Wyat's work falls readily into two divisions: the sonnets, rondeaus, and lyric poems dealing with love ; and the satires and the version of the penitential psalms. The love poems probably date from before his first imprisonment. A large number were published in 1557 in Songes and Sonettes (Totters Miscellany). Wyat's contributions number 96 out of a total of 31o. These have been supplemented from mss. He was the pioneer of the sonnet in England. Wyat wrote in all thirty-one sonnets, ten of which are direct translations of Petrarch. The sentiment is strained and artificial. Wyat shows to greater advantage in his lyrical metres, in his epigrams and songs, especially in those written for music', where he is less hampered by the conventions of the Petrarchan tradition, to which his singularly robust and frank nature was ill-fitted. Wyat wrote three excellent satires— "On the mean and sure estate," dedicated to John Poins, "Of the Courtier's Life," to the same, and "How to use the court 'One of the most musical of the pieces printed in his works, how ever, "The Lover complayneth the unkindnes of his Love," beginning "My lute, awake," is sometimes attributed to George Boleyn, Lord Rochford (see E. Bapst, Deus Gentilshommes poetes de la tour de
Henri VIII., p. 142).
and himself." They are written in terza rimy and in form and matter owe much to Luigi Alamanni. In the "Penitential Psalms" each is preceded by a prologue describing the circumstances under which the psalmist wrote, and the psalms themselves are very freely paraphrased, with much original matter from the author. They were published in 1549 by Thomas Raynald and John Harrington as Certayne Psalmes . . . drawen into English meter by Sir Thomas Wyat Knyght.
None of Wyat's other poems were printed until fifteen years after his death, in Songes and Sonettes. There are editions of his Works by G. F. Nott (1816) ; of the Songes and Sonnettes by E. Arber (187o) ; and of the Poems (2 vols.) by A. K. Foxwell (1913). See A. K. Foxwell, Study of Wyat's Poems 09'0. See also Brewer and Gardiner, Letters and Papers of Henry VIII. (especially from 1534 to 1542).