Apology for Poetry by Sidney

Special claims for Poetry as made by Sir Philip Sidney in his 'Defence of Poetry'

Sidney made some special claims for poetry. These claims were based on poetry's divine origin, its prophetic nature, its cultural and social value, its universal appeal, its elevating power and its alluring and attractive methods of making an appeal. Sidney mocked at the critics of poetry and they were according to him, like jesters and fools. They failed to understand that Poetry had been an instrument for making the barbarous nations civilized. They did not realize the truth that the poets had been the light bringers to the ignorant and that all sciences and philosophies and histories developed with the help of poets. Greek historians and philosophers were poets. Poetry in all nations proceeded all forms of speech.
The first claim for poetry is based upon its divine origin. The Romans called the poet Vates which is as much as a diviner, fore-seer or a prophet. He is a Creator and in his act of creation, he is second only to God, the great creator of the Universe. God creates the ideal. The poet aims at creating the ideal and sometimes improves upon God's creation. It is difficult for Nature to show as true a lover as Theagenes, so constant a friend as Pylades, so valiant a man as Orlando, so right a prince as Xenophons Cyrus, so excellent a man every way as Virgil's Aeneas. The skill of the poet stands in that idea or foreconceit of the work itself.
The post sometimes with the help of his own invention 'doth grow another nature'. He makes things either better than Nature bringeth forth, a quite a new, forms such as were never there in Nature, as the Heroes, Demigods, Cyclops, Chimeras, Furies and such like. He is not subject to Nature as the astronomer, geomet¬rician, moral philosopher, lawyer or the historian is.
The divine nature of Poetry is further