Sidney or Sydney, Sir Philip, 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

(born Nov. 30, 1554, Penshurst, Kent, Eng.—died Oct. 17, 1586, Arnhem, Neth.) English courtier, statesman, soldier, and poet. Born into an aristocratic family and educated to be a statesman and soldier, Sidney served in minor official posts and turned to literature as an outlet for his energies. Astrophel and Stella (1591), inspired by Sidney's passion for his aunt's married ward, is considered the finest Elizabethan sonnet cycle after William Shakespeare's sonnets. The Defence of Poesie (1595), an urbane and eloquent plea for imaginative literature, introduced the critical ideas of Renaissance theorists to England. His heroic romance Arcadia, though unfinished, is the most important work of English prose fiction of the 16th century. None of his works was published in his lifetime. Wounded in action while soldiering in the Netherlands, he died from an infection, and he was widely mourned as the ideal gentleman of his day.