ELIZABETHAN AGE

Writing dramas was just a way to earn money and live. Shakespeare considers himself a poet and he was
known as the best actor of the moment.

1558: Elizabeth becomes queen of England. With her things change: England wasn’t an important country
in Europe so now it becomes an imperialistic power -> this period marks a turning point.

Chaucer, like Dante, writes in londoner dialect and it becomes the national language. (15th)

Elizabeth states that England lives the second Golden Age, which is a peaceful age. In the Metamorphosis
are explained the phases of humanity. (We are now living in the Iron Age).

Alchemy: gold is the aim and it is a symbol that stands for the recovery of the golden age.
-> black stands for chaos (nigredo), white stands for the purifying process (albedo), gold is called rubedo.

1563: John Foxe published the Book of Martirs against the catholic countries. The martirs were the british
protestants.

There was a legend that said that Christ second coming would soon take place in England and according to
it british people are the equivalent of israelites, mistreated by the official religion. The trivial reason is the
scism with the Roman Church.

Geographically speaking, England was isolated from the rest of Europe and English was the least important
language. The first to think that English was also important is Sidney, meanwhile Spenser tries to
systematize it

THE DITCHLEY PORTRAIT

1592 – eleven years before Elizabeth dies. She was crowned in 1953 in Westminster Abbey. She was the
daughter of Henry VIII and Anna Bolena. She died of illness without leaving heirs.
Queen Elisabeth made her nation a strong and a great naval power. Queen Elisabeth had many enemies in
Europe, whose chief was King Philip II of Spain. Severe laws had been passed against the Catholics and
many of them had been tortured and executed

In the portrait she is dressed in white, symbol of purity, and the necklaces are made from pearls, which are
an allusion to chastity. She is known as the Virgin Queen and she identifies herself with Diana, the virgin
goddess. Her symbol is the moon, which stands for the female dimension, meanwhile on the other hand we
have the sun.

Elizabeth was the spouse of Great Britain.

In the portrait she stands on a planisphere in the centre of Europe and this emphasizes her imperial power.

The motto of the queen was “Semper eadem” and it has to do with the idea of the Golden Age. Elizabeth
doesn’t age and time doesn’t hurt her. The Phoenix is one of the symbols.

It is also important to notice the background: on the left there is the sun, which symbolizes Apollo and
masculinity, meanwhile on the right there is the moon, which is the planet of Diana and stands for
femininity.

Alchemists use the bible in order not to be understood and a language that sounds enigmatic -> secret
language on the religious disclouse.

In the Elizabethan Age hermetic studies (hermes trismegistus, legendary character supposed to be the
father of alchemy). Corpus hermeticus -> in the 17th century an historian demonstrates that it was the
product of authors living during the

Hermes trismegistus is the transposition of an egyptian God (Thoth). Alchemy was invented in ancient
egypt and alchemy means chemistry. Al in arabian means the (article). Alchemy -> obscure

Symposium by Platon: dialog about what eros is. Socrates tells a story that a wise woman told him.

Marlowe was the rival of Shakespeare. Doctor Faustus the representation of God is cruel, indifferent and
seems to enjoy human sufferies. 1660 John Milton writes Paradise Lost and the God seems to be also
indifferent and envious not just of Satan but of the other beings.

Puritans= protestants. Fanatic search for the purity of the real christianity

Differences between protestantism and catholisim: Pope,

Henry VIII after the divorce starts the dissolution of the monasteries and closes the catholic institutions.
Destroys paintings of saints and icons.

Greatest paradox par excellance: It has no sense to fight against evil if everything is already fixed. God is not
fatherly and protective. On one hand god seems to be a familia but on the other hand he has already
predestined us and he is indifferent.

dogma -> free will. Protestantism will not embrace this idea: predestination -> we are the makers of our
destiny. There is nothing we can do.

the individual has to perform a personal battle against devil and evil. We are left alone.

ASTROPHIL AND STELLA

Petrarch’s sonnets are based upon 4 stanzas: 2 quatrains and 2 tercets

Sidney’s sonnets have 3 quatrains and a final rhyming couplet. This couplet is also known as forceful final
couplet because its first line, which is the 13th one, represents the volta. Each line has 10 syllables and 5
feet -> each foot has 2 syllables and it is called pentameter. A foot is composed by an unstressed syllable
and a stressed one.

The regular line in English poetry is the iambic pentameter. However, sometimes it is unnatural to read in
an iambic way and the natural rythm promts us to read the first syllable stressed -> it is called trochaic foot.

Typical of Sidney’s sonnets, this combines standard Italian form with the logic of an English sonnet: in this
case, three blocks (4-4-3 in length) of “questions” and a 3-line “answer”.

It is a collection of sonnets written by Sidney when he was 27 years old. Archetipe of the perfect knight
courtier. He was born in 1554 and he is a sort of prince because his father is viceroy in Ireland.
The sonnets were written in the 80s and postumously published for the first time in a pirate edition in 1591.
It will be published as official edition in 1598. As a matter of fact the title is Astrophel and Stella but Sidney
himself wrote Astrophil.

He was a tilter and his name Philip stands for someone who loves horses. The name Astrophil stands for the
one who loves stars and he loves Stella ideed. Astrophil is the alterego of Sidney.

Sidney is a perfectly organised poet and he declares that he is a piece of logician. He uses aristotelian logic
indeed. The editor of the first collection is Thomas Nashe, an important writer of the period; he states that
Astrophil and Stella is a tragicommody performed by starlight which starts with hope and ends with
despair.

This piece and The heroic enthusiasts by Giordano Bruno influence each other. Bruno represents the eyes
as stars and they are the soul longing to get closer to divinity.

SONNET 7

Stella’s eyes were created by Nature and they are a chief work.

The revolutional thing is that for the first time we haven’t got the classical beauty, which is represented by
blond hair and blue eyes, but black eyes. This feature was associated with the evil dimension.

Beamy black is called coincidentia oppositorum.

Blackness is the color of the first stage of alchemy, which is called nigredo

Hue= sfumatura, colore

Stella’s eyes are black but can dazzle like a sun. Nature created the black hue in order to protect the eyes
from a dazzle that would blind us.

The eye is equelled to the sun, which is the metaphor of God. Until the beginning of the 17th century the
eye is not studied deeply but thanks to Galilei the eye will be studied and it will be compared to a camera. It
was believed that the eye was a godlike organ and the sight was considered as the noblest among the
senses. The eye was able to create the object seen and this can be compared to God, who is also a maker.

Stella’s eyes like the sun are divine and can create things.

9th line: aware ambiguity. The miracolous power can be of the nature or of Stella. Black seems beauty’s
contrary but it is not so. Nature makes the quintessence of beauty of the world flow in Stella’s black eyes.

Quintessence: the elements are 4 and the alchemist search the 5 one, which is Ether. It is the dimension
where stars are.
Stella is the archetipe of perfect beauty.

In the last 3 lines we are provided with the meaning of the sonnet and in particular in the last line Astrophil
gives the message.

This is a revolutionary sonnet because stella’s eyes are suns and not stars. The sun is able to create objects
but besides been suns they are black, which is the coincidence of opposites. The eyes are important in love:
Cupid makes an individual fall in love promting his dart through the eyes. In platonic terms they are the
window of the soul.

Coincidentia oppositorum: stella’s eyes as the black sun can give life and death; the natural counterpart of
eros is thanatos.

One of the most interesting is that Nature is represented as a painter wise. The creator of the world is the
demiurge, which is a painter.

In The defense of poesy Sidney embraces the classical definition of poetry as a speaking picture and the
poet as a maker. Astrophil indirectly says that he is a painter, nature is a painter wise therefore Astrophil is
a maker and a god. Stella’s eyes are godlike and both are divinities.

SONNET 5

The first foot of the 4th line is a trochee as if the poet wanted to underline the word.

Anaphoric structure: it is most true it is the beginning of the sonnet and also of the second quatrain. Most
is used as a synonym of “very”. The italian volta starts with the word true: it is not an anaphora but the
concept is the same.

Sidney hasn’t developed the final couplet and he still concentrates the meaning in the last forceful line.

Difense of poesy: criticize on poetry and on poets and the importance of british language. Grain Britain was
gradually coming out from being considered uninfluential, therefore Sidney is proud in demonstrating that
English language deserve attention and respect.
In the very beginning he says that he is a piece of a logician and actually many sonnets are structured in
aristotelian logic.

Again we have a sonnet about the importance of eyes.

Neoplatonism is the philosophy more in vogue -> for Plato the eyes are the window to the soul and they
are the means through which Cupid’s dart gets to the heart. As much as the eyes were supposed to be
creators in the same way in scientific terms the heart, the brain and the soul were equated.

The inward line is the spiritual part of the individual -> Dicotomy between body and soul. The whole
collection is structured upon the central dicotomy between reason and passion. This sonnet is the
paradime of the tension that forms the whole collection.

Astrophil juxtaposes the spiritual power of vision to the biological vision. By the way Homer was blind,
Milton was blind. This idea of making this distinction is a classical idea: true vision is the visionary power of
the eye.we should consider more important the spiritual part.

Smart= dolore

Cupid is the transposition of Eros

Sidney is one of the strongest defenders of protestantism and he even founds a protestant league.
Therefore he is iconoclastic. Astrophil is talking about images that we, wounded by Cupid’s dart, carve for
ourselves. In neoplatonic terms this image is of the beloved one so clear that the beloved can see herself as
if the soul of the lover were a mirror.

It is not fair to adore an image, we should adore the inward light. We worship the sensual image and no
longer the real God.

God= pagan (cupid)

Beauty and goodness are the same. Beauty is mirror of goodness.

The elements are 4: fire, air, water and earth. They are considered until the 17th century as the bestes of
the whole world. Therefore every being is supposed to be made of a mixture of 4 humors connected with
the four elements. The humors are regarded as fluid elements: blood, phlegma, yellow/red bile, black bile.
Two among the four are particular: black bile not only affects the body but also the mind, meanwhile blood
is considered the healthiest. In the beginning Galen believes that an individual that has a mixture in which
preveils black bile is desperatly mad. Gradually particularly thanks to Marsilius Ficino’s studies, the
individual with black bile begins to be associated with genius.

Hamlet is the paradigma of the melancholic.

Shade and mortal: we are still in platonic philosophy -> Myth of the Cave

All critics say that Astrophil reverses the premises by saying that the premises are true but he can’t do
anything and he must love Stella.

The last line is the logic conclusion of the sillogysm. Stella’s name make us believe that she is not a mortal
shadow but a star living in heaven. Stella is both mortal and immortal, she is both an idol in Astrophil’s
heart but she is also a spiritual entity, as a christian divinity.

Don Donne, cosidered as a revolutionary poet, always plays on ambiguities.

In this sonnet the main conflict is between body and spirit, world of shadows and world of ideas. This
sonnet provides as ambiguity: it can be read as true or false.

SONNET 32

The first two lines are trochaic as the 8,10, 12, 14.

Sidney is still making experiments on the final couplet so we find the specific message in the last line.

We notice that Sidney seems to passively imitate the petrarchan contrasts of life/death. He is quite
ambiguous in the treatment of the petrarchan tradition. Sonnet 15: it is a peculiar example of the
ambiguities with which he reacts towards petrarchism. Line 7 that ridicules his contemporary poets that
passively imitate Petrarch. The structure of the sonnet is petrarchan. It’s not clear his attitude towards the
masters. In the Difense of Poesy he says that we shouldn’t be passive imitators but we shouldn’t forget the
ancient masters.

Morpheus is the god of sleep. In greek mythology Thanatos and Hypnos are twin brothers and in latin their
names are Mors and Sonnus. Morpheus is one of the sons of Hypnos and takes the infinite shapes when he
enters the sleep of people sleeping. He can transform himself as a prophet, a poet or a history. In ancient
times death and sleep are almost equated. Morph is a latin word and it means shape.

The poet is a prophet and they are symbols.

Sleep is equated to death and the humors fly.

The eye is important and it has the power to create things.

One of the bestfriends of Sidney is Giordano Bruno and in Gli eroici furori, dedicated to P. Sidney, he
describes among the numerous emblems an eye that is a star. Sidney shows eyes as suns.

Gioia/dolore petrarchan contrast -> Stella keeps both joy and pain towards Astrophil

Thomas Nash: tragicomedy performed by starlight. In Sidney prevails black bile.

Prologue hope, end dispair.

Astrophil follows the petrarchan tradition representing the skin with ivory, the lips with rubies, teeth with
pearls and gold with hair. 4 is the number of the elements, the humors, the seasons… As a matter of fact
from ancient times until the 17th century, our material dimension was regarded as constituted of long
series of number 4. Therefore the square represents the earthly dimension. Number 3 represents the
heavenly dimension.

Every humor is attached to a colour: blood associated with white, black bile associated with black, yellow
bile with yellow and phlegma is ambiguous. For the alchemists the goal is finding the quintessence and one
of its names is Ether. Among the elements listed by Astrophil black is lacking. Blackness is associated in
other sonnets with jet. (sonnet 99)

If Astrophil asked for jet we should divide the elements. First stage of alchemy is blackness, the second is
whiteness and then yellow/red. If we added blackness we would have the four elements and the
quintessence, which is gold.

Black is not quoted because he wanted to avoid the colour of his personality.

The new world is regarded as inexhaustible source of gold.

“But” makes us understand the real meaning of the sonnet. Astrophil has carved in his heart Stella’s image
and therefore he shouldn’t ask help to Morpheus because he has got what he is looking for in his heart.
This neoplatonic idea will be also in shakespearean sonnets.

SONNET 34

We will find in numerous sonnets the presence of a dialogic structure: we find debate between the very
Astrophil and his own wit. The voice of the university wits, his friends from university

This dialogic structure is something new because he is representing an inner debate in a modern way
anticipating studies of psychology. This choice of a dialogic structure that oft is closed by an insult marks
Astrophil’s evolution and the frequent use of irregularities demonstrate the inner agitation of Astrophil.

Astrophil begins to speak. The first line is a trochee.

His mind is so agitated that he expresses himself with irregularities.

Ingegno, dammi la buona ispirazione e a che fine?

Per alleviare un cuore appesantito . come possono alleviare le tue pene le parole che sono specchi del tuo
dolore quotidiano.

He anticipated the romantics.

Spesso le battaglie crudeli (tormenti interiori) se ben rappresentate sono piacevoli

He defends his poetry

Non ti vergogni di rendere pubblico il tuo malessere?

Why is wit critizising him?

Sidney never publishes his poems because noblemen let read their work only among their close friends.

No, in realta i miei versi potrebbero portarmi alla fama

Ma non penseranno che le tue parole saranno ritenute sciocchezze

Astrophil is influentiable and he chooses to give the poems to his close friends.

Ma che sciocchezza è questa? Scrivere e non essere ascoltati

Pace, che mi stai confondendo. Con l’ingegno il mio ingegno sta perdendo il pensiero lineare

Così decido di scrivere anche se dubito se farlo

The idea of an inner battle will be also in Shakespeare

Daro libero sfogo con l’inchiostro alle mie pene

E forse scrivendo qualcuno riconoscera i grandi poteri di stella che mi confondono la mente

An interesting thing is that the poet does not invoke his feelings but his wit. We are promted to think that a
poet should invoke his emotional part. A good poet is well aware of technique and his rational part.

the last line of the 1st sonnet does not mean be spontaneus. He insists on the rational dimension.

SONNET 74

This sonnet gives us the opportunity to investigate the development of the figure of the lady in the
Elizabethan Age -> indipendent behaviour of Stella

Aganippe is the fountain of the muses. The sonnet is centered once more on how Astrophil has to struggle
to find the right worlds to describe his love for Stella – it’s a sonnet about how should a good poet write a
good sonnet of love.

He is using a retorhical figure of speech known as deminutio: he knows he is a great poet but he presents
himself as unable to write. He is consciuous that he is a skilled poet.

By saying vulgar brains he is using deminutio but he knows he is a great poet Tempe is where Apollon
persued Daphne and she transformed herself into laurel. it is the plant for the great poetry and a reference
to Petrarch.

The sacred rites he is referring to are writing a good sonnet and love

The fury tell is a reference to Plato. He speaks about a divine fury that invests a good poet. In Ion he speaks
of the divine fury that gives words to the poet as if the poet became the interpreter of the God.

Ma dio sa che non sanno cosa intendono quando dicono furia divina: si pone al di sopra

The blackest brook of hell is Styx

Non sono ladro dell’ingegno altrui: he doesn’t imitate other poets

We have to remember that in his Defense of poesy he says that a good poet has to imitate and then detach
from the greats. He doesn’t criticize the vogue of imitating the great poets but he says that he is not
imitating the work of other colleagues and he is not following pedissequy the petrarchists. With the
deminutio he says that he is an original poet.

Thoughts, words, verse, please

 Gradatio is the rhetorical figure that structures sonnet 1

We find the direct intervention of the university wits

The motive is Stella’s kiss.

On one hand he highlights his skill in logic construction and the direct intervention of other voices. Another
novelty is the kiss of the lady

the whole collection is a sort of study of the psychological evolution of Astrophil.

Also in other sonnets we find the voices, which contribute to his doubts, questions and make him a
complex characters full of fears. Sonnet 32 he is insulted by Morpheus

2 audiences: Stella and the courtiers

Love is considered as a religion (sonnet 5 heart as a temple). Pagan religion of love: Stella is his muse, who
inspires him.

SONNET 1

7, 8, 66, 67, 102 are constructed in this way. It is not a typical English sonnet. The lines are more long:
alexandrine (6 feet) -> irregularities mark Astrophil’s agitation. The use of alexandrine is used for poems
which deal with high and great themes

These sonnets either deal with metapoetry or they deal with mythology.

Irregularities mark Astrophil’s confusion

The first line is a trochee

Interpreted as an exortation to be natural: but it is everything but spontaneous because it is structured in a

logical way.

Dicotomy between essence and appearance: loving in truth is something profound/my love to show has to
do with appearances

To show is conneted to paint-> in sonnet 7 nature paints stella’s eyes and the poet is a painter

Poet as painting his feelings and taking them from the inner soul to the world

Last sonnet based upon pleasure/pain, typical of Petrarch

Pleasure can cause her read, reading might make her know, knowledge can make pity win and pity can
make obtain grace

 Gradatio: A. Fraunce in his study quotes these lines saying that it’s the majestic example of gradatio

In the first quatrain the -ing form marks the agitation of Astrophil

Cambio di tema e di stile 2 quartina

In the second quatrain he talks about the past using the past tense

Imitatio and inventio: debate among originality and respect for the masters of the past

Dicotomy between fruitfulness/dryness

Turning poet in line 9. It follows the structure of the Italian sonnet

Insuccess that explains based on principles of imitation

Came forth Stay= strumenti della midwife

L’invenzione figlia della natura scansò i colpi della matrigna dello studio

Invention is Nature’s child, meanwhile study is the child of a step-dame

Infertility=sterilità

E la metrica altrui mi sembra strana sul mio cammino

He can’t find nor inspiration nor imitation, which is infertile

Great with child stands for pregnant and throes stands for labor.

Metaphor of pregnancy and birth.

Paranomasia= biting beating. They sound the same but they have a different meaning.

Introduction of a voice that insults Astrophil

Stella intervenes and says to look in his heart; he will see the image of her, who is his muse

Quotes Plato’s ideas and plays with birth to conclude that the poet is pregnant in the mind and therefore
he can be immortal

In Defense of Poesy he says that great love poems guarantee immortality to the adressee, to the author
and to de audience and a good love sonnet has to persuate and move the feelings.

What are the themes that are central in the first sonnet?

Creation as a birth – quote

SONNET 108

This is the last sonnet. Generally, the last sonnet of a petrarchan collection is a farewell and solves all the
questions and doubts of the previous sonnets.

This sonnet has more doubts.

The breast that becomes a dark furnace is a typical theme of Giordano bruno and Petrarch

Là splende una gioia che viene da te (Stella) la mia unica luce

In the first quatrain we can find the opposition between sorrow/joy, darkness/light

Ma subito mentre il pensiero di te mi reca delizia, la mia giovane anima svolazza verso di te

Metaphor of the soul as a bird is a classical alchemic metaphor. Ornins in greek means bird and messanger
so birds are connected to angels and messangers. Poets have always been associated with birds because
both birds and poets were considered the interpeters of the gods.

The image of the bird in the nest is called fermentatio and it is one of the alchemic phases. Astrophil is
looking for Stella as a nest and if he is able to get into the nest fermentatio will take place.

Opus alchemicum is represented by a fight between 3 birds: one is red (pikle), the other one is white (swan)
and the last one is black (crow).
Classical image of the man that bows down his head : iconologia di Cesare Ripa -> It is the representation
of black bile, which symbolizes melancholy.

In the title page of the Anatomy of melancholy by R.Burton, who pretends to be Democritus Junior, there
are 10 squares. The upper one shows Democritus, who has his head reclined as Astrophil described himself.
He is oholding a pen in his right hand and with his left hand has an opened book in his knees. Burton is
insisting on the melancholic dimension of poets. Under his right foot he has a cube that stands for the
earth. The god of melancholy is Saturn, ambiguous divinity that at the beginning was the god of agriculture.

His attribute is the scyth (falce) that has an ambiguous meaning because it is the attribute of death. On one
hand it is the tool of the farmer and has to do with rebirth of vegetation, meanwhile on the other hand he
levels everyone without any social distinction.

Albrecht Duerer: (etching) same posture of the lady and an element which allude to earth.

Oil painting by Duerer (suffering of Christ): we can see Christ in the typical melancholic position.

One of the main elements necessary for the transmutation of metals in the alembic is Mercury, who has to
be killed and then it is reborn again. He is generally known as cervus. It is a metaphor for the never ending
resurrection of Christ, symbolized by his horns.

All this defines the poet as melancholic.

By the way there are numerous criticies in England about melancholy and the most famous is the Anatomy
of melancholy by Burton. There is an opening lyric in which the final couplets quote Sidney.

A and S marks a sort of psychologycal journey of Astrophil. Thomas Nashe, pirate editor of the collection,
wrote that the beginning is marked by hope and the end by despair. The scent of an ending by Frank
Kermode studies how works are concluded. Generally in our western tradition works tend to be opened
with references to Genesis and to end with references to Apocalypse. Genesis narrates the creation of the
world meanwhile Apocalypse deals with the end of the world. In Revelation there are specific references to
furnaces as alluding to the pains of hell.

Sidney has an ambiguous relationship with Petrarch. He attacks the vogue of imitating Petrarch's sonnets,
his muse is Stella but in spite of this declarations the relationship is not very clear. There are parallels
between Astrophil and Stella and Canzoniere. The first sonnet of Petrarch was written at the end of the
journey. In Thomas Nashe’s there are references to his melancholy but he defines Astrophil as England’s
sun. Darknes/brightness of Astrophil as Stella’s eyes. A and S is marked by a series of oppositions that will
not find a resolution in the end, but the end is open and somehow goes in a circular way back to the
beginning. The alchemic work is a never ending circle called “rota”.

The collection does not find a solution as Petrarch’s Canzioniere; Petrarch finds with his last “Canzone alla
vergine” a sort of resolution of his doubts and he rejects his sufferings for loving a human being
understanding that true love has to be devoted to spirituality. It is a quotation of Saint John’s Revelation.
The vergine bella is a sort of peaceful place of relief.

Sidney does not solve all his doubts but thanks to Stella, who provokes all the transmutations, his journey
circularly goes back to the beginning. In the very first sonnet we found references to darkness so also when
dealing with birth suffering is present. V. 5,8

A and S in its entireness contain both rubedo and nigredo.

From the dark flame of the furnace we find the bright joy of Stella, who is the dark sun that has provoked
the realization of the coincidentia oppositorum.
AMORETTI

There are some differences between Sidney and Spenser from the biographical point of view: Amoretti are
composed when Spenser is 42 years old and probably they are composed between 1581-83 and he is born
in 1552. Sidney was born 2 years early but he composes Astrophil and Stella before Spenser. Astrophil and
Stella is the first systematic collection of poems. He dies in 1559.
Spenser is the son of a tailor so he is not a member of aristocracy as Sidney. He has to work very hard to
build his own fortune and he will be the author of the Fairy Queen which is a poem in the medieval style
that celebrates queen Elizabeth. He is so in need to celebrate her because he needs her help. He will work
in Ireland and he will come back in Great Britain for a few years but he will be disappointed by all the
corruption he found at court.

The title is in Italian because England in this years is not a central nation in Europe and Italy deserves the
throne of culture. It is a sort of homage to Italy.

One of the greatest novelties is that he is not celebrating the beauty of a faraway lady but actually the lady
that has just become his second wife, Elizabeth Boyle. She has accepted her lover and we’ll see that she has
a strong personality and she even criticizes him.

Queen Elizabeth has contributed to the evolution of the role of individual in England. The new presence of
women is due to her.

Each sonnet has been interpreted as each day of the loving relationship between Spenser and his wife.
Each sonnet is a sort of dart that Cupid throws to Elizabeth’s heart.

SONNET 7

Fayre is an important adjective that means honest, beautiful, light. The lovely boy is also called fair youth,
who is handsome, honest, with blue eyes and blonde hair. He has the features of a beautiful young woman.

It is an iambic pentameter.

For Plato beauty represents goodness.

The poetic voice represents his heart as a maze and he is agitated. There is a sort of ambiguity because the
eyes are not so fair as they seem. A maze has always been metaphor of life.

The eyes that give life and death make us rememeber of sonnet 7 by Sidney.

The turning point is in the 9th line. There is a fusion between the italian structure and the english structure.

Eyes with beams-> eyes identified with the sun, that both are able to create

The fire makes us think to Astrophil’s heart as a furnace .

Coincidentia oppositorum: eyes that can give life and death

Simbology of the eye is important

SONNET 9

Same words have different spelling: English has not found its identity yet.

It’s a sonnet based on an anaphoric structure like sonnet 5 by Sidney. It is organized upon negations.

Dimension of Sidney’s sonnet 108 with darkness and dark spright

Sun, moon, stars, fire, lightning, diamond, cristal, glass

 degradatio

If the first sonnet is marked by a gradatio, here there is a degradatio

The eyes that never change can be associated with queen Elizabeth that never ages (semper eadem). The
moon changes so they cannot be compared to it.
Spenser needs Elizabeth’s help to go on living around the court.

Myth of the fynex is one of the visual symbols of the opus alchemicus. Like this animal Elizabeth can die but
she reborns out of its ashes.

stars don’t create, meanwhile the eyes are makers.

They can’t be compared to the sun because they are able to shine at night.

They can’t be compared to the fire or the lightning because they still persevere.

They can’t be compared to the diamond because they are less tough

We are within a logic reasoning: there are numerous premises that negate and then at the end we get at
the conclusion.

In the final couplet he explicitly equates her eyes to the creator and it is a daring thing to do. Sidney made
an oblique idenitification between Stella’s eyes and the creator. The queen used to identify herself with the
divinity so it can’t sound so blasfemus. Mythological reading of Elizabeth in the light of her own self
celebration

Structure: anaphoric repetition of “nor” – all philosophers have always told that God is difficult to define. In
the Divine Comedy Dante is a mortal being and he is able to perceive God by a reflection into Beatrice’s
eyes. A mortal being does not deserve to look at a divinity directly therefore we can’t give a precise
definition of what we are not allowed to know directly.

Nicolò Cusano has created a so called negative theology: things we can’t touch, what we can say it is just
what they are not. Spenser is using this theology and says what God is not in order to define it.

There is a sonnet by Shakespeare that presents a similar pattern.

SONNET 54

It leads us to Shakespear because it presents a theme that will be expanded by him.

World’s theatre: our life is represented as a stage and therefore we are actors playing a role. Generally a
theatre has also spectators (stars and the planets) and a stage director (God). The director can change the
course of the staging (The globe theatre).

In protestantism God has decided everything – he is not worried, but cruel and indifferent

In catholicism God is active

We have to understand that this metaphor of the world as a stage is different if we think in catholic terms
or in protestant terms.

The lady is sitting idly and therefore the lirical voice presents her as a passive figure

Medieval drama- theatre starts in the church as a religious representation for the non-learning, then
outside the church. These representations begin to be mobile and with pageants they move through the
cities. The representations will be called pageants.

Rapidità con cui la voce poetica cambia umore

Struttura all’italiana (volta v.9) e all’inglese (final couplet)

Constant eye: homage to queen Elizabeth

Smart: sonnet 5 by Sidney.

A central idea presented by many classical thinkers, which is still believed in this period, is the great chain
of being. From the closed world to the open universe. The Earth is not at the centre of the universe and
actually there can be no centre because the universe is not closed as a sphere, but it is infinite.

The first ring is God, then angels, humans, animals(lion-snake), plants(oak/rose), minerals.

Giordano Bruno claims that every point can be the centre depending on the perspective. If there is no
centre it means that we can get closer to God. It depends on the place we are and everything is changeable
and subjective. (relativism)

Elizabeth is actively participating and she acts in a malignal way: in this hyperbolic representation of the
world she is working as a stage director since God is absent.

 In classical terms she is presented as a divinity

Elizabeth is compared to a stage director, God, but she is also compared to the stone. First and last ring of
the Great chain of being.

Circular path: at the beginning he loves and at the end she loves.

One of the main novelties is the representation of the beloved. As regards Shakespeare it is a boy. She is
not the tipical farway lady but she has a personality that seems to criticize and attack the lover. She is not
afraid to go against him.

This collection has some common elements with Sidney’s collection. It is a mental journey of the lover and
his beloved. This process will not lead to despair but will evolve to the acceptation of the lover and the final
marriage.

SONNET 75

This sonnet has a dialogic pattern and the novelty is not just the direct speech of the lady, but it is also the
tone she uses . In sonnet 1 by Sidney we found the muse talking, not the very Stella.

Multum in parvo: every single term is important.

The first 4 lines are structured in a simmetrical way.

The lover is suffering for his beloved: it is a typical theme

In sonnet 64 we get to know about Elizabeth’s kiss and in sonnet 67 (turning point) the lirical voice is able
to grasp the deer. Giordano Bruno killed because he never rejected his ideas of the new astrology. Eroici
furori is based on a classical myth of Diana and Akteon; he is a hunter and she is the virgin goddess. Akteon
is in the wood and by chance discorvers Diana bathing in a lake. He spies on them and she is both
benevolent but cruel when she is offended. Her punishment is transforming him into a hart and he will be
devoured by his own haunts.

Bruno reads this myth in biblical terms. The soul is presented as a hart longing for God. It stands for venatio
sapientae: caccia della sapienza.

Vain- in vain: the sonnet wants us to notice the precise stress on the idea of vanity. Vanitas vanitatis-
vanitas is a pictorian genre also known as still life. Memento mori

Nothing is permanent, everything will be destroyed. There are particular elements of the still life in order to
refer to shortness of life: there is a petal on the table alluding its start to die, skull, candle, birds (middle
ring between divinity and humanity), clocks and hourglasses, jewelry (frivolousness), perfumes, mirrors
(they stand for our earthly longing for possessive prestigious things but at the same time a mirror shows
the object before it just when the object is before, that’s why they are tools regarded with fear by
superstitious people)

The mortal thing is the very Elizabeth.

Eke: sonnet 32 by Sidney

She attaks and insults him. She participates actively, she scolds him and almost offends her lover. She is
independent, acute and does not fear her being a lady.

The turning point is in line 10

The idea of immortality that a poet can reach is not new.

The speeches are very realistic and there is the movement of the sea and the gradatio.

The name becomes an eternal inscription that ascends the earthly dimension

Strong individuality of the lady, gradual getting closer of the lovers with the pronouns, reciprocal
immortality. Her, my, your, our. -> gradatio

SHAKESPEARE

We don’t have information about his life. There are several ipotheses arguing that it is a just a pesudonym
used by other personalities surrounding queen Elizabeth (Francis Bacon and John Florio).

Shakespeare was born in 1564 and dies in 1616. His sonnets were written in the 90s.

THE SONNETS

Conventionally they are devided in sections:

• From 1 to 126 are the sonnets devoted to the lovely boy

1-17/19: marriage sonnets – invites the lovely boy to get married

76-86: rival poet

• From 127 to 152 are the sonnets devoted to the dark lady

• From 153 to 154 are conventional sonnets of love

1798: manifesto del romanticismo inglese – Wordsworth and Coleridge.

1833: Table Talk. Coleridge says that these sonnets form a poem that has 154 stanzas of 14 lines each and
as the passion that inspired them the sonnets are always the same.

Actually he does not appreciate Shakespeare’s sonnets.

In the first decades of the 19th century there is a revaluation of Shakespeare. The neoclassical authors
rewrite Shakespeare’s plays because they considered them too weak.

Due to Wordsworth there is still a common approach to Shakespeare’s sonnets – <<scorn not the sonnet,
critic>> with this key (the sonnets), Shakespeare unlocked his heart. The sonnets are narrations of
experiences lived by the poet. It’s not fair to read a sonnet in the light of a biographical point of view and
it’s not important to know who the boy or the lady are.

Jan Kott, a great scholar of Shakespeare, interpreted the collection of sonnets as a dramatic performance.
The title of his essay is “Shakespeare’s bitter arcadia”. They have action and heroes. He quotes 3 characters:
poet, dark lady, lovely boy.

DEDICATION

It is an authentic enigma. Nowadays 2 contemporary critics tend to say that he autorized the publication
but it was common to say that the publishment of 1609 was not autorized because of the content of the
sonnet, which is the love for a young boy.

WH? It’s a very long lasting question

According to some historians he could be Shakespeare’s and Mary Sidney’s son, William Holl, or William
Hathaway (brother-in-law of Shakespeare).

Oscar Wilde is not just involved in theatrical production, he is a scholar of renassaince literature and he was
known as Shakespeare on one hand because of his knowledge of Shakespeare and on the other because of
homoroticism.

In one of his essays “The portrait of mr. WH”, which is the germ of the picture of Dorian Grey, he says that
WH is William Hughes.

William Hughes: fair youth

Oscar Wilde believes that the lovely boy is an actor playing in Shakespeare’s company.

We can find 5 main characters in the collection: the poet, the lovely boy, the dark lady, the rival poet,
divouring Time (presented in antropomorphic terms).

The rival poet is Marlowe, a contemporary to Shakespeare, who steals the lovely boy to the poet. Wilde
claims that in historical terms the boy left Shakespeare’s company and entered in Marlowe’s company.
Both Marlowe and Shakespeare have a company that takes its name from the maecenas to overcome the
strict laws. Elizabeth proclaims a law against public theatres because there was also prostitution, riots and
therefore the queen forbids public theatres. They overcome the law in 2 ways: one is building the theatres
in the other side of the Thames, outside the control of the city (Southwark), the other is to be a private
company supported by a noble man. Actors, prostitutes and criminals were branded.
Probably the boy was 12 years old, the age in which a girl can be married. Boy actors played the roles of
ladies because actresses were not allowed to play on stage. In England being an actress was equated to be
a prostitute. Actresses will be allowed to play in 1660 when Charles II comes back from his exile in France,
where gets in touch with the continental theatrical tradition. He introduces in GB the common habit of
having women actresses on stage. Restoration period. (Charles I is his father, who in his turn is the son to
James I).

Boy actors should be very young because then the voice changes and they cannot act the role of the ladies
anymore. Many boy actors died during the civil war or they had grown up, so there were no boy actors
when Charles comes back. This is also why women actresses start to act.

The last hypothesis according to Barn Storf: mister WH is William Shakespeare himself.

Probalby the boy is Hamnet: the only male child. He dies when he was 12 years old before the composition
of the sonnets. His insisting on procreating can be Shakespeare’s dramatic idea that without a male heir his
name will be not eternalized.

SONNET 1

Memory, ornament, content: the 11th syllable without the stress is defined as a feminine ending/female
rhyme. We have to stress them because otherwise we would have 4 feet and it wouldn’t be an iambic
pentameter. The linguistic and stylistic choices are keys for the interpretation: using feminine endings has a
specific message.

Sonnet 20 has only female rhymes: the extra syllable is never stressed.

Fair has a multiperspecticle meaning.

Increase – decease:

The 2nd line is an oximoron – the rose is the archetipe of beauty destined to live shortly and therefore it is
a proper simbol that marks the memento mori. It refers to the shortness of beauty – but thanks to the
increase the rose of beauty will never die.

The 4th line is an invite to procreate.

Thou: close relationship

Lovely boy is the archetipe of female beauty.

Pun: contracted – in love but also married -> in love with himself. Thanks to the translation of Ovid’s
Metamorphosis he is presented in the light of the myth of Narcissus and Hermaphroditus, the son of
Mercury and Venus. He is so in love that he refuses the love of a nymph (Salmassis), therefore the gods feel
pity for him and they make his body both male and female. Narcissus sees his own image reflected on a
pond and he consumates of love for himself.

The picture of Dorian Grey is a sort of young Narcissus and in his essays Wilde claims that Narcissus love for
himself stands for homoeroticism, which means loving yourself and your same gender (uranian love).
Maybe the lovely boy has homoerotic tendencies.

In England until the 60s of the 20th century homosexuality was legally persecuted.

Shakespeare publishes Venus and Adonis: he develops both 2 myths. Even if today the critical reading
claims that Shakespeare authorized the publication of the sonnets, before the last 20 years it was
interpreted that he never authorized it because of the homosexual references.
To be enemies of oneself is a typical Shakespearean idea. He says that he has a civil war within himself.

Now (line 9): the lovely boy has to struggle against time, which will devour his beauty and his youth

Bud alludes to the decadence of beauty and life. In the beginning the boy is presented in female terms as a
rose. Here it is not used as memento mori but beauty’s rose might never die.

Content= as happiness and as seed as sexual meaning. He buries this content because he doesn’t want to
procreate.

He is a churl and he will eat himself if he does not procreate.

The grave eating the lovely boy’s beauty is the anticipation of devouring Time.

Don’t be so selfish but give your content to the ladies that are waiting for you so that your beauty will be
eternalized and it will not be buried. Coleridge says that the first 17 sonnets can be read as 1 sonnet made
of 17 stanzas: it is an invite to procreate and therefore to make his beauty eternal. Diotima spoke about the
2 ways of being pregnant: in the body (mortals believe they can become immortal) but the way to reach
the eternalization is being pregnant with the mind. In sonnet 75 by Spencer the poet is able to make eternal
his lover by his poetry. Spencer introduces the idea that writing a good poet can eternalize the addressee

SONNET 3

Shakespeare has used both the Italian and the English sonnet. we can find a first octave and a sestet with a
final rhyming couplet.

The first line is a quotation of Sidney’s sonnet 1: look in thy heart and write. It is a sort of paraphrasis.
Dorian Grey is in love with his own portrait and here the lovely boy looks his own face in the glass and he is
in love with it. The glass in which the lovely boy watches himself is his own heart (carve). Therefore he finds
in his own heart the image of his beloved, which is himself.

Lines 1,2: procreate now that you are young and eternalize your beauty

References of female beauty

She means woman.

We are entering the semantic field of agriculture. The sexual metaphor is transposed in agricultural
metaphor. The uneared womb is a symbol for verginity.

We have been gathering oblique references to the lovely boy as female beauty. Now it is clearer because
he is compared to his mother -> the mother calls back her prime

Windows had imperfections called wrinkles. The windows of the soul are the eyes and Shakespeare plays
on this saying that he will have wrinkles in his eyes when he will be old.

Image with capital I tells us that the lovely boy is the archetipe of perfection. Glass in this time means also
model that has to be imitated so the poet has chosen the term glass not just to make indirect allusion to
the shortness of beauty but he is a paradime of perfection.

SONNET 5

Hours: devouring Time. The idea of never resting time can be find in Ovid’s Metamorphosis

The hours that have created him are able to take away his youth and give death to him.

In sonnet 3 he associated the beauty to the spring and then the summer begins to bring it to deterioration.
Work – opus – distillazione

The walls of glass is an alembic in which takes place the distillation (solve et coagula). Never ending cycle of
liquefactions and solidifications. Distillation has to do with the first one that in its consiquent stage will
imply a solidification. The alchemist’s goal is the recovery of our original condition and the final step of the
opus alchemicus is the marriage of a woman and a man generally naked that united will procreate.
Coincidentia oppositorum.

Mercury is the element that grants all the transmutations defined as deaths and resurrections. There is a
king and a queen, goal of alchemy - conjunctio -> coincidentia oppositorum.

The result of the never ending cycle of alchemy are 3 roses: rubeum and albeum.

Lapis filosoforum, the mean that is the elixir of long life, is simbolized by a rose.

Snake biting its tail – it alludes to a never ending cycle. A serpent is both a negative and a positive symbol.
Most malignant among the animals in western christian culture because it tends down to hell but at the
same time serpents change their skin as if they were experiencing a resurrection.

God in the revelation says that he is the alpha and the omega, life and death.

Ouroboros is the name for the serpent that bites its tail.

The male is associated with the sun and the female with the moon: gold and silver – androgenus. Eagle
stands for mercury.

George Wither a collection of emblems: latin inscription all around (the end tends to the beginning) and in
alchemical terms we can see a baby and a skull (beginning and end are the same).

To peruse: leggere con estrema cura e attenzione: esaminare

Shakespeare knows very well alchemy (written in italics in sonnet 114). His son in low is an important
alchemist. In this age even Francis Bacon, who is a courtier regarded as the father of modern science, he is
involved in alchemic studies.

Sidney sonnet 1. Attempt to find a fusion amongst the two terms is central in all the works by Shakespeare
and there is a character that is so concerned that he maybe becomes mad because of the impossibility to
live in a society in which substance is less important: Hamlet.

The marriage and the procreation will cause the distillation of beauty, symbolized with the distillation of
the rose.

SONNET 15

The 2, 4 and 8 line are a feminine rhyme.

Increase= augmentatio – decrease. Sonnet 1 parallelism between increase – decease

Rimembering Sidney we can say that this is an anaphoric syllogism. There is a logical reasoning.

Grows: classical identification of humanity as (an inverted) tree (arbol inversa) with the roots in the sky.
Trees and oaks in particular are the emblem of monarchy and the axes of the world (nella genesi l’albero
della vita si trova al centro). Besides their brunches tend to heaven and the roots are in the ground. Oaks
were regarded as the original stores of Jupiter’s sacred fire and therefore trees have the 4 humors. The
roots that feed the tree tend to the sky because we are fed by divinity.

Moment: the author is insiting on vanitas, shortness of beauty and devouring time
Shows: theatrical representation, external appearance. – within his theater he represents the world. Huge
stage: our life

Shakespeare always plays with homophony: show-shadow. Spettacolo teatrale e apparenza-ciò che
svanisce.

Wasteful time

At height decrease: sonnet 5. When the sommer comes they state out of memory.

Opposition between day-night

Engraft: it is not just a botanic metaphor (but a sexual one)

He eternalizes her with his own lines and he will defeat Time.

It is generally defined as the first immortality sonnet.

SONNET 18

It can be associated with the sonnet 15

Summer: pick of beauty

The eye of heaven is the sun

Line 12: lines can be read as verse and as procreation (linea ereditaria).

The poet grants immortality with his sonnets.

SONNET 20

For Wilde it demonstrates the identity of the lovely boy: Willy Hues. It would be spelled in another way:
Hughes

Every line is a female rhyme: totally irregular.

It has been defined as obscene

George steevens: disgusted and indignated

87: 12 female endings 99: 15 lines 116: 2 female endings 126:12 lines 145: 4 feet

Idea of nature as a creating power is also in Astrophil and Stella sonnet 7: nature as a painter. In sonnet 1
the idea of the very poet as a painter.

The noun woman opens the sonnet and it is repeated 6 times: the feminine dimension is the central theme
of the sonnet, which is devoted not to a lady but to the lovely boy.

The second term is Nature: the lovely boy is not contaminated as false women are.

Master has been gradually corrupted and today it has become mister (signore, padrone, maestro). The
same for mistress and misses. The lovely boy is the master and the mistress of love: archetipe of beauty of
both genders.

In this years the eye is still regarded as able to create. The lovely boy’s eye is like a sun able to create and
therefore able to produce gold.

Line 7 is considered the centre of the sonnet. Hues is a word that appears at the centre of the central line.
Hues could mean form, aspect, beauty but also spectrum, ghost. Therefore if we think about Shakespeare’s
dead son and accept the meaning of hue as spirit, we can embrace the theory that the lovely boy is his son.
Hamlet is also based on the relationship between father and son. 1601: first staging of Hamlet –
Shakespeare plays the role of the ghost of Hamlet’s father.

He is so beautiful and he is presented as an absolute model of perfect and androgynous beauty: in sonnet
53 he is associated both to Helen of Troy and Adonis.

Helen Vendler alludes to galenic theories and according to her Shakespeares alludes to the fact that all the
hembryos were originally female and then they were developed in order to become a male. If she is right
we can say that this a sonnet that has to do with mythology, regarded as a high subject, along with 53.

She notices that every line presents almost all the letters that compose the term hues (HEWS). It’s
important to notice that this terms appears in the English translation of il cortegiano – The courtier (1561).
Deve avere una certa grazia e un sangue (it means also appearance). This term sangue is translated with the
term hue.

Hamlet and the lovely boy are models of the courtier. Bembo presents the spiritual love between courtiers.

One thing: reference to sexual organs

He is interested of his love

It marks a turning point: it’s unique in its content and in its prosody.

Female – sdrucciolo according to Sidney.

It is based on contrasts and dichotomies: passion (Platonic love, as a male, and sexual love, as a
woman)according to Marcello Pagnini is one of the important terms. Passion means also poetical
composition, therefore the lirical voice is insisting in the lovely boy as the inspirer.

Giorgio Melchiori claims that Shakespeare is exploring the dualism of binary sexual attitudes in every
human being

Virginia Woolf has written an important essay generally known as a Manifesto of feminism

“A room of one’s own”. Every great mind is a combination of female and male dimension at the same time
and adds that a great artist is androgenus: Shakespeare.

Wilson Knight defines Shakespeare as supersexual and bisexual.

Russell Fraser defines Shakespeare as an androgenus personality.

In the 90s he stages Richard II written in 1595/96. Richard II is a sensible king and he wants to demonstrate
to his own soul (male) the female dimension of his mind. He is androgynous.

In other sonnets the lovely boy is presented as the archetipe of androgenus beauty 14, 19, 53, 54, 56, 59,
67, 68, 106

SONNET 130

Dark lady: sexuality, cruelties. The poet was a split personality: sexual love or platonic love

Mistress: signora, padrona, amante, innamorata, donna.

Lovely boy’s eyes vs mistress’ eyes. He is saying what she is not. Spencer sonnet 9: structured upon
negative theology. He wasn’t able to compare the eyes of the lady to the maker. Shakespeare in a more
evolved way is also using a negative theology in order to define his lady as being at most opposite of
canonic beauty.
Lady as being the most opposite of canonic beauty.

Sidney sonnet 32: he jokes about the custom of using precious elements to describe a woman's beauty. It
destroys the petrarchan canon of beauty.

Damasked roses allude to human work in nature. They are the product of artificiality.

He uses botanic metaphores in order to highlight artificiality. Artifical woman

Colors of alchemy.v

My love also means my lover

I think: from my perspective my beloved is the most beautiful among all the other women. All is relative,
with the new discoveries there is no centre.

1-6: sense of sight, the noblest sense

7-8: based on smell

9-10: hearing (music)

11-12: sight

SONNET 144

The two loves are the lovely boy and the dark lady and they are two spirits that suggest the poet. Spiritual
love and sexual love.

It is a radicated idea that we have two angels: a good one and a bad one.

Fair: bello e biondo vs. colored ill

Hell: sexual reference

In another sonnet the dark lady seduces the lovely boy and somehow they betray the poet

Foul vs. fair: the opening in Macbeth is caracterized by the opposition of foul and fair

Line 12: sexual reference – it refers to the sexual act meaning hell as female genital organ

Verb to fire out: stanare, trasmettere malattie veneree, marchiare (in this age actors and prostitutes were
often branded with fire on the forehead) -> the boy as an actor.

Strict conflictual relationship of the poet towards the lovely boy. It is a platonic love between gentlemen
celebrated by Bembo but also a sexual love with the dark lady. The lirical voice has to choose between
going to Heaven thanks to the lovely boy or go to Hell with the dark lady.

SONNET 23

This sonnet is one of several that taps into the theme of writing and the power that the written word has to
express love, to immortalise the young man, and to keep his love alive forever.

Shakespeare, in the presence of the Fair Youth, is unable to speak properly or make his feelings plain: he
becomes tongue-tied, ‘weak in the presence of beauty’. In the first two lines, he’s like an actor who,
suffering from stage fright, forgets his lines while on stage; in the next two lines, the opposite analogy is
used, and he likens himself to a fearsome (rather than fearful) creature, like a wild beast whose anger
prevents it from achieving anything.
lines 5-8, essentially say that this is exactly how it is with Shakespeare and his love for the Fair Youth: he
cannot say the right things when in the Youth’s company, because his love is too strong, too real, too
overpowering. This is a similar take on the problem encountered in several of the earlier sonnets – namely
the difficulty of depicting one’s love or admiration truly using language – but here it’s different because it’s
more heartfelt

In lines 9-12, Shakespeare urges the Youth to look not to what the poet says, but to how he looks when he
is in the young man’s presence. His actions – or his looks – speak louder than words, and more eloquently
convey how he really feels. His looks are ‘presagers’ – omens or signs – of his ‘speaking breast’, his heart
which knows the truth about his love.

The twelfth line poses a problem in terms of interpretive analysis, given the awkward repetition of ‘more’:
it suggests that being a smooth-talking lover professing one’s love is all well and good, and often the poet’s
tongue has made such professions but on this occasion, the tongue cannot adequately convey how the
poet is really feeling.

In the final couplet, Shakespeare entreats the young man to learn to read the signs of the poet’s ‘silent
love’: to read in his looks rather than his words the fact that he truly harbours affection for him.

SONNET 53

In this sonnet the fair youth is compared both to Adonis and to Helen of Troy. This is to show that the Fair
Youth’s beauty sets the tone for all human beauty.

One can see why Wilde, in ‘The Portrait of Mr W. H.’, draws on this sonnet and on Sonnet 20, with its
opening line ‘A woman’s face, with nature’s own hand painted’. There’s a certain androgyny implicit in
Shakespeare’s depiction of the Fair Youth in Sonnet 53: Adonis is associated with fertility and spring (his
blood supposedly watered the earth every year, allowing crops to flourish; this neatly links the second
quatrain of Shakespeare’s sonnet to the third quatrain, with its talk of spring but also harvest), while Helen
of Troy casts the Fair Youth as a cross-dresser, much like the boy-actors in Elizabethan playhouses.

Shakespeare, back to complimenting the Fair Youth, heaps abundant praise on his beauty by drawing
comparisons between his natural grace and the poor imitations of beauty that art can provide.

This sonnet links substance and tending, but in doing so gives priority not to the thought but to the body,
whose materiality the poem destabilizes so as to remobilize it as substance.

Lines 1,2: just as the body tends on time’s leisure, the shadows here tend because they wait on the young
man as a servant might. They are strange because they do not belong to him; the mystery of his substance
is that it casts all shadows, as though it were all substances.

The multiplicity of shadows is evidence of a body whose substance makes it miraculously polyvalent. We
can say that the body can be a substance capable of subtending the millions of shadows tending on it.
HAMLET

In the first representation in 1601 Shakespeare was acting and playing the role of the ghost

Hamnet, the son of Shakespeare died only five years before at the age of 11.

It is a revenge tragedy from its literal point of view, but actually it is much more: it is a sort of study of the
psychology of humanity. Besides of this it studies the relationship between a father and a son, something
that according to some critics can also be seen in the sonnets by Shakespeare if we consider the lovely boy
as his dead son.

Hamlet is a prince and he has all the features of the intellectual of the Renaissance.

Hues: among the meanings there is ghost. The tragedy is centred on the relationship between Hamlet and
the ghost of his father.

As all the tragic plays the structure consists of 5 acts: generally tragedies follow a sort of pattern created by
Gustav Freytag.

Rising action that culminates with a climax and then there is a falling action that it is concluded with a
catastrophe. Generally the 3rd act marks the peak of emotions and something that will change the events,
it is a turning point.

A tragedy cannot take place without a conflict that sets it. Hamlet story is not invented by Shakespeare. It is
narrated by Saxo Grammaticus in the Historia Danica at the beginning of 1200. The Ur-Hamlet was created
by Thomas Kyd. Bloom believes that Ur -Hamlet was not written by Thomas Kyd but by Shakespeare and
created in 1589-1592 and it was inspired by the death of his son.

PLOT

The old Hamlet, the king, is killed and his son, prince Hamlet, speaks to the ghost of his dead father and
discovers that his father has been killed by his own brother Claudius, who has usurped the throne of
Denmark and has married Gertrude.

Many psychoanalitic critics such as Ernest Jones and Robert Rogers tend to interpret Hamlet relationship
with his mother and there is a trend to intepret it as oedipus complex.
Besides reveiling his truth, the ghost of king Hamlet asks his son to avenge his murder killing the guilty. The
only way to take revenge is killing the murderer. This tragedy is centred on the division of hamlet between
the promt to take revenge and on the other hand thinking too much.

Perfect quintessence of melancholy: being dressed in black and being always meditating becomes
fashionable.

State grants: borse di studio

Thanks to state grants many talented students and for example Marlowe are able to have a classical
education. This erlarging of graduated people leads to the fact that society cannot give all of them what
they are looking for. Arnold Hauser states that this erlarging developed a new state of mind, which is the
sense of alienation

There are numerous conflicts: Hamlet-mother: he can’t bear that a few days after her husband’s death she
marries his husband’s brother Claudius. A conflict Hamlet-Claudius, who is the usurper of the throne.

Conflicts within the very Hamlet. He is a public character but he seems to live in the private dimension. He
can’t forget that he is loved by all his people and he is considered a model of perfection and beauty. ->
parallel with the lovely boy.

Another conflict is the psychological paralysis: he wants to act and revenge his father’s death but he is
prevented on doing it because he thinks too much -> Prototype of the young intellectual in the renaissance.
He will ask himself if he is a coward.

One of his most beautiful meditations is about the meaning and the role of theatre in life and in most of his
plays Shakespeare seems to tell that it helps us to understand life and to get to the truth. Theatre as a tool

BLOOM

According to Bloom no one in the late tragedies and romances could stand on stage with Hamlet: they can
sustain skepticism, but not an alliance of skepticism and the charismatic. The prince trascends his play.
Trascendence is a difficult notion particularly when it refers to a wholly secular context, such as a
Shakespearean drama. Something about Hamlet strikes us a demanding evidence from some sphere
beyond the scope of our senses.

Hamlet’s desires are almost absurdly out of joint with the rancid atmosphere of Elsinore.

Shuffle to Hamlet is a verb for thrusting off “this mortal coil”. “Shuffling” for Claudius is a verb for mortal
trickery; “with a little shuffling” , he tells Laertes, you can switch blades and destroy Hamlet. Claudius is
hardly Hamlet’s “mighty opposite”, as Hamlet calls him; the wretched usurper is hopelessly out-classed by
his nephew.

Shakespeare’s principal departure form the Hamlet of legend and of history is to alter, quite subtly, the
grounds of action for the prince. In the Danish chronicles, Prince Amleth from the start is in real danger
from his uncle and feigns idiocy and madness in order to preserve his life. Here Claudius is too content to
have his nephew as heir; rotten as the state of Denmark is, Claudius has everything that ever he wanted,
Gertrude and the throne.

Had Hamlet remained passive, after the Ghost’s visitation, then the other characters and Hamlet himself
would not have died violently. Everything in the play depends upon Hamlet’s response to the Ghost.
Hamlet is more aware than we are that he has been assigneda task wholly inappropriate for him.
Shakespeare gives us a father and a son totally unlike each other. Of King Hamlet we know that he was a
formidable fighter and world leader. Of the qualities that make the prince so remarkable, the warrior father
seems to have possessed none whatsoever.

Nietzsche saw Hamlet not as the man who thinks too much but rather as the man who thinks too well.
According to him the Dionysian man resembles Hamlet: both have once looked truly into the essence of
things, they have gained knowledge, and nausea inhibits action. The only Shakesperean rival to Hamlet in
comprehensiveness of consciousness and keenness of intellect is Sir Jogn Falstaff. He had once looked truly
into the essence of things but unlike Hamlet the acknowledge in him does not inhibit action.

One of our many perplexities is that we never can be sure when he is acting Hamlet, with or without an
antic disposition.

He is a hero and consciousness is his salient characteristic; he is the most aware and knowing figure ever
conceive. We have the illusion that nothing is lost upon this fictive personage.

COME CITARE

ATTO TERZO SCENA PRIMA VERSO 50

III, 1, 56 III, i, 56

We have received Hamlet in a folio and in a quarto edition but we don’t know who wrote them and they
are slightly different.

ATTO PRIMO, SCENA PRIMA

The tragedy opens during the night: Shakespeare wants to introduce us with an atmosphere of magic and
mistery.

Unfold yourself is the key of the tragedy: dicotomy between fold-unfold, revealing-hiding, essence-
appearance. Hamlet is the paradime of essence and he cannot stand falsity.

Who’s there: idea of being afraid of the unknown. Every tragedy starts with the fear

I am sick at heart: he is suffering for the recent death of king Hamlet. He is one of the many that feel
affection for prince Hamlet.

Horatio is Hamlet’s best friend – perfect platonic love between gentlemen. He is the quintessence of the
stoic philosopher. He shows his knowledge.

Calling the ghost “it” means that they don’t understand what the ghost is.

Denmark= king of Denmark

Horatio is losing his skepticism thanks to his sight.

There are some classical references, such as the night that preceded the death of Caesar, the roman
emperor.

Horatio still uses hipotetical sentences to refer to the ghost.

The cock crows: the danse macabre is a tipical genre close to the vanitas genre. It shows every social class
dancing during the night coming out their graves and when the cock crows they have to enter in the grave
again.

They want to tell Hamlet about the ghost for the love
Claudius: uncle of Hamlet

Michael Wolgemut: danse macabre (1493) – the skeletons wake up and dance together. People of different
social classes.

Church saint Germain: dance between living and dead.

Globe theatre: there is no roof and the performances are staged in the early afternoon. There were no
artificial lights– the wooden o. all around the stage the spectators used to stand. The declamation had to
be exagerated

Blackfriars Theatre: ancient monastery that was owned by Shakespeare from 1608. He had more technical
possibilities: lights, noises, music and special effects. The Winter’s Tale and the Tempest were staged here.

Hamlet speaks about theatre and he is a good actor. He has been considered as the best work by
Shakespeare from the Romantics until the Second World War. Coleridge says that Hamlet is so deeply
human with all the complex contraddictions that we are all Hamlet.

In England after the 2 world war is replaced by other dramas because it can’t put on stage a weak character
and it starts to be performed in a different way that is far away from the original. King Lear becomes the
favorite drama.

Zeffirelli insists on his being in love with his mother. In the central scene he shows Hamlet in bed with his
mother almost having a sexual intercourse.

SCENA SECONDA

The words of the King are without an essence.

Laerte asks the permission to leave Denmark and go back to France. Then the new king adresses Hamlet
and Hamlet is extremly witty (he plays with words). He uses words as a weapon and it’s the only one he can
use. Hamlet as Sidney is the best fencer at the court of Denmark.

Hamlet is offensive and detaches from the king. Hamlet is unable to forget his father – he refuses to be the
son of the new king.

The king is cynic and he cannot understand why Hamlet is sad.

Cloud means that he is not illuminated by the sun: he is always dressed in black

I am too much in the sun. Sun and son are omophones. He plays with the fact that before he has been
called son. To be in the sun means battered and also to be much looked at. The whole tragedy is marked by
people spying on the others. Hamlet foresees that he will be the figure most spied on.

When he speaks his monologues we can say that he is spying on himself. We don’t know if he is aware that
he is spied on by the others. If he is aware we can say that he is playing an actor’s role.

Hamlet is the most observed of all observers. He is a model of perfection.

The queen says to Hamlet to get rid of the nighty colour: this sentence can refer to his black dresses or to
his being melancholic.

Tema più amato da shakespeare. He plays with the verb to seem: essence and appearance. Hamlet plays
with words of the semantic field of theatre: show, play.
La prima parte finisce con il terzo atto. Whereas in the first one he is acting, the course of events will
change and Hamlet for the first time will stop acting. Death is material and he has to approach concrete
death. Within and without is another opposition.

Hamlet stands for real essence like the lovely boy opposed to the falsity of women’s nature: sonnet 20.

It is unmanly grief: it’s a not manly grief. Dolore non virile. The king is cynic and he says that to persevere in
condolement is a course of impious sorrow.

Think of us as of a father: the king uses the plural maiestatis.

You are the most immediate to our throne: he reminds to Hamlet that he will be the future king of
Denmark. Claudius is also afraid because Hamlet could kill him for the throne. He is the only one to grasp
his essence and he is afraid of him.

Morbid attachment between mother and son: she doesn’t want him to go to Wittenberg.

First monologue of Hamlet: he is thinking of suicide, he is meditating before acting. The court is like an
unweeded garden. In Richard II the gardener makes a parallel between his garden and the state.

Hyperion is his dead father and a satyr is Claudius.

Hamlet defines himself feminine, weak: he is not like Hercules

I must hold my tongue: farà promettere all’amico orazio di mantenere il segreto.

Truant: biting my truant pen (sonnet 1 A and S)

Mind’s eye: he is a thinker and a visionary. He thinks that he can see his father.

189: from “it” to “him” – Hamlet uses the pronoun it because he is skeptical.

It’s not only duty but also love. The love for Hamlet is what scares the king. Duty comes after love.

We can read Hamlet behaviour in 2 ways: is he mad or he is playing a role? What is clear is that he seems
divided. Private role: young melancholic intellectual loved by all his friends and at the same time his public
role: future king of Denmark.

His friends prefer their love to Hamlet and they seem to forget their duty.

Hamlet has premonitions.

The second scene is concluded with Hamlet’s doubts. He is made of conflicts and any tragic work cannot
start without fear for what we do not know (questions of life) and for death. Hamlet in his monologue to be
or not to be will meditate on death. At midnight he will face a ghost, something which cannot be described.
-> negative theology

Essence vs appearance: atto 1 scena 2 verso 76. Hamlet says that everyone can play a role.

Laerte and Ophelia are children to Polonius.

Polonius does not want Ophelia to fall in love with Hamlet because he is afraid that he is just joking with
her.

Fashion: modo moda utilizzata da Ophelia e dal padre: attitude – he always reflects on the external
dimension.
Idea of a flower that simbolizes the shortness of beauty. Violet means chastity and represents Ophelia.
They are attached to appearance. Laerte thinks that for Hamlet duty comes before love but Hamlet says
that love becomes before duty. The only character that seems to understand Hamlet is Claudius.

Polonius says that Laerte doesn’t have to be sincere, he has to be familiar but not vulgar, listen but don’t
say what you think -> belong to the world of appearance. He will be wrong when he will give advice to the
royal family.

Continua sottolineatura del fatto che Hamlet è giovane fino a che si arriva al quinto atto in cui si scopre la
sua vera età.

The better is to beguile.

QUARTA SCENA

Propitious moment

Third time in which the ghost appears: number 3 related to divinity. We can think of it as an angel.

Questionable shape: su cui farci delle domande – he is not believing in the ghost: first reaction of Hamlet
the first time he is seeing it.

Hamlet does not care about his life and in the light of James’ demonology this is clearly a reference to the
ghost as a possible devil. His soul is immortal

Marcellus invites the others to follow Hamlet: it starts the act of spying on each other.

QUINTA SCENA

We will find the reason why Hamlet is on one hand prompted to act and on the other hand prevented from
acting.

Meditation and love he can revenge the death of his father.

He understood that Claudius is responsible for the death of his father.

The ghost is describing the actions of Claudius able to seduce Geltrude, his sister-in-law.

Hamlet was talking to his mother and he underlines the difference between his father and the new king
Claudius.

Quick silver and distillation refer to alchimy. Blood is one of the 4 humors.

Bare it not: the ghost is prompting Hamlet to take revenge and kill Claudius, the usurper.

Incest: the queen has married her brother in law

Leave her to heaven: he is referring to his wife (the queen). When she will be in heaven her consciousness
will torment her.

1950: theatrical representation in which Laurence Olivier concludes saying “remember me” 3 times. In
simbolic terms it is the number linked to perfection. The ghost is linked to divinity and we are promted to
consider him an angel.

The ghost has used a but to introduce his second commandment.

The two commandments are a paradox and this explains Hamlet’s behaviour. Take revenge but don’t let
your soul contrive against your mother. This is why he does not know what to do.
It’s an honest ghost. He believes in it. Hamlet calls it old mole, pioneer.

Horatio is the model of stoic philosophy.

He will adopt an antic disposition: he will play the role of the madman Farà finta di essere pazzo e lo spettro
invita tutti a giurare per la quarta volta.

SECONDO ATTO

SCENA PRIMA

Polonius focuses on the surface of things.

This is the very ecstasy of love: they are talking about Hamlet.

SCENA SECONDA

Inizia la rete di spiature: Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. They are called by the queen to spy on Hamlet and
say why he is behaving in this way.

Polonius is prolix and uses pomposity. He is convinced that he knows the cause of Hamlet’s madness and he
tells the queen that he is organizing something which will actually demonstrate that his ideas are right. He
thinks that he is mad because he is in love with Ophelia.

Hamlet represents the tipical intellectual of the renassaince. The audience is formed by intellectuals.

We will try it: The king is skeptical towards the fact that his madness is caused by the love for Ophelia.

When Hamlet enters on stage with his books he knows that all the important characters are spying on him.
Laurence Olivier shows us that Hamlet is looking around because he knows they are spying.

Words, words, words: Hamlet is a split personality and he is more divided by the words of the ghost: take
revenge but don’t harm your mother. meditation, contemplation, poetry vs. action and real life. His real
state of mind belongs to the word of meditation not action.

There are no absolute truths, everything depends on the subject and on thinking. To define this way of
considering we use the term relativism

The idea of dreams will be found in the to be or not to be monologue.

For, by my fay, I cannot reason: Hamlet is ridiculing Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.

Hamlet always plays with sterile and pregnant.

When he knows that the players are coming to offer him service he is planning his revenge: he wants to
play in front of the monarchs what the ghost has told him: how Claudius killed Hamlet the elder. For
Hamlet theatre is like a home: he identifies himself with the actors and he feels comfortable in the stage.
Theatre can lead us to the truth and we can see reality in his right dimension.

As a matter of fact James Joice in his Ulysses speaks about Hamlet and he says that Hamlet is Shakespeare.
Coleridge says that Hamlet is so human that we are all him meanwhile Harold Bloom says that we are not
all Hamlet, we are all Horatio since we love Hamlet.

Throughout the tragedy Hamlet identifies himself with several characters: when he declares some verses of
Pyrrhus he will identify himself with this character. It’s a mirror of Hamlet.

Am I a coward? He insults himself because he can’t take action.

Melancholy: Hamlet talks about himself using a feminine rhyme. Traditional feature that belongs to
women.

TERZO ATTO

SCENA PRIMA

Hamlet is presenting a choice to make: living and dying and much more

To be: suffer in the mind – contemplate

Not to be: take arms – take action

Hamlet is presenting a choice to make.

To dream is a problem because it’s scary – dread of something after death

One of the first performances after the allowance of women acting is Hamlet played by Charlotte Clark
(1699).

Hamlet is always more split between to be and not to be: of course it’s a meditation upon suicide but it’s
also a desperate attempt to find an equilibrium between the two dimensions. Hamlet is suffering because
he needs a balance between the two dimensions that have provoked a sort of civil war in his soul.

The play Hamlet is staging in order to find out if Claudius has killed his father and if the ghost is telling the
truth is entitled “The murder of Gonzago”. Critics has not found any source for this play but it seems to be
alluded to “Il cortegiano” by Castiglione. Both the lovely boy and Hamlet are strongly based on the theories
of man platonic love exposed by Pietro Bembo in The courtier.

Was not like madness: Claudius has understood that Hamlet is not mad and he is convinced that the only
solution is to send Hamlet to England and make the King of England kill Hamlet.

SCENA SECONDA

He is giving instructions to the actors: they should be exaggerated because there is noise from outside since
there is no roof. This passage is prose. He needs harmony and equilibrium.

Hold the mirror up to nature: theatre shows life. Hamlet is saying the audience will find on stage his own
reflection and will understand life by looking at a theatrical representation. We can get to the truth. Wilde
will say it is not art that imitates art but life that imitates art

Claudius according to Hamlet has confessed his guilt.

SCENA TERZA

The king opens the scene by saying I like him not.

Climax: closet scene is the central moment and this marks the turning point.

The king is confessing his guilt and praying in his knees and at this point Hamlet enters the room. As always
Hamlet uses the excuse that the king is praying in order to not take action.

SCENA QUARTA

From this moment on starts the second part of the tragedy.

In the closet scene Zeffirelli makes us see the two in bed as if involved in a sexual intercourse.
Hamlet can’t kill Claudius because he in his edipus complex identifies himself with the king and therefore he
would kill himself.

He insists on the fact that his mother has married Claudius.

The mirror reveals the truth and it is considered magical.

The murder of Polonio is defined as act, deed, it’s not nominated directly.

The ghost doesn’t manifest to Hamlet’s mother so she says that her son is mad.

Turning point: Hamlet confesses to his mother that it is not madness. He doesn’t go on with the fiction.

Main difference between the two parts:

He has already killed someone and he will not go on meditating upon death because it is concrete. By the
way Hamlet will steal the king’s seal and he will read the letters in which Claudius wanted that the king of
England killed Hamlet. Hamlet will send Rosencrantz and Gildensten to death.

He does not go on playing the role of a madman. As he announces at the beginning that he is playing a role
but from this moment on when he has provoked a death and he tells everything to his mother he really
becomes mad.

I do repent: he has killed Polonius and this will turn things against him. Hamlet becomes object of revenge:
Laerte, Polonius’ son, is ready to kill Hamlet to take revenge on his father’s death. He’s mad in craft

I must be cruel in order to be kind: it’s a paradox and it reflect the doubleness of Hamlet.

QUARTO ATTO

Most of the fourth act is without Hamlet but he seems to be always in the air.

SCENA TERZA

Enetrers the king and two courtiers.

The insistence of Hamlet being loved by everyone

At the end of the act the king is alone on stage and there is the letter that he sends to the king of England

SCENA QUARTA

Fortinbras king of Norwey is going to Poland to conquer a patch of land. This is another character with wich
Hamlet identifies himself.

Invisible event: death

SCENA QUINTA

We are witnessing the madness of Ophelia. She becomes mad for all the cruel things Hamlet said to her and
becouse he killed her father.

Goodnight: words quoted in The Waste Land by Elliot

Hamlet is able to return from England thanks to the attack of a pirate ship.

SCENA SETTIMA

For Claudius it’s convenient to encourage Laerte to kill Hamlet since he killed his father.
They agree on how to kill Hamlet.

QUINTO ATTO

After the English experience Hamlet witnesses free death and in a graveyard he seems death in a natural
way. He holds the skull of Ioric and starts to meditate.

In the dialog between Hamlet and a clown we find out that Hamlet is 30 years old. Hamlet is a man of an
older age.

Laerte starts to play an exagerate monologue and Hamlet, who can’t bear this exaggeration, starts to fight
with Laerte. For the first time Hamlet confesses his love for Ophelia.

Hamlet identifies himself with Laerte: another person that is able to take action

For the first time from the climax on he is not playing the role of the madman and confesses his true love
with Ophelia.

SCENA SECONDA

Hamlet dies and prophetizes that Fortinbras will be king of Denmark.

The rest is silence: la morte è silenzio, il resto è silenzio

Fortinbras puts Hamlet’s body in the centre of the stage as the heroes who died in war.