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THE RENAISSANCE

CRITICISM &
SIDNEY

Renaissance
The

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

Renaissance
The

period that preceded the Renaissance is known as the


Dark Ages and Middle Ages.
The Medieval Age was a period of alleged superstition and
stagnation.
The Renaissance overturned the medieval theological world
view, replacing it with a more secular and humanist vision
by a rediscovery of the classics.

Renaissance Humanism
The most dominant trait has conventionally been identified
as humanism.
The term humanism implies a world view and a set of
values centered around the human rather than the divine
According to the humanists, the human nature can be selfdefined rather than referring this to God.
Humanim focuses on human achievements and potential
rather than theological doctrines and dilemmas.

Renaissance Humanism
Renaissance humanism is a more profound shift in
sensibility, from a broadly other-worldly disposition to a
this-worldly attitude.
This attitude saw actions and events in this world as
significant in their own right without referring them to any
ultimate divine meaning and purpose.
Most of the literary and artistic accomplishments of the
Renaissance were achieved by laymen rather than clergy,
with secular patrons.
Nearly all of the poets of this era were actively involved in
the political process.

Renaissance Humanism
Renaissance Humanism insisted upon a thorough knowledge
of the classical languages: not only Latin, but also Greek.
The humanists also insisted on the direct study of ancient
texts.
The monopoly of Latin as the language of learned discourse
and literature was undermined, and the rules of grammar and
composition were adapted to theorize about vernacular
tongues.
In general, the humanists emphasized the moral value of
poetry and rhetoric and the worldly achievement.

Renaissance Humanism
The humanist poets not only theorized about the vernacular
but wrote in it and cultivated its elegant expression.
They adapted classical forms to the vernacular, developing
literary forms such as the pastoral, idyll, and romance.
The cultivation of prose in narratives, epistles, and
dialogues was an important achievement of the humanists.
The Renaissance epic reached its height during the
Renaissance.
The humanist tradition was richly expressed in the rise of
English vernacular literature of this period.
The rise of national consciousness during this period was
reflected in the growth of vernacular literature.
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Renaissance Literary criticism


Renaissance literature and criticism tends to reflect civic
values, a sense of national identity, and a sense of place in
history, especially as gauged in relation to the classics.
Renaissance literary criticism views language as historically
evolving.
Renaissance literary criticism were involved in the political
process during the Renaissance.
Poets engaged fervently in the emerging public sphere, a
realm of debate in which citizens could participate as equals,
independently of pressure from monopolies of power.

Renaissance Literary criticism


The expansion of the public sphere enabled the poet
to create fictive and utopian worlds,
to mould the image of public events, and
to assert an individualism that was also promoted by Protestantism.

The translation of the Bible into vernacular languages


shifted interpretative authority away from the clergy to the
individual reader.
Renaissance poets and critics inevitably placed emphasis on
the practical and social functions of poetry.
The most influential classical treatises during the sixteenth
and seventeenth centuries were Aristotles Poetics and
Horaces Ars poetica.
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Renaissance Literary criticism


Renaissance literary criticism revolves around the
following fundamental features:

The Theory of Imitation


The truth-value and didactic role of literature
The classical Unities
The notion of verisimilitude
The use of the vernacular
The definition of poetic genres such as narrative and drama
The invention of new, mixed genres
The use of rhyme in poetry
The relative values of quantitative and qualitative verse

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Renaissance Literary criticism


1. The Theory of Imitation:

The Renaissance critics theory of imitation is different from that of


Plato and Aristotle.
Imitation for Plato and Aristotle was the imitation of persons and
things in nature.
Horace and Longinus used it as meaning the imitation of other
writers.
This latter sense is the one in which it was most often used by the
Renaissance critics.

2. The truth-value and didactic role of literature:

The Renaissance critics adopted the Horatian formula that literature


should teach and delight.
The prevailing renaissance version of this is that poetry teaches
delightfully.
This was in answer to the medieval view that poetry is either
dangerous or a waste of time.
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Renaissance Literary criticism


3. The classical Unities:

Renaissance writers added the doctrine of the unity of place to


Aristotles original demand for the unity of action and time.

4. The notion of verisimilitude:

Renaissance critics asserted that poetry must be verisimilar in two


respects:

1.

It must imitate objects that are real, not fantastic;

2.

Its manner of imitation must appear probable or at least possible to


the audience.

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Renaissance Literary criticism


5. The use of the vernacular:

Many Renaissance writers to write in the vernacular;


Some of these writers theorized and defended their practice.
The Protestant Reformation fostered vernacular translations of the
Bible as well as of liturgies and hymns.
The Renaissance writers were obliged to address controversial
issues of meter, rhyming, and versification in vernacular tongues.

6. The definition of poetic genres such as narrative and


drama:

The Renaissance writers wrote in the ancient forms or genres of


epic, tragedy, and comedy to attain the ancient spirit.
They mould their style upon that of the great ancients.

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Renaissance Literary criticism


7. The invention of new, mixed genres:

The Renaissance critics did not accept the mixing of genres as


tragicomedy since it can destroy the sense of decorum.
The Renaissance writers invent newer, characteristically humanist,
genres such as the essay and the dialogue form.
They focus on the epigram as an instrument of wit.

8. The use of rhyme in poetry:

Renaissance writers rejected the regular stress-based alliterative meter


of medieval poets.
They rejected rhyme as an unclassical barbarism.
They searched for a new metrical basis for poetry and eventually
stimulated the growth of blank verse.

9. The relative values of quantitative and qualitative


verse:

Renaissance writers introduced classical quantitative meters, based on


length of syllables rather than stress, into vernacular languages.
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Sir Philip Sidney


Apologie for Poetrie

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Sir Philip Sidney (1554-1586)


He

was born in Kent in 1554 & died in Netherlands in 1586.


He was a courtier, soldier, poet, diplomat.
He won admiration at an early age for his courtly skills and
intellectual curiosity.
He is often cited as an archetype of the well-rounded
Renaissance man.
His talents encompassed not only poetry and cultivated
learning but the virtues of statesmanship and military service.

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Apologie for Poetrie


It

is in many ways a seminal text of literary criticism.


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

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Apologie for Poetrie


Sidney

produces a wide range of arguments in defence of


poor Poetry
The major arguments discussed in the Apologie are:
Chronology or Antiquity of Poetry
The authority of ancient tradition
The relation of poetry to nature
The function of poetry as imitation
The status of poetry among the various disciplines of learning
The relationship of poetry to truth and morality

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Apologie for Poetrie


1.

Chronology or Antiquity of Poetry


Poetry has been held in high esteem since the earliest times.
It has been the first light-giver to ignorance.
Poetry in all nations has preceded other branches of learning.
The earlier Greek philosophers and historians were, in fact, poets.

2.

The Authority of Ancient Tradition


It is an argument from tradition
Both the Greeks and the Romans honoured poets.
The Romans called the poet "Vates" which means a Foreseer or a
Prophet.
Poetry has a prophetic character

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Apologie for Poetrie


3.

The Relation of Poetry to Nature


In Greek, the word 'Poet' means' Maker or Creator.
The poet is a 'maker', a creator in the real sense of the term
While all other arts are tied to Nature, 'the poet is not a slave to
Nature.
This suggests the divine nature of poetry as a God-like activity.

4.

The Function of Poetry as Imitation


Sidney defines poetry as an art of imitation;
It is representing, counterfeiting or figuring forth.
Poetry is a speaking picture.
Its end is to teach and delight. The object of both teaching and
delighting is goodness.
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Apologie for Poetrie


According to Sidney, there are three kinds of poetic imitation:
Religious poetry: Poetry that praises God.
Philosophical poetry:
It imparts knowledge of philosophy, history, astronomy etc.
It is also not to be condemned.
it is the sweet food of sweetly uttered knowledge.

Right or true kind of poetry


It is the first and most noble sort of poetry.
In this kind, poets most properly do imitate to teach and delight.
The poet is free of dependence on nature in at least two ways:
The poet is not restricted to any given subject matter, any given sphere of
nature.
The poet does not actually reproduce anything in nature but depicts
portrayals of probability and of idealized situations.

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Apologie for Poetrie


5.

The Status of Poetry among the Various Disciplines of


Learning

Poetry is superior to all other branches of learning


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


6.

The Relationship of Poetry to Truth and Morality:


Sidney now addresses the specific charges brought against
poetry by Stephen Gosson in The School of Abuse.
The charges are:
Poetry is a waste of time.
Poetry is mother of lies.
It is nurse of abuse.
Plato had rightly banished the poets from his ideal world.

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Sidneys Defence of Poetry


Sidney dismisses the first charge on the basis that:

1.

There is no learning is so good as poetry in reaching and moving to


virtue
no other learning discipline can both teach and move so much as
poetry.

Sidney rejects the second charge that poets are liars


saying that:

2.

Of all writers under the sun the poet is the least liar.
The Astronomer, the Geometrician, the historian, and others, all
make false statements.
The poet affirms nothing , and therefore never tells lies.
What the poet presents is not fact but fiction embodying truth of an
ideal.
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Sidneys Defence of Poetry


To the third charge, Sidney replies that poetry does not
abuse mans wit, it is mans wit that abuses poetry.

3.

The fault lies not with poetry, but with the contemporary abuse of
poetry.
The abuse of poetry should not lead to a condemnation of poetry
itself.
Poetry is a double edged sword: It can be used badly or well and it
is unwise to abandon any kind of knowledge altogether because of
the possibility of the abuse of it.

The most serious charge that Sidney confronts is that Plato


banished poets from his ideal republic.

4.

for Sidney, Plato warned men not against poetry but against its
abuse by his contemporary poets who filled the world with wrong
opinions about the gods.
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