Sidney
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Astrophil and Stella
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Penelope Devereux, Lady Rich
Sonnet
Italian
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Sonnet cycle—first recognizable one in English
108 sonnets and 11 songs
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Way of looking at a collection of sonnets rather than a
“plot”
Neoplatonism
“Divine Beauty” through an “earthly lover”
“material world is a path to the spiritual world,
rather than an obstacle to or diversion from
it”
(Murfin and Ray, 292)
Petrarchanism--Neoplatonism
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Petrarch—14th c. Italian poet, Francesco
Petrarca
Sonnet form plus distinctive use of:
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Imagery
Figures of speech
Formal style
Petrarchan conceit (exaggerated portrait of lady’s
beauty and cruelty)
Hyperbole
Oxymoron
Petrarchanism/Neoplatonism
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Sidney engages this poetic tradition, but also
questions it
Sonnet form
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14 lines rhymed iambic pentameter
2 forms for Sidney/Shakespeare
Italian/Petrarchan
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Abba abba cdc dee (usually)
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English/Shakespearean
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abab cdcd efef gg
Mapping a sonnet
Considering scansion Son 71 (1095
9th)
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Who will in fairest booke of nature know
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How virtue may best lodged in beauty be,
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Let him but learn of love to read in thee,
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Stella, those fair lines which true goodness show.
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There shall he find all vices overthrow,
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Not by rude force, but sweetest sovereignty
In-class scansion
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Try the next two lines
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Of reason, from whose light those night-birds fly,
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That inward sun in thine eyes shineth so.
Sonnet 71
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“Give me some food”
Playing with the Neoplatonic tradition
Form matters
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Why choose a sonnet?
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What is the connection between form and
meaning?
Sonnet
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th
1(9
ed. Page 1084-50
Look in thy heart and write
Sonnet is about love, but also about writing
and style, about “invention”
Some elements to know: alexandrine (iambic
hexameter), “fain” (l. 1), childbirth metaphor,
How does the poem flow?
Does the lady get to speak?
Sonnet 31(page 1090
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th
9
ed)
Personification of the Moon
Speaker standing outside the courtly world
Opening monosyllables and repetitions
Sonnet 9(page 1086-7
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th
9
ed)
Petrarchan convention (see also sonnet 6)
“Rich”
Penelope Rich, an idealized love, Queen
Elizabeth?
Shakespeare’s Sonnets
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Form: 3 Quatrains/Couplet
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abab cdcd efef gg
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The sonnet vogue
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Shakespeare as icon and the perils of
autobio-crit.
Is this a sonnet cycle?
The Figures of the Sonnets
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The Young Man
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The Rival Poet
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The Dark Lady
The Young Man
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Who is the Young Man?
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What are the implications of autobiographical
criticism?
The Young Man
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Many references to time
Sonnet 3 (1171, 9th)
Sonnet 19 (1173 9th)
Sonnet 55 (1175 9th)
Sonnet 65 (1176 9th)
Tomb of Mary and Elizabeth
Poetic form
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Sonnet 129 (1183 9th)
The Dark Lady
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Sonnet 130 (p. 1184 9th)
Sonnet 127 (p. 1183, 9th)
Often read in relation to Petrarchan
convention
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The Dark Lady
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Kim Hall, Things of
Darkness
The Defence of Poesy
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Three types of poets p. 958/1052
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Vates—Prophets
Philosophical Poets
“Right” poets—”to teach and delight”
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(echo of Chaucer’s “sentence and solaas?)
Poetry as imaginative literature
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956/1049
Poet as “maker” (956)
Poetry improves humanity
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Delivering a golden world (957/1050)
Cyrus (957/1050)
Erected wit/infected will (957/1050)
Poetry draws us to perfection (neoplatonic)
(959/1052)
Architectonike (960/1053)
Charges Against Poetry
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P. 967/1066
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Waste of time
Mother of lies
Nurse of abuse
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Sidney’s response
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“No learning is so good as that which
teacheth and moveth to virtue” (967/1068)
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“of all writers under the sun the poet is the
least liar” (967/1068)
Neil Gaiman
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“telling lies to tell the truth”
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What makes the canon?