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adrianasturalvarez's review
2.0
The best part of this volume is the introduction by W.S. Merwin. Sadly, Merwin's enthusiasm and admiration for Wyatt's poetry did not transfer. Too bad, because these poems clearly had power for him: "The wry beauty of Wyatt's poems hung in my ear when I was a student, and then and since exercised some indefinable influence upon what I heard and relished and listened for in other poetry."
I think I know what went wrong. This volume, in keeping with its titular directive, is about as paired down as possible. You get the poems and whatever brief 13 page context you can derive from Merwin's introduction and that's all you get. The trouble is these poems were written in the 16th Century, which means context clues are not so natural and the non-standard spelling and archaic vocabulary can be a little distracting ("I ame in hold: if pitie the meveth,/Goo bend thy bowe, that stony hertes breketh" Not impossible to understand but not immediate either). Not only that, these poems weren't even considered exceptional until three hundred years after they were written, so it isn't like they just slip right into the old meaning machine without consideration. He isn't part of our own common knowledge poetry index (at least in America Sir Thomas Wyatt doesn't ring a bell). I'll be honest, after reading his work bare even I might fall into the 300 years of "Wyatt? Meh" category as most of these poems seemed written by a whinny little man who feels sorry for himself a lot.
So this is my main criticism: why would The Ecco Press tease us with an introduction by a major poet who clearly has strong feelings for Wyatt and not give us anything more? This book would have gone so much further to enlighten/educate/deepen my engagement with Wyatt's work had its editor bothered to include even a simple gloss (I still can't figure out what the word "mowgh" means).... and if he included notes and a little commentary for context and interpretation I might have even recommended this book to other people.
If you are interested in reading Wyatt you are better off with the Penguin Classics Complete Poems.
I think I know what went wrong. This volume, in keeping with its titular directive, is about as paired down as possible. You get the poems and whatever brief 13 page context you can derive from Merwin's introduction and that's all you get. The trouble is these poems were written in the 16th Century, which means context clues are not so natural and the non-standard spelling and archaic vocabulary can be a little distracting ("I ame in hold: if pitie the meveth,/Goo bend thy bowe, that stony hertes breketh" Not impossible to understand but not immediate either). Not only that, these poems weren't even considered exceptional until three hundred years after they were written, so it isn't like they just slip right into the old meaning machine without consideration. He isn't part of our own common knowledge poetry index (at least in America Sir Thomas Wyatt doesn't ring a bell). I'll be honest, after reading his work bare even I might fall into the 300 years of "Wyatt? Meh" category as most of these poems seemed written by a whinny little man who feels sorry for himself a lot.
So this is my main criticism: why would The Ecco Press tease us with an introduction by a major poet who clearly has strong feelings for Wyatt and not give us anything more? This book would have gone so much further to enlighten/educate/deepen my engagement with Wyatt's work had its editor bothered to include even a simple gloss (I still can't figure out what the word "mowgh" means).... and if he included notes and a little commentary for context and interpretation I might have even recommended this book to other people.
If you are interested in reading Wyatt you are better off with the Penguin Classics Complete Poems.
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