Write a critical note on Edmund Spenser's sonnets of his Amoretti.

In
his Spenser develops a unique sonnet form. The sonnet came to England
primarily through the sonnets of Italian poet, Petrarch, the premier sonnet writer of Italy.
Petrarch's sonnets were structured in two parts, an opening octet
and an ending sestet without ending . The
volta, or "turn" in the logic of the
subject of the sonnet occurs at the 9th line, the first line of the sestet. At the
volta, Petrarch introduced--in the sestet--the
sonnet's second but closely related idea leading from the problem introduced in the opening
octet. An octet, also called octave, has eight lines while a sestet has six lines. Petrarch's
sonnets have a rhyme scheme of abbaabba cdccdc (with rgyme scheme
variations possible for the sestet), with the middle couplets (aa and cc) forming a concatenated
link between rhyme schemes.

Spenser varied this
structure by adopting three quatrains and an end couplet, with rhyme scheme of
linking concatenation at the 4th and 5th and 8th and 9th lines. This linking
concatenation (repetition of a rhyme in a couplet) allows a link between rhyme schemes and, even
more importantly, between the ideas in the sonnet. Petrarch presented two related ideas in
sonnets, the first in the octet and the second in the sestet, whereas Spenser can present three
related ideas, one in each quatrain, with the couplet posing the dramatic solution to the
problem introduced in the first quatrain. Spenser's rhyme scheme is ababbcbccdcd
ee, with an ending couplet.

The
concatenated lines are the spots at which Spenser introduces the
second and third closely related ideas. Spenser's structure allows for either an
evolution of the logic introduced in the first quatrain or,
dramatically, a reversal of the logic begun in the first quatrain.
Sonnet 1 demonstrates a sonnet in which the logic follows in an
evolution of an idea:

Sonnet
1
Happy ye leaves when as those lily hands,
Which
hold my life in their dead-doing might,
Shall handle you and hold in love's soft
bands,
Like captives trembling at the victor's sight.
And
happy lines, on which with starry light,
Those lamping
eyes will deign sometimes to look
And read the sorrows of my dying sprite,

Written with tears in heart's close-bleeding book.
And
happy rhymes bath'd in the sacred brook,
Of Helicon whence
she derived is,
When ye behold that Angel's blessed look,
My soul's
long-lacked food, my heaven's bliss.
Leaves, lines, and rhymes, seek her to please
alone,
Whom if ye please, I care for other none.

In contrast, Sonnet 54 shows a logical
reversal that occurs at concatenated line 9:

Sonnet 54    
Of this World's theatre in which we stay,
My love like
the Spectator idly sits,
Beholding me, that all the pageants play,
Disguising
diversely my troubled wits.
Sometimes I joy when glad occasion fits,
And mask
in mirth like to a Comedy;
Soon after when my joy to sorrow flits,
I wail and
make my woes a .
Yet she, beholding me with constant
eye,
Delights not in my mirth nor rues my smart;
But when I laugh, she mocks:
and when I cry
She laughs and hardens evermore her heart.
What then can move
her? If nor mirth nor moan,
She is no woman, but a senseless stone.

Sonnet 75 is another one that shows a
reversal of logic, but at concatenated line
5.