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Wuolah Free Literatura 1

The document discusses English literature from the 16th century, including works by Thomas Wyatt, Henry Howard, Edmund Spenser, Sir Philip Sidney, William Shakespeare, Mary Wroth, Ben Jonson, John Donne, Andrew Marvell, Mary Astell, Francis Bacon, Katherine Philips, and John Milton. It provides an overview of their works, listing several poems and sections from longer works for each author. It then briefly discusses some key events in the English Reformation in the 1530s and 1550s that established the King as the head of the Church of England rather than the Pope.

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Wuolah Free Literatura 1

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literatura-1.

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estxingleses

Literatura Inglesa Ii

2º Grado en Estudios Ingleses

Facultad de Filosofía y Letras

Universidad de Granada

Reservados todos los derechos.

No se permite la explotación económica ni la transformación de esta obra. Queda permitida la impresión en su totalidad.
ENGLISH LITERATURE II

THOMAS WYATT
- The Long Love that in my Thought Doth Harbour.
- Whoso List To Hunt.
- They Flee From Me.
- My Galley.

HENRY HOWARD, EARL OF SURREY

- The Soote Season.
- Love, that Doth Reign and Live within my Thought.
- Alas! So All Things Now Do Hold Their Peace.
- Th’Assyrians’ King, in Peace with Foul Desire.

EDMUND SPENCER
From Amoretti and Epithalamion (1595):
- Sonnet 34 (“Lyke as a Ship, that Through the Ocean Wyde”).
- Sonnet 67 (“Lyke as a Huntsman after Weary Chace”).
- Sonnet 54 (“Of this Worlds Theatre in Which We Stay”).
- Sonnet 75 (“One Day I Wrote her Name upon the Strand”).

SIR PHILIP SIDNEY

From Astrophil and Stella (written c. 1580):
- Sonnet 1 (“Loving in Truth, and Fain in Verse my Love to Show”).
- Sonnet 2 (“Not at First Sight, nor with a Dribbèd Shot”).
- Sonnet 5 (“It is Most True, that Eyes Are Formed to Serve”).
- Sonnet 9 (“Queen Virtue’s Court, Which Some Call Stella’s Face”).

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
From Sonnets (1609):
- Sonnet 1 (“From Fairest Creatures We Desire Increase”).
- Sonnet 3 (“Look in thy Glass and Tell the Face thou Viewest”).
- Sonnet 12 (“When I do Count the Clock that Tells the Time”).
- Sonnet 18 (“Shall I Compare thee to a Summer’s Day?”).
- Sonnet 19 (“Devouring Time, Blunt thou the Lion’s Paws”).
- Sonnet 33 (“Full Many a Glorious Morning Have I Seen”).
- Sonnet 55 (“Not Marble nor the Gilded Monuments”).
- Sonnet 74 (“But be Contented When that Fell Arrest”).
- Sonnet 127 (“In the Old Age Black Was Not Counted Fair”).
- Sonnet 130 (“My Mistress’ Eyes Are Nothing Like the Sun”).
- Sonnet 144 (“Two Loves I Have of Comfort and Despair”).

MARY WROTH
From A Crown of Sonnets Dedicated to Love,
- Sonnet 77 (“In This Strange Labyrinth How Shall I Turn?”).

BEN JONSON
From Underwood:
1

- Song: To Celia

JOHN DONNE
From Songs and Sonnets:
- The Flea
- The Sun Rising

ANDREW MARVELL
- To His Coy Mistress

MARY ASTELL
- Some Reflections Upon Marriage

FRANCIS BACON
- Of Marriage and Single Life

KATHERINE PHILIPS
- A Married State

JOHN MILTON
From Paradise Lost (1667):
- Book I,
o 1-126
o 192-208
o 242-263
- Book IX
o 494-518
o 532-551
o 684-717
o 762-792
- Book XII
o 610-649

JONATHAN SWIFT
From Gulliver’s Travels (part 4):
- Chapter 1
- Chapter 2
- Chapter 3
- Chapter 4

ENGLISH LITERATURE III

In 1533, the king's council established that the pope is no longer the head of the church is just
considered a bishop of Rome in England, is not considered to be at the very top of the Christian
hierarchy, but rather in the same way that you would have the bishop of London or the archbishop of
Canterbury, the pope is reduced to a lower status.

The head of the Church of England was the king in 1554, the pope was degraded to a position of a
bishop, the pope does not have a say in anything having to do with England.

In 1534, a law was passed: The act of succession, by which Henry VIII demands that all those who are
under his power swear a personal oath, promise that they acknowledge the authority of the king of
England over the church of England.

The fact that England no longer views itself as a catholic country, there are some people like Thomas
More that this is against its beliefs and that they were not going to fulfill demand implied by the act of
succession. Thomas More is executed by Henry VII. Thomas More had been the right hand of Henry VII
and he was the one who would take the most important political decisions.

o Thomas more was the author of Utopia highly revealing of the dynamics of the Henrician
courts, and the exercise of power. Utopia was the description of an island that resembles very
revealingly of England of that time. Utopia was a description of an Island carrying an implicit
criticism of England.

Being diplomatic, very canning, and watchful in the use of language are exactly those features that
Thomas Wyatt displays in his poetry.

1536 Catherine of Aragon dies of natural causes, and Anne Boleyn was not able to produce an heir to
the throne of England as Henry VIII had wished for, in these circumstances, the same year has a
miscarriage she was also accused of being adulterous, and adultery to the king is deemed a treasonable
act and she was executed in 1536.

THOMAS WYATT
- The Long Love that in my Thought Doth Harbour.
- Whoso List To Hunt
- They Flee From Me
- My Galley

★ “The Long Love that in my Thought Doth Harbour” – Thomas Wyatt ★

The longë love that in my thought doth harbour

And in mine hert doth keep his residence,

Into my face presseth with bold pretence

And therein campeth, spreading his banner.

She that me learneth to love and suffer

And will that my trust and lustës negligence

Be rayned by reason, shame, and reverence,

With his hardiness taketh displeasure.

Wherewithall unto the hert's forest he fleeth,

Leaving his enterprise with pain and cry,

And there him hideth and not appeareth.

What may I do when my master feareth

But in the field with him to live and die?

For good is the life ending faithfully.

Love and war are compared in the poem, and the similarity is used to construct a conceit that is an
extended metaphor. There is also a battle being described, there is movement happening in the poem
from the very beginning to the very end, and the poem itself becomes a battlefield.

I is the poetic persona and that is presented differently from his love, we have 3 different participants
in the story,

1. The poetic persona voice which is the “I”, that is also present by means of the use of the
possessive and the first person singular.
2. The long love that the poetic persona has that is separate and removed from him, in an
exercise of dissociation.
3. The she (the beloved) the person who the poetic persona thinks he is in love with.

The poetic persona dissociates from a feeling that he has and he experiences and the beloved. The
relationship established between three participants:

The three agents are in contact in these two stanzas that progress and evolve,
4

o The relationship between the “I” and the “long love”: Love is the master of the poetic persona.
Love rules over the poetic persona, they are not equal, love is more powerful, it is his master.
The relationship of both is of dependency, the “I” is not fighting with its long love, it is obeying
it is long love, because the long love is his master. The “I” is completely obedient to love,
acknowledges he has to follow “love” wherever he goes. They both fight together.

“Will” is the same thing as “once”/ “Shame” means “restraint” / THOUGHT- HEART- FACE
Heart = residence, metaphor / Love living in heart (residing) - personification

The two stanzas in terms of movement: The long love moves from his thought to his heart, but then
makes a move to his face, his banner reveals that love is present in the heart, because he blushes.

The twist is that the idea of being faithful is towards his beloved, in the Henrician court there are many
ways to conceal ideas, and being faithful towards your own values.

o THE OPPOSING FACTION IS THE SHE. She demands constraints, she is not the person who he
fights for, she is the opponent in the battle.

He does not give up loving her, but he conceals his love for her while remaining truthful to his own
love. He goes to the forest of his heart, the love retreats from its physical appearance to somewhere
where it is inside and that is not in plain view. He is more prudent as a result of her beloved request,
he does not show it.

Within the poem, this demand of her for him being cautious, is not simply of losing virtue, is fear of
losing life. Translating this situation, Thomas Wyatt was imprisoned in the tower, men who were
accused of being lovers of Anne Boleyn, Thomas Wyatt went to prison and he was let free. Demanding
refrain of love and public demonstration of love is not simply not simply of losing virtue, it is preserving
his own life.

Thomas Wyatt didn’t publish his poetry, all the poems he had would look like this, then. If he were at
court as a sign of being clever, and educated there was a tendency to write poetry and to give it to
friends. This poem might have written not only to his beloved but to Wyatt’s friends at court.

Truthfully we can take for granted assumptions of love, giving it out to his friends to share his poetic
production. It was partly attributes and skills at a time which encouraged and demonstrated learning
and wit.

★ ”Whoso List to Hunt” – Thomas Wyatt ★

Whoso list to hunt, I know where is an hind,

But as for me, hélas, I may no more.

I am of them that farthest cometh behind.

Yet may I by no means my wearied mind

Draw from the deer, but as she fleeth afore

Fainting I follow. I leave off therefore,

Sithens in a net I seek to hold the wind.

Who list her hunt, I put him out of doubt,

As well as I may spend his time in vain.

And graven with diamonds in letters plain

There is written, her fair neck round about:

Noli me tangere, for Caesar's I am,

And wild for to hold, though I seem tame.

HUNTING AS AN ENJOYMENT ACTIVITY:

It was a hobby for rich men, and rich men usually had large pieces of woods, where they went hunting
deers, rabbits, birds. The bigger an animal, the more honorable it was to hunt it, a doe, was considered
to be honorable.

In this case, we have the wild animal of the whole woods that is the doe, that is the wife of the king,
and the poet is trying to run to catch, it, he cannot catch it, if he did, it would be worse, because it was
property of the king, to catch it would mean to offend the king and that is by hunting a doe literally it
would be like hunting his wife. It is a metaphor between a doe and a woman. The significance of
hunting at that time.

ANOTHER READING of the poem WHICH IS NOT about LOVE OF THE POEM:

If we look at hunting as like a pleasurable experience, love can lose meaning, is done in the court as
something just for fun, maybe he does not even love her, she was a symbol, they didn't care about this
woman. She doesn't have a personality, she's just a symbol of power.

It can be more about lust, of achieving power, because the poem describes a hunting situation, it is a
hunting game, you don't want to hunt someone you love, because that implies hurting them.

The poem can be a warning to all of the men to stop courting Anne Boleyn, because they are not going
to achieve anything.
6

Love is a game, in the same way that hunting is a game, an activity that denotes class, that denotes
belonging to the court. In this context, it is not exactly love, a game of courting someone and catching
someone and gaining a prize, the hind. He is obviously the most sought after hind, there is a prize, you
catch it as proof of status, to put it on a wall.

These sonnets were intended to be passed around, for everyone to know and to share, the addressee
of the poem is not the lady, is “They” “Whoso”.

1. Whoso: Whosoever, whoever.

2. list: Desires, wishes.
3. hind: female deer and metaphor for Ann Boleyn.
4. hélas (ay LA): Alas in French,
5. Draw: Withdraw.
6. afore: Before.
7. Sithens: Since.
8. Who list her hunt: Who wishes to hunt her. Poets frequently alter word order for effect.
For example, Shakespeare wrote in Macbeth, "Something wicked this way comes." In
ordinary conversation, a person would say, "Something wicked comes this way."
9. graven: Engraved.
10. Noli me tangere: Latin, "Do not touch me," words Jesus spoke to Mary Magdalene (John:
20:17).
11. Caesar's: Henry VIII's.

ANALYSIS

Lines 1-2
Whoso list to hunt, I know where is an hind,
But as for me, hélas, I may no more.

Upon beginning this poem, ‘Whoso List to Hunt’ by Sir Thomas Wyatt, a contemporary reader will
encounter some words that have fallen out of use. The first of these is “Whoso.” It refers to “anyone”
or “whoever.” The speaker is offering anyone listening to a tip. He knows the location of a “hind,” or
female deer. This speaker is an avid hunter and for some reason, as yet unknown, he willing to give up
the location of a potential kill to the listener, if they “list to hunt,” or want to go hunting. The speaker
explains in the next line that although he wants to hunt, he “may no more.” Something is stopping
him.

Apart from that, there is a metaphor of the hind that presents the lady without any emotions or
feelings for the poet at the very beginning. The first two lines act as a warning to those who are chasing
after that lady hopefully. The poet knows the location of the hind. Once, he was also among them who
were after that chimeric creature. After understanding the reality of the creature, he stopped being
trapped in her looks and emotionless gestures. Hence, the poet says, “I may no more.” It seems like
the poet is saying he has got his punishment for following an illusion. And, it should be better if nobody
7

Lines 3-4
The vain travail hath wearied me so sore,
I am of them that farthest cometh behind.

Thereafter, in ‘Whoso List to Hunt’, Sir Thomas Wyatt, at the beginning of the third line, gives the
reader a bit more detail as to what is stopping the speaker. He sees the hunt of this particular “hind”
to be a “vain travail.” It is a task which will never be accomplished, there is no point in even attempting
to hunt her. He knows this to be the truth from experience.

The hunt has “wearied [him] so sore.” He has done his best in the past to complete this particular hunt
but is “of them that farthest cometh behind.” No matter how hard he tries he is in the group of people
who come last. The “group” to which he refers is a simple reference to the tradition of hunting among
friends and colleagues.

It is at this point in the poem that a reader might begin to expect that the poem is not referencing a
deer, but rather a woman. There is someone he has been seeking affection from for a long period,
without success. It is important to note how the speaker sees this woman. She is nothing more to him
than a problematic prize to be won, unusually difficult in this particular case, but he knows it must be
possible.

However, the speaker refers to his pursuit as a “vain travail”. It means that the labors of the poet were
fruitless. Due to undertaking such an arduous journey, he has become exhausted and hopeless as well.
His body isn’t wearied but his mind is. Thereafter, the poet refers to him as someone who lingers far
back in a group. It’s a reference to one’s self-knowledge that makes one more cautious hence slow-
going. After getting such a shock, the poet has become more calculative in his efforts in contrast to an
early beginner.

Lines 5–8
Yet may I by no means my wearied mind
Draw from the deer, but as she fleeth afore
Fainting I follow. I leave off therefore,
Sithens in a net I seek to hold the wind.

In the last four lines of the octave of ‘Whoso List to Hunt’, although the speaker is offering up the deer
or woman to someone else, he is unable to stop thinking about her. His “wearied mind” is trapped in
endless circles around her. He cannot “Draw from the deer” when all he sees is her fleeing “afore”
him. No matter how hard he tries he continues to “follow” along behind her. This is emphasized by his
use of the word “Fainting.” So strong is her influence over him that he is unable to stay conscious.

It is clear that the hunt has become something of an obsession and that his choice to give the woman
up is in an attempt to free himself from it. The last lines spell out his determination to free himself. He
will “leave off” and attempting to catch the woman. It is like seeking to “hold the wind” in one’s “net,”
an impossible task.
8

To sum up, when the speaker pursued that illusory deer, it fled away. The faster he chased the further
the distance grew in between them. At last, it left such an impression on the poet’s mind, that he fears
to take such a step in the future. The poet metaphorically says it was like catching the wind with a net.
Here, the wind refers to the frolicking nature of the lady and net is no doubt the poet’s desire to have
the lady in his life.

Lines 9–10
Who list her hunt, I put him out of doubt,
As well as I may spend his time in vain.

The sestet of ‘Whoso List to Hunt’ by Sir Thomas Wyatt, begins with an echo of the opening line. He
speaks to him “Who” may “list her hunt.” The speaker wants to tell this man that he will never be
successful, he too will soon understand the hunting of this “hind” to be an impossible task. The new
suitor will “spend his time in vain.” Moreover, in these two lines, the tone of the speaker becomes
stern and direct. It’s passionless and cold. The voice of the poetic persona reflects a sense of realization
that was harsh to digest at first.

However, in this section, Wyatt says those who are trying to go after the lady and asking for his help,
are wasting their time. No matter how much information the poet has about the lady, it will be useless
for them. The poet exemplifies the reason for saying so in the next few lines of the poem.

Lines 11–14

And graven with diamonds in letters plain

There is written, her fair neck round about:
Noli me tangere, for Caesar’s I am,
And wild for to hold, though I seem tame.

Here, in ‘Whoso List to Hunt’, Sir Thomas Wyatt describes the “letters” which are around the woman’s
neck. These “plain” letters spell out words with “diamonds.” It is unclear at this point what the words
are, but they are there for everyone to see in glittering, expensive detail. They are a tag of sorts for
this person. In the final lines, the speaker reveals what is written on the woman’s neck. It says, “Noli
me tangere,” which is Latin for, “Do not touch me.” This is a reference to a passage from the Bible in
which Jesus, in John 20:17, says, “touch me not” after rising from the dead. It also speaks to the current
owner of the woman, Caesar.

The deer cannot be caught due to the sheer power of Caesar’s ownership over her. She is “wild for to
hold,” or hard to hold onto, and perhaps dangerous, even if she seems to be “tame.” It has been
offered by historians that it is not Caesar to whom the speaker refers, but Henry VIII, the king of
England during this period.

In this way, the speaker provides the reason for not being able to win the lady’s heart. The letters of
the inscription around the hind’s neck have a shining quality that

refers to the truth of the writing. The reference to the “diamonds” in this section makes it clear how
9

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ENGLISH LITERATURE II
precious the deer is. However, on her neck, it is written, “Noli me tangere”. It means, “touch-me-not”.
So, it’s sacred too. Apart from that, the deer belongs to the Roman emperor, Caesar. Hence, it’s not
an ordinary deer that can be chased by such a lowly person like the poet himself. Lastly, the poet
creates a contrast. Here, the poet says not to trust the creature’s look as it seems tame but, in reality,
it’s a wild one. One can see her and applaud her beauty but can’t tame her with his desirous eyes.

- How does “The Long Love that in my Thought Doth Harbour” use the language of war to talk
about love?
From my point of view, Thomas Wyatt uses battle imagery in the poem, love is personified as an army,
camping in his mind and “spreading his banner” there. “And therein campeth, spreading his banner.”
When the woman rejects him he retreats, wounded, to a quiet field in which to die. “But in the field
with him to live and die?”

- “Whoso List to Hunt” is an adaptation of Petrarch’s Rima 190. Analyze Wyatt's sonnet in
terms of stanzas, meter and rhyme.
The meter is iambic pentameter, a pattern in which a line has five pairs of unstressed and stressed
syllables—ten syllables in all. However, several lines in "Whoso List to Hunt" have extra syllables. Lines
2 and 3 reveal the predominant iambic-pentameter pattern.
The rhyme scheme of "Whoso List to Hunt": (ABBAABBACDDCEE) (octave followed by sestet). The
rhyme scheme is as follows: (1) first stanza (octave): ABBA, ABBA; (2) second stanza (sestet):

- How is the language of hunting present in “Whoso List to Hunt”? For which purposes is it
used? Who is the hunter and who is the prey? Who is the hunter and who is the prey?

The hunter should be the author, that is after the deer or doe, that is his lover. The hind is the object
of his pursuit. The hind is Anne Boleyn.
How can the prey be also understood as someone's property? A doe is a property of a king who hunts
for enjoyment, to hunt the deer of another person is like stealing someone else’s property.

4 participants:

➔ I: poetic voice, hunter

➔ Hind: mistress, object of pursuit.
➔ Caesar: Caesar used to have deers, he put a necklace: noli me tangere, it means that Anne
Boleyn is Caesar's property, in reference to Henry VIII with Anne Boleyn. Any pursuit of the
hind is to be futile, it does not lead anywhere, because off limits, its someone else’s property.
➔ Whoso: those of who like the Anne Boleyn are in pursuit of the same pursuit. Collective figure,
people who are involved in this game of hunting.

The reference of Caesar, the reference to the lady is Anne Boleyn, Caesar can be the owner of that
lady, if it is Henry VIII, the woman can be regarded as submissive under the orders of a lord.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Wyatt describes a hunt wherein a deer is pursued and ultimately owned by the royal who owns the

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land. Scholars generally believe that the poem is an allegory referring to Anne Boleyn's courtship by
King Henry VIII, such that when Wyatt speaks of the deer as royal property not to be hunted by others,
he is acknowledging that Anne has become the property of the King alone. Wyatt was said to have
been interested in Anne—and may have been her lover—but would have withdrawn as a suitor after
the King made clear his wish to claim her.

The speaker chases a woman whom he cannot—and must not—catch, for she is a prize of the ruler of
the land. If the speaker continues to pursue her, he will incur the

wrath of the ruler and probably lose his head. In real life, King Henry VIII accused Wyatt of committing
adultery with his wife, Ann Boleyn (apparently the hind in the poem), and imprisoned him in the Tower
of London in 1536. The charges against him were dismissed. Ironically, it was Ann Boleyn who lost her
head in the same year as Wyatt's imprisonment after she fell out of favor with the king.
There comes a time when the wisest course in a struggle to achieve a goal is to cease striving. Such is
the case with the author of "Whoso List to Hunt," Thomas Wyatt. When pursuing Ann Boleyn, he
encounters an all-powerful rival, King Henry
VIII. What the headstrong Henry wants, he gets. Wyatt well knows that defying the headstrong Henry
can only result in an appointment with an executioner. Consequently, he yields to the king. Wyatt's
poem is an allegory that explains the futility of opposing an irresistible force.

CONTEXT: “Whoso List to Hunt”

Wyatt was imprisoned several times, once after being accused of being one of the lovers of Anne
Boleyn, who became the second wife of Henry VIII; Wyatt was able to watch Boleyn's execution in
1536 from his prison cell in the Tower of London. Within months, he had been cleared of charges and
was freed. In 1540, Wyatt's patron, Cromwell, was executed, and the following year Wyatt was
arrested yet again. Nevertheless, he once again found favor in the court.

Wyatt describes a hunt wherein a deer is pursued and ultimately owned by the royal who owns the
land. Scholars generally believe that the poem is an allegory referring to Anne Boleyn's courtship by
King Henry VIII, such that when Wyatt speaks of the deer as royal property not to be hunted by others,
he is acknowledging that Anne has become the property of the King alone. Wyatt was said to have
been interested in Anne—and may have been her lover—but would have withdrawn as a suitor after
the King made clear his wish to claim her.

• COMPARISON BETWEEN THE TRANSLATION OF PETRARCH’s rhyme AND WYATT’s version:

Petrarch idealized women, (the doe) for instance, in the second stanza, the third line “She's so perfect
I would leave my life to be with her” in the same stanza, comparing her with a treasure, horns of gold,
she's of the purest shade of white, in the third stanza, no one can touch me. Being unreachable also in
the way that she vanishes. while Wyatt did not do that. OUT OF THIS WORLD BEAUTY, love that the
poetic voice has for her, exaggeration, dominion she has over him, sonneteers participate in all of
these conventions.

Depiction of an idealized scene, in Wyatt we have at the center of the poem the “I”, “this is what

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happens to me when in pursuit of the doe”, the mistress occasionally appears in the poem, but this
poem is sharing the own experience of hunting this prize and sharing with all of the men.

There is no idealization, there used to be and idealization in Petrarch, and there is no idealization in
Wyatt, it is about himself and his own experience, he no longer believes in appearances, even though
she might tame, she is wild, truthfully her true nature, concealed behind appearances is of a wild
animal, it has negative connotations for Wyatt.

CODE OF CHIVALRY IS A CONVENTION, it does not have the same meaning as now.

Different view to the representation of the mistress and hind, there is a de-idealization of the mistress
herself.

- Taking into account that “Whoso List to Hunt” is said to refer to Anne Boleyn, what is the
meaning of the figure of the hind in the poem? And the reference to Caesar?

The reference to Caesar, is a reference to Henry VIII, any pursuit of the hind was bound to be futile,
because it was the king’s property.

The object of the hunt in Wyatt's sonnet is a hind, a female deer, which is held to represent the person
of Anne Boleyn. The deer is hunted as prey and wears a collar that proclaims her ruler's ownership
over her.

The concluding couplet notes that the collar reads "Noli me tangere," or "Touch me not" in Latin. Thus,
the first part of the warning is "Touch me not, for Caesar's I am." According to legend, long after the
ancient Roman emperor Caesar's death, white stags were found wearing collars on which were
inscribed the words "Noli me tangere; Caesaris sum," or "Touch me not; I am Caesar's." The first part
of that phrase, "Noli me tangere," is also a quotation from the Vulgate Bible, from John 20:17, when
Christ tells Mary Magdalene, "Do not touch me, for I have not yet ascended to my Father." In the final
line, the warning on the collar continues: the deer herself declares that while she appears tame,
holding her is dangerous, as she is wild.

- How are the motifs of wildness and tameness used in “Whoso List to Hunt” and “They Flee
from Me” to reflect on the changing sympathies and hostilities in Henry VIII’s court? How do
women appear in Wyatt’s poetry as indicators of such changes?

Contrast between past and present:

- PAST: POPULAR with women, success and reverence at court, acknowledged and respected,
enjoyed favors from the king.
- PRESENT: women avoid him, because he may have lost power in court, Wyatt was imprisoned,
almost executed, this changes his fortunes, the way he was perceived changed after his
imprisonment. He is someone to be avoided at all costs.

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Women become an indicator of change, he is against lamenting his misfortunes, it is a cry for a way to
protest, to change their behavior. He puts the blame on the women, his change of status within court
has changed and women as opposed to blaming the king for his change of position at his court. It is an
attack of mutability and change in the court, the easy way is to blame women and mistresses and not
the king.
The elements that have changed are:

- Women appear as animals, in the figures of the doe, in whoso list to hunt, and in “they flee
from me” , they exhibit animal behavior, as if they were pets, you can feed them with your
hands, they are tame, meek, wild etc. Wyatt portrays women as animals, in the past he fed
them, they did whatever he wanted them to do, transforming into wild animals.

★ They flee from me – Thomas Wyatt ★

They flee from me that sometime did me seek

With naked foot, stalking in my chamber.

I have seen them gentle, tame, and meek,

That now are wild and do not remember

That sometime they put themself in danger

To take bread at my hand; and now they range,

Busily seeking with a continual change.

Thanked be fortune it hath been otherwise

Twenty times better; but once in special,

In thin array after a pleasant guise,

When her loose gown from her shoulders did fall,

And she me caught in her arms long and small;

Therewithall sweetly did me kiss

And softly said, ‘Dear heart, how like you this?’

It was no dream: I lay broad waking.

But all is turned thorough my gentleness

Into a strange fashion of forsaking;

And she also, to use newfangleness.

But since that I so kindly am served

I would fain know what she hath deserved.

INDICATORS OF CHANGE past vs present. Emphasizing mutability

o She (Unnamed women) becomes an instance of the multiple women who would seek him. A
scene that was frequent in the past he was sought by females at night.
o “Thanked be fortune it hath been otherwise” happy past vs unfortunate present, things are
falling apart.
o That sometime they put themself in danger (in the past)
o REFERENCE TO FASHION: elements of What is used TO CONCEAL TRUTH, it is changing and
covers, and does not reveal the main things. “Into a strange fashion of forsaking” fashion is
always evolving and changing, fashion comes and goes, fashion is something mutable. In
relation with fashion “In thin array after a pleasant guise, When her loose gown from her
shoulders did fall” references to attire. Fashion is misleading, does not reveal what it truly is.

Those woman who in the past chased him, they were involved and now they avoid him, this is similar
to whoso list to hunt, The “I” is the center of the poem, there is a sense of trying to reassure himself,
he's clearly lost, he does not know how he feels about it.
“ It was no dream: I lay broad waking.” This means that this was real, all of the things he lived, the
women who tried to step into his room.
Contrast between past and present:

o PAST: POPULAR with women, success and reverence at court, acknowledged and respected,
enjoyed favors from the king.
o PRESENT: women avoid him, because he maybe has lost power in court, Wyatt was
imprisoned, almost executed, this changes his fortunes, the way he was perceived changed
after his imprisonment. He is someone to be avoided at all costs.

★ My Galley - Thomas Wyatt ★

My galley, chargèd with forgetfulness,

Thorough sharp seas in winter nights doth pass

'Tween rock and rock; and eke mine en'my, alas,

That is my lord, steereth with cruelness;

And every owre a thought in readiness,

An endless wind doth tear the sail apace

Of forced sighs and trusty fearfulness.

A rain of tears, a cloud of dark disdain,

Hath done the weared cords great hinderance;

Wreathèd with error and eke with ignorance.

The stars be hid that led me to this pain;

Drownèd is Reason that should me comfort,

And I remain despairing of the port.

HENRY HOWARD, EARL OF SURREY

- The Soote Season.
- Love, that Doth Reign and Live within my Thought.
- Alas! So All Things Now Do Hold Their Peace.
- Th’Assyrians’ King, in Peace with Foul Desire.

Surrey’s poetry cannot be understood without going back to Wyatt's contribution, and this is not
something that critics have established over the course of time, Surrey acknowledged during his
lifetime. He was friends with Wyatt, in fact, when Wyatt died, Surrey wrote an epitaph “Wyatt rested
her, we can never rest”, mourning the loss of what he thought was one of the greatest poems. He
established a parallel between Wyatt's poems and Chaucer, there was no greater grace than
comparing that person to Chaucer. There are no 16th century authors that can compare to Chaucer at
that time. Surrey wrote a gratification of Wyatt. He thought of Wyatt as a model to follow, he wrote a
loyal positioning in favor of his friend Wyatt.

He was a choleric character, he was known for being a conflictive man, he was arrested and had some
trouble with other people that he confronted physically, he was a professional soldier, he participated
in military campaigns in Scotland in France. He served the king abroad

Henry Howard was not a professional writer, he was a quartier, he was of the greatest family of the
highest aristocracy, related to Henry VIII’s wives, the second and the fifth, there was nothing for him
to prove, he was learned in classical languages, Italian, French.

He translated the Aeneid, in what would become the form of English Drama, which is Blank verse.
Blank verse essentially means unrhymed iambic pentameter.

The invention of Blank verse, meant freeing a iambic pentameter from the corset of rhyme, which was
a liberation when it comes to writing drama, some were written in rhymed form, but Blank verse
15

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ENGLISH LITERATURE II
sounds like natural speech, this is a feature that characterizes playwriting in the modern period.

SURREY.
- Poet, translator (part of Virgil’s Aeneid in blank verse [unrhymed iambic pentameter]), and
soldier
- Sir Thomas Wyatt > Surrey's poetical mentor.
- In October 1543 Henry VIII sent Surrey to a military campaign in northern France.
- In 1546 Surrey (being lieutenant-general), was replaced and summoned back to England:
Henry VIII had received reports of treachery, of irregularities and mismanagement regarding
victuals and munitions.

Surrey left France, believing that he would return, BUT, cold reception + denied access to the king +
his accounts investigated.

A grand jury tried Surrey under the Treason Act: the sole charge, that he had
displayed in his own heraldry the royal arms and insignia interpreted as threatening the king's title to
the throne and the prince's inheritance.
• At his trial he pleaded not guilty and was executed 19 January 1547 Henry VIII died on 28
January 1547. The 28 of that month Henry VIII died.

In 1546, we find the decline of Surrey, he went from lieutenant to being sent back home by order of
the king, in prison, tried and executed, accused of treacherous acts against the king. Being again in
France, Henry VIII, Surrey returned to England, he thought that he would go back to the fields of
France, but this did not happen.

Surrey, was of an important, powerful family aristocratic family, he was not judged only because of
Henry VIII reports, allegedly receives of his conduct, but in consequence of that, his family as a whole
was being watched, and his privileges are taken away from him and his family, his father was
imprisoned as well. He tried to defend his innocence, the only charge that was thrown against him
heraldry the royal arms and insignia.

Surrey is very critical of Henry VIII, in the same way that Wyatt was, in very veiled, careful, cautious
language, trying to avoid direct allusions. There are always references to Henry VIII, such as Jupiter and
Caesar.

★ “The Soote Season “– Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey ★

The soote season, that bud and bloom forth brings

With green hath clad the hill and eke the vale;

The nightingale with feathers new she sings;

And turtle to her make hath told her tale.

The hart hath hung his old head on the pale;

The buck in brake his winter coat he flings;

The fishes flete with new repairèd scale;

The adder all her slough away she slings;

The swift swalllow pursueth the flies small;

The busy bee her honey now she mings;

Winter is worn that was the flowers' bale.

And thus I see among these pleasant things

Each care decays, and yet my sorrow springs.

There is a contrast between the outside world and the inside world. The situation he described is
beautiful and ideal like “locus amoenus”.

Description of bucolic ideal, in the middle of this peaceful nature, and all the different natural
elements, the Soote Season is the sweet season. The introduction of the “I” element is disruptive, in
the middle of a depiction of an idealized natural scenario, the only element in disharmony is the poetic
voice. He is stuck in winter time. Verbs of movements: sling.

It is not a stable situation, they go through changes. It can symbolize the indifference of nature, nature
being oblivious to personal states. Poetic phallacy: nature does not mirror the state of the poetic “I”,
they go in opposite directions.

The Soote Season is another adaptation of one of Petrarch’s rhymes, it is an adaptation of rime 310,
the differences that while Petrarch’s was thought to be in prison to be after the death of the beloved,
Surrey does not mention the idea of the beloved being dead. It is an act of expressing sorrow, in a
situation that it is not ideal.

Poetic voice that is enamored of a mistress, and his love is not corresponded. The Soote Season is the
display of rhetorical devices. Surrey used repetition and poetic devices typical of the type. This idea of
playing with seasons and times of the year to represent different states of mind and emotion.

There is a contrast between summer and winter, that runs in parallel, between the inner life of the
poet and the external life that surrounds the poetic voice, who seems to be isolated in his own mystery
amongst a blooming nature. It is about the revival, the growth, the rebirth of nature. Among all of
these natural elements and animals that show a happy life, the attitude from the nightingale to the
bee, to the adder (animals who would also be considered to be predators and dangers).

Certain verbs of movement to illustrate this careless attitude and liberation: flinging.

The poetic voice is trapped in his own winter time, there is a sense of accumulation and how the final
line establishes that contrast and places with that idea of increment and decrease in a way that
challenges a former use of the verb “Springs”. This verb in the second stanza is repeated in the final
line of the poem, to point out the difference between when everyone else’s cares decay.

★ “Love, that Doth Reign and Live within my Thought” – Henry Howard ★

Love that doth reign and live within my thought

And built his seat within my captive breast,

Clad in arms wherein with me he fought,

Oft in my face he doth his banner rest.

But she that taught me love and suffer pain,

My doubtful hope and eke my hot desire

With shamefaced look to shadow and refrain,

Her smiling grace converteth straight to ire.

And coward Love, then, to the heart apace

Taketh his flight, where he doth lurk and 'plain,

His purpose lost, and dare not show his face.

For my lord's guilt thus faultless bide I pain,

Yet from my lord shall not my foot remove,

Sweet is the death that taketh end by love.

And built his seat within my captive breast,

• “CAPTIVE” IN THE POEM: captured by his heart, he is a prisoner of his heart.

The poetic voice is subject to love, but on top of that, he is completely powerless, and hence, the idea
of captivity. Love is a warrior who is also the lord of the poetic voice, the poetic voice is subject to it,
the poetic voice acknowledges love as a king like figure that reigns his thought and lives in his heart.

1. In Wyatt’s poem, the sea is important for the imagery of the poem, in surrey’s poem it doesn’t
have that imagery. The sea is not present in Surrey’s poem.
2. The figure of love by Surrey is more violent, because in Wyatt, love is not fighting against it,
the references to fighting are more relevant in Surrey’s poem, the explicit acknowledgement
of fighting in Surrey’s poem. Love is more dominant in Wyatt’s poem.
3. Surrey’s beloved is angry and changes her attitude towards him, and this goes back to Wyatt,
that they seem meek and tame, truthfully they are wild. They share the impression of women
having the same appearances, “smiling grace”, and changing into a wild nature, there is a
different sort of temperament. Although Wyatt acknowledges love to be his master, Surrey’s
love is a different kind of love.
4. Surrey’s usage of the words: Coward love. The word “coward” had a negative meaning in a
warlike society. Surrey is a soldier, this is not an abstract idea of cowardness and bravery,
embedded on the field, this is a soldier that also writes poetry.
5. In both poems love hides and flees, how is the conduct of both master and lord seems to be
the same? Is there a change of portrayal of this fleeing?
6. The main difference between them is that Surrey portrays love in a more negative light
“Coward love”, whereas Wyatt does it in a way that kind of takes it less personally, he is not
as negative towards the idea of love. SURREY is angry with that love, and WYATT is accepting
it.
7. Surrey’s love is more violent, the portrayal of the beloved, who is represented as someone

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who becomes furious at the poetic voice, in the way that Wyatt’s mistress does not.
8. When it comes to Surrey, is a soldier who writes poetry, the code of conduct that a soldier
would have is also pervasive of his own poetry and so the fact that Surrey accuses his love
to be a coward lord, is a very serious accusation. One for which Surrey is angry at his own
feelings, however the conclusion seems to be the same, it is acknowledged that despite
everything the best death is by love. “Sweet is the death that taketh end by love”.
9. The attitudes of both poetic voices are very distant and nothing alike.

• The main difference between them is that Surrey portrays love in a more negative light
“Coward love”, whereas Wyatt does it in a way that kind of takes it less personally, he is not
as negative towards the idea of love. SURREY is angry with that love, and WYATT is accepting
it.

The two loves are different in character, while Wyatt owns his love, and does not want to abandon it,
even though he has to live with his love inside, he does not renounce to this feeling, while Surrey, if he
can't love openly, his love has no purpose, it has to be left, and has nothing else to do, it is hopeless. If
it can’t be real, it is not worth it. He is not loving for the purpose of love, he abandons the idea of love.

“His purpose lost”, means he has lost this vassal, the purpose is the objective, his warlike confrontation
in Surrey’s poem is lost. This purpose relates to the fulfilment of lust/hot desire, which is present
phrased as lust, ultimately, that is his purpose. If he loses that the main goal is fulfilment of lust. Making
it so obvious to the mistress, that’s why she gets so angry.

• There is a change of attitude in the poetic voice, in Wyatt he accepts his situation: love is his
master, he pursues something, he loses and retreats, but in the field within to live and die,
there is an acceptance of love, the acceptance is graceful. The implication that after all,
obeying being a servant to the master.

Whereas, Surrey who is a soldier is angry at love, he is disappointed at love. He is held captive by love,
he has no power to leave this subjection, he can’t do anything about it even though his love is cowardly.
It is a coward idiotic love, and despite myself, even If he is very furious at this lord that dishonored
him, he has to endure the situation.

• WITH REFERENCE TO “THE SOOTE SEASON”

Animal imagery is present throughout both of the poems, in “The Soote Season”, the poet mentions
different animals such as the nightingale, the turtledove, the hart (which stands for deer), the buck
(which is a horned animal), the fish, the adder (which is snake), the swallow, and the bees.

The author emphasizes how each of the animals and plants are going through changes, for instance,
the green grass now covers the valleys and the snake is shedding her skin.

Sorrow is conveyed as something inevitable although positive events even when happy events take
place around him, he can’t help but to feel depressed.

Surrey plays with a series of opposite ideas, in the way that this poem can be divided into two parts
according to the poetic persona’s attitude, the first first thirteen lines describe the beautiful changes
that animals and plants go through during spring, and they are all positive events. Nevertheless, the
negative part comes at the end of the poem, in line 14 “Each care decays, and yet my sorrow springs.”

This poem is trying to convey the idea that no matter how happy the things that surround us are, if we
are not truly happy inside, we’ll still be sad.

• WITH REFERENCE TO “Alas! So All Things Now Do Hold Their Peace”

Everything around the poetic persona is peaceful and quiet: the animals, the air, the sea everything is
calm. Nevertheless, the poetic persona emphasizes that love controls him, and keeps showing him the
one who is the cause of his desire.

Surrey plays with a series of opposite ideas, when he is shown the person he wants it makes him cry
and sing, because love makes him experience contradictory emotions.

Sorrow is present in the poem, when love shows the poetic persona the person he loves, however, it
has to do with the idea of unrequited love, because in the last line “To live and lack the thing should
rid my pain.” He explains that he lacks the person who takes his pain away.

★”Alas! So All Things Now Do Hold Their Peace” – Henry Howard ★

Love that doth reign and live within my thought

And built his seat within my captive breast,

Clad in arms wherein with me he fought,

Oft in my face he doth his banner rest.

My doubtful hope and eke my hot desire

With shamefaced look to shadow and refrain,

Her smiling grace converteth straight to ire.

And coward Love, then, to the heart apace

Taketh his flight, where he doth lurk and 'plain,

His purpose lost, and dare not show his face.

For my lord's guilt thus faultless bide I pain,

Yet from my lord shall not my foot remove,--

Sweet is the death that taketh end by love.

Everything in nature is calm and peaceful, while he is disturbed. We can find a contrast between the
organic world and the poetics persona world. The poem takes place at night time, when everything
goes quiet.

Why is he waking up? He is thinking about his loved one, he is probably in bed, and everything is quiet,
and he can’t sleep. There is a reference to the beloved, he feels a contrast between he is thinking about
pleasure but at the same time he is in grief, in pain, because of the lack of pleasure.

JUXTAPOSITION:SWEET THOUGHTS THAT BRING PLEASURE/ GRIEF, joy/woe.

Opposite emotions. It is an oxymoron being constructed, weep/sing, joy/woe, doubtful ease, sweet
thoughts that bring pleasure, they are the cause of my disease.

The poetic voice experiences all the pleasure of loving and the pain of not getting any in return from
his beloved. He is not correspond, the antidote that would cease my disease is never going to be
obtainable.

CLASE ROCIO 4/3/2021

Natural elements and natural contexts to illustrate the context of the sorrow of the poetic voice. It is
a poem of unrequited love. It is not about the seasons, it is about a time of day, that is nighttime. When
at night everything is silent, and the day decreases. Even predators and dangers such as the waves or
the air, that can cause chaos, all of these are in peace.

This is the contrast between his increase of his own desires, going in the direction of joy but also in the
direction of woe, they point at him being miserable. The reason is that for the disease of the poetic
voice experiences, the pain is experiencing that disease, and joy is feeling enamored. This gives the
poetic voice a pang of pain inwardly.

What is at the center of the poem is the “I” the poetic voice and his feelings.

★ “Th’Assyrians’ King, in Peace with Foul Desire” – Henry Howard ★

• In war, that should set princely hearts afire, vanquished did yield for want (for lack) of martial
art.: While war should set princely hearts afire (ignite/candle), he was defeated because he
lacked dexterity /skills at the art of war (Martial arts). He disappointed everybody because he
was defeated, as a result of his poor skills at the art of war.
• In peace with foul desire= he was okay with his bad habits, he was unrepentant, he did not
feel guilty. In peace is an accusation, he is not at war, he is proud of being comfortable at court,
the use of peace is a reinforcement that he is not in war.
• “Feeble of sprite, unpatient of pain”: he is not capable of withstanding the pain, he is not a
soldier, that is an expectation of soldiers.
• “Storms appalled with dread” scared when the storm comes. he is quick to boast when things
are alright, but when things go wrong he is scared to act.

CONTRAST; opposite things that can establish a contrast that by looking at how they feel, how they
sound...

REVIEWING OF HIS FAULTS:

1. He is a bad king, the best thing he did was to commit suicide, he is accused of sins such as
gluttony, sloth, cowardice, dirty, he is unmanly. The accusation of being effeminate which was
seen as a serious insult, “Murdered himself, to show some manful deed”. The only display of
valor and courage was to kill himself.
2. Surrey blames him of being filled with lust and gluttony, he is also of being someone that's
really eager to boast and to make himself look good, but when problem arrives, he does not
know how to react. GLUTTONY: “Glutton feats vs soldier’s fare” comparing what a king eats

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and what a soldier eats in campaign. He is a glutton that is not used to what soldiers eat.
3. LUST: Sloth and womanish delight: “The dint of swords seemed strange to kisses”, he was used
to having ladies at court beside him. The accusation that is implicit here is that he was not used
to fighting in war, he was used to being with women, he is not a real warrior. The sound of
swords is strange to him because he is used to the sound of kisses. His natural element is at
court surrounded by women. “His targe is harder than the lady”: he is not used to being with
his shield, he is used to having women always by his side.
4. “His helmet, far above a garland’s charge” A garland you would find in classic figures in bucolic
environments, this has nothing to do with warriors and wars. It is not the head peace that a
soldier would wear to protect himself. A garland is something a nymph would wear and not a
caesar. Garland is something that a woman would wear.

• SECOND STANZA: The contrast. no matter how bad the warrior, he is completely out of place
in a battlefield, his environment is a court is a gentle and comfortable court, full of women.

CLASE ROCIO 9/3/2021

It is a veiled criticism of Henry VIII, and his court. Surrey had a specific humor and temperament, he
was a soldier and one of the greatest attacks that could be addressed, he was calling that person a
coward, accusing that person of being unmanly.
• He attacked King Henry VIII under the mask of the Assyrian king and Sardanapalus, he was
someone who was unused to warfare, who was a poor leader in general. In terms of wealth,
the king is described as someone who is proud and in problematic times he was appalled with
dread, that is another way to highlight that cowardice, that is recurrent throughout the poem.
• We have another form of criticism after this idea that he was a womanizer, and he was a
glutton. This is Henry VIII who is portrayed as Sardanapalus, the only manly thing Surrey holds
that he would do is to kill himself after the example of Sardanapalus, that was the epitome of
tyranny and of a tyrant. It is a general criticism of his court (nobility and aristocracy that was
forming at that time). Surrey proved his ability at military deeds.
• The Assyrian kings poem has been read as having been written after the beheading of Henry
VIII’s fifth wife. Catherine Howard, who was related to Surrey, surrey was also related to Anne
Boleyn. There is the idea of circa regna tonat in which he refers to that striking side that he
gave through the bell tower, from which he saw the beheading of Anne Boleyn.

Wyatt wrote a poem in which he lamented the threat that entailed being close the king that is “Jupiter”
and Surrey’s own version of this poem acquires a more literal tone against Henry VIII, in Assyrian king
after the beheading of another queen Catherine Howard in 1542 a couple of years before Surrey’s fall
in disgrace. He was beheaded in 1547.

• Surrey's reference to the Assyrians’ king (i.e. Sardanapalus) in “Th’Assyrians’ King, in Peace
with Foul Desire” may allude to Henry VIII. How does Surrey describe the monarch and his
exercise of power in the poem?

ROCIO: SARDANAPALUS.

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This is the Assyrian king in peace with foul desire, it is a poem against Henry VIII, about the Assyrian
king is no other than Sardanapalus: figure of tyranny from classical times to a romantic interpretation
of Sardanapalus. The death of Sardanapalus was by committing suicide. The idea that a king should
commit suicide to prove his courage: the only act of violence to proof courage is violence against
himself. The Assyrian king is Sardanapalus in origin, typically read as a parallel figure to Henry VIII.
Sardanapalus becomes Surrey's shield to protect himself from his own complaint about Henry VIII's
attitude and reign.

THOMAS MORE

Thomas More was a political agent at the court of Henry VIII, and he was powerful at that time, he was
no stranger to Henry VIII’s changing attitudes and whims. Long before his own fall and beheading in
1535, he wrote these poems, precisely reflecting on notions of government and authority and how to
be a good king. Thomas more was a statesman, he was a chancellor, he is beyond being a Humanist,
he was a friend of Erasmus.

In these poems he goes back to his classical sources and writes these short reflections on power and
authority, in different forms, one of them the fable.

These are Thomas More’s reflections on government, what he does in his Latin poems is precisely
thinking about being a monarch and being a king. Henry Howard is not the only to question how the
exercise of power should be done and Henry Howard approaches him from his own perspective.

Thomas More approaches this from a slightly different angle as he is one of the humanists in Europe,
he approaches this not as a warrior, but as someone who is learned on government and the ideal role
of government. This is a selection of paraphrases of Thomas More on how the exercise of power should
be done.

• In this fable he goes back to classical sources and on top of that chooses a different mask for
his own allusions of Henry VIII, the lion. It is recurrent to refer to Henry VIII in different ways
such as Jupiter, o Caesar in Wyatt. Surrey compared Henry VIII to Sardanapalus and Thomas
More chooses a fable. It is not something that it is from a classical past, a lion that represents
the king of the jungle.

PRINCIPLES: The good king is like a father not a master, that a good king and people, that the tyrant is
no different from the commoner, that the king bad king is like a wolf.

People closer to Henry VIII, also politically Thomas more, was Henry VIII’s right arm for years and years
and he was the main chancellor of the land, he was the one who would have to deal with Henry VIII.
He is also critical of the form of government that revolves around the king who looks after his own
wishes prior to those of his people.

Thomas More writes about tyranny and the figure of the tyrant, there is an implicit criticism of the
exercise of power of Henry VIII.

1. More was well aware of the challenges and the dangers of being involved in public
service, particularly under the orders of a mighty king. How does he show this
awareness? Why is the king likened to a lion? How is the counsellor at his service

FABLE OF THE SICK FOX: who says no to a lion, after he is wounded because his tongue has healing
powers.

He shows his awareness of telling people that they should not trust the lion, it says that even if it has
healing powers, they should not trust the lion. The fable means that the king is portrayed as someone
who is inseparable from his court, and the perils of association it applies to courtiers and the king in
general, Wyatt complained in his poem “They flee from me”, about this.

2. Discuss how Wyatt, Surrey and More refer, in a veiled manner, to Henry VIII, his court,
and his government. Do you find any similarities? Any differences?

There is an awareness of the perils of being involved in public service, when he talks to a courtier, he
says that the king is unpredictable and they should not trust, you shouldn't play with tamed lions. The
king is a tamed lion, however it is unpredictable. The same ideas are reflected in Wyatt and Surrey, the
tameness, the unpredictability which relies on animal imagery. And the same message in Wyatt 's circa
regna tonat. The king does not relieve you from anxiety.

• Thomas More gives some advice to Thomas Cromwell. What advice does he give him?
26

He tells him that you should do what he tells you to do, but never tell him what he is able to do. He is
the king, he would do everything that is in power, what he wants is more power and he does not care
about his people. In the 16 and the 17 centuries, there was a political genre on how to give advice to
kings and how to be a good counselor. One of the problems of giving counsel kings how to be truthful
and at the same time honest and provide honest advice, and how to protect yourself from the fury of
an almighty king such as Henry VIII. It’s a common topic of political literature?

3. What makes a monarch a good king and what makes him a tyrant according to More?

A GOOD KING: In the good king and his people, is analogy of the body politic and the human body, the
king is acknowledged to be the head of the political party. The king is thought to be the main element
in the body. Everyone thinks of him as the head of his own body, but he needs to listen to them, and
take into account the opinions of them and their social conditions that normally kings do not entail. If
you are a good king, you want the best for your country and the people in your country
A TYRANT: If you are a tyrant you only care about being wealthy.
INSISTENCE OF COHERENCE CRITERIA: what you are saying it’s not what you want to do.

- The idea of the wolf: a wolf is seen as a symbol of cruelty or treason. A wolf does not really
take care of other wolves.

SHEEP AND WOLF:

In the comparison to the wolf, to see how that wolf analogy you should look at the sheep. Precisely
what you should protect you attack from. The king would be the one saving their people from the wolf,
you bite you eat, you become a danger to your own people. A tyrant would be the danger itself in the
figure of the wolf, a good king would save people.

4. Discuss how Wyatt, Surrey and More refer, in a veiled manner, to Henry VIII, his court,
and his government. Do you find any similarities? Any differences?

While Thomas More uses more animal imagery and mainly the lion for the king and the wolf for the
tyrant, than Surrey and Wyatt, they use other images coming from the past such as Caesar, Jupiter and
Sardanapalus.

- SIMILARITIES: WILDNESS, AND TAMENESS AND THE PRETENTION OF BEING

UNRELIABLE. They are not trustworthy.
- DIFFERENCES: There is an awareness of the perils of being involved in public service, when he
talks to a courtier, he says that the king is unpredictable and they should not trust, you
shouldn't play with tamed lions. The king is a tamed lion, however it is unpredictable. The same
ideas are reflected in Wyatt and Surrey, the tameness, the unpredictability which relies on
animal imagery. And the same message in Wyatt 's circa regna tonat. The king does not relieve
you from anxiety.

TYRANNY: Robert Burton: the anatomy of melancholy was an encyclopedia of melancholy, it was
thought to be a humor. For instance, hamlet. Melancholy is a disease, a tendency of disease, there is
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a specific type of melancholy which is love melancholy which pervades the sonnets of this time.

Surreys: alas know things now hold their peace: reference to disease and parallels between disease
and love. To encompass another understanding of disease, love and tyranny. There is a political
extension of love, but not only into the realm of disease, but also in the realm of love. In Surrey’s poem,
in “Love that doth reign and live within my thought” Love is acknowledged as a lord, which Wyatt
would say as a master. The language of feelings and sentiments, the other metaphors associated with
political structure, also affects the idea of tyranny.

• This cowardly love that keeps me captive, the same language in this sonnet about love is the
language that we find in “The Assyrian king”. The conceptualization as another tyrant, we can
establish this parallelism, love is though not only lord or master but also as a tyrant. That can
cause pain and turn against myself as the wolf turns against his sheep.
• The same ambiguity, the political and personal behavior of Henry VIII as someone that can’t
restore power under power, who is a danger, who is a tame lion who can at any time turn and
become a very real threat. The same duality and ambiguity and emotional stress or anxiety
that Thomas More puts it we find it in love as a feeling. Even if we have political sonnets such
as the Assyrian’s king, and “Love that doth reign within my thought” they have the same
language, because there is the same political squeme, that produces the same kinds of poems
that rely on the same perception of love and political power.
• It is coincidental about one of the emotions and the same kind of language.

KING POSITIVE AND TYRANT NEGATIVE: Thomas More does not question monarchy, what we find is
that the same statement that truthfully the king should be considered the head of a family. There is
no question about that, there is no question that Henry VIII is a tyrant, however, there is no criticism
about the exercise of power and king power itself. Tyranny is embodied in Sardanapalus, it is tyranny
itself.

Born in London, poet and administrator in Ireland, not an aristocrat at birth. His father was a member
of the Merchant Taylors' Company OR an ordinary journeyman Spenser’s claims to gentleman status
came through his own achievements (a university degree - Cambridge) and acquisition of land in
Ireland. TRADE AND COMMERCE (MIDDLE CLASS). He published his works. Spenser matriculated at
Pembroke College, Cambridge, in 1569 as a sizar (/ˈsʌɪzə/)—a poor scholar who earned his bed and
board by performing a series of servant's duties.
In 1580 he became private secretary to Arthur, Lord Grey of Wilton, who was appointed lord deputy
of Ireland He lived in Ireland until his death, returning to England for official and literary business.

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“Spenser's transactions indicate how easy it was for ‘new’ English civil servants, soldiers, and
adventurers to acquire land and wealth well beyond what they could have expected to gain had they
remained in England. It is unlikely that Spenser would have been able to become a gentleman in
England, and this change in status may also explain why he chose to pursue a career in Ireland. Many
of the properties in question were confiscated from Irish ‘rebels’. ”

➔ THE AMORETTI

It is not an ideal unobtainable mistress, it is a sonnet sequence written for the woman who would
become his wife, published after the marriage took place.
THERE IS A TWIST FROM WYATT, even though Petrarch pervades all of the sonnets produces, Petrarch
is challenged to do something very different. Who would become Spenser’s wife. An expression of an
idealized love, some scholars claim that it was a trigger to write poetry, it was platonic idealized.
Spenser’s sonnet sequence Amoretti (1595) = total of 88 sonnets. Wooing not of an ideal or
unattainable woman, but of his future wife Elizabeth Boyle (in June 1594 Spenser had married her as
his second wife)

- The courtship and marriage are represented in the sonnet sequence Amoretti; Epithalamion
is a genre consolidated with a nuptial sonnet, in praise of who were spouses of the marriage
hymn. Celebrates the marriage of the poetic voice/author to his actual wife/ mistress.

Amoretti is a sonnet sequence (a number of poems that relate to each other in various ways, they have
a thread that is connected to each other, and supposed to be presented to the beloved.) that
celebrates the fact that he woes Elizabeth Boyle who would become his second wife. It is an addressee
that Spenser knows and he constructs this elaborate rhetorical wooing strategy.

★ SONNET 34. “Lyke as a Ship, that Through the Ocean Wyde” – Edmund Spenser ★

- What does the ship represent? As the ship goes astray when the pole stars disappear behind
the clouds, so is the condition of the lover whose guiding star has disappeared leaving him in
the stormy seas.
- Till then I wander careful comfortless: I am looking for my guidance, when it shines again, it
will all be good. The use of language of weather.

The poetic voice is lost, the language used is of storms and not having directions, he looks for a star
that might guide him. The language used the misery of the poetic voice and the fact is that he is
completely lost.

MY GALLEY: ‘Mine enemy’, ‘my lord’ [also, the captain of ‘my galley’, i.e. the poetic persona]= love as
a feeling.
The symbols provided and the comparison is that the other sonnet is an allegory, the galley emphasizes
the position with the term mind.
➔ My galley charged with forgetfulness: everything except of love

My Galley: something in his possession that entails love and nothing else. The sonneteer's love was for
someone faithful and unrequited love.

- Ultimate despair in the case of Wyatt. Spenser sonnet: he is waiting for love, he has some
hope, he sees love as something positive. There is a note of hope in Spenser, the poetic voice
is convinced that the guidance star will shine again. Storm full of secrets but things will change
again.

WHAT'S “CLOUDED” IN SPENSER? He can’t search for stars. Spenser is optimistic, he is waiting for the
encounter in the name of love. He is suffering but he is hoping for the star to be there.
Spenser has a phenomenal force, the idea of the star.

COMPARISON WITH “MY GALLEY” WYATT: HIS OWN EMOTIONAL STATE.

1. Also adapts and translates every translation of Petrarch's rime 189, which has this conceit
of the poetic voice being in the midst of the ocean as it were a ship, without any purpose,
in fear of finding the rocks and sinking.
2. Wyatt’s pessimism in opposition to Spenser’s optimism. In Spenser use of this rhetorical
analogy, what appears to be is the notion of the star. The poetic voice is a ship that through
the wide ocean is lost, nonetheless looks for this star to find a purpose. The poetic voice is
positive that he will see it in the future: “Yet I hope… /Until that happens” never giving up
the idea that the beloved in the form of the shining star will rescue the poetic voice in that
process of wandering in the middle of the storm.
3. Emotional state, emotional grief in forms of clouds and storm.
4. The emphasis falls on the star, on finding the beloved. Wyatt's my galley there is no
comfort to the poetic voice, the poetic voice is in despair, is hopeless of finding the port,
the poetic voice defines himself as a galley whose enemy whose lord, or captain the person
who is steering the ship is love. And love is presented as “my lord” that Wyatt had used in
the past “MY long love” but in addition is acknowledged as his enemy, the person who
takes the decision of where the ship goes. His reason: mental faculty of being reasonable
has drowned, he is so much in love, that his reason is nowhere to be seen, the only one
that could provide him some consort or consolation is at the bottom of the ocean.
5. The only reference to the stars in Wyatt, is that they are hidden, the accusations implicit
in the situation that he lives in, he can't find the stars are the one that leads him to his
pain.

My love is the captain of the ship.

Last final couplet: “Drowned is reason that should me consort, And I remain despairing of the port.”
The use of drowned is a metaphorical element, Drowned is reason as opposed to passion. Reason as
the quality that makes him irrational. He is hopeless, he does not know because he was blinded by
love, he has settled in this feeling of despair of finding a port and reaching hope.
If he does not reach hope which is his home he will lose his mind. He is in that situation because he is
not loved back, in the middle of the ocean he has lost his reason, he is a ship that is lost in the middle
of the sea. Reason would be the remedy of his hopelessness, it's not that he is drowned, the only thing
that would provide him with a little comfort is reason.

This situation is going to happen for a long time, he thinks of it as permanent.

REASON:
- Spenser thinks that he has the reason, for Wyatt he has lost the world, spenser thinks its a lost
battle, not a lost life.
- This person is my love and is also my enemy, Wyatt’s galley is steering with cruelness.
- Duality in the political poems at the time, the same political element can go one way or the
other, the disease and the remedy. It's not only that Spenser is hopeful but also that Wyatt is
distrustful of love.

ANALYSIS INTERNET
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Spenser draws heavily on Petrarch as regards the metaphors of sea voyages, sea storms and ships. As
the ship goes astray when the pole stars disappear behind the clouds, so is the condition of the lover
whose guiding star has disappeared leaving him in the stormy seas. Clouds of doubts, indecision and
indifference have dimmed her sight. Perhaps she has lost all interest in him. The ship of his life is now
in turbulence caused by desire and greed. He is surrounded by darkness and frustration.

Through the images of the sea and the storm Spenser tries to present sensual temptations that
separate the lover from his beloved and destroy the bodily ship. Spenser uses the traditional allegory
of the tempted ship of the body. Hidden perils recall Homer’s Odyssey where Scylla and Charbydis
endanger the passage of Odysseus’s ship. The beloved is the bright star, God-figure or Christ who
guides the lover, ennobles him so that he can attain divinity and be united with his beloved—with his
God.

There are many temptations which do not enable the lover-ship to see the guiding star. Like a storm-
ridden ship, the lover is surrounded by doubts, despair and dismay and thus has drifted away from her
and finds himself in a precarious situation. Here the poet combines or mixes the Platonic concept of
an ideal woman (as the courtly

lovers believed and presented their beloveds as angels, goddesses etc.) and the Christian concept of
the union of the Christ and the Church. In order to attain divinity, the lover must check his passions
and desires and become pure and virtuous. The hidden perils that now checkmate him will disappear
as the guiding star reappears with the same glory and splendor. He hopes that the storm will soon
blow over and his Helice will shine again as brightly as it did.

Thus there is note of optimism with which the poet consoles himself. However till the storm lasts, he
has to bear with the tragic and miserable situation, full of cares and worries. The sonnet has religious
connotations too. The sea stands for sensual pleasures. As long as the lover is engrossed in Worldly
pleasures and is guided by stormy passions, he cannot be unified with his God—the beloved. He must,
like a true Christian, bear with suffering, and should not complain or grieve. Patience is the need. His
guiding star will reappear and shine on him once again. But before that the lover has to undergo the
ritual of purification—of all base and low sensual desires and appetites. Once his heart and mind are
purified, his soul will be purified—and this ritual will pave the way, clear the storm, and bring his Helice
once again original brilliance.

★ SONNET 67. “Lyke as a Huntsman after Weary Chace” – Edmund Spencer ★

ANALYSIS

➔ The lover compares himself to a huntsman who has been in pursuit of his prey (lady-love) but
this chase has completely exhausted him, because his game (the prey) has escaped. Thus his
chase or hunt has been a vain exercise. He describes the ‘chase’ as ‘heavy chase’, using a
transferred epithet, to mean that the chase has made him heavy, tired and exhausted, because
it has proved to be a vain attempt: In a dejected mood, the lover-hunter feels desperate and
tired and sits down to relax in a shady place along with his ‘hounds who are panting because
of their failure to capture the prey. The ‘hounds’ should not be interpreted literally but
understood metaphorically, for they allude to his desires, thoughts and even strategies to
ensnare the beloved, for both in thought and action. the poet has been pursuing his suit. Futile
attempt to catch the deer, and giving up the chase.
➔ The lover has pursued the lady for a considerable time now, but all his attempts have been
futile and of no avail.

His beloved is proud and arrogant and she would not surrender to his desires. The lover gives up the
chase having realized the futility of his assay. The word ‘assay’ could also mean that he had attempted
to drink and taste rather prematurely and did not realize the fact that hunting and killing the deer were
not appropriate measures. It only means that he failed to comprehend the true meaning of lover-
beloved relationship, their significance and value. He had acted like a greedy huntsman who tries to
capture his beloved by using force. But the use of force turns out to be a vain exercise. The beloved
cannot be won by passion, greed and force.

Now that the huntsman (the lover) has realized his folly, sits down. He has decided to forsake the hunt
and the prey. No sooner does the realization dawn on the lover-hunter, than a miracle happens. He
observes the same gentle deer returning the same way without any fear looking for the next brook
where she could quench her thirst, for she could also be equally thirsty. Looking at him mildly
(calmly)the deer’s drinking at the brook is an indication of her longing for God; water is emblematic of
godliness and purity. Love implies purity and godliness. The lover had forgotten this when tried to
chase his beloved, for which he might have been punished but for the quick and mild response of the
deer (beloved). The beloved’s mood undergoes a change when the poet realizes his folly. She returns,
she is a gentle, forgiving and loving, a Christ-figure. She looks at him gently and mildly without any sign
of fear or hatred. The lover holds her trembling hand and she gently yields or surrenders.

DIFFERENCES BETWEEN BEGUILED OF AND BEGUYLD IN THE POEM

This prey has her will, which is something that is immoral that she would retreat off when the poem
advances, that is why her will foul her.

THE FIRST ONE he is giving up, in the second one she realizes how much she likes being chased by him,
by giving herself to the hunter. The contrast between the beginning of the poem is the contrast
between a good lover and a bad lover. The lover which is represented by the doe stops being rebel
and starts being submissive.

Her own will is portraying her as an actual prey, her goodwill is what turns her into an actual prey. The
doe was wise enough to fool the hounds. Her own will is the one that tricks her into this new situation.

In “Whoso list to hunt”, the situation was the doe was Caesar's possession (Henry VII), it was warning
for others to not go after her. He described her neck with a collar, engraved in diamonds that even if
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DIFFERENCES BETWEEN ADAPTATIONS OF PETRARCH’S RYME: WHOSO LIST TO HUNT AND SONNET
67
1. The hind is Caesar’s possession, this puts the hind in Wyatt in a different situation, an
addition of Caesar (the other men in the court that wanted to hunt the hind) Wyatt wanted
to address the situation (whoever wants to hunt her is going to be a futile attempt) and
warning the other courtiers. THESE ARE ABSENT IN PETRARCH AND SPENSER.
2. What is the attitude of the poetic voice? What is the representation of the
lover/mistress/hind/deer all combined in Wyatt and Spenser? In Wyatt the poetic voice
does not chase the doe, it is out of reach, she escapes. and in Spenser the poetic voice can
reach her, and offers herself to the huntsman. Adjectives that describe Wyatt/ Spenser’s
deer: In Wyatt's poem the poetic voice is representing himself as a victim, or the sadness
of not catching her at the time he wants. But in Spenser, he does not focus that much in
himself (I), but more in the process of not catching her but at the rhyming couplet,

Spenser has a surprising feeling of catching her, in Wyatt is a sad feeling of not catching her. Wyatt
focuses more on the competition of catching the doe, and Spenser is really in love and he lets the hind
go, and then she comes back.
➔ “Noli me tangere, for Caesar’s I am ”this is somebody else’s possession, what Spenser seems
to be reinterpreting in his own sonnet, to adapt Petrarch’s rime to question Wyatt conclusion
and constructing a sonnet which is using the same language as Wyatt and Petrarch but twisting
Wyatt’s ending. (weary and wearied, fainting I follow/panting hounds) Spenser’s sonnet
reinterprets Wyatt’s and twists the assumptions of what the hound truthfully is and what it
seems to be.
➔ Reversed in Spenser – though the ‘gentle deare’ seems ‘a beast so wyld’, at heart it proves the
opposite (terms in orange)

Spenser in an optimistic approach after Wyatt, he inverses the description of the attitude of the
huntsman and the doe.

This world is a theater but my lover is not part of the play. There was never a connection between the
poetic voice and the beloved, this is an example of unrequited love, expressing an interest in the
mistress and the mistress being completely uninterested in him. Her only reactions of moving in
different directions as she is supposed to as an audience member, he is ridiculed in his happiness and
in his tragedy (when the audience is to empathize with the actors, she laughs cruelly). mocking
spectators that are moved to laughter rather than to tears in the case of tragedy.
2. Line 9 of Sonnet 54 (“Of this Worlds Theatre in Which We Stay”) begins with a 'Yet' that changes
the tone of the poem and introduces a new idea. How does the sonnet change from line 9 onwards?

The mistress is a spectator, looks at the performance quite unmoved, she is unaltered whether he is
in pain or suffering, this has no effect on her. “Yet”, something happens in the tone of the poem,
because we realize that she doesn't love him, she even mocks him.

For instance, in “But when I laugh she mocks, and when I cry She laughs, and hardens evermore her
hart.” When he is happy, she doesn't like that, and when he is suffering she enjoys his suffering, she
makes fun of him, she ridicules his happiness, and when he cries then is when she laughs. There is no
empathy, but she enjoys his suffering. “She is no woman, but a senseless stone” (She is being cruel at
his feelings towards her).

★SONNET 75. “One Day I Wrote her Name upon the Strand” – Henry Howard★

The use of “heavens' ' is a reference to eternal things, in heavens is the realm of the soul, and the soul
is immortal, he is capturing her non mortal side. There is also the idea of heavens as poetic glory, where
glorious names or the story of those who win this person, that works as an opposition as a strand
writing her name on the strand and a different thing in heavens.

Writing poetry is not only an act of writing, but an act of writing that happens in opposition to a
common act of writing down one’s name. “In the heavens wryte” is an opposition of writing upon the
strand, writing poetry means writing something in the heaven of immortality.
There are 3 different moments:
- Presentation of the situation: the poetic voice and the mistress are in the shore watching how
the waves wipe out her name, that he proceeds to do exactly the same thing, only to watch
how the waves wash away her name again.
- Dialogue: between the mistress whose name was washed out and the poetic voice, who was
writing the name on the shore.

There are different voices that read the female’s addressed the poetic voice in some ways that are
divergent considering they are different answers, the beloved begins by telling the poetic voice, the
author of the ephemeral work, telling him he is a vain man, he does in vain act or attempt of writing
her name, on the sand.

He says that he is going to write a poem about her that will provide her with immortality.

SHE SAYS, that he is arrogant because when we read vane man, because of that desire of being
immortal. The poet is trying to immortalize his true love, by writing her name on the sand, mortal is
something that can die, myself as a physical being as my name will be wiped out, as the waves wash
away her name.

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➔ “Vayne man”: thinking that he can write her name on the shore and getting away with it and
that way he can that that name will remain there forever, it is vain to think that the water is
not going to erase it, it is vain to think that I, that I’m a mortal being I will decay and disappear
as the water erases her name when it comes to the shore.
➔ “Not so”: the poetic voice confronts or disagrees with the mistress, not only he disagrees with
her but he also is not willing to accept the fact that she will disappear, by writing her name on
the poem, she will be remembered, she accepts she is going to die, but she is going to live in
his verses, she is worthy of being immortalized. YOU ARE NOT WIPED OUT, because I will write
in a different form which is poetic writing.

FEELING: THIS IS NOT ONLY AN IMMORTALISING SOMEONE BUT AN ETERNIZING THE FEELING THAT
YOU HAVE FOR SOMEONE. What becomes eternal is not simply the mistress, is our love, what achieves
everlasting glory is the feeling which is equally fleeting and equally mortal. Eternizing of the MAKING
OF SOMETHING THAT IS MORTAL, IMMORTAL, living by feeling, at the level of the mistress and at the
level of the feeling.

CONVERSATION between two lovers, when he writes the name on the shore, he is adamant of making
sure that the mistress never dies, and that their love never vanishes, when they die. AS A POETIC
MANIFESTO IT READS AS: as eternal art works in a way to immortalize the things that are on Earth, it
is a way to immortalize the mistress, one’s work, the love becomes immortal, the mistress becomes
immortal.

The author himself is the other reading the idea of vayn man, there is after all a feeling of being
arrogant, “I am writing this poem, my love, we shall live long after the world after we know disappear,
but we also get the poetic voice is writing himself into the glorious heavens of fame, so he lives by
fame, it’s a celebration of the capacity of art, of the challenging death that is providing a life by fame.
Truthfully who is glorious after all is the poet himself who tries to define death by fame, by providing
a glorious name to himself.

LITERAL LEVEL, LEVEL OF FEELINGS, ARTS AND LITERATURE- VAYN MAN THAT COULD TRY TO BE AN
IMMORTAL PERSON, THAT IS BEYOND
MORTALITY, because he calls his own poetry writing the heavens, as an act of vanity. Describing his
creative process as writing the heavens, is an act of vanity.

In summary, Spenser tells us that he wrote his beloved’s name on the beach one day, but the waves
came in and washed the name away. He wrote his beloved’s name out a second time, but again the
tide came in and washes it, as if deliberately targeting the poet’s efforts (‘pains’) with its destructive
waves.

Spenser’s beloved blames him for his arrogance in seeking to immortalize her in this way, when she
says, she is a woman, and only mortal. Her body will itself decay one day, much as her name has
disappeared from the sand; her ‘name’, as in all memory of her, will be wiped out, just as her (literal)
name has been erased from the shore.

3. The volta or turn signals the change of idea or mood in a sonnet. When does it begin in Sonnet 75

But then there comes the volta or ‘turn’ which often comes at this point (the beginning of the ninth
line) in a sonnet: Spenser responds to his beloved, arguing that whilst it is truer that less beautiful and
fine things are mortal and will perish, someone as beautiful as she is deserves to live forever – not
literally, but through lasting fame. Her name will live on thanks to his writing.

My poetry, he concludes in the final four lines, will immortalize your rare qualities, and write your
name in the heavens; so that in the afterlife together we will have a richer life, because I have praised
your name so.

SIR PHILIP SIDNEY

He was born into a highly important family, soldier like surrey. He studied at Christ Church, Oxford and
though he may also have attended Cambridge University for a short time, he did not take a degree at
either university. He was in constant travelling intended to further his education and also to establish
him as an internationally recognized figure to lead various Protestant factions throughout Europe
(European tour, 1573–1575). Sidney returned to London for the winter of 1575–6 and became
prominent as a courtier of Elizabeth I. Service in the Netherlands (vs Spanish forces), 1586 in
September hit by a musket shot just above the knee of his left leg: he was not wearing thigh armor; he
died the following month. He translates Petrarch, he was from a wealthy family, he was acquainted
with Renaissance philosophy, he was a soldier like Surrey, he died young as well, because part of this
environment, we do not expect him to publish what he writes.

★ “ASTROPHIL AND STELLA” – Sir Philip Sidney ★

It is a sequence of 108 sonnets and 11 songs. Sidney was the first to create a longer sequence
inspiration for Spenser. The sonnet craze of the 1590s was largely begun by this work, the first such
sequence to tell a story. Written around 1582 (circulated in manuscript form), published posthumously
in 1591.

Name Astrophil (or Astrophel) = star-lover Name Stella = star

Stella was inspired by Lady Penelope (1563–1607) married to Robert Rich from high nobility in 1581.
Two years later Sidney also married. No proof that Sidney and Penelope had an affair. Unattainable
love, because she already has a husband. REALM OF IDEALISED LOVE. UNREQUITED LOVE, HE COULD
NOT MARRY
HER. but they don't have an actual relationship. CLASE 23/3/2021
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In 1581, lady Penelope married Robert Rich, years after Sydney’s father tried to arrange the marriage
between the two of them. The following year, he wrote the sonnet sequence. It is a form of unrequited
love that also has no possibility to succeed, as a result of the fact, that Penelope married and Sydney
was married as well. Astrophil and Stella moves in this realm of PLATONIC LOVE.

[CONTEXT. the authors respond to each other. MY GALLEY: starts when Spenser writes his own
rewriting of “as a ship”, Spenser had already read “Astrophil and Stella”, because Spenser wrote
Amoretti in 1597, which means that Spenser “as a ship” can be read as a response to Sidney’s Astrophil
and stella. PETRARCH- WYATT- SYDNEY. /stars. Poetic is a genre that considers how the writing of
poetry/ fiction happens and how this should be viewed.
An Apology for Poetry or the Defense of Poesy].

It is a landmark text on literary criticism, the reason why Sydney writes is because in the 1580s, poetry
was under attack, poetry writing more generally theatre was more specifically targeted. The fact that
in the 17th century, the theatres closed down as a result of the demand on puritans, this is not
something that happens overnight, there was strong propaganda, that goes back to the 1570s. In the
1580s, Sydney responded to it.

In a text that is considered to be a continuation of literary criticism, in the realm of poetry, writing
about poetry Sydney is one of the most relevant poetic names in Renaissance Europe and England.
Written c.1580, first published in 1595 one of the 1st formal pieces of vernacular literary criticism.

A DEFENSE OF POESY BY SIR PHILIP SIDNEY

“Now then go we to the most important imputations laid to the poor poets; for aught I can yet learn
they are these. First, that there being many other more fruitful knowledges, a man might better spend
his time in them than in this. Secondly, that it is the mother of lies.
Thirdly, that it is the nurse of abuse, infecting us with many pestilent desires, with a siren’s sweetness
drawing the mind to the serpent’s tail of sinful fancies,—and herein especially comedies give the
largest field to ear as Chaucer says; how, both in other nations and in ours, before poets did soften us,
we were full of courage, given to martial exercises, the pillars of manlike liberty, and not lulled asleep
in shady idleness with poets’ pastimes.”

[...]

Their third is, how much it abuses men’s wit, training it to wanton sinfulness and lustful love. For
indeed that is the principal, if not the only, abuse I can hear alleged. They say the comedies rather
teach than reprehend amorous conceits. They say the lyric is larded with passionate sonnets, the
elegiac weeps the want of his mistress, and that even to the heroical Cupid has ambitiously climbed
Alas! Love, I would thou couldst as well defend thyself as thou canst offend others! I would those on
whom thou dost attend could either put thee away, or yield good reason why they keep thee! But
grant love of beauty to be a beastly fault, although it be very hard, since only man, and no beast, has
that gift to discern beauty; grant that lovely name of Love to deserve all hateful reproaches, although
even some of my masters the philosophers spent a good deal of their lamp-oil in setting forth the
excellency of it; grant, I say, whatsoever they will have granted that not only love, but lust, but vanity,

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but, if they list, scurrility possesses many leaves of the poets’ books; yet think I when this is granted,
they will find their sentence may with good manners put the last words foremost, and not say that
poetry abuses man’s wit, but that man’s wit abuses poetry.”

DEFENDING POETRY FROM PURITANS, the literature against theatres and writing poetry already
existed, Sydney responded to CRITICISM AGAINST POETRY. One of the reasons why the authors' work
were never published, was because anxiety seeing their names in their works, when writing was seen
as distrusted because of various reasons, including platonic reasons.

In Sidney’s defense, he not only defends the poetry and advocates poetry, but also explains the reasons
why poetry was criticized. “Poets writing about love” was a major theme of these poems talking about
love, this was a problem because of many reasons. LOVE IS CENTRAL in a discourse against the writing
of poetry. and the way that Sydney defends poetry by defending love, sheds light on the environment
involved in these poems.

★ SONNET 1. “Loving in Truth, and Fain in Verse my Love to Show” – Sir Philip
Sidney ★

The opening sonnet is Sydney’s statement of what he is going to develop in the rest of the sonnet
sequence, the sonnet comprises more than a hundred sonnets. From that perspective, this is a
statement of what he intends to do, try to achieve a different account of poetic language, from the
one that was written, and by that, mostly we have to consider that Sydney responds to Petrarchan
conventions. In sonnet 1 the idea of studying and turning others feet, this relates to Petrarch and
Wyatt. Generally, it looks back at Petrarchan conventions.

His intention is to write the best love poetry possible and to do justice, to insert feelings of woe and
melancholy and sadness that he feels as a result of being profoundly in love with Stella, the reason of
why he writes this sonnet, is to convince Stella, it is a phenomenal argument that tries to make Stella
understand that he is deeply in love with her, that he wants to obtain her grace.
41

From that point of view, Sidney's sonnet sequence is persuasive, it has a specific aim, that is convincing
Stella of what he says, Stella is a reference to Penelope, although it is impossible to say that Stella
refers to Penelope, but all literary criticism coincides with that Astrophil is Sydney and Stella is
Penelope. The general understanding is the cause of the dates of the marriage of Penelope and the
writing of the sonnet sequence and the fact that they had a common romantic story.

The assumption is that Stella is Penelope, facing a poetic voice who speaks from his autobiographical
experience, we have seen this in the case of Wyatt, (Anne Boleyn), and the case of Spenser who wrote
to Elizabeth Boyle who would become his second wife. The poetic voice who is closely linked with the
author himself, in this poem of lyric writing is blurry, the assumption is that a significant portion of the
autobiographical elements in the writing of the sonnet sequence was common.

In the case of Petrarch and writing of his own rhymes, his writings to Laura. The element of
autobiographical elements is a commonality of poets at that time.

THE OPENING WORD OF THE SONNET SEQUENCE IS LOVE, that in truth is relevant to bear in mind as
a result as the entire sequence is to work as a convincing argument in the defense of the truth of
Astrophil/Sydney’s love for Stella.
- The idea of “Grace”, two different turns that circulate in the second and the third stanza that
work like hinges that articulate different metaphors, LEAVES (natural leaves of trees) AND FEET
(part of the human body), can in addition be interpreted as elements of the act of writing itself,
this is to say that Sonnet 1, is a love sonnet but equally importantly, but sonnet 1 is highly
metapoetic, the use of leaves and feet, should be read in that expression of Sydney’s intentions
of how he wants to write his own poetry.
- Number of elements that were possibly more obscure, such as in the stanza number 3, nothing
can send out of his dry weakness, in that reason, the poetic skills and poetic ability it goes back,
by turning others sleeves, his hope is that from the fresh and fruitful showers, he will get some
inspiration to write what he wants to write which is a convincing true love poetry.
- THIRD STANZA: starts with “but”, this is volta or turn which begins intruding into different
ideas, haltingly (brokenly), this difficult that is exactly this way is because the words that the
poets wants (lacks), the element that give the poem the ability to write the poetry.
- Invention is a magical element that enables the poet that nature is the mother of invention,
and study: art of studying works by previous writers, “step-dame” step-mother of invention,
it is not the real mother of invention.
- “FEET”. he separates to study to produce what he wants to say, he eventually makes him
stumble, get in the way with what previous authors say, this is an inconvenience, these words
of the past that are stranger’s feet, they ARE NOT HIS OWN, they are someone else’s, even if
he intends to follow the path opened by previous writers, this is ARTIFICIAL, it does not lead
him where he wants to go, he has travelled to find his own work among others feet.

ANOTHER REFERENCE TO MATERNITY: “GREAT WITH CHILD”: heavily pregnant, and the way that
Sydney feels about himself, he feels as a pregnant woman, in a very advanced stage of her pregnancy,
he wants to produce which is obviously is the sonnet sequence, he has to give birth to it. “Throes”:
very extreme pain that refers to death or child-birth, the pain in which pregnant women went in labor,
what he is saying is drawing on the language of maternity, regarding study as the step-mother of
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invention and feeling feelings of having something to say, he is very close he is already experiencing
the pain of a pregnant woman feels when in labor.
- MUSE: the deity that represents poetic inspiration appears, manifests and tells him in a
imperative by looking by heart and fame, do not read to not focus on previous models, look
into your heart, AND ONLY BY FOCUSING ON HIS OWN FEET, AND HEART, GOING BACK TO
NATURE, to turn other’s sleeves he will be able to expressing his love truthfully in verse. Only
by looking into his own heart he is able to accomplish and to fulfil his intentions as established
in the opening of the sonnet.

Typically when we talk about a muse, is a specific antiquity, it is significant, that the muse would inspire
the poet, the poet would be as a vessel, a carrier of a message that came from elsewhere, the muses
the gods, the muse herself that manifests to Sydney’s and as opposed of telling Sydney what to write,
and to forget about everything else including herself, and to focus on what he has to say, according to
what he feels. In the writing of love poetry, this part to write true love poetry, resides in the poet’s
heart, NOT IN THE MUSE, NOT IN PREVIOUS POETS.
Sonnet 1 is Sydney’s poetic manifesto, in which he insists that what he is going through is trying to
avoid stepping on the steps, following the advice of his muse, looking into his own heart, his own love
poetry, forgetting about what others did previously and this is conventional as a statement.

1. How does Sonnet 1 (“Loving in Truth, and Fain in Verse my Love to Show”) work as a
statement about Sidney’s own love poetry writing?

The author opens this ﬁrst sonnet by explaining his motivation for composing the sonnet sequence.
He believes that if his love were to read the sonnets, she would eventually return his affection. He
argues that her pleasure in his pain would cause her to read his sonnets, and her reading of the sonnets
would allow her to know the extent of his affection, which might make her pity the author's situation-
and this pity may transform into grace and love.
The author also describes his diﬃculties in composing the sonnet sequence. He has struggled to
express the pain and misery of his emotions and has tried to look at other poets' works in order to gain
inspiration. Still, he has been unsuccessful. Finally, the author has realized that the only way to fully
express his love for Stella in his poetry is to write from his heart.
Sidney's actions of writing about how to compose a love sonnet allow him to do just that: compose a
love sonnet. With this in mind, he warns the reader that the emotions expressed in the entire sonnet
sequence stem directly from

the heart-thus, he cannot be held rationally responsible. The statements in this first sonnet make clear
that Sidney (who already can be identified with the author of the love sonnets) is conflicted in his role
as a zealous lover and a self-critical poet. This sonnet demonstrates the first of many clashes between
reason and passion that appear in the sonnet sequence. He already seems to know that he will never
truly win Stella, but he cannot help but desire her. This conflict between contradicting forces is a crucial
element of the sequence.

2. Although Sonnet 2 (“Not at First Sight, nor with a Dribbèd Shot”) draws on the
conventional use of the language of war and politics to talk about love, it does so in an
anti-Petrarchan way. How does Astrophil explain how he fell in love with Stella?

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3. How does Sonnet 5 (“It is Most True, that Eyes are Formed to Serve”) blend analogies
coming from the realm of politics and religion? What does Astrophil mean by the line
“True, and yet true that I must Stella love”? How does the “yet” in that line work?

Sidney lists a series of truths. First, we are born to serve reason alone. Second, lovers have only
themselves to blame for succumbing to Cupid's dart. Third, virtue is beauty in its true form, rather than
the superﬁcial appearance that is usually regarded as beauty. The ﬁnal truth here is that people are
only pilgrims on this earth who should concentrate on their souls. Even though he recognizes the truth
of all of these statements, he is unable to separate his rational understanding from the love in his
heart. Despite his knowledge of all of these truths, he concludes that he still loves Stella. His love for
her is truth for him even though all of the other truths contradict it.

Analysis: This poem is essentially a series of moral axioms upended in the end with a final strange
conclusion. Sidney uses the term "true" frequently in the sonnet in order to play with the reader's
mind and toy with the meaning of the term. All of the force he establishes with the idea of truth in the
first thirteen lines is used in the last line to prove his final truth: that he must love Stella. The closing
phrase is the first deeply personal note of the poem, and it gains its power from the contrast with the
previous thirteen lines. Astrophel agrees to become a "rebel to Nature" and a "foole" to Cupid's power.
Yet, he emphasizes that he does not have a choice in the decision; he "must" love Stella with an
urgency that is beyond his control.

★ SONNET 2. “Not at First Sight, nor with a Dribbèd Shot” – Sir Philip Sidney ★

It describes how Astrophil, who we take as the poetic voice of the sonnet sequences, describes how
he fell in love with Stella. And it’s challenging compared to a previous situation of Petrarchan love
poetry in that, this is not looking at someone and immediately falling in love with them, but Sydney
says through Astrophil, that it took time, so much time, that love dug a mine of time, that love little by
little gradually built a mine to undermine his fortress, himself, to convince him to love Stella.
➔ Not at ﬁrst sight, not because of a random shot, thrown by Cupid, but the love, the wound that
love gave him, that is one that will last as he lives, and one that will continue bleeding that is
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causing him pain for the rest of his life, is one that took time. In that first stanza, we have
warlike language, shot, wound, bleed. Love conquers and convinces him of loving Stella. Love
is once again portrayed as A MASTER, and forces and is the winner of this process. This results
in that Love makes Astrophil, the poetic voice, its captive, and so, LOVE RENDERS ASTROPHIL
a servile to his own wishes, the idea of lust, he is a slave for Muscovite. Not only that Astrophil
becomes a slave to Love, but Astrophil forgets what it was to live freely. Astrophil is in such a
position, even though it took such a long time for love to win him over, once he did, Astrophil
cannot remember how his life was before being a Serf to Love, and that is the reference to
slave for.
➔ PORTRAYAL OF LOVE AS A TYRANT, A TYRANNICAL figure, what we have in the final three lines,
what Sydney often does, is that he extends the idea, that was condensed in the final rhyming
couplet, to the final three lines of the poet: Astrophil, in the concluding three lines of the poem,
what we find is that now in that situation in which he is a slave to love, he employs what is left
of his wit (his mental skills, his stamina) but also his ingeniousness poetically to convince
himself that everything is okay in this situation, it is okay that love has won, that love is now
his master, that he has lost his liberty. Whereas, he uses this feeling skill, his ability to use
words and shape poetry to paint his hell, that is to describe the situation that he is in, and this
is the contradiction, that he says everything is okay, and he tries to convince himself that
everything is OK, while at the same time, what he does when he writes his own poetry is
nothing but painting with words (language), the hell that he is experiencing (the pain and that
wound that bleeds endlessly, he has lost his liberty, he has been forced to follow love’s
dictates).
➔ It is anti-Petrarchan love is portrayed as loss of freedom, which was also a common accusation
against love.

He’s not dying from it, he’s hurt “I breath will bleed”, what love required from me? He’s at war with
love. As time passes, lovers like Astrophil forget what it was like not to be in love and embrace love’s
tyranny. He does not fall in love immediately, and love is very powerful, it wasn’t a random shot or
love at ﬁrst sight. The persona is a humble slave, he describes the process of falling in love gradually.
Astrophil realizes that he loses his freedom when he is in love. “...mine of time?” passing of time in
terms of love? Mine= subterranean passage dug under an enemy position. Poetry is superior to the
types of discourse such as philosophy, poetry is a form of painting is present here.

The last couple of lines are an analogy with his own art of writing poetry seen through the lenses of
someone who is a painter in the system of art. The ability of feeling emotions and pain. Astrophil
describes the process of falling in love with Stella. Though he does not fall immediately in love, the
"wound" (l. 2) he receives from Cupid's arrow is long-lasting. Cupid's shot is not "dribbed" (l. 1) or wide
of the mark. Rather, it hits him squarely, meaning that once he falls in love with Stella, his love for her
is absolute. As long as he remains alive to draw breath, he says, he will be in love with Stella.

Cupid's shot is not "dribbed" (l. 1) or wide of the mark. Rather, it hits him squarely, meaning that once
he falls in love with Stella, his love for her is absolute. As long as he remains alive to draw breath, he
says, he will be in love with Stella.

Although his love for Stella begins with the typical Petrarchan image of the lover being struck by Cupid's

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arrow, Astrophil does not fall immediately in love. Rather, he says that though he knows Stella's worth,
his love for her "did in mine of time proceed" (1. 3). This ambiguous phrase has been variously
interpreted. on the one hand, Astrophil might be referring to the extremely long time it takes him to
realize he is in love with Stella. In the 16th century, a "mine" could also mean a strategic tunnel dug
under an enemy's position to gain entrance or to make buildings collapse. By this deﬁnition, Stella is
so worthy that she slowly undermines Astrophil's defenses until he falls in love with her. This martial
metaphor is elaborated by the word conquest in the line "Till by degrees it [Stella's worthiness] had
full conquest got [of Astrophil's heart]" (l. 4).

After this brief summary, Astrophil describes falling in love with Stella in more detail. At ﬁrst he likes
her but does not love her. Then he comes to love her but is unwilling to admit it. Finally, the power of
his love forces Astrophil to acknowledge his feelings for Stella. Feeling trapped by love and deprived
of his freedom, Astrophil is still not content as a lover.

As time passes, however, he no longer remembers what it was like to be free from Stella's love, ﬁnding
that "even that footstep of lost liberty / Is gone" (ll. 9-10). He compares his state to that of a "slave-
borne Muscovite" (l. 10), a serf who does not know freedom and so is content to live under tyranny.

The poem's ﬁnal couplet is typical of Sidney's pithy rejoinders. Astrophil says that after Stella has
enslaved his emotions, he will use what mental power he has left to convince himself that he is happy
as a lover by writing poetry about his love. These ﬁnal lines also complicate the issue of naturalism or
originality in the sonnets. Suggesting that most of his wit has been destroyed by love, Astrophil says
he will use what remains of his wit to convince himself "that all is well / While with a feeling skill [he
paints his] hell" (ll. 1314). Sidney implies that he may be manipulating not only his readers' emotions
but his own as well. In this process of being vanquished by love, to convince myself that everything is
okay, the concluding line is a big question mark, as to truthfully the poetic voice is okay at being in
love, paints his hell is being in love and this “feelings skills” what i do when writing poetry is trying to
convince myself that everything is okay, while actually what he is doing in being trapped in this feeling
of love, in this wound, he has lost his freedom, and he does not know what being free is.

Most scholars focus on the beginning lines of this sonnet, noting its strong refusal of the Petrarchan
commonplace of "love at first sight." In the first sonnet of the sequence, Astrophil claims he will not
rely on other authors for poetic guidance but will look into his own heart for inspiration instead. The
first lines of Sonnet 2 seem to further emphasize Sidney's quest for originality. Scholars point to a
balance between the first two sonnets. Sonnet 1 describes how Stella might come to love Astrophil,
while Sonnet 2 describes how Astrophil comes to love her.

The author describes the slow progression of love into his life. Love did not come quickly or at first
sight. Instead, the author's love for Stella began slowly and infiltrated his heart before he realized what
was happening. He began by viewing her in a purely platonic way, and he then began to appreciate
her more-and he finally fell in love with her. At first he bemoaned his loss of liberty at the hands of
love, but now, his emotions run too deep to allow him to make even that small complaint about the
circumstances. He praises his slavery and spends his time trying to obscure the truth of his situation.

★ SONNET 9. “Queen Virtue’s Court, Which Some Call Stella’s Face” – Sir Philip
Sidney ★

Describes for the first time Stella Physically, we have to wait until sonnet 9 to get Stella’s description.
The way this sonnet is constructed is by means of an ANALOGY BETWEEN STELLAS FACE AND QUEENS
VIRTUE, (everything that is good and fair) this is a way to trace Stella as the queen of all virtue, as being

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the expression of everything that is good and that is fair, and the way that this is described is by the
architecture of a palace of the court. The front is the forehead and is made of alabaster which is pure
white, (common way to describe the skin of the beloved), golden hair (she's fair) the door is made of
profit (it is a gem), fence of pearls (teeth), the splendid porchway (ignobly called her cheeks) she
wouldn't have reddish blushy cheeks, the windows were the eyes, the heavenly guest is the soul of the
beloved, that looks at the world through the eyes as they were a balcony, the soul can be seen through
the eyes of a person, as a result, the soul looks through the eyes to the rest of the world, and the rest
of the world has a glimpse of someone by looking at the eyes.

The reference to the eyes (sparkling life) installed in Stella’s eyes, and this three lines what we get the
idea that there is nothing better than Stella, that the best is rightly awarded to Stella, and when Stella’s
soul looks at the soul through the eyes, there is nothing that she can admit, that can be found within.
Contrast between the outside world, and the inner world.

3 FINAL LINES:

- TOUCHSTONE: The idea of touch, the key to understanding this lines, Is that touch means
different things, the first touch is touchstone (black that was magnetic properties stone) the
idea of the magnet is useful to express the belief that it was not necessary to enter in contact
with Stella to be physically touched or moved by her. This is a reference to the fact that there
is a sense of platonic love in the background, Astrophil LOVE FOR STELLA IS PLATONIC.
- TOUCHWOOD: is a sort of timber, wood that burns very easily, he is the one that will start a
fire, he feels that he is at this point of initiating the burning, which might be simply more, than
the platonic realm. HE IS ATTRACTED TO THAT TOUCHWOOD. The first element that can be
easily burned (physically damaged) but also in the sense of I only need a spark to make this
burn. PLATONIC (WITHOUT TOUCH); touchwood (how he would turn into something else, if
only it were a spark. The passions igniting, not only love, but the passions igniting.

Astrophil depicts Stella’s beauty as a sort of architectural design of nature. It (the face and beauty of
Stella) is equipped with the very best materials: gold, alabaster, marble and so forth. The first physical
description of Stella, is not much—we get something of a physical description of Stella (in fact, a very
abbreviated blazon,* starting with the hair and not reaching the chin) in the palace of Queen Virtue:
golden hair (“covering”), alabaster forehead (“front”), fiery red lips (“door”), pearl teeth (“lock”), and
damasked (“mixed red and white”) cheeks (“porches,” and these alone are explicitly identified,
perhaps to make sure we have not missed the whole point ofthe conceit). All of this is conventional
flattery, but unconventionally, Stella’s distinctive eyes are black (“touch”=touchstone, a type of black
basalt), and the entire sestet is devoted to a careful and clever analysis of them. He does not need to
touch her to be in love with her, because her eyes are magnetic, there is a force that operates without
touching her.

First, we have already been introduced, in line 1 and again in line 5, to this exalted personage “Queen
Virtue,” who lives here. Line 5 tells us that “her grace” steps out the front door (i.e., passes through
Stella’s lips) “sometimes.” “Sometimes” is hardly a romantic or poetic adverb, and it is a significant
qualifier of all this flattery. In the real world of the poet, “her grace” refers simply to any kind or

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encouraging words Stella might bestow on him. Within the trope, “her grace” is an appropriate form
of address for a royal personage, but on yet another level of meaning it suggests divinity. Line 9 picks
up on that hint with a reference to Queen Virtue as a “heavenly guest,” thus identifying her with the
soul (a temporary visitor to mortal flesh), or with the soul’s alter ego, Reason. And we know already
(see earlier discussion of sonnets 4 and 10) that the speaker does not like to play on the same team as
Reason. Critical Virtue/Reason/Soul, looking out through the windows of the eyes (which, as we know,
are paradoxically dark and bright), cannot find anyone qualified to be “best” in show. This is a two-
edged dig at Stella: first, simply that she is too aloof and will not acknowledge and return the speaker’s
love; but also, if we assume she spends more of her time with the man to whom she is betrothed (Lord
Rich, in the case of Penelope Devereux), that her eyes are not usually seeing the “best” man for her!

He recognizes he is unworthy of entering “Queen Virtue’s Court”, “The Windows” to her soul “Now
through which his heavenly guest”. “Those lights” going back to the windows, he refers to her eyes.
The way her eyes shine, are lively and beautiful, the eyes are like the balcony for the palace? Reﬂection
of the soul.

Touch (Touchstone and touchwood) we ﬁnd the concluding idea. Magnet, opposite poles of the
magnet? Emotionally moved, platonic.

Which are the charges against poetry that Sidney identiﬁes in his The Defense of Poesy? With which
arguments does Sidney respond to them? Why do you think poetry was under attack then? [See
slide for extract]

Sidney’s Defense of Poesy displays his humanistic education and the humanistic inﬂuences in his life.
Many times throughout the writing he adopts the opinions and thoughts of many Greek and Roman
philosophers. He stresses how the Greeks and Romans understood and felt about poetry and their
inﬂuence on the present day sciences and literature. How he pays attention to Greek and Roman
thought displays humanistic tendencies. Sidney draws on many pieces of classical literature because
of the Renaissance audience. Sidney also states that poetry can be used to assert a certain amount of
control over human affairs and that poets are independent thinkers. This shows humanistic aspects
because before humanism, people believed that God controlled every aspect of their life and their
fate. However, Sidney rejects those tendencies throughout the writing.

Sidney states that poets are in control of themselves, they are not restricted by outwardly ideas. This
sense of individualism was a popular tendency in Renaissance Humanism. Through these main points,
it is clear that The Defense of Poesy is written with Humanistic values and ideals.

Sidney addresses the accusations that poets are liars or falsifiers by claiming someone cannot lie if
they never attempt to tell the truth in the first place. Poetry is not written to record historical details
with specific accuracy but rather to speak to the virtue of the person writing and the general feelings
of the time. Sidney writes, “To the second, therefore, that they should be the principal liars, I will
answer paradoxically, but truly, I think truly, that of all writers under the sun the poet is the least liar,
and, though he would, as a poet can scarcely be a liar.” One of the main reasons poetry and fictitious
literary works were being condemned was because of the ideology that prophesiers were attempting
to be greater than God. England at the time was being overrun with Protestantism, and Sidney used
this rational point to help his audience see that was not the purpose of poetry. Once again he mentions
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Historians and Astronomers. His point being that these studies fall into the category of liars because
they seek to aﬃrm knowledge of mankind where a poet makes no attempt to do so.

In his Defence, first, Sidney proves that poetry is the oldest of all branches of learning. It is superior to
philosophy by its charm, to history by its universality, to science by its moral end and to law by its
encouragement of human goodness. Sidney argues that poets were the first philosophers, that they
first brought learning to humanity, and that they have the power to conceive new worlds of being and
to populate them with new creatures. According to Sidney, their "golden" world of possibility is
superior to the "brazen" one of historians who must be content with the mere truth of happenstance.
He then defines what he believes to be the essential formal characteristics of the various kinds of
poetry, and defends poetry against the charge that it is composed of lies and leads one to sin.

In which terms and by means of which sets of comparisons does Sidney praise Stella’s facial features
in Sonnet 9?

Astrophel describes the different elements of Stella's beautiful face. Her forehead is alabaster; her hair
is gold; her mouth is made of red porphin; her teeth are pearls; and her cheeks are a combination of
red and white marble. The windows of this palace, Stella's eyes, look over the world, but anyone
looking will discover that there is nothing in the world that is as beautiful as Stella's face.

Analysis: Astrophel depicts Stella's beauty as a sort of architectural design of Nature. Not only does
her face possess all of Nature's best "furniture" (or facial features), it is equipped with the very best
materials: gold, alabaster, pearl, marble, and so forth. Compared to this wealth, Astrophel is nothing
but a pauper who tracks in ink and paper. He recognizes that he is unworthy of entering "Queen
Virtue's Court."

★SONNET 5. “It is Most True, that Eyes Are Formed to Serve” – Sir Philip Sidney★

FIRST STANZA
The eyes: Sydney's understand as a special signiﬁcance to read someone and to have access to THEIR
INNER WORLD. The eyes are the point of contact between
what is inside (the soul) and the outside world (appearances). The eyes are in a liminal position
between one world and another, and allow an interaction between both. The eyes become the
gateway for someone’s soul.
NATURE- HEAVENLY PART- SOUL

- Inward light; what gives away the fact that the soul is there, which conﬁrms that you can see
the soul of someone through their eyes.
- Smart: something that will cause you pain.
- Rebels: does who not comply, or play by the rules of the king, does who not obey them become
rebels by nature and so they end up in pain (smart). They end up suffering pain. Those who do
not acknowledge what is most important is to follow the rules of the soul (what it's inside us)
, our heavenly part, those ones end up in pain. The rebels are LOVERS WHO do not follow the
rules of the heavenly part, lovers who make king PHYSICAL BEAUTY. (What is mortal,
appearances), the focus on what is outside (not the heavenly part, the physical part). If we
only focus on the heavenly part, we won't suffer pain, we ultimately end up being caught in a
physical perception of love they end up suffering.
- THE EYES ARE SERVANT TO THE SOUL: even if we like someone's eyes, what is truthfully
important is the soul, not the physical beauty of the eyes. If you forget that eyes are there to
give you access to someone’s soul.

SECOND STANZA
-Cupid: mythological ﬁgure that stands as an envoid of love, he symbolizes love. Cupid’s dart may be
related to physical beauty, the lover is like god. On top of that that are images that we carve,
REFERENCE TO IDOLATRY: Not a real deity, if we make it, is done by man, it something else, your
adoration is mislead to something which is not worth worshipping, because it's not true, The second
thing: PROTESTANT ENGLAND: very strong movement against worshipping images of Gods and Saints,
icons were not well regarded, they were a way to worship man’s imagination as opposed to God. There
was criticism against ﬁgures that were man made and they represented God.
-LANGUAGE OF RELIGION: image: you make it out of what you see, what you construct is a physical
appearance, as opposed to what is inside and you worship it to the degree that it leads you to your
own death. BEWARE: DO NOT WORSHIP IMAGES, DO NOT WORSHIP PHYSICAL APPEARANCES, if you
orship a false god, you end up dying. (starve), worshipping appearances will cause your damnation.

THIRD STANZA
1. First line: TRUE BEAUTY CANNOT BE FIND IN THE OUTSIDE WORLD (APPEARANCES), BUT IN THE
INNER WORLD.
2. Second line: physical beauty (ephemeral, it is a bad copy of an idea) can only be a shadow of a real
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beauty which is inner beauty(more magnificent that anything that we can imagine). “The allegory of
the cave” Neoplatonism. this division of two realms, the realm of appearances which are mutable and
they are not true and the realm of the ideas which is the true realm: everything we find here can be
found, the beauty that prevails is actual beauty: actual true beauty is virtue that can be found in a
different realm. This beauty that we see, true beauty is virtue. Appearances are mutable.
3. Third line: natural elements: fire, water, earth and air. The 4 elements all mixed produce everything
that is mortal, that was a common belief at that time, everything that mixed 4 elements in different
proportions, that can be boiled down to different degrees of these 4 elements. Everything that is
tangible, is made up of these four ingredients, that are nothing but a shadow, an imitation, of what is
true, and that truth is intangible.
4. Fourth line: common assumption that this life is not eternal and we are going to decay, we are
mortal things, a reference to Spenser’s sonnet: these mortal things, we are only pilgrims, the truer life
is what comes afterwards. That our country is not here, its upwards (reference to soul). We are on
pilgrimage (for a limited amount of time), the way we will enter this true realm through the soul.
5. Fifth line: physical beauty is not true beauty, it is a bad copy of a poor imitation of true beauty,
worshipping the images, the 4 elements even if I’m aware of all of this information, I cannot not love
Stella, I am bound to love Stella, no matter if I go against political expectations, no matter if I go against
religious assumptions of beliefs, I still love Stella.
Physical beauty. All this is true, and yet it is also true that I must love Stella.

How does Sonnet 5 (“It is Most True, that Eyes are Formed to Serve”) blend analogies coming from
the realm of politics and religion? What does Astrophil mean by the line “True, and yet true that I
must Stella love”? How does the “yet” in that line work?

-LANGUAGE OF POLITICS: idea of king, serve, inwards, rebel. We use political language to establish
metaphors about love that explain the workings of love. Eyes are only there so the soul has windows,
if you only focus on the physical beauty of the eyes, then beware you are being a rebel if you are not
worshipping the soul.
-LANGUAGE OF RELIGION: image: you make it out of what you see, what you construct is a physical
appearance, as opposed to what is inside and you worship it to the degree that it leads you to your
own death. BEWARE: DO NOT WORSHIP IMAGES, DO NOT WORSHIP PHYSICAL APPEARANCES, if you
worship a false god, you end up dying. (starve), worshipping appearances will cause your damnation.
Political language to establish metaphors about love THE IDEAS OF KING, REBEL

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

From Sonnets (1609):

- Sonnet 1 (“From Fairest Creatures We Desire Increase”).
- Sonnet 3 (“Look in thy Glass and Tell the Face thou Viewest”).
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- Sonnet 12 (“When I do Count the Clock that Tells the Time”).
- Sonnet 18 (“Shall I Compare thee to a Summer’s Day?”).
- Sonnet 19 (“Devouring Time, Blunt thou the Lion’s Paws”).
- Sonnet 33 (“Full Many a Glorious Morning Have I Seen”).
- Sonnet 55 (“Not Marble nor the Gilded Monuments”).
- Sonnet 74 (“But be Contented When that Fell Arrest”).
- Sonnet 127 (“In the Old Age Black Was Not Counted Fair”).
- Sonnet 130 (“My Mistress’ Eyes Are Nothing Like the Sun”).
- Sonnet 144 (“Two Loves I Have of Comfort and Despair”).

Shakespeare’s chronology of writing a sonnet, theatres had to close down, he devotes time to write
lengthy poetry, he could not perform anything on stage.

SONNETS: Subverted Petrarchan conventions: how to read them semantically. One of the ways to go
against Petrarchan Norms was to have Shakespeare address most of his sonnet, not to a female
lover, but to FAIR YOUTH. IT is unquestionable that it is a male receiver.

Over 100 sonnets are addressed to this fair youth, who could be different people.

- DARK LADY: Representation of petrarchan conventions, female beauty.

Some of the authors that speculated about Shakespeare’s orientation, we can only speculate, there
is a willingness to be REBELLIOUS OF WHAT WAS EXPECTED. Of a world that was so well established.

★ SONNET 1. “From Fairest Creatures We Desire Increase” – Shakespeare ★

- It is addressed to the fair youth: A YOUNG MAN who is described as a fair (handsome young
man) that the poetic voice addresses and speaks to.
- “He leaves an heir to carry on his memory” He is encouraging this fair youth to produce an
heir. He is saying that children will preserve your memories. The fair youth should have
children, so that there is a continuation of that beauty in that world, the memory of the fair
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youth may be carried on in time, it is a way to continue his beauty.
- THOU IS FAIR CREATURE: thou does not look like he does not want an heir.
- Reproaches

Why is he an enemy to himself for not having children?

He does not have children, this is a reference that he was not married at that time, it was a hint to get
married and have kids. He is his own enemy because physical beauty is hereditary and he is not going
to continue his legacy, he is agreeing to letting his own beauty die, and letting his own memory go. He
is giving up on perpetuating his own beauty, and he is giving up the idea of continuing his memory. He
is his own enemy because he is condemning his own beauty and his memory to be lost entirely.
- Thou that art now the world’s fresh ornament, and only herald to the gaudy spring: means
that he is blooming right now, he is at his peak in terms of his looks. The semantic field
Shakespeare is using is flowers, garden, in the sense of fresh spring. Another semantic field is
time.
- PASSAGE OF TIME IN REFERENCE TO NATURAL ELEMENT: fuel, fire, the rose
(eternal), famine, feed.

Analysis
Refers to FAIR YOUTH, the question of the time is present. The passing of time is a key that is recurrent
in Shakespeare, the perception of time as a problem, as an enemy, as an ally to death.

THE IDEA THAT ONE OF THE WAYS TO DEFEAT DEATH AND TO ACHIEVE IMMORTALITY
WAS THROUGH PROCREATION: Having offspring, having children. There is an encouragement to the
fair youth to procreate. Eventually defying death. The sonnet sequence starts with immortality in
various senses: bearing one’s memory, in terms of individual and family, and also in terms of continuing
the cycle of protecting the beauty of the addressee of the poem.

One of the reasons he encourages him to procreate is not only because his memory will not be
forgotten, but also to continue beauty in general. Beauty as it best never dies. Immortality is to be
seen in various senses, making sure that beauty continues being present in the world.

THE ENCOURAGEMENT OF WHY HE SHOULD PROCREATE ARE, accusations of selﬁshness, by accusing

the fair youth who is so handsome and unwilling to procreate, he is the cause of a famine.

Not only, he is accused of being selﬁsh and too cruel to himself, this is an opposing argument, because
you become your own enemy.

The way that different metaphors are used:

➔ IDEA LIGHT/FLAME/FUEL: reference to the bright eyes of fair youth.

➔ EATING AND CONSUMPTION OF FOODS: accusation of being a glutton, by feeding
himself as opposed to sharing that.

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He encourages to do what nature does, that is by replicating himself, by making sure that it continues
a cycle that never dies.

Lines 1-4
From fairest creatures we desire increase,
That thereby beauty’s rose might never die,
But as the riper should by time decease,
His tender heir might bear his memory:

Shakespeare uses the first four lines to set out his main ideas for Sonnet 1. Each of the lines takes up
one particular idea. The first discusses the importance of procreation to humans, the second suggests
that this is how we can remain immortal, the third line introduces the threat of time passing, and the
fourth sums all of these up by revealing the “tender heir” who is the representation of immortality for
his parents, but will in turn grow old and pass away. The idea behind Sonnet 1 is that, if we want to
live forever, then the only way is to have children. These children will continue our names long after
we pass, while a lack of procreation will lead to a quick demise.

Lines 5-8
But thou, contracted to thine own bright eyes,
Feed’st thy light’st flame with self-substantial fuel,
Making a famine where abundance lies,
Thyself thy foe, to thy sweet self too cruel.

As much as the first four lines strive to put forward an idea, the next four show that the subject (the
young man) rejects the idea wholeheartedly. Chiding the young man for this approach, for being too
self-absorbed, the poet admits that he is still “contracted” to the subject’s “bright eyes” and continues
this imagery by suggesting that they are “self-sustainable fuel.” Addressed as “thou,” the subject
seems to be only interested in themselves, rather than propagating their incredible beauty. The
narcissistic, destructive approach is condemned by the poet, whose choice of vocabulary takes a
negative turn. “Famine” and “cruel” are the word choices when describing the subject’s approach,
making it seem as though the young man’s decisions are inherently unhealthy. In all, the poet suggests
that the young man is his own worst enemy and does not yet realize the importance of passing on his
beauty to the next generation.

Lines 9-12
Thou that art now the world’s fresh ornament
And only herald to the gaudy spring,
Within thine own bud buriest thy content
And, tender churl, makest waste in niggarding.

By the time we reach the third quatrain of Sonnet 1, the poet has decided that – while the young man
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may indeed be beautiful – his subject will eventually lose his good looks. Even though the subject might
be the “world’s fresh ornament,” he will only serve to “herald the gaudy spring.” Eventually, his beauty
will fade and, if he does not pass on his beauty to the next generation, then he will be left with nothing.
“Bud” in this context calls back to the rose talked about in the second line. An enduring image of
perfection, the rose is a metaphor for the idea of beauty. It blooms, is appreciated, and then fades
away. Unless it passes on its genes to the next generation in the form of a “bud,” then the world will
never again be able to enjoy the aesthetic quality of this particular rose. So, then, the rose becomes a
warning, threatening the young man with the idea that he might wither and die himself.

Lines 13-14
Pity the world, or else this glutton be,
To eat the world’s due, by the grave and thee.

During the final two lines, the poet throws the concern open to the wider world. He encourages the
subject to not just have sympathy for himself or for the poet, but that he should “pity the world.” The
gluttonous grave, he threatens, will eat up the beauty of the young man and it would be selfish to rob
such a thing from the rest of the world. There’s a continuing sense of injustice about the loss of
propagation. The idea of the famine from the previous quatrain is referenced again, with “glutton” and
“eat the world’s due” both bringing food metaphors into the piece.

★ SONNET 3. “Look in thy Glass and Tell the Face thou Viewest” – Shakesp.★

Analysis
Look in thy glass and tell the face thou viewest,
Now is the time that face should form another,
Whose fresh repair if now thou not renewest,
Thou dost beguile the world, unbless some mother.

In the first quatrain, the lyrical voice urges the young man to have a child. The poem starts by
referring to the story of Narcissus, as the lyrical voice mentions the young man’s tendency to “Look
in thy glass”. The lyrical voice admires his beauty, but he/she sees the young man as selfish, as
he/she tells him to: “tell the face thou viewest,/ Now is the time that face should form another”.
Thus, the lyrical voice is encouraging him to have children, to “form another”. In order to convince
him, the lyrical voice suggests that he is being unfair for not passing on his beauty: “Whose fresh
repair if now thou not renewest,/Thou dost beguile the world, unbless some mother”.

For where is she so fair whose uneared womb

Disdains the tillage of thy husbandry?
Or who is he so fond will be the tomb
Of his self-love, to stop posterity?

In the second quatrain, the lyrical voice states the reasons why the young man should have a child. To
convey this, the lyrical voice uses an extended metaphor of farming, as several rural terms make a
reference to sexual intercourse. The young man is told that no woman would reject him: “For where
is she so fair whose uneared womb/ Disdains the tillage of thy husbandry?”. And, moreover, that it
isn’t a good idea not to have children: “Or who is he so fond will be the tomb/Of his self-love, to stop
posterity?”. The final lines of the stanza insinuate that, with the passing of time, the beauty of the
young man will fade and, in order to stop that, a possibility is to procreate and pass on that beauty. It
also suggests that the young man is being foolish and selfish, and that he is fixed in his own present.

Thou art thy mother’s glass, and she in thee

Calls back the lovely April of her prime;
So thou through windows of thine age shalt see,
Despite of wrinkles, this thy golden time.

In the third quatrain, the lyrical voice compares the young man and his mother in order to convince
him of becoming a father. The lyrical voice suggests that the young man is the reflection of his mother
and that she can see herself in her child: “Thou art thy mother’s glass, and she in thee/ Calls back the
lovely April of her prime”. Notice how youth is described: “the lovely April of her prime”. Thus, that
could also happen if the young man had a child: “So thou through windows of thine age shalt
see,/Despite of wrinkles, this thy golden time”. The window is used as an idea that reunites past and
present; the windows are the young man’s eyes that will enable him to see his youth in his children
(“thy golden time”). The lyrical voice is trying to make the young man understand that he will
eventually get old and his beauty will fade, but, if he has children, this beauty will live on his
predecessors.

But if thou live remembered not to be,

Die single and thine image dies with thee.

In the final couplet, the lyrical voice mentions the consequences that the young man will suffer if he
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doesn’t have a child. If the young man dies before having a child, no one will remember him nor his
beauty: “But if thou live remembered not to be,/Die single and thine image dies with thee”. Once
again, the lyrical voice emphasizes the need to pass on the young man’s beauty to a child, or else it
will die with him. These final lines condense the idea that the lyrical voice has introduced throughout
the sonnet.

★ SONNET 12. “When I do Count the Clock that Tells the Time” – Shakesp. ★

➔ And sable curls all silver’d o’er with white;

➔ When I do count the clock that tells the time: artiﬁcial elements to give importance to the passing
of time.
➔ When lofty trees I see barren of leaves Which erst from heat did canopy the herd, And summer’s
green all girded up in sheaves: The moment that the harvest comes, you tie them in bundles.
➔ Save breed, to brave him when he takes thee hence: to challenge, the idea is to challenge death
and that is what you do by breeding. To brave him when he takes thee hence: “He” is time (to
challenge time) when he takes “Thee” is “you” it is the addressee the fair youth, “Hence” is
“beyond”(Away from this world, to this other realm, when he takes you to an afterlife). The
implication is that there is an afterlife and you are taken away by time.

THIS IDEA CAN BE COMPARED TO “ONE DAY I WROTE YOUR NAME IN THE STRAND'' that his beloved
one day will also die, and then says that she is okay with being mortal, my name will be wiped out
like the name you have written in the sand, and Spenser says that it will not happen because she will
live by fame by his verse. This is present in Shakespeare, art is a way of defying death

FINAL RHYMING COUPLET:

And nothing ‘gainst Time’s scythe can make defence Save breed, to brave him when he takes thee
hence.

Resolution: nothing can be done against time.

Scythe is guadaña (el cuchillo de la muerte), it is also a tool to harvest.

The moment that spring ﬁnishes autumn comes and it is the moment to harvest, the autumn of your
life arrives, just as the crops are funded, is cut out and taken away. Just like everything in nature,
then there is another farmer that comes and takes you away.

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BREEDING GROWING SOMETHING VS PERSONIFICATION OF TIME AS A FARMER THAT WHEN
AUTUMN COMES HE REMOVES YOU (YOU DIE). There is no difference between the cycle of nature
and growing, the metaphor is merged in this comparison of the beloved’s life.

The function of by breeding you produce what time scythe periodically cuts away, there is no
difference between breeding and growing the metaphor is merged in this comparison, weed and
human life, the function of farmers.

By breeding you make sure that you continue this cycle going, there is always some crop growing for
the year after.

Lines 1-4
When I do count the clock that tells the time,
And see the brave day sunk in hideous night;
When I behold the violet past prime,
And sable curls all silvered o’er with white;

In the first quatrain of ‘Sonnet 12,’ the speaker begins with the first in a series of metaphors that
compares the Fair Youth’s beauty to something natural and sublime, but also temporary. The speaker
is thinking of the way that the day gives way to night, the greying of black hair and the dying of flowers.
He images the violets “past prime” (a good example of alliteration) and sees the Fair Youth’s
complexion wrinkling, his body giving out and everyone forgetting about him. The day that was once
“brave” becomes “hideous” and the “sable,” black, curls turn silver and white. None of these things
are preferable.

Lines 5-8
When lofty trees I see barren of leaves,
Which erst from heat did canopy the herd,
And summer’s green all girded up in sheaves
Borne on the bier with white and bristly beard;

In the next four lines of ‘Sonnet 12’ the speaker continues this series of metaphors used to describe
the Fair Youth in the future. He thinks about the trees which at this point in their prime, “barren of
leaves”. The speaker also imagines the herds down below stuck out in the heat for the loss of that
shade.
The summer will be stripped of its beauty and its worth just as crops are tied up and taken in sheaves
to the barn. The last image in this quatrain is that of an old man, “Borne on a bier” being carried to his
grave. None of these images are at all uplifting, and they’re not meant to be. The speaker is hoping to
shock the Fair Youth into considering his future seriously.

Lines 9-14
Then of thy beauty do I question make,
That thou among the wastes of time must go,
Since sweets and beauties do themselves forsake
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And die as fast as they see others grow,
And nothing ‘gainst Time’s scythe can make defense
Save breed to brave him when he takes thee hence.

In the third and final quatrain of ‘Sonnet 12,’ the speaker finally gets around to directly addressing the
youth. When he sees all the things listed out in the last eight lines he questions the youth’s beauty. He
knows it can’t last forever. He will also have to deal with the “wastes of time”.

Unfortunately, all sweet and beautiful creatures eventually lose themselves to time. They do
“themselves forsake”. It is in their wake that others grow.

The couplet that concludes the poem gets around to the speaker’s main point that there is nothing the
youth can do, expect have children, to fight off time. Continuing one’s life on through another is the
only way to gain immortality and outwit time.

Shakespeare often personiﬁes time. It is said that Time is the fourth character in his sonnets. But the
Time is the great villain in Shakespeare’s sonnets-drama. Shakespeare describes time as a "bloody
tyrant" (Sonnet 16), "devouring" and "swift-footed" (Sonnet 19). Time is making Shakespeare old and
near "hideous night" (Sonnet 12) or death. And time will eventually rob the beauty of the young man.
This treatment of time is prevalent throughout the sonnets, and it takes many different forms,
sometimes referring to the destructive power of time in general, other times focusing on the effects
of time on a speciﬁc character in the sonnets such as the narrator or the fair lord.

In the ﬁrst seventeen sonnets which are called the procreation sonnets Shakespeare makes an earnest
plea to the fair lord, begging him to ﬁnd a woman to bear his child so that his beauty might be
preserved for posterity. In these 17 sonnets the treatment of time is almost.

Through the imagery of the military, winter, and the Sun the speaker tries to give the picture of the
ravages of time. In sonnet 2, the poet writes, "When forty winters shall besiege thy brow / And dig
deep trenches in thy beauty's ﬁeld ... Time is the great enemy, besieging the youth's brow, digging
trenches — wrinkles — in his face, and ravaging his good looks. In the sonnet 5 he repeats the same
theme and says that hours are tyrants that oppress him because he cannot escape time's grasp. Time
might "frame / The lovely gaze where every eye doth dwell," meaning that everyone notices the
youth's beauty, but time's "never-resting" progress ensures that this beauty will eventually fade. Time
is related with death .Sonnet 13 furthers the theme of time by stating that death will forever vanquish
the young man's beauty.

But the speaker also suggests how to conquer time. The poet argues that procreation ensures life after
death; losing your identity in death does not necessarily mean the loss of life so long as you have
procreated. The poet is lamenting the ravages of time and its detrimental effects on the fair lord's
beauty, seeking to combat the inevitable by pushing the fair lord to bequeath his exquisiteness unto a
child. In Sonnet 12 again the narrator speaks of the sterility of bachelorhood and recommends

The destructive nature of time is shown again in the sonnet 18 and 19.But here the speaker finds an
alternative way to conquer the time namely his verse. In sonnet 18 Initially, the poet poses a question
to his friend — "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?" — and then reflects on it, remarking that
the youth's beauty far surpasses summer's delights. But the poet admits the ravages of time again and
we see it especially in line 7, where the poet speaks of the inevitable mortality of beauty: "And every
fair from fair sometime declines." But the speaker is very confident and defies the time. The poem end
with the concluding : "So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see, / So long lives this, and this gives
life to thee." The poet opines that his eternal verse will capture and mummify the friend’s beauty.
The same theme is repeated in the sonnet 19 in which the speaker pictures time with help of the
animal imageries. The poet addresses Time and, using vivid animal imagery, comments on Time's
normal effects on nature. The sonnet's first seven lines address the ravages of nature that "Devouring
Time" can wreak. The poet then commands Time not to age the young man and ends by boldly
asserting that the poet's own creative talent will make the youth permanently young and beautiful.
However, nature's threatening the youth's beauty does not matter, for the poet confidently asserts
that the youth will gain immortality as the subject of the sonnets. Because poetry, according to the
poet, is eternal, it only stands to reason that his poetry about the young man will ensure the youth's
immortality. The youth as the physical subject of the sonnets will age and eventually die, but in the
sonnets themselves he will remain young and beautiful.

★ SONNET 18. “Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer Day” – Shakespeare ★

The poem opens with the speaker putting forward a simple question: can he compare his lover to a
summer’s day? Historically, the theme of summertime has always been used to evoke a certain
amount of beauty, particularly in poetry. Summer has always been seen as the respite from the long,
bitter winter, a growing period where the earth ﬂourishes itself with ﬂowers and with animals once

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more. Thus, to compare his lover to a summer’s day, the speaker considers their beloved to be
tantamount to a rebirth, and even better than summer itself.

As summer is occasionally short, too hot, and rough, summer is, in fact, not the height of beauty for
this particular speaker. Instead, he attributes that quality to his beloved, whose beauty will never fade,
even when ‘death brag thou waander’stin his shade‘, as he will immortalize his lover’s beauty in his
verse.

So long as men can breathe or eyes can see, / So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

The immortality of love and beauty through poetry provides the speaker with his beloved’s eternal
summer. Though they might die and be lost to time, the poem will survive, will be spoken of, will
live on when they do not. Thus, through the words, his beloved’s beauty will also live on.

In terms of imagery, there is not much that one can say about it. William Shakespeare’s sonnets thrive
on a simplicity of imagery, at a polar opposite to his plays, whose imagery can sometimes be packed
with meaning. Here, in this particular sonnet, the feeling of summer is evoked through references to
the ‘darling buds‘ of May, and through the description of the sun as golden-complexioned. It is almost
ironic that we are not given a description of the lover in particular. In fact, scholars have argued that,
as a love poem, the vagueness of the beloved’s description leads them to believe that it is not a love
poem written to a person, but a love poem about itself; a love poem about love poetry, which shall
live on with the excuse of being a love poem. The ﬁnal two lines seem to corroborate this view, as it
moves away from the description of the lover to point out the longevity of his own poem.
- The entire sonnet is speculation, over if the Fair youth should be compared to a Summer’s day. The
poet concludes the summer's day is not enough, the sun shines too brightly and there are many
inconveniences that the fair youth does not have, the fair youth is temperate. In the same way, there
is a reﬂection of two different notions of time.

- Time shifts, in a number of other sonnets, contrast between the natural world and what poetry and
arts are able to provide, beyond what nature is able to give. This comparison between summer’s day
and fair youth.

- MY beloved is better than a summer's day, the poet will make sure that he will continue living in
lovers sonnet. What poetry can offer goes beyond what nature can offer the beloved.

- The poetic voice compares his beloved to a summer’s day, however he shouldn’t compare him to a
summer’s day because the summer’s day beauty is ephemeral, while the fair youth’s beauty will be
preserved forever thanks to his poems.

- Summer as a season of the year, in conveying the passing of time, that is also related to the idea of
mortality and its counterpart.

NATURAL ELEMENTS IN SONNET 18 to comment on the passing on time, the notion of decay

How natural elements play a part of giving a sense in the passing of time?

And summer's lease hath all too short a date: Summer does not last long enough, but his beauty will
be preserved.
But thy eternal summer shall not fade: Eternity

When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st,: Eternal lines as wrinkles and eternal lines is his poetry,
when the fair youth is preserved in his poetry, his beauty will be untouched.

Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st,: admiration of fair youth as fair.
Nor shall death brag thou wander'st in his shade: DEATH AS BEING SOMEONE WHO WILL TAKE YOU
AWAY AND KEEP YOU WANDERING. The lover is not taken by death, death cannot boast that has taken
the lover’s life. It IS PERSONIFICATION OF DEATH, SHADE refers to the idea of death, IS the opposite
of light.

NATURAL TIME: life until we are taken away by death.

VS POETIC TIME: Poetic time is eternal, it has no expiration date. Immortality through this sonnet.
NATURAL ELEMENTS IN SONNET 18 to comment on the passing on time, the notion of decay

FINAL COUPLET.
So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

As long as people who read the poem are alive, they will remember fair youth. This poem lives as long
as someone reads this, this sonnet, this eternal line gives eternal life to the beloved. It grants life for
the beloved forever.

★ SONNET 19. “Devouring Time, Blunt thou the Lion’s Paws” - Shakespeare★

Summary

‘Devouring Time, blunt thou the lion’s paws’ by William Shakespeare contains a speaker’s pleas to Time
that she spare her lover form old age.

The poem begins with the speaker telling “Time” that she is welcome to destroy any of her creation
that she wants. If she wants to kill off all the beautiful creatures of the world, she can. If “Time” wants
to bring misery on the earth, that’s ﬁne with the speaker. There is only one thing that she wants “Time”
to refrain from doing— making her lover age. The speaker cannot imagine a world where her lover is
not young. He should remain beautiful forever and therefore be the symbol of all male beauty.

In the last line she gives in to the fact that there is nothing she can really do to stop “Time” from making
“her” mark on her lover. It doesn’t matter in the end, because he will be young forever in her poetry.

Analysis

Lines 1-2
Devouring Time, blunt thou the lion’s paws,
And make the earth devour her own sweet brood;

At the beginning of ‘Devouring Time, blunt thou the lion’s paws,’ the speaker utilizes the line which has
come to be used as the title. This is a common practice within sonnets, especially for those poets who
write a large number of them. Generally, Shakespeare’s sonnets were given numbers, (this one is
number 19), but to make them easier to distinguish from one another they can also be referred to by
their first lines.
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Shakespeare chose to write this particular sonnet from the perspective of a woman. She begins by
telling “Time” everything that it should and can do. Before continuing on, it is important to note that
the word time is capitalized in the poem. This gives it an even greater importance than it would
otherwise. By capitalizing it, Shakespeare is imbuing it with agency, as if it is an active, conscious force
in the world that can be reasoned with.

The speaker asks “Time” to go ahead and “blunt” the “lions’s paw.” And “make the earth devour her
own sweet blood.” These are poignant lines, but they are also complicated. What the speaker is saying
is that it’s okay with her if “Time” destroys life and kills her, “own sweet brood.”

Lines 3-4
Pluck the keen teeth from the fierce tiger’s jaws,
And burn the long-liv’d Phoenix in her blood;

Although gruesome, and not particular nice, she’s welcome to it. “Time” can take away from the lion
the things that make it powerful, just as she “Pluck[s] the…teeth from the fierce tiger’s jaw.” All of
these things are depressing indicators of age and subsequent death, but they are okay with her. The
speaker is building up to something else, the one thing that is not okay with her.

In the fourth line she adds another wild choice “Time” could make. She could kill the “long-lived
phoenix” in its own “blood.” This is a particular interesting example considering the mythical backstory
of the Phoenix and its ability to live, die and be reborn. “Time” could do away with this power forever,
if she wanted, and it would be okay with the speaker.

Lines 5-8
Make glad and sorry seasons as thou fleets,
And do whate’er thou wilt, swift-footed Time,
To the wide world and all her fading sweets;
But I forbid thee one more heinous crime:

In the next quatrain of text the speaker moves away from death to the general emotional landscape
of the poem. She tells “Time” that if she wants to she can, “Make glad and sorry seasons” as she moves
through the world. People can be happy or sad, the speaker doesn’t care. She refers to time as “swift-
footed.” The force moves quickly from place to place and has an uncontrollably will. The speaker
recognizes this and is hoping to reign her in, just a little.

The last thing that she tells “Time” that she is allowed to do is: whatever she wants to the “wide world.”
It is in line nine, what is the traditional halfway point of sonnets, that the first turn happens. The
speaker makes it clear that there is “one more heinous crime” that she doesn’t want “Time” to even
think about.
Lines 9-12
O, carve not with the hours my love’s fair brow,
Nor draw no lines there with thine antique pen!
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What that one thing is, is revealed in line nine. She needs “Time” to stay away from her “love’s fair
brow.” The speaker dreads “Time’s” progression on her lover’s face. She doesn’t want to see his age
carved out there.
It is “Time’s” old pen that she is most afraid of. After all the pleading of the first eight lines it comes
down to a simple request— don’t let “my” lover age. He should pass “untainted” through his life. If
this occurs, then for the rest of eternity men will look at him “For beauty’s pattern.” He will be the
highest standard anyone could strive for.

Lines 13-14

Yet do thy worst, old Time! Despite thy wrong

My love shall in my verse ever live young.

In the ﬁnal two lines the speaker relinquishes some of her determined posturing. She knows she
doesn’t have the power to stop “Time” from touching her beloved’s face. The speaker tells time “do
thy worst,” make him age and do “wrong” by him. No matter what happens, the speaker knows that
he shall live forever young in her verse, or poetry. This is the only true immortality.

★ SONNET 33. “Full Many a Glorious Morning Have I Seen” – Shakespeare ★

Analysis

Lines 1-4
Full many a glorious morning have I seen
Flatter the mountain tops with sovereign eye,
Kissing with golden face the meadows green,
Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy,

In the ﬁrst lines of ‘Sonnet 33,’ the speaker begins by using imagery to create a beautiful natural scene.
He addresses the Fair Youth telling him that he has seen “many a glorious morning”. The “sun” rises
up over the mountain tops and kisses the green meadows, turning them golden in the light. It has the
ability to completely transform the landscape. This is emphasized by the fourth line which alludes to
the powers of alchemy to transform one thing into another. Everything is alive, gilded in gold as if by
magic.

Lines 5-8
Anon permit the basest clouds to ride
With ugly rack on his celestial face,
And from the fórlorn world his visage hide,
Stealing unseen to west with this disgrace.

In the second quatrain of ‘Sonnet 33,’ the speaker says that all of a sudden the darkest, “basest clouds”
rise up with “ugly rack” on the sun’s “celestial face”. This is a complex metaphor, one that relates back
to the betrayal that’s at the heart of the poem. The clouds cover the sun’s face as a symbol of that
betrayal, they darken the light that the Fair Youth puts out.
The “visage,” or face, of the sun is hidden from the “fólorn world”. The sun is hidden and is then able
to sneak off to the west in disgrace.

Lines 9-13
Ev’n so my sun one early morn did shine
With all triumphant splendor on my brow;
But out alack, he was but one hour mine;
The region cloud hath masked him from me now.
Yet him for this my love no whit disdaineth.
Suns of the world may stain when heav‘n’s sun staineth.

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Shakespeare emphasizes the imagery used in the ﬁrst eight lines of ‘Sonnet 33’ in the concluding six.
There is a volta between the two sections, with the poet transitioning into speaking clearly about his
love, the Fair Youth. He knows that this sneaky behavior on the part of the user is exactly the same as
how his sun, the youth, shone on his face, or “brow”. The clouds quickly obscured the sun.

The sun, the youth, was only brieﬂy in the speaker’s possession. The clouds came and masked him.
Despite the betrayal, whatever it may be, the speaker does not fault the youth for it. It is possible for
“Suns of the world,” men who are golden like the sun, to disgrace themselves just as easily as the sun
does when clouds pass before it.

Firstly, in Sonnet 12, “When I do Count the Clock that Tells the Time”, in the following lines: “When
I do count the clock that tells the time/ and see the brave day sunk in hideous night”, Shakespeare
highlights how human beings are helpless against the passage of time and emphasizes procreation
in this sonnet as the only ally against this enemy.

Poetry transcends the barriers of time according to William Shakespeare, in Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18
“Shall I compare thee to a Summer’s day” this idea is emphasized in the following lines of the poem:
“But thy eternal summer shall not fade,/ Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st,/ Nor shall death
brag thou wander'st in his shade, /When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st “. The beloved’s beauty
is eternal because it is immortalized by the poet “in eternal lines”.
In addition, in the two final lines of the sonnet: “So long as men can breath or eyes can see/, So long
lives this, and this gives life to thee.” The poetic voice expresses how despite they both achieve a
mature age, and will eventually die, the poem will live forever, in people’s minds. As long as the poem
survives time, his beloved will be brought to life and remembered, his beloved will be eternal thanks
to his own poetry.
Furthermore, in lines 13-14, of Shakespeare’s Sonnet 19 “Devouring Time, Blunt thou the Lion’s Paws”:
“Yet do thy worst, Old Time! Despite thy wrong My love shall in my verse ever live young.”. The poetic
voice addresses “Time” and explains that it does not matter if it makes her beloved becomes old,
because he will continue to be alive in her verse (poetry). The poetic voice writes about her beloved
as a way for him to immortalize him forever.

★ SONNET 55. “Not marble nor the gilded monuments” – Shakespeare ★

COMMENT ON OTHER ELEMENTS THAT ARE MAN-MADE INCLUDING THE BEST MONUMENTS, WORKS
OF MASONRY. ALL OF THESE THINGS ARE SWEPT BY TIME. THE POETIC VOICE: no matter the conﬂicts
of the world, your memory and your beauty will be preserved.
You'll be left untouched from the evils of the passing of time, among all of the things created by man,
this is the one that prevails, the most secret element that can be human made is POETRY.
HOW DOES TIME APPEAR IN THIS SONNET? The effects of time and the passage of time, without
mentioning the word time.
MARBLE IS AN EXPENSIVE MATERIAL, nothing that can be created by man, should outlive this poem.
Nothing that is man-made can SURPASS THE ABILITY TO WITHSTAND AND TO CHALLENGE TIME, AS
THIS POWERFUL RHYME CAN.

★ SONNET 127. “ In the Old Age Black Was Not Counted Faire” ★

FIRST SONNET OF THE DARK LADY, A LOT HAS BEEN SPECULATED OF WHO THE LARK LADY, WE
DON’T KNOW IF IT IS AN INVENTED CHARACTER. We don't know what dark means, which can be a
reference to the hair, or if it is a dark-skinned character, or a reﬂection of the analogy of this fair and
white, we might assume, this darkness is a continuation of the idea of the moral features that are
developed in other sonnets.

Analysis

STANZA 1: black is the heir of fair and beautiful.

➔ Notions of Petrarchism, inherit ideas of beauty and love, are used to reﬂect on art itself, we

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can read this as a meta poetical, there is a challenging of the idea of beauty but is also a means
to challenge the way to think about beauty and the way to think about writing about beauty.
➔ It can be seen as part of the project in which Shakespeare revisits and does something
completely different, by saying in the old, age black was not counted fair, his poetry starts
something new, by claiming that black is fair, he is also doing in addition to literally placing the
beauty of my beloved the so called dark lady in the center of my standard of beauty. I am now
operating a new age, because I’m counting black as fair. There are readings beyond

We get that the dark lady who is the one of the poetic voice’s mistresses, one of his loves, is dark
skinned. We are also saying that the poetic voice that in the past would not have been described as
beautiful, but he claims that her beauty is very real.

SECOND STANZA. ART BEGINS TO MEDAL AS A METHOD OF FALSENESS

Fairing the foul with Art’s false borrow’d face: Fair is making me beautiful, but also making beautiful
what it is not (What is disagreeable). The poetic voice is truthfully what we have is a standard of beauty,
which claims for themselves, when truthfully they are Not naturally beautiful, they put makeup on,
this layer of falseness, what you get is that sweet beauty is profaned. On the one hand this is an insult
of real beauty which has to compete with competitors is unfair to a true notion of beauty, fake beauty
has emerged to cover elements, this is masking up nature. This we have seen in Sydney, the mother of
convention and study.

There are repeated ideas, in the following stanza,: At such who, not born fair, no beauty lack, Sland’ring
creation with a false esteem: NOT BEING BORNED FAIR SKIN, they are not not beautiful, and her eyes
laments this situation.

Sland’ring creation with a false esteem: Yet so they mourn, becoming of their woe,
Her eyes as dark as they are they are beautiful.

Yet so they mourn, becoming of their woe, That every tongue says beauty should look so.
My mistress's eyes are black as if they seem mourners, they appear as people who are mourning, when
looking at this situation. True beauty has to compete in the face of this situation, unintended, with a
masking up with what is considered foul, through make up, natural beauties, which not mean not
beautiful, they are not unbeautiful, my mistress laments as a result of all of these things, her eyes
become darker and they appear more beautiful.

THE IDEA OF DARKNESS AND BLACKNESS: RAVEN BLACK: TO INCREASE

THE NOTION OF HOW DARK. Other notions are the ideas of woe, the wish to paint the blackest face of
woe. THIS WAS SYDNEY IN THE FIRST SONNET: ASTROPHIL AND STELLA: sadness with the fact of the
melancholy was produced of black bile (the melancholic character). The notion of mourning is also in
black.

★ SONNET 130. “My Mistress’ Eyes Are Nothing Like the Sun” – Shakespeare ★
71

The speaker describes the eyes of the woman he loves, noting that they are not like the sun. He then
compares the color of her lips to that of coral, a reddish-pink, concluding that her lips are much less
red. Next he compares her breasts to the whiteness of snow. His lover's skin, in contrast, is a dull gray.
He suggests that his lover's hair is like black wires. Then he notes that he has seen roses that blend
together pink and white hues like a lush embroidered fabric, but that his lover's cheeks lack such colors:
they are not rosy pink. He then notes that some perfumes smell better than the breath his wife exhales.
He loves to listen to her talk, but he understands that music sounds better. Though the speaker admits
that he has never seen a goddess move, he is still sure that his lover moves like an ordinary person,
simply walking on the ground. But, the speaker swears, the woman he loves is as unique, as special,
and as beautiful, as any woman whose beauty has been inflated through false comparisons by other
poets.

He does not idealize his beloved, he says she is an ordinary person, she is no goddess.

In many ways, Shakespeare’s sonnets subvert and reverse the conventions of the Petrarchan love
sequence: the idealizing love poems, for instance, are written not to a perfect woman but to an
admittedly imperfect man, and the love poems to the dark lady are anything but idealizing (“My love
is as a fever, longing still / For that which longer nurseth the disease” is hardly a Petrarchan conceit.)
Sonnet 130 mocks the typical Petrarchan metaphors by presenting a speaker who seems to take them
at face value, and somewhat bemusedly, decides to tell the truth. Your mistress’ eyes are like the sun?
That’s strange—my mistress’ eyes aren’t at all like the sun. Your mistress’ breath smells like perfume?
My mistress’ breath reeks compared to perfume. In the couplet, then, the speaker shows his full intent,
which is to insist that love does not need these conceits in order to be real; and women do not need
to look like flowers or the sun in order to be beautiful.

There are two people I love – one who brings me comfort, and the other, despair. These both spur me
on, like two spirits. The better of the two, like an angel, is a beautiful man with light skin, while the
worse of the two is a woman with a dark complexion. This dark angel tries to tempt me into sinfulness,
by tempting the fair young man away from me. She wants to corrupt him, turning him from a saint into
a devil, seducing him and his purity with her foul pride. And whether he is corrupted by her, I cannot
say for sure (though I have my suspicions). But since neither of them is spending time with me, but
they’re both spending time with each other, I assume that he has been led astray by her, and she’s
dragged him down into her hell. But this I’ll never know for sure, and have to remain in doubt, until
the bad angel drives away the good one altogether.’

Line 1
The first line, with its inverted word order, Two loves I have, and psychological extremes, comfort and
despair, signals to the reader that they are about to undertake an unusual journey.
There is an immediate feeling of stress, the language portraying a person caught between two poles -
positive and negative, ease and unease, hope and hopelessness. One love brings comfort, the other
despair.

Line 2
The fact that the speaker is affected psychologically/emotionally, causes him to view the loves as
spirits, entities of the air (or the mind). This is why they are able to tempt him constantly (suggest me
still).
Note the enjambment which takes the reader straight to the next line. Iambic pentameter is dominant
in both opening lines and continues on.

Line 3

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The love that brings comfort is the better angel, a man right fair—the fair youth, the lovely boy from
previous sonnets. With the introduction of a biblical term, angel, the focus shifts somewhat. We've
entered the religious realm of Christian imagery.

Line 4
In contrast, the adversary is a woman with a dark complexion, the dark lady of previous sonnets, now
a rival lover, a worse spirit. So the scene is set. These two are walking onto the stage and bringing with
them their respective auras and histories.
Line 4 is the first to slightly deviate from pure iambic pentameter, the rhythm altering mid-line so there
is a pause after spirit, a natural caesura.
This first quatrain presents the reader with the antagonists, introduces religious language and has the
speaker well and truly caught in a triangle of love. He is trying to work things out in his mind, inviting
the reader into a suggestive world of hetero and homo.

Line 5
Now we're being told that the female, the dark lady, is evil. Why? Because she's causing hell for the
speaker. And the word soon only worsens the desperate situation the speaker finds himself in.

Line 6
Enjambment takes the reader straight into line 6, the evil woman now a temptress, taking the man
right fair away from the speaker. This is shocking news. The reader is beginning to understand now
just what is at stake. This is becoming a battle of good versus evil, embodied in these two characters,
and the speaker is clear that the fault lies with the woman.

Line 7
In the process of distracting the better angel, the worse spirit is also corrupting him. There is more
religious language—saint, devil—which suggests that there is a danger of her using her feminine
charms, to tempt the young man into sin.
These biblical undertones are growing stronger. The image is conjured up of a saintly innocent being
sexually seduced by a female whose dark powers will send him (and the speaker) directly to hell.

Line 8
All of this action in the second quatrain is summed up in line 8 as the woman woos, tries to gain the
love of a pure and fair young man. She is using her physical prowess, her sexual advances which are
blatant and obscene.

Line 9
If the fair young man has been turned into something diabolic, changed from a spiritual person into a
demon because of the dark lady and her powers . . .

Line 10
. . . which is difficult to tell, but is likely so . . .

Line 11
. . . because he knows them both, they share common ground as friends, even if they're away from
each other, which is not the ideal situation he wants to be in . . .
74

Line 12
. . . so the fair young man and the dark lady will get what they deserve, he being in a hell created by
her, both of them victims of lust, sin and unspeakable acts.

This third quatrain is a little ambiguous. Has the speaker denounced the better angel because he has
been tempted away from his side by the lustful advances of the dark lady?

Passion seems to have gained the upper hand. In Shakespeare's time, hell was also used as a double
entendre, being in hell was an allusion to sexual intercourse. It seems that heaven has been brought
down by the hellish antics of the female spirit.

Lines 13 and 14
And so to the concluding couplet and the agony of the speaker who isn't really certain about these two
friends after all. He is destined to live in doubt and ignorance because he hasn't actually caught them
red-handed, in the act, he only suspects that she is up to something and fears for his fair friend, the
young man, who could end up a sorry, corrupted figure.

The speaker will only get to know for certain if she gets rid of him and he contracts a venereal disease.
Then he will know. This last line is based on a metaphor which was in common use in Shakespeare's
time - that of using fire to get a fox out of its hole. It was also an allusion to the onset of venereal
disease—let's not forget this was a pretty serious ailment back in the Elizabethan era.

Shakespeare as ever takes us to heaven and back down again to hell, revealing life and love and the
agonies apparent in both as no other poet has. Was he actually involved in such a triangle in real life?
Impossible to tell, so little is known about the day-to-day life of the Bard of Avon.

It does seem highly likely that at some stage in his emotional love life, the only way for him to
understand what was going on was to write sonnet after sonnet, transforming life into art as only he
could.

Analysis of Sonnet 144

In the first quatrain of sonnet 144 Shakespeare describes his two loves. While one he calls comforting,
the other brings despair. He goes on to say that both loves urge him quite like spirits would. The better
angel is a man who is beautiful and handsome, while the worser spirit or angel is a woman who is dark
in her coloring. It is quite clear that the poet prefers the companionship of the man over that of the
lady. The man and woman seem to represent opposites in the life of the poet and are something of an
antithesis to each other. He is good and light, and she is dark and corrupt. While he is fair, she is dark,
he offers comfort and she brings the poet despair.

He says, in the second quatrain, that his female lover will soon send him to hell by tempting his better
angel away from him. Here he doesnt mean hell in the literal sense, but the turmoil of having to choose
between his shared loyalties and not understanding what would be the final result in this love triangle.
He says that would corrupt his better angel into a devil and corrupt his soul with her pride.
Interestingly, he places all the guilt of the relationship between his male and female lovers on the lady.
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The poet is unsure if his fair friend, the better angel, will turn enemy, but he suspects this to be true.
He feels so because both the better angel and worser spirit are away from him and becoming friends
and coming to close to each other.

In the last quatrain he says that one angel is the others hell. However, he will never be sure even
though he has his doubts. And his doubts will be confirmed only when the bad angel drives the good
one away.

Unlike his other sonnets this one doesnt have a light or humorous tone, but in fact is quite cynical.
Metaphorically the sonnet talks of two different types of love, one offers adoration and the other is
pure lust. Both tempt and appeal the poet and while he is anxious about the result of this tangled web,
he is fairly sure that the dark lady will burn out the fair angel, Yet this shall I neer know, but live in
doubt Till my bad angel fire my good one out.

The sonnet may be interpreted in several ways there are those who think it is a clear depiction of
Shakespeares bisexual orientation. in sonnet 144 bisexuality is figured in terms of conflict and struggle.
This conflict it seems is two-fold. Its located in the speakers psyche, in his inability or reluctance to
choose one love rather than the other. Yet, it exists outside him, in the battle between the other man
and the woman which apparently centers on possession of the speaker, but in fact is still more complex
than this. For the sexual puns which saturate the poem clearly indicate that the traffic of desire in this
sexual triangle circulates in every possible direction. The sonnet 144 is quite unlike most sonnets
written in the same era as it presents a highly sexualized and erotic atmosphere. It depicts the speakers
inner turmoil over his decision to favor the lady over the man or vice versa, and also the sexual energy
between the other man and the lady. While many critics have focused only on the homosexual element
in the sonnet, there are those such as Garber and Chedgzoy who prefer to bring out the bisexual tone
in the sonnet. Furthermore, they focus on the fact that unlike other sonnets and speakers Shakespeare
speaks his mind rather bluntly and without disguise.

MARY WROTH
From A Crown of Sonnets Dedicated to Love,
- Sonnet 77 (“In This Strange Labyrinth How Shall I Turn?”).

The labyrinth represents a very straining stressful situation, in which the poetic voice is in. This image
of the labyrinth is material (paths, walls). These walls are an emotional estate that is explored by means
of architecture (a physical structure) Truthfully we go from ideas that go from shame, mourning,
danger. The poem is constructed like a labyrinth, the first two stanzas are confusing to read. They lead
to emotions of angst. The poetic voice establishes that she must do something (travail) can be read as
trouble and as work.

★ Sonnet 77: “In This Strange Labyrinth How Shall I Turn?” Mary Wroth ★

In this strange labyrinth how shall I turn?

Ways are on all sides, while the way I miss:
If to the right hand, there, in love I burn;

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Let me go forward, therein danger is;
If to the left, suspicion hinders bliss,
Let me turn back, shame cries I ought return,
Nor faint though crosses with my fortunes kiss;
Stand still is harder, although sure to mourn.

Then let me take the right- or left-hand way; Go forward, or stand still, or back retire;
I must these doubts endure without allay Or help, but travail find for my best hire.
Yet that which most my troubled sense doth move Is to leave all,
and take the thread of Love.
Mary Wroth alludes to mythology in her sonnet “In This Strange Labyrinth” to describe a woman’s
confused struggle with love. The speaker of the poem is a woman stuck in a labyrinth, alluding to the
original myth of Theseus and the Minotaur. The suggestion that love is not perfect and in fact painful
was a revolutionary thing for a woman to write about in the Renaissance. Wroth uses the poem’s title
and its relation to the myth, symbolism and poem structure to communicate her message about the
tortures of love.
In the title “In This Strange Labyrinth”, the labyrinth is symbolic of love’s maze-like qualities. The
speaker describes her predicament by saying, “In this strange Labyrinth how shall I turn/Ways are on
all sides” (1-2). A different path on every side surrounds her, and every way seems to be the wrong
way. She is confused about which way she should go. Wroth is conveying the theme of love in a
decidedly negative way, for according to myth, the Labyrinth was where the Minotaur lived and before
it’s demise, death was evident for all visitors of the maze. The speaker is struggling with every choice
she may make and cannot rest or find aid until she finds the best way: “Go forward, or stand still, or
back retire;/ I must these doubts endure without allay/ Or help, but travail find for my best hire” (10-
11). She has several choices and each one is confusing and leaves her feeling helpless.

➔ Class analysis:

The sonnet reflects on the poetic voice finds herself, acknowledged by the end of the sonnet that she
shall trust and seek love and her salvation. The first two stanzas express this impossibility of finding
the way out of that situation, the walls of the labyrinth are not physical, what is locking her way out is
the emotional turmoil.
The emotional turmoil is where she finds herself and impossibilities her to make decisions.
- I must these doubts endure without allay Or help, but travail find for my best hire.
Travail is trouble and work, the best ally is writing the poem. Reading is the best ally, when making a
decision.
LAST COUPLET: HOW TO MOVE FORWARD, what the poetic voice concludes, she can’t think clearly.
SHE HAS TO TRUST HER FEELINGS TO GET OUT.
- Yet that which most my troubled sense (common sense) doth move Is to leave all, and take the thread
of Love.
IT BRINGS US BACK THE BEGINNING OF THE SONNET, even if this sonnet is part of a circular sonnet
sequence.
Mayr Wroth was a widow, and even though she was well positioned, she went through a lot of
difficulties. This labyrinth that she is in, reflects on that difficult situation in romantic relationships, and
how that provides different considerations to be romantically involved.

BEN JONSON
From Underwood:
- Song: To Celia

Jonson’s father, a clergyman, died a month before: he was born was 'brought up poorly', according to
his own report. While he was still a 'little child' his mother married again to a bricklayer. At some time
in the early 1590s, Jonson abandoned his work as a bricklayer, and joined the English expeditionary
forces to the Low Countries. Every Man in his Humour, performed in 1598 by Shakespeare's own
company, the Lord Chamberlain's Men, with Shakespeare himself in a leading role city comedy. In 1598
Jonson was indicted on a charge of manslaughter, having killed in a duel the actor Gabriel Spencer. He
claimed Spencer had challenged him to this ﬁght. His goods were conﬁscated, and he was branded on
the thumb a burnt-in ‘M’ as a convicted felon. While in prison, he converted to Catholicism. His earliest
surviving poems date from this period; some are addressed to fellow Catholics. Involved in recurrent
troubles with authority despite his favoured position at court. charges of recusancy, among others.
Some plays: Volpone (1606), The Alchemist (1610) and Bartholomew Fair (1614).

★ Song: To Celia – Ben Jonson ★

This emerges from a collection of ancient greek writings that translate and put together Johnson's
song, the music that was written for, does not date for the 17th century, but dates for later on. It is a
song with great musicality grasped by various artists like John Cash.

The second stanza: acknowledgement that her divinity surpasses nature, transcends nature, what
would you expect of any mortal being, surpasses the best that nature can produce. The beautiful object
(the rose) and her powers are so extraordinary that roses beneﬁt from her company (they do not
wither). Celia is mortal, but the way that she is portrayed is that she is given supernatural powers, she
is beyond the best that nature can offer.

Stanza One Lines 1–4

Drink to me only with thine eyes,
And I will pledge with mine;
Or leave a kiss but in the cup,
And I’ll not look for wine.

The first stanza of this piece begins with the speaker asking that his lover “Drink” to him with only her
“eyes.” These first lines define the emotional depths of their partnership.

The speaker wants his lover to devote herself entirely to him and with her eyes, indulge in him as she
would a drink. The next line describes what it is he will give back to her if she chooses to commit herself
fully. He will “pledge” himself to her with his own eyes. This wordless communication is quite intimate.
The poet is allowing the reader into the world of this speaker.

The speaker moves on from the idea of communicating through glances in the next lines as he tells his
lover she is welcome to “leave a kiss…in the cup.” It is here that he will look for her, knowing full well
there will be no wine to drink. The poet has chosen to connect the indulgence of drink with that of
love. These two acts, ways of being, and emotional states are the same.

Lines 5–8
The thirst that from the soul doth rise
Doth ask a drink divine;
But might I of Jove’s nectar sup,
I would not change for thine.

In the following lines, he states the “thirst” for love which exists within the soul can only be quenched
by a “drink divine.” It is only something like “Jove’s nectar,” or the drink of the gods, which could sate
his thirst. In contrast to this statement, he says that if he could indulge in “nectar” that he would not
change for “thine.” His emotions for his lover would not change.

Additionally, a reader should take note of the fact that the characters in the poem are not well-deﬁned.
The speaker’s emotions are on display but there are no lines devoted to who he is or who his lover is.
This choice allows any type of reader to cast their own experiences onto the text. One will, ideally, be
able to relate to the emotions the couple experiences.

Stanza Two Lines 9–12

I sent thee late a rosy wreath,
Not so much honouring thee
As giving it a hope, that there
It could not withered be.

In the second stanza the speaker begins by describing how “late,” or later, he sent his lover a “rosy
wreath.” This was an action that was deeply thought through and meaningful to both of them. In the
following lines, he describes why he made the choice to send her this gift and what he meant by it.
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The speaker chose the “wreath” as a gift not for his lover’s sake, but for that of the wreath. He
professes his choice stemmed from a desire to give the wreath hope that it “could not withered be” in
her presence.

This hyperbolic scenario has a deeply romantic intention. He wants his lover to see how highly he
regards her. It is as if she could stave off death in anything or anyone around her. She revitalizes
everything near her.

But thou thereon didst only breathe,

And sent’st it back to me;
Since when it grows, and smells, I swear,
Not of itself, but thee.

The speaker’s lover did not react to the wreathe as he expected. She did not keep it as a monument
to their love but instead chose to send it back to him after breathing on it. She did this intentionally,
knowing how he would be impacted by it.

When he wreath came back to him, he smelled it and declared that it did not smell like it did before.
It now smelled of “thee,” his lover. Through these depictions of their love the speaker is hoping to both
ﬂatter his lover and improve their relationship further. ‘Song: to Celia’ is a true love poem that is wholly
dedicated to the promotion and continuation of a relationship.

JOHN DONNE
From Songs and Sonnets:
- The Flea
- The Sun Rising

The 3rd of 6 children – his father - warden of the Ironmongers' Company; his mother, Elizabeth
Heywood, youngest daughter of John Heywood the playwright. His mother’s side of the family also
connected with Sir Thomas More both the Heywoods and the Mores Catholic. Donne brought up as a
Roman Catholic. When he was four, his father died; his mother remarried a prominent physician
trained at Oxford and Bologna and several times president of the Royal College of Physicians. He went
to Oxford and left without taking a degree. Later admitted to Lincoln’s Inn to study law (he never
worked as a lawyer).
He worked as secretary to Sir Thomas Egerton, where he met Ann More, the niece of Lady Egerton;
they married in secret in 1601 scandal & Donne lost his position and was briefly imprisoned. financial
difficulties from Catholicism to Protestantism ordained in the Church of England in 1615, became royal
chaplain to James I. In 1617 Ann dies Donne vowed never to marry again. Famous as a preacher of
sermons Dean of St Paul’s Cathedral, London, 1621.

★ The Flea – John Donne ★

THE FLEA HAS THE BLOOD OF THE TWO OF THEM. The poet in the poem, ‘The Flea’ by John Donne,
asks his beloved to observe the ﬂea carefully and mark that what she denies to him is not of much
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significance. The flea sucked her blood and then sucked his. In this way, in its body, their respective
blood are mixed up. She must acknowledge that this mingling of their blood in the body of the flea is
neither sin, nor shame, nor loss of virginity.

But the ﬂea has enjoyed her without any wooing or courtship, and its body is now swelled up with the
enjoying of their respective blood, which now mingles in its body. The body regrets that such direct
enjoyment and consummation is not possible for human beings.

The meaning of the very first word “Marke” is to observe carefully, while the use of the word “union”
in the second line means the physical union which she has denied to him has been accomplished in
the body of the flea. That is; all her shrinking from his advances has been of little avail to her. In the
sixth line of the stanza, with the use of the word like maidenhead, he means to indicate the virginity
of the beloved, whereas the meaning of line like: “With one blood made of two,” he means to be
talking about their respective blood which mingle and become one in the body of the flea.

Stanza Two

Oh stay, three lives in one flea spare, (He does not want her to kill the flea, and the 3 lives are the
poetic voice, the lover and the flea) The flea has the blood of the three of them.
Where we almost, nay more than married are. (They are more than married within the flea) the flea
is a way to represent marriage. FLEA= MARRIAGE (through the flea they have been married), through
the flea bite has already married them.

*RELIGIOUS LANGUAGE
This flea is you and I, and this
Our mariage bed, and marriage temple is; Though parents grudge, and you, w’are met,
And cloistered in these living walls of jet. (cloistered is living in a cloister, these living walls mean the
flea) The flea has become the marriage temple, they are cloistered trapped the bloods are mixed in
the flea. Beyond physical space what has happened is that they have transcended the flea, in the same
way that the flea has transcended itself.
Though use make you apt to kill me, (3 SINS: double murder, and suicide) These are mortal sins, they
go against the flea, which is the institution of marriage.
Let not to that, self-murder added be,
And sacrilege, three sins in killing three.

The beloved must not kill the flea because in its body they are more than married, for in its body her
blood and his blood are mingled. Therefore, not only is the body of the flea, their wedding temple, but
it is also their bridal bed. Their blood mingles in the body of the flea as they mingle in the sex-act,
despite the objections of her parents and her own objections. They have been isolated from the world
and have met in privacy within the four walls which make up its body.

She should not kill the poor creatures, for it would be triple murder. She would kill the flea, as well as
the poet whose blood it has sucked. It will also be a self-murder which is prohibited by religion. The
killing of the flea would be sin and sacrilege; it would be three murders in one. In the second stanza,
when the poet says, “Oh stay”, he means to say as the beloved gets ready to kill the flea, while the
meaning of the word three lives is the life of the flea, of the lover and the beloved herself.
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Stanza Three
Cruel and sudden, hast thou since Purpled thy nail, in blood of innocence? Wherein could this flea
guilty be,
Except in that drop which it sucked from thee? (the flea has only sucked a drop of the beloved’s blood)
Yet thou triumph’st, and say’st that thou (I’ve killed the flea, get over it, I don’t feel regret)
Find’st not thy self, nor me the weaker now;

FINAL TRIPLET:
’Tis true; then learn how false, fears be: (it is true the flea means nothing, we can learn how false this
fears are, you will lose as much honor when you do it with me, nothing, it will be as insignificant as
killing the flea)
Just so much honor, when thou yield’st to me,
Will waste, as this flea’s death took life from thee.
As the beloved kills the flea, the lover calls her cruel and rash. She has purpled her nails with the blood
of the innocent flea. What was the fault of the poor creature, except that it had sucked a drop of her
blood? The beloved is triumphant and says that neither she nor her lover is in any way weaker for
having killed it. This is perfectly true. From this, she should learn that her fears of losing her honor
through yielding to the advances of her lover are false.

Just as she has lost little life in the death of the ﬂea which sucked her blood, so she will lose honor in
yielding herself to him. When the poet says: “Purpled thy naile”, he means to say that the beloved has
actually killed the ﬂea and thus purpled her nails with innocent blood.

And when he says: “’Tis true; then learn how false, fears be:” he means to be saying that since she has
not lost any honor from the ﬂea’s sucking her blood, she should not fear that she should lose any honor
from yielding to her lover, while the meaning of words like: “Will waste” means will be lost.
__________________________________________________________________

In this poem we see a compressed reflection on the idea of marriage for the purposes of seducing the
lady. The three stanzas can be taken as three acts, or scenes. The first scene would involve the poetic
voice remarking the presence of the flea, noting that the flea has already beaten him and the mistress,
and he says that is a lucky situation, the flea has mingled their bloods.

In the second stanza, the flea is elevated to something else, to a metaphysical status, a religious
institution, (marriage bed), the flea has married them, other words that come from the religious
semantic field are present in the second stanza. The flea becomes a temple, and then the flea is these
living worlds of jets. The poetic voice prays that the mistress does not kill the flea.

In stanza number 3, the mistress has killed the flea. After two rhetorical questions, the poetic voice
laments the killing of this flea, sacrificed for nothing (purple nail). The change of heart comes WITH
AFTER THE STATEMENT OF THE BELOVED WHEN SHE FEELS SHE HAS NOT SUFFERED ANYTHING and
the flea was not as important as it seemed. Conversely to what we would think, the poetic voice does
not go into a longer lament but decides to agree with the mistress to support his statement to attempt
her giving in and having sexual intercourse with him.

“The Flea” is a poem of seduction, but the speaker takes an unusual approach to getting his lady into
bed. Instead of praising her beauty or promising her happiness, he instead insists that virginity is
unimportant and that its loss will note be a significant source of shame or dishonor. In doing so, he
pushes against the values of his society, which prized female virginity and pressured women to
preserve it until marriage. “The Flea” thus tries to create a space for sexual pleasure outside the
boundaries of marriage.

The speaker begins the poem in frustration, even exasperation, with the implication that his mistress
continuously refuses to have sex with him. Though she does not speak in the poem, the reader can
guess at her reasons for refuging the speaker based on the argument the speaker makes to change her
mind: she wants to preserve her virginity, and she worries that losing it outside of marriage will result
in sin, shame, and dishonor.

The speaker attempts to address these concerns. Playing on the Renaissance belief that during sex the
blood of the two partners mingled together, the speaker notes that their blood also mingles in a flea
which has bitten both of them. Since it’s not a sin or shameful for their blood to meet in the body of
the flea, he argues, it’s not a sin for the same thing to happen during sex.

The speaker’s argument is not entirely convincing: even for Renaissance reader, it would be surprising,
even silly, to think that the most important thing about sex is the mingling of blood between the
partners. There is something juvenile and provocative about the poem: some readers may feel that
comparing sex to getting bitten by a flea is intended to be funny and gross, rather than seductive.

The speaker of “The Flea” is thus unusually ambitious. He seeks not only to seduce his mistress, but
also to defy – and perhaps remake- social norms around sexuality. You might wonder how sincere the
speaker is in advancing this proposal – it is awfully convenient that changing these mores would also
fulfill his desires in this moment. Though “The Flea” makes radical proposals about sexuality, questions
about the speaker’s sincerity cut down the force of those proposals – and so too does the fact that the
mistress kills the flea. She, at least, is unimpressed by the speaker’s arguments.

★ The Sun Rising – John Donne ★

The poetic voice wants to succeed in the mistress having

relations with him. This happens in the bond of marriage, this is

not a dishonouring encounter. It places itself in the context of a

bedroom. Donne as well as other poets wrote similar poems to

the sun rising “Break of day” by John Donne. Similar concerns to

“The sun rising”.This rising at the beginning of the day is the end

of night, is the moment to say goodbye to the beloved.

The poetic voice wants to succeed in the mistress having relations with him. This happens in the bond
of marriage, this is not a dishonoring encounter. It places itself in the context of a bedroom. Donne as
well as other poets wrote similar poems to the sun rising “Break of day” by John Donne. Similar
concerns to “The sun rising”.This rising at the beginning of the day is the end of night, is the moment
to say goodbye to the beloved.

Lines 1-3
The ﬁrst three lines of "The Sun Rising" establish the relationship and tension among the three entities
of the poem: the speaker, his lover, and the sun. The speaker disparagingly personiﬁes the sun as a
"busy old fool" who is "unruly" in the face of some authority. That authority is revealed at the end of
line three to be "us," the speaker and an unknown party (later revealed to be his lover), who together
relish the peaceful darkness of a curtained room.

By shining through the windows and curtains, the sun is being unruly and rude not to some unspeciﬁed
authority, but directly to the speaker and his lover.
The two main poetic devices at play in these lines further serve to elevate the speaker's power over
the sun. The speaker uses apostrophe to ask a rhetorical question of an entity, the sun, who can't
respond. When the speaker demands to know why the sun insists on shining through the curtains, he
is uninterested in an actual justiﬁcation.

In "The Sun Rising," the speaker wants to bend the rules of the universe. Rather than allowing the sun's
"motions" across the sky to govern the way the speaker spends his time, the speaker challenges the
sun's authority and claims that love gives him (the speaker) the power to stay in bed all day with his
lover. In this way, the poem elevates the importance and power of love above work, duty, and even
the natural rhythms of the day itself.
From the start the speaker talks down to the sun, robbing it of the authority it presumes to have when
it shines "through windows, and through curtains" upon lovers in the morning. In the first line, the sun
appears as a "busy old fool" and "unruly." This language suggests that not only is the sun foolish, but
also that it ought to be "ruled" by some greater authority that it's failing to heed.
Although the speaker concedes that the sun is free to rule over "late school boys" (as well as several
other parties for whom the speaker seems to have little respect), he claims that all he would have to
do to "eclipse and cloud" the sun would be to close his eyes. The ease of this action demonstrates that
the sun is indeed "foolish" to think that its beams are "reverend and strong" in the face of a lover. By
the third stanza, the speaker is not only giving the sun orders to annoy others instead of him and his
lover, but he's also ordering the sun to actually serve the lovers by warming them in their bed. The
lovers thus become the greater authority that the sun itself ought to obey.

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In "The Sun Rising," the speaker wants to bend the rules of the universe. Rather than allowing the sun's
"motions" across the sky to govern the way the speaker spends his time, the speaker challenges the
sun's authority and claims that love gives him (the speaker) the power to stay in bed all day with his
lover. In this way, the poem elevates the importance and power of love above work, duty, and even
the natural rhythms of the day itself.

From the start the speaker talks down to the sun, robbing it of the authority it presumes to have when
it shines "through windows, and through curtains" upon lovers in the morning. In the first line, the sun
appears as a "busy old fool" and "unruly." This language suggests that not only is the sun foolish, but
also that it ought to be "ruled" by some greater authority that it's failing to heed.

Although the speaker concedes that the sun is free to rule over "late school boys" (as well as several
other parties for whom the speaker seems to have little respect), he claims that all he would have to
do to "eclipse and cloud" the sun would be to close his eyes. The ease of this action demonstrates that
the sun is indeed "foolish" to think that its beams are "reverend and strong" in the face of a lover. By
the third stanza, the speaker is not only giving the sun orders to annoy others instead of him and his
lover, but he's also ordering the sun to actually serve the lovers by warming them in their bed. The
lovers thus become the greater authority that the sun itself ought to obey.

By asserting himself as the ruler of the sun, the speaker claims the authority to indefinitely extend the
dawn so that he can stay with his lover. The speaker asks the sun early on, "Must to thy motions lovers'
seasons run?" This rhetorical question suggests that the speaker wants lovers' "seasons" to be exempt
from the daily rhythms dictated by the rising of the sun. The speaker goes on to distinguish love as
unfamiliar with "the rags of time," suggesting that love is everlasting and therefore not subject to the
starts and stops of "hours, days, months," and other temporal units that govern the lives of "school
boys," "horsemen," and "country ants." Time, including the rising and setting sun, works differently
for lovers than for anyone else.

By the end of the poem, the speaker has "contracted" the entire world to the bed, so that the sun’s
job is to "warm" there. Whereas most people must leave their beds during the day in order to
accomplish their jobs, the speaker's insistence that love is the most important occupation anyone
could have makes the bed into a sort of daytime workplace. What's more, that workplace is so
important that the sun must drop what it is doing everywhere else in order to make the "work" of the
bedroom possible.

The way the speaker reverses power in the poem doesn't simply make the sun into a servant of the
speaker: the speaker diverts the sun from everyone else, demanding that it shine only on him and his
lover. In this way, the speaker puts the rest of the world's productivity on hold. Instead of seizing the
day by jumping out of bed, he is seizing everyone else's day for himself.

The speaker uses extended metaphor not only to compare his bed to an empire but also to annex (that
is, to take in) all of the world's empires into his own bed. In so doing, he collapses the expansive world
into the space of his bedroom. In the second stanza, the speaker demands of the sun to look for "both
th' Indias of spice and mine" in the place where they were last located. (The "Indias" referenced are
the East Indies and the West Indies, both of which had been colonized by European nations by the
time Donne was writing.) The speaker goes on to claim that these peripheral sources of imperial wealth
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and power now "lie here with me," meaning that they have been incorporated into the body of the
speaker's lover.

The speaker goes on to claim that the kings of the empires that extend into the East and West Indies
"All here in one bed lay." The speaker doesn't mean that the bed is literally full of kings. Rather, this
line suggests that the kings and the power they represent have all been incorporated into the body of
the speaker. As the kings conquer more nations in an effort to expand their empires, these far-ranging
empires are simply relocated to and consolidated in the lovers' bed. Because the speaker's lover is
figured as "all states" and the speaker himself is figured as "all princes," the world outside the bedroom
falls away. The speaker is able to claim that "Nothing else is," meaning that the relationship between
the two lovers is all that matters (or, that this relationship is so expansive that it contains the entire
universe within it).

The speaker's transformation of himself into the rightful heir to all the world's thrones gives him
greater sovereignty (ruling power) than any individual ruler has. By turning the bed into a microcosm,
then, the speaker is able to inflate his own importance so that his orders to the sun are justified rather
than insubordinate (unlike the sun, the speaker isn't "unruly").
Although the "court huntsmen" of the first stanza serve the king—who can decide whether or not to
ride on any given day—the king still must time his rides according to daylight and weather patterns.
The speaker, meanwhile, is able to assign the sun "duties" according to his will. The sun thus serves
the speaker as the court huntsmen serve the king. This impossible reordering of the universe inflates
the speaker's power past the point that any earthly prince or king's power can grow. And if the
subordination of the sun is not enough, the speaker also undermines the power of political rulers
directly in comparison to himself. He insists that he is not mimicking a prince but rather that, "Princes
do but play us." The speaker and his lover are the paragon of imperial power. Real princes only imitate
the lovers.

By "contracting" the entire world to the microcosm of the bed, the speaker asserts the authority and
all-encompassing power granted to him by love.

Stanza One

Busy old fool, unruly sun, Why dost thou thus,

Through windows, and through curtains call on us?
Must to thy motions lovers’ seasons run?
Saucy pedantic wretch, go chide
Late school boys and sour prentices,
Go tell court huntsmen that the king will ride,
Call country ants to harvest oﬃces,
Love, all alike, no season knows nor clime,
Nor hours, days, months, which are the rags of time.

It is immediately obvious that personiﬁcation is going to play an important role in this poem when the
titular object — the sun — is referred to as an “unruly,” “busy old fool.” The sun is calling to the
narrator of The Sun Rising “through windows, and through curtains” — which is what the sun does,
after all. It rises, and shines through the edges of curtains. The “calling,” then, is simply the narrator
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and whomever they are with, that it is morning. The narrator begins to list off all of the other things
the sun could be doing — reminding oversleeping schoolchildren that they are going to be later for
school, beginning the day for noblemen, anything other than waking up the speaker and reminding
that they need to begin their day. The last two lines, as well as the “us” in the third line, suggest that
the speaker is not alone, but are rather waking up alongside a lover, and that because love is timeless,
the rising sun should leave them alone, rather than force them to leave each other’s company in the
bed.

Stanza Two
Thy beams, so reverend and strong
Why shouldst thou think?
I could eclipse and cloud them with a wink,
But that I would not lose her sight so long;
If her eyes have not blinded thine,
Look, and tomorrow late, tell me,
Whether both th’ Indias of spice and mine
Be where thou leftst them, or lie here with me.
Ask for those kings whom thou saw’st yesterday,
And thou shalt hear, All here in one bed lay.

The narrator wants to shut the sun out of existence; it is easily possible to simply close the eyes, clear
the mind, and forget that day has even come. Unfortunately, now that the speaker sees the person
they spent the night with, they no longer want to close their eyes and not be able to see; grudgingly,
they are forced to accept the presence of the rising sun.
The rest of the verse questions the worth of leaving a bed shared with a loved one; they reference the
“Indias of spice and mine,” referencing spice foraging and mining operations in the Eastern and
Western Indies at the time, and seem to suggest that everything will run exactly as it is supposed to
whether they leave their bed or not — so they can check on a mission that is, at present, meaningless,
or they can remain with each other.

Stanza Three
She’s all states, and all princes, I,
Nothing else is.
Princes do but play us; compared to this,
All honor’s mimic, all wealth alchemy.
Thou, sun, art half as happy as we,
In that the world’s contracted thus.
Thine age asks ease, and since thy duties be
To warm the world, that’s done in warming us.
Shine here to us, and thou art everywhere;
This bed thy center is, these walls, thy sphere.

His verse does much to emphasize the enormous importance the narrator places on their lover — she
is everyone and everywhere he ever needs to be or know, and nothing else exists while the two are
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together. Honour and wealth become meaningless, princes seem poor when compared to what they
have. Returning to the personiﬁcation of the sun, the narrator addresses it once more, stating that its
presence is not needed, since its purpose is to warm the world, and he feels warm. The Sun Rising ends
on a somewhat cryptic note, but suggests that the narrator’s universe consists of two people and one
room only — that bed is the centre of the universe, and the walls of the room are its edge, and so
when that room is warmed, the whole of the world is to them.

THE IDEA OF KING IN THE SUN RISING?

The worst thing that can happen to a lover is being busy (busy old fool). Light is a spy of the lover, it
intrudes in the bedroom. Donne writes about spiritual matters, the idea that man was in a condensed
smaller scale operating in the same way as the rest of the universe, anything physical of a man is
connected to the universe (microcosmos), this idea is very common during the Renaissance.

The speaker of "The Sun Rising" is obsessed with carving out an empire for himself. However, he
refuses to leave his bed. By comparing his lover to "th' Indias of spice and mine," then to "all states,"
and by comparing himself to "all kings" and "all princes," the speaker expands his power beyond that
of any earthly ruler. An empire represents, to the speaker, an extreme position of power. Running all
the empires in the world is beyond human power.

The sun, kings, and princes were all thought during the Renaissance to derive their power directly from
God. By consolidating the power of all kings and princes, and by demonstrating that he is more
powerful than the sun, the speaker becomes the most powerful being in the universe apart from God.
In this way, the speaker's conquest of all empires turns him into a Christ-like figure. He is God's "Son
Rising" to challenge the "Sun Rising" in the poem's title.

The enhancement of the characteristics of the mistress, to the degree of placing her above the sun and
the parts of the sun. If there is anyone to blind the other that is the mistress, that is the same as the
East and the West, she is the entire world. And the busy old fool that you should be reverend and you
think that you will have any part of is. You will be nothing but a servant to us.

Both in the case of the ﬂea and the sun rising, we have variations of this notion of wooing the beloved
and wooing the mistress. In the ﬂea, there is a situation of two lovers, one of them trying to convince
the other to have sex with him, enclose situation of the bedroom.

ANDREW MARVELL
- To His Coy Mistress

➔ Poet and politician

➔ born in Yorkshire, raised in Hull, trained at Cambridge U.
➔ Early twenties in Europe returns to England after Charles I’s execution (1649)
➔ 1650 to 1652 private tutor to Mary Fairfax, daughter of Lord General Thomas Fairfax
➔ Involved in political life:
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a) during Cromwell’s Protectorate Latin Secretary to the Protectorate friendship with
Milton
b) Member of Parliament for Hull ﬁrst time in 1659 + for the next 19 years His lyric poems
posthumous Miscellaneous Poems (1681)
The ‘metaphysical’ school of poetry:
John Donne (1572–1631); George Herbert (1593–1633); Andrew Marvell (1621–1678); Abraham
Cowley (1618–1667); Richard Crashaw (c. 1613–1649);
Thomas Traherne (1636 or 1637 – 1674); Henry Vaughan (1622–1695)
*“An Horatian Ode upon Cromwell’s Return from Ireland”
The forward youth that would appear Must now forsake his Muses dear, Nor in the shadows sing
His numbers languishing.

★ To His Coy Mistress – Andrew Marvell ★

- COYNESS: false modesty. The lady is avoiding having sex with him, she is restraining from
having sexual intercourse with him. Because according to her there is no need to rush. And the
poetic voice says that they don’t have enough time to waste, the poetic voice expresses the
situation. There is the development of her saying no and that being a crime for him. For
instance in “Thou by the Indian Ganges’ side, Shouldst rubies ﬁnd; I by the tide, Of Humber
would complain.” Reference to the world.
- WAITING IS A CRIME, because they don’t have enough time.

In which way is Time presented in Marvell's poem?

Marvell’s “To his coy mistress”, written in the early 1650s, is a poem where the speaker addresses a

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lady who does not seem to respond to his love entreaties in the way that he would desire, which is
one of physical intimacy. In an argu- mentative fashion (cf. Reiff 2002), the speaker–in fact a would-be
lover– stresses the idea of the passing of time and associated physical deterioration as the reason why
both him and his beloved should grab the chance and enjoy life while they are still young. Thus, an
initial analysis of the poem could easily place it within the carpe diem (‘seize the day’) literary tradition
originated by Horace in his Odes.
As is well known, the carpe diem motif emphasises how short life is and suggests that one should
enjoy the pleasures of the here and now. This motif has been important in lyric poetry, where the poet
addresses his beloved with a persuasive tone in order to gain her love. It is for this reason that the
poet emphasizes “seizing the day.”

Metaphysical Poets
By Samuel Johnson (1709–1784)

From The Lives of the Poets

Metaphysical:

This is a very broad term, but it joins together a number of 17 th century poets, most notable among
them John Donne, George Herbert, Richard Crashaw, Andrew Marvell, Henry Vaughn and Abraham
Cowley.

By itself, metaphysical means dealing with the relationship between spirit to matter or the ultimate
nature of reality. The Metaphysical poets are obviously not the only poets to deal with this subject
matter, so there are a number of other qualities
involved as well:

- Use of ordinary speech mixed with puns, paradoxes and conceits (a paradoxical metaphor
causing a shock to the reader by the strangeness of the objects compared; some examples:
lovers and a compass, the soul and timber, the body and mind)
- The exaltation of wit, which in the 17th century meant a nimbleness of thought; a sense of
fancy (imagination of a fantastic or whimsical nature); and originality in figures of speech.
- Abstruse terminology often drawn from science or law.
- Often poems are presented in the form of an argument.
- In love poetry, the metaphysical poets often draw on ideas from Renaissance Neo-Platonism
to show the relationship between the soul and body and the union of lovers' souls
- They also try to show a psychological realism when describing the tensions of love.

They are concerned with the form, in the fifth paragraph. In John Donne’s the Flea, seducing the wife,
comparing the flea with the institution of marriage, it is a way to connect two different concepts.

But wit, abstracted from its effects upon the hearer, may be more rigorously and philosophically
considered as a kind of discordia concors; a combination of dissimilar images or discovery of occult
resemblances in things apparently unlike. Of wit, thus defined, they have more than enough. The most
heterogeneous ideas are yoked by violence together; nature and art are ransacked for illustrations,
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comparisons, and allusions; their learning instructs and their subtlety surprises; but the reader
commonly thinks his improvement dearly bought, and, though he sometimes admires, is seldom
pleased.

There is a combination that unites and establishes resemblances which would be very different for
example Flea and marriage. They have these sharpness comparing things that would not associate.
The same response to his coy mistress is the poetic voice really thinking that this way of talking to the
lady is going to take him anywhere, is it going to move the feelings of the mistress. It is not going to be
the best in moving the emotions of the mistress.

From this account of their compositions it will be readily inferred that they were not successful in
representing or moving the affections. As they were wholly employed on something unexpected and
surprising, they had no regard to that uniformity of sentiment which enables us to conceive and to
excite the pains and the pleasure of other minds: they never inquired what, on any occasion, they should
have said or done, but wrote rather as beholders than partakers of human nature; as beings looking
upon good and evil, impassive and at leisure; as epicurean deities, making remarks on the actions of
men and the vicissitudes of life, without interest and without emotion. Their courtship was void of
fondness, and their lamentation of sorrow. Their wish was only to say what they hoped had been never
said before.

MARY ASTELL
- Some Reflections Upon Marriage

• Philosopher - ﬁgure of the Enlightenment

• Born in Newcastle upon Tyne – her father, a coal merchant, and her mother also from a
coal merchant family. – Mother’s side of the family, a wealthy old Catholic
Northumberland family.
• Prosperous, well-connected family. Her paternal uncle Ralph Astell, curate of St
Nicholas's, Newcastle upon Tyne, a man of letters, educated at Cambridge, unmarried &
no children. He educated Astell & she inherited his library.
• Astell moved to London c. 1687 (aged 21)
• Women's education = lifelong concern
• Proposal intellectual all-women's retreats / communities (secular convents)study and
contemplation, reading, friendship & conversation. alternative to marriage (the English
Reformation had closed the convents)
• Female patrons & supporters Lady Catherine Jones, Lady Elizabeth Hastings, and Anne,
countess of Coventry.
• Astell never married, poor health – died of breast cancer.

In the preface she makes clear that it was a woman who was writing this work. Even though they did
not go unchallenged, they were different from what have been said at that time.

Female’s point of view on marriage and to place the institutional context in which marriage happened
in the early modern period (16 and the 17 centuries). Much had been written on the subject of
marriage, and the way that it had been approached was mostly ecclesiastical and legal which had a
number of implications for women and conventionally, the convention was to believe that the list of
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duties and particular aberrations in th 16-17 centuries, the convention was generally very oppressive
towards women. The ﬁrst duty of wives was SUBJECTION, and from that follow all the rest, obedience.
Aberration was ambition. The exercise of liberty and freedom beyond the dictate of the husband. The
function of the wife was to please and to bless the husband, make him happy.

REFLECTIONS UPON MARRIAGE was very successful, it was the third edition, there was an interest to
consume this kind of thinking in the seventeenth century.

She obviated her name from everything she published, she published anonymously. Her epistolary
exchange with John Norris on the subject of the Love of God, she was a philosopher a rarity at the
time, she was left unnamed to the degree that John Norris, he had to promise it was a woman who he
had been exchanging her letters.

The way Astell begins to talk about marriage, is about the state of happiness. THE END OF HAPPINESS
SHOULD BE MARRIAGE. If this does not happen you should not bother getting married. The institution
of marriage was framed in a religious context, complimenting pleasing a husband, having children.

She begins to question this idea of happiness, “If marriage is such a blessed state, how come that there
are so few happy marriages? If marriage is so desirable, she begins tracing the reasons why men get
married.

The reason for marriage stands for the fact that marriage should be a happy union, if they are not
happy it does not make sense, it has been framed on economic factors. Being free to choose, the initial
idea is that MARRIAGE SHOULD BE A HAPPY UNION.

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She is very critical of marriage. Blessed state resonates with the language of marriage.
The opening sentence brings the idea of a religious setting, which is absolutely ironic. It is incredibly
radical, there are very few happy marriages. The beyond ideas of blessed is the idea of happiness, it is
supposed to be blessed, we should think about this emotional state, we should focus on what marriage
does to us emotionally and does not work.
It subverts the typical traditional language of marriage that had been used in other works with the
same topic.
Wives are supposed to comply with the husband's subjections and he is in charge of the economy.

ECONOMIC FACTORS WHICH CHALLENGE MARRIAGE

It is a reminder that marriage is a union based on interest, how much can you add to a common
space, what is your contribution to this state. Many men choose to get married FOR ECONOMICAL
REASONS, a ﬁnancial cause. How much is she worth?

THIS SHOULD NOT BE THE MAIN CONSIDERATION, if a man does not marry for money, what makes
him marry?

REASONS WHY MEN MARRY

1. Because of beauty (that's what many men look in a spouse)
2. For the love of beauty.beauty is not a good criteria.
3. WIT means a number of things. For johnson means to establish connections between high
dissimilar ideas, that otherwise are very apart from each other. Astell laments is a
superﬁcial conversation (chitchatting) men are drawn to certain women because of the
way of talking. SADLY THIS IS NOT TRUE WIT, TRUE WIT MEANS HAVING IMAGINATION,
PROPERLY EXPRESSED. Anything but superﬁcial. This is not encouraged for women to
develop, because women are not encouraged to learn and study.

True wit is based on imagination, expression oneself properly, being intelligent, can ONLY BE
OBTAINED THROUGH EDUCATION.
Do not suppose that men choose for the wrong reasons, women as well make the wrong decisions.

BOTH MEN AND WOMEN ARE WRONG IN THE DECISIONS THEY MAKE. Women are
also wrong. The position in which men and women ﬁnd themselves in marriage because WOMEN
CANNOT CHOOSE FREELY, SHE IS NO POSITION TO PROPOSE SOMEONE, SOMEONE HAS TO PROPOSE
TO HER, WHICH IS NOT THE SAME THING.
The transgression is that women have the right to be wrong, a woman can’t be said to CHOOSE. All
that is allowed to her is to refuse or accept the offer, decisions are made DIFFERENTLY BECAUSE
WOMEN ARE NOT FREE TO CHOOSE.

They= women

-IRONIC PARAGRAPH: “THEY ARE NO DOUBT ALWAYS IN THE RIGHT, and when they take pity…”

WHATEVER WOMEN SAY all they do must be exemplary, it is absolutely ironic. One should not think
that ladies can choose wrong and can do something wrong, it should not be thought that ladies can do
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● “This is the modish language…. to injure them”

This ironic sentences are what is said nowadays, it is fashionable to say all of the above.

In any but in themselve tried to injure them: I can injure you because I feel that you are mine, if you
criticise someone that you are attached to, you feel injured as well. Women in general, Astell is
announcing that she is adopting a language in which women are always right, they are always beautiful
they are always exemplary which is a heavy burden and so if anyone tries to injure them (To talk badly
about them) Astell will feel incredibly offended, but it's ﬁne if she feels offended. It is hypocritical in
which Astell ﬁnds a verbal attack injured but she is allowed to do it, this is trendy.

● “But I must ask for pardon If I can’t come up to these heights.. their mistakes”
Beyond what is fashionable, Astell says that this idea in which they are ﬂawless, not even believed by
those who are in favour of this, she cannot say that women not make mistakes because they DO.
WOMEN HAVE THE RIGHT TO BE WRONG, TO ACKNOWLEDGE THAT
THEY ARE NOT PERFECT, and saying that they are is a great pressure which is false. Women choose
amiss, that choosing for men and women means different things.

The transgression IS TO MOVE FROM IDEALISATIONS WHICH ARE NOT TRUE, but which are also a
malicious way to increase their mistakes by leaving them in IGNORANCE.

In which ways is marriage thought of, the only option that women HAVE BEEN TRAINED IS TO GETTING
MARRIED. There is nothing beyond getting married. THE IDEA OF LIBERTY AND THE IMPORTANCE OF
IMAGINATION, it is not conceived something that is not marriage for women. WOMEN ARE TRAINED,
THERE IS NO ROOM IN CHOOSING something that is not marriage.

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There is something about teaching, the reasons why they marry. A tradition OF IDEALISING WOMEN,
that appear in most poems up to now, it GOES AGAINST A DISCOURSE OF LOVE, TO BE TRUTHFUL, truly
it is very deceitful. These women who do not know the world, which live in their households, they are
unaware of the true sentiments that men have about them, they have no idea of the traps that men
place for them, gilded compliments, and seemingly great respect (if they were aware).

ASTELL IS SCEPTICAL OF ALL OF THE DISCOURSE OF LOVE, of wooing, of courtship.

BEWARE OF WHAT YOU ARE BEING TOLD BECAUSE IT IS NOT TRUE, this is no illustration of true
sentiments, it is not heartfelt, you will be deceived if you marry for the wrong reasons, because you
are ignorant, the reason why you make mistakes because you are completely. Unaware of all of it. We
cannot tell women that they are ﬂawless, because they will continue living in this unawareness of what
is happening. It is not good for women, to think that is truthful.

She is talking about herself, from her own experiences that she is often mocked by the sense of
learning and she is called the philosophical lady. Those who train their intellect and have a different
opinion, and have an education they are ridiculed being called a philosophical lady, there is a reference
to her own experience, she was called a number of things.

What she says is that women should not bother, they should continue developing their own thinking,

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because the only men that can feel threatened are foolish men, and foolish men are a minority.

It Triggers to get better education for men, the improvement of women would lead to the
improvement of men as well. She is very progressive, questioning marriage, beginning with the
motions of happiness, which is inseparable from knowledge, or at least it will make you less miserable
and being abused, to develop their wit. Even if it does not translate politically, (even if they were left
out from political positions), they would become happier because they would be more free.

Marriage is a religious institution, Astell is expressing that if you look at it from the point of view of
those who are against the improvement of women, will reach to the conclusion that its not good for a
woman to marry, there will not be no children and that will be the end of it. ONE OF THE ARGUMENTS
OF LEAVING WOMEN IN THE DARK, would be the continuation of the human species.

ASTELL disagrees with this argument, that women have no reason to be a wife when she is taken to be
a man’s upper servant. The conclusion that can be reached is that the consequence that women have
to realise is that they HAVE NO OBLIGATION OF THE MAN WHO COURT HER, it's not always the cause
that they should want TO BECOME A WIFE, TO THINK THAT IT IS BETTER TO BECOME A SORT OF
SERVANT TO MAN. And that it's not
necessarily that it is the best option for her. Opening of women’s imaginations and the way they think
about marriage, it is not necessarily true that this would end the human species, they should have the
opportunity to think differently, to have options.
To educate souls for heaven= to have children.

Acknowledgement that marriage is a heroic deed, in these circumstances that entail entire submission
for life, to someone who will not always deserve your love, marrying because it involves educating
souls for heaven. In these terms, marriage is NOTHING BUT SACRIFICE, this is radically different from
a BLESSED STATE.

Astell is against the conditions in which marriage happens and is understood at the time, and lacking
an alternative to marriage in case they did not want to get married, she is against the kind of marriage
that means absolute submission, putting yourself to the service of others.

KATHERINE PHILIPS
- A Married State

o Born in London; the daughter of a prosperous cloth merchant

o Her family: strong Puritan and Parliamentarian connections.
o Philips married at 16 the Welsh landowner and MP James Philips
o Philips’s work mostly only circulated in manuscript BUT one unauthorised edition of her
Poems was published in 1664.
o Philips died of smallpox that year at the age of 32.

★ A Married State – Katherine Philips ★

A married state affords but little ease

The best of husbands are so hard to please.

The opening lines of A Married State by Katherine Philips reveals a rather negative outtake on
marriage. While the majority of young girls dream about their wedding day, few think about the
realities of what marriage really means. Many poems were written about love. They contain
romanticized notions of marriage. These opening lines contradict the theory that marriage is happily
ever after. In fact, right away the speaker lets the readers know that it is not easy being married. She
claims that being a married woman “affords but little ease”. She also makes the proclamation that
even the best of husbands cannot make marriage easy, for they “are so hard to please”. It becomes
clear at this point in A Married State that the speaker believes that her job in marriage is the please
her husband, and she clearly believes that he is hard to please.

This in wives’ careful faces you may spell

Though they dissemble their misfortunes well.

With these lines, the speaker reveals that this unfortunate circumstance is one that is a well-kept
secret. She suggests that new wives hide their disappointment, and hide it well. She also suggests that
marriage is in fact a “misfortune”. However, she also implies that the discontent can be seen on the
faces of wives. If only people would look more closely, they would see that the faces of wives are
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“careful”. The speaker does not reveal exactly what she means by the use of the word “careful” to
describe the faces of the wives, but readers can gather from the context of A Married State, that the
wives are very careful never to let the disappointment show on their faces.

A virgin state is crowned with much content;

It’s always happy as it’s innocent.

In these lines, the speaker contrasts the state of marriage with the state of a virgin. In Phillips’s time,
a respectable young lady was either a virgin, or she was married. Thus, the speaker in this poem
assumes as much and proclaims that virgin girls experience more satisfaction than that of their married
counterparts.

No blustering husbands to create your fears;

No pangs of childbirth to extort your tears;

With these lines, the speaker explains her reasons for making such a claim as she made in lines ﬁve
and six. She explains that “blustering husbands” actually “create…fears” in their wives. She also goes
on to explain the “pangs of childbirth”. The speaker does not mention childbirth as miraculous and
joyful as many women do. Rather, she presents the other side of this experience and paints a picture
of a woman in the pangs of childbirth, crying tears of pain. The use of the word “your” in line eight
allows the reader to step into this position. A Married State, in fact, seems to be written for the sake
of virgins who pine for marriage. Here, the speaker explains that they will live in fear of their husbands,
and will have to experience the pain of childbirth which will “extort [their] tears”. She does not mention
any of the joys of childbirth or marriage. Perhaps this is because she has not experienced joy in either
marriage or childbirth, or perhaps this is because she believes that virgins have heard enough about
the joys and not enough about the pain and the fear. For whatever reason, the speaker leaves out any
trace of joy in marriage or childbirth and focuses on the physical and emotional pain that both bring
about.

No children’s cries for to offend your ears;

Few worldly crosses to distract your prayers:

In these lines, the speaker continues to describe marriage and the result of marriage: motherhood.
She does not speak of the joy that her children bring to her. Rather, she tells those young virgins that
if they remain single, they will never have to hear “children’s cries to offend [their] ears”. Then, the
speaker references the Bible in her pleas with virgins to remain single. She claims that without a
husband, there are “few worldly crosses to distract your prayers”. This inadvertently corresponds to 1
Corinthians 7:8 which says, “To the unmarried and the widows I say that it is good for them to remain
single as I am. But if they cannot exercise self-control, they should marry. For it is better to marry than
to burn with passion.” It would seem that the speaker is only able to understand the truth of those
words when it is too late.

Thus are you freed from all the cares that do

Attend on matrimony and a husband too.

In these lines, the speaker continues on the theme of the freedom that comes with the single life. She
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explains that an unmarried woman is “freed from all the cares that do attend on matrimony and a
husband too”. Thus, rather than viewing marriage as something to be sought after, the speaker views
it as something to be given up in favor of the freedom offered by the single life.

Therefore Madam, be advised by me

Turn, turn apostate to love’s levity.

Until this point in A Married State, the speaker has pointed out all of the diﬃculties of marriage, but
she had not outrightly advised against it. Therefore, the reader could still wonder whether the speaker
would shift tone and begin to expound upon the blessings of marriage. She does not. In these lines,
she explicitly advises her single counterparts against marrying. She blatantly asks them to “turn
apostate to love’s levity”, which means to turn against the idea that love is a frivolous or light matter.
She asks the single women in her audience to renounce love and to give up the idea of marriage in
favor of the single life of a virgin.

Suppress wild nature if she dare rebel.

There’s no such thing as leading apes in hell.

With these closing lines, the speaker leaves the reader wondering what her exact meaning really is. It
is clear that she calls her single counterparts to suppress any sexual feeling that may arise within them.
She calls sexual desire “wild nature” and pleads with virgins to suppress her “if she dare rebel”. The
last line of A Married State is vague. Reader’s wonder what the “apes” refer to and why it matters that
there is no “leading [them] in hell”. It is possible the speaker views marriage as leading her husband,
and then claims that there is no marriage in hell, and so there will be no need to lead her husband
there. It is also possible that “ape” refers to the wild sexual desire she referred to in line ﬁfteen. In this
case, the last line would mean that there is no sex in hell.

The book opens up with Astell’s claim that true love and happiness is a deception. She argues that
during that era, men married for three things, wealth, beauty, and only one in a thousand married for
love. Most marriages were arranged and were designed to increase the wealth and superiority of
particular families. Men who married for love were so rare that it was considered a heroic act, which
Astell detested. According to her, referring to love as a heroic act of saving a woman is simply
degrading to women. She also classiﬁed men who married for beauty in the same category as those
who married for money and fame-both were governed by lust.
Astell was convinced that men were naturally ever-faltering which led to the disgrace of many women.
She referred to courtship as a trap laid by men who only sought to further their selﬁsh interest. In the
peaks of her arguments, she presents a solution for women to escape a man’s trap-education. She
emphasized greatly on the need to educate women, according to her, an educated woman will surpass
a man’s achievements and gain more wisdom. Education would further women’s goals and elevate
their minds making them “immune” to the deceptions of men. Astell believed that an educated woman
is a perfect woman.

Astell recognized that when a woman married she put ‘herself entirely into her husband’s power, and
if the matrimonial yoke be grievous, neither law nor custom affords her that redress which a man

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She advised women to either abstain from ‘electing a monarch for life’ (p. 31), or, if they must, to ﬁrst
equip themselves with an education in order to better understand the gravity of marriage, and the
importance of their betrothed’s nature, intent and position in the world. Under no circumstances did
Astell advocate divorce, which contradicted her belief that marriage was an unbreakable union in the
eyes of God.

Mary Astell by means of irony begins to deconstruct the notions of marriage, and the lack of education
at emotional level, women were in a position that one compared the supposed praise and
compliments received by men and this links the creation of love writing. Astell position was to contest
this idea that there was no alternative for women that marriage.

FRANCIS BACON
- Of Marriage and Single Life

Follows a tradition of essay writing, a writer provides a short text of an speciﬁc topic.
o philosopher and statesman
o Attorney General and Lord Chancellor of England
o Writings on natural philosophy or science The Advancement of Learning

In 1603, Bacon: he had 'found out an alderman's daughter, an handsome maiden, to my liking'Alice
(1592–1650), a daughter of a wealthy London alderman. In 1606 they married: Bacon was 45; Alice,
14. No children. Bacon ﬁrst published ten Essayes in 1597 2nd edition of 38 essays in 1612 3rd edition
of 58 essays in 1625.

★ Of Marriage and Single Life – Francis Bacon ★

In this essay, Bacon draws a comparison between marriage and single life. He gives an account of
merits and demerits of a married and a bachelor’s life. Bacon starts with a sudden statement,

“He that hath wife and children hath given hostages to fortunes”.

The statement clearly depicts that marriage is an impediment to great fortune and luck. Bacon
supports his argument by telling a fact that the most of the best work that helps society at a greater
scale is done by non-married or childless men. In response, these bachelors married public and
endowed their affections and life to it.

On the ﬂipside of the coin, those who are married, have greater care of future of their family. Their
minds always revolve around the economic stability of their home. They usually spend their time by
making both ends meet. If one has a stable frugal position, he cares to make his and his family’s life as
luxurious as he can.

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Sparing these two kinds, there is another kind of men. Those who are unmarried yet, they spend their
lives caring about themselves. They are not apprehensive of future time; they are not even meticulous
about it.

There is another kind that thinks that their wife and children are just bills of charges. They consider
them as sources of expenses. On the contrary, there are some greedy and covetous men that take
pride in having no children. They think that they are rich because of the absence of the children. For
example, if they hear a talk about two persons, one is rich and other is not, they consider the presence
of children as abatement in richness of the second person.

Bacon then, describes the chief aftermath of a single life, which is liberty. Single life is suitable for those
who are self-pleasing and humorous minds. For those who consider their girdles and garters as bonds
and shackles, single life is the only suitable choice.

Furthermore, Bacon declares,

“Unmarried men are best friends, best masters, best servants; but not always best subjects”.

The very reason behind their loyalty as best friend is that they have experience of being loyal to their
family. Moreover, they are the best masters because , they have already been commanding their
family. They are not good subjects because usually, they don't have any major subject to discuss with
others except their family’s problems.

The Bachelors are good in terms of charity because they have less expenses. Whereas, married men
have to fill their own pool first, then, they move towards charity. It is indifferent for judges and
magistrates because of their corruption. They shall have a servant, five times worse than a wife.

Bacon says that there are generals among the military, who with their hortative (speeches made for
encouragement) put disdain about marriage in the minds of the soldiers. According to Bacon, this is
the reason behind the Turks soldiers that they are base. The writer also supports the fact that ‘wife
and children are a kind of discipline of humanity’. On the other hand, single men are cruel and hard
hearted because in jobs’ perspectives they don’t care about their tenderness.

The husbands who are grave natured led by customs are mostly loving husbands. On the contrary, the
wives who are chaste are often proud as presuming upon the merit of their chastity. As ‘Of Marriage
and Single Life’ depicts,

“Chaste women are often proud and forward”.

However, in Bacon’s view, the best wife is the one who has the blend of chastity and obedience. Bacon
pays tribute to wives by saying, “Wives are young men’s mistresses; companions for middle age; and
old men’s nurses”.

In the last few verses of the essay, in a humorous way, the writer answers the question of the men
who are ambiguous: when should they marry ? He says,

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At the end of the essay, Bacon tells a fact that bad husbands, usually, have very good wives. These
wives have a high price of their husband’s kindness because it comes seldom. Moreover, these wives
take pride in their patience upon their husbands’ bad behavior. However, if these bad husbands were
given choice of their own selection in marriage, they would make themselves fool because they would
select a wife who would match their own behavior.

"Of Marriage and the Single Life" is a short essay by Francis Bacon. Bacon begins the essay by proposing
that married men and fathers stifle their own creativity and usefulness to the world when they decide
to marry or when they have children. He writes that marriage and children are "impediments to great
enterprises."

However, he then offers various arguments against the above proposal. He proposes, for example,
that fathers "have greater care of future times." The implication here is that fathers have a greater
impact upon the world, in the form of their children, than do childless men in the form of their "great
enterprises." Although childless men may have the time and the freedom from responsibilities to
undertake such enterprises in the present, the impact of these enterprises will be less significant, in
the long term, than the impact of those men who have fathered children.

Bacon also proposes that "wife and children are a kind of discipline of humanity." He argues that while
single men might be able to afford to be more charitable because "their means are less exhaust," they
are nonetheless "more cruel and hardhearted . . . because their tenderness is not so oft called upon."
In other words, married men and fathers need to practice tenderness more often and so become, by
habit, more tender and charitable than single men.

The conclusion that Bacon comes to is that although single, childless men have more freedom to, as it
were, make their own way in the world, married men and fathers have the overall advantage because
they have a greater impact on the world in the long term, and because they become more tender,
patient, charitable people.

BACON’S ESSAY

He that hath wife and children hath given hostages to fortune; for they are impediments to great
enterprises, either of virtue or mischief.

The acknowledgement that there is something that ties you, the fact that they have a wife and
children, that ties you and connects you with society for the good and for the bad. The idea of liberty,
either of virtue or mischief, can be read in two different ways. Married men get further in life in terms
as Bacons suggests in professional activity, but on the whole, married men make the best subject, they
make best citizens.

Astell mentions in her work in this consideration of married life, in terms of marriage is concerned,
Bacon looks at the positive side of marriage, Bacon’s essay considers the pros and cons of the two of
them, Astell considers only marriage that single life should be an option, while Bacon considers that
talking about marriage considers talking about single life, about bachelorship. The way that they look
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at marriage has to do with what Astell explains is that there is no choice for women apart from getting
married, Bacon takes that for granted. The moment that you have a choice is when you are freer to
explore cons and pros, women did not have a choice, they tend to look at the negative side of the only
choice that is available to them, for Astell is to get married.

Astell begins her essay by claiming that when man consider the reasons for getting marriage is ﬁnancial
concerns, they are PRESENT IN BACON’S ESSAY, but they same to be performing a different action in
Bacon’s text, for instance unmarried men give more to charity, because married men have to look after
their family and they can’t be giving to charity and looking after their family .

One of the things that Astell claims in the essay is that men had when considering how much is she
worth (acres, cash) and as if getting married WOULD BE A SORT OF INCOME FOR MEN. For BACON,
marriage becomes very expensive, getting married gets in the way of preserving your riches and
increasing them.

BACON: “Nay more, there are some foolish rich covetous men that take a pride, in having no children,
because they may be thought so much the richer.

” ASTELL SAYS THAT THIS INSTIGATES CERTAIN MEN TO MARRY CERTAIN WOMEN. In
contrast, Bacon claims that in economic terms, getting married is expensive.
The economy is not a factor that will trigger marriage but the opposite, having to share your money.
Bacon says that the economic factors persuade men from getting married.

- In BACON’S ESSAY WIVES ARE PORTRAYED AS even if it is true you will have arranged marriages,
women have limited scope to decide, Bacon says something about choosing.

This scenario in which they seem kinder, even if their husbands are undeserving, is that if they have
chosen them, there is an implicit acknowledgement that whatever the degree of freedom of women
to choose the result is going to be better. Bacon agrees WITH ASTELL IN SAYING THAT THERE SHOULD
BE A DEGREE OF LIBERTY WHEN MAKING DECISIONS.

But this never fails, if the bad husbands were of their own choosing, against their friends’ consent; for
then they will be sure to make good their own folly.
In order to avoid saying that they made a mistake, they will make the most of a situation.

The essence is that there is an alternative for men and there is no alternative for women.

SHAKESPEARE AND BACON ON HAVING OFFSPRING

In SHAKESPEARE THERE IS AN ENCOURAGEMENT TO BREED, the breeding of having offspring is a way

to preserve the beauty in the world, when it comes for beauty being renewed, carrying your own
memory of your family, for bacon it does something for society, married men are better subjects
they tend to think about to share generously and is good for society. The only negative downside of
having children is that they are very expensive.

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JOHN MILTON
From Paradise Lost (1667):
- Book I,
o 1-126
o 192-208
o 242-263
- Book IX
o 494-518
o 532-551
o 684-717
o 762-792
- Book XII
o 610-649

-Educated at St Paul’s School & University of Cambridge Languages: Latin, Greek, Hebrew, French, and
Italian

In 163815-month tour of the continent career as a schoolmaster upon his return

1. Series of divorce tracts The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce (1643)
2. Freedom of the press Areopagitica (1644)
3. Regicide tracts on the necessity of Charles I’s execution Eikonoklastes (1649)

appointment as Latin secretary (1649) – pro-Cromwell (Lord Protector since 1653) – Milton as
champion of the Republic Restoration (1660)went into hiding arrested imprisoned released

INTRODUCTION
The tenure of kings and magistrates proving, that it is lawfull, and hath been held so through all ages,
for any, who have the power, to call to account a tyrant, or wicked king, and after due conviction, to
depose, and put him, to death, if the ordinary magistrate have neglected, or deny'd to doe it : and that
they, who if late so much blame deposing, are the men that did it themselves.

Legitimate for people to put away tyranny in case the lawful representative of the community does
not do that himself. This is important to bear in mind, because in “Paradise Lost” there are many
reﬂections of monarchy and the portrayal of the idea of tyranny presented in many ways, in Paradise
Lost they challenge the idea that Milton is putting forward, Milton is IN FAVOUR OF KILLING THE
MONARCH, REBELLING AGAINST TYRANNY. SOCIETY SHOULD BE BASED ON FREEDOM AND LIBERTY.

Composition of Paradise Lost 1658–1663 = originally a tragedy rather than an epic Diﬃculties to
publish the poem 1667. 1645 losing the sight in his left eye. By 1648 it had ceased to function. 1652
his right eye collapsed permanently blind. Later in 1652 his wife died after giving birth 6 weeks later,
his only son, John, died.

The measure that he uses is English heroic verse without rhyme, in this extract he talks about the
formal decisions he has taken to compose Paradise Lost and resorts to the idea of freedom, Paradise
Lost is a long narrative poem, he envisions his work as a grand epic the difference that he sees between

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Homer and Virgil is that his muse is heavenly (God-sent) it is not the mythological muse of Homer and
Virgil. MILTON writes the big Christian epic.

To argue in favor “Our best English tragedies have been written without rhyme, because rhyme is
trivial and of no true musicality in light”. The muse what she does is sing and this is very drawn out
from one verse to another, this neglect of rhyme, is important for the readers it is rather to be
steamed, even in the preface, from the very beginning the way that Milton explains to do it without a
rhyme goes back to rhythm and liberty, rhyme may allure vulgar readings the best poetical traditions,
restore the ancient liberty, recover, bring it back to heroic liberty writing.

Because of the disobedience, we have to trace back to Satan which was an angel expelled from
Paradise, being excluded from God. Truthfully, Paradise Lost does not begin with Adam and Eve it
begins with Satan. The poem begins with Satan confused after being expelled from Heaven.

The measure that he uses is English heroic verse without rhyme, in this extract he talks about the
formal decisions he has taken to compose Paradise Lost and resorts to the idea of freedom.

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Forbidden tree= apple.

Mortal= deadly, it will kill you.
One greater Man= Jesus.
Muse= direct inspiration from God.
Loss of Eden: the becoming of humans, becoming mortals.
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Of Man’s First disobedience= Adam and Eve eating forbidden fruit (apple). The only requirement that
God had imposed on the ﬁrst habitants, in Paradise, is the fruit of the forbidden tree, which is the tree
of knowledge. The consequence of a prior disobedience which is Satan.

SATAN BEING EXPELLED BY GOD- FALLING DOWN- FINDING HIMSELF in the deepest abyss- SATAN
DECIDES TO TEMPT ADAM AND EVE.

Man’s first disobedience it is not the first disobedience that Paradise lost explores. The first
disobedience is the uprising led by Satan against God which makes Satan plot a scheme to Adam and
even to go against GOD, THE WHOLE BOOK IS ABOUT THE IDEA OF REBELLION AND THE IDEA OF
AUTHORITY.

Milton has been presented as a prophet, as an epic that has prophetic aspects. The tree of
knowledge (tradition transforms the forbidden trees and portrays them as an apple tree) the
forbidden tree brought death to the world, the bite from a forbidden tree is losing the state of
innocence and entering the realm of suffering and becoming mortals, fully humans.

★ Book I – John Milton ★ - 1496

And justice the ways of God to men. ULTIMATE END OF THE POEM: JUSTIFY THE WAYS OF GOD TO
MEN. The reasons why men’s disobedience caused all of the rest. MILTON WANTS TO DEFEND GOD
TO GIVE AN ACCOUNT WHY the loss of Eden, bringing death into the world, other woe. God is
perceived as unjust or unfair.

The poem opens with an invocation to a muse, and this heavenly muse is the closest thing to the
holy ghost which is a god-like muse. It is not the muse of ancient times, it is a convention to place an
invocation to illuminate him, teach him what he does not know, and begin an epic poem. Milton asking
permission from the holy ghost to look back at the book of genesis, which is an outstanding endeavor,
converting a book from the Bible to AN EPIC, following the meter 16 and 17th centuries drama and
following the pattern iambic pentameter.

He wants the permission of the holy ghost and the knowledge he does not have, to show him
something he does not know and only has access with the holy ghost's help.

Maybe to make human king more aware of the ways things happen at this time to the idea of justice,
the decisions that God took, from the perspective of Milton are just. The presence of God is an
interesting one in Paradise Lost, If he had to justify the decisions of God takes for men, he is God’s
creation, he is IMMORTAL, the implication is that you have to come to aid of God you have to ask a
muse to illuminate the knowledge, to justify the ways of God to men.

God is perceived as UNREACHABLE. He has diﬃcult ways, God is seen as mysterious BUT ALSO THERE
IS ALSO AN ELEMENT OF CRUELTY, WHY WOULD HE CONDEMN THE WHOLE HUMANKIND TO THE END
AND SUFFERING. The vision they have is that God is cruel.

He is trying to justify God, by explaining man's ﬁrst disobedience, by the language of subversion.

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Book 1 begins with a prologue in which Milton states the purpose of Paradise Lost: to justify the ways
of God to humans and to tell the story of their fall. Following the epic tradition, Milton invokes a
heavenly muse to help him tell the tale. The muse he calls upon is the same one who inspired Moses
to write part of the Bible, he claims. Milton uses the gift of the muse to explain what led to the fall of
man, and he introduces the character of Satan, a former great angel in Heaven known as Lucifer. Satan
tried to overthrow God's rule and banded together with other rebel angels to begin a civil war. They
were defeated by God and cast out of Heaven and into Hell.

Milton opens Paradise Lost by formally declaring his poem’s subject: humankind’s first act of
disobedience toward God, and the consequences that followed from it. The act is Adam and Eve’s
eating of the forbidden fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, as told in Genesis, the first book of the Bible. In
the first line, Milton refers to the outcome of Adam and Eve’s sin as the “fruit” of the forbidden tree,
punning on the actual apple and the figurative fruits of their actions. Milton asserts that this original
sin brought death to human beings for the first time, causing us to lose our home in paradise until
Jesus comes to restore humankind to its former position of purity.

Milton’s speaker invokes the muse, a mystical source of poetic inspiration, to sing about these subjects
through him, but he makes it clear that he refers to a different muse from the muses who traditionally
inspired classical poets by specifying that his muse inspired Moses to receive the Ten Commandments
and write Genesis. Milton’s muse is the Holy Spirit, which inspired the Christian Bible, not one of the
nine classical muses who reside on Mount Helicon—the “Aonian mount” of I.15. He says that his poem,
like his muse, will fly above those of the Classical poets and accomplish things never attempted before,
because his source of inspiration is greater than theirs. Then he invokes the Holy Spirit, asking it to fill
him with knowledge of the beginning of the world, because the Holy Spirit was the active force in
creating the universe.

Milton’s speaker announces that he wants to be inspired with this sacred knowledge because he wants
to show his fellow man that the fall of humankind into sin and death was part of God’s greater plan,
and that God’s plan is justified.

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Thy view= heavenly views. Grand parents= Adam and Eve.

One restraint= eating the apple (one thing they did not have to do, the did which was eating the apple).
Infernal Serpent: Satan who seduces them because it is full of envy and revenge.
Cast him out= from heaven.
The Most High= God.

CHRONOLOGICALLY: SATAN FALLING OFF FROM HEAVEN- GRANDPARENTS ADAVM AND

EVE EXPELLED FROM PARADISE. Two elements that run in parallel through the language.
After this prologue, Milton asks the Muse to describe what ﬁrst led to Adam and Eve’s disobedience.
He answers himself that they were deceived into “foul revolt” by the “infernal Serpent,” who is Satan.
Satan was an angel who aspired to overthrow God, and started a civil war in Heaven. God defeated
Satan and his rebel angels and threw them out of Heaven. They fell through an abyss for nine days and
then landed in Hell, where they lay stunned for nine more days.

The language that is being used to describe what happens to Satan is the same to describe ADAM AND
EVE.

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Battle between SATAN AND HIS CREW (all the infernal hosts) against the throne and monarchy of God.
All the traditional views of Hell are present: fires, combustion, penal fire, fiery gulf.

Satan is thrown to the bottomless perdition, he is immortal but confused this fall is moral and physical.

-Wrath, pride, hate: capital sins.

-This paragraph describes the notion of hell: Illustration of hell. (ﬂames, unconsumed, ever burning).

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Lack of peace, lack of rest, torture.
-Hell is described as dark “in utter darkness” those flames do not emanate light, they only make visible
darkness.
-ALLUSIONS TO LIGHT AND DARKNESS: enlighten me in terms of knowledge (make me aware of things
I don’t know when Milton refers to the Muse) darkness= ignorance and lack of knowledge vs the idea
of enlightenment (prophetic light envision). DARKNESS IS EVIL, GOD= LIGHT.
-HOPE NEVER COMES, Hell is defined by lack of hope, because you never find God. DESPAIR= ULTIMATE
HOPELESSNESS (THE LACK OF HOPE) it is unforgivable there is no room for God and hence the absolute
bottom of the abyss

The poem then focuses on Satan as he lies dazed in a lake of fire that is totally dark. Next to him is
Beelzebub, Satan’s second-in command, and Satan speaks to him, finally breaking the “horrid silence.”

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POTENT VICTOR IN HIS RAGE= GOD

glorious enterprise= the idea of rebellion.
All the words in capital letters are references to God. The portrayals of Paradise Lost there is a gradual
dehumanizing of Satan. Being expelled from paradise, Confused Satan opens his eyes and says this. He
wakes up and he says, there is an acknowledgement that he is far away from rightness.

FROM SATAN’S POINT OF VIEW:

“In dubious battle (it could have gone otherwise) on the plains of Heav’n (where the battle took place)
and shook his throne”: He is speaking about the battle. ACCORDING TO SATAN THERE WAS A BATTLE
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IN HEAVEN, THE INNUMERABLE SPIRITS ARE AGAINST GOD and
they prefer Satan and took this throne.

KEY: SATAN IS DECIDED TO CONTINUE BATTLING AGAINST GOD, he does not envision the
loss of the battle as the end. What is low is to be subject to God’s authority.

-That glory (recognition) never shall… His wrath (God) or might extort from me: He will never bow
before him (kneeling down) HE WILL NEVER CLAIM MERCY FROM GOD, that is low, it is not low falling
from heaven, WHAT WILL BE LOW IS KNEELING BEFORE GOD AND ASKING FOR MERCY BEFORE HIM.

“What though the ﬁeld be lost? until yield : They haven’t lost yet, Satan is hopeful that this will change,
all is not lost. This is ongoing.

GOD IS A TYRANT ACCORDING TO SATAN, this can be observed: “from the terror of his arm, so late,
doubted his empire” this is unexpected, this is the Christian epic, the old testament.

He is clearly unrepentant and thinks he has a chance against god. the “shame” is to ACKNOWLEDGE
GOD AS YOUR SKIN AND PLEAD FOR MERCY.

“We may with more successful HOPE”

“We may by force or guile”. They may ﬁght by force or by Guile or by being cunning, astute, intelligent,
skillful in a perverse way, in the most perverse sense of intelligence.

Tyranny of HEAVEN: REPRESENTATION OF HEAVEN AS TYRANNY AND GOD AS A TYRANT.

He criticises the authority of God and the way he acts.

“So spake th’ apostate Angel though in pain vaunting aloud but racked with deep despair”.

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This is what Satan says, boasting, being arrogant and conceited, racked means physically and
emotionally tortured or in agony, he is in deep despair. Truthfully inside he is filled with deep despair,
ultimate hopelessness, what defines Hell, is what defines Satan's emotional state, and that is the
unforgivable sin. There is no room for God within Satan, as there is no room within Hell. All of what he
is saying of overthrowing God is false, he believes otherwise.

Satan laments their current state, and how far they have fallen from their previous glorious state as
angels. He admits that he has been defeated, but he does not regret his war against God(though he
never calls God by name). He claims that his heavenly essence cannot be killed, and as long as his life
and will remains Satan vows to keep ﬁghting against the “tyranny of Heav’n.”

Physical depiction of Satan, after the battle

Incredibly powerful depiction of Satan. He is described as a huge and large monster, he is a sea
monster. He is compared to a monster so big that he resembles that creatures that pilots say that they
have seen, seamen would confuse an island with a surface of a sea monster and they would throw
their anchors, the moment the monster goes down they pull down the ship with them. If you anchor
him, it will drag you down. Satan is a monster after all, you should not rely on him, you will be fouled
and dragged to Hell.
Leviathan: relying on Blake this is Blake’s illustration of the big monster of Leviathan, the monster
of sea.
Hobbes published Leviathan in 1651, for Hobbes is his great political work. This language that blends
religion with political ideas on how to rule best is present everywhere. In the case of the cover of
Hobbes Leviathan. Supernatural being made of illustrations of many people. Hobbes believed that
monarchy was the best system of government.

117

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