Sidney's Poetics: Imitating Creation

6. The Imitation of Cyrus

  THE IMITATION OF CYRUS I f Sidney does in fact conceive of the poet’s work as analogous to the divine work of creation and regeneration, it is surprising that he seems to abandon his theological paradigm when he proceeds from the narratio to the “more ordinary opening” of his next section, the confirmatio. Notably absent are not only lexical parallels of the kind detailed in the preceding chapters, but also the much more obvious biblical allusions such as those to the fall of Adam and the Spirit-like breath of the poet. Grounding his argument on more generally accessible philosophical principles, in the confirmatio Sidney defends poetry by showing that it can bring about the “knowledge of a man’s self, in the ethic and politic consideration, with the end of welldoing and not of well-knowing only” (). Although this argument does not employ the theological vocabulary of the narratio, its emphasis on self-knowledge whose “ending end” is “virtuous action” is hardly at odds with the original approach. Not only does the confirmatio preserve the earlier emphasis on the moral efficacy of poetry, its climax is a discussion of “heroical” poetry which, it turns out, happens to be the same kind that Sidney uses in the climax of the narratio. Indeed , as C. S. Lewis and others have pointed out, Sidney does not abandon his original argument but merely alters the terms. When one recognizes that Sidney’s concession of a “more ordinary opening” is strategic, it becomes clear that his illustration of the power of poetry to effect “knowledge of a man’s self .l.l. with the end of well-doing” is in fact an articulation of the power of poetry present, though only im-  plicit is in the presentation of “a Cyrus to make many Cyruses” in the narratio.1 The confirmatio is divided into two parts, and each shows the power of fiction for “winning .l.l. the mind from wickedness to virtue” through self-knowledge (). In the memorable first part, on the “works” of poetry, Sidney presents the competition between philosophy , history, and poetry, which the poet wins by providing both the philosopher’s “precept” and the historian’s “example” in his “perfect picture” (–). Sidney concludes this passage with two historical examples of the power of fiction. The first is the “tale of the belly” that Menenius Agrippa used to quell a rebellion against the Roman Senate. Telling the people the story of “a time when all the parts of the body made a mutinous conspiracy against the belly, which they thought devoured the fruits of each other’s labour,” Agrippa showed how in “punishing the belly, they plagued themselves” (). Sidney explains that the people, seeing themselves in the story, underwent a “sudden .l.l. alteration” and were moved to “perfect reconcilement.” Equally marvelous is Sidney’s other example, that of Nathan telling David the tale of “a man whose beloved lamb was ungratefully taken from his bosom.” David, who in sinning with Bathsheba “had so far forsaken God as to confirm adultery with murder,” eventually saw himself in Nathan’s story. Performing the “tenderest office of a friend,” Nathan had provided David with “a glass to see his own filthiness” (). For Sidney, these exemplary tales of Menenius Agrippa and Nathan are akin to other moral tales designed to lead audiences to greater selfknowledge , such as the fables of Aesop, “whose pretty allegories, stealing under the formal tales of beasts, make many, more beastly than beasts, begin to hear the sound of virtue from these dumb speakers ,” and the parables of Christ, especially that of the prodigal son, for which Sidney has an obvious affection (). When Sidney moves to the second half of his confirmatio, from the “works” of poetry to its “parts,” he extends his argument for the pow-  The Imitation of Cyrus . On the relation of Sidney’s “more ordinary opening” to the argument of the narratio , and on the identification of “divine” and “right” poets, see Chapter . er of poetry to bring about self-knowledge and virtue. In his survey of the “parts” or kinds of poetry, what underlies the differences in the genres is their common ability to bring the audience to self-recognition and, through this recognition, to moral reform. Some of the kinds—such as comedy, which makes an audience laugh at defects it recognizes as its own—more obviously reveal their ability to work...