An Apology For Poetry

SIR PHILIP SIDNEY – The Defence of Poesy (or An Apology
for Poetry)
Among the Romans a poet was called vates, which is as

much as a diviner, foreseer, or prophet, as by his conjoined
words, vaticinium and vaticinari, is manifest; so heavenly a
title did that excellent people bestow upon this heart-ravishing
knowledge. And so far were they carried into the admiration
thereof, that they thought in the chanceable hitting upon any
such verses great fore-tokens of their following fortunes were
placed; whereupon grew the word of Sortes Virgilianæ, when
by sudden opening Virgil’s book they lighted upon some
verse of his making. Whereof the histories of the Emperors’
lives are full: as of Albinus, the governor of our island, who in
his childhood met with this verse,
Arma amens capio, nec sat rationis in armis,

[Angered, I take up arms, but reason does not lie in
arms—ed.]
and in his age performed it. Although it were a very vain and
godless superstition, as also it was to think that spirits were
commanded by such verses—whereupon this word charms,
derived of carmina, comes—so yet serves it to show the great
reverence those wits were held in, and altogether not [not
altogether—ed] without ground, since both the oracles of
Delphos and Sibylla’s prophecies were wholly delivered in
verses; for that same exquisite observing of number and
measure in words, and that high-flying liberty of conceit
[concept, invention—ed.], proper to the poet, did seem to
have some divine force in it.
And may not I presume a little further to show the

reasonableness of this word Vates, and say that the holy
David’s Psalms are a divine poem? If I do, I shall not do it
without the testimony of great learned men, both ancient and
modern. But even the name of Psalms will speak for me,
which, being interpreted, is nothing but Songs; then, that it is
fully written in metre, as all learned Hebricians agree,
although the rules be not yet fully found; lastly and principally,
his handling his prophecy, which is merely poetical. For what
else is the awaking his musical instruments, the often and
free changing of persons, his notable prosopopoeias, when
he makes you, as it were, see God coming in His majesty, his
telling of the beasts’ joyfulness and hills’ leaping, but a
heavenly poesy, wherein almost he shows himself a
passionate lover of that unspeakable and everlasting beauty
to be seen by the eyes of the mind, only cleared by faith? But
truly now having named him, I fear I seem to profane that
holy name, applying it to poetry, which is among us thrown
down to so ridiculous an estimation. But they that with quiet
judgments will look a little deeper into it, shall find the end
and working of it such as, being rightly applied, deserves not
to be scourged out of the church of God.
But now let us see how the Greeks named it and how
they deemed of it. The Greeks called him “a poet,” which
name has, as the most excellent, gone through other
languages. It comes 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.” Which name how high and incomparable a title it is, I
had rather were known by marking the scope of other
sciences than by any partial allegation. There is no art
delivered unto mankind that has not the works of nature for
his principal object, without which they could not consist, and
on which they so depend as they become actors and players,
as it were, of what nature will have set forth. So doth the
astronomer look upon the stars, and, by that he sees, set
down what order nature has taken therein. So do the
geometrician and arithmetician in their divers sorts of
quantities. So doth the musician in times tell you which by
nature agree, which not. The natural philosopher thereon has
his name, and the moral philosopher stands upon the natural
virtues, vices, and passions of man; and “follow nature,” says
he, “therein, and thou shalt not err.” The lawyer says what
men have determined, the historian what men have done.
The grammarian speaks only of the rules of speech, and the
rhetorician and logician, considering what in nature will
soonest prove and persuade, thereon give artificial rules,
which still are compassed within the circle of a question,
according to the proposed matter. The physician weighs the
nature of man’s body, and the nature of things helpful or
hurtful unto it. And the metaphysic, though it be in the second
and abstract notions, and therefore be counted supernatural,
yet doth he, indeed, build upon the depth of nature.
Only the poet, disdaining to be tied to any such

subjection, lifted up with the vigor of his own invention, doth
grow, in effect, into another nature, in making things either
better than nature brings forth, or, quite anew, forms such as
never were in nature, as the heroes, demi-gods, cyclops,
chimeras, furies, and such like; so as he goes hand in hand
with nature, not enclosed within the narrow warrant of her
gifts, but freely ranging within the zodiac of his own wit.
Nature never set forth the earth in so rich tapestry as divers
poets have done; neither with pleasant rivers, fruitful trees,
sweet-smelling flowers, nor whatsoever else may make the
too-much-loved earth more lovely; her world is brazen, the
poets only deliver a golden.
But let those things alone, and go to man—for whom as

the other things are, so it seems in him her uttermost cunning
is employed—and know whether she have brought forth so
true a lover as Theagenes; so constant a friend as Pylades;
so valiant a man as Orlando; so right a prince as Xenophon’s
Cyrus; so excellent a man every way as Virgil’s Æneas?
Neither let this be jestingly conceived, because the works of
the one be essential, the other in imitation or fiction; for any
understanding knows the skill of each artificer stands in that
idea, or fore-conceit of the work, and not in the work itself.
And that the poet has that idea is manifest, by delivering them
forth in such excellency as he has imagined them. Which
delivering forth, also, is not wholly imaginative, as we are
wont to say by them that build castles in the air; but so far
substantially it works, not only to make a Cyrus, which had
been but a particular excellency, as nature might have done,
but to bestow a Cyrus upon the world to make many Cyruses,
if they will learn aright why and how that maker made him.
Neither let it be deemed too saucy a comparison to balance
the highest point of man’s wit with the efficacy of nature; but
rather give right honor to the Heavenly Maker of that maker,
who, having made man to His own likeness, set him beyond
and over all the works of that second nature. Which in nothing
he shows so much as in poetry, when with the force of a
divine breath he brings things forth far surpassing her doings,
with no small argument to the incredulous of that first
accursed fall of Adam,—since our erected wit makes us know
what perfection is, and yet our infected will keeps us from
reaching unto it. But these arguments will by few be
understood, and by fewer granted; thus much I hope will be
given me, that the Greeks with some probability of reason
gave him the name above all names of learning.
Now let us go to a more ordinary opening of him, that

the truth may be the more palpable; and so, I hope, though
we get not so unmatched a praise as the etymology of his
names will grant, yet his very description, which no man will
deny, shall not justly be barred from a principal
commendation.
Poesy, therefore, is an art of imitation, for so Aristotle

terms it in his word mimēsis, that is to say, a representing,
counterfeiting, or figuring forth; to speak metaphorically, a
speaking picture, with this end,—to teach and delight.

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SIR PHILIP SIDNEY – The Defence of Poesy (or An Apology

Among the Romans a poet was called vates, which is as

Arma amens capio, nec sat rationis in armis,

And may not I presume a little further to show the

Only the poet, disdaining to be tied to any such

But let those things alone, and go to man—for whom as

Now let us go to a more ordinary opening of him, that

Poesy, therefore, is an art of imitation, for so Aristotle

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