Platonism in English poetry of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries — Plato — John Shaqi
Platonism in English poetry of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries
Plato · en
is described by Raphael “with contracted brow” as merely transported
touch, in reality the same feeling shared by the beasts of the field.
(VIII. 582.) Raphael, accordingly, directs Adam to love only the
rational in Eve’s nature, for true love has his seat in the reason.
“What higher in her society thou find’st
Attractive, human, rational, love still:
In loving thou dost well, in passion not,
Wherein true Love consists not. Love refines
The thoughts, and heart enlarges—hath his seat
In Reason, and is judicious, is the scale
By which to Heavenly Love thou may’st ascend,
Not sunk in carnal pleasure.”
(VIII. 586–594.)
In Phineas Fletcher’s sixth “Piscatorie Eclogue,” where there is a long
discussion on the nature of love, human love is shown to be a love
merely of the passing charms of woman: of her form, which will decay; of
her voice, which is but empty wind; and of her color, which can move
only the sense. (Stz. 20–22.) No attempt is made to describe the nature
of the higher love, but a simple exhortation to raise this love of woman
to a love of the “God of fishers” closes the account.
“Then let thy love mount from these baser things,
And to the Highest Love and worth aspire:
Love’s born of fire, fitted with mounting wings;
That at his highest he might winde him higher;
Base love, that to base earth so basely clings!
· · · · ·
“Raise then thy prostrate love with tow’ring thought;
And clog it not in chains and prison here:
The God of fishers, deare thy love hath bought:
Most deare He loves; for shame, love thou as deare.”
(Stz. 24, 25.)
Heavenly love, then, whether springing from the desire within the soul
to see wisdom in her beauty, or from a desire to raise the mind from a
love of earth to the intelligible world, or from the desire to find a
worthy object in the love of the rational in woman, when freed from all
the grossness of physical passion, is a contemplative love of a less
perishing beauty than can be found on earth. And just as the transition
was easy from the love which God himself knows to the soul’s love of
God, so was the change from the love of soul for a higher reality than
earthly beauty to the immortal love of God for the soul. Thus in
Sidney’s sonnet the subtle change is effected.