Changes in the Poetic Style of Thomas Watson
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Changes in the poetic style of Thomas Watson Item Type text; Thesis-Reproduction (electronic) Authors Onstott, Mary Brown Publisher The University of Arizona. Rights Copyright © is held by the author. Digital access to this material is made possible by the University Libraries, University of Arizona. Further transmission, reproduction or presentation (such as public display or performance) of protected items is prohibited except with permission of the author. Download date 27/09/2021 16:18:48 Link to Item http://hdl.handle.net/10150/553197 Changes in the Poetic Style of Thomas Watson by Mary Brown O nstott Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in the College of letters. Arts, and Sciences, of the University of Arizona : 1.9 3 3 Approved: g o . 1 ^ 3 Major adviser ate 1 O J*M- i 0 Sei" ri? btii TOl 3 "% , to "3J i. M , ... / 933 3~JZ Table of Contents C + fJ , 5L " Page Introduction. I. The place of the Hecatompathia as a sonnet sequence. 1 A• Watson'a sources # 1* Classical sources • 2* Italian Sources• B. Watson1s originality. !• Technical skill. 2. *Tew symbolism. C. Watson's debt to Lyly. 1. Connection of Watson with lyly. 2. ^uphulstlc traits in the Hecatompathia. II. Influence of the Hecatompathia upon poetry of the period. 26 A# Conventionalities of description in comparison with Shakespeare's Sonnet XXXIII. B. Apostrophe to tine in the Hecatompathia and its later use • 1. By minor poets. 2. In Shakespeare’s "Luoreoe"• I II . Change from the Hecatompathia to style of elegy and later sonnets. 38 A* The classiocl pastoral. 1. The Italian yadrlgels as developments of classical form • 2. Kellboeua as an imitation of classical models. 3. effect of the 3ngl1sh translation of the elegy on Watson. B. The Tears of 7anote. 1. Development of the narrative sequence. 2. Simplicity of imagery. IV. Conclusion 63 Introduction It Is the purpose of this discussion to show the develop ment of poetic style in the writings of Thomas Watson, tracing the changes which may be seen in his poetry. The influences which led Watson to write in the forms which he chose, his eon- tri but ions to the various literary styles of the day, and the influence which his poetry exerted upon certain of hi a contem poraries are to be noted. Watson's first important English work, the geoatompathla published in 1582, differs in many re spects from the Meliboeus, an elegy, and The Tears of Fanoie, a sonnet sequence which he later wrote. It is the purpose of this paper to note some of the influences, and especially that of John Lyly, on the Heoatompathla, and the extravagant language which was a result of close following of models; the use of the Hecatompathia, not as a literary model but as a store-house of phrases represents another aspect of the influences of Watson’s predecessors on his work. How Watson's style, because of lapse of interest in the fashion set by lyly and because of a new in terest in simplicity, changed in the ten years of his writing career is to be shown through a comparison of his earlier with his later poems. The place of this minor figure among Eliza bethan poets in setting literary stylos as well as in adapting his writing to foreign influences is to bo discussed. Changes in the Poetic Style of Thomas Watson ' - ' ■ - - ' I ■■■■■ ■ ' ' ' ’ ■ - Upon the poetry of the age of Elizabeth onme two great in fluences, emerging from the multi-patterned background of the age. The learning of classic antiquity, Greek and Homan poetry with the tradition of the ancient world as it was preserved in letters, brought its full weight to bear upon the writers of Sixteenth Century England. The manner of the Court of Love, half mediaeval and half Renaissance,also had a great influence upon the poetry of the time. Fusion of learning and courtly manner, had it come in the character of a scholar-poet, might have given to verse the depth of scholarly thought as well as. the grace of courtly style. Amatory verse, which flourished under the Tudors and Stuarts, might have assumed a tone of deeper sincerity through the study of classical and contemporary mas ters. A scholar-poet might have been produced by the age. Thomas Watson was called an English Petrarch by his con temporaries. He was a student who understood Latin, Greek, French and Italian languages and literatures, and took great pleasure in scholarly pursuits. He was a college man who took no degree, a small gentleman who lived in the shadow of the court, a poet whose verse became obscured. During his lifetime - 2 - he was cited by Meres as one "best for tragedy*.^ His Latin Antigone seems to have awed his contemporaries. Other Latin works which may have added to Watson's fame as a poet were a Da Rente dio Amor is . an Amintae Oaudiae and an Amyntaa. as well as other Latin verses to which he refers in sane of his English poems. The English poems of Watson which are now known to be his work are the Heoatompathia, a sequence of one hundred poems which he calls sonnets, ITellboeus, an elegy. Italian Madrigals Englished, translations of Italian songs set to Byrd's music, and The Teares of Eanoie. a sonnet sequenOe published post humously. Despite the praise whioh his Latin work received, Watson’s English poems were noticed but little by critics of his own day, and his contribution to the development of the sonnet has been ignored, with the exception of the few lyrics which found their way into the Phoenix’ Hast and England's Heli con. The rest of his poetry dropped from sight. Minor poets have been remembered for a few lines, but Watson, the first man in England to publish a sonnet sequence, received no. plaudits from those who oame after him. The external facts of Watson's life have been preserved by Anthony & Wood, and may be supplemented by the few references to the poet in contemporary literature• A Wood wrote: "Thomas Watson, a Londoner born, did spend some time in this University, not in Logic and Philosophy, as ho ought to have done; but in the smooth and pleasant studies o f Poetry and Romance, whereby he obtained an honourable 1. Smith, Elizabethan Critical Essays, vol. II. p. 315. - 8 - • : Heme among the Students in those Faculties. Afterwards retiring to the Metropolis studied the Common Law at riper years, and for a diversion wrote, MEologa in obi turn D Franc is ci walsinghaa Rq. our. London 15^0, in two sheets In qu • "Amintae Gaudia Lond . 1592, qu. Written in Lat. Hexameter', and dedicated to the incomparable Mary Count ess of Pembroke, who was a Patroness of his Studies. Tie hath written otker things of that nature or strain, and some thing pertaining to the Pastoral, which I have not yet seen, and was highly valued among ingenious men, in the l a t t e r end of Q. E liz a b e th . The dates of Watson's birth and death are not known, but it is evident that he had died by 1593, since in that year George Peelo, one of his friends, wrote To Watson, many worth Rpitaphes For~hla sweet Poosie. for Amintas toares. And joyes so wall set down.^ Presumably he spent part of his youth in Paris as secretary to Sir Francis WalaIngham. In 1681 his translation of the Antigone of Sophocles was entered by the clerk of the Stationers * Company July 31. The first important English poetry published by Watson was the Heoatompathia, "Passionate Centurio of Love", which ap peared in 1582. Aayntaa,' a Latin poem, was published in 1585; and in the same year a Compendium Memoriae L o ca lis, both of them dedicated to Henry Noel; in 1586 "Coluthus' Raptae Helena®. Tho. Watsonao Londiniensi. London 1686. Dedicated to the Duke of Northumberland." Amyntas was translated without Watson's permission. In 1587 appeared Abraham Fraunoo's "The Lamentations of Amyntas for the death of Phillis, paraphrastioally translated 1. Athenae Oxoniansis, pp. 362-363. 2. Ad Maecaenatum. in The Honour of the G arter, quoted in Arlui^s introduction to Watson7!? Poems, p. 14. 4- out of latine into English Hexameters by Abraham Praunoe. London, 1587." No mention la made of the author of the original poem in the dedication which Fraunce wrote to Mary Countess of Pembroke. Watson's attitude toward the theft is expressed in the dedication to Mellbeous. printed in 1592, in which he says, "I interpret myself lest Melibooua in speaking Hnglish by an other man's labour, should loose my name in his ohaunge, as my Amyntas did In 1690 Watson had already written the Madrigals, for which Byrd's music was used. Amlntee Gaud la, dedicated to .. : • ; ■ , - ' .. •' . ■ . , the Countess of Pembroke, was printed in 1592. Following Wat son's death The Teares of Pancio or Love Disdained. a sequence of sixty sonnets appeared, Watson's authorship being established by the initials at the end of the volume and by the Stationers' register. In the register of the parish of St. Bartholomew the Less is the notice of the death of one Thomas Watson, who was buried September 26, 1592• While the name is common, the date coincides with the conjectured time of Watson's death. While Watson speaks of "my travail© in penning these love- passions, or for pitie of my paines in suffering them (although but supposed)" and in the phraso condemns himself as a courtly writer of little feeling, the lightness of his verse differs from that of the court poetry of the period in lack of emotion and in play upon thought rather than in sustaining a slightly humourous emotion.