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Sidney calls poetry a “speaking picture,” which represents poetry’s ability to imitate reality in language. Drawing on Aristotle’s Poetics, Sidney defines poetry as “an art of imitation.” The poet represents the world, creating a “counterfeit” or copy of reality. Using an ancient metaphor, with roots ultimately in the discussion of poetry in Plato’s Republic, Sidney compares a poem to a “speaking picture, with this end, to teach and delight.” The “picture” that poetry creates is “speaking” because it is made of words, but also because it has the power to communicate something to the reader—unlike history or philosophy, poetry has a unique power to move or “delight” the reader, and thereby to teach him or her. There is also something inherently visual, or experiential, in Sidney’s conception of poetry. It is, for one, the product of the poet’s imagination, which is literally the faculty of creating images. More importantly, in combining philosophical abstractions with concrete examples, the poet translates the language of thought into the images of experience. Whereas the philosopher is stuck in the realm of abstraction, and the historian cannot always find in his books the perfect example for a moral ideal, the poet “illuminate[s] or figure[s] forth” an idea through the speaking picture of a character or a scene.
The Speaking Picture Quotes in An Apology for Poetry
The An Apology for Poetry quotes below all refer to the symbol of The Speaking Picture. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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An Apology for Poetry
Quotes
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, not whatsoever else may make the too-much-loved earth more lovely; her world is brazen, the poets only deliver a golden.
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Poesy, therefore, is an art of imitation; for so Aristotle termeth it in the 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.
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Whatsoever the philosopher saith should be done, [the poet] giveth a perfect picture of it, by some one by whom he pre-supposeth it was done, so as he coupleth the general notion with the particular example. A perfect picture, I say; for he yieldeth to the powers of the mind an image of that whereof the philosopher bestoweth but a wordish description, which doth neither strike, pierce, nor possess the sight of the soul, so much as that other doth.
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Moving [...] is well nigh both the cause and effect of teaching; for who will be taught, if he be not moved with desire to be taught? And what so much good doth that teaching bring forth (I speak still of moral doctrine) as that it moveth one to do that which it doth teach.
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Now [...] of all sciences [...] is our poet the monarch. For he doth not only show the way, but giveth so sweet a prospect into the way, as will entice any man to enter into it; nay, he doth, as if your journey should lie through a fair vineyard, at the very first give you a cluster of grapes, that full of that taste you may long to pass farther.
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The Speaking Picture Symbol Timeline in An Apology for Poetry
The timeline below shows where the symbol The Speaking Picture appears in An Apology for Poetry. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
An Apology for Poetry
...This is a representation or “counterfeiting” of reality. Sidney uses the metaphor of a “ speaking picture ,” the end of which is “to teach and delight.”
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...“wordish description,” which would otherwise “lie dark before the imaginative and judging power.” The “ speaking picture of poesy” thus illuminates abstract truths using these compelling examples. Examples from literature, such as...
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