34 pages • 1 hour read
Philip SidneyThe Defence of Poesy
Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 1595A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Section 1Chapter Summaries & Analyses
“Exordium” Summary
Sir Philip Sidney begins his treatise with a brief “Exordium,” or introduction. He relates an anecdote in which he and a friend, while visiting Italy, met the officer who ran Emperor Maximilian II’s royal stables. This officer, John Pietro Pugliano, spoke vigorously but inexpertly about the art of horsemanship. Although Sidney mocks Pugliano, this anecdote inspires the author to deliver a similar pseudo-speech in defense of his own passion, poetry.
“Narration” Summary
Having established a motivation for this work, Sidney begins the “Narration” section of the essay. Here, he outlines in brief the supremacy of poetry and poets over other disciplines. The author traces the origins (and pinnacle) of poetry back to antiquity. He lists the achievements of the greatest poets of the past, from the Greek bard Homer to the slightly more recent English poets Gower and Chaucer. Offering a broad definition of poetry, Sidney even attributes the success of the greatest philosophers and historiographers to poetry. As he explains, authors of neither genre “could at the first have entered into the gates of popular judgements, if they had not taken a great passport of poetry” (20).
Along with the supremacy of poetry over other literary genres, Sidney praises poets themselves. He describes the importance of the poet-prophet in Roman antiquity, noting that the Latin word vates could connote both poet and prophet. Furthermore, Sidney tells us, divine prophecies in antiquity were always delivered in verse. Sidney hails poets as not only prophets, but also as craftsmen. Shifting his focus to Ancient Greece, he traces the etymological link between the word “poet” (of Greek origin) and the Greek verb poiein, “to make.” Poets are thus “makers,” and thus skilled craftsmen.
As a final category for praise, Sidney notes the imitative nature of poetry. Whereas other sciences and genres merely aim to replicate nature precisely as it is, only poetry brings invention to this relationship, improving upon reality and creating entirely new ideas. As Sidney puts it: “Nature never set forth the earth in so rich tapestry as […] poets have done” (24). Having laid out his general praise of the discipline, Sidney indicates that he will next offer a more detailed description of poetry.
“Proposition” and “Divisions” Summaries
The author introduces his description of poetry with the “Proposition,” his definition of the art: “Poesy therefore is an art of imitation […] with this end, to teach and delight” (25). He then uses the “Divisions” section to outline the kinds of poetry.
According to Sidney, there are three kinds of poetry: divine, philosophical, and an unnamed third sort (the main branch of poetry). The author deals briefly with the first two kinds. Passing to the third kind, he explains: “For these [third kind of poets] do merely make to imitate, and imitate both to delight and teach” (27). With this definition, he implies that this kind of poetry is ideally suited to accomplish the goal laid out in the “Proposition.” This third kind will be the chief concern of the rest of this work.
Sidney identifies eight subgenres of the third kind of poetry: heroic, lyric, tragic, comic, satiric, iambic, elegiac, and pastoral. He also acknowledges “certain others” (27) that did not make the list. In praising the poetic inventions of each of these subdivisions, Sidney explains that he takes a broad definition of poetry, since “it is not rhyming and versing that maketh a poet [...] But it is that feigning notable images of virtues, vices, or what else [...] which must be the right describing note to know a poet by” (27).
Section 1 Analysis
The opening sections of this work help to establish both the tone and the general themes that the reader can expect throughout this treatise. Sir Philip Sidney demonstrates how he will balance the playfulness of this exercise with the seriousness of its language, and he introduces the premises that will become central to his argument.
The “Exordium” section that opens the essay is unlike the rest of the work since it features a personal anecdote told in a humorous style. As he tells the story of the horseman Pugliano’s passionate speech, Sidney ironically states that “if I had not been a piece of a logician before I came to him, I think he would have persuaded me to have wished myself a horse” (17). The author gleefully mocks the earnestness of Pugliano, while crediting it with inspiring the treatise to come. Sidney apologizes for any fault in his style, saying: “[B]ear with me, since the scholar [Sidney] is to be pardoned that followeth the steps of his master [Pugliano]” (18). Although Sidney does add occasional joking asides throughout the treatise, he does not return to this humorous, self-deprecating tone until the very end of the work. This device, framing an earnest argument with such ironic commentary, could help the reader to form a generous opinion of Sidney’s work.
Following this frivolous introduction, Sidney adopts a more serious tone to deliver a thorough, learned, and carefully-structured argument. Aspects of this erudition are in fact signposted in the “Exordium” itself. For example, the final sentences of the “Exordium” contain sentiments that were standard when introducing rhetorical exercises, a practice that was a common element of education in Sidney’s time. When the author says: “And yet I must say that, as I have more just cause to make a pitiful defence of poor poetry [...] so have I need to bring some more available proofs” (18), he is using language that would have been recognized by his intended audience as signaling the start of a rhetorical work in the style of the ancient Greeks and Romans.
The opening few paragraphs, then, offer an important backdrop to the content of Sidney’s treatise. The author confirms this when he launches into the “Narration” section, which is also a standard element of classical rhetoric. In fact, the entire treatise will broadly follow the general structure of these rhetorical exercises, with its narration of facts followed by the anticipation and refutation of counter-arguments. That this is a learned work for a learned audience (hinted at with the pedanteria in the “Exordium”) also becomes clearer in the “Narration,” as Sidney looks to examples from other cultures and particularly antiquity, quoting classical authors extensively in their original languages, without translation.
The reader would naturally expect the opening sections of this treatise to present the broad themes and premises of Sidney’s argument, and they do. The “Narration” prepares us for an examination of poetry that touches on literary theory, religion, history, and virtue, among others. A more nuanced examination shows how these sections also set the stage for the erudite tone that pervades this work, as well.
