Sidney's 'The Defence of Poesy' and Selected Renaissance Literary Criticism

by Gavin Alexander

Overview

Controversy raged through England during the 1570-80s as Puritans denounced all manner of games&pastimes as a danger to public morals. Writers quickly turrned their attention to their own art and the first&most influential response came with Philip Sidney's Defense. Here he set out to answer contemporary critics &, with reference to Classical models of criticism, formulated a manifesto for English literature. Also includes George Puttenham's Art of English Poesy, Samuel Daniel's Defence of Rhyme,&passages by writers such as Ben Jonson, Francis Bacon&George Gascoigne.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780141936956
Publisher:	Penguin UK
Publication date:	02/26/2004
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	544
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Gavin Alexander, University Assistant Lecturer in English&Fellow of Christ's College, Cambridge, has written on the Sidney family&circle,&the literary response to him.

Table of Contents

	Chronology	vii
	Introduction	xvii
	Further Reading	lxxx
	A Note on the Texts	lxxxvi
	The Defence of Poesy (c. 1580; printed 1595)	1
	The Art of English Poesy (1589)	55
	A Defence of Rhyme (1603)	205
	Selected Passages
	Certain Notes of Instruction (1575)	237
	from The Garden of Eloquence (1577; 1593)	248
	from A Discourse of English Poetry (1586)	254
	A Brief Apology of Poetry (1591)	260
	from Musophilus: Containing a General Defence of Learning (1599)	274
	from Observations in the Art of English Poesy (1602)	281
	from The Advancement of Learning (1605)	289
	'To Henry Reynolds, of Poets and Poesy' (1627)	291
	from Anacrisis. Or a Censure of some Poets Ancient and Modern (c. 1635)	298
	'A Fit of Rhyme against Rhyme' (before 1637)	301
	from Horace, his Art of Poetry (before 1637)	304
	A Note on Rhetoric	308
	A Note on English Versification	311
	Notes	316
	Index	443