The age, the stage – and Touchstone: Shakespeare and Sidney reconsidered

The Elizabethan Age was a cruel and contradictory time. Who were the Puritans? Who attacked the stage? Sidney, glamorous young courtier and sonneteer, defender of literature, had strong Huguenot and reformed connections. Shakespeare, a conformed Catholic, gave Sidney’s fruitful arguments unexpected expression. Sidney also gave Shakespeare fruitful irritation, and the humour in some of his plays relied on audiences who knew their Sidney for the full joke. Falstaff and King Arthur have walk-on parts in this tale of paradox, with its extensive backdrop of theological savagery.