Both Thomas Wyatt and Thomas Carew were poets who wrote poems in the courtly tradition. “They Flee From Me” by Sir Thomas Wyatt tells of a young bachelor who “plays the field,” fraternizing with various women, letting them come and go. That is until he finds himself entranced by a woman only to be discarded as he has done with so many partners in the past. In this poem Wyatt manages to step outside of this system of romantic involvement, to approach it with a certain level of irony, and to observe it from afar. In this way he is able to present a speaker in whom the reader should see the flaws and reveal, even if he does not comment on, the flaws of the polite structure (even those beyond the speaker's “revelations”). Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay In another example of Romantic lyricism, Thomas Carew provides a harsh and bitter poem titled “Ungrateful Beauty Threatened.” The title itself is almost enough to sum up the poem, an intimidating work aimed at a lover (or ex-lover) who has become too "proud", loaded with the implication that the speaker is responsible for everything the lover has become, for everything I am. While the speaker here is, like Wyatt's, completely caught up in the game of love, lacking the acumen to see beyond his own position within it, the distance between Carew and the speaker is much more difficult to ascertain. Carew seems to go beyond writing from an outside perspective, instead, like Wyatt's speaker, he seems completely saturated in the realm of courtship, fully injecting his frustration with this lover into the poem. This idea comes from considering Carew's poetry as a whole and the very language of the poem itself. There is, however, another possibility, which is that the poem is a critique of trends in love poetry, and if so it would require a level of detachment much like that of Wyatt in writing "They Flee From Me." Regardless, the two poems share a similarity in speakers, both of whom fail to see beyond the romantic structures they find themselves in, while nonetheless understanding the authorial distance from the speaker's mind, regardless of whether Wyatt and Carew whether or not they differ in this distance. , is extremely important to understanding the purposes of the poem. At the beginning of his essay on Wyatt Friedman's poetry he writes “. . . to the point that it becomes evident that Wyatt is capable of dramatizing any mood and any type of mind. . . The figure whose reverie we enter in “They Flee From Me” is a more fully imagined character than any of Wyatt’s other “voices”; but it does not embody the poet's personal and definitive attitude towards the 'new fangilnes'. This statement that Wyatt is creating a character beyond himself who has separate beliefs allows Wyatt to disconnect from the speaker's mindset along with the existing polite order. This is amply supported by the language of the poem and is especially evident when comparing the words, tone, and intended meaning of the speaker to other meanings Wyatt gives them or to the broader implication they have within the entire poem . In the line "But since I am so kindly served" the use of "kindly" serves as a sarcastic and acidic sarcasm on the part of the speaker describing his state of abandonment, but Wyatt uses this word to present a critical double meaning in compared to the speaker. As Levay turns the phrase, the speaker has “received payment in kind,” with his status mirroring the treatment of women in his past. Another example appears firstin the same stanza, “And I am permitted to go for his goodness.” The use of “goodness” is equally sarcastic and bitter, but the idea of being “permitted to go” implies a freedom that he does not possess, as it suggests that he will remain a participant in this game that he consistently fails to satisfy. If it didn't satisfy him in the first verse, it certainly won't now and Wyatt is highlighting that fact. We can thus observe a separation between the speaker and Wyatt's mind, and the fact that Wyatt possesses awareness beyond the speaker. This speaker is totally tied to his romantic situation. In the last paragraph, some examples of the ways in which the speaker fails to see outside of his own situation were listed, an intentional product of a detached Wyatt. She acidly observes her “kind” treatment and the “goodness” of her lover without realizing that she has reaped what she sowed and yet returns to the same behaviors. Friedman writes: "But he is blind to the implications of the metaphors he himself formulated and the meanings of the experience he recounts." The speaker fails to see the indication of the hunting language in the first stanza, having no awareness of the significance of his circumstance. There is no idea that perhaps this game of “novelty” is intrinsically flawed, to be returned to as soon as one can “let go.” So it is not just the speaker that Wyatt finds at issue, but the entire system of courtship, of which the speaker is both participant and product. It's an approach that encourages you to constantly move on to the next new thing, to view lovers as nothing more than prey, and to trade true passion for meaningless play. It is “a superficial and self-indulgent code” that promotes denial, or at least ignorance, of true needs and fears. At worst, it is “a system of conduct that proves to be little more than an elaborate garb for unregenerate animality.” This is precisely why recognizing the extent of authorial distance present in poetry is so valuable, for it is through a dissociation from the speaker that the reader can be made to observe the flaws of the speaker and the courtly system. I would go so far as to challenge part of Friedman's argument and suggest that Wyatt in this way actually comments on this Romantic structure that exists both in his poetry and in the world beyond. ” possesses a speaker immersed in the game of romance, in the sense that he is completely annoyed and deeply affected by the behavior of his lover (or ex-lover). They are so moved that they resort to stinging and extremely arrogant threats. The very first lines show this: “You know Celia, as you are so proud / I was the one who gave you the fame.” The speaker later states that he tempts them with fear, clearly suggesting that an empowered Celia is "overstepping her limits" in a way that scares the speaker. It is highly possible that the speaker irrationally approaches reasonable behavior, but nevertheless lacks self-awareness regarding his or her situation. They haughtily indicate that they are responsible for Celia's fame, commenting "You were in the forgotten crowd / Of common beauties we lived unknown" as if Celia's merit were based solely on what the speaker identifies or attributes to her. The speaker becomes possessive: "Your sweets, your graces, are all mine"; openly claiming ownership of all its positive qualities. They ultimately ascend to place themselves in an almost divine role with the warning, “Lest what I have made become uncreated.” Eventually the speaker, because he is unable to see beyond his own romantic situation in a similar way to Wyatt's speaker, comes forward with these pompous and childish threats. But that's only half the argument, because I suspect,.
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