Amerotti sonnets

Hi friends Spenser is great English authir, however, in this forum nothing is posted about him. please tel me something about the Amerotti sonnets. as far as i know Amerotti means little loves so the sonnets are about love. actually the sonnets are sequence sonnets. and there are so many sonnets about just one issue. is thre any one who can tell me how i can interpret the sonnets because whenever i read the sonnets i can`t undrestand what exactly it wants to say. please help me with the sonnets. :thumbsup:

Spenser's Amoretti is a series of sonnets that differs in a number of ways from other sonnet cycles. Spenser's Amoretti immortalizes and chronicles his courtship of his wife-to-be, Elizabeth Boyle. As such... the lovers are real... and not merely a poet's invention as in many Renaissance cycles, nor are we witness to the frustration of the lover/poet yearning for some unattainable woman... another common conceit from at least Dante and Petrarch onward. The poems also reveal a distinct development of the lover's relationship over the course of time, beginning with disdain and rejection, to interest, to friendship, to the full bloom of love. Spenser concluded the cycle with the Epithalamion in celebration of their marriage.

Understanding the poems involves vocabulary, a grasp of reading poetic language, and the use of metaphor, etc... Ultimately it is best discussed on a specific basis. Is there a specific poem you are struggling with?

Not Amarretti biscuits then!!woosh that is one thing out of the way.
Although this brings this to mind
what is the clear difference between a poem and a sonnet?

Cacian... you do have access to Google, right?

A sonnet is a specific poetic form... commonly employing 14 lines and a strict rhyme-scheme.

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Originally Posted by stlukesguild

Cacian... you do have access to Google, right?

A sonnet is a specific poetic form... commonly employing 14 lines and a strict rhyme-scheme.

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stlukes thank you. :)
It is just sometimes one can write a poem not realising it is a sonnet.
I wrote a vilanelle once not knowing it was and I had never looked at vilanelle before.

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Originally Posted by stlukesguild

Spenser's Amoretti is a series of sonnets that differs in a number of ways from other sonnet cycles. Spenser's Amoretti immortalizes and chronicles his courtship of his wife-to-be, Elizabeth Boyle. As such... the lovers are real... and not merely a poet's invention as in many Renaissance cycles, nor are we witness to the frustration of the lover/poet yearning for some unattainable woman... another common conceit from at least Dante and Petrarch onward. The poems also reveal a distinct development of the lover's relationship over the course of time, beginning with disdain and rejection, to interest, to friendship, to the full bloom of love. Spenser concluded the cycle with the Epithalamion in celebration of their marriage.

Understanding the poems involves vocabulary, a grasp of reading poetic language, and the use of metaphor, etc... Ultimately it is best discussed on a specific basis. Is there a specific poem you are struggling with?

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It's also a rather detailed exploration of neoplatonic conceptions of love and beauty. However, I usually find it more enjoyable to ignore the philosophical arguments at work behind the beautiful sentiment of the cycle.

Spenser is largely neglected these days outside of academia, and actually I think he's suffered a lot of neglect since the early 20th century. He was not a favourite of the new critics, who hated allegory. And much of the progressive critics of the 60s and 70s seem to have resented his perceived conservative politics. However, I think he is making a bit of a resurgence lately, and there is burgeoning interest in Spenser because of his eclectic poetics and philosophy, driven in part by new historicism and interest in Renaissance cultural studies.

I'm currently enrolled in a graduate seminar on The Faerie Queene and I've noticed how much new research on Spenser has been published in the last 10 years, in comparison to few other major works of criticism on Spenser Studies since C.S. Lewis'. Partly this can be attributed to the wonderful work of A.C. Hamilton in the 80s of producing authoritative, detailed critical editions of Spenser's work, plus the Spenser Encyclopedia he edited. The combination of renewed interest and fantastic reference resources seems to be a good sign of Spenser's resurgence in the academies.

Maybe he'll make it back into the mainstream culture, but his difficulty makes that a bit unlikely.

Probably one of the best sonnet cycles of the English language. It's a pity many critics did not consider it as such. Spenser's use of imagery particularly draw my attention the last time I read the Amoretti, as well as his interesting and subtle portrayal of the development of love. Even though his domain of the form was not as perfect as Petrarch's or Shakespeare's, he was still one of the greatest european sonneteers in my judgment.

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Originally Posted by namenlose

Probably one of the best sonnet cycles of the English language. It's a pity many critics did not consider it as such. Spenser's use of imagery particularly draw my attention the last time I read the Amoretti, as well as his interesting and subtle portrayal of the development of love. Even though his domain of the form was not as perfect as Petrarch's or Shakespeare's, he was still one of the greatest european sonneteers in my judgment.

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Well I think the cycle comes off best when considered in its entirety with the Epithalamion. As a collection it offers a lot, but I don't think Spenser's individual sonnets stand out as much as the best of Sidney, Milton, Donne, or even Elizabeth Browning and Wordsworth.

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Well I think the cycle comes off best when considered in its entirety with the Epithalamion. As a collection it offers a lot, but I don't think Spenser's individual sonnets stand out as much as the best of Sidney, Milton, Donne, or even Elizabeth Browning and Wordsworth.

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I agree that they have more to offer when read as a body of work rather than as individual poems. I would not argue that he is a better sonneteer than any of these poets either, although, except perhaps for Milton, I would probably prefer Spenser to any of them. Donne's style specially never pleased me as much as I would like, but it's been a while since the last time I read him, so my appreciation of his works may change.

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Originally Posted by cacian

Not Amarretti biscuits then!!woosh that is one thing out of the way.
Although this brings this to mind
what is the clear difference between a poem and a sonnet?

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As far as i know sonnet is a poem with 14 lines mostly there are 3 different kinds of sonnets which are: Italin English and Spenserian sonnets that any of them has special features.
Italian sonnets: they have 14 lines which is devided to 2 parts the first part is called octave and the second part is sestave. it is made up of one 8 lines and another 6 line. in the first 8 lines it will make questions ...

if you are keen on the rest this pdf considers 3 kinds
also we have some other kinds of sonnets like Miltonic but because it is just limited to Milton so Miltonic sonnets aren`t that much widespread and they can`t be count as a seperate sonnets.
this is the file you can download a pdf for sonnets.:

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http://mohammadalihashemi.persiangig.com/sonnets%2BPPT.pdf

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https://rapidshare.com/files/1823280540/sonnets+PPT.pdf


http://wdl.persiangig.com/pages/down...ts%252BPPT.pdf

i gave you 2 different links just for one pdf. download just one of them.