| The Petrarchan sonnet cycle became a popular poetic form in England during the Elizabethan period. Two Petrarchan sonnet cycles of this time are Sir Philip Sidney's Astrophil and Stella, written from 1580 to 1584, and Edmund Spenser's Amoretti, published in 1595. Lady Mary Wroth, Sir Philip Sidney's niece, also published a sonnet cycle, Pamphilia to Amphilanthus, in 1612. All three cycles reflect the ascendant religious ideology of the time, Protestantism, and in these cycles the focus on interior emotions parallels the Protestant emphasis on the interiority of religious experience. This essay examines each sonnet sequence, beginning with Astrophil and Stella, next considering Amoretti , and finally exploring Pamphilia to Amphilanthus. Each section investigates the construction of the poetic subject and that construction's links to values associated with Protestant attitudes. The essay concludes with a brief consideration of the sequences' similarities and differences in their Protestant approaches to Petrarchan sequences. |
