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The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia (Oxford World's Classics) 1st Edition

4.8 out of 5 stars 27 ratings
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Sidney was in his early twenties when he wrote his 'Old' Arcadia for the amusement of his younger sister, the Countess of Pembroke. A romantic story in the manner of Shakespeare's early comedies, the 'Old' Arcadia also includes over 70 poems in a variety of meters and genres. This edition contains a Glossary and an Index of First Lines.

About the Series: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the broadest spectrum of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, voluminous notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.
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  1. ISBN-10
    0199549842
  2. ISBN-13
    978-0199549849
  3. Edition
    1st
  4. Publisher
    Oxford University Press
  5. Publication date
    October 15, 2008
  6. Language
    English
  7. Dimensions
    7.6 x 0.9 x 5 inches
  8. Print length
    432 pages
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From the Publisher

oxford world's classics, literature, novels, myths, celebrated writing
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Editorial Reviews

Review

"Essential reading for the renaissance."--Susanne Collier, California State University, Northridge

"Splendid and affordable, with scholarly glossary and explanatory notes."--Susanne Collier, California State University, Northridge

"The best paperback edition I've seen."--Dr. Robert Albano, Troy State University, Dothanr

About the Author

Katherine Duncan-Jones is a Fellow in English at Somerville College, Oxford. She is the author of Sidney: Courtier Poet (1991); and the editor of Oxford Authors Sidney (1989) and Oxford Poetry Library Sidney (1994).

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Oxford University Press; 1st edition (October 15, 2008)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 432 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0199549842
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0199549849
  • Reading age ‏ : ‎ 13 years and up
  • Lexile measure ‏ : ‎ 1530L
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 2.31 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 7.6 x 0.9 x 5 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.8 out of 5 stars 27 ratings

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Sir Philip Sidney

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Top reviews from the United States

  • Rachel
    5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
    Reviewed in the United States on March 20, 2016
    Verified Purchase
    Loved it, although it can be difficult to get through at times because of the older language.
    2 people found this helpful
    Helpful
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  • J C E Hitchcock
    4.0 out of 5 stars An art which appeals more to the mind than to the heart
    Reviewed in the United States on July 9, 2010
    Malory apart, the fifteenth century did not see many literary works of any great significance produced in England, and there wasn't a great deal more in the first half (make that the first two thirds) of the sixteenth. Then, suddenly, the last few decades of the century saw a remarkable revival of drama, poetry and prose, including the works of Shakespeare himself, still the reigning heavyweight champion of English literature.

    Sir Philip Sidney was one of the key figures in this revival, and his "Arcadia", a prose romance is one of the works by which he is best remembered. It is also known as the "Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia" as he wrote it for his sister, Mary Herbert, the Countess of Pembroke, and may have written it while staying at the Herbert country estate, Wilton in Wiltshire. It exists in two versions, only one of which he actually completed. For many years the only version of the "Arcadia" that was generally known was the so-called "New Arcadia". At some time during the 1580s, Sidney began to revise his original story, reorganising it and adding extra episodes not contained in the first version. In 1586, however, he was killed while fighting in the Netherlands, and the revised version remained unfinished at his death. The version which was eventually published consisted of a hybrid of the two versions. Sidney's original version, today known as the "Old Arcadia", was rediscovered in the early twentieth century, and it is this version of the story which is contained in the Oxford World Classics edition.

    Arcadia was originally a rugged, mountainous district of Ancient Greece, known for the honesty of its inhabitants and the simplicity of their way of life. In later centuries, however, the word came to signify an idealised pastoral way of life characterised by ease and comfort. Sidney's was not the first literary work with that title; early in the century the Italian Jacopo Sannazaro had published his own "Arcadia", which served as one of Sidney's sources.

    As Adam Nicolson points out in his recent book "Earls of Paradise", Arcadianism in sixteenth century England was not, as it was to become later, a purely decorative style based upon nostalgia for an imagined past but a political ideology, standing for the country against the city and the court, for conservatism, hierarchy, Protestantism and the traditional feudal way of life, and against individualism, a market economy and the centralisation of power. Sidney's "Arcadia", therefore is ostensibly set in the Ancient Greek province of that name, which serves both as a fairy-tale country, a long tie ago and a long way away, and as a model for contemporary England.

    Although the work is a prose romance, it has the five-act structure of a drama, the acts being divided from one another by sets of eclogues, poems mostly on the theme of love, actually composed by Sidney himself but in the context of the story supposedly written by Arcadian shepherds. (For some reason it was the shepherds of Arcadia rather than, say, cowherds or swineherds who were seen as living a particularly idealised life, in this case one which left them enough spare time to master the arts of poetry, including highly complex metres and rhyme schemes). Further poems supposedly written by various characters crop up in the main ext itself.

    The plot is a complicated and far-fetched one, reminiscent of some of Shakespeare's comedies. ("Twelfth Night", "As You Like It" and "The Winter's Tale" all came to mind). It combines pastoral elements with adventure and courtly romance. Basilius, Duke of Arcadia, has withdrawn with his family from the Court to the countryside in an attempt to avoid the terms of a prophecy (which, as in all good Greek myths, such as the story of Oedipus, eventually comes true despite all attempts to thwart it). Two young men, Musidorus, Prince of Thessaly, and Pyrocles, Prince of Macedon, fall in love with Basilius' daughters Pamela and Philoclea, after being shipwrecked in the country. In order to gain access to the two princesses, both disguise themselves, Musidorus as a shepherd and Pyrocles as a woman, naming himself Cleophila. (The name is an inversion of that of his beloved, Philoclea; both derive from the Greek for "lover of glory").

    This scenario gives rise to all sorts of complications, not the least of which is that both Basilius and his wife Gynecia fall in love with the supposed "Cleophila". (Basilius wrongly believes her to be a woman, Gynecia correctly suspects her to be a man, and Philoclea seems neither to know nor care whether her admirer is male or female- a sexually ambiguous storyline going beyond anything in Shakespeare).

    Sidney's literary style is typical of late sixteenth century prose, a style which has become known as "Euphuism", and is characterised by a grand rhetorical manner, a complex sentence structure and much use of abstract nouns. This may be the cause of a strange contradiction in the way he has been regarded in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Sidney the man, the gallant poet-soldier giving his life on the battlefield for the liberty of a small nation, just as Byron was to do more than two centuries later, is a quintessentially Romantic figure. Sidney the mannered, stylised writer is far from Romantic. His highly artificial style does not conform to the idea, current since the late eighteenth century, that all great literature should represent the laying bare of the inmost secrets of the writer's soul.

    Sidney himself described the "Arcadia" as "a trifle, and that triflingly handled". Yet there is much in the work to enjoy. Sidney's prose, although ornate and mannered, is also elegant and often witty. His poetry is often technically brilliant. He pays much more attention to characterisation than many earlier writers of prose fiction, such as Malory, and in this he can be seen as foreshadowing the modern novel. His is, however, an art which appeals more to the mind than it does to the heart, which perhaps explains why he, like some of his contemporaries, is today an author who is widely talked about but not so widely read.
    20 people found this helpful
    Helpful
     Report

Top reviews from other countries

  • isalovi
    5.0 out of 5 stars good book
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 11, 2012
    Verified Purchase
    This book does help you when having to study Sir Philip's works. he is not my favorite author but I had to study him in university so this book was very helpful.
    Report
  • Frederic Ravix
    5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
    Reviewed in Canada on June 5, 2018
    Verified Purchase
    very good edition
    Report
  • J C E Hitchcock
    4.0 out of 5 stars An art which appeals more to the mind than to the heart
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 9, 2010
    Verified Purchase
    Malory apart, the fifteenth century did not see many literary works of any great significance produced in England, and there wasn't a great deal more in the first half (make that the first two thirds) of the sixteenth. Then, suddenly, the last few decades of the century saw a remarkable revival of drama, poetry and prose, including the works of Shakespeare himself, still the reigning heavyweight champion of English literature.

    Sir Philip Sidney was one of the key figures in this revival, and his "Arcadia", a prose romance is one of the works by which he is best remembered. It is also known as the "Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia" as he wrote it for his sister, Mary Herbert, the Countess of Pembroke, and may have written it while staying at the Herbert country estate, Wilton in Wiltshire. It exists in two versions, only one of which he actually completed. For many years the only version of the "Arcadia" that was generally known was the so-called "New Arcadia". At some time during the 1580s, Sidney began to revise his original story, reorganising it and adding extra episodes not contained in the first version. In 1586, however, he was killed while fighting in the Netherlands, and the revised version remained unfinished at his death. The version which was eventually published consisted of a hybrid of the two versions. Sidney's original version, today known as the "Old Arcadia", was rediscovered in the early twentieth century, and it is this version of the story which is contained in the Oxford World Classics edition.

    Arcadia was originally a rugged, mountainous district of Ancient Greece, known for the honesty of its inhabitants and the simplicity of their way of life. In later centuries, however, the word came to signify an idealised pastoral way of life characterised by ease and comfort. Sidney's was not the first literary work with that title; early in the century the Italian Jacopo Sannazaro had published his own "Arcadia", which served as one of Sidney's sources.

    As Adam Nicolson points out in his recent book "Earls of Paradise", Arcadianism in sixteenth century England was not, as it was to become later, a purely decorative style based upon nostalgia for an imagined past but a political ideology, standing for the country against the city and the court, for conservatism, hierarchy, Protestantism and the traditional feudal way of life, and against individualism, a market economy and the centralisation of power. Sidney's "Arcadia", therefore is ostensibly set in the Ancient Greek province of that name, which serves both as a fairy-tale country, a long tie ago and a long way away, and as a model for contemporary England.

    Although the work is a prose romance, it has the five-act structure of a drama, the acts being divided from one another by sets of eclogues, poems mostly on the theme of love, actually composed by Sidney himself but in the context of the story supposedly written by Arcadian shepherds. (For some reason it was the shepherds of Arcadia rather than, say, cowherds or swineherds who were seen as living a particularly idealised life, in this case one which left them enough spare time to master the arts of poetry, including highly complex metres and rhyme schemes). Further poems supposedly written by various characters crop up in the main ext itself.

    The plot is a complicated and far-fetched one, reminiscent of some of Shakespeare's comedies. ("Twelfth Night", "As You Like It" and "The Winter's Tale" all came to mind). It combines pastoral elements with adventure and courtly romance. Basilius, Duke of Arcadia, has withdrawn with his family from the Court to the countryside in an attempt to avoid the terms of a prophecy (which, as in all good Greek myths, such as the story of Oedipus, eventually comes true despite all attempts to thwart it). Two young men, Musidorus, Prince of Thessaly, and Pyrocles, Prince of Macedon, fall in love with Basilius' daughters Pamela and Philoclea, after being shipwrecked in the country. In order to gain access to the two princesses, both disguise themselves, Musidorus as a shepherd and Pyrocles as a woman, naming himself Cleophila. (The name is an inversion of that of his beloved, Philoclea; both derive from the Greek for "lover of glory").

    This scenario gives rise to all sorts of complications, not the least of which is that both Basilius and his wife Gynecia fall in love with the supposed "Cleophila". (Basilius wrongly believes her to be a woman, Gynecia correctly suspects her to be a man, and Philoclea seems neither to know nor care whether her admirer is male or female- a sexually ambiguous storyline going beyond anything in Shakespeare).

    Sidney's literary style is typical of late sixteenth century prose, a style which has become known as "Euphuism", and is characterised by a grand rhetorical manner, a complex sentence structure and much use of abstract nouns. This may be the cause of a strange contradiction in the way he has been regarded in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Sidney the man, the gallant poet-soldier giving his life on the battlefield for the liberty of a small nation, just as Byron was to do more than two centuries later, is a quintessentially Romantic figure. Sidney the mannered, stylised writer is far from Romantic. His highly artificial style does not conform to the idea, current since the late eighteenth century, that all great literature should represent the laying bare of the inmost secrets of the writer's soul.

    Sidney himself described the "Arcadia" as "a trifle, and that triflingly handled". Yet there is much in the work to enjoy. Sidney's prose, although ornate and mannered, is also elegant and often witty. His poetry is often technically brilliant. He pays much more attention to characterisation than many earlier writers of prose fiction, such as Malory, and in this he can be seen as foreshadowing the modern novel. His is, however, an art which appeals more to the mind than it does to the heart, which perhaps explains why he, like some of his contemporaries, is today an author who is widely talked about but not so widely read.
    One person found this helpful
     Report
  • robert, balthazar
    4.0 out of 5 stars pebroke's arcadia
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 14, 2016
    Verified Purchase
    rec'd in good condition
    thanks, bobb
    Report