Philip Sidney’s Apologie for Poetrie

(1580–1581/1585*)
Dr Islam Aly El-Naggar
Faculty of Arts
(2023-2024)
University Email:
isaly2008@art.kfs.edu.eg
 Also
The Defence of Poesy.
Apology for Poetry
 ???

• While poetry was occasionally defined as something

secondary in importance, a pastime or recreation,
some Renaissance humanists give it a higher value.
Poetry is often defined as a civilizing and educational
force; poets were the creators of civilization, an idea
dear to Cicero* and Horace*.
Horace/Horatianism
 Ciceronianism*
• (of literary style) characterized by the use of antithesis and long
periods.
• Much of Cicero's writing is 'periodic', i.e. composed in relatively
long sentences constructed of shorter rhythmical units, often
with a considerable degree of balance and symmetry.
• A complete sentence is called a ' from Greek periodos 'circuit'.
'period.
 The Main Objectives of this Lecture
• By the end of this lecture, students should be able to understand and use the
following terms of criticism in order to write an analytical critical essay on:
The Defence of Poesy/Apology for Poetry/Apologie for Poetrie :
• Debate … synthesis
• Context of …
• Premises …
• Outline(s) or survey(s) …
• Argue (v) … Argument (n)
• Rebut (v) … Rebuttal(n)
• Refute (v) … Refutation(n)
• Claim(s) vs Anti-claim
 Early Defences of Poetry/ Apology for Poetry
• In the last quarter of the sixteenth century the Puritans begin their
attacks on art in general and on the theatre in particular, which
they consider immoral.
• The best known of these is Stephen Gosson’s School of Abuse
(1579):
• Gosson dedicated this work to Sir Philip Sidney[what is the
significance of that?!]
• Sidney was a protestant all right, but not nearly as intolerant as
Gosson.
 ???????
• The Apology for Poetry is considered by some to be a retort to this
uncalled-for dedication.
• It is the best treatise on poetics of the Elizabethan age.
The Apology for Poetry is not the first writing of its kind in
England:

• It had been preceded by earlier "Defences" (apart from the works of

Elyot and Luis Vives):
• Richard Willis's De re poetica disputatio (1573).
• John Rainolds's Oratio in laudem artis poeticae (1572).
• Both are similar to the Apology, drawing on the same traditions. But
they are written in Latin.
• Thomas Lodge is another figure/forerunner/precursor…
• A defence of poetry, music, and stage-plays*
 Only Sidney's Apology is
widely remembered today.
 Thomas Lodge’s defence

• One of the "University wits*," who wrote a reply to The School of

Abuse, the Defence of Poetry (1579).
• He adopts as his line of defence the medieval idea of allegory
which is the most common view during the English Renaissance
well into the seventeenth century.
• In poetry,
“under the shadow of birds, beasts and trees the follies of the world
were deciphered.”
 Glossary
The University Wits/ Why are they called like so?

• The drama before Shakespeare, found its full flowering with the
dramatists called the 'University Wits'. These dramatists were well-
educated scholars. ...
• This name of University Wits was given them because they were
nearly all educated at Oxford or Cambridge University.
• Wit was the synonym for scholar.
According to Thomas Lodge, … Claims and counter-
claims
• Poetry is secret philosophy, moral or natural, transmitted under
a veil of fiction.
• As to the corrupting power of poetry:
Lodge will have none of it --it is there only for those who want to
be corrupted*:
• “Those of judgment can from the same flower suck honey with the
bees, from whence the spiders take their poison”.
• Poetry may have a moralizing value for Lodge
• More than that, he sees it as a civilizing force*???.
• But all these ideas are part of the conventional defense. ???
 √√√What is Sidney’s Apologie for Poetrie
• It is in many ways a seminal text of literary criticism.
• [Its Position*]: It represents the first synthesis* in the English
language of Renaissance literary criticism.
• [Its Premises*]:It draws on Aristotle*, Horace*, and more recent
writers such as Boccaccio* and Julius Caesar Scaliger*.
• [Cultural/intellectual context]in Sidney's time poetry was condemned
by some Puritans*; philosophical attacks against poetry.
• It raises issues – such as the value and function of poetry*, the nature
of imitation*, and the concept of nature*
• It was written as a defence of poetry against a Puritan attack on
poetry entitled The School of Abuse by Stephen Gosson*
 Critical Terms:
Synthesis vs Analysis vs Deconstruction
• Synthesis:
• The combination of components or elements to form a connected
whole.
• Often contrasted with analysis
• Analysis : Detailed examination of the elements or structure of
something.
vs
• Deconstruction: The process of separating something into its
constituent elements.
Its Position in the Corpus of Literary
Criticism:
Apology for Poetry inaugurated *the
age of literary Criticism*
 How did Sidney Apologise/defend for poetry?

• Following the classical structure from this examination to the

refutation/rebuttal*.
• [The action of proving a statement or theory to be wrong or false.]
• Sidney rebuts* the criticisms made of poetry by “poet-haters.”
• Sidney outlines* the four most serious charges/claims* against
poetry:
1. that poetry is a waste of time
2. that the poet is a liar
3. that poetry corrupts our morals
4. that Plato banished poets
1.To rebut is more than just "to deny,"
it's a serious attempt to prove something is
false.
2.To rebut is to try to prove something isn’t
true
2. to refute is to actually prove it isn't.
Sidney produces a wide range of arguments* in defence of “poor Poetry”

• The major arguments/Counter-Claims discussed in the Apologie are:

Chronology or Antiquity of Poetry
The authority of ancient tradition
The relation of poetry to nature
The function of poetry as imitation
The status of poetry among the various disciplines of learning
The relationship of poetry to truth and morality
 1. Chronology or Antiquity 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.
 2. The Authority of Ancient Tradition

It is an “argument from tradition”

Both the Greeks and the Romans honoured poets.
The Romans called the poet "Vates" which means a Foreseer or a
Prophet.
Poetry has a prophetic character
 3. The Relation of Poetry to Nature

In Greek, the word 'Poet' means' ‘Maker’ or ‘Creator’.

The poet is a 'maker', a creator in the real sense of the term
While all other arts are tied to Nature, 'the poet is not a slave to
Nature.’ [As in plastic arts*] ????
[Debate over imitation]
This suggests the divine nature* of poetry as a God-like activity.
 4. The Function of Poetry as Imitation

Sidney defines poetry as “an art of imitation???

It is representing, counterfeiting or figuring forth.
Poetry is a “speaking picture.”
Its end is to teach and delight. The object of both teaching and
delighting is goodness.
Recap: Agreeable vs Good vs Beautiful.
 4. The Function of Poetry as Imitation (2)

According to Sidney, there are three kinds of poetic imitation:

1. Religious poetry: Poetry that praises God.

2. Philosophical poetry:

It imparts knowledge of philosophy, history, astronomy etc.
It is also not to be condemned.
it is “the sweet food of sweetly uttered knowledge”.
 ***The Function of Poetry as Imitation …

3. Right or true kind of poetry

It is the first and most noble sort of poetry.
In this kind, poets ‘most properly do imitate to teach and delight’.
The poet is free of dependence on nature in at least two ways:
• The poet is not restricted to any given subject matter*, any given
sphere of nature.
• The poet does not actually reproduce anything in nature but
depicts portrayals of probability and of idealized situations.???
[MF]
5. The Status of Poetry among the Various Disciplines of Learning

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.
History deals with concrete facts or examples of virtue.
Poetry combines both these advantages. ???? [Methodology]
It presents universal truths like philosophy, but it does them
through concrete examples like History.
• Unlike History -----------------------------???
The Status of Poetry among the Various Disciplines of Learning …

It teaches virtue in a way intelligible even to the ordinary men.

It also moves us to virtuous action.
This is so because its truths are conveyed in a delighted manner;
it allures men to virtue .
• ?????????????
• [To Persuade vs To Motivate]
 6. The Relationship of Poetry to Truth and Morality:

Sidney now addresses the specific charges brought against poetry

by Stephen Gosson in The School of Abuse.
The charges/Claims are:
Poetry is a waste of time.
Poetry is mother of lies.
It is nurse of abuse.
Plato had rightly banished the poets from his ideal world.
Sidney’s Defence of Poetry/Counter-Claims

1. Poetry is a waste of time.

1. Sidney dismisses the first charge on the basis that:
• There is no learning is so good as poetry in reaching and moving to
virtue
• No other learning discipline can both teach and move so much as
poetry.

29
Poetry is mother of lies.

1. Sidney rejects the second charge that poets are liars saying 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.
• The poet affirms nothing , and therefore never tells lies.
• What the poet presents is not fact but fiction embodying truth of
an ideal.
• Sidney's argument, based on the difference in intention, might
derive from Augustine's definition of lying. P. 76
• The poet, he nothing affirms, and therefore never lieth.
For, as I take it, to lie is to affirm that to be true which is
false . . . . But the poet (as I said before) never affirmeth.
The poet never maketh any circles about your
imagination, to conjure you to believe for true what he
writes . . . . And therefore, though he recount things not
true, yet because he telleth them not for true, he lieth not.
(124)
 3. It is nurse of abuse

3. To the third charge, Sidney replies that poetry does not abuse man’s
wit, it is man’s wit that abuses poetry.
• 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.
• Poetry is a double-edged sword: It can be used badly or well and it is
unwise to abandon any kind of knowledge altogether because of the
possibility of the abuse of it.

32
Plato had rightly banished the poets from his ideal world.

3. The most serious charge that Sidney confronts is that Plato

banished poets from his ideal republic.
• for Sidney, Plato warned men not against poetry but against its abuse
by his contemporary poets who filled the world with wrong opinions
about the gods. ???
• Which Approach? Methodology???
In the same vein, ------------------. But --------???
Supporting Examples/antithesis
• For Spenser, poetry was
• (32) no art, but a divine gift??? and heavenly instinct???, not to
be gotten by labour and learning, but adorned with both, and
poured into the wit by a certain enthousiasmos and celestial
inspiration.
• Giordano Bruno wrote in England and dedicated to Sidney his
work De gli Eroici Furori (1585). But the dedication, though not as
unwelcome as Stephen Gosson's, was equally misapplied, because
Sidney himself did not adhere to these doctrines of inspiration and
had satirized them in Astrophil and Stella:
I never drank of Aganippe well, /æɡəˈnɪpiː/
Nor ever did in shade of Tempe sit;
And muses scorn with vulgar brains to dwell;
Poor layman I, for sacred rites unfit
Some do I hear of poet's fury tell,
But (God wot) wot not what they mean by it. . . .
(from Sonnet 74)
• the speaker claims he “never drank of Aganippe well, / Nor
ever did in shade of Tempe sit” (1-2). These allusions to
classical mythology, especially the latter regarding the laurel
tree, could easily be mistaken as having come directly from
Petrarch’s own hand.
• (God wot)
• God knows
• 1. No one knows (except for God).
In your academic books
pp.79-92