Ecology, love, and relationships in Sir Philip Sidney’s Astrophil and Stella

One of the threats to the modern men today is the quick change in seasons and unusual fluctuations in temperature. Contemporary life is marked with various conditions that make life comparatively different and for that matter difficult for everyone. Amongst many worldly things, like materialism, struggle to survive in the highly competitive urban settings, people tend to consider the merits of cosmopolitanism more than anything else. Curiously enough, Sir Philip Sidney’s sonnets, though written in the 16th century and become milestones of the sonnet tradition in the English Renaissance which are applicable to today’s global concern of environmentalism. When considered in the light of ecocriticism, Sidney’s sonnets provide a suitable ground for the modern readers to reevaluate the current situation of the world we live in and the nature that we inherit from our ancestors. This paper aims to analyze some of Sidney’s selected sonnets from Astrophil and Stella in the light of ecocritical approach to literary works.