Sidney's Apologie for Poetrie

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Clarendon Press, 1907 - Poetry - 111 pages

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Page 52 - I know they are as lively, and as vigorously productive, as those fabulous dragon's teeth ; and being sown up and down, may chance to spring up armed men. " And yet on the other hand, unless wariness be used, as good almost kill a man as kill a good book. "Who kills a man, kills a reasonable creature, God's image ; but he who destroys a good book, kills reason itself; kills the image of God, as it were, in the eye.
Page x - Poesy therefore is an art of imitation, for so Aristotle termeth it in his word Mimesis, that is to say, a representing, counterfeiting, or figuring forth: to speak metaphorically, a speaking picture: with this end, to teach and delight; of this have been three several kinds.
Page 42 - The torrent roar'd ; and we did buffet it With lusty sinews ; throwing it aside And stemming it with hearts of controversy. But ere we could arrive the point proposed, Caesar cried,
Page 21 - masculine rhyme," but still in the next to the last, which the French call the "female," or the next before that, which the Italians term sdrucciola. The example of the former is buono: suono, of the sdrucciola, femina: semina.
Page xxv - ... cometh to you with words set in delightful proportion, either accompanied with, or prepared for, the well-enchanting skill of music; and with a tale, forsooth, he cometh unto you, with a tale which holdeth children from play and old men from the chimney corner...
Page 21 - I conjure you all that have had the evil luck to read this inkwasting toy of mine, even in the name of the nine muses, no more to scorn the sacred mysteries of poesy ; no more to laugh at the name of poets, as though they were next inheritors to fools : no more to jest at the reverend title of " a rhymer ;" but to believe, with Aristotle, that they were the ancient treasurers of the Grecians...
Page 12 - Asia of the one side, and Affrick of the other, and so many other vnderkingdoms, that the Player, when he commeth in, must euer begin with telling where he is, or els the tale wil not be conceiued.
Page xxii - So then the best of the historian is subject to the poet; for whatsoever action, or faction, whatsoever counsel, policy, or war stratagem the historian is bound to recite, that may the poet (if he list) with his imitation make his own, beautifying it both for further teaching, and more delighting, as it pleaseth him, having all, from Dante's heaven to his hell, under the authority of his pen.
Page xii - And yet I must say that, as I have just cause to make a pitiful defence of poor Poetry, which from almost the highest estimation of learning is fallen to be the laughing-stock of children...

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