works

Character summary

biography

Astrophil

And

Stella

The End

Character summary

• Embodying the Renaissance Man ideal Soldier, scholar, poet,

critic, courtier and diplomat

• Breadth of interests

• Dedication of More than 40 works by English and European

Authors

• Poet Edmond Spenser dedicated The Shepheardes Calendar

to him

Main

politics

Injury and death

training

Family

background

Main

Family background

• Father: Sir Henry Sidney (a Knight by Edward VI)

• Mother: Lady Mary Dudley, daughter of the Duke of

Nothumberland

• Godfather: King Philip II of Spain

• Uncle: Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester and the Queen’s most

trusted advisor

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Training

• Shrewsbury school where he met Fulke Greville who became

his lifelong friend and was his early biographer and a court

official under Elizabeth

• Christ Church, Oxford

• Travelling to the continent for studying foreign languages

Paris: He was there the day of the Massacre of St.

Bartholomew and hid in the house of the English Ambassador,

Sir Francis Walsingham, whose daughter Sidney married

twelve years afterwards.

Frankfort: He met Hubert Languet, this French Huguenot,

learned and zealous for the Protestant cause, saw Sidney the

main hope of the Protestant cause in Europe.

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politics

• Sent on a formal embassy to Rudolph II. upon his becoming

Emperor of Germany

• Wrote privately to the Queen advising her against a proposal

that she enter into a marriage with a Duke of Anjon

• Member of Parliament for Kent

• Interested in the newly discovered America, and the project to

establish the American colony of Virginia

• Official activities were largely ceremonial- attending on the

Queen at court and accompanying her on progresses about

the country

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Injury and death• Governor of the town of Flushing and given command of a

company of cavalry

• Volunteered to serve in battle of Zupohen

• His thigh was shattered by a bullet, fighting for the Protestant

cause against the Spanish and died 26 days later, at the age of

31.

• There was a state funeral at St. Paul's Cathedral on16th Feb

1587, first commoner to receive such a tribute.

• While lying injured, Sidney , saw a dying soldier carried past,

who eyed it greedily. At once he gave the water to the soldier,

saying, "Thy necessity is yet greater than mine." Sidney lived

on, patient in suffering, until the 17th of October.

• This story demonstrates his self-sacrifice and nobility.

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Defense of Poesy

Arcadia

Astrophil

And

Stella

Main

Arcadia

• Wrote for her amusement of her sister when she had her baby

first upon her hands

• After his death it was published in 1590 as "The Countess of

Pembroke's Arcadia.“

• Influenced the productions of no fewer than nine playwrights,

including Shakespeare, Beaumont and Fletcher, and Shirley

• Summary: the Duke of Arcadia, Basilius, receives a bleak

prediction: his daughters will be stolen by undesirable suitors,

he will be cuckolded by his wife, and his throne will be usurped

by a foreign state

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Defense of Poesy

• The finest work of Elizabethan literary criticism

• His style is clear, direct, and manly; not the less, but the more,

thoughtful and refined for its unaffected simplicity

• Believed that he was motivated by Stephen Gosson, a former

playwright who dedicated his attack on the English stage, The

School of Abuse, to Sidney in 1579

• Offers comments on Edmund Spenser and the Elizabethan

stage

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Astrophil And Stella

• A treatment of courtly love between two "star crossed" lovers

• Although the sonnets take a lyrical form, this sequence has a

strong narrative thread, emphasized by the 11 additional songs,

which offer a slightly more objective view of the two lovers than

Astrophil's subjective sonnets

• Not the most passionate love poetry ever written, but one of the

great poetic achievements of the Elizabethan age

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Progress of story in the poem

Major themes

Analysis

Final points

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Progress of story in the poem

• 1-40: the beloved is a distance figure

• 40: first intimate relation

• 66: sign of love from Stella

• 69: she confesses her love for him but asks a platonic love

• 73: stolen kiss

• Up to 80: her anger, his excuses

• 84: journey to her house

• 86: the change in her looks

• 93: grief for an unknown action

• 94-100: he is mourning for his action

• 102: her sickness

• 104:he meets her on the boat

• 108: her love is not shading from his heart

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The topic

• Breaks the convention of naming

• Employing a Greek name (Astrophil) and a Latin one (Stella)

introduced the idea of contradiction and ambiguity and the

impossibility of the realization of their love

• Their meaning illustrate the impossibility of reaching or

obtaining one

First sonnet• A cause and effect series that describes the state of our "star

lover,"

• Then accepted practice of turning to the works of others to find

inspiration

• Disgusted with himself for attempting a pathetic approach

• 'Fool,' said my Muse to me, 'look into they heart and write'

• Alliteration, metaphor, Personification, pun, synecdoche

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Major themes

• Poetic ability

• Day vs. night

• Love vs. desire

• Reason vs. love

• Greece mythology: Cupid

• Petrarch

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My mouth doth water, and my breast doth swell,

My tongue doth itch, my thoughts in labour be:

Listen then, lordings, with good ear to me,

For of my life I must a riddle tell.

Toward Auroras Court a nymph doth dwell,

Rich in all beauties which mans eye can see;

Beauties so farre from reach of words that we

Abase her praise saying she doth excell;

Rich in the treasure of deseru'd renowne,

Rich in the riches of a royall heart,

Rich in those gifts which giue th'eternall crowne;

Who, though most rich in these and eu'ry part

Which make the patents of true worldy blisse,

Hath no misfortune but that Rich she is.

Lady Rich

Have you ever been in love?

Fulke Greville in his book : Life of Sidney

His end was not writing, even while he wrote; nor his

knowledge molded for tables, or schools; but both his wit

and understanding bent upon his heart, to make himself and

others, not in words or opinion, but in life and action, good

and great.