Sir Philip Sidney (1554-1586)
The Defence of Poesy (An Apology for Poetry) (1580-81)
I. Context of the Argument
The “Defence” is a genre of literary theory based on classical and medieval models.
Classical seven-part structure
Three major topics
 dignity of poetry: pp. 327-46, summarized on p. 346/Norton II 270
 objections to poetry: pp. 346 ff./Norton II 270ff.
 current state of English Lit. Norton II 276ff
A. Response to Stephen Gosson’s The School of Abuse (1579)
Response to Stephen Gosson’s The School of Abuse (1579), attack on theaters dedicated to
Sidney and based on Plato’s attack on poetry and the theater.
 Poets degenerate, cause social decay
 Fallen women inhabit the theater
 Actors are the Devil’s agents
 Poetry encourages idleness and sloth
 Sidney also reacting against the more general degradation of the status of poetry into a
laughing stock even of children (Norton II 255x)
B. Elevated Status of Poetry
“To all them that, professing learning, inveigh against poetry,
may justly be objected that . . . [poetry] hath been the first lightgiver to ignorance, and first nurse, whose milk by little and little
enabled them to feed afterwards of tougher knowledges. . . .
Truly, even Plato, whosoever well considereth shall find that in
the body of his work, though the inside and strength were
philosophy, the skin as it were and beauty depended most on
poetry.” (“A Defence of Poesy,” omitted from Norton p. 255)
Poetry a “Light-giver to ignorance, and first nurse” of individuals but also of entirely
civilizations and the human race (Norton 327-28/ II
C. Renaissance Classicism and Authority of the Ancients
Renaissance Classicism—classical authors invoked as source of authority, but coupled with
Christianity and the Bible.
1. Plato—high status as literary theorist in Ren., reflecting general reverence of classical
antiquity as a cultural and philosophical model. Sidney first invokes him as a poet to
show how poetry leads us to knowledge (328). Sidney therefore appropriates Plato’s
name, and even some of this claims, to very un-Platonic claims about the nature and
value of art.
2. Aristotle
3. Horace
4. Neo-Platonism (esp. Plotinus)
D. Christianity and the Authority of Scripture
Augustine and the Christian tradition: Aquinas
E. Renaissance Humanism
Dante and Boccacio
Italian humanists, esp. Julius Caesar Scaliger, but cf. other views by Giacopo Mazzoni
1. Poet and Invention (Sidney as Poet)
Poet (first sonnet sequence in English, Astrophil and Stella [1581-82] ). See his ironic
disclaimer that the just slipped into the role of poet, Norton II 255.
2. Action in the World (Soldier)
“For poetry is the companion of camps. . . . Homer, a
Greek, flourished before Greece flourished. And if to a
slight conjecture a conjecture may be opposed, truly it may
see that, as by him their learned men took almost their first
light of knowledge, so their active men received their first
motions of courage” (“Defence of Poesy,” omitted from
Norton 273-74).
II. The Poet and Invention
Classical theoriesand names Vates vs. poet
A. Prophet—Vates
Vates (seer/prophet)
1. Divine Poets
heavenly, heart-ravishing knowledge (inspiration, from Neoplatonism): Norton 329x/II-256A
2. Inspiration as Metaphor


Denies any actual divinity in the poet’s “conceits” as mere supersition (cf.
Plato’s rejection of inspiration), but retains the notion of divinity as a metaphor
to describe the poet’s power. Starts with Classical sorces: Norton 329A/II256A
Then invokes a model of Christian divine inspiration, David’s Psalms (32930), only to retreat a bit and make the attribution of divine power or inspiration
metaphorical rather than literal: 329-30/II-256B.
B. Maker--Poiein
1. Copier
copier (mimetic model) invoked but radically modified along Aristotelian lines—Norton
330B/257A
 Aristotle said the poet can impose order on events and represent the way things “should
be,” but that representation only completes or clarifies natural processes.
 Sidney says the “principal object” of art is nature, but “another nature”, a “golden”
world: Norton 330/II-257B.
(a) “his own invention” , “zodiac of his own wit” vs. natural order out there in the
world
(b) “doth grow in effect another nature” (i.e. a “second nature”)
This notion of a second nature is a step toward a theory of poetic creativity.
2. Creator
creator: Norton 331B/II257C-258C
 Notes the distinction between the essential creations of God in the world and the other
“in imitation or fiction”—331.
 NB: this is a very early use of the word “fiction”. OED lists only two earlier instances
in this sense of “imaginatively invented”, one from 1398 and another from 1509.
There are a few others, but meaning deceit, pretense, i.e., negative uses of the term.
a. foreconceit
skill lies in the idea rather than the work (Longinus’s thoughts as a source of the sublime)
b. substantial work


but the poet works “substantially” in the world, not just in the mind/imagination, thereby can
make many more Cyruses, a progenitor
relation to the work that of a smaller “maker”, i.e., divine creation invoked as a model for what
the poet does.
c. many Cyruses
d. erected wit and infected will Norton 331/II-258d
poet’s work therefore surpasses nature and demonstrates the effect of the fall of Adam, i.e., a
distinction between what we know of perfection by our “erected [unfallen] wit” vs what we want
by our “infected [fallen] will”: Norton 331. That seems to come from nowhere here, but Sidney
will return to it with one of his major points about the special value of poetry.
III. The End of Poetry
A. Imitation
To imitate nature, but invokes Aristotle rather than Plato: Norton II-258a
—three kinds of poetry (continue on p. 258a)
1. Divinely inspired imitate excellence of God—direct inspiration
2. Philosophical philosophical poetry—too wrapped up in its subject and
“takes not the course of his own invention”
3. “right poets”—“no law but wit” Norton II-259a
B. Instruction and Pleasure (dulce et utile) Norton 332 A and B/II259a.
To teach and delight
 Horation definition of its purpose: to teach and delight (dulce et utile, sweet and
useful)
(NB the implict alignment with wit vs. will in the preceding paragraph, a hint of where he
is heading).
 creative power of the poet to surpass nature and work subsantially in the world allows
him to move men to do what they know they should do:
C. Virtuous Action
To Move Us to Virtuous Action
1. “lift up the mind”—Augustine’s “path”
Poetry sets us on Augustine’s path toward spiritual awareness; poetry necessary because of our
“clayey lodgings,” souls in flesh: 333x/ II-260x
2. “not gnosis but praxis”
The conjunction of knowledge and desire by working “substantially” in material medium creates
the end of poetry: ACTION: Norton 333-34 B/265A
IV. Poetry as Monarch of the Sciences (Norton 340x/II-265B)
A. The Highest Form of Learning
1. Limits of History
The historian and his mouse-eaten records: Noron 334A/II-261A, cf. 263
2. Limits of Philosophy
The philosopher and his thorny argument: Norton 335A/II-262a-63
3. The “Peerless Poet”


“Now doth the “peerless poet perform both”: Norton 335B/II-263B
“to be moved to do that which we know”
V. The Power of Fancy
Sidney uses the traditional topoi of the poet vs historian and philosopher to introduce a new
point. Sidney subtlely shifts the grounds of the argument about the supremacy of the poet from
who can teach us better to how that teaching occurs: through imagination and “fiction”.
A. The Feigned Image vs. Philosophy
Poetry superiority to Philosophy defined by “feigning notable images of virtue”: Norton II260B.
NB: the note in the text that says “feigned” here is meant only in the sense of making, crafted,
artful image. Not just that. It clearely means “fiction.”
B. “The truth of a foolish world”
Aristotle said the poet was superior to the historian because the poet could “represent” what
should be, not just what was, or what actually happened: Norton II-264a.
C. The Question
The question about the power of feigned images raised in Norton II, but the substance of the
answer is cut: Norton II-263A.
D. The Answer (cut from Norton II; it occurs at the ellipsis on p. 264.)
“For indeed, if the question were whether it were better to have a
particular act truly or falsely set down, there is no doubt which is to
be chosen, no more than whether you had rather have Vespasian’s
picture right as he was, or at the painter’s pleasure, nothing
resembling. But if the question be for your own use and learning,
whether it be better to have it set down as it should be or as it was,
then certainly is more doctrinable the feigned Cyrus in Xenophon
than the true Cyrus in Justin, and the Feigned Aeneas in Virgil than
the right Aeneas in Dares Phrygius.
If the poet do his part aright, he will show you in Tantalus,
Atreus, and such like, nothing that is not to be shunned . . . . where
the historian in his bare was hath many times that which we call
fortune to overrule the best wisdom. Many times he must tell events
whereof he can yield no cause; or if he do, it must be poetical.
For that a feigned example hath as much force to teach as a true
example (for as for to move, it is clear, sith the feigned may be tuned
to the highest key of passion). (Norton First Ed., pp. 337-38).
Vespasian = Roman emperor (9-79 C.E.; ruled 69-79)
Justinus, Roman historian widely read in the middle ages.
Dares Phrygius = priest at Troy; presumably wrote a historical account of the Trojan war before
Homer that was “translated” into Latin and widely read in the middle ages.
V. “Poet-whippers” and Itching Tongues (346/II-270)
Summarizes whole argument to this point before turning to Objections (“imputations”) to Poetry:
II-270a.
A. More Fruitful Knowledges?
Praxis is the end, and nothing moves to action like poetry: Norton 348:1/ II-271a
B. The Mother of Lies: II-271b
1. The poet can’t lie because he nothing affirms: Norton 348-9:2/II-271b.
2. Thebes: II-272b
C. The Nurse of Abuse: Norton 349-50/II-272a (beautiful and funny passage:
“grant that . . . “)
1. Recuperates Plato: 352-53/II-274a and 275a and 276a.