ABSTRACT
The sense of dire threat that is evident in the lines leaves the reader in little doubt that words, either written or spoken, can be used by poet as a deliberately deceptive means of engaging in personal and political conflict. Thomas Wyatt's verse, in particular, provides an enlightening insight into how the pragmatic use of poetics was not particular to either Scotland or the overtly political world of religion and nationhood. Through a poem which is sinewy, economical and vernacular in style, the lady's emotions are manipulated, the validity of the opposing views questioned. Poets may at times have been guilty of what the modern mind may perceive as fawning sycophancy, their verse at times deliberately crafted to please the powerful at court. The court poet is likely, however, to have seen it differently, as an accepted means of obtaining and protecting his position, perhaps even as the fulfilment of his duty as his sovereign's servant.
