ENGLISH LITERATURE (CBSE/UGC NET)

Detailed explanation-1: -So strong were Sidney’s Protestant convictions that he incurred the queen’s displeasure by opposing her projected marriage to the Duke of Anjou; this led to his dismissal from court for a time.

Detailed explanation-2: -Sir Philip Sidney, (born November 30, 1554, Penshurst, Kent, England-died October 17, 1586, Arnhem, Netherlands), Elizabethan courtier, statesman, soldier, poet, and patron of scholars and poets, considered the ideal gentleman of his day.

Detailed explanation-3: -His finest achievement was a sequence of 108 love sonnets. These owe much to Petrarch and Pierre de Ronsard in tone and style, and place Sidney as the greatest Elizabethan sonneteer after Shakespeare.

Detailed explanation-4: -In his work Astrophil and Stella, Sidney advanced the art of poetry through his use of intensely emotional and personal sonnets. In this work specifically, Sidney seems to break from his supposed private nature to allow his readers into his most personal thoughts and feelings.

Detailed explanation-5: -The classicism of Sidney is that of his age, and shows itself in two characteristics; the reaffirmation of ancient aesthetic theory and in metrical experiments in English verse modelled on classical prosody.