Renaissance sonnets

Aspects of sonnets. How to write sonnets, by Rachel Richardson.

The sonnets on our syllabus: Sidney, Astrophel and Stella 1. Sidney, Astrophel and Stella 71 ("Who will in fairest book of nature know"). A lot of reliable resources for the study of Sidney (and Wroth and their family). Sidney's whole sequence, reliably edited and in 1580s spelling. An engraving of Sidney. A portrait.

Shakespeare, sonnet 105 ("Let not my love be called"). Shakespeare, sonnet 116 ("Let me not to the marriage of true minds"). Sonnet 129 ("The expense of spirit"). All Shakespeare's sonnets in a decent modern-spelling edition. An online edition (with commentary) of the first quarto.

Lady Mary Wroth, Pamphilia to Amphilanthus 2. Wroth, Pamphilia 7. A reliably edited text for the whole sequence, with notes. A short life of Wroth. A longer reliable life, with more on what happens in her enormous Urania. Her complete writings online.

Quite a lot of reliable texts, and commentary, on Barnfield. Barnfield's Affectionate Shepherd, sonnet 16 ("Long have I long'd") and sonnet 17 ("Cherry-lipt Adonis"). The polemical Rictor Norton on Barnfield and other gay shepherds.

Some precursors and parallels: Thomas Wyatt's "long love. Thomas Campion's cherry garden. Petrarch's Canzoniere in modern English by A. S. Kline.

A Nicholas Hilliard miniature. And another. J. E. Delaunay's Ixion (late 19th c.). Botticelli's Cupid.