THE RIDICULOUS TO THE DELIGHTFUL : Comic Characters in Sidney's New Arcadia (The LeBaron Russell Briggs Prize, Honors Essays in English, 1973)

Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ Press, 1974. First Edition, First Thus . Soft Cover/Stapled. New/None as Issued. Text/NEW & Bright. First Edition. Stapled, green softcover/Fine. A literary, engaging analysis. Reeves persuasively argues that to read Arcadia as an "epic poem in prose" so dulls one's senses to Sidney's numerous ironic manipulations to that readers tend to interpret any given speech superficially at face value. But, Sir Philip Sidney's wit & humor become apparent when the work is approached as an intellectualization of the pastoral romance. Reeves uses the comic subplot of Dametas & his family to demonstrate Sidney's expert comic techniques. Essay begins w/an examination of comic theory in Sidney's Defense of Poesy before to a reading of the humorous in the Arcadia as a mode of moral teaching. He discusses devices employed --- irony, ridicule, deflation & use low comic figures to support the main plot. 64 pgs.