Team+Phillip+III

__The Sidney Psalter__
Ancient Greek term for ‘striking’ or ‘plucking’, given to the verses of the Hebrew ‘Book of Praises’(i.e. the biblical //Psalms//) by the translators of the Septuagint. The numbering of the Hebrew text, followed in the Authorized Version and most other Protestant versions, differs from that of the Septuagint and the Vulgate, as shown in Table 1.

In the Temple, the psalms were chanted daily by professional singers (Levites), with instruments. In the Eastern churches they are seldom sung entire; in Western churches they are sung complete or a few verses of a psalm are sung in an antiphonal or responsorial chant. The history of Western psalmody has three stages. Up to the Edict of Milan ( ad 313), the psalms were interspersed with lessons. By the time of Gregory I (//c// 600), the Mass and Office had assumed a fixed shape and antiphonal psalmody (the chanting of a psalm TABLE 1alternately by two choirs) and responsorial psalmody (when the congregation responded to a psalm sung by a cantor) were institutionalized. The distinction between these types later faded. The stabilization of psalmody between Gregory I and the 11th century is known from the service book for Mass and Office, theoretical writings and the tonaries, which categorized chants by mode and specified the ending of the psalm tone for each antiphon. In Gregorian chant there are eight such tones, one for each church mode. In the 16th century, Protestant, churches encouraged congregational psalm singing by adopting metrical versions in the vernacular. An important early translation was Clément Marot's, the basis of the Calvinist psalter. A repertory of tunes came into being; these were set in a simple chordal style in collections which included Loys Bourgeois's complete psalter (1563), widely recognized as a standard version. Some later settings were more contrapuntal; Le Jeune and others dropped the tunes and composed what amounted to free motets. In England, after the Catholic Mary Tudor's reign (1553-8), metrical psalms became popular, the standard psalter being that of Sternhold and Hopkins. Other metrical psalters included that of Archbishop Parker (1567), for which Tallis provided several harmonized tunes. In the Roman church only Italy, and to a lesser extent Spain, had any strong tradition in the 16th century of written psalm polyphony. Settings using two alternating choirs (‘salmi spezzati’), by Jacquet of Mantua, Willaert and others, were in principle through-composed, permitting a more varied texture. Psalms were used as texts for the new motet repertory evolved by Josquin and his contempories //c// 1500. Many settings treat them freely and cannot have been used as liturgical psalms; if sung in church, they must have served a function outside the liturgy. Collections such as Lassus's penitential psalms were probably used domestically as sacred madrigals. After 1600 the singing of metrical psalms continued in the reformed churches of northern Europe. More ambitious psalm composition in this period is largely confined to the motet and anthem, but some composers continued issuing psalm collections, notably Sweelinck who set all 150 psalms in French metrical versions for three to eight voices, using melodies from the Genevan psalter as //cantus firmi//. Schütz also set the complete psalter in German metrical versions, as well as composing some more elaborate settings. Among later psalm collections those of G. B. Bassani and Benedetto Marcello are noteworthy. Most subsequent psalm settings are for concert use, for chorus and orchestra, often with soloists; Bruckner's large-scale settings and Kodály's //Psalmus Hungaricus// are representative. Stravinsky's //Symphony of Psalms// and Pendericki's//Psalmy Dawida// are multi-movement works using psalm texts.
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 * **Table 1** ||

__ The Defense of Poesy __
Sir Philip Sidney wrote //An Apology for Poetry// (or, The Defence of Poesy) in approximately 1579, and it was published in 1595, after his death. It is one of the more important contributions to literary theory written in English during the Renaissance. Sidney states that the poets responsibility is to teach and delight readers. Sidney writes //An Apology for Poetry// in the form of a judicial oration for the defense, and thus it is like a trial in structure. Crucial to his defense is the descriptive discourse and the idea that poetry creates a separate reality. Sidney employs forensic rhetoric as a tool to make the argument that poetry not only conveys a separate reality, but that it has a long and venerable history, and it does not lie. It is defensible in its own right as a means to move readers to virtuous action. It was written in response to criticism written against poets and poetry.


 * __The New Arcadia__**

Sidney's //The New Arcadia// is substantially longer than //The Old Arcadia//. Sidney's addition nearly double the amount of pages. His revision was not complete upon his death is 1586. After Sidney died, his revised version of Arcadia was published ending in mid-scene and mid-sentence. In 1593 his sister, Mary, finished Sidney's revision and had her version published. Later editions have also been written which fill in gaps in the story.

This work remained popular for many years after is was published. It was the inspiration for a sub-plot is Shakespeare's play //King Lear// and may have also influenced parts of //Hamlet// and //A Winter's Tale.// Many other authors mimicked Sidney's work and modeled their own novels after his writings.

The Arcadia contains the earliest known use of the feminine personal name Pamela. Most scholars believe that Sidney simply invented the name.