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    Arguments in An Apology For Poetry

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    Snehashis Saha
    Philip Sidney wrote "An Apology for Poetry" to defend poetry against criticisms by Stephen Gosson. Gosson had argued that (1) poetry is a waste of time, (2) it spreads lies, and (3) it corrupts minds with harmful desires. Sidney refutes these, saying that (1) poetry teaches virtue better than any other discipline, (2) poets do not claim factual accuracy but depict ideal truths, and (3) corruption comes from individual poets, not the art itself. He also shows that Plato banned immoral poets, not poetry itself, and Plato praised poetry's divine inspiration. Sidney concludes poetry deserves honor, not condemnation.

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    Arguments in An Apology For Poetry

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    Snehashis Saha
    948 views2 pages
    Philip Sidney wrote "An Apology for Poetry" to defend poetry against criticisms by Stephen Gosson. Gosson had argued that (1) poetry is a waste of time, (2) it spreads lies, and (3) it corrupts minds with harmful desires. Sidney refutes these, saying that (1) poetry teaches virtue better than any other discipline, (2) poets do not claim factual accuracy but depict ideal truths, and (3) corruption comes from individual poets, not the art itself. He also shows that Plato banned immoral poets, not poetry itself, and Plato praised poetry's divine inspiration. Sidney concludes poetry deserves honor, not condemnation.

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    Arguments in An Apology for Poetry

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    Philip Sidney wrote "An Apology for Poetry" to defend poetry against criticisms by Stephen Gosson. Gosson had argued that (1) poetry is a waste of time, (2) it spreads lies, and (3) it corrupts minds with harmful desires. Sidney refutes these, saying that (1) poetry teaches virtue better than any other discipline, (2) poets do not claim factual accuracy but depict ideal truths, and (3) corruption comes from individual poets, not the art itself. He also shows that Plato banned immoral poets, not poetry itself, and Plato praised poetry's divine inspiration. Sidney concludes poetry deserves honor, not condemnation.

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    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    948 views2 pages

    Arguments in An Apology For Poetry

    Uploaded by

    Snehashis Saha
    Philip Sidney wrote "An Apology for Poetry" to defend poetry against criticisms by Stephen Gosson. Gosson had argued that (1) poetry is a waste of time, (2) it spreads lies, and (3) it corrupts minds with harmful desires. Sidney refutes these, saying that (1) poetry teaches virtue better than any other discipline, (2) poets do not claim factual accuracy but depict ideal truths, and (3) corruption comes from individual poets, not the art itself. He also shows that Plato banned immoral poets, not poetry itself, and Plato praised poetry's divine inspiration. Sidney concludes poetry deserves honor, not condemnation.

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    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
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    Arguments in An Apology for

    Poetry
    Philip Sidney defends poetry in his essay “An Apology for
    Poetry” from the accusations made by Stephen Gosson in his
    “School of Abuse” dedicated to him. There, Gosson makes some
    objections against poetry. Sidney replies to the objections made
    by Gosson very emphatically, defending poetry vigorously.

    Sidney does this in a very logical and scholarly way. The major
    objections against poetry are:
    (a) “Poetry is a waste of time; that there are many other more
    fruitful knowledges, a man might better spend his time in them
    than in this”;
    (b) that it is the mother of lies;
    (c) that it is the nurse of abuse; infecting us with many pestilent
    desires; and
    (d) that Plato had rightly banished poets from his ideal republic.

    Defending poetry against the first charge, he says that man


    cannot employ his time more usefully than in poetry. He says
    that “no learning is so good as that teacheth and moveth to
    virtue, and that none can both teach virtue, and thereto as
    much as poetry”.

    His answer to the second objection that poets are liars is that of
    all writers under the sun the poet is the least liar. The poet creates
    something by emotion or imagination against which no charge of
    lying can be brought. The astronomer, the geometrician, the
    historian and others, all make false statements. But poet “nothing
    affirms, and therefore never lieth”, his end being “to tell not what
    is or what is not, but what should or should not be”. The question
    of truth or falsehood would arise only when a person insists on
    telling a fact. The poet does not present fact but fiction embodying
    truth of an ideal kind.

    The third objection against poetry that it is the nurse of abuse,


    “infecting us with many pestilent desires or wits” may be partly
    justified, but for this a particular poet may be blamed and not
    poetry. To this charge, Sidney replies that poetry does not abuse
    man’s wit but it is man’s wit that abuses poetry. All arts and
    sciences misused had evil effects, but that did not mean that they
    were less valuable when rightly employed. Abuse of poetry,
    according to Sidney, is not the problem of poetry but of the poet.

    The fourth objection that Plato had rightly banished the poets
    from his ideal republic is also not tenable because Plato sought to
    banish the amoral poets of his time, and not poetry itself. Plato
    himself believed that poetry is divinely inspired. In “Ion”, Plato
    gives high and rightly divine commendation to poetry. His
    description of the poet as “a light-winged and sacred thing”
    reveals his attitude to poetry. Sidney concludes, “So as Plato
    banishing the abuse, not the ‘Thing’, not banishing it, but giving
    due honour unto it, shall be our patron and not adversary”. In
    this way, Sidney very strongly defends poetry against the
    accusations made by Stephen Gosson on poetry.

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