- Hardcover: 350 pages
- Publisher: Yale Univ Pr (October 1991)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0300050992
- ISBN-13: 978-0300050998
- Product Dimensions: 24.4 x 16.3 x 3.6 cm
- Shipping Weight: 930 g
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Amazon Bestsellers Rank:
#646,624 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #10 in Books > Biographies & Memoirs > People, A-Z > ( E ) > Elizabeth I
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Library Journal
Writer of exquisite poetry and pastoral romance, scholar, soldier, courtier: Sidney was the archetypal Renaissance man. Duncan-Jones's literary biography, drawing liberally from his letters, does him justice. The first true biography in about half a century, it liberates him from both the fusty and prissy camps to which lit crit surveys tend to assign him. Major and minor literary and historical figures abound, but Duncan-Jones does not let the reader founder, and discussion of the canon ranges from the necessary (the sonnets) to the arcane (narrative structure in the Arcadia ). This should be the Sidney book for years, and as such it is important to Renaissance studies collections. Highly recommended to academic and large public libraries.
- Robert E. Brown, Onondaga Cty. P.L., Syracuse, N.Y.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.
- Robert E. Brown, Onondaga Cty. P.L., Syracuse, N.Y.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Kirkus Reviews
A spirited, speculative, scholarly account of the brief life (1554-86) of the Elizabethan courtier, soldier, diplomat, author, patron--to some the embodiment of the Renaissance ideal--by Duncan- Jones (English/Oxford). ``It is entirely possible,'' ``in fact, most probable,'' and ``bluntly apparent''--to use some of the author's decisively uncertain terms, that the illustrious Sir Philip Sidney considered himself a failure, his life spent as an ``aspirant administrator'' waiting for preferments, as well as for appropriate and endowed brides who would accept him without a title; even recognition as a writer was delayed until after his death. As close to being a prince as a commoner could get--godson of Elizabeth I, heir to two earls, son of a Knight of the Garter who governed England and Wales, and, in his father's absence, the crucial Royal Cupbearer- -Sidney may have lived in the silliest period in English royal history for a man of talent, breeding, and education to excel at court--which required winning the favor of a capricious, vain, and aging Queen, addressed as a ``Glorious Nymph'' by petitioners who sang to her from hiding places in the trees as she walked in the garden below. Sidney apparently found relief from the pressures and constraints of being a court supplicant by writing, among other works, the sonnet sequence Astrophel and Stella; Arcadia, a pastoral romance that Virginia Woolf considered the origin of English fiction; and A Defense of Poesie, defending the morality of verse as well as his practice of writing in English. Although her style is plodding and her tone oddly antagonistic, Duncan-Jones offers a contemporary, psychological reading of Sidney, depicting a quarrelsome, status-conscious, insecure, and--however gifted--petty individual, intensely private in his passions, preferring the company of bachelor friends and older men to his 16-year-old bride. If not the best, this is certainly the most humanizing of Sidney biographies. (Sixteen pages of b&w illustrations--not seen.) -- Copyright ©1991, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
3.0 out of 5 stars (2 customer reviews)
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Splendid, Jun 27 2001
By A Customer - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Sir Philip Sidney: Courtier Poet (Hardcover)
What a great book! This is biography at its best. Katherine Duncan-Jones succeeds in that most difficult of tasks - writing a biographical work that is at the same time scholarly and amusing. She paints a convincing portrait of this gifted, generous and tormented individual,who was also remarkably tolerant and warm-hearted for the times in which he lived. Sidney emerges from this book as a sophisticated and highly intelligent man who felt bitter and frustrated because of the unfair treatment he received at the hands of a capricious Queen, in whose service he nevertheless lost his very life. Altogether, I found Sidney very different from the typical Elizabethan - his dislike of hunting as a cruel, bloody sport, and his enlightened views on women are some of the traits in which we recognize a modern mind. And, nevertheless, after his absurd death he became a sort of hero or role-model for his contemporaries - many of whom hadn't recognized his worth while he lived. Duncan-Jones writes elegantly and in an entertaining style, quoting extensively from Sidney's writings as well as from those of his relatives and friends. I completely disagree with another reviewer, who criticized the "extraneous material" and the quantity of facts and persons in the book. No material is extraneous here: everything is relevant, either to Sidney's life or to the social and political context in which it must be viewed. As to the amount of characters - well, think about your own life: if someone were to write your biography, how many characters would there be? Four of five? I wouldn't trust a biography that didn't have many characters (even counting only the significant ones). After all, every person's life is complex - and full of other persons. All in all, this book is highly recommended - you'll gain a great awareness of an exceptional man.
2 of 12 people found the following review helpful
1.0 out of 5 stars
Disjointed, difficult to follow., April 20 1999
By A Customer - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Sir Philip Sidney: Courtier Poet (Hardcover)
Out of print? Good! This book is so filled with bits of extraneous material that it is almost impossible to follow. Despite considerable interest in the subject matter, and despite returning to the book four or five times, I could not distinguish which facts pertained to Sir Philip Sidney and which to the hundreds of people with whom he came into contact without almost graphing out the characters. It was worse than any Russian novel.
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