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 ...
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...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.
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Throughout his life... was a man self-haunted, unable to escape from his own drama, unable to find any window that would not give him back the image of himself. Even the mistress of his most passionate love-verses, who must (one supposes) have been a real person, remains for him a mere abstraction of sex: a thing given. He does not see her --does not apparently want to see her; for it is not of her that he writes, but of his relation to her; not of love, but of himself loving.
`Plays and Poetry by early modern women are primarily concerned with negotiating a position from which women could speak. A concern for ideas of gender, language and silence is, therefore, central, though its expression is sometimes open, sometimes covert.' Discuss with reference to Aemilia Lanyer and / or Elizabeth Cary.
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
The speaker uses metaphors to describe his mistress’ eyes to being like the sun; her lips being red as coral; cheeks like roses; breast white as snow; and her voices sounding like music. In the first few lines of the sonnet, the speaker view and tells of his mistress as being ugly, as if he was not attracted to her. He give...
Greece is a country well known by its great interests and diverse cultures. It is located between the East and the West in the continent of Europe, which is known as a great location in the continent. “It covers about 130, 647 square kilometers of land and 1,310 square kilometers of water, making it the 97th largest nation in the world with a total area of 131,957 square kilometers. Greece became an independent state in 1829, after gaining its sovereignty from Turkey. The population of Greece is 10,767,827 (2012) and the nation has a density of 82 people per square kilometer. The currency of Greece is the Euro (EUR). As well, the people of Greece are referred to as Greek. Greece shares land borders with four countries; Macedonia, Albania,
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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.
In “Sonnet XVII,” the text begins by expressing the ways in which the narrator does not love, superficially. The narrator is captivated by his object of affection, and her inner beauty is of the upmost significance. The poem shows the narrator’s utter helplessness and vulnerability because it is characterized by raw emotions rather than logic. It then sculpts the image that the love created is so personal that the narrator is alone in his enchantment. Therefore, he is ultimately isolated because no one can fathom the love he is encountering. The narrator unveils his private thoughts, leaving him exposed and susceptible to ridicule and speculation. However, as the sonnet advances toward an end, it displays the true heartfelt description of love and finally shows how two people unite as one in an overwhelming intimacy.
In the plays female sexuality is not expressed variously through courtship, pregnancy, childbearing, and remarriage, as it is in the period. Instead it is narrowly defined and contained by the conventions of Petrarchan love and cuckoldry. The first idealizes women as a catalyst to male virtue, insisting on their absolute purity. The second fears and mistrusts them for their (usually fantasized) infidelity, an infidelity that requires their actual or temporary elimination from the world of men, which then re-forms [sic] itself around the certainty of men’s shared victimization (Neely 127).
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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.
Lackluster love is the subject postulated in both sonnets, Petrarch 90 and Shakespeare 130. This is a love that endures even after beauteous love has worn off, or in Petrarch, a love that never was. The Petrarchan sonnet utilizes fantasy to describe love. It depicts love that is exaggerated and unrealistic. Shakespeare’s sonnet, on the other hand, is very sarcastic but it is more realistic as compared to the Petrarch 90. Petrarchan sonnets, also called Italian sonnets were the first sonnets to be written, and they have remained the most common sonnets (Hollander 28). They were named after the Italian poet Petrarch. Its structure takes the form of two stanzas, the first one an octave, in that, it has eight lines, and the next stanza is a sestet, meaning that it has six lines. The rhyme scheme suits the Italian language, which has the feature of being rhyme rich, and it, can take the forms of abbaabba, cdcdcd, or cdecde. These sonnets present an answerable charge in the first stanza, and a turn in the sestet. The sestet is the counter argument of the octave.
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.