Compare and contrast the presentation of relationships between men and women in two

texts in this period

Notes
- Establish: Primarily seen in the context of courtship, love poetry, adoration
- Always presented as lovers

→ From here, consider the order of points:

- Point 2: in a love relationship, the man is always presented as a worshipping
supplicant, treating her like an unattainable goddess
- Point 3: depiction of unequal relationship, cruelty presented in a range of
ways.
- Sidney: Stella not actively cruel to Astrophil. Torment is a result of the
way in which he pines for her despite her lack of reciprocation
- Marvell: Mistress compared to a “murderess”, a sense of her
intentional cruelty. **Juliana’s beauty scorching and overwhelming; a
different kind of country lover
- Marvell acknowledges and writes within existing traditions of
cavalier, metaphysical, pastoral love → in the presentation of damon,
while he sees himself as a great lover there is a sense that he is rustic,
not in control, unlike the noble Astrophil
- Subversion of poetic traditions
- Even though juliana is depicted as a figure like stella but she is a lot
less refined → stella’s beams strake reason
- Juliana compared to the uncontrolled young boy
phaeton
- Point 4: Adoration as on one hand uplifting but also can be the ultimate fall

→ Therefore, even as Marvell writes in a certain way that adheres to tradition, he examines
and subverts these accepted ideas through the multiplicity of lovers such as Damon
(rustic) /Juliana (a figure like Stella, but much less refined)
→ For once, Sidney adheres to the conventions of love poetry, whereas Marvell’s is a bit
more critical, humorous, hyperbolic
→ From here, group points into camps of convention vs interrogation in order to make a
statement about the genre and collection

Celestial realm, stella as a star, astrophil as distant from her yet endlessly adoring vs marvell
who is a bit , examines accepted ideas about the relationship btw men and women

- Define “relationship” in marvell and sidney: most frequently as courtship, adoration,

and the pursuit of the woman by the man
- Eg. through a battle
- Go beyond similarities

To Do
- Order the points
- Consider ideas that go beyond similarities
 1. Both Marvell and Sidney acknowledge the composite nature of the relationship
between men and women, which consists of physical admiration and attraction as
well as a more elevated, virtuous conjunction.
- Marvell acknowledges both sides of a woman’s beauty.
- Marvell’s The Fair Singer
- “her eyes my heart does bind/ she with her voice might captivate my
mind”. Parallel structure of eyes (beauty)/voice (association with air,
spiritual quality) suggest not only captivation based on physical
attraction, but also on the basis of her rarefied qualities
- Hair - linked to convention -as the source of admiration/ subject of
praise
- Eyes: linked to mary magdalene (glancing mention)
- Marvell’s To His Coy Mistress presents an image of consummation between
man and woman, defined largely by physical intimacy
- In this poem, also refers to the physical beauty (in the 1st stanza)
- Phallic image of “worms try[ing] that long-preserved virginity”,
suggestive of penetration and sexual dimension to relationship, where
the invasive, foul suggestion conjures a much more pleasant
alternative that Marvell proposes through consummation
- “Sport”, suggesting passion and friskiness ugh,,,
- “Like amorous birds of prey” the comparison and devaluation of men
and women’s passion to that of animals suggests the bestial nature of
this physical engagement that is driven by sexual instinct???
- In response, Sidney synthesises both these physical and spiritual components of
men and women’s relationship through his presentation of Astrophil’s love for Stella.
- Sonnet 25 Astrophil declares that “Virtue [...] took Stella’s shape” and in Sonnet 4,
that Stella “shrines in flesh so true a deity” → suggesting that Stella in her womanly
vessel is the embodiment of virtue and that virtue is manifested in her beauty,
which is defined now by its association with spiritual/emotional quality than
superficial physicality, more noble and enduring
- → Thus when Astrophil declares that he “do[es] burn in love”, the suggested passion
and sensuality in “burn” is turned around by his observation that “virtue’s great
beauty” is “prove[n]” in Stella’s face, suggesting that his love for Stella’s physical
beauty is tantamount to loving virtue and therefore more rarefied, not defined by its
physicality
→ Redefines the relationship between men and women, where the physical and spiritual basis for
their relationship are in fact not mutually exclusive, but interwoven.

2. This relationship between man and the woman he loves is hyperbolised into one between
an unattainable goddess and a worshipping supplicant. The woman, idealised as the apex of
perfection and beauty, is almost a divine figure whose charm is irresistible. The man, who is
inevitably attracted by her qualities, falls helplessly in love.
- Marvell The Gallery: Clora
- Clora, the beloved, is depicted as a goddess in the classical traditions,
immortal for her perfect beauty, purity and preciousness
 - She is likened to “Aurora in the dawn”, the deity of morning light, who
is celebrated for her innocence and beauty. Her physical perfection
and desirability are captured in her nudity, as she “slumbering lies…/
And sketches out her milky thighs”. The soft white colour of her skin
highlights not only her physical allure, but also her tenderness and
purity, which is further shown by the animals that accompany her -
the “harmless”, gentle doves. Her divine status is cemented in the
immortal objects that attend her presence: the celestial harmony of
music sung by the “morning choir”, as well as the godly nourishment
“manna”. ⇒ in heightening the stature of this beautiful woman to that of an
immortal, the man is shown in a posture of worship, praising the
goddess’ perfection.
- She is also likened to Venus, the goddess of Love and Beauty herself.
Her beauty is accorded with a mythical quality of ultimate perfection,
shown in the blooming moment of creation - of Venus rising from the
waves.

3. An unequal relationship between the lover and his beloved is set up as the lover’s
amorous passion is unrequited by the cruel mistress who refuses his advances, reflecting an
imbalance in power. The mistress is powerful with her charm and beauty, and seems to use
her advantages to deliberately inflict pain upon the lover who suffers immensely, both
physically and emotionally. [lover as VICTIM beloved as TORTURER]
- Murderess + Enchantress aspects in The Gallery
- Gallery
- Clora first depicted as “an inhuman murderess” who presides over the
destruction of the lover-victim
- armed with a “fertile shop” of “cruel arts” which she can ruthlessly
deploy to “[torment]” the pining lover, positioning him as a helpless
subject in face of her “[tyrannical]” beauty
- later, clora adopts the role of an “enchantress” who does not give the
lover any respite even after his death (“vexing thy restless lover’s
ghost”) and gruesomely “rave[s] / over his entrails”, testament to her
horrendous treatment of the lover’s carcass
- Damon the Mower
- mower’s suffering premised on the “hot desires” fuelled by “Juliana’s
scorching beams”, which have no outlet for expression given the cold
aloofness of “her icy breast” → complete lack of sympathy for his plight
- despite the mower’s characterisation of himself as an all-powerful
figure who reigns supreme in the pastoral sphere (“this scythe of mine
discovers wide more ground than all his sheep do hide”), this heroic
image/stature is severely undermined by the condition of love that has
thoroughly and relentlessly consumed him
- Imagery of love having “sowed” the thorny “thistles”
- recognises physical “hurts” as “slight” in comparison to the more grievous
harm inflicted on “those that die by love’s despite” → tragically resigned to
his fate of death given that only death can end his psychological
turmoil/emotional suffering
- The Mower’s Song
 - the mower imagines his tragic entombment as the “meadows” will be “the
heraldry” “with which” the Mower “shall adorn [his] tomb” → withering
grass undercutting the seemingly noble/aristocratic image of honour
- “For Juliana comes, and she / what I do to the grass, does to my thoughts and
me” → use of enjambment in the refrain establishes a parallel between the
mower’s dominance over the pastoral landscape and juliana’s relentless
subjugation of him → mower mourns his helplessness as lover-victim and
irrevocable path towards the metaphorical condition of death through
unrequited love
- Sidney offers a new perspective on this infliction, suggesting that it might even be
embraced by the man
- Sonnet 2
- “I saw, and liked; I liked, but loved not; / I loved” → incremental nature by
which love “had full conquest got”, as Astrophil is gradually overmastered by
love
- “I call it praise to suffer tyranny” → however, resistance against “lost liberty”
soon gives way to an active celebration of his state of misery and servitude
- Sonnet 28
- “reins of love i love, though never slake”

4. Transience of relationships and what this reflects about how men and women should
relate with each other
- In To His Coy Mistress, the sexual/romantic relationship between man and
woman is presented as intrinsically bounded by ‘time’s winged chariot
hurrying near’ : this means that the time for courtship and seduction is limited
and therefore immediate action and consummation is needed
- Marvell hypothesises a world in which courtship can truly be as lavish as
poetry imagines: ‘a hundred years should go to praise / thine eyes’
- Implies that this is ideal (for lady you deserve this state)
- At the same time he mildly mocks this idea:
- Slow expanding (and thus constant? eternal?) love is mocked as
‘vegetable’, imputing some sort of rigid stiffness and hollowness (lack
of animal, visceral passion) to such love
- This means that Marvell argues that the traditional conventions for formal
courtship between man and woman in which the man ceaseless adulates
each inch of the woman’s beauty can no longer apply
- He reminds us that this is impossible because ‘Time’s chariot is hurrying
near’:
- He then presents another set of impossibilities to show us how the time in
which love-making can happen is short: that is, the impossibility of love in the
grave
■ ‘nor in thy marble vault shall sound / my echoing song’
■ ‘The grave’s a fine and private place, / But none, I think, do there
embrace’
● Thus Marvell can justify the conclusion of his argument which is that we should
‘rather at once our time devour / than languish in his slow chapped power’: meaning
that we should immediately consume our time in pleasures rather than linger at wait
for it to consume us with death:
 ● the intensity, even ferocity of the images Marvell uses to symbolise frenzied
consummation:
○ ‘Tear our pleasures with rough strife’: words like ‘tear’, ‘rough’ imply a
maddened, unthinking forcefulness and haste which represents the urgency
created by this time constraint

● On the other hand, Nymph Complaining on the death of her Fawn presents
male/female relationships as passing not merely due to mortality and all, but also due
to the treachery and inconstancy of human lovers:
● The nymph expresses regret over ‘unconstant sylvio, when yet / I had not found him
counterfeit’ (use of ‘yet’ emphasises how Sylvio would eventually be found out as
false):
● The fear of the possibility of unfaithfulness also extends to the fawn as well: ‘had it
lived long, I do not know / Whether it too might have done so / As Sylvio did’: the
implication that within such affectionate relationships there’s the tendency for love to
grow cold: this unfaithfulness is reflected in the characterisation of man’s love as ‘the
love of false and cruel men’: which shows that men are seen as naturally fickle:
● This presentation of men as the cruel party very interestingly reverses the conceit of
the ‘cruel mistress’

5. Both Sidney and Marvell illustrate the attempts by men to win the heart of their mistress.
That said, Sidney is more tentative and cautious in the expression of his desires for and the
probability of the mistress’ reciprocation, as compared to Marvell’s assertive, logical attempt
to reason the mistress into returning his love.
- Sonnet 1
- Sidney envisions a graceful series of causation which will end up with
him acquiring Stella’s reciprocal affection
- He hopes that his poem will instill in Stella “pleasure”, cause her to
“read”, “know” and then “pity” his devotions to her, eventually winning
her “grace”
- However, the repetition of tentative qualifiers like “might” suggest a
sense of cautiousness in his expression of hope for Stella to notice his
work
- The long chain of clauses stringed up by semi-colons and commas
also emphasise the idea that this vision is contingent on the fulfillment
of each and every single part, hence probabilistic at best
- To his coy mistress
- Puts forth a more aggressive line of argument premised on harsh truth
- “But at my back I always hear/ Time’s wingèd chariot hurrying near”
accelerates the pace of the poem through clipped syllables.
- General reality of tempus fugit is directed personally to the mistress as
the poet lays bare the reality of her mortality, stating bluntly “your
quaint honour turn to dust;/ And into ashes all my lust”. Chiasmic
construction of honour/lust and ashes/dust directs the graphic reality
of death towards the mistress, where the bleak image of one’s
complete dissolution (that removes the very possibility of physical
love), puts forth a strong argument for the lady to give into the man’s
advances and presently engage in consummate love
BRAINSTORM

(if you have objections, pick smth else)

Maybe we could start with like a brainstorming poem list with some very general ideas? Or
idm just diving in
1. Women as the idealised love yearned after by men: in a purer less voluptuous sense
than the below : this idealisation is achieved by the equation of feminine beauty to
virtue itself
● Sonnet 25(above PT 1) : Virtue ‘took Stella’s shape, that she / To mortal eyes
might sweetly shine in her’ →
○ this generates the effect that Astrophil ‘do[th] burn in love’
○ the reference to the feelings of adoration as ‘strange flames of love’
implies that there is something extraordinary (strange) and hence
rarified about this love: given that it is love of virtue it is free of all base
sinfulness
● This over-idealisation is also seen in Sonnet 9 which likens Stella’s face to
‘Queen Virtue’s court,’ and depicts her eyes as the seat of ‘this heavenly
guest’: the depiction therefore of the woman as something unearthly or
celestial
● Men’s attitude: worship, adoration, untainted by base desires
● Men & woman ⇒ goddess & supplicant/knight
a. Stella as the height of ambition
b. Queen virtue’s court?
2. In contrast to the idealisation of woman as vessels of Virtue and their rarified,
spiritual natures, Marvell deals far more viscerally with the physical charms and
attractions of the fairer sex
a. Fair singer:
i. “She with her eyes my heart does bind” “she with her voice might captivate
my mind” → metaphors of captivity and imprisonment - men as the helpless
lover
1. Focus on the seductive power of various aspects of the
woman’s sensual attractions: her eyes and voice
ii. “How should i avoid to be her slave, whose subtle art invisibly can wreathe
my fetters of the very air I breathe” → from sensual, physical beauty to
charm transmitted through air that captures the soul
b. Sonnet 23: “önly Stella’s eyes and Stella’s heart”
3. As a result of man’s inexorable attraction to women, courtesy of 1 and 2 above,
women are presented as wielding much power to torment the
a. Gallery
i. Clora first depicted as “an inhuman murderess” who presides over the
destruction of the lover-victim
ii. armed with a “fertile shop” of “cruel arts” which she can ruthlessly
deploy to “[torment]” the pining lover, positioning him as a helpless
subject in face of her “[tyrannical]” beauty
iii. later, clora adopts the role of an “enchantress” who does not give the
lover any respite even after his death (“vexing thy restless lover’s
 ghost”) and gruesomely “rave[s] / over his entrails”, testament to her
horrendous treatment of the lover’s carcass
b. Damon Mower
i. mower’s suffering premised on the “hot desires” fuelled by “Juliana’s
scorching beams”, which have no outlet for expression given the cold
aloofness of “her icy breast” → complete lack of sympathy for his plight
ii. despite the mower’s characterisation of himself as an all-powerful
figure who reigns supreme in the pastoral sphere (“this scythe of mine
discovers wide more ground than all his sheep do hide”), this heroic
image/stature is severely undermined by the condition of love that has
thoroughly and relentlessly consumed him
iii. Imagery of love having “sowed” the thorny “thistles”
iv. recognises physical “hurts” as “slight” in comparison to the more grievous
harm inflicted on “those that die by love’s despite” → tragically resigned to
his fate of death given that only death can end his psychological
turmoil/emotional suffering
c. Sonnet 20
- Sidney suggests that the process of falling in love with Stella is painful
- He introduces the poem via the phrase “[f]ly, fly, my friends”,
hence taking up the persona of a noble soldier who is
selflessly telling his comrades to flee, a war imagery that
already sets the scene of pain and suffering
- By depicting Cupid’s traditional arrow as a more brutal “bullet”,
Sidney departs from the classical image of bow and arrow to
intensify his victimisation and vulnerability as a lover,
emphasising the pain he experiences in his love for Stella by
conflating this experience with death
- The alliteration of the explosive “b” sound emphasises
the lethality and pernance of this state of suffering he
endures
d. Sonnet 7
- Sidney suggests that the beauty of Stella has inflicted immense pain
on the lovers whose desires go unrequited
- In the conclusion of the poem, the “black[ness]” of Stella’s
eyes takes on its original, mournful meaning as Sidney
reminds us of his pitiable situation as one of those thwarted
lovers, who are here cast as “dead” soldiers defeated in their
failed attempts to win her heart
- The image of fallen soldiers emphasises the extent to which
they are emotionally scarred and battled by her unrequited
love
4. Man and woman achieving ideal love relationship (connected in souls)
a. The definition of Love
b. Fairfax and Veranm
c.
5. Women as the object of sexual desire to men (hm i feel like 5 and 6 could be
wrapped under 1 somehow)
- To his coy mistress
 6. Both Sidney and Marvell illustrates the attempts by men to win the heart of their
mistress. That said, Sidney is more tentative and cautious in the expression of his
desires for and the probability of the mistress’ reciprocation, as compared to
Marvell’s assertive, logical attempt to reason the mistress into returning his love.
a. Sonnet 1
- Sidney envisions a graceful series of causation which will end up with
him acquiring Stella’s reciprocal affection
- He hopes that his poem will instill in Stella “pleasure”, cause
her to “read”, “know” and then “pity” his devotions to her,
eventually winning her “grace”
- However, the repetition of tentative qualifiers like “might”
suggest a sense of cautiousness in his expression of hope for
Stella to notice his work
- The long chain of clauses stringed up by semi-colons and
commas also emphasise the idea that this vision is contingent
on the fulfillment of each and every single part, hence
probabilistic at best
b. To his coy mistress
7. Women as objects of devotion by men
a. Sonnet 18: “Lose no more for stella’s sake”
b. Sonnet 27: “thought to highest place bends all his powers, even unto Stella’s
grace”
8. Women as a muse (as inspiration? Is this a different point actually not show
a. Writing sonnets

Note: the gallery is a presentation of every form of women, as depicted by men

1. Inhuman murderess
2. Aurora in the dawn → “wooing doves…harmless loves”
3. Enchantress: vexing… Restless lover’s ghost
4. Tender shepherdess (ideas of simple, pure love)=> pastrol ?? can we link this to
Damon mower?