The Influences on the Works of Mary Wroth
Mary Wroth was an English poet during the Renaissance. She was the first woman to write and publish an original prose writing and sonnet sequence. Her major works included The Countess of Montgomery’s Urania and Pamphilia to Amphilanthus. Urania is composed of prose writing, English sonnets, and songs. Urania also included Pamphilia to Amphilanthus; however, Pamphilia to Amphilanthus was later published separately. The four sectioned sonnet sequence described Pamphilia’s feelings toward her unfaithful lover, Amphilanthus, and her actions to seek his forgiveness (“Mary Wroth”). The two collections illustrated many important events and ideas Wroth had in her life. The works of Mary Wroth were influenced
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by her relationships with her family members, her life at English court, and her views on feminism. Wroth was born into an educated and wealthy family in Leicester, England in 1587 (Salzman). Her father, Robert Sidney, a poet, was connected to the court. Wroth was one of the few women during the Renaissance to receive a formal education which she received through the teachings of her mother and tutors (Fienburg). Throughout her education, Wroth was exposed to literature and surrounded by female writers. Her family’s connections and wealth allowed Wroth to grow up living at English court and be surrounded by other poetic influences such as her father, uncle (Sir Phillip Sidney), and aunt (Mary Sidney). In 1604, Wroth was married to Sir Robert Wroth for financial benefits and continued to live at court (Salzman). Wroth’s marriage was an unhappy one and resulted in her having an affair. The death of her husband left her with two illegitimate children and overwhelming debt. In 1621, Wroth published her prose The Countess of Montgomery’s Urania. Soon after, Wroth published the sonnet sequence Pamphilia to Amphilanthus and became the first Englishwoman to write and publish an original prose writing and sonnet sequence (“Mary Wroth”). Wroth’s family relationships greatly influenced her work.
Since Wroth’s family was wealthy and connected, Wroth was exposed to many literary influences. Two of the most influential people in Wroth’s life were her aunt and uncle, Mary Sidney and Sir Philip Sidney. Both relatives were educated and wrote poetry. Wroth’s aunt’s greatest achievement was revising Psalms with meters and verses (Salzman). This new lyrical technique later inspired Wroth to incorporate the mechanism into her own works. In addition, in Wroth’s Urania, Sidney was portrayed as the Queen of Naples and was described as “perfect in poetry and all other vertues” (qtd. in “Mary Wroth”). In addition to her aunt, Wroth’s uncle, Sir Philip Sidney, also greatly influenced Wroth’s works. Both Wroth and Sidney’s works contained similar formats. Wroth’s Urania contained songs, meters, and the use of English and Italian sonnets (Salzman). In addition to having similar format, Wroth used phrases from Sidney’s work.In Sidney’s sonnet sequence, Astrophel and Stella, the phrase “Sir God” was used to describe the main character’s feminine personality (qtd. in “Mary Wroth”). Wroth echoed her uncle’s work in Pamphilia to Amphilanthus by using a similar phrase to address the gender inequality in court from a female perspective (“Mary …show more content…
Wroth”). Wroth’s marriage and its complications also influenced her works. As Wroth’s family title rose, she became a more desired wife. For financial benefits, Wroth was married to Sir Robert Wroth. Robert Wroth had little interest in Wroth’s love for literature and poetry. Instead, he enjoyed the “hunt, hawk, and some play with delight” (qtd. in Salzman). Wroth wrote only one work that was dedicated to her husband. In the work she referenced to him as a “mad dog” (qtd. in “Mary Wroth”). Furthermore, in “The Tale of the Cephalonian” in Urania the theme of the consequence of arranged marriages is presented when a character discovers his bride is not a virgin, which “discontents him” even though he knows nothing else about her (qtd. in Bacig). Wroth’s opinion of arranged marriages is based off her experience with Robert Wroth. As Wroth’s unhappy marriage continued, she developed feelings for her first cousin, William Herbert. As a result, jealousy became a recurring theme in Pamphilia to Amphilanthus. Wroth’s husband’s “daily torments” and jealousy grew as her affair continued (qtd. in Hagerman). In addition, Wroth included five characters in Urania that references her husband’s jealousy. One character was an angry lady’s husband (“Mary Wroth”). Eventually, both Mary and Robert Wroth became distant from each other and were no longer concerned with the other’s actions. Wroth’s affair inspired her to include her own emotions and expressions within her literary works. Her feelings toward her lover were evident in a song in Urania. Wroth states that love was a “force in all hearts” and love’s “delight is unavoidable” (qtd. in Salzman). Wroth hinted that she loved William Herbert, even though she was a married woman. Wroth’s life at English court also influenced her writing. In Jacobean society, it was traditional for aristocratic women to participate in plays (Hagerman). In the play The Masque of Blackness, Wroth portrayed an Ethiopian maiden whose name meant “weight” and symbolized a heavy sphere (“Mary Wroth”). In “Sonnet 5” of Pamphilia to Amphilanthus, Wroth mentioned the concept of “weight as true desire” (“Mary Wroth”). Her “weight” referred to her internal judgement of weighing the consequences of obtaining her desire for writing poetry without male objection (“Mary Wroth”). The theme of darkness from the masque also recurs in Pamphilia to Amphilanthus in “Sonnet 22.” After the play, Wroth felt ambiguous that a “pale and white” person artificially portrayed “blackness” (qtd. in Hagerman). Wroth pointed out the deceitful and artificial nature of court (Hagerman). During Wroth’s stay at English court, she admitted that she had no “pleasures” (Salzman). Her husband, Robert Wroth, enjoyed hunting and gambling at court. On the other hand, Wroth’s “desire” was to express herself through her works without male objection. Wroth’s desire is prevalent in Pamphilia to Amphilanthus. Cupid strikes Pamphilia with desire in hope that “spring now come at last” (qtd. in Salzman). Cupid’s actions towards Pamphilia reflected Wroth’s wish to receive her desire. In the English court during the Renaissance period, rape was frequent and women had little rights over their bodies. In Sir Philip Sidney’s Astrophel and Stella “Sonnet 42,” a man’s “watching eyes” objectified the woman’s eyes in order to enjoy the “sight of love” (qtd. in Salzman). As a response to the violating sonnet, Wroth countered it by encouraging women to “take heed” to protect themselves. Wroth also advised aristocratic women to resist the search of a “wound” by a male gaze (rape) (Salzman). In addition, Wroth gave power to the female characters in her work. In Pamphilia to Amphilanthus, Pamphilia sought Amphilanthus’s love. Rather than traditionally courting one’s lover, Pamphilia addressed “Cupid” to gain advice to win Amphilanthus’s love, rather than speaking directly to him (“Mary Wroth”). Lastly, Wroth’s views on feminism influenced her works.
Traditional Petrarchan sonnets were conservative, standard, and led by a male voice. Wroth incorporated the Petrarchan sonnet in her works; however, she reversed the gender roles of the characters. In the opening sequence of Pamphilia to Amphilanthus, Wroth asked the reader if one will do “what he lists?” She replied with saying, “no I flye” (qtd. in Hagerman). Wroth’s use of “he” and “I” clearly identified herself as a female author. Wroth’s feminism is also present in an imitation of the Petrarchan sonnet “My Ship Passes” in Pamphilia to Amphilanthus. Wroth changed the voice of the speaker from “a ship” to “my paine”. The “ship” referred to an unknown woman while “my paine” clearly established the speaker as a female voice (qtd. in Fienburg). Wroth’s change in the speaker and the point of view in Pamphilia to Amphilanthus altered the traditional male role in the Petrarchan sonnet
(Hagerman). Many of Wroth’s views on feminism were inspired by other women. Wroth’s role models included Susan Vere and Mary Sidney (Fienburg). Both women aided in educating Wroth and inspired her to write poetry. Susan Vere was known for her works of religion and secular prose romance. She also aided Wroth by revising her letters of verse used in Urania (“Mary Wroth”). Wroth’s commemorated Vere’s assistance by naming The Countess of Montgomery’s Uraina after her. Mary Sidney, Wroth’s aunt, inspired Wroth to incorporate different literary techniques in her work (“Mary Wroth”). Throughout Wroth’s life, her ideals and events influenced her greatest works, Urania and Pamphilia to Amphilanthus. Her relationships with her relatives, husband, and lover influenced her to incorporate new writing formats, techniques, and themes. Wroth’s involvement in plays at court allowed her to expose its artificial life and mistreatment of women in her works. Furthermore, Wroth’s female childhood role models promoted her to give her characters power and fight for what they desired. While many other factors contributed, Wroth’s relationships, involvement in plays, and female role models influenced her works.
McKay’s Shakespearean sonnet, and Rossetti’s Petrarchan sonnet share many similarities and differences. McKay and Rossetti’s poems are both sonnets, however, the type of sonnets categorize the two poems differently. Portrayal of women in the two sonnets are similar, however, McKay treats the woman more humanely than Rossetti. The objectification of woman is done through the form of art, but both poets chose to use different forms of
...e speaker admits she is worried and confused when she says, “The sonnet is the story of a woman’s struggle to make choices regarding love.” (14) Her mind is disturbed from the trials of love.
The imagery in this poem depicts both that of a Petrarchan love poem and a rotting corpse further juxtaposed by a lengthy, disgusting description which seems to make it sexual. The poem itself is lyrical perhaps to mirror the unequal position which women acquired in society during the early 19th century. In this essay I will explore the imagery painted in The Carcass and how it may hide various connections to the reader’s views of women as sex objects and how he also reveals the difficulties faced by women during the 19th century. I will also be comparing the tone of the poem to that of the ideals of Petrarchan love poetry or sonnets.
Wollstonecraft, Mary. Mary and The Wrongs of Woman, ed. Gary Kelly. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1976.
A sonnet is a well constructed poem that allows a poet to examine the difference of two ideas, actions, people, or whatever the poet may write about, by comparing and contrasting against the two. Sir Thomas Wyatt was famous for his translations into Petrarchan sonnets. A Petrarchan sonnet is well known for two things, first they contain remarkable comparisons, and secondly their stri...
Miranda’s character in the play represents the ideal woman of Elizabethan era. She is portrayed as a goddess among the men. “Most sure, the goddess/Oh whom these airs attend!”(1.2.425-426). Fer...
Petrarchan sonnets usually invite the poet to propose a series of distinct statements from line to line. Milton deviates from the anticipated sentence divisions by merging one idea within m...
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).
In “Sonnet 43,” Browning wrote a deeply committed poem describing her love for her husband, fellow poet Robert Browning. Here, she writes in a Petrarchan sonnet, traditionally about an unattainable love following the styles of Francesco Petrarca. This may be partly true in Browning’s case; at the time she wrote Sonnets from the Portuguese, Browning was in courtship with Robert and the love had not yet been consummated into marriage. But nevertheless, the sonnet serves as an excellent ...
Much has been made (by those who have chosen to notice) of the fact that in Shakespeare's sonnets, the beloved is a young man. It is remarkable, from a historical point of view, and raises intriguing, though unanswerable, questions about the nature of Shakespeare's relationship to the young man who inspired these sonnets. Given 16th-Century England's censorious attitudes towards homosexuality, it might seem surprising that Will's beloved is male. However, in terms of the conventions of the poetry of idealized, courtly love, it makes surprisingly little difference whether Will's beloved is male or female; to put the matter more strongly, in some ways it makes more sense for the beloved to be male.
Shakespeare and Petrarch, two poets popular for their contributions on the issue of love, both tackle the subject of their work through sonnet, yet there are key contrasts in their style, structure, and in the way, each approaches their subjects. Moreover, it is clear that in "Sonnet 130," Shakespeare in fact parodies Petrarch's style and thoughts as his storyteller describes his mistress, whose "eyes are in no way as the sun" (Shakespeare 1918). Shakespeare seems, by all accounts, to mock the exaggerated descriptions expanded throughout Petrarch’s piece by giving an English poem portraying the speaker’s love in terms that are characteristic of a flawed woman not a goddess. On the other hand, Petrarch's work is full of symbolism. In reviewing "Sonnet 292" from the Canzoniere, through “Introduction to Literature and Arts,” Petrarch’s utilization of resemblance and the romanticizing of Petrarch's female subject are normal for the Petrarchan work. The leading major contrast between the two poems is the piece structure utilized (McLaughlin).
During the course of Edmund Spencer’s Amoretti, the “Petrarchan beloved certainly underwent a transformation” (Lever 98); the speaker depicts the beloved as merciless and is not content with being an “unrequited lover” (Roche 1) as present in a Petrarchan sonnet. Throughout Sonnet 37 and Sonnet 54, the speaker provides insight into the beloved not seen within the Petrarchan sonnets; though the speaker does present his uncontrollable love for the beloved, he does so through his dissatisfaction with his position and lack of control. In Sonnet 37, the speaker describes the beloved as an enchantress who artfully captures the lover in her “golden snare” (Spencer, 6) and attempts to warn men of the beloved’s nature. Sonnet 54, the speaker is anguished by the beloved’s ignorance towards his pain and finally denies her humanity. Spencer allows the speaker to display the adversarial nature of his relationship with the beloved through the speaker’s negative description of the beloved, the presentation of hope of escaping from this love, and his discontent with his powerlessness. Spencer presents a power struggle and inverted gender roles between the lover and the beloved causing ultimate frustration for the speaker during his fight for control.
Through the form of sonnet, Shakespeare and Petrarch both address the subject of love, yet there are key contrasts in their style, structure, and in the manner, each approaches their subjects. Moreover, in "Sonnet 130," Shakespeare, in fact, parodies Petrarch's style and thoughts as his storyteller describes his mistress, whose "eyes are in no way as the sun" (Shakespeare 1918). Through his English poem, Shakespeare seems to mock the exaggerated descriptions expanded throughout Petrarch’s work by portraying the speaker’s love in terms that are characteristic of a flawed woman not a goddess. On the other hand, upon a review of "Sonnet 292" from the Canzoniere, through “Introduction to Literature and Arts,” one quickly perceives that Petrarch's work is full of symbolism. However, Petrarch’s utilization of resemblance and the romanticizing of Petrarch's female subject are normal for the Petrarchan style.
This Shakespearean sonnet consisting of 14 lines can be subdivided into 3 parts. In each part, the poet uses a different voice. He uses 1st person in the first part, 3rd person in the 2nd part and 2nd person in the last part. Each section of the poem has a different theme that contributes to the whole theme of the poem.
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.