Sonnet 1

Nature is a motif that develops the themes of Studying Versus Personal Invention and Producing Poetry as Bearing Children. One example of this motif is the metaphoric “fresh and fruitful showers upon [the author’s] sunburned brain” (Line 8). The rain and sun represent flowing poetic inspiration and the lack of inspiration, respectively. Creativity is fluid and mobile, while academic study is associated with the hot and painful sun. Nature appears again as the parent of invention, as Sidney describes “Invention, Nature’s child” (Line 10). The creativity of invention comes organically, like rain, rather than systematically, like academic study.

Sidney also highlights nature using leaves. He claims to be “[o]ft turning others’ leaves” (Line 7) and looking for water to flow from them. However, this is impossible when Sidney is not inverting the growing ends of branches to gather rainwater but instead turning leaves as in turning the pages of a book. Sidney’s muse confirms the importance of nature at the conclusion of the poem, when the muse declares that he should be seeking inspiration among the leaves of plants—the flora of earth—rather than the leaves of manuscripts.