IN PRAISE OF POETRY
AND VIRTUE-BREEDING DELIGHTFULNESS
Here
is why you should read poetry:
The
poet makes things better than nature
bringeth forth, or quite anew…The world is made of brass. The poets deliver
only gold.
Some
people don’t see the filthiness of evil.
They need it spelled out in the great
foil of comic verse. Then they’ll perceive the beauty of virtue.
Poetry
is the mother of lies, you say? Come
on now, the poet never maketh any
circles around your imagination to conjure you to believe for true what he
writes. He citeth no authorities. The poet’s persons and doings are but
pictures of what should be.
But,
you say, poetry infects us with many
pestilent desires. No, it’s your pestilent mind that's at fault. It’s not that poetry abuseth man’s wit, but that
man’s wit abuseth poetry. – Poetry is full of virtue-breeding delightfulness.
But
of course you can’t appreciate poetry if
you have so earth-creeping a mind that it cannot lift itself up to look to the
sky of poetry.
(Source:Philip
Sidney, An Apology for Poetry, ed.
F.G. Robinson)
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