Sir Philip Sidney is the first major poet-critic. His biographer, Fulke Greville, portrayed him as a model of correctness, noble bearing and heroism. Sidney was a considerable figure in his day and is still renowned for his three major literary works: The Defence of Poetry (the first great essay on poetry in English), Astrophil and Stella (one of the finest of the English sonnet sequences) and Arcadia ( a romance with a claim to be the first English novel).
