![]() ![]() Several members of the Sidney circle then appropriated the same motif : Sir Philip Sidney in Astrophil and Stella (1591), his younger brother Robert in his unfinished sonnet sequence (1587-1614), and finally his own daughter, Lady Mary (Sidney) Wroth (1611-1621). First, Thomas Wyatt offered his own translation of the poem, entitled « My Galley » (published in 1557 in Totell’s Songes and Sonnettes 1. In particular, Petrarch’s Rime 189, which depicts the soul as a ship crossing tempestuous seas, was translated and imitated by a series of poets. ![]() Texte intégralġ Seafaring images fared well in Tudor and Jacobean poetry, perhaps due to the experience of travellers crossing the Channel to reach the continent and the wider awareness of living on an island. Across time and distance, Wyatt and the Sidneys engaged in a dialogue which found its origins in Petrarch but also participated in the making of an English poetic tradition. ![]() What transformations did the motif of the shipwrecked soul undergo in the works of these poets ? Given that Philip, Robert and Mary Sidney (Wroth) were related and all worked within the framework of the sonnet sequence, is there a sort of « Sidney imprint » on that motif ? As the only woman among the poets quoted above, is Lady Mary Wroth’s use of the same motif influenced by her gender ? As the last writer in this « line of poets », was her knowledge of Petrarch mediated by the other English poets that used the image of the shipwrecked soul before her ? This paper aims to question the dynamics of imitation in Elizabethan England by studying a group of poems that all emanated from the same « Ur-poem », Petrarch’s sonnet 189. The existence of this set of poems suggests a series of questions. Sir Thomas Wyatt, Sir Philip Sidney, his younger brother, Sir Robert Sidney and the latter’s daughter, Lady Mary Wroth, all depicted the soul’s torments as a shipwreck. Petrarch’s sonnet 189, which depicts the persona’s soul as a ship crossing tempestuous seas, encountered such success in Elizabethan England that it was translated, imitated and adapted by a series of poets. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. Archives
March 2023
Categories |