ABSTRACT
Whereas Sir Philip Sidney called the first version of his Arcadias “a trifle, and … triflingly handled” (Old Arcadia 3), their delightful central story, embellished with subplots, episodes, and accounts of antecedent action, cogently reflects upon poetics, discourse, fictional forms, eros, beauty, friendship, the governance of self and state, personal ethics, providential mysteries and their relation to human agency, the limits of human capacities, justice, grace in various senses, and forgiveness. Major in scope and accomplishment, epitomizing Sidney’s broad knowledge of Western culture in at least five languages, his Arcadias are the most significant english prose fictions created before the mid-eighteenth century. Despite having inspired many seventeenth-century imitations, their particular world of reading, situated in an eloquently realized pre-Christian Hellenic antiquity, remains incomparable. Here it may be encountered through their textual history, literary and formal affinities, intellectual scope, intrinsic allegorism, and further investigative prospects.
