Thomas Watson, Thomas Kyd, and Embedded Poetry

Abstract:In this essay, I explore the relationship between Thomas Watson and Thomas Kyd in terms of the practice of “embedded poetry,” when a poet reuses borrowings from other poets. Both Kyd and Watson deployed such borrowings skillfully and consciously for a wide range of dramatic and poetic effects. After defining and illustrating Watson’s rhetoric of “Inventions,” I argue for Watson’s authorship of The Teares of Fancie, a 1593 sonnet sequence, and explore the many textual parallels between the poetry of Teares and Kyd’s plays. A close examination of the interplay between these two poets and of Kyd’s judicious echoes of Watson’s sonnets suggests that Kyd’s rhetorical and poetical engagement with Watson’s writing inspired and enriched Kyd’s own dramatic production.