SOURCE: Daalder, Joost. “Wyatt and ‘Liberty’: A Postscript.” Essays in Criticism XXXV, No. 4 (October 1985): 330-36.

In the essay below, Daalder explores the influence of Seneca on Wyatt, arguing that “Wyatt is the first major Senecan among Renaissance writers in England.” The first part of this essay, which first appeared in 1973, is reprinted above.

In 1973, I argued in these pages¹ that the word ‘liberty’ in Wyatt

… indicates a psychological freedom from nervous tension which I believe he saw as part of the quietude of mind, security and satisfaction which he so consistently and insistently longed for, as is confirmed by one of the most important discussions of Wyatt to have yet appeared: Donald M. Friedman's ‘The “Thing” in Wyatt's Mind’.

(E in C, Vol. 16, 1966, pp. 375-81)

I then argued my case wholly on critical grounds, deriving all conclusions directly from the text. While there is nothing wrong about that...