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Editors and Content Writers will lose their Jobs?? Impact of Artificial Intelligence on Content Development and Publishing Industry

Will the Artificial Intelligence (AI) result in the loss of editors' and content writers' jobs

The impact of artificial intelligence (AI) on several industries, including content creation, is undeniable. While AI has brought about a number of improvements and efficiencies, it has also changed the job market and resulted in some job losses in the content writing industry. Here are some important things to think about: 

  

Automated content generation: Artificial intelligence has made tremendous progress in this area. On the basis of prompts, Natural Language Processing (NLP) models like GPT-3 can generate text that is coherent and contextually appropriate. In some circumstances, this technology has replaced the need for human authors for activities like news stories, sports reports, and product descriptions. 

 

Curation of Content: AI algorithms are also used to choose and suggest content to users. Artificial intelligence (AI) is used by platforms like social media, news aggregators, and content-sharing websites to analyse user preferences and deliver personalised information. This affects the job market for content writers and lowers the need for fresh content development. 

  

SEO Optimisation: By analysing keywords, recommending optimisations, and creating material that complies with search engine algorithms, AI systems can help with search engine optimisation (SEO). High-quality and interesting writing still need content writers, although AI can help with some repetitive jobs, potentially reducing the need for authors. 

 

Translation and Localization: AI-powered translation systems have substantially advanced, making it possible to translate languages more accurately and effectively. The demand for content localization specialists who are human translators and writers has been impacted by this trend. 

  

  

  

Despite these developments, it's vital to remember that human creativity, critical thinking, and empathy cannot entirely be replaced by AI. Deeply researched content that also demonstrates originality, storytelling, and a personal touch is still in high demand. Content writers' responsibilities are changing to include more activities that call for human expertise, like strategic planning, original content development, and compelling storytelling. 

 

Despite these developments, it's vital to remember that human creativity, critical thinking, and empathy cannot entirely be replaced by AI. Deeply researched content that also demonstrates originality, storytelling, and a personal touch is still in high demand. Content writers' responsibilities are changing to include more activities that call for human expertise, like strategic planning, original content development, and compelling storytelling. 

  

AI may potentially present a chance for content creators, so to speak. It can aid in streamlining procedures, boosting production, and offering insightful data. Content writers can use AI tools to their advantage and stay relevant in the changing employment market by adopting new technologies. 

 

In general, there are still plenty of chances for skilled content writers who can adapt to the changing landscape and use AI as a helpful tool in their work, even though there have been some employment losses in some fields of content writing as a result of AI. 

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No Negative RTPCR required now. Tourists rush to Himachal Pradesh as the cabinet eases Covid curbs

Huge traffic on the borders, Hope amid the despair for the Hospitality Industry

The Himachal Pradesh has issued new guidelines on Friday. The travellers were the happiest lot as no negative RTPCR report is required now to enter the state. However and E-pass is still required to enter Himachal Pradesh. The government has also lifted Section 144.

Interstate Bus services have not been resumed yet but the Intrastate public transport has been allowed to operate with 50 per cent occupancy. The shops will now be open from 9 am to 5 pm from Monday.

As a result of these relaxations hundreds of vehicles were queued up on the borders and were seen stranded at the inter-state barriers at Parwanoo, where the cops were scrutinizing Covid e-pass of travellers arriving from neighbouring states.

 

The planes are witnessing the rising temperatures with maximum touching more than 40 degrees in Delhi NCR and Punjab. This move by the government to allow tourists has resulted in a huge rush of travellers to Hilly areas of Himachal Pradesh.

English Literature - ASTROPHEL AND STELLA

UNIT 5 - ASTROPHEL AND STELLA

5.1 INTRODUCTION

During the 16th century, the sonnet was the most common lyric genre. The principles of the sonnets were laid down by the Italian poet Petrarch (1304 –1374), being introduced to England by Sir Thomas Wyatt the Elder and Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey at the time when Henry VIII reigned. The Petrarchan sonnet series is a sequence of fourteen line sonnets that explored the conflicting emotions experienced by a lover while pursuing a lovely but a lonely maiden. In England, Sir Philip Sidney’s sonnet cycle Astrophil and Stella (1591) became the first among the great Elizabethan sonnet cycles. It imitated the Petrarchan sonnet sequence.

Astrophil and Stella is a sonnet sequence composed from the viewpoint of a courtier in love with a lady who belongs to someone else. It explores his misery over unreciprocated love, and the hopeless attempts of both wooing her and rationalizing in his mind the virtue of his fruitless love.

Probably written during the 1580s, Astrophel and Stella by Philip Sidney, contained 108 sonnets and eleven songs. The term is derived from the two Greek words, ‘aster’ which means star and ‘phil’ which means lover. Even the Latin word ‘stella’ means ‘star’. Therefore Astrophel becomes the star lover with Stella as his star. Sidney partially nativized the main characteristics of his Italian model Petrarch. The nativization included a continuous but partially unclear narration, the philosophical trappings of the poet with regard to love and yearning and musings on the art of poetic creation. Sidney even assumes the Petrarchan rhyme scheme, although his liberty in the usage made him employ fifteen variations.

There have even been suggestions that the representation of love inside the series could have been a factual one as Sidney clearly associates Astrophel with himself and Stella with Penelope Rich, the wife of a courtier. According to Payne and Hunter ‘modern criticism, though not explicitly rejecting this connection, leans more towards the viewpoint that writers happily create a poetic persona, artificial and distinct from themselves.’

There are many conventions of the classic sonnet sequence. The beginning and concluding sonnets outline the remaining sequence.  The sonnets can be seen tracing the evolving of the relationship between the lovers, specially the emotional shift of the speaker.  ‘Conceits’, creative comparisons appear frequently.

Astrophel and Stella traces the evolution of a love affair. As the poem progresses, the central character and the speaker, Astrophel, falls for the lovely Stella. Stella is shown to be a lady possessing virtues, is wise and a life partner that he idealizes. Many of the sonnets have Astrophel as the one speaking and Stella receiving his speeches. Since Astrophel is the ‘author’ of the sonnet sequence, his inner thoughts and feelings can be perceived but little of Stella’s. The thoughts and character of Stella are shown only through her actions and rare speeches to Astrophel. The sonnet sequence would have been entirely different had Sidney given a more evident suggestion of how Stella felt.

Objectives:

After studying this unit, you should be able to:

trace the history of Astrophel and Stella

understand the association of the sonnet sequence with the Petrarchan model

paraphrase certain sonnets of the poem

 

 

5.2 THE PETRARCHAN CONTEXT

The primary feature of Astrophil and Stella in the Petrarchan framework that was responsible for making it such a powerful collective text, that encouraged and required an unceasing re-reading and explanation was its adaptability. Petrarchanism is marked by a discursive space in which mingling and exploration of rhetoric, theatricality, individual and socio cultural codes took place. The most outstanding and striking Petrarchan characteristic in Astrophil and Stella is the expression of erotic love and the inclusion of conflicts and dialects. The depiction of Astrophil’s love for Stella as an occurrence that though frustrates, also inspires. Marked by a sad but obsessive balance between desire and despair, likelihood and frustration, conflict and resolution, it is noticeably in the context of the core of Petrarchanism as a fascinating, methodical arrangement of the conversation of erotic desire. Sidney transports us into the well-known world of Petrarchan convention and cliché: Astrophil is the suspicious, self consciously aggressive lover, Stella blonde, black eyed, virtuous, remote and unattainable elaborated by a sequence of oxymoron and conceits. We are familiarized with the setting —Hope and Absence, desire not met, improved momentarily by writing, the lovely lady with a cold heart who mercilessly puts a stiff resistance to siege, yet encouraging her admirer and the culmination in the despair of the lover, ending his plaints in agony at her ‘absent presence’. Giving a description of the heavenly beauty of Stella, Sidney depicts her as having a ‘heavenly face’ similar to a heavenly creature, who exudes ‘beams’ everytime she looks. In sonnet 27, the physical presence of Stella places Sidney in a ‘dark abstracted guise’ with ‘a dearth of words’ and answers ‘awry’. However, what causes equal frustration is her mental picture in Sidney’s dreams, wherein she has a smiling face. He wakes up to the cruel realization that she is unattainable.

Sonnets 38 and 45, see Sidney pointing to an emotional group of the archetypical Petrarchan lover. In this, the depiction of Pleasure and Pain was associated with the freedom–servitude contradiction, with the woman’s subjection viewed as the ultimate liberty for love. This he does by putting himself on the ‘servants wrack’ tortured to self-annihilation. Sonnet 2 sees Sidney’s awareness of the prevalent predicament involved in his pursuit of Stella, articulating the exterior Petrarchan contradiction, ‘Now, even that footstep of lost liberty/ Is gone, and now, like slave-born Muscovite/ I call it praise to suffer tyranny’ and with unfading dynamism and love says, “I paint my hell.” Apart from the theme of conflict of liberty and servitude, these lines even trace the union of courtly and Petrarchan love in the earlier English Renaissance. To quote Anthony Low, “This love intimately combines concepts of honour and of feudal obligation with endless internal longing.” The feudal relationship that can be implicitly seen in this prototype of love compels the lover, in case of his desire of escaping the blot of disgraceful infidelity, of pledging loyalty to his beloved and to his mistress till the end, irrespective of the extent and degree of his anguish or the minor probability of succeeding. Once more, the Petrarchan inclusion in Astrophil and Stella which interweaves faithfulness with desire, fixing them both on the unattainable object, can be observed.

In the Petrarchan style, the Neo-platonic concept of love is replicated, wherein love is a free celestial force. It is shown to create a world of its own in which it is essential for the lover to continue to exist and isolate himself from the natural world. It is a disintegration of the character, a dispersing of the emotions, influenced by Desire. One more Neo-Platonist model in it can also be identified, being the concept of poetry where with the help of the power bestowed on him by God, ‘another world’ is created by him which is similar to the way God himself created the world. It was a world that was not only greater than the real world but that can shape and improve the natural world. The Petrarchan ‘I’ is thus, a device that places two conflicting drives into discourse: an enforcement of unity of selfhood and constancy as in the ‘I’ of the lover and the other that of the fundamentally decentralized self, unfurled by the Petrarchan situation. To quote Gary Waller in the ‘Rewriting of Petrarch’, ‘The Petrarchan sequences are primarily a part of a struggle to fix or create the self by use of language (evidence of struggle within creator through use of oxymoron, paradoxes). The self that writes in the Petrarchan lyric often undermines itself. The more it writes, the more its words frustrate, the more it negates any detected congruence between ‘the spoken signifier and its signified.’ The incomplete fickleness of the self and its insecurity and lack of fixed identity in the world are the actual objects that fascinate— Petrarchanism, thus, finding natural expression in paradox. Sidney’s Astrophil and Stella also works strongly under this framework. Sonnets 14 and 18 make the revelation that the heart, the seat of reason, at one time a victim of love submits to passion. There is a constant parallel between the act of writing poetry and making love. Consummation of any kind would result in the elimination of the need for writing poetry. Astrophil composes poetry not just for persuading Stella but even for a substitute for the act of loving itself. According to Garry Waller, “Absence is a seeming necessity: presence is not conducive to poetry” (‘absent presence’, Sonnet 104). This temptation of creating a self-satisfying world of artistic pretence is centered on the aspiration of isolating the self from any challenging, self-degrading encounter with the Other—personified by Stella. The contradictory desire to get away from the inspiring source, in whom the poetry is apparently grounded was a commonly notable characteristic in the Petrarchan convention. According to what John Freccero and others have noticed, ‘seems almost to celebrate his beloved’s absence, because he may fill the space left by his absent beloved with his own controlled re-imagining of her.’ From this viewpoint, one can read sonnet sequences in the form of dramas that depict the way in which a male poet, under the threat of his confused obsession for the female Other, gets back his independence once he has replaced the untamed, indefinable original with a fake version of her—a ‘snowy maiden’ instead of every escaping Florimell. This revision of the procedure of imagination permits the poet to imagine himself as the Horatian Orpheus controlling—even creating—his indefinable lover.

The conventions of Petrarch offer to Astrophil the room to eloquently express the manifold changes in the self, occurring under the transformational influence of love. This results in the concept of metamorphosis, a strain between harmony and disintegration of the self. The very characteristic of the paradox is such that conclusion is everytime underestimated even during its assertion. This leads to resolution—questions are raised even at every meaning, personality everytime undergoing de-centralization. The self gets divided when an inner conflict takes place between love and logic within Astrophil. Logic reveals to him, that Stella is unable to sympathize with him and that he must refrain from using poetry to express  his inner thoughts and feelings, “How can words ease, which are/ The glasses of they daily vexing care? Oh cruel fights well pictured-forth do please/ Art not ashamed to publish thy disease.” (Sonnet 34). One more example is his divorcing the world, which can be seen when he separates himself from his friends besides him losing his social identity, seen in Sonnet 27, “Because I oft in dark abstracted guise/ Seem most alone in greatest company.” The microcosmic association between the man’s body and the world’s body is interrupted because of his passion for Stella. Astrophil accepts the practical association between beauty, virtue and love. However, desire continues to prevail and dominate him dissimilar to Plato’s belief that only the highest faculty of logic should guide all mankind. Desire is Astrophil’s old friend that finally results in Astrophil getting frustrated and self-disintegration which drives him into performing the several acts of self-revelation, expressed wonderfully in the lines “Of lover’s ruin some thrice-sad tragedy/ I am not I…” in Sonnet XLV.

Absolutely opposite to the disintegration of the poet–lover, comes the unity of the lady love. His lady love is both beautiful and virtuous. These qualities of his love tortures the poet–lover, leading to a disagreement between wit and will. This kind of a predicament is absolutely a feature of Petrarch. As per the Petrarchan convention, one can conquer this kind of a circumstance by the transformation of the living women into the piece of art. The poet writes about his love, thereby creating a piece of art, which is both beautiful and permanent. It redeems the sensuality of human love. This situation happens in Petrarch wherein the beloved is a far-off inspiring feature, with there being no interaction between her and her lover.  The Petrarchan Rime outlines the procedure of directing human desire towards heavenly love—a procedure aided by Laura’s death. In any case, in Sidney, Astrophel ensures that Stella’s unity does not show in the inspirational form, as a Star, “True that on earth we are but pilgrims made/ And should in soul up to our country move:/ True, and yet true that I must Stella love.” Anthony Low indicates that ‘the conflict is thus, not only between ‘reason’ and ‘desire’ as Kalstone and most interpreters since would have it, but between two forms of desire: ideal and sexual. Finally, from a practical Christian viewpoint, Astrophil or Sidney cannot be forgiven in his continuing to be indulgent in loving a married lady, both in a lustful or idealistic manner. Even then, his desire to disintegrate Stella, thereafter enjoying her in pieces as elaborated in his lustfully charged fancy in Song 10. ‘The Kiss’ he is sure, carries a lot of significance, therefore making him accept not only the lady as his muse, but also longs for her kiss and sees that also a source of inspiration. This kind of a dominating yearning and denial to sublimate it, suggests the reality, that the poetry will not be complete for the time that it follows bodily satisfaction instead of artistic satisfactions of formal completion. Here, Sidney diverges from the Petrarchan vision by emphasizing on his carnal yearning. The eighth song, brings forth passionate sensuality, as he begs Stella to submit. On her refusal, his song is ‘broken’. On being rejected, Astrophil falls into miserable anguish and the sequence concludes with this. However, in this same song, Astrophil even mentions a perfect beauty. This is certainly the embodiment of the superior inaccessible model of the Petrarchan model. However, he even stresses on the way that it is inseparable from his sexual yearning. Astrophil finds it impossible to ensure that the balance between this influential blend of yearning for a spiritual model and a sexual object is maintained—and at the same time equally impossible for him to surrender.

One more main feature of the Petrarchan convention appears to be a dialogue of control and dominance, although superficially it seems to concentrate on the depiction and idealization of the lover and serving her patiently without expecting anything in return. The Petrarchan mistress is not as much the focus of eroticism as compared to power. The constant swinging of Astrophel’s yearnings in the sonnets transforms them into a stage of his desires, and not hers. In this, the poet participates actively, besides assigning Stella with quiet, symbolic functions to perform. Stella is the cause of his misery. She is the one constant shifting and struggling of conscience inside the discursive structure which already seems to be at all times in place, an evidently natural language of sensuality and sexual variation that can give Stella visibility only within the poet’s powers.

Therefore Petrarchanism transcended poetic expression. The own works of Petrarch, showed the   uncomfortable arrangement of associations in the feudal classes, reflected by the relations between the poet and his beloved.  Laura the suzerain, has her poet as the vassal, keen to pursue her, in spite of his awareness about his being unworthy and it being impossible to attain her. Similarly, Petrarchanism is a tool through which one can witness the political associations of the Elizabethan court in Astrophel and Stella. Petrarchanism assumed extraordinary dimensions by being transferred into politics in England, due to the reality that a Virgin Queen ruled the country.  In England, Elizabeth in a systematic manner, was known to encourage the men in her court to assume the role of Petrarchan lovers. This threw the courtiers into a dilemma who remained ever hopeful, torn between the desire to make advances and being afraid of losing their places. They hopelessly tried to attain her favour, showing their greatfulness for any token. The conventional method, in which a man is subjected to his woman, at the same time giving him the freedom and authority to seduce her, does not in any manner coincide with the relationship of the courtier and the monarch. Therefore, whereas Astrophil talks of the ‘joy’ that Stella inspires besides his own ‘noble fire’, he is trying to manoeuvre the vulnerability of Stella, and seeks to gain authority over her, similar to how the deceitful courtier desires, concealed but actual authority over the monarch. As far as the sexual politics of the Renaissance Court is concerned, the world of Astrophil is that which is mainly shared by the men in the court, with relation to the monarch. Therefore, we see Astrophel being indulgent in minor but restrained ways. Astrophel constantly manipulates the words of Stella; being frank in his expression of love; but in an off-handed and half serious manner, he allows the rising of an underlying physicality of his desires in a series of fantasies of seduction. He promises to be totally devoted. His argument is that his love surpasses any ulterior motive; his world is a personal one which has superior principles. However, whereas on one hand, Astrophil asserts of his love being autonomous and higher than the public world, this antithesis is self contradictory. At the origin of Astrophil’s self deception, lie the contradictions of the Petrarchan context in the entire period of the Court’s life. Ann Jones and Peter Stallybrass debate that the compliments and manipulations performed by Astrophil are peculiarly like those ‘necessary to the new courtier in relation to his prince’ and further down the social system the poet in relation to his patron. In Sonnet CVII, “And as a queen, who from her presence sends/ Whom she employs, dismiss from thee my wit, Till it have wrought what thy own will attends.” Petrarchanism offered an ideal language for the aspirant courtier and the way in which it led to a dialogue, wherein his restive worried ‘self’ could be located. According to Gabriel Harvey, “Petrarchanism, a tablet of rare conceits, a rhetorical master piece, adaptable to the increasingly self-conscious rhetorical world of the Elizabethan Court, where show display, self aggrandizement were seemingly inevitably associated with becoming humility  and thus the means of acquiring place, and if not power, at least the possibility of power.” What consolidates this reality more is the perspective that Sidney’s aspirations were at all times for a more dominating political role; his desire was to among significant statesman of the Renaissance. However, according to fate, Elizabeth did not favour him and subjected him to courtly disfavour several times, specially when he explicitly disapproved the decision of Elizabeth of marrying the Catholic Duke of Alencon.

In his discussion of the Petrarchan context in Astrophil and Stella, that which is noteworthy is Sidney questioning the Petrarchan convention in the starting sonnets of his sequence, ‘You that poor Petrarch’s long deceased woes/ With new born sighs and denizen’d wit do sing’. Sidney according to the advice given to him by his muse, will express his heart’s feelings. In any case, we instantly comprehend that by making such a statement, Sidney is performing one of the anticipated metaphorical moves, proving that he indeed continues to be comprehensively in keeping with the Petrarchan tradition. The fact that he constantly convinces of his loyalty and genuineness, are good examples of courtly sprezzatura. According to Anthony low, “of art concealing art yet allowing itself to be seen and to be admitted for its skill.” This is only a superficial or pretended resistance to convention. The real signal that the tradition no longer suffices emerges only gradually toward the close of the sequence, as Astrophil sinks into flat hopeless despondency. He neither attains his desire nor repents of it – nor is he able to any longer even capable of sustaining it. He can find no outlet from his predicament. As we shall see, for Astrophil to escape the Petrarchan conventions would require of him a basic change of stance rather than a mere tinkering with rhetoric. Sidney finds, in Astrophil and Stella, that the courtly Petrarchan stance of endless desire without requital sublimated in a spiritual cause no longer works. But he is still too much immersed in an older aristocratic culture to find a way out of this dead end.

Another distinctive feature of the Petrarchan context which applies to Astrophil and Stella is the emphasis on self examination—seen in the continual insistence on the inner experience of the ‘lover’, and therefore of the reader, needing an unusually active involvement from their readers, producing meanings within the changing encounters between poem and readers. The Petrarchan lyric is characteristically inaugural, needing its completion in its audience’s experiences and responses. The continual isolation of the ‘I’, especially as it is focused in Astrophil’s obsession with self, directs us continually to our own self consciousness. That which Rudestine claims to be Sidney’s style ‘the outward sign of a particular sign of life’ makes lesser reference to Sidney instead of his audience. One such audience is fellow lover-poets in Sonnet 6, where Sidney distinguishes his ‘trembling voice’ and sincerity of love from those of other lovers thereby forcing them to respond. At times, his suffering hero will address another rather special named audience or will address a friend or occasionally even himself. But always the most important audiences are the ones unnamed those of us who through the poem’s history will read them, mediate upon and act out their drama: “You that with allegorie’s curious frame”. Such a scope for reader/audience participation also arises from the fact that most important role of the medieval poet was as announcer or spokesman of the court’s values and it hence made the Petrarchan tradition as Zumthor says “less as an individual creation…..than as a mimetic activity, derived from a need for collective participation, comparable to coral song or dance.”

                        Self-Assessment Questions

1.       What is the most outstanding and striking Petrarchan characteristic in Astrophil and Stella?

2.       Another distinctive feature of the Petrarchan context which applies to Astrophil and Stella is the emphasis on ___________ __________.

 

5.3 SONNET 1

The poet starts this first sonnet by describing the motivating factor that made him compose the sonnet sequence. He is of the belief, that in case of his beloved reading the sonnets, she would surely reciprocate. His argument is that she derives happiness out of his misery, which in turn would make her read his sonnets. When she reads the sonnets, he would try to make the degree of his love known to her, thereby arousing her sympathy at his plight, which in turn may get transformed into love.

The poet even speaks of the hardships he faced while writing the sonnet sequence. He says that expressing his sufferings has been a struggle for him he has made an attempt to see the works of other poets for gaining inspiration. Even then, he has not succeeded. Ultimately, the poet has awakened to the fact that the single method of completely expressing his love for Stella in his poetry is writing with his whole heart.

Analysis: The action of writing by Sidney about the composition of a love sonnet help him in doing exactly that; write a love sonnet. Remembering this, he gives a warning to the reader that the feelings exhibited in the complete sonnet sequence come straight from the heart and therefore, it is futile to expect him to be practically responsible. The lines in this first sonnet clarify that Sidney’s (who already can be identified with the author of the love sonnets) own role is contradictory; in the form of an enthusiastic lover and a self-critical author. Sonnet 1 exhibits the initial of the several conflicts between logic and passion, which can be seen in the sonnet sequence. It is as if he already knows that he can never completely gain the love of Stella, but he is helpless in his desire for her. This clash between conflicting forces is a vital element of the sequence.

The first sonnet sees Sidney introducing us to the poet/lover, amidst his struggle looking for the words through which he can express the pain of his love for Stella. He is in search of ‘fit words to paint the blackest face of woe’. In other words, he desires to come across the best way with his poetry to express his misery. He is hopeful that his words of misery ‘the dear She might take some pleasure of my pain’, later arguing from lines 3–5 that in case she does read his sonnets, she will know how much in love he is, sympathize with him with this sympathy in some way or the other turning into love for him.

 

In lines 6 – 9, the poet is seen racking his brain, in attempting to come up with ‘inventions’, or smart turns of phrase, ‘Of turning others’ leaves’, which means that he was seeing the works of other writers so that he would get inspired. But ‘words came halting forth’.

 

Lines 12 – 13, take the poem to an emotional climax. The poet feels so tormented that he compares it to labour pains. But then he is told by his muse, ‘Fool, look in thy heart and write’. The Muse’s advice means that the poet, Astrophil, is racking his brains unnecessarily, and that he must only look into his heart and try to find inspiration there. Immediately, there is a note of caution here, like the Wife of Bath who invoked ‘Experience’ as her source in her Prologue.  ‘Passion in the Renaissance is a dangerous, untrustworthy human faculty, so to abandon the mind, or Reason, means to forgo ones clear thinking.’

 

In Sonnet 1, Sidney begins by commenting that it is his desire to make Stella (Penelope) know the amount of ‘pain’ he endures due to his love for her, thereby hoping that she will ‘pity’ his miserable state. He desired to acquire her pity with the help of his poetic skill using it to the highest degree possible ‘to paint the blackest face of woe’ of his tribulation.  For this he attempted to employ the words and phrases of other poets who must have gone through similar times, only to realize the uselessness of this approach. He draws a comparison between his circumstances to that of a pregnant mother who is going through a period of struggle during childbirth, ‘helpless in my throes’. At that very point, he is rebuked by his poetic muse who tells him that instead of seeking the help of others he must peep into his own heart, thereafter expressing his own genuine feelings with utmost sincerity. 

Sonnet 1 is somewhat a sonnet on how to write a sonnet to Stella. 

First quatrain: He loves her, but is unable to come across the words to confess his love to her.  He is ‘fain’ (desirous) in his poem to express his love, and the ‘dear’ (Stella) may read his poems, and know of his love for her, pity him and, therefore, acquire her ‘grace’ (favour). 

Second quatrain: He looks for the words to tell her, turning to ‘others’ leaves’ (He acquires ideas from others.).  He is hopeful about some new ideas flowing from his ‘sunburned brain’.  The ‘sunburned brain’ symbolizes that it has got burnt by the ‘sun’ of Stella’s beauty and by the excellence of the words of other poets.

Third Quatrain: Focus shifts here. Ideas abandoned him, words simply refused to come; his innovation lacked support; others’ ‘feet’ (their metrical feet—their words/poetry were ‘strangers’—not helping him.  He is ‘great with child’ on the verge of giving birth, so to speak, to poetry for her.  He is in the throes of creation, which means labour pains.

Couplet: In a figurative sense, he is berating himself for being unable to come across ideas, etc.  And then his Muse addresses him as a Fool and asks him to just write from his heart!

 

POEM

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 winne, and pity grace obtaine,
I sought fit wordes to paint the blackest face of woe;
Studying inuentions fine, her wits to entertaine,
Oft turning others leaues, to see if thence would flow
Some fresh and fruitfull showers vpon my sun-burnd brain.
But words came halting forth, wanting Inuentions stay;
Inuention, Natures childe, fledde step-dame Studies blowes;
And others feet still seemde but strangers in my way.
Thus, great with childe to speak, and helplesse in my throwes,
Biting my trewand pen, beating myselfe for spite,
Fool, said my Muse to me, looke in thy heart, and write.

 

LITERAL PARAPHRASING

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,
Knowledge might pity win, and pity grace obtain,

I sought fit words to paint the blackest face of woe,

Studying inventions fine, her wits to entertain:
Oft turning others' leaves, to see if thence would flow
Some fresh and fruitful showers upon my sun-burned brain.

But words came halting forth, wanting Invention's stay,

Invention, Nature's child, fled step-dame Study's blows,
And others' feet still seemed but strangers in my way.
Thus great with child to speak, and helpless in my throes,

Biting my truant pen, beating myself for spite,

'Fool' said my Muse to me, 'look in thy heart and write.'

 

 

‘Sonnet 1 is written in hexameters. Sidney refused to follow the laid-down standards during a majority of his time. He was creative in form and meter. Rhymes have similar vowel sounds, mostly in end-stopped lines with one enjambed line. The imagery one sees in this sonnet deals with the process of writing. He also uses some antithesis with the sentence ‘she might take some pleasure of my pain.’  Metaphors of childbirth, nature; personification (‘Invention’); pun (‘leaves’ of a book, but also of a tree); other metaphoric language. The theme is conventional, trying to convince Stella to love him.’ Michelle and Diane

                        Self-Assessment Questions

3. The poet starts this first sonnet by describing the motivating factor that made him compose the sonnet sequence.(True/False)

4. In sonnet 1, the poet even speaks of the_______  he faced while writing the sonnet sequence. (Pick the correct option)

(a) happy times

(b) criticism

(c) appreciation

(d) hardships

 

5. Astrophil desired to acquire Stella’s pity with the help of his ______ _________.

 

5.4 SONNET 15

This sonnet is directed at other poets, particularly the ones who try hard to compose their sonnets using far-fetched metaphors and flowery language. Irrespective of these other poets trying to adopt metaphors from ancient mythology or using the dictionary looking for rhymes, Astrophel emphasizes that their approach to writing is incorrect. In case they want to use these optional ways, they evidently do not have the inner love, from which poem draws its inspiration and, finally having them imitating the work of other poets. All that a poet requires for novel inspiration, according to Astrophel, is one glance at Stella.

Analysis: Sidney also criticizes plagiarism and imitation in sonnets 1, 3, and 6. Similar to other sonnets, Sidney asserts that inspiration is lacks in poetry only if it does not come straight from the heart. His muse is Stella, and he need not to make use of the techniques of other poets (the dictionary, mythological images, and so on) for expressing his real feelings. This sonnet is simultaneously tongue-in-cheek because, although he may not plagiarize, Sidney does utilize classical mythology and florid language in other sonnets in this sequence.

In Sonnet 15, he hits at the root of the problem: the poets who reiterate ‘poore Petrarch’s long deceased woes’ do not succeed since they do not have the required truthfulness of emotion. ‘Astrophil distinguishes himself from the other poet-lovers by claiming genuine emotion that he pours through the mold of convention with a new and disruptive vitality. He modifies the convention from within, satirizing those who have abused its language, and questioning (implicitly) its high idealism’. (Rudenstine 205) Astrophil attempts at modifying the standard to revive it; the conventions no longer carry meaning through excess and abuse, and the solution is loyalty.
       By exploring poetic personality, inspiration, and originality in Sidney’s Astrophil and Stella, the sonnets on style emerge as a hazy outline of Sidney’s views on love poetry. Sincerity is paramount but does not equal simplicity. Ornamentation and convention are quite necessary but only successful when laid upon a foundation of sincere emotion. The style sonnets are not a simple poetic strategy but perhaps more of an example by which to learn. Astrophil is a fledgling love poet; his struggles are those of every poet. By chronicling his efforts, his successes, and his failures, Sidney comments on the creative process of his time and fashions in Astrophil one of the most exceptional artistic characters in the English language.

 

According to David and Beth, the structure of the poem is ‘Iambic pentameter, rhymed abba abba ccdeed. Monosyllabic rhymes, frequent and heavy enjambement. Some polysyllables with nominal second accents (dictionary's, denizened). The formal variations of the sonnet are congruent with the structure, e.g., the rhyme scheme matches the theme put forth in each quatrain. In structure, the principal images are (1) a spring flowing from a mountain, (2) a poet with a dictionary: these images are compared to each other and come together to represent the theme of the sonnet. The argument of the poem is that it is better to be ‘natural’ than ‘conventional’ in writing.’ 

 

LITERAL PARAPHRASING

You that do search for every purling spring,

Which from the ribs of old Parnassus flows,

And every flower, not sweet perhaps, which grows

Near thereabouts, into your poesy wring;

You that do dictionary’s method bring

Into your rimes, running in rattling rows;

You that poor Petrarch’s long-deceased woes,

With new-born sighs and denizen’d wit do sing,

You take wrong ways: those far-fet helps be such

As do bewray a want of inward touch:

And sure at length stol’n goods do come to light.

But if (both for your love and skill) your name

You seek to nurse at fullest breasts of Fame,

Stella behold, and then begin to endite.

You who search for every rippling stream

Which flows from the ribs of old Mount Parnassus,

And gather every flower, not the sweetest one perhaps,

Which grows near there, into your poetry:

You who bring dictionary compilation methods

Into your rhymes, alliterating by ‘running them in rattling rows’:

You who sing long dead Petrarch’s woes

With new sighs and naturalised (once-foreign) wit:

You take wrong ways, those far-fetched aids are such

As expose a want of inner touch:

And surely at last stolen goods do come to light.

But if you seek (both for your love and skill)

To nurse your name at the fullest breasts of Fame,

Gaze on Stella, and then begin descriptively to write.

 

5.5 SONNET 27

Astrophel gives a description of the reactions of the Court to his behavior after falling for Stella. He generally goes speechless in company and feels lonely in the company of many. Consequently, the remaining Court is of the belief that he is consumed with pride, that he is self-obsessed, despising the ones around him. Astrophel becomes aware, however, that it is not pride that he suffers but from ambition, the ambition to rise up to the grace of Stella.

Analysis: This sonnet deals with a common issue of the early modern period: love versus politics. By replacing politics with love, as the focus of the author’s world was believed to reduce the capacity of the speaker to actively in politics. Love underestimates the credibility of the speaker in the Court, thereby proving the notion that love and poetry renders one unfit to make a career in politics.

 

LITERAL PARAPHRASING

Because I oft in dark abstracted guise

Seem most alone in greatest company,

With dearth of words, or answers quite awry,

To them that would make speech of speech arise,

They deem, and of their doom the rumour flies,

That poison foul of bubbling pride doth lie

So in my swelling breast that only I

Fawn on myself, and others do despise:

Yet pride I think doth not my soul possess,

Which looks too oft in his unflatt’ring glass:

But one worse fault, ambition, I confess,

That makes me oft my best friends overpass,

Unseen, unheard, while thought to highest place

Bends all his powers, even unto Stella’s grace.

Because I often, in a dark abstracted mood,

Seem most alone among the greatest company,

With a dearth of words to say, or answers that are awry,

Those, who wish to make speech follow from speech,

Judge, and rumour flies abroad from their judgment,

That the foul poison of bubbling pride so lies

In my swelling breast that I only

Fawn on myself, and despise others:

Yet I do not think pride possesses my soul,

Which looks too often in its unflattering mirror:

But one worse fault, ambition, I confess to,

That makes me often overlook my best friends,

Unseen, unheard, while thought bends all its powers

                       

Self-Assessment Questions

6. Sonnet 15 is directed at other ______. (Pick the correct option)

(a) friends

(b) musicians

(c) dramatists

(d) poets

7. Sidney also criticizes _______ and ________ in sonnets 1, 3, and 6.

8. Love underestimates the _______ of the speaker in the Court.

 

 

5.6 SONNET 34

This sonnet is a conversation between Astrophel and Wit. Astrophel asserts that he composes his poetry for easing his heavy heart. Wit questions him as to how reminders of his suffering could possibly ease his heart. Astrophel responds that well-dressed sufferings can please more than the fact, but he is not ashamed of publishing his sufferings since he believes that his poem may make him famous. Wit responds that this fame will bring him nothing but make appear to be foolish in the eyes of wise men. Astrophel attempts to counter this argument, and declares that it is not necessary for wise men to be listening to something they think is foolish, but Wit taunts him, asking that if his poetry will not be heard, what point is there to writing it? The sonnet ends with an expression of Astrophel’s increasing doubt.

Analysis: Sidney introduces a main audience of the poet’s work, the witty courtiers. A majority of them are fond of poems. They make no addressing to the woman and, in several cases the lady would have not made a suitable spectator. Sidney composes his poem in the light of the knowledge that a witty (that is, intelligent) audience is at all times looking over his shoulder. This kind of poem does not aim at flattery but entertaining a witty audience who are in fact capable of appreciating the work. This fact is thrown into Astrophel’s face by Wit. The most important audience instead of Stella, is the witty audience who can understand his poetry even more than her. Thus we can understand why Sidney would count on his audience's knowledge of classical mythology and other poetic traditions.

In Astrophil and Stella by Sir Philip Sidney, sonnet 1 and 34 both talk about writing. Sonnet 1 exhibits how writing is difficult for the speaker but how he will do anything to make his love known, although it involves appearing to be dumb, since he cannot write properly. Love or simple pity, not really his concern, the poet just wants to win over Stella anyhow. The verse concludes with the line ‘fool… look into thy heart and write’ (line 14). The speaker does not know that writing comes from your heart and his muse is telling him that he is a “fool” for not knowing that.

Sonnet 34 starts with the line ‘come, let me write. ‘and to what end?’ to ease a burdened heart’ (line 1–2). Sonnet 34 seems to be in direct response to sonnet 1. Sonnet 34 seems to be the speaker continuing the conversation with his muse. The muse tells him to write what’s in his heart but what’s in his heart is unreciprocated love. He loves but this love is not reciprocated. She views his love as a ‘disease’ because instead of alleviating itself and leaving him, it aggravates within him. It is hard for him, the speaker, to admit that his love consumes him and that he has no control over it. She tells him that ‘wise men’ will view his words as being foolish, so he doesn’t want to share his writing of love with the world. He says that in that case, she must keep the words private between just them. She tells him that whatever he is doing has no purpose and is futile. Although he is composing, none will actually listen to it. He says it is more difficult to feel pain and not speak. Forget intelligence because intelligence or ‘wit’ is foolish. With regards to love, trying to be intelligent makes your intelligence imperfect for love is not a perfect thing.

In Sonnet 1 the speaker is confused by how to go about writing and eventually he gets it. In Sonnet 34 the speaker is mostly confused about Stella. Girls are confusing and this one confuses him unendingly. He does not know what to do about his love because his mind is not thinking rationally, as the minds of those in love do not normally think rationally. The feeling of love is the pinnacle of irrationality.

 ‘In sonnet 34, Sidney portrays Astrophil as a wit who complains that his reason/wit is undermined by his thoughts of Stella—another use of wit—thereby leading him to term himself an oxymoronic ‘foolish wit’ and to complain that Stella’s powers ‘confuse my mind’. Thus, some of the real wittiness is at Astrophil's expense.’ Chauncey Wood

 

LITERAL PARAPHRASING
Come, let me write. And to what end? To ease

A burthened heart. How can words ease, which are

The glasses of thy daily vexing care?

Oft cruel fights well pictured forth do please.

Art not ashamed to publish thy disease?

Nay, that may breed my fame, it is so rare.

But will not wise men think thy words fond ware?

Then be they close, and so none shall displease.

What idler thing than speak and not be heard?

What harder thing than smart and not to speak?

Peace, foolish wit! with wit my wit is marred.

Thus write I, while I doubt to write, and wreak

My harms on ink's poor loss. Perhaps some find

Stella’s great powers, that so confuse my mind.

5.7 SONNET 41

Astrophel talks about his victory at a tournament in front of the court. His skill and valour helped him achieve the award of the event, judged by members of the English court and members of the French court. Spectators appreciated his talent, resulting from continuous practice, when others made claims that it was merely good luck. Yet, Astrophel is aware that the actual reason for his victory was Stella watching him.

Analysis: The tournament that Astrophel refers to could be a tournament held at court in May 1581 when members of the French court were visiting England. Because Sidney was against Queen Elizabeth’s proposed marriage with the Duc of Alençon, his victory in the tournament would have been particularly satisfying, impressing Stella as well as the French visitors.

LITERAL PARAPHRASING

Having this day my horse, my hand, my lance

Guided so well, that I obtain’d the prize,

Both by the judgment of the English eyes,

And of some sent from that sweet enemy France;

Horsemen my skill in horsemanship advance,

Town-folks my strength; a daintier judge applies

His praise to sleight, which from good use doth rise;

Some lucky wits impute it but to chance;

Others, because of both sides I do take

My blood from them who did excel in this,

Think Nature me a man of arms did make.

How far they shot awry! The true cause is,

Stella look’d on, and from her heav’nly face

Sent forth the beams, which made so fair my race. Having guided my horse, my hand, my lance, so well

Today, that I obtained the prize,

Both as judged by English eyes

And some sent from that sweet enemy France:

Horsemen proclaim my skill in horsemanship:

Townsmen my strength: a more discerning judge

Praises my dexterity achieved by constant practice:

Some who are lucky ascribe it to mere chance:

Others because I am descended on both sides

From those who excel in these pursuits,

Think it was Nature that made me good at tilting:

How mistaken they were! The true reason is

That Stella was watching, and from her heavenly face

Sent out the rays that made my competing successful.

 

5.8 SONNET 45

The poet mourns his incapacity to move Stella through his misery, although a made-up description of a similar situation makes her cry. Finally, he makes an attempt at bringing both the ‘fable’ and his own situation together in ‘the tale of me’, although the reader fails to know that this is effective. This has interesting results as far as the role of poetry in society is concerned.

Plato undervalues poem on the basis that it makes truth corrupt. In the case of Astrophil, this appears to be almost grounded. Stella is more fascinated by ‘fancy’ than with ‘the very face of woe’, including its implications of Platonic truth. In any case, Astrophil makes an attempt at subverting this by becoming (presumably in the sonnet sequence itself) this kind of a fable, as the one she cried over, resulting in gaining her favours.

 

On a side note, it appears that Astrophil’s premise has not yet been found. The characters in the fable narrated to Stella are depicted as ‘lovers’. This implies that they each love the other; in a case of unreciprocated love, similar to Astrophil in the sonnet sequence, those involved are rarely referred to as lovers. If Stella heard a story about Astrophil’s situation, it would be along the lines of the following: ‘A man loved a woman who did not love him back. He was very sad and tried to make her love him, but she couldn't for whatever reason. [It would be false for her to return his advances when she didn't feel them herself.]’

Sonnet 45 has hints of Odyssey in it, when it refers to seas, storm and ruin. Moreover, Astrophil appears to be attempting to get to a destination—Stella’s heart—that continuously evades him.

 

In sonnet 45, though Stella sees the correct depiction of Astrophil’s sympathy and comprehends what she sees, she ‘cannot skill to pity my disgrace’ (45.3). Rather, ‘a fable’ (5), a ‘fancy drawn by imaged things, / Though false’ (9 – 10) imprisons her heart, most probably because ‘with free scope [it] more grace doth breed / Than servant’s wrack’ (10 – 11). Sidney’s excellence lies in the conclusion that, instead of bemoaning Stella’s lack of taste, he adapts the genre of the fable in the telling of Astrophil’s tale:

Then think, my dear, that you in me do read

Of lover’s ruin some sad tragedy:

I am not I, pity the tale of me. (12 – 14)

 

A conventional and logical reason for writing Sonnet 45 was that of persuading Stella to give back his love by appealing for sympathy. This objective is highlighted in the final line, “pity this tale of mine”. The presupposition in this sonnet is that he can induce Stella to sympathize this fake story of despair with little effort as compared to making her sympathize with him as someone who draws on the Petrarchan and Neo-Platonist image of the poet as an independent maker.

                        Self-Assessment Questions

 

9. Sonnet 34 is a conversation between Astrophel and Stella. (True/False)

10. Sonnet 34 seems to be in direct response to _________.

11. In sonnet 41, Astrophel talks about his ________________ in front of the court.

12. A conventional and logical reason for writing Sonnet 45 was that of persuading Stella to give back his love by appealing for sympathy. (True/False)

 

 

5.9 SUMMARY

Let us recapitulate the important concepts discussed in this unit:

• Astrophil and Stella is a sonnet sequence composed from the viewpoint of a courtier in love with a lady who belongs to someone else. It explores his misery over unreciprocated love, and the hopeless attempts of both wooing her and rationalizing in his mind the virtue of his fruitless love.
• The primary feature of Astrophil and Stella in the Petrarchan framework that was responsible for making it such a powerful collective text, that encouraged and required an unceasing re-reading and explanation was its adaptability.
• In the Petrarchan style, the Neo-platonic concept of love is replicated, wherein love is a free celestial force. It is shown to create a world of its own in which it is essential for the lover to continue to exist and isolate himself from the natural world.
• The conventions of Petrarch offer to Astrophil the room to eloquently express the manifold changes in the self, occurring under the transformational influence of love. This results in the concept of metamorphosis, a strain between harmony and disintegration of the self.
• Petrarchanism is a tool through which one can witness the political associations of the Elizabethan court in Astrophel and Stella. Petrarchanism assumed extraordinary dimensions by being transferred into politics in England, due to the reality that a Virgin Queen ruled the country. 
• The poet starts this first sonnet by describing the motivating factor that made him compose the sonnet sequence. He is of the belief, that in case of his beloved reading the sonnets, she would surely reciprocate. His argument is that she derives happiness out of his misery, which in turn would make her read his sonnets.
• Sonnet 15 is directed at other poets, particularly the ones who try hard to compose their sonnets using far-fetched metaphors and flowery language. Irrespective of these other poets trying to adopt metaphors from ancient mythology or using the dictionary looking for rhymes, Astrophel emphasizes that their approach to writing is incorrect.
• Sonnet 27 sees Astrophel giving a description of the reactions of the Court to his behaviour after falling for Stella. He generally goes speechless in company and feels lonely in the company of many.
• Sonnet 34 is a conversation between Astrophel and Wit. Astrophel asserts that he composes his poetry for easing his heavy heart. Wit questions him as to how reminders of his suffering could possibly ease his heart.
• Sonnet 41 has Astrophel talk about his victory at a tournament in front of the court. His skill and valour helped him achieve the award of the event, judged by members of the English court and members of the French court.
• Sonnet 45 sees the poet mourning his incapacity to move Stella through his misery, although a made-up description of a similar situation makes her cry. Finally, he makes an attempt at bringing both the ‘fable’ and his own situation together in ‘the tale of me’, although the reader fails to know that this is effective.

 

 

5.10 GLOSSARY

Astrophil and Stella: It is a sonnet sequence composed from the viewpoint of a courtier in love with a lady who belongs to someone else.

Petrarchanism: It is marked by a discursive space in which mingling and exploration of rhetoric, theatricality, individual and socio cultural codes took place.

 

5.11 TERMINAL QUESTIONS

 

1.       What happens to the Neo-platonic concept of love in the Petrarchan style?

2.       Write a short note on a main feature of the Petrarchan convention.

3.       What is another distinctive feature of the Petrarchan context which applies to Astrophil and Stella?

4.       Write the paraphrasing of sonnet 1 according to the quatrains.

5.      Who is sonnet 15 directed at?

6.       Give an analysis of sonnet 27.

7.       Sonnet 34 is a conversation. Comment

8.       What tournament was Astrophil referring to when he was talking about his victory in sonnet 41?

9.       What was the conventional and logical reason for writing sonnet 45?

5.12 ANSWERS

 

Self-Assessment Questions

1.       The most outstanding and striking Petrarchan characteristic in Astrophil and Stella is the expression of erotic love and the inclusion of conflicts and dialects.

2.       self examination

3.       True

4.       (d)

 

5.       poetic skill

6.       (d)

7.       Plagiarism, imitation

8.       Credibility

9.       False

10.   sonnet 1

11.   victory at a tournament

12.   True

 

Terminal Questions

 

1.       In the Petrarchan style, the Neo-platonic concept of love is replicated, wherein love is a free celestial force. It is shown to create a world of its own in which it is essential for the lover to continue to exist and isolate himself from the natural world. It is a disintegration of the character, a dispersing of the emotions, influenced by Desire.

2.       One more main feature of the Petrarchan convention appears to be a dialogue of control and dominance, although superficially it seems to concentrate on the depiction and idealization of the lover and serving her patiently without expecting anything in return. The Petrarchan mistress is not as much the focus of eroticism as compared to power. The constant swinging of Astrophel’s yearnings in the sonnets transforms them into a stage of his desires, and not hers. In this, the poet participates actively, besides assigning Stella with quiet, symbolic functions to perform. Stella is the cause of his misery. She is the one constant shifting and struggling of conscience inside the discursive structure which already seems to be at all times in place, an evidently natural language of sensuality and sexual variation that can give Stella visibility only within the poet’s powers.

3.       Another distinctive feature of the Petrarchan context which applies to Astrophil and Stella is the emphasis on self examination—seen in the continual insistence on the inner experience of the ‘lover’, and therefore of the reader, needing an unusually active involvement from their readers, producing meanings within the changing encounters between poem and readers. The Petrarchan lyric is characteristically inaugural, needing its completion in its audience’s experiences and responses. The continual isolation of the ‘I’, especially as it is focused on Astrophil’s obsession with self, directs us continually to our own self consciousness.

4.      First quatrain: He loves her, but is unable to come across the words to confess his love to her.  He is ‘fain’ (desirous) in his poem to express his love, and the ‘dear’ (Stella) may read his poems, and know of his love for her, pity him and, therefore, acquire her ‘grace’ (favour). 

Second quatrain: He looks for the words to tell her, turning to ‘others’ leaves’ (He acquires ideas from others.).  He is hopeful about some new ideas flowing from his ‘sunburned brain’.  The ‘sunburned brain’ symbolizes that it has got burnt by the ‘sun’ of Stella’s beauty and by the excellence of the words of other poets.

Third Quatrain: Focus shifts here. Ideas abandoned him, words simply refused to come; his innovation lacked support; others’ ‘feet’ (their metrical feet—their words/poetry were ‘strangers’—not helping him.  He is ‘great with child’ on the verge of giving birth, so to speak, to poetry for her.  He is in the throes of creation, which means labour pains.

 

5.      This sonnet is directed at other poets, particularly the ones who try hard to compose their sonnets using far-fetched metaphors and flowery language. Irrespective of these other poets trying to adopt metaphors from ancient mythology or using the dictionary looking for rhymes, Astrophel emphasizes that their approach to writing is incorrect. In case they want to use these optional ways, they evidently do not have the inner love, from which poem draws its inspiration and, finally having them imitating the work of other poets. All that a poet requires for novel inspiration, according to Astrophel, is one glance at Stella.

6.      This sonnet deals with a common issue of the early modern period: love versus politics. By replacing politics with love, as the focus of the author’s world was believed to reduce the capacity of the speaker to actively in politics. Love underestimates the credibility of the speaker in the Court, thereby proving the notion that love and poetry renders one unfit to make a career in politics.

7.      This sonnet is a conversation between Astrophel and Wit. Astrophel asserts that he composes his poetry for easing his heavy heart. Wit questions him as to how reminders of his suffering could possibly ease his heart. Astrophel responds that well-dressed sufferings can please more than the fact, but he is not ashamed of publishing his sufferings since he believes that his poem may make him famous. Wit responds that this fame will bring him nothing but make appear to be foolish in the eyes of wise men. Astrophel attempts to counter this argument, and declares that it is not necessary for wise men to be listening to something they think is foolish, but Wit taunts him, asking that if his poetry will not be heard, what point is there to writing it? The sonnet ends with an expression of Astrophel’s increasing doubt.

8.      The tournament that Astrophel refers to could be a tournament held at court in May 1581 when members of the French court were visiting England. Because Sidney was against Queen Elizabeth’s proposed marriage with the Duc of Alençon, his victory in the tournament would have been particularly satisfying, impressing Stella as well as the French visitors.

9.      A conventional and logical reason for writing Sonnet 45 was that of persuading Stella to give back his love by appealing for sympathy. This objective is highlighted in the final line, “pity this tale of mine”. The presupposition in this sonnet is that he can induce Stella to sympathize this fake story of despair with little effort as compared to making her sympathize with him as someone who draws on the Petrarchan and Neo-Platonist image of the poet as an independent maker.