Poetic Influences on Wroth’s Pamphilia to Amphilanthus

• In Event: Sidney IV: Mary Wroth: Contexts, Texts, and Precedents

Abstract

To date analysis of the influences of other poets on Wroth’s sonnet sequence has largely centered on parallel themes and attitudes expressed primarily in the works of Spenser, Shakespeare, and members of her family, the Countess of Pembroke, Robert and Philip Sidney. In this paper I examine her indebtedness to other poets as revealed in specific rhetorical borrowings, as well as in subject matter. In particular, Wroth aligned two songs in Pamphilia to Amphilanthus with a tradition of complaint and pastoral verse cultivated by several courtier poets. These included her uncle Philip Sidney, and also his friend Edward Dyer, someone whom Mary Wroth must have known personally. In addition, Ferdinando Stanley, Lord Strange, made an important contribution to this sub-genre of pastoral verse. In this paper I argue for her self-conscious use of this tradition and suggest some of the ways she intended for this aesthetic resonance to function.

Author

• Steven W. May, Emory University