Source: Hazard Adams, ed., Critical Theory Since Plato (Fort Worth: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1992), pp. 142-162
Main points from Adams's Introduction:
"I have just cause to make a pitiful defense of poor Poetry, which from almost the highest estimation of learning is fallen to be the laughinstock of children";
"the first light-giver to ignorance, and first nurse, whose milk by little and little enabled them to feed afterwards of tougher knowledges";
Amphion, Orpheus (cf. Horace, Art of Poetry, ll. 390-407, p. 73), Dante, Boccaccio, Petrarch, Gower, Chaucer;
"the philosophers of Greece durst no a long time appear to the world but under the masks of poets"; Thales, Empedocles, Parmenides, Pythagoras, Tyrtaeus (see Horace, op. cit.) (p. 143), Solon, fable of Atlantic island, influence on Plato; Plato's work as having poetic character, artificiality/ staging of the dialogues, use of tales, poetic descriptions;
use of poetic devices by historians, Herodotus, "passionate describing of passions," fake speeches; philosopher and historiographer as using "passport of poetry";
examples of use of poetry: Turkey, Ireland, Indians, Wales, vigorous poetic activity;
Roman poet: vates, diviner, prophet, sortes Virgilianae; "for that same exquisite observing of number and measure in words, and that high flying liberty of conceit proper to the poet, did seem to have some divine force in it"; David's Psalms, songs (p. 144), "heavenly poesy" "a passionate lover of that unspeakable and everlasting beauty to be seen by the eyes of the mind, only cleared by faith"; Greeks, poet, 'maker', poiein, "to make";
works of nature as principal object of other arts and disciplines but not of poetry: "only the poet, disdaining to be tied to any such subjection, lifted up with the vigor of his own invention, doth grow in effect another nature, in making things either better than nature bringeth forth, or, quite anew, forms such as never were in nature";
"the skill of the artificer standeth in that idea or foreconceit of the work, and not in the work itself"; "to bestow a Cyrus upon the world, to make many Cyruses";
"Maker of that maker" analogy between poetry and divine creation (p.145);
poetry as "art of imitation" Aristotelian mimesis, "a representing, counterfeiting, or figuring forth" "a speaking picture" "to teach and delight"
three kinds: sacred poetry "imitate the inconceivable excellencies of God", philosophical poetry (moral, astronomical, historical) "whether they properly be poets or no let grammarians dispute", poetry proper "having no law but wit" "painteth the outward beauty of such a virtue" "range ... into the divine consideration of what may be, and should be
" vates," imitate both to delight and teach, and delight to move men to take that goodness in hand, which without delight they would fly as from a stranger, and teach, to make them know that goodness whereunto they are moved";
heroic, lyric, tragic, comic, satiric, iambic, elegiac, pastoral, etc.;
"verse being but an ornament and no cause to poetry" (cf. Aristotle, Poetics I.7), many excellent poets who never versified; prose with poetic value: Xenophon, Heliodorus's Theagenes and Chariclea; "itis not rhyming and versing that maketh a poet"
"it is that feigning notable images of virtues, vices, or what else, with that delightful teaching, which must be the right describing note to know a poet by"; but at the same time "peising each syllable of each word by just proportion according to the dignity of the subject"(p. 146);
"this purifying of wit, this enriching of memory, enabling of judgment, and enlarging of conceit ... the final end is to lead and draw us to as high a perfection as our degenerate souls ... can be capable of"; "to lift up the mind from the dungeon of the body to the enjoying his own divine essence";
other disciplines (astronomy, music, philosophy, mathematics) are "serving sciences" with particular ends but aimed toward the highest knowledge, architectonike (knowledge of a man's self, "ethic and politic consideration" with practical goal of "well-doing");
goal of virtuous action; moral philosophers as principal challengers of poets, knowledge of vice and passion; historian "whose greatest authorities are built upon the notable foundation of hearsay" "to pick truth out of partiality" "a tyrant in table talk";
poet as moderator (p. 147); "no other human skill can match him"; lawyer, "our wickedness maketh him necessary, and necessity maketh him honorable"; philosopher, seeks the goal of knowledge by precept, "abstract and general" the historian by example, tied to what is, "his example draweth not necessary consequence," hence both incomplete; "now doeth the peerless poet perform both" "he coupleth the general notion with the particular example"; "the speaking picture of poesy" "all virtues, vices, and passions so in their own natural seats laid to the view, that we seem not to hear of them, but clearly to see through them";
example of More's Utopia (faults him only with not practicing what he preached) (p. 148);
stories more effective as teaching than abstract precepts, "instructing parables," poet as popular philosopher, Aesop's tales as example;
Aristotle, poetry is philosophoteron and spoudaioteron "more philosophical and more studiously serious than history"; poetry deals with katholou "universal consideration" as opposed to history's kathekaston, "the particular";
"how will you discern what to follow but by your own discretion"; "a feigned example hath as much force to teach as a true example" (p.149); "beautifying it both for further teaching, and more delighting"; "for indeed poetry ever setteth virtue out in her best colors . . . that one must needs be enamored of her";
"but the historian, being captived to the truth of a foolish world, is many times a terror from well doing, and an encouragement to unbridled wickedness"; Sidney decries examples from history such as lasting fame of Caesar, suicide of Cato; whereas "poetry ... not content with earthly plagues, deviseth new punishments in hell for tyrants"; poet as victorious over historian and philosopher";
poetry as motivation to action, praxis over gnosis (Aristotle) (p. 150);
"words set in delightful proportion, either accompanied with, or prepared for, the well-enchanting skill of music"; "doth intend the winning of the mind from wickedness to virtue"; sugar-coated pill;
Plato and Boethius "made Mistress Philosophy very often borrow the masking raiment of Poesy"; "medicine of cherries"; "the poet ... doth draw the mind more effectually than any other art doth" (151);
"comedy is an imitation of the common errors of our life"; tragedy: "showeth forth the ulcers that are covered with tissue; ... maketh kings fear to be tyrants, ... stirring the affects of admiration and commiseration, teacheth the uncertainty of this world" (52);
heroic poetry: "the best and most accomplished kind of poetry" (cf Aristotle who favored tragedy), "most inflameth the mind with desire to be worthy, and informs with counsel how to be worthy"; poetry as most ancient form of learning and origin of other learning;
poetry as prophesying, making, "to teach goodness and to delight the learners";
poetic aspects of holy scripture (153);
mnemonic aspect of verse;
catalogue of obejections to poetry, waste of time, mother of lies, nurse of abuse, Plato's banishment of poets (154);
poet is least liar of all writers, "for the poet, he nothing affirms, and therefore never lieth"; "things not affirmatively but allegorically and figuratively written"; "an imaginative ground plot of a profitable invention"; eikastike "figuring forth good things" vs phantastike (155);
"shall the abuse of a thing make the right use odious?";
acquisition of many knowledges through reading;
"even Turks and Tartars are delighted with poets";
Alexander: "the chief thing he ever was heard to wish for was that Homer had been alive"
Plato as most poetical of philosophers (156);
poets did not invent "wrong opinions of the gods" only imitated "opinions already induced"; atheism of philosophers (157);
England as hard stepmother to poets (158);
praise of Chaucer's Troilus and Cressida;
faults Gorboduc with imperfect use of place and time;
"many things may be told which cannot be showed" reporting vs representing (159);
criticism of comedy merely intended to cause laughter (160);
versification, ancient (quantitative) and modern (number and accent, rhyme) (161);
"there are many mysteries contained in poetry, which of purpose were written darkly, least by profane wits it should be abused" (162)
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