PAEAN to the simple country life—hunting, hawking,
study, and a kind of freedom (though he is constrained
to admit the “clog” at his heel—the involuntary nature
of his retirement to the country [l. 86]). Finally, he is
in England—“Kent and Christendom” (l. 100)—a far
better place than any glamorous but morally tainted
foreign land such as France, Italy, or Spain.
The poem may be profi tably read through three per-
spectives. The fi rst is biographical. The poem shows
infl uence from Wyatt’s intimate knowledge of court life
and his customary stance of disaffection and complaint.
His relationship with the throne was rocky, so the relief
shown in the poem at being far from the centers of
power is unfeigned. The second perspective is closely
related to the fi rst. Wyatt’s greatest contributions to
English poetics came in his importation of Continental
(French and Italian) verse forms and topics. This poem,
like many of Wyatt’s poems, is a translation, and it even
adopts terza rima, an interlocking rhyming structure
common in Italian Renaissance poetry and found in the
Alamanni poem from which this poem is adapted.
The third perspective has to do with the genre of the
poem. Generally, the satirist is seen as one whose
piercing vision exposes folly and evil. Such is obvi-
ously a major concern of this poem, as it consists pri-
marily in an inventory of the wrongs that our speaker
will not engage in. The royal court was a ripe target for
this kind of unfl attering exposure, both by literary tra-
dition and in reality. As we see in this poem, though,
the poet’s trustworthiness is just as crucial as his dis-
covery of the alleged abuses. He must be seen as a
credible voice and reliable critic—hence his repeated
assertions that he is neither able to engage in court
vices nor willing to excuse or explain them away. Since
he is an honest, plain-speaking man who likes nothing
more than to be left alone to hunt at his estate, the poet
is compelled only to speak truth. This is neither the
fi rst nor the most prominent example of satire in Eng-
lish poetry, but it is a notable achievement if only for
the penetrating voice of frustration we fi nd in it.
See also COURT CULTURE.
FURTHER READING
Gleckman, Jason. “Thomas Wyatt’s Epistolary Satire: Parody
and the Limitations of Rhetorical Humanism.” Texas Stud-
ies in Literature and Language 43, no. 1 (2001): 29–45.
Graham, Kenneth. The Performance of Conviction. Ithaca,
N.Y., and London: Cornell University Press, 1994.
Christopher A. HillMINOT, LAURENCE (ca. 1300–ca. 1352)
Nothing is known for certain about Laurence Minot
other than he was a poet who lived in northern Eng-
land and wrote political poems that refer to events dat-
ing from 1333 to 1352, during the HUNDRED YEARS’
WAR. As these poems staunchly support Edward III
(r. 1327–57), it has been suggested by a number of
scholars that he was attached to the court in some way,
though no evidence of that remains.
Minot’s poetry is distinctive for its strong use of
ALLITERATION, as well as its fi erce patriotism, and has
been hailed by some as a landmark of the political
poem genre. He is one of the fi rst to model short poems
about battles after ROMANCEs rather than BALLADs.
See also “SIEGE OF CALAIS, THE.”
FURTHER READING
James, Thomas Beaumont, and John Simons, eds. The Poems
of Laurence Minot: 1333–1352. Exeter: University of Exeter
Press, 1989.
Moore, Samuel. “Lawrence Minot.” MLN 35 (1920): 78–81.MIRROR FOR MAGISTRATES, A (1559–
1610) This collection, written by various Tudor
poets, is a continuation of JOHN LYDGATE’s The FALL OF
PRINCES, itself a translation/nationalization of GIOVANNI
BOCCACCIO’s De Casibus Virorum Illustrium (On the
Downfall of Famous Men). Though there is evidence
that an edition was compiled as early as 1555 (only the
title page remains), the fi rst complete edition was pub-
lished by Thomas Marsh in 1559. William Baldwin
was the editor and primary author, though he assem-
bled a group of writers to assist him, including George
Ferrers, Thomas Phaer, and Thomas Churchyard. This
fi rst edition contained 19 biographical poems; subse-
quent editions (1563, 1574, 1578, 1587, and 1610)
added more biographies and involved new authors,
such as MICHAEL DRAYTON and Thomas Sackville. Not
all entries were signed.
The term mirror derives from the Latin mirare, “to
look at,” and a magistrate is any ruler. Since antiquity,MIRROR FOR MAGISTRATES, A 277