Tudor Poetry

Hmm...there is heaps of stuff over Marlowe, you know, was he a spy? The death, all that.

Just google "Marlowe's death", it will lead you all kinds of places. There is also a book.."The Reckoning".

Then Thomas Wyatt...suspected of being Anne Boleyn's lover....then later being accused of being mean about Henry VIII:

http://www.luminarium.org/renlit/wyattbio.htm


And:

"http://web.mala.bc.ca/siemensr/www/Teaching/TudorLyric362/week10-cr.htm

Fox, Alistair. "The Unquiet Mind of Sir Thomas Wyatt." 257-85 in Politics and Literature in the Reigns of Henry VII and Henry VIII. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1989. [Completed by Group 1.]

Alistair Fox begins by describing Henry VIII as the number one courtly lover in the game courtly romance . However, Henry's desire to produce an heir to the thrown led him into marriage, first with Katharine of Aragon and then later to Anne Boleyn. Wyatt was a courtier at this time and was in love with Anne. Like all the other courtiers Wyatt was as a pawn in a game which Henry, the "paranoid king," controlled (259). Wyatt was married in 1520 at the age of 17 to Elizabeth Brooke, a women who Fox claims Wyatt never loved. Fox also suggests that this marriage was the reason for Wyatt's "future tribulations and political troubles" (259). Fox argues that Wyatt's writings and his emotional stability evolve out of his love relationships. Fox divides Wyatt's life, and writings into four categories. The first one revolves around his courtly pursuit of Anne. The second focuses on his lose of Anne to Henry. The third surrounds the death of Anne and his knew relationship with Elizabeth Darrell. And the fourth and final stage in Wyatt's life and writings occurred when he was forced to leave Elizabeth Darrell and return to his wife Elizabeth Brooke.

When Anne Boleyn returned to England Wyatt's intensity in the flirtatious game of courtly love became one of "serious passion" (260). Wyatt, however was out of his league; Henry wanted Anne too. Fox is convinced that Wyatt's writings entailed enough explicit content to justify the fact that he and Anne had a courtly-love-relationship (260). Anne married Henry, and Wyatt turned to writing poetry in order to cope with the emotional turmoil and betrayal he felt. It was a common thing for a lover to write in lament over the loss of a pursued love, but mostly this was done in the flirtatious spirit of the game. Fox, however, suggests that Wyatt's lamenting was serious, and that Wyatt was distraught and bitter, without Anne's love, and therefore without identity. Fox also suggests that Anne's "defection" to Henry caused Wyatt's belief in "conventional values" to be crushed. Wyatt introduces Petrarch's love sonnets to convey his feelings (262). In translating Petrarch's work he changes words and meanings subtly to fulfil his political agenda of criticising the king's misuse of his position. Wyatt showed the "expression of his perturbation" by condemning Anne's hypocritical behaviour (263) and blaming her for his "misery" (267).

In 1536 Anne Boleyn and Wyatt were both charged with treason for their alleged adultery, which Fox's suggests didn't happen (267). Wyatt was released but not before watching Anne beheaded. Wyatt's own words best describe his emotional anguish when he says: "These boldye dayes haue brokyn my hart; / My lust, my youth dyd then departe" (267). Fox claims that Anne's death gave Wyatt a new identity, one of "stoic fortitude and inflexible virtue", an attitude that would pay the price even if it meant exile (268).Wyatt translated the writings of the Italian neo-stoic Luigi Alamanni. Instead of courtly lyrics he now wrote moral satire which warned against "aspiring to high at court" and becoming exposed to "tyrants" like Henry (268). He changed Alamanni's work's in order to "explicitly" show Henry as a murderous dictator (271). Fox states that Wyatt could not continue to remain stoic on his own and therefore sought a new love in Elizabeth Darrell (273). Wyatt returned to the court and it's lyrics telling of how Elizabeth Darrell became his substitute for Anne Bolyen. But soon Wyatt became ambassador to the king and was sent to Spain. Unable to maintain his affair with Elizabeth Darrell, he once again turns to Petrarch's love poetry but this time for "amorous complaint" rather than "political protest" (274) ; Wyatt's poems now reflected a desire to be back in the arms of Elizabeth, who according to Fox, was Wyatt's new found stability. In 1541 Wyatt was arrested and charged with treason. Wyatt tuned again to Petrarch's sonnet to express the "eroding of his soul" (278). It appeared as if Wyatt had lost " the last vestiges of his self respect" by writing exactly what the King wanted to here in order to be pardoned (280). Wyatt was pardoned under the condition that he give up his affair with Elizabeth Darrell and returned to his wife. Wyatt then took on a "Lutheran influence" rewriting some of David's biblical Psalms in order to attain "peace of mind" (283). In his re-write of Psalm 51, Wyatt put himself in the place of David, and Elizabeth Darrell in the place of Bathsheba, repenting of his adulteress affair. Fox maintains that Wyatt's was recovering the "spiritual identity" he had lost when he submitted to the king, by now offering a "complete submission to God" (285). Fox ends by suggesting that at Wyatt's death in 1542 Wyatt was a man of broken heart and contrite spirit, who had exemplified through his life and his writings the "heartaches" attached to serving in the court of King Henry VIII.............

It continues...











But this is all welll known.......dammit!

Of course, you know about Raleigh's very colourful and complex life, ending under james?


Sidney's romantic death, with the "give the drink to him" thing at the end?


Surrey certainly had a very colourful life!

"Surrey, Henry Howard, earl of
Related: English Literature Biographies

1517?-1547, English poet; son of Thomas Howard, 3d duke of Norfolk. His irascibility and continuous vaunting of his descent from Edward I resulted in his imprisonment on several occasions. Eventually he was convicted of treason on a trumped-up charge and executed. He introduced blank verse to English in translating two books of Vergil's Aeneid. Along with his friend Sir Thomas Wyatt, he popularized the Petrarchan sonnet form in English. He was the only poet mentioned on the title page of the well-known miscellany (1557) of Richard Tottel ."



The court poets were always in the thick of things!


Thomas Kyd's life was as coloyrful as his plays:

"Kyd, Thomas
Related: English Literature Biographies

1558-94, English dramatist, b. London. The son of a scrivener, he evidently followed his father's profession for a few years. In the 1580s he began writing plays. His literary fame rests on The Spanish Tragedy (c.1586), which initiated an important Elizabethan dramatic genre—the revenge tragedy. Popular throughout the 17th cent., The Spanish Tragedy is notable for its exciting action, splendid rhetoric, and complex delineation of character. Kyd is believed by some scholars to be the author of an earlier version of Hamlet, which Shakespeare used as the basis of his play. In 1593, Kyd was accused of holding unorthodox religious and moral views; he was arrested and subjected to torture. Although he extricated himself by implicating his friend Christopher Marlowe, his reputation was severely marred, and he died in poverty the following year."

Hope this helps a bit....

Hi dlowan

Yes it certainly does help. I'd not even heard of Thomas Kyd and you've given me lots of leads.

Thanks so much.

You are very welcome, you naughty li'l bear, you!

Some more links

TUDOR POEMS: An On-line Anthology

Some ifo on this site - scroll down to "Week III: Early Tudor Poetry and Prose"

Finally, perhaps links at Voice of the Shuttle might be some help, too.

This site has some terrific stuff - and as a bonus there may even be the odd truthful word!

http://www.incompetech.com/authors/