Why did Edmund Spenser dedicate The Shepheardes Calender to Sir Philip Sidney?

Edmund Spenser dedicated The Shepheardes Calender (1579) to Sir Philip Sidney because Spenser was a member of the literary circle led by Sidney.1

By the time the work was published, Spenser had become associated with Sidney’s uncle, Robert Dudley, earl of Leicester, and had developed a deep, lasting devotion to Sidney himself, whom he viewed as a brilliant writer and a noble figure. This dedication reflected their close connection within this influential literary and political group, which sought to promote militant Protestantism at the Elizabethan court. Sidney later praised the work in his own critical treatise, The Defence of Poesie.12