Philip Sidney (1)Reseñas

I've been looking forward to reading this work for years after dropping it once due to the complexity of the prose that made it too challenging for good old me. Ironically I am dropping it once again because I found the text subpar in terms of content and style, and after reading a variety of works written by pastoral authors I can assert that this novel is nothing more than a product of the Elizabethan society under the guise of a bucolic romance, a wannabe Sannazaro's Arcadia loaded with petty moralism and anecdotes about virtue and sin all too divorced from the real intent of the pastoral genre. Despite the impressive length of his work, Sidney drops the facade quite early in the novel and has no qualms about slapping 17th century quirks and literary tropes in his romance, which leaves us with a disappointing pseudo-historical Renaissance soap opera where respecting the importance of historical accuracy doesn't even cross the mind of the author. If this novel was written solely for entertainment purposes, it failed to deliver even that.

Reprint with portions of the introduction removed

Reprint with portions of the introduction removed

This Everyman publication features much of Sidney’s best poetry. It contains a complete version of Sidney’s Astrophil and Stella, his ‘The Defence of Poesie’, Two Pastorals, Certain other sonnets and some selections from his translation of the Psalms of David and The Lady of May. None of this was published during his lifetime but much of it would have existed in manuscript form and been read by his circle of friends. The Lady of May was written to entertain Queen Elizabeth on one of her summer progresses when she visited the Earl of Leicester at Wanstead.

Sidney’e Defence of Poesie was written as a response to Stephen Gosson ’s `[school of Abuse: containing a pleasant invective against poets, pipers, players and jesters’]…………. Gosson had dedicated his pamphlet to Sidney no doubt thinking that Sidney’s puritan views would coincide with his own and no doubt he was correct in thinking that Sidney would also condemn lewdness and social abuse in literature. He was however wide of the mark in lumping poets in amongst the pipers, players and jesters as Sidney makes clear in his defence. Sidney believed that poetry was the highest art form in literature and would not only delight the reader but also teach him moral virtue:

“I affirme, that no learning is so good as that teacheth and moveth to vertue, and that none can both teach and move thereto so much as Poetry”

The Defence as one would expect quotes examples from antiquity whilst arguing against Plato for banishing poets from his republik. It examines other forms of literature particularly history and philosophy, maintaining that this writing does teach, but usually fails to move the reader. According to Sidney poetry can in fact enhance both subjects. He briefly mentions English poetry that he admires: Chaucer’s Troylus and Cressida, the Mirror for Magistrates collection, Earl of Surrey’s lyrics and Spenser’s Shepherd’s Calender, before plunging into a denunciation of much of English drama. Sidney argues his points well and keeps his prose lively and entertaining. This Everyman edition has plenty of clear notes to assist the reader.

The Lady of May is an entertainment written in the pastoral tradition and flows well, there is poetry and music and of course the star of the show is Queen Elizabeth herself who makes the final adjudication between the two suitors for the hand of The Lady of May. While there are no direct political references the morale of the little play would not have been lost on the courtiers and their followers. I have previously read Sidney’s wonderful sonnet sequence Astrophil and Stella and it is good to now have the poems in a printed version.

Certain Sonnets contains some gems which are not found in Astrophil and Stella, for example:

Leave me, O Love, which reachest but to dust,
And thou my mind aspire to higher things:
Grow rich in that which never taketh rust:
Whatever fades, but fading pleasure brings.

Draw in thy beams, and humble all thy might,
To that sweet yoke, where lasting freedoms be:
Which breaks the clouds and opens forth the light,
That doth both shine and give us sight to see.

O take fast hold, let that light be thy guide,
In this small course which birth draws out to death,
And think how evil becometh him to slide,
Who seeketh heaven, and comes of heavenly breath.
Then farewell world, thy uttermost I see,
Eternal Love, maintain thy life in me.

The two Pastorals are also charming being dedicated to Friends and fellow poets: Sir Edward Dyer and Faulke Greville and take friendship as a theme. This is a very good collection of Sidney’s poetry, well set out with adequate notes and a retention of Sidney’s original spelling, although the letters of the alphabet take the modern form. A good introduction goes to make this a five star publication.

800-odd pages of dense Elizabethan prose and poetry telling the story of two princes, Musidorus and Pyrocles, who are travelling under the aliases Palladius and Daiphantus and fall in love with two sister princesses, Pamela (apparently Sir Philip Sidney made the name up) and Philoclea. Eventually of course after many vicissitudes true love finds a way.

I did find this very heavy going, reading very slowly, due to the very ornate language. Unfortunately the slow pace meant I'd often forgotten earlier episodes by the time they were referred to again.

This is my personal candidate as the first Fantasy book written in English. I don't call it a medieval romance, because it's set in a deliberately invented background, the poetic kingdom of Arcadia. And, as it was cleared for publication by the Lord chancellor in 1593, it's not medieval in date, and the combats in it are sword and shield, not rapier and dagger. Is it in Elizabethan prose? Yesiree, Bob! But the spelling is regularized, so it's more readable than Spencer's Fairie Queene.
Eventually i finished it and it does have some entertaining content, but it was so successful in seizing the popular taste of the time, that now it's full of cliches, both plotwise and in figures of speech. I think it is still worth a look at by moderns, and it is due to be ripped off again by some Science fiction guy looking to revamp a classic with a "modern Re-Telling'.

Not the most straightforward of books to review. To enjoy Arcadia you first have to accept a style which has gone deeply out of favour. It is highly, intricately rhetorical with sentences which build up, Pelion on Ossa, to very long, elaborate creations whilst meandering in and out of parentheses.
The actual descriptions of places, armour, dress, building etc are hugely decorative and literally gorgeous - gleaming and glistening with bright colours, jewels and fabrics. Sidney loves dwelling on the details of a suit of a knight's equipage and armour, for instance.
The characters don't so much have conversations as make speeches at another - presenting a case forensically very often. Again you grow accustomed to this as you realise the book and plot move forward in away which is different from the modern novel. Action is deliberate, thought out, analysed. When, on a couple of occasions, badly or un- thought out actions are undertaken they end in disaster. Evidently Sidney believed in knowing where you were going.
The plot - well it's a semi-pastoral, semi-heroic/epic story - that means princes disguised as shepherds or Amazons, kidnap, heroic battles and tourneys, reliance on coincidence (otherwise known as divine providence).
I loved it. Having worked my way into it and letting it wash over and through you, you come to appreciate its colour and stately procession and the way the language winds its way through the plot. I did wonder how far it reflected actual life at royal and aristocratic courts as experienced by Sidney. For instance you didn't have the luxury of free speech. No saying "God, the king has really cocked things up again, hasn't he!". That way led to the block. So you were more circumspect in what you said, and made considered pronouncements statements even when talking to one's peers. Imagine a super hyper-polite version of Jane Austen. Again how you performed at a tourney, how elaborately you were dressed (and what signals you were sending by dressing just so) and how far people respected you or thought you flighty or steady, all of which are evident in the book, could have reflected court life.

Thomas Wyatt -- Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey -- Philip Sidney -- Fulke Greville, Lord Brooke -- Walter Ralegh

Includes, with separate title page: A sixth book of the Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia / written by R. B. of Lincoln's Inn Esquire. -- London : George Calvert, 1674. Includes Defence of Poesie, Sonnets, Astrophel and Stella, and A supplement to the third book of Arcadia, etc.

Facs. reprint of the photographic facsimile pub. in 1891 by Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner, & Co. (ed. H. Oskar Sommer) of the 1590 edition.

Marginalia. Hand written pages

finished?