firstly, in relation to the social context, it is said that, Henry Wyatt, father of Thomas Wyatt, had a significant influence in terms of shaping his son’s career. Thomas’ accession to court was an aspect carried forward as a legacy in the family. The life of a courtier had a profound influence on the works of Wyatt, in most of his poetic works, where political allegiance was forged and also broken at an alarming rate for the sake of benefit. Wyatt himself was imprisoned thrice during his time as a courtier to Henry VIII. Both father and son were able to escape execution for their intellect wit and negotiable and diplomatic skills. This particular aspect makes the poet remember the philosophies of Seneca & Plato who belonged to the same historical period. The Stoicism emphasized by Seneca inspired the poet during the era and therefore he mentions Seneca’s philosophical contributions to this poem (Vogt). Another significant aspect that can be analyzed from the works of Wyatt is that it was written during the Renaissance period, when a revolutionary change in every aspect of composition was creeping in. Renaissance poets were especially fond of expressing love through ‘sonnets’ (Delahoyde). Farewell, Love is a sonnet that personifies the poet’s rejection of his unsuccessful pursuit. Petrarch (1304-1374) is regarded as the first writer of the ‘Renaissance’ period. Farewell Love is a remarkable work of the Petrarchan style of Sonnet. The poem’s physical structure relating to the organization and the division of stanzas clearly indicate to its “quatrain” structural component. The Sonnet has fourteen lines in which the first seven lines is known by the name as ‘Octave’ as the last seven lines called the ‘Sestet’. There is a clear division between these two subsets. The Rhyme scheme particularly instituted in the poem is “abbaabbacddcee”. The rhythmic couplet ‘ee’ characterized by accepting the forsaken love and condemning the classical code of love has been successfully elicited. The poem follows a mix of iambic meter with varying line lengths. This iambic meter is a characteristic of the Renaissance poetry and shows the transformation of mind that the poet is going through. Wyatt’s love lyrics portray a relationship between suppliant lover and unattainable love, in which love is depicted as an instrument of power. In a word, Petrarch’s love of adoration has become Wyatt’s love for power (Michael, 145). The reason why the poet has chosen to use such a uniform form of writing is because he wanted to emphasize on the changes of Renaissance English poetry. In one form, the conventional context of love is condemned while on the other hand love for knowledge or intellect has been acknowledged. The various literary devices add to the theme and mood of the poem. The very significant aspect of this poem is its ‘open form’ structure that is characterized by freedom from regularity, that influence the meter of reading. The aspect that comes up with the open structure writing is specified from the opening sentence of the stanza, as “Farewell love and all thy laws forever’ (Wyatt). The elision effect of writing is expressed in the line “And ‘scape forth, since liberty is lever” (Wyatt), that explains the poets’ thirst to find solace in the form of liberty. The personification allegory that Wyatt has referred to in this poem is ‘Love’ as the personified allegory. Thirdly, the satirical content that shows testimony to the literary work, by Wyatt, that criticizes the social follies and break away from the laws created by society is very evident from the theme of the poem. This is a particular characteristic feature of the Roman rule. This is a typical form of Polemic style of writing that attacks its subject, in the course of writing. Here ‘Love’ being the subject of a personalized allegory. A subtle conflict in meaning occurs during the flow of the poem with the subject ‘Love’. The poet initially bids goodbye to the emotions of love but later in another verse explains his commitment to the forsaken love in the past which has caused him to make certain difficult and wrong choices. In trying to pursue those preferred choices, he had to face insults and rude behavior and those memories have given the poet nothing but a deep sense of regret, when the poet says, that “In blind error when I did presever /Thy sharp repulse, that pricketh aye so sore,” (Wyatt) .Thus, it can be said that a duality of mind especially represented by the physical phrases like ‘sharp repulse’ recall the inconsistencies of the poet’s form of love. Penned down during the Renaissance period, the period that is characterized by change of ideologies, Sir Thomas Wyatt, has used ‘Love’ in the simple context to reinforce a three way division running throughout the first three lines of the poem. The theme of the Sonnet is Petrarchan Love. Love is an abstract emotion. Love here is referred to the poet’s lady. He begins the poem by renouncing the laws of love (depicted as an emotion as coded by classical romantic poets and authors contemporarily). Again, a form of love of knowledge as depicted by the poet refers to the ideologies of Seneca and Plato (Seneca and Estrange, 36). Seneca was a stoic philosopher whose philosophical intellect inspired the author. The reason as to why the poet has chosen to use such a strict form of writing is because he wanted to emphasize on the changes of Renaissance English poetry. In one form of love, the conventional context of love is condemned and on the other hand love for knowledge or intellect has been acknowledged. All these aspects of emotion entangled with a connection to his life, make “Farewell Love”, a powerful yet poignant piece of literary creation by Sir Thomas Wyatt. Therefore, in conclusion, it can be said that, though the poem has a form of Petrarchan love ingrained as its prime component, yet it deviates from the exact Petrarchan parallelism (Sarkar, 31). The particular literary composition has a social and historical connection to his life in court. The most significant and powerful aspect of love that evokes a sense of fulfillment in the reader is the idea of achieving the pleasures of wisdom or ‘perfect wealth’ of politics and education, as opposed to the love of adoration. Works Cited Delahoyde, Michael, Renaissance Sonnet, Washington State University, Retrieved on June 18, 2012 from: http://public.wsu.edu/~delahoyd/ren.sonnets.html Michael, Mc Canles, Love and Power in the Poetry of Sir Thomas Wyatt, Modern Language Quarterly (1968) 29.2, pp.145-160 Sarkar, R.N. A Topical Survey of English Literature, New Delhi: Atlantic Publishers and Distributors, 1991. Seneca, L.A. and R. Estrange (1711), Seneca’s Morals by way of Abstract, Jacob Tonson Vogt, Katja. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2012, June 18, 2012 from: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/seneca/ Wyatt, Sir Thomas. “Farewell, Love.” English Literature: The Norton Anthology. Ed. Stephen Greenblatt. 8th ed. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2006. 596. Print Read More