1. Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey Surrey continued in Wyatt's footsteps on the English sonnet form. Wyatt and Surrey, both often titled "father of the English sonnet", established the form that was later used by Shakespeare and others: three quatrains and a couplet, with a rhyme scheme of abab cdcd efef gg. Surrey was also the first English poet to publish in blank verseWyattEnglish sonnetShakespeare

2. Petrarchan sonnet The Petrarchan sonnet (also Petrarchanism or Petrarchian) is a verse form that typically refers to a concept of unattainable love. It was first developed by the Italian humanist and writer, Francesco Petrarca. Conventionally Petrarchan sonnets depict the addressed lady in hyperbolic terms and present her as a model of perfection and inspiration.unattainable love ItalianFrancesco Petrarcahyperbolic The original Italian sonnet form divides the poem's 14 lines into two parts, an octave (first eight lines) and a sestet (last six lines). The rhyme scheme for the octave is typically a b b a a b b a. There are a few possibilities for the sestet, including c d d c d d, c d e c d e, c d c d c d. octavesestet The octave and sestet have special functions in a Petrarchan sonnet. The octave's purpose is to introduce a problem, express a desire, reflect on reality, or otherwise present a situation that causes doubt or conflict within the speaker. It usually does this by introducing the problem within its first quatrain (unified four-line section) and developing it in the second. The beginning of the sestet is known as the volta, and it introduces a pronounced change in tone in the sonnet; the sestet's purpose as a whole is to make a comment on the problem or to apply a solution to it. The pair are separate but usually used to reinforce a unified argument - they are often compared to two strands of thought organically converging into one argument, rather than a mechanical deduction. Moreover, Petrarch's own sonnets almost never had a rhyming couplet at the end as this would suggest logical deduction instead of the intended rational correlation of the form.quatrainvoltacouplet http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petrarchan_sonnet

3. COMPLAINT OF THE ABSENCE OF HER LOVER BEING UPON THE SEA. O HAPPY dames that may embrace The fruit of your delight ; Help to bewail the woful case, And eke the heavy plight, Of me, that wonted to rejoice The fortune of my pleasant choice : Good ladies ! help to fill my mourning voice. In ship freight with rememberance Of thoughts and pleasures past, He sails that hath in governance My life while it will last ; With scalding sighs, for lack of gale, Furthering his hope, that is his sail, Toward me, the sweet port of his avail. Alas ! how oft in dreams I see Those eyes that were my food ; Which sometime so delighted me, That yet they do me good : Wherewith I wake with his return, Whose absent flame did make me burn : But when I find the lack, Lord ! how I mourn. When other lovers in arms across, Rejoice their chief delight ; Drowned in tears, to mourn my loss, I stand the bitter night In my window, where I may see Before the winds how the clouds flee : Lo ! what a mariner love hath made of me. And in green waves when the salt flood Doth rise by rage of wind ; A thousand fancies in that mood Assail my restless mind. Alas ! now drencheth 1 my sweet foe, That with the spoil of my heart did go, And left me ; but, alas ! why did he so ? And when the seas wax calm again, To chase from me annoy, My doubtful hope doth cause me plain ; So dread cuts off my joy. Thus is my wealth mingled with woe : And of each thought a doubt doth grow ; Now he comes ! will he come ? alas ! no, no!

4. His poems habitually dwell on isolation: they adopt the voices of Petrarchan lovers brooding on an inner hurt, prisoners lamenting past happiness, or psalmists threatening destruction to their enemies. The most powerful of them adopt the voices of women left by their lovers or husbands. ‘O happy dames’ is spoken by a woman who is watching the sea and waiting for her lover: When other lovers in armes acrosse Rejoyce their chief delight, Drowned in teares to mourne my losse I stand the bitter night In my window, where I may see Before the windes how the cloudes flee. Lo what a mariner love hath made me! As others embrace, she looks out of the window, a mariner just in a poetic conceit. Surrey is the only early Tudor poet to explore this form of feminine pathos – waiting and desiring alone – and it runs through the poems he composed in male voices too: he often imagines a background of conviviality against which he alone laments a lost friend or an unattainable lover. If a poem describes a background of general contentment shared by all ‘save I’, then you can be fairly sure it has some debt to Surrey. Aloneness is his stock-in-trade. http://www.lrb.co.uk/v21/n22/colin-burrow/brattishness

5. http://users.tricity.wsu.edu/~andrew.pitman/index.php Good Ladies, help to fill my moorning voyce. In this line, it seems the narrator is inviting her friends to sing with her. fill ‘fill’ would appear to fit best given the context of the entire line--inviting others to ‘fill one’s voice’ would appear to invite both singing and a lending of fortitude from the addressed, ‘feeling’ ones ‘moorning’--translated ‘mourning’--would invite empathy. It would seem that the term ‘moorning’ is a pun on the term ‘mooring’. A sea vessel is referred to as being ‘moored’ when it is fastened to the shore. Part of the plight of the narrator is that she is stuck on shore while her lover is at sea. Lending weight to this argument is the fact that the spelling of ‘mourn’ in this line is inconsistent with the rest of the poem. In lines 26 and 29 of the 1965 Revised Harvard edition, the vowels ‘ou’ are used instead of ‘oo’. moorning It would seem that the term ‘moorning’ is a pun on the term ‘mooring’. A sea vessel is referred to as being ‘moored’ when it is fastened to the shore. Part of the plight of the narrator is that she is stuck on shore while her lover is at sea. Lending weight to this argument is the fact that the spelling of ‘mourn’ in this line is inconsistent with the rest of the poem. In lines 26 and 29 of the 1965 Revised Harvard edition, the vowels ‘ou’ are used instead of ‘oo’. ‘freight’. There is evidence, however, that even before the mid-sixteenth century, the term ‘fraught’ (spelled ‘ffrawghte’ by Fitzroy) was sometimes used in the same sense as it is in modern day English; it was another term for ‘burden’ (“Freight”). A sixteenth century reader would have likely noticed the wordplay.“Freight” "Scalding" is a rarely-used adjective denoting that something is "of the sea" ("Scalding"). The scalding sighes here are sea winds that are gentle as sighs, useless for sailing."Scalding" This odd spelling of "furthering" seems to be based on the archaic letter "ð" (eth), which is pronounced like the "th" in "they" and resembles a "d."

6. grene waves when the salt flood / Doth rise, by rage of winde The Oxford English Dictionary says that the word ‘green’, when used to describe the sea, refers specifically to “the sea near the shore.” The stanza preceding sees the narrator “drowned in teares” when she sees “before the windes how the cloudes flee” (24, 25). One would assume that when she is bemoaning the absence of her lover while looking out the window, she would be looking towards the ocean. If this is the case, the fleeing clouds would seem to be moving further offshore. Although the effect of the wind on tides may be marginal when compared to the moon’s effect on tides, an offshore wind would generally lower the tidal level. When the narrator says that “the salt flood/doth rise, by rage of winde,” than, she is most likely referring to the welling up of tears and emotion that takes hold of her when she notices the wind picking up. Her tears provide the flood that she says she drowns in. This is consistent with the fanciful bad scenarios that she describes as assailing her mind in lines 31 and 32.

7. Narrators in Chaucer’s poetry used the term “swete fo” to address a mistress. doth cause me plaine Used in this context, "plaine" means "lament" or "cry" - it shares a common root with the more familiar word "plaintive" ("Plain," "Plaintive"). This phrase as a whole could be rendered "makes me cry with sadness.""Plain," "Plaintive" http://users.tricity.wsu.edu/~andrew.pitman/ind ex.php http://users.tricity.wsu.edu/~andrew.pitman/ind ex.php

8. "O Happy Dames" is in an interesting seven- line stanza form The dominant seven-line figure in Surrey's era was Rime Royal. Invented by Chaucer

9. http://forum.art-en.com/viewtopic.php?style=9&t=23067 Farewell, Love,- and all thy laws forever, Thy baited hooks shall tangle me no more; Senec and Plato call me from thy lore, To perfect wealth my wit for to endeavor. In blind error when I did persever, Thy sharp repulse, that pricketh aye so sore, Hath taught me to set in trifles no store And 'scape forth since liberty is lever. Therefore farewell, go trouble younger hearts, And in me claim no more authority; With idle youth go use thy property, And thereon spend thy many brittle darts. For hitherto though I have lost all my time, Me lusteth no longer rotten boughs to climb. Compare it to Wyatt’s My Galley Why it is considered an anti-Petrarchan poem