SIR PHILIP SIDNEY QUESTIONS FOR E256 LITERARY THEORY AND CRITICISM
CHAPMAN UNIVERSITY, FALL 2012

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Assigned: Sidney, Sir Philip. From ”The Defence of Poesy” (excerpt 262-63 in Leitch, Vincent B. and William E. Cain, eds. The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. 2nd ed. New York: Norton, 2010. ISBN 978-0-393-93292-8).

From “The Defence of Poesy”

1. On 257, how does Sidney differentiate poetry from the other arts (that of the astronomer, geometrician, moral philosopher, rhetorician, etc.), all of which have “the works of nature” for their main object? What “subjection” do poets refuse, and what ideal can they “deliver” to us because of this refusal? How do Sidney’s remarks touch upon the moral quality and mission of poetry?

2. On 262-63, how does Sidney justify his assertion that poetry is superior to either philosophy or history? How does poetry better accord with Sidney’s Renaissance definition of learning’s purpose as ‘‘action’’ (334 top), and in what ways do history and philosophy fail to do for us what poetry can? What relationship between pleasure and learning does the Christian author Sidney assert?