Defence of Poesie is an attempt to raise poetry above the criticism that had been directed at it by

contemporary critics and to establish it as the highest of the arts, best fitted both to please and to instruct, the two aims

stated by Horace in his Ars poetica (c. 17 b.c.e.). The first part of Defence of Poesie is primarily theoretical; Sidney

weighs the respective merits of philosophy, history, and poetry as teachers of virtue. In the final section, he surveys the

state of English literature soon after 1580.

Defence of Poesie can best be appreciated by understanding the political climate of the late

sixteenth century. A growing number of religious leaders were condemning the production of imaginative literature; lyric

and dramatic works were viewed as little more than tools for corruption. Furthermore, much of the writing being

produced in England was hackneyed and trite. Nevertheless, Sidney, a student of the classics and a poet himself,

believed there was both aesthetic and moral value in poetry, which he defined broadly to include all imaginative

literature. Well versed in Greek and Roman literature, familiar with both classical and Renaissance defenses of the arts,

the courtier-artist took it upon himself to champion the practice of writing. The task proved formidable, since no earlier

justification seemed to be able to counter the charges that imaginative literature was simply a vile distraction that

promoted idleness at best, immorality at worst. Sidney found that the only way to defend the practice of poetry was to

redefine its function and assign it a more significant aesthetic role. Modeling his work on both classical and

Renaissance predecessors, Sidney constructs in the Defence of Poesie a formal argument, in a style reminiscent of the

Roman orator Cicero and his followers in the practice of rhetoric, to explain the value of poetry and to delineate those

qualities that make the poet a valuable teacher.

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of science, philosophy, history, and even law were poems. Both the Italian and English languages were polished and

perfected by their poets, Dante Alighieri, Giovanni Boccaccio, and Petrarch on the one hand, Geoffrey Chaucer and

John Gower on the other. Even Plato illuminated his philosophy with myths and dramatic scenes.

Both the Hebrews and the Romans gave high distinction to poets, considering them prophets, messengers of God or

t

gifts, but freely ra

the best teacher, for he

can define and discuss virtue and vice and their causes; the historian argues that his examples from the past are far

more effective instructors than the abstractions of the philosopher. Sidney finds the virtues of both combined in the poet,

Achilles; of anger, in Ajax. The poet is free to portray the ideal, while the historian must be faithful to his subjects, and

they, being human, mingle faults with their virtues. The poet may show evil punished and good rewarded; the historian

must record the vagaries of fortune, which allows the innocent to suffer and the vicious to prosper.

The poet has other advantages over the phil

or Achilles, unaware of the lessons they are learning.

Having established the superiority of poetry to his own satisfaction, Sidney analyzes both the pleasing and the

instructive aspects of the various literary genres, trying to determine what faults may have brought poetry into disrepute.

The pastoral can arouse sympathy for the wretchedness of the poor or illustrate civil wrongs in fables about sheep and

play-makers

and stage-

ro

Sidney finds nothing to criticize in the work of the lyric poet, who lauds virtuous acts, gives moral precepts, and

stirreth and instructeth the mind, so the lofty image of such worthies most inflameth the mind with desire to be worthy,

Concluding his defense, Sidney takes up the most frequently repeated criticisms of poetry: that it is merely rhyming and

t

it inspires evil lusts; and that Plato banished it from his commonwealth. Against the first objection Sidney reiterates his

statement that poetry is not exclusively that which is written in verse, although he defends the use of verse on the

The second argument has already been answered; if poetry be the greatest of teachers and inspirations to virtue, it

since they never affirm their subjects to be literally true or real, they cannot lie. Although they do not reproduce details of

g

Sidney confesses that there is some justice in the condemnation of poetry for its scurrility, but he imputes the fault to

bad poets who abuse their art, rather than to poetry itself. He suggests that Plato, in banishing poets from his Republic,

was barring those bad writers who corrupted youth with false pictures of the gods, not the art of poetry itself.

Satisfied with these answers, Sidney then turns to the specific problems of literature in England in his own day. He sees

no reason for poetry to flourish in Italy, France, and Scotland, and not in his own nation, except the laziness of the poets

themselves. They will neither study to acquire ideas nor practice to perfect a style for conveying these ideas. A f ew

English writers and works are, however, worthy of a place in world literature. Sidney praises Chaucer and the lyrics of

The Shepheardes Calender

most famous classical writers of pastoral, employed it. For the rest of English poetry, Sidney has only scorn, for it

e did but beget another, without ordering at the first what should be at the last;

The public criticism of drama seems to him justified, with a very few exceptions. He commends Gorboduc (1561), a

melodramatic Seneca- -sounding

ies of time and place. The

rest of the tragedies of the age seem absurd in their broad leaps in space and time, spanning continents and decades in

two hours. A true Aristotelian in his views on drama, Sidney is convinced that stage action should be confined to one

episode; other events may be reported in the dialogue to provide necessary background for the central events. He

objects, too, to the presence of scurrilous comic scenes, chiefly designed to evoke loud laughter from the audience, in

the tragedies.

ly

imaginative conceits of the Euphuists are tedious, and he praises, in contrast, the sense of decorum, of fitting diction

and imagery, of the great classical orators.

After a few comments on the relative merits of qualitative and quantitative verse and on types of rhyme, Sidney

addresses his readers, promising fame and blessings to those who will appreciate the values of poetry and laying this

Readers familiar with classical conceptions of poetry may find a disturbing dissonance in Defence of Poesie; at times,

Sidney seems to speak in theoretical terms borrowed from Plato (who questioned the value of poetry); at other times he

seems to focus, as did Aristotle, on the task of defining the elements

moral value. In actuality, Sidney is attempting to synthesize the Platonic and Aristotelian conceptions of poetry and to

integrate them with the new neoclassical concept of criticism as a practical endeavor intended to assess the worth of

individual works. Like Aristotle, Sidney stresses the importance of the poem as a made object. Significantly, however,

he also emphasizes the importance of the imagination in the creation of art; poets rely not simply on what they see

around them, but also on that inner quality that gives them the capacity to create people, places, situations, and

emotions much like those of the everyday world, but in some ways better or worse, to serve as models for human

behavior.

The Defence of Poesie presents principles generally accepted by the critics throughout the Renaissance: The author

leans heavily upon the dicta of the most-noted classical critics, Aristotle, Plato, and Horace, and his standards are

echoed by the major English critics of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, John Dryden, Alexander Pope, and

day, but also those of succeeding generations; the great English Romantics among them William Wordsworth, Samuel

Taylor Coleridge, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and John Keats

rtion in Defence of Poesie that the final

pronouncement in his own Defence of Poetry

writing of his own time have been borne out by the judgment of the centuries. Although this work is the first major piece

of English li

The Schoole of Abuse Defence

of Poesie sets forth a large-minded justification of literature as a legitimate pleasure that is at the same time an incentive

to the practice of virtue. He leads up to this moral defense with a series of lesser, but nevertheless important, defenses,

-standing reputation. In nations long admired, such as classical Greece and Rome, poetry

Closely related to reputation are the good names that poetry has borne. In Rome, Sidney says, the poet was a vates,

which signifies a seer or prophet. In other words, he or she was considered to be a person who possessed a special

fund of knowledge like that of those who were able to predict the future. In Greece he was a poieten, which meant

relation to other occupations, all of which have some

aspect of the natural world as the object of their attention. Astronomers study the stars; musicians, sounds; physicians,

out nature for his or her material and

even goes beyond nature, because he or she can imagine things better than nature has actually produced. Poets are

the maker of makers, and therefore the Greek name for a poet is particularly appropriate.

Sidney then gathers together two of the most famous definitions of poetry from the ancient world. Aristotle thought of

poetry as a mimetic art that is, an art of imitation. Horace defined it as an art that both teaches and delights. For

Sidney, these two notions are quite compatible, and it remains for him to reinterpret these Aristotelian and Horatian

concepts according to his own understanding of poetic art.

Before undertaking this task, Sidney classifies poets into three categories. The first category, religious poets, includes

David in his Psalms and Homer in the hymns attributed to him. Philosophical poets are those such as the Roman

Lucretius, who wrote the philosophical treatise De rerum natura (c. 60 b.c.e.; On the Nature of Things, 1682), which

sets forth an atomic theory of the day. The last category, however, the one that interests Sidney the most, he refers to

in the world, but also what may be and what should be.

In this respect, the poet as a teacher has great advantages over philosophers, who guide people in thinking, including,

of course, thinking about morality, but who do not normally inspire them to act, and over historians, who can supply

many examples of virtuous activity in the past but who do not provide precepts for guidance. These teachers have other

defects, as well. Philosophers, for example, are often obscure and difficult, while historians must report incidents of

wickedness going unpunished, which might actually encourage wickedness in the reader. Like the philosopher, the poet

accounts of deeds and events expressed in vivid images. The poet, however, suffers none of the disadvantages of

sweet a prospect into the way, as will entice any man to

Sidney professes himself unable to understand the sort of criticism that Gosson (whom he never mentions by name)

has made of poets. He reviews very favorably, of course

tragic,

concedes, that comedy shows people misbehaving, the effect of a good comedy is to arouse contempt for such people.

A classical oration must contain a substantial refutation of charges by opponents, so Sidney patiently answers

, Sidney would hate to confess him to be an enemy of poetry. He argues,

however, that Plato did not intend to ban all poets but only those who spread false religious ideas, and that, in

his In (399-390 b.c.e.; Ion, 1804), Plato spoke more favorably of poetry.

It remains for the patriotic Sidney to survey briefly the history of English poetry the first such survey of its type. From

the medieval period he mentions only Geoffrey Chaucer, who was indeed the only poet before the Renaissance who

was well known in the era of Queen Elizabeth I. From his own century Sidney praises the earl of Surrey, like Sidney a

Gorboduc (pr. 1561; pb. 1565), a play

usually considered the first English tragedy. At the time of the composition of Defence of Poesie, of course,

Shakespeare was only a youth, and many of the other great achievements of the English literary renaissance were yet

to come.

Sidney closes his defense with a highly charged summation that reiterates his deep conviction (one that he shared with

Spenser) that poetry does not merely lead its audience to accept virtuous principles but also motivates people to the

practice of virtue. At the very end, he utters a semiserious curse against the person who cannot appreciate poetry: that,