Here's a virtual movie of the great Elizabethan Sonneteer Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey readingtwo of his much loved Sonnets "Set Me Whereas the Sun Doth Parch the Green" & "Alas, So all Things Now Do Hold Their Peace"
"Set Me Whereas the Sun Doth Parch the Green"........
The speaker is talking to his loved one and making a promise to always be faithful to her. He says that he will be content no matter what situation he is in because he belongs to his lover. From the beginning of the poem until a few lines toward the end of it, he list several situations that he could be in (hot or temperate weather, heaven or hell, etc.). But no matter what his situation is, no matter how bad things get, he will always be faithful to his lover, and in those bad times, it will be his comfort to know that he belongs to her.
"Alas, So all Things Now Do Hold Their Peace".............
This poem is about inner struggle. He speaks of his loved one and how the love he feels is unrequited. How everything has found it's peace, except for him. He says: " I weep and sing, in joy and woe, as in a doubtful ease: For my sweet thoughts sometime do pleasure bring..." He is claiming that even though she brings him disease, the mere thought of her brings him calm till he remembers the cause of his pain: she rejects him.
Tudor poet Henry Howard, the Earl of Surrey, was born in Hunsdon, Hertfordshire, England. He was the son of the third Duke of Norfolk. Associated with the royal court, he grew up at Windsor, where he was a childhood companion to the Duke of Richmond, son of Henry VIII. Surrey was also a first cousin to Anne Boleyn. Educated by tutors, he lived an eventful life as a soldier and a courtier, eventually marrying Lady Frances de Vere, daughter of the Earl of Oxford.
In 1532, he traveled to France with Henry VIII and stayed at the French court for almost a year. He was made Knight of the Garter in 1541 and served as a soldier in France. After Anne Boleyn's execution, Surrey and his father ran afoul of the new English court on several occasions. Eventually charged with treason, he was imprisoned in the Tower of London and executed in 1547.
Surrey's poetry is often associated with that of Thomas Wyatt, whose work was published alongside Surrey's in Tottel's Miscellany (1557). A major poet of the 16th century, Surrey is credited with developing the Shakespearean form of the sonnet. He wrote love poems and elegies and translated Books 2 and 4 of Virgil's Aeneid as well as Psalms and Ecclesiastes from the Bible. He also introduced blank verse to English—a form that he used in his translations of Virgil.
Kind Regards
]Jim Clark
All rights are reserved on this video recording copyright Jim Clark 2013
