Otherwise known as An Apology for Poetry by Sir Philip Sidney Edited with Introduction and Notes by Alfred S. Cook 1890 The actual Defense of Poesy was only 58 pages, however with an introduction of 40 pages and 74 pages of copious notes, I was curious enough to buy this book and read it.  Who was Sir Philip Sidney and why had I never heard of him? Sidney (1554-1586) was an Englishman who died young at the age of thirty-one.  In that short span of years he traveled throughout Europe, he was appointed as an Ambassador to Germany, was a member of Parliament (twice), knighted by the Queen of England, married, had a daughter who became a Countess, appointed Governor of Flushing (Netherlands), fought, and later died from a wound at the Battle of Zutphen (part of the Eighty Years’ War). He is known to have written Astrophel and Stella, The Lady of May, Arcadia, and the Defense of Poesy.  He was an acquaintance of both Edmund Spenser and Sir Francis Drake.  This was the Elizabethan Age. What amazed me was the breadth of sources that Sidney uses in this work.  He was evidently extremely well read.  Not only was he…