ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses how Wyatt's lyrics written during his Spanish embassy illustrate his frustrations both romantic and political, if the two can be put asunder in the Tudor court and how his use of Petrarchan lyric enabled him to give voice to these frustrations, a means of complaint which might not otherwise have been available considering the culture of surveillance, gossip, and censorship which pervaded the Henrician court. Wyatt turned to satire as a mode in which he could express his disillusionment with court culture, but also his desire to return to court. When he returned to diplomatic duties, he also returned to Petrarchan lyric as a mode synonymous with frustrated desires and unattainable objectives. The Petrarchan canzone form is somewhat complex, consisting of several stanzas and concluded with a congedo or envoy. Whilst the lines in a canzone can be of differing lengths, Petrarch tends to adhere to hendecasyllabic and the heptasyllabic lines.
