taken among scholars to be authoritative since its pub-
lication was overseen by MARY SIDNEY HERBERT, COUNT-
ESS OF PEMBROKE, the poet’s sister and editor.
Scholarly debates abound concerning efforts to
ascribe a set plot to Astrophil and Stella, and little agree-
ment exists on how to interpret the sequence’s struc-
ture. Nonetheless, a narrative does emerge. The series
contains a total of 119 poems: 108 SONNETs in either
iambic pentameter and iambic hexameter, all of which
are variations on the ENGLISH SONNET and ITALIAN
(PETRARCHAN) SONNET forms; and 11 “songs” of varying
prosody. With the exception of the Eighth Song, which
is written in the third person, the speaker of the poems
is Astrophil (“star-lover”) who is in love with Stella
(“star”).
The fi rst 35 poems introduce Stella and meditate on
Astrophil’s love for her. Sonnet 36 is the fi rst poem
that addresses Stella directly and initiates a series of
poems that attempt to obtain her affections. Sonnet 37,
the Fifth Song, and the Eighth Song hint that Stella
could already be married, which may explain her
refusal of Astrophil’s advances. Nonetheless, by Sonnet
69, Stella agrees to a virtuous reciprocal love for Astro-
phil. Astrophil breaches his promise to love her
chastely in the Second Song, stealing a kiss from Stella
as she sleeps and incurring her anger. Astrophil con-
tinues to struggle with his strong physical desire for
Stella, again seeking consummation in the Fourth
Song. Stella’s anger only cools in the Eighth Song as
the couple reconciles and she departs. The remainder
of the series bemoans the lady’s absence, ending with a
fi nal meditation on Astrophil’s continued loneliness
and despair.
Astrophil and Stella has had a signifi cant infl uence on
the development of English poetry, in part because of
Sidney’s approach to the dominant poetic infl uence of
the day: Petrarchism, the legacy of the 14th-century
Italian poet PETRARCH. Sidney’s response to the mode
of writing prescribed by Petrarchism introduced a new
era of poetic production in England. Unlike earlier
English Petrarchists, like SIR THOMAS WYATT and HENRY
HOWARD, EARL OF SURREY, Sidney did not directly trans-
late Petrarch’s poems. Yet Astrophil and Stella is highly
Petrarchan and is widely held responsible for sparking
the so-called sonnet craze of the 1590s. Sidney was so
strongly identifi ed with Petrarchism that a contempo-
rary called him “our English Petrarke.” The poems in
the sequence are spoken by Astrophil to his beloved
Stella. As is typical of Petrarchan poetry, Astrophil
loves Stella ardently and pursues her despite her tena-
cious rebuffs. The uncomplicated resemblance of this
series to Petrarch’s Rime Sparse ends here.
Astrophil and Stella has been admired since its publi-
cation because of Sidney’s effort to reinterpret, rather
than merely refl ect, Petrarchan paradigms. The pri-
mary relationship that Sidney’s sequence describes dif-
fers provocatively from the typical Petrarchan love
relationship. Sidney’s Stella does not have the combi-
nation of blond hair and blue eyes, of the typical
Petrarchan mistress. Though Stella’s hair is blond, her
eyes are black. This seemingly minor detail invokes a
new vision of the beloved, separating her from precon-
ceived notions about how the beloved, and even the
lover, should be described in verse. Thus, Sidney sets
the stage for a very different courtship.
Unlike the typical Petrarchan beloved who is
admired chastely from afar, Astrophil struggles openly
with physical desire, and his relationship with Stella
does have a physical component. Stella is married and
is certainly both worshipped and unreachable through
much of the series, but Sidney innovates by maintain-
ing a close physical proximity between lover and
beloved. In the Second Song, Astrophil kisses Stella as
she sleeps, an act that approaches violence and is
incommensurate with the distance of the typical
Petrarchan beloved. In the Fourth Song, he seeks con-
summation of their now reciprocal affection, asking
“Take me to thee, and thee to me,” to which Stella
responds, “No, no, no, no, my Deare, let be.” Though
Stella obviously refuses Astrophil’s advances, it is more
typical of Petrarchan verse to avoid such overt entreat-
ies for physical love.
Even the resolution of this sonnet sequence both
approaches and avoids Petrarchan infl uence. Petrarch’s
Laura fi nally dies, becoming absolutely unattainable.
His sequence then turns to a more virtuous meditation
on spiritual love. While Astrophil also fails to win
Stella, her life continues and Astrophil even looks,
though briefl y, to other women for solace (Sonnet
106). Although other poets of the day used PetrarchanASTROPHIL AND STELLA 35