They Flee from Me by Sir Thomas Wyatt — Summary & Analysis
Poet: Sir Thomas Wyatt (1503–1542)
Genre/Form: Lyric poem — Rhyme Royal
Curriculum: BA English Honours | Renaissance and Elizabethan Poetry | English Literary History
Themes & Analysis
1. Betrayal and Abandonment
The central emotional experience of the poem is that of being abandoned by those who once sought the speaker out. The reversal — from being sought to being fled from — is the emotional engine of the poem. The speaker does not understand the desertion; he has been gentle, he has given freely, and yet he has been left. The poem meditates on the pain of losing someone who was once fully present and willingly intimate.
2. Inconstancy and the Instability of Love
Both the first stanza's generalised "they" and the third stanza's reference to "newfangleness" point to the theme of inconstancy. Love, like fortune, is shown to be inherently unstable. Women who were "tame" become "wild"; a woman who was passionately present becomes distant and indifferent. The poem does not rage against this inconstancy but contemplates it with bitter resignation, suggesting it is simply the nature of things.
3. Power and Gender Dynamics
The poem is notable for the way it negotiates power. In the first stanza, the speaker seems to hold power — women come to him, they seek him, they take from his hand like tamed animals. But by the third stanza, the power has entirely shifted: she has "leave" to go, she is free to pursue novelty, and the speaker is left asking impotent rhetorical questions. The woman in the second stanza is notably active and self-possessed — she embraces him, she initiates the kiss, she asks the teasing question. Wyatt's women are not passive; they hold real power over the speaker's emotional state.
4. Memory and Desire
The second stanza functions as a space of intense memory. The precision and vividness with which the encounter is recalled — the thin gown, the falling cloth, the long arms, the soft kiss, the playful question — suggests that memory itself is a site of desire. The speaker cannot let go of what was, and this inability is both his vulnerability and his dignity. Memory is not idealised here; it is painfully, specifically real.
5. Irony and Sardonic Self-Awareness
The third stanza introduces a register of bitter irony that is among the most sophisticated in Tudor poetry. The speaker is fully aware of how the situation appears: he has been courteous, kind, and gentle, and he has been rewarded with desertion. His closing question — what has she deserved? — is not a demand for justice but an expression of resigned, rueful recognition that the world does not distribute deserts fairly.
6. The Autobiographical Dimension
Many critics have read the poem as autobiographical, connecting it to Wyatt's reputed affair with Anne Boleyn and the dangerous personal and political circumstances of his life at court. While the poem functions independently of biography, the autobiographical reading deepens its poignancy: the stakes of love in the Tudor court were genuinely high, and Wyatt's poem captures the emotional cost of intimacy in an environment of constant surveillance and shifting alliances.
Literary Devices / Key Terminology
Rhyme Royal: A seven-line stanzaic form in iambic pentameter with the rhyme scheme ABABBCC, introduced to English by Geoffrey Chaucer. Wyatt's choice of this form gives the poem classical authority and solemnity.
Extended Metaphor (Conceit): The comparison of lovers to wild animals (deer or birds) who were once tame enough to take bread from the speaker's hand, but have now gone wild. This sustained metaphor runs through the entire first stanza, establishing the central dynamic of domestic intimacy lost to wildness and indifference.
Irony: The closing stanza is deeply ironic. "Kindly am served" uses "kindly" in two senses simultaneously. "I have leave to go of her goodness" presents her abandonment as a generous act. "I would fain know what she hath deserved" questions justice while appearing restrained.
Sensory Imagery: The second stanza is rich in visual and tactile detail — "thin array," "loose gown from her shoulders did fall," "arms long and small," "sweetly did me kiss." These images create the vividness of genuine memory.
Iambic Pentameter: The metre of the poem, ten syllables per line with alternating unstressed and stressed beats. Wyatt's use is often irregular, giving the poem a conversational, natural quality.
Antithesis: The contrast between past and present — tame vs. wild, seeking vs. fleeing, intimacy vs. abandonment — structures the entire poem.
Dramatic Monologue: The poem is spoken entirely in the first person by a lyrical speaker who addresses an implied audience, giving it an intimate, confessional quality.
Enjambment: Several lines run on without pause, creating a sense of the speaker's thoughts flowing and building, particularly in the first stanza.
Personification / Apostrophe: Fortune is thanked in the second stanza ("Thanked be fortune"), attributing agency to a quasi-divine force that governs the speaker's romantic destiny.
Allusion: The use of Rhyme Royal alludes to Chaucer, placing the poem within a prestigious literary tradition and lending weight to its emotional subject matter.
"Newfangleness": A Tudor term denoting the love of novelty, fickleness, or inconstancy. Its use in the final stanza is dismissive and contemptuous of the woman's wandering affections.
Important Quotes
> "They flee from me that sometime did me seek / With naked foot stalking in my chamber."
— The opening couplet establishes the central reversal of the poem: those who once sought the speaker now flee. "Naked foot" implies both physical intimacy and the vulnerability of those who came to him, making their departure all the more stinging.
> "I have seen them gentle, tame, and meek, / That now are wild and do not remember."
— The contrast between past tameness and present wildness encapsulates the poem's central theme of inconstancy. It also subtly positions the speaker as a keeper of memory while his former lovers are portrayed as creatures of thoughtless instinct.
> "When her loose gown from her shoulders did fall, / And she me caught in her arms long and small."
— The most sensually vivid moment of the poem. The falling gown signals uninhibited intimacy; "caught" gives the woman active agency. This is the emotional centre the poem mourns.
> "Softly said, 'Dear heart, how like you this?'"
— The only direct speech in the poem, and its most human moment. The woman's playful question reveals confidence, tenderness, and desire — which makes the subsequent abandonment doubly painful.
> "But since that I so kindly am served, / I would fain know what she hath deserved."
— The poem's devastating closing irony. "Kindly" means both "with kindness" and "according to her nature." The question withholds explicit judgement while implying it absolutely.