Sir Philip Sidney Study Questions

E491: History of Literary Criticism

Al Drake | 520 Hum. M/W 12:00-1:00 | ajdrake@ajdrake.com

"An Apology for Poetry" (1580-81, 1595) [Read pages 326-40, 348-50].

1. How does the poet's art differ from that of the astronomer, geometrician, moral philosopher, rhetorician, and others? What do poets "disdain," and how do they "grow in effect another nature"? Also, what is the distinction between the "brazen" world and the "golden" one? (330)

2. In what are we to recognize the "skill of the artificer"? In the work itself? Or in something else? Explain. (331)

3. In what special way does a poet show human beings to have been made in the image of God? How does poetry provide "no small argument" for the truth of the doctrine of original sin? (331)

4. What, according to Sidney, is the relationship between pleasure and learning? (331-32) To what extent, ultimately, does he agree with Horace about the aim or "end" of poetry?

5. Does "rhyming and versing" make a poet, according to Sidney? Why must the poet be skilled in "feigning notable images of virtues, vices, or what else"? That is, how does Sidney explain this requirement in moral terms? (333)

6. What, according to Sidney, did the Greeks mean by the philosophical term architectonike? (333) How does Sidney demonstrate that poetry -- not philosophy or history -- best furthers the "ending of all earthly learning" (334 top)? (333-41)

7. How does Sidney summarize the case so far presented for giving the "laurel crown appointed to triumphing captains" to the poet? (346)

8. What are the four "most important imputations" that, according to Sidney, have been "laid to the door of poets"? How does he respond to the first one? (348)

9. How does Sidney reply to the second charge that poetry is the "mother of lies" or that poets are "the principal liars"? How is his response a defense against overzealous supporters of verisimilitude? (348-49)

10. Sidney argues that the third and most important of the charges against poetry -- that it "abuseth men's wit" -- can be "transformed into just commendation." How so? (349-50)

11. How does Sidney reply to the argument against poetry based on Plato's authority? What does Plato, according to Sidney, attribute "unto poetry more than myself do"? Is his reading of Plato accurate? (352-53)

12. What argument does Sidney make concerning the unity of place -- i.e. the idea that "the stage should always represent but one place"? Do his comments seem fitting? Why or why not? (356)

13. What two-part curse does Sidney send to one who has "so earth-creeping a mind that it cannot lift itself up to look to the sky of poetry"? On the whole, how would you characterize Sidney's argument in "An Apology for Poetry" -- is his rhetoric mainly objective or mainly emotional? Do you find it convincing? Explain. (362)

Extra Discussion Questions

14. Is Sidney's idea of mimesis Platonic or Aristotelian?

15. Sidney argues that the "skill of the artificer standeth in that idea or foreconceit of the work, and not in the work itself." Is this distinction helpful or even meaningful? How can we judge the skill of the artist except by looking at his work where presumably the idea is embodied or revealed or expressed? But if the work is badly executed, how can we tell whether the idea behind it is nevertheless good? How might it be argued that the image of the artist implied in this observation is Platonic rather than Aristotelian? Or Aristotelian rather than Platonic?

16. Has Sidney, in your opinion, misread Plato's Ion?

17. What assumptions seem to underlie Sidney's apparent belief in the ennobling efficacy of the "form of goodness" imaged forth by poetry?

18. How might Socrates object to Sidney's notion that poetry can lead men toward virtuous action by "feigning noble images" of virtues and vices? Does Sidney seem to make psychological assumptions quite different from Socrates' assumptions in The Republic?

19. Poets cannot be said to lie, according to Sidney, because they affirm nothing. So Aesop, for example, doesn't expect his reader literally to believe in the existence of speaking frogs or philosophical cranes. They are intended as nothing but allegories of certain moral truths. But can't it be supposed that the moral "truth" thus presented and therefore affirmed might itself be untrue, indeed be a pernicious falsehood? Thus, the poet can be accused of figuratively telling lies. Discuss this argument against Sidney's reply to the charge that poetry is the "mother of lies."

Edition: The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. Ed. Vincent B. Leitch. New York: Norton, 2001. ISBN: 0393974294.