WARNING: The first sentence is awful, but I'm not sure how to avoid it.
In Thomas Wyatt's sonnet Madam, withouten many words, the key word is "words." It may sound silly, but this poem actually revolves around the impact of two particular words, each professing the opposite of the other. That is, the speaker is waiting for an outcome based on whether the antagonist's reply is yes or no.
The importance of "words" is that the speaker is only hoping for one of two choices. He asks that the Madame be honest and concise with him so that he may get on with his life depending on which she chooses. What exactly has he asked her? I'm not sure, but my guess is that it was some courtly offer. Perhaps marriage or another "dating" gesture. I'm assuming this because of the last two lines, which are the outcomes of a negative answer: "Ye shall another man obtain,/And I mine own and yours no more" (13-14). Clearly the Madame is to move on to a different "suitor" if she rejects the speaker. In the last line he claims himself, and seperates from the Madame.
The speaker labels this indecisive woman "withouten many words" (1) because she doesn't seem to give him a straight answer. The third and fourth lines say, "And if ye will, then leave your bordes,/And use your wit and show it so." Here the speaker is telling this Madame that if she is to ever speak to him at all, she must leave out the mind-games and state what she is truly thinking on the matter. Basically he wants a straight answer with a choice between the words yes or no. The speaker tries to get the antagonist to at least feel sorry for him as one "that burneth alway" (7) so that he can set his mind at rest. In a sense, he's asking her to at least rip off the bandaide rather than pull it off slowly and painfully without straight answers. He is probably sick of hearing hardly a response (if any at all) from this madame, so he only asks for these words. They are the entire subject and fate of the sonnet because they are the only desire that the speaker has. I feel that this sonnet is really working at one point and Wyatt has made it quite apparent that the meaning of two little words can affect a human in such a deep way.
The last stanza in this sonnet expresses the consequences based on the words the Madame may or may not choose as her answer. With an affirmative confirmation the speaker says he "shall be fain" (9), or happy, in other words. Here we can easily assume this means the Madame will have interest in the protagonist romatically. Otherwise, as I quoted the lines in the first paragraph, she will have to find a different man and the speaker must cuts his ties from her and become his own self again. Readers are left at the end pondering over which of the two words the Madame will finally choose. One or the other makes their fate, which the speaker is very serious about getting at. After all, he's written an entire sonnet over the matter. To put it plain and simple, "words" ('yes' and 'no' in particular) are very significant in this sonnet, and ultimately have the most consequential rolls.
In Thomas Wyatt's sonnet Madam, withouten many words, the key word is "words." It may sound silly, but this poem actually revolves around the impact of two particular words, each professing the opposite of the other. That is, the speaker is waiting for an outcome based on whether the antagonist's reply is yes or no.
The importance of "words" is that the speaker is only hoping for one of two choices. He asks that the Madame be honest and concise with him so that he may get on with his life depending on which she chooses. What exactly has he asked her? I'm not sure, but my guess is that it was some courtly offer. Perhaps marriage or another "dating" gesture. I'm assuming this because of the last two lines, which are the outcomes of a negative answer: "Ye shall another man obtain,/And I mine own and yours no more" (13-14). Clearly the Madame is to move on to a different "suitor" if she rejects the speaker. In the last line he claims himself, and seperates from the Madame.
The speaker labels this indecisive woman "withouten many words" (1) because she doesn't seem to give him a straight answer. The third and fourth lines say, "And if ye will, then leave your bordes,/And use your wit and show it so." Here the speaker is telling this Madame that if she is to ever speak to him at all, she must leave out the mind-games and state what she is truly thinking on the matter. Basically he wants a straight answer with a choice between the words yes or no. The speaker tries to get the antagonist to at least feel sorry for him as one "that burneth alway" (7) so that he can set his mind at rest. In a sense, he's asking her to at least rip off the bandaide rather than pull it off slowly and painfully without straight answers. He is probably sick of hearing hardly a response (if any at all) from this madame, so he only asks for these words. They are the entire subject and fate of the sonnet because they are the only desire that the speaker has. I feel that this sonnet is really working at one point and Wyatt has made it quite apparent that the meaning of two little words can affect a human in such a deep way.
The last stanza in this sonnet expresses the consequences based on the words the Madame may or may not choose as her answer. With an affirmative confirmation the speaker says he "shall be fain" (9), or happy, in other words. Here we can easily assume this means the Madame will have interest in the protagonist romatically. Otherwise, as I quoted the lines in the first paragraph, she will have to find a different man and the speaker must cuts his ties from her and become his own self again. Readers are left at the end pondering over which of the two words the Madame will finally choose. One or the other makes their fate, which the speaker is very serious about getting at. After all, he's written an entire sonnet over the matter. To put it plain and simple, "words" ('yes' and 'no' in particular) are very significant in this sonnet, and ultimately have the most consequential rolls.
posted by Melissa | 9:34 PM
1 Comments:
Great job, Melissa. I think you've really gotten at the essence of this poem and you've done a good job of supporting your argument with evidence from the text. In the future, you should try to use some of the analytical terms and techniques we've developed in class. Good work!
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