Sonnets By Sir Philip Sidney

Published Date: 02 Nov 2017

Astrophil is the protagonist of the poem Sonnet 31. The moon has risen and Astrophil’s world is dark. He has connected his perception of night to Stella’s absence and without the light of Stella, he cannot survive. He is hurting because of Stella’s rejection of his physical love. He sees the pale moon as it rises into the night sky and starts a conversation. The moon appears to have the same sad qualities that he sees in himself, a "languished grace", a wan face, and it seems to be moving slowly. The moon appears to experience human emotions that are an example of a pathetic fallacy as when the moon is taking "sad steps." Stella is unhappily married but loves Astrophil; she uses her vows to keep her physically distant from his advances. He asks the personified moon four questions about what love is like in the heavens, looking for a logical explanation of Stella’s behavior and his scorned love. Is a faithful lover a foolish lover? Are the beautiful women in the heavens as proud as the ones on earth? Do women want love above all things but scorn the lovers that have love for them? Are the women above as ungrateful as the ones on earth? Even though the moon has the same problems, "even of fellowship" the moon does not provide an answer.

Sonnet 31 has the form of iambic pentameter, rhymed as ABBA ABBA CDCD EE. The fourteen lines are grouped into three quatrains followed by one couplet. Some rhyming words may have been pronounced differently at the time the sonnet was written than they are today, as in the case of "wit" and "yet" (DD). It seems Sidney is more concerned with his expression of sexual frustration than he is in poetic dexterity because some rhymes seem forced as in the case of "possess" and "ungratefulness" (EE).

Stella is the heroine speaking in the poem My True-Love Hath My Heart from Arcadia. She expresses her love for Astrophel and the unity of their hearts but seems unconcerned about the lack of physical love or their sexual desires because she is currently married to another man. Her idea that the exchange of their hearts brings about a happy union of their love is repeated and restated from various angles. Stella states several times that her heart is shared with her love and vice versa. "My true love hath my heart, and I have his" and "…one for the other is given". They both suffer when they see each other because they can never be together, "His heart his wound received from my sight. My heart was wounded with his wounded heart."

The ballad has grammatical symmetry that helps with unity and the repetitions could be used to repeat the same chords when singing. The form is ABAB CDCD EFEF AA with the first line and the last line being the same as if to confirm the strength of their love just one more time and repeat the theme. This form is more along the grouping of a Shakespearean sonnet but Sidney lived before Shakespeare so Shakespeare must have adopted this form later. In this ballad there are some rhymes that are forced as in the case of "his" and "miss" in lines one and three, "one" and "own" in lines five and seven, and "bliss" and "his" in the last two lines. Sidney seems more concerned with the poetic dexterity of this poem than Sonnet 31 maybe because it was a song and he wanted to make it flow.

The differences in these works appear to be way women and men view love. Sonnet 31 shows the mental torment of the loss of physical love by a man. Astrophil is unable to accept this condition and limit his emotions for Stella. My True-Love Hath My Heart shows the chaste, pure, nonphysical love desired by a woman. While Astrophil struggles with his irrational and foolish infatuations, Stella refuses to allow her emotions to overcome her reason. She recognizes that their love cannot exist and that she must guard herself. Unlike the stereotypical figures of desire in other poetry from the time, Stella is a complex character and, above all, a real woman (Vincent, Kissel).