| Subject: Sir Philip Sidney's challenge to Elizabethan Convention |
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Date Posted: 07:38:56 01/10/01 Wed
Sir Philip Sidney's “Astrophil And Stella” can, in its uniqueness, be seen either as a protest of the vacuous love poetry of the Elizabethan era, or as more of a refinement and perfection of those conventions. These two potentialities are by no means mutually exclusive; no convention can be effectively protested without offering a viable alternative to that convention. For instance, Swift's “A Modest Proposal,” protesting the pervasive poverty and overpopulation plaguing England, offers the calmly-worded idea of eating the children of the poor, dismissively mentioning realistic solutions in the conclusion as the viable solution. Sarcastically dismissed as petty and barbaric, Swift's disparaging presentation of the real alternatives deliberately undermines his persona and lends those alternative additional credibility. Sidney also employs, in varying degrees, a similar approach to the poetic tradition of the genre of love poetry, by both separating himself from that tradition, quite explicitly at some points, while conforming to the Petrarchan convention. Therefore, “Astrophil And Stella” can be seen as a protest, but not necessarily against love poetry as a form. Rather, it may be interpreted as statement against the misuse of that convention while displaying the potential of the genre as the alternative. An excellent example of Sidney's intention can be seen in Sonnet 6 from the sequence. Much of the Petrarchan tradition, particularly the lover's sequence of development, is given great attention by Sidney, as is noted in Sonnet 74. The routine of the lover's attraction to the object of affection, enduring trials and conflicts of various kinds, trying to reconcile personal conflicts, receiving slight and ambiguous encouragements builds to a conclusion in which, essentially, nothing is resolved.
Astrophil's disillusionment with Stella does not remove or dispel his affections for the epitomal "Stella" figure; he is hopeless in his devotions at both the beginning and at the end, albeit for different reasons. In this standard sequence, Sidney follows the convention closely. But in Sidney's case, part of this conflict is a struggle with the convention in which he finds himself. He is, in essence, in conflict with the Petrarchan love poem's conflict itself. In Sonnet 6, he finds the accepted method of the description of wrestling with one's muse inadequate, conforming more to his own ideal of the idealized love poem. By spinning off the series of stale oxymorons in line four, Sidney makes the convention appear petty, simple, and even ridiculous: "living deaths, dear wounds, fair storms, and freezing fires; / Someone his song in Jove and Jove's strange tales attires, / Border'd with bulls and swans, powder'd with golden rain." Sidney's thinly veiled dismissal of the pretension and perhaps even insolence of others is made more explicit and poignant by accusing them in their own language and context. His argument is not only literal and clear, but demonstrative as well.
The first line, "Some lovers speak, when they their Muses entertain" is a particularly interesting statement. The fact that those conforming to the traditional love poem scenario are represented as entertaining, or catering to the "Muse" of convention reduces them to the level of slaves to that convention. They entertain the "Muses" but, in doing so, can be seen placing distance themselves and the master figure of poetic inspiration; they flatter and imitate, but no longer interact. It is at this point that once-vibrant images and traditions become worn and stale, like the skipping of a needle on an old record. This is only one of the traditions that Sidney is prepared to confront on its own ground.
Sidney in fact, displays not only astute awareness of the superfluousity of conventional love poetry, but indeed a sense of genuine dismay and incomprehension at its pervasiveness. The sonnet undergoes a great deal of evolution in its course, and this confusion is one of the first phases. It gives way to naked contempt at those whose "song in Jove and Jove's strange tales attires." These two stages adequately express what is an indubitably thorough distaste for the staleness of poetic convention, a distaste felt even by some twentieth-century readers who can glimpse only the best of it; one can certainly pity the poor soul condemned to see the worst of it. Sidney's attack is not really aimed at the tradition of the love poem, for romantic poetry is probably oldest of poetic styles. What Sidney is indeed attacking is the abuse and lazy mistreatment of the style by those unable or unwilling to infuse the vitality that must accompany such a passionate and powerful subject as love. Again, it seems odd that such a criticism would come in the form of a beautiful sonnet sequence and not an essay, but an essay could not accomplish what seems to be Sidney's second objective: to offer an attractive alternative in light of the disdainful presentation of the established. The criticism alone would make possible a comprehensive essay, but only a sonnet sequence demonstrates in practice what Sidney proposes in theory. This belief in writing from the heart rather than from volumes of plagiarized Petrarch is the essence of the third stage of Sonnet 6.
Sidney seems to almost lament the loss of the most sincere of poetry at the hands of sterile poetic convention in the latter half of the sonnet, feeling the unembellished work is unjustly dismissed out of hand. "Another humbler wit to shepherd's pipe retires, / Yet hiding royal blood full oft in rural vein," is evidence of Sidney's agreement with later poets such as Wordsworth, who believed that true poetry is defined as "the glorification of the commonplace." The reference to the "Shepherd" may be attributed to the biblical reference to the shepherds informed by the angel of the birth of Christ. Such an assertion would fit well with Sidney's overall thrust, as it is an example of humble sincerity carrying a great message to simple folk. In addition, the angelic messenger could be loosely correlated to the "Muse" of true poetry, to whom the shepherds understandably listened closely.
In lines nine through twelve, Sidney recalls once again the pretension of conventional love poetry, providing a clear contrast to the elevation of sincere poetry adorned not with cliche, but with passion and sincere vitality. The series of standard phrases about the painfully poetic process is, again, effective in presenting an established tradition in a most unflattering light. The shepherd "retires to his pipe"; the Petrarch clone tries to compose as "tears pour out his ink, and sighs breathe out his words, / His paper pale despair, and pain his pen doth move." Once again, the contrast is well established and quite convincing. The mere fact that Sidney is able to criticize the hackneyed tools of the poet is proof that he does not conform to them; the final lines of the sonnet explain how Sidney is able to give such life to the narrating figure of Astrophil without resorting to the trite. "I can speak what I feel, and feel as much as they," Astrophil claims. The sheer power of his initial infatuation is too great to be constrained to the poetic tradition of the time. Although the odds are that this sequence is not autobiographical, Sidney must understand the emotions his character experiences or he would not be able to portray him so fully. The words themselves do not carry the weight of Astrophil's character; the tone of sincerity and passion bear the true essence of the persona. This is the kind of poetry that Sidney calls for, poetry which is adorned with a sense of innocence and is beautiful in its sincerity. To further punctuate, Sidney recklessly abandons all tradition in his final lines: "But think that all the map of my state I display / When trembling voice brings forth, that I do Stella love." Love, emotion, passion, and the accompanying sense of simple innocence are the bases for the sonnet sequence. They are elements that only true inspiration and talent can apply to paper; in contrast, any hack can put cliched terms to iambic pentameter.
Sonnet 6 fully embodies all that Sidney is trying to suggest as to the proper way romantic poetry should be. “Astrophil And Stella” is a protest against the hackneyed and tired tradition of Elizabethan romantic poetry, but it is much more than that alone. It posits an alternative, a metaphorical return to a poetic Eden. The argument is a convincing one, for it confronts the formidable entity of the Petrarchan tradition on its home ground. A mere essay would have laid out Sidney's poetic theory adequately, but only in this bold manner can that theory be applied, tested, and confirmed. His subversively camouflaged call for reform and growth indicates that he does not bear contempt for the genre of love poetry itself, but rather for the extent to which its freshness had deteriorated; he feels that it had fallen into a kind of poetic catatonia. The phases of development in Sonnet 6 are a microcosm of the larger perspective, going from incomprehension, to contempt, to reform, to the application of that reform as his "trembling voice brings forth that [he does] Stella love," the pith of the entire sequence and supplemented by the verse rather than supplanted by it.
AKFC for boys who think there really MAY be something to that ol' college thing
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