A Critical Study and Comparison of Sir Philip Sidney's "Defence of Poesy," of Peacock's "Four Ages of Poetry" and Percy Bysshe Shelley's "Defence of Poetry."

Author

Mary Cecilia Gardner, Marquette University

Date of Award

6-1928

Degree Type

Bachelors Essay

Degree Name

Bachelor of Arts (BA)

Department

English

First Advisor

Thomas P. Whelan

Second Advisor

John F. McCormick

Abstract

Our purpose in this essay has been to concentrate upon an analytic and appreciative study of Sir Philip Sidney’s "Defence of Poesy" as the earliest critical document of any importance in England and to study both the circumstances attendant upon its production and the matter and form of its context; to inquire into the "Four Ages of Poetry" as the immediate occasion of Shelley’s "Defence of Poetry;" to analyze the "Defence of Poetry" and to attempt to discover how it was influenced by Sidney’s treatise, and what the points of similarity and dissimilarity are between the two; and lastly, to consider the "Defence of Poetry" as an important Nineteenth Century treatise on criticism, as a work containing a very valuable expression of poetic theory whose sources lie deep in European and Greek documents of earlier ages, and as a prose essay of the highest literary perfection.

Comments

A Thesis submitted partially to fulfill the requirements for The Degree of Bachelor of Arts. Marquette University, Milwaukee Wisconsin

Recommended Citation

Gardner, Mary Cecilia, "A Critical Study and Comparison of Sir Philip Sidney's "Defence of Poesy," of Peacock's "Four Ages of Poetry" and Percy Bysshe Shelley's "Defence of Poetry."" (1928). Bachelors’ Theses. 1932.
https://epublications.marquette.edu/bachelor_essays/1932