Astrophil and Stella

The first four lines establish the poet's belief that when we are in love, we act in ways that cause us harm: . . . and those who deviate from its rules Are rebels against Nature, and their...

Since Astrophil and Stella is a sonnet cycle, understanding some sonnets depends upon first understanding certain others. In this instance, understanding Sonnet 20 depends upon first...

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'...

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...

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...

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...

The quoted clause, "where new doubts honour brings," is difficult to understand because it is a hyperbaton, which is a figure of speech that relies upon word order rather than word meaning to...

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...

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...

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...

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...

In the first four lines, Sidney admonishes the affected intellectuals who call on "the Sisters nine" (the nine muses) in order to mask their works with "flourishes" the poets themselves cannot...

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...

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...

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...

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,...

In sonnet 31 of Sir Philip Sidney’s Astrophil and Stella sonnet sequence, Astrophil extensively compares his own feelings about Stella with the feelings of the moon. Such an extended comparison was...

Lines 9-14 of the first poem of Sir Philip Sidney’s sonnet sequence titled Astrophil and Stella might be explained as follows: But words came halting forth, wanting Invention's stay, In spite of...

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...

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...

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...

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 the opening poem of his sonnet sequence titled Astrophil and Stella, Sir Philip Sidney is already beginning his depiction of Astrophil as a foolish young man who has trouble controlling his...

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...

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,...

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 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...

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,...

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...

[INTERPRETATION CONTINUED FROM ABOVE] In the next stanza (25-29), Astrophil assures Stella that the noise she has just heard was made by a mouse; everyone else in the house except the two of them...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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 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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

[INTERPRETATION CONTINUED FROM ABOVE] Still, Astrophil cannot quite resist this opportunity to have some physical contact with Stella. He persuades himself that her “swelling” lips “Do invite a...

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...

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...

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...

Perhaps because Sidney himself was a warrior knight, who died as a result of wounds in Holland, he was drawn to the history of Edward IV, who usurped the English throne in 1461 and, in the process,...

This is a very broad question considering that Astrophil and Stella is a sonnet cycle comprised of 108 sonnets and songs of other lyric types, while "Whoso List" and "Love that Lost" are both...