Sidney Link, selections, and Questions
Sidney Exercises for Wednesday and Friday
EH 362
Readings
Wednesday and Friday 19 and 21 February
See Separate Note for Friday
We are going to read the first thirteen sonnets of Sidney’s Astrophil and Stella. A link is provided on Moodle at the end of this item.
This will be our introduction to the interweaving of Lyric and Narrative in English verse. It will also give us a chance to turn to Castiglione and Book IV of The Courtier at a later date.
1.Let’s be prepared to read closely the complex perspectives in the first sonnet.
1a. Try counting the syllables and accented syllables in each line.
2. Think about how the poems use a voice in a complex way. How is Astrophil a kind of persona of Sidney, but also a naïve self observed by the more masterful Sidney the poet?
3. Let’s ask questions about Invention, Natural Wit, and form. Soon we will set this in a (Neo-) Platonic context. If poetry is the natural language of introspection and emotion, why and how is it so carefully crafted?
4. Sidney is creating not only a new (for England) blend of Lyric and Narrative- but he is also creating a new kind of narrative or drama. Astrophil and Stella is a new species of tragedy. Let’s look at how Astrophil begins to get lost in a world of desire that reduces the complex and rich being with which he began.
5. Thus [ and the “Thus” is an homage to former colleague Gail Smith] let’s look at some of the central conflicts of this whole tradition of Love poetry: The conflict between head and heart; The pursuit of the unreachable object; the fascination with the distance/difference between the pursued and pursuer; The quest for beauty and the effort to transform one’s self.
6. Let’s start on some of the easy psychological perspectives available to us in our modern and post-modern world. What do we make of the early emphasis on Cupid? How are men and women trapped in psychic roles defined by their cultural norms? What do the poems suggest about the natural state of men and women and individuals? If we could be freed from the constraints and spies of the public world, what would we be like? What do our dreams tell us about ourselves?
7. Some attention to history. What social/political discomforts are hinted at here? How does our historical perspective allow us to see forces at work that 16th authors would not have noted as we do? What is changing in the role of women? The role of aristocrrats? The very sense of worth and knowledge?
Friday questions and Readings
1. Sonnet 31--- What can you make of the last line? How would you punctuate it? How would you paraphrase? Think of the context.
2. Sonnet 36--- How negative has the consequence of loving Stella become? In which direction does the Metamorphosis work?
3. Sonnet 53--- What has love done to Astrophil?
4. Sonnet 59--- Could this be anything other than a satire about Astrophil, and, perhaps, about exaggerated affection, doting on, pets?
5. Second Song--- What is the plot, the event? What occurs? How does the story create a complexity of contraries? Are there elements of Rape fantasy? Is this a version of what Venus might do with Mars?
6. Sonnet 74--- Sort out the dramatic voices in the last three lines. Set them in the context of the whole.
7. Sonnet 77---How is the poem a “Maidenly” blazon? How does this catalogue of beauty fit with a catalogue by another poet?