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
... 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 the laurels of ...
... 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 the laurels of ...
Page 41
... Muses is strained , and writers betray a more ambivalent tone towards him . For example , though Whetstone glories in Sidney's reconciliation of the laurels and the lance , upon a closer reading , his elegy betrays some anxiety about ...
... Muses is strained , and writers betray a more ambivalent tone towards him . For example , though Whetstone glories in Sidney's reconciliation of the laurels and the lance , upon a closer reading , his elegy betrays some anxiety about ...
Page 42
... Muses weare att mortall stryfe which of them had in Sydney grettest parte the one layde clayme unto his valyaunt ... Muses , is Spenser's Astrophel , which criticizes the myth of Sidney as military hero and even ques- tions whether the ...
... Muses weare att mortall stryfe which of them had in Sydney grettest parte the one layde clayme unto his valyaunt ... Muses , is Spenser's Astrophel , which criticizes the myth of Sidney as military hero and even ques- tions whether the ...
Contents
Acknowledgments | 9 |
The Divided Aims | 39 |
Astrophil and Stella and the Failure of the Right Poet | 69 |
Copyright | |
8 other sections not shown
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