THE RENAISSANCE CRITICISM & SIDNEY

Renaissance The period from around the fourteenth until the mid- seventeenth century has conventionally been named “the Renaissance”. It refers to the “rebirth” or rediscovery of the values, ethics, and styles of classical Greece and Rome. The term was devised by Italian humanists who sought to reaffirm their own continuity with the classical humanist heritage after an interlude of over a thousand years. 2

Renaissance Literary criticism  Renaissance literary criticism revolves around the following fundamental features:  The Theory of Imitation  The truth-value and didactic role of literature  The classical “Unities”  The notion of verisimilitude  The use of the vernacular  The definition of poetic genres such as narrative and drama  The invention of new, mixed genres  The use of rhyme in poetry  The relative values of quantitative and qualitative verse 3

Renaissance Literary criticism 1.The Theory of Imitation:  The Renaissance critics’ theory of imitation is different from that of Plato and Aristotle.  Imitation for Plato and Aristotle was the imitation of persons and things in nature.  Horace and Longinus used it as meaning the imitation of other writers.  This latter sense is the one in which it was most often used by the Renaissance critics. 2.The truth-value and didactic role of literature:  The Renaissance critics adopted the Horatian formula that literature should “teach and delight”.  The prevailing renaissance version of this is that poetry teaches delightfully.  This was in answer to the medieval view that poetry is either dangerous or a waste of time. 4

Renaissance Literary criticism 3.The classical “Unities”:  Renaissance writers added the doctrine of the “unity of place” to Aristotle’s original demand for the unity of action and time. 4.The notion of verisimilitude:  Renaissance critics asserted that poetry must be verisimilar in two respects: 1. It must imitate objects that are real, not fantastic; 2. Its manner of imitation must appear probable or at least possible to the audience. 5

Renaissance Literary criticism 5.The use of the vernacular:  Many Renaissance writers to write in the vernacular;  Some of these writers theorized and defended their practice.  The Protestant Reformation fostered vernacular translations of the Bible as well as of liturgies and hymns.  The Renaissance writers were obliged to address controversial issues of meter, rhyming, and versification in vernacular tongues. 6.The definition of poetic genres such as narrative and drama:  The Renaissance writers wrote in the ancient forms or genres of epic, tragedy, and comedy to attain the ancient spirit.  They mould their style upon that of the great ancients. 6

Renaissance Literary criticism 7.The invention of new, mixed genres:  The Renaissance critics did not accept the mixing of genres as tragicomedy since it can destroy the sense of decorum.  The Renaissance writers invent newer, characteristically humanist, genres such as the essay and the dialogue form.  They focus on the epigram as an instrument of wit. 8.The use of rhyme in poetry:  Renaissance writers rejected the regular stress-based alliterative meter of medieval poets.  They rejected rhyme as an unclassical barbarism.  They searched for a new metrical basis for poetry and eventually stimulated the growth of blank verse. 9.The relative values of quantitative and qualitative verse:  Renaissance writers introduced classical quantitative meters, based on length of syllables rather than stress, into vernacular languages. 7

Sir Philip Sidney Apologie for Poetrie 8

Sir Philip Sidney ( ) He was born in Kent in 1554 & died in Netherlands in He was a courtier, soldier, poet, diplomat. He won admiration at an early age for his courtly skills and intellectual curiosity. He is often cited as an archetype of the well-rounded “Renaissance man”. His talents encompassed not only poetry and cultivated learning but the virtues of statesmanship and military service. 9

Apologie for Poetrie It is in many ways a seminal text of literary criticism. It represents the first synthesis in the English language of Renaissance literary criticism. It draws on Aristotle, Horace, and more recent writers such as Boccaccio and Julius Caesar Scaliger. It raises issues – such as the value and function of poetry, the nature of imitation, and the concept of nature It was written as a defence of poetry against a Puritan attack on poetry entitled The School of Abuse by Stephen Gosson. 10

Apologie for Poetrie Sidney produces a wide range of arguments in defence of “poor Poetry” The major arguments discussed in the Apologie are:  Chronology or Antiquity of Poetry  The authority of ancient tradition  The relation of poetry to nature  The function of poetry as imitation  The status of poetry among the various disciplines of learning  The relationship of poetry to truth and morality 11

Apologie for Poetrie 1. Chronology or Antiquity of Poetry  Poetry has been held in high esteem since the earliest times.  It has been ‘the first light-giver to ignorance.’  Poetry in all nations has preceded other branches of learning.  The earlier Greek philosophers and historians were, in fact, poets. 2. The Authority of Ancient Tradition  It is an “argument from tradition”  Both the Greeks and the Romans honoured poets.  The Romans called the poet "Vates" which means a Foreseer or a Prophet.  Poetry has a prophetic character 12

Apologie for Poetrie 3. The Relation of Poetry to Nature  In Greek, the word 'Poet' means' ‘Maker’ or ‘Creator’.  The poet is a 'maker', a creator in the real sense of the term  While all other arts are tied to Nature, 'the poet is not a slave to Nature.’  This suggests the divine nature of poetry as a God-like activity. 4. The Function of Poetry as Imitation  Sidney defines poetry as “an art of imitation;  It is representing, counterfeiting or figuring forth.  Poetry is a “speaking picture.”  Its end is to teach and delight. The object of both teaching and delighting is goodness. 13

Apologie for Poetrie  According to Sidney, there are three kinds of poetic imitation:  Religious poetry: Poetry that praises God.  Philosophical poetry:  It imparts knowledge of philosophy, history, astronomy etc.  It is also not to be condemned.  it is “the sweet food of sweetly uttered knowledge”.  Right or true kind of poetry  It is the first and most noble sort of poetry.  In this kind, poets ‘most properly do imitate to teach and delight’.  The poet is free of dependence on nature in at least two ways:  The poet is not restricted to any given subject matter, any given sphere of nature.  The poet does not actually reproduce anything in nature but depicts portrayals of probability and of idealized situations. 14

Apologie for Poetrie 5. The Status of Poetry among the Various Disciplines of Learning  Poetry is superior to all other branches of learning  The end of all learning is virtuous action, and poetry best serves this end.  In this respect poetry is superior, both to history and philosophy.  Philosophy presents merely abstract precepts.  History deals with concrete facts or examples of virtue.  Poetry combines both these advantages.  It presents universal truths like philosophy, but it does them through concrete examples, like History.  It teaches virtue in a way intelligible even to the ordinary men.  It also moves us to virtuous action.  This is so because its truths are conveyed in a delighted manner; it allures men to virtue. 15

Apologie for Poetrie 6. The Relationship of Poetry to Truth and Morality:  Sidney now addresses the specific charges brought against poetry by Stephen Gosson in The School of Abuse.  The charges are:  Poetry is a waste of time.  Poetry is mother of lies.  It is nurse of abuse.  Plato had rightly banished the poets from his ideal world. 16

Sidney’s Defence of Poetry 1. Sidney dismisses the first charge on the basis that: ◦ There is no learning is so good as poetry in reaching and moving to virtue ◦ no other learning discipline can both teach and move so much as poetry. 2. Sidney rejects the second charge that poets are liars saying that: ◦ Of all writers under the sun the poet is the least liar. ◦ The Astronomer, the Geometrician, the historian, and others, all make false statements. ◦ The poet affirms nothing, and therefore never tells lies. ◦ What the poet presents is not fact but fiction embodying truth of an ideal. 17

Sidney’s Defence of Poetry 3. To the third charge, Sidney replies that poetry does not abuse man’s wit, it is man’s wit that abuses poetry. ◦ The fault lies not with poetry, but with the contemporary abuse of poetry. ◦ The abuse of poetry should not lead to a condemnation of poetry itself. ◦ Poetry is a double edged sword: It can be used badly or well and it is unwise to abandon any kind of knowledge altogether because of the possibility of the abuse of it. 4. The most serious charge that Sidney confronts is that Plato banished poets from his ideal republic. ◦ for Sidney, Plato warned men not against poetry but against its abuse by his contemporary poets who filled the world with wrong opinions about the gods. 18