Here is a picture of Anne Boleyn and then Sir Thomas Wyatt. I felt like Anne ended up being his muse in these sonnets.
First of the sonnets is “Whoso list to hunt”. When I first read it, I started out thinking that he was literally talking about the sport of hunting—for game. I felt that he was saying the hunting was a vain sport that had lost its luster and that “touch me not” meant that the deer belong to the wild and it should stay that way. Right as I finished the sonnet I questioned whether it was actually a deer or if he was writing about a woman. Then I referenced the footnotes and found that it was actually written about a woman—Anne Boleyn. This was really interesting to me because I had gone to the Tower of London in 2006 and saw where she was beheaded and never heard this piece of history about how she possibly was romantic with Wyatt. I do think that the poem insinuates that Anne was a wild/fun woman and I like that Wyatt had a personal connection with her and was able to portray that through his sonnet.
Upon reading “I Find No Peace”, I felt as though Wyatt was having a completely internal battle about his life and about his unhappiness, seeming to be caused by a woman—who I would imagine is Anne Boleyn again. I thought this poem was really beautiful, even though it has a sad message. Once I read the translation in prose and fully understood each line in sentence form I found the sonnet to be even more beautiful, such as:
“And naught I have, and all the world I seize on” being “and I grasp nothing and embrace all the world” in prose. Pretty deep stuff, I think.
“My galley” was really neat to me because he used all of the moving parts of a galley to describe his life and how he feels. I just feel so bad for him because he talks about being completely lost. He also talks about being a rock and a rock—also known as Scylla and Charybdis (I love Greek Mythology so I especially liked this sonnet because of how he incorporated that reference. I wonder if our modern day saying of “between a rock and a hard place” has any connection to that as well. It just seems like he feels like a beaten man the way he writes about “trusty fearfulness” and the “endless wind doth tear the sail apace”. I think he has been through a lot emotionally, loving someone who can never be his. When he says that he is “despairing of the port” in the last line, I think he just has no direction to his life, doesn’t know where to go next, and doesn’t know where he will end up. Honestly, who hasn’t felt like that at one point or another. I know with my hectic schedule I have certainly felt that way at times—especially this close to graduating and not knowing where my life will go from here.
Overall I really like the sonnets of Sir Thomas Wyatt, and I really felt the emotion that was apparent in his writing.
Upon reading “I Find No Peace”, I felt as though Wyatt was having a completely internal battle about his life and about his unhappiness, seeming to be caused by a woman—who I would imagine is Anne Boleyn again. I thought this poem was really beautiful, even though it has a sad message. Once I read the translation in prose and fully understood each line in sentence form I found the sonnet to be even more beautiful, such as:
“And naught I have, and all the world I seize on” being “and I grasp nothing and embrace all the world” in prose. Pretty deep stuff, I think.
“My galley” was really neat to me because he used all of the moving parts of a galley to describe his life and how he feels. I just feel so bad for him because he talks about being completely lost. He also talks about being a rock and a rock—also known as Scylla and Charybdis (I love Greek Mythology so I especially liked this sonnet because of how he incorporated that reference. I wonder if our modern day saying of “between a rock and a hard place” has any connection to that as well. It just seems like he feels like a beaten man the way he writes about “trusty fearfulness” and the “endless wind doth tear the sail apace”. I think he has been through a lot emotionally, loving someone who can never be his. When he says that he is “despairing of the port” in the last line, I think he just has no direction to his life, doesn’t know where to go next, and doesn’t know where he will end up. Honestly, who hasn’t felt like that at one point or another. I know with my hectic schedule I have certainly felt that way at times—especially this close to graduating and not knowing where my life will go from here.
Overall I really like the sonnets of Sir Thomas Wyatt, and I really felt the emotion that was apparent in his writing.
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