The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia (The Old Arcadia) - Paperback

Philip Sidney was in his early twenties when he wrote his `Old' Arcadia for the amusement of his younger sister, the Countess of Pembroke. The book, which he called 'a trifle, and that triflingly handled', reflects their youthful vitality.

The Old' Arcadia tells a romantic story in a manner comparable to that of Shakespeare's early comedies. It is divided into fiveActs', and abounds in lively speeches, dialogues, and quasi-dramatic tableaux. Two young princes, Pyrocles and Musidorus, disguise themselves as an Amazon and a shepherd to gain access to the Arcadian Princesses, who have been taken into semi-imprisonment by their father to avoid the dangers foretold by an oracle.

As a vehicle for Sidney's prophetic ideas about English versification, the Old' Arcadia also includes over seventy poems in a wide variety of metres and genres. In clarity, symmetry, and coherence theOld' version is greatly superior both to the ambitious but unfinished New' Arcadia and the amalgamated,composite' version, a hybrid monster which Sidney himself never envisaged.

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