Volume 2 of the Complete Works of Thomas Wyatt the Elder (1504-42)

FAIN: FT-62096-14

Jason Powell
Saint Joseph's University (Philadelphia, PA 19131-1308)

Sir Thomas Wyatt (1504?-42) may have been the first person to write a sonnet in English. His translation from Plutarch's Moralia was the first known publication of a classical moral essay in English. He introduced continental forms such as ottava rima to the language, and his paraphrase of the Penitential Psalms sparked a century of popular English psalm translations. This will be the first scholarly edition of his complete works, designed in part to resolve lingering debates over the canon of his verse. Volume one includes 36 letters, a treason trial speech and Wyatt's translation from Plutarch. Volume two includes 270 poems in groupings according to relative evidence of authorship and ordered by manuscript or print source. The 242,000-word first volume cleared a final review with Oxford University Press in September 2012. I apply for a Summer Stipend toward the second.