
Writing after Sidney
The Literary Response to Sir Philip Sidney 1586-1640
Gavin Alexander(Author)
Oxford University Press
Published on 14. October 2010
Book
Paperback/Softback
424 pages
978-0-19-959112-1 (ISBN)
Description
Writing After Sidney examines the literary response to Sir Philip Sidney (1554-86), author of the Arcadia, Astrophil and Stella, and The Defence of Poesy, and the most immediately influential writer of the Elizabethan period. It does so by looking closely both at Sidney and at four writers who had an important stake in his afterlife: his sister Mary Sidney, his brother Robert Sidney, his best friend Fulke Greville, and his niece Mary Wroth. At the same time as these authors wrote their own works in response to Sidney they presented his life and writings to the world, and were shaped by other writers as his literary and political heirs. Readings of these five central authors are embedded in a more general study of the literary and cultural scene in the years after Sidney's death, examining the work of such writers as Spenser, Jonson, Daniel, Drayton, and Herbert. The study uses a wide range of manuscript and printed sources, and key use is made of perspectives from Renaissance literary theory, especially Renaissance rhetoric. The book aims to come to a better understanding of the nature of Sidney's impact on the literature of the fifty or so years after his death in 1586; it also aims to improve our understanding both of Sidney and of the other writers discussed by developing a more nuanced approach to the questions of imitation and example so central to Renaissance literature. It thereby adds to the general store of our understanding of how writing of the English Renaissance offered examples to later readers and writers, and of how it encountered and responded to such examples itself.
Reviews / Votes
Readers will find Writing after Sidney extremely useful because of its interconnections among so many writers in the period; they will also find some brilliant literary analysis. * William C. Johnson, Sixteenth Century Journal *More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Oxford
United Kingdom
Target group
College/higher education
Professional and scholarly
Illustrations
3 halftones
Dimensions
Height: 216 mm
Width: 137 mm
Thickness: 24 mm
Weight
542 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-19-959112-1 (9780199591121)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions

E-Book
10/2010
OUP eBook
€32.99
Available for download

Book
12/2006
Oxford University Press
€175.70
Shipment within 15-20 days
Person
Gavin Alexander is a University Senior Lecturer in the Faculty of English, a Fellow of Christ's College,
where he teaches English, and the Fellow Librarian of the College Library. He works on literature of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Other research interests include poetry and music, rhetoric, the history of versification, the history of literary criticism, and textual studies. In 2008 he was awarded a Pilkington Prize by the University of Cambridge for excellence in teaching, and he organised the John Milton 400th Anniversary Celebrations.
where he teaches English, and the Fellow Librarian of the College Library. He works on literature of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Other research interests include poetry and music, rhetoric, the history of versification, the history of literary criticism, and textual studies. In 2008 he was awarded a Pilkington Prize by the University of Cambridge for excellence in teaching, and he organised the John Milton 400th Anniversary Celebrations.
Content
Introduction ; 1. Philip Sidney: Dialogue and Incompletion ; 2. Elegies and Legacies ; 3. Mary Sidney, Countess of Pembroke: The Last Word ; 4. Families and Friends ; 5. Robert Sidney: Finding and Making ; 6. Lyric After Sidney ; 7. Fulke Greville: Life After Sidney ; 8. Versions of Arcadia ; 9. Mary Wroth: The Constant Art ; Postscript ; Bibliography