My Personal Introduction: Sidney and Me

Hello all, I am back online, ready to play some catch up. (Thanks guys, for keeping me in check).

There's a great load of open material in this course. There is plenty of extra resource hunting to be done, and there is always that extra material in the back of the book that goes undiscussed in class...which leaves a great deal of things to do, and much to write about.

That's a good introduction to what I am going to begin writing about today. My first instinct when I began reading Sidney was to read whatever appealed to me. The first thing that caught my eye was the section, 'Certain Sonnets'.

I suppose its the poet in me that drew me to it, as well, I have very little experience with Renaissance work and was in desperate search of rhetoric I could relate to. It's what I call the stubborn 'I-stick-to-modern-secular-rebel-writers' problem that I beleive many people in my generation fall victim to.

Now, it surprises me that I have not gotten to online writing earlier, as I quite enjoy blabbing (hence the last two paragraphs). To blab about blabbing, I will say that it really depends on my mood, but in this blog site of mine I will include random literary perspectives as well as serious analytical and historical reflection. Perhaps more. We will venture to find out...

Now, on with Sidney; my personal introduction to his work:

Firstly, please pardon any misrepresentations of Sidneys work that takes place here. I am clearly not expert interpreter and may drastically take things out of context. Therefore, please do not take any general critiques or assumptions of his work too seriously. What I aspire to, in general, is: 1. To point out some things that grab my attention in his work. 2. Make connections between these ideas and my general knowledge-of-the-world (including, of course, the inseperable 'literary world'), and 3. To allow you, the reader, to develop your own ideas from it. I write, like every other reader and writer, from a particular background and particular fields of interests. Being young and inexperienced with words is a detriment in strict academia, however, it is truly a blessing when it comes to finding innovative ideas. I'm telling you, revolution came from young people. Or maybe I'm just too idealistic...

Speaking of the untraditional view, Sidney reminds me off-hand of anything but. This is obvious, since he lives and writes in a time that has a wealth of heavy tradition, The Renaissance; the absolutely European time. When I think Renaissance, I think Rich. Rich art, rich feeling, rich rationale and words and poetry, food and discourse, wine and the dinner table.

Today in North America, we as well have a wealth of tradition. But it is not rich in the same way; it is divided and obscure. We fall into clusters of culture that seem to be strong, but quickly fade in the face of mass marketing. Religion begs the question of language and skin colour, and words like Diversity become ironic. In the late 20th and early 21st century, culture becomes culture: small, tidily defined ways of life. But after we exhaust ourselves deciding what we are, the backbone is always business and politics.

This is unlike the united time period (not culture, time period) of the Renaissance. Memoirs of the Renaissance have remained very strongly. Much like how the Western World longs to return to the days of Greek knowldge and pre-Socratic serenity, Europe seems very reminiscent of Renaissance years.

This is the general context with which I view Sidney's life. Now, as for his writing, my understanding of it came so immediately to me that I did not realize it until now. His ideal, some aspects of style and form hits me as how, as a child, I tried to write. Obviously very shabbily so, but what I mean is he was a traditional writer; he wrote how one should write. The first thing a new writer does is fall into her place in tradition, and (T.S. Eliot is cringing from his grave) imitates. Add a dash of Woodsworth, scratch out the dead Anglosaxin phrasing and Sidney's writing becomes the traditional writing that as kids we are taught is poetry.

I put together some traditional-poet cliches that I believe are indusive to Sidney's writing, at least to some extent:

1. The poet is in love with pain.
2. His pain is his subject matter, and the reason is, for the love of it. For the solace found in sadness.
3. Every so often, the poet decides to tell you so (as if you didn't know it from the previous century). Sometimes this explanation is the entire poem.
4. The Pain is often best expressed through the torment and longing towards an external object. i.e. Being unsatisfactority In Love. Or, just being In Love, since love by nature leaves one unsatisfied.
5. The poet is impacted by ancestral tradition, even if it is by its rejection. i.e., comparisons and metaphors to nature are prominent, a tendency that evolved from the Greeks and Ancients.
6. The poet uses basic poetic tools (deemed 'obvious' by some second year students) are used. For example, the way to name a thing: a. vivid imagery. b. uniting b's characteristics with those of c by saying that they are alike (simile), and c. (the biggie) the metaphor, implying that something is like the other by uniting the objects into the same value or idea. b = c
1 = 1

I find that Sidney's writing represents these traditional methods, among others. Please bear in mind, this does not mean that his life is exactly traditional (despite his role as Courtier). Nor does it intend that his writing is not excellent. Every writer follows tradition to some degree (Unless they are convinced that they re-created the alphabet...).

Sidney is nothing short of fantastic. At first I was frustrated, I found his use of language was difficult to understand. But soon, many of his ideas became identifiable, and wonderfully worded. His perspectives about pain, remniscence, memory and love are strong and confident, developed maturely. They are phrased simply but through simplicity, they create an overwhelming power. I enjoyed his quick synopsies of life so much that I had to reference him in a school project:

"...Trial only shows,
The bitter juice of forsaken woes,
Where former bliss present ills do stain-
Nay, former bliss adds to present pain,
While remembrance doth both states contain."
(Certain Sonnets, number 24, line 10)

Well, that's my intro to Sidney and to blogging. More detail about Sidney and the Renaissance will follow in my next blogs. Thanks for reading!