The differences in style and tone between this and
Surrey’s other poems have led critics to a variety of
interpretations. Earlier biographers and critics viewed
the poem as a stiff and conventional tribute to a man
Surrey knew only slightly or not at all. More recently,
however, the poem has been praised for its elegant
rhythms and imitation of Wyatt’s own language and
tropes. Most importantly, perhaps, in this poem Surrey
argues that the fi gure of the poet is valuable to Tudor
society as a voice of moral conscience and national
memory. In a culture focused on social status, it is
striking that Surrey the aristocrat was willing to pub-
licly commemorate and honor a man who was his
social inferior. For this reason, “Wyatt resteth here”
marks an important moment in English poetry, one in
which poetry becomes an important tool in altering the
traditional bases of status and power.
See also ELEGY.
FURTHER READING
Jones, Emrys, ed. Surrey: Poems. Oxford: Clarendon Press,
1964.
Sessions, W. A. Henry Howard, the Poet Earl of Surrey: A Life.
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999.
Tromly, Frederic B. “Surrey’s Fidelity to Wyatt in ‘Wyatt
Resteth Here.’ ” Studies in Philology 78, no. 104 (1980):
376–387.
Carol D. Blosser
WYRD Wyrd broadly means fate (i.e., destiny) in
Old English. Wyrd carries both pre-Christian and
Christian meaning. Its pagan meaning is linked to the
Norns, the three fates in Scandinavian mythology, who
execute wyrd as an all-powerful and impersonal force
to which both gods and humans are subject. In its
Christian context, wyrd is inextricably linked to the
personal Christian God and signifi es the temporal exe-
cution of divine plan, as discussed in the late ninth-
century METERS OF BOETHIUS by ALFRED THE GREAT. Here,
the omniscient teacher Wisdom defi nes wyrd as the
temporal manifestation of providence. It regulates
order and distributes changes evenly to create balance
in nature as a material expression of commonplace
divine justice: Fate is God’s “everyday work.”
See also BEOWULF, BOETHIUS’ CONSOLATION OF PHI-
LOSOPHY, EXETER BOOK, FORTUNE.
FURTHER READING
Lochrie, Karma. “Wyrd and the Limits of Human Under-
standing: A Thematic Sequence in the Exeter Book.” JEGP
85 (1986): 323–331.
Payne, Anne F. “Three Aspects of Wyrd in Beowulf.” In Old
English Studies in Honor of John C. Pope, edited by Robert
B. Burlin and Edward B. Irving, Jr., 15–35. Toronto: Uni-
versity of Toronto Press, 1974.
Karmen Lenz
480 WYRD