The Old Arcadia

This chapter discusses Philip Sidney’s Old Arcadia in relation to the activity of creation. Its entry point is the pedagogy of Renaissance humanism, which aimed to produce virtuous citizens by teaching the arts of persuasion. The Arcadia is discussed as at once a near-perfect exemplar of early modern rhetorical culture and an uneasy investigation of that culture’s limitations. The chapter discusses Sidney’s engagement with the first part of rhetoric, inventio: the process of discovering compelling arguments and language. This offers an analogue to the exploration in Sidney’s Defence of Poesy of the poet’s activity as making or poiesis. The Old Arcadia offers a sceptical investigation of the nature, ends, and scope of this creative activity.