Sir Philip Sidney (1554-1586)

-He was an embodiment of the ideal Renaissance man and courtier.

-Spenser addressed him in the dedication to The Shepherd’s Calendar as someone “worthy of all titles both of
learning and chivalry”.

-when he died fighting against Spanish domination of the Dutch, the entire country mourned his loss.

-He cam from a prominent aristocratic family that lived in Kent.

-His uncle was Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester.

-He attended Oxford University, but left without taking a degree to complete his education by traveling in Europe.

-Coming from a well- connected family, he was introduced to many writers, educators and heads of state on his
travels.

-He saw firsthand the terrible religious conflict between protestants and catholics which resulted in the massacre of
French Protestants.

-He returned to England passionately committed to the protestant cause.

-He also learned of the main literary and artistic developments of the late Renaissance in Italy, France, and northern.

-Back in Italy, Sidney assumed the roles of courtier, diplomat and casual man of letters.

-His interests were political and religious.

-Writing for him were private and informal, not professional activities.

-At the country estate of his sister, he began his long pastoral romance in prose, with interspersed poems Arcadia.

-Sometimes during the early 1580s, he wrote a long essay called The Defense of Poesy, which is the finest piece of
Elizabethan literary criticism, and a classic in the history of criticism.

-His defense provoked an extremist Puritan attack against poetry and plays.

-His contribution to lyric poetry was enormous.

-In 1582, he wrote a sonnet sequence called Astrophel and Stella, modeled on the sonnet sequences of Petrarch and
other Italian and French poets of the Renaissances.

-This series of 108 sonnets reflects an actual autobiographical situation l-Sidney’s love for and eventual engagement
to penelope Devereux. The engagement didn’t work out and she eventually married Lord Rich.

-Astrophel and Stella is the first fully developed sonnet sequence in English.

-Astrophel and Stella is concerned not just with his live for stella but with the difficulty of giving convincing poetic
expression to that love.
Henry Howard and wyatt fathers of English sonnet

Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey (1516/1517 – 19 January 1547), KG, (courtesy title), an English nobleman, was one
of the founders of English Renaissance poetry. He was a first cousin of both Queen Anne Boleyn and Queen
Catherine Howard, second and fifth wives ofKing Henry VIII.

He was born in Hunsdon, Hertfordshire,[1] the eldest son of Thomas Howard, 3rd Duke of Norfolk by his second
wife Elizabeth Stafford, a daughter of Edward Stafford, 3rd Duke of Buckingham. He was thus descended from
King Edward I on his father's side and from King Edward III on his mother's side.

He was brought-up at Windsor Castle with Henry FitzRoy, 1st Duke of Richmond and Somerset, the illegitimate son
of King Henry VIII, with whom he became a close friend, and later a brother-in-law, following the marriage of his
sister to Fitzroy.[2] Like his father and grandfather, he was a brave and able soldier, serving in Henry VIII's French
wars as Lieutenant General of the King on Sea and Land.

He was repeatedly imprisoned for rash behaviour, on one occasion for striking a courtier, on another for wandering
through the streets of London breaking the windows of houses whose occupants were asleep.[2] He assumed the
courtesy title Earl of Surrey in 1524 when his grandfather died and his father becameDuke of Norfolk.[3]

Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey (1517-1547) is the second important poet in the 16th century English literature. His
poetry is often associated with that of Thomas Wyatt, whose work was published alongside Surrey’s in Tottle’s
Miscellany. As a poet he wrote love poems, elegies, and translated Books 2 and 4 of Virgil’s Aeneid.

Surrey is credited with developing the Shakespearean form of the sonnet. He is the second sonneteer in English
literature after Thomas Wyatt. One one hand, Thomas Wyatt tried his best to translate Italian sonneteers, on the
other hand, Surrey not only tried but also reformed the stye of writing sonnets. If Thomas Wyatt is known as as an
artist and the pioneer of the sonnets in English literature then Surrey can be regarded as a craftsman as he improved
the structure and style of composing a sonnet.

Like Thomas Wyatt, he followed Petrarch’s style yet he didn’t simply copy them. Surrey with a crafty hand,
modified the existing form of sonnet. He used three quatrains and a couplet in his sonnet. He wrote in iambic
pentameter lines imparting proper rhyming pattern abab cdcd efef cc. This was a new form of sonnet invented by
Surrey and imitated by Shakespeare.

Surrey’s invention of Blank Verse:

He also introduced blank verse into English - a format that he used in his translation of Virgil. Blank verse poetry
does not have rhyming words at the end of the lines but they are written in iambic pentameter lines. This new style
of writing poetry became a fashion among other Elizabethan poets and dramatists. Shakespeare and Marlow took
inspiration from Surrey and used this blank profusely in their poetry and drama.
A Short Analysis of Henry Howard’s ‘The Soote Season’
A reading of one of the first English sonnets

Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey (1516/17-1547) was the poet who invented the Shakespearean sonnet, sometimes
known as the English sonnet. It was the Earl of Surrey who made the innovation of ending the sonnet with a
rhyming couplet, and in ‘The Soote Season’ he uses this to brilliant effect. This is one of the first sonnets written in
English, but it’s not as well known as it perhaps should be. We think ‘The Soote Season’ is also one of the finest
English poems written about summer, though it also takes in the spring season too. It was first published in English
poetry’s first ever verse anthology, Tottel’s Miscellany: Songs and Sonnets of Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, Sir
Thomas Wyatt and Others (Penguin Classics), in 1557, where it appeared with the title ‘Description of Spring,
wherein each thing renews, save only the lover’. Below is the poem, to which we append a few words of analysis.
The poem is given in its original spelling.0 seconds of 1 minute, 25 secondsVolume

The soote season, that bud and blome furth bringes,

With grene hath clad the hill and eke the vale:
The nightingale with fethers new she singes:
The turtle to her make hath tolde her tale:
Somer is come, for euery spray nowe springes,
The hart hath hong his olde hed on the pale:
The buck in brake his winter cote he flinges:
The fishes flote with newe repaired scale:
The adder all her sloughe awaye she slinges:
The swift swalow pursueth the flyes smale:
The busy bee her honye now she minges:
Winter is worne that was the flowers bale:
And thus I see among these pleasant thinges
Eche care decayes, and yet my sorow springes.

Henry Howard’s summery sonnet, in summary, is about the coming of summer and the various ways in which a
world previously in a sort of stasis or hibernation is now springing into life. (‘Soote’ in ‘Soote Season’ means
‘sweet’.) However, despite this, the poet’s sorrow also springs into new life at this time. We usually associate
autumn and winter with sorrow, but not the summer. The Earl of Surrey makes his sorrow all the more piquant
precisely because it is surrounded by reminders of joy, life, activity, and vibrancy. Isn’t our own sorrow sometimes
all the more keenly felt when everything else around us is joyful, and we know we should be happy too? But as
Diana Wynne Jones once remarked, ‘Happiness isn’t a thing. You can’t go out and get it like a cup of tea. It’s the
way you feel about things.’ Sometimes there is no rhyme or reason – or season – to unhappiness.

‘The soote season’ takes up the literary legacy of Middle English poetry and, specifically, alliterative verse. These
move between the soft sibilance that strike an appropriately summery note (‘soote season’, ‘spray nowe springes’)
and harsher sounds conveying the vivid activity going on in the natural world (‘tolde her tale’, ‘buck in brake’). In a
sense, the final phrase in the poem, ‘sorow springes’, combines this soft sibilance and the harsher plosives in two
words, just as, earlier in the poem, ‘bringes’ and ‘singes’ had merged into ‘springes’.

That last word, ‘springes’, is especially poignant, given the seasonal focus of the poem: spring and summer should
not give rise to sorrow. And it is all the more arresting given that it comes hot on the heels of many previous ‘inge’
rhymes: bringes, singes, flinges, slinges, thinges, and – indeed – springes: ‘Somer is come, for euery spray nowe
springes’.

‘The soote season’ is not only one of the first English sonnets written in English; it was written by the very man who
invented the sonnet form that Shakespeare would later put his indelible stamp on. But Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey
is not as celebrated as the Bard. Even a preliminary analysis of ‘The soote season’ shows, however, that he didn’t
simply prepare the way for Shakespeare: he wrote a powerfully affecting and technically accomplished sonnet in his

own right .
Wyatt Resteth Here – Critical Analysis and Summary
In the poem “Wyat Resteth Here”, the poet Surrey has given expression to his feelings of loss at the death of such a
great personality “Thomas Wyatt”. He feels surprised as to how a fellow (Wyatt) as quick as mercury could rest and
be peaceful. Also, He was a fellow who had got innumerable gifts from God and with the help of these gifts her
served humanity as well as his native country. He had deep routed virtue and owned ripe wisdom. It was through his
wisdom that he was profiting from his country almost daily. He had a personality that envisaged softness and
severity at one and the same time. He always hated evil and loved virtue. And, he had a personality that would stand
upright in the moments of upheavals and disturbances.

Wyatt Resteth Here : Explained

He also worked as an envoy of the king and went to different countries on diplomatic missions for him. He was also
a poet and brought poetry out of the fake and hypocritical realm into the world o genuine and true-life feelings,
emotions and sentiments. And, he had a great critical eye whose judgement and final decision nobody could
challenge. He had no craftiness or guile but he could allure his friends and reconcile his enemies by his oily
statements of wisdom. He was a dauntless and courageous fellow and know the art of speaking the truth even in
the face of cruel dictators and despots. In his personality were mixed in a beautiful and proportionate manner power
as well as prettiness. He lived a happy life in spite of the fact that he had made many enemies out of his outright and
steadfast behaviour.

It seems to Surrey that Wyatt was the most individual fellow. He was made, or rather cast, by nature through a
special mould which has, after that, been misplaced or lost as such. So, as a result, no such other person would ever
be born with the qualities and characteristics of Wyatt in him. He embodied a faith that would be envious of Christ.
He had arrived at making the general society happy and healthy but the society did not get the full benefit from him.
Perhaps it was at fault to recognise him completely.