Sidney--Defence of Poesy--Study Notes

1.Characteristics of Renaissance courtly poetry and language:

-allusiveness–refers to classical and European works, depending on the readers’ knowledge

-convention–modes; works are modelled on classical and European types, such as Petrarch’s sonnets

-copia–delight in abundance of images

-heroic–dealing with a larger ideal, usually highly conventionalized or stylized story and characters

-allegorical–uses persons and events of a story to represent moral and spiritual principles; complex interplay of realism and fiction, chars often undergo a process of learning themselves.

-neo-Platonism–the real world is an imperfect shadow of an ideal world; poetry can “improve” nature through art, bring it closer to this ideal world.

-poet’s creative power mirrors that of God, or is part of His creative power in the universe

-creative power is an ordering power, taking disparate elements and harmonizing them (concors discordia), reflecting in this way the nature of the cosmos itself within the work of art (compare music by Monteverdi and Schumann)

-analogical understanding, macrocosm / microcosm: poetry teaches these symbolic relations and meanings in life around us

2. Sidney’s Life and Work

-details in Norton: S’s life brief and romantic in its ending; he became a model of chivalric ideal

-lived just briefly enough for life to acquire a mythic element

-brought courtlye ideals to bear in slipperiness of real life

-knight and courtier; wrote as an amateur (indeed, was a patron himself), but authored among best-known works of the period, in different genres:

1) prose narrative (Arcadia) 1590; 1593

2) sonnet cycle (Astrophil to Stella) 1591

3) treatise of literary theory and crit: Defence of Poesy (sometimes also called Apology for Poetry), 1595

2. Defence of Poesy

-answer to a “narrowly Puritan” attack on poetry, or rather, in imaginative or fictional writing in general; reviewed last week, objections which sound rather familiar to us (p. ref)

-it’s a waste of time

-it’s all lies; covers up or distracts from truth rather than revealing it

-it leads readers into sensuous delights, distracts them from spiritual

-it softens moral fibre (feminizes)

-Plato banned poets from his Republic (for rather similar reasons)

-Puritan view was that metaphoric language, use of sensual and sensory imagery, fiction in general, obscured truth and appealed to fallen senses–got in the way of spiritual work of individual salvation

-Sidney argues that the reverse is true, or can be; these things help translate and reveal spiritual and moral truths; imaginative writing is meant to transform the fallen world, show the ideal

-thesis: that poetry uses fiction to reveal truth, to show us something ABOUT simple “fact,”

-that poetry teaches while delighting, even through delighting...reaches mixed human nature better than abstract works of philosophy

-this double view used more subtly and fully in Spenser, and later (though differently) in Milton: in Spenser, appearance vs reality is part of reader’s experience, sometimes reality of a character is revealed through their language (or even poetic rhyme) rather than their appearance...but reader must undergo experience of testing truths, seeming good turns out to be not so good after all...hence fictional experience teaches reader while delighting

-idea behind Sidney’s understanding of fiction: poet is creator; art parallels God’s work in creation

-watch definition of “arts” (all human endeavour) and “sciences” (disciplines of knowledge); S. puts forth idea that imagination (or “wit”) is essential to all human accomplishment (an idea appropriated and of course cheapened by corporate spin today–creativity, innovation)

-S. draws from classical tradition:

-poet as vates (prophet, seer); poetic language is visionary, sees through things to the divine principle beyond, language has divine power, speaks for the god

-poet as maker (Greek root of term); poet is not tied to world of immediate sense-experience, can create ideal world from imagination; this raises and ennobles the human spirit, provides the model for moral and social improvement; can recover, in the process, something of the perfection known to us before the fall

-concept of mimesis, art imitating nature; this will challenge some of our preconceptions about poetry, which are based in Romantic ideas (Nature is better than art; individual imagination is capable of the infinite, and can transform society; traditional poetic forms are restrictive to the individual imag.).

-Renaissance poetry is completely different in its assumptions, though in fact much of what Sidney says is not as far removed from the Romantic ideas as we might think (transforming power of the imagination, poet as teacher to society, emph on high calling) (no accident that a second treatise with the same title, Defence of Poetry, was written over 200 years later, by Shelley).

-Ren. concept of mimesis: poetry is not self-expression (lamp) but re-creation, imitation (mirror)...but not copying, rather, it imitates an ideal world available through the imagination, which poet sees through imagination

-art improves nature; brings together ideal and actual, material and spiritual worlds; takes the fallen imperfect world and shows the deeper meaning and divine resemblances in it. (Variants on this: satire shows the diverges between the actual and the ideal; other modes can attempt to resolve the actual and the ideal, e.g. love poetry, blending physical and spiritual, temporal and eternal

-poet’s creative power mirrors that of God, or is part of His creative power in the universe

-creative power is an ordering power, taking disparate elements and harmonizing them (concors discordia), reflecting in this way the nature of the cosmos itself within the work of art

-analogical understanding, macrocosm / microcosm: poetry teaches these symbolic relations and meanings in life around us

-poet also a teacher to society; teaches through paradox of truth in fiction, through combining teaching with delight

-see above, poetry appeals to mixed human nature, can raise and ennoble reader / listener through fictional experience

-Sidney also points out the paradox of finding truth in (through) fiction

-fiction creates fact (something easily observed today)

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October 22, 2014

Sidney died at age 32 fighting the Spaniards. He was considered a hero. He was admired in his time for his chivalry. However, Queen Elizabeth I saw him as an ambitious person who needed to be directed. Sidney was famous for poetry, Arcadia (early fantasy novel for his sister: side note*educated women at this time were not uncommon), development of creative thinking in literature (creating of things out of imagination).

Writing was not a profession the way it is today. Writing was often put on a broadsheet so that it could be read if it was approved. Penny books were books people could buy if they had spare money.

There was room for profession in Drama. There were professional acting companies. Through King Lear and other plays of this type we see they learned how to use irony and metaphor to make a point.

Note: keep in mind the terms satire, panegyric, allusion, copia, heroic, allegory, convention, coterie, neo-Platonism.

Sidney talks about convention-to recreate nature and different literary forms that match different modes of existence.

Notes about the epic poem: they had nice ballads and they started in the middle of action so it can look back and forward. Often involved supernatural beings. Milton wrote the Perfect epic.

Spenser focused on the epic romance. High action performed.

Epic is supposed to be a big heroic action, a learning position, a notion that you have (Red Cross knight who grows from country bumpkin to someone who can overcome his own anger and despair--Sidney talks about this and it exists in many stories such as Paradise Lost, Lord of the Rings, Aeniad, Oddyssey.

English people would know this because that is how they learned. Convention is central to this course.

Copia-plenty

heroic--ideal is representative in art. Art improves nature.

concors discordia--harmony in discord

rhetoric and disputatio-art of persuasion--2 sides --Milton does this in Paradise Lost

Language is used to disguise truth, and also used to reveal truth.

Objection-effeminates point.

Plato banned poets from his republic. Poet teaches what should be.

utile and duicce--useful and beautiful

vate-prophet-speaking for the gods--higher truth

poiein-maker-fiction-factum-fingere

wit-old english word for mind. wit often combats reason.

will is often infected by passion--linked to god

Mirror and lamp metaphor--they are not as opposed as we think. Mirror is mimesis and lamp is expression.

Shelley wrote Defense of Poetry-function of poet in society.

Nature--ideal principles of nature. poetry is art of imitation.

figure is metaphor for them-poetry was metaphor-stretched line-creative writing.

Spenser-->not history which is tied to fact, not allowed to be, praxis must be the fruit. Has to be abstract so poet is the monarch.

physical senses must be engaged in order for the will to act.

Canon of English writers tied to great writers

"spenser and his age" as an example--he was not quite successful in his lifetime. 1552-1599 died not finishing Faerie Queene. Wanted to be placed by Queen Elizabeth in court to work. Instead he was placed in Ireland which was a big insult because he found Ireland to be uncivilized compared to England. He was brought back to England just in time to die.

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Notes from October 22, 2014 about Sidney. Above the black line is Dr Quinsey's note from CLEW, and below it are my notes.