Astrophil and Stella: sonnet 5
Robert Stonehouse
It is most true, that eyes are formed to serve
The inward light: and that the heavenly part
Ought to be king, from whose rules who do swerve,
Rebels to Nature, strive for their own smart.
It is most true, what we call Cupid’s dart,
An image is, which for ourselves we carve;
And, fools, adore in temple of our heart,
Till that good God make church and churchman starve.
True, that true beauty Virtue is indeed,
Whereof this beauty can be but a shade,
Which elements with mortal mixture breed:
True, that on earth we are but pilgrims made,
And should in soul up to our country move:
True, and yet true that I must Stella love.
1. It is a great truth that our eyes are made to be servants
2. to the soul and conscience, and that conscience
3. should govern us, and that those who deviate from the dictates of
conscience
4. rebel against their own nature, and so their efforts are directed
to their own harm.
5. It is a great truth that what we call love
6. is an idol which we manufacture for ourselves to worship;
7. and like fools we continue to worship it in the shrine of our
secret hearts
8. until the good, true God destroys both shrine and worshipper.
9. Another truth, that the real beauty is in fact virtue,
10. of which the beauty we see with our eyes is only a shadow,
11. created mortal, because it consists of a mixture of elements;
12. another truth, that we are only visitors to this earth
13. and ought to practise, within our souls, moving up towards heaven;
14. all true, but still it is true that I am compelled to love Stella.
Can this poem be the first to carry out what Sidney has promised? Are
we really finished with the introduction, prospectus, manifesto?
Line 2, ‘inward light’. Ringler says ‘reason, understanding’. I feel
the poem is more religious than that.
Line 5, ‘Cupid’s dart’. I take this as just a learned way of saying
‘love’, but the mixture of metaphors seems awkward: a dart becomes an
image that is adored.
Line 6: the Second Commandment. ‘Thou shalt not make to thyself any
graven image …’. (Graven = carved.) The words ‘to thyself’ are
interpreted as meaning ‘for yourself to worship’, so that the
commandment does not universally prohibit all figurative art, only art
for the purpose of idol-worship. Sidney’s line therefore touches the
commandment at three points, beyond coincidence, and I put ‘for
ourselves to worship’ into my paraphrase to represent Sidney’s ‘for
ourselves’.
Line 8. We are subject to this life-long folly. I think it is
reasonable to separate ‘that good God’ from ‘church and churchman’
because the church is the same as the temple of the previous line. I
do not think the deeply religious Sidney could be referring to Cupid
as ‘that good God’, still less in a context where he has just been
condemning idol-worship.
Line 9 briefly restates the content of sonnet 4.
Line 10 seems to be Platonic: the idea (or form) of Beauty is laid up
in heaven and all earthly beauties are imperfect copies of it. (In
Plato’s Cave, they are likened to shadows.) The notion in line 11 is
that pure elements are indestructible, and anything mortal must be
made of a mixture of elements and so be destroyed by the dissolution
of the mixture. It is an old one in Greek philosophy – pre-Socratic.
--
Robert Stonehouse
To mail me, replace invalid with uk. Inconvenience regretted.
Gary Kosinsky
(Robert Stonehouse) wrote:
> 5
>
>It is most true, that eyes are formed to serve
>The inward light: and that the heavenly part
>Ought to be king, from whose rules who do swerve,
>Rebels to Nature, strive for their own smart.
> It is most true, what we call Cupid’s dart,
>An image is, which for ourselves we carve;
>And, fools, adore in temple of our heart,
>Till that good God make church and churchman starve.
> True, that true beauty Virtue is indeed,
>Whereof this beauty can be but a shade,
>Which elements with mortal mixture breed:
>True, that on earth we are but pilgrims made,
> And should in soul up to our country move:
> True, and yet true that I must Stella love.
>
>
>1. It is a great truth that our eyes are made to be servants
>2. to the soul and conscience, and that conscience
>3. should govern us, and that those who deviate from the dictates of
>conscience
>4. rebel against their own nature, and so their efforts are directed
>to their own harm.
A quibble: I don't think those that deviate from
the dictates of conscience are rebelling against their own
nature - they're just following through on their own nature.
I think the "nature" mentioned is meant in the sense of
God's intended plan, against which these people are
rebelling by following their own inclinations.
>5. It is a great truth that what we call love
>6. is an idol which we manufacture for ourselves to worship;
Interesting idea that we "manufacture [it] for
ourselves". Makes it sound like a deliberate and conscious
choice.
>7. and like fools we continue to worship it in the shrine of our
>secret hearts
>8. until the good, true God destroys both shrine and worshipper.
>
>9. Another truth, that the real beauty is in fact virtue,
>10. of which the beauty we see with our eyes is only a shadow,
>11. created mortal, because it consists of a mixture of elements;
>12. another truth, that we are only visitors to this earth
>13. and ought to practise, within our souls, moving up towards heaven;
>14. all true, but still it is true that I am compelled to love Stella.
Any ideas where the names Astrophel and Stella came
from? Are they part of some mythology, or did Sidney create
them himself?
A strange attitude, some Elizabethans had. The idea
seems to be that *any* love-struck attraction to the
opposite sex (not just to married ones) is somehow wrong,
and contrary to what we *should* be doing. Not a sentiment
one hears much nowadays.
SNIP
- Gary Kosinsky
biancas842001
"Robert Stonehouse" <ew...@bcs.org.invalid> wrote:
> 5
>
> It is most true, that eyes are formed to serve
> The inward light: and that the heavenly part
> Ought to be king, from whose rules who do swerve,
> Rebels to Nature, strive for their own smart.
> It is most true, what we call Cupidés dart,
> An image is, which for ourselves we carve;
> And, fools, adore in temple of our heart,
> Till that good God make church and churchman starve.
> True, that true beauty Virtue is indeed,
> Whereof this beauty can be but a shade,
> Which elements with mortal mixture breed:
> True, that on earth we are but pilgrims made,
> And should in soul up to our country move:
> True, and yet true that I must Stella love.
[snipped to save bandwidth]
> Line 8. We are subject to this life-long folly. I think it is
> reasonable to separate îthat good Godé from îchurch and churchmané
> because the church is the same as the temple of the previous line. I
> do not think the deeply religious Sidney could be referring to Cupid
> as îthat good Godé, still less in a context where he has just been
> condemning idol-worship.
>
Was Sidney orthodox in his beliefs? When I hear "religious," I hear,
implied in that word, "doctrinally correct." This doesn't seem to
describe Philip Sidney very well. Even "spiritual," in the way many
Americans use this word, doesn't seem entirely applicable. The
impression I've retained from Rowse is that Sidney was very
self-consciously upright, but that he thought entirely according to
his own lights and wasn't nearly as well educated as, for instance,
John Donne (though he may have been the most educated and most
brilliant member of his social set), while it seems he goes nearly as
far as Donne does, in making up religious or spiritual metaphors.
If I try to make sense of the terms Sidney uses in this poem, in their
more-or-less standard meanings, I get something that doesn't seem, to
me, correct, but doesn't seem wholly ridiculous, either.
> Line 9 briefly restates the content of sonnet 4.
>
> Line 10 seems to be Platonic: the idea (or form) of Beauty is laid up
> in heaven and all earthly beauties are imperfect copies of it. (In
> Platoés Cave, they are likened to shadows.) The notion in line 11 is
> that pure elements are indestructible, and anything mortal must be
> made of a mixture of elements and so be destroyed by the dissolution
> of the mixture. It is an old one in Greek philosophy ł pre-Socratic.
Certainly not Platonic in the sense of Platonic love, as described in
the "Symposium," because love for another human being is rejected
outright, and in the Platonic scheme it would be accepted as a step
towards learning about Divine love.
----
Bianca S.
Robert Stonehouse
wrote:
I wondered about this and came down on the side I did because (as it
seemed) someone's conscience is part of that person's own nature. If
someone rebels against his/her own nature, it is naturally to his/her
own harm. Does rebelling against Nature in general have that effect? I
don't see that it follows.
>
>>5. It is a great truth that what we call love
>>6. is an idol which we manufacture for ourselves to worship;
>
> Interesting idea that we "manufacture [it] for
>ourselves". Makes it sound like a deliberate and conscious
>choice.
>
I'd still say that it derives from 'thou shalt not make to thyself
..'. That is, making your own gods at a workbench is a sin.
Idolatry is a metaphor for love, and it does not fit in all respects,
as metaphors don't. Sidney does not use the word 'idolatry' - it's not
his style, I think - Donne might have used it. So he identifies it as
the sin of breaking the second commandment, in words that recall the
commandment more closely than they fit love, the thing signified.
When talking about love itself, what he says is almost the opposite,
'I must Stella love'. It isn't voluntary - that indeed is what the
poem is about.
>
>>7. and like fools we continue to worship it in the shrine of our
>>secret hearts
>>8. until the good, true God destroys both shrine and worshipper.
>>
>>9. Another truth, that the real beauty is in fact virtue,
>>10. of which the beauty we see with our eyes is only a shadow,
>>11. created mortal, because it consists of a mixture of elements;
>>12. another truth, that we are only visitors to this earth
>>13. and ought to practise, within our souls, moving up towards heaven;
>>14. all true, but still it is true that I am compelled to love Stella.
>
> Any ideas where the names Astrophel and Stella came
>from? Are they part of some mythology, or did Sidney create
>them himself?
Stella is Latin for 'star'. Astrophil is Greek for 'star-lover'. I
don't know of any precedents for these names, but names like Stella
exist in a number of languages (Estelle, Estrelita). Chambers'
Dictionary does not say it was Sidney's invention, as Pamela was.
Sidney had been developing his own character-name for some time,
before he identified Lady Rich as Stella. In the Old Arcadia (and the
New) he gives his own character the name Philisides, with the same
meaning (Latin 'sides'=star: hence such words as 'sidereal'). That was
a bastard word (part-Greek, part-Latin) but closer to his real name,
Philip Sidney. This is part of Sidney's history, rather than the more
general history of literature.
> A strange attitude, some Elizabethans had. The idea
>seems to be that *any* love-struck attraction to the
>opposite sex (not just to married ones) is somehow wrong,
>and contrary to what we *should* be doing. Not a sentiment
>one hears much nowadays.
It doesn't seem all that strange to me; stop mooning about and get on
with your business, whether it be war, law or poetry. Sex was a mere
frivolity, not to be taken seriously - not anybody's business. Getting
tied up in it was reprehensible. No problem in that, is there?
Terry Ross
They are following their inclinations against their nature. We are both
corporal and spiritual; we have a body that will die and a soul that may
live forever, yet the inclinations of the body can lead the soul to ruin.
Look at it from a non-religious angle. How do we define our species? We
are "Homo sapiens," but aren't lovers often tempted to act contrary to the
dictates of reason -- the very faculty that we think is definitive of our
natures?
>
>
> >5. It is a great truth that what we call love
> >6. is an idol which we manufacture for ourselves to worship;
>
> Interesting idea that we "manufacture [it] for ourselves". Makes
> it sound like a deliberate and conscious choice.
Perhaps he loves love, or the idea of being in love, more than he loves
his beloved; even if his love were sincere, his expressions of that
sincerity -- his poems -- are things he manufactures, things that come
with a built-in insincerity.. We admire the craft, the wit, the brilliance
of the poems, but we admire Sidney when we admire his poems, we do not
admire his beloved.
Lorenz Hart said, "Falling in love with love is falling for make-believe."
The poet loves the image of his beloved that he has fashioned. The poet
loves his poems (and we readers may love his poems). His muse told him to
look into his heart and write; in his heart there is an image of his
beloved, but all he can depict is his own heart, his own falling in love
with love. Is this the love of a beloved or is this narcissism? One of
the problems Sidney deals with repeatedly is whether it is possible to
"love in truth" and to show what that love is without feigning. Every
sonnet is both a tribute to a love that may be true and a false image of
what a true love might be.
>
>
> >7. and like fools we continue to worship it in the shrine of our
> >secret hearts
> >8. until the good, true God destroys both shrine and worshipper.
> >
> >9. Another truth, that the real beauty is in fact virtue,
> >10. of which the beauty we see with our eyes is only a shadow,
> >11. created mortal, because it consists of a mixture of elements;
> >12. another truth, that we are only visitors to this earth
> >13. and ought to practise, within our souls, moving up towards heaven;
> >14. all true, but still it is true that I am compelled to love Stella.
>
> Any ideas where the names Astrophel and Stella came from? Are
> they part of some mythology, or did Sidney create them himself?
"Stella for star," as Blanche DuBois would say. "Astrophil" is
"star-lover," but "-phil" is also Philip Sidney, as was the shepherd
knight Philisides. Stella has a sparrow that shares Sidney's name.
>
> A strange attitude, some Elizabethans had. The idea seems to be
> that *any* love-struck attraction to the opposite sex (not just to
> married ones) is somehow wrong, and contrary to what we *should* be
> doing.
Ann Landers used to hawk a pamphlet called "Love and Sex, and How to Tell
the Difference." Do you really think we moderns have completely given up
the notion that love should be selfless, that it should be an expression
of the best that we are capable of? Whether one believes in souls and
eternity or not, I think most people have a sense of how we might be if we
were better than we are. Do you think we moderns have not noticed that we
are subject to lusts that seem imperfectly aligned with what we think we
mean by "love"?
> Not a sentiment one hears much nowadays.
Listen harder, and you will hear it.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Terry Ross Visit the SHAKESPEARE AUTHORSHIP home page
http://ShakespeareAuthorship.com
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> SNIP
>
>
>
>
>
> - Gary Kosinsky
>
Robert Stonehouse
wrote:
>On 6/5/04 1:57 PM, in article 40c2087...@news.cityscape.co.uk,
>"Robert Stonehouse" <ew...@bcs.org.invalid> wrote:
>
>> 5
>>
>> It is most true, that eyes are formed to serve
>> The inward light: and that the heavenly part
>> Ought to be king, from whose rules who do swerve,
>> Rebels to Nature, strive for their own smart.
>> An image is, which for ourselves we carve;
>> And, fools, adore in temple of our heart,
>> Till that good God make church and churchman starve.
>> True, that true beauty Virtue is indeed,
>> Whereof this beauty can be but a shade,
>> Which elements with mortal mixture breed:
>> True, that on earth we are but pilgrims made,
>> And should in soul up to our country move:
>> True, and yet true that I must Stella love.
>
>[snipped to save bandwidth]
>
>> Line 8. We are subject to this life-long folly. I think it is
>> because the church is the same as the temple of the previous line. I
>> do not think the deeply religious Sidney could be referring to Cupid
>> condemning idol-worship.
>
>Was Sidney orthodox in his beliefs? When I hear "religious," I hear,
>implied in that word, "doctrinally correct." This doesn't seem to
>describe Philip Sidney very well.
I don't know how to define "doctrinally correct." A different
approach:
As he died (which took a long time) he was surrounded by clerics, one
of whom, George Gifford, published an account. Sidney did not talk
like them, but none of them found anything wrong with what he said so
far as I know. For example of God: "He is a most good spirit; for
otherwise how should the world continue in the beauty it hath?" and
the comment "This he spoke with vehement gesture and great joy, even
ravished with the consideration of God's omnipotency, providence and
goodness, whose fatherly love in remembering him, to chastise him for
his soul's health, he did now feel ..." (Quotation from Dorothy
Connell, 'Sir Philip Sidney, The Maker's Mind'.)
>Even "spiritual," in the way many
>Americans use this word, doesn't seem entirely applicable.
Another word I really can't cope with.
>The
>impression I've retained from Rowse is that Sidney was very
>self-consciously upright, but that he thought entirely according to
>his own lights and wasn't nearly as well educated as, for instance,
>John Donne (though he may have been the most educated and most
>brilliant member of his social set), while it seems he goes nearly as
>far as Donne does, in making up religious or spiritual metaphors.
There are two questions here.
1. Certainly Sidney insisted on understanding things for himself.
Nobody would have had much success in forcing ideas on him that he
could not see his way to accept. That is partly a matter of
intellectual honesty, partly of aristocratic pride. No problem with
it, that I can see? After all, what can accepting an idea mean, if you
don't understand it, i.e. don't know what idea it is?
2. Sidney was very well educated and knew far more than most merely
well-educated people of his time. On the other hand, he never made an
exhibition of learning. He always dispraised his own learning and his
own writing: "I know not by what mischance, in these my not old years
and idlest times, having slipped into the title of a poet".
Donne was something more like a professional scholar. He enjoyed his
quiddities and it was relevant to his career to display them. He can
put 'profanation' into a love-poem because he does not mind looking
inelegant and pedantic. Sidney (I think) avoided 'idolatry' because it
would look inelegant and fanatical.
>If I try to make sense of the terms Sidney uses in this poem, in their
>more-or-less standard meanings, I get something that doesn't seem, to
>me, correct, but doesn't seem wholly ridiculous, either.
I have found this the most difficult of Sidney's poems so far. It took
a lot of thinking to arrive at a paraphrase that made sense. (I do
believe it does!)
...
>> Line 10 seems to be Platonic: the idea (or form) of Beauty is laid up
>> in heaven and all earthly beauties are imperfect copies of it. (In
>> Plato's Cave, they are likened to shadows.) The notion in line 11 is
>> that pure elements are indestructible, and anything mortal must be
>> made of a mixture of elements and so be destroyed by the dissolution
>> of the mixture. It is an old one in Greek philosophy - pre-Socratic.
>
>Certainly not Platonic in the sense of Platonic love, as described in
>the "Symposium," because love for another human being is rejected
>outright, and in the Platonic scheme it would be accepted as a step
>towards learning about Divine love.
Plato's Theory of Ideas is undoubtedly Platonic. (The Cave comes at
the beginning of book 7 of the Republic.) I have never been clear what
people mean by platonic love and so tend to avoid the phrase, and
pedantically spell it with a small 'p'.
(In the quotations, something odd has happened to my punctuation, and
so I have edited it back to what it was meant to be - contrary to the
usual rules.)
biancas842001
<456bd92f.04060...@posting.google.com>
<40c2b924...@news.cityscape.co.uk>
[I seem to be having a problem replying to this message; I can't
figure out what it is and don't know how this response will show up in
the newsgroup. Would appreciate suggestions.]
On 6/6/04 10:18 AM, in article 40c2b924...@news.cityscape.co.uk,
"Robert Stonehouse" <ew...@bcs.org.invalid> wrote:
> On 5 Jun 2004 19:51:06 -0700, bianca...@yahoo.com (biancas842001)
> wrote:
>> On 6/5/04 1:57 PM, in article 40c2087...@news.cityscape.co.uk,
>> "Robert Stonehouse" <ew...@bcs.org.invalid> wrote:
>>
>>> 5
>>>
>>> It is most true, that eyes are formed to serve
>>> The inward light: and that the heavenly part
>>> Ought to be king, from whose rules who do swerve,
>>> Rebels to Nature, strive for their own smart.
>>> It is most true, what we call Cupid's dart,
>>> An image is, which for ourselves we carve;
>>> And, fools, adore in temple of our heart,
>>> Till that good God make church and churchman starve.
>>> True, that true beauty Virtue is indeed,
>>> Whereof this beauty can be but a shade,
>>> Which elements with mortal mixture breed:
>>> True, that on earth we are but pilgrims made,
>>> And should in soul up to our country move:
>>> True, and yet true that I must Stella love.
>>
>> [snipped to save bandwidth]
[snipped again]
>>
>>> Line 10 seems to be Platonic: the idea (or form) of Beauty is laid
up
>>> in heaven and all earthly beauties are imperfect copies of it. (In
>>> Plato's Cave, they are likened to shadows.) The notion in line 11
is
>>> that pure elements are indestructible, and anything mortal must be
>>> made of a mixture of elements and so be destroyed by the
dissolution
>>> of the mixture. It is an old one in Greek philosophy -
pre-Socratic.
>>
>> Certainly not Platonic in the sense of Platonic love, as described
in
>> the "Symposium," because love for another human being is rejected
>> outright, and in the Platonic scheme it would be accepted as a step
>> towards learning about Divine love.
>
> Plato's Theory of Ideas is undoubtedly Platonic. (The Cave comes at
> the beginning of book 7 of the Republic.) I have never been clear what
> people mean by platonic love and so tend to avoid the phrase, and
> pedantically spell it with a small 'p'.
>
The primary problem I have, I think, is (or starts) with line 7.
"[T]he heavenly part \ Ought to be king," (2-3) also suggests the
Republic, the idea of the "tripartite soul," consisting of reason,
"spirit," and bodily desire. But "image" in line 7 brought to my
mind, most immediately, Plato's doctrine of the Forms, and I thought
that "image" was meant to call to mind a Platonic form or idea. But
we, as individuals, don't create the Forms -- I think they are meant
to be an integral part of the realm of Reason, and basically divine.
From a Judaic standpoint, I believe, the Forms are idols, though
Hellenic philosophy (and through that, the Qabbalah) resolves them
into manifestations of the one G-d.
----
Bianca S.
biancas842001
"Terry Ross" <tr...@bcpl.net> wrote:
I'm not sure what I think on this topic, nor of how even to express
what I do think, but ...
You say that we (human beings) are both corporal and spiritual: body
and soul. I might say (just trying this out) that we are an even
larger variety of things than that. We "are" a need for basic
nutrition and a desire for sweets and an addiction to coffee (to put
things in a probably off-puttingly postmodern-sounding way); and also
a knowledge of American English and of algebra and of LISP; and also a
memory of the Jersey shore when we were eight years old and our
mother's memory of seeing the A's play in Philadelphia. And also that
particular awful poem we wrote when we were fifteen years old and
didn't know that "Something Wicked This Way Comes" was _already_ a
poem. We "are" even the knowledge that "Othello" was written by
William Shakespeare but also the knowledge that there may be a good
argument that "Othello" was written by Francis Bacon, Lord Verulam;
and the knowledge that Julius Rosenberg probably was in fact guilty of
treason but also the opinion that some representations to the contrary
on occasion seem reasonable enough. That's too many also's for a
merely binary distinction. I feel the normal way of handling this
would be to say that what other people think, generally, is "soul,"
while where I differ, that is merely my individual "body."
I know that "naturalism" -- the idea that morality can be derived from
biology -- is not sufficient, especially when e.g. Richard Dawkins is
taken into account. But does "conscience" belong to the body or to
the soul, and are some souls just bad? What I can gather of what
Sidney is saying in this sonnet is that something that might be called
"Heavenly Reason" is rebelled against when we come up with our _own_
ideas, as opposed to heavenly ones, by mixing mortality with what,
properly speaking, is eternal.
----
Bianca S.
Gary Kosinsky
(Robert Stonehouse) wrote:
Hmmmm....is conscience a part of a person's own
nature, or something 'other'? Also, isn't a person's
inclinations (good, bad, indifferent) part of his/her
nature? By not following them, in deference to conscience,
isn't a person also rebelling against their own nature? A
bit of a connundrum here.
>>
>>>5. It is a great truth that what we call love
>>>6. is an idol which we manufacture for ourselves to worship;
>>
>> Interesting idea that we "manufacture [it] for
>>ourselves". Makes it sound like a deliberate and conscious
>>choice.
>>
>I'd still say that it derives from 'thou shalt not make to thyself
>..'. That is, making your own gods at a workbench is a sin.
>
>Idolatry is a metaphor for love, and it does not fit in all respects,
>as metaphors don't. Sidney does not use the word 'idolatry' - it's not
>his style, I think - Donne might have used it. So he identifies it as
>the sin of breaking the second commandment, in words that recall the
>commandment more closely than they fit love, the thing signified.
>
>When talking about love itself, what he says is almost the opposite,
>'I must Stella love'. It isn't voluntary - that indeed is what the
>poem is about.
Right - there are all these moral & philosophical
and religious 'should-do's', and then there is what he is
actually doing.
>>
>>>7. and like fools we continue to worship it in the shrine of our
>>>secret hearts
>>>8. until the good, true God destroys both shrine and worshipper.
>>>
>>>9. Another truth, that the real beauty is in fact virtue,
>>>10. of which the beauty we see with our eyes is only a shadow,
>>>11. created mortal, because it consists of a mixture of elements;
>>>12. another truth, that we are only visitors to this earth
>>>13. and ought to practise, within our souls, moving up towards heaven;
>>>14. all true, but still it is true that I am compelled to love Stella.
>>
>> Any ideas where the names Astrophel and Stella came
>>from? Are they part of some mythology, or did Sidney create
>>them himself?
>
>Stella is Latin for 'star'. Astrophil is Greek for 'star-lover'. I
>don't know of any precedents for these names, but names like Stella
>exist in a number of languages (Estelle, Estrelita). Chambers'
>Dictionary does not say it was Sidney's invention, as Pamela was.
>
>Sidney had been developing his own character-name for some time,
>before he identified Lady Rich as Stella. In the Old Arcadia (and the
>New) he gives his own character the name Philisides, with the same
>meaning (Latin 'sides'=star: hence such words as 'sidereal'). That was
>a bastard word (part-Greek, part-Latin) but closer to his real name,
>Philip Sidney. This is part of Sidney's history, rather than the more
>general history of literature.
Thank-you for that.
>> A strange attitude, some Elizabethans had. The idea
>>seems to be that *any* love-struck attraction to the
>>opposite sex (not just to married ones) is somehow wrong,
>>and contrary to what we *should* be doing. Not a sentiment
>>one hears much nowadays.
>
>It doesn't seem all that strange to me; stop mooning about and get on
>with your business, whether it be war, law or poetry. Sex was a mere
>frivolity, not to be taken seriously - not anybody's business. Getting
>tied up in it was reprehensible. No problem in that, is there?
To say that sexual attraction is fundamentally
*wrong* in some way strikes me as creating all sorts of
problems.
- Gary Kosinsky
Gary Kosinsky
<tr...@bcpl.net> wrote:
>On Sat, 5 Jun 2004, Gary Kosinsky wrote:
>
>> On Sat, 05 Jun 2004 17:57:10 GMT, ew...@bcs.org.invalid
>> (Robert Stonehouse) wrote:
>>
>> > 5
>> >
>> >It is most true, that eyes are formed to serve
>> >The inward light: and that the heavenly part
>> >Ought to be king, from whose rules who do swerve,
>> >Rebels to Nature, strive for their own smart.
>> > It is most true, what we call Cupid=92s dart,
>> >An image is, which for ourselves we carve;
>> >And, fools, adore in temple of our heart,
>> >Till that good God make church and churchman starve.
>> > True, that true beauty Virtue is indeed,
>> >Whereof this beauty can be but a shade,
>> >Which elements with mortal mixture breed:
>> >True, that on earth we are but pilgrims made,
>> > And should in soul up to our country move:
>> > True, and yet true that I must Stella love.
>> >
>> >
>> >1. It is a great truth that our eyes are made to be servants
>> >2. to the soul and conscience, and that conscience
>> >3. should govern us, and that those who deviate from the dictates of
>> >conscience
>> >4. rebel against their own nature, and so their efforts are directed
>> >to their own harm.
>>
>> =09A quibble: I don't think those that deviate from the dictates of
>> conscience are rebelling against their own nature - they're just
>> following through on their own nature. I think the "nature" mentioned is
>> meant in the sense of God's intended plan, against which these people
>> are rebelling by following their own inclinations.
>
>They are following their inclinations against their nature. We are both
>corporal and spiritual; we have a body that will die and a soul that may
>live forever, yet the inclinations of the body can lead the soul to ruin.
>Look at it from a non-religious angle. How do we define our species? We
>are "Homo sapiens," but aren't lovers often tempted to act contrary to the
>dictates of reason -- the very faculty that we think is definitive of our
>natures?
Okay, so how about this then: in the natural order
of things, we should obey our 'higher' inclinations, and to
do otherwise is to rebel against the natural order of
things?
>> >5. It is a great truth that what we call love
>> >6. is an idol which we manufacture for ourselves to worship;
>>
>> =09Interesting idea that we "manufacture [it] for ourselves". Makes
>> it sound like a deliberate and conscious choice.
>
>Perhaps he loves love, or the idea of being in love, more than he loves
>his beloved; even if his love were sincere, his expressions of that
>sincerity -- his poems -- are things he manufactures, things that come
>with a built-in insincerity.. We admire the craft, the wit, the brilliance
>of the poems, but we admire Sidney when we admire his poems, we do not
>admire his beloved.
>
>Lorenz Hart said, "Falling in love with love is falling for make-believe."
>The poet loves the image of his beloved that he has fashioned. The poet
>loves his poems (and we readers may love his poems). His muse told him to
>look into his heart and write; in his heart there is an image of his
>beloved, but all he can depict is his own heart, his own falling in love
>with love. Is this the love of a beloved or is this narcissism? One of
>the problems Sidney deals with repeatedly is whether it is possible to
>"love in truth" and to show what that love is without feigning. Every
>sonnet is both a tribute to a love that may be true and a false image of
>what a true love might be.
Some interesting stuff there, Terry. But the poet
says: "...what WE call Cupid's dart...", not "...what *I*
call Cupid's dart...". He seems to be making a general
statement applicable to all. And yet as Robert pointed out,
he ends the poem by writing "...I *must* Stella love."
Okay, I'm confused, then.
>> >7. and like fools we continue to worship it in the shrine of our
>> >secret hearts
>> >8. until the good, true God destroys both shrine and worshipper.
>> >
>> >9. Another truth, that the real beauty is in fact virtue,
>> >10. of which the beauty we see with our eyes is only a shadow,
>> >11. created mortal, because it consists of a mixture of elements;
>> >12. another truth, that we are only visitors to this earth
>> >13. and ought to practise, within our souls, moving up towards heaven;
>> >14. all true, but still it is true that I am compelled to love Stella.
>>
>> =09Any ideas where the names Astrophel and Stella came from? Are
>> they part of some mythology, or did Sidney create them himself?
>
>"Stella for star," as Blanche DuBois would say. "Astrophil" is
>"star-lover," but "-phil" is also Philip Sidney, as was the shepherd
>knight Philisides. Stella has a sparrow that shares Sidney's name.
Thank-you for that.
>
>> =09A strange attitude, some Elizabethans had. The idea seems to be
>> that *any* love-struck attraction to the opposite sex (not just to
>> married ones) is somehow wrong, and contrary to what we *should* be
>> doing.
>
>Ann Landers used to hawk a pamphlet called "Love and Sex, and How to Tell
>the Difference." Do you really think we moderns have completely given up
>the notion that love should be selfless, that it should be an expression
>of the best that we are capable of? Whether one believes in souls and
>eternity or not, I think most people have a sense of how we might be if we
>were better than we are. Do you think we moderns have not noticed that we
>are subject to lusts that seem imperfectly aligned with what we think we
>mean by "love"?
Perhaps I'm misreading, but Sidney seems to be
dismissing all forms of sexual love. He seems to be
advocating some sort of spiritual progress towards whatever:
"And should in soul, up to our country move". It's as if
he's addressing some Buddhist monks, or the crowd in
Shakespeare's "Love's Labor's Lost".
>> Not a sentiment one hears much nowadays.
>
>Listen harder, and you will hear it.
Terry's a poet, too, perhaps?
- Gary Kosinsky
Gary Kosinsky
(Robert Stonehouse) wrote:
>>> Line 10 seems to be Platonic: the idea (or form) of Beauty is laid up
>>> in heaven and all earthly beauties are imperfect copies of it. (In
>>> Plato's Cave, they are likened to shadows.) The notion in line 11 is
>>> that pure elements are indestructible, and anything mortal must be
>>> made of a mixture of elements and so be destroyed by the dissolution
>>> of the mixture. It is an old one in Greek philosophy - pre-Socratic.
>>
>>Certainly not Platonic in the sense of Platonic love, as described in
>>the "Symposium," because love for another human being is rejected
>>outright, and in the Platonic scheme it would be accepted as a step
>>towards learning about Divine love.
>
>Plato's Theory of Ideas is undoubtedly Platonic. (The Cave comes at
>the beginning of book 7 of the Republic.) I have never been clear what
>people mean by platonic love and so tend to avoid the phrase, and
>pedantically spell it with a small 'p'.
Any recommendations for a book about Platonism in
Shakespeare? I suspect that this business of 'forms' is
going to arise in the sonnet discussion.
- Gary Kosinsky
LynnE
"Terry Ross" <tr...@bcpl.net> wrote in message
news:Pine.GSO.4.58.0406060636460.3523@mail...
Lynne: There's something wrong with my computer. I'll have to mark where
Terry speaks and when I (with much less authority) speak.
Terry: They are following their inclinations against their nature. We are
both
corporal and spiritual; we have a body that will die and a soul that may
live forever, yet the inclinations of the body can lead the soul to ruin.
Lynne: Yes, I think that you are iterating an idea prevalent at the time.
There were echoes of this in Bussy, I remember.
Terry: Look at it from a non-religious angle. How do we define our species?
We
are "Homo sapiens," but aren't lovers often tempted to act contrary to the
dictates of reason -- the very faculty that we think is definitive of our
natures?
Lynne: Yes.
>
>
> >5. It is a great truth that what we call love
> >6. is an idol which we manufacture for ourselves to worship;
>
> Interesting idea that we "manufacture [it] for ourselves". Makes
> it sound like a deliberate and conscious choice.
Terry: Perhaps he loves love, or the idea of being in love, more than he
loves
his beloved;
Lynne: Somehow it is more like Romeo and Rosalind than Romeo and Juliet, so
I'd agree with you there too.
Terry: even if his love were sincere, his expressions of that
sincerity -- his poems -- are things he manufactures, things that come
with a built-in insincerity.. We admire the craft, the wit, the brilliance
of the poems, but we admire Sidney when we admire his poems, we do not
admire his beloved.
Lynne: There isn't much about Stella yet that isn't formulaic and isn't
telling us more about Sidney than his beloved. Perhaps that's why I'm having
a difficult time getting into this sonnet sequence. It seems much more
self-conscious than the Shakespeare.
Terry: Lorenz Hart said, "Falling in love with love is falling for
make-believe."
Lynne: Do you believe that, Terry, or do you think Hart is talking about
infatuation? Is there a difference between infatuation and being "in" love,
and is "being in love" the same as loving someone? Would you say Sidney is
infatuated? Or would you say he really loves "Stella"? And can one really
show love in a poem, or does one merely show an aspect of oneself loving? I
see you've answered some of this below.
To me, in some of the first 126 sonnets, Shakespeare seems really tortured.
Is this more a reflection of real love?
Lynne, no doubt asking stupid questions but confused at why she can dissolve
into Shakespeare's verse but not Sidney's.
snip
biancas842001
Not quite what you asked, but in looking to ensure I hadn't
misremembered what I'd read about Dante, I found the following in
Martha C. Nussbaum's "Upheavals of Thought: The Intelligence of
Emotions." I find Nussbaum extremely difficult, but taken a sentence
or two at a time, she's generally clear.
Nussbaum is speaking of the passage, in the 30th Canto of the
"Purgatorio," where Dante first recognizes Beatrice: "First, [this
passage] claims that this Christian love is a love of the
_individual_: both of the person's separate agency and of his
qualitative particularity. ... Second, with its unique stress on the
poet's name, the scene suggests ... that it is in the context of
Christian salvation that we find the _truest_ and _most adequate_ love
of the individual, a love that most completely sees and loves the
individual in all of his or her distinctness and uniqueness. ...
Finally, the passage seems to claim that Christian love is really
_love_ of the individual: it is not some distant contemplative
appreciation, but 'the ancient flame,' the very passion that Dante
felt for Beatrice on Earth, a passion linked with wonder, awe, and
profound upheaval." (560)
Part One of the book is titled "Need and Recognition" and treats a
theory of the emotions (with the Stoics often used as a basis for
comparison). Part Two deals with compassion (which the Stoics
derided). Part Three is titled "Ascents of Love"; the subjects
treated are:
- "Contemplative Creativity: Plato, Spinoza, Proust"
- "The Christian Ascent: Augustine"
- "The Christian Ascent: Dante"
- "The Romantic Ascent: Emily Brontė"
- "The Romantic Ascent: Mahler"
- "Democratic Desire: Walt Whitman"
- "The Transfiguration of Everyday Life: Joyce"
I hope this helps some who are able to read it. I've made (slightly)
more headway with her "Poetic Justice," a much shorter book in which
Nussbaum contends that lawyers and law students should read less
economics and more literature.
----
Bianca S.