Wood reads Philip Sidney's New Arcadia in the light of the ethos known as Philippism after the followers of the Protestant theologian, Philip Melanchthon. He uses a critical paradigm previously used to discuss Sidney's Defence of Poesy and narrows the gap often found between Sidney's theory and literary practice.

Introduction1) Sir Philip Sidney, Humility and Revising the Arcadia.2) 'Philip has the word and the substance': a Philippist Reading of Sidney's revised Arcadia.3) 'If an excellent man should err': Sir Philip Sidney and Stoical Virtue.4) 'Think nature me a man of arms did make'?: Conflicted Conflicts in Astrophil and Stella and the revised Arcadia.5) 'The representing of so strange a power in love': Sir Philip Sidney’s Legacy of Anti-factionalism.6) 'Cleverly playing the stoic': the Earl of Essex, Sir Philip Sidney and Surviving Elizabeth's court.

This book reads Philip Sidney’s New Arcadia in the light of the ethos known as Philippism after the followers of Philip Melanchthon the Protestant theologian. It employs a critical paradigm previously used to discuss Sidney’s Defence of Poesy and narrows the gap that critics have found between Sidney’s theory and literary practice. It is a valuable resource for scholars and researchers in the fields of literary and religious studies.Like the Philippists, open to the ideas of humanist scholarship, Sidney draws his philosophical precepts from an eclectic mix of sources. Various strands of philosophical, political and theological thought are accommodated within the New Arcadia, which conforms to the kind of literature praised by Melanchthon for its life-like heterogeneity and its examples of virtue. Sidney’s characters have generally been thought to symbolise a passive form of Christian Stoicism. Wood contends that they, in fact, respond to their misfortunes in a way that demonstrates an active outlook. Employing the same philosophy, Sidney, both in his letter to Queen Elizabeth and in his politically-interested fiction, arrogates to himself the role of court counsellor. As such, he is a model for his sister and Fulke Greville in their roles as literary patron and courtier, respectively. Robert Devereux, despite being associated with court factionalism, also draws, Wood argues, on the optimistic and conciliatory philosophy signified by Sidney’s New Arcadia.Sidney’s romance affirms its author’s piety, in which human fallibility is recognized and tolerated. An epic, martial figure, Amphialus is an apparently irredeemable character, who, nevertheless, will be saved.