Sir Philip Sidney (Oxford Poetry Library)

Sir Philip Sidney, whose life was tragically cut short at thirty-one, is now regarded as one of the most important poets of the Elizabethan era. A contemporary of Shakespeare, he was an influential figure at court where his reputation was won largely through his skills as a courtier rather than as a poet, poetry being an activity he indulged himself in privately. This new selection of Sidney's verse represents the full range of his remarkable poetic gifts, and includes Astrophil and Stella, and The New Arcadia, The Defence of Poesy--his most substantial works--as well as a number of shorter lyrics. Selected and edited by the leading Sidney scholar and biographer Katherine Duncan-Jones, this collection reveals that beneath the often dazzling verbal assurance lurked a vein of profound melancholy.