The Defense of Poesy2015 年 10 月 25 日下午 05:32

 Background and SummaryThe School of Abuse: attacked poets and actors from a narrowly Puritan perspective that called into question the morality of any fiction-making.May shared in the author's militant Protestantism, but took a very different, more sympathetic and more complex view of the poet's art. Responds to old charges against poetic fictions -- charges of irresponsibility and unreality.2 points:

1. The poet, liberated from the world, is free to range "within the zodiac of his own wit"2. Poetry actively intervenes in the world and transforms it for the better.

 Gives the argument the underlying form of a classical oration.Shape his defense of literature as a judicial oration according to the pattern laid down in classical and Renaissance rhetorical theory [THE LESSONS OF HORSEMANSHIP] ①exordium: a brief section designed to put the audience into a receptive frame of mind and, especially, to make it well-disposed toward the speaker.self-deprecating introduction; 以 horseman的自夸起笔，点明文章立意 [POETRY'S HISTORICAL IMPORTANCE] ②narratio: a brief overview of the facts of the case.A short history of poetry and an investigation of its essential nature as inferred from the etymology of Latin and Greek words for "poet".诗是开始得早而又存在的久的(first nurse), point out the antiquity of poetry, its prestige in the biblical and classical worlds, and its universalityCites the names given to poets: "vates"(prophet) by Romans/ "poietes"(maker) by Greeks yet base his defense essentially on the special status of poetic imagination: poetry is uniquely free, maker of makerThe freedom enables poet to present virtues and vices in a livelier and more affecting way than nature does, teaching and delighting the reader at the same time. [DEFINITION AND CLASSIFICATION OF PEOTRY]③propositio: a pithy sentence, comprehending in a small room the sum of the whole matterPoesy therefore is an art of imitation … with its end, to teach and to delight.④divisio: the subject is divided into its parts and the orator clarifies which of these are in dispute3 types: 1. imitate God; 2. deal with matters philosophical; 3. right poets it is not rhyming and versing that maketh a poet but: notable images of virtues, vices with delight teaching [POETRY VERSUS PHILOSOPHY AND HISTORY]⑤confirmatio/ examinatio: the central and longest part of the judicial oration, in which the speaker develops the arguments in support of his/her positionfinal end: draw us to as high a perfection as our degenerate souls can be capable ofThe poet is superior to both the philosopher and the historian: more concrete; more universalPoet: monarch, does not only show the way but also entice people, moving most convenience to nature2 proofs: Menenius Agrippa, Nathan the prophet[THE POETIC KINDS]"for if severed they be good, the conjunction cannot be hurtful"pastoral (hedge is lowest), elegiac, iambic, satiric, comic, tragedy, lyric, epic 

[ANSWERS TO CHARGES AGAINST POETRY]⑥refutatio: "a dissolving or wiping away of all such reasons as make against us"seek praise by dispraising others: deserve they no answer but, instead of laughing at the jest, to laugh at the jestergreatest scope to scorning: rhyming and versing → inseparable commendation, sweet and orderly best for memory (knowledge)Four most important imputations:

1. Better spend time in other knowledges2. Mother of lies3. Arouses desires4. Plato banished them out of commonwealth

Answers:No better knowledge than to teach people virtueNothing affirms therefore nothing liesMan's wit abuseth poetry; being abused doth most harm, then being rightly used doth most good alleged before poet's writing: no memory is so ancientPlato condemns the abuse not poetry; a whole sea of positive examples [POETRY IN ENGLAND]⑦ digressio: rhetorical theory allowed for a digressio following the refutatio, and Sidney's digressio has itself the form of an oration (contains narration, propositon, division and confirmation)Narration: inquire why England, history less agreeable to idle England, only base men undertake it Surveying England in his own century, little praise besides Surrey's lyrics, the moralizing verse narratives of the popular mid-century collection A Mirror for Magistrates, and Spenser's Shepheardes Calender (rustic he opposes)Propostion: the very true cause of our wanting estimation is want of desertDivision: divides into matter and words matter: 3 wings: art, imitation, exercise →forebackwardly; absurdity1: disobey "three unities" → place; time: 1. feign a new matter; 2. be told than be shown; 3. come to one principal point absurdity 2: mingling kings and clowns, tragedy and comedy difference btw laughter and delight words: 3 criticisms: 1. exotic; 2. excessive alliteration; 3. sterile advocate for absorbing and attentive translation; oratoryConfirmation: English capable of excellent exercising answer objections: 1. mingled; 2. void of grammar two sorts of versifying: ancient and modern, both fit [CONCLUSION]⑧peroratio: though it includes a brief recapitulation of arguments, the main function of the peroration is, like that of the exordium, to work on the audience's feelings, leaving it well-disposed toward the speaker and the speaker's clienta mock conjuration and a playful curse: yet thus much curse I must send you, in the behalf of all poets, that while you live, you live in love, and never get favor for lacking skill of a sonnet; and, when you die, your memory die from the earth for want of an epitaph