Klaske, Carol V. “Spenser’s Amoretti and Epithalamion of
1595: Structure, Genre, Numerology.” In ELR 8 (1978):
271–295.
Lever, J. W. “The Amoretti.” In The Elizabethan Love Sonnet.
London: Methuen, 1956, 99–136.
Maclean, Hugh. Edmund Spenser’s Poetry. New York: Nor-
ton, 1968.
———, and Anne Lake Prescott, eds. Edmund Spenser’s
Poetry. New York: Norton, 1993.
Martz, Louis. “The Amoretti ‘Most Goodly Temperature.’ ”
In Form and Convention in the Poetry of Edmund Spenser,
edited by W. Nelson, 146–168. New York: Columbia
University Press, 1961.
Montrose, Louis A. “The Elizabethan Subject in the Spense-
rian Text.” In Literary Theory/Renaissance Texts, edited by
Patricia Parker and David Quint, 303–340. Baltimore:
Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986.
Spenser, Edmund. The Yale Edition of the Shorter Poems of
Edmund Spenser, edited by William A. Oram. et al. New
Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1989.
Warley, Christopher. “ ‘So Plenty Makes Me Poore’: Ireland,
Capitalism, and Class in Spenser’s Amoretti and Epithala-
mion.” ELH 63, no. 9 (2002): 567–598.
Janice M. Bogstad
Amoretti: Sonnet 1 (“Happy ye leaves when as
those lilly hands”) EDMUND SPENSER (ca. 1595)
As the fi rst SONNET in EDMUND SPENSER’s SONNET
SEQUENCE, this opening sally addresses the work holis-
tically and introduces the audience to the Lady who is
the inspiration. The “happy leaues” (leaves, e.g., pages)
addressed in the fi rst line are successively identifi ed
with the poetic work, which will hopefully be read by
the Lady in question. The hands and eyes of the
beloved are fi rst addressed—hands to hold the pages
and eyes to read its contents. Thus, recurrent themes
are established at the outset, in addition to what is gen-
erally considered to be the overall thematic concern,
the mutability of life and, by extension, a woman’s
physical beauty. There is also a bid for immortality in
the written work. Likewise established is the reversal
of the usual patriarchal relationship between the lordly
man and otherwise submissive woman, a reversal that
characterizes the love-sonnet form. The early lines
establish the Lady’s control over the fate of the written
work, culminating in the assertion that it is written for
her: “seeke her to please alone” (l. 13). The poet’s
words demonstrate a guise of humility, that the Lady
will “deigne to sometimes to look” (l. 6). However,
some critics make the equation between the Lady who
is conventionally invoked and any reader of the text
who can satisfy the poet’s stated desire to please the
reader as his loftiest goal. Thus, each ENCOMIUM to the
Lady is one to the reader, and each gesture of humility
by the author is a valorization of his work.
Each of the three QUATRAINs also juxtaposes two lines
detailing the Lady’s lofty act of noticing the poetic lines
with responses characterizing their author’s humble
efforts to create these “captive lines” written with “sor-
rows” and “teares” and, in the third quatrain, a soul that
“long lacked foode.” Yet the many references to the
value of the written work are reinforced with the two
lines of the sonnet calling attention to the aforemen-
tioned book with the physical “leaues” on which it is
printed, lines in which the sentiments are encoded and
rhymes which make up the craft of the poem (l. 13).
Most explications of the Amoretti refer to a conven-
tional love-sonnet progression through the stages of a
lover’s courtship, focusing either on a calendar of days
before the actual wedding on June 11, 1594, which is
immortalized in Spenser’s EPITHALAMION, or on the con-
stancy of the Lady’s pride and the volatility of the
speaker’s reaction; however, this fi rst sonnet also fore-
grounds its contrivance. The object of the sequence is
clearly the creation of a written work, as well as a dem-
onstration of the poet’s ability to do so. As several crit-
ics have pointed out, Amoretti’s sonnet sequence is
about writing poetry and Sonnet 1, along with Sonnets
33 and 80 (see below), which allude to the poet’s com-
pletion of Book 6 of The FAERIE QUEENE, fi rmly estab-
lished that desire.
See also AMORETTI (OVERVIEW).FURTHER READING
Judson, A. C. “Amoretti, Sonnet I.” MLN 58, no. 7 (1943):
548–550.
Janice M. BogstadAmoretti: Sonnet 4 (“New yeare forth looking
out of Janus gate”) EDMUND SPENSER (1595) Son-
net 4 of Amoretti is at once humorous and profane,
underscoring the inevitable consummation of courtshipAMORETTI: SONNET 4 13