Sir Philip Sidney

The English poet, courtier, diplomat, and soldier Sir Philip Sidney (1554-1586) realized more dramatically than any other figure of the English Renaissance the ideal of the perfect courtier and the universal gentleman.

The son of a noble and well-connected family, Philip Sidney was born at Penshurst, his father's estate in Kent. His formal education began with his entrance into the Shrewsbury School in 1564. In 1568 he moved on to Christ Church, Oxford. Sidney's correspondence and school records indicate that as a youth he already showed clear signs of brilliance but that he was of sober temperament and uncertain health. Leaving Oxford without a degree, as was not uncommon for noblemen, Sidney completed his education with a 3-year tour of the Continent (1572-1575), visiting France, Germany, Austria, Poland, and Italy.

Life at Court

On his return to England, Sidney entered quickly into the life of the aristocracy, dividing his time between the London house of his uncle, the powerful Earl of Leicester, and the country home of his sister, the Countess of Pembroke. Late in 1576 he paid a visit to his father, then Lord Deputy of Ireland, and observed political and social conditions in Ireland firsthand. Upon returning to England he addressed to the Queen a Discourse on Irish Affairs, defending his father's administration from the many criticisms leveled against it. In 1577 Sidney was sent on a diplomatic mission to Germany, during which he enthusiastically but unsuccessfully attempted to reconcile the quarreling Protestant factions and to organize a unified resistance against the Catholic nations.

Sidney's interests and relationships, however, were not restricted to the worlds of the court and diplomacy. He enjoyed frequent contacts with a variety of literary men, notably Thomas Drant, Fulke Greville, Edward Dyer, and Edmund Spenser. In his attempt to share in their efforts to create a new English poetry, Sidney wrote a number of experimental poems in nonrhyming quantitative meters. Other works probably written during this period include his Lady of May, an elaborate entertainment performed in honor of Queen Elizabeth I (1578), a large part of his sonnet sequence Astrophel and Stella, and the first draft of his prose romance, the Arcadia. His Apology for Poetry was probably composed shortly after the publication of Stephen Gosson's School of Abuse (1579), an attack on the theater that had been dedicated to Sidney without his knowledge or approval.

Marriage and Death

Meanwhile, Sidney's situation at court was not entirely satisfactory. He had for some years been regarded as a young man of promise and importance; but he was still without any steady and remunerative position. Other disappointments may have added to his discouragement: he had for some time known and admired Penelope Devereux, the daughter of the Earl of Essex, who clearly inspired the "Stella" of his sonnet sequence. But she married Lord Rich in 1581. Two years later Sidney married the daughter of Sir Francis Walsingham. He was knighted the same year.

Sidney had been a leader of the strong Puritan faction promoting English involvement in the wars of the Protestant Dutch against their Spanish rulers. In 1585, after Elizabeth I finally acceded to this faction's demands and sent an army to the Netherlands, Sidney was named governor of Flushing, one of the towns that the Dutch had ceded to the Queen in return for her support. For several months he fought and commanded troops at the side of his uncle, the Earl of Leicester, in Flanders. At the battle of Zutphen on Sept. 22, 1586, he was fatally wounded. A biography written by his friend Greville tells how Sidney was vulnerable because he had generously lent a part of his protective armor to a fellow knight.

Major Works

During his lifetime Sidney's works circulated only in manuscript. His Arcadia was the first to be printed, in 1590. Combining elements drawn from the pastoral tradition, the heroic epic, and the romances of chivalry, this long mixture of prose and verse summed up the heroic ideals that inspired Sidney's life. The Arcadia is noted for its complex plot, for its earnest digressions on such topics as justice, atheism, virtue, honor, and friendship, and for its involved and elaborate style. The published version of 1590 was a revision, much amplified and elaborated by comparison with the first draft.

In Astrophel and Stella, first printed in 1591, Sidney expressed varying moods and intensities of passionate love, in imitation of Italian and French sonneteers of the Petrarchan tradition. Sidney's simple yet delicate verse is markedly superior to that of his contemporaries. His Apology for Poetry (first published in 1595) was the first major critical essay in Renaissance England. Drawing on such foreign critics as Julius Caesar Scaliger and Lodovico Castelvetro, Sidney condensed the classical defense of "poetry" (by which he meant all forms of creative writing), and he insisted on the ethical value of art, which aims to lure men to "see the form of goodness, which seen they cannot but love ere themselves be aware, as if they took a medicine of cherries." This critical essay, perhaps more than any other work, has assured Sidney's position in the history of literature. All three of his major works, however, hold an important place in one of the most brilliant eras of English literary creativity.

Further Reading

Sidney's Complete Works were edited by Albert Feuillerat (4 vols., 1912-1926). An excellent edition of the Poems was prepared by William A. Ringler, Jr. (1962). Full biographies of Sidney include Malcolm W. Wallace, The Life of Sir Philip Sidney (1915); Mona Wilson, Sir Philip Sidney (1931); and Kenneth Muir, Sir Philip Sidney (1960). Other helpful studies include Kenneth Orne Myrick, Sir Philip Sidney as a Literary Craftsman (1935; 2d ed. 1965); John Buxton, Sir Philip Sidney and the English Renaissance (1954; 2d ed. 1964); and Frederick Samuel Boas, Sidney: His Life and Writings (1955). Recent critical assessments are available in Robert L. Montgomery, Jr., Symmetry and Sense (1961); David Kalstone, Sidney's Poetry: Contexts and Interpretations (1965); and Neil L. Rudenstine, Sidney's Poetic Development (1967). For general literary background see Douglas Bush, The Renaissance and English Humanism (1939); S. T. Bindoff, Tudor England (1951); Hallett Darius Smith, Elizabethan Poetry (1952); and C. S. Lewis, English Literature in the Sixteenth Century, Excluding Drama (1954).

Additional Sources

Duncan-Jones, Katherine, Sir Philip Sidney, courtier poet, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1991.

Greville, Fulke, Baron Brooke, The life of the renowned Sr Philip Sidney (1652), Delmar, N.Y.: Scholars' Facsimiles & Reprints, 1984.

Greville, Fulke, Baron Brooke, Sir Fulke Greville's Life of Sir Philip Sidney, Norwood, Pa.: Norwood Editions, 1978.

Hamilton, A. C. (Albert Charles), Sir Philip Sidney: a study of his life and works, Cambridge Eng.; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1977.

Lloyd, Julius, The life of Sir Philip Sidney, Folcroft, Pa. Folcroft Library Editions, 1974.

Sidney in retrospect: selections from English literary renaissance, Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1988.

Wilson, Mona, Sir Philip Sidney, Norwood, Pa.: Norwood Editions, 1978. □

Sidney, Sir Philip (1554–86), born at Penshurst Place, eldest son of Sir Henry Sidney (who was thrice lord deputy governor of Ireland). Between 1572 and 1575 he travelled in France, where he witnessed the massacre of St Bartholomew's day in Paris, and in Germany, Austria, and Italy. After his return to England, Sidney did not achieve any official post which matched his ambitions until his appointment as governor of Flushing in 1585. His knighthood was awarded for reasons of court protocol in 1582.

Years of comparative idleness enabled him to write and revise the Arcadia, and to complete the Defence of Poetry, The Lady of May, and Astrophel and Stella. The first Arcadia, and probably other works, were composed while he was staying with his younger sister Mary, countess of Pembroke, at Wilton. We do not know his exact relations with Penelope Devereux (later Rich), whose father's dying wish had been that she should marry Philip Sidney. Though this did not happen (Philip in 1583 marrying Frances, daughter of Sir Francis Walsingham), verbal and heraldic references leave no room for doubt that she was the ‘Stella’ of Sidney's sonnet sequence. During these years Sidney also became a notable literary patron, receiving dedications from a variety of authors, the best known being that of Spenser's The Shepheardes Calender in 1579. Sidney was interested in experimenting with classical metres in English, but it is unlikely that his discussion of this and other matters with Greville, Dyer, and Spenser (the ‘Areopagus’) amounted to anything so formal as an academy or learned society. The last year of his life was spent in the Netherlands, and on 22 Sept. 1586 he led an attack on a Spanish convoy bringing supplies to the fortified city of Zutphen; he died as a result of musket shot in his thigh. Sidney was buried in St Paul's Cathedral, and the almost immediate appearance of volumes of Latin elegies from Oxford, Cambridge, and the Continent testified to the great political and literary promise he had shown. Among many English elegies on him the best known, Spenser's ‘Astrophel’, was not printed until 1595, among his Complaints.

None of Sidney's works were published during his lifetime, but Greville and the countess of Pembroke seem to have taken pains to preserve the texts they thought best. Editions of the Arcadia from 1598 onwards included all the literary works except his version of the Psalms. These were completed posthumously by his sister, and not printed until 1823.

Sir Philip Sidney 1554-86, English author and courtier. He was one of the leading members of Queen Elizabeth's court and a model of Renaissance chivalry. He served in several diplomatic missions on the Continent and in 1586 was fatally wounded at the battle of Zutphen. Sidney exerted a strong influence on English poetry as patron, critic, and example. His literary efforts circulated only in manuscript during his lifetime. Arcadia (1590), a series of verse idyls connected by prose narrative, was written for his sister Mary, countess of Pembroke. It is the earliest renowned pastoral in English literature. Sidney's prose criticism of the nature of poetry, written as a rebuttal to Stephen Gosson's The School of Abuse, appeared in two slightly different versions— The Defense of Poesie and An Apology for Poetry (both 1595). Astrophel and Stella (1591) is one of the great sonnet sequences in English and was inspired by his love for Penelope Devereux, later Lady Rich. Sidney, however, married Frances Walsingham in 1583.

Bibliography: See his works ed. by A. Feuillerat (1962); The Psalms of Sir Philip Sidney and the Countess of Pembroke (ed. by J. C. A. Rathmell, 1963); biographies by M. W. Wallace (1915, repr. 1967); R. Howell (1968), J. M. Osborn (1972), and A. Stewart (2001); studies by S. M. Cooper (1968), D. Connell (1977), and D. Kay, ed. (1988).

Sidney, Sir Philip (1554–86). Soldier and poet. Born in the year of Mary's marriage to the king of Spain, Sidney was named Philip in his honour. Educated at Shrewsbury (his father being lord president of the Council in the Marches of Wales) and at Christ Church, Oxford, he was devoted to study. From 1572 to 1575 he was on the continent, and was in Paris on the night of the massacre of St Bartholomew. In 1583 he married the daughter of Sir Francis Walsingham, served in Parliament, and continued to win golden opinions from all his acquaintance. But in 1585 when Leicester, his uncle, was given command of the forces against Spain in the Low Countries, Sidney was made governor of Flushing, a key port. He volunteered to join Leicester in the attack upon Zutphen, was wounded in the thigh, and died of gangrene nearly a month later. His death was received with great grief. But the story that he gave his own bottle of water on the battlefield to a dying soldier was first reported by his friend Fulke Greville many years after his death and is suspiciously like a story of Alexander the Great. He left much unpublished work, including the sonnets, Arcadia, and the Apologie for Poetrie, but his posthumous reputation depended as much upon his character and courage as on his poetry.

J. A. Cannon

Sidney, Sir Philip (1554–86). Soldier and poet. Educated at Shrewsbury and at Christ Church, Oxford, he was devoted to study. In 1583 he married the daughter of Sir Francis Walsingham, served in Parliament, and continued to win golden opinions. But in 1585 when Leicester, his uncle, was given command of the forces against Spain in the Low Countries, Sidney was made governor of Flushing. He volunteered to join Leicester in the attack upon Zutphen, was wounded in the thigh, and died of gangrene nearly a month later. The story that he gave his own bottle of water on the battlefield to a dying soldier was first reported by his friend Fulke Greville many years later, and is suspiciously like a story of Alexander the Great. Sidney left much unpublished work, but his posthumous reputation depended as much upon character and courage as on his poetry.

Sidney, Sir Philip (1554–86) English poet, diplomat, and courtier. Sidney's intricate romance Arcadia (1590) is the earliest example of pastoral in English. His love for Penelope Devereux inspired Astrophel and Stella (1591), the first English sonnet sequence. An Apology for Poetry (1595) is the most important critical work of the Elizabethan era.

Sir Philip Sydney see Sidney, Sir Philip .