The difficulty of discussing the representation of women in the work of 16th-century English poets such as Sir Thomas Wyatt, Sir Philip Sidney, and Edmund Spenser is the reason for the need to address authorial intent in its historical context. As a critic you cannot attribute to words what the author did not intend; however, intentions that the author did not express can be attributed. For example, it is easy to justify the objectification and subordination of women in the English-Petrarchan sonnet tradition, but is it at all real? Does object of desire necessarily mean desired object? Does such a designation deny agency or even apply to the loved one? The question to ask is whether contemporary criticism can be applied retroactively; that is, whether theories regarding objectification or “othering” are relevant simply because they fit. The real challenge is to decide whether evidence for objectification can be discovered or simply applied to a text that has no concept of it. It is particularly disconcerting that much of the modern Renaissance criticism researched for this essay sees no possible contradiction in linking rhetorical evidence to intent; that is, they show little evidence of investigating possible discrepancies between treating objectification as ahistorical and socially contextual, even when they support the historically situated nature of identity. We must also consider the fact that theories of objectification interpret and question the text, not the author; that is unless you assume they are the same thing. Doing so, however, involves a number of necessary and problematic assumptions. The first of these is the exchange of mimesis with art as imitation of the author, shadow of the shadow. By talking about his... middle of paper... causing Astrophil and Stella to implode under their own contradictions, Sidney ensures that the only lasting consequence is the effect it has on the loved one. In the same way that Spenser seeks to create a tangible bond between himself and his beloved by making them both physically present in Amoretti's words, Sidney seeks to promote his signifiers to signifieds in an attempt to exchange semiological "[intimacy] for sexual desire." (Stephen 93). The difference is that Spenser offers his beloved a shared space while Sidney seeks sole control of the courtship. Just as Wyatt tries to have the last word in Whoso List to Hunt, Sidney and Spenser write their sonnets in anticipation of their beloved's response. As their efforts to adapt her subjectivity show, all three poets recognize the beloved as powerful, but this is the power of a reader or a social and sexual equal??