Who wrote the sonnet sequence 'Astrophil and Stella'?

Sir Philip Sidney wrote the sonnet sequence “Astrophil and Stella.” It is one of the most important works of Elizabethan English poetry and helped establish the sonnet sequence as a major literary form in England.

The sequence contains 108 sonnets and 11 songs, probably composed during the 1580s. Its title combines “Astrophil,” meaning “lover of a star,” with “Stella,” meaning “star.” The poems follow a speaker’s changing feelings of desire, frustration, self-criticism, and poetic ambition, adapting conventions associated with Petrarchan love poetry.

Stella is often connected with Penelope Devereux, later Lady Rich, although the identification is not entirely certain and the poems should not be treated as a straightforward diary. A frequent confusion is with Edmund Spenser’s “Amoretti” or Shakespeare’s sonnets; those are separate sequences. The spelling “Astrophel” also appears in early printings, while “Astrophil” is generally preferred by modern editors.