The sonnet is the opening or the first sonnet of the sonnet sequence “Astrophil and Stella”, written by Philip Sidney. It is an English sonnet sequence containing 108 sonnets and 11 songs. It is written in Italian Petrachan model, published in 1591. The sonnet has twelve syllable lines modeled on the Alexandrines (=Alexandrines are a type of special lines in poetry that have a specific rhythm. They have 12 syllables, which mean there are 12 beats or sounds in each line). The name Astrophil or Astrophel derives from the two Greek words Aster (star) and Phil (lover) and the Latin word ‘Stella’ meaning star. Thus Astrophil is the star lover or name of a plant having clusters of small white star-like flowers, and Stella is his star. Sidney evidently connects Astrophil to himself and Stella to Lady Penelope Devereux afterward Lady Rich, because she married with Lord Rich. The sonnet has a dual theme of how to write good poetry and how to win the beloved. This sonnet sequence which owe to Petrarch and Ronsard in tone.
The first 8 lines make the octave (octet). It depicts the poet’s deep love for his lady. It also shows the poet’s efforts to entertain his lady by writing verse. The last 6 lines form the sestet. It highlights the poet’s failure. Here the poet realizes that true poetic inspiration comes from inside one’s heart and emotion is the mother of poetry. The poem rhymes as ABAB ABAB CDCD EE. “Loving in truth” has been written in iambic hexameter (except line 4) instead of iambic pentameter which is the usual measure of the sonnet. Here Sidney shows an unestablished form of sonnet.
Critical Analysis of the Poem Loving in Truth
Table of Contents
Line by line analysis of the poem
Loving in truth- sincerely and passionately loving. The poet’s love for his mistress is not feigned or imitated. It is a deep and genuine passion; having the ring of sincerity and truth.
Fain-willingly, interested. The poet is very much interested to show his true and intense love to his beloved.
Loving in truth…..show- I (the poet) am loving in truth and interested to show my love in true verse. Or, the poet interested to show his true love through his verse to his beloved. The first line of the poem ‘loving in truth, and fain in verse my love to show’ is an example of hyperbaton.
She- the poet’s lady love.
(Dear She)- It shows the lover’s intense and genuine love and emphasizes his emotional outburst of love to his beloved.
She might….pain- writing the verse the poet wants that his lady-love might take some pleasure of his pain. Or, she may be pleased to know through his verse of the deep agony of the poet’s heart, caused by his loss of hope and happiness for losing her and thus feel a sort of pity for him. Or, she becomes pleased because her lover loves her still now and for that he is in pain. Or, the poet’s lady love may be pleased because the poet loved her still now and for that he is in pain. The second line is an instance of epigram.
Pain –the feelings that one has got in his/her body when s/he has been hurt or it is a mental or emotional suffering. It also refers to the pain of unfulfilled love because the poet does not able to marry his beloved and hardship of writing poetry to satisfy her intellectual appetite. Writing poetry is not just inspiration but a long struggle with words, structure and feelings. It is an example of pun (=the usually humorous use of a word in such a way as to suggest two or more of its meanings or the meaning of another word similar in sound).
Pleasure – her interest in the poet.
Pleasure… read- her interest in the poet, which is not yet dead and gone, may induce her to read these sonnets, where he lays bare his heart.
Know- realize his distress and disappointment.
Knowledge…win- the poet’s distress and disappointment might win her pity for the sad lover.
Pity grace obtain- pity is the mother of kindness. If the lady be moved to pity to read these sonnets, which tell the tale of his woe, she might feel kind to him and may love him with sort of holy and Platonic sentiment (= love without sensuality). The poet believed that good poetry gives delight. That is why he thinks that reading well written love-poems give his beloved pleasure and knowledge of his plight. This would, in turn, make her feel sorry for him because he is in a bad and distress situation, and pity helps to raise love to him.
Grace- favour him with her time. Grace means a good quality of behaviour that is polite and pleasant and deserves respect. After reading his verse she shows some grace to her lover that he is in pain.
Pleasure might cause her….pity grace obtain- Philip Sidney in ‘Loving in Truth’ expresses his deep desire to show his lady-love his love by writing verse. He thinks that this pleasure may cause her read. Reading will lead her know that he loves her. This knowledge will make the beloved feel pity. Thus pleasure will lead to pity in Sidney’s “Loving in Truth”. The poet uses climax in the third and fourth line.
I sought fit words…woe- the poet wrote appropriate words to describe the dark and sad state of his mind in disappointment.
Blackest face or woe- the poet feels an intense passion of love for love for his lady. He wants to express his love by writing verse. He then seeks appropriate words to express his sense of sorrow caused by the intense feeling of love. The poet has a creative faculty torments him because he finds no appropriate words which can express his feelings for the beloved acutely.
Or, the poet’s heart ached in the deep passion of love and he sought to express, this in appropriate poetic terms. The balance between the depth of the poet’s feeling and his poetic urge is well maintained. He is in love, but what is more is that he is eager to show his love in this verse to express appropriately the pang of his unfulfilled love. The lover as well as artist in Sidney comes out equally here.
Woe- the poet described his distress, like at the time of one’s face at distressful situation. ‘woe’ is personified as a lady having the black of face, or black spots on her face.
Loving in truth….face of woe- poet wrote fit words to show his lady love how the distressed situation he is in caused by her love. So that he wrote the verse to get pity from her.
Studying- reading, endeavouring
Invention fine- fine imagination and feelings expressed in others’ verses. According to OALD, invention is the ability to produce or design new and interesting idea that has not existed before. Classical and Renaissance theorist said that to produce any kind of literature, ‘invention’ or the discovery of ideas and subject matter, is the is the first of the three process –invention, disposition and elocution. Sidney first wanted to write to about his love in imitation of Petrarch, but later he detects his folly.
Her wit to entertain- in order to please her mind and give her the pleasure of the study of good poetry.
Wits –girl’s intellectual appetite/ mind. ‘Wit’ means the ability to say or write things that are both cleaver and amusing and ‘wits means ability to think and quickly and clearly and to make good decision. The poetry not only teaches but also delights her.
Studying invention….entertain- you feel pleasure by reading the others’ verses.
- The poet here actually implies his endeavour to set up some high poetic tradition. His, whose aim is, however, to delight Stella, to entertain her intellectual appetite from reading or imitating other verses.
Oft- often.
Turning others’ leaves- turning over the pages of poetry written by conventional other sonneteers. We see the use of paronomasia in the seventh and eighth lines.
Leaves –pages of books written by other poets.
Often turning…flow- it may be possible to increase my poetic invention by turning other’s pages.
Fresh- that refreshes the mind like the showers that bring freshness to thirsting flowers.
Fruitful- makes fruits mellow juicy. Here the poet invites fruitful showers to enhance his creativity.
Showers –a fine metaphor. Just as showers of rain fertilize dried fields by the scorching heat of the sun in the same way the poet thinks some genuine inspiration and innovating ideas sought (by/from) the other poets would fertilize his unproductive brain.
Sun-burned brain- the dried up and withered brain of the poet which is compared to the earth, scorched by burning heat of the summer. As the cloud brings showers to refresh and moisten the earth and feeds the flowers and fruits, so the poet sought for ideas and images from other verse which might feed his imagination and make it fruitful of poetry.
- As cloud brings showers then to refresh and moisten the earth then the others’ verse give pleasure to his beloved tormented brain to forget her.
- The brain or imagination whose productivity and fertility has been dried up by the flames of love. It is also refers to a metaphor.
Words came halting forth- his language was faltering, not moving smoothly in flowing verse at the time of imitating others.
Wanting… stay- his inspiration flagged and could not sustain itself long in the process of creativity. ‘Invention’ means here imagination, inspiration etc. His words did not have support of inspiration. Here wanting means lacking and stay means help or support. The phrase means ‘lacking the help of imagination. One needs imagination to create poetry.
- There need some new invention.
Invention… child- imagination or inspiration is called the child of nature because it comes naturally and spontaneously and not from efforts. Creative art is spontaneous or unpremeditated. Where there is effort or study at poetizing, there cannot be any true poetry. Poetry comes of nature; it is born and cannot be made.
Hence nature is the mother of invention but stepmother of imitation. He realizes the truth that imitation is not a reliable way to create a love poem. It fails to invent new themes and noble ideas. Invention is spontaneous and comes from heart. Invention is not the result of training, learning and teaching. Invention cannot be created; it is born naturally, so it is the part of nature.
Fled –flew away.
Fled step dame study’s blows –literary imitation is created by study. So it is not spontaneous. It is born of studied efforts. But invention is the nature’s child. When study came invention flew away. Here child is the representative of true poetry. The relationship between child and his mother is like the relationship between invention and true poetry. And the relationship between child and his stepmother is like the relationship between imitation and true poetry. Just like when imitation (stepmother) comes true poetry (child) flew away for her torture.
Step-dame- step-mother
Study- efforts, artifice, and study is taken as step-mother of poetic-invention. Just like child blows away for the tortures of step mother, thus poetic invention flew away after coming of study.
Blows- tortures.
Other’s feet- the poet means the poems written by other poets. There is a pun on the word ‘feet’. ‘Feet’ may mean the metrical feet of the others poets or it may mean the footsteps of them. The poetical measures of others poets seemed ineffective to the poet’s creative urge. They are as unusual as the footsteps of some strangers.
Seemed but…way- he could not find any inspiring effect from the works of other poets. The imagination of others was not the way of the poet that Sidney is. He did not find own self in his own poetry.
And Other’s feet….my way- when the poet writing the verse by inspiring other poet, the verse does not remain the verse by inspiring other poet, the verse does not remain the verse of Sidney, it is like a stranger with whom there is no relation of Sidney. It is just like an unknown verse of Sidney. Sidney could not recognize it own self.
Great- great wonder of the world; the child wants to express the great wonder of the world or newly learnt experience.
Great with child to speak- the poet means his newly roused poetic emotion that seek to express itself. He was possessed by his poetic passion that had developed in him and wanted to speak out in appropriate verse.
The poet’s newly roused poetic impulse is compared to a child who wants to speak out his newly learnt experience or the wonder of the world. Or, the thoughts and feelings of mind were ‘striving for expression just like a child wants to express new learnt experience.
Helpless in my thrones- the poet felt helpless because he was in pain, for he could not express his poetic urge in proper words.
Throes- pain
Biting- the terms is well used to indicate the state of restlessness. The poet was restless, in an awkward state, for he could not express his poetic feeling.
Truant pen- like a truant boy, his pen seemed to runaway. The poet has often to stop writing and search for words; he holds up the pen and goes on biting it with his teeth and think and think. But true poetry flows from the pen in an unforced and ceaseless stream. True poetry is born and cannot be made. Truant pen means lazy pen. The poet thought that the pen was lazy and unable to write. Originally, the poet is lazy and tormented for his love. So the poet bites it because it has no potentiality to write.
Biting my… pen- the poet’s restlessness is personified by truant pen. It bites the poet. Due to lack of poetic gifts, inspiration the poet cannot find proper words to express himself. The pen too does not help him because it does not obey his heart and escape for his pen has led the poet to compare it with a truant school boy. Or, truant means lazy. The poet has often to stop writing and search for words; he holds up the pen and goes on biting it with his teeth and think and think. But true poetry comes from heart not from pen.
Beating myself for spite- the poet grew angry with himself for his failure to do what he so earnestly sought, writing verse.
Fool- the poet was called ‘fool’ for he had foolishly sought inspiration elsewhere. The Muse calls him ‘fool’ because the poet seeks poetic inspiration from the works of the other poets. Yet he fails to find appropriate words to express his feelings for his lady-love. The poet is ‘fool’ because he never looks in his own heart.
Muse – goddess of poetry. According to the classical mythology, there are nine goddess who inspire poetry. Here ‘Muse’ refers to the poetic spirit of the poet. The poet is praying to the Muse before writing verse.
Look…write- true inspiration lies in heart and nowhere else. The poet should seek inspiration within for his poetic creation.
Or, the poet wants to express his love for his lady-love through his verse. For this he seeks inspiration from the works of other poets but in vain. At last realizes that true poetic inspiration does not depend on external forces. It is the child of nature. True poetic inspiration can only be found within the heart. It is a spontaneous feeling. It spontaneously flows from the heart. His ‘Muse’ i.e. poetic inspiration makes him feel so.
Summary:
“Loving in Truth” is a poem where the speaker, Astrophil, is deeply in love with a woman named Stella. He believes that if he writes beautiful poems about his love, Stella will understand how much he cares for her and might love him back. Astrophil tries hard to write the perfect poem, but he struggles to find the right words. He reads books and tries to learn how to write better, but this only makes him feel more frustrated. In the end, Astrophil realizes that instead of trying so hard, he should just write from his heart. The poem shows that true feelings are more important than trying to be perfect.
Critical Analysis
THEMES:
Creativity and Imagination:
“Loving in truth” is the opening poem of the collection “Astrophil and Stella” by Sir Philip Sidney. It sets the tone for the poems that follow, which are about Astrophil trying to win Stella’s love with his poetry. Astrophil is head over heels or in love with for Stella and thinks that if he writes poems that make her happy, she might love him back. But when he tries to write, he can’t think of anything to say.
Astrophil tries really hard to come up with smart and new ways to impress Stella with his words. He even looks at other poets’ work for ideas. But all this effort just leaves him frustrated and his pen idle. The poem tells us that creativity doesn’t come from trying too hard or being smart; it’s something natural that comes from within.
In the end, when Astrophil doesn’t know what to do, his Muse, who represents his creative side, tells him to stop overthinking and just write what’s in his heart. The poem suggests that true poetry comes from honest feelings and natural talent, not from forcing yourself to be clever or copying others.
The Power of Poetry
In the poem “Loving in truth” by Sidney, poetry is more than just something pretty to enjoy. It’s a powerful thing that can touch people’s hearts and even change their lives, especially when it comes to love.
The person talking in the poem, Astrophil, is a guy who’s really in love with a woman named Stella. He thinks that if he writes her a book of poems, it might make her love him back. He has a plan for how this will work. If Stella likes his poems, she’ll want to read them. If she reads them, she’ll understand how he feels. If she understands his feelings, she might feel sorry for him. And if she feels sorry for him, maybe she’ll start to love him too.
Astrophil believes that poetry can first make people happy with its beauty and cleverness. Then, it can show them something new, and that new thing can make them feel something deep. When people feel deeply, they start to see the world in a new way and they might even act differently.
This might be really true for love. Astrophil’s Muse, which is like a voice in his head that gives him ideas, tells him to write from his heart. That’s because both love and good poetry come from the heart. So, writing poetry could be the best way for Astrophil to show his true feelings to Stella and maybe win her love.
Love:
Sir Philip Sidney’s poem “Loving in Truth” is all about love. The poem is about a guy who is really into a lady named Penelope Devereux.
Critical Analysis of the Poem Loving in Truth
Genuineness of Art:
Sidney talks about how true poetry, or any art, needs to be genuine. The speaker in his work tries hard to express his love for his mistress in his poems but struggles to find the right words. He is deeply in love and feels the pain of her not paying attention to him, which makes it hard for him to think clearly. He even tries to use words from other poets. In the end, he realizes that poetry must come from within. You can’t succeed in creative work just by copying others. True inspiration is needed to write a poem, and the words should flow naturally from the heart.
POETIC DEVICE & FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE:
Repetitions:
Repetition is a literary device in which a word or phrase is repeated two or more times. There are many types of repetitions like, Alliteration, Anadiplosis, Anaphora, Antanaclasis, Antimetabole, Assonance, Consonance, Diacope, Epanalepsis, Epistrophe, Epizeuxis, Polysyndeton, Polyptoton, and Refrain.
Diacope:
Diacope is a figure of speech in which a word or phrase is repeated with a small number of intervening words. For example, “she, dear she” in this part the word ‘she’ is repeated two times.
Parallelism:
Parallelism is a figure of speech in which two or more elements of a sentence (or series of sentences) have the same grammatical structure. For example, “Loving in truth, and fain in verse my love to show”
“Loving in truth” and “fain in verse my love to show” are parallel in structure because they both start with a verb (“Loving” and “fain”), followed by prepositional phrases (“in truth” and “in verse”) that elaborate on the manner of loving and showing love.
Connotations:
Connotation is the extra meaning or feelings that a word suggests, beyond its basic dictionary definition. It’s the emotional or cultural association that a word carries with it.
- Word: “Home”
- Dictionary Definition: A place where one lives.
- Connotation: Warmth, comfort, family, and safety.
When you hear the word “home,” you don’t just think about a building or a place to live. You might also think about the feelings of warmth, comfort, and safety, or memories of family and good times.
For example in the poem, the word “Invention”—is a word that connotes some combination of “imagination,” “creative power,” and “innate artistic gifts”—appears three times in the poem.
Personification:
Personification is a type of figurative language in which non-human things are described as having human attributes.
For example,
- “Biting my truant pen”
- “I sought fit words to paint the blackest face of woe”
- “Invention, Nature’s child, fled step-dame Studys blows”
Metaphor:
Metaphor is an implicit comparison. Here two different things are compared.
- “Fit words to paint the blackest face of woe” -This metaphor compares his struggle to find the right words to an artist trying to paint a portrait of extreme sorrow.
- “Sunburnt” -poet’s head is compared with dried up and barren soil or field.
Allusion:
Allusion is an unexplained reference to someone or something outside of the text.
For example,
- Astrophil and Stella: The very names of the characters in the sonnet sequence are allusions. “Astrophil” means “star lover” in Greek, and “Stella” means “star” in Latin. This alludes to the idea of the lover (Astrophil) being guided by the star (Stella), which is a common metaphor for love and desire in Renaissance poetry.
- Muse: The invocation of the Muse, a common feature in classical poetry, is an allusion to the ancient Greek belief that poets are inspired by the Muses, the goddesses of the arts.
- Penelope Devereux: The poem is believed to be an allusion to Sidney’s real-life unrequited love for Penelope Devereux, who later became the Countess of Essex. This connection adds a layer of personal history and emotional depth to the poem
FORM:
Sonnets:
- 14-line poems
- Written in iambic pentameter—lines of five iambs, metrical feet with a da-DUM rhythm.
- Written in one of a couple of set rhyme schemes: the English style, which runs ABAB CDCD EFEF GG, or the Italian style, which starts ABBA ABBA, then ends in one of several mixtures of C, D, and E rhymes (often CDE CDE).
In Loving in Truth:
- This sonnet uses those familiar 14 lines. But it makes some changes, too:
- Its lines are alexandrines—lines of six iambs, as in “I sought | fit words | to paint | the black- | est face | of woe.”
- And its rhyme scheme is a variation on the English pattern, running ABAB ABAB CDCD EE.
METER:
This poem is written in lines of iambic hexameter, also known as alexandrines. Alexandrines use six iambs per line, as in line 8:
Some fresh | and fruit- | ful showers | upon | my sun- | burn’d brain.
(Note that “showers” there should be pronounced with one syllable, in the English style: “shours,” not “SHOW-ers.”).
Variations in the meter likewise suggest the emotion in his voice. Take lines 3-4, for instance:
- Pleasure | might cause | her read, | reading | might make | her know,
- Knowledge | might pit- | y win, | and pit- | y grace | obtain,—
“Pleasure,” “reading,” and “Knowledge” are all trochees (the opposite foot to an iamb, with a DUM-da rhythm). These stress-first feet make Astrophil sound urgent and eager as he pictures how poetry might win his lady over, step by step.
RHYMING SCHEME:
This poem’s rhyme scheme is a variation on the traditional pattern of an English sonnet. Typically, the rhyme scheme for this form runs ABAB CDCD EFEF GG. Sidney’s variation, however, goes like this:
ABAB ABAB CDCD EE
Sidney thus starts Astrophil and Stella off on an experimental note. He goes on to play with sonnet rhyme all through his long sequence. In this opening poem, the insistent double ABAB sequence seems to reflect Astrophil’s romantic desperation. His rhymes sound as obsessive and anxious as his quest for the words that will win Stella’s heart.
One conventional aspect of this sonnet, though, is the way it uses its closing couplet. The punchy, paired rhymes in a sonnet’s last two lines often deliver an emphatic conclusion. Here, they give the speaker’s wry, exasperated “Muse” the final word.
The internal slant rhyme on “biting” and “beating” helps, too, makes the line even more emphatic.
Literary Context
Sir Philip Sidney (1554-1586) was a poet and courtier from the English Renaissance, a time of great creativity and culture in England. His life was full of adventure and excitement, typical of the Elizabethan era. Sidney served Queen Elizabeth I in a special role, and his mother, who had smallpox scars, wore a mask in public to cover them. He loved jousting, a type of medieval sport, and won many tournaments. Unfortunately, he died from a wound he got in battle in the Netherlands. If you were to imagine the perfect English Renaissance courtier, Sidney’s life would be a good example.
Sidney’s poetry reflects the trends and styles of his time. His collection of poems, Astrophil and Stella (1591), was part of a popular trend for sonnets during the Elizabethan era. English poets, inspired by earlier Italian poets like Petrarch, made the sonnet form their own. Sidney was a contemporary of William Shakespeare, the most famous English sonnet writer, and he lived during a time when the sonnet was being explored in new and exciting ways.
One of Sidney’s sonnets from Astrophil and Stella talks about the struggle between creativity (“Invention”) and the hard work of studying (“Study”). The poem suggests that poets should be natural and full of emotion, like lovers, rather than being overly concerned with rules and learning.
In addition to Astrophil and Stella, Sidney is also famous for his book Arcadia (1593), a pastoral romance. This means it’s a story set in an imagined, ideal countryside. Arcadia was very influential and inspired many other writers.
Historical Context:
The story behind Astrophil and Stella might be connected to an event in Sir Philip Sidney’s own life. In 1576, Sidney was offered the chance to marry a young woman named Penelope Devereaux, who was the daughter of the Earl of Essex. This marriage proposal was unusual because it came through the Earl’s will. The Earl, who was a friend of Sidney’s, thought that his daughter would be a good match for Sidney, whom he admired while they served together in Queen Elizabeth I’s court.
However, Sidney didn’t take the offer seriously at the time. Penelope was still very young, and Sidney, being in his twenties, probably saw the suggestion as a kind gesture rather than a serious proposal. But later, when Penelope grew up and married another man named Robert Rich, Sidney might have regretted not marrying her. The poems in Astrophil and Stella include parts where Astrophil (the character Sidney wrote) expresses sadness over not marrying Stella (who represents Penelope) when he had the chance. This connection between Sidney’s life and the poems is hard to overlook because it seems too close to be just a coincidence.
The critical analysis of the poem always helps to understand the poem clearly.
Conclusion
In the poem “Loving in Truth,” the speaker, Astrophil, wants to express his love for Stella through poetry. He believes that if he writes about his love, Stella will see how deeply he feels and might eventually return his affection. However, Astrophil struggles to find the right words. He tries to force himself to be creative by reading and studying, but this only makes him more frustrated. In the end, he realizes that true inspiration comes from within and that he should write from his heart rather than trying too hard to follow rules or imitate others.
The poem concludes with the idea that genuine emotion is more powerful than forced creativity. Astrophil learns that the best way to express his love is to write naturally, letting his true feelings guide him.
Critical Analysis of the Poem Loving in Truth
