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maenad_wordsmith's review against another edition
5.0
I reread this for work, and the sonnets are better than I remembered. (I read this sequence first in 2005, I think.)
debbie_likes_to_read_books's review against another edition
1.0
Read this for poetry class and I just didn't vibe with it. Astrophel's constant yearning and wanting Stella, like sure was cute but after reading Spencers Amoretti I just don't vibe with Astrophel anymore. IM DONE WITH ASTROPHEL AND STELLA PLEASE DON'T MAKE MY POOR ENGLISH MAJOR BRAIN SUFFER ANYMORE OF THIS! I HAD ENOUGH AND I DID THIS IN TWO CLASSES 17th CENT LIT AND POETRY ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!
sagehaviland222's review against another edition
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
slow-paced
4.0
yarahossam's review against another edition
5.0
Some of my favorite verses:
1- "When Nature made her chief work, Stella’s eyes,
In colour black why wrapp’d she beams so bright?"
2- "O Love, truly, in what a boyish manner
You carry out your most serious tasks,
So that when Heaven shows you his best offering
You nevertheless leave that best behind."
3- "Poor passenger, pass now thereby I did,
And stayed pleas’d with the prospect of the place,
While that black hue from me the bad guest hid:
But straight I saw motions of lightning grace,
And then descried the glist’ring of his dart:
But ere I could fly hence, it pierc’d my heart."
4- "Come, let me write. “And to what end?” To ease
A burthen’d heart. “How can words ease, which are
The glasses of thy daily vexing care?”
Oft cruel fights well pictur’d forth do please.
“Art not asham’d to publish thy disease?”
Nay, that may breed my fame, it is so rare."
5- "Dear, why make you more of a dog than me?
If he do love, I burn, I burn in love;
If he wait well, I never thence would move;
If he be fair, yet but a dog can be.
Little he is, so little worth is he;"
1- "When Nature made her chief work, Stella’s eyes,
In colour black why wrapp’d she beams so bright?"
2- "O Love, truly, in what a boyish manner
You carry out your most serious tasks,
So that when Heaven shows you his best offering
You nevertheless leave that best behind."
3- "Poor passenger, pass now thereby I did,
And stayed pleas’d with the prospect of the place,
While that black hue from me the bad guest hid:
But straight I saw motions of lightning grace,
And then descried the glist’ring of his dart:
But ere I could fly hence, it pierc’d my heart."
4- "Come, let me write. “And to what end?” To ease
A burthen’d heart. “How can words ease, which are
The glasses of thy daily vexing care?”
Oft cruel fights well pictur’d forth do please.
“Art not asham’d to publish thy disease?”
Nay, that may breed my fame, it is so rare."
5- "Dear, why make you more of a dog than me?
If he do love, I burn, I burn in love;
If he wait well, I never thence would move;
If he be fair, yet but a dog can be.
Little he is, so little worth is he;"
ygraines's review
3.0
this is a work of rhetorical and poetic virtuosity, one hundred and eight sonnets for the one hundred and eight suitors of penelope, each poem a plea for stella's love, for stella's attention, for stella's pity; each poem donning the garb of a suitor and demanding their suit be heard.
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