2008-05-26 Haunting love poetry

Sir Thomas Wyatt grew up at the court of Henry VIII and allegedly fell in love with Anne Boleyn. A diplomat, an ambassador to the Italian and French courts, he was sophisticated, wordly and ambitious - and yet his poetry paints a very different picture of a man vulnerable, divided and suffering.

I disagree with the Penguin blurb that this is autobiographical verse, as I think Wyatt is far more sophisticated a writer than that. But whether it reflects his real-life emotions or not, his poetry contains a haunting quality of anguished rawness that makes him suprisingly modern.

Rebholz's edition is modernised in terms of spelling and punctuation but is still recognised as one of the most reliable scholarly texts. Helpfully he divides the poems attributed to Wyatt during his lifetime from those attributed to him afterwards, and has extensive notes on sources, glossary etc.

Not a cheap book for a Penguin, but well worth the price.