Astrophil and Stella, Sonnet I, by Philip Sydney:
BASIC FACTS:
Title: Sonnet I.
Author: Sir Philip Sydney.
Date of composition: 1581.
Date of publication: 1591.
Collection: Astrophel and Stella (Cycle of sonnets).
Poetic genre: Sonnet.
Metric: Poem composed according to the English or Shakespearean sonnet structure: 14 iambic pentameters divided into three quatrains and a final couplet.
Rhyme: The rhyme pattern is the following: ABAB CDCD EFEF GG.
FURTHER INFORMATION:
Major Themes:
The main topic is how to write a sonnet to his beloved, in order to express his feelings. Love is also a theme as it is in the majority of sonnets but here it is not the main topic.
Symbols:
Stella: The lady, she symbolises the poet’s star, his light and sun.
Astrophel/Astrophil: Astro stands for star and Phel or Phil means lover and it is also the first part of the poet’s real name.
Pain/pity: In this poem, we find allusions to the Petrarchian tradition, according to which the poet is in pain, he suffers very much and following the conventions he has to write sonnets to show his pain to the lady so she pities him and he obtains her favour.
Literary devices:
- Alliteration
“pleasure of my pain” (line 2)
“I sought fit words to paint the blackest face of woe” (line 5)
“Some fresh and fruitful showers upon my sun-burn'd brain” (line 8)
- Metaphor
“I sought fit words to paint” (line 5)
Comparison of words to painting instruments.
“my sun-burn'd brain” (line 8)
Comparison of Stella (whose name is Latin for star) to the sun.
Comparison of Astrophel's brain to sun-burned skin.
- Metaphor/Personification
“Invention, Nature's child, fled step-dame Study's blows” (line 10)
Invention is a child whose mother is nature and study is its step-mother.
- Metaphor/Synecdoche
“And others' feet still seem'd but strangers in my way.” (lines 10-11)
“Others’ feet” makes reference to other authors (synecdoche) and it also refers to the poetic feet used by those authors. (metaphor).
Sources:
http://www.cummingsstudyguides.net/Guides8/Astrophel.html
http://www.literature-study-online.com/essays/astrophil_and_stella.html
