00020—Summarize the views of Sydney on the use of verse and metre in Poetry.
- In the use of verse and metre in poetry, Sidney oscillated between the classical concept and Elizabethan practices.
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- According to the classical concept verse or metre is not indispensable for poetry, but according to Elizabethan practices metre was desirable, if not indispensable.
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- Sidney seems to reconcile the two extremes, holding the classical view he says that metre is “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.”
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- Invention is the soul of poetry, and in this sense if prose is inventive, it should be classed with poetry.
- Then comes on him the Elizabethan influence. This attracts him to favour the use of verse or metre in poetry, though on other grounds.
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- He says that verse being sweeter and more appealing to our aesthetic sense should be used in poetry. Verse is a superior form of expression to ordinary prose.
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- He further says that on account of its sweetness and orderliness verse is fitted for memory, and memory is the treasure-house of knowledge.
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- Musical verse can be more easily remembered and retained in the mind than prose.
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- Therefore it s advisable to write poetry in verse and metre.
