Sir Philip Sidney came as near to achieving the
Renaissance ideal of the gentleman as any
Englishman ever did; scholar, poet,
critic, diplomat, courtier and soldier he was at once a man of affairs and a high idealist, regarded in his lifetime as an epitome of knighthood. Again, he was an innovator, importing and experimenting with various theories and literary genres. It is well known that sonneteering was a derivative practice, in which the Elizabethan poets imitated Petrarchan sonnet in its both form and theme. However, Sidney’s greatness lies in the fact that he brought about a number of variations and infused into the form strong masculine feelings. Again, as it is evident in Loving in Truth, Sidney wrote his sonnets bearing in mind the classical theory of artistic creation provided by Aristotle in his Poetics. It is said that Astrophil and Stella had its origin in a real-life affair with a woman. Stella is said to be Penelope Devereux, who did not or could not reciprocate the love and married Lord Rich. Thus, a series of sonnets addressed to a single woman, expressing and reflecting on the developing relationship between the poet and his love grew up. It is, in fact, owing to the predisposition of the mind created by the Romantic tradition of subjective art that we sometimes relate and interpret the works of other writers of other periods before the Romantics to and in terms of their biographical accounts.