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Queen Virtue’s court, which some call Stella’s face, Prepar’d by Nature’s choicest furniture, Hath his front built of alabaster pure; Gold is the covering of that stately place. The door by which sometimes comes forth her Grace Red porphyr is, which lock of pearl makes sure, Whose porches rich (which name of cheeks endure) Marble mix’d red and white do interlace. The windows now through which this heav’nly guest Looks o’er the world, and can find nothing such, Which dare claim from those lights the name of best, Of touch they are that without touch doth touch, Which Cupid’s self from Beauty’s mind did draw: Of touch they are, and poor I! am their straw.
 * Sidney's Sonnet IX of //Astrophil and Stella//**

Examples of Literary Author-Audience Communication:


 * 1)** **PETRARCHAN THEMES:** Sidney demonstrates a rich familiarity with the Petrarchan conventions that were so eagerly embraced by his fellow artists. Through their constant invocation, these images became popularized, permeating the cultural conceptions of love and beauty **[//ins//. Pictures: Birth of Venus (Botticelli) Poetry: Sonnet VII (Thomas Watson)]**. By employing these conventions, Sidney connects with his audience through their shared knowledge of them, inviting the cultural connotations that had evolved from them to supply meaning of their own to his work. In this sonnet, for instance, he invokes Cupid—the classical god of love (whom Petrarch held accountable for the intense passion he felt for his own muse, Laura **[//ins//. Petrarch Sonnet II]**)—as the chief architect of Stella’s physical appearance. In Sonnet VI, he directly identifies the most popular Petrarchan paradoxes: “living deaths, dear wounds, fair storms, and freezing fires” (ln 4). And, as seen here in Sonnet IX, Sidney’s physical description of Stella is the perfect embodiment of classical, Laura-inspired beauty: white, translucent skin, golden tresses, red lips and a youthful flush commemorate the Petrarchan ideal **[//ins//. Petrarch Sonnets CLIX, CC & CCXIX]**. Sidney incorporates these universally recognized tropes as literary anchors in his work—a means of identifying with his culture and communicating with its members through historically relevant terms.

//*Sources:// [], Norton, //find reliable translations of listed sonnets, find appropriate pictures//


 * 2)** **BREAK FROM CONVENTION:** And yet, Sidney very frequently uses these “anchors” of convention as literary tools for establishing his own unconventionality. He connects to his audience through them, but it is perhaps in his subsequent rejection of them that he most clearly communicates with it. Returning to Sonnet VI and the list of Petrarchan themes, when taken with the rest of the poem, these seem less like actual invocation and more like a pithy inventory of tired clichés: “Some lovers speak, when they their muses entertain, / . . . / Of living deaths, dear, wounds, fair storms, and freezing fires.” There is an implicit sense of distance in the identification of these poets as “some lovers,” as though Sidney wishes not to be associated with them. He provides two more examples of commonplaces that “some lovers” rely on when writing in love’s despair before boldly declaring, “//I// can speak what I feel, and feel as much as they, / But think that all the map of my state I display” (lns 12-13, emphasis mine). In other words, Sidney boasts (through the guise of the character of Astrophil) that he, unlike “some lovers,” can convey his lovesickness objectively. While there are numerous citable instances of Sidney embracing Petrarchan images, such as his reference to Cupid in this sonnet (Sonnet IX), he makes a distinct effort to separate himself from convention, thus asserting his creative individuality. Even in this sonnet, where his words paint Stella after the Petrarchan model, Sidney cleverly distinguishes himself from custom by “building” Stella as though he were building a house. Her white forehead is the alabaster façade, her flushed cheeks porches of red and white marble, and her golden hair the roof. Her red lips, which traditionally would have been coral (or something of that similar), serve as a door built from porphyry. Unlike Laura’s “vivid blue orbs” (Sonnet CLIX), Stella’s “windows” are a striking black. Whether this is a deliberate, conscious deviation from the picturesque Renaissance woman or simply a physical incongruence between Petrarch’s Laura and Sidney’s own muse cannot be verified. However, many scholars agree that Penelope Deveraux, Sidney’s would-have-been wife, was the original inspiration for Stella **[//ins//. Picture: Penelope Deveraux]**. Pictured here, Penelope fits the description of Stella perfectly. She was considered by many to be one of the most beautiful ladies at court in her youth.

//*Sources:// Norton, //Find// //appropriate pictures//


 * 3)** **PLATONIC ELEMENTS:** Tomorrow. Not now. Bed now.

Examples of Cultural Author-Audience Communication:
 * 1)** **RICH:** In line seven, Sidney makes a sly reference to the original Stella: his would-have-been wife, Penelope Devereaux. They met when Sidney accompanied Queen Elizabeth on a trip to Essex, where Penelope’s father was Earl. It was his dying wish that they marry, but all plans of a union between the two were dashed when his widow married Sidney’s uncle, the Earl of Leicester. Penelope was presented to the court without immediate prospects, and was snatched up within a few months by the Baron Robert Rich. Sidney writes parenthetically that Stella’s cheeks “endure” the adjective “rich” with strong but subtle scorn, a reference that offers readers such as ourselves a faithful representation of the audience for whom Sidney wrote. The English court was a small, socially insulated world; when Sidney composed //Astrophil and Stella//, he knew that his audience would be receptive to any allusions made to its members.

//*Source:// [] //claims to be directly excerpted from:// Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th Ed. Vol XXIII. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1910. 293 //(need to look into that)//


 * 2)** **MATERIALS:** Similarly, the gently nuanced materials that Sidney uses to “build” his image of Stella outline the social and economic prosperity of the class to which he was constantly appealing. With lips as red as porphyry, skin as white as alabaster (marbleized with a healthy flush) and eyes as black as “touch,” the ideal Renaissance beauty emerges from the text through agents of colorful detail. But the function of these minerals surpasses the superficial description of Stella’s face: all four (porphyry, alabaster, marble and the difficult to define “touch”) date back through history and literature as expensive, ornamental materials, carrying with them connotations of opulence suited for either noble extravagance or religious worship. Porphyry was commonly used by the Romans to craft decorative urns, while alabaster and marble have been symbols of luxury since over a thousand years before the common era. The true identity of “touch” in this sonnet is much more difficult to locate, though the Norton Anthology of English Literature and the Oxford English Dictionary equate it with precious minerals ranging from jet to black marble.

//*Sources:// Norton//,// OED