APOLOGY FOR POETRY

By
Sir Philips Sidney
PAGE : 13 -15

MEMOONA MALIK
1825116087
POETRY SUPERIOR TO ALL SCIENCES
• Sidney maintains that poetry is superior to all sciences .
Different sciences have different ends but the chief end of
all sciences alike is to promote knowledge.
• Poetry ay be identified with the mistress knowledge or
architektonike , the knowledge of a man’s self ---- the
supreme knowledge to which all others are subsurvient.
• Sidney states that all of the traditional branches of
learning there are four more especially which seem to
contribute to this mistress knowledge. They are theology,
law, philosophy and history.
POETRY, PHILOSOPHY AND HISTORY

• Sidney begins by saying that both philosophy and history

plays their parts in the teaching of virtue.
• Both methods however are not without their defects.
• While the approach of philosophy is theoretical, the
approach of history is pre eminently practical .
• The philosophers lay down general principles to make
men virtuous.
PHILOSOPHY AND HISTORY
PHILOSOPHY
• Philosophy expounds its nature
by means of analysis and
definition, treating of its general
categoric and specific results ,its
private and public aspects thus
providing percepts of general
validity in their bearing on
human conduct.
• Philosophy deals with
abstraction, is hard of utterance
and misty to be conceived; and
hence is only a poor guide for
youth and appeals only to those
who are already learned.
HISTORY
• History is concerned with an
active rather than a theoretical
virtue , it does not teach us by
percept of abstract argument it is
supposed to instruct us by
particular examples drawn from
life which illustrate in concrete
fashion what virtue really is.
• History presents but a medley of
empirical facts, fro which
general truths and the nature of
virtue most especially but dimly
and confusedly emerge.
THANK YOU