How sydney worked for the restoration of literature?
Answers
Sidney’s Apologie for Poetrie (1580–1581) is in many ways a seminal text of literary criticism. It is not only a defense but also one of the most acclaimed treatises on poetics of its time. While its ideas are not original, it represents the first synthesis in the English language of the various strands and concerns of Renaissance literary criticism, drawing 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 – which were to concern literary critics in numerous languages until the late eighteenth century. Sidney’s writing of the Apologie as a defense of poetry was occasioned by an attack on poetry entitled The School of Abuse published in 1579 by a Puritan minister, Stephen Gosson. As mentioned earlier, Sidney rejects Gosson’s Protestant attack on courtly pleasure, effectively defending poetry as a virtuous activity for the aristocracy (Matz, 22).