By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
‘Mon in the Mone’ (i.e. ‘Man in the Moon’) is a medieval poem dating from the early fourteenth century, a good half a century before Geoffrey Chaucer, the Pearl poet, John Gower, and the Gawain poet all arrived on the scene and English poetry really came into its own. ‘Man in the Moon’ is a baffling and mysterious little lyric, so a brief summary and analysis are provided below. First, though, the poem:
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
Sonnet 31 from Sir Philip Sidney’s Astrophil and Stella (sometimes Astrophel and Stella), which begins with the line ‘With how sad steps, O moon, thou climb’st the skies’, is one of the most famous poems in the entire sonnet sequence.
Astrophil and Stella was the first substantial sonnet sequence composed in English, in the early 1580s. Sidney (1554-86) was inspired by his unrequited love for Penelope Rich (nee Devereux), who was offered to him as a potential wife a few years before. Sidney turned her down, she married Lord Robert Rich, and Sidney promptly realised he was in love with her.