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The development of English sonnets is one of the most remarkable features of Elizabethan literature. The sonnet, a short lyric poem of fourteen lines, owes its origin to Italian writers, such as Petrarch and Dante. The theme of Petrarchan sonnet was usually courtly love- worshipful adoration of an idealised mistress and a sense of elevating and even spiritualising the function of love.
Two practitioners of the form of sonnet, namely, William Shakespeare and Sir Philip Sidney, deviated a little from the original Petrarchan theme and put in their own inventions to the sonnet form. A discussion regarding the differences in the works of Shakespeare and Sidney will be explored here. I will look at Shakespeare’s Sonnets and Astrophil and Stella, respectively. There is a stark difference in the projection of the women in the above mentioned sonnet sequences. Hence, this paper will attempt to study how Shakespeare’s Dark Lady and Sidney’s Stella though polar opposites in terms of beauty have been given the same elevated status.
Sir Philip Sidney wrote a total of 108 sonnets and 11 songs in his sonnet sequence, Astrophil and Stella, which was published in 1591. His work started the vogue for sonnet sequence- like Shakespeare’s Sonnets. Unlike Shakespeare, it is clear that Sidney composed these sonnets remembering his ladylove, Penelope Rich, daughter of the Earl of Essex.
In sonnet 7, Stella’s beauty is being vividly portrayed. Since Stella is a star, this sonnet describes her beauty through her eyes, whose beams shine as stars from the black sky. The conventional conceit becomes literal when it is noticed that Lady Rich’s eyes were in fact black. Astrophil says in this poem that “black seems beauty’s contrary”, while Shakespeare praises that very same “black” as his mistress.
In sonnet 12, it is supposed that Astrophil who represents passion, will and carnal desires, will never be able to conquer Stella who represents virtue, reason and wit.
The praise of the “clear voyce” in sonnet 12, prepares a role for her quite different from that of the distant and disdainful mistress (“music hath a far more pleasing sound”). There are many contrasting verses as such in both the sonnet sequences. Stella’s “sweet breath”, “sun-like”, and “lips swell, so full of thee they be” is in stark contrast to Dark Lady’s “breath that from my mistress reeks”, “nothing like the sun”’ and “coral is far more red than her lip’s red” respectively.
“Cupid, because thou shin’st in Stella’s eyes/That from her locks, thy day-nets, none ‘scapes free.”
Sonnet 12 begins with Cupid being used as a symbol of desire. Cupid shines in Stella’s eyes, and her hair functions as Cupid’s trap.
Even the names given by the writers to the lady of their respective works is also no coincidence. Shakespeare uses Dark Lady because his sonnets aptly describe the love of an ordinary woman who is dirty and dark, yet is deserving of the speaker’s love. Sidney preferred the names- Stella (star: the symbol of the Light of Reason) and Astrophil (star-lover: the Lover of Reason).
Like many other Renaissance poets, Sidney also, experiences and incarnates the sum of life’s power and perfections in the beauty of their chaste and elegant ladies. Yet, Shakespeare’s Sonnets to the Dark Lady dwell on her imperfections and falsehood.
William Shakespeare wrote a total of 154 sonnets in his sonnet sequence, Shakespeare’s Sonnets, which was published in 1609. The final set- 126 to 154- is addressed to a promiscuous and scheming woman known to the readers as the Dark Lady. Shakespeare used, but also subverted, the sonnet conventions employed by Sidney and others.
Sonnet number 130 is a parody of the kind of insincere, sickly sweet love poems that authors have been writing for centuries. This particular verse is all about breaking stereotypes and expectations of female beauty. The speaker insists that his idea of feminism does not depend on fitting an abstract, unrealistic fantasy and to criticize the quixotic expectations that men have for female beauty. Shakespeare tactfully uses this sonnet to mock the early conventions of exaggerated comparisons. One can see how well he uses this sonnet to skewer lame poetic clichés. Yet, the question remains whether the poet is expressing Shakespeare’s personal feelings. In sonnet 130, there is no use of grandiose, metaphor or allusion- he does not compare his love to Venus, there is no evocation to Morpheus and so on- unlike Sidney who uses “Cupid” in sonnet 12 to describe the beauty of Stella. The ordinary beauty and humanity of his lover are of importance to Shakespeare in this sonnet. The references of metaphorical objects are present, but they are to illustrate that his lover is not as beautiful- a total rejection of Petrarch’s form.
“And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare/As any she belied with false compare.”
The couplet of this sonnet serves as a payoff for the entire poem. It serves as the punch-line for the joke. It drives home the speaker’s main point: unlike other poets he does not need flowery terms or fancy comparisons. He can just tell his mistress, plainly and simply, that he loves her for who she is.
In sonnet 141, the speaker says that he cannot love the Dark Lady with his eyes because they “a thousand errors note”. The speaker’s “foolish heart” super-cedes his “five wits” and “five senses”, unlike that of Astrophil who is smitten by Stella’s looks and virtues.
It can be said that both Shakespeare and Sidney are infatuated with their lady loves who are unattainable. Whilst, Sidney follows the trend of ‘Love’ being like a fair and virtuous Goddess, Shakespeare breaks norms by equally disgracing and admiring a dark woman who is not really attractive to look at. The speaker in Shakespeare’s Sonnets knows that his “mistress” is not aesthetic nor is anything about her so pleasing, yet he cannot help himself in falling in love with her, keeping all her imperfections aside. Stella, on the other hand, is the epitome of feminine, grace, wit, and beauty so much so that even though Astrophil knows, that it is next to impossible that such an ethereal beauty like Stella could be his, yet he admires her so much that he even goes on to say, “she even in black doth make all beauties flow?” The similarity being that both these women are given the same high elevated status, yet so opposite and different to each other. Such is the greatness of both the writers, that they portray the qualities of their lady loves in their own special way, which has no parallel till date.
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