Looking ahead Plans for remaining weeks in the quarter Handouts

Dr. Faustus Review Parodic Structure How are we to understand Faustus?

Sidney Astrophil and Stella  Penelope Devereux, Lady Rich Sonnet Italian  Sonnet cycle—first recognizable one in English  108 sonnets and 11 songs Way of looking at a collection of sonnets rather than a “plot”

Neoplatonism “Divine Beauty” through an “earthly lover” “material world is a path to the spiritual world, rather than an obstacle to or diversion from it” (Murfin and Ray, 292)

Petrarchanism--Neoplatonism Petrarch—14 th c. Italian poet, Francesco Petrarca Sonnet form plus distinctive use of:  Imagery  Figures of speech  Formal style  Petrarchan conceit (exaggerated portrait of lady’s beauty and cruelty)  Hyperbole  Oxymoron

Petrarchanism/Neoplatonism Sidney engages this poetic tradition, but also questions it

Sonnet form 14 lines rhymed iambic pentameter 2 forms for Sidney/Shakespeare Italian/Petrarchan English/Shakespearean Mapping a sonnet

Considering scansion Who will in fairest booke of nature know How virtue may best lodged in beauty be, Let him but learn of love to read in thee, Stella, those fair lines which true goodness show. There shall he find all vices overthrow, Not by rude force, but sweetest sovereignty

In-class scansion Try the next two lines

Of reason, from whose light those night-birds fly, That inward sun in thine eyes shineth so.

Sonnet 71 “Give me some food” Playing with the Neoplatonic tradition

Form matters Why choose a sonnet? What is the connection between form and meaning?

Sonnet 1 Look in thy heart and write Sonnet is about love, but also about writing and style, about “invention” Some elements to know: alexandrine (iambic hexameter), “fain” (l. 1), childbirth metaphor, How does the poem flow? Does the lady get to speak?

Sonnet 31 Personification of the Moon Speaker standing outside the courtly world Opening monosyllables and repetitions

Sonnet 9 Petrarchan convention (see also sonnet 6) “Rich” Penelope Rich, an idealized love, Queen Elizabeth?

New classes Winter quarter only LTEN 110 and 112

Shakespeare’s Sonnets Form: 3Quatrains/Couplet  abab cdcd efef gg The sonnet vogue Shakespeare as icon and the perils of autobio-crit.

Is this a sonnet cycle?

The Figures of the Sonnets The Young Man The Rival Poet The Dark Lady

The Young Man Who is the Young Man? What are the implications of autobiographical criticism?

The Young Man Many references to time Sonnet 3 Sonnet 19 Sonnet 55 Sonnet 65

Tomb of Mary and Elizabeth

Poetic form Sonnet 129

The Dark Lady Sonnet 130 Sonnet 127 Often read in relation to Petrarchan convention

The Dark Lady Kim Hall, Things of Darkness

The Defence of Poesy Three types of poets p. 958 Vates—Prophets Philosophical Poets “Right” poets—”to teach and delight”  (echo of Chaucer’s “sentence and solaas?)

Poetry as imaginative literature Poet as “maker” (956)

Poetry improves humanity Delivering a golden world (957) Cyrus (957) Erected wit/infected will (957) Poetry draws us to perfection (neoplatonic) (959) Architectonike (960)

Charges Against Poetry P. 967 Waste of time Mother of lies Nurse of abuse

Sidney’s response “No learning is so good as that which teacheth and moveth to virtue” (967) “of all writers under the sun the poet is the least liar” (967)

Neil Gaiman “telling lies to tell the truth” What makes the canon?