Gedichtbespreking Engels I Find No Peace

Wyatt criticizes and contradicts himself here. He wants to die, because he does not feel like living with this burden for any longer, but his love makes him wish for the strength to live and physical health. This line uses oxymorons, even juxtaposition as it concers contradicting concepts. Perish, yet, health are assonance.

1. Line 11: “I love another, and thus I hate myself;”

Line 11 is interesting as these two ideas are not usually mutually exclusive, but phrased as a oxymoron: it is possible to love another and oneself. Therefore, this is a paradox. Wyatt is afraid for rejection of his loved one and not being worthy enough, and therefore he does excessive things for them that makes him hate himself.  

1. Line 12-14: “I feed me in sorrow, and laugh in all my pain;
   Likewise displeaseth me both life and death,
   And my delight is causer of this strife.”

Wyatt celebrates his sorrow and laughs about his pain, which is unusual. Then, he uses the juxtapostion of living death again. He says his delight, which is love, is his greatest pleasure while also being his greatest struggle. These lines use oxymorons again. 'Line' and 'strife' in line 13-14 is internal rhyme.

5.     Rhyme

The rhyme scheme used throughout the poem is ABBA-ABBA-CDE-CDE, which is enclosed rhyme. The metre is mainly an iambic pentameter. (∪-∪-∪)

6.     Time

The Renaissance, which means ‘to be born again’, originated in Italy. This era came with a renewed interest in and study of Greek and Roman (Italian and Latin, Classical period) culture. The fall of Constantinople in 1453, now known as Istanbul, and the end of the Roman Empire made it possible for lots of Greek and Italian writings to come to the West and become available for writers in these western European countries.

The invention of the printing press 1476 by William Caxton made it possible to make literature available for a lot of people. This was a big impulse to enter a new literary era. The language was English so that it was accessible for many English people.

People of the Renaissance loved structure and design (for example, a sonnet rather than a free form of poetry) and valued beauty and elaboration, so the Italian sonnet structure appealed to them, also to Wyatt.

"I find No peace" Sir Thomas Wyatt represents the complexities of the British court of Henry VIII. Skilled in international diplomacy, imprisoned without charges, at ease jousting in tournaments, and adept at writing courtly poetry, Wyatt was admired and envied by his contemporaries.

The themes of most sonnets fall into these three categories:

• The brevity transience of life and beauty.
• Philosophical thoughts of love.
• The trappings of desire.

Two important values in the Renaissance were:

• Individuality. In the he medieval era, people in groups were common. In the Renaissance, individual people and their feelings and emotions became important. This movement is called humanism. Humanism is the belief that emphasises the value of human beings over that of supernatural or religious matters. Petrarch, the Italian poet where Wyatt took most of his inspiration from, is often credited for being the first Renaissance humanist.
• Worldliness. Because more and more literature came from Greece and Italy, people became more interested in things in the rest of the world, rather than their own small world of survival from the Medieval period.

An important event during the Renaissance in England was:

• Tudor and Henry VIII. This poem is about the conflicting feelings about love. During the Renaissance, people came to value love more, but under the reign of the Tudors, the British court of Henry VIII, people still condemned things like love before marriage and having mistresses. This led to Wyatt not being able to find peace while in love. His heart wants to consume his love for her, but his head (ratio) says he should not. In the Tudor court love was often punished with social implications, particularly as the king himself was involved in numerous precarious romantic relations.

House of Tudor had great influence on literature, as writing about passion, emotions and love became more usual. In Renaissance a more personal style developed, and poems clearly became a way for a poet to reveal his feelings to the one he loved. This conflicted with the strict rules of Tudor.

7.     Tone

The main theme of this poem is “Love”. The poem delineates the nature of love as something that could make a person feel sorrow, pain, joy, and confusion at the same time. Considering the time of the poem, the poet could be talking about some forbidden love that makes him feel uneasy. Though the poem doesn’t specifically reveal the context of these emotional fluctuations, it could easily be associated with a number of situations people in love face. Eventually, in the poem, the narrator expresses the way in which his mind and soul are driven by indecision.

The love of Wyatt is unsettled, but the poem does not reveal why; maybe his love  is forbidden or unanswered. For the tone and message of the poem, this is not important.

The tone of the poem is despair, conflict, ambiguity, indecision, a writer’s emotional imbalance as a result of this unsettled love.  It switches from being ‘sad’ to ‘dark’ and to ‘unsettled’. Ultimately, the tone is one of torment and conflict, as he is torn between life and death.

8.     Sir Thomas Wyatt

The tone of the poem is despair, conflict, ambiguity, indecision, a writer’s emotional imbalance as a result of this unsettled love.  It switches from being ‘sad’ to ‘dark’ and to ‘unsettled’. Ultimately, the tone is one of torment and conflict, as he is torn between life and death.

8.     Sir Thomas Wyatt

Thomas Wyatt (1503-1542) was an English politician, ambassador, and lyric poet. He was credited with introducing the sonnet to English literature. It is often said that Wyatt's main goal was to experiment with the English language, to civilise it and to make it equally worthy to other European languages. He was often associated with Anne Boleyn, the second queen of Henry VIII.

In 1536, he was arrested for allegedly committing adultery with her. He was imprisoned in the Tower of London, where he might have been able to see Anne Boleyn’s execution, as well as the execution of the five men she might have been in a relationship with. Thomas was released a year later because of his friendship with Thomas Cromwell, an English lawyer and statesman. He died at age 38 or 39 of an unknown illness.

9.     Sources

https://poemanalysis.com/sir-thomas-wyatt/i-find-no-peace/#:~:text=In%20this%20poem%20'I%20Find,love%20through%20absolutely%20contradictory%20ideas.&text=Further%2C%20he%20feels%20there%20are,over%20his%20life%20or%20death.