A book of sonnets that usually told a story, usually concerning love (as is the nature of the sonnet). Astrophel and Stella, written by Sir Philip Sidney, chronicles Astrophel's courting of the reluctant Stella. Edmund Spenser's Amoretti is a collection of love poems to his wife. The sonnet cycle was popular during the same period as the sonnet: The English Renaissance. It has lost most of its flavor since then.