Product Description

Philip Sidney was in his early twenties when he wrote his `Old' Arcadia for the amusement of his younger sister, the Countess of Pembroke. The book, which he called 'a trifle, and that triflingly handled', reflects their youthful vitality. The `Old' Arcadia tells a romantic story in a manner comparable to that of Shakespeare's early comedies. It is divided into five `Acts', and abounds in lively speeches, dialogues, and quasi-dramatic tableaux. Two young princes, Pyrocles and Musidorus, disguise themselves as an Amazon and a shepherd to gain access to the Arcadian Princesses, who have been taken into semi-imprisonment by their father to avoid the dangers foretold by an oracle. As a vehicle for Sidney's prophetic ideas about English versification, the `Old' Arcadia also includes over seventy poems in a wide variety of metres and genres. In clarity, symmetry, and coherence the `Old' version is greatly superior both to the ambitious but unfinished `New' Arcadia and the amalgamated, `composite' version, a hybrid monster which Sidney himself never envisaged.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #329919 in Books
• Published on: 1977-09-29
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 880 pages

Synopsis
Basilus, a foolish old Duke, consults an oracle as he imperiously wishes to know the future, but he is less than pleased with what he learns. To escape the oracle's horrific prophecies about his family and kingdom, he withdraws into pastoral retreat with his wife and two daughters. When a pair of wandering princes fall in love with the princesses and adopt disguises to gain access to them, all manner of complications, both comic and serious, ensue. Part-pastoral romance, part-heroic epic, Sidney's long narrative work was hugely popular for centuries after its first publication in 1593, inspiring two sequels and countless imitations, and contributing greatly to the development of the novel.

About the Author
Katherine Duncan-Jones is a Fellow in English at Somerville College, Oxford. She is the author of Sidney: Courtier Poet (1991); and the editor of Oxford Authors Sidney (1989) and Oxford Poetry Library Sidney (1994).

Customer Reviews

Not the 'Old' Arcadia
Beware of the Amazon blurb as this isn't the 'Old' Arcadia (the first version that Sidney wrote), this is the so-called 'New' Arcadia, re-written, expanded and with many of the songs and poems taken out. However it's still my favourite version.

A huge work that deliberately confounds genre this is both epic and romance, both 'novel' and poetry. The closest thing like it is Spenser's The Faerie Queen (although that is verse and this is prose) or the Hellenistic novels, Daphnis & Chloe or the Ethiopica.

Whatever you want to call it though this is a marvellous read: full of shipwrecks and princesses, knights in disguise and love-lorn shepherds. Multiple narratives keep the story moving despite the Elizabethan love of rhetoric (and few do that better than Sidney!) and the sheer ability and love of story-telling come through admirably.

Not always an easy read at first as you do need to get into Sidney's rhythm but a fantastic (in all senses of the word) one.

** Edit **
I've just noticed that Amazon have published this review under all the various editions of the Arcadia, so just to clarify: the Oxford World Classics (called the 'old' Arcadia) IS the old Arcadia; but the Penguin edition called the Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia, despite the Amazon blurb which describes it as the old Arcadia, is actually the 'new' composite version revised by Sidney, with most of the eclogic poetry stripped out.