" Sir Thomas Wyatt: Imitation, Translation and Identity."

This essay examines Sir Thomas Wyatt’s appropriation, imitation and translations of Petrarch with a view to better identifying the personal and artistic agenda which characterizes his poetic output. Wyatt’s engagement with Petrarch has the value of a symbiotic resonance, calling into play important questions regarding English renaissance humanist imitation and its relationship to writers like Petrarch and also the adoption of what would be highly influential poetic practices in England. The specific case of Wyatt permits us to study the particular condition of aesthetic, psychological and personal need to which the adoption of such practices is a response. What we witness in his work on the canzoni is the forging of a personal poetic identity through translation and imitation. Of great importance also in his engagement with Petrarch is the fact that it emerges that Wyatt does not merely deploy Petrarch at the service of his own poetic agenda but also manifests on occasion a strong affinity with elements in the works he is setting to his purpose, this in terms both of psychology and form, and these affinities are visible in his strategies of translation.