Sidney's Astrophil and Stella (Histories)

History

• Protestant Reformation (1517 - Martin Luther's 95 Theses--about 60 years before)
• Dissolution of Monasteries (1536-1541)
• - many monasteries are closed by King Henry VIII due to the assumption that they would remain loyal to the pope
• Elizabeth I takes reign in 1558, 4 years after Sidney is born, until 1603
• Spenser composes Faerie Queene (1590-1596)
• Shakespeare's theatrical career (1585?-c.1613)

Sir Philip Sidney

• born on November 30, 1554, at Penshurst, Kent. He was the eldest son of Sir Henry Sidney, Lord Deputy of Ireland, and nephew of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester. He was named after his godfather, King Philip II of Spain.
• lived the life of a popular and eminent courtier.
• attended the court of Elizabeth I, and was considered "the flower of chivalry."
• an active patron of the arts
• Sidney's Astrophil and Stella ("Starlover and Star") was begun probably around 1576, during his courtship with Penelope Devereux. Astrophil and Stella, which includes 108 sonnets and 11 songs, is the first in the long line of Elizabethan sonnet cycles.
• Elizabethan sonnet = a sonnet consisting three quatrains and a concluding couplet in iambic pentameter with the rhyme pattern abab cdcd efef gg
• Most of the sonnets are influenced by Petrarchan conventions — the abject lover laments the coldness of his beloved lady towards him, even though he is so true of love and her neglect causes him so much anguish.
• Lady Penelope was married to Lord Rich in 1581; Sidney married Frances Walsingham in 1583. Some speculation if A & S could be autobiographical.
• In 1586, Sidney fought in a skirmish against the Spanish at Zutphen, and was wounded by a musket shot that shattered his thigh-bone. Twenty-two days later Sidney died of the unhealed wound at thirty-one.
• His death was greatly mourned in England by the Queen and her subjects, as he had been the man who had come to exemplify the ideal courtier.
• It is said that Londoners, come out to see the funeral progression, cried out "Farewell, the worthiest knight that lived."