EDMUND SPENSER’S AMORETTI

STUDY QUESTIONS

SONNET #54

Of this worlds Theatre in which we stay,

My love lyke the Spectator ydly sits
beholding me that all the pageants play,
disguysing diversly my troubled wits.
Sometimes I joy when glad occasion fits,
and mask in myrth lyke to a Comedy:
soone after when my joy to sorrow flits,
I waile and make my woes a Tragedy.
Yet she beholding me with constant eye,
delights not in my merth nor rues my smart:
but when I laugh she mocks, and when I cry
she laughes, and hardens evermore her hart.
What then can move her? if nor merth nor mone,
she is no woman, but a sencelesse stone.

1. Check the rhyme scheme and the ideas developed. What type of stanzaic
form can we find here?

-abab bcbc ded eff

2. Analyse the conceit developed mainly in the first two quatrains.

-Life as a theatre (pejorative) where he would be the actor and she would be
the spectator. This is a metaphor.
He assumes the role he’s acting in classical theatre.
-There are references to Drama and Comedy.
-Conceit: constituent parts theatre, spectator, pageants play, disguising,
mask, comedy and tragedy.
The persona as an actor plays from the highest point of joy (joy, glad, like,
comedy) to pain (in tragedy). Happy states of mind vs. sad states of mind.

-Spenser diminishes the realistic aspects but he opens a huge space to

understand the concepts by acting.

-A hard lady as spectator. Her hardness is presented in the metonymic

“constant eye”.
This could be in relation with her permanence seeing him. In the final line
“senseless stone” establishes the reference to a kind of goddess. In classical
convention gods were put into marble or stone. She is presented as a superior,
indifferent. She mocks him. It is presented an unrequited love.

3. How does antithesis show in this sonnet?

4. Can you find any Petrarchan conventions?

Feeling and devotions are typical in Petrarchan conventions. However, a new

twist is the theatrical conceits. The idea is that the all the experiences are not
necessary felt by the persona, because he’s acting. He does not necessary
have to feel all that. So, the point suggests that he is not really following the
Petrarchan conventions.

SONNET #75
One day I wrote her name upon the strand,
But came the waves and washed it away:
Again I write it with a second hand,
But came the tide, and made my pains his prey.
Vain man, said she, that doest in vain assay,
A mortal thing so to immortalize,
For I myself shall like to this decay,
And eek my name be wiped out likewise.
Not so, (quod I) let baser things devise
To die in dust, but you shall live by fame:
My verse, your virtues rare shall eternize,
And in the heavens write your glorious name.
Where whenas death shall all the world subdue,
Our love shall live, and later life renew.

1. Notice the rhyme scheme and the resulting stanzaic pattern.

-abab bcbc cdcd ee; there are three quatrains and a final couplet English
(Spensarian) sonnet.

2. Which Petrarchan elements can be discerned (distinguidos) in this sonnet?

-LOVE/LADY/ I The three

-Love remains after death, everlasting (“To die in dust, but you shall live by
fame”); the use of natural elements (“waves”, “tide”) and the topic of
unrequited love.

3. Q1: How do you interpret the actions of the waves and the tide?

-Symbolism: waves and tide mean here death, the end of all. No matter what
you write in the sand, water always washes it as the same as no matter who you
are, when you were born, that death always reaches you.
That is the way the natural forces are represented here; there are no bigger
forces that those. There is a natural cycle (with beginning and ending).
-Tide destroys everything man-made; idea of motion.
-Ocean is a metonymy of natural forces. There’s also synechdoque of natural
forces.
-Personification in line 4 which gives the tide human attributes. It emphasizes
author’s frustration where the ocean erases his words and punishing him. It is
animated more than inanimate. The failure of keeping the words are repeated
twice but again “washes away”.
-Use of the anaphora: use of the same words in the opening verse.

4. Q1: What “pains” may result from these actions?

-Frustration more than pain; the pain is later show in the wish of obtaining the
lady’s love. It is a pain of different intensity than in other Petrarchan poems.
-The persona tries to give immortality to lady but it is frustrated by natural forces.
The motion of natural forces is marked by alliteration “w”. There’s also
anaphora. These rhythmical aspects emphasize the motion of the ocean.
-Alliteration in line 2: “waves, washed”  without the “waves washing” the
protagonists of the sonnets had never had their conversation. The alliteration
introduces the theme.

5. Q2: Just as she plays with words (identify) she seems to play with readers’
expectations: What could the persona expect a rebuke(reprimenda, reproche)
for, in view of his futile actions above? What does he actually get the rebuke
for?

-She doesn’t correspond to his love. He failed in terms of giving her immortality.
-She doesn’t want to be treated like a goddess; we can listen her voice in the
poem. She has voice and refuses to be immortal; she’s not looking for that.
She CLAIMS her own MORTALITY.

6. Q2: As a result, what is significant about the speaking voice here? How does
that fit in the Petrarchan set of conventions?

-We can see here in the words “vain” and “mortal” antonoclasis (Greek
refractio); she plays with words.
Using this, Spenser is combining vanity (to give a mortal creature immortality)
and acknowledge (that there’s something impossible, and she knows it and
does not want it).
-Immortalize and mortal: cognate words.
-The lady’s voice is making revelations saying that the attempt of immortalizing
her will not make her to love him. This is the unrequited love of Petrarchan
conventions. But at the same time, Spenser breaks with this convention putting
a lady who refuses the love received, who refuses to be that perfect lady
presented before in poetry (this is a twist). She has HUMANITY and MORTALITY.
She imitates the male position of mortality.

7. Q3: Two kinds of writing are contrasted. Explain.

-Direct speech used.

-The persona represents like a micro narrator; his words are presented in direct
speech; but in fact, the consecutive actions of writing represent an ephemeral
kind of writing introduced by DUST. Lover presents himself as the poet.
The significant is that the matter of seconds tide takes to borrow the words
makes life EPHEMERAL;
-Topos (plural Topoi) (motif): common thing revised by classical tradition or
antiquity (exegi monumentum); to immortalize one particular theme. We refer
to this poetry to its permanence in contrast with the ephemeral.

8. C: What is the final, prevailing idea in the sonnet?

-The idea is that everything comes to an end. The love is the only one that
survives.
-This love is only remained by his poetry.
-LOVE/LIVING/LIFE  Positive optimist ending of the poem which reinforce life;
this is emphasized with the “l” sound (alliteration).
-“Renew” this is possible having children; following the cycle of life; marriage.
Therefore, the resolution of the poem is positive (having love, living and life).

9. Consider how the words “in the heavens” and “glorious” (l. 12) relate to “all
the world” (l. 12). What conclusion may follow?

-“And in the heavens write your glorious name”.

We have here the idea of divinity; he’s is no focusing in himself at all.
The lady is one of the superior things, she’s presented platonically, that does not
become in dust. This is a biblical reference.
There’s alliteration of “d” that contributes to the idea of death. This makes her a
superior individual that dust doesn’t affect because she’s depicted as immortal
by him.
“Glorious” links her to heaven divine aspect but not just a virtue or pagan
divinity; it’s a Christian divinity. Lady vs common thing (the world, the rest of the
people); she is not going to be dust while the rest of the world are.
The twist Spenser brings is the divinity more in Christian moral rather than pagan
one.

THINGS CONTRADICTING PETRARCHAN CONVENTIONS

The lady refusing to be put in a pedestal, speaking by herself, her own voice;
there’s a happy resolution with marriage and not with a forever agony; and
finally, this divinity takes more a religious Christianity rather than classical pagan
divinity.
The fact she is speaking could imply that they are closer, physically; she is not
far away, a love impossible to reach. The fact that they engage in dialogue
also breaks with Petrarchan conventions.

9. How the poem creates a macro story?

The very structure of the sonnet is used to highlight this macro story; love story
ending in marriage.
The two first quatrains could be interpreted as an octave (where there’s
resistance from her part to be an immortal image)
-“I wrote”  introducing himself as the poet.