The Sonnet Sir Philip Sydney

Returning to the sonnet in English, dear readers, we come to Sir Philip Sydney. Sir Philip, like Wyatt and Howard before him, spent his professional life on various diplomatic missions on the continent where he mixed in the leading intellectual and poetic circles. On one diplomatic mission, Sir Philip met secretly with Jesuit Edmund Campion in Prague, perhaps to tempt him to return to England and the church of Elizabeth or perhaps for reasons of intellect and culture. Elizabeth I at one time held Campion in great favor. Born in 1554, Sydney was a contemporary of St. Robert Southwell (b. 1561) and died the year following his martyrdom. Sydney, too, picked up the sonnet habit in Europe. Sydney’s posthumously published work Astrophel and Stella (1591) contains a cycle of 108 sonnets. Compared to those of Wyatt and Howard, which in the main kept close to their European models both in subject matter (or translation) and form, with Sydney the sonnet has become more assured. Sydney has a more deft touch with the metre, in my view at any rate. Astrophel and Stella has many delights. Sydney’s very conscious of his craft. The opening sonnet of the cycle follows below: Louing in trueth, and fayne in verse my loue to show, That she, deare Shee, might take som pleasure of my paine, Pleasure might cause her reade, reading might make her know, Knowledge might pittie winne, and pity grace obtaine, I sought fit wordes to paint the blackest face of woe; Studying inuentions fine, her wits to entertaine, Oft turning others leaues, to see if thence would flow Some fresh and fruitfull showers vpon my sun-burnd brain. But words came halting forth, wanting Inuentions stay; Inuention, Natures childe, fledde step-dame Studies blowes; And others feet still seemde but strangers in my way. Thus, great with childe to speak, and helplesse in my throwes, Biting my trewand pen, beating myselfe for spite, Fool, said my Muse to me, looke in thy heart, and write. Philip Sydney (1554-1586), Astrophel and Stella, I A poem, essentially, about rhetoric. Sydney has a job to do. He has a plan. First, appeal to her emotions (pathos). Then, appeal to her intellect (logic) which leads directly to the heart / conscience (ethics). Sounds rather Aristotelian to me, covering as he does the three “means of persuasion” laid out by The Philosopher. The lover must then discover (inventio) his arguments, the materials and the means by which to effect his master plan. This canon of rhetoric, inventio, entails much more than reading the material of others. The unrequited poet resorts too much to the work of others. Their verses (“still feet”) an impediment to his own. Sydney hammers home, ever so gently, the idea of the futility involved with his play on the word “leaves.” Prior to rain, some trees “turn up” their leaves – the underside becomes more visible from the ground in any event. The turning of the leaves of books to find the material which will convey the enormity of his sadness and longing turns out to be as fruitful as turning the leaves of trees to make it rain. “Studies,” which can be taken to in part refer to the exercises undertaken by students of rhetoric, becomes the evil stepmother of invention. I do not read this poem, dear readers, as a call to abandon rhetoric as in some way insincere or inauthentic in favor of “inspiration.” The poem is on this level at least a call to rhetorical action. The time to move into practice has arrived. That the poet’s love interest will in good time prove one so unique and precious no other poet could possibly describe her will come as no surprise. In any event, one can hardly take seriously poet who would condemn rhetoric with such a display of the art itself. There’s some sage advice there at the end, esteemed readers. Peregrinus Thank you for reading Peregrinus. © 2024 Peregrinus 548 Market Street PMB 72296, San Francisco, CA 94104