1554-1586
Poet; son of Sir Henry Sidney who was Lord President of the
Council of the Marches and whose seat, in this capacity, was
Ludlow Castle. Sir Henry was Lord President from 1560 to 1586 but
was not in attendance at Ludlow
throughout that period. Philip though, would certainly have
visited Ludlow as a child and he was sent to Shrewsbury School where he quickly made
friends with Fulke Greville. He went on of course to become Sir
Philip Sidney; friend of Spenser and one of the most influential
of Elizabethan poets. Sidney's life was all too brief but he left
literary gems such as Arcadia (1590), Astrophel and
Stella (1591) and the Apologie for poetrie (1591). A
statue of Sidney was erected outside the new Shrewsbury School buildings as a
memorial to the dead of the first World War.
From An Illustrated Literary Guide to Shropshire by Gordon Dickins, published by Shropshire Libraries, 1987. © Gordon Dickins, 1987.
A selection of poetry by the author can be found in Representative poetry online, part of the University of Toronto site. Also at Project Gutenburg
The Literary Encyclopedia has a profile of Sir Philip Sidney by Claire Preston, University of Cambridge.
Page created 9 February 2001 and last updated 7 April 2005
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