“The Defence of Poesy”

by
Sir Philip Sidney
 Sir Philip Sidney
Born: Penshurst Place in Kent in 1554 Died:
Netherlands in 1586

• courtier, soldier, poet, diplomat

• won admiration at an early age for his courtly skills and
intellectual curiosity
• He advocated support for the Protestant Netherlands in
their military resistance to the rule of Catholic Spain. When
an English force was sent to the Netherlands in 1585, Sidney
was given command of a garrison, and died from wounds
sustained in a military engagement.

Mother: Lady Mary Dudley Sidney

• Lady-in-waiting to the Queen Elizabeth I

Father: Sir Henry Sidney

• President of the Council of Wales
• Lord Deputy of Ireland under Elizabeth (three times)
 Major Works

1578 The Lady of May, (masque for Queen Elizabeth)

1582 Astrophel and Stella (published 1591)

his finest work; sonnet cycle

1590 Arcadia, 1590, revised. 1593 epic prose

romance
(also titled The Countess of Pembroke’s Arcadia)

1583 The Defence of Poesie, (published 1595)

(also titled An Apology for Poetry)

- was the first significant piece of literary criticism in the English

Language.
 The Apology for Poetry

. is an English defense against moralistic or

philosophical attacks on poetry, drama, and
music. One of these attacks, Stephen Gosson’s
School of Abuse (1579), was dedicated to
Sidney. It is a defense against all the charges laid
against since Plato.
 1579 Puritan Attacks on Poesy: The School of Abuse by Stephen
GOSSON

He is best known for his attack on plays, poetry, and

other arts in The School of Abuse (1579)

“[W]e who have both sense, reason, wit and

understanding . . .
Let us but shut our eyes to poets, pipers,
and players, pull our feet back from resort
to theaters and turn away from the
beholding of vanity, the greatest storm of
abuse will be overblown. . .”
Stephan Gosson The School of Abuse
Gosson’s Pamphlet
– attacks actors, playwrights, and poets
– criticizes the social and moral disorder
in fiction
– labels fiction writing as potentially
immoral
– deems fiction as irresponsible and
unrealistic
– views literature as an immoral,
corrupting influence
Gosson’s Dedication:
"To the right Noble Gentleman,
Master Philip Sidney, Esquire,
Stephen Gosson wisheth health
of body, wealth of mind…”
Sidney’s Response: The Defense of Poesy
(An Apology for Poetry)

Poesy = literature, poetry and prose

An Apology for Poetry – defense against all the

charges laid against since Plato.

He considers poetry as the oldest of all branches

of learning and establishes its superiority.
An Apology for Poetry is structured as a classical
oration with the standard seven parts: 
The poet, poetry (exordium) 
Three kinds of poet (proposition) 
Poetry, philosophy, history (division) 
The poetic kinds (examination) 
Answers to charges against poetry (refutation) 
Poetry in England (digression) 
Conclusion (peroration) 
 The Prologue

Sidney justifies his own praise of poetry, by

citing the example of John Pietro Pugliano who
praised horses and horsemanship very highly.

There is a just cause to plead a case for poetry

since it has fallen from the highest estimation of
learning to be ‘the laughing stock of children.’
 How did he justify the Antiquity and
Universality of Poetry 

Poetry has been held in high esteem since the earliest times.
It has been ‘the first light-giver to ignorance.’ Poetry in all
nations has preceded other branches of learning.  The
earlier Greek philosophers and historians were, in fact,
poets. It is poetry which gradually enable man to read and
understand learning of other kinds.
“ This did so notably show itself, that the philosophers
of Greece durst not a long time appear to the world but
under the mask of poets. So Thales, Empedocles, and
Parmenides sang their natural philosophy in verse;……..; so
did Tyrtaeus in war matters, and Solon in matters of
policy”.

The beauty of Plato's works depends upon poetry.

Although the ‘inside’ of his work was philosophy, the
 Antiquity and Universality of Poetry 

Poetry has flourished in all ages and countries.

Even the uncivilized nations Turkey, the
American Indians, love poetry which softens
their hard hearts and sharpens their wits.
 Prove The Prophetic Character of Poet
 Both the Greeks and the Romans honored
poets. The Romans called the poet
"Vates" which means a Foreseer or a Prophet,
and in Greek, the word 'Poet' means' ‘Maker’
or ‘Creator’. The poet is a 'maker', a creator in
the real sense of the term, for while all other
arts are tied to Nature, 'the poet is not a slave
to Nature.’

 This suggests the divine nature of poetry

 “The lawyer saith what men have determined; the historian
what men have done. The grammarian speaketh only of the
rules of the speech; the rhetorician and logician, considering
what in nature will soonest persuade, thereon give artificial
rules…..Only the poet, disdaining to be tied to any
such subjection, lifted up with the vigour of his own
invention, does grow, in effect, into another nature, in
making things either better than nature brings forth,
or, quite a new, forms such as never were in nature, as
the heroes, demigods, cyclops, chimeras, furies, and such
like; so as he goes hand in hand with nature, not enclosed
within the narrow warrant of her gifts, but freely ranging
only within the zodiac of his own wit.(creative powers of
the poet ) Nature never set forth the earth in so rich
tapestry as divers poets have done; ………….; her
world is brazen, the poets only deliver a golden.”  
 
 The Prophetic Character of Poetry
- Oracles of Delphus were delivered in verse.
- The Psalms in The Bible are nothing but
songs. In the Bible there is much that is
imaginative and fictitious, and it is
imagination which is the distinguishing
characteristic of poetry.
 
- When poets have been honored in this way,
when the Holy David himself is a poet, it
would be wrong to condemn poets and
poetry.
 
 Definition of Poetry:

Poetry is an art of imitation. It is

representing, counterfeiting or figuring forth.

Poetry is “speaking picture”

Its end is to teach and delight. 

 The Three Kinds of Poetry
The three kinds of poetry, according to Sidney, are :
1) Religious poetry : praises God “Such were David in his
Psalms; Solomon in his Song of Songs…,”

2) Philosophical poetry: imparts knowledge of philosophy,

history, astronomy etc. It is also not to be condemned, for
it is “the sweet food of sweetly uttered knowledge”. 

“ …. either moral, as Tyrtaeus, Phocylides, and Cato;

or natural, as Lucretius and Virgil’s Georgics;…… or
historical as Lucan…..”

3) Right or true kind of poetry: He calls special attention to

the third class of poets, for ‘these be they that, as the first
and most noble sort may justly be termed vates.’ They
‘most properly do imitate to teach and delight, and to
imitate borrow nothing of what is, has been, but range,
only with learned discretion, into the divine
consideration of what may be, and should be.’
 The Three Kinds of Poetry

“ For these, indeed, do merely make to imitate, and

imitate both to delight and teach, and delight to move
men to take that goodness in hand, which without
delight they would fly as from a stranger; and teach
to make them know that goodness whereunto they are
moved: -which being the noblest scope to which ever
any learning was directed,…”
 The Three Kinds of Poetry

This right kind of poetry may be further sub-divided into heroic,

lyric, tragic, comic, satiric, iambic, pastoral, etc.
(a) Pastoral poetry deal with the lowliest life and thus arouses
sympathy and admiration for simple life, and hatred for acts of
cruelty and tyranny,
(b) Elegiac poetry arouses sympathy for the suffering and the
miserable. It softens the heart,
(c) Satire laughs folly out of court.
(d) Comedy is an imitation of common errors in a ridiculous fashion,
and so is effective in warning men against such errors.
(e) Tragedy reveals the wickedness of men in high places and brings
home to men the uncertainty of life.
(f) Lyric hymns the praise of men and God and thus enkindles
virtue and courage,

(g) The Epic : He calls epic poetry as, "the belt and the most
accomplished kind of poetry", in which heroic and moral
goodness is most effectively portrayed. It presents pictures of
heroic men and heroic action, and thus inspires men to heroic
action.
 Explain the justification of Sidney to
Superiority of Poetry to Philosophy and

History
Poetry is superior to all other branches of learning
The end of all learning is virtuous action, and poetry best
serves this end.
 
 In this respect poetry is superior, both to history and
philosophy. Philosophy presents merely abstract precepts,
which cannot be understood by the young. History deals
with concrete facts or examples of virtue, but from these
facts the readers must themselves derive universal or
general truths. But poetry combines both these advantages.
It presents universal truths like philosophy, but it does
them through concrete examples, like History. Its general
truths can be easily understood for they are conveyed
through examples, and its examples are drawn from an
ideal world and so are more vivid and effective. It teaches
virtue in a way intelligible even to the ordinary men.
 Superiority of Poetry to Philosophy and
History
Poetry does not merely give us a knowledge of virtue, it
also moves us to virtuous action. This is so because its
truths are conveyed in a delighted manner; it allures men
to virtue .

‘For he doth not only show the way but giveth so sweet a
prospect into the way, as will entice any man to enter
into it.’

 It wins the mind from wickedness to virtue. It alone of all

the arts and sciences leads to virtuous action. Sidney
stresses this transport or moving of poetry, and claims
that it teaches more perfectly  than either history or
philosophy.
 Sidney's Justification of Verse and Rhyme
What is the importance of Verse and
Rhyme?
 
 It has been said that poetry is mere “rhyming an
versifying". Sidney points out that rhyme is not the 'essence' of
poetry, but it is desirable to it, for

(i) it is a polish to speech,

(ii) Scaliger had defended its use,
(iii) it regulates verbal harmony, and imparts order and proportion
so pleasing to men,
(iv) it adds to words a sensuous and emotional quality of music,
and
(v) it is an aid to memory.
 Stephen Gosson ‘s charges
What are the charges of Stephen Gosson
against poetry?
Stephen Gosson makes charges on poetry which
Sidney answers.
The charges are:
1. Poetry is a waste of time.
2. Poetry is mother of lies.
3. It is nurse of abuse.
4. Plato had rightly banished the poets from his
ideal world.
 Replies to These Objections
What is Sidney’s reply for the charge “

Sidney dismisses the first charge by saying that

he has already established that ‘no learning is so
good as that which reacheth and moveth to
virtue, and that none can both teach and move
thereto so much as poetry.’
 Poetry is mother of lies

His answer to the second objection that poets

are liars is that of all writers under the
sun the poet is the least liar. The
Astronomer, the Geometrician, the
historian, and others, all make false
statements. But the poet ‘nothing
affirms, and therefore never lieth,’ his
aim being ‘to tell not what is or is not,
but what should or should not be.’ So
what he presents is not fact but fiction
embodying truth of an ideal kind.
 It is nurse of abuse.
The third charge against poetry is that all its
species are infected with love themes and
amorous conceits, which have a demoralising
effect on readers. To this charge Sidney replies
that poetry does not abuse man’s wit, it is man’s
wit that abuseth poetry. Sidney concedes that in
much of modern poetry there was a "vicious
treatment of love" but love itself is not bad, for it
shows an appreciation of Beauty. The fault lies
not with poetry, but with the contemporary
abuse of poetry. The abuse of poetry should not
lead to a condemnation of poetry itself.
Plato had rightly banished the poets from his
ideal world.
In fact, Plato warned men not against poetry
but against its abuse by his contemporary poets
who filled the world with wrong opinions about
the gods. So Plato’s objection was directed
against the theological concepts. Moreover,
Plato himself was a born poet, and a large part
of his Dialogues is poetic. In Ion, Plato gives
high and rightly divine commendation to
poetry. His description of the poet as ‘a light
winged and sacred thing’ in that dialogue
reveals his attitude to poetry. In fact by
attributing unto poetry a very inspiring of a
divine force, Plato was making a claim for
poetry which he for his part could not endorse.
Not only Plato but, Sidney tells us, all great men
have honored poetry.
 A Brief Review of the State of Poetry in
England from Chaucer to Sidney’s own Time

Give examples of the best poetic works from

Chaucer to Sidney.
 Sidney says that few good poems have been
produced in England since Chaucer.
 Chaucer did marvelously well in Troilus and
Cresseida. The Mirrour of Magistrates also
contains some beautiful passages.
 Earl of Surrey’s Lyrics also deserve praise.
Spenser’s The Shepherds Calendar is worth
reading. English lyric poetry is scanty and poor.
Love lyrics and sonnets lack genuine fire and
passion. They make use of artificial diction and
swelling phrases.
4. Faults of contemporary tragedy—Sidney’s
Condemnation.

The state of drama is also degraded. He condemns

modern tragedy for the incongruous mingling of the comic
and the tragic and the gross violation of the  unities.

He gives many examples of absurdities which result from

the violation of the three unities: He pours ridicule on
contemporary tragedy. The only tragedy he praises
is Gorboduc which has the elevated style and eloquence
proper to tragedy, but it, too, violates the unities. He
commends the example of the Ancients and advises the
dramatists of his age to plunge into the middle of their
stories, and to report much more than they represent.

Again many things should be told which cannot be

shown on the stage.
 5. Condemnation of tragi-comedy

There should be no mingling of tragedies and

comedies, English comedy is based on a false
hypothesis. It aims at laughter, not delight. The
proper aim of comedy is to afford delightful
teaching, not mere coarse amusement. Comedy
should not only amuse but morally instruct.
 Defense of Poetry: Sidney’s Parting Curse

From The Defense of Poesy:

Perhaps some readers (Gosson and poesy haters)
“cannot hear the planet-like music of poetry.”

If so, then if the reader has

“so earth-creeping a mind that it cannot lift itself
up to look to the sky of poetry” then “I must
send you in the behalf of all poets:—that while
you live in love, and never get favor for lacking
skill of a sonnet; and when you die, your
memory die from the earth for want of an
epitaph.”
THANK YOU FOR LISTENING.