Poet, statesman, soldier, and courtier, born in Penshurst, Kent, SE England, UK. He studied at Oxford, and perhaps also at Cambridge, then travelled in Europe (15725). He gained Elizabeth I's displeasure when he advised her against a projected marriage plan, and in 1580 left the court. Knighted in 1583, he was sent to Holland to assist in the struggle against Spain, and was fatally wounded at Zutphen. His literary work, written in 157882, was not published until after his death. It includes the unfinished pastoral romance, Arcadia, the Defence of Poesie, and a sonnet cycle, Astrophel and Stella, considered one of the finest Elizabethan examples of this genre. In his Defence of Poesie (1595), he wrote the most notable work of Elizabethan literary criticism, upholding the superiority of poetry as a means of teaching virtue. He is also known for the patronage he bestowed on poets, as shown by the dedications in Spenser's The Shepheardes Calendar (1579) and in over 40 works by English and European authors.
Sir Philip Sidney (November 30, 1554 – October 17, 1586) became one of the Elizabethan Age's most prominent figures.
Born at Penshurst, Kent, he was the eldest son of Sir Henry Sidney and Lady Mary Dudley. His younger sister, Mary Sidney, married Henry Herbert, 2nd Earl of Pembroke. Mary Sidney was important as a translator and as a patron of poetry; Sidney dedicated his longest work, the Arcadia, to her.
Philip was educated at Shrewsbury School and Christ Church, Oxford.
Returning to England in 1575, Sidney met Penelope Devereaux, the future Penelope Blount; though much younger, she would inspire his famous sonnet sequence of the 1580s, Astrophil and Stella. Her father the Earl of Essex, is said to have planned to marry his daughter to Sidney, but he died in 1576. In England, Sidney occupied himself with politics and art. More seriously, he quarrelled with Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, probably because of Sidney's opposition to the French marriage, which de Vere championed. In the aftermath of this episode, Sidney challenged de Vere to a duel, which Elizabeth forbade. Characteristically, Elizabeth bristled at his presumption, and Sidney prudently retired from court.
His artistic contacts were more peaceful and more significant for his lasting fame.
Sidney had returned to court by the middle of 1581. Sidney was knighted in 1583. The next year, he met Giordano Bruno who subsequently dedicated two books to Sidney.
Both through his family heritage and his personal experience (he was in Walsingham's house in Paris during the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre), Sidney was a keenly militant Protestant.
Sidney's body was returned to London and interred in St. Paul's Cathedral on 16 February 1587.
The most famous story about Sir Philip (intended as an illustration of his noble character) is that, while dying, he gave his water-bottle to another wounded soldier, saying, "Thy need is greater than mine". An early biography of Sidney was written by his friend and schoolfellow, Fulke Greville.
The Rye House conspirator, Algernon Sydney, was Sir Philip's great-nephew.
Works
Astrophil and Stella The first of the famous English sonnet sequences, Astrophil and Stella was probably composed in the early 1580s. The sequence was a watershed in English Renaissance poetry. In it, Sidney partially nativised the key features of his Italian model, Petrarch: variation of emotion from poem to poem, with the attendant sense of an ongoing, but partly obscure, narrative; The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia The Arcadia, by far Sidney's most ambitious work, was as significant in its own way as his sonnets. In the work, that is, a highly idealized version of the shepherd's life adjoins (not always naturally) with stories of jousts, political treachery, kidnappings, battles, and rapes. Samuel Richardson named the heroine of his first novel after Sidney's Pamela. Sidney wrote an early version during a stay at Mary Herbert's house; Later, Sidney began to revise the work on a more ambitious plan. The Defence of Poesy (also known as the An Apology for Poetry) Sidney wrote the Defence before 1583. It is generally believed that he was at least partly motivated by Stephen Gosson, a former playwright who dedicated his attack on the English stage, The School of Abuse, to Sidney in 1579, but Sidney primarily addresses more general objections to poetry, such as those of Plato. In his essay, Sidney integrates a number of classical and Italian precepts on fiction. The essence of his defense is that poetry, by combining the liveliness of history with the ethical focus of philosophy, is more effective than either history or philosophy in rousing its readers to virtue.Influence (An Apology for Poetry)
Sir Philip Sidney’s influence can be seen throughout the history of English literary criticism since the publication of the Apology. Shelley’s modern argument for poetry is cast in a Romantic strain in his critical work titled A Defence of Poetry. In 1858, William Stigant, a Cambridge-educated translator, poet and essayist, writes in his essay titled "Sir Philip Sidney" in Cambridge Essays that Shelley's "beautifully written Defence of Poetry" is a work which "analyses the very inner essence of poetry and the reason of its existence, - its development from, and operation on, the mind of man" (Garrett 347). Shelley writes in Defence that while "ethical science arranges the elements which poetry has created," and leads to a civil life, poetry acts in a way that "awakens and enlarges the mind itself by rendering it the receptacle of a thousand unapprehended combinations of thought" (Shelley, Norton 517).
Sidney’s influence on future writers could be analyzed from the standpoint of his handling of the utilitarian viewpoint. The utilitarian view of rhetoric can be traced from Sophists, Scalinger, Ramus and humanists to Sidney (Bear 11). For instance, Sidney, following Aristotle, writes that praxis (human action) is tantamount to gnosis (knowledge). Men drawn to music, astronomy, philosophy and so forth all direct themselves to "the highest end of the mistress knowledge, by the Greeks called architectonike (literarlly, "of or for a master builder")," which stands, according to Sidney, "in the knowledge of a man's self, in the ethic and political consideration, with the end of well doing and not of well knowing only" (Leitch "Sidney" 333). Poetry can lead to virtuous action. From Sidney, the utilitarian view of rhetoric can be traced to Coleridge's criticism, and for instance, to the reaction to the Enlightenment (Bear 11). Coleridge's brief treatise On Poesy or Art sets forth a theory of imitation which bears a remarkable resemblance to that of Sidney (Mack 131).
The impact of Sidney’s Apology is largely derivative of the humanistic precepts that inform the work, and its linkage of the rhetorical with the civic virtue of prudence.
Secondly, Sidney’s influence on future critics and poets relates to his view of the place of poets in society. Sidney describes poetry as creating a separate reality (Harvey 3). Sidney, like Shelley and Wordsworth, sees the poet as being separate from society. To Sidney the poet is not tied to any subjection.
Sidney writes that there “is no art delivered to mankind that hath not the works of nature for his principal object” (Leitch, Sidney 330). Sidney's notion of fore-conceit means that a conception of the work must exist in the poet's mind before it is written (Harvey 3). Free from the limitations of nature, and independent from nature, poetry is capable of "making things either better than Nature bringeth forth, or, quite anew, forms such as never were in Nature" (Leitch Sidney 330).
Sidney’s doctrine presents the poet as creator.
Thirdly, Sidney implies a theory of metaphoric language in his work. His central premise is that poetry is an art of imitation, that is a “representing, counterfeiting, or figuring forth” not unlike a “speaking picture” (Leitch, Sidney 331). Sidney pays his homage to Aristotle. Sidney’s humanist poetics and his tendency to harmonize disparate extremes – to seek mediation – find expression in poetic works by John Donne (Knauss 1).
The life and writings of Sir Philip Sidney remain a legacy. In 1819, Thomas Campbell concludes that Sidney's life was "poetry in action," and then in 1858 William Stigant wrote that "Sidney's real poem was his life, and his teaching was his example" (quoted in Garrett, Sidney 55). Sidney, the man, is apparent everywhere in his works: a study of Sidney's works is a study of the man (Kimbrough, "Preface" 1).
Significance (Apology)
An Apology for Poetry is the most important contribution to Renaissance literary theory. Sidney advocates a place for poetry within the framework of an aristocratic state, while showing concern for both literary and national identity (Griffiths 5). Sidney responds in Apology to an emerging antipathy to poetry that saw works like Stephen Gosson’s The Schoole of Abuse (1579) come to prominence. The significance of the nobility of poetry is its power to move readers to virtuous action (Robertson 657).
In an era of an antipathy to poetry, and puritanical belief in the corruption of literature, Sidney’s defense was a significant contribution to the genre of literary criticism. He reconfigures Plato’s argument against poets by saying poets are “the least liar” (Leitch 348). As an expression of a cultural attitude descending from Aristotle, Sidney, when stating that the poet "never affirmeth," makes the claim that all statements in literature are hypothetical or pseudo-statements (Frye 35). Sidney, as a traditionalist, however, gives attention to drama in contradistinction to poetry. Drama, writes Sidney, is “observing neither rules of honest civility nor of skillful poetry” and thus cannot do justice to this genre (Leitch 356).
Anti-theatricality was another phenomenon in Sidney's day. Sidney had his own views on drama. In Apology, he shows opposition to the current of his day that pays little attention to unity of place in drama (Bear 11), but more specifically, his concern is with the "manner" and "matter" a story is conveyed (Leitch Sidney 357).
Sidney employs a number of strategies to assert the proper place of poetry. For instance, he argues against the way in which poetry was misaligned with youth, the effeminate and the timorous. Poetry, in Apology, becomes an art that requires the noble stirring of courage (Pask 7).
Sidney writes An Apology for Poetry in the form of a judicial oration, and thus it is like a trial in structure. Crucial to his defense is the descriptive discourse and the idea that poetry creates a separate reality (Harvey 2). Sidney employs forensic rhetoric as a tool to make its argument that poetry not only conveys a separate reality, but that it has a long and venerable history, and it does not lie.
On Method (Apology)
Sidney’s approach to censorship in Apology is through his use of rhetorical devices. Censorship is one problem Sidney had to overcome when he wrote Apology. Sidney was also versed in the phenomenon of courtiership. As part of his strategy against the threat of censorship, Sidney uses the structure of classical oration with its conventional divisions such as exordium and peroration. Sidney's use of classical oration stems from his humanist education (Harvey 1). Sidney also uses metaphor and allegory, to conceal and reveal his position. For instance, his use of horsemanship as imagery and analogy substantiates his vision of the transformational power of poetry. Sidney, as author, enters his work undetected in that the etymology of his name “Philip” is “horse-lover” (Pask 7). From the opening discourse on horsemanship, Sidney expands on the horse and saddle metaphor throughout his work by the “enlarging of a conceit” (Leitch 333). It is Sidney who then guards against a falling out with the “poet-whippers” (Leitch 346). Sidney also attends to the rhetorical concept of memory. Poetry, apart from its ability to delight, has an affinity with memory (Leitch 347).
Method and style are thus key components of the Apology to overcome the problem of censorship. For this reason, Sidney consciously defends fiction, and he attacks the privilege that is accorded to “fact.” He argues that the poet makes no literal claims of truth, is under no illusions, and thus creates statements that are in a sense “fictional” and as true as any others (Bear 5). What is at stake then is not only the value of poetry in the sense of its utility, but also its place in a world replete with strife, the contingent and the provisional.
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