Astrophil and Stella

Note: Astrophil and Stella (the complete sonnets are provided here) was written by the romantic courtier, knight, soldier and realist Sir Philip Sidney. It was first printed in 1591.

Looking for a little romance on a snowy Saturday night? Start a fire or fill the tub, light some candles, open a little bubbly or a nice Zin and read some of Sidney's sonnets aloud. Maybe even sing the songs. That was my suggestion. Yeah, right. We're going to the Iggy-Heights game. Almost as romantic. Patriarchy lives on.

I gotta tell ya, Sidney, aka Astrophil, sure had it bad for Lady Penelope (Devereux) Rich, aka Stella. (Most scholars agree this sonnet series was autobiographical.) Ol' Sid didn't seem to have a problem letting the world know he was hot for her either, despite the fact Penelope was married. (For the record, some say he wrote them before she was married. I don't buy it.) He wrote 108 14-line rhyming verses about his love for her, the rejection, the reciprocation, the kiss, and then refusal to submit. Here's how it starts...

Louing in trueth, and fayne in verse my loue to show,

That she, deare Shee, might take som pleasure of my paine,

Pleasure might cause her reade, reading might make her know,

Knowledge might pittie winee, and pity grace obtaine...

Biting my trewand pen, beating myselfe for spite,

Fool, said my Muse to me, looke in they heart, and write.

Then off he goes. Talk about pining! You probably noticed, he doesn't mention Stella by name at first. But he ultimately caves and spills all. Want some more enlightenment? "The three central conceits (ideas) in any collection of Petrarchan love sonnets," according to literary scholar A.C. Hamilton, "is beauty, love and virtue in that order." Sidney was certainly a student of Petrarch. Astrophil is attracted by Stella's beauty, which leads to him falling in love with her but then her virtue, while admirable, sends him packing. Sidney uses a lot of poetic devices, like oxymorons, mythology and personification. The language is beautiful and the rhythm is, well, musical. Critic Janet MacArthur says Sidney's Astrophil and Stella is "true to the facts." Sidney takes a Protestant approach (integrating nature and mankind) and draws from real life (as opposed to the more allegorical technique used by his contemporary, Spenser. It's an "expressive realist text, expressive of the personal rather than the universal, however." MacArthur goes on to explain, "the poem is viewed not only as an intermediate stage in the evolution of literary forms, but also plays a part of the rejection of the idealogy of Catholic Europe."

I just like reading them and imagining that I'm in QEI's court with my knight in shining armor whispering sweet iambic pantameter in my ear.