Although by no means a single-minded man, Edmund Spenser's Amoretti focus largely on the beauty and physical form of the woman to whom he addresses these poems. In seven of these sonnets, he calls this woman's beauty his "hew," or in modern spelling, "hue"; whenever "hew" is used, it is paired with a defining adjective. Examining alternative definitions of "tonality" within the Amoretti sheds light on Spenser's meaning within these stanzas and further explores the complicated philosophical relationship Spenser has with the act of creation and writing: a central relationship in the narrative of his Faerie Queene. plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay In Sonnet III, the line reads, “but still looking at her, I stand amazed, / At the wondrous sight of so celestial height” (389 ). Sonnet seven lists it as a "louely hew", and sonnet seventy-four as a "glorious hew", with these three distinctive words repeated in the remaining four cases. Although it quickly becomes clear in the poem that Spenser is referring to his lady's “hue,” since it is written as “hew,” the reader may be momentarily confused. Our definition of “hewing” is “to cut or hack”; in fact, it took on this meaning as early as 993 AD according to the Oxford English Dictionary, which first lists it as "To strike, or strike, with a bladed weapon" ("Hew", OED). The word 'tonality', as we are to read 'hew' in the Amoretti, means “form” or alternatively “colour”, both from 971 AD (“Tonality”, OED). In six of the seven places Spenser uses 'hew', it means to flatter. Its hue is lovely, celestial and glorious and the implication is obvious. But as always with Spenser, his words are carefully chosen; the use of the word 'hew' represents an important intention. The Oxford English Dictionary's first comprehensive definition of tonality is “Form, shape, figure; I wait, I wait; species." The last definition, “species,” is particularly interesting in this case. The species of an animal is an intrinsic quality. It is not what an animal achieves or works towards; it is a quality they are born with and cannot do without being called species celestial and intrinsically divine definition of “hew” is, as stated above, “To strike, or strike, with a cutting weapon.” (“Hey,” OED). Making, forming or producing by cutting (with an object expressing the product)”. Thinking of "hewing" something as producing it, giving it a certain shape, makes Spenser In's use of "hewing" much more complicated effects, it is the exact opposite of "hue". Although the speech is somewhat distorted as a result, claiming the "height" of an object as its shape, its crafted shape, implies that this shape is not an intrinsic quality. The fact that Spenser states, six times, that his love has a wonderful "hew", and interprets it to mean "man-made form", raises another question; who drafted it? Spenser isn't implying that she got some sort of 16th-century plastic surgery, or that she did this shape herself; Spenser is the one who cut it. And he did it with the craft he knows best: his words. He wrote nearly one hundred sonnets about this woman. Read as a whole, these sonnets shape her in the reader's mind. Spenser created his own "hew". Of course, this.