A Defence of Poesie and Poems
heavenly poesy, wherein, almost, he sheweth himself a passionate lover of
that unspeakable and everlasting beauty, to be seen by the eyes of the
mind, only cleared by faith? But truly, now, having named him, I fear I
seem to profane that holy name, applying it to poetry, which is, among
us, thrown down to so ridiculous an estimation. But they that, with
quiet judgments, will look a little deeper into it, shall find the end
and working of it such, as, being rightly applied, deserveth not to be
scourged out of the church of God.
But {11} now let us see how the Greeks have named it, and how they deemed
of it. The Greeks named him ποιητὴν, which name hath, as the most
excellent, gone through other languages; it cometh of this word ποιεὶν,
which is _to make_; wherein, I know not whether by luck or wisdom, we
Englishmen have met with the Greeks in calling him “a maker,” which name,
how high and incomparable a title it is, I had rather were known by
marking the scope of other sciences, than by any partial allegation.
There is no art delivered unto mankind that hath not the works of nature
for his principal object, without which they could not consist, and on
which they so depend as they become actors and players, as it were, of
what nature will have set forth. {12} So doth the astronomer look upon
the stars, and by that he seeth set down what order nature hath taken
therein. So doth the geometrician and arithmetician, in their diverse
sorts of quantities. So doth the musician, in times, tell you which by
nature agree, which not. The natural philosopher thereon hath his name;
and the moral philosopher standeth upon the natural virtues, vices, or
passions of man; and follow nature, saith he, therein, and thou shalt not
err. The lawyer saith what men have determined. The historian, what men
have done. The grammarian speaketh only of the rules of speech; and the
rhetorician and logician, considering what in nature will soonest prove
and persuade, thereon give artificial rules, which still are compassed
within the circle of a question, according to the proposed matter. The
physician weigheth the nature of man’s body, and the nature of things
helpful and hurtful unto it. And the metaphysic, though it be in the
second and abstract notions, and therefore be counted supernatural, yet
doth he, indeed, build upon the depth of nature. Only the poet,
disdaining to be tied to any such subjection, lifted up with the vigour
of his own invention, doth grow, in effect, into another nature; in
making things either better than nature bringeth forth, or quite anew;
forms such as never were in nature, as the heroes, demi-gods, Cyclops,
chimeras, furies, and such like; so as he goeth hand in hand with Nature,
not enclosed within the narrow warrant of her gifts, but freely ranging
within the zodiac of his own wit. {13} Nature never set forth the earth
in so rich tapestry as divers poets have done; neither with so pleasant
rivers, fruitful trees, sweet-smelling flowers, nor whatsoever else may
make the too-much-loved earth more lovely; her world is brazen, the poets
only deliver a golden.
But let those things alone, and go to man; {14} for whom as the other
things are, so it seemeth in him her uttermost cunning is employed; and
know, whether she have brought forth so true a lover as Theagenes; so
constant a friend as Pylades; so valiant a man as Orlando; so right a
prince as Xenophon’s Cyrus; and so excellent a man every way as Virgil’s
Æneas? Neither let this be jestingly conceived, because the works of the
one be essential, the other in imitation or fiction; for every
understanding knoweth the skill of each artificer standeth in that idea,
or fore-conceit of the work, and not in the work itself. And that the
poet hath that idea is manifest by delivering them forth in such
excellency as he had imagined them; which delivering forth, also, is not
wholly imaginative, as we are wont to say by them that build castles in
the air; but so far substantially it worketh not only to make a Cyrus,
which had been but a particular excellency, as nature might have done;
but to bestow a Cyrus upon the world to make many Cyruses; if they will
learn aright, why, and how, that maker made him. Neither let it be
deemed too saucy a comparison to balance the highest point of man’s wit
with the efficacy of nature; but rather give right honour to the heavenly
Maker of that maker, who having made man to His own likeness, set him
beyond and over all the works of that second nature; which in nothing he
showeth so much as in poetry; when, with the force of a divine breath, he
bringeth things forth surpassing her doings, with no small arguments to
the incredulous of that first accursed fall of Adam; since our erected
wit maketh us know what perfection is, and yet our infected will keepeth
us from reaching unto it. But these arguments will by few be understood,
and by fewer granted; thus much I hope will be given me, that the Greeks,
with some probability of reason, gave him the name above all names of
learning.
Now {15} let us go to a more ordinary opening of him, that the truth may
be the more palpable; and so, I hope, though we get not so unmatched a
praise as the etymology of his names will grant, yet his very
description, which no man will deny, shall not justly be barred from a
principal commendation.
Poesy, {16} therefore, is an art of imitation; for so Aristotle termeth
it in the word μίμησις; that is to say, a representing, counterfeiting,
or figuring forth: to speak metaphorically, a speaking picture, with this
end, to teach and delight.
Of {17} this have been three general kinds: the _chief_, both in
antiquity and excellency, which they that did imitate the inconceivable
excellencies of God; such were David in the Psalms; Solomon in the Song
of Songs, in his Ecclesiastes, and Proverbs; Moses and Deborah in their
hymns; and the writer of Job; which, beside others, the learned Emanuel
Tremellius and Fr. Junius do entitle the poetical part of the scripture;
against these none will speak that hath the Holy Ghost in due holy
reverence. In this kind, though in a wrong divinity, were Orpheus,
Amphion, Homer in his hymns, and many others, both Greeks and Romans.
And this poesy must be used by whosoever will follow St. Paul’s counsel,
in singing psalms when they are merry; and I know is used with the fruit
of comfort by some, when, in sorrowful pangs of their death-bringing
sins, they find the consolation of the never-leaving goodness.
The {18} _second_ kind is of them that deal with matter philosophical;
either moral, as Tyrtæus, Phocylides, Cato, or, natural, as Lucretius,
Virgil’s Georgics; or astronomical, as Manilius {19} and Pontanus; or
historical, as Lucan; which who mislike, the fault is in their judgment,
quite out of taste, and not in the sweet food of sweetly uttered
knowledge.
But because this second sort is wrapped within the fold of the proposed
subject, and takes not the free course of his own invention; whether they
properly be poets or no, let grammarians dispute, and go to the _third_,
{20} indeed right poets, of whom chiefly this question ariseth; betwixt
whom and these second is such a kind of difference, as betwixt the meaner
sort of painters, who counterfeit only such faces as are set before them;
and the more excellent, who having no law but wit, bestow that in colours
upon you which is fittest for the eye to see; as the constant, though
lamenting look of Lucretia, when she punished in herself another’s fault;
wherein he painteth not Lucretia, whom he never saw, but painteth the
outward beauty of such a virtue. For these three be they which most
properly do imitate to teach and delight; and to imitate, borrow nothing
of what is, hath been, or shall be; but range only, reined with learned
discretion, into the divine consideration of what may be, and should be.
These be they, that, as the first and most noble sort, may justly be
termed “vates;” so these are waited on in the excellentest languages and
best understandings, with the fore-described name of poets. For these,
indeed, do merely make to imitate, and 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; which being the noblest scope to
which ever any learning was directed, yet want there not idle tongues to
bark at them.
These {21} be subdivided into sundry more special denominations; the most
notable be the heroic, lyric, tragic, comic, satyric, iambic, elegiac,
pastoral, and certain others; some of these being termed according to the
matter they deal with; some by the sort of verse they like best to write
in; for, indeed, the greatest part of poets have apparelled their
poetical inventions in that numerous kind of writing which is called
verse. Indeed, but apparelied verse, being but an ornament, and no cause
to poetry, since there have been many most excellent poets that never
versified, and now swarm many versifiers that need never answer to the
name of poets. {22} For Xenophon, who did imitate so excellently as to
give us _effigiem justi imperii_, the portraiture of a just of Cyrus, as
Cicero saith of him, made therein an absolute heroical poem. So did
Heliodorus, {23} in his sugared invention of Theagenes and Chariclea; and
yet both these wrote in prose; which I speak to show, that it is not
rhyming and versing that maketh a poet (no more than a long gown maketh
an advocate, who, though he pleaded in armour should be an advocate and
no soldier); but 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. Although, indeed, the senate of poets
have chosen verse as their fittest raiment; meaning, as in matter they
passed all in all, so in manner to go beyond them; not speaking
table-talk fashion, or like men in a dream, words as they changeably fall
from the mouth, but piecing each syllable of each word by just
proportion, according to the dignity of the subject.
Now, {24} therefore, it shall not be amiss, first, to weight this latter
sort of poetry by his _works_, and then by his _parts_; and if in neither
of these anatomies he be commendable, I hope we shall receive a more
favourable sentence. This purifying of wit, this enriching of memory,
enabling of judgment, and enlarging of conceit, which commonly we call
learning under what name soever it come forth, or to what immediate end
soever it be directed; the final end is, to lead and draw us to as high a
perfection as our degenerate souls, made worse by, their clay lodgings,
{25} can be capable of. This, according to the inclination of man, bred
many formed impressions; for some that thought this felicity principally
to be gotten by knowledge, and no knowledge to be so high or heavenly as
to be acquainted with the stars, gave themselves to astronomy; others,
persuading themselves to be demi-gods, if they knew the causes of things,
became natural and supernatural philosophers. Some an admirable delight
drew to music, and some the certainty of demonstrations to the
mathematics; but all, one and other, having this scope to know, and by
knowledge to lift up the mind from the dungeon of the body to the
enjoying his own divine essence. But when, by the balance of experience,
it was found that the astronomer, looking to the stars, might fall in a
ditch; that the enquiring philosopher might be blind in himself; and the
mathematician might draw forth a straight line with a crooked heart; then
lo! did proof, the over-ruler of opinions, make manifest that all these
are but serving sciences, which, as they have a private end in