Philip Sidney in the context of "Sannazaro"

"Tradition and the Individual Talent" (1919) is an essay written by poet and literary critic T. S. Eliot. The essay was first published in The Egoist (1919) and later in Eliot's first book of criticism, The Sacred Wood (1920). The essay is also available in Eliot's Selected Prose and Selected Essays.

While Eliot is most often known for his poetry, he also contributed to the field of literary criticism. In this dual role, he acted as a cultural critic, comparable to Sir Philip Sidney and Samuel Taylor Coleridge. "Tradition and the Individual Talent" is one of the better-known works that Eliot produced in his critic capacity. It formulates Eliot's influential conception of the relationship between the poet and preceding literary traditions.

Mary Herbert, Countess of Pembroke (née Sidney, 27 October 1561 – 25 September 1621) was among the first Englishwomen to gain notice for her poetry and her literary patronage. By the age of 39, she was listed with her brother Philip Sidney and with Edmund Spenser and William Shakespeare among the notable authors of the day in John Bodenham's verse miscellany Belvidere. Her play Antonius (a translation of Robert Garnier's Marc Antoine) is widely seen as reviving interest in soliloquy based on classical models and as a likely source of Samuel Daniel's closet drama Cleopatra (1594) and of Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra (1607). She was also known for translating Petrarch's "Triumph of Death", for the poetry anthology Triumphs, and above all for a lyrical, metrical translation of the Psalms.

The following is a list of works that were published posthumously.

An asterisk indicates the author is listed in multiple subsections. (For example, Philip Sidney appears in four.)

Biblical paraphrase refers to the practice of restating scripture in new wording, in prose or verse, for purposes ranging from education and interpretation to devotion and literary artistry. Emerging from classical rhetorical traditions and Jewish interpretive practices such as the Targumim, Biblical paraphrase developed through the Middle Ages and Early Modern era into a genre that blended translation, commentary, and creative expansion. It served as a means of clarifying scripture, shaping theology, and engaging readers unable to access the Bible in its original languages. By the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, paraphrase had become a literary and devotional genre, enabling both men and women writers to interpret biblical texts, express personal or political convictions, and take part of sacred narratives through art.

Christian paraphrase was part of early Christian literature, and appeared in sermons, homilies, and poetic retellings. Early narrative retellings, like Cursor Mundi and the Historia scholastica, influenced later paraphrase works. The Middle English Metrical Paraphrase of the Old Testament paraphrased multiple Biblical narrative sources. Paraphrases that followed the Bible's text more closely, especially the Psalms, became popular in the 15th century. In the early modern era, humanist scholarship renewed interest in paraphrase as a form of commentary, exemplified by Erasmus’s influential paraphrases of New Testament books. English paraphrasers, including Thomas Wyatt, Philip Sidney, Mary Herbert, Anne Locke, and Anne Wheathill, used the form to clarify doctrine, express personal devotion, and engage with contemporary political and theological debates. Both Protestant and Catholic writers engaged in paraphrase in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, when it was a venue for literary experimentation as well as spiritual reflection.

The Image of Irelande, with a Discoverie of Woodkarne is a 1581 book by John Derricke.

The book is dedicated to Philip Sidney. It praises the deputyship of Philip's father Henry Sidney and English victories over the Irish. The work opens with a poetic history of Ireland and its conflicts with the English, presenting reasons for English rule. This proceeds to a set of twelve woodcut illustrations interspersed with verse narration, describing Henry Sidney's victories against Irish rebels and denigrating Irish culture. The book ends with the surrender of Turlough Luineach Ó Neill, king of Tyrone, in 1578. Critics, such as James A. Knapp, have deemed the illustrations to be of far greater interest than the unremarkable verse.

Arcadia is a pastoral poem written around 1480 by Jacopo Sannazaro and published in 1504 in Naples. Sannazaro's Arcadia influenced the literature of the 16th and 17th centuries (e.g., Philip Sidney, William Shakespeare, Marguerite de Navarre, Jorge de Montemayor, Garcilaso de la Vega and John Milton).

Astrophil and Stella is an English sonnet sequence by Philip Sidney containing 108 sonnets and 11 songs, probably composed in the 1580s. The name derives from the two Greek words, 'aster' (star) and 'phil' (lover), and the Latin word 'stella' meaning star. Thus Astrophil is the star lover, and Stella is his star. Sidney partly nativized the key features of his Italian model Petrarch, including an ongoing but partly obscure narrative, the philosophical trappings of the poet in relation to love and desire, and musings on the art of poetic creation. Sidney also adopts the Petrarchan rhyme scheme, though he uses it with such freedom that fifteen variants are employed.

Some have suggested that the love represented in the sequence may be a literal one as Sidney evidently connects Astrophil to himself and Stella to Lady Penelope, thought to be Penelope Devereux (1563–1607), later Lady Rich, the wife of Robert Rich, 3rd Baronet. Sidney and Lady Penelope had been betrothed when the latter was a child. For some reason the match was broken off, and Lady Penelope married Lord Rich, with whom she lived for a while most unhappily. Payne and Hunter suggest that modern criticism, though not explicitly rejecting this connection, leans more towards the viewpoint that writers happily create a poetic persona, artificial and distinct from themselves.

An Apology for Poetry (or The Defence of Poesy) is a work of literary criticism by Elizabethan poet Philip Sidney. It was written in approximately 1580 and first published in 1595, after his death.

It is generally believed that he was at least partly motivated by Stephen Gosson, a former playwright who dedicated his attack on the English stage, The School of Abuse, to Sidney in 1579, but Sidney primarily addresses more general objections to poetry, such as those of Plato. In his essay, Sidney integrates a number of classical and Italian precepts on fiction. The essence of his defense is that poetry, by combining the liveliness of history with the ethical focus of philosophy, is more effective than either history or philosophy in rousing its readers to virtue. The work also offers important comments on Edmund Spenser and the Elizabethan stage. Sidney states that there "have been three general kinds" of poetry: (i) "the chief" being religious which "imitate[d] the inconceivable excellencies of God", (ii) philosophical and (iii) imaginative poetry written by "right poets" who "teach and delight".It serves as an immediate motivation for Philip Sidney to write against the attacks done on poetry.