Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey (1517?

-1530)

Like Wyatt, Surrey travelled to Italy, and his imagination was captured by Petrarch's sonnets.

In terms of his contribution to the development of a literature in English, Surrey has less
strength but more polish than Wyatt. He is more successful in fitting the accent to the normal
accent of the word in spoken language, but he lacks the originality of Wyatt's creative
touches.

Of the two, Surrey is more of a craftsman; Wyatt, more of an artist.

Characteristics of Surrey's work:

Much of his verse handles the traditional Petrarchan theme of love, with typical
Petrarchan conceits.

He uses a natural imagery that is livelier and more "English" than that found in
Petrarchan models;

His language is often more "modern" than Wyatt's; thus, his meanings are often
clearer;

His rhymes are often "smoother" and easier than Wyatt's;

His favorite rhyme scheme is 3 quatrains + a couplet: abab cdcd efef gg (with some
variations); and

He is fond of using the conceit of antithesis, as in his sonnet "Alas, So All Things
Now Do Hold Their Peace."

Surrey is best known for his sonnets, smoother and more elegant than those of Sir Thomas
Wyatt. Surrey's sonnets for the first time used the rhyme scheme Shakespeare later used.

Surrey probably got the idea of blank verse from another Italian verse form, versi sciolti,
which is also unrhymed.
Like Wyatt, Surrey also produced other types of poetry, and it is in these other forms--
especially the autobiographical works--that his true artistry is found.

Surrey is perhaps best known for introducing blank verseinto English with his translation of
Virgil's The Aeneid.

Blank verse

Blank verse, the basic pattern of language in Shakespeare's plays, is (in its regular form) a
verse line of ten syllables with five stresses and no rhyme (hence "blank"). It was first used
in England by Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey* in his translation of the neid (c.1554).

Most early drama was written in rhyming verse, often in "fourteeners"--lines of fourteen
syllables, also known as "poulters' measure" because it sounds like hens clucking.

But Norton and Sackville chose blank verse for their tragedy, Gorboduc, praised by Sir Philip
Sidney for its rhetoric, and by the time Marlowe brought real brilliance to the language of the
stage, blank verse had become the metre of choice.

Shakespeare's blank verse

In general, Shakespeare's blank verse, and the verse of his peers, evolved over the years from
regular ten-syllable, regular, end-stopped lines: to become increasingly flexible, often
including one or two extra syllables, and varying the regular iambic rhythm. Hamlet's most
famous soliloquy begins relatively regularly, but the following lines each have an extra
syllable:
Although the poetry of Wyatt and Surrey was not published during their lifetimes, after their
deaths their work was collected in 1557 by the printer Richard Tottel.