An Hymn in Honour of Love

Spenser, Edmund; Selincourt, Ernest De

doi:10.1093/oseo/instance.00032798

Cited by 2 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 0 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…20 His Fowre Hymnes attributes this visionary flight to the power of love in explicitly Ficinian terms: nothing "resembleth more th' immortall flame / Of heavenly light, then Beauties glorious beame," which infusing such "powre of … sweet passion / That it all sordid baseness doth expell." 21 All that remains in the beloved is "the mirrour of so heavenly light," another double vision made possible, as in Donne's "Extasie," by the lovers' common descent from the same divine "fountaine" of light-"that celestiall ray" that first formed both of their souls. 22 Their roles are nevertheless different as well as reciprocal; the poet must "conform" himself "unto the light / Which in it selfe it hath remaining still, / Of that first sunne, yet sparckling in his sight," while his beloved must reflect "heavenly beautie" back to him.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Milton’s and Donne’s Stargazing Lovers, Sex, and the New Astronomy

Martin¹

2014

sel

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This article compares Milton’s and John Donne’s surprisingly convergent ideas on love and sex by examining how their respective lovers gaze at the stars and the divine plan(s) behind them. Both poets significantly re-sexualize the Platonic tradition spiritualized by Ficino and Anglicized by Sidney and Spenser, while conserving much of its essence. The human soul and human soulmates still descend from the heavens, light, and the love and beauty emanating from God’s chain of being, but with fully erotic needs and desires. Both poets also accept the new astronomy, yet Donne prefers love scenes that reinvent Ptolemy’s “perfect” concentric cosmos while Milton’s lovers inhabit a boundless universe.

show abstract

mentioning

confidence: 99%