Mary Sidney Herbert
Countess of Pembroke
Dates:
1561 to 1621 Mary Sidney was the most educated woman in England,
comparable only to Queen Elizabeth. She was fluent in Italian, French, and
Latin; played the lute and virginals; sang; had all the refinements of an
aristocratic woman, such as medical training, falconry, hunting, court life,
etc. She had an alchemy laboratory and was close with the leading "magicians"
of the day, including John Dee and Giordano Bruno.
For two decades Mary
Sidney developed and led the most important and influential literary circle
in English history, now called Wilton Circle. She is the first woman to
publish a play in English (closet drama) and the first woman to publish
an original pastoral piece in English. She translated and published work
from French and Italian. Sister to Sir Philip Sidney, she published his
sonnet sequence that created the passionate vogue for sonnet writing.
Scholars
of Mary Sidney agree that her mission in life was to create great works
in the English language, although as a woman she would have never been allowed
to publish work for the public stage. Many of the original sources for the
plays were written by herself, or her brother, writers in her circle, or
were dedicated to her, and she was fluent in the three languages in which
two dozen of the source materials were written. She sponsored an acting
troupe and participated in courtly theatre throughout her life. Her life
parallels the love story shown in the sonnets in that she had a long-term
affair with a younger man who for a time she thought was having an affair
with a dark-haired, dark-eyed woman. Mary Sidney died in her London home
two months after the First Folio went to press.
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