AN APOLOGY FOR POETRY (The

Defence of Poesy)
PHILIP SIDNEY
SIR PHILIP SIDNEY

• Sir Philip Sydney was an English Poet, courtier,

scholar and soldier.

• A prominent figure in the Elizabethan age .

• Born at Penshurt , Kent of an aristocratic family, on November 30, 1554.And died on
October 17, 1586.

• Father: Sir Henry Sidney ( Lord deputy of Ireland under Elizabeth, one of the queens
closest advisers).

• Mother : Lady Mary Dudley ( lady in waiting to the queen Elizabeth, sister of earl of
Leicester)

• Sister : Mary Sidney Herbert.

• In 1572 at the age of 18, he was elected to Parliament as a Member of Parliament for
Shrewsbury.
 MAJOR WORKS
• Astrophel and Stella ( 1591)
• Arcadia ( 1598)
• The Defence of poesy ( An apology for poetry)

• Edmund Spencer dedicated his Shepherd's Calendar to him.

“ Among the gilded youth of Elizabethan England , no one was more

golden than Philip Sydney. Courtier, poet, soldier, diplomat-he was one of
the promising young men of his time.”
-Biographer Allen Stewart
Historical Context
• Philip Sidney wrote during English renaissance .

•  He wrote during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I (1558-1603).

• The Renaissance began in the late 1300s in Italy - rediscovery of classical texts and revival of Latin and
Greek language learning.

• European explorers sailed to the “New World,” the discovery of which challenged traditional narratives of history
and started a race to colonize America

• Soon after, Martin Luther and others launched the Protestant Reformation, leading to decades of conflict
between Christian sects.

• Writers like Sidney began to write in modern languages, rather than Latin, allowing for a wider, less elite
readership for their work but also fostering new feelings of nationalism.

•  Sidney’s “An Apology for Poetry”—with its classical structure and numerous classical references, its references
to pan-European literature, and its nationalistic elevation of English over other modern languages—reflects
many of the intellectual and cultural currents of its time.

• period of attacks made on poetry by the puritans.

 AN APOLOGY FOR POETRY
• Written: c. 1580

• Published: 1595

•Genre: Essay; Oration

•Climax: Although the essay does not have a narrative climax, Sidney writes an emphatic
conclusion in which he condemns poetry’s critics to oblivion.

•Antagonist: The Elizabethan intellectuals who doubted the value of poetry.

• The work is defence of poetry against all the charges laid against it since Plato.

• Poetry- oldest of all branches , superior.

• Poetry – superior to- philosophy- charm, history – universality, science – moral end, law-
encouragement of human than civic goodness.

• Sidney also deals with usefulness of other forms of poetry:

pastoral: helpful comments on contemporary events and life in general
Elegy : kindly pity for weakness of mankind
Satire: pleasant ridicule of folly
Lyric : sweetest praise of all that is praiseworthy
Epic: the representation of the loftiest truth in the loftiest manner.
REPLY TO FOUR CHARGES :

• Stephen Gosson in his SCHOOL OF ABUSE , produced four charges against

poetry, they were:

1.A man could employ his time more usefully than in poetry
2.It is the mother of lies
3.It is immoral and ‘the nurse of abuse’
4.Plato had rightly banished poets from his ideal common wealth.

Sydney’s reply :

1. poetry alone teaches and moves to virtue and therefore a man cannot better
spend his time than in it.
2. The poet has no concern with the question of veracity or falsehood and
therefore a poet can scarcely be a lair.
3. It is a man’s wit that abuses poetry and not vice versa .
4. Plato did not find fault with poetry but only the poet of his time.
HIS CLASSICISM
• First serious attempt to apply the classical rules to English poetry.
• Admirer of great Italian writers of renaissance (Dante, Boccaccio, Petrarch).
• In his definition of poetry- follows both Aristotle and Horace: “ To teach and delight”.
• Sydney insists on the observance of unities of time, place and action in English
drama.
• Also praises the unrhymed classical metre verse.

• THE VALUE OF HIS CRITICISM :

• His conception of poetry different from Aristotle

• Aristotle : art of imitation , Sydney: art of imitation for a specific purpose; ‘to teach
and delight’.
• According to Sidney, poetry creates a new world altogether for the edification and
delight of the reader, which brings him closer to Plato.
• Poet imitates not the brazen world of nature but the golden world of idea itself,
answering Plato's chief objection to poetry.
• Sidney makes poetry what Plato wished to be- A vision of the idea itself and a force for
the perfection of the soul.