The Divine Nature of Love in Renaissance Literature
Love is a much-discussed theme in Renaissance writing, just as it is in the literature of any other historical period. The uniqueness of the discussion, description, and exploration of the experience of love in the literary works of this time frame lies in the fact that the feeling was considered divine. It was believed that love is not inherent to humans but comes from higher deities or is given by them.
Love in Sidney’s Astrophil and Stella and the Revival of Eros
One can notice it in the sonnets of Sir Philip Sidney. Sonneteer wonders in Astrophil and Stella, “What, may it be that even in heav’nly place / That busy archer his sharp arrows tries?” (Sidney 188). It is Eros, the pre-Christian god of romance, whose image returns to European literature during the Renaissance when Italian humanists begin to explore Greek culture and Hesiod’s works with the help of Byzantines (Chytry 17). For Renaissance people, anything associated with love or its derivation or a project of it has a status and weight equal to that of the divine or even higher.
Ben Jonson and the Symbolism of Jove’s Nectar
Ben Jonson shares with readers in Song to Celia, “But might I of Jove’s nectar sup, / I would not change for thine” (Jonson 205). Interestingly, Jove or Jupiter is mentioned to reinforce the divine property of the nectar in the sonnet, as Jupiter remained the superior pagan deity in art even during the Renaissance period (Dunaway paras. 1-5). The author sees the drink his lover gave as more significant than ambrosia. One must remember that people in those days were very religious while striving to know and understand God through art and science.
George Herbert’s Personification of Love as a Christian Deity
In Love by George Herbert, the discussed feeling is personified in a deity similar to the Christian God. The narrator or lyric voice talks to it in a humble, respectful, Christian manner, “I, the unkind, ungrateful? Ah, my dear, I cannot look at Thee” (Herbert 202). Love responds to him in a caring but superior manner. The tone of their child-parent interaction is specific to Christianity. Love and divinity, the very gods, are closely related, almost identical, in the minds of the Renaissance people.
Work Cited
Chytry, Jiri. Memento Amori: Transformations of the Imagery and Associations of the God Eros in English Renaissance Poetry. 2021. Charles University in Prague, BA thesis. DSpace. Web.
Dunaway, Missy. “Birds of Shakespeare: The Golden Eagle.” Folger Shakespeare Library. 2022. Web.
Harris, Bethany. British Literature. 3rd ed., BJU Press, 2019.