Earn The Major Works: Including Astrophil And Stella Prepared By Philip Sidney PDF

enjoyed this but it was very tedious at times, my favourite is sonnetOne of the premier English Renaissance poets, Sidney left behind a wealth of material unknowingly written during his short life.
His “Defence of Poesy” is an early and essential essay on poetry in general, My favorite selections are as follows:

Certain Sonnets

I
Since, shunning pain, I ease can never find
Since bashful dread seeks where he knows me harmed
Since will is won, and stopped ears are charmed
Since force doth faint, and sight doth make me blind
Since loosing long, the faster still

I bind
Since naked sense can conquer reason armed
Since heart in chilling fear with ice is warmed
In fine, since strife of thought but mars the mind:
I yield, O love, unto thy loathed yoke,
Yet craving law of arms, whose rule doth teach
That hardly used, whoever prison broke,
In justice quit, of honour made no breach:
Whereas, if I a grateful guardian have,
Thou art my lord, and I thy vowed slave.



When to my deadly pleasure,
When to my lively torment,
Lady, mine eyes remained,
Joined, alas, to your beams,
With violence of heavenly
Beauty tied to virtue,
Reason abashed retired,
Gladly my senses yielded.

Gladly my senses yielding
Thus to betray my hearts fort
Left me devoid of all life.

They to the beamy suns went,
Where, by the death of all deaths,
Find to what harm they hastened
Like to the silly sylvan
Burned by the light he best liked,
When with a fire he first met.

Yet, yet, a life to their death,
Lady, you have reserved
Lady, the life of all love
For though my sense be from me,
And I be dead, who want sense
Yet do we both live in you
Turned anew by your means
Unto the flower that aye turns,
As you, alas, my sun bends.

Thus do I fall, to rise thus
Thus do I die, to live thus
Changed to a change, I change not.

Thus may I not be from you
Thus be my senses on you
Thus what I think is of you
Thus what I seek is in you
All what I am, it is you.

The Old Arcadia The Second Eclogues

Reason, Can Reason then a tyrant counted be
Passion, If Reason will that Passions be not free,
Reason. But Reason will that Reason overn most,
Passion. And Passion will that Passion rule the roast,
Reason. Your will is will but Reason reason is,
Passion. Will hath his will when Reasons will doth miss,
Reason. Whom Passion leads unto his death is bent,
Passion. And let him die, so that he die content,
Reason. By nature you to Reason faith have sworn,
Passion. Not so, but fellowlike together born,
Reason. Who Passion doth ensue lives in annoy,
Passion. Who Passion doth forsake lives void of joy,
Reason. Passion is blind, and treads an unknown trace,
Passion. Reason hath eyes to see his own ill case,

Astrophil and Stella

What may words say, or what may words not say,
Where truth itself must speak like flattery
Within what bounds can one his liking stay,
Where nature doth with infinite agree
What Nestors counsels can my flames allay,
Since reasons self doth blow the coal in me
And ah, what hope that hope should once see day,
Where Cupid is sworn page to chastity
Honour is honoured, that thou dost possess
Him as thy slave and now long needy fame
Doth even grow rich, naming my Stellas name.

Wit learns in thee perfection to express
Not thou by praise, but praise in thee is raised
It is a praise to praise, when thou art praised.



Sweet swelling lip, well mayst thou swell in pride,
Since best wits think it wit thee to admire
Natures praise, virtues stall, Cupids cold fire,
Whence words, not words, but heavenly graces slide
The new Parnassus, where the muses bide
Sweetener of music, wisdoms beatifier
Breather of life, and fastener of desire,
Where beautys blushin honours grain is dyed.

Thus much my heart compelled my mouth to say:
But now, spite of my heart, my mouth will stay,
Loathing all lies, doubting this flattery is,
And no spur can his resty race renew,
Without how far this praise is short of you,
Sweet lip, you teach my mouth with one sweet kiss.

The Defence of Poesy

For conclusion, I say the philosopher teacheth, but he teacheth obscurely, so as the learned only can understand him, that is to say, he teacheth them that are already taught but the poet is the food for the tenderest stomachs, the poet is indeed the right popular philosopher, whereof Aesops tales give good proof: whose pretty allegories, stealing under the formal tales of beasts, make many, more beastly than beasts, begin to hear the sound of virtue from these dumb speakers.

sitelinkSee my other reviews here!
Sidney's 'Apology for Poetry': A bunch of awesome stuff said in the most boring and overly long prose imaginable.
If you have the patience to sift through it for the main points, you'll be rewarded, but not many people have that sort of patience.


The last line is awesome, though, Basically, he's all and I'm paraphrasing here "For those of you who don't like fiction and poetry and think it worthless and harmful, I'm not going to pick a fight with you or anything, but I hope you fall in love a shit ton but never actually get any, because you need fucking poetry for that shit, but you won't have any because you're an idiot, and oh also, "may your memory die from the earth for want of epitaph.
"' That last part was a direct quote because it's so awesome and badass I didn't even need to change it.


'Astrophil and Stella' and 'The Arcadia' are also mildly interesting, and his sonnets are okay, but I only had to reread 'The Apology' for my exams, so that's what got reviewed.


First read, OctoberThis review is really only on Astrophil and Stella I haven't read the rest of the book and don't know when I might.
I don't like reading anything that has been abridged, and so I deliberately avoided the selections in this volume from Sidney's Arcadia, which is his other major work.


Astrophil and Stella is a sonnet sequence dedicated to Sidney's illicit longings for a certain married lady.
It is psychologically penetrating, but also a virtuoso experimental work in which Sidney comments on the literary styles of his day.
As with Spenser, one gets the feeling reading Sidney that one is watching the modern English language take shape right before one's eyes one feels its potential.



Contains one of the best poems ever written about writer's block more or less symbolic, however, of the entire writing endeavour.


"Loving in truth, and fain in verse my love to show,
That she, dear she, might take some pleasure of my pain,
Pleasure might cause her read, reading might make her know,
Knowledge might pity win, and pity grace obtain,
I sought fit words to paint the blackest face of woe
Studying inventions fine her wits to entertain,
Oft turning others' leaves, to see if thence would flow
Some fresh and fruitful showers upon my sunburn'd brain.

But words came halting forth, wanting invention's stay
Invention, Nature's child, fled stepdame Study's blows
And others' feet still seem'd but strangers in my way.

Thus great with child to speak and helpless in my throes,
Biting my truant pen, beating myself for spite:
'Fool', said my Muse to me, 'look in thy heart and write.
'"

I think Sidney is criminally underread in comparison to the other "greats" of the English Renaissance canon i.
e. Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, etc. . Or if I'm delusional here and people do actually read him at home, then he is underquoted or at least not talked about enough.
I chose to write my essay on this so I must have liked it Right Well, I did like it, and I thought it was very well written Astrophil and Stella, that is but the only issue I had with it was that it was too long.
WAY too long. Apart from that it was actually surprisingly easy to read and write about, and I enjoyed the piece as a whole.
Not bad, Sidney, not bad, A good selection of Sidney's work, Who

Given the quality of writing in English produced towards the later part of Elizabeth's reign, it's easy to forget how little of interest was being written at the start of it.


For Sidney and his generation there were two pressing problems: was writing poetry or fiction the two are included in his term poesy an activity that could be taken seriously and indulged in by an educated adult, or just a frivolous activity of the school and the bed room, and if it were possible to take it seriously, was it possible to write poesy in English that would equal its continental and classical competitors or should English writers write in Latin or Italian or French.
The fact that the Defence was written in English was a bold move that is easily overlooked,

This collection plays out that debate and shows how Sidney and his "friends" made it possible for first Spenser and then.
. . everyone else . . to write poetry in English again,

In this volume there are examples of the occasional, instantly forgettable poetry that was written for court entertainments in the dead years after Wyatt's death.


The book also contains "The Defense or Poesy/Apology for Poesy" which is essential reading for anyone interested in English poetry and makes far more sense than Shelley's waffle.
It's complete here, though the marvelous Shepherd/Maslen MUP edition is essential if you're interested in it,

Sidney was arguing not just for the value of imaginative fiction, but for the possibility of it being written in English.
It's easy to forget what an act of faith that was: looking over his shoulder he could see Wyatt, and then little until Chaucer.
Looking around him he could only see "base servile men rewarded of the printer" whose immoral subject matter needed to be ignored if a case were to be made.
He didn't live to see the great flowering of what we think of as "Elizabethan Literature",

The Defense is not an easy read, Tudor Prose often reads like the enthusiastic scribbling of a newly literate seven year old but Sidney's sentences are measured and often witty, and worth the effort to anyone interested in the history of poetry.


Part of the fun of reading the Defence is the fact that while Sidney was passionately advocating a case, exactly what that case was is famously inconsistent, and while he argued for the moral value of a poetry that might delight and instruct and lead men towards good, his own most famous composition, the sonnet sequence "Aristophil and Stella" is a record, real or imagined, of an adulterous love affair.


Scholars might tie themselves up in knots trying to reconcile the paradox, but it's not necessary.
It's possible Sidney discovered the limit of his own morality in the dazzling form of Penelope Devreaux, Lady Rich.
It's also possible the whole sequence was a private game neither took too seriously, Take your pick.
Whatever the biographical truth, the sequence is one of the first sonnet sequences in English, and possibly the best.
It's printed in full here and the fact that the book contains both The Defense and the sequence in one edition makes it very portable and very useful.


The editor, Katherine DuncanJones also wrote a biography of Sidney, "SIr Philip Sidney, Courtier poet" which is well worth reading.
Her knowledge of the man's life gives substance to her notes in this volume, Yet another read for Literature class, This will never be one of my favorites, Sidney's work bores me to tears, Bits of Sidney's stuff are really good bits are not, Mostly talking Astrophil and Stella here some beautiful sonnets, some that are okay, some that are a bit naff.
That's okay PhilSid, I think that's the case for everyone,

This was more of a reread, but I put in lots of effort so am taking credit.
Though Sir Philip Sidney is usually banished to the nether regions of Renaissance poetry or worser still, confined to an obligatory sonnet in anthologies, those who love the flourishing of poetry in the English Renaissance know of Sidney and his achievements.
Like too many poets, cut short at the young age of, we often wonder what might have been.
Nonetheless, Sidney left behind a number of remarkable, original sonnets, included in this volume, as well as the extraordinary sonnet sequence "Astrophil and Stella" whose names translated mean "lover of the sky" and "Star", and the superb prose essay "A Defense of Poesy".


In the early court of Elizabeth, it was Sidney and to a lesser extent George Gascoigne, who developed the English sonnet from the Petrarchan form and made it uniquely English.
In fact, Sidney makes the argument for English as the primary language of poetry in his "Defense", But to read "Astrophil" is to feel the various guises of romantic love and frustration in their courtly guises.
Shakespeare's sonnets only exist because Sidney paved the way, Their superb wit and wordplay was an amateur obsession with Sidney, until he found himself suddenly being overcome by his skill and finding some recognition.


"A Defense of Poesy" is nothing less than one of the most essential essays on poetry ever written.
In a time when poetry was despised as effeminate, scandalous, and lowbred, confined mostly to amateur scribblings and the notorious theatres, Sidney makes the case for its essentialness in our lives, rejecting the dichotomy of high philosophy vs.
low poetry, and reinforcing the wisdom imparted throughout the age by the open ended art of poetic license.
Where history and philosophy seek answers, poetry rejects answers, I recently was told by a high placed district school official, to the faces of English teachers: "Why do we bother teaching that poetry crap It's a waste of time".
Sidney would roundly and throughly thrash him with this collection of essential poetry, a highly reasoned defense against such a person.
Essential for those devoted to the art of poetry, .

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