Platonism in English poetry of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries

Plato · en
“Cruel Sphynx, I rather strive
                     How to keep the world alive,
                     And uphold it; without me,
                     All again would chaos be.”

In “The Barriers” where Truth and Opinion—a division of the state of
knowing according to its degree of certainty common in Plato as
knowledge and opinion (“Republic,” V. 476–478)—hold a discussion on
marriage, an angel declares that

             “Eternal Unity behind her [i.e. Truth] shines,
             That fire and water, earth and air combines.”

Here under the name of Unity the true nature of love is indicated.

In Drayton’s seventh eclogue Batte replies to a charge of cruelty
against love which is made by his fellow-shepherd, Borril, with the

                          “substancyall ryme
              that to thy teeth sufficiently shall proove
              there is no power to be compard to love.”

His argument is that love is the great bond of the universe.

                 “What is Love but the desire
                   of the thing that fancy pleaseth?
                 A holy and resistlesse fiere
                   weake and strong alike that ceaseth,
                   which not heaven hath power to let
                 Nor wise nature cannot smother,
                   whereby Phœbus doth begette
                   on the universal mother.
                   that the everlasting chaine
                   which together al things tied,
                   and unmooved them retayne
                   and by which they shall abide;
                   that concent we cleerely find
                   all things doth together drawe,
                   and so strong in every kinde
                   subjects them to natures law.
                   whose hie virtue number teaches
                   in which every thing dooth moove,
                   from the lowest depth that reaches
                   to the height of heaven above.”

                 (ll. 165–184.)

A more common appropriation of the teachings of Platonism was made in
the love lyrics—chiefly the sonnet—written in the Petrarchian manner.
Petrarchism was as much a manner of writing sonnets as it was a method
of making love. On its stylistic side it was characterized by the use of
antitheses, puns, and especially of conceits. In the Platonic theory of
love and beauty a certain amount of material was offered which could be
reworked into a form suited for the compact brevity of the sonnet.
Sidney, Spenser, and Shakespeare are the three chief sonnet writers of
the last decade of the sixteenth century in whose work this phase of
Platonism is to be found; but its presence, though faint, can be felt in
others.