Sir Philip Sidney

Abstract

Sir Philip Sidney (1554–86) was an English poet and courtier who is now seen as one of the most influential English writers of the sixteenth century. Born into a politically active family, Sidney is best known for his works Astrophel and Stella, a story in sonnet form which popularised this literary genre in England, and Arcadia, a romance which was the first English vernacular work to be published on the continent. This volume, published in the first series of English Men of Letters in 1886 by literary scholar John Addington Symonds (1840–93), provides a concise biography of a fascinating character. Describing Sidney's childhood, European travels and time spent as a courtier, and his heroic death, this biography draws together previous scholarship on Sidney to provide a valuable account of his life and of contemporary English and continental influences on his work.