M.A.

Degree
Biography

James Joseph was born on Sept. 3, 1814, to Abraham Joseph Sylvester and was a Jew. Educated at the Royal Institution School, Liverpool, he proceeded to St. John's College, Cambridge, where he earned the coveted Second Wrangler in mathematics in 1837. Unable to swear to the Thirty-nine Articles of the Anglican Church, however, Sylvester was barred from obtaining a degree. Still, he earned the post of Professor of Natural Philosophy at University College, London, on Nov. 25, 1837. Single all his life, and dedicated more to public research than to regular teaching, Sylvester led a restless academic life. Appointed as Professor of Mathematics, University of Virginia, 1841, the year he obtained an M.A. degree from the University of Dublin, he resigned soon after, in March 1842, evidently because of an altercation with a student who had insulted him, and returned to England to work at Equity and Law Life Assurance Company from 1845 to 1855. He was called to the Bar in 1850. His next post was as Professor of Mathematics, Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, from 1855 to 1870. During this stint he became President of the London Mathematical Society and of the Mathematical and Physical Section of the British Association. Sylvester again left academe, this time with just one book to his name, The Laws of Verse (1870), which he practiced with as marked originality and flare as he did the analysis of numbers. His finest poem, "Kepler's Apostrophe," movingly expresses the fierce unrepentance of any free-thinking researcher. Sylvester lived unemployed in London until 1877, when Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore engaged him as Professor of Mathematics. In America he founded the American Journal of Mathematics. By 1883 he left Baltimore to become Savilian Professor of Geometry at New College, Oxford University, until his retirement in 1894. Among the greatest mathematicians of the 19th century, Sylvester founded invariant algebra. He died on March 15, 1897, and was interred in the Jewish Cemetery, Ball's Pond, London.

 

  • Fauvel, John. "James Joseph Sylvester: Poet." De Morgan Association Newsletter 5 (1997): 5-7.
  • Parshall, Karen Hunger. James Joseph Sylvester: Life and Work in Letters. Oxford: Clarendon, 1998. QA 29 .S95P37 1998 Mathematical Sciences Library
  • --. "Sylvester, James Joseph (1814–1897)." Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Online ed. Ed. Lawrence Goldman. Oxford: OUP, 2004.
  • M., P. E., and E. B. E. "Sylvester, James Joseph." Dictionary of National Biography. 258-29.
  • Sylvester, James Joseph. The Collected Mathematical Papers of James Joseph Sylvester. Ed. H. F. Baker. 4 vols. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1904-12. QA 3 .S87 Gerstein Library
  • --. The Laws of Verse; or, Principles of versification exemplified in metrical translations, together with an annotated reprint of the inaugural presidential address to the mathematical and physical section of the British Association at Exeter. London: Longmans, 1870. LaE.Gr. S985k Robarts Library
Degree
Biography

James Joseph was born on Sept. 3, 1814, to Abraham Joseph Sylvester and was a Jew. Educated at the Royal Institution School, Liverpool, he proceeded to St. John's College, Cambridge, where he earned the coveted Second Wrangler in mathematics in 1837. Unable to swear to the Thirty-nine Articles of the Anglican Church, however, Sylvester was barred from obtaining a degree. Still, he earned the post of Professor of Natural Philosophy at University College, London, on Nov. 25, 1837. Single all his life, and dedicated more to public research than to regular teaching, Sylvester led a restless academic life. Appointed as Professor of Mathematics, University of Virginia, 1841, the year he obtained an M.A. degree from the University of Dublin, he resigned soon after, in March 1842, evidently because of an altercation with a student who had insulted him, and returned to England to work at Equity and Law Life Assurance Company from 1845 to 1855. He was called to the Bar in 1850. His next post was as Professor of Mathematics, Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, from 1855 to 1870. During this stint he became President of the London Mathematical Society and of the Mathematical and Physical Section of the British Association. Sylvester again left academe, this time with just one book to his name, The Laws of Verse (1870), which he practiced with as marked originality and flare as he did the analysis of numbers. His finest poem, "Kepler's Apostrophe," movingly expresses the fierce unrepentance of any free-thinking researcher. Sylvester lived unemployed in London until 1877, when Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore engaged him as Professor of Mathematics. In America he founded the American Journal of Mathematics. By 1883 he left Baltimore to become Savilian Professor of Geometry at New College, Oxford University, until his retirement in 1894. Among the greatest mathematicians of the 19th century, Sylvester founded invariant algebra. He died on March 15, 1897, and was interred in the Jewish Cemetery, Ball's Pond, London.

 

  • Fauvel, John. "James Joseph Sylvester: Poet." De Morgan Association Newsletter 5 (1997): 5-7.
  • Parshall, Karen Hunger. James Joseph Sylvester: Life and Work in Letters. Oxford: Clarendon, 1998. QA 29 .S95P37 1998 Mathematical Sciences Library
  • --. "Sylvester, James Joseph (1814–1897)." Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Online ed. Ed. Lawrence Goldman. Oxford: OUP, 2004.
  • M., P. E., and E. B. E. "Sylvester, James Joseph." Dictionary of National Biography. 258-29.
  • Sylvester, James Joseph. The Collected Mathematical Papers of James Joseph Sylvester. Ed. H. F. Baker. 4 vols. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1904-12. QA 3 .S87 Gerstein Library
  • --. The Laws of Verse; or, Principles of versification exemplified in metrical translations, together with an annotated reprint of the inaugural presidential address to the mathematical and physical section of the British Association at Exeter. London: Longmans, 1870. LaE.Gr. S985k Robarts Library
Degree
Biography

Henry Francis Lyte was born on June 1, 1793, at Ednam, Scotland, and educated at Portora Royal School, Enniskillen, County Fermanagh (the alma mater of Oscar Wilde and Samuel Beckett, in Northern Ireland) and Trinity College, Dublin, where he won the Chancellor's Prize for English verse three years in a row, and from which he graduated in 1814. After being ordained in the Church of England, Lyte became a minister in Marazion, Cornwall, in 1817. He and Anne Maxwell wed on Jan. 21, 1818, and they set up house in Lymington. He published Tales in Verse in 1826, the first of his three volumes of poetry. By 1823 Lyte had become curate at All Saints Church in Lower Brixham, Devonshire. Dublin in 1830, and Oxford in 1834, granted him Master's degrees, but the one memorable "spirit-moving lay" that Lyte confessed, in his poem "Declining Days," he so longed to write in 1839 finally came to him in the days preceding his last sermon in late summer 1847. "Abide with Me" is a hymn universally beloved for memorial services and is sung annually by tens of thousands at the Football Association Cup Final at Wembley Stadium before the kick-off (beginning in 1927, at the suggestion of King George V). Lyte died on Nov. 20, 1847, at Nice, France, and is interred in the English Cemetery there. Three sons and a daughter survived him. One hundred years later, a tablet bearing his name, dates, and the first line of his greatest poem was placed in Westminister Abbey.

 

  • Lyte, Henry Francis. Poems, Chiefly Religious. London, 1833.
  • --. Miscellaneous Poems. London, 1868.
  • --. The poetical works of the Rev. H.F. Lyte, M.A.. Ed. John Appleyard. London: E. Stock, 1907. PR 4897 L6 A17 1907 Victoria College (Emmanuel)
  • --. The Spirit of the Psalms. London, 1834.
  • --. Tales in Verse illustrative of the several petitions of the Lord's Prayer. London, 1826.
  • Skinner, Basil Garnet. Henry Francis Lyte: Brixham's poet and priest. Exeter: University of Exeter, 1974. BV 330 L9S55 Robarts Library
Degree
Biography

Henry Francis Lyte was born on June 1, 1793, at Ednam, Scotland, and educated at Portora Royal School, Enniskillen, County Fermanagh (the alma mater of Oscar Wilde and Samuel Beckett, in Northern Ireland) and Trinity College, Dublin, where he won the Chancellor's Prize for English verse three years in a row, and from which he graduated in 1814. After being ordained in the Church of England, Lyte became a minister in Marazion, Cornwall, in 1817. He and Anne Maxwell wed on Jan. 21, 1818, and they set up house in Lymington. He published Tales in Verse in 1826, the first of his three volumes of poetry. By 1823 Lyte had become curate at All Saints Church in Lower Brixham, Devonshire. Dublin in 1830, and Oxford in 1834, granted him Master's degrees, but the one memorable "spirit-moving lay" that Lyte confessed, in his poem "Declining Days," he so longed to write in 1839 finally came to him in the days preceding his last sermon in late summer 1847. "Abide with Me" is a hymn universally beloved for memorial services and is sung annually by tens of thousands at the Football Association Cup Final at Wembley Stadium before the kick-off (beginning in 1927, at the suggestion of King George V). Lyte died on Nov. 20, 1847, at Nice, France, and is interred in the English Cemetery there. Three sons and a daughter survived him. One hundred years later, a tablet bearing his name, dates, and the first line of his greatest poem was placed in Westminister Abbey.

 

  • Lyte, Henry Francis. Poems, Chiefly Religious. London, 1833.
  • --. Miscellaneous Poems. London, 1868.
  • --. The poetical works of the Rev. H.F. Lyte, M.A.. Ed. John Appleyard. London: E. Stock, 1907. PR 4897 L6 A17 1907 Victoria College (Emmanuel)
  • --. The Spirit of the Psalms. London, 1834.
  • --. Tales in Verse illustrative of the several petitions of the Lord's Prayer. London, 1826.
  • Skinner, Basil Garnet. Henry Francis Lyte: Brixham's poet and priest. Exeter: University of Exeter, 1974. BV 330 L9S55 Robarts Library
Degree
Biography

Recollections by V. M. Padmini Chettur (October 2006)

G. K. Chettur, my father, was the oldest of the four sons of Mr. and Mrs. P. K. Krishna Menon. His brothers were K. K. Chettur, I. F. S., Ambassador of India to Japan and Belgium, Col. R. K. Chettur, an Army doctor and surgeon, and S. K. Chettur, I. C. S., India’s representative to Malaysia in 1945 who retired as chief secretary of Tamil Nadu (Madras).

Govinda Krishna Chettur did his M.A. from Oxford University in 1918-21, during which time he was the president of the Oxford Majlis. After his Oxford years, he wrote, "Is it not possible for Universities in India to exercise a similar ennobling influence on students? Is it not possible to alter the conditions under which they exist, to render them as Indian in character, as Oxford is distinctively English? One wonders whether our Universities have always been the dry uninspiring official institutions that confront one today in India." Accordingly, he took up his assignment as Principal, Govt. College, Mangalore, in 1922 at only 24 years of age, the youngest Principal of a Govt. College. He first met his wife Subhadra at Queen Mary’s College, Madras, from which she graduated in 1924. They were married in 1925 and had one daughter, Padmini.

Among Chettur's poems, Sounds and Images is a double sonnet sequence written in 1921 during his last year’s stay at Oxford. "The Last Enchantment" was dedicated to Sir Chettur Sankaran Nair, his uncle, and consists of Govinda Krishna's first impressions of Oxford, war days, and meetings with famous poets such as W. B. Yeats, Arther Symons, John Masefield, Rabindranath Tagore, and Mrs. Sarojini Naidu, the nightingale of India, his personal friend and mentor.

His other works include The Temple Tank (1932) and The Shadow of God (1935), which was dedicated to the memory of his mother whom he loved dearly. She was well versed in both English and Sanskrit. The Ghost City (1932), a work of fiction, was dedicated to "Chocha," his pet name for his wife Subhadra, and also to his parents. His College Composition (1933), a wonderful book on grammar and structural English for college-age students, contains a wealth of information regarding the usage of the English language, correct use of words, sentence structure, and aids to essay-writing styles (graphic, elevated, humorous, etc.). Last, he edited Altars of Silence (1935), a collection of short articles on Shakespeare, Thomas Kempis, J. H. Newman, Seneca, and others that dealt with themes of meditation and prayer.

I was a tiny tot when cruel fate snatched away my father. Memories of him are hazy but one picture surfaces from the recesses of my mind, which remains clear even up to this day. I remember my father lying in bed and my mother sitting silently by his side, shedding silent tears. I even remember asking her why she was crying, but she remained silent with tears flowing unabated. Being a toddler, I did not understand the gravity of the situation at that time. Then one day I was told that my father had gone on a long journey. Little did I realize that it was his final journey and that I would never see him again.

But he continued to live in my memories ever since. As I grew older I came to understand him through his writings and my mother’s recollections of him. The more I came to know about him my admiration and love for him grew and along with it a desire to write something about him. I did not have a clue as to how I could about doing it and so it remained un-attempted. Recently I was told that there was a website dedicated to my father, the late G. K. Chettur, and that it had samples of his works but did not furnish any information regarding the life and times of G. K. Chettur. I felt that God had given me an opportunity to fulfill my long cherished wish of writing something about my father--a daughter’s humble dedication.

Browsing through his works after a long gap provided an exciting and nostalgic journey down memory lane and this time I did not attempt to fight back the tears that flowed unabated, strengthening the bond of love and affection for my dear father all over again.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank my cousin, Ms. Sreelatha Puthiyaveettil, without whose encouragement and support I would not have undertaken this venture. She is a post-graduate in English language and literature, an avid reader of fiction and poetry, specially romantic poetry, and the author of a critical appreciation of my father’s sonnets, with special emphasis on The Triumph of Love and a few sonnets from The Temple Tank. She is at present busy with the translation of regional works of fiction into English.

  • Chettur, Govinda Krishna. Sounds and Images. London: Erskine Macdonald, 1921.
  • --. Gumataraya. Mangalore: Basel Mission Bookshop, 1932.
  • --. The Temple Tank and Other Poems. Mangalore: Basel Mission Bookshop, 1932.
  • --. The Triumph of Love. Mangalore: Basel Mission Bookshop, 1932.
  • --. The Shadow of God. London: Longmans, 1934.

 


The photograph is of Padmini, Subhadra, and Govinda Kristna Chettur, courtesy of Sreelatha Puthiyaveettil.

Degree
Biography

The 1813 edition of White's Selborne (viii-ix) gives the following biography: GILBERT WHITE was the eldest son of John White of Selborne, Esq. and of Anne the daughter of Thomas Holt, rector of Streatham in Surry. He was born at Selborne on July 18, 1720; and received his school-education at Basingstoke, under the Rev. Thomas Warton, vicar of that place, and father of those two distinguished literary characters, Dr. Joseph Warton, master of Winchester school, and Mr. Thomas Warton, poetry-professor at Oxford. He was admitted at Oriel College, Oxford, in December 1739, and took his degree of bachelor of arts in June 1743. In March 1744 he was elected fellow of his college. He became master of arts in October 1746, and was admitted one of the senior proctors of the university in April 1752. Being of an unambitious temper, and strongly attached to the charms of rural scenery, he early fixed his residence in his native village, where he spent the greater part of his life in literary occupations, and especially in the study of nature. This he followed with patient assiduity, and a mind ever open to the lessons of piety and benevolence which such a study is so well calculated to afford. Though several occasions offered of settling upon a college living, he could never persuade himself to quit the beloved spot, which was, indeed, a peculiarly happy situation for an observer. He was much esteemed by a select society of intelligent and worthy friends, to whom he paid occasional visits. Thus his days past, tranquil and serene, with scarcely any other vicissitudes than those of the seasons, till they closed at a mature age on June 26, 1793.

  • Foster, Paul G. M. Gilbert White and his Records: a Scientific Biography. London: Christopher Helm, 1988. QH 31 .W58F67 1988 Gerstein Library
  • --. "White, Gilbert (1720–1793)." Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Ed. H. C. G. Matthew and Brian Harrison. Oxford: OUP, 2004. Online ed. Ed. Lawrence Goldman. Sept. 2011.
  • Holt-White, Rashleigh. The Life and Letters of Gilbert White of Selborne. 2 vols. London: J. Murray, 1901. QH 31 .W58H6 Gerstein Library
  • Johnson, Walter. Gilbert White, Pioneer, Poet, and Stylist. London: J. Murray, 1928. QH 31 .W58J6 Gerstein Library
  • Mabey, Richard. Gilbert White: a Biography of the Author of The natural history of Selborne. London: Century, 1986. QH 31 .W58M32 1986 Gerstein Library
  • Martin, Edward A. A Bibliography of Gilbert White, the Naturalist & Antiquarian of Selborne: with a Biography and a Descriptive Account of the Village of Selborne. Rev. edn. London: Halton, 1934. Z 8970.5 .M37 1934 Robarts Library
  • White, Gilbert. Journals. Ed. Francesca Greenoak. 3 vols. London: Century, 1986. QH 31 .W58A3 1986 Gerstein Library
  • --. The Natural History of Selborne: to which are Added the Naturalist's Calendar, Miscellaneous Observations, and Poems. London: White, Cochrane, 1813.
  • --. The Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne, 1789. Menston: Scolar Press, 1970. QH 138 .S4W5 1789A Gerstein Library. Also London: T. Bensley for B. White, 1789. D-10/2651 RBSC Fisher Rare Book Library
Degree
Biography

William Vaughn Moody was born on July 8, 1869, in Spenser, Indiana, and his family moved in 1871 to New Albany. He obtained his B.A. (1893) and M.A. (1894) at Harvard University, where he became co-editor of the Harvard Monthly, and joined its English Department in the 1894-95 academic year as assistant to Louis E. Gates. Moody lectured at the University of Chicago in 1895 and stayed there until 1907 when, having risen to Assistant Professor, he left academe to write poetry. By then he had published three verse plays, The Masque of Judgment (1900), The Fire-Bringer (1904), and The Great Divide (1907), one volume of poems (1901), an edition of Milton's works (1899), and a history of English literature (1907). 1908 earned him a D. Litt. at Yale University and membership in the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Moody married Harriet C. Brainerd on May 7, 1909, and died in Colorado Springs on Oct. 17, 1910.

  • Dictionary of American Biography. Vol. VII. Ed. Dumas Malone. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1934.
  • Milton, John. Complete Poetical Works. Ed. William Vaughn Moody. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1899. PR 3550 .F24 1899 Robarts Library
  • Moody, William Vaughn. The Faith Healer: A Play in Four Acts. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1909. PS 2427 F35 1909 Robarts Library
  • --. The Fire-bringer. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1904. PS 2427 F5 1904
  • --. Letters to Harriet. Ed. Percy MacKaye. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1935. PS 2428 A47 1935 Robarts Library
  • --. The Masque of Judgment, a Masque-drama in Five Acts and a Prelude. Boston: Small, 1900.
  • --. Poems. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, 1901. PS 2425 A4 1901
  • --. Poems and Plays. Intro. John M. Manly. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1912. PS 2425 A2 1912 Robarts Library
  • --. Selected Poems. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1931. 811.5 Moo Se Trinity College
  • --. Some Letters of William Vaughn Moody. Ed. Daniel Gregory Mason. New York: AMS Press, 1969. PS 2428 A4 1969
  • --, and Robert Morss Lovett. A History of English Literature. New York: Scribner, 1904. 2 vols. PR 85 .M6 1904 Robarts Library
  • Stockney, Trumbull. Poems. Ed. George Cabot Lodge, William Vaughn Moody, and John Clierton Lodge. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, 1905. PS 3537 T525 1905
  • Who Was Who in America. Vol. I: 1897-1942. Chicago: Marquis Who's Who, 1981.
Degree
Biography

Gilbert E. Brooke was born March 28, 1873, at Hyères, France, and educated at Monkton Combe School near Bath (1884-88), Pensionnat Georgens, Ouchy, Switzerland (1889-90), Pembroke College, Cambridge (B.A. 1894; M.A., 1901), London Hospital (1894-96; L.R.C.P., L.R.C.S.), and Edinburgh (1897; D.P.H. 1902). After signing on as a ship's surgeon, Brooke became Government medical officer in the Turks and Caicos Islands in Sept. 1897. He and Alice Marie Swabey had married on Oct. 6, 1897, at Widcombe Old Church, Bath. His local responsibilities expanded there in 1899 to be J.P. for Turks Islands, District Commissioner, and Police Magistrate and Coroner, and in 1900 to be Receiver of Wreck, Caicos Islands, and Marriage Officer. He went on leave 1901-02 for further study at Edinburgh and afterwards emigrated to Singapore. He became Port Health Officer there in Jan. 1902 and set down roots. By 1905 he was a Lecturer in Hygiene, Singapore Medical School, and his career advanced as he became Deputy Coroner, Singapore (1906), and then J.P. for Singapore (1908). Brooke published two textbooks in tropical medicine this year and the next. These credentials helped him to rise to Acting Government Veterinary Surgeon (1911-12) and Chief Health Officer, Singapore (Jan. 1914). Brooke's broad interests extended to verse and local history. The prefatory note to Oddments, dated July 1922, explains that his poems has been printed before in the Royal Standard, Turks and Caicos Islands, W.I., the Singapore Free Press, the Sydney Daily Telegraph, the Bath and Wilts Chronicle, the Bath Chronicle, the Straits Times (of Singapore), the Malayan Review, and elsewhere. His service in the Turks and Caicos Islands and Singapore earned him a fellowship with the Royal Geographical Society. He and his wife Alice had five children.

  • Brooke, Gilbert Edward. Aids to Tropical Medicine (London: Baillière, 1908. Also 1915, 1927. Revised J. C. Broom, 1942.
  • --. Brooke of Horton in the Cotswolds with Notes on some other Brooke Families. Singapore: Methodist Publishing House, 1918. 9907.ee.9 British Library
  • --. Essentials of Sanitary Science. London: H. Kimpton, 1909. RA 425 .B66 Gerstein Library
  • --. Marine Hygiene and Sanitation. London: Baillière, 1920.
  • --. Medico-Tropical Practice: A Handbook for Medical Practioners and Students. 2nd edn. 1908: London: C. Griffin, 1920. 7307.a.10 [signed at Bath, Dec. 1919] British Library
  • --. Oddments: Being Extracts from a Scrap-book. Singapore: Kelly and Walsh, 1922. British Library 012273.aaa.73
  • Makepeace, Walter, Gilbert E. Brooke and Roland St. J. Braddell, eds. One Hundred Years of Singapore. 2 vols. London: Murray, 1921. DS 610.5 .O54 1921 Robarts Library
Degree
Biography

Sir Thomas Wyatt was born at Allington Castle, Kent, in 1503, the son of Henry Wyatt and Anne Skinner. He was educated at St. John's College Cambridge, become a diplomat in the service of Henry VIII about 1526 and travelled to Italy first in 1527. After a brief imprisonment for his affair with Anne Boleyn in 1536, the king's second wife who was executed for treason, Wyatt went to Spain as English ambassador to Charles V from 1537 to 1539. In 1541, after the fall of Thomas Cromwell, Wyatt was arrested again and charged with treason but his release followed shortly. He died October 11, 1542, and was buried at Sherborne. Having separated from his wife Elizabeth Brooke, daughter of Lord Cobham, Wyatt was survived by his mistress Elizabeth Darrell and their son Francis. The best modern editions of Wyatt's poems are Sir Thomas Wyatt: The Complete Poems, ed. R. A. Rebholz (Penguin, 1978), Richard C. Harrier's The Canon of Sir Thomas Wyatt's Poetry (a diplomatic transcription of the Egerton MS poems, for which see below), and the Collected Poems, edited by Kenneth Muir and Patricia Thomson (London: Routledge, 1969), who give especially full notes.

 

  • Burrow, Colin. "Wyatt, Sir Thomas (c.1503–1542)." Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Ed. H. C. G. Matthew and Brian Harrison. Oxford: OUP, 2004. Online ed. Ed. Lawrence Goldman. May 2011.
  • Muir, Kenneth Muir. Life and Letters of Sir Thomas Wyatt. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1963.
  • Thomson, Patricia. Sir Thomas Wyatt and his Background. London: Routledge, 1964.

Thirteen original sources exist for Wyatt's poems.

  1. Harington MS, Arundel Castle: see The Arundel Harington Manuscript of Tudor Poetry, 2 vols. (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1960).
  2. Blage MS, Trinity College, Dublin
  3. Parker MS 168, Corpus Christi College Cambridge
  4. Devonshire Ms 17492, British Library
  5. Egerton MS 2711, British Library: see Richard Harrier, The Canon of Sir Thomas Wyatt's Poetry (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1975), Part II, the best edition of the best version.
  6. Harleian MS 78, British Library
  7. Additional MS 36529, British Library (Park-Hill MS)
  8. Royal MS 17.A.xxii, British Library
  9. University MS Ff.5.14, Cambridge University Library
  10. Certayne psalmes chosen out of the psalter of Dauid, called thee. vii. penytentiall psalmes, drawen into englyshe meter by sir T. Wyat, ed. J. Harrington (London, 1549). STC 2726.
  11. A Boke of Balettes, extant in one copy only, a fragment of two leaves. STC 26053.5.
  12. Songes and sonettes, written by Henry Haward late earle of Surrey, and other (June 5, 1557). STC 13860. See Tottell's Miscellany (1557-1587), ed. H. E. Rollins, 2 vols., 2nd edn. (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1965).
  13. The courte of Venus, a fragment of an edition ca. 1563. STC 24650.5. See The Court of Venus, ed. R. A. Fraser (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1955).

Wyatt's poems were circulated in manuscript during his lifetime. The most important early MS is the Egerton. Fifteen years after Wyatt's death, Richard Tottel included 97 poems attributed to Wyatt in a collection of Surrey's poems. Tottel supplied Wyatt's poems with titles of his own and, in his desire to appeal to contemporary taste, frequently departed from the manuscript copy of his earlier authors, removing archaisms and smoothing out the rhythm. Wyatt also published Petrarch's De tranquillitate animi in English translation: see Tho, wyatis translatyon of Plutarckes boke, of the quyete of mynde in 1528 (STC 20058.5) and Plutarch's Quyete of Mynde translated by Thomas Wyat (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1931). Many of Wyatt's and Surrey's sonnets are translations or adaptations of Petrarch's Sonnetti in Vita di Madonna Laura and Sonnetti in Morte di Madonna Laura. Petrarch's poems are numbered as in modern standard editions with Petrarch's original numbering in brackets. The difference in numbering is due to the inclusion in Petrarch's sonnet cycle of a number of poems in other forms, including canzoni, madrigali, and ballate. The Italian texts are from Le Rime di Francesco Petrarca, ed. Giovanni Mestica (Firenze: G. Barbèra, 1896; PQ 4476 E96 ROBA). Modernization has not been applied to those passages where it might have grossly obscured the rhythm of the original.

Degree
Biography

"As late as 1953 it was impossible to publish Rochester's 'The Imperfect Enjoyment' and 'A ramble in St. James's Park' (Poems, xlix). And even after Judge John W. Woolsey's landmark decision in the Ulysses case in December 1933 'A ramble in St. James's Park' could still be called 'this unprintable poem' (Berman, 362) in 1964." (Ellis, citing R. Berman, 'Rochester and the defeat of the senses,' Kenyon Review 26 [Spring 1964], 354–68).

  • Ellis, Frank H. "Wilmot, John, second earl of Rochester (1647–1680)." Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Ed. H. C. G. Matthew and Brian Harrison. Oxford: OUP, 2004. Online ed. Ed. Lawrence Goldman. Jan. 2008.