Sexuality in the New Arcadia

Mustafa Rana

The focus of this essay is to explore sexuality presented by Philoclea in the New Arcadia. Philoclea cultivates a relationship towards another women in the book. Yet readers understand that Zelmane is in fact Pyrocles. Sidney allows the reader to be given the impression that until Pyrocles admits to be Zelmane, Philoclea would be shown to have a homosexual tendencies. Philoclea herself is certain that a same-sex friendship is giving way to sexual desire.

It becomes easy for us to think of the man with whom she is in love as a woman. Sidney goes out of his way to write as if Pyrocles is female. Pyrocles is always identified by either the adapted female name of Zelmane or by feminine pronouns. Sidney describes Pyrocles with no hair of his face to witness him a man, his skin is smooth for a man, and finally Sidney writes in that Pyrocles blushes.

Pyrocles arrived in Arcadia and fell in love with Philoclea with a picture of her, then with Philoclea herself. Pyrocles who at this point is infatuated with Philoclea decides to become a woman. The reader understands Zelmane takes advantage of the forms of courtesy and friendship, trying to seduce Philoclea.

When Philoclea is sent away from the lodge by her mother, no sooner has Philoclea begun to make her way into the moonlit evening than the narrator pauses to apologize for being inattentive so long to Philoclea's sufferings. The narrator comments on questions about human nature, morality, and the relationship among human nature and morality. The first sentence compares a closed off virtue with a virtue yearns to experience life outside its comfort zone: "The sweet-minded Philoclea was in their degree of well doing to whom the not knowing of evil serveth for a ground...

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...lf "knew not the limits" (145). Philoclea returned a love which she knew stretched beyond the restricted. Philoclea's lack of sexual self-awareness explains her delay discovering her true feelings. Only the narrator knows that her initial wishes were "love's harbinger," Philoclea perceiving them instead through a lens provided her by conventional society.

Overall Sidney portrayal of sexuality in the Arcadia is interesting. By using an individual who is void of any experience whatsoever is brought in the dark world of sin. The catalyst for her journey is a man who decides willingly to changes sexes so he can be close to the one he desires. Sexuality becomes a tool instead of something to be feared or ignored.

Works Cited

Philoclea, in Sir Philip Sidney, The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia: (The New Arcadia), ed. Victor Stretkowicz (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987),