Although now less well known than some of her contemporaries, Lady Mary Wroth was one of the great masters of the English sonnet, along with Wyatt, Surrey, Sidney, and Shakespeare. Wroth is best known for her sonnet sequence Pamphilia to Amphilanthus. A sonnet sequence is a series of sonnets written in a set order, and usually linked by a shared speaker. In the Renaissance, the most common subject for sonnet sequences was a man attempting to woo a cold, unfeeling woman. In Pamphilia to Amphilanthus, Wroth adapts this trope by writing from the perspective of a woman suffering a man's unrequited affection. She also innovated by dividing the sequence into multiple interrelated sections.
Sonnet 77, "In this strange labyrinth how shall I turn," is one of the best-known sonnets from Pamphilia to Amphilanthus. It is the first sonnet in "A Crown of Sonnets Dedicated to Love," the third segment in the sequence. The "crown" is a specific form of sonnet sequence in which the last line of each sonnet becomes the first line of the next, with the last line of the final sonnet being the first line of the first sonnet. In "In this strange labyrinth how shall I turn," the speaker struggles with the many conundrums of love. She ultimately determines that the best love to seek out is not the maze of mortal love, but the clear and narrow path charted out by Christian salvation and Christ's love for humanity.
