| Abstrakt: |
Sir Philip Sidney has been primarily associated with the Elizabethan chivalric revival. This essay, however, examines Sidney's approach to early modern warfare, in contrast to nostalgic chivalry, arguing that Sidney is at least as interested in what historian Roger Manning has termed bellum (collective martial practice) as in duellum (the "single virtue" of chivalric combat). In the Apology, in his speech to his own men at Axel, and in the New Arcadia (through the figure of Pyrocles), Sidney offers a version of a model captain who leads common soldiers by providing them with an attainable code of martial honor. His interest in the experience of the common soldiery associates him with the "soldier-writer" of the Elizabeth era who articulated the values and struggles of the common soldier, because his oratory formed an affective bond with the armies of which he was a part. His reputation as a soldier's soldier informs popular laments written by Thomas Churchyard and others upon the event of his death from battle wounds. Sidney qualifies as a war poet because he articulates the values of the emerging professional soldiery. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
