Structural Failure: Thomas Wyatt’s Petrarch in Early Modern England

• Published in: ELH Vol. 89; no. 3; pp. 575 - 601
• Main Author: Smith, D. K
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Baltimore Johns Hopkins University Press 01.09.2022
• Subjects: Aesthetics; British & Irish literature; Context; English literature; Italian literature; Narratives; Petrarca, Francesco (1304-1374); Plot (Narrative); Poetry; Poets; Politics; Shakespeare, William (1564-1616); Sonnets; Subjectivity; Traditions; United Kingdom > UK; England

In his Rerum vulgarium fragmenta, Francesco Petrarch introduced a new poetic strategy of deliberate and beneficial failure as a central requirement of literary love and a means of unifying a newly complex and fragmented literary subjectivity. In his rendering of Petrarch, Thomas Wyatt carries this c...