Astrophil and Stella

Who will in fairest book of nature knowHow virtue may best lodg'd in beauty be,Let him but learn of love to read in thee,Stella, those fair lines which true goodness show.There shall he find all...

Sir Philip Sidney was one of the earliest sonneteers, posthumous publication of his sonnets in 1591 predating Spenser's (1595), Daniel's (1592), and Shakespeare's (1609) sonnets). He used a...

Among the literary devices used most prominently by Sidney in Sonnet 1 is personification. He mentions his attempt to find inspiration for his own poetry in the work of others: Oft turning others'...

To analyze the first sonnet in Sidney's sequence Astrophil and Stella, I will break it down into sections and then discuss how the writer uses poetic techniques to create effect or meaning. The...

By what outward signs do we truly know that somebody is in love? This is the question that this sonnet by Sir Philip Sidney seeks to address. The sonnet opens by listing the number of things that...

This sonnet is similar to many other sonnets in the Astrophil and Stella sequence of sonnets, as it talks about and discusses the impact of love on the speaker and the way in which his Muse,...

Sonnet 6 of Philip Sidney's Astrophil and Stella displays some interesting poetic features in the realms of meter, rhyme, diction, imagery, and mythology. The sonnet is composed of fourteen lines...

Sir Philip Sidney’s Astrophil and Stella sonnet sequence describes the infatuation of Astrophil (“star-lover”) with Stella (“star”). Because of this infatuation, everything that Astrophil sees...

In this sonnet, Sidney's poetic devices include anaphora, antithesis, alliteration, and allusion, along with metaphor. Anaphora occurs when repeated lines of poetry begin with the same word or...

In Astrophel and Stella, the speaker/poet is Astrophel whose name means love of a star. "Phel" or "phil" as it is sometimes spelled is a suffix meaning "love." "Astro" comes from the Greek word...

Understanding Sidney's sonnets requires more than a simple reading. In some, the syntactical alterations need to be mastered; in some the structure needs to be understood; in some their place in...

In sonnet 2 of "Astrophil and Stella," Sidney presents us with a complex study of love that departs considerably from the standard view of poets such as Petrarch. Whereas Petrarch fell in love with...

In sonnet 28 of Sir Philip Sidney’s Astrophil and Stella sonnet sequence, Astrophil rejects allegorical or symbolic interpretations of his poetry. In lines 1-3 he addresses those who make a habit...

Astrophil laments how he has lost and wasted the gifts that Nature provided him with at birth. Heaven has "lent" him such qualities as his "youth," "knowledge," and "wit." He describes how Reason...

In the first stanza, the intellectuals that surround our speaker see a kind of quiet thoughtfulness in the speaker's eyes, so they begin to guess what might be the cause—though the speaker tells us...

In sonnet 18, Philip Sidney employs a conceit, or extended metaphor, throughout the poem. Metaphor is direct comparison of unlike things for effect. The speaker, Astrophil, uses numerous financial...

First and foremost, sonnet 1 of Astrophil and Stella is a poem about poetry, a manifesto for the style of writing we are to find in the sonnet sequence to come. The poet begins with the right...

Astrophil and Stella is a sonnet sequence by Sir Philip Sidney that contains over one hundred sonnets. It is thought that the figure of Astrophil, the speaker, represents Sidney himself and that...

Astrophil and Stella is a sonnet sequence and "songs" that relate the love and obsession of Astrophil, whose name means "star-lover" in Greek, for Stella, whose name means "star" in Latin. Thus,...

The tone of Sonnet 1 in "Astrophel and Stella" by Sir Philip Sidney varies over the course of the poem, following the convention of the Shakespearian, or English sonnet, in having a minor turn...

To be clear from the outset, Stella is not the “fairest book of nature” herself, but she is certainly a very important part of it. The speaker of the sonnet invites anyone who wishes to observe a...

The central conceit of this poem is based around the personification of the moon as a love-struck individual, much as the speaker of the sonnet is frustrated in love. The speaker, in this sonnet,...

In the first line, the speaker says he truly loves his beloved and is willing ("fain") to be vulnerable by revealing his love in his poetry. He does this, he says in line two, because he imagines...

Like many sonnets in Sir Philip Sidney’s Astrophil and Stella sonnet sequence, sonnet 40 presents Astrophil as a kind of idolator who blames Stella, the object of his idolatry, for the suffering he...

The first, and most well-known, sonnet of Philip Sydney's sonnet sequence, Astrophil and Stella, uses many different literary devices. The most obvious is meter. The poem is written in iambic...

If one were asked to state in one sentence the theme of Sir Philip Sidney’s sonnet sequence Astrophil and Stella, one might offer a sentence such as this: “The theme of Astrophil and Stella is the...

An oxymoron is a literary device in which two opposites are put together. This can create a jarring effect that causes a reader to stop and think. Line four of Sidney's poem follows, and it...

This sonnet, as with all of the Astrophil and Stella sequence by Sir Philip Sidney, deals with the impact of love on the speaker as he seeks to articulate the change that has come upon him now that...

Sonnet 19 of Sir Philip Sidney’s Astrophil and Stella sonnet sequence might be analyzed in various ways, including the following: The poem opens with a line emphasizing a major theme of this sonnet...

This sonnet contains two speakers. The first seems to be a friend of Astrophil who notes that Astrophil's love is causing his behavior to shift. Astrophil has been losing his sense of reason, his...

I have only a few brief points to add to the excellent answer already posted. One involves the title names of Sidney's poetic cycle. The names for himself and his beloved are symbolic (although of...

Astrophel and Stella is a series of sonnets by Sir Philip Sidney, each of which expounds upon a different element or emotion of Astrophel’s unrequited love for Stella. In Sonnet 31, Astrophel is...

In his Apology for Poetry, Sir Philip Sidney argues that the purpose of the poet is to imitate: and imitate both to delight and teach: and delight to move men to take that goodness in hand, which...

It is possible to argue that in Astrophil and Stella, Sidney presents a highly ironic view of secular, earthly love. Astrophil seems mainly interested in Stella's physical beauty and in her...

This sonnet is part of the Astrophel and Stella sequence of sonnets by Sir Philip Sidney, which chart the struggle of the speaker to embrace his emotions for his lover. This sonnet focuses on the...

A conceit is an unconventional metaphor that compares two things in illogical or surprising ways as opposed to more conventional metaphors comparing things that are more apparently similar, like...

In sonnet 30 of Sir Philip Sidney’s sonnet sequence Astrophil and Stella, Astrophil once more stresses his obsession with Stella. He claims that when others ask him questions about international...

The beginning of understanding Sidney's Sonnet 27 (sonnet cycle c. 1575-1585) lies in grasping the structure, as there may be several structures to sonnets. The structure of this sonnet opposes...

The first sonnet of Sidney's sequence "Astrophil and Stella" explores the failure of the poet's artifice in reflecting the truth and ends with an implied pledge of sincerity as the Muse tells the...

The names Astrophil and Stella mean, respectively, "star-lover" and "star." The title, therefore, can be justified as accurately depicting the main subject of the sonnets, which is Astrophil's love...

Sonnet 18 from Sir Philip Sidney’s Astrophil and Stella sonnet sequence is typical of the sequence as a whole in many ways, including the following: The sonnet begins with an emphasis on...

The term in rhetoric for intentionally altering standard English word order of Subject Verb Object (SVO) to another order, for example OVS or VSO or OSV, is hyperbaton. Hyperbaton in its various...

The adjective “Petrarchan” alludes to the writings of the 14th-century Italian poet Francesco Petrarca (known in English as “Petrarch”). Petrarch’s most influential compositions consisted of a...

Sir Philip Sidney's Astrophil and Stella is a sonnet sequence that was inspired by Sidney's relationship with Penelope Devereux. Sidney was in love with Penelope, but she married another man. This...

Sonnet 55 of Sidney's Astrophil and Stella cycle has two tones. The first is a matter-of-fact tone while Astrophil speaks of his partnership with the Muses. The second is a love-struck tone as...

The narrator, Astrophil, is suffering from unrequited love and notes how "wan [pale] a face" the moon has as it rises. Astrophil projects his own experience onto the moon, imagining that it must be...