Sidney's objections to Contemporary Drama in Apology for Poetry

Sir Philip Sidney's An Apology for Poetry is a gigantic essay containing eighty-one small and big paragraphs on critical analysis of literature since Classical times. Sidney, for his critical concepts, is thoroughly indebted to Plato, Aristotle and Horace. His conceptions regarding drama are treasured in paragraphs no. sixty-eight to seventy-two.

A notable point that needs a contextual reference before the commencement of the main discussion is that the English drama originated and attained more or less development in the Elizabethan Period, to which Sir Philip Sidney belongs; he was lucky enough to witness the stage performance of the first English tragedy “Gorboduc” which had been Thomas Norton.

A critical study of Sidney's An Apology for Poetry proves that he cannot approve the Elizabethan dramas as “skilful poetry”. In the above- mentioned paragraphs, he expounds illustratively his causes behind his rejection of the contemporary English drama. Those are-

1. The contemporary tragedies and comedies do not observe rules of "honest civility" and “skilful poetry”; only Gorboduc show the stamps of “notable morality” in Scnecan style and "teach delightfully".

2. Though Gorboduc can reach the very end of poesy through its power to teach delightfully, yet this drama also too "defections in the circumstances" as it does not conform to the unities of TIME and PLACE, the two necessary companions of all corporal actions.

These two types of unities have more fatally been transgressed by the other playwrights of his age. The following excerpts from his work unravel the same view stated above:

...it (Gorboduc) might not remain as an exact model of all tragedies. For it is faulty both in place and time, the two necessary companions of all corporal actions. For where the stage should always represent but one place and the uttermost time presupposed in it should be, both by Aristotle's precept and common reason, but one day, there is both many days and many places inartificially imagined. But if it is so in Gorboduc, how much more in all the rest, where you shall have Asia of the one side, and Africa of the other, and so many other under- kingdoms, that the player, when he cometh in, must ever begin with telling where he is, or else the tale will not be conceived.

This quotation clarifies how the Elizabethan dramas are hostile to the Aristotelian concept of Unity of Place in tragedy. Sidney begins his discussion on the adherence of Unity of Time in the Elizabethan dramas through an ironical statement-

Now of time, they are much more liberal.

And Sidney continues-

For ordinary, it is that two young Princes fall in love; after many traverses, she is got with child, delivered of a fair boy, he is lost, groweth a man, falleth in Jove, and is ready to get another child, and all this in two hours' space; which how absurd it is in sense even sense may imagine, an art hath taught.....

In his very excerpt, Sidney's notion is clearly expressed by the utterance "how absurd it is in sense". Again, in the remaining part of is the passage he shows that the unities of Place and Time had been -observed by the ancient authors, though Terence and Plautus's ard sometimes shown unwillingness in observing them. In this regard, a big flaw is observed in Sidney's thought as well as his understanding of Aristotelian theory. The fact is that-

Aristotle never formulated any LAWS regarding his theory of POETRY; he had just described and analysed the (meagre amount of) best literature (and only Greek literature) ready in his hands. Also he had not dictated any rules for Tragedy.

So, like many other critics of later generations, Sidney also interprets and follows Aristotle in an absolutely wrong way.

3. Sidney's third objection against contemporary drama is targeted to the ways of dealing with History in their dramas. His grievance is based upon a principle that in his version should be maintained by tragedians, and Sidney asserts that-

A tragedy is tied to the laws of poesy, and not of history. Many things may be told which cannot be showed, if they (the tragedy-writers) know the difference betwixt reporting and representing.

These three blames against contemporary literature are, to Sidney, nothing but gross absurdities. His contemporary dramas are to him neither pure tragedy, nor pure comedy, but grotesque assimilation of tragedy and comedy which he prefers to define as Tragi- Comedies.

A ridiculous kind of mixture is felt by him in these tragi- Comedies. Kings are placed in such types of plays by the side of owns. Sidney has no objection to sanction such a scene provided, he matter so carrieth it": but he, with his utter frustration finds that e clowns are thrust in the scenes "to play to part in majestical matters." So, the anticipated effect of "admiration and maceration" is utterly marred. The following statement of Sidney encapsulates his concept of an authentic tragedy:

The tragedy should be still maintained in a well- raised admiration.

4. His objection against contemporary Comedies: He finds that his coeval comedy-writers "think there is no delight without laughter"; and in his view, it is "very wrong". Delight, he asserts that hath a joy in it either permanent or present; but laughter hath only a scornful tickling. Again, we delight in good chances but laugh at mischances. Following Aristotle, he points out that laughter cannot be aroused in sinful things, as that must be rather execrable than ridiculous.

To conclude, we should refer to the sentence that visualizes the core of Sidney's Poetic Theory- 

Delightful teaching (which) is the end of POESY.