An Apology for Poetry

by

Philip Sidney

Teachers and parents! Our Teacher Edition on An Apology for Poetry makes teaching easy.

Poetry vs. History and Philosophy Theme Analysis

Themes and Colors
Poetry vs. History and Philosophy Theme Icon
Poetry, Creation, and Imagination Theme Icon
Defending Poetry Theme Icon
Poetry in the Vernacular Theme Icon
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in An Apology for Poetry, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Poetry vs. History and Philosophy Theme Icon

In response to the disregard for poetry shared by many Elizabethan intellectuals, Sir Philip Sidney insists in “An Apology for Poetry” that the poet and his or her craft should be taken even more seriously than the supposedly more respectable fields of philosophy and history. In “An Apology for Poetry,” Sidney mounts a courtroom-style case (i.e., an apologia) for imaginative writing, following a traditional structure according to which, after an introduction, he articulates the qualities that make poetry superior to philosophy and history. Drawing on examples from Greek and Roman classics—which would have given his argument extra authority in the highly traditional world of 16th-century England—Sidney argues that all good writing is poetical, because poetical writing is the most vivid and therefore the most able to teach and delight the reader.

Sidney points out that the 16th-century hierarchy of the arts is a modern (and therefore inferior) invention. In ancient times, there was no real distinction made between philosophy, history, and poetry, and the best ancient writers wrote poetically. Many ancient philosophers wrote poetry, such as Solon (who wrote an early Athenian constitution) and Plato, whose dialogues are decorated with the “flowers of poetry.” The best historians, such as Herodotus, “stole, or usurped, of poetry” their descriptions of human feelings, granular historical detail, and the long speeches they report but never could have heard. The Romans communicated their respect for poetry by calling the poet a vates, a seer or prophet, suggesting that the content of poetry is important “heart-ravishing knowledge,” as important as any other kind of information. Sidney, covering all his bases, notes that even the Bible is a kind of poetry: the Psalms are “a divine poem” that makes the reader “see God coming in His majesty,” uniting the poet’s skill in description with his or her ability as vates to predict the future.

In Sidney’s view, poetry is superior to philosophy and history because of its ability to present vivid, compelling examples to the reader not simply of what has been or will be, but what should be. The philosopher can only articulate an abstract description of an ethical principle. The poet, however, “giveth a perfect picture of it” because, using his or her imagination “coupleth the general notion with the particular example.” The poet concretizes an abstract principle in a perfect example for what the philosopher is only able to give a “wordish description.” The historian, on the other hand, does indeed provide many useful examples of human virtue from the past, but these examples are not necessarily more instructive for the reader. Oftentimes, an example from literature is “more doctrinable” (i.e., more instructive) than a true, imperfect historical example—than “his bare WAS.” “If the poet do his part aright,” Sidney explains, “he will show you in Tantalus, Atreus, and such like, nothing that is not to be shunned; in Cyrus, Aeneas, Ulysses, each thing to be followed; where the historian, bound to tell things as things were, cannot be liberal, without he will be poetical, of a perfect pattern.” Poetry therefore synthesizes philosophy’s ability to articulate moral principles with history’s ability to give concrete examples. This makes the poet “the right popular philosopher” since he or she is able to communicate virtue to everyone, not just the learned, through his or her power to embody abstract ideas in concrete examples.

Finally, poetry is a more effective teaching tool than history or philosophy because it compels the reader to learn virtue through its vivid examples. These vivid examples are able to move the reader in a way that abstract language cannot. Sidney explains that “moving”—that is, delighting the reader in some way—is “well nigh both the cause and effect of teaching,” for “who will be taught, if he be not moved with desire to be taught?” Poetry moves the reader to virtue because it “doth not only show the way [to virtue], but giveth so sweet a prospect into the way, as will entice any man to enter into it.” Therefore, poetry “doth draw the mind more effectively than any other art doth.” Poetry is thus particularly effective for educating children since it sugarcoats moral learning, like a “medicine of cherries.” In other words, if moral lessons are couched in pleasant stories, young readers will be educated almost without knowing. As they read for pleasure, they learn almost against their will.

Sidney asserts that poetry is the “monarch” of the arts because of its ability to unite the best parts of philosophy and history in vivid, pleasing, and memorable examples. These examples teach readers about virtue sometimes without them even knowing. All of the best philosophy and history, and even the Bible, draws on poetry to teach the reader through delighting them, just as Sidney’s “An Apology for Poetry” makes its compelling case through vivid prose, an effective rhetorical structure, and memorable examples.

Related Themes from Other Texts
Compare and contrast themes from other texts to this theme…

Poetry vs. History and Philosophy ThemeTracker

The ThemeTracker below shows where, and to what degree, the theme of Poetry vs. History and Philosophy appears in each chapter of An Apology for Poetry. Click or tap on any chapter to read its Summary & Analysis.
How often theme appears:
chapter length:
Get the entire An Apology for Poetry LitChart as a printable PDF.
An Apology for Poetry PDF

Poetry vs. History and Philosophy Quotes in An Apology for Poetry

Below you will find the important quotes in An Apology for Poetry related to the theme of Poetry vs. History and Philosophy.
An Apology for Poetry Quotes

Only the poet [...] up with the vigour of his own invention, doth grow, in effect, into another nature; in making things either better than nature bringeth forth, or quite anew; forms such as never were in nature, as the heroes, demi-gods, Cyclops, chimeras, furies, and such like; so he goeth hand in hand with Nature, not enclosed within the narrow warrant of her gifts, but freely ranging within the zodiac of his own wit.

Related Characters: Sir Philip Sidney (speaker), The Poet
Page Number: 27
Explanation and Analysis:

Nature never set forth the earth in so rich tapestry as divers poets have done; neither with so pleasant rivers, fruitful trees, sweet-smelling flowers, not whatsoever else may make the too-much-loved earth more lovely; her world is brazen, the poets only deliver a golden.

Related Characters: Sir Philip Sidney (speaker), The Poet
Related Symbols: The Speaking Picture
Page Number: 28
Explanation and Analysis:

Every understanding knoweth the skill of each artificer standeth in that idea, or fore-conceit of the work, and not in the work itself.

Related Characters: Sir Philip Sidney (speaker), The Poet
Page Number: 28
Explanation and Analysis:

Poesy, therefore, is an art of imitation; for so Aristotle termeth it in the word mimesis; that is to say, a representing, counterfeiting, or figuring forth: to speak metaphorically, a speaking picture, with this end, to teach and delight.

Related Characters: Sir Philip Sidney (speaker), The Poet
Related Symbols: The Speaking Picture
Page Number: 28
Explanation and Analysis:

The purifying of wit, this enriching of memory, enabling of judgment, and enlarging of conceit, which commonly we call learning under what name soever it come forth, or to what immediate end soever it be directed; the final end is to lead and draw us to as high a perfection as our degenerate souls, made worse by their clay lodgings, can be capable of.

Related Characters: Sir Philip Sidney (speaker), The Poet
Page Number: 30
Explanation and Analysis:

Whatsoever the philosopher saith should be done, [the poet] giveth a perfect picture of it, by some one by whom he pre-supposeth it was done, so as he coupleth the general notion with the particular example. A perfect picture, I say; for he yieldeth to the powers of the mind an image of that whereof the philosopher bestoweth but a wordish description, which doth neither strike, pierce, nor possess the sight of the soul, so much as that other doth.

Related Characters: Sir Philip Sidney (speaker), The Poet
Related Symbols: The Speaking Picture
Page Number: 33
Explanation and Analysis:

The poet is, indeed, the right popular philosopher.

Related Characters: Sir Philip Sidney (speaker), The Poet
Page Number: 35
Explanation and Analysis:

Moving [...] is well nigh both the cause and effect of teaching; for who will be taught, if he be not moved with desire to be taught? And what so much good doth that teaching bring forth (I speak still of moral doctrine) as that it moveth one to do that which it doth teach.

Related Characters: Sir Philip Sidney (speaker), The Poet
Related Symbols: The Speaking Picture
Page Number: 37
Explanation and Analysis:

Now [...] of all sciences [...] is our poet the monarch. For he doth not only show the way, but giveth so sweet a prospect into the way, as will entice any man to enter into it; nay, he doth, as if your journey should lie through a fair vineyard, at the very first give you a cluster of grapes, that full of that taste you may long to pass farther.

Related Characters: Sir Philip Sidney (speaker), The Poet
Related Symbols: The Speaking Picture
Page Number: 38
Explanation and Analysis:

Of all writers under the sun, the poet is the least liar; and though he would, as a poet, can scarcely be a liar [...] For the poet, he nothing affirmeth, and therefore never lieth.

Related Characters: Sir Philip Sidney (speaker), The Poet
Page Number: 46
Explanation and Analysis: