Sir Philip Sidney's An Apology for Poetry and Astrophil and Stella: Texts and Contexts

This edition presents together Sir Philip Sidney's response to the many attacks on poetry current in early modern England, An Apology for Poetry, and his path-breaking sonnet sequence, Astrophil and Stell. The introduction provides biographical and historical contexts for reading Sidney's works, and to help students explore how the Apology arises from and intervenes in the "Quarrel over Poetry," this volume provides substantial excerpts from such texts as Plato's Republic, Scaliger's Poetics, Gosson's The School of Abuse, and Richard Willes's A Disputation Concerning Poetry (the first extended discussion of poetry published in England). This edition also includes excerpts from Sidney's letters to his friend, Sir Edward Denny, and to his brother, Robert. All the texts are newly edited, annotated, and modernized.