[.ca] Philip Sidney (ISBN 071266548X)

Philip Sidney: A Boring Life (Until the end, when he dies):
Admittedly I've never read another biography of Philip Sidney, but this one was a tough read. The author choose a tough topic, the often venerated, seldom understood Sir Philip Sidney courtier during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. I decided to read this book because it received a good review in the Atlantic Monthly which said Philip Sidney has been considered a true life embodiment of Castiglione's Perfect Courtier. From what I could tell this was because he died long before he was old enough to do anything unlike a perfect courtier. The "Double Life" suggests the different ways Sidney was appreciated in England and on the continent. At home, Sidney was constantly being stifled by the whims and maneouvres of the Queen. (Elizabeth's actions are not well justified in Stewart's portrayal.) On the Continent, Sidney is venerated,befriended, and appreciated by Protestants and Catholics alike, for reasons that are not well explained in the text. The biography also struggles to portray Sidney as a person. I could never get a handle on his personality because it seems that there is not enough documentation to determine what he was really like. Everytime his life got interesting or controversial, records or letters are absent. Thus his story, while fundamentally uninteresting is compounded with a series of anticlimaxes. The only event which was well documented was his death. This was particularly frustrating (after 310 pages) as the reader does not know whether to weep or to cheer. The problem with Pillip Sidney: A Double Life was whether it should have been written in this format at all. The text is much more useful as an academic reference than as a "good read," yet it is packaged and written as if it were filled with intrigue, controversy, romance and interest. It is not, and probably could not be written so, due to scores of missing letters or other substantive evidence. I gave the book two stars because it did convey a great deal of information, uninteresting or otherwise. It also did not seem to fail for any reason on its own merits of argument or fact. I question whether this book should have been published. While I'm sure the author knows a great deal about Elizabethan England, he did not know that there simply isn't enough information about Philip Sidney to either get excited or to write an entire book about. It seems that the reasons Pilip was regarded as the Perfect Courtier will forever remain a mystery. Vain attempts to explain this will not succeed until more information is discovered.