ENGLISH LITERATURE (CBSE/UGC NET)

Detailed explanation-1: -This work is listed under two titles, The Defense of Poesy and An Apology for Poetry, and was written in response to the harsh critique of imaginative poetry by religious persons and authorities like Queen Elizabeth (Norton 1038).

Detailed explanation-2: -In his essay, Sidney integrates a number of classical and Italian precepts on fiction. The essence of his defense is that poetry, by combining the liveliness of history with the ethical focus of philosophy, is more effective than either history or philosophy in rousing its readers to virtue.

Detailed explanation-3: -The Defence of Poesie reflects the humanist education which Shrewsbury and Oxford had given to Sidney, and reflects on the rhetorical aims of self-presentation with which an underemployed Elizabethan gentleman would undertake such a work.

Detailed explanation-4: -It was written partly in response to Stephen Gosson’s The School of Abuse (1579), which, dedicated to Sidney, attacked poetry on moral grounds.

Detailed explanation-5: -Sir Philip Sidney lived an active life as a courtier, solider, diplomat, and writer. He was born at Penshurst Place, in Kent in 1554.