Embodied Love(rs): Injury and Comedy in Mary Wroth’s Urania

Summary

Introduction

In contrast to the Petrarchan sonnets written by her contemporaries, Mary Wroth’s sonnet sequence Pamphilia to Amphilanthus pays little attention to the physical aspects of love. Some readers, notably Paul J. Hecht, do see the language of sexual desire in these poems. In general, though, the object of love (Amphilanthus) remains “distant” and “dispersed.” The action of the sonnets takes place largely within the mind of the speaker, Pamphilia. One particularly vivid example of this phenomenon is Sonnet 23, where the speaker contrasts the activities of those around her with her own thoughts of love:

While others hunt, my thoughts I have in chase;

If hauke, my minde att wished end doth fly,

Discourse, I with my spiritt tauke, and cry

While others, musique choose as greatest grace.

(lines 9–12)

In these lines, it is Pamphilia’s “thoughts,” “minde,” and “spirit” where love is concentrated. The love of the sonnets, then, is largely a love of the intellect, the emotions, and the imagination.

Pamphilia and Amphilanthus are also the main characters of Wroth’s sprawling romance, The Countess of Montgomery’s Urania. Wroth’s prose narrator is, in general, hardly more interested in the physical side of love than her poetic speaker. While illicit love affairs play a role in the romance, the major love story in Urania is a meeting of two minds. Pamphilia and Amphilanthus largely court one another intellectually; for example, Amphilanthus reads Pamphilia’s poems about her love for him (Wroth 1.320.18–32). In addition, many of their conversations are ripe with hidden meanings, as when Pamphilia wonders that Amphilanthus has changed the color of his armor so often, using the loaded term “inconstancy” to suggest that she is really asking whether his feelings for her have changed (Wroth 1.165.28). Overall, Amphilanthus is described in terms of his virtues—a typical narrative description is “all others vertues being single in them, but knit in one in him” (Wroth 1.61.1–2). Exceptions are limited to the aforementioned color of his armor when he rides in disguise (Wroth 1.165.27–28, 1.233.28, 2.193.26–27). This avoidance of the physical in Pamphilia and Amphilanthus’ descriptions may be an expression of Wroth’s overall vision for Urania, which is a highly intellectual work, leaning heavily on Wroth’s self-appointed position as the Sidney literary heir.