“my sweet Saynt” (l. 4), following in the style of Italian
and French love lyrics and SONNETs. Instead of com-
paring her to a goddess, as is common in other English
sonnets and the Italian predecessors, Spenser keeps
the focus on the woman’s spiritual beauty, a concept
that he continues in EPITHALAMION (the marriage poem)
and expands upon in his EPIC poem The FAERIE QUEEN.
The poem uses the ITALIAN (PETRARCHAN) SONNET
form, setting the situation up in the OCTAVE, although
it employs the Spenserian sonnet rhyme scheme. Dur-
ing the holy season of Lent, men’s attention should be
focused on their devotion; therefore, the speaker seeks
some appropriate way to give service to his “Saynt,”
who is his beloved and the object of his devotion.
Instead of residing in a church, this saint’s image
resides in a temple located in the speaker’s mind, so
that day and night he can attend to her just as the
priests attend to the statues of the saints found in
churches. By setting up this comparison, the speaker
clearly confl ates religious and secular love.
After setting up this ideal picture of the beloved, the
turn of the SESTET takes the speaker down a non-Chris-
tian path with a higher form of sacrifi ce. He announces
a plan to build for her, the source of his happiness, an
altar that will “appease” (l. 9) her anger, with the impli-
cation that the only reason for her “ire” (l. 10) is his
love for her; on that altar his heart will be sacrifi ced,
burnt by the fl ames of “pure and chaste desire” (l. 12).
If the beloved, who is now referred to as “goddess” (l.
13), accepts this offering, it will be one of her most
precious mementos. The imagery found here in the
sestet is more traditionally associated with the
Petrarchan convention from which Spenser is writing.
The archaic spelling he uses in the sequence allows a
play on words of heart with “hart” in line 11, which
continues with dearest and “deerest” in line 14 to
expand the possible interpretations of the sestet from a
fi gurative to a literal sacrifi ce.
See also AMORETTI (OVERVIEW).
Peggy J. Huey
Amoretti: Sonnet 30 (“My love is lyke to iyse,
and I to fyre”) EDMUND SPENSER (1595) One of
the many SONNETs on the lover’s pain, Sonnet 30 of
EDMUND SPENSER’s Amoretti is tempered by a humorous
turn of phrase, playing with poetic convention as well
as with natural order. It may also be classifi ed as one of
the “cruell fayre” sonnets so characteristic of this poetic
form and the COURTLY LOVE tradition. In this case, the
CONCEITs are organized around the contrast between
ice (or iyse) and fi re, a Petrarchan cliché taken to
extremes: common contrast rendered absurd through
repetition. “My Love is lyke to iyse and I to fyre” (l. 1)
begins the poem, so we have contrasting opposites at
fi rst glance. Simultaneously, these symbolize constancy
in the Lady and volatility in the lover as the narrative
progresses through paradox as well as opposites. The
major focus of all three quatrains is a common theme
of the suffering, here represented in the various aspects
of fi re: “hot desire” (l. 3), “boyling sweat” (l. 7), and the
power to melt, all of which have no effect upon the
Lady’s “sencelesse cold” (l. 11).
Unlike the usual celebration of the lover’s mortal
and senseless suffering, this sonnet ends with the cele-
bration of a mystery. The lover’s hot desire cannot melt
the Lady’s cold, and his intensifi ed burning only hard-
ens it more. The contrasts are so extensively pursued
that the oppositional qualities of ice and fi re are reeval-
uated, as well as their conceit within the whole range
of love poetry. Instead of a means to arouse sympathy
for the lover, the unusual relationship between ice and
fi re becomes a valorization of love itself. Love is ele-
vated because it “can alter all the course of kynd” (l.
14) and, by extension, overcome the natural forces.
Ordinarily, fi re would melt ice not harden it, but the
force of love creates an unnatural situation.
The humor mentioned above is in this paradox,
which violates both the natural order and the expected
convention of the love-sonnet. Most commentary on
this sonnet focuses on the conventional phrases rather
than their unconventional resolution of love’s tran-
scendence, but recent criticism has explored these
twists. In particular, a religious reading suggests the
contrast between divine fi re and human ice: The cold
soul is hardened by God, for whom all things are pos-
sible. Other critics have called attention to the con-
trived language, the archaic spellings and diction
strongly represented here, especially “desyre,” “iyse,”
and “fyre.” Most question whether or not the practice
contributes to the sonnet’s effectiveness.16 AMORETTI: SONNET 30