Philip Sidney was not only the origin (or father) of the stream of paternal imagery that enters English poetry in the 1590s, but was treated as a fatherly example by many poets who followed him; he could be considered in this way for a number of reasons: his early death in war made him a powerful model of martial masculinity; he had been an important patron, and as such could be used after his death to criticize the inadequately paternal patronage of later grandees; his social status and unimpeachable Protestantism gave a certain cachet and licence to the writing of poetry, an art which was derogated for a number of reasons; the posthumous publication of his work even gave a certain licence to the idea of appearing in print; finally, the exploratory openness of his work invited later writers to develop or finish the poetic projects he had begun. Sidney became a kind of absent (and therefore necessarily benign) father to many poets who succeeded him, even including writers of his own generation such as Spenser. In turn, his own preoccupations with the difficulties of poetic fatherhood are shaped by his response to Queen Elizabeth.

The derivation of identity from a father was of great personal significance to Sidney: much of the respect he was accorded on his continental journeys came from the fact that his father Sir Henry was Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, a role that was often (mis)understood in Europe as sufficiently viceregal to make Sidney himself into a prince of sorts.