[ اللغة الانجليزية ] : Third Year's Students Come Here To Be One Hand

[ThE lEgEnD]

المشاركة الأصلية كتبت بواسطة Just a Lady ~

مساء المطرْرْرْ ~

بنات الله يعافيكم ممكن أحد يفهمني كيف نجاوب عن سؤال الباك قراوند حق Philip Sidney و John Dryden ؟

أيش النقاط اللي لازم أتكلم عنها ؟

هي تبي حياته من يوم ما انولد مع حياته التعليميه لين مات مع كتبه و أعماله ؟

:/

مااتوقع ابدددن لانه بيجي السؤال مع الشورت نوتس ومااتوقع يبيله تفاصيل حياته وولادته وهالاشياء اصلا محد يحب يذكرها من الدكاتره

.....احس يمكن اشياء السياسيه الحروب ولا من ذا العلوم..

هو عن عصر
Renaissance & Restoration

وفيها باكقراوند ويذ ريفيرينس
يعني اتوقع والله اعلم شي صار بهالزمن وانعكس ع هالاعمال ولا هالرجال


مدر الله اعلم هاذا استنتاج..

[رحلة عمر]

never give up

الله يعطيك العافية و يوفقك ويسعدك يارب
هذي اخر شي ولا باقي ..؟

[never give up]

رقم 9

Third Year

Last time we started Sidney’s Apology where he starts with speaking about the importance of poetry. It is antiquity; how it is the most ancient time of knowledge and it is the first teacher of knowledge and how people started learning from poetry and he gives different examples. He says that in all countries and in all languages we have poetry and he gives examples from different places, different civilizations, different countries, and different languages like in Turkey, India, Ireland, and in Scotland, different places where each kind of people have their own kind of poetry to show that poetry is something universal; it is found all over the world and everywhere. And he gives example of how poetry was important since antiquity by showing the name of the poet in the old times, the Greeks called him what and the Romans called him what? So, this is what we will start today.
P6
“Among the Romans a poet was called vates, which is as much as a diviner, foreseer, or a prophet.”
Because the poet was supposed to be something important and he was doing a very important job, so they called him vates.
What is the meaning of vates? ‘Vates’ is diviner or foreseer.
And Plato called him diviner; he called him half-prophet. So, to the Romans the poet was considered as a divine person; a person who speaks the words of God, or a foreseer, why? Because he uses his imagination so, he can say something that will happen in the future. He would say if you do this, what will happen. So, he can foretell the future so, he is a foreseer of the future and he is also like a prophet.
P7
“But now let us see how the Greeks named it and how they deemed of it. The Greek called him a Poet,”
What is the meaning of poet? The word ‘poet’ is not English. It is Latin; it comes from the Latin word ‘poiein’. So, ‘poiein’ is poetry in Latin. They called the poet, poiein in Latin which means to make, but Plato’s maker is different. Remember what Aristotle said, not Plato, that a poet is a maker; a poet creates and uses his imagination to invent. So, the English people took this word; a poet.
“which name hath, as the most excellent, gone through other languages. It cometh of this word poiein, which is ‘to make’; wherein I know not whether by luck or wisdom we Englishmen have met with the Greeks in calling him a maker.”
The name of the poet in Greek was to make which something of value. Then, he moves to speak about another point which is all arts depend on nature. sciences were called arts at that time because it was a talent. They did not go to a school of medicine to become a doctor. They say ‘I want to know the art of medicine’. So, they studied the art of medicine. All sciences were called arts because they depended on talents at that time. And you can find an artist with a philosopher and a physician. And this went through even with the Arabs.

لما تلاقي ابن سينا أو جابربن حيان ، ما كان حاجة وحدة كان أكثر من شي في نفس الوقت ، ما كان بروح جامعة معينة و يتعلم شي واحد.

So, everything was called art. What is the material on which all arts depend? It is nature. Any art works on what nature provides whether it is external nature or internal nature. So, nature is the basic material for all arts. And he gives examples from different arts, like astronomy, geometry, mathematics, music, natural philosophy, law, rhetoric, and physics. All those make use of nature.
“Only the poet, disdaining to be tied to any such subjection, lifted up with the vigour of his own invention, doth grow, in effect, into another nature,”
All arts work with nature as it is, but poetry creates another nature. Poets take nature and they add to it from their imagination. So, by so doing this they do what? They create a different kind of nature. Is not this what Aristotle said? What did Aristotle say? Poetry is a representation or an imitation of action. Poetry is representing those manners as they should be, not as they are. What is the meaning of this? The ideal form; the best form. So, is this ideal form really found in nature? Do we find a perfect human being? No. where do we find a perfect human being? Only in poetry. So, poetry presents the ideal things as they should be, not as they are, even if in poetry we have the representation of vicious person, he has to be the ideal vicious person, why? So that when he is punished, he deserves his punishment. So, this is the world of literature; the world of poetry according to Aristotle. Sidney is saying the same thing. He says that the nature that is presented in literature; in poetry, is a better nature than the one that we have in reality, why? Because the poet creates his own nature; he adds to the nature. There is imagination, he adds from his imagination. This is what Wordsworth also says later on. They all ttake the idea from Aristotle. So, here he says, ‘Only the poet, disdaining to be tied to any such subjection’. Now, he is not ties to those subjects of nature as they are. But what does he do? He is lifted up with the vigour of his own invention. What is this vigour? Where does he get it from? From his imagination.
“doth grow, in effect, into another nature, in making things either better than nature bringeth forth, or, quite, forms such as never were in nature,”
This is the nature that is found in poetry. And of course he is Sidney; he is a poet, so of course he does not forget to put an image here and there and a metaphor here and there and he says,
“Nature never set forth the earth in so rich tapestry as divers poets have done;”
He imagines that the poets are like divers and they dive into nature to bring the best of it and represented it from their own imagination to bring a perfect picture of nature. So, he gives another image. He says,
“neither with pleasant rivers, fruitful trees, sweet-smelling flowers, nor whatsoever else may make the too-much-love earth more lovely; her world is brazen, the poets only deliver a golden.”
If I want to describe the world of nature, I will say, for example, it is like a precious valuable metal and he has two metals here; he says, if the world of nature is like bronze; it is like brazen, what would be the world of poetry? It would be golden. He says, ‘her world is brazen, the poets only deliver a golden.’
If I say that nature in the world is very precious and I want to liken it to certain method, I say it is like bronze which is a valuable metal, now if I want to compare this quality of nature which is like bronze to the quality of nature that is found in poetry, I will find that in poetry the nature there is more precious because it is more perfect. And this is why in poetry we have heroes like Cyrus.
Cyrus: hero
Cyrusمن حوال 10 سنين، كان في الكمبيوترات فايروس، أول فايرو يكتشفوا لخبط الدنيا كلها، كان اسموا
They called it Cyrus because it damaged.
So, in poetry the poets create Cyruses; they create heroes, why? To teach people. Now, these heroes are perfect models for people to follow whether they are good or bad. If they are good, they follow and if they are bad to avoid. Then, he moves to Aristotle and he quotes Aristotle a lot and he says that he agrees with Aristotle.


P9
“Poesy, therefore, is an art of imitation, for so Aristotle termeth it in his word Mimesis,”
Mimesis: This is the word for imitation. This is the Latin word given by Aristotle for imitation. Aristotle said poetry is imitation of action. The word Aristotle used for imitation in Latin was the word ‘Mimesis’. It is very famous word and nowadays, we have ‘to mimic’. You can have it in English ‘mimicking’. What is the meaning of ‘to mimic’? to imitate. And there are many kinds of arts depending on mimicking like the pantomime. (Panto) one person without a voice. Mime: imitate. So, he was the first to use the ‘Mimesis’.
“that is to say, a representing, counterfeiting, or figuring forth; to speak metaphorically, a speaking picture, with this end, to teach and delight.”
He said that poetry is imitation. It is Mimesis. And it has an aim. What is the aim of poetry? To teach and delight. Now, he says that there are three kinds of arts that teach. What are these arts? The first one is religion; religion teaches. It is an art and teaches. It is given through verse; it is given through poetry. Philosophy is given also through poetry and it teaches. And here he says that philosophy has three kinds; moral philosophy, natural philosophy, and historical philosophy. And they all teach. But poetry teaches and delights. So, this is what he says here,
“Of this have been three several kinds. The chief, both in antiquity and excellency, were they that did imitate the inconceivable excellence of God. Such were David in is Psalms; Solomon in his Song of Songs, in his Ecclesiastes and Proverbs; Moses and Deborah in their Hymns;”
These are different religions which imitate the words of God, like David in is Psalms; Solomon in his Song of Songs, Moses, all those prophets who imitate the words of God.


P10
“The second kind is of them that deal with matters philosophical: either moral, as Tyrtaeus, Phocylides, and Cato; or natural as Lucretius and Virgil’s George; or astronomical as Manilius and Pontanus; or historical,”
These all are arts that teach. But the third indeed is the poet.
“For these third be they which most properly do imitate to teach and delight; and to imitate borrow nothing of what is, hath been, or shall be; but range, only reined with learned discretion, into the divine consideration of what may be and should be.”
This is how it teaches and he takes this delight to woo an end. What is the difference between poetry, philosophy and religion? delight. Now, what is the meaning of delight according to Sidney? To delight is not just to make happy but to delight according to Sidney is to move people to action. If you are delighted, you will be convinced, so you will imitate. This is the imitation; the connection between delight and imitation. You can just read, but you never try to imitate, why? Because you are not convinced; you are not delighted. But to be delighted is a step towards action. So, this is what he says here.
“These be they that, as the first and most noble sort, may justly be termed vates; so these are waited on in the excellentest language and best understandings with the fore-described name of poets. For these, indeed, do merely make to imitate , and imitate both to delight and teach, and delight to move men to take that goodness in hand, which without delight they would fly as from a stranger; and teach to make them know that goodness whereunto they are moved;”
What is the use of telling you that this is good or bad without making you do the good and stay away from the bad? Now he moves to this important thing. ‘To imitate’ is to teach. What the aim of imitation? It is to teach. And poetry not only teaches us, but it also delights. What is this delight? It is to move people to act because if you are taught without being moved to action, then what is the use of being taught? You have to use what you have learned into action; connect and write, use all the information and all the knowledge you have in your mind. Use it and act. If you do not do this, there is no use of what you are taking. This is Sidney. We have to benefit from those people; these are philosophers and critics, they have said something that has lived from 16th century up till now. There must be something of value in it. We have to look for that value and make use of it. Then, he moves to another point and that is the different kinds of poetry. He says the different arts that teach, the last one is poetry. What does poetry do? It teaches and delights. How does it teach and how does it delight? What are the different kinds of poetry? So, he is speaking about poetry. He says,
“These be subdivided into sundry more special denominations. The most notable be the heroic, lyric, tragic, comic, satiric, iambic, elegiac, pastoral, and certain others, some of these being termed according to the matter they deal with, some by the sorts of verses they liked best to write in-”

Some of them are named or termed after the kind they are describing and some according to the meter they are using, but all they are different kinds of poetry which is different from verse; poetry is something and verse is another thing. What is the meaning of verse? Rhymed poetry is verse. Not all poetry is verse. Shakespeare’s dramatic poetry was written in blank verse. Many of the modern poets do not have particular rhyme. So, not all poetry is verse and not all verse is poetry. Poetry teaches and delights. Sometimes we have rhymes, not all sentences, that are rhyming, are called poetry. You can have to two words that rhymed that have no connection. You can have two sentences with rhyme in them, but they do not teach anything and they do not delight. So, here he says,
“Indeed but apparelled, verse being but an ornament and no cause to poetry,”
It is an ornament; it is a way of decoration. Itis rhyming.
“since there have been many most excellent poets that never versified, and now swarm many versifiers that need never answer to the name of poets.”
Many poets at Sidney’s time were writing what appears to be poetry, but it was only rhyme; verse but not poetry. There is no depth in it; there is no meaning, there is no delight and so on.
So, he is explaining here the difference between rhyme and verse and poetry because later on this particular point is going to be used in the objection. So, I will not explain it again. Now let us go another thing concerning poetry. What is the aim of poetry according to Sidney? Now all those critics, who spoke about poetry, spoke about what is the nature of poetry, what is the aim of poetry, who is the poet, what is a poem, and this is why we call them critics. But they never actually criticize the works of other people. This is why we say the criticism as a genre, that we are doing now, was only found in the 20th century. It was not found then. Then, they were writing about poetry. When Wordsworth wrote, he wrote about poetry. He did not write about anybody else’s poetry, but about what he was doing. So, Sidney here is trying to explain to people what he thinks poetry should be.
Now, he moves to what he thinks to be the aim of poetry.
“Now, therefore, it shall not be amiss, first to weight this latter sort of poetry by his works, and then by his parts; and if in neither of these anatomies he be condemnable,”
Now, he says if we take the poem and we try to find out what it speaks about,
“I hope we shall obtain a more favourable sentence.”
What will we find if we read a poem? If we read a poem, what should we look for? What is the aim that the poet writes the poem for?

1-Purification of wit.
2-Enriching of memory and enabling of judgement.
3-Enlarging of conceit, which commonly we call learning, under what name soever it come forth or to what immediate end soever it be directed.
(this is an imagination, having many images and enlarging our knowledge because the more we have conceits, metaphors and images, the more we gain knowledge. The more we connect between words, the more we come to know.
4-To lead and draw us to as high perfection as our degenerates souls, made worse by their clayey lodgings.

But what is the final; the most important of all of these is to lift our soul. Now, here of course as a poet he gives it in a kind of metaphor. And this is reminding us of Plato’s division of the soul, the inferior and the superior. But according to the 16th century and the beginning of modern science, the body was divided into two parts; the higher which includes the mind /reason and the lower which includes the emotions and the desires and the instincts. Now, our body is made of what? Our body is made of clay. So, he calls it here the clayey lodging. ‘Lodging’ is a place to live in. What is living in that body which is made of clay? The soul. So, poetry lifts up the soul towards perfection which our bodies are falling it (the soul) down by its desires. Do you remember the chain of being? Now, man is in state where above him there are angels and below him animals. If he tries to transcend, he is perfecting himself and trying to be an angel. And if he is degrading himself, he is trying to become like an animal. So, the soul inside the body, the body falls it down to the animalistic desires whereas its reason is following it upward. What is the thing that feeds the reason and nourishes the reason? According to Sidney, it is poetry because it is giving the knowledge that lifts it up. He is using this image to show the quality of poetry and the aim; what poetry should be doing. Now, this is the aim of poetry. In order to show this noble aim of poetry, he makes a comparison poetry, philosophy, and history.

P12
“wherein, if we can show, the poet is worthy to have it before any other competitors.
Among whom as principal challengers step forth the moral philosophers; whom, me thinketh, I see coming toward me with a sullen gravity,”
So, he starts with philosophy. He gives first the different kinds of sciences and arts and he says that poetry comes above all of them. And from all these arts, the best arts that really teach are philosophy, history and poetry. And in order to show that poetry is the best, he makes this comparison with philosophy and history. He starts with philosophy saying that what does philosophy teach? Now, the aim of philosophy is to teach, to teach what? What is the utmost value that he should learn in our life? What is the best kind of manner? What is morality? What is the best thing that we should be learning? Virtue. So, all kinds of learning should be teaching virtue. And this is the aim of philosophy. Philosophy teaches virtue. Why did Plato banish poets? Because it does not teach virtue. It keeps you away from virtue and from truth. So, here he says,
“These men, casting largess as they go of Definition, Divisions, and Distinctions, with a scornful interrogative do soberly ask whether it be possible to find any path so ready to lead a man to virtue, as that which teacheth what virtue is,”
In order to teach virtue, what did they do? They teach what is virtue; the definition of virtue. Philosophy teaches the definition of virtue. Each philosopher gives his own definition.
P13
“and teacheth it not only by delivering forth his very being, his causes and effects, but also by making known his enemy, vice, which must be destroyed, and his cumbersome servant, Passion, which must be mastered, by showing the generalities that containeth it,”
Philosophy is not only teaching what virtue is. But to explain what virtue is, they have to give also together with virtue its opposite; its enemy, vice which must be destroyed. You have to learn virtue and destroy vice. How would you destroy vice? What is the main element of the body that serves vice? Passions. So, they teach virtue and its causes and effects and they teach also its enemy; vice, and it cumbersome servant, passion. How do they teach this? By showing the generalities that contain it. They give general ideas; abstract ideas. So, this is the main aim of philosophy= to teach virtue, vice and to speak about passions in general ideas; how to be virtuous, what are the causes of becoming virtuous and what are the effects.
What is about history? What does history teach?
“The historian scarcely giveth leisure to the moralist to say so much,”
The historian is not a moralist. The philosopher is a moralist; he teaches virtue, so this is morality. But the historian is not a moralist. The historian simply tells you what is happening, giving you facts whether what is happening good or bad. He does not comment on that. He does not tell you to do this or not to do that. He only gives you facts.
“but that he, laden with old mouse-eaten records, authorizing himself for the most part upon the notable foundation of hearsay, better acquainted with thousand years ago than with the present age,”
So, the historian depends on what? Does he depend on new facts or old facts? On hearsay; what we inherit, very old facts. But the historian does not speak about what is now or what is coming in the future. So, he is better acquainted with a thousand years ago. The historian is acquainted only with history; what happened in the past. But he never tells us about virtue. If people are to be virtuous, what should be doing or the actions that are happening, are they good or bad, he never tells us this. He only simply tells us what is happening.
Sidney as a poet again imagines a comparison between the historian and the philosopher. He imagines a conversation between them and he has the historian here speaking to the audience comparing himself with the philosopher. So, let us see what he is saying and of course from this we come to learn what philosophy is and what history is.
“The philosopher, saith he, ‘teacheth a disputative virtue, but I do an active.”
The philosopher only teaches virtue in abstract general way. But I teach people by giving them examples; giving them action.
“His virtue is excellent in the dangerless Academy of Plato, but mine showeth forth her honourable face in the battles.”
When do people learn philosophy? In schools and academies which is very safe. You are here sitting and learning and there is no danger. So, philosophy is taught in academies which are dangerous. But where does the historian get his material from? From history; from real action.
“He teacheth virtue by certain abstract consideration, but I only bid you follow the footing of them that have gone before you. Old-aged experience goeth beyond the fine-witted philosopher; but I give the experience of many ages.”
Now, the philosopher is giving you his own opinion; his own experience, which depends on his age. If he is an old man, then he is going to use his own experience to try to convince you. But in history, the historian depends on the old experiences of all the people who came before.
“Lastly, if he make the song-book, I put the learner’s hand to the lute;”
So, the philosopher writes the book; shows you the words. He writes the sons; the words, but it is the historian who shows you the way as if he has an a music instrument like a lute and he puts your finger on the keys to show how to play the lute. The philosopher tells you only what the lute is. He writes the words, but can you sing those words. It is the history that shows you the way.
“If I be the guide, I am the light.”
Philosopher guides you and tells you where to go. If you go this way, you will reach virtue and if you go that way you will reach vice. He tells you where to go. But how to do that? This is the history. History gives you the light and shows you the way. It lights your way to tell you put your step here and put your step there. So, this is the comparison between history and philosophy.
What’s about poetry? Where does poetry stand from all this?
“Now whom shall we find, since the question standeth for the highest form in the school of learning, to be moderator?”
Who here is the best in the school of learning? Who is to be called the moderator?
P14
“Truly, as me seemeth, the poet; and if not a moderator, even the man that ought to carry the title from them both, and much more from all other serving sciences. Therefore compare we the poet with the historian and with the moral philosopher; and if he go beyond them both, no other human skill can match him.”
He will say why the poet is better than the philosopher and the historian.
“The philosopher therefore and the historian are they which would win the goal, the one by precept, the other by example;”
If we compare philosophy and history with all other arts, they are the best in teaching. One teaches virtue by giving the precept; the idea and the concept, and the other by showing the example which is history. They both teach virtue; one by telling you what virtue is, giving the concept of the virtue, and the other by showing you the examples of virtuous people. But they do not tell you what to do.
“but both, not having both, do both halt.”
One has the idea without the example and the other has the example without teaching you the concept or the idea.
“For the philosopher, setting down with thorny argument the bare rule, is so hard of utterance and so misery to be conceived,”
The philosophy gives you hard words to be understood. Philosophy is very difficult.
“that one that hath no other guide but him shall wade in him till he be old, before he shall find sufficient cause to be honest.”
If I want to be honest and I want to be virtuous and I am following philosophy, it will take me a long time to understand, so I will be very old when I will become honorable and honest. So, the road of philosophy is too long because it is very difficult. And this is what he will say later on. He says, only the learned can understand philosophy.
“For his knowledge standeth so upon the abstract and general, that happy is that man who may understand him,”
Philosophy is abstract.
“On the other side, the historian, wanting the precept, is so tide, not to what should be but to what is, to the particular truth of things and not to the general reason of things, that his example draweth no necessary consequence,”
He gives the example, but what is the consequence of the example? What is the lesson I learn from this example the historian never thinks? He leaves it for you to discovery.
“Now doth the peerless poet perform both;”
He gives the concept and the example, how? By giving what he calls here the perfect picture.

“for whatsoever the philosopher saith should be done, he giveth a perfect picture of it in some one by whom he presupposeth it was done, so as 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,”
The philosopher describes the perfect picture only by words whereas the poet describes the perfect picture by images; examples. So, this is done by images and by different examples and we have here many examples given by history. The n he says another thing which is different from history that in poetry we have poetic justice. In history, history tells us only what has been done without showing us the consequence, without showing us the result, but in poetry we have the result which is in poetic justice; the reward of the good and the punishment of the bad.
P16
“For conclusion, I say the philosopher teacheth, but he teacheth obscurely, so as the learned only can understand him; that is to say, he teacheth them that are already taught. But the poet is the food for the tenderest stomachs;”
(For the weak mind) He makes them understand.
“But now may it be alleged that if this imagining of matters be so fit for the imagination,”
Aristotle himself calls poetry very philosophical, why? Because poetry deals with universal consideration and particular examples. The philosophy teaches and poetry gives examples, this is why it is a perfect picture; it gives perfect patterns; perfect examples to be followed and this is the best way of teaching which is to move to action. And he concludes this two pages later.
At the end of page19:
“I conclude, therefore, that he excelleth history, not only in furnishing the mind with knowledge, but in setting it forward to that which deserveth to be called and accounted good; which setting forward, and moving to well-doing, indeed setteth the laurel crown upon the poet as victorious, not only of the historian, but over the philosopher, howsoever in teaching it may be questionable.”
In conclusion, he says that poetry is better because first of all it gives the idea and the example and it excels that by showing the way, and by moving people to act. So, this is a comparison he gives between philosophy and history.

[never give up]

The 10th lecture: د.نجلاء
Now let us move to Sidney. The last thing we discussed was the comparison made by Sidney between poetry, philosophy, and history. And the part where we stopped was when he gives examples, he says:
P20
“Now therein of all sciences is our poet the monarch.”
He is the most important person.
And he gives different arts and different sciences. Until then, they called all sciences arts until the scientific revolution when science was separated from arts. So, during antiquity with Plato and Aristotle and at 15th and 16th centuries we still call all sciences arts because they needed talents. They did not go to a faculty of engineering to become engineer but they became engineers because it was a kind of art they developed it. So, all those sciences were considered arts. So, here he says, of all the other sciences of arts and he mentioned music and different kinds of music. We have poetry as the best. Of all those kinds, poetry describes nature better than all other sciences and arts because it creates another nature; it does not simply copy nature but it creates another kind of nature which is better. And he describes here the element of delight. What makes poetry better than other arts is that it does not only teach like Aristotle says but it has also this element of delight.
“That imitation whereof poetry is, hath the most conveniency to nature of all other; insomuch that, as Aristotle saith, those things which in themselves are horrible, as cruel battles, unnatural monsters, are made in poetical imitation delightful.”
So, this is the element that makes poetry superior to all other kinds of arts, it is that it makes things delightful. It presents a delightful nature because it does not simply copy nature as it is. The poet creates and adds from his imagination the element that makes a work of art more delightful even if he is describing the most horrible scenes yet he adds from his imagination that makes these scenes delightful.
Now, he continues the same idea of delight and he says that poetry like philosophy and history is a teacher of knowledge. What is the knowledge; the information, that is included in all kinds of learning? What is the most important thing that any kind of learning should teach? What is the moral that all kinds of learning should be teaching? Virtue. So, what makes you virtuous and what makes you vicious and how to become virtuous and how to stay away from being vicious, why? Because this will lead you to heaven and this will lead you to hell. This is the basic learning we get from any kind of learning whether it is philosophy, religion, or history. What do we learn? To imitate the good and to stay away from the bad. So, this is the basic learning in any kind of art or science that teaches. Now, according to Sidney, poetry is teaching like philosophy and all other kinds of learning; it is teaching virtue but it is not only teaching it, like philosophy, but it is presenting it in a delightful way. This makes people move to action. It is not like philosophy; philosophy says (this is good and this is bad), but what makes you do that, this is poetry. According to Sidney, poetry moves people to action, which makes poetry superior to all other kinds of learning. And that it is teaching virtue in a delightful manner that moves people towards action. Let us see where he says this.
P23
“By these, therefore, examples and reasons, I think it may be manifest that the poet, with that same hand of delight, doth draw the mind more effectually than any other art doth.’
All arts are supposed to teach and here the poet with a hand of delight teaches people more.
“And so a conclusion not unfitly ensueth: that as a virtue is the most excellent resting-place for all worldly learning to make his end of, so poetry, being the most familiar to teach it, and most princely to move towards it, in the most excellent work is the most excellent workman.”
What he concludes here is that all learnings should be teaching virtue. And poetry teaches virtue but it teaches it in a delightful manner and by so doing, it moves people towards virtue; to be virtuous, and this is why it is the most excellent work and the poet is the most excellent workman.
Now he moves to the parts and kinds of poetry.
“Now in his parts, kinds, or species, it is to be noted that some poesies have coupled together two or three kinds,”
What are these kinds of poetry? At first we have tragical and comical and then we have pastoral, elegiac, satiric, comic, tragic, lyric, and heroic. And then we have the conclusion of the first part.
P27
“Since, then, poetry is of all human learnings the most ancient and of most fatherly antiquity,”
The whole paragraph is very long and it is a conclusion of the first part.
There are no new points that I have to explain in the parts that I do not read in class but this does not mean that you do not read and study. The parts I skip, I skip them because there is nothing new to say. I do not have time to read everything. But when I say this is a conclusion, you have to read it because from it you can study the main sentences that you can use in your exam.
Then, we come to the second part of his essay and this is concerned with the objections that were raised against poetry at Sidney’s time by Gosson first and his contemporary critics who attacked poetry and used Plato’s argument. And of course Sidney defends against those accusations.
“First, truly, I note not only in these misomousoi, poet-haters, but in all that kind of people who seek a praise by dispraising others, that they do prodigally spend a great many wandering words in quips and scoffs,”
Now these people who are attacking poetry he considers them as fools because they do not understand poetry; they are just attacking poetry without good knowledge of it and he calls them good fools.
Now, the first accusation against poetry comes in the following paragraph:
“But that which giveth greatest scope to their scorning humours is rhyming and versing.”
He says that people are laughing at poetry and it has become as he said the laughing scoff of children. Why was poetry turning into something to laugh at? So, the first accusation is that poetry is full of rhyme. And what is the difference between poetry and verse? We usually use them together for the same meaning, but they are different. What is the difference between them?
Can poetic language have rhyme or not? If it does not have rhyme, how do we know it is poetic? It is figurative language. Here Sidney is writing an essay; he is not writing a poem but he is using figures of speech. He is using figurative language. It is very poetic. Shakespeare wrote most of his plays in blank verse. We say it is poetic drama or dramatic poetry. So, it is a kind of poetry. Verse is what distinguishes the rhyme, and the rhythm, whether it is end of line rhyme or interior rhyme or the division of a sentence into feet and each foot is divided into syllables, how many syllables and each syllable is either stressed or unstressed, we look for the accentuated syllables and so on. So, this is verse. But it is not poetry. Poetry can make use of verse but verse is not always poetry. You can have two lines rhyming with no meaning. So, it does not necessarily be poetry and this is what Sidney is figuring here. He is going to tell us that not all verse is poetry and not all poetry is given in verse. But what is more important to Sidney, verse or poetry? Poetry is more important. Because people are used to use verse in poetry, so it became one of the elements that are found in poetry. And people at his time were laughing at this kind of rhyming and versing, saying anybody can write two rhyming lines and would call himself a poet. This was actually happening at that time. What was happening at that time? What was the most outstanding quality found in the 16th century? What was the most famous kind of poetry? Sonnets, lyrics, and ballads. They were fond of music; songs. So, everybody wrote rhyme to be song. Shakespeare in all his plays has songs in them and sonnets. And they all wrote sonnets sequences. This was the most famous kind. So, the critics at that time were criticizing this saying that poetry of the time was mainly verse. Now you have taken the sonnets of that time, what was the most important topic of those sonnets? Courtly love. What was courtly love about? The situations of courtly love, what were they? Everyone was falling in love with the wrong person and this is why they were rejected. Because they cannot continue the relation but they have relations. This was the corruption of the court at that time. People at that time in the court were the people who can read and write because the common people cannot read and write. So, who was writing poetry at that time? The nobility; the people of the court, who can read and write, who were educated. What kind of poetry did they write? Courtly love, songs and sonnets. And then why did they write songs and sonnets? Why did they write about the courtly love? They use them as letters to their lovers. Poetry was very important at that time; it was a way to a woman’s heart. So, all people at that time were trying to write poetry and if they could not, they would go and buy poems.
“But that which giveth greatest scope to their scorning humours is rhyming and versing.”
So, many people are making fun of poetry because it is full of rhyme and verse. He says there is a difference between rhyme and verse. Not all poetry is rhyme and not all verse is poetry. But if we have verse in poetry, what is wrong in there? He says,
P29
“It is already said, it is not rhyming and versing that maketh poesy. One may be a poet without versing, and a versifier without poetry. But yet presuppose it were inseparable truly it were an inseparable commendation.”
If we do not separate between verse and poetry, if we poetry that have a verse in it, what is wrong in that? He says that verse takes music. And what is music? Between brackets he defines the music.
“(music I say, the most divine striker of the senses,)”
So, if I have music in poetry which strikes the senses and alerts the senses and makes people want to move and want to act, what is wrong in that?
“thus much is undoubtedly true, that if reading be foolish without remembering, memory being the only treasurer of knowledge, those words which are fittest for memory are likewise most convenient for knowledge.”
Now, music helps people to memorize. Wherever you have rhymed words, it is easy to remember them. If I have two passages; one written in prose and the other written in verse, which one you are going to memorize quickly and will stick to your mind? Verse.
So, if verse with its music helps people to memorize, then what is better than a poem which includes knowledge that is going to stick to your mind because of its music? What is wrong in that? So, here he is defending verse and rhyme saying that they are different. Verse is different from poetry. But if we have verse, what is wrong in that? It helps people to memorize and it makes the knowledge stick in your mind; stick in the memory.
“now that verse far exceedeth prose in the knitting up of the memory, the reason is manifest;”
If we have a passage of prose and a passage of verse, which of them will stick to the memory better? The reason is manifest.
“the words being so set, as one cannot be lost but the whole work fails.”
When I have a whole poem with a whole meaning given to us as one whole, the whole meaning will stick to our mind. But sometimes, you read a whole text with many ideas, you cannot memorize all but if it is all concentrated in a rhymed verse, then it will stick better to your mind.
At the end of the same paragraph, he says,
“So that verse being in itself sweet and orderly, and being best for memory,”
Verse makes the words arranged in an orderly manner and it is sweet; it has a nice sound in it. And it sticks to the mind better than any other form.
“the only handle of knowledge, it must be in jest that any man can speak against it.”
So, since it gives us knowledge, it is the best way to handle knowledge; it is the best way to give knowledge. So, why do people speak against verse? Why do people attack verse?
Then, he moves to the following accusation. This was the first accusation; versing and rhyming. The second accusation is a combined accusation made of five points. So, you can divide the accusations into two or you can divide them into six. You take (versing and rhyming) as number on and the following five as two, three, four, five, and six. Or one and two, and two is divided into five. It is up to you.
“Now, then, go we to the most important imputations laid to the poor poets: for aught I can yet learn they are these.
First, that there being many other more fruitful knowledge, a man might better spend his time in them than in this.”
So, the first of these accusations is that poetry is a waste of time; that man can find better things to do with his time, to spend his time in better ways and his mind would be devoted to another kind of learning better than poetry.
“Secondly, that it is the mother of lies.
Thirdly, that it is the nurse of abuse, infecting us with many pestilent desires,”
And lastly and chiefly, they cry out with an open mouth, as if they had overshot Robin Hood, that Plato banished them out of his Commonwealth.”
So, these are the accusations; waste of time, mother of lies, nurse of abuse, and Plato has banished the poets from his republic.
Now, let us see he answers them one by one.
“First, to the first: that a man might better spend his time is a reason indeed; but it does, that no learning is so good as that which teacheth and moveth to virtue, and that none can both teach and move thereto so much as poesy,”
How can it be a waste of time if we say it is a best way of moving people to virtue?
If all kinds of learning are supposed to be teaching virtue, poetry does not only teach but it even moves people to virtue and it is better than other arts. So, how can we say it is a waste of time and there is another kind of art that we can waste our time in it better than poetry or spend our time in it?
“then is the conclusion manifest that ink and paper cannot be to a more profitable purpose employed.”
There is no other purpose better that writing poetry, that would make me waste my time and employ ink and paper. If you want to write a poem, you use ink and paper. So, it is not a waste of time.
“And certainly, though a man should grant their first assumption, it should follow, (me thinks), very unwillingly, that good is not good because better is better.”
If philosophy and history are good, poetry is better. And good is not good if better is better. If sometimes I have an hour and I am given the choice to read a work of philosophy, a work of history, or a work of poetry, according to Sidney, which one I chose? He says, philosophy and history are good but poetry is better. So, good is not good if there is something better.
“But I still and utterly deny that there is sprung out of earth a more fruitful knowledge.”
Nothing is more fruitful than poetry.
“To the second, therefore, that they should be the principal liars, I answer paradoxically, but truly, I think truly, that of all writers under the sun the poet is the least liar,”
Poetry is accused of being liar. He says how can the poet be a liar if he never says or never affirms that what he is saying is the truth?
In order to be lying, it means that you are not saying the truth. Now, the poet says, I am creating, I am using my imagination, and I am inventing. So, what is the truth here? Things as they really happen? He never says that. He never copies nature; he never copies things as they really happen. So, he never says that you have to believe what I say to be the true. So, how can he be lying?
“for the poet, he nothing affimeth, and therefore never lieth.”
He never affirms anything. He says I create.
“The poet never maketh any circles about your imagination,”
He never says that you have to imagine what I am saying to be true. Can you reach the meaning of the poem directly? Does the poet tell all people what he wants to say directly in a poem? Never. But he leaves every reader to use his imagination to reach whatever meaning he wants. So, he never affirms this is right and this is wrong. He never says this. So, how can he be lying?!
“The poet never maketh any circles about your imagination, to conjure you to believe for true what he writeth. He citeth not authorities of other histories, but even for his entry calleth the sweet Muses to inspire into him a good invention,”
Before writing, he asks the Muses to come and help him to invent. So, whatever he is writing, it is an invention of all his mind; it is not something that he obliges people to believe. So, how can be lying?! And he gives an example. He says, if people believe what he says to be true, whose fault is that?
Let me give you an example which he gives here. He says, if I have a child and I take him to the theater and the child watches the play performed and on the stage there is a door and on the door it is written Thebes, if you open that door, you will go to Thebes, if the child believes that if you go to the stage and open the door, he will find Thebes, whose problem is that? Whose fault is that? The play, the writer or the child? It is the child fault that he believed. Whereas another person who is sitting next to him, he know that this is not true. So, is it the writer who is lying or the person who is not understanding?
Thebes= طيبة
So, he says if it is written on the door and the person believes and here he says the child to show ignorance, innocence, you can easily be fooled. If grown-up believes, then he is stupid. It does not mean that the writer is lying by saying that this place is there; it is the child who is believing something that is not true. So, it is not the poet’s problem.
“What child is there that, coming to a play, and seeing Thebes written in great letters upon an old door, doth believe that it is Thebes? If then a man can arrive, at the child’s age, to know that the poet’s persons and doings are but pictures what should be,”
If a man would understand to be like this, then he is of the age of the child. If you believe that this is true, then you are mistaken; it is your own problem, not the poet’s problem because all poets use names and things as he says here, ‘not affirmatively, but allegorically and figuratively.’
The critics of his time, who accused poetry of being lying, say the proof of these lies is that they give the character’s names of true people, which is true. Now, let men give you an example, not from Sidney, but from your own studying. You have studied Shakespeare’s play; “Hamlet”. Where did Shakespeare get the name of Hamlet from? From real life; from history. There was a prince called Hamlet in Denmark. But is the story of Shakespeare the true story of Hamlet? No. he only borrowed certain elements, names, figures, situations, and events, but he turned them into a play and he added from his own imagination for the dramatic convenience, to make a play; to make a story. Now, if anybody after reading the story thinks that this story is the real story of prince Hamlet, whose problem would it be? Is it Shakespeare’s problem or the reader’s? It is the reader’s. We know before reading it that it is just a play or before going to see it on the stage, it is only a play. And if you think of it for a while, this particular play has been performed on the stage hundreds of times by hundreds of actors in hundreds of languages and each time with a different interpretation, why? If it was the real story, nobody could have changed it, but because it is not a real story, every reader can interpret it in different way. So, we can act it in a different way. So, how can Shakespeare be a liar? Can we call Shakespeare a liar? No. So, this is what Sidney is explaining to us; that in poetry we can change history, but in history we cannot change.
“But hereto is replied that the poets give names to men they write of, which argueth a conceit of an actual truth, and so, not being, proveth a falsehood.”
People say that writers give names to the characters; they are lying. They are not giving the truth and this is why the play is a falsehood; it is not true.
So, he answers this, three lines later.
“Their naming of men is but to make their picture the more lively,”
Any writer cannot bring characters on the stage, saying first character, second character, and third character. He has to give them names, so that they would be like reality, not exactly reality. And this is to make their plays more lively; like life.
“and not to build any history,”
The poet is not writing history.
“painting men, they cannot leave men nameless.”
By creating characters, he cannot keep them nameless; he has to give them name. So, this is done to make the characters more lively.
The third accusation:
“Their third is, how much it abuseth men’s wit, training it to wanton sinfulness and lustful love.”
Remember that all those accusations were said by Plato, but for different reasons. Plato here in this accusation said that poetry addresses the inferior part of the soul which is emotion and it weakens the soldiers in battles and people in real life. The people in Sidney’s time did not use this same argument; they use only the title, it is abusing people for different reasons according to the age. He said according to that age, the main topic of all the poems was love. But what kind of love was it? He said courtly love which was lustful love, not true love. People accused poetry of that time, of abusing people. When you are speaking about lust, vanity and about bad behavior, then you are abusing people, abusing honest people, abusing good people, so this is not a good kind of poetry. So, here Sidney is answering that saying that it is true that there are certain poems which include lust instead of love, but is this the fault of poetry or the fault of the writer? It is the fault of the poet; the person who is writing this poem. He says that there were many poems at that time written which were not good poems; they are only written to impress a lady. And even they went and bought them. They were not expressing their own emotions; they were taking expressions putting them in letters and sending them.
Poetry is abusing men’s wit by training their minds to think of the sinful and lustful love. And he says that most of the comedies, the lyrics and the elegies are full of those kinds of poems. But alas!
“Alas! Love, I would thou couldst as well defend thyself as thou canst offend others!”
He is wondering. He says يا خسارةif love can defend itself as people are accusing it. Many people are accusing poor love and love cannot defend itself.
“I would those on whom thou dost attend could either put thee away, or yieldgood reason why they keep thee! But grant love of beauty to be a beastly fault,”
Now, love is something beautiful, this is the true love. And love here is not only love between man and woman. We have friendly love, we have parental love, and we have sisters-and-brothers love. So, love itself as a value and as a human passion is something good. People have to love each other. If they hate each other, الدنيا حتولع. So, it is the human passion that has to be found between people. but if people misuse it, then this is wrong. So, here he says, love here is something beautiful. The love of beauty has been changed and turned and accused of being beastly. What is the meaning of ‘beastly’? beastly= animalistic (like animals). People are behaving like animals, only thinking of lust, not love.
“(although it be very hard, since only man, and no beast, hath that gift to discern beauty);”
Beasts do not have the love. Love is a human quality. So, how can we describe a human quality as being beastly when beasts do not have this quality?
“I say that not only love, but lust, but vanity, but, scurrility, possesseth many leaves of the poets’ books;”
It is true that many of the poems that were written at that time; many of the pages of books of poetry at that time were full of lust and scurrility.
“yet think I, when this is granted, they will find their sentence may with good manners put the last words foremost, and not say that poetry abuses man’s wit, but man’s wet abuseth poetry.”
It is man’s way of thinking that is abusing poetry. Those who are using poetry for that reason are the people to be blamed. These are the people who are abusing poetry, not poetry is abusing people. And he gives an example for that (the sword). And you have many examples. You can take many examples from there. He says let us take the example of the sword. Sword is like the poetry. The power of the words is like a sword. If this sword is used to kill a person, is this a good or a bad means of using? And the person would be punished for it. And if the same sword is used to defend one’s country or one’s honor, then it is a good use. So, the sword in itself can be used positively or negatively. It depends on the person and how he is using it.
So, he gives the sword as an example to show how poetry can be misused. And he gives many examples of works of art that are good and others are bad where poetry was used in a correct way or in a bad way. Then, we come to the last accusation which is Plato’s accusation.

P35
“But now, indeed, my burden is great, that Plato’s name is laid upon, whom, I must confess, of all philosophers I have ever esteemed most worthy of reverence; and with great reason, since of all philosophers he is the most poetical.”
So, now he has to answer back Plato’s accusation which he considers to be the most serious and the most important because he likes Plato and he considers him the most poetical of all philosophers, because Plato was a poet and in teaching philosophy, he used poetry. So, he says why did Plato banish poetry? Plato gave us his reasons. Now, Sidney here is giving us different reasons for why Plato banished poetry. One time I got this in an exam; what are the reasons given by Plato and what are the reasons given by Sidney? And they are different; they are not the same.

كتير. يعني مش حنذاكر كل واحد لوحده. حتربطي بينهم. Comparisons في الامتحان حتلاقوا

backgroundيلي عملناها ، حيجي سؤال في الامتحان عن ال Backgrounds كمان حاجة تانية: كل ال

*(You have two backgrounds; Renaissance background for Sidney then, we have Dryden; we have restoration background. This will come in a paragraph. Prepare a paragraph about the Renaissance background and a paragraph about a restoration background. In the paragraph, you have to mention Sidney and to give examples of what he has done.)
Now, how he did answer Plato’s accusations and how he explained the reasons for Plato’s banishment of poetry. He says,
“First, truly, a man might maliciously object that Plato, being a philosopher, was a natural enemy of poets.”
Now, the first reason is that Plato was a philosopher and philosophers were natural enemies to poets. So, as a philosopher he has to banish poetry. And he explains how he the philosophers came to hate poetry.
“For indeed, after the philosophers had picked out of the sweet mysteries of poetry the right discerning true points of knowledge, they forthwith, putting it in method, and making a school-art of that which the poets did only teach by a divine delightfulness, beginning to spurn at their guides, like ungrateful prentices were not content to set up shops for themselves, but sought by all means to credit their masters;”
All the philosophers, where did they first learn and where did they gain their knowledge? From poetry. Where did they take their methods from? From poetry. So, they learned from poetry and then, they constructed their school of philosophy based on poetry, and then, they used even the methods of poetry and after sometime, like bad students; bad prentices, discredited their masters. They turned against their masters and they were trying to prove that they are even better. So, they tried to discredit their teachers; they tried to say that we know better and this is why of course they show enmity to poetry.
“which by the force of delight being barred them, the less they could overthrow them the more they hated them.”
Were they really able to show that poetry is not as good as philosophy? They did not succeed. So, what did they do? They became the enemies of poetry. They hated poetry. Because they could not prove that they are better than poetry. Now, what is the proof of that? We have an example here is given to us by Sidney, saying that in the time of Plato people hated philosophy. So, philosophers hated poetry, and people hated philosophers and loved poetry. As an example for this we have Homer. Homer was a great poet. More than seven cities at that time were quarreling to whom Homer belong. Each city was trying to say Homer belongs to our city, why? They were trying to show that because he is so great, he belongs to our city. They were proud of that; they were honored to have Homer a citizen in them. But at the same time, they banished philosophers; they kicked them out of their cities.
“For, indeed, they found for Homer seven cities strove who should have him for their citizen; where many cities banished philosophers, as not fit members to live among them.”
This is the main reason Sidney gives for Plato’s banishment because he is a philosopher and he hated poetry. Why did he hate poetry? Because as philosopher, they started as poets but turned against poetry and hated it because people honored and loved poets and they quarreled over Homer. They hated philosophers and banished them from their cities.
The third reason for hating the poetry is that many poets were able to affect people more than philosophy. This is what Plato was afraid of. Do you remember that he said the most important reason for banishing poetry is the effect of poetry; the power of poetry over people. So, here Sidney is mentioning this. This is one point that is common in both. Now, here he says poetry has a very powerful effect. Some poets were able to affect tyrants and change them into being good kings and other philosophers try to do the same but they failed. Let us see hoe he says this.
“Certain poets as Simonides and Pindar had so prevailed with Hiero the First, that of a tyrant they made him a just king;”
These were poets and they were able to change and to convert Hiero the great (he was a king); to convert him into being a kind and good king instead of being a tyrant whereas at the same time Plato could not do anything; he could do so little with Dionysius. (Dionysius was a tyrant; he was another king). Plato with his philosophy tried to change him but he failed, not only he failed but Dionysius made him his slave and imprisoned him. So, of course this was another reason why philosophers hated poetry. And then the last poet comments and he says, ‘again, what is a man who might ask out of his commonwealth, the poet when he admitted the company of women.’ Women at Plato’s time were of inferior status; they were treated as slaves, they were bought and sold, like a father can sell his daughter in marriage; he will take money and give her to a person. Now, this person sometimes can give his wife to another person, to become a wife of another person. He will give her as a wife, not as a slave. So, women at that time were not free; they were of inferior status. So, he says what commonwealth, what government would be that of Plato which allows women who are of inferior status and would not allow poets! Of course this is not a good commonwealth.
“Again, a man might ask out of what commonwealth Plato did banish them. In sooth, thence where he himself alloweth community of women.”

Now, the last argument of Sidney about Plato: he says, ok, I love Plato and I love his works, so I would not say that Plato is against poetry, but he is only against the poets who misuse poetry and to prove that he says that Plato allowed divine poetry in his government. He was not against poetry, but he was against the misuse of poetry. And he says here that there people at Plato’s time who wrote poetry against the gods and goddesses. Remember Hercules and how people were fighting each other, taking sides of the gods and the gods fighting each other, and you are familiar with Ulysses, for example, and he was against the god of the water; the god of the sea, so the god of the sea made him lost in the sea for ten years as a punishment for that. So, people could be enemies with gods, and gods with gods, and gods with people. So, people who wrote poetry sometimes sided with one god against the other or wrote bad things about one god. This is what Plato was against, why? Because he was trying to establish a government; republic, which is ideal, and he wanted it to b a good commonwealth or a good government to teach the youth and to bring up good people. So, if the youth hear the bad words against the gods, so this is not a good kind of poetry. So, this is why he banished poetry. This is Sidney’s explanation.
P36
“So doth Plato upon the abuse, not upon poetry. Plato found fault that the poets of his time filled the world with wrong opinion of the gods, making light tales of that unspotted essence, and therefore would not have the youth depraved with such opinions. Herein may much be said; let this suffice: the poets did not induce such opinion, but did imitate those opinions already induced.”
Some poets wrote that things about gods and people started to imitate the same words and say them, so this was wrong. It was wrong to speak about the gods in a bad manner.
In conclusion of that, he says,
“Plato therefore, (whose authority I had much rather justly construe unjustly resist,) mean not in general of poets, in those words, but only meant to drive out those wrong opinions of the Deity,”
What Plato really meant was what was said wrongly about the god Deity; not about poetry. And to prove that, Sidney gives an example from Ion; from Plato’s dialogue, where he says that poetry is divine inspiration. So, if it is divine inspiration, how it can be bad!
“who, in his dialogue called Ion, giveth high and rightly divine commendation unto poetry. So as Plato, banishing the abuse (the result, the power, the effect), not the thing (not the poetry), not banishing it, but giving due honour unto it,” (which is calling a divine inspiration).
In Plato’s time, people misused poetry, so he was against it. In Sidney’s time, also people misused poetry and used it for lust instead of love, so he was against this. He says it poetry is not abusing people; it is the people who are abusing poetry.
Now, Plato concludes this saying that:
“For, indeed, I had much rather, show their mistaking of Plato, than go about to overthrow his authority;”
It is better to say that people understand Plato. This is because it is inspiring of divine force and Plato himself agreed with that. And he says that there were many philosophers at Plato’s timewho were not against poetry and he mentions Aristotle. Aristotle was not against poetry; he was against Plato’s opinion. So, he was a philosopher who advocated poetry. And then we have a whole conclusion concluding this part; the accusations, and how he answers this.
Then, we come to the third part; why he speaks about the English poets and why the English poetry has defects. At e beginning he was speaking about poetry in general and then he was speaking about the accusations about poetry in general also. Now, he speaks about English poetry.
‘But since I have run so long a career in this matter, ------”
Since I have been a poet for a long time, I have to think now before putting my pen of why England should be grown so hard a stepmother to poets; why England now has become like a stepmother. The stepmother is the father’s wife.
Now, what is the stereotypical concept of stepmother? At that time who was the very famous story? Cinderella. So, he is using this metaphor to describe England as becoming so harsh and hard on its own poets.
And he says that since antiquity, poetry was honored. Kings and emperors were themselves poets and Queen Elizabeth was herself a poet. And he gives examples from history of England, starting from Chaucer. He says he had great poets and poetry was honored. But why is it now that poetry attacked and accused? Now, he defends poetry and he says, maybe there are some bad poets. He tries to find the reason why there are defects in English poetry. This does not mean that all English poetry was wrong, but there are certain defects.
The first defect is that there are people who write poetry without having the talent; without having the gift. Remember that in the beginning he said it is a talent; it is a gift. And because at that time many people were writing poetry whether they were gifted or not, so we had bad poetry and we have good poetry. So, he says that the first reason that we have defect in poetry is that some people are not gifted.
P39
“But I, as I never desired the title, so have I neglected the means to come by it;”
I never thought why I am called a poet, but now I have to think why I have become a poet. What is the first thing you should have to become a poet? The talent; the gift.
“Marry, they that delight in poesy itself should seek to know what they do and how they do; and especially look themselves in an unflattering glass of reason, if they be inclinable unto it.”
Everyone who writes poetry should look himself into the mirror and judge himself, ‘are you a good poet or not?’ he should look into himself and see whether he deserves to be called a good poet or not, why? Because poetry must not be drawn by the ears. It is not only rhyme that makes poetry. He comes again to the same idea of verse and poetry; not all verse is poetry, not everybody who can write rhymes is a poet.
“For poesy must not be drawn by the ears, it must be gently led, or rather it must lead; which was partly the cause that made the ancient learned affirm it was a divine gift, and no human skill,”
It is not a skill; you do not learn how to write poetry. You do not learn writing poetry. How do you write poetry? First of all, you must have the talent, the divine gift; the gift given to you by God. You cannot go anywhere and try to look for that talent. And then what would they do? After discovering the talent, he says that there are three things and actually as a poet, he says:
“That Daedalus, they say, both in this and in other, hath three wings to bear itself up into the air of due commendation: that is, art, imitation, and exercise,”
Poetry has three wings to carry itself into the air. What are these three wings? If you want to become a poet, you must have three things or do three things.
Art which is the talent.
Imitation.
Exercise.
Imitation here is learning and imitating the masterpieces of others and then you can write poetry. So, you cannot write poetry without having the gift and without learning. You can have the gift, but if you do not have enough vocabulary, how can you write? So, you must learn how to write. Can you just think of two or three words rhyming and can you rhyme without knowing the rules of rhyming poetry?! (How it is written? How the line is divided? What are the kinds of feet you can follow? What are the kinds of syllables you can use? How many are stressed and how many are unstressed? How many are lines in a stanza? How many stanzas can you have?) You can improvise and you can change, but then you must originally have the basics. So, without knowing and without knowledge, you cannot write poetry. So, it is a gift first and then knowledge and imitation, by knowledge you know and then you try to follow. This is one of the very famous theories of art concerning or of poetry given to us by Sidney. Poetry is art, imitation and exercise.
And he gives examples from English writers, like Chaucer’s ‘Troilus and Criseyde’, Surrey’s ‘Lyrics’, Spenser’s ‘Shepheardes Calender’. He takes examples from Greek writers, Latin and Italian to show that those people were really gifted and talented and they read and then they move to write poetry.
So, the first thing we must know in writing poetry is to have the gift. Unfortunately, some writers are not gifted. So, their poetry is not good. This is the first defect. The second defect is that at his time people abused poetry (at that time it was dramatic poetry) of not following Aristotle’s unities. What are the unities given by Aristotle? Place, time, and action. At his time, people were accusing poetry of not following the unities the place and time. And this is very clear even in Shakespeare’s’. He followed only the unity of action, but never of place and time. So, this was a defect seen by people. Now, he answers this defect. He says,
P40
“Our tragedies and comedies not without cause cried out against, observing rules neither of honest civility nor of skilful poetry: excepting Gorboduc, which notwithstanding as it is full of stately speeches and well-sounding phrases,”
Many of these comedies and tragedies are full of faults with exception of ‘Gorboduc’. ‘Gorboduc’ is written at his time. These plays are faulty because they do not have morals; they do not teach morals and they do not have skillful poetry. Most of them are not talented with the exception of Gorboduc.
Now, what is the defect? He says,
“For it is faulty both in place and time.”
He says that even ‘Gorboduc’, although it is full of morals, according to the critics of his time, it is still faulty, why? Because it does not follow the unities of place and time.
And he mentions Aristotle’s percept of common reason where he said that the poem should have those unities.
Now, those who are not following those unities, can we consider them bad poets according to Sidney? He says I test the poem or the play; if it is morally bad or and it does not teach and it does not delight, then it is bad. But if does not follow the unities of place and time, still it can be a good poem. Why? Because after explaining all this, at the end of the paragraph he says,
p41
“But they will say, How then shall we set forth a story which containeth both many places and many time?”
Now, how can the writer write a story which includes many places and many times?
“And do they not know that a tragedy is tied to the laws of poesy, and not of history;”
Now, these writers; these dramatists, who write their plays without using the unities of time and place say that we are writing drama, we are not writing history, we are following the rules of writing dramatic poetry, not the rules of writing history.
The rules of writing history you have to stick to facts.
But the rules of writing drama,
“They are not bound to follow the story, but having liberty either to feign a quite new matter, or frame the history to the most tragical conveniency?”
This is the rule of tragedy; the rule of drama. You can frame, you can make up, and you can invent. But you have to stick to the rule of tragical convenience and this is why I told you about Shakespeare. He wrote plays taking incidents from history and changing them. How did he change them? According to the conveniency of the drama, but not according to the place or time. This brings us to a third point and that is those people who accuse drama of not following place and time may do not know the difference between presenting and narrating. They want only what can be presented to be there on the stage. So, they limit the play to a certain time and certain place. But he says that there are other things that can be mentioned in the play, but not presented on the stage; they can be narrated, like battles and themes of killing, like things that happened long time ago. These can be done through narration. This means that you are referring to things that happened a long time ago or the play starts and then the second scene starts after three month and then we know what happened during those three months through narration. So, this is not wrong. The people who find poetry bad are the people who cannot differentiate between narration and representation.
“Again, many things may be told which cannot be showed, if they know the difference betwixt reporting and representing.”
P41
We can extend the play for a long time and in different places if we know how to differentiate between what can be presented on stage and what can be narrated in words. A good dramatist should know the difference and should be able to perform it and in this case his play will not be defected.
So, we said the first defect is that people do not have the talent. And the second one is that they do not follow the unities. Now, the third one is that some people are confused between laughing and delighting. Some people think that in order to delight, you have to make people laugh. And this is completely wrong. This brings us to the mixture between comedy and tragedy or the defect (some people find it as a defect); that there was at that time what was called tragic-comedy. Notice that one mistake in spelling can change the meaning. The word ‘tragi-comedy’ is a mixture of comedy and tragedy; have and half between tragedy and comedy. But if you say ‘tragic comedy’, it is a tragic with a comic end. If you say comic tragedy, it is a tragedy with death at the end but with hilarious and laughing events that lead to this end. So, every expression has a meaning. If you use tragic comedy instead of tragicomedy, it gives completely different meaning. So, be careful when you use the words.
P42
“But, besides these gross absurdities, how all their plays be neither right tragedies nor right tragedies nor right comedies, mingling kings and clowns, not because the matter so carrieth it, but thrust in the clown by head and shoulders to play a part in majestical matters, with neither decency nor discretion; so as neither the admiration and commiseration, nor the right sportfulness, is by their mongrel tragic-comedy obtained.”
At that time, they had plays with tragedy and comedy together. They are neither tragedies nor comedies; they are in between. They have both elements. They mingle and mix both elements together. Now, he explains this and says, it is not a matter of laughing that would make us be delighted. Tragedy can be delighted without having laughter in it. So, what is the difference between delight and laughter? And this is what he explains here. He says some people use comedy in tragedy to make people delighted, thinking this is how to delight. Or in comedy they make people laugh hilariously to be delighted, thinking that this is how people are delighted. He says there is a big difference between laughter and delighted. And he even defines what delight is and what laughter is. He says,
“where the whole tract of a comedy should be full of delight, as the tragedy should be still maintained in a well-raised admiration.”
Some think that a comedy should be full of laughter and tragedy should be only to be admired; full of admiration.
“But our comedians think that there is no delight without laughter, which is very wrong; for though laughter may come with delight, yet cometh it not of delight.”
You can have laughter and delight together, but not necessarily. Laughter is not necessarily the result of delight; you can be delighted without laughter.

“as though delight should be the cause of laughter;”
Of course this is wrong.
“For delight we scarcely do, but in things that have a conveniency to ourselves, or to the general nature;”
When do we have delight? When we have something mutual between what we have in human nature and what we are seeing; when we can communicate, when we can relate to what is said to us. Because we are human beings and what is said in front of us affects us as human beings. So, there is a relation. So, this makes us delighted. We admire what we see, so we are delighted. But laughter is the opposite. You laugh at things that you do not connect with, like a person who walks in a funny way. And if you see people having good chance and then you admire, but if you see mischance (people who are all the time finding obstacles and having bad luck), you laugh at that. The effect of delight is permanent, but the effect of laughter is like tickling the child. When you tickle a child, once you stop tickling, he will stop laughing. So, this is laughter. The effect only when it is done.
“laughter almost ever cometh of things most disproportioned to ourselves and nature. Delight hath a joy in it either permanent or present; laughter hath only a scornful tickling. For example we are ravished with delight to see a fair woman,”
He is a man and when he sees a fair woman, he is delighted, but would he laugh? No. it does not arouse laughter.
“and yet are far from being moved to laughter. We laugh at deformed creatures, wherein certainly we cannot delight. We delight in good chances, we laugh at mischances. We delight to hear the happiness of our friends and country, at which he were worth to be laughed at that would laugh.”
You are delighted to know about the happiness of others, but you do not laugh at them. And he quotes Aristotle here who says that it is sinful to stir laughter on things that do not deserve laugher. You have to have a reason for laughing.
Now, this is the fourth defect. He speaks about the kind of poetry that was famous at that time which is songs and sonnets. He says: P44
“Other sorts of poetry almost have we none, but that lyrical kind of songs and sonnets,”
We do not have other poems other than songs and sonnets, very few are written in other form, but the most famous form was songs and sonnets. Of course these songs and sonnets are all about courtly love. So, it was presented in a good manner, then it is a good poem, but if love is presented in a bad way, then it is a bad poem. So, most of songs and sonnets at that time would spoke about courtly love. So, he defends it that in some of them when they spoke about love in a bad manner and it turned to be lust and not love.
“But truly, many of such writing as come under the banner of unresistible love, if I were a mistress would never persuade me they were in love;”
He is making fun of those poems. He says if I was a lady and somebody tell me such a bad poem full of this kind of love, I will not believe because this is a vicious love; it is not true love.
“so cold they apply fiery speeches, as men that had rather read lovers’ writing, (and caught up certain swelling phrases,”
So, these works were not written by true poets or people who had true feelings, these people who are only quoting. Do you know what to quote means? To take the same expressions from other writers, just simply add them and put them together to make a poem. And this of course is not correct. Also the diction; the language, of those poems is full of flowery diction and full of far-fetched words, full of extreme expressions of love. And they are, as he says, winter-starved flowers. Flowers that grow in winter, they are starved, they are not bright flowers. They use many figure of speech, they use flowery language, so the diction is not poetry. Also the metaphors and the conceits, the similitude they used are also very fragile. They keep using them and repeating them. They do not use fresh conceits. They use very worn-out conceits which are not good.
Now, if I have a good poet, what is the use of the conceit and the metaphors? Why does a poet use the metaphor which is the main element of poetry? Because he wants to say his meaning indirectly. This is why I keep telling you if you say it is a simple poem, it is wrong. No poet writes a poem without figure of speech. The main using for figure of speech is to hide the meaning; to hide behind a figure of speech. So, if I just say whatever I want using different expressions, this is not a good poetry. This is not an art. The art; the gift, is to know how to say it in a hidden way. And this is what he says here, I have found in divers; in poets, small poets, I found in their poems better poems than poems written by professors. Why? Because the professors are not gifted; they do not have the talent. Some professors have the talent and many others do not.
And he makes the difference between writing poetry and oratory. They all use language, but in oratory you have to be very clear.
Oratory= الخطابة
When you want to give a speech, you have to be very clear; you do not use figure of speech. Poetry makes use of words and you want to convince but indirectly. So, they use the same words but one is in direct manner and the other is in indirect manner. And the last thing he says that many people like to use foreign language thinking that the foreign language is better than the English one. He says the English language is a good kind of language and the rhyme is applicable to the English language, so why do we go to other languages?! He says the language is a good tongue, it has beauty of its tongue and the grammar here is worth using, so why do we go and use other languages? Then, we have the conclusion of the whole essay.
This is Sidney and next time the presentation will be about Dryden and then we will discuss Dryden essay.

[never give up]

اخر ملزمه وصلتني حقه dryden

[ريحة المطر]

المشاركة الأصلية كتبت بواسطة ThE lEgEnD

كنت ابي اروح عند دكتورة نجلاء ع اسألها ع هالشي لكن الشيطان وعمايلوه راح عن بالي




وشكرا للبنات اللي ردوا وبقولكم النتايج بعد الصلاه..

حسبي الله عليك يا شيطآن
كانك نسيت ليجند تروح لدكتورة نجلاء

انا عندي ايميل دكتورة هيفاء بس احس فشله
اقولها شلون نجاوب

يااارب فرجك

[نور الـ ع ـيون]

الوهقة مس هيفاء قالت لاترسلون لي لأني ماراح ارد عليكم

بس اتوقع والله اعلم انها ماتبي حياتة وهالسوالف تبي بس الاشياء المتعلقة باعمالهم فالنقد والاعمال الادبية بذيك الفترة

وقالت اكيد بيجي واحد منهم يا درايدن او سدني




كل وحده تبدأ تذاكر ولاتبخل علينا بالاشياء المهمة

تكفوون خلنا نتساعد الدرجات ماعجبتني

[ThE lEgEnD]

حُسًم الامر>>>ايه

احنا مشكلتنا بهالسؤال ان وش بيجي مثلا... هل لازم نقرا النت ونفتش ولا من المعلومات اللي عندنا.؟.

[never give up]

? arethe accusations against poetry that are given in Sidney's essay
بنات ايش المقصود بسؤال هل عيوب الشعر اللي اقر فيها سيدني ولا العيوب اللي الناس قالوها عن الشعر

[ThE lEgEnD]

المشاركة الأصلية كتبت بواسطة never give up

? are the accusations against poetry that are given in sidney's essay
بنات ايش المقصود بسؤال هل عيوب الشعر اللي اقر فيها سيدني ولا العيوب اللي الناس قالوها عن الشعر

وكيف هو دافع عنها