Amoretti XXXV: "My hungry eyes, through greedy covetize"

“Epithalamion” by Edmund Spenser (1595)

This is the conclusion to Spenser’s Amoretti sonnet sequence. It is a long poem about a joyous wedding. According to the Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics, this poem was Spenser’s wedding gift to his second wife, Elizabeth Boyle (415). It is one of his most loved poems.

“Amoretti I” by Edmund Spenser (1595)

“Amoretti I” is the beginning of Amoretti. Eyes initially appear in Line 6 of this first sonnet in the sequence. However, this sonnet includes other body parts, like “hands” (Line 1). Spenser highlights the intention behind his sonnet sequence, “Leaves, lines, and rymes, seeke her to please alone” (Line 13). Leaves, here, are another name for printed pages. This statement speaks to how the poet serves his beloved, but also how reading a sonnet sequence is often a voyeuristic act of listening in on a private conversation between lovers.

“Sonnet 1” by Sir Philip Sidney (1591)

This is the beginning of the Astrophel and Stella sonnet sequence by Sidney, Spenser’s friend. Both poets write to a beloved and discuss the “leaves” (Line 7) on which poetry is printed. However, Sidney’s poem has a much more troubled tone. Sidney also uses different formal elements than Spenser, including a rhyme scheme of ABABABABCDCDEE, and hexameter lines (12 syllables).

“Sonnet 131” by Francesco Petrarch (originally 1374, translation 2004)

This is David Young’s English translation of a sonnet from Petrarch’s sequence Il Canzoniere, or songbook. Studying Petrarch provides context to the history and development of the sonnet. The end of Petrarch’s poem offers a very different opinion of “glory” (Line 14) than Spenser’s Sonnet XXXV.

Amoretti and Epithalamion. Written not long since by Edmunde Spenser hosted by University of Oregon (1595)

The original 1595 publication of Spenser’s sonnets looks quite different from modern publications. This is due to not only blackletter printing (a kind of font type) from the period, but also differences in the English language itself. In the Renaissance, when Spenser lived and wrote, English grammar and spelling had not been standardized. The publication above offers a look at some of the words that are changed in many modern texts.

Spenser Online hosted by Cambridge University (2022)

This platform, a collaboration between Cambridge University (Spenser’s alma mater), Washington University in St. Louis, and the University of South Carolina, is home to the International Spenser Society and The Spenser Review—a biannual journal of all things Spenser. The website also hosts and links high fidelity versions of all the publicly available works of Edmund Spenser, as well as a variety of external works of criticism, theory, and analysis. The website is also up to date, with the most recent issue of The Spenser Review and a platform for academic discussion of Spenser with other scholars.

“Ways of Seeing” by John Berger (1972)

This seven-part essay forms a dense and well-cited groundwork for thinking about the presentation of women in classic art. Berger’s work famously introduced the concept of the Male Gaze, which heavily features in Spenser’s poem, as well as a critical look on the assumptions about depictions of women in classical art and poetry that informed both contemporary artists and modern critics. While also available as a book and TV series, this platform allows a viewer to examine a variety of artworks at their leisure, rather than having to page between black and white reproductions or pausing the video.