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Because of Sidney's classical education and his exposure to continental philosophy during his European travels, his poetry embodies characteristics of classical Greek philosophy and oratory. Philip Sidney was first introduced to Cicero and Horace as a student at Shrewsbury School. A few years later while attending Christ Church College in Oxford where instructors emphasized grammar, rhetoric and logic, he studied Aristotle in Latin translation.' Additional evidence of his interest in classical rhetoric can be found in Sidney's extensive correspondence with Hubert Languet. Sidney wrote, "Of Greek literature I wish to learn only so much as shall suffice for the perfect understanding of Aristotle."2 Because of his comprehensive studies, the boundaries separating rhetoric and poetry faded naturally for Sidney. 1 wish to argue that classical rhetoric, in fact, shaped his poetics thereby producing Sidney's poetic oratory.1
Sidney's sonnet sequence Ástrophil and Stella4 captures the imagination of its audience when Sidney introduced Astrophel, the poet lover, with his unexpected mood swings and passionate meditations. Much of the energy of the sequence can be traced to Astrophel's dramatically fluctuating "rhetorical" attitude. To create his poet lover's remarkable mental ruminations, or rhetorical attitude, Sidney developed Astrophel's unspoken monologue out of three distinct and different types of Aristotelian discourse: forensic, epideictic, and deliberative rhetoric. When Astrophel varies one rhetorical mode to another, the reader witnesses a break in meditation - a mental jump much like the unconscious mind as it jumps from one concept to another. In this way, Sidney recreated the complex, individual workings of Astrophel's mind. Thus, it is Sidney's brilliant manipulation of rhetoric and, in particular, his use of Aristotle's rhetorical modes which need to be more closely studied in order to appreciate his poetic oratory.
The poetic orator shows his audience what he feels by defending or accusing (forensic discourse), praising or blaming (epideictic discourse), and advising or dissuading (deliberative discourse). Each of these postures represents one side of Astrophel's rhetorical attitude. By including all of these contradictory perspectives in a varied and unpredictable pattern throughout the sequence, Sidney created the impression of his persona struggling to find proper direction for his life. Both Sidney's subject and technique coalesce when Astrophel's roles as poet, lover, and rhetor become inextricably mixed. AstropheJ persuades that he is a...