Astrophil and Stella

Sidney’s Astrophil and Stella is an example of a sonnet sequencea group of sonnets exploring all aspects of a topic, a group of sonnets exploring all aspects of a topic. This group of sonnets describes all facets—the good times and bad times, the ups and downs—of the love that “Astrophil” has for “Stella.” Stella means star and Astrophil, star-lover; most scholars believe that the fictional names disguise Sidney himself and the woman he loved, Penelope Devereux, who later married another man, Lord Rich. Notice Sonnet 37 which plays on the word rich.

These sonnets are Petrarchan in content. They follow the convention of the exaggerated lover’s complaint, lamenting his unrequited love for an impossibly beautiful woman. In some of the sonnets, Astrophil is elated because of his love; in others he exhibits despair bordering on a suicidal despondency.

Text

Astrophil and Stella may be read on the following websites:

• The Complete Poems of Sir Philip Sidney edited, with memorial introduction and notes by Alexander B. Grosart. Hathi Trust Digital Library.
• The Poems of Sir Philip Sidney, ed. with an introduction by John Drinkwater. Hathi Trust Digital Library.
• Renascence Editions. An Online Repository of Works Printed in English Between the Years 1477 and 1799. Risa S. Bear. University of Oregon.
• Representative Poetry Online. Ian Lancashire. Department of English, University of Toronto. University of Toronto Libraries.
• Sir Philip Sidney’s Astrophel & Stella Wherein the Excellence of Sweet Poesy is Concluded, edited from the folio of MDXCVIII. Alfred Pollard. Hathi Trust Digital Library.
• Sonnet Central.

Selected Sonnets:

This sonnet is the introduction to Sidney’s sonnet sequence Astrophil and Stella. The speaker states that he’s so much in love that he wants to tell his beloved in writing how much he loves her. A point to remember is that in the 16th-century court flirtations and affairs in the courtly love tradition were still common. Although the Sidney and Devereux families at one time considered a marriage, this arrangement did not work out, and in all but the earliest sonnets, Sidney is writing to a married woman. Because this sonnet sequence is in the Petrarchan convention, we expect exaggerated claims about his beloved’s unearthly beauty and how he is dying for love of this woman.

Astrophil studies other people’s writing (“inventions”) and turns pages (“leaves”) of their books, trying to get ideas for his own poem. When he says other “feet” get in his way, he’s talking about poetic meter, poetic feet—another reference to other people’s poetry. He even compares himself to a pregnant woman struggling to give birth to a child; he’s “great with child” trying to give birth to a poem. Finally, his Muse tells him where he should look for his ideas for a poem to Stella—in his own heart.

This poem is typical Petrarchan praise of the beloved’s beauty, the overly-sentimental love poem content that seems extreme to modern sensibilities. Stella’s eyes are the most beautiful thing in nature. But, he asks, why would nature color something as brilliant as her eyes black? Black is usually the color of mourning. Maybe it’s because her eyes are so dazzling that men would be blinded by them if they weren’t a dark color, Astrophil surmises in a typical Petrarchan exaggeration. (This is the type of content Shakespeare mocks in his Sonnet 130). He finally concludes that nature made her eyes black to mourn all the men that have died for love of Stella.

A sonnet sequence records the ups and downs of a love affair. This poem is one of the “downs.” In an apostrophean address to an inanimate object or an abstract quality, an address to an inanimate object or an abstract quality, Astrophil is speaking to the moon, asking if the moon is moving so slowly and is so pale because he (the moon) is love-sick like Astrophil. Has Cupid been shooting the moon with his arrows as he’s been shooting Astrophil? Note the stereotypical marks of being in love that appear in Capellanus’ rules of courtly love.

Note that in the last six lines Astrophil seems a bit sarcastic or bitter. He’s been seen as behaving stupidly (having a “want of wit”) for chasing Stella, and she apparently has scorned him (he says the beautiful women are proud and love to be loved—love the attention they get). Then in the last line he finally tells us what is really annoying him: “Do they call virtue there [in the moon’s realm] ungratefulness?” Apparently Stella has refused his sexual advances, but he thinks that her “virtue” is just “ungratefulness.” In other words, she ought to be so grateful for all the attention he’s showered upon her that she gives in to his sexual advances. And he’s annoyed that she won’t.

This sonnet is the low point of the sonnet sequence. While he is annoyed in Sonnet 31, he’s depressed in this one because Stella rejects him. He wishes he could sleep because sleep would be a resting place, a respite from the pain of his unrequited love. Some critics even go so far as to see the poem as a death wish. But, Astrophil says, there is pain even in his sleep because he may dream of Stella.

Astrophil is happy again in this sonnet. He’s won a tournament (the typical knights jousting on horseback). People wonder what enabled him to win: his inherited strength and skill, his fine horsemanship, or maybe he was just lucky. But Astrophil says the reason he won is that Stella was there watching and just the sight of her “heavenly face” inspired him to victory.

This sonnet is an amusing view of how Astrophil feels about his obsessive love for Stella. Astrophil compares the way he controls his horse to the way his love is controlling him. As you read through the sonnet, you’ll see references to the bit, the reins, the saddle—all the things he uses to control his horse. And his love is controlling him just as thoroughly. And surprisingly enough, he says he loves her so much he doesn’t mind being controlled by his love.

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