Introduction
In the late sixteenth and the seventeenth century, new ideas and motives in arts, inspired by the past but concerned with new concepts, appeared. Building on a courtly love, some writers and poets attempted to discuss the nature of love by commenting on gender issues and sexuality (MacArthur, 1989). Thus, love conventions, based on a passion or an unrequited love, would change, challenging social norms and discussing male and female sexualities. On the one hand, the authors explore male sexualities and a desire for a woman. Phillip Sidney's narrator is a lustful, musing about his chosen woman, her body and a sexual intercourse. Milton's character Comus resembles a similar character when attempting to seduce the Lady, and failing to do so because of her reason and virtue. On the other hand, the two works introduce new and progressive views on women, and their new role in the society. Both Sidney's and Milton's heroines are no longer passive feminine receivers of affections. They determine what happens to them by using reason rather than emotions. Hence, Sidney and Milton exemplify progressive views of their periods, attempting to see gender and sexuality in a new light.
Sexuality and desire
Philip Sidney: Astrophil and Stella (c. 1591)
Sidney's Astrophil and Stella, a compilation of 108 sonnets and 11 songs, describes a desire of a poet for his muse, inspired by Petrarch. It is a variation of his rhyme, and a motive Petrarch exploited: the poet's love and want for a woman. In these sonnets, Astrophil, the star lover, presents new attitudes on an idea of a sexual desire, and its ambiguity. His relationship to Stella, his star, is lustful, and the poet, the speaker, is physically rather than emotionally aroused when ...
... middle of paper ...
...uous, and morally and intellectually strong. Thus, Sidney and Milton reconsider gender of early modern English arts, pushing social boundaries of the period. Consequently, Astrophil and Stella and Comus can be viewed as socially progressive, considering tensions between genders in a modern liberal way.
Works Cited
Milton, J. (1634). Comus, A Mask presented at Ludlow Castle. [online] Available through: [Accessed 18 April 2014]. (C)
Sidney, P. (c. 1591). Astrophil and Stella. [online] Available through: [Accessed 18 April 2014]. (AS)
Secondary sources:
Kimbrough, R. (1971). Sir Philip Sidney. New York: Twayne.
MacArthur, J.H. (1989). Critical Contexts of Sidney’s Astrophil and Stella and Spenser’s Amoretti. Victoria: University of Victoria.
The focus of this essay is to explore sexuality presented by Philoclea in the New Arcadia. Philoclea cultivates a relationship towards another women in the book. Yet readers understand that Zelmane is in fact Pyrocles. Sidney allows the reader to be given the impression that until Pyrocles admits to be Zelmane, Philoclea would be shown to have a homosexual tendencies. Philoclea herself is certain that a same-sex friendship is giving way to sexual desire.
During the time of Shakespeare a powerful woman ruled over England and all of its empire and yet the average woman in society was often brushed aside and disregarded. These conflicting images of woman where depicted throughout Shakespeare's plays from stichomythia we see between King Richard and his mother and the disregard we see for Ophelia in Hamlet but these contrasts are best encapsulated in his comedies Much Ado About Nothing and Measure For Measure Woman. Woman of the time where considered weak and weak willed and yet Beatrice and Isabella each brave their societies views when they are faced with the persecuted of someone they love. This love causes them to fight against their oppressors without sacrificing their beliefs and eventually be a martyr to save those that they love. In this paper I will discuss the parallels of Beatrice and Isabella and the love, loss, and battles they face and how despite their actions they still end up losing but for a purpose they believe in. These woman each have their own view and struggles yet in the end they will fall back into the societal obligations that fall upon them but not without saving their loved one.
In the eighteenth century, the process of choosing a husband and marrying was not always beneficial to the woman. A myriad of factors prevented women from marrying a man that she herself loved. Additionally, the man that women in the eighteenth century did end up with certainly had the potential to be abusive. The attitudes of Charlotte Lennox and Anna Williams toward women’s desire for male companionship, as well as the politics of sexuality are very different. Although both Charlotte Lennox and Anna Williams express a desire for men in their poetry, Charlotte Lennox views the implications of this desire differently than Anna Williams. While Anna Williams views escaping the confines of marriage as a desirable thing, Charlotte Lennox’s greatest lament, as expressed by her poem “A Song,” is merely to have the freedom to love who she pleases. Although Charlotte Lennox has a more romantic view of men and love than Anna Williams, neither woman denies that need for companionship.
Both of the novels agree that gender is performative, which overlaps with Butler’s opinion that performativity of gender is a stylised repetition of acts. Additionally, The Passion of New Eve coherent with Butler’s idea that mimicking or miming of the dominant conventions of gender. However, due to lack of gender of the Gethenians, there is no conventional gender role in the Gethenian society. Therefore, there is no such term of mimicry of gender. Besides, the two novels could be seen as supporting evidence of performativity as a subversive force against patriarchal gender norm and by presenting the concept of androgyny, the two novels successfully challenge the heteronormative culture which is normally used to sustain patriarchal
EBB expertly manipulates the Petrarchan sonnet form, commonly known as a way to objectify women, in order to voice her yearning for true love. The Victorian era was witness to rapid industrialization, and with this came a growing superficiality for dowry’s and status. EBB accentuates her own context by so strongly rejecting its newly materialistic conventions, especially towards love. EBB laments ‘How Theocritus had sung’ (Sonnet I), her Greco allusion successfully communicating her longing to return to the values of substantial love during the romantic era. This highlights her own context as it illustrates a distain for its current values of superficiality. Furthermore, EBB conveys her contempt of having to ‘fashion into speech’ (Sonnet XIII) her love, this mocking of courting is highly explored as she continues to ridicule those who love for ‘Her smile, her look’ (Sonnet XIV), thus highlighting her context to the audience. In addition, during Sonnet XXXII, EBB powerfully voices how ‘Quick loving hearts…may quickly loathe’; her expert employment of anadiplosis critiques how superficiality in love may cause it to fade away. A motif of love fading away due to shallowness throughout her sonnet progression significantly highlights the values of love at the time and therefore
While reading the poetry of Sappho, it is clear that some poems might be read as having a strictly sexual interpretation; however, I much prefer to interpret her writings as more of a correspondence, mostly one sided, between her and the women with whom she interacted with daily. Some of those had left the town and were beyond reach. Sappho’s poems read much more like intimate notes to friends than risqué love poetry. She is a woman who writes for herself and for other women, much like Jane Austen did in the beginning of the nineteenth century. “Men have had every advantage of us in telling their own story. Education has been theirs in so much a higher degree; the pen has been in their hands,” says Anne Elliot, the protagonist of Persuasion (Austen 223). Austen wrote novels about women, and men, but the focus was more on the women’s lives and roles. She wrote novels that were meant to be read by women. In today’s society, the idea has arisen that Jane Austen books and the films based on them are “chick flicks,” and most men will refuse to read or watch them. From the scholars who write on Sappho, it seems that there is a generalized trend that male scholars tend to see her poetry in the more modern sense of the word lesbian, while female scholars make more allowances and believe her work to be more about communication and relationships between women.
On the surface Philip Sidney’s “Astrophil and Stella” is a poem about courting a young woman. It is a common assumption and an easily justified one. The title presumes as much as the “star lover” clings to hopes of attaining the “star”. Astrophil attempts to win the heart of Stella through his poetry. Although he is not short of emotion he is in search of adequate words. The true purpose of the poem reveals itself at the end, “look in thy heart, and write” (Sidney Line 14). This sonnet is about the courting of a lover, but it is more importantly the story of numerous writers throughout time. Sidney is portraying the writer with writer’s block and the method to subjugate this voluminous evil. Every writer, at one time or another develops a case of writer’s block. A period in which it becomes difficult to express your thoughts or ideas on paper with the qualities the writer desires. Astrophil and Stella is a metaphor for the relationship between a writer and his audience, a writer and his work, a writer at battle with writer’s block.
The older of the two, Ancient Greece was a civilization for three centuries, from 800 B.C. to 500 B.C. Ancient Greece advanced in art, poetry, and technology. More importantly, Ancient Greece was the age where the polis, or city-state, was invented. The polis was a defining feature in Greek political life for a few hundred years (Ancient Greece).
Evaluate and respond to the presentations of women in the Romantic period. Feel free to discuss presentations of women, by women (such as Austen’s Persuasion) as well as presentations of women by men (such as the “she” in Byron’s “She Walks in Beauty”). Consider the following questions: are these presentations problematic? What do they tell us about the values and briefs of the Romantic Period? Do any of these presentations subvert (complicate, or call into questions) the time’s notions of femininity?
Renaissance poets Sidney and Spenser convey their messages with the help of the literary element symbolism. In “Sonnet 75” and “Astrophel and Stella” there is the presence of symbolism. This element is a cornerstone to these poems and helps the reader think deeper beyond the literal meanings of words, and how they represent something greater. The use of symbolism also makes the readers mind think about how the sentences state something literally, but also have a deeper meaning. If this element were not to be used, then the poems would lose some of their charisma because most sonnets have a deeper meaning to be conveyed with the use help of symbolism.
Sir Philip Sidney’s “Sonnet 31” paints the portrait of a lover scorned. Sidney examines the subject of unrequited love through the sonnet’s male persona, Astrophel. Rather than using a precise enumeration of the sequence of events that led to Astrophel’s painful rejection, Sidney instead leaves the reader to infer the condition of the speaker based on a scene in which Astrophel projects his sorrows onto the moon. Unable to accept the cruelties the “beauties” of his world perpetrate against those who love them and moreover unable to make his particular “beauty” reciprocate his feelings, Astrophel seeks to delineate his understanding of the injustices of unrequited love to an audience devoid of the capacity to either disagree with his assessment or further injure his already wounded pride.
Christopher Marlowe and Sir Walter Raleigh both create speakers who disagree about the nature of romantic love. The titles of the twin poems, “The Passionate Shepherd to His Love,” by Marlowe, and “The Nymph’s Reply to the Shepherd,” by Raleigh, show that they are two sides of a rhetorical exchange. The poems’ structures are identical; each of the shepherd’s optimistic requests has a corresponding refusal from the nymph. Although the word choice and meters are similar in the two poems, the shepherd uses an optimistic tone while the nymph uses a pessimistic one. While both speakers are addressing the concept of love, their distinct uses of diction and imagery underscore how the shepherd’s optimism conflicts with the nymph’s skepticism.
Sidney, Philip. "Astrophel and Stella." Online. Renascence Editions. U of Oregon P. 6 Apr. 1999. Available HTTP: darkwing.uoregon.edu.
For thousands of centuries literature has been used as a clever device to show the negative outlook in which society has on women at that time. The common theme of men exploiting women for personal gain and using their heavy-handed power to make women feel inferior can be seen in writings from the ancient Greeks all the through authors of the 20th century. Writers and intellectual thinkers such as Plato, Peter Abelard, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Henrik Ibsen, and even women such as Virgina Wolfe, and Fatima Mernissi have all written about the struggles caused by domineering men which women have fought against for so long. It is not until the late twentieth century that we see a positive almost spiritual view of women from the stories told by Gao Xingjan in his book One Man’s Bible. The 1994 publication of Fatima Mernissi’s memoirs of her girlhood in a harem spoke powerfully in favor of women shedding prescribed gender roles in favor of embracing their own identities. It is books such as Fatima’s and Gao’s which will help carry out feminist movements into the 21st century.
Preminger, Alex and T.V. Brogan eds. The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics. Princeton: PUP, 1993.