Edmund Spenser reached out to audiences through his poetry. His works, which reflected the idea of individualism, incorporated his own personal emotions, values, and experiences. Amoretti, whose title means little love poems, is composed of eighty-eight sonnets. The Amoretti focuses on the charms and virtues of a lover and a man's frustrated feelings to display the courtship of him and his second wife Elizabeth. Epithalamion, which ends the Amoretti, sums up their love for one another by commemorating their marriage. Spenser wrote these poetic sequences to show that the power of love can withstand all. .
In Sonnet 30 from Amoretti, Spenser uses the elements of fire and ice to represent the love he feels for his lover, as well as her love for him. He is puzzled by his lover because she seems to grow icier, "the more I her entreat," and wonders why his broiling heat cannot melt, "her heart frozen cold" (Ln. 4,6). The feelings expressed from Spenser to his lover create a paradox. His fire for her, which should melt her heart, only makes it harden; and her ice, "which is congealed with senseless cold," only kindles his fire of desire (Ln. 11). The more fiery his lust for her becomes, the more unattainable she gets. The power of love can change ones mind in ways unimaginable, and can even change the laws of nature. Another poem Spenser wrote to show the power of love is Sonnet 75 from Amoretti. Spenser shows his love for a woman by telling her that she should want him because he will make her famous through his poems. Spenser writes his lover's name in the sand in an attempt to show his love, but is quickly washed away by the waves. Because of this, Spenser says that he will immortalize her name in the sonnet he is writing. The woman finds this absurd and says it vain for a "mortal thing so to immortalize" because she feels that she will one day be destroyed like the words written on the beach (Ln.
