Page 117 - 100 Best Loved Poems - Teaching Unit

“The Lover Showeth How He Is Forsaken of Such as He Sometime Enjoyed”
by Sir Thomas Wyatt, pages 4-5

Vocabulary
chamber – bedroom
array – assortment, display
guise – appearance
forsaking – abandoning
new-fangleness – newly fashioned

1. The poem is written in a unique structure. Translate the first line of the poem into modern
English.

2. What is the feeling of the narrator toward the woman he speaks of in this poem?

3. To what animal does the speaker compare the objects of his desire?

4. Why has the speaker stopped chasing women?

5. What is the poem’s rhyme scheme? What type of poem does this scheme suggest?

6. The line, “And I have leave to go, of her goodness" is an example of what literary convention?

7. Why is the word ‘she’ italicized in the last line of the poem? Why has Wyatt given this word
special emphasis?

S-3