This study reappraises Sir Thomas Wyatt (c.1504-1542) as a poetic innovator from the literary avant-garde of early Tudor England. It discusses Wyatt’s self-conscious reflections on the writing process, and his awareness of how words are turned in new directions over the course of a text’s production, transmission and reception. Where previous studies have aligned Wyatt’s poetry with his courtly biography, this book examines the reading practices of his Tudor audiences and editors, and considers the types of textuality shown by the manuscript collections of his verse. By setting Wyatt’s writing ... More

This study reappraises Sir Thomas Wyatt (c.1504-1542) as a poetic innovator from the literary avant-garde of early Tudor England. It discusses Wyatt’s self-conscious reflections on the writing process, and his awareness of how words are turned in new directions over the course of a text’s production, transmission and reception. Where previous studies have aligned Wyatt’s poetry with his courtly biography, this book examines the reading practices of his Tudor audiences and editors, and considers the types of textuality shown by the manuscript collections of his verse. By setting Wyatt’s writings in the context of sixteenth-century theories of language and literary practice, and by drawing on early Tudor educational treatises, rhetorical handbooks, and manuals of courtly behaviour, this monograph examines the rhetoric of rewriting that colours Wyatt’s texts. Repeatedly, his writings invite readers to ‘turn’ or perform the word—to draw out something that lies inert within it. These rescriptive habits often serve to sustain an intimate dialogue between writers and readers. Special attention is paid to the materiality of Wyatt’s texts: the margins around and the interlinear spaces within his poems are regularly filled with new text, supplied by Wyatt himself or by his copyists, editors and readers. Chapters are devoted to the types of rewriting found in each of Wyatt’s main genres: Plutarchian essays; forensic apologias; psalm paraphrases; letters and verse epistles, and lyrics or ‘balets’. Two appendices offer further detail about patterns of manuscript transmission. Throughout, this study argues that reading often shaded into writing (and rewriting) in the early sixteenth century, and that acts of apparent copying often transformed texts inventively.