SIR THOMAS WYATT AN ELIZABETHAN GALLERY A series of notable
Elizabethan books notably edited, with intro duction and notes both
critical and textual. The better editions are on hand-made paper,
excellently bound, numbered and signed. No. i COMPLAINTS. By EDMUND
SPENSER. Edited by Professor W. L. RENWICK. This is actually vol. i
of The Complete Works of Edmund Spenser, in uniform editions, demy
8vo, of 1 660 copies and 95 copies. No. 2 MELANCHOLIKE HUMOURS. By
NICHOLAS BRETON. Edited with an essay on Elizabethan Melancholy by
Dr. G. B. Harrison. Demy 8vo. 760 copies, of which 10 are signed.
The latter are out of print. No. 3 THE POETRY OF SIR THOMAS WYATT.
No. 4 DAPHNAiDA AND OTHER POEMS, being vol. 2 in the complete
Spenser. THE POETRY OF SIR THOMAS WYATT A SELECTION AND A STUDY BY
E. M. W. TILLYARD UNIVERSITY LECTURER IN ENGLISH AND LATE FELLOW OF
JESUS COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE 1929 THE SCHOLARTIS PRESS 30 MUSEUM
STREET, LONDON PREFACE THE aim of this book is to call attention to
an author who, though sometimes appreciated justly, has never
really received his due. Wyatt to the general literary public is
still the importer of the Sonnet into England, and the author of
some half a dozen lyrics that deserve a place in the anthologies.
In reality he is something more a man of remarkable character, part
of which has been made accessible to us through the medium of a
number of short poems. Less precisely he can be called an important
lyric poet. To further my aim two things seemed necessary a new
anthology and a new appreciation. Selections from Wyatt exist
within anthologies of Tudor lyrics, but they are not full enough to
give an adequate idea of him. On the other hand, the com plete
works canbe unduly forbidding. Most of the poems are apprentice
work, and the general reader who attempts the bulk may easily tire
of the business of picking out poetry from experiment, and conclude
that on the whole Wyatt is rather tedious. A more generous
anthology than exists at present seems the required mean between
the two extremes. A fresh appreciation seems no less necessary. One
recent writer maintains that the important thing is that in Wyatts
work the early Tudor found examples of a large variety of verse
forms, coldly but carefully worked out, and another does not
trouble to exclude Wyatts lyrics from what he calls stilted
Italianate compositions, which judged by themselves were worthless.
These are not the prevailing opinions, but they show that it is
time someone spoke up in Wyatts praise. My choice of poems has been
ruled by intrinsic merit rather than by historical importance. Few
of PREFACE the sonnets are included and it may be remarked that for
the sake of his reputation, Wyatt had better not have imported the
sonnet into England, for by so doing he purchased a text-book glory
at the price of advertising the class of poems that does his
poetical powers least credit. The substance of my appreciation is
contained in the section of the Introduction dealing with Wyatts
lyrics and in the notes to the poems but as a preliminary I have
written briefly about his historical position in English
literature, and for the sake of completeness I have commented on
the other classes of the poems and have added a short biography and
a note on the text, the editors and the critics. The text is taken
from the manuscripts direct, or from Flugels transcripts in Anglia
vols. 18 and 19, or fromArbers reprint of Tottells Miscellany. The
forms of words have been kept, but the spelling has been modernised
and punctuation inserted. Had the manuscripts been punctuated, I
should have hesitated to modernise the spelling. But one must
modernise by inserting punctuation if one wishes to present a
readable text and having modernised so far, I can see little point
in reading and ytt for zndjfor, you and yow and so on with no
discrimination, as one must if one follows the manuscripts...
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