Introduction:

Both Sidney and Marvell present relationships between men and women as romantic ones between the lover and his Mistress. Presenting the traditional
Petrarchan relationship of the supplicant lover to a powerful, often cruel, mistress, both poets makes clear the power dynamic that arises between man and
woman because of the man’s unrequited love for her, though the nobility of this love between man and woman differs throughout Marvell’s poetry, as he
distinguishes between those of noble birth and rural stature. While Marvell values spiritual, emotional love between man and woman more highly than a
physical, sensual relationship, Sidney conflates the two, ennobling the relationship. Finally, both poets present the conception of the relationships between
men and women as one that is out of mortal control, and ultimately a result of higher powers controlling their fate.

Sidney Marvell
The power dynamic of a supplicant lover and an unattainable cold mistress is a situation created as a result of unrequited love between a man and a
woman. This relationship dynamic is expressed by both Sidney and Marvell through the inequality of the relationship.
The mistress is characterised to be a powerful, almost divine being capable of inflicting harm on the lover, and thus is presented as one far more powerful than the
mortal lover, causing the passive lover to be unable to resist.
Sonnet 9: The Fair Singer:
“Of touch they are, and poor I am their straw” “My disentangled soul itself might save, Breaking the curled trammels of her
● Stella’s eyes are referred to as “touch”, that can quickly and entirely hair”
consume Astrophil, who is made of destructible, flammable “straw”, ● Marvell presents the image of the Mistress’s “curled” hair as a net that
susceptible to Stella’s capacity to burn him. The image of “straw” ensnares the Lover’s “soul”, making it difficult to be “disentangled” and
getting set alight is one of complete overpowering and consumption by escape, emphasizing the active power of the mistress as she captures the
the flames, making clear to us the extent of Stella’s destructive power. weakened lover’s heart.
“subtle art invisibly can wreathe, My fetters of the very air I breathe”
Sonnet 12/17: ● Firstly, the skill with which the mistress captures the lover is made clear,
● Similarly to The Fair Singer, Stella’s “locks” are “day-nets” that can so in that her methods are elusive and “subtle”, difficult to escape as they
effectively trap and entangle unsuspecting lovers, to the extent that the are “invisible” and as intangible as “air”, which surrounds him entirely.
God of Love himself, Cupid, uses Stella as part of his artillery, elevating ● What is essential for the lover to “breathe” becomes a weapon to trap
Stella’s power to one that is godly in its strength. him as he is “fetter[ed]” by “air”.
 ● “Of Stella’s brows make him two better bows, And in her eyes of arrows
infinite” - Stella as the means of creation of Cupid’s arsenal, that is far The Gallery:
superior and long-lasting than what he had before.
“Thy fertile shop of cruel arts”/”Engines more keen than ever yet”
● The Mistress is presented as having a whole trove of “cruel arts” to
attack and overpower the lover with, her “shop” “fertile” and “engines”
primed and “more keen than ever” - all this creates a scene where the
mistress is more than appropriately equipped to confront and control
the lover.
Even the “entrails” of the lover are used and taken by the mistress, as she
overpowers and uses him even after his death.

The mistress’s control over the lover is further reinforced in the way that the lover’s thoughts and actions become utterly consumed by the Mistress. In Sidney’s case,
Astrophil forgoes traditional notions of success and the expectations placed upon him because of his noble birthright, devoting his time and effort to write about his
lover. For Marvell, however, the extent of the lover’s preoccupation with his mistress is made all the more intense, as the relationship and the process of loving
disrupts and overtakes one’s entire lifespan.

Writing Sonnets: The Mower to the Glowworms:

● “That she (dear she) might take some pleasure of my pain” (1) -
Astrophil makes clear that the primary purpose of his writing is for
Stella herself, to give her “pleasure” even as he himself feels “pain”.
Astrophil’s devotion to Stella is further reinforced by the tenderness
evoked as he refers to her as “dear she”.
● “Now employ the remnant of my wit” (2) - whatever shred of “wit”
Astrophil has left is devoted to writing about Stella, the word “remnant”
implying that what he has left is but a bare, scarce amount, and yet he
chooses to spend it on her.
● “all the map of my state I display, When trembling voice brings forth, The Fair Singer
that I do Stella love.” (6) - Astrophil bares himself and shows his most
● The glowworms guide mowers who “have lost their aim” and “after
foolish fires do stray” - damon loses his way as he is distracted by his
passionate love for Juliana, as it is likened to a “fire”. He recognises how
vain his love is however, as it is “foolish” and simply distracts him from
his purpose in life: to mow grass
● “She my mind hath so displaced” - quite directly shows how she fills his
thoughts, to the point where she ‘displaces’ his mind and ensures that he
only thinks of her and nothing else.
● (So irresistible, I must fall in love w her)
 vulnerable state, declaring his love with intense emotion. Despite his ● Ultimately, all ‘resistance against her is vain’ where it is
despair and pain, he ensures that his love for Stella is highlighted as most impossible to resist both her beauty (as seen in
important. ‘her eyes’) and the innate virtue of her soul
(‘her voice’ that captivates ‘[his] mind’) → the
Rejection of worldly affairs Sonnets: mistress has absolute advantage over the lover.
● “Which onto it by birthright I do owe” (18) - Astrophil acknowledges
● Therefore, any attempts to find ‘victory’ and triumph over to undercut
that he has a duty to fulfil as one of noble birth, and that “[his] wealth
his affection for Stella seem impossible since the pursuit of ‘equal
[he has] most idly spent” on writing about Stella instead of using his
choice’ is in vain.
talents on more lucrative means.
● Precisely because it is seemingly impossible to circumvent attempts at
● “I see, and yet no greater sorrow take, Than that I lose no more for
undercutting the entrapment, his love for her therefore becomes all that
Stella’s sake.” (18) - Despite this self awareness of his vain efforts, he still
the lover knows, and thus overtakes his lifespan where it is defined solely
willingly writes for her and does not mind losing everything for her.
by the love of the Woman.
● “Ambition” is “unseen, unheard , while thought to the highest place”
(27) - astrophil has no ambition as his mind is consumed by thoughts of
Stella, who is god-like to him.

While Sidney presents a relationship between man and woman that is noble and courtly, Marvell presents the possibility of a crude and base
relationship instead. -not a PC statement
Maybe instead: While Sidney uses the conventions of courtly love via presenting the relationship between man and woman as one which is noble,
Marvell transposes these noble conventions into a cruder, more rural context in order to generate humour. 3

This is seen in the way Sidney and Marvell’s characters in their poems differ - Stella and Juliana in their different capacities to control and wield their power, and the
presentation of the noble soldier Astrophil as compared to Damon the Mower. There thus is a distinction between the relationship between a man and a woman of
noble birth, and the relationship between those uneducated and from the rural countryside.

● Sidney’s poetry operating in the realm of courtly love, in which both the Juliana:
lover and the mistress are noble, educated figures ● “When Juliana came, and she what I do to the grass, does to my thoughts
and me.”
Stella: ○ Marvell presents the experience of unrequited love as one so
 ● Penelope Rich was considered one of the beauties of Elizabeth’s court.
She was golden-haired with dark eyes, a gifted singer and dancer, fluent
in French, Italian, and Spanish
● She is elevated in Sidney’s poetry; Astrophil places her on the celestial
plane and portrays her as godlike
○ “the first, thus matched, were scarcely gentlemen” (13) - Her
beauty and power transcends that of the gods
● Stella’s eyes as “rays” that can precisely and almost surgically pierce the
heart of the lover, representing her refined nature, in comparison to
Juliana’s brute-force “scorching beams” that annihilate everything in its
path.
Astrophil
● Portrayal of Astrophil as a noble, dignified soldier
○ Sonnet 20:
■ “Fly, fly, my friends, I have my death wound, fly;” -
Astrophil is portrayed as a noble soldier on the
battlefield, cautioning his friends to flee so that they
too are not killed, even while he himself lie dying —
framed as a sacrifice
○ Sonnet 14:
■ the comparison between his pain and the pain that
Prometheus suffers ennobles his own pain in love:
Prometheus’s punishment and pain comes from sin,
but it is a noble sin. Astrophil’s equation of his pain in
love to Prometheus’s thus grants his own love the
dignity of being something akin to a noble sacrifice (?)
● Indeed, Astrophil (despite being foolish and irrational at times) is
someone very well-equipped with/well-versed in knowledge of Classical
conceptions, Petrarchan ideas and Neoplatonic thinking
○ Sonnet 5: pointing to his studies of Neoplatonism through
decimating and agonising that it is similar to the callous and
blunt murdering of the grass by the Mower
● “But Juliana’s scorching beams”
○ Unlike Stella that is presented as a polished beauty with her
radiance, Juliana is presented as one that is uncontrollably
wreaking havoc and instead causing the very heat that ‘burns
the fields and mower both’
○ The fact that Juliana burns the skin of the mower and the
environment, is emblematic of her corrosive nature, which
diametrically opposed to one that is meant to enrich, or
represent nature.
Damon the Mower
● His arrogance in considering his own merits and appearances indicate an
ignoble vanity, as he thinks himself “[not] so deformed to sight”, and
even compares himself to a prince or even God by claiming that “the
evening sweet / In cowslip-water bathes my feet”. The direct
comparison with someone of a higher stature than him, combined with
his own arrogance and vanity indicate the irony of his own arrogance as
he is in actuality self-absorbed, and therefore his pining after Juliana is
not noble and merely a form of “vain love” as condemned in Sidney’s
poems
Marvell’s poetry as a reaction to/examination of the courtly love tradition (and
other poetic traditions) — the crude and base relationships in his poetry is thus
sometimes a form of parody of the previous poetic conventions.
 summarising its main ideas
○ Sonnet 25: references Socrates’ teachings (though in almost a
mocking way of his somewhat absurd arguments)
○ Sonnets 23 27 30: presenting the noble community and society
he operates within: the noble public he converses with, the
political problems pertinent for a courtier/soldier like him

Both poets also place the romantic relationship and devotion between a man and woman in direct contrast and conflict with man’s relationship with
God, where the physical, sensual love created between man and woman is seen to be sinful, as one’s devotion should be solely to God.

However, both poets resolve this conflict differently, and while Sidney eventually conflates the two relationships in his elevation of Stella to a deity worthy of his
love, Marvell seems to offer us the idea that one’s relationship with God should take precedence.

“shrines in flesh so true a deity” (S4) The Coronet

● Stella is presented to be a “deity” which suggests for her God-like & - in this poem, marvell adopts a worshipful stance towards God and
divine nature. further, her “flesh” and body, the very sensual aspect of commits to him instead, turning away from his previous adoration of
his mistress
her is likened to a “[shrine]”, which elevates her physical form to that of
- “Dismantling all the fragrant towers / That once adorned my
a divine being worthy of his exaltation
shepherdess’s head”
- suggests that pursuit of such worldly romances pale in
“Queen Virtue’s court” (S9) comparison to the worship of God through comparing earthly
● Here too, Virtue is housed within Stella, and looks out through her eyes. achievements/ pleasures to flowers, which are transient and
Stella is thus given a moral equivalence and stature to that of Virtue, superficial, as opposed to spiritual nourishing “fruit” that is
elevating her to a moral ideal. gained from the worship of God
● And this virtue also manifests itself in a purer love where “of touch they
Eyes & Tears
are that without touch doth touch” → ‘without touch’ is
- “So Magdalen, in tears more wise / Dissolved those captivating eyes”
akin to touchstone, and the ability to see - her “captivating eyes” represents the sight of lustful lovers &
purity hence Sidney likens their love, not that sexula sin
- her “wise” tears are thereby pious and penitent in “dissolv[ing]”
of physical beauty but that of pure and a proper
her beauty, “[fettering] her Redeemer’s feet” to capture & seek
 kind of love. for redemption & salvation
● It is precisely because their form of love is pure, there is no separation - Suggests that the superior option is for one to relinquish and
leave behind sensual love stemming from male-female
between the sensual love of the lover and that of the noble and spiritual
relationships, and to redeem oneself through devotion to god
love.
“Virtue of late...took Stella’s shape.” (S25)
● Virtue takes on a material form for the benefit
of ‘mortal eyes’ rather than that of the ‘heroic
mind’ → by taking a material form, it allows man
to access this rarefied love and portion of
one’s soul since he is now able to see her (as with the
experience of all his senses).

In fact, this is seen in the way that Marvell values spiritual, emotional connection between man and woman as a true, pure relationship that is better than a physical
one.

NA! definition of love

[difficult to argue either way for Sidney: in the sonnet cycle, oftentimes the
spiritual connection is conflated with his physical love for her, as stated above.
Possibly, argue that he prizes spiritual love in the way he actively disdains and
distances himself from the more carnal and sinful love? idk, probably better to
just gloss over this if brought up]
- “Therefore the love which us doth bind”...”Is the conjunction of the
mind, / And opposition of the stars”
- the ultimate “definition” of love is one that endures through
hardships as they tie and “[bind]” them together
- marvell also presents his conclusion of what constitutes the
“definition of love” to be one that lies in the “conjunction of
the mind” which suggests for love to extend beyond one that is
physical, and a connection of the soul

Finally, both poets present the conception of such a relationship as being out of mortal control, as it is fate who determines the kind of relationship
one will have.

the inevitability of love? To His Coy Mistress

- “and I was in his way”: the kind of inconsequential lot Astrophil is given Marvell presents time as a limiting factor for lovers to spend time together and
 and his lack of choice in the matter of falling in love — all due to the
actions of the celestial powers or gods like Cupid
- Prominently in Sonnet 2 — metaphor of war and of love’s decree (both
which work together to construct his love as being something that
happens unbidden, but focus should be on the metaphor of love’s
decree for this point)
- (briefly) metaphor of war: even as Astrophil seeks to resist the “dribbed
shot” of love, ultimately the “mine of time” that blows up renders him
completely in love and in servitude to Stella, as if a “slave-born
Muscovite”;
- metaphor of the king, Love’s decree: Even though he initially tries to
resist, and “did not what love decreed”, his resistance is futile and he is
ultimately forced to capitulate, and “forced, agre[es]” to “love’s decrees”
- the idea of a “decree” from a king: not something you can simply refuse,
due to the stark power differential; Astrophil has no say in it and must
simply follow
- Sidney thus plays on the classical notion of the moment of falling in love
as being shot by Cupid’s arrow — Love, for Astrophil, is thus created as
an unexpected event that is out of his mortal control.
- Similarly can be seen in many of the Cupid/Love sonnets
- eg Sonnet 29 (“And I, but for because my prospect lies / Upon
that coast, am giv’n up for a slave.”) — similar ideas as before,
the helplessness of Astrophil in this scenario: without any say,
he is “giv’n up for a slave” to the tyrant Love for merely laying
his “prospect” i.e. gaze upon Stella’s beauty — no agency of his
own, Sidney is only a poor, unfortunate mortal man who is
conquered and taken by Love.
presents sets of imagery of the mortal mistress in order to convey the urgency &
immediacy of mortal love.
“Time’s winged chariot” constantly “hurr[ies] near”, reminding the speaker that
time on earth is limited and will eventually run out. At the end of one’s life,
Marvell argues that the mistress’ “beauty shall no longer be found”, and that
whatever chastity and physical attractions she values will inevitably be gone, and
should cease resisting his advances while she still is able to accept his affections.
the unfortunate lover
- fortune and he are called to play
- the lover’s struggle against fate/ fortune is portrayed as a bloody
and hard-fought battle - he is described as standing against the
elements themselves
- “angry heaven would behold a spectacle of blood”- his
life and fortune is susceptible to the will of heaven -- it
is heaven that commands “Love” and “Fortune” to this
battle and causes his predicament
- tragedy, utter helplessness of lovers when faced with
fate
the definition of love
- fate does iron wedges drive , and always crowds itself betwixt/ fate with
jealous eye does see … and her tyrannic power depose
- fate is personified as a jealous and tyrannic woman who cannot
stand the sight of the two perfect lovers, as their union would
depose her
- the use of iron wedges to separate the lovers - suggests an
inpenetrable barrier between them
- fate’s “decrees of steel” also allude to this image
- use of metals like iron and steel to show how
immovable and unchangeable these obstacles to their
 - etc. (can make reference to most of the Cupid sonnets dealing love are- the lovers are powerless against the tyranny
with images of war, as they usually suggest an unwitting love) and absolute control of fate

-
[Potential flip side?
In his active rejection of what is commonly thought to be God’s will/intention
flip side:
to pursue his love for Stella (i.e. a form of mortal agency that defies the will of Young Love
God, perhaps) - by young love time beguiled
- Sonnet 5, “true and yet true”, solution is to seize the moment and his - time, personified as slow and old, has been fooled by the love
love for Stella (? vaguely remember Ms Lye saying something like that between the speaker and his beloved as it is free of carnal
but… idk if I’m misremembering) implications
- so we win of doubtful fate, and if good she to us meant…
- if you can link this to the notion of the tripartite soul — Astrophil’s will
- The poet resists the cruelty of Fate by believing that both him
siding with appetite, and his reason too in the end capitulates too: “By and the child’s free will and independent agency can overcome
reason good, good reason her to love.”] these divine forces.