God and the Beloved: A Journey in Understanding Love In renaissance poetry, one of the major themes is found in the correlation of god and love. The religious tradition states that these two idols are one in the same, but four poets show that the beloved can quickly steal this spotlight. Starting with Emmanuel Petrarch, we can see his painful devotion to his beloved Laura, was one of the spark’s of the renaissance era; only to be somewhat mocked by Sir Philip Sidney’s humorous remarks about love and relationships. Brining a focus on Neo-Platonic ideas, John Donne and Katherine Phillips brought an understanding between holy/metaphysical ideas and the bodily bond of the beloved, providing insight that love means being equal with the spouse.
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Sydney pokes at Petrarch 's style, making his heartsick priest persona look like a self-indulgent and hopeless romantic. Sidney understands this theme of beauty taking over the male mind, and makes constant descriptions about how Stella, the beloved, draws by “Sweetest Sovereignty,” (Astrophel and stella, sonnet 71) and natural grace. Yet, renaissance poets know that “Beauty draws the heart to love,” (Astrophel and stella, sonnet 71) but Sidney twists this norm by claiming that “Desire still cries, “Give me some food.” (Astrophel and stella, sonnet 71). This statement turns the complements of a lover to the beloved, into a lustful trap, because, “Virtue may best be lodged in beauty be.” (Astrophel and stella, sonnet 71). We can see Sidney discard his genuine wonder of love during the beginning of his poems, only to reveal his cynical perspective of love’s false divinity at the …show more content…
Astropel and Stella comes from the Greek words, 'aster ' (star) and 'phil ' (lover), and the Latin word 'stella ' meaning star, but it also represents a love affair Sidney had with Lady Penelope Devereux, until she married her husband, Lord Rich. For Petrarch, the priest feels like he is cheating on god, and breaks his vows every time he thinks about Laura, making Petrarch’s Laura relationship a tensely forbidden tragedy. John Donne was not like these two, and instead of love affairs, he chose relationships. Donne’s poetry flipped the board on poets like Sydney and Petrarch, as he experimented with genre, form and imagery, in a style soon known as metaphysical poetry. In A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning, Donne infuses love poetry with abstract ideas of souls, death and the afterlife, while also capturing the same themes that Sidney and Petrarch gave, yet offering a different solution to capturing love’s complicated
Sydney pokes at Petrarch 's style, making his heartsick priest persona look like a self-indulgent and hopeless romantic. Sidney understands this theme of beauty taking over the male mind, and makes constant descriptions about how Stella, the beloved, draws by “Sweetest Sovereignty,” (Astrophel and stella, sonnet 71) and natural grace. Yet, renaissance poets know that “Beauty draws the heart to love,” (Astrophel and stella, sonnet 71) but Sidney twists this norm by claiming that “Desire still cries, “Give me some food.” (Astrophel and stella, sonnet 71). This statement turns the complements of a lover to the beloved, into a lustful trap, because, “Virtue may best be lodged in beauty be.” (Astrophel and stella, sonnet 71). We can see Sidney discard his genuine wonder of love during the beginning of his poems, only to reveal his cynical perspective of love’s false divinity at the …show more content…
Astropel and Stella comes from the Greek words, 'aster ' (star) and 'phil ' (lover), and the Latin word 'stella ' meaning star, but it also represents a love affair Sidney had with Lady Penelope Devereux, until she married her husband, Lord Rich. For Petrarch, the priest feels like he is cheating on god, and breaks his vows every time he thinks about Laura, making Petrarch’s Laura relationship a tensely forbidden tragedy. John Donne was not like these two, and instead of love affairs, he chose relationships. Donne’s poetry flipped the board on poets like Sydney and Petrarch, as he experimented with genre, form and imagery, in a style soon known as metaphysical poetry. In A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning, Donne infuses love poetry with abstract ideas of souls, death and the afterlife, while also capturing the same themes that Sidney and Petrarch gave, yet offering a different solution to capturing love’s complicated