In what ways is Sir Philip Sidney a "Petrarchan" poet? Please use the following poems from Astrophil and Stella as examples: I, II, XV, XXVII,...

Since your question about Sir Philip Sidney's
Astrophil and Stella sonnets as Petrarchan poems is highly
specific, I will try to address, in the limited space available, some of the issues you
raise by discussing some of the poems you
mention.

• Rhyme
  scheme: Petrarch’s sonnets are divided into units of eight lines (the
  octave) and six lines (the sestet).  The octave rhymes as follows: abbaabba.  The sestet
  can rhyme in various ways, such as cdecde. Sidney follows the Petrarchan rhyme scheme in
  the octave, but his sestets tend to end with couplets. Sonnet II is an
  example.


• Themes and content:
  like the sonnets in Petrarch’s Rime sparse, Sidney’s poems deal
  with a self-pitying male who is obsessed with winning the affection of a woman who seems
  uninterested in reciprocating his desires (see sonnet XLV, for
  example).


• Traits that made Sidney’s poems
  distinctive: certainly humor is one of the traits that make Astrophil a
  distinctive sonnet lover; Sidney often has much fun mocking Astrophil’s obsessiveness,
  as in the following lines from sonnet I, in which Astrophil describes his frustration at
  his inability to express exactly what he feels about
  Stella:

readability="16">

Thus great with child to speak, and helpless in
my throes,

Biting my trewand [that is, truant] pen, beating
myself for spite,

“Fool,” said my Muse to me, “Look in thy
heart and write.”
(12-14)

• Petrarchan
  conceits: “new-born sighs” (XV.8); seeming “most alone in greatest
  company” – a typical Petrarchan paradox (XXVII.2); the idea of love as “disease” (with a
  pun on “dis-ease”; XXXIV.5); Stella’s “heavenly face” as the source of “beams” of light
  (XLV.14); etc.


• The process of
  self-fashioning: the way Sidney presents a version of himself by
  describing Astrophil in XLI:

readability="14">

Having this day my horse, my hand, my
lance

Guided so well that I obtained the
prize,

Both by the judgment of the English
eyes

And of some sent from that sweet enemy France . . .
(1-4)

In general, by mocking
Astrophil, Sidney presents himself implicitly as a man more serious, more virtuous, more
responsible, more intelligent, and more mature than his fictional alter ego. He also
shows that he has a splendid sense of humor.