SOURCE: “Sidney's Experiment in Pastoral: The Lady of May,” in Essential Articles for the Study of Sir Philip Sidney, Archon Books, 1986, pp. 61–71.

In the following essay, Orgel finds that Sidney's mixed-mode court masque about the contemplative life, The Lady of May, provides us with a “brief and excellent example of the way his mind worked.”

Sidney's The Lady of May has gone largely unnoticed since its inclusion—apparently at the last moment, and in the interests of completeness—in the 1598 folio of his works. It had been commissioned by Leicester as an entertainment for Queen Elizabeth, and was presented before her at Wanstead, probably in 1578. It merits attention on a number of grounds, not the least of which is its obvious interest as a dramatic piece by the author of Arcadia and Astrophel and Stella. It is characteristic of Sidney in its treatment of literary convention, its concern...