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Defense of PoesyBy Sir Phillip Sidney

Alumno: Antonio Asensio Padilla

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Sir Philip Sidney 1554: Birth of Sir Philip Sidney on 30th November at

Penhurst Place, Kent.

Education received at Shrewsbury and Oxford.

1572-75: Traveled extensively in Europe as adiplomat.

English poet, courtier and soldier.

One of the most important figures of theElizabethan Age.

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Sir Philip Sidney 1572: France. Massacre of St. Bartholomews Day.

1578 or 1579: Composition ofThe Lady Of May.

1580: Objection to marriage Queen Elisabeth withDuke of Anjou.

Early 1980s: Composition ofAstrophel And Stella.

1580: Composition ofThe Countess of Pembroke's

Arcadia.

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Sir Philip Sidney

1583: Composition ofThe Defense Of Poesie.

1583: Sidney is knighted.

1586: Participation, and injury of Sidney in theBattle of Zutphen, The Netherlands.

1586: Death of Sir Philip Sidney of gangrene on17th October.

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Why to write Defense of Poesy? Problems with the role of poets in society.

1579: The School Of Abuse, by Stephen Gosson. Drama play whose goal was to attack on Sidney. Treatise based on argumentations against some forms of

literature, mostly poetry, and dramatists and poets, mostlySidney.

Indictment of poetry in four grounds: A man could employ his time more usefully than in

poetry. Poetry is the mother of lies. Poetry is the nurse of abuse. Plato had rightly banished poets from his ideal

Commonwealth.

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Why to write Defense of Poesy?

Use of insults on poets:fathers of lies, pipes ofvanities and schooles of abuse.

Condemnation of abusive drama: Greece ofgluttony, Italy of wantonness, Spain of pride,France of deceit, and Dutchland of quaffing.

Envy of Sidney success.

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What is Defense of Poesy?

A.k.a.An Apology for Poetry for being entitledtwice on different printed editions.

Reply to GossonsThe School of Abuse. Treatise based on the philosophical defense of

poetry and poets. Its essence is thatpoetry by combining the

liveliness of history with the ethical focusof philosophy, is more effective than eitherhistory or philosophy in rousing its readers tovirtue.

Poets as the first philosophers.

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What is Defense of Poesy? Poets as first teachers.

Poets as powerful in society as to conceive new words.

Definition of the essential and formal characteristics ofthe various forms of poetry.

Defensive argument of poetry against the charge ofbeing composed of lies and leading to sin.

Comments on Edmund Spencer and the Elizabethanstage.

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What is Defense of Poetry?

Support for the utilitarian viewpoint, based on:

Praxis (human action) is tantamount to gnosis(knowledge).

Connection between art and virtue; poetry mustlead to virtuous action, and action relates toexperience.

Implication of a theory of metaphoric language.

Painting or portraiture is a recurring motif.

Language use as in semiotics, a modern literary

theory.

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What is Defense of Poetry? Genre: first work of literary criticism in English

Renaissance.

Form: Prose, with some examples as verses.

Characters: Sidney, in his historical persona Sir Philip Sidney, poet

and courtier. Edward Wottona, courtier and friend to Sidney who

shared his Continental tour. John Pietro Pugliano, Italian riding master to the

Emperor. All the poetswho ever had been.

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What legacy has Defense of Poesy left?

A Defense of Poetry, essay by Percy ByssheShelley in 1821.

Belonging to Romanticism. Connected to Nature. Famous Shelley claim:poets are the

unacknowledged legislators of the world.

William Wordsworths poetry.

Belonging to Romanticism. Privilege perception, imagination and modes of

understanding. Poets separated from society and untied from any

subjection.

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What legacy has Defense of Poesy left?

Samuel Taylor Coleridges On Poesy or Art Brief treatise similar toDefense of Poetry.

Full of definitions and classifications of poetry. Full of principles: the artist must imitate.

Thomas Campbell considered Sidney poetry in action.

William Stigantwrote that Sidneys real poem was hislife, and his teaching was his example.

One of the most important and significant contribution

to literary theory in English during Renaissance.