SOURCE: Halasz, Alexandra. “Wyatt's David.” Texas Studies in Literature and Language 30, No. 3 (Fall 1988): 320-44.

In the essay below, Halasz examines the importance of political and religious concerns in the Paraphrase of the Penitential Psalms.

          Era intagliato lì nel marmo stesso lo carro e' buoi traendo l'arca santa per che si teme officio non commesso. 

(Purgatorio 10.55-57)

Sir Thomas Wyatt's Paraphrase of the Penitential Psalms consists of the seven penitential psalms set into a narrative drawn from the biblical story of David. In a sonnet inserted as a preface to the Paraphrase, Henry Howard, earl of Surrey, raised the question of where or how to place Wyatt's poem:¹

The great Macedon that out of Perse chasyd Darius of whose huge power all Asy Rang, In the riche arke if Homers rymes he placyd, Who fayned gestes of hethen Prynces sang, 

What holly grave, what wourthy sepulture, To Wyates Psalmes...