The Exemplary Sidney and the Elizabethan SonneteerThis book gives the reader a new perspective on the significance of Sir Philip Sidney to the English Renaissance by focusing on his conflicted exemplarity as it is fashioned by his contemporaries and poetic successors. It explores how Sidney's fellow poets constructed and contested his legendary image. These poets initially drew on his example to define and authorize themselves, but their sonnets and other writings ultimately criticize and variously refashion Sidney's heroic image and his literary practice. The sonnet sequence, often neglected in serious study of these writers, is here seen as a forum for the reformation of Petrarchism and an important locus of literary change. |
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Page 40
... Mars versus the Muses On the surface , Whetstone's elegy celebrates Sidney's successful embodiment of activity ( Mars ) and contemplation ( the Muses ) . The oppositions united within Sidney are expressed by the alliterative yoking of ...
... Mars versus the Muses On the surface , Whetstone's elegy celebrates Sidney's successful embodiment of activity ( Mars ) and contemplation ( the Muses ) . The oppositions united within Sidney are expressed by the alliterative yoking of ...
Page 42
... Mars actually deserts Sidney ; the speaker laments , “ Ah dreadfull Mars why didst thou not thy knight defend ? " and suggests that Mars was angry , perhaps over England's military commitment to the Netherlands.9 ( Mars turned a deaf ...
... Mars actually deserts Sidney ; the speaker laments , “ Ah dreadfull Mars why didst thou not thy knight defend ? " and suggests that Mars was angry , perhaps over England's military commitment to the Netherlands.9 ( Mars turned a deaf ...
Page 60
... Mars does little to exalt poetry , but it confirms Sidney's unease with domestic quiet . In book 4 of the Metamorphoses , when Vulcan discovers his wife , Venus , in the act of adultery with Mars , he forges a net to catch them , and ...
... Mars does little to exalt poetry , but it confirms Sidney's unease with domestic quiet . In book 4 of the Metamorphoses , when Vulcan discovers his wife , Venus , in the act of adultery with Mars , he forges a net to catch them , and ...
Contents
Acknowledgments | 9 |
The Divided Aims | 39 |
Astrophil and Stella and the Failure of the Right Poet | 69 |
Copyright | |
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Common terms and phrases
action Amoretti association Astrophil and Stella authority beauty Caelica calls Cambridge claims conventional countess courtier critics cultural Daniel David death dedicated Defence Delia desire discussion divine doth edited elegy Elizabeth Elizabethan England English English Studies example expresses eyes fashion female figure final finds force grace Greville Greville's heroic History honor human humanist husband ideal imagines imitate John King lady language learning letter Literary Literature live London Lord lover marriage Mary Mary Sidney means mind mistress moral move Muses nature never Oxford Petrarch Petrarchan poem poet poet's poetic poetry political praise present pride Princeton Protestant queen reader refer Renaissance Rhetoric role Samuel sequence sexual Sidney's Sir Philip Sidney social sonnet speaker Spenser Studies suggests Thomas thoughts tradition true turn University Press verse virtue virtuous wife writing York