About the Original
Edmund Spenser first published his Amoretti and Epithalamion (physically not that different in appearance from most books of poetry of the time) in 1595, financed by his patron William Ponsonby and celebrating his courtship and marriage to Elizabeth Boyle. “Amorettti” is Italian for “little loves,” referring to the 89 short sonnets (14-line poems about love) that make up the first third of the book. After the sonnet sequence, there comes a set of four untitled short poems that scholars have dubbed “the Anacreontics” for their similarity to the short poems of the classical poet Anacreon (most famous for his numerous drinking poems); these pieces too focus on love, specifically upon several exchanges between Cupid, Venus, and Diana. The Epithalamion (Greek for “before the bedchamber,” a wedding poem traditionally written by the best man and not the groom), the third and most important part of the book, recounts in 24 stanzas (filled to the brim with numerology) Spenser’s wedding day: June 11, 1594, a date made explicit both by historical record and the numerological references within the poem.
Text Info
Sonettes and Songs mimicks Spenser in both content and in appearance (the title, for example, recalls the sonnets/Amoretti and the songs/Epithalamion, while also playing on George Tottell's 1565 anthology of Tudor poetry, Songs and Sonettes). The first section of my book is a sonnet cycle (like the Amoretti, but shorter), followed by four anacreontic poems, and then finally a number of songs celebrating the Queen of Atlantia (the wedding celebration Epithalamion for Spenser). The song selection is much smaller in size than Spenser’s; I sacrificed length here out of time constraints (discussed below).
Philosophy of the Book
Sir Philip Sidney, one of the greatest literary critics of the Elizabethan age, presented a Neoplatonic theory of poetry in his Defense of Poesie, to which nearly all the late Elizabethan poets then adhered in their writing (Spenser especially). According to Sidney, the Neoplatonic ladder of souls went in this order: vegetable > animal > rational > divine. The three aspects of a rational (human) soul were memory, reason, and will. The will (action) is the least of the three; even animal souls have will. The human will is considered infected by default, thanks to the Fall of Adam, and this prevents the human soul from becoming more rational. However, one can use one’s memory (the most Platonic aspect of Sidney’s Neoplatonism) to recall the idea of something – especially an abstract notion, such as love, honor, or virtue – to try and imitate those concepts. The memory recalls the original meaning of these concepts from the depths of the collective human understanding, as known by God and by Adam before his sin. The rational soul then uses the faculty of reason to determine how properly and how best to imitate and utilize these concepts once they are remembered. The will is then erected by the aid of memory and reason to act most rationally and virtuously in one’s life. Spenser applied this tripartite notion of the rational soul to his Amoretti and Epithalamion, and I have done my best to imitate it:
The sonnets: memory. While sonnet sequences always end on a downer, their purpose is for the sonneteer (or the fictional narrator within the sequence) to try and achieve the memory and idea of what love truly is. For most sonnet protagonists (especially Sidney’s Astrophel), that idea is never fully grasped – but it is the attempt that is the most important factor for a stand-alone sequence. For Spenser, he manages to obtain the idea of love, though he is separated from his love at the end of the sequence (a bit ironically, since he knows they will marry soon); this acquisition allows him to then contemplate in which way to apply that idea to his life. In my sonnet sequence, I tried to attempt a middle ground between Spenser and Sidney with a much darker ending: a kind of anti-Sidneyan approach, almost. I can understand what love is, but it is too late now for my protagonist to use that knowledge – a notion that seems fitting since the book contemplates the excellence of the queen and how the average citizen can think upon her.
The anacreontics: reason. The anacreontic poems for Spenser provide an image of what love fundamentally is. Having already remembered what love is, Spenser can contemplate the manner in which love should be applied to one’s life; he uses several scenes between Cupid, Venus, and Diana to discuss several differing views of love. I turned to the mythical story of Aurora and Tithonis for my subject matter. Aurora, goddess of the dawn, fell in love with the mortal shepherd Tithonis. She asked Zeus to give him eternal life so that she would not be without him after he died. Zeus agreed, but did not grant him eternal youth (since Aurora didn’t ask for it). Tithonis grew so old and wisened that he eventually became a grasshopper, and was essentially forgotten and forsaken by Aurora. Most medieval scholars thought this story was hilarious – even up until Milton (see his “Elegy V” ll. 49-60), poets make fun of this fiasco. In making the Queen of Atlantia like Aurora and myself (the average Atlantian citizen) Tithonis, I could reflect upon the short-lived dawn (the reign of the Queen) and how colder the world is afterwards – we can reflect upon the reign later, but it is not the same (save within the timeless form of poetry, where she can theoretically remain a queen forever). The tale of Aurora and Tithonis then allowed me to realize that one should not be dismayed after the passing of a beloved person or thing, but to celebrate it while it exists and to record that joy within poetry to relive it that way, where the passage of time cannot injure or erode it.
The songs: will. The songs are the celebration of love (the rational way to include the notion of love into one’s life) for the Queen that were produced after the epiphany of the anacreontic verses. There are only five songs, because I was only able to write five before I needed to begin producing the book. Five was also an important number for reigns in Atlantia: five months is the time of the shorter reign of the year for Atlantia, and I wanted readers potentially to remember not only Rachel (for whom I wrote this, though her reign was longer) but the other Queens that have sat upon the throne of Atlantia as well.
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