Identify the correct ones among the following:
A) The Apologie for Poetrie was written by Sir Philip Sidney.
B) Sir Philip Sidney wrote the Apologie for Poetrie as a counterblast to Stephen Gosson’s The School of Abuse
C) Stephen Gosson wrote The School of Abuse in the euphuistic style
D) Sidney’s style was characterised by neoclassical restraint.
E) Sidney and Gosson wrote their critical treatise in the eighteenth century.
Choose the correct answer from the options given below:

The correct answer is A, B and C only.

Let us analyze each statement step-by-step to understand why this option is correct:

Statement A: The Apologie for Poetrie was written by Sir Philip Sidney.
This statement is correct. Sir Philip Sidney wrote An Apologie for Poetrie (also known as The Defence of Poesy) in approximately 1580, and it was published posthumously in 1595.

Statement B: Sir Philip Sidney wrote the Apologie for Poetrie as a counterblast to Stephen Gosson’s The School of Abuse.
This statement is correct. Stephen Gosson dedicated his puritanical attack on theater and poetry, The School of Abuse (1579), to Sidney without Sidney's permission. In response to Gosson's criticisms of poetry and drama as immoral and useless, Sidney wrote his famous defense.

Statement C: Stephen Gosson wrote The School of Abuse in the euphuistic style.
This statement is correct. Gosson's prose style in The School of Abuse is heavily influenced by Euphuism—a highly ornate, balanced, and alliterative style of English prose popularized during the Elizabethan era by John Lyly's Euphues.

Statement D: Sidney’s style was characterised by neoclassical restraint.
This statement is incorrect. While Sidney was aware of classical rules, his style in the Apologie is characterized by Elizabethan exuberance, rhetorical ornamentation, and courtly wit (sprezzatura) rather than the strict neoclassical restraint that characterized the later Augustan age of the late 17th and 18th centuries.

Statement E: Sidney and Gosson wrote their critical treatise in the eighteenth century.
This statement is incorrect. Both Sidney and Gosson wrote their works in the late 16th century (specifically 1579 and circa 1580) during the Elizabethan (Renaissance) period, not the 18th century (which was the Neoclassical/Augustan period).

Therefore, only statements A, B, and C are correct, making A, B and C only the correct choice.