The Acidale test: Spenser’s jettisoning of Sidney as poetic authoriser

Abstract

This article questions the commonplace that Edmund Spenser always depicted Philip Sidney as his poetic authoriser by finding undercurrents in works through 1595 and by reading the Mount Acidale scene in the 1596 Faerie Queene as jettisoning Sidney. This study calls into question the accepted version of Spenser’s role in the historical development of Sidney’s image. It demonstrates that Spenser rethought his relationship to Sidney and reimagined himself as a poet. This study also resolves the disjunction between earlier depictions of Sidney as poet and the Sidney-like qualities of the unpoetical Calidore.