Poetry
‹ 3 · Outline · 5 ›
4.The defence and the attack upon poetry
4a.The charge of lying and falsehood
Herodotus, An Account of EgyptVol. 33
- p. 58Herodotus qualifies his use of the Epic poets as evidence: 'if one may trust at all' to them.read · scan
Plutarch, PericlesVol. 12
- p. 75–76Poets are said to be confuted by their own fictions about the gods' abode and passions.read · scan
Plutarch, CoriolanusVol. 12
- p. 177Plutarch defends Homer against critics who say he introduces idle fictions and denies deliberate choice.read · scan
Pliny the Younger, Letters of PlinyVol. 9
- p. 350Pliny suggests the marvellous story suits a poet's genius, asking what a poet has to do with truth.read · scan
- p. 350–353Pliny urges Fuscus to adorn the tale with his genius, though the facts need no embellishment.read · scan
Saint Augustine, The Confessions of St. AugustineVol. 7
- p. 15–16Augustine laments weeping over Dido and Aeneas' fictions while unmoved by his own spiritual death; poetic fictions are empty compared with useful learning.read · scan
- p. 35–37Fables of poets and grammarians are more profitable than Manichaean doctrines, since poems are not believed.read · scan
Chapters from the KoranVol. 45
- p. 892The Koran is declared not the speech of a poet or soothsayer but revelation from the Lord.read · scan
- p. 893–894Mohammed denies being a poet or soothsayer; challenged to have his discourse matched.read · scan
Dante Alighieri, HellVol. 20
- p. 104Dante excuses his pen's possible swerving because the events are so strange.read · scan
Dante Alighieri, ParadiseVol. 20
- p. 344Dante excuses himself for an overbold saying, defending the truth of his accountread · scan
Geoffrey Chaucer, The Prologue to the Canterbury Tales; The Nun's Priest's TaleVol. 40
- p. 30Chaucer asks pardon for reporting the pilgrims' speech faithfully and rudely, since a teller must repeat words exactly; Plato says words cousin the deed.read · scan
Miguel de Cervantes, The History of Don Quixote of the Mancha, Part IVol. 14
- p. 315Poetic fiction holds hidden morals worth imitating, like the tale of Reynaldos and the vessel.read · scan
Sir Walter Raleigh, PoemsVol. 40
- p. 205–207Satirical verse in which the soul is commissioned to give the lie.read · scan
Sir Philip Sidney, The Defense of PoesyVol. 27
- p. 32–33Answers charges that poetry is the mother of lies and nurse of abuse; the poet never affirms, so never lies.read · scan
Francis Bacon, Essays, Civil and MoralVol. 3
- p. 8A father called poesy devils' wine because it fills the imagination with the shadow of a lie.read · scan
John Webster, The Duchess of MalfiVol. 47
- p. 793Antonio cites mythic transformations of Daphne and Syrinx to argue for marriage; Cariola dismisses it as vain poetry.read · scan
John Milton, Poems Written at Horton, 1632-1638Vol. 4
- p. 57The Spirit defends the sage poets' tales, taught by the heavenly Muse, as true against shallow unbelief.read · scan
Blaise Pascal, ThoughtsVol. 48
- p. 207–208Homer composed a romance meant to amuse, which lasted through its beauty and was later taken as history.read · scan
Blaise Pascal, Minor WorksVol. 48
- p. 418–419The poets were wrong to paint Love blind.read · scan
John Bunyan, The Pilgrim's ProgressVol. 15
- p. 5Defends his allegorical style against critics, comparing it to fishers and fowlers using varied means and to pearls found in unlikely places.read · scan
- p. 5Justifies fiction and figurative writing against critics who demand plain solidity.read · scan
John Dryden, Dedication of the AeneisVol. 13
- p. 32A poet is not bound by truth or history; epic poets favor their heroes and country.read · scan
- p. 32–34A poet is privileged to lie for his country's honor, as an ambassador; Virgil flatters Romans at his hero's expense.read · scan
Voltaire, Letters on the EnglishVol. 34
- p. 145–146Waller's elegy on Cromwell and his quip that poets succeed better in fiction than truth; noblemen do not think poetry beneath their rank.read · scan
David Hume, Of the Standard of TasteVol. 27
- p. 206Poetry cannot submit to exact truth but is bound by rules of art; Ariosto pleases by expression and invention despite faults.read · scan
David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human UnderstandingVol. 37
- p. 299The colours of poetry can never make a description mistaken for a real landscape.read · scan
- p. 397–398Priests and poets' tales of a golden age are heard with reverence; philosophers claiming reason deserve no such deference.read · scan
Friedrich von Schiller, Letters upon the Aesthetic Education of ManVol. 32
- p. 220–221Poetry was not yet the adversary of wit among the Greeks, both honouring truth in their own way.read · scan
- p. 286–287The poet transgresses his limits by attributing real being to his ideal or letting experience restrict the ideal to reality.read · scan
Alessandro Manzoni, I Promessi Sposi (The Betrothed)Vol. 21
- p. 73–74Podesta dismisses Tasso's treatment of the messenger as a poetical liberty and ornament.read · scan
John Ruskin, Sesame and LiliesVol. 28
- p. 160Poets' fancies about flowers rising at a woman's tread are defended as resolute truth; quotes Tennyson and Dante.read · scan
4b.The charge of immorality and wanton influence
Saint Augustine, The Confessions of St. AugustineVol. 7
- p. 14–15Forced to weep for Dido's love-death in Virgil while dry-eyed over his own spiritual death.read · scan
- p. 17–18Homer's and Terence's fictions attribute vice to gods, so crimes seem excusable and imitable.read · scan
- p. 18–19Poetic fictions like Juno's speech led him astray from Scripture.read · scan
Chapters from the KoranVol. 45
- p. 907–908Poets are said to be followed by the astray, wandering distraught and saying what they do not do, except believers.read · scan
Dante Alighieri, HellVol. 20
- p. 21Book and writer were love's go-betweens: literature inciting passion.read · scan
Sir Philip Sidney, The Defense of PoesyVol. 27
- p. 33–34Defends poetry against charges of falsehood and wanton influence: the abuse lies in man's wit, not poetry.read · scan
Thomas Hobbes, Of Man, Being the First Part of LeviathanVol. 34
- p. 366Heathen poems, like Homer's hymn to Mercury, honoured gods by portraying their adulteries and thefts.read · scan
John Dryden, Preface to Fables, Ancient and ModernVol. 39
- p. 156Dryden defends his poems against charges of immorality and chooses fables with instructive morals; verse without sense is melodious trifling.read · scan
Friedrich von Schiller, Letters upon the Aesthetic Education of ManVol. 32
- p. 235–236Poets paint passions in brilliant colours and imagine other worlds, leading weak minds to quarrel with society.read · scan
Percy Bysshe Shelley, A Defence of PoetryVol. 27
- p. 336–337Defends poetry against the charge of immorality: it improves men by enlarging the imagination, not by teaching doctrines, and the poet should not embody his own moral views.read · scan
Alfred, Lord Tennyson, PoemsVol. 42
- p. 1019–1020The poet's passionate heart is whirled into folly and vice.read · scan
4c.Plato's banishment and licensing of poets
Sir Philip Sidney, The Defense of PoesyVol. 27
- p. 37Defends poetry against Plato: poets gained honor from cities and tamed tyrants, whereas Plato failed with Dionysius.read · scan
- p. 38Plato banished the abuse of poetry, not poetry; poets imitated existing opinions rather than inducing them.read · scan
- p. 38–39Plato drove out only false opinions of the Deity; in Ion he honors poetry as divine inspiration; many great men honored poets.read · scan
John Milton, AreopagiticaVol. 3
- p. 193Sparta scorned poets, banishing Archilochus, while Lycurgus brought in Homer; Aristophanes was read and admired.read · scan
- p. 204Plato would allow no poet to read his work to a private man before the lawkeepers approved it.read · scan
- p. 205Plato himself read Sophron and Aristophanes and made wanton epigrams, so his own practice contradicts his licensing of poems.read · scan
John Dryden, Dedication of the AeneisVol. 13
- p. 31Defends Virgil's use of the machine (Mercury) in heroic poetry and the unfinished Aeneid; Plato's banishment of poets.read · scan
Friedrich von Schiller, Letters upon the Aesthetic Education of ManVol. 32
- p. 233–234Some ancients forbade imagination entry into their republic, denying benefit in the liberal arts.read · scan
4d.The uselessness of poetry and the claim of its utility
See also: Memory and Imagination 6b
Pliny the Younger, Letters of PlinyVol. 9
- p. 262Pliny defends writing and reciting light verse, comedies and pantomimes, citing many learned and great men, including Caesar and Virgil, as precedents.read · scan
- p. 301–302Recommends light poetry as relief from other employments and quotes verses on the mind shaped like wax.read · scan
- p. 302Small poems refresh the mind, treat love, satire and life's affairs, and make prose more pleasant after metre's constraint.read · scan
Marcus Aurelius, The Meditations of Marcus AureliusVol. 2
- p. 194Learned to abstain from poetry and fine writing.read · scan
- p. 198Thankful for not being engrossed in poetry studies.read · scan
Sir Philip Sidney, The Defense of PoesyVol. 27
- p. 5Sidney, having slipped into the title of poet, undertakes a defense of poetry, fallen from high esteem to the laughing-stock of children.read · scan
- p. 29–30Sums up poetry's antiquity, universality and the poet as maker; deserves the laurel above other learnings.read · scan
- p. 34–36Argues poetry has existed in every nation and answers that it weakens action.read · scan
- p. 36Poetry is the companion of the camps; Homer and Orlando please soldiers, unlike scholastic philosophy.read · scan
- p. 39–40Sidney concludes his defense: poesy is true doctrine, strengthens wit and courage, honored by Plato; laments England's neglect and the disgrace brought by base versifiers.read · scan
- p. 51Playful closing blessing on lovers of poetry and curse on scorners who cannot hear its planet-like music.read · scan
Blaise Pascal, ThoughtsVol. 48
- p. 19Calling a man a clever poet is false praise.read · scan
- p. 20Poets who only reason about such things would lack proofs; a poet is not an honest man.read · scan
- p. 112The people prefer hunting and diversion to poetry, and are right for reasons the half-learned miss.read · scan
John Dryden, All for Love; or, The World Well LostVol. 18
- p. 7Dryden says poets' gratitude and their record of great men's deeds; poets and historians preserve fame and animate virtue in commonwealth.read · scan
Friedrich von Schiller, Letters upon the Aesthetic Education of ManVol. 32
- p. 231Poetry intercepts truth's rays before they reach the heart, lighting the summits of humanity first.read · scan
William Wordsworth, Prefaces to Various Volumes of PoemsVol. 39
- p. 280Giving immediate pleasure does not degrade the poet's art but acknowledges the beauty of the universe and man's dignity.read · scan
William Ellery Channing, On the Elevation of the Laboring ClassesVol. 28
- p. 335–337Poetry and fine arts are of little good unless their beauty warms the heart and raises love of the lofty.read · scan
Percy Bysshe Shelley, A Defence of PoetryVol. 27
- p. 336Shelley praises poetry as divine, delightful and unapprehended in its power; poets are judged only by the wise of many generations, and Homer's epics shaped civilization.read · scan
- p. 342–344Poetry is the light of life and source of all that is beautiful; poets build one great poem, and Roman institutions were themselves poetry.read · scan
- p. 345–346The dark ages' evils sprang from extinction of the poetical principle, not from Christian doctrine; no one could create in form or language.read · scan
- p. 349–350Great poetry is infinite, an ever-overflowing fountain of wisdom and delight; Dante's influence on later poets.read · scan
- p. 350–351Defends poets against claim that reason is more useful than imagination; poets precede utilitarians.read · scan
- p. 351–352Poets and poetical philosophers produce true utility; moral world would be poorer without the great poets.read · scan
- p. 353We lack the poetry of life; the poetical faculty creates materials of knowledge and desire to arrange them by beauty and good.read · scan
Ralph Waldo Emerson, English TraitsVol. 5
- p. 443–444Poets dare not speak of beauty beyond their rhymes; poetry and heroism are crowded out by utility.read · scan
John Stuart Mill, AutobiographyVol. 25
- p. 71–72Benthamites were thought enemies of poetry; Mill was theoretically indifferent, blind to its role in educating feelings, yet moved by Pope.read · scan
Robert Browning, PoemsVol. 42
- p. 1071–1072Questions whether poet, sculptor and musician have gained what is best for men despite giving their lives to art.read · scan
Matthew Arnold, The Study of PoetryVol. 28
- p. 65Arnold claims poetry's future is immense; it will interpret life, console and sustain mankind.read · scan
‹ 3 · Outline · 5 ›