The renaissance period introduces us to sonnets strongly focused around love. Sir Philip Sidney develops the relationship between Astrophil and Stella in his sonnets. Written in the first person, the author struggles to come to terms with his love for Stella. How does his love change over the course of these sonnets?
ENGL 201 | British Literature to 1800
Myra Seaman | Fall 2012
Astrophil is like a roller coaster. He feels bad one minute and then arrogant the next. It’s almost like a child who has a crush, mean and rude one minute and loving and sweet the next. He finally is let down one to many times and goes into depression basically and starts lamenting. Throughout each sonnet love his he driving factor and the sonnets go from being hopeful or happy to sad and depressing. I believe this emotional roller coaster is the reason for his seemingly bipolar reactions.
I agree with your comment on the “roller coaster” that Astrophil seems to be on. I feel like he makes decisions and statements and then immediately retracts them or says something completely different. I like your comparison to a child as well. The way that he mentions Stella and her eyes and how at one moment they are wonderful and then the next how they act as a form of “judgement”. His opinions and feelings concerning his love seem to differ and change throughout each sonnet. I believe that in sonnet 47, the line that states “Oh me, that eye
Doth make my heart give to my tongue the lie.” acuratley sums up many things about his feelings for her. This statement shows that this woman makes him feel confused about his feelings, making his heart deliver a “lie”.
I feel like my comment to this question is going to be perhaps too similar to the vain of my last one, but here goes. These poems are a new genre for us as students of early British Literature, I think it is really important to treat them as such. Approaching poetry in the same way one approaches narrative is to me, a mistake. These pieces allows us to see the honesty in a writer, in a real person, not a character necessarily. The “roller coaster” that is mentioned is not device or a theme, (not that I am asserting that anyone said it was) it is simply what happened to a man in love. Or rather a man struggling with love. I find it less important how the feelings changed than I find the fact that they changed at all. It is a progression and what is poetry without movement?
Astrophil does not have one emotion towards Stella. One minute they are happy and in love and the next minute he is angry and depressed with her actions. He does not fully understand the emotions he is feeling either and I think that is why he is on an emotional roller coaster. Also in Sonnet 47 when he says, “Can those black beams such burning marks engrave in my free side? or am I born a slave?” He cannot figure out why Stella is acting the way he is and it is making him crazy, he just wants it to be simple and emotions are far from simple. He is a slave to her emotions, saying that women control many aspects of a relationship with all of their emotions. In the end he says, “And in my joys for thee my only annoy” he is okay with Stella leaving and the only person who can annoy him is himself. The emotional roller coaster with Stella allows him to free himself in the end.
I completely agree with what most people are saying. Astrophil ping pongs back and forth between whether or not he feels like he needs Stella or if he is better without her. He is struggling with the feelings that he is being consumed by this love for her and that he is just a slave to his emotions. He does not like not being in control of what he feels. However, there are moments within the sonnets that he expresses happiness towards Stella and understands that his love for her could be a good thing. He then changes again and goes back into a depressive state. He thinks she is so beautiful and worthy of his love, yet he keeps re-thinking himself.
Astrophil is like most boys are, he doesn’t know what he wants and how to react to anything in a relationship. He is content and happy in one part, and then angry right after. I am not sure I agree with everyone above who says he is on an emotional roller coaster though. He definitely does not have one single emotion, but he goes through every emotion that people usually do when they are in love. This is a very typical characteristic of people in love: happy one minute, fighting the next; however, it seems that he is on this “emotional roller coaster” because these situations are all squished together in these sonnets.
I can see Astrophil as hot and cold towards Stella, which is natural human emotion. It’s interesting to watch him struggle with passion and discontentment. How his woes are his feelings towards her and he enjoys these troubles. It seems to go along with our narrators previous statements on how Petrarch set the standard for European poets to write about the “erotic experience in terms of frustration, self-scrutiny, praise and longing.”
Much like Petrarch, Sir Phillip Sidney is paradoxical. In the sonnets of Astrophil and Stella, the paradox of loving someone to the point where it is emotionally and physically crippling, is emphasized through Astrophil’s inner strife, his division with self. It’s come to the point for me where these melodramatic sonnets dedicated to expressing the passionate feelings caused by unrequited love are sort of humorous. The only way I could see a modern one of these being done is through parody. But I do think Sidney intended to be self mocking and humorous in some of these sonnets. Like in Sonnet 41 when he awards Stella with the credit of his excellent performance in battle, disregarding the fact that his family was distinguished in war and chivalry. But he fills us in on this information to let us know he is poking fun at himself. Then in 53 Stella’s presence has the complete opposite effect on Sidney’s ability to fight as Cupid makes him a slave to love and he falters in battle. And the rest of the sonnets are pretty bipolar or as everyone else has been saying, they’re like a roller coaster, as his emotions are constantly fluctuating.
I think that like many people said, Astrophil is going through a variety of emotions through Sidney’s sonnets. The progression and sequence of the sonnets really portrays a man in love that is really confused and almost feels trapped. I really liked what Careych said about sonnet 47, because the way that Stella is making Astrophil feel is portrayed with such emotion. It is almost a relatable feeling for some who have experienced a love where things are not based on compromise. Astrophil is really struggling to know whether or not this relationship is worth it because he questions if he will always be a “slave”. Stella seems to really play with his emotions. Like Hunter said, I think that this simply goes back to how boys and girls are in relationships for the most part. Whereas the boy, Astrophil wants things simple and straight-forward because he knows how he feels about Stella, but the girl, Stella dramatizes each inch of their relationship. This whirlwind of feelings that is happening throughout the sequence of sonnets goes from a happy love, with various ups and downs, and ends in more of a depressed and annoyed state for the love.
I agree with everyone’s comments as well. He goes as far as talking to the moon, complaining about Stella and even sympathizing with the moon as if it can actually get hurt by Cupid’s arrow. I felt like he was having a nervous breakdown and was going in a really bad spiral. In the end, he pretty much ends up acting crazy like a fool because he is mad and possibly confused with Stella for rejecting him. The sad thing is that despite all of these happenings that occur with Astrophil, he is still in love with her. I think the love drove him crazy. Guess it happens to the best of us.
Honestly, Astrophil is just a man who is madly in love. He got hit by Cupid’s arrow, and he got hit hard. Like people mentioned before, we see him going through every single kind of emotion one goes through when in love. He feels love in all it’s glory but he also feels the terrible sadness and anger that comes along with it as well. I think it’s very interesting how Sidney doesn’t hold back and writes about every single emotion; he goes in depth about the scorn a man can feel from a woman, and how vulnerable love can make men. He talks about how even when she is away and his no more, he still wants her that much more. It’s very brave of man to reveal that aspect of himself, and the power a woman can have over his heart. We see Sidney conveying all this when writing about Astrophil’s emotional journey.
In sonnet 1, the poet seems to make his intentions plain: “Pleasure might cause her read, reading might make her know, / Knowledge might pity win, and pity grace obtain” (lines 3-4). He just wants to convince the already married “Stella” that he really, really loves her as evidenced by all the suffering he undertakes for his love. And maybe, she will take pity on him. Evidently, this doesn’t go exactly as he hoped and he becomes lovelorn. Of course, this doesn’t happen quickly. (The last sonnet we read was 108. That’s a lot of sonnet writing.) He does maintain a steadfast love for Stella. In 108 he says “That in my woes for thee thou art my joy, / And in my joys for thee my only annoy.” (13-14). Even in her absence, he acknowledges her as the cause of his woe and the cause of his joy.
Astrophil’s love changed over time because his feelings are ever changing and not constant. He is in doubt and despair and happy and in love with Stella. Sidney’s portrayal of Astrophil’s ever changing feelings demonstrate that he was truly in love and these other crazy feelings are other ways to convey love and how people react to it. Since it is written in first person, if gives the audience a first hand look at the bittersweet love that Astophil is trying to cope with.
Astrophil is simply a helpless romantic. Like any normal person, he goes through every sort of possible emotion that one could feel while being in love. Also, he is quite clearly frustrated with his love towards Stella. One minute he can describe her eyes as wonderful and then in the next he completely changes his attitude towards them. He is kind of like a child where you are unnecessarily rude to the person you “like.” Eventually, Astrophil got turned away one time too many and with that the rest of the sonnets become more and more somber.
As stated above, Astrophil rides a rollercoaster as he falls deeper into captivity and frustration through his love for Stella. Reading this development made me think of the “cat-and-mouse” game that often describes interactions in a relationship. First Astrophil’s hopes are heightened when Stella gives a little: her beauty and softness. But soon Astrophil is either let down by her actions or realizes he’s in deeper than Stella is because she won’t give him her full devotion and so he attempts to become detached: “Go to… I love you not… Doth make my heart give to my tongue the lie” (47). Astrophil seems embarrassed that he feels more than Stella does and that he can’t gain the same devotion so he blames her and tries to convince himself he’s indifferent when deep down he knows he isn’t, which drives him near insanity.
Just to add to all this, one thing I noticed in sonnet 2, was that while Cupid’s arrow hit him, it took a while to sink in at first. He writies “I l saw and liked, I liked but loved not.” Then by the end of the sonnet, we see a pretty significant shift as he describes his “lost liberty” to this love and that now he must “suffer tyranny.” I have also noticed that in relation to some of the other poets we have talked about, Sir Philip Sidney allows his narrator, Astrophil to write with a metaphysical nature. The narrator is aware that he is writing as he “paints” his own Hell. (sonnet 2) I think this ability to realize he is writing of his own suffering-and acknowledge it in the poetry itself- gives the sonnets a greater sense of distress and intensity.
Astrophil’s love for Stella is one that he confesses to his poetry but it may not be one that he confesses to her. Throughtout the series of sonnets we see his thoughts develop. He grows to love this woman by being in her presence, by gaining knowledge of what and who she is. I am not sure that he ever confesses his love to Stella but is merely experiencing the natural feeling associated with love as well as those of his own self-inflicted rejection. It is his time apart from her that makes me feel that he never truly pursued his love for her, most likely out of shyness. In Sonnet 106, when “Stella is not here” and Astrophil “here I do store of fair ladies meet, who may with charm of conversation meet, make in my heavy mould new thought to grow”, seems to admit that he never had a public love with Stella. He loves her and cannot remove her from his heart but he never had her in his hand.
I did not get to read every blog comment, but for the most part of what I read i have a similiar opinion. It seems like Astrophil is caught up in a childish love affair with the way he expresses his emotion. Like any situation, he desires and longs for Stella, but frustration takes over in which he places these frustrations in his work. Hurt turns to Anger essentially. Althoughy some could argue that his love for her does not change throughout, his attitude and his control of emotions does in which he cannot hold his tounge.
Astrophil’s feelings are an attempt to really express what people do go through when they are in love. There are stages of doubt, anger, frustration and pure elation, all natural in any relationship such as the one that is described in the sequence. He seems, like many people do, to be in love with THE IDEA of her and not really the actual person. He may care for her, sure, but it never, as it was mentioned before becomes public.