• a “gentleman’s pastime”

• Wyatt and Surrey - called the “Father(s) of the English Sonnet”

• Wrote in Latin and in English

• posthumous publications

• an experienced statesman

• poetically less of an innovator than Howard (Surrey)

• introduces Petrarchan poetic devices

• Wrote the best lyric poetry of the early Tudor period

• Exposed England to the love poems of Petrarch (1300’s)

• a 14-line poem written in iambic pentameter

• divided into two sections:

• octave: presentation of a problem, cause, or question

• sestet: the solution, effect, or answer

• strict rhyme scheme: abba abba (first 8 lines)

• To Laura (Petrarch’s sonnet sequence) centered on the most popular theme: frustrated romantic desire

“Her eyes are like stars.”

“His sighs were like tempestuous wind.”

• of royal blood

• military genius

• executed for treason

• literary innovator

• smoothing English meter

• develops the English sonnet into 3 quatrains and a couplet

• rhyme scheme: ababcdcdefefgg

• invents blank verse: unrhymed iambic pentameter

• an apostrophe: an address to someone not present

• follows the structure of the Italian sonnet

• discusses the effects of love upon him

• exalts reason over passion

• an English sonnet

• use of conceit: an elaborate comparison

military comparison

• development of theme

the lover’s presumption

the lover’s rejection

the lover’s humiliation

the resolution