Sir Philip Sidney's 'Loving in Truth' Poem Analysis

"Loving in Truth" is a poem by Sir Philip Sidney, the first poem in his long sequence of love verses, "Astrophil and Stella" published in 1591. The poem is an expression of the poet's unrequited love for Stella, the woman he is writing about and is an autobiographical reflection of his feelings for Penelope Devereux, the daughter of the Earl of Essex

The poem is written in the form of a sonnet, with the first 8 lines making the octave and the last 6 lines making the sestet The poem is rhyming as ABAB ABAB CDCD EE and is written in iambic hexameter, with the first line being an example of hyperbaton

The poem's opening lines express the poet's desire to convey his love for Stella through his writing: "Loving in truth, and fain in verse my love to show" He believes that if he can describe his feelings beautifully enough, Stella will fall for him

The poet acknowledges that he truly loves Stella and wants to convey that through the poetry he writes, so that his pain in being transmuted into great verse will please her He believes that pleasure might cause her to read, reading might make her know, and that she might pity him, thus he will win her attention and blessing

The poet expresses his efforts to entertain Stella by writing verse, but he realizes that true poetic inspiration comes from inside one's heart and emotion is the source of poetry He wants to borrow words from other poets' verse, but in vain

The poem's last lines show the poet's failure to find suitable words to express his passion of love and to praise his beloved He is helpless in his throes, and his Muse advises him to write poetry by using the feeling of his inner heart

The poem is a reflection of the poet's unrequited love and his efforts to express it through his writing, show the clash between passion and reason, and the medieval tradition of courtly love[3