The Ashgate Research Companion To The Sidneys 1500 1700 Volume 2

Presented in two volumes, The Ashgate Research Companion to The Sidneys, 1500-1700 assesses the current state of scholarship on members of the Sidney family and their impact, as historical and/or literary figures, in the period 1500-1700. Volume 2: Literature, begins with an exploration of the Sidneys' books and manuscripts and how they circulated, followed by an overview of the contributions of family members -Sir Philip Sidney; Mary Sidney Herbert, Countess of Pembroke; Lady Mary Wroth; Robert Sidney, Earl of Leicester; and William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke - in the genres of prose romance, drama, poetry, psalms and prose. These essays outline major controversies and areas for further research, as well as conducting literary analysis.

Few families have contributed as much to English history and literature-indeed, to the arts generally-as the Sidney family. This two-volume Ashgate Research Companion assesses the current state of scholarship on family members and their impact, as historical and literary figures, in the period 1500-1700. Volume 1: Lives, begins with an overview of the Sidneys and politics, providing some links to court events, entertainments, literature, and patronage. The volume gives biographies to prominent high-profile Sidney women and men, as well as sections assessing the influence of the family in the areas of the English court, international politics, patronage, religion, public entertainment, the visual arts, and music. The focus of the second volume is the literary contributions of Sir Philip Sidney; Mary Sidney Herbert, Countess of Pembroke; Lady Mary Wroth; Robert Sidney, Earl of Leicester; and William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke.

Cover -- Half Title -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Table of Contents -- List of Illustrations -- Notes on Contributors -- Preface: Volume 1 -- Acknowledgments -- List of Abbreviations -- Chronology -- The Sidney Family Tree -- Part I Overview -- 1 Family Networks: The Sidneys, Dudleys, and Herberts -- Part II Biographies -- 2 Sir Henry Sidney (1529-1586) -- 3 Lady Mary Dudley Sidney (c. 1531-1586) and Her Siblings -- 4 Philip Sidney (1554-1586) -- 5 Mary Sidney Herbert (1561-1621), Countess of Pembroke -- 6 Those Essex Girls: The Lives and Letters of Lettice Knollys, Penelope Rich, Dorothy Perrott Percy, and Frances Walsingham -- 7 The Life of Robert Sidney (1563-1626), First Earl of Leicester -- 8 Barbara Gamage Sidney (c. 1562-1621), Countess of Leicester, Elizabeth Sidney Manners (1585-1612), Countess of Rutland, and Lady Mary Sidney Wroth (1587-1651) -- 9 Robert Sidney (1595-1677), Second Earl of Leicester -- 10 A Triptych of Dorothy Percy Sidney (1598-1659), Countess of Leicester, Lucy Percy Hay (1599-1660), Countess of Carlisle, and Dorothy Sidney Spencer (1617-1684), Countess of Sunderland -- 11 Algernon Sidney's Life and Works (1623-1683) -- 12 Henry Sidney (1641-1704), Earl of Romney, and Robert Spencer (1641-1702), Second Earl of Sunderland -- Part III The Sidneys in Ireland and Wales -- 13 The Sidneys in Ireland -- 14 The Sidneys and Wales -- Part IV The Sidneys and the Continent -- 15 The Sidneys and the Continent: The Tudor Period -- 16 The Sidneys and the Continent: The Stuart Period -- Part V The Sidneys and the Arts -- 17 The Sidneys and Public Entertainments -- 18 The Sidneys and Literary Patronage -- 19 Penshurst Place and Leicester House -- 20 The Sidneys and the Visual Arts -- 21 The Sidneys and Music -- Index

Focusing on Mary Sidney Herbert and Mary Sidney Wroth’s use of the figures of origin, descent, and inheritance in their poetry and prose, this book examines how these central women writers situated themselves in terms of early modern England’s rich ancestral cultures, employing these and other genealogical concepts to talk about authorship, family, selfhood, and memory. In turn, both Sidney Herbert and Sidney Wroth also shaped their works in relation to the ways in which writers within their familial communities and literary coteries constructed them as Sidneys, heirs, descendants, and future ancestors, in genres ranging from the patronage dedication and pastoral eclogue to mythographic genealogia and georgic poetry. In the intersection of ancestry, death, sexuality, and reproduction, the book contends that Sidney Herbert and Sidney Wroth develop their authorship within the simultaneous rigidity and flexibility of their world’s genealogical discourses.

Robert Sidney, the first Earl of Leicester (1563–1626), serves as an exemplar of an Elizabethan nobleman who had in his collection a body of work pertinent to the subject of masculine honour in the private realm. Understanding the nuances and evolution of the term private honour as it is represented in Sidney’s artefacts, as well as in the public discourse of the era, is the work and contribution of this book. The permeability between the private and public spheres led to an emergence of new forms of masculine representation. In a time when manhood was intertwined with militaristic qualities (such as courage, strength and fortitude), my investigation shows that in the domestic sphere, a gentler version of masculinity, encouraging humility, constancy and modesty, was fostered amongst the nobility. While worries of effeminacy certainly existed, there also was a strong discourse that encourage men to adopt so-called feminine virtues within the private sphere.

This volume gathers together, for the first time, Mary Sidney Herbert’s Antonius (1592) and Thomas Kyd’s Cornelia (1594), two significant and inter-related responses to Robert Garnier’s Roman plays, Marc Antoine (1578) and Cornélie (1574). As a unique diptych the translated plays offer invaluable insight into the often ghostly presence of French literature in Elizabethan culture. They also mark an important chapter in the development of early modern neoclassical drama, with Sidney Herbert and Kyd creatively engaging, each in their own way, with Garnier’s learned, Senecan tragedies. This edition offers a critical introduction situating the plays in the rapidly shifting context of the 1590s and discussing their critical reception as translations. The footnotes aim to illuminate Sidney Herbert’s and Kyd’s distinctive translation practices by signaling significant amendments to Garnier’s text and by tracing the web of intertextual allusions that connects each translation, not only with Elizabethan practices of patronage, readership, and text circulation, but also with the wider intellectual and political debates of the late European Renaissance. Also featuring textual notes, a list of neologisms, and a glossary, this edition documents each text’s material and editorial history, as well as their joint contribution to the linguistic creativity of the Elizabethan age. p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times; color: #ffffff}