English 2610

Although the sonnets of Astrophil and Stella seemed rather challenging to read and understand compared with some of the other readings we have done this semester, I don't think I necessarily disliked it. It becomes more beautiful the more you go over each line and start to understand the meaning. On top of that, I'm a bit of a sucker for poetry involving love, however one-sided it may be.

When I first read over each sonnet assigned, I wasn't really able to establish a huge connection between each as they progressed. However, reading it a couple more times, I was able to see a common thread running through them. The poet isn't just telling a woman how much he loves her, he is professing a slavish and also unrequited love to a woman who will probably never have him. This is evident in Sonnet 47 in which the poet battles internally between loving her and letting it control him so brutally:

What, have I thus betrayed my liberty?
Can those black beams such burning marks engrave
In my free side; or am I born a slave,
Whose neck becomes such yoke of tyranny? (lines 1-4)