Sidney's Suggestions About Love

In Astrophil and Stella, is Sir Philip Sidney trying to say that love is deadly in general, or particularly from a woman like Stella? This question came to me after reading Sonnet 7 particularly, and I never got to address it in class.  So to answer this question myself, I will focus on evidence in the text as well as the love life of Philip Sidney in comparison it to the sonnets themselves.

The first thing we notice when we read Sonnet 7 of Astrophil and Stella is that this woman who the narrator is describing has black eyes.  This is unusual because in most sonnets that were written at the time, the woman usually has blue eyes.  The reason why her eyes are black, according to the narrator, is because “She even in black doth make all beauties flow? /Both so and thus, she minding Love should be/Placed ever there, gave him this mourning weed, /To honor all their deaths, who for her bleed” (Sidney 681).  In other words, she is so beautiful that even her gaze is lethal, because it conveys love directly to the man's heart, which overwhelms him to the point of dying. 

           This would imply that Sidney thinks that love is dangerous, but when we look at his love life, an interesting fact comes up.  During the time that Sidney was writing Astrophil and Stella, he was courting a woman named Penelope Devereux.  However, she ended up marrying someone else and he married Frances Walsingham instead, who he had one daughter with before his death three years later (Jokinen).  In Astrophil and Stella, he describes a woman who he’s deeply in love with, and wants her to notice him, even though her beauty is deadly.  When we compare the two, we find many similarities.  For instance, both situations involve a courtship, and the woman who is the subject of this courting has a similar affect on men, whether fictional or not.

Therefore, Sidney is suggesting that love isn’t deadly in general, but it is particularly from a woman like Stella.  Stella, who represents Penelope in the poem, is the object of the narrator’s affection, and he loves her so deeply that he cannot express it in words.  However, he decides to write a sonnet in hopes that she will notice him, and goes onto to describe her.  Though her eyes are black, her beauty outshines others, and it is fatal for men.  This is why she’s always mourning, because she can never get close to anyone freely.       

Works Cited:

Jokinen, Anniina. "Life of Sir Philip Sidney (1554-1586)." Luminarium.
        7 Apr 2007. 2