
Sir Philip Sidney: The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia
Modern readers mostly know Sir Philip Sidney’s Arcadia in its complete ‘old’ version, but it is the New Arcadia (published in 1590), a revised version of his pastoral romance The Countess of Pembroke’s Arcadia, that was the most influential and most widely imitated literary text of the sixteenth century. Preserving the basic plot, New Arcadia adds further narrative strands and introduces ambitious...
Modern readers mostly know Sir Philip Sidney’s Arcadia in its complete ‘old’ version, but it is the New Arcadia (published in 1590), a revised version of his pastoral romance The Countess of Pembroke’s Arcadia, that was the most influential and most widely imitated literary text of the sixteenth century. Preserving the basic plot, New Arcadia adds further narrative strands and introduces ambitious...