'NO ELOQUENCE LIKE IT': STYLISTIC RHETORIC IN THE POETRY OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY

Patterns of stylistic rhetoric figure prominently in much of the poetry of Sir Philip Sidney, from the tentative beginnings in The Lady of May to the delicately finished art of Astrophil and Stella. This literary accomplishment is not surprising since Sidney, like most Renaissance schoolboys, learned to speak, to write, and to evaluate the writings of others through the study and practice of rhetoric at Shrewsbury School and Oxford.;Sidney distrusted figures that were merely ornamental or "winter-starved" and admonished writers to "devour them whole, and make them wholly theirs" (DP). He uses rhetorical patterns and schemes to emphasize themes and messages; he uses them also to express in words the passions his speakers feel. His rhetorical devices frequently recreate the motions of the mind thinking and dramatically convey the emotions of the speaker. In turn, they create and arouse emotions in the reader.;Sidney's earliest poems, the three embedded in The Lady of May, use rhetorical devices with some success. In the Old Arcadia Sidney employs rhetoric to intensify his subject and theme. Each book of the Old Arcadia has its individual theme, and the rhetorical devices in the poems and eclogues help stress that message. The characters are overwhelmed by love and adoration or by violent melancholy. The subject matter of the poems is constricted; thus the group of rhetorical devices used is limited and leads to a static quality with sameness of effect.;In Certain Sonnets Sidney creates a lover who tells of the growth and decay of a love affair. To establish the voice of this speaker, Sidney combines and interlaces a wide selection of varied figures with a flexibility that captures and reflects the lover's emotions and states of mind. Within the lyric sequence, figures of repetition, word play, and balance interact to express the speaker's concern with pain, his sense of frustration, his renunciation of desire, and finally his rejection of love.;For Sidney the function of poetry was to delight, to teach, and to move. Sidney defines poetry as "a speaking picture--with this end, to teach and delight" (DP). Yet, its final end is "well-doing" and not only "well-knowing," "the ending end of all earthly learning being virtuous action" (DP). Sidney used his art to win men to virture. In this attempt, he pursued goals held in common with rhetoric. He sought to induce his readers to reach proper conclusions or to engage in useful action through his rhetorical choices of language. One source of persuading men to act virtuously as well as of delighting them resides in rehetorical figures and schemes, patterns and arrangements of words whose functional value lies in emphasizing ideas and thoughts and in creating emotional impact.;The poetic voice established in Certain Sonnets is perfected in Astrophil and Stells. The rhetorical figures and devices help to create the persuasive, convincing voice of Astrophil moving through his experience of love because human experience often finds a natural outlet in the shapes of rhetoric. In Astrophil and Stella the figures are so skillfully assimilated into the texture of the poems that they nearly escape notice. Yet, more than in any of the earlier works, a remarkably extensive choice of figures and much more intricate combinations of them sustain and elucidate the many facets of Astrophil's love and convey his sonnet by sonnet oscillations between devotion, desire, and despair.;The figures of stylistic rhetoric may claim a place of merit in the development of Sir Philip Sidney's poetic skill. They produce their own emotional impact. Simultaneously, they are absorbed into the tissue of Sidney's poetry as it recreates human thoughts and feelings until there is "no eloquence like it" (AS 55).