Arcadia

Sir Philip Sidney

Description

Sir Philip Sidney’s The Countess of Pembroke’s Arcadia (1593), well known to Shakespeare, was the most popular piece of original English fiction and poetry for over two hundred years. This restored and modernized text has been specially designed for contemporary readers.

Informations

• Publié par: Parlor Press, LLC
• Date de parution: 01 octobre 2016
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781602358614
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 5 Mo

Extrait

Renaissance and Medieval Studies
Series Editor: Charles Ross, Purdue University
The Renaissance and Medieval Studies series focuses on editions, comparative studies, translations, and reprints of primary texts of the Renaissance and earlier in Italy, England, and France. The series also offers an outlet for electronic distribution of supplementary material for each printed volume from art history, film, and the history of the book. For more information, please visit the series Web page at http://www.parlorpress.com/renaissance.html or contact Parlor Press at [e-mail].
Books in the Series
Sir Philip Sidney's Arcadia . A Restoration in Contemporary English of the Complete 1593 Edition of The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia by Charles Stanley Ross and Joel B. Davis, with an Essay on Musical Settings for the Poems by Edward Abe Plough (2017).
Sir Thomas Malory’s Morte Darthur. A New Modern English Translation Based on the Winchester Manuscript by Dorsey Armstrong (2009).
Matteo Maria Boiardo's Orlando Innamorato . Translated with an Introduction and Notes by Charles Stanley Ross (2004).


Arcadia
Sir Philip Sidney
A Restoration in Contemporary English of the Complete 1593 Edition of The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia by Charles Stanley Ross and Joel B. Davis, with an Essay on Musical Settings for the Poems by Edward Abe Plough.
Parlor Press
Anderson, South Carolina
www.parlorpress.com


Parlor Press LLC, Anderson, South Carolina, USA
© 2017 by Parlor Press
All rights reserved.
Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper.
S A N: 2 5 4 - 8 8 7 9
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Sidney, Philip, 1554-1586 author. | Ross, Charles Stanley editor. |
Davis, Joel B. editor. | Plough, Edward Abe author of essay.
Title: Arcadia / Sir Philip Sidney ; a restoration in contemporary English of
the complete 1593 edition of The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia by Charles
Stanley Ross and Joel B. Davis ; with an essay on musical settings for
the poems by Edward Abe Plough.
Description: Anderson, South Carolina : Parlor Press, 2017. | Series:
Renaissance and medieval studies | Includes bibliographical references and
index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017020707 (print) | LCCN 2017031225 (ebook) | ISBN
9781602358607 (pdf) | ISBN 9781602358614 (epub) | ISBN 9781602358621 (
ibook) | ISBN 9781602358638 (mobi) | ISBN 9781602358584 (pbk. : alk.
paper) | ISBN 9781602358591 (hardcover : alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Pastoral literature, English.
Classification: LCC PR2342 (ebook) | LCC PR2342 .A5 2017 (print) | DDC
823/.3--dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017020707
2 3 4 5
Renaissance and Medieval Studies
Series Editor: Charles Stanley Ross
Interior design by David Blakesley
Parlor Press, LLC is an independent publisher of scholarly and trade titles in print and multimedia formats. This book is available in paper, cloth and eBook formats from Parlor Press on the World Wide Web at http://www.parlorpress.com or through online and brick-and-mortar bookstores. For submission information or to find out about Parlor Press publications, write to Parlor Press, 3015 Brackenberry Drive, Anderson, South Carolina, 29621, or email [e-mail].


Contents
Preface
Some Common Names i
Introduction i
Charles Stanley Ross and Joel B. Davis
A Note on This Edition
Select Bibliography and Biography
Maps
Book 1
Book 2
Book 3
Book 4
Book 5
Adapting Arcadia’s Poems to Music
Edward Plough
Family Tree
Pronunciation Guide to Proper Names
About the Editors
Note on Typography and Illustrations


Preface
V ery little is known about Shakespeare between his marriage in 1582, when he was eighteen, and his emergence as an actor and playwright in 1592. But if he was anywhere near London, he knew about the courtier and war hero Philip Sidney, who died on October 17, 1586, three weeks after a bullet hit his thigh as he charged a supply line of Spanish troops bringing gunpowder to Zutphen in the Netherlands. His London funeral on February 16, 1587, just before that of Mary, Queen of Scots, was unmatched in lavishness for a non-royal until 1962, when Winston Churchill died.
Three years later, England’s war hero was recognized as an author when his name appeared on the title page of The Countess of Pembroke’s Arcadia . Shakespeare read every word, as can be seen in his earliest plays by the way he imitates Sidney’s obsession with tears and water drops, at times in a baroque or metaphysical manner—“Tears, drown yourselves” ( Arcadia 3.34); “And every drop cries vengeance” ( 3HenryVI 1.4.148). In 1591, Sidney’s Astrophel and Stella appeared in a defective edition (the title character’s named should be spelled “Astrophil”) that obscured the story of a lover who suffers for stealing a kiss. Shakespeare again followed Sidney’s lead. He wrote a sequence of sonnets and, imitating his model, did not bother to provide a single narrative to connect the friend, the rival poet, and the dark lady. He also borrowed Sidney’s paradoxes—that Stella’s eyes are dark but bright, that the further away from her Astrophil finds himself, the more he loves her—for his own dark lady and lover.
In 1593, Sidney’s sister, the Countess of Pembroke, published a new edition of the Arcadia , now in five books instead of three, that completed the narrative left suspended in 1590. From either version Shakespeare could have borrowed the story of the blind Paphlagonian king in Book 2, which became the basis for the Gloucester subplot in King Lear . But a hitherto unnoticed connection between A Midsummer’s Night’s Dream , where four lovers chase each other through the forest outside Athens, and a game of tag in the Barley-Break poem (Lamon’s Song) that Sidney’s sister added to the First Eclogues, shows that Shakespeare kept up to date with the new edition of Sidney’s work.
In 1595 there appeared a pirated edition of an essay titled An Apology for Poetry , reprinted in 1598 under the title The Defense of Poesie when Mary Sidney put her brother’s complete works into a single volume. In this classic essay Sidney argues that poetry, by which he means prose fiction and drama as well as lyric poetry, is better able to teach moral virtue than either history or philosophy. History is too tied to actual events, and philosophy is too dry and difficult to understand. But poetry creates its own world. Having died before the great achievements of the English Renaissance stage, Sidney has little good to say about drama, but he urges English writers to produce literature that will surpass the best of France and Italy.
People often wonder what made Shakespeare great. How could he write popular plays that are still studied today? Why did he write in verse; indeed, why did he write complex drama and not just settle for bawdy jigs? The question of genius aside, Sidney’s challenge provides no small part of the answer. Echoes of the Arcadia abound in Shakespeare’s work, from Romeo and Juliet and Othello to the pastoral play The Winter’s Tale . Sidney was also a master of the art of oratory; his character’s speeches and letters offer lessons in subtle persuasion and ethical appeal that Shakespeare deploys so effectively. So great was Shakespeare’s debt, not just to Sidney’s work but to the whole conception that a great nation must have great writers, that it is hard not to hear a tribute to Sidney in the opening line of Shakespeare’s most patriotic play, Henry V, when the Chorus asks “for a muse of fire!” The name of one of Sidney’s heroes is Musidorus, which means “gift of the muses,” and the other is Pyrocles, whose name derives from the Greek word for fire.
Shakespeare’s jingoistic but at the same time unblinkered play courts comparison to Sidney’s fable about two young men so carried away by their romantic idealization of two royal sisters, Pamela and Philoclea, that they literally and unlawfully try to carry them away. At trial after they are caught, they display the dazzling ability to make speeches that characterizes the whole Arcadia . Sidney’s women also think logically and can express strong emotion in equally well-chosen words. Philoclea is only sixteen in the story and uncertain in love, but her strength of mind is apparent when she argues against Pyrocles’ wish to kill himself. Dignified Pamela composes a prayer that England’s King Charles I is said to have recited before he put his head on the chopping block in 1649. Queen Gynecia puts her own tormented passion for a man not her husband into eloquent speeches of self-reproach. The Arcadia contains plenty of comedy too, but it is thoughtful comedy, not slapstick, created by characters who sound ridiculous because their thoughts are ridiculous.
Our restoration of The Countess of Pembroke’s Arcadia is presented in a newly edited, readable edition based on the complete 1593 text. Spelling, punctuation, and occasionally words and grammar have been modernized for clarity. Titles and summaries have been added to the chapter divisions found in the 1590 edition but dropped in 1593 and subsequent editions.
Charles Stanley Ross
Purdue University
Joel B. Davis
Stetson University


Some Common Names
Amphialu