Sir Philip Sidney It is doubtless true that
Sir Philip Sidney • It is doubtless true that the Elizabethan critics give a partially larger space to the more technical sides of the subject than their Greek forerunners. • Sir Philip Sidney became a legend in his time as representative of the fulfillment of the human ideal. To understand the poet and the critics in Sidney, we should view him in his own age, when the medieval world was being so swiftly transformed.
• Sidney was not only a great poet but a brilliant theorist. He considers poetry as the oldest of all branches of learning and establishes its superiority. • Poetry, according to Sidney, is superior to philosophy by its charm, to history by its universality, to science by its moral end, to law by its encouragement of human rather than civic goodness.
• Sidney argues that the aim of poetry is “to teach and delight. ” The delightfulness of the poet’s fiction and the vividness of his “speaking picture” are the source of his ability to move hearers or readers to virtue. • To Aristotle, poetry was an art of imitation. To Sidney, it is an art of imitation for a specific purpose: it imitates ‘to teach and delight.
• Sidney’s Apologie for Poetrie or Defence of Poesy is in many ways a seminal text of literary criticism. It is not only a defense but also one of the most acclaimed treatises on poetics of its time. • The Defence of Poesy, Sidney responds to the Puritan philosophy quite violent during the Renaissance. It attacks poetry’s enemies with satirical caricature and impassioned rhetorical questions
• Sidney’s basic argument is that poetry simulates “notable images of virtues, vices, or what else” and thus provides “delightful teaching. ” • The poet's purpose was to create a world that was perfect, to present images of things not as they are, but as they should be.
• Sir Philip Sidney, in his Defence of Poesy, understood its nature and importance, and distinguishes poetry sharply from philosophy and history. Philosophy, wrote Sidney, is strong in principle but weak in illustrative examples; history is strong in the concrete examples of human behavior, but contains in itself no principles for judging men. But poetry, at its best, is strong both in principles and in examples, and it has the further great advantage of being cast in a permanent and unforgettable form.
• Sidney now addresses the specific charges brought against poetry. • The first is that there are other kinds of knowledge more fruitful than poetry. Sidney argues that poetry engenders delight because of its meticulous ordering of words, and therefore it is memorable.
• The next objection to poetry is that it “abuseth men’s wit, training it to wanton sinfulness, and lustful love”. The fault here, says Sidney, is with particular poets who have abused their art, not with the art itself.
• The final, and perhaps most serious, charge that Sidney confronts is that Plato banished poets from his ideal republic, some claiming that, as a philosopher, Plato was “a natural enemy of poets”. Sidney suggests that Plato opposed the abuse of poetry rather than the art itself.
Questions • In his Defence of Poesy, Sir Philip Sidney sees poetry more important then philosophy an dhistory. Explain • Write about the main charges against poetry that Sidney mentions in his Defence of Poesy.
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