Astrophil and Stella – Interesting Literature

A Short Analysis of Sir Philip Sidney’s Sonnet 67: ‘Hope, art thou true, or dost thou flatter me?’

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

Astrophil and Stella is the first long sonnet sequence in English literature. Although other poets had already written sonnet sequences – namely the largely forgotten Anne Locke and the unjustly neglected George Gascoigne – it was the all-round Renaissance man Sir Philip Sidney (1554-86), in the early 1580s, who first unleashed the potential of the themed sonnet sequence in English, using the cycle to tell the story of the poet’s doomed love for a married woman.

A Short Analysis of Sir Philip Sidney’s Astrophil and Stella Sonnet 99

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

Sonnet 99 from Sir Philip Sidney’s Astrophil and Stella (‘When far spent night persuades each mortal eye’) was composed in the early 1580s. Astrophil and Stella was the first substantial sonnet sequence written in English, and this sonnet is one of the most accomplished poems in a sequence that is over-brimming with technical innovation and skill. Before we offer some words of analysis, here’s the text for Sonnet 99:

A Short Analysis of Sir Philip Sidney’s Astrophil and Stella 41: ‘Having this day my horse, my hand, my lance’

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

Written in the early 1580s, Astrophil and Stella is the first substantial sonnet sequence in English literature, and sees Sidney exploring his own life-that-might-have-been with Penelope Rich (whom he turned down), through the invented semi-autobiographical figures of ‘Astrophil’ (‘star-lover’) and ‘Stella’ (‘star’). Sonnet 41, which begins ‘Having this day my horse, my hand, my lance’, may have been inspired by a real-life tournament at Whitehall in May 1581, and sees Astrophil attributing his success as a jouster and horseman to Stella, who ‘Sent forth the beams which made so fair my race.’

A Short Analysis of Sidney’s Astrophil and Stella 82: ‘Nymph of the garden where all beauties be’

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

Sir Philip Sidney’s sonnets often shut closed neatly and satisfyingly with a snap. They build towards their conclusion, and although Sidney uses the Petrarchan sonnet form (which doesn’t usually conclude with a rhyming couplet), his last lines tend to have the ring of finality about them, ending his poem with a bang rather than a whimper. ‘Nymph of the garden where all beauties be’, which is the 82^nd sonnet in his sequence Astrophil and Stella, is a fine example of how well Sidney took the relatively new sonnet form (in English) and made it his own.

A Short Analysis of Sir Philip Sidney’s Sonnet 71: ‘Who will in fairest book of nature know’

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

Astrophil and Stella is one of Elizabethan poetry’s finest achievements. In 108 sonnets and a handful of songs, Sir Philip Sidney produced the first sustained sonnet sequence in English (though not, contrary to popular belief, the very first). Sonnet 71, beginning ‘Who will in fairest book of nature know / How virtue may best lodged in beauty be’, is one of the best-known poems from the latter half of the sequence (many of the ‘greatest hits’ in Astrophil and Stella are found in the first forty or so sonnets). Here is Sonnet 71, along with some notes towards an analysis of this intriguing and deftly crafted poem.

Who will in fairest book of Nature know
How virtue may best lodged in beauty be,
Let him but learn of love to read in thee,
Stella, those fair lines which true goodness show.
There shall he find all vices’ overthrow,
Not by rude force, but sweetest sovereignty
Of reason, from whose light those night-birds fly;
That inward sun in thine eyes shineth so.
And not content to be perfection’s heir
Thyself, dost strive all minds that way to move,
Who mark in thee what is in thee most fair;
So while thy beauty draws the heart to love,
As fast thy virtue bends that love to good.
But, ah, Desire still cries: ‘Give me some food.’