Sir Philip Sidney, Cultural Icon

Discussing authors as diverse in time and type as Sir Fulke Greville, Christopher Hill, Charles Lamb, Edmund Waller, and Thomas Warton the elder, Richard Hillyer analyzes Sir Philip Sidney’s reputation from his own day to the present.  More important than how Sidney’s works have fared over many centuries’ worth of critical fashion, Hillyer argues, is how Sidney’s versatility as a “Renaissance man” has elicited varying degrees of wonder, incomprehension, and skepticism.  Even when least appreciated as an author, he has remained a cultural icon, a prominent figure on the landscapes of English culture and literature, and an influence that later authors and commentators have continued to address.