Thomas Wyatt's Poetry in Embassy: Egerton 2711 and the Production of Literary Manuscripts Abroad

Abstract

on p.  Appendix: Some Features of John Brereton’s Hand In forming the diagonal cross stroke of his a, Brereton often misconnects with the head of the letter,a habit that forces him to come back and add a small bump to join the head to the cross stroke. His capital I varies from the open crescent-shaped descender of the I to the more decorative descending loops that resemble a diagonal infinity symbol,with the loop returning to cross the I. The w is often stylized with a long diagonal descender/approach stroke, which is occasionally very obviously added after the letter’s completion or begun with a distinctive loop. Double o (as in goo,”“woo,”and “soo”) is often formed in such a way as to resemble horizontal infinity sign. Note also Brereton’s characteristic flourished approach stroke for the initial capitals M (in the letter, Figure ) and A (in Egerton, Figure ) and the tendency of his transcriptions (poetry and prose) to expand over the first few lines on each side of a leaf.This is obvious with a glance at the leaves from Egerton, but true also of his letter (Figure ), where he crowds fifty-nine characters (including spaces) into the first line, and only forty-nine into the last line.     three poems, in which case some suggestive references to France, Spain, Flanders, and Rome in “Myne owne John Poyntz”simply derive from Wyatt’s source (Daalder,“Wyatt’s Poems in Egerton,”).According to Rebholz,“the weight of the evidence seems to favour a date for all three epistolary satires before Wyatt’s departure for Spain in April ”(p. ). The source for Wyatt’s poem is printed in Collected Poems of Sir Thomas Wyatt, ed. Muir and Thomson, ; it mentions “Francia,”“Hispania,”“Roma,”and “Germania”(the last of which Wyatt aptly renders “Flandres”).  Harrier, Canon, . This content downloaded from 157.55.39.201 on Tue, 24 May 2016 04:42:06 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms    ’       . BL, MS.Cotton Vespasian XIII, fol. r. By permission of the British Library. This content downloaded from 157.55.39.201 on Tue, 24 May 2016 04:42:06 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms Abstract In “Thomas Wyatt’s Poetry in Embassy: Egerton  and the Production of Literary Manuscripts Abroad,” Jason Powell assesses material evidence—blotting sand and paper, post horses and scribal hands—to suggest the circumstances under which some of Wyatt’s manuscripts were produced and what such evidence can contribute to our knowledge of Wyatt’s texts. The chemical instability of portable powdered ink, he proposes, accounts for different degrees of fading in the manuscripts in question.A new discovery is Powell’s identification of the hand of John Brereton, a secretary to Wyatt, in Egerton .    In “Thomas Wyatt’s Poetry in Embassy: Egerton  and the Production of Literary Manuscripts Abroad,” Jason Powell assesses material evidence—blotting sand and paper, post horses and scribal hands—to suggest the circumstances under which some of Wyatt’s manuscripts were produced and what such evidence can contribute to our knowledge of Wyatt’s texts. The chemical instability of portable powdered ink, he proposes, accounts for different degrees of fading in the manuscripts in question.A new discovery is Powell’s identification of the hand of John Brereton, a secretary to Wyatt, in Egerton .     This content downloaded from 157.55.39.201 on Tue, 24 May 2016 04:42:06 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms