Transcript Sir Philip Sidney

Sir Philip Sidney
• He was the eldest son of Sir Henry Sidney ,Elizabeth's
Lord Deputy in Ireland. His mother, Lady Mary Dudley ,was
a daughter Of the Duke Northumberland .
• - He was courtier , poet , critic , author of prose romance.
He entered school in Shrewsbury. - His friend Sir Fulke
Greville , long-life friend and future biographer. In 14he left
his school to Christ church in Oxford . he traveled to France
, Germany , Austria , Italy. He studied history , ethics ,
astronomy , music .he was appointment as governor of
Flushing.
• He was wounded in the fight in October2 , 1586 . The
wound proved fatal , and did not heal and within22 days he
was dead. He dead in 24 October 1586 .
- Sidney's Works :- Sidney's works consist of his famous
pastoral romance Arcadia, his sonnets Astrophel and Stella,
and his Apologie for Poetrie, afterwards called Defence
of Poesie.
• A champion of the Protestant cause in Europe, with his
primary animosity directed against Spain, in 1585 he
was given a command in Holland and made governor
of Flushing. He engaged valiantly in several battles
during that year. On September 22, 1586, he was
severely wounded in a cavalry charge. The famous
story is often told, as an example of Sidney’s fine sense
of humanity and chivalry, of how he refused a cup of
water and ordered it to be given to a soldier near him
on the battlefield. Sidney died of his wound on October
7, 1586. Following his death he was universally
mourned and widely elegized.
Astrophel and Stella
• Likely composed in the 1580s, Philip Sidney's Astrophel and Stella is
an English sonnet sequence containing 108 sonnets and 11 songs.
The name derives from the two Greek words, 'aster' (star) and 'phil'
(lover), and the Latin word 'stella' meaning star. Thus, Astrophel is
the star lover, and Stella is his star. Sidney partly nativized the key
features of his Italian model Petrarch, including an ongoing but
partly obscure narrative, the philosophical trappings of the poet in
relation to love and desire, and musings on the art of poetic
creation. Sidney also adopts the Petrarchan rhyme scheme, though
he uses it with such freedom that fifteen variants are employed.
• The sequence is widely believed to be written to honor Penelope,
the daughter of the Earl of Essex. Penelope is stated to be Stella of
the poem.
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astrophel_and_Stella
Sir Philip Sidney composed Astrophil and Stella between 1581 and 1583, most
likely in the summer of 1582. A sequence of 108 sonnets and eleven songs, it
is an important work in the history of English poetry for several reasons.
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The work remains one of the best examples of its type. It plumbs the psychology of the lover,
Astrophil (“star-lover”), as he contemplates the beautiful Stella (“star”), who marries another man
and gives little encouragement to Astrophil because of her need to guard her reputation.
Stella is, in a number of respects, the conventional heroine of medieval and Renaissance love
poetry, but she boasts, in addition to her blonde hair, fair skin, and rosy cheeks, unconventional
black eyes, as did Penelope. In several of the poems, Sidney makes pointed allusions to her “rich”
husband.
A memorable element of the Astrophil and Stella sonnets is the striking physical description of
Stella. Not that description itself is unusual; the “vertical description” of the beloved, from head to
toe, is a hallmark of the Petrarchan sonnet tradition. What is unusual is Sidney’s departure from the
Petrarchan cliché of the blue-eyed blonde as the feminine ideal to that of a dark beauty.
The sonnet sequence is not a novel and cannot be thought of as demonstrating a plot; rather,
Sidney presents a series of emotional crises, internal—and occasionally external—conflicts, and
solitary musings on the course of a love affair that is destined to remain unconsummated. Soon it
occurs to Astrophil that he should be pursuing virtue and not mere earthly beauty, but he continues
to concentrate, sometimes defiantly, on the latter, while at other times he justifies his course with
logic-chopping mental exercises. He vows to revert to virtue, but the mere sight of Stella challenges
his determination. Another problem is Stella’s coldness; her heart is a “citadel” [immune] against
him, presumably because a rival already “enjoys” her. (Although Sidney may have known Penelope
Devereux before her marriage, it appears unlikely that there was then any opportunity for intimacy
between them.) Astrophil hesitates between regarding Stella as the essence of virtue and
wondering whether her scorn should be interpreted as mere ungratefulness to a passionately
devoted lover.
Anxious to please Stella, the speaker decides to send her poetry but cannot decide how to go about
writing any. “
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• Loving in truth, and fain in verse my love to show,
That the dear She might take some pleasure of my pain:
Pleasure might cause her read, reading might make her
know,
Fain: with pleasure
Knowledge might pity win, and pity grace obtain,
Fit words: suitable words t
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express love
I sought fit words to paint the blackest face of woe,
Woe: sorrow
Studying inventions fine, her wits to entertain:
Fresh and fruitful showers
Oft turning others' leaves, to see if thence would flow
new and suitable words
Some fresh and fruitful showers upon my sun-burned
Nature's child:
brain.
invention
But words came halting forth, wanting Invention's stay, Truant: idle pen which doe
Invention, Nature's child, fled step-dame Study's blows, produce what the poet asp
to write.
And others' feet still seemed but strangers in my way.
Thus great with child to speak, and helpless in my
Spite: ill will
throes,
Muse: a spirit that inspires
poet to write poetry.
• Biting my truant pen, beating myself for spite,
'Fool' said my Muse to me, 'look in thy heart and write.‘
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The rhyme Scheme:
The rhyme Scheme is : abab cdcd efef gg
Word's explanation:
Fain: with pleasure
Fit words: suitable words to
express love
Woe: sorrow
Fresh and fruitful showers:
new and suitable words
Nature's child:
invention
Truant: idle pen which does not
produce what the poet aspires
to write.
Spite: ill will
Muse: a spirit that inspires the
poet to write poetry.
The first Astrophil and Stella sonnet serves as an introduction to the whole,
being a sort of sonnet on how to write a sonnet. In the first sonnet
Astrophil, already obsessed by Stella’s charms, decides to “show” his love
in verse with the hope of winning her favor, but he cannot find the
appropriate words until his muse, disgusted with the lover’s ineffective
efforts to imitate other poets, counsels him in the final line of the poem to
‘Fool,’ said my Muse to me, ‘look in thy heart and write.’ ”
The major conflict in the sonnet sequence is not between the two rivals for
Stella’s heart; since he is not much of a presence in the sonnets, the
husband is not much of a threat to Astrophil there, whatever his status
outside the world of the sonnets might be. What stands between Astrophil
and Stella is not so much a real husband as the idea of a husband—or, to
put it in the terms actually used in the sequence, the conflict is between
Love and Virtue.
Characters
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Astrophil: the young lover in whose voice the sonnets and songs are cast.
Although Stella is married and he describes her as virtuous, he still pursues her,
begging her to love him. Whether the sonnets express the true feelings of their
author, Sir Philip Sidney, the character of Astrophil clearly is meant to represent
him. Astrophil considers himself superior to other writers of love poetry, to whom
he frequently contrasts himself: They imitate one another, and only he is original,
because his inspiration is his beloved Stella. He presents himself as the servant not
only of Stella but also of love, personified as the boy Cupid.
Stella: Astrophil’s beloved, to whom the sonnet sequence is addressed. She differs
from the stock character of the Petrarchan sonnet sequence in two key respects.
First, her rejection of the lover’s advances is not attributed to coldheartedness, the
standard complaint of the Petrarchan sonneteer, but to her virtue, as she is
married to another. Second, although her hair is the standard Petrarchan gold, her
eyes are not the standard blue, but rather black. This is probably because the
author of the sonnets, Sir Philip Sidney, had a real lady in mind: Penelope
Devereux, who by the time the sonnets were written was married to Lord Robert
Rich. After Astrophil steals a kiss, Stella admits some feeling for him, though virtue
still forbids her to encourage him. Although Petrarchan sonnet sequences normally
speak only in the voice of the young man, Stella’s own voice is heard in several of
the songs.