They Flee From Me Analysis

They flee from me that sometime did me seek
With naked foot, stalking in my chamber.
I have seen them gentle, tame, and meek,
That now are wild and do not remember
That sometime they put themself in danger
To take bread at my hand; and now they range,
Busily seeking with a continual change.

Thanked be fortune it hath been otherwise
Twenty times better; but once in special,
In thin array after a pleasant guise,
When her loose gown from her shoulders did fall,
And she me caught in her arms long and small;
Therewithall sweetly did me kiss
And softly said, "dear heart, how like you this?"

It was no dream: I lay broad waking.
But all is turned thorough my gentleness
Into a strange fashion of forsaking;
And I have leave to go of her goodness,
And she also, to use newfangleness.
But since that I so kindly am served
I would fain know what she hath deserved.

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This poem reverses the conventional male-female roles in sexual liaisons. There is a genuine dichotomy in the description of the women. While the women are initially described as being 'gentle' and meek' they also 'put themselves in danger' - and are therefore in fact more daring than pusillanimous. The 'they' of the title of the poem also refers to these women, who the narrator fails to offer a definitive identity. They do not carry female characteristics yet the close reading of 'naked foot' seems to suggest that the 'they' are human.
It is only as the poem progresses that the dynamics in the relationship between the collective 'they' and the persona is broken down. The second stanza charts a palpable change in the narrator's perspective of his visitors. They 'they become a 'her' and for the first time in the poem it is intimated or confirmed that these 'tame' beings are women. The first use of her alongside her 'loose gown' carries sexual overtones, and appears to imply that the persona has lost power to the attraction of female beauty. However the female figure is still not named - not because she doesn't warrant a name but perhaps because she is of a supernatural and ephemeral 'guise'. The duality in the significance of this word portends that the man will never be capable of finding love with 'her and that she is not all that she seems.

| Posted on 2008-10-29 | by a guest

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This poem is particularly interesting as we see Wyatt descrbing a man who though has been (served) sexually he seems confused, and unsatisfies.It seems like a case of Karma he has slep with many women and now the one which he truley desires has done the same to him!

| Posted on 2008-06-10 | by a guest