The wake states from a circular cylinder undergoing controlled sinusoidal oscillation transverse to the free stream are examined. As the frequency of oscillation passes through the natural Kármán frequency there is a transition between two distinctly different wake states: the low- and high-frequency states. The transition corresponds to a change in the structure of the near wake and is also characterized by a jump in the phase and amplitude of both the total and vortex lift. Over the range of flow and oscillation parameters studied the wake states exhibit a number of universal features. The phases of the vortex lift and drag forces have characteristic values for the low- and high-frequency states, which appear to be directly related to the phase of vortex shedding. A split force concept is employed, whereby instantaneous force traces and images allow discrimination between the actual loading and the physics, and their conventional time-averaged representations. The wake states for the forced oscillations show some remarkable similarities to the response branches of elastically mounted cylinders. The equivalence between forced and self-excited oscillations is addressed in detail using concepts of energy transfer.