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 75
... Beauty's virtue is never seriously threatened . The paradox of Desire is articulated by one of Beauty's defenders : " [ N ] o soner hath desire what he desireth , but that he dieth presently : so that when Bewtie yeeldeth once to desire ...
... Beauty's virtue is never seriously threatened . The paradox of Desire is articulated by one of Beauty's defenders : " [ N ] o soner hath desire what he desireth , but that he dieth presently : so that when Bewtie yeeldeth once to desire ...
Page 196
... beauty : the immortal goodness of that God who giveth us hands to write and wits to conceive . " Sidney's phrasing implicitly opposes mortal beauty ( Stella ) to immortal beauty and goodness ( God ) , and his own sonnets ultimately ...
... beauty : the immortal goodness of that God who giveth us hands to write and wits to conceive . " Sidney's phrasing implicitly opposes mortal beauty ( Stella ) to immortal beauty and goodness ( God ) , and his own sonnets ultimately ...
Page 209
... beauty is surpassed by the beauty of her soul : But if ye saw that which no eyes can see , The inward beauty of her lively spright , Garnisht with heavenly guifts of high degree , Much more then would ye wonder at that sight , And stand ...
... beauty is surpassed by the beauty of her soul : But if ye saw that which no eyes can see , The inward beauty of her lively spright , Garnisht with heavenly guifts of high degree , Much more then would ye wonder at that sight , And stand ...
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