Renaissance {Early Modern Era} Sidney: The Defense of Poetry (Sidney: An Apology for Poetry)

Sidney: The Defense of Poetry (Sidney: An Apology for Poetry)

• Philosophers in Greece were first known as Poets (pg 2)
• Historians borrowed from poets both fashion and perchance (pg 3)
• Both Philosopher & historian had to use poetry to enter into popular judgements (pg 3)
• Where learning is slim, poetry is still heard in high regard (pg 3)
• Other professions are restricted within limits of their area of expertise; only poets are free ranging with in the spectrum of their own wit. Only poets can grow into another nature, only they can make things better or create all new things (pg 5)
• Poetry is an art of imitation intended to teach and delight (pg 6)
• There have been 3 general kinds, the chief both in antiquity and excellency where they imitated the excellencies in God (Bible) (pg 6)
• Sidney wants to teach and delight to the point that men are moved to take goodness in hand and recognize it. Whenever they go (pg 6)
• Those are the heroic, lyric, tragic, comic, satyric, Iambic, elegiac, pastoral, and others (pg 6)
• Rhyming and verse don't make a poet, but rather notable images of virtue, vice, and other mixed with teaching (pg 7)
• The final end of poetry is to draw us to a high perfection as our souls can be capable of (pg 7)
• The philosopher is too concerned with abstract thought - the ideas are too hard to say and understand - you can only be happy if you can apply the lessons
• The historian is too concerned with what the trusts are rather than what should be that he forms nothing of consequence
• The poet can do both: he pairs the general notion with specific examples (pg 9)
• The philosopher teaches, but only obscurely D; only educated can understand
• The heroic is the best and most accomplished kind of poetry it makes the reader desire to be worthy and shows him how (pg 17)
• Poetry haters tear apart poetry without fully understanding it. scoffing does not come from wisdom. Rhyming & versing gives the greatest scope to their scornful humor (pg 19)
• He confronts opposers positions
1. A man may better spend his time - if the highest aim to teach & move to virtue, than there's no better teacher than poetry (pg 20)
2. Mother of all lies - the poet is the least liar and can scarcely be a liar. The poet affirms nothing so he can't be (pg 20)
3. Nurse of abuse - poetry doesn't abuse man's wit, but man's wit abuses poetry; wit creates poetry. Being abused, it can do more harm than any other army of words - if used correctly, it can do the most good (pg 21-22)
• Plato is the most poetic philosopher and sidney holds him with revenge for it it. (pg 23)
• Plato believed poets filled the world with wrong beliefs about the Gods making light of that "inspired essence," & he wouldn't allow the youth to be depraved with such opinions
• The poet did not start these tales, rather imitated what was already believed (pg 24)
• Plato banished the abuse, not poetry itself making him a patron, not an adversary (pg 24)
• Comical poetry's end is not laughter, but mixed with delightful teaching (pg 29)
• His aim is not to show poets what they should do, but rather to show them the "common infection" grown among writers (pg 31)

Sir Phillip Sidney

• Written about 1579 but published 1595 after his death (1554-1586)
• Addressed his general objections to poetry
• Combining liveliness of history with ethical focus on philosophy 

Responds to emerging antipathy to poetry as expressed in Gossons The School of Abuse, in what in essence a puritan attack on imaginative literature What is at steak in Sidney's argument is a defense of poetry's nobility. The significance of the poetry nobility is its power to move readers to virtuous  action. True poets must teach and delight - an idea dating back to Horace.