page_title: Mary Sidney
hierarchical_section_title: Mary Sidney
caption_attribution_description: Portrait of Mary Sidney Herbert (1561–1621) Gallery: National Portrait Gallery, London
context_page_description: Mary Herbert, Countess of Pembroke was one of the first English women to gain a major reputation for her poetry and literary patronage. By the age of 39, she was listed with her brother Philip Sidney, Edmund Spenser and William Shakespeare among the notable authors of her time in the verse miscellany, Belvidere, by John Bodenham. The influence of her play Antonius is widely recognized; it revived interest in soliloquy based on classical models and was one likely source for the closet drama Cleopatra by Samuel Daniel and for Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra. Sidney was also known for translating Petrarch's "Triumph of Death," from the poetry anthology Triumphs, but it is her lyric translation of the Psalms that has secured her poetic reputation.
context_section_description: Mary Herbert, Countess of Pembroke (née Sidney; 27 October 1561 – 25 September 1621) was one of the first English women to gain a major reputation for her poetry and literary patronage. By the age of 39, she was listed with her brother Philip Sidney, Edmund Spenser and William Shakespeare among the notable authors of her time in the verse miscellany, Belvidere, by John Bodenham. The influence of her play Antonius is widely recognized; it revived interest in soliloquy based on classical models and was one likely source for the closet drama Cleopatra (1594) by Samuel Daniel and for Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra (1607). Sidney was also known for translating Petrarch's "Triumph of Death," from the poetry anthology Triumphs, but it is her lyric translation of the Psalms that has secured her poetic reputation.
caption: Portrait of Mary Herbert née Sidney, by Nicholas Hilliard, c. 1590
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