The Amoretti differs from Sir Philip Sidney’s Astrophel and Stella (1591) sequence and from Shakespeare’s sonnets in ways that have too often led to comparisons unfavorable to Spenser. Not only does Spenser use a more labored rhyme scheme (adapted from the French), but also his subject matter is subtler and less dramatic. Shakespeare and Sidney address their rhymes to amorous objects presented in a highly fictionalized and formalized context. Spenser, on the other hand, blends traditional elements of idealization of the love object with elements of the actual courtship of his future wife. For this reason, the Amoretti wavers somewhere between the dramatic outpourings of emotion typical of Shakespeare and the elegantly crafted tributes to the lady’s charms typical of Sidney. As a result, Spenser’s reader must look beneath the “artificial” elements of the sonnets to see their “natural” appeal. They record the vagaries of real courtship, with all its alternating moments of doubt, despair, hope, tenderness, elation, and joy sketched with characteristic Spenserian delicacy and tact.