Loving In Truth 2e3363

Loving in Truth," is the first in Philip Sidney's sonnet sequence "Astrophel and Stella." The name of the sonnet sequence echo the romance of their rapport: that of Philip Sidney and his lady love.Penelope Devereux. "Astro" in Greek means "star," while "phel" or "phil" implies love .The word 'stella' in Latin signifies 'star'. Therefore, Sidney is a star-lover, his star being his Stella. He orbits around the luminous Stella, who radiates him with her love and warmth.. The poet and his beloved together as a couple represent the Greco-Roman concord of feeling and form. This classical sensibility was revived during the Renaissance and Sidney exemplifies the same in his sonnet. The poet asserts that being truly and sincerely in love with his lady love he attempts to capture his love for her in verse He desires to consecrate his love in poetry so that his beloved would comprehend his agony. The poet juxtaposes two complementary entities in the phrase "pleasure of my pain" to signify the bitter-sweet reality of the feeling of love. The pleasure might enable her to read his poetry; poetry may impart her with knowledge. Knowledge may win her pity and pity may ultimately lead her to grace. For Sidney, his 'heaven' is her Grace. The poet seeks the appropriate words to aptly describe the "the blackest face of woe." The poet by doing so, wishes to bring to light the darkest aspects of his anguish. He first attempts to pen poetry by resorting to inspiration by exploring the works of others. He turns the leaves of others' works. The phrase 'Studying inventions fine" point to studying 'fine' readymade inventions of others. Here the word "fine' functions as an adjective, qualifying the word 'inventions'. On the other hand, the phrase may also be ambiguous in that it refers to his initial poetic theory, according to which, referring to others' works for inspiration is 'fine'. He wants some fresh and fruitful showers to fall upon his sunburnt brain. The idea of rain symbolizes productivity and fertility. His creative abilities are depicted as parched and dry, devoid of freshness. His writer's block does not allow words to proceed in a smooth manner. They come forth 'halting', aspiring for persistent creativity or 'Invention's stay'. 'Invention', the requisite to creativity, is portrayed as Nature's child. It is spontaneous and does not rely on tedious study that is referred to as a typical Step-mother that fosters but only out of compulsion. It is not out of natural instinct. Others' 'feet' seemed strangers in his way. The term 'feet' comes across as a pun here. The term 'feet' may refer to metrical feet here. However, it may also signify the footsteps of the poet's predecessors that he intends to follow. These footsteps only lead him to nowhere. Finally, the Muse appears to him and asks him to look to his heart and write. The Muse may be his Lady love also, since she is the source of his inspiration. What the poet finally arrives at is the reality that genuine inspiration comes from one's heart and not from external considerations. Poetry need not always conform to existing standards, premises and diction. This forms the crux of his poetical theory. He comes to a sudden realization that only spontaneous inspiration can help the poet compose good poetry and win the beloved. When he will look into his heart, he will see the image of Stella, which will provide him with the inspiration and material he needs to write poetry. Thus, the last line of the sonnet turns out to be a direct statement of Sidney’s critical creed that great

poetry does not result from imitation of other poets, but from the expression of personal experience and ion. Such views on poetic creation are similar to those of the Romantic poets. He comes to a sudden realization that only spontaneous inspiration can help the poet compose good poetry and win the beloved. When he will look into his heart, he will see the image of Stella, which will provide him with the inspiration and material he needs to write poetry. Thus, the last line of the sonnet turns out to be a direct statement of Sidney’s critical creed that great poetry does not result from imitation of other poets, but from the expression of personal experience and ion. Such views on poetic creation are similar to those of the Romantic poets. In of its rhyme scheme – abab abab cdcd ee - it is somewhere between what we now call a Shakespearean sonnet (rhyme scheme: abab cdcd efef gg) and a Petrarchan sonnet (rhyme scheme: abba abba cde cde). With it’s final rhyming couplet the poem departs from the Petrarchan model, and anticipates the sonnet form that would later be perfected by Shakespeare. The effect of this innovation is to set the final two lines apart from the rest of the poem, as a kind of conclusion. The poem’s rhythm is also interesting, because it is written in iambic hexametres rather than the usual metre for a sonnet, iambic pentametre. In other words it has six beats per line instead of the usual five. This gives Sidney the opportunity to imitate the French Alexandrine metre by putting a caesura (a break in the flow of the meaning, such as a comma) in the middle of the line. The symmetry produced by having the caesura in the middle of line gives these lines a great sense of balance. This is typical of the so-called Petrarchan school of Elizabethan poetry, of which Sidney was a part, as this school strove after a refined harmony .

The singleness of emotion that characterizes the Petrarchan sonnet is also distinctly evident in the present sonnet which is concerned with the emotion of love, rather dedicated love though graced with the spark of wit here and there. It well echoes the single and profound emotion of love that Astrophilhas for Stella. There is, no doubt, a transition in the poet’s mood from the octave to sestet, but essential unity is nowhere found missing and the emotional impact remains all through unchangeable. The poet’s tone, inspired with the high ideal of love, is expressive of the singleness of the feeling. Although Loving In Truth is a love poem, it is free from the sentimental hyperbolism or conventional epithets. There is graceful narration of poet’s play of wit. The eager lover expresses his ardent love, with an intellectual in which wit and reason are perfectly balanced. There is a steady flow of logical sequence of thought to arrive at the conclusion. The play of wit is made equally by the use of such figures of speech as the pun, the personification and so on in the lines bellow: “Invention, Nature’s child, fled step-dame Study’s blows; And others’ feet still seemed but strangers in my way.”

The personification of Invention as Nature’s child and Study as step mother is at once romantic and thought provoking. Loving In Truth as already been asserted is a characteristic Petrarchan sonnet. Taking as a whole Sidney’s Astrophil and Stella seems to be contiguous and continuous innovators in the Petrarchan love lyric. Specifically Astrophil and Stella is concerned with the Problem of desire which engages the Petrarchan poet-lover in a self-questioning state between his knowledge of Neoplatonic love theory and his own particular experiences in love as an actual, sensual state of being. The technical feature of such a sonnet is found by Sidney here inLoving In Truth. The technical purity of 14 lines and the octave- sestet divisions are maintained by Sidney. The octave consists of poet’s frantic effort to please his ladylove by writing love lyrics. The sestet shows his failure and ultimate revelation. In his use of dictions, metaphorical imagery and epithets are well chosen, simple yet impressive.