Blame Not My Lute – Sir Thomas Wyatt

Summary:In the poem, "Blame not my lute," Wyatt's speaker asks the listener (presumably his

lady) not to hold against him what his lute, or his poetry, says. In a mocking manner that

criticizes the virtue of the mistress, Wyatt leaves behind Petrarchan idealization of the lover.

Wyatt's lover asks his lady not to blame his poetry for speaking ill of her but rather to blame

herself. Wyatt is implicitly asserting that his poetry must say what is true about the mistress

and the nature of relationship; he is not going to offer "Petrarchan" praise to a woman who

fails to live up to the Petrarchan standards (this is a problem of Petrarchan poets that

Shakespeare will later point out in his Sonnet 130 – poets lie to make their mistresses seem

like the ideal Petrarchan mistress even when they are not).

Although Wyatt is setting the theme of this poem into a contemporary context, the

sentiment resembles that of the Latin elegists (mourns the dead lover), who often criticize

their mistresses while always making the reader aware that the fault lies not with the poet-

lovers, but with their ladies. Such a fault in a mistress results from both physical and

emotional betrayals. Wyatt asks the mistress of his poem not to blame his poetry "if

perchance this foolish rhyme / Do make thee blush at any time."

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Blame Not My Lute – Sir Thomas Wyatt

Summary:

Despite the title, this poem does not portray the poet as a man inspired to poetry by

his lady's disdain. Instead, this lyric is addressed to a lady who has blamed the poet's lute for

reporting her infidelity and broken its strings in her anger. The poet, however, asks her not to

blame his instrument: "And though the songs which I indite / Do quit thy change with rightful

spite, I Blame not my lute".

He goes on to argue that it is not the lute's fault because he is its master, and, in fact,

the lady has no one to blame but herself: "Then since that by thine own desert / My songs do

tell how true thou art, / Blame not my lute" (ll. 26:28). Although the speaker chastises the

lady, it is a gentle rebuke. He reminds her just as the lute is but the poet's instrument, so, too,

is the poet the instrument of truth. He must record the truth about the lady, and any spite she

feels is only felt through her own design.

The poem's recipient remains unidentified. Since court poetry was meant to be

performed and not published, the intended addressee might only have identified herself by the

details in the lyric or by a meaningful glance from the poet, and similarly only revealed

herself through a blush: "And if perchance this foolish rhyme / Do make thee blush at any

time, / Blame not my lute".

The game of courtly love depended on the servility of the lover and his need to

publicize that enslavement in verse. This poem illustrates Wyatt's plain style as well as his

ethical exploration of the courtly love scenario. Instead of humbly submitting to the lady's

punishment, Wyatt will & must speak the truth. He rejects the servile position that the game

of love demands, and instead demands that she also live up to the truth.

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Blame Not My Lute – Sir Thomas Wyatt

Summary:

Wyatt’s poetry ‘Blame Not My Lute’ appears to be about love, or rather the pain that

comes with it. However, when you open up the poem for multiple readings a confused and

capricious character begins to appear. This character is used to demonstrate how fickle love

can be, or make a person, and makes the poems unreliable. Because he is unable to make up

his mind we might ask if he has suffered, or if he is vying for sympathy.

In ‘Blame not my lute’ the speaker appears to struggle with the issue of blame. At

first his lute ‘must sound / Of this or that as liketh me’, which puts the blame on himself for

what he sings, but this interpretation begs the question of why the lute would be blamed in

the first place. Reading further on in the poem, in stanza five the blame shifts to the one ‘that

hast misdone’, to whom the poem is addressed. The speaker implies that he has done no

wrong to induce this forsaking, in which case he is not to blame.

In the last stanza, the strings of the lute are broken by the person to who this poem is

addressed. This immediately brought to mind the now common metaphor of love pulling at

the heart strings. This metaphor may not have existed in Wyatt’s time, but the metonymy (a

figure of speech in which one word or phrase is substituted for another with which it is

closely associated) of strings substituting a heart can still be argued. In which case the lute is

his female companion and is, consequently, asking his addressee not to blame her for writing

about their unfaithfulness, to which he refers as speaking ‘such words as touch thy change’.

In the final stanza, the one who breaks the heart with disdain is bid ‘farewell’. If this person is

interpreted as a lover then by finding new strings for the lute we can read that a new love has

been found. If this is the king, however, then it seems that the king’s favour is so fickle

(changing frequently) that you might as well give up trying to win it, and in this case the

infidelity suggested by the word ‘change’ is the king’s flitting (flying) favour.

In much of Wyatt’s poetry, he paints the picture of a fickle world. His speakers

declare they will give up the plight for love or favour, or move on from it, but this vow never

seems to be kept. These unfulfilled promises present aspects of a man who either gets through

a great deal of lovers, each as unfaithful and fickle as the last, or who keeps changing his

mind about whether or not he wants to strive for the king’s favour.

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