3. In his attempted reformation of English metrical irregularity Wyatt, in
his sonnets, shows only the uncertain hand of a beginner. He generally
secures an equal number of syllables in each line, but he often merely
counts them off on his fingers, wrenching the accents all awry, and often
violently forcing the rimes as well. In his songs, however, which are much
more numerous than the sonnets, he attains delightful fluency and melody.
His 'My Lute, Awake,' and 'Forget Not Yet' are still counted among the
notable English lyrics.
4. A particular and characteristic part of the conventional Italian lyric
apparatus which Wyatt transplanted was the 'conceit.' A conceit may be
defined as an exaggerated figure of speech or play on words in which
intellectual cleverness figures at least as largely as real emotion and
which is often dragged out to extremely complicated lengths of literal
application. An example is Wyatt's declaration (after Petrarch) that his
love, living in his heart, advances to his face and there encamps,
displaying his banner (which merely means that the lover blushes with his
emotion). In introducing the conceit Wyatt fathered the most conspicuous of
the superficial general features which were to dominate English poetry for
a century to come.
5. Still another, minor, innovation of Wyatt was the introduction into
English verse of the Horatian 'satire' (moral poem, reflecting on current
follies) in the form of three metrical letters to friends.
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