Sidney's New Arcadia and the Decay of Protestant Republicanism

The New Arcadia re-examines the nature of the political in the wake of the prince's failure to follow "good" counsel and the resultant breakdown of the Tudor monarchical republic. Aristocratic and popular rebellions in Arcadia illustrate the separation of politics from any ethical foundation, and its degeneration into horrific violence. Because Laconia does not constitute a commonwealth, the republican ethos through which Sidney understood politics is irrelevant, and the rebellion's political status remains indeterminate. Sidney's republican crisis is reflected within the text's narrative and rhetorical expansiveness, which dispenses with the moral ground presupposed by the Old Arcadia's restricted irony.