An Analysis Of Mary Wroth, Pamphilia To Amphilantus '

Tanjeena Uddin

English 2120

Professor: Martin Elsky

Mary Wroth, Pamphilia to Amphilanthus 1: When night’s black mantel

Mary Wroth’s unique sonnet Pamphilia to Amphilantus is thoroughly laid out and every word is carefully structured. This portrays how every single word in a sonnet is a build up in uncovering the inclusive meaning of the poem itself. The rhyme scheme in the sonnet When night’s black mantel is ababbabaccdeed. Pamphilia to Amphilanthus is not only a sonnet, but can also be categorized as a Spenserian sonnet. As you dig deep into the poem we can conclude that it is structured very closely to an Italian Petrarchan sonnet type, which includes a Volta, in its poems.

Many sonnets revolve around the idea of gender roles and love. Mary Wroth can be identified as one of these poets. Regardless of feminist and gender-specific ideologies in Wroth’s sonnets, Mary’s perspective as a sonneteer has been wrongly identified as being commonly

She weaves in the perception of never ending love and the emotional pain that passionate love comes along with. Pamphilia to Amphilantus is well known because of Mary Wroth being a female poet. It is fascinating how during the social norms of her time there were many conflicts based on gender inequality and therefore she was less in control. In her sonnet Mary Wroth uses great metamorphic techniques, language, powerful characters, and amazing structuration to draw attention. In Wroth’s sonnets, she fuses the Petrarchan and Sidneian metaphors. She reconstructs the ideas by changing it into a love poem. She turns it into a metonymy for the interpretation of a female’s desire. Although the vehicle of the metaphor specifies to a different tenor there is substitution taken place for the original metaphor. Wroth’s use of imagery explains the comparison between metaphor and metonymy as one being the “female” and the other as the