Cupid, Idolatry, and Iconoclasm in Sidney's Arcadia

This essay explores how Sidney's romance—particularly the narrative of Plangus and Erona—engages with the Elizabethan debate on idolatry and reflects the facts of Elizabethan iconoclasm to reveal a much more sympathetic attitude toward the relationship between art and religious worship than Sidney's reputation as a Protestant might suggest. Fundamental to this paradox is Cupid. The essay begins by tracing Sidney's encounter with the love god through Italian painting before considering Cupid's notoriety as a figure for pagan and Catholic idolatry and, finally, his spectacular revenge against the iconoclast in the Arcadia.