Sheremetieva V. The works of Sir Philip Sidney in the sociocultural context of the English Renaissance

The thesis is the first in the Ukrainian literary studies integrated research of the multigenre writing of Sir Philip Sidney who was one of the key figures of the English Renaissance culture. The paper conceptualizes the notion of "writer's phenomenological portrait" and "author's self-identification". It also offers and implements the research strategy enabling to describe the relationships between diverse kinds of author's identity as well as define the ways of its manifestation through their literary works. Sidney's literary biography has been reconstructed within historical and cultural environment to bring out those anthropological configurations of his outstanding personality (i.e. paragon courtier, diplomat, soldier, patriot, humanist, poet), which were crucial for shaping the key pillars in his works. The analysis of his texts' poetics reveals the writer's involvement in each of the mainstream ethical and aesthetic disputes of the period. The paper emphasizes Sidney's powerful influence on the formation of the English Renaissance literary conventions and his importance in the spiritual and intellectual education of the national aristocratic elite. The artistic experiments of Ph. Sidney in prose aim at 'rereading" the established Renaissance tradition of writing pastoral. The national, cultural, religious, social and gender types of the writer's identity are brought into action in his "Arcadia". The pastoral canon has undergone a significant transformation as it has been widely expanded by means of heroic, chivalric and adventure components. All the three versions of "Arcadia" (the early and manuscript "Old Arcadia", the remade and unfinished "New Arcadia" and the third composite "The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia") bring into action the aesthetic and epistemological resources of the pastoral genre. Ph. Sidney effectively reaccentuates the dominant themes, enlarges the system of characters and enriches the text with the topical mentality, axiological, political and philosophical collisions.