The Defense of Poesy

2015 10 25
05:32

Background and Summary

The School of Abuse: attacked poets and actors from a narrowly Puritan perspective that called
into question the morality of any fiction-making.
May shared in the author's militant Protestantism, but took a very different, more sympathetic and
more complex view of the poet's art.
Responds to old charges against poetic fictions -- charges of irresponsibility and unreality.
2 points:
1 The poet, liberated from the world, is free to range "within the zodiac of his own wit"
2 Poetry actively intervenes in the world and transforms it for the better.
Gives the argument the underlying form of a classical oration.
Shape his defense of literature as a judicial oration according to the pattern laid down in classical
and Renaissance rhetorical theory
[THE LESSONS OF HORSEMANSHIP]
exordium: a brief section designed to put the audience into a receptive frame of mind and,
especially, to make it well-disposed toward the speaker.
self-deprecating introduction; horseman
[POETRY'S HISTORICAL IMPORTANCE]
narratio: a brief overview of the facts of the case.
A short history of poetry and an investigation of its essential nature as inferred from the etymology
of Latin and Greek words for "poet".
(first nurse), point out the antiquity of poetry, its prestige in the
biblical and classical worlds, and its universality
Cites the names given to poets: "vates"(prophet) by Romans/ "poietes"(maker) by Greeks
yet base his defense essentially on the special status of poetic imagination: poetry is
uniquely free, maker of maker
The freedom enables poet to present virtues and vices in a livelier and more affecting way than
nature does, teaching and delighting the reader at the same time.
[DEFINITION AND CLASSIFICATION OF PEOTRY]
propositio: a pithy sentence, comprehending in a small room the sum of the whole matter
Poesy therefore is an art of imitation with its end, to teach and to delight.
divisio: the subject is divided into its parts and the orator clarifies which of these are in dispute
3 types: 1. imitate God; 2. deal with matters philosophical; 3. right poets
it is not rhyming and versing that maketh a poet but: notable images of virtues, vices
with delight teaching
[POETRY VERSUS PHILOSOPHY AND HISTORY]
confirmatio/ examinatio: the central and longest part of the judicial oration, in which the
speaker develops the arguments in support of his/her position
final end: draw us to as high a perfection as our degenerate souls can be capable of
The poet is superior to both the philosopher and the historian: more concrete; more universal

Poet: monarch, does not only show the way but also entice people, moving
most convenience to nature
2 proofs: Menenius Agrippa, Nathan the prophet
[THE POETIC KINDS]
"for if severed they be good, the conjunction cannot be hurtful"
pastoral (hedge is lowest), elegiac, iambic, satiric, comic, tragedy, lyric, epic
[ANSWERS TO CHARGES AGAINST POETRY]
refutatio: "a dissolving or wiping away of all such reasons as make against us"
seek praise by dispraising others: deserve they no answer but, instead of laughing at the jest, to
laugh at the jester
greatest scope to scorning: rhyming and versing inseparable commendation, sweet and orderly
best for memory (knowledge)
Four most important imputations:
1 Better spend time in other knowledges
2 Mother of lies
3 Arouses desires
4 Plato banished them out of commonwealth
Answers:
No better knowledge than to teach people virtue
Nothing affirms therefore nothing lies
Man's wit abuseth poetry; being abused doth most harm, then being rightly used doth most good
alleged before poet's writing: no memory is so ancient
Plato condemns the abuse not poetry; a whole sea of positive examples
[POETRY IN ENGLAND]
digressio: rhetorical theory allowed for a digressio following the refutatio, and Sidney's
digressio has itself the form of an oration (contains narration, propositon, division and
confirmation)
Narration: inquire why England, history
less agreeable to idle England, only base men undertake it
Surveying England in his own century, little praise besides Surrey's lyrics, the moralizing
verse narratives of the popular mid-century collection A Mirror for Magistrates, and Spenser's
Shepheardes Calender (rustic he opposes)
Propostion: the very true cause of our wanting estimation is want of desert
Division: divides into matter and words
matter: 3 wings: art, imitation, exercise forebackwardly;
absurdity1: disobey "three unities"
place; time: 1. feign a new matter; 2. be told than be shown; 3.
come to one principal point
absurdity 2: mingling kings and clowns, tragedy and comedy
difference btw laughter and delight
words: 3 criticisms: 1. exotic; 2. excessive alliteration; 3. sterile
advocate for absorbing and attentive translation; oratory
Confirmation: English capable of excellent exercising
answer objections: 1. mingled; 2. void of grammar
two sorts of versifying: ancient and modern, both fit
[CONCLUSION]

peroratio: though it includes a brief recapitulation of arguments, the main function of the
peroration is, like that of the exordium, to work on the audience's feelings, leaving it welldisposed toward the speaker and the speaker's client
a mock conjuration and a playful curse: yet thus much curse I must send you, in the behalf of all
poets, that while you live, you live in love, and never get favor for lacking skill of a sonnet; and,
when you die, your memory die from the earth for want of an epitaph