Sidney and the Sonneteers

No student of English literature need apologize for devoting a considerablepart of his attention to the more personal and social aspects of Sir PhilipSidney 1 (1554-1586). In three directions, to be sure, Sidney’s actual achievement ranks him among the very highest of the Elizabethan writers. Nonebut Shakespeare and Spenser produced a finer sonnet sequence. None butBen Jonson surpassed him as a literary critic. None of the writers of his ageapproached his influence in the field of prose romance. Yet if Astrophel andStella, the Defense of Poesy, and the Arcadia had never been published, weshould still have to regard Sidney as a cultural landmark. Seconded by hissister, he created through his personal efforts and his personal charm a newartistic atmosphere more stimulating than any other that then existed. Together—or more strictly in succession, for the Countess of Pembroke (1561-1621) was but twenty-five when her brother died—they first produced whatin the highest sense may be called the academic spirit in English letters,