SOURCE: "Sidney and Political Pastoral," in Poetry and Politics in the English Renaissance, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1984, pp. 91-108.

In the following excerpt, Norbrook discusses Sidney's pastoral writings, emphasizing that Sidney imbued them with his political thought.

Spenser dedicated The Shepheardes Calender to Sir Philip Sidney, a man who was acclaimed by his contemporaries as the ideal courtier, the embodiment of chivalric magnanimity and gracefulness of speech. It was especially appropriate to dedicate a pastoral work to him because Sidney himself assumed the persona of the 'shepherd knight' in tournaments at court and was the author of pastoral poetry.¹ Sidney had helped to introduce the new courtly forms of pastoral to England. He was well acquainted with Sannazaro's Arcadia and admired the Italian poet's gift of verbal harmony and courtly metrical virtuosity and purity of diction.² In 1578 or 1579 he wrote a pastoral entertainment, The Lady of May, which helped...