Analysis
The confusion, ambiguity and vacillation of feelings and emotions connected with love is the subject of this sonnet, which is a translation of Petrarch’s sonnet 104. The poem is built from opposite sentiments and ideas to reflect the full range of feeling that love can provoke. While it seems that this relationship is an impossible affair that leads him to the brink of despair, the poet also seems intoxicated by it. The opening image of war and peace also reminds us of Wyatt’s diplomatic and ambassadorial duties, the vast changes in allegiance that he saw within his term of office and the challenges of the international political arena at this time.
The metaphors used highlight the physical extremes such as burning and freezing to connote the psychological consequences of the dramatic emotions involved. Love in the tudor court was often fraught with social implications, particularly as the king himself was involved in numerous precarious romantic relationships. But, the idea of being incarcerated despite the fact that no bonds could hold him reminds us that the resultant torture is one which the narrator is willingly subjecting himself to. Alas, he derives pleasure from the situation that directly causes his pain.
Line 11 is interesting as these two ideas are not usually mutually exclusive: it is possible to love another and oneself. However, Wyatt is perhaps indicating that the relationship is one dictated by the heart rather than the head; though the love feels right, the narrator cannot quiet his mind to the unsettling knowledge that his love is not a practical or logical choice. If he is prepared to put himself in danger for his love, he must not care enough about himself to prevent his own destruction. In the final rhyming couplet, the narrator makes it clear that he understand that that which gives him the most pleasure is that which causes him the most peril.