Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research

University Samarra

College of Education

Department of English

The Romantic Movement During Renaissance

Submitted by:

Raghad Waleed Khalid

Lecturer: Enas M. Salih (M. A.)

2021 C.E 1442A.H

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 In The Name of Allah, Most Merciful, Most Compassionate

{Allah will raise those who have believed among you and those who
were given knowledge, by degrees. And Allah aware of what you
do}.

Surah Al- Mujadalah: Verse (11)

‫بسم هللا الرحمن الرحيم {يرفع هللا الذين‬

‫امنوا منكم والذين اوتوا العلم درجات وهللا بما تعملون‬

}‫خبير‬

)11(‫االية‬:‫سورة المجادلة‬

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For those who have honored me by bearing their name , and I am proud to be
their daughter, my father and mother, may God have mercy on them, for my
grandfather, my brothers and for their love and support.

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 Acknowledgments
I would like to express my special appreciation and thanks to my advisor, Miss Enas
Mohamed, you have been an amazing teacher for me. I would like to thank you for
encouraging my paper, your comments and suggestions were great, your advice on
both paper as well as in my career has been invaluable, alsoI would like to thank all
my teachers for their help and assistance even during hard times.

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 Abstract
This paper presents a study on the time period known as the Romantic movement
during Renaissance and how it has influenced society as a whole and change the
world of art and the English world in general. In section one,I deal with love poetry
in the Renaissance. While section two sheds light on the Renaissance period and its
features. In section three, we mention and discuss the importance of the Major
Romantic poets during that time. In section four focuses on political, social and
religious themes. Finally, I present the story of romantic passion with analysis of the
Sir Philip Sidney's sonnet “Astrophil and

Stella.

The conclusion sums up the major findings of the paper.

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Contents
In The Name of Allah, Most Merciful, Most Compassionate ................................... ii
Acknowledgments .................................................................................................... iv
Abstract ..................................................................................................................... v
section one ................................................................................................................. 1
1.1 Introduction ..................................................................................................... 1

1.2 Love poetry during Renaissance...................................................................... 2

1.2.1 John Donne (1572-1631) ........................................................................... 4

1.2.2 Robert Herrick (1591-1674) ...................................................................... 5

Section two ................................................................................................................ 6

2.1 Renaissance period and its features ................................................................. 6

Section three .............................................................................................................. 9

3.1 Major romantic poets during Renaissance: ..................................................... 9

3.1.1 Christopher Marlowe (1564–1593) ........................................................... 9

3.1.2 Sir Walter Raleigh (1554-1618) ................................................................ 9

3.1.4 William Shakespeare (1564-1616) .......................................................... 10

3.2 Pastoral poetry ............................................................................................... 11

Section four ............................................................................................................. 12

4.1 Themes in Renaissance age: political, social and religious ........................... 12

Section Five ............................................................................................................. 16

5.1 Love Story in sir Philip Sidney’s sonnets “Astrophil and Stella” ................. 16

Conclusion .............................................................................................................. 22
References ............................................................................................................... 22

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 section one

1.1 Introduction

There is broad agreement that the term "Renaissance" refers to a profound and

lasting upheaval and transformation in culture, politics, art, and society in Europe

and especially in Italy between 1400 and 1600. The word describes both a period

in history and a more general period. Ideal for cultural renewal. The term is

derived from French for "rebirth". Since the 19th century, it has been used to

describe the period in European history when a revival of intellectual and artistic

appreciation for Greco-Roman culture gave rise to the modern individual as well

as the social and cultural institutions that define many people in the

West.(Brotton,2006:9)

The Renaissance was a remarkably international, fluid, and phenomenon. The

Renaissance is usually associated with Italian city-states such as Florence, but the

importance of Italy has undoubtedly often overshadowed the development of new

ideas in Northern Europe, the Iberian Peninsula, the Islamic world, and

Southeast Asia, and Africa.(Brotton,2006:8)

The city of Naples, southern Italy, shows the extent of its integration with the
culture of the Renaissance. Naples welcomed some of the prominent cultural figures

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of that era: during the reign of Robert the Wise, the painter Giotto and the literary
giants Petrarch and Boccaccio; in the reign of Ferrante, he encouraged the new art
of printing for a set of economic and educational motives; Not only was it in Latin
print, but also in Hebrew, and there are many ornate printed books remaining from
the Royal Library, which illustrate the king and his courtiers.
The monarchy was not detrimental to the arts. Petrarch chose Robert to declare a
fit for the crown of laurel in recognition of his mastery of the art of poetry. To
Robert, 'puissant king and pride of Italy, great glory of our age', Petrarch dedicated
his epic poem Africa. (Jamey, 2004 :224-225)

1.2 Love poetry during Renaissance

Love poetry during Renaissance, one of the most important English language
verses written in England between 1500 and 1660, is known as love poetry. Love
poetry in this period was very popular. Renaissance poets participate in poetry.
Accepting love as a theme for both readers and writers of this period would reveal
much about the ideals and customs of the English Renaissance. In addition, the love
poetry of the Renaissance proved important for centuries after its first publication.
Due to its enduring success, the love poetry of the Renaissance influenced how later
readers and authors of English literature thought about the topic of amorous desire.
Love has been a popular topic in a variety of literature. . Shakespeare's plays, for
example, are written about love in Renaissance drama and mostly introduce specific
themes that were described at the time. (Evans ,2020: 1)

The love poetry of the Renaissance is often misunderstood because of some minor
mistakes that modern readers make. I think we often miss a lot of the absolute

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comedy of the love poetry of the Renaissance. We often take it very seriously what
seems to be intended to joke .

We often attribute to poets the foolish comedic opinions of orators of poems. In

short, we often miss the funny irony of many of the Renaissance love poems - the
irony that makes poems sound funny on one level but curiously serious on another.
The contemporary sometimes assumes that the writer of the poem and the speaker
of the poem are identical. They assume that the love poets of the Renaissance were
inevitably using their poems to express their personal positions in very stark and
simple ways.
Most of the writers of love poetry of the Renaissance were serious and clearly
committed Christians. They often wrote openly religious poems and prose even
while writing“love”, which can often appear irreligious unless it is read sarcastically.
It is the irony of many Renaissance love poems that give them true moral depth. By
implicitly mocking the selfish desires of many poem orators, the book of poems
implicitly endorses Christian morals that were taken seriously at the time. (Evans
,2020:1).

lyric poetry was esteemed as the pinnacle of literary creativity in the

Renaissance. The rise of courtly culture in Italy and northern Europe provided

scope for the cultivated sensibility of lyric poetry, with its focus on a beloved

mistress, whilst also reflecting on the subjective status of the lover-poet. One of its

most influential pioneers was the humanist scholar Petrarch. His writing of Il

Canzoniere, a collection of 365 poems written between 1327 and 1374, drew on

Dante’s collection of lyrics the New Life. Petrarch refined the sonnet, a heavily

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stylized poem of 14 lines, broken down into two sections (the octave, or first eight

lines, and sestet, or final six lines) with a highly specific rhyme structure. The

Petrarchan sonnet idealized the female subject at the same time as it explored the

emotional complexity of the poet’s identity. Petrarch complained in one sonnet

that ‘In this state, Lady I am because of you’. This intimate, introspective poetic

style, which allowed the poet to explore his own moral state in relation to either

his beloved or his religion (and the two were often conflated) came to influence

courtly Renaissance culture and poetry throughout the 15th and 16th

centuries.(Brotton,2006:117)

1.2.1 John Donne (1572-1631)

Considered by many to be one of England's greatest poets, was born in the same
year Johnson was born. John Dryden accused Donne of "influencing metaphysics"
because Donne's poetry represented a shift from the classic forms of poetry to the
more personal. In some poems, the speaker Don boasts of sexual conquests and in
some cases attempts to seduce someone else with his words. Don was ambitious and
possessed of colloquial speech expressed emotionally "For God's sake hold your
tongue, and let me love!". “He expressed his feelings through metaphors that his
unexpected metaphors evoke certain phenomena in political events, exploration and
daily events he criticized the existence of these illusions and tricks in love poetry. In
many other songs and sonnets, the speaker bears witness to the deep love of one
woman, refusing to differentiate between body and soul, so that this integral love
appears. "Nothing else is," he argues in "The Sun Rising." (Sagas ,2012: 9)

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1.2.2 Robert Herrick (1591-1674)

Was a seventeenth-century English poet, author of Noble Numbers and an

Anglican preacher. One of his major works is Hesperides, Poems Collection in 1648.
It features many of the horn machine's most enjoyable, finely tuned, hilarious, and
romantic poems about small wonders and the flirtation of the natural world. Herrick's
writings were sentimental, denoting great love and a short life as in his poem "To the
Virgins, to make much of Time". (Sagas ,2012: 10)

The discussions of love in the renaissance it’s a true love-union, sidneys emphasis
is on an ultimate spiritual (“Heavenly uniting of the minds")union from which issues
a new life. This, at least, is one aspect of the "new life" into which Dante enters after
he falls in love with Beatrice; and Petrarch's relationship with Laura was thought to
be similar. Commenting on Petrarch's sonnet (132), “S'amor non è, che dunque è
quel ch’io sento?" Benedetto Varchi pauses at line 7, “O viva morte, O dilettoso
male," to expound the philosophy of true love as a dying into a new form. His
reference is to Plato, but he is obviously seeing Plato filtered by Ficino, for he echoes
the latter's ex- position in the Commentary on the Symposium. According to Plato,
Varchi says, every lover is said to be dead, for which reason love is called a voluntary
death. If the love is mutual, that is, both lover and beloved "die," then there is a new
life or being, formed by the death of the two, in which each be- comes the other and
lives in the other. If the love is not mutual, there is only death.he [Love] takes the
soul of the lover and infuses it into the beloved, and that of the beloved places in the
lover, giving to one, and to the other mutual love and most pleasing new form.
(Cirillo,1969:84)

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 Section two

2.1 Renaissance period and its features

The Renaissance began in Italy and is essentially a European movement and

spread throughout the continent. An important feature of the English Renaissance.
Some of the important features are freedom of thought and action, intellectual
renaissance, individualism, thirst for knowledge, humanity, scientific outlook, love
of beauty, love of adventure, love of the distant past, spirit of discovery, desire for
unlimited wealth, and power. (Guarnieri& Negro,2012:Introdoction)

The first country to recover and develop again is Italy, followed by the rest of
Europe. An important characteristic of the Renaissance was work and freedom of
thought. The main feature of the Renaissance was movement and freedom of
expression and the awakening of men's minds. Medicine and mathematics were the
only applied sciences. The first Western universities, known as Stadia in Latin, were
founded, which focused on the retrieval of classical information. One of the first
countries in Europe to resume growth The cultural in the eleventh century was Italy.

The most influential figure on its rise in the mid-14th century was the poet, Francesco
Petrarch. It flourished in architecture, with Filippo Brunelleschi, and thus expanded
into artistic fields. (Guarnieri & Negro, 2012: Introduction)

The Renaissance included ethical, ideological, literary, musical, scientific, and

technological themes because it was a period of cultural development. At this time,
the Renaissance Humanism began, a cultural and educational reform movement

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centered on grammar, rhetoric, history, poetry, and moral philosophy. Humanism is
an important part of the Renaissance. In the mid-16th century, the Italian
Renaissance began to decline, but it still produced outstanding results in the arts,
technology, and sciences, eventually inspiring the Scientific Revolution. At this
time, it spread to central and northern Europe,
Throughout the seventeenth century it continued with good results, bringing with it
a legacy of innovative knowledge and achievements that would continue to develop.
(Guarnieri & Negro, 2012: Introduction-1)

Art and science were among the most important features of the Renaissance, the
main initiator of the Renaissance was Florentine Filippo Brunelleschi (1377-1446)
in architecture and technology and one of the undisputed geniuses, architect,
watchmaker, sculptor, goldsmith, mathematician and geodesist. After formal
learning, he made use of his knowledge of optics and was educated professionally in
the artisan's workshop and joined the Guild of Silk Merchants, in about 1416,
pioneering studies in perspective by introducing them to a rigorous mathematical
basis, later perfecting them with Leon Battista Alberti and Piero della Francesca.
Perspective allowed Renaissance painters to represent reality while giving the
illusion of depth and thickness: it was the first form of 3D simulated painting in the
modern era. Applied in the technical field, it allowed the accurate representation of
mechanical devices for the first time. (Guarnieri & Negro, 2012: 13)

The concept of the early modern period also enabled an exploration of topics not
previously thought fit for consideration in relation to the Renaissance. Scholars like
Greenblatt and Natalie Zemon Davis in her book Society and Culture in Early
Modern France (1975) explored the social roles of peasants, artisans, transvestites,
and ‘unruly’ women. As intellectual disciplines such as anthropology, literature,

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and history learnt from each other’s theoretical insights, the focus on excluded
groups and marginalized objects increased.(Brotton,2006:17)

2.2 Scientific Revolution

The different ideas of many scholars such as Galileo spread throughout Europe,
merging with those of philosophers such as Copernicus, Johannes Kepler, Francis
Bacon, René Descartes, Christian Huygens, even Isaac Newton. The exchange of
ideas was facilitated by the use of Latin, the acquired language which scholars then
used, as we do now with English.

In this new approach to knowledge tools and technology has played a major role.
Thus, the Scientific Revolution produced the final re-evaluation of techniques and
recognition of their profound influence on concepts of science, nature, and
philosophy. The methodological effort on which they depended in the development
of science was being undertaken generation after generation by many people who
made measurable and repeatable observations. These revolutionary principles,
especially European, were able to uproot the previous ideas of the ancient
philosophers. In this development, the University of Padua has played a major role.
According to British historian and University of Cambridge professor Herbert
Butterfield, “To allow the honor of being home to the scientific revolution may be
said to belong to one place, that place is Padua.” (Guarnieri & Negro, 2012: 18).

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 Section three

3.1 Major romantic poets during Renaissance:

3.1.1 Christopher Marlowe (1564–1593)

Was known for his intelligence and charm and was educated at Cambridge. He
went to London after graduating from Cambridge. The most famous plays written
by “ Tamburlin The great", "Doctor Faustus" and "The Jew of Malta".

Marlowe joined the Admiral's Men, a group of stage performers. He was gambling
when he quit writing plays, and one night, he was with three men gambling and he
got into a fight with one of them, and stabbed him to death, ending the life of this
talented 29-year-old writer, he was a poet and adventurer. Besides plays, he wrote
poems. Here's an example: "Who ever loved and did not love at first
sight.”(Snell:2020)

3.1.2 Sir Walter Raleigh (1554-1618)

Was one of the original men of the Renaissance: considered a courtier to Queen
Elizabeth I. He placed his cloak over a pond for Queen Elizabeth, an act of
stereotypical chivalry. So he could be a romantic poetry writer. He was a poet and
warrior at that time, as well as an adventurer. After the death of Queen Elizabeth, he
was sentenced to death and beheaded in 1618 for being accused of plotting against
her successor, King James I. From his poems "The Silent Lover, Part One".
(Snell:2020)

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3.1.3 Ben Jonson (1572–1637)

He was an English writer, poet, and actor who wrote plays and was a
contemporary of Shakespeare, and an art critic. He left a noticeable impact on
English poetry and comedy theatre.

Ben Johnson's first play was staged at the Globe Theatre, with William Shakespeare
in the cast. Dubbed "Every man in His Humour ," and that was a rising moment for
Johnson.He was arrested because of his acting in an instigator play. He loved
controversy and criticizes authority in several of his plays. An actor was killed with
him in the play, which led to his imprisonment. He had trouble with the law again
regarding “Sejanus His Fall” and “Eastward Ho”, for which he was accused with
"the papacy and treason." He had a feud with playwrights because he was critical of
them, and despite his animosities and legal problems he became the great poet of
Britain in 1616 and when he died, he was buried in Westminster Abbey.

3.1.4 William Shakespeare (1564-1616)

The greatest poet and writer in the English language, was one of the most
successful playwrights of his time, as much as a playwright, he was a poet, and none
of his poems is more famous than this Sonnet 18: “Shall I compare you A summer's
day?"

The simile is another important tool in Renaissance poetry. William used metaphor
in his writings, so he is famous for his uses of metaphor as well. For example, in his
poem he used a satirical device “my lover’s eyes,” describing his mistress as “not
like these things.” He says that “his mistress’s eyes are not like the sun.” When he
compares her skin to snow, he says it has a "low" quality. In addition, he compares

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his beloved's hair with black wire, her lips with coral, and her cheeks with roses that
never bloom. Shakespeare eloquently describes his emotions and thoughts about his
beloved. (John:2012:1)

3.2 Pastoral poetry

Pastoral poetry was a popular form of poetry during the Renaissance. Pastoral
poets focused their work on the beauty of nature as well as the simplicity of rural
life and shepherds. Nicholas Breton's poem, "In time of yore" is an example of
pastoral poetry as it seeks the simple pleasures of life and the love of shepherds in
comparison to its present state of life.

From Breton’s view that “simple people” are people who have never submitted to

people who mock their love, but rather enjoyed nature and the singing of birds

when the lover meets his beloved, Britton shows the simplicity and sincerity of the

shepherd's wives who accept nature and their love for their homes, unlike the

women who give great attention. With "golden silk" and "gift of a row of staples".

The speaker regrets the world because they lack the beauty and purity of nature, so

he sees them miserable because they are busy in worldly matters. (John:2012:6)

One of the poets known for their pastoral poetry is Christopher Marlowe. His poem
"The Passionate Shepherd of His Love" is famous for the beauty and simplicity of
rural life. It is also an example of the idealist concepts of pastoral poets. The speaker
requests that his beloved come to the country to be his love, and to live with him
among "valleys, orchards, hills and fields." When she comes, they will live happily

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and simply as shepherds, and he will make beautiful things for her, a comfortable
home, and a wardrobe of the beauty of nature. Saying he would make it a "bed of
roses," a "hat of flowers," and a "belt of straw and ivy buds." Like Britton, Marlowe
dreams of the simplicity and purity of country life rather than living the hustle and
bustle of life now. His poem demonstrates the pastoral quality of this poem, as well
as the dependence on the nature of the shepherds. (John:2012:6-7)

Section four

4.1 Themes in Renaissance age: political, social and religious

Italy's political unity was torn apart between 1494 and the mid-16th century, by
an endless series of foreign invasions. As rival dynasties increasingly claimed parts
of Italy, France and Spain fought for possession of the peninsula in a long and costly
battle that eventually divided the Italians. Naples and Milan became part of the
Spanish Empire, and Spain established control even in independent regions such as
Tuscany.

The church restructured its relationship with secular society in the nineteenth
century,giving it a far greater influence in Italy than it had before.This events
profoundly and fundamentally affected Italy, as well as the cultural renaissance ,
whose features were shaped during the last two centuries of
independence.(Najemy,2004:3)

In the aftermath of the Second World War and the social and political upheavals
of the 1960s, particularly the politicization of the humanities and the rise of
feminism, the Renaissance was subjected to a profound reappraisal. One particularly

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influential response came from the United States. In 1980 the literary scholar
Stephen Greenblatt published his book Renaissance Self-Fashioning: From More to
Shakespeare. The book built on Burckhardt’s view of the Renaissance as the point
at which modern man was born.(Brotton,2006:15)

Alberti's position influenced human responses to elite women who challenged

their role and pursued a career in humanistic learning. In a letter written around 1405,
Leonardo Bruni, according to Hans Baron, the great hero of civil humanity, warned
that women's study of geometry, arithmetic, and rhetoric is dangerous because ``if a
woman throws up her arms while speaking, or if she increases. The volume of her
speech is more powerful, she will sound seriously crazy and need restraint. Women
could learn farming, fitness, and household skills.(Brotton,2006:46)

Some educated women tried to acquire intellectual careers, despite the hostility
directed at them. The French writer Christine de Pizan argued in The City of Ladies
(1404-1405) that ``Those who blame women out of jealousy are those wicked men
who have seen and recognized many women's intelligence and behavior. nobler than
they themselves possess. In the 1430s Isotta Nogarola of Verona responded to attacks
on women by proposing that "rather than women exceeding men talkativeness,in fact
they exceed them in eloquence and virtue."(Brotton,2006:46)

The humanist movement has remained largely separate from changes in university
policy during the Renaissance, so the Renaissance had neither the strength nor the
courage to attack the medieval educational structure for a radical reform and does
not have the effect on politics and universities as institutions. Also evident is the
dominance of the regional state over local authorities and the transfer of power from
student companies to political authorities, which varied depending on local
background and customs. (Massimo,2012:5)

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In the thirteenth century the university could become a preferred site for the
formation of free total ruling elites, to help them prevent the "authoritarian" change
that was threatening many of them. The only exception to this requirement was the
minority component of all human movement, which found its best defense in the
great philologist Lorenzo valla. (Massimo, 2012:5)

In the Renaissance, the Italian maiolica appeared, mainly painter's pottery. That it
has become so, unlike the earlier history of ceramics in both the Near and Far East,
is just another indication of the extent of the visual culture of Renaissance Italy. This
indicates the industrial growth in that period.(Richard,1989:4)

The city-states of the Renaissance in Italy formed a close-knit community of

sovereign states for a relatively short period. Until the second half of the fourteenth
century, Italian cities were deeply involved in the political and legal structures of
medieval Europe. Despite the economic power they reaped from the commercial
revolution of the thirteenth century, their independence was constrained by the
political and military machinations of the Holy Roman Empire and the
Papacy.(Reus-smit,1999:63)

Petrarch's research and correction of ancient texts revived classic genres, such as
dialogue and personal message, using these genres to grow a community of men who
shared his passion for antiquity. Petrarch largely insisted on the theoretical value of
classical studies, by appealing to the tradition that it was poets and orators who
civilized humanity and preserved social ties. By arguing about a connection between
'rhetoric', which he considered to mean clarity and persuasive power as they learned
from ancient authors, and 'virtue', defined as the ability to live a full human life, he
gave humanity as a persuasive reasoning about it into a movement.

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by his definition of virtue. Petrarca developed a new approach to the past that was
both personal and historical in his search for manuscripts, text editing, and emulation
of ancient literary styles and genres. Petrarch realized how different his world, his
religion, his culture, and his Latin world were from that of the ancients. (Najemy,
2004:41).

Weakened enough, the Renaissance popes were obsessed with creating a

temporary state in central Italy that relied on politics, diminishing their spiritual
credibility. Instead of spiritual commitment, bishops and monasteries were traded as
a source of enrichment. The church had no power to respond, let alone lead the
religious life of ordinary people. Laudable reform efforts failed without ideas and
institutional support. Giovanni Boccaccio is one of the storytellers who mocked the
humanities for the weaknesses of lazy monks, depraved nuns, gullible priests, and
greedy monks. Church leadership helped religious life regain its legitimacy. Famous
for his religious manuals and moral tracts, he emphasized formula and routine, and
could intensify prophecies of dramatic religious change. (Najemy, 2004: 60)

The religious belief at the time that diseases were God's punishment for sinful
people led him to investigate the cause of his anger. An important aspect of
leadership that Italian rulers exercised was supportive obedience in the religious life
of their communities. Religious life was promoted by rulers in their respective
cultures. Religious issues prompted a number of cities to pass laws governing sexual
and reproductive activity, as well as commissions to punish male homosexuality,
administrators responsible for women to marry, and to protect the chastity of nuns.
The Church had simply given way to the temporal governments of Italy regarding
religious life. (Najemy, 2004: 71)

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 Section Five

5.1 Love Story in sir Philip Sidney’s sonnets “Astrophil and Stella”

A collection of sonnets and songs about love, these sonnets were written to give
a true love message. A story between two people usually called "Astrophil", a
pseudonym taken from the script, defending the immortal feelings of his beloved
Stella.

Many of the sonnets express much admiration and hope for their union and are
interesting, some of them were melancholier, they say that they are isolated and
cannot unite. With a total of 108 sonnets and 11 songs, the various poems express
vivid concepts and emotions, but all are centrally connected by the relationship
between them. Astrophil is a Greek name meaning "Star Lover", "Astro" also relates
to stars and "phil" is a common addition meaning love, lover, or lover, and "stella"
is a Latin word meaning "star", so the text implied that it speaks About a star and her
lover.

Many think the sonnets are from Sir Philip Sidney to his former fiancée and lifelong
love, Lady Penelope Devereux, who married another man after the dissolution of
their union. It seems Sydney is already attending and knows the rift in her marriage.
Many sonnets refer to her as her persistent and burning desire. The sonnets are full
of beautiful, stylized love language, which indicates a deep connection between the
two lovers. (Grosart,1877, xlviii)

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5.1.1 The Form:

While experimenting more widely with the sonnet form than any other
Elizabethan poet, Sidney showed throughout his career a predilection for the final
couplet; he used it in fifteen out of the eighteen sonnets in the Arcadia, in all but
one of the sonnets in Certain Sonnets, and in eighty-five of the 108 sonnets in
Astrophil and Stella. The closing couplet has of course been generally regarded as
perhaps the most important formal feature of the English sonnet in the sixteenth
century, with its natural tendency to detach itself somewhat from the rest of the
poem, thus inviting the poet, for better or for worse, to provide an epigrammatic
ending, clinching or commenting on the first twelve lines of the poem.
(williamson,1980:271)
The rhyme scheme of the sestet is of the conventional English 4/2 pattern cdcd/ee,
in his literary works Sidney shows perhaps more explicit consciousness of
grammar and its workings than any other poet of his day. He bases Astrophil and
Stella 63 on 'grammar rules', he uses grammatical concepts in imagery ('Let me,
therefore, receive a clear understanding.(williamsom,1980:274)

But harder judges judge ambition’s rage,

Scourge of itself, still climbing slippery place,
Holds my young brain captived in golden cage.
The "harder Judges"of Sonnet 23 are right,in spite of the way Astrophil juggles the
terms by which ambition is to be understood: he claims as his goal not a "slipprie
place" but a lofty private ideal, Stella's acceptance of his love. He is, after all,
caught in a cage, obsessed by erotic ambition; and his eventual fall from Stella's
approval con- firms how "slipprie" love's place can be. Thus the structure of desire
turns out to resemble the structure of ambition.

17
Astrophil's dismissal of the "curious wits" is a defense against assumptions that are
meaningful to him, as well, then, and although he ends the poem with a counter
-affirmation of his dedication to the private pleasures of love, he addresses his self
defense directly to the literati,courtiers and moralists whose concern she
apparently rejects:
O fooles,or over-wise,alas the race
Of all my thoughts hath neither stop nor start, But only
Stella's eyes and Stella's hart.
To call the wits"fooles"seems a firm enough dismissal, but how are they
"overwise?" Because they seek out over-elaborate explanations? Why, then,
reproduce them? And Astrophil's"alas," though it may express simply the
conventional selfpity of lovers,seems in this context to indicate a regret for the clear
paths in which literary and courtly careers move forward. So does his use of the
sporting metaphor "race,"which suggests that the focus of his desire is un-
comfortably narrow, compared to the course of athletic or political competition.
(Rosalind & Stallybrass,1984:57)

In Sonnet 31, we can see how Stella treats him absurdly by not responding to his
love. Astrophil compares his position to that of the Moon, in a way that suggests
that if we take a separate look at his ordeal,... Assuming that the Moon is also in
love, Astrophil asks the question in the tenth line: "Is continuous love considered
there but lacking in intelligence?" We need to stress "there", because Astrophil's
point is that his constant love in his state like his is nothing more than a lack of
realization, Stella is irrational in wanting to be loved while making fun of the one
who loves her.(Daalder,1991:136)

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O joy too high for my low style to show!
O bliss fit for a nobler state than me!
My friend, that oft saw through all masks my woe, Come, come,
and let me pour myself on thee.
For Stella hath, with words where faith doth shine, Of
her high heart giv'n me the monarchy;
"Joy," which sonnet 69 begins with, is a slippery trick. Is it the joy that the
worshiper feels toward God and the courtiers toward the king, or is it the joy that is
achieved by enjoying the body of the Beloved?
69 indicates that there is some confusion about Astrophil's "joy", as was his
aspiration in 23. Equations of 69 correlate with those in 68, where Astrophil hopes

"so that the Fairea Vertue can be enjoyed." While praising his “noble fire” (68,

line 7), which burns for the greater good of “the only planet of my light,” the

nature of his fire is deliberately left ambiguous, as is the kind of “Vertue” (Stella’s

mind or body?) who desires to” Enjoy it” (admiration or pride?).

(Rosalind & Stallybrass,1984:57)

According to Sonnet 9, it allows the reader to finally "see" Stella. Sidney singled
out every part of Stella's face in separate praise throughout his description, but with
a twist: for all this he does under the imagining that Stella is in fact a building, i.e.
the "Court of the Queen's Virtue" Up until this point the reader has been told several
times how beautiful she is, but except Her skin and eyes. Which of course means
that Astrophil sees truth or "virtue" when he stares at his beloved.

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Each facial feature represents a different part, the balconies of her cheeks of red and
white marble, her teeth a "pearl lock", where her white forehead represents the
alabaster front, her golden hair the ceiling, her red lips, which were traditionally of
coral, while her "shiny black" eyes form the windows. In the final stanza of the
sonnet, expertly crafted by Cupid, who used perfect celestial beauty as her outline,
Astrophil regrets the fact that he is a slave to this face those eyes, even more
Specifically. (Smith,2012)

In Sonnet 11 first quarter, children usually leave out the "best" or "most serious" part
of anything for the most interesting or striking part, the second quatrain introduces
the idea, in the form of a similar epic. The 'like' part is the child's reaction.

In the part "Thus", the poet compares his likeness to another metaphor suitable for
the Renaissance and also increases the poetic characters: the "treasury" in which he
showed a curiosity for science or travel. In this case, the treasury belongs to a
character no less than Nature itself, and Stella is shown there as a rarity in the Nature
collection. (Smith,2012)

In sonnet 108 Alchemy was of course more than just a method for making gold.
By reshaping the melting of lead, fire, and the "dark furnace," the poem opens with
the power of Renaissance esoteric alchemy. Sidney himself was well acquainted
with the actual techniques, terminology, and "hermetic" symbols of
alchemy, for he was rigorously trained in it by the leading English alchemist of his
day, John D. "Given Sydney's literary talents, it is certain that the rich possibilities
of spiritual and emotional expression lie behind the symbolic alchemy symbols.

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Sonnet 108 confirms this guess in its first lines, because Sidney creates the internal
chemical images of Astrophil. "Sadness" appears as an emphatic emotion that uses
Astrophil's "special fire power" to melt bullets into the heart of a desperate lover.
The spiritual core of Melancholy and the defeated Astrophil is imprisoned in a
sealed alchemical furnace, where the fire of his own derision derisively acts as a
bullet to his heart or soul.(Cain,1993:13)

The Astrophil's soul struggles to escape by ascending from his "boiling breast"
dungeon on a vertical axis, while a horizontal axis runs along Stella's thought - in
the figurative form of light - from her prison to Astrophils; Much of Astrophil's
frustration arises as the vertical movement of his soul's journey to Stella is
hindered by her, weighed down by chemical lead that serves as a metaphor for
grief and sorrow. Sidney has carved out superlative images of height and light
through the personification (somewhat reminiscent of Spencer) of "rude despair",
which Astrophil says in the eighth line: “Clips straight my wings, straight wraps
me in his night" breaks down and Astrophil's fluttering heart is cut and then judged
in The dark oven, a colorful hell of his own making.(Cain,1993:14)

Sonnet 108 was frustrating and despite this coming a sense of the connection
between Sydney's individual talent and Petrarchan's tradition, most of the
"discomfort" felt by readers (and editors) in this poem results from the allegorical
use of alchemy and symbolic language and symbols. Astrophil sees the alchemy of
love aborted in his case and this shows a hint of a regression from the images. In
the conclusion of Astrophil and Stella, Sidney identified - a painful contrast to the
joyful transformation involved in healthy and successful human love: Sonnet 108
paints a grim picture that speaks to a failed spiritual and emotional
alchemy.(Cain,1993:15)

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Conclusion

It was a Romantic movement on the time period known as the Renaissance and
how it has influenced society as a whole. And how the Renaissance change the world
of art and the English world in general. It was focuses on how Humanism brought
us the Renaissance and how the Renaissance influenced and impacted not only the
world of art, but also the world of science and all that it had to presents It was really
a cultural movement that deeply affected European intellectual life in the early
modern period. It was an artistic, literary, musical and intellectual movements that
begin in Italy in in the age of enlightenment. It was the movement that focuses on
individuals as well as ideas, which were civilized during the Renaissance and then
went on to continue to grow after the end of that era.

References

-Cain, J. “Sidney's Astrophil and Stella, Sonnet 108”, in Explicator 52(1), 1993, pp
12-16.

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and Spenser”, in Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900, vol. 9, no. 1, 1969, pp.
81–
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-Daalder, Joost."Sidney's Astrophil and Stella, 31", in Explicator49(3), 1991,

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-Grosart, Alexander, B. The Complete Poems of Sir Philip Sidney. In London: Chatto
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-Jerry Botton(2006)The Renaissance, A Very Short Story, Publisher: Oxford

University Press; 1st edition.

-John, Jessica.“Literary Devices of Renaissance Love Poetry”, Oklahoma State

University, 2012 .

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-Jones, Ann Rosalind, and Peter Stallybrass. “The politics of Astrophil and Stella.”
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-Najemy, John M. Italy in the Age of the Renaissance 1300-1550, In the United
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-Reus-Smit, Christian(1999).The Moral Purpose of the State: Culture, Social

Identity, and Institutional Rationality in International Relations,:In Princeton
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(2020, August 28).

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