ABSTRACT
Sir Philip Sidney would have been aware of the danger inherent in daring to counsel Elizabeth on politically sensitive issues such as her proposed marriage to the Duke of Anjou. Sidney sought to counsel Elizabeth himself, in both direct correspondence and in his literary works; but, as the nephew of the prominent and influential courtier, Robert Dudley, the Earl of Leicester, he was no ordinary citizen. Sidney employs a sophisticated literary strategy, taking existing discursive practices and adapting them to new textual and political contexts. Sidney believed that by employing the rhetorical and literary devices of his advanced learning he could speak truth to power, both directly and indirectly. Sidney posits a monarch-subject relationship that is analogous to the relationship between himself and his sister, figured in the prefatory letter to the Arcadia. Sidney appears to be using his own education to acknowledge the queen's learning, and to be participating in an exercise of mutual fashioning between courtier-poet and monarch.
